As he spoke, the two smokers approached; shaggy, uncombed ruffians, whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears, and mingled with the wild elf-locks of their hair, much of which was seen under the old beavers which they wore aside upon their heads, while some straggling portion escaped through the rents of the hats aforesaid. Their tarnished plush jerkins, large slops, or trunk-breeches, their broad greasy shoulder-belts, and discoloured scarfs, and, above all, the ostentatious manner in which the one wore a broad-sword and the other an extravagantly long rapier and poniard, marked the true Alsatian bully, then, and for a hundred years afterwards, a well-known character.
“Tour out,” said the one ruffian to the other; “tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry cove!” [Footnote: Look sharp. See how the girl is coquetting with the strange gallants!]
“I smell a spy,” replied the other, looking at Nigel. “Chalk him across the peepers with your cheery.” [Footnote: Slash him over the eyes with your dagger.]
“Bing avast, bing avast!” replied his companion; “yon other is rattling Reginald Lowestoffe of the Temple—I know him; he is a good boy, and free of the province.”
So saying, and enveloping themselves in another thick cloud of smoke, they went on without farther greeting.
“Grasso in aere!” said the Templar. “You hear what a character the impudent knave gives me; but, so it serves your lordship's turn, I care not.—And, now, let me ask your lordship what name you will assume, for we are near the ducal palace of Duke Hildebrod.”
“I will be called Grahame,” said Nigel; “it was my mother's name.”
“Grime,” repeated the Templar, “will suit Alsatia well enough—both a grim and grimy place of refuge.”
“I said Grahame, sir, not Grime,” said Nigel, something shortly, and laying an emphasis on the vowel—for few Scotsmen understand raillery upon the subject of their names.
“I beg pardon, my lord,” answered the undisconcerted punster; “but Graam will suit the circumstance, too—it signifies tribulation in the High Dutch, and your lordship must be considered as a man under trouble.”