“Damnation” exclaimed the Colonel, in a tone which became a puritan as little as did the exclamation itself.
“Amen!” said Louis Kerneguy, but in a tone so soft and gentle, that the ejaculation seemed rather to escape him than to be designedly uttered. “Sir!” said Everard, striding towards him in that sort of humour, when a man, full of resentment, would not unwillingly find an object on which to discharge it.
“Plait-il?” said the page, in the most equable tone, looking up in his face with the most unconscious innocence.
“I wish to know, sir,” retorted Everard, “the meaning of that which you said just now?”
“Only a pouring out of the spirit, worthy sir,” returned Kerneguy—“a small skiff dispatched to Heaven on my own account, to keep company with your holy petition just now expressed.”
“Sir, I have known a merry gentleman’s bones broke for such a smile as you wear just now,” replied Everard.
“There, look you now” answered the malicious page, who could not weigh even the thoughts of his safety against the enjoyment of his jest—“If you had stuck to your professions, worthy sir, you must have choked by this time; but your round execration bolted like a cork from a bottle of cider, and now allows your wrath to come foaming out after it, in the honest unbaptized language of common ruffians.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Master Girnegy,” said Phœbe, “forbear giving the Colonel these bitter words! And do you, good Colonel Markham, scorn to take offence at his hands—he is but a boy.”
“If the Colonel or you choose, Mistress Phœbe, you shall find me a man—I think the gentleman can say something to the purpose already.— Probably he may recommend to you the part of the Lady in Comus; and I only hope his own admiration of John Milton will not induce him to undertake the part of Samson Agonistes, and blow up this old house with execration, or pull it down in wrath about our ears.”
“Young man,” said the Colonel, still in towering passion, “if you respect my principles for nothing else, be grateful to the protection which, but for them, you would not easily attain.”