“What,” I heard him cry, “Mr. Manners spurned you, Richard! By all the law in Coke and Littleton, he shall answer for it to me. Your fairweather fowl shall have the chance to run me through!”
I sat up in bewilderment, doubting my senses.
“You believe me, captain,” I said, overcome by the man's faith; “you believe me when I tell you that one I have known from childhood refused to recognize me to-day?”
He raised me in his arms as tenderly as a woman might.
“And the whole world denied you, lad, I would not. I believe you—” and he repeated it again and again, unable to get farther.
And if his words brought tears to my eyes, my strength came with them.
“Then I care not,” I replied; “I only to live to reward you.”
“Mr. Manners shall answer for it to me!” cried John Paul again, and made a pace toward the door.
“Not so fast, not so fast, captain, or admiral, or whatever you are,” said the bailiff, stepping in his way, for he was used to such scenes; “as God reigns, the owners of all these fierce titles be fire-eaters, who would spit you if you spilt snuff upon 'em. Come, come, gentlemen, your swords, and we shall see the sights o' London.”
This was the signal for another uproar, the tailor shrieking that John Paul must take off the suit, and Banks the livery; asking the man in the corner by the sea-chests (who proved to be the landlord) who was to pay him for his work and his lost cloth. And the landlord shook his fist at us and shouted back, who was to pay him his four pounds odd, which included two ten-shilling dinners and a flask of his best wine? The other tradesmen seized what was theirs and made off with remarks appropriate to the occasion. And when John Paul and my man were divested of their plumes, we were marched downstairs and out through a jeering line of people to a hackney coach.