He had seen him roused to
fury once before ('twas when in Flanders after a skirmish he found some
drunken soldiers stripping a poor struggling peasant woman of her
garments, while her husband shrieked curses at them from the tree where
he was tied)--and on that occasion he had told himself 'twould be safer
to trifle with a mine of powder than with this man's anger. He rose
hurriedly and followed him outside. In the street he could scarce keep
pace with his great stride, and the curses that broke from him brought
back hot days of battle.
"I would not enter into a pot-house brawl with a braggart boy," he
cried. "The blackguard, dastard knave! Drag me away, Hal, lest I rush
back like a fool and run him through! I have lost my wits. 'Tis the
fashion for dandies to pour forth their bestial braggings, but never
hath a man made my blood so boil and me so mad to strike him."
"'Tis not like thee so to lose thy wits, Roxholm," Warbeck said, his
hand on his arm, "but thou hast lost them this once surely. 'Tis no
work for the sword of a gentleman pinking foul-mouthed boasters in a
coffee-house. Know you who he is?"
"Damnation, _No!_" thundered Roxholm, striding on more fiercely still.
"'Tis the new dandy, Sir John Oxon," said Warbeck. "And the beauty he
makes his boast on is the Gloucestershire Wildairs handsome madcap--the
one they call Mistress Clo."
_CHAPTER X_
_My Lord Marquess rides to Camylott_.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113