The gentleman hath but struck
another in the Park--"
"Ha! what?" said Vincent, interrupting her with a start.
"Ay, ay, I see you guess whom I mean. It is even he we have spoken of
so often--just Lord Glenvarloch, and no one else."
Vincent sprung from his seat, and traversed the room with rapid and
disorderly steps.
"There, there it is now--you are always ice or gunpowder. You sit in
the great leathern armchair, as quiet as a rocket hangs upon the frame
in a rejoicing-night till the match be fired, and then, whizz! you are
in the third heaven, beyond the reach of the human voice, eye, or
brain.--When you have wearied yourself with padding to and fro across
the room, will you tell me your determination, for time presses? Will
you aid me in this matter, or not?"
"No--no--no--a thousand times no," replied Jenkin. "Have you not
confessed to me, that Margaret loves him?"
"Ay," answered the dame, "that she thinks she does; but that will not
last long."
"And have I not told you but this instant," replied Jenkin, "that it
was this same Glenvarloch that rooked me, at the ordinary, of every
penny I had, and made a knave of me to boot, by gaining more than was
my own?--O that cursed gold, which Shortyard, the mercer, paid me that
morning on accompt, for mending the clock of Saint Stephen's! If I had
not, by ill chance, had that about me, I could but have beggared my
purse, without blemishing my honesty; and, after I had been rooked of
all the rest amongst them, I must needs risk the last five pieces with
that shark among the minnows!"
"Granted," said Dame Ursula.
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