Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/278

 “’Tis your device to have instructed this varlet so to insult me.”

He turns a whimsical face on her. “Faith, not I,” he says. “’Tis your own doing, Barbara. You made love to him. Sure, I have never seen a woman court a lover so warmly.”

But here I broke in, counterfeiting a fury. “Varlet,” says I. “And who the Devil gave you leave to put that phrase on me? I will take no such words from no man, and from no woman neither.”

“Leave this room, fellow,” says she haughtily.

“Sink me, if I do,” I says. “Here I have come and here I stay; and what is more, I design to taste those pretty lips on this instant”—with which I made as if to approach her.

But she started away with an evil countenance on her, and Old Rowley sat in his seat, balancing a crown upon the spaniel’s nose, and paying no heed to us. But, presently, her ladyship’s face changed very smartly, when she saw me advance, and she called to old Rowley.

“Will ye witness this?” she says with some agitation.