Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/76

 “It may be with me as you say,” replied Lambourne; “and suppose I grant it to be so for argument’s sake, I were still good enough society for mine ancient friend Anthony Fire-the-Fagot, though he be, for the present, by some indescribable title, the master of Cumnor-Place.”

“Hark you, Michael Lambourne,” said Foster; “you are a gambler now, and live by the counting of chances—Compute me the odds that I do not, on this instant, throw you out of that window into the ditch there.”

“Twenty to one that you do not,” answered the sturdy visitor.

“And wherefore, I pray you?” demanded Anthony Foster, setting his teeth and compressing his lips, like one who endeavours to suppress some violent internal emotion.

“Because,” said Lambourne, coolly, “you dare not for your life lay a finger on me. I am younger and stronger than you, and have in me a double portion of the fighting devil, though not, it may be, quite so much of the undermining fiend, that finds an underground way to his purpose—who hides halters under folk’s pillows, and who puts ratsbane into their porridge, as the stage-play says.”

Foster looked at him earnestly, then turned away, and paced the room twice, with the same steady and considerate pace with which he had entered it; then suddenly came back, and extended his hand to Michael Lambourne, saying, “Be not wroth with me, good Mike; I did but try whether thou hadst