"While there is time! Look ye, Master Berkeley, I will not brook insults from you. Yesterday you must put an affront on me in the presence of my lord Godolphin, shoving me out of the way as I were a leper, and at the very moment, stap me! when I might ha’ paid court to his lordship, and got the chance o’ my life. Adsbud, I was not good enough to approach my lord, to accost him, have speech with him——" "An omission you have since repaired," interjected the old man with a meaning look. The captain started, and there was a perceptible interval before he resumed, in a tone still more blusterous— "Ods my life, what mean you now? You took care I should not meet my lord in your company; and, i’ faith, he showed he wanted none of that neither." "Hold your peace and begone!" cried the squire in a fury. "You think I know nothing of your villainies? How many times have I harboured you—ay, saved you perchance from the gallows! How many times have you eat my food, rid my horses, browbeat my servants, roistered it in my house, till I could bear with you no longer, and then betaken yourself to your evil practices abroad, consorted with villains, run your neck well-nigh into the hangman’s noose, and then come back with contrite face and vows of amendment, to fawn and bluster and bully again? Out upon you! Your rapscallion of a servant is even now laid by the heels, and to-morrow will have to answer to the charge of waylaying the Lord Treasurer. He’s a white-livered oaf, and his tongue will wag, and you’ll companion him before Fanshawe, and you’ll swing on the same gibbet." At the mention of his man’s plight the captain’s face had fallen; but when Mr. Berkeley’s tirade was ended he broke into a laugh. "Ha! ha! Squire, now I come to understand you. ’Tis your own skin you have a care for! Ha! ha! I might have known it. I am to be haled before Sir Godfrey, am I? and to hold my tongue, am I? and to be mum about certain little affairs in the life of Master Nicolas Berkeley—that paragon of virtue, that pampered, patched old interloper, am I? By the lord Harry, if I stand in manacles before Sir Godfrey, you shall bear me company, you painted pasteboard of a saint!" Berkeley’s pale face blanched with fury. For a moment he was incapable of speech. Then he stepped forward a pace; the hand holding the candle shook so, that the grease sputtered upon his gown. His voice came in vehement passionate whispers: "You threaten me! Do your worst—I defy you!—Back to your wallow, bully!—begone!" He suddenly withdrew within the doorway, slammed the door, and bolted it.