Quite unconscious of what was about to ensue, Walter and his fair companion, with the lame servant limping behind them, wended slowly up the busy street, chatting and laughing with low and subdued voices, till the blow of a heavy rapier ringing on Walter's backplate of steel, and the words--
"Turn, villain, and draw or die!" thundered in his ear, making him start round with his hand on his sword, and Lilian uttered a low breathless exclamation of dismay on beholding Clermistonlee,--the dreaded and terrible Lord Clermistonlee, tall, strong, and fierce-eyed, standing on his defence; while a dense crowd, whose attention the wanton insult immediately attracted, closed round on every hand.
All was clamour and uproar in a moment, and cries of "A fray, a fray!--the Guard, the Guard!--redd them!" burst from a hundred tongues. Walter's wrath was boundless on finding himself anticipated, insulted, and defied by the very man he had resolved to call to account on the first opportunity.
"Thou double-villain! why molest me thus in the public street?"
"That the public may the more readily behold thy cowardice. Wilt strike, man, or shall I spit upon thee as a cream-faced coistral?"
"For these words all the blood in your body could never atone. You will have it then? Come on, proud Lord!" replied Walter, while with his sword he waved back the people, whose applause seemed in favour of Clermistonlee, as a townsman and peer, and late events had made the army in bad odour with the populace.
"O good people, part them--stay them for the love of God!" urged the plaintive voice of Lilian, and it thrilled through Walter's heart.
"Place, gentlemen! fall back, fellows--clear the causeway!" cried Douglas of Finland, pushing through the crowd.
"Give the gentlemen room," added Jack Holster, coming up at the same moment. "Now, gallants, to it blade and shell. Gentlemen of the Royal Guards, draw, that we may see fair play to the King's commission;" and he unsheathed his sword.
"Mistress Lilian, permit me--you must--intreaties are unavailing," said Finland, leading away the pale and sinking girl, in whose ears the clash of the rapiers rang terribly, and she saw them flashing in the sunlight above the heads of the dense and shouting mob, till reaching the booth of Lucky Diaper, where she burst into a passion of tears, and here we will leave her for the present.