"Infidel! devil!" shouted Tyler, springing over the railing of the sanctuary, and raising his clenched fist: the candlestick fell from the grasp of the delinquent, and he reeled against the altar with the force of the blow. "What!" continued Tyler, aghast, "can it be Jack Straw?"
"Yes, it is," replied Oakley, fiercely, in some measure recovering from his confusion, and from the effects of the blow, "and, by the green wax! a strange way you have of claiming acquaintance--what did you think, Tyler, I was going to do with the candlestick? Will not the Commons have churches of their own, when they obtain their rights, and would it not be a triumph over Lancaster, to have these brave candlesticks gracing our altars."
Tyler had turned away while Black Jack was speaking, but suddenly stopping, turned abruptly round, and looking full at him--
"I'll tell you, Jack Straw," said he, "were it not for my respect for father John, I would have every door of this chapel fastened up, and then the flames that are already crackling the painted windows yonder, would just give you time to say a paternoster and an ave, before they cheated the gibbet of its due! but, as it is, let _him_ who put you over the Essex men look to you, but, by my faith," he added, stamping his foot against the pavement, and speaking quicker, "if you do not instantly leave this place, all the monks that ever told a bead shall not save you!"
It was yet possible for Oakley to feel shame, and it was not entirely with rage, that his whole body at this moment trembled. He looked at the smith as he spoke, and half drew a dagger from his bosom, and, an indifferent spectator, regarding the two--Oakley still standing on the upper step of the altar, and Tyler, at a dozen paces down the centre aisle--would have thought that there could have existed but little odds between the physical power of the men; but Oakley, although he ground his teeth, and felt almost suffocated, had too much prudence to expose his gross enervated body to the muscular arm of the vigorous smith. Therefore, assuming an indignation of a very different character from his real feelings, he said, as he stepped from the altar into the nave of the chapel,
"I don't understand your language, Master Tyler--am not I a leader?--Does not the prophet know me, and trust me?"