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Page 68
CHAPTER TEN
A HORRIBLE UPROAR IN THE GATE.
But however great an idea the reader may hence conceive of this
uproar, he will think the occasion more than adequate to it when
he is informed that our hero (I blush to name it) had discovered
an injury done to his honour, and that in the tenderest point. In
a word, reader (for thou must know it, though it give thee the
greatest horror imaginable), he had caught Fireblood in the arms
of his lovely Laetitia.
As the generous bull who, having long depastured among a number of
cows, and thence contracted an opinion that these cows are all his
own property, if he beholds another bull bestride a cow within his
walks, he roars aloud, and threatens instant vengeance with his
horns, till the whole parish are alarmed with his bellowing; not
with less noise nor less dreadful menaces did the fury of Wild
burst forth and terrify the whole gate. Long time did rage render
his voice inarticulate to the hearer; as when, at a visiting day,
fifteen or sixteen or perhaps twice as many females, of delicate
but shrill pipes, ejaculate all at once on different subjects, all
is sound only, the harmony entirely melodious indeed, but conveys
no idea to our ears; but at length, when reason began to get the
better of his passion, which latter, being deserted by his breath,
began a little to retreat, the following accents, leapt over the
hedge of his teeth, or rather the ditch of his gums, whence those
hedgestakes had long since by a batten been displaced in battle
with an amazon of Drury.
[Footnote: The beginning of this speech is lost.]--"Man of honour!
doth this become a friend? Could I have expected such a breach of
all the laws of honour from thee, whom I had taught to walk in its
paths? Hadst thou chosen any other way to injure my confidence I
could have forgiven it; but this is a stab in the tenderest part,
a wound never to be healed, an injury never to be repaired; for it
is not only the loss of an agreeable companion, of the affection
of a wife dearer to my soul than life itself, it is not this loss
alone I lament; this loss is accompanied with disgrace and with
dishonour. The blood of the Wilds, which hath run with such
uninterrupted purity through so many generations, this blood is
fouled, is contaminated: hence flow my tears, hence arises my
grief. This is the injury never to be redressed, nor even to be
with honour forgiven." "M---in a bandbox!" answered Fireblood;
"here is a noise about your honour! If the mischief done to your
blood be all you complain of, I am sure you complain of nothing;
for my blood is as good as yours." "You have no conception,"
replied Wild, "of the tenderness of honour; you know not how nice
and delicate it is in both sexes; so delicate that the least
breath of air which rudely blows on it destroys it." "I will prove
from your own words," says Fireblood, "I have not wronged your
honour. Have you not often told me that the honour of a man
consisted in receiving no affront from his own sex, and that of
woman in receiving no kindness from ours? Now, sir, if I have
given you no affront, how have I injured your honour?" "But doth
not everything," cried Wild, "of the wife belong to the husband? A
married man, therefore, hath his wife's honour as well as his own,
and by injuring hers you injure his. How cruelly you have hurt me
in this tender part I need not repeat; the whole gate knows it,
and the world shall. I will apply to Doctors' Commons for my
redress against her; I will shake off as much of my dishonour as I
can by parting with her; and as for you, expect to hear of me in
Westminster-hall; the modern method of repairing these breaches
and of resenting this affront." "D--n your eyes!" cries Fireblood;
"I fear you not, nor do I believe a word you say." "Nay, if you
affront me personally," says Wild, "another sort of resentment is
prescribed." At which word, advancing to Fireblood, he presented
him with a box on the ear, which the youth immediately returned;
and now our hero and his friend fell to boxing, though with some
difficulty, both being encumbered with the chains which they wore
between their legs: a few blows passed on both sides before the
gentlemen who stood by stept in and parted the combatants; and now
both parties having whispered each other, that, if they outlived
the ensuing sessions and escaped the tree, one should give and the
other should receive satisfaction in single combat, they separated
and the gate soon recovered its former tranquillity.
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