Come, Sir Jocelyn, lay
aside this idle passion, and look to your true interests, which lie not
in quarrelling with me, but in our reconciliation. I can help you
effectually, as I have shown; and, as I am a true gentleman, I _will_
help you. Give me your hand, and let us be friends!"
"Never!" Jocelyn exclaimed, withdrawing from him, "never shall the hand
of a Mounchensey grasp yours in friendship! I would sooner mine rotted
off! I am your mortal foe. My father's death has to be avenged."
"Provoke him not, my good young Sir," interposed an elderly man, next
him, in a long furred gown, with hanging sleeves, and a flat cap on his
head, who had heard what was now passing. "You know not the mischief he
may do you."
"I laugh at his malice, and defy him," Jocelyn cried--"he shall not sit
one moment longer beside me. Out, knave! out!" he added, seizing Sir
Francis by the wing of his doublet, and forcibly thrusting him from his
seat. "You are not fit company for honest men. Ho! varlets, to the door
with him! Throw him into the kennel."
"You shall rue this, villain!--you shall rue it bitterly," Sir Francis
cried, shaking his clenched hands at him. "Your father perished like a
dog in the Fleet, and you shall perish there likewise. You have put
yourself wholly in my power, and I will make a fearful example of you.
You have dared to utter scandalous and contemptuous language against the
great and high court of Star-Chamber, before the decrees of which, all
men bow; impugning its justice and denying its authority; and you shall
feel the full weight of its displeasure.
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