ngerfield's surtout and riding-coat depended, there certainly was
a whip with the butt fashioned very much in the shape described by
Captain Cluffe; but alas, no weapon--a mere toy--leather and cat-gut.

Lowe took it in his hand, and weighing it with a look of disgust and
disappointment, asked rather impatiently--

'Where's Captain Cluffe?'

The captain had gone away.

'Very well, I see,' said Lowe, replacing the whip; 'that will do. The
hound!'

Mr. Lowe now re-entered the little parlour, where the incongruous crowd,
lighted up with Mr. Dangerfield's wax lights, and several kitchen
candles flaring in greasy brass sticks, were assisting at the treatment
of the master of the castle and the wounded constables.

'Well, Sir,' said Mr. Dangerfield, standing erect, with his coat sleeve
slit, and his arm braced up in splints, stiff and helpless in a sling,
and a blot of blood in his shirt sleeve, contrasting with the white
intense smirk of menace upon his face; 'if you have quite done with my
linen and my housekeeper, Sir, I'm ready to accompany you under protest,
as I've already said, wherever you design to convey my mangled person. I
charge you, Sir, with the safety of my papers and my other property
which you constrain me to abandon in this house; and I think you'll rue
this night's work to the latest hour of your existence.'

'I've done, and will do my duty, Sir,' replied Lowe, with dry decision.

'You've committed a d----d outrage; duty? ha, ha, ha!'

'The coach is at the door, hey?' asked Lowe

'I say, Sir,' continued Dangerfield, with a wolfish glare, and speaking
in something like a suppressed shriek, 'you _shall_ hear my warning and
my protest, although it should occupy the unreasonable period of two
whole minutes of your precious time. You half murder, and then arrest me
for the offence of another man, and under the name of a man who has been
dead and buried full twenty years. I can prove it; the eminent London
house of Elrington Brothers can prove it; the handwriting of the late
Sir Philip Drayton, Baronet, of Drayton Hall, and of two other
respectable witnesses to a formal document, can prove it; dead and
rotten--_dust_, Sir. And in your stupid arrogance, you blundering
Irishman, you dare to libel me--your superior in everything--with his
villainous name, and the imputation of his crimes--to violate my house
at the dead of night--to pistol me upon my own floor--and to carry me
off by force, as you purpos