“As I am not the Yankee, however, Mr. Forrester, you will I suppose, withdraw your hand,” said the other, with a manner sufficiently haughty for the stomach of the person addressed.

“Oh, to be sure, since you wish it, and are not the pedler,” returned the other, with a manner rather looking, in the country phrase, to “a squaring off for a fight”—­“but you needn’t be so gruff about it.  You are on business, I suppose, and so I leave you.”

“A troublesome fool, who is disposed to be insolent,” said Rivers, after Forrester’s departure.

“Damn him!” was the exclamation of the latter, on leaving the copse—­“I feel very much like putting my fingers on his throat; and shall do it, too, before he gets better manners!”

The dialogue between the original parties was resumed.

“I tell you again, Munro—­it is not by any means the wisest policy to reckon and guess and calculate that matters will go on smoothly, when we have it in our own power to make them certainly go on so.  We must leave nothing to guess-work, and a single blow will readily teach this youth the proper way to be quiet.”

“Why, what do you drive at, Guy.  What would you do—­what should be done?”

“Beef—­beef—­beef! mere beef!  How dull you are to-night! were you in yon gloomy and thick edifice (pointing to the prison which frowned in perspective before them), with irons on your hands, and with the prospect through its narrow-grated loopholes, of the gallows-tree, at every turning before you, it might be matter of wonder even to yourself that you should have needed any advice by which to avoid such a risk and prospect.”

“Look you, Guy—­I stand in no greater danger than yourself of the prospect of which you speak.  The subject is, at best, an ugly one, and I do not care to hear it spoken of by you, above all other people.  If you want me to talk civilly with you, you must learn yourself to keep a civil tongue in your head.  I don’t seek to quarrel with anybody, but I will not submit to be threatened with the penalties of the rogue by one who is a damned sight greater rogue than myself.”

“You call things by their plainest names, Wat, at least,” said the other, with a tone moderated duly for the purpose of soothing down the bristles he had made to rise—­“but you mistake me quite.  I meant no threat; I only sought to show you how much we were at the mercy of a single word from a wanton and head-strong youth.  I will not say confidently that he remembers me, but he had some opportunities for seeing my face, and looked into it closely enough.  I can meet any fate with fearlessness, but should rather avoid it, at all risks, when it’s in my power to do so.”