"Very true," answered Beauchamp, smiling at his companion's tirade, "there was certainly an adventurous turn about those days which saved them from dulness; but yet there was a primness about them which was curious, a formality mingling with their wildest excesses, a prudery with their licentiousness, which can only be attributed to the cut of their clothes. There is some mysterious link between them, depend upon it, Hayward, and whether it be that the clothes affect the man, or the man the clothes, it is not for me to say; but the grand internal harmony of nature will not be violated, and the spirit of the age is represented in the coats, waistcoats, and breeches of the people of the period much better than in all the stupid books written from time to time to display it."
This was the first sentence that Ned Hayward had ever heard his companion speak in a jocular tone, but Beauchamp immediately went on in a graver manner to say, "Yet, after all, I do not see how we can drop this matter entirely. Far be it from me, of all men on earth, to persecute another, but yet, having already given information of this attempt at robbery, as it seemed to us, and tendered our evidence on oath, we cannot well draw back. A gross offence has indubitably been committed, not only in the attack upon these two ladies, but also in the very violent and murderous resistance which was made when we arrived to their rescue; and this young gentleman should have a warning at least."
"To be sure, to be sure," answered Ned Hayward, "I have got the pistol ball singing in my ear now, and I am quite willing to give him a fright, and old Wittingham too. The latter I will, please Heaven, torment out of the remnant of seven senses that he has left, for a more pompous, vulgar old blockhead I never saw; and therefore I should propose at once--that is to say, as soon as I have done this cup of coffee--you have finished I see--to go to good Mr. Wittingham's and belabour him with our small wits till he is nearly like the man who was scourged to death with rushes."
"Nay, nothing quite so sanguinary as that, I trust," said Beauchamp, "but I will accompany you willingly and see fair play between you and the magistrate."