"Ay, ay, innocent enough, I dare say," replied Longly; "if I thought she wasn't, I'd pitch her into the sea. But it's not for want of your trying to make her otherwise, and that's what I demand satisfaction for."
"You demand satisfaction?" cried Hargrave, his blood beginning to get up; "what right have you to ask for satisfaction of a king's officer? Oh, here is Mr. Tyrrell come, I suppose, to aid and abet in this business."
But Longly replied at once, without taking any notice of Charles Tyrrell for the moment--
"What right have I to demand satisfaction!" he said, looking for the time really dignified, "I'll tell you what right I have, Mr. Hargrave; first, I have fought the enemies of my country oftener and better than yourself; next, you have come, of your own goodwill, to dine at my table; you have borrowed money out of my purse; you have shaken my hand, and owned that I was a good friend to you; and if I was good enough to be your friend, when you behaved well, I am quite good enough to be your adversary, now that you have behaved ill; so you sha'n't slink off under your quality, like a lousy Dutch lugger under British colours. Mr. Tyrrell, you didn't come to your time; but I'll talk to you in a minute, after I've settled with this fellow."
"Longly, Longly, think what you are doing," said Charles Tyrrell, coming up closer, "you are very much in the wrong, depend upon it."
"Why, do you, too, mean to say that I am not as much entitled to satisfaction as any gentleman among you all?" demanded Longly. "I'll tell you what, Mr. Tyrrell----"
"I do not mean to say that you have no right. If we have a title to make fools of ourselves at all, I'm sure I do not see why one person should not do it, as well as another; but the matter is this, Longly: here, in the case of Mr. Hargrave, you have two offences mingled up together, and you never can separate them, either in your mind, or in the eye of the law. He, I understand, informed against you, in regard to some matter of smuggling, which has not been proved, and though he may have behaved very ill in other respects, yet depend upon it, it will always be considered that you sought revenge for that offence, and if you shoot him, you'll be hung, to a certainty."