CHAPTER THREE.
WHICH THE READER, ON PERUSAL, MAY WISH WERE CHAPTER THE LAST.
The doctor prescribed a repetatur of the julep, and mixed the ingredients, secundum artem; Tom Clarke hemmed thrice, to clear his pipes; while the rest of the company, including Dolly and her mother, who had by this time administered to the knight, composed themselves into earnest and hushed attention.

Then the young lawyer began his narrative to this effect:-- "I tell ye what, gemmen, I don't pretend in this here case to flourish and harangue like a--having never been called to--but what of that, d'ye see?
perhaps I may know as much as--facts are facts, as the saying is .-- I shall tell, repeat, and relate a plain story--matters of fact, d'ye see, without rhetoric, oratory, ornament, or embellishment; without repetition, tautology, circumlocution, or going about the bush; facts which I shall aver, partly on the testimony of my own knowledge, and partly from the information of responsible evidences of good repute and credit, any circumstance known to the contrary notwithstanding .-- For as the law saith, if so be as how there is an exception to evidence, that exception is in its nature but a denial of what is taken to be good by the other party, and exceptio in non exceptis, firmat regulam, d'ye see.
-- But howsomever, in regard to this here affair, we need not be so scrupulous as if we were pleading before a judge sedente curia." Ferret, whose curiosity was rather more eager than that of any other person in this audience, being provoked by this preamble, dashed the pipe he had just filled in pieces against the grate; and after having pronounced the interjection pish! with an acrimony of aspect altogether peculiar to himself, "If," said he, "impertinence and folly were felony by the statute, there would be no warrant of unexceptionable evidence to hang such an eternal babbler." "Anan, babbler!" cried Tom, reddening with passion, and starting up; "I'd have you to know, sir, that I can bite as well as babble; and that, if I am so minded, I can run upon the foot after my game without being in fault, as the saying is; and, which is more, I can shake an old fox by the collar." How far this young lawyer might have proceeded to prove himself staunch on the person of the misanthrope, if he had not been prevented, we shall not determine; but the whole company were alarmed at his looks and expressions.

Dolly's rosy cheeks assumed an ash colour, while she ran between the disputants, crying, "Naay, naay--vor the love of God doan't then, doan't then!" But Captain Crowe exerted a parental authority over his nephew, saying, "Avast, Tom, avast!--Snug's the word--we'll have no boarding, d'ye see .-- Haul forward thy chair again, take thy berth, and proceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky." Tom, thus tutored, recollected himself, resumed his seat, and, after some pause, plunged at once into the current of narration.

"I told you before, gemmen, that the gentleman in armour was the only son of Sir Everhard Greaves, who possessed a free estate of five thousand a year in our country, and was respected by all his neighbours as much for his personal merit as for his family fortune.

With respect to his son Launcelot, whom you have seen, I can remember nothing until he returned from the university, about the age of seventeen, and then I myself was not more than ten years old.