-- This
scene passed in presence of lieutenant Lismahago, who encouraged
Clinker to hazard a thrust of cold iron with his antagonist.
'Cold iron (cried Humphry) I shall never use against the life of
any human creature; but I am so far from being afraid of his cold
iron, that I shall use nothing in my defence but a good cudgel,
which shall always be at his service.' In the mean time, the fair
cause of this contest, Mrs Winifred Jenkins, seemed overwhelmed
with affliction, and Mr Clinker acted much on the reserve, though
he did not presume to find fault with her conduct.
The dispute between the two rivals was soon brought to a very
unexpected issue. Among our fellow-lodgers at Berwick, was a
couple from London, bound to Edinburgh, on the voyage of
matrimony. The female was the daughter and heiress of a
pawnbroker deceased, who had given her guardians the slip, and
put herself under the tuition of a tall Hibernian, who had
conducted her thus far in quest of a clergyman to unite them in
marriage, without the formalities required by the law of England.
I know not how the lover had behaved on the road, so as to
decline in the favour of his inamorata; but, in all probability,
Dutton perceived a coldness on her side, which encouraged him to
whisper, it was a pity she should have cast affections upon a
taylor, which he affirmed the Irishman to be.
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