And as to
Rose, I don't see what objection she could have made, if her father was
satisfied.'
'Perhaps the same that your sister makes to me, you being satisfied.'
Fergus gave a broad stare at the comparison which this supposition
implied, but cautiously suppressed the answer which rose to his tongue.
'Oh, we should easily have arranged all that.--so, sir, I craved a
private interview, and this morning was assigned; and I asked you to
meet me here, thinking, like a fool, that I should want your countenance
as bride's-man. Well--I state my pretensions--they are not denied;
the promises so repeatedly made, and the patent granted--they are
acknowledged. But I propose, as a natural consequence, to assume the
rank which the patent bestowed--I have the old story of the jealousy of
C--and M-- trumped up against me--I resist this pretext, and offer to
procure their written acquiescence, in virtue of the date of my patent
as prior to their silly claims--I assure you I would have had such a
consent from them, if it had been at the point of the sword. And then,
out comes the real truth; and he dares to tell me, to my face, that my
patent must be suppressed for the present, for fear of disgusting
that rascally coward and FAINEANT--(naming the rival chief of his own
clan)--who has no better title to be a chieftain than I to be Emperor
of China; and who is pleased to shelter his dastardly reluctance to come
out, agreeable to his promise twenty times pledged, under a pretended
jealousy of the Prince's partiality to me.
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