telegram come for me? I sent a man to Brackley.”
“Telegram!”
“Yes. I want to know about the footrace at Lilley Bridge.”
Mrs Rolph gave her foot an impatient stamp.
“Listen to me, sir. This is no time for thinking about low sports.”
“Hallo? Low?”
“Yes, sir; low. I have never interfered when I saw you taking so much interest in these pursuits. My son, I said to our friends, is an officer and a gentleman, and if he likes to encourage athleticism in the country by his presence at these meetings, he has a right to do so; but I have not liked it, though I have been silent. You know I have never interfered about your relaxations.”
“No; you’ve been a splendid mater,” he said laughingly.
“And I have been proud of my manly son; but when I see him stooping to folly – ”
“Misapplied quotation, mater – when lovely woman stoops to folly.”
“Be serious, sir. I will not have you degrade yourself in the eyes of the neighbourhood by such conduct, for it means disgrace. What would the Days say – Sir John and Glynne? If it had been she, I would not have cared.”
“Let the Days be,” he said gruffly.
“I will,” said Mrs Rolph; “but listen, Rob, dear; think of poor Madge.”
“Hang poor Madge! Look here, once for all, mother; I’m not a witch in Macbeth. I don’t want three ounces of a red-haired wench – nor seven stone neither.”
“Rob! Shame!”
“I’m not going to have Madge rammed down my throat. If I’m to marry, she’s not in the running.”
“What? when you know my wishes?”
“Man marries to satisfy his own wishes, not his mother’s. I have other ideas.”
“Then what are they, sir?” said Mrs Rolph scornfully.
“That’s my business,” he said, taking out his cigar-case.
“Then, am I to understand that you intend to form an alliance with the family of our keeper?” said Mrs Rolph sarcastically.
“Bah!” roared her son fiercely; and he strode out of the room and banged the door.
“Gone!” cried Mrs Rolph, wringing her hands and making her rings crackle one against the other. “I was mad to have the wretched girl here. What fools we women are.”
Her son was saying precisely the same as he marched away.
“Does she think me mad?” he growled. “Marry freckle-faced Madge! – form an alliance with Ben Hayle’s Judy! Not quite such a fool. I’ll go and do it, and show the old girl a trick worth two of that. She’s as clean-limbed a girl as ever stepped, and there’s a look of breed in her that I like. Must marry, I suppose. Ck! For the sake of the estate, join the two then – I will – at once. It will stop their mouths at home, and make an end of the Madge business. She’ll be all right, and begin kissing and hugging her and calling her dearest in a week. That’s the way to clear that hedge, so here goes.”
He stopped, took a short run and cleared the hedge at the side of the lane in reality to begin with, before striking off through one of the adjacent fir woods, so as to reach the sandy lanes and wild common on the way to Brackley.
Volume One – Chapter Three.
Concerning Virgo and Gemini
“And what does Glynne say?”
“Well, Sir John, she don’t say much; it isn’t her way to say a deal.”
“Humph! No; you’re quite right. But I should have thought that she would have said a good deal upon an occasion like this.”
“Yes, I thought she would have roused up a little more; but she has been very quiet ever since I went into training for the event.”
“Hang it all, Rolph, don’t talk about marriage as if it were a bit of athletic sport.”
“No, of course not. It was a slip.”
“Well, tell me what she did say.”
“That I was to talk to you.”
“Humph! Well, you have talked to me, and I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes, sir, and then the event’s fixed.”
“Exactly, my dear boy, but I might say yes, and repent.”
“Oh no, you won’t, sir, I’m precious fond of her; I am, indeed. Have been since a boy.”
“No one could know my daughter without being fond of her,” said Sir John stiffly.
“Of course not; and that’s why I want to make sure.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Sir John. “You’ve a good income, my boy, and you’re a fine, sound fellow; but I don’t much like the idea of my little Glynne marrying into the army.”
“Oh, but I shall only stay in till I get my commission as major; and then I mean to retire and become a country squire.”
“Humph! yes; and go in more for athleticism, I suppose.”
“Well, I think an English country gentleman ought to foster the sports and pastimes of his native land – the hunt, the race meetings, and that sort of thing.”
“Humph! Do you? Well, I think, my boy, that we ought to take to agriculture and the improvement of stock. But there, I daresay you’ll tone down.”
“Then you have no objection, Sir John?”
“Who? – I? None at all, my boy; I liked your father, and I hope you’ll make her a good husband – as good a husband as I did my poor wife; though, as the common folk say, I say it as shouldn’t say it. Now then, have you any more questions to ask?”
“No, I don’t think I have. Of course I’m very happy and that sort of thing. A fellow is sure to be at such a time, you know.”
“Yes, yes, of course. To be sure. Then that’s all is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t want to ask questions about settlements, eh?”
“No, I don’t want to ask any questions. I want Glynne, and you say I may have her; so that’s all.”
“Come along then, and see my pigs.”
Captain Robert Rolph looked a little chagrined at the suggestion respecting pigs; but he concealed his annoyance and walked briskly on beside his companion, Sir John Day, Bart of Brackley Hall, Surrey, a grey, florid, stoutly-built gentleman, whose aspect betokened much of his time being spent in the open air. He was an intent, bright, bustling-looking man, with
