Springhaven: A Tale of the Great War by R. D. Blackmore (best novels ever .txt) 📕

was eager for another by the same distinguished artist. His boots and hat were found unhurt; but of his clothes not a shred remained, to afford any pattern for enquiry. What would my feelings be if Aunt Maria arrived hysterically in the pony-carriage, and at great personal risk enquired—”

“I fear no dogs,” said Erle Twemlow, without any flash of anger in his steadfast eyes. “I can bring any dog to lick my feet. But I fear any man who sinks lower than a dog, by obtaining a voice and speaking lies with it. If you wish, for some reason of your own, to have nought to do with me, you should have said so; and I might have respected you afterwards. But flimsy excuses and trumpery lies belong to the lowest race of savages, who live near the coast, and have been taught by Frenchmen.”

Erle Twemlow stood, as he left off speaking, just before the shoulder of Carne's horse, ready to receive a blow, if offered, but without preparation for returning it. But Carne, for many good reasons—which occurred to his mind long afterwards—controlled his fury, and consoled his self-respect by repaying in kind the contempt he received.

“Well done, Mr. Savage!” he said, with a violent effort to look amiable. “You and I are accustomed to the opposite extremes of society, and the less we meet, the better. When a barbarian insults me, I take it as a foul word from a clodhopper, which does not hurt me, but may damage his own self-respect, if he cherishes such an illusion. Perhaps you will allow me to ride on, while you curb your very natural curiosity about a civilized gentleman.”

Twemlow made no answer, but looked at him with a gentle pity, which infuriated Carne more than the keenest insult. He lashed his horse, and galloped down the hill, while his cousin stroked his beard, and looked after him with sorrow.

“Everything goes against me now,” thought Caryl Carne, while he put up his horse and set off for the Admiral's Roundhouse. “I want to be cool as a cucumber, and that insolent villain has made pepper of me. What devil sent him here at such a time?”

For the moment it did not cross his mind that this man of lofty rudeness was the long-expected lover of Faith Darling, and therefore in some sort entitled to a voice about the doings of the younger sister. By many quiet sneers, and much expressive silence, he had set the brisk Dolly up against the quiet Faith, as a man who understands fowl nature can set even two young pullets pulling each other's hackles out.

“So you are come at last!” said Dolly. “No one who knows me keeps me waiting, because I am not accustomed to it. I expect to be called for at any moment, by matters of real importance—not like this.”

“Your mind is a little disturbed,” replied Carne, as he took her hand and kissed it, with less than the proper rapture; “is it because of the brown and hairy man just returned from Africa?”

“Not altogether. But that may be something. He is not a man to be laughed at. I wish you could have seen my sister.”

“I would rather see you; and I have no love of savages. He is my first cousin, and that affords me a domestic right to object to him. As a brother-in-law I will have none of him.”

“You forget,” answered Dolly, with a flash of her old spirit, which he was subduing too heavily, “that a matter of that sort depends upon us, and our father, and not upon the gentlemen. If the gentlemen don't like it, they can always go away.”

“How can they go, when they are chained up like a dog? Women may wander from this one to that, because they have nothing to bind them; but a man is of steadfast material.”

“Erle Twemlow is, at any rate—though it is hard to see his material through his hair; but that must come off, and I mean to do it. He is the best-natured man I have ever yet known, except one; and that one had got nothing to shave. Men never seem to understand about their hair, and the interest we feel concerning it. But it does not matter very much, compared to their higher principles.”

“That is where I carry every vote, of whatever sex you please”—Carne saw that this girl must be humoured for the moment. “Anybody can see what I am. Straightforward, and ready to show my teeth. Why should an honest man live in a bush?”

“Faith likes it very much; though she always used to say that it did seem so unchristian. Could you manage to come and meet him, Caryl? We shall have a little dinner on Saturday, I believe, that every one may see Erle Twemlow. His beloved parents will be there, who are gone quite wild about him. Father will be at home for once; and the Marquis of Southdown, and some officers, and Captain Stubbard and his wife will come, and perhaps my brother Frank, who admires you so much. You shall have an invitation in the morning.”

“Such delights are not for me,” Carne answered, with a superior smile; “unhappily my time is too important. But perhaps these festivities will favour me with the chance of a few words with my darling. How I long to see her, and how little chance I get!”

“Because, when you get it, you spend three-quarters of the time in arguing, and the rest in finding fault. I am sure I go as far as anybody can; and I won't take you into my father's Roundhouse, because I don't think it would be proper.”

“Ladies alone understand such subjects; and a gentleman is thankful that they do. I am quite content to be outside the Roundhouse—so called because it is square, perhaps—though the wind is gone back to the east again, as it always does now in an English summer, according to a man who has studied the subject—Zebedee Tugwell, the captain of the fleet. Dolly, beloved, and most worthy to be more so, clear your bright mind from all false impressions, whose only merit is that they are yours, and allow it to look clearly at a matter of plain sense.”

She was pleased to have compliments paid to her mind, even more than to her body—because there was no doubt about the merits of the latter—and she said: “That is very nice. Go on.”

“Well, beauty, you know that I trust you in everything, because of your very keen discretion, and freedom from stupid little prejudice. I have been surprised at times, when I thought of it in your absence, that any one so young, who has never been through any course of political economy, should be able to take such a clear view of subjects which are far beyond the intellect of even the oldest ladies. But it must be your brother; no doubt he has helped you to—”

“Not he!” cried the innocent Dolly, with fine pride; “I rather look down upon his reasoning powers; though I never could make such a pretty tink of rhymes—like the bells of the sheep when the ground is full of turnips.”

“He approves of your elevated views,” said Carne, looking as grave as a crow at a church clock; “they may not have come from him, because they are your own, quite as much as his poetry is his. But he perceives their truth, and he