“Dear, how you interrupt one,” said Miss Trafford, pettishly; “well, a very short man, then, wrapped up in a cloak—”
“In a great coat,” drawled Lady Nelthorpe. Miss Trafford went on without noticing the emendation,—“had not with incredible rapidity sprung down the rock and—”
“Called him off,” said Lady Nelthorpe.
“Yes, called him off,” pursued Miss Trafford, looking round for the necessary symptoms of our wonder at this very extraordinary incident.
“What is the most remarkable,” said Lady Nelthorpe, “is, that though he seemed from his dress and appearance to be really a gentleman, he never stayed to ask if we were alarmed or hurt—scarcely even looked at us—” (“I don’t wonder at that!” said Mr. Wormwood, who, with Lord Vincent, had just entered the room;)—“and vanished among the rocks as suddenly as he had appeared.”
“Oh, you’ve seen that fellow, have you?” said Lord Vincent: “so have I, and a devilish queer looking person he is,—
“‘The balls of his broad eyes roll’d in his head, And glar’d betwixt a yellow and a red; He looked a lion with a gloomy stare, And o’er his eyebrows hung his matted hair.’
“Well remembered, and better applied—eh, Mr. Pelham!”
“Really,” said I, “I am not able to judge of the application, since I have not seen the hero.”
“Oh! it’s admirable,” said Miss Trafford, “just the description I should have given of him in prose. But pray, where, when, and how did you see him?”