Lord Ulswater played with his riding-whip, but did not reply. Mr. Glumford continued,—
“Pray, my lord, did your lordship see what an ugly ill-dressed set of dogs those meetingers were; that Wolfe, above all? Oh, he’s a horrid-looking fellow. By the by, he left the town this very morning; I saw him take leave of his friends in the street just before I set out. He is going to some other meeting,—on foot too. Only think of the folly of talking about the policy and prudence and humanity, and that sort of thing, of sparing such a pitiful poor fellow as that; can’t afford a chaise, or a stage-coach even, my lord,—positively can’t.”
“You see the matter exactly in its true light, Mr. Glumford,” said his lordship, patting his fine horse, which was somewhat impatient of the slow pace of its companion.
“A very beautiful animal of your lordship,” said Mr. Glumford, spurring his own horse,—a heavy, dull quadruped with an obstinate ill-set tail, a low shoulder, and a Roman nose. “I am very partial to horses myself, and love a fine horse as well as anybody.” Lord Ulswater cast a glance at his companion’s steed, and seeing nothing in its qualities to justify this assertion of attachment to fine horses was silent: Lord Ulswater never flattered even his mistress, much less Mr. Glumford.
“I will tell you, my lord,” continued Mr. Glumford, “what a bargain this horse was;” and the squire proceeded, much to Lord Ulswater’s discontent, to retail the history of his craft in making the said bargain.
The riders were now entering a part of the road, a little more than two miles from Westborough Park, in which the features of the neighbouring country took a bolder and ruder aspect than they had hitherto worn. On one side of the road, the view opened upon a descent of considerable depth, and the dull sun looked drearily over a valley in which large fallow fields, a distant and solitary spire, and a few stunted and withering trees formed the chief characteristics. On the other side of the road a narrow footpath was separated from the highway by occasional posts; and on this path Lord Ulswater (how the minute and daily occurrences of life show the grand pervading principles of character!) was, at the time we refer to, riding, in preference to the established thoroughfare for equestrian and aurigal travellers. The side of this path farthest from the road was bordered by a steep declivity of stony and gravelly earth, which almost deserved the dignified appellation of a precipice; and it was with no small exertion of dexterous horsemanship that Lord Ulswater kept his spirited and susceptible steed upon the narrow and somewhat perilous path, in spite of its frequent starts at the rugged descent below.
“I think, my lord, if I may venture to say so,” said Mr. Glumford, having just finished the narration of his bargain, “that it would be better for you to take the high road just at present; for the descent from the footpath is steep and abrupt, and deuced crumbling! so that if your lordship’s horse shied or took a wrong step, it might be attended with unpleasant consequences,—a fall, or that sort of thing.”
“You are very good, sir,” said Lord Ulswater, who, like most proud people, conceived advice an insult; “but I imagine myself capable of guiding my horse, at least upon a road so excellent as this.”
“Certainly, my lord, certainly; I beg your pardon; but—bless me, who is that tall fellow in black, talking to himself yonder, my lord? The turn of the road hides him from you just at present; but I see him well. Ha! ha! what gestures he uses! I dare say he is one of the petitioners, and—yes, my lord, by Jupiter, it is Wolfe himself! You had better (excuse me, my lord) come down from the footpath: it is not wide enough for two people; and Wolfe, I dare say, a d—d rascal, would not get out of the way for the devil himself! He’s a nasty, black, fierce-looking fellow; I would not for something meet him in a dark night, or that sort of thing!”
“I do not exactly understand, Mr. Glumford,” returned Lord Ulswater, with a supercilious glance at that gentleman, “what peculiarities of temper you are pleased to impute to me, or from what you deduce the supposition that I shall move out of my way for a person like Mr. Woolt, or Wolfe, or whatever be his name.”