For the life of him he could not treat the man with even an assumption of confidence. He would have thought the revocation of his order received with unmistakable relief, had he not been so steeped in suspicion of all things.
He was bending to his work again, when a voice hailing him from over the garden hedge made him start and turn round.
“Hi! Are you Squire Tuke?”
“At your service,” said he, and went forward.
A little man seated on a great horse was there in the drive—a pert cocksparrow knowingly-attired and bristling with pride of raiment. He had a comical small face, very pale, and his hat was of the last-approved shade of grey, with a broad ribbon of black and a broader buckle about it.
He looked a mere handy-dandy snip; though he had in fact at that time come of age some five years; but his whimsical self-sufficiency not the fly on the bull’s horn could have outdone.
He raised his hat in a very courtly manner as the other approached.
“I have to apologize,” he said, “for this unceremonious greetin’.”
His voice was high and restive, as if it were not yet quite broken in.
“By no means,” said Mr. Tuke. “You are Sir David Blythewood, I presume?”