There was an instant of silence; then, “You hold me so mean-spirited a fellow that you will not keep me with you?” Hugh asked slowly.
“Your ways suit your Puritan kindred better than they suit me,” Gwyeth answered, fumbling among the papers on the table. “’Tis too late now for me to mend what they have marred. So I shall furnish you with a horse and clothes—”
“I did not come out of Warwickshire to beg a new coat and a nag of you.” As he spoke, Hugh half turned away to the door and he perceived now that Ridydale was violently signing to him to be quiet and stay where he was. He did not heed, but, stepping to the door, laid his hand on the latch. “And I shall not go back to Everscombe, sir,” he finished his speech deliberately.
“Tut, tut! You are too old for such childishness,” answered the colonel, with exasperating contempt.
“I will not go to Everscombe,” Hugh repeated.
“Do you turn saucy, you young crop-head?” replied Colonel Gwyeth, letting slip his assumption of calmness. “You will do as I bid you.”
“You have no right to say ‘do this’ unto me,” Hugh flung back. “And I want nothing of you,—nothing that you have offered me. I had rather get my head broke in a troop stable twenty times over. But I’ll leave your stable. And I’ll never trouble you more, sir, with coming unto you, unless you choose to send for me again.” All this he said fast, but without raising his voice, and throughout he kept his eyes fixed on the colonel, who stood with his clinched hand resting on the table, and a black look on his face. But Hugh gave him no time to answer, just said, “Good morrow, sir,” with much dignity, set his cap on his head, and walked out of the room. He took great pains to close the door carefully behind him.
Once outside upon the highway, he became aware that his face was burning hot and every fibre of his body seemed braced as for actual battle. Heading blindly toward Shrewsbury he tramped along fiercely, while he went over and over the incidents of the last half-hour. If any man but his own father had dared speak so contemptuously and so untruly of him! No, if it had been another than his father, it would not have mattered. But that Colonel Gwyeth, of all men, should hold him such a miserable fellow, and give him no chance to prove himself better!
Just then he heard behind him Ridydale’s voice: “Master Hugh! Stay a moment, sir.” The corporal had plainly run from the house, but, so soon as Hugh halted, he sobered his pace and came up at a more dignified gait. “On my soul, sir, I meant not to put all awry,” he broke out at once.
“Did you bear the tale of that flogging unto him?” Hugh asked hotly.