“That much my own brief experience of him can confirm,” said I, dryly, for the remark rather jarred upon my feelings.
“Yes,” said he, as though following out his own train of thought “Old Tom is not a bird to be snared with coarse lines. The man must be an early riser that catches him napping.”
I cannot describe how this irritated me. It sounded like so much direct sarcasm upon my weakness and want of acuteness.
“There's the 'Rosary;' that's his cottage,” said he, taking my arm, while he pointed upward to a little jutting promontory of rock over the river, surmounted by a little thatched cottage almost embowered in roses and honeysuckles. So completely did it occupy the narrow limits of ground, that the windows projected actually over the stream, and the creeping plants that twined through the little balconies hung in tangled masses over the water. “Search where you will through the Scottish and Cumberland scenery, I defy you to match that,” said my companion; “not to say that you can hook a four-pound fish from that little balcony on any summer evening while you smoke your cigar.”
“It is a lovely spot, indeed,” said I, inhaling with ecstasy the delicious perfume which in the calm night air seemed to linger in the atmosphere.
“He tells me,” continued my companion,—“and I take his word for it, for I am no florist,—that there are seventy varieties of the rose on and around that cottage. I can answer for it that you can't open a window without a great mass of flowers coming in showers over you. I told him, frankly, that if I were his tenant for longer than the fishing-season, I 'd clear half of them away.”
“You live there, then?” asked I, timidly.
“Yes, I rent the cottage, all but two rooms, which he wished to keep for himself, but which he now writes me word may be let, for this month and the next, if a tenant offer. Would you like them?” asked he, abruptly.
“Of all things—that is—I think so—I should like to see them first!” muttered I, half startled by the suddenness of the question.
“Nothing easier,” said he, opening a little wicket as he spoke, and beginning to ascend a flight of narrow steps cut in the solid rock. “This is a path of my designing,” continued he; “the regular approach is on the other side; but this saves fully half a mile of road, though it be a little steep.”