‘Perhaps he was irritated at my counsels, perhaps the notion of anything like guidance offended him; perhaps it was the phrase, “bear-leadership,” and the half-threat of betraying him, has done the mischief.’ Now the gallant soldier was a slow thinker; it took him a deal of time to arrange the details of any matter in his mind, and when he tried to muster his ideas there were many which would not answer the call, and of those which came, there were not a few which seemed to present themselves in a refractory and unwilling spirit, so that he had almost to suppress a mutiny before he proceeded to his inspection.
Nor did the strong cheroots, which he smoked to clear his faculties and develop his mental resources, always contribute to this end, though their soothing influence certainly helped to make him more satisfied with his judgments.
‘Now, look here, Walpole,’ said he, determining that he would save himself all unnecessary labour of thought by throwing the burden of the case on the respondent—‘Look here; take a calm view of this thing, and see if it’s quite wise in you to go back into trammels it cost you some trouble to escape from. You call it spooning, but you won’t deny you went very far with that young woman—farther, I suspect, than you’ve told me yet. Eh! is that true or not?’
He waited a reasonable time for a reply, but none coming, he went on—‘I don’t want a forced confidence. You may say it’s no business of mine, and there I agree with you, and probably if you put me to the question in the same fashion, I’d give you a very short answer. Remember one thing, however, old fellow—I’ve seen a precious deal more of life and the world than you have! From sixteen years of age, when you were hammering away at Greek verbs and some such balderdash at Oxford, I was up at Rangoon with the very fastest set of men—ay, of women too—I ever lived with in all my life. Half of our fellows were killed off by it. Of course people will say climate, climate! but if I were to give you the history of one day—just twenty-four hours of our life up there—you’d say that the wonder is there’s any one alive to tell it.’
He turned around at this, to enjoy the expression of horror and surprise he hoped to have called up, and perceived for the first time that he was alone. He rang the bell, and asked the waiter where the other gentleman had gone, and learned that he had ordered a car, and set out for Kilgobbin Castle more than half an hour before.
‘All right,’ said he fiercely. ‘I wash my hands of it altogether! I’m heartily glad I told him so before he went.’ He smoked on very vigorously for half an hour, the burden of his thoughts being perhaps revealed by the summing-up, as he said, ‘And when you are “in for it,” Master Cecil, and some precious scrape it will be, if I move hand or foot to pull you through it, call me a Major of Marines, that’s all—just call me a Major of Marines!’ The ineffable horror of such an imputation served as matter for reverie for hours.
CHAPTER IX
A DRIVE THROUGH A BOG
While Lockwood continued thus to doubt and debate with himself, Walpole was already some miles on his way to Kilgobbin. Not, indeed, that he had made any remarkable progress, for the ‘mare that was to rowle his honour over in an hour and a quarter,’ had to be taken from the field where she had been ploughing since daybreak, while ‘the boy’ that should drive her, was a little old man who had to be aroused from a condition of drunkenness in a hayloft, and installed in his office.