A roar of laughter from the surrounders showed how they relished the confusion of my father's manner.
“Even all that will scarcely amount to an offer of marriage,” said he, in half pique.
“Nobody said it would,” retorted the other; “but when you teach a girl to risk her life, four days in the week, over the highest fences in a hunting country,—when she gives up stitching and embroidery, to tying flies and making brown hackles,—when she 'd rather drive a tandem than sit quiet in a coach and four,—why, she's as good as spoiled for any one else. 'Tis the same with women as with young horses,—every one likes to break them in for himself. Some like a puller; others prefer a light mouth; and there's more that would rather go along without having to think at all, sure that, no matter how rough the road, there would be neither a false step nor stumble in it.”
“And what's become of MacNaghten?” asked my father, anxious to change the topic.
“Scheming, scheming, just the same as ever. I 'm sure I wonder he 's not here to-day. May I never! if that's not his voice I hear on the stairs. Talk of the devil—”
“And you're sure to see Dan MacNaghten,” cried my father; and the next moment he was heartily shaking hands with a tall, handsome man who, though barely thirty, was yet slightly bald on the top of the head. His eyes were blue and large; their expression full of the joyous merriment of a happy schoolboy,—a temperament that his voice and laugh fully confirmed.
“Watty, boy, it 's as good as a day rule to have a look at you again,” cried he. “There's not a man can fill your place when you 're away,—devil a one.”
“There he goes,—there he goes!” muttered old French, with a sly wink at the others.
“Ireland wasn't herself without you, my boy,” continued MacNaghten. “We were obliged to put up with Tom Burke's harriers and old French's claret; and the one has no more scent than the other has bouquet.”
French's face at this moment elicited such a roar of laughter as drowned the remainder of the speech.