“Will you take a turn with me?” said Sir Marcus, in a whining voice, that sounded like habitual complaint. “I 'm obliged to do this every day; it 's the doctor's order. He says, 'Take the air and distract yourself;' and I do so.” L'Estrange had now seated himself, and they drove away.
“I'm glad you've come,” said Sir Marcus. “It will stop all this plotting and intriguing. If you had delayed much longer, I think they 'd have had a dozen here—one of them a converted Jew, a very dirty fellow. Oh, dear, how fatiguing it is! that little crop-eared pony pulls so he can't be held, and we call him John Bright; but don't mention it. I hope you have no family, sir?”
“I have my sister only.”
“A sister isn't so bad. A sister may marry, or she may—” What was the other alternative did not appear, for John Bright bolted at this moment, and it was full five minutes ere he could be pulled up again. “This is the distraction I 'm promised,” said the sick man. “If it was n't for Mr. Needham—I call the near-sider Mr. Needham, as I bought him of that gentleman—I 'd have too much distraction; but Needham never runs away—he falls; he comes down as if he was shot!” cried he, with a joyous twinkle of the eye, “and I bought him for that. There's no drag ever was invented like a horse on his belly—the most inveterate runaway can't escape against that.” If the little cackle that followed this speech did not sound exactly like a laugh, it was all of that emotion that Sir Marcus ever permitted himself.
“I can't ask you if you like this place. You 're too newly come to answer that question,” resumed he; “but I may ask what is the sort of society you prefer?”
“I 've seen next to nothing of the world since I left the University. I have been living these last four or five years in one of the least visited spots in Great Britain, and only since the arrival of the Bramleigh family had a neighbor to speak to.”
“Ah, then, you know these Bramleighs?” said the other with more animation than he had yet displayed. “Overbearing people, I 've heard they were—very rich, and insolent to a degree.”
“I must say I have found them everything that was kind and considerate, hospitable neighbors, and very warmhearted friends.”
“That 's not the world's judgment on them, my dear sir—far from it. They are a proverb for pretension and impertinence. As for Lady Augusta here—to be sure she 's only one of them by marriage—but there's not a soul in the place she has not outraged. She goes nowhere—of course, that she has a right to do—but she never returns a call, never even sends a card. She went so far as to tell Mr. Pemberton, your predecessor here, that she liked Albano for its savagery; that there was no one to know was its chief charm for her.”
“I saw her for the first time this morning,” said L'Estrange, not liking to involve himself in this censure.