“Where's Mr. Charles?” asked Lord Glencore.
“He's there beyant,” muttered the other, in a low voice, while he pointed towards the distant fireplace; “but he looks tired and weary, and I did n't like to disturb him.”
“Tired! weary!—with what? Where has he been; what has he been doing?” cried he, hastily. “Charles, Charles, I say!”
And slowly rising from his seat, and with an air of languid indifference, the boy came towards him.
Lord Glencore's face darkened as he gazed on him.
“Where have you been?” asked he, sternly.
“Yonder,” said the boy, in an accent like the echo of his own.
“There's Mr. Craggs, now, my lord,” said the old butler, as he looked out of the window, and eagerly seized the opportunity to interrupt the scene; “there he is, and a gentleman with him.”
“Ha! go and meet him, Charles,—it's Harcourt. Go and receive him, show him his room, and then bring him here to me.”
The boy heard without a word, and left the room with the same slow step and the same look of apathy. Just as he reached the hall the stranger was entering it. He was a tall, well-built man, with the mingled ease and stiffness of a soldier in his bearing; his face was handsome, but somewhat stern, and his voice had that tone which implies the long habit of command.