“I confess, too,” said Sir Marmaduke, “I am not devoid of curiosity on the subject—let us hear it all.”
“I have little to recount,” said Frederic, with some hesitation in his manner; “I neither saw the O'Donoghue, as they call him, nor his brother-in-law—the one was in bed, the other had gone to visit some sick person on the mountain. But I made acquaintance with your prieux-chevalier, Sybella: a fine-looking young fellow, even now wasted with sickness; he was there with an elder brother, an insolent kind of personage—half peasant, all bully.”
“He was not wanting in proper respect to you” said Sir Marmaduke. “I trust, Mark, he was aware of who you were?”
“Faith, sir, I fancy he cared very little on the subject; and had I been a much more important individual, he would have treated me in the same way—a way, to say the least of it, not over-burthened with courtesy.”
“Had you any words together, boy?” said Sir Marmaduke, with an evident anxiety in his look and voice.
“A mere interchange of greeting,” replied Fred, laughing, “in which each party showed his teeth, but did not bite withal. I unhappily mistook him for a game-keeper—and worse still, told him so, and he felt proportionably angry at the imputation—preferring, probably, to be thought a poacher. He is a rude coarse fellow,” said he with a changed voice, “with pride to be a gentleman—but not breeding nor manner to enact the character.”
“The visit was, after all, not an agreeable one,” said Miss Travers, “and I am only surprised how you came to prolong it. You spent the whole day there.”
Although there was not the slightest degree of suspicion insinuated by this remark, Fred stole a quick glance at his sister, to see if she really intended more than the mere words implied. Then, satisfied that she had not, he said in a careless way—
“Oh, the weather broke; it came on a heavy snow-storm; and as the younger brother pressed me to remain, and I had no fancy to face the hurricane, I sat down to a game of chess.”
“Chess! Indeed, Fred, that sounds very humanizing. And how did he play?”