“Nay, but that was your fault, not his: the lad was keen to sign.”
“That is true; and perhaps if we had pinned him to this, last night, he would not have dared insult my sister to-day.”
Sampson changed the subject by inquiring suddenly which way he was gone.
“Curse him, I don't know; and don't care. Go where he will I shall meet him again some day; and then—Edward spoke almost in a whisper, but a certain grind of his white teeth and flashing of his lion eyes made the incomplete sentence very expressive.
“What ninnies you young men are,” said the Doctor; “even you, that I dub 'my fathom o' good sense:' just finish your denner and come with me.”
“No, Doctor; I'm off my feed for once: if you had been upstairs and seen my poor sister! Hang the grub; it turns my stomach.” And he shoved his plate away, and leaned over the back of his chair.
Sampson made him drink a glass of wine, and then they got up from the half-finished meal and went hurriedly to Alfred's lodgings, the Doctor, though sixty, rushing along with all the fire and buoyancy of early youth. They found the landlady surrounded by gossips curious as themselves, and longing to chatter, but no materials. The one new fact they elicited was that the vehicle was a White Lion fly, for she knew the young man by the cast in his eye. “Come away,” shouted the Doctor unceremoniously, and in two minutes they were in the yard of the White Lion.
Sampson called the ostler: out came a hard-featured man, with a strong squint. Sampson concluded this was his man, and said roughly: “Where did you drive young Hardie this morning?”
He seemed rather taken aback by this abrupt question; but reflected and slapped his thigh: “Why, that is the party from Mill Street.”
“Yes.”