‘Is it? Thank you, Phyllis, I thought I had washed it off: now do find me some sealing-wax—India-rub her—sticking-plaster, I mean.’
‘Oh! Rotherwood,’ said Emily, ‘what a bad cut, how did it happen?’
‘Only, I am the victim to Maurice’s first essay in fishing.’
‘Just fancy what an awkward fellow Maurice is,’ said Reginald, ‘he had but one throw, and he managed to stick the hook into Rotherwood’s hand.’
‘One of those barbed hooks? Oh! Rotherwood, how horrid!’ said Emily.
‘And he cut it out with his knife, and caught that great trout with it directly,’ said Reginald.
‘And neither half drowned Maurice, nor sent him home again?’ asked Lily.
‘I contented myself with taking away his weapon,’ said the Marquis; ‘and he wished for nothing better than to poke about in the gutters for insects; it was only Redgie that teased him into the nobler sport.’
Emily was inclined to make a serious matter of the accident, but her cousin said ten words while she said one, and by the time her first sentence was uttered, she found him talking about his ride to Devereux Castle.
He and Claude set out as soon as breakfast was over, and came back about three o’clock; Claude was tired with the heat, and betook himself to the sofa, where he fell asleep, under pretence of reading, but the indefatigable Marquis was ready and willing to set out with Reginald and Wat Greenwood to shoot rabbits.