‘Here they come,’ said Lily; ‘how Wat Greenwood is grinning at Rotherwood’s jokes!’
‘A happy day for Wat,’ said Emily. ‘He will be quite dejected if William is not at home next shooting season. He thinks you a degenerate Mohun, Claude.’
‘He must comfort himself with Redgie,’ said Claude.
‘Rotherwood is only eager about shooting in common with everything else,’ said Lily, ‘but Redgie, I fear, will care for nothing else.’
Lord Rotherwood came in, accounting for being late, as, in passing through a harvest field, he could not help attempting to reap. The Beechcroft farming operations had been his especial amusement from very early days, and his plans were numerous for farming on a grand scale as soon as he should be of age. His talk during dinner was of turnips and wheat, till at length Mr. Mohun asked him what he thought of the appearance of the castle. He said it was very forlorn; the rooms looked so dreary and deserted that he could not bear to be in them, and had been out of doors almost all the time. Indeed, he was afraid he had disappointed the housekeeper by not complimenting her as she deserved, for the freezing dismal order in which she kept everything. ‘And really,’ said he, ‘I must go again to-morrow and make up for it, and Emily, you must come with me and try to devise something to make the unhappy place less like the abode of the Prince of the Black Islands.’
Emily willingly promised to go, and she went on talking to him, and telling him whom he was to meet on the next day, when an unusual silence making her look up, she beheld him more than half asleep.
Reginald fidgeted and sighed, and Maurice grew graver and graver as they thought of the wasps. Maurice wanted to take a nest entire, and began explaining his plan to Claude.
‘You see, Claude, burning some straw and then digging, spoils the combs, as Wat does it; now I have got some puff-balls and sulphur to put into the hole, and set fire to them with a lucifer match, so as to stifle the wasps, and then dig them out quietly to-morrow morning.’
‘It is all of no use, if that Rotherwood will do nothing but sleep,’ said Reginald, in a disconsolate tone.
‘You should not have made him get up at four,’ said Emily.