‘Pray let me hear what she told you.’
‘Oh! she said they two had been colloguing together by moonlight, and you came home in the midst, and Miss Kendal fainted away, so he catches up the ink and throws it over her instead of water, and you and Mr. Kendal came in and were mad entirely; and Mr. Kendal threatened to brain him with the poker if he did not quit it that instant, and sent Gilbert for a soldier for opening the door to him, but you and Lucy went down on your bare knees to get him to relent.’
‘Well, I own the poker does throw an air of improbability over the whole. Minus that and the knees, I am afraid it is only too true. I suppose it got abroad through the servants.’
‘It was an unlucky goose-quill that lay so handy,’ exclaimed Ulick; ‘but you may credit me, no eye but my own ever saw the scrawl, nor would have seen it.’
‘Then, Ulick, if we all own that something is to be regretted, why do we stand aloof, and persist in quarrelling?’
‘I want no quarrel,’ said Ulick, stiffly. ‘Mr. Kendal intimated to me that he did not wish for my company, and I’m not the man to force it.’
‘Oh, Ulick, this is not what I hoped from you!’
‘I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Kendal, you could talk over the Giant’s Causeway if you had a mind,’ said Ulick, with much agitation; ‘but you must not talk over me, for your own judgment would be against it. You know what I am, and what I came of, and what have I in the world except the honour of a gentleman? Mr. Kendal and yourself have been my kindest friends, and I’ll be grateful to my dying day; but if Mr. Kendal thinks I can submit tamely when he resents what he never ought to have noticed, why, then, what have I to do but to show him the difference? If his kindness was to me as a gentleman and his equal, I love and bless him for it, but if it be a patronizing of the poor clerk, why, then, I owe it to myself and my people to show that I can stand alone, without cringing, and being thankful for affronts.’
‘Did it ever occur to you to think whether pride be a sin?’
‘’Tis not pride!’ cried Ulick. It is my duty to my family and my name. You’d say yourself, as you allowed before now, that it would be mere meanness and servility to swallow insults for one’s own profit; and if I were to say “you’re welcome, with many thanks, to shuffle over my private papers, and call myself to account,” I’d better have given up my name at once, for I’d have left the gentleman behind me.’