The ostler of the Red Lion at Compton Regis and one of the stablemen, who happened at the time to be conversing outside that hostelry, were the only persons in the village privileged to behold a certain blue and yellow postchaise draw up in front of the inn at dusk on an evening in October. Scenting a guest of importance, and preparing to summon the landlord, the ostler was, however, stayed by a curt inquiry from the postilion—
"Be this the way to Little Compton?"
"Straight on, first road to the left," responded the ostler, advancing into one of the paths of radiance cut by the lamps in the damp autumn air. "You're no Oxford man or you'd not ask."
"Well, why should I be an Oxford man?" retorted the postilion. "I'm from Salisbury, if you want to know, and damme, if that ain't as good as Oxford——"
But here a head was thrust out of the far window of the chaise, and a voice with a trace of foreign accent—the voice of a young man—demanded what the devil they had stopped for, and, grumbling, the postilion shouted to the steaming horses. As the chaise rolled off the ostler caught sight of a much older face, lit by the travelling lamp within the carriage. He stared after the receding vehicle.
"'Ere, Bill," he called, "I've seen a Dook. Strike me, but it's 'im wot's going to stay with Mr. 'Ungerford down to Little Compton. 'Ear the posty say 'e come from Salisbury? That the Dook, sure enough, the old party. T'other'll be his son, the young spark wot was 'ere before."
"Dook! Wot's a furrin Dook?" queried the exclusive Bill, and spat on the ground.
(2)
These worthies were quite right in their surmises, and Mr. Hungerford down to Little Compton was at that moment awaiting, with what equanimity he might, the visit of his all but successful rival and of his father, to whom he had been forced to offer a hospitality which would probably ensure that rival's complete triumph. Nor was Tristram unaware of the ironical humour of the situation.
A week had scarcely passed since Armand's departure for Dorset—a week in which the transfigured Horatia had seemed to tread on air—when there came to her a letter from her lover saying that his father absolutely refused his consent to the match. Tristram did not like to think of the days that had followed, when Horatia went about the house dimmed and red-eyed—though she was generally invisible when he was at the Rectory—and when the Rector (so curiously are human beings compounded) raged alternately against Armand for his audacity and against the Duc de la Roche-Guyon for his prohibition. Nothing in fact could have done so much to forward the match, in so far as the Rector was concerned, as this obstacle: and at last, late one evening, Mr. Grenville came over to see Tristram quite broken, reiterating pitifully, "I am being driven to it. I can't have the child going into a decline," and ending up: "As for this Duke, it's preposterous! Who is he, I should like to know, to behave as if my Horatia were not good enough for his younger son? As you know, Tristram, I detest boasting of my connections, but if it comes to that——"