After a little while there was a change in the habits of the colonel. One morning, about noon, a groom, extremely well appointed, and having under his charge a couple of steeds of breed and beauty, called at Warwick Street, and the colonel rode out, and was long absent, and after that, every day, and generally at the same hour, mounted his horse. Mr. Rodney was never wearied of catching a glimpse of his distinguished lodger over the blinds of the ground-floor room, and of admiring the colonel’s commanding presence in his saddle, distinguished as his seat was alike by its grace and vigour.
In the course of a little time, another incident connected with the colonel occurred which attracted notice and excited interest. Towards the evening a brougham, marked, but quietly, with a foreign coronet, stopped frequently at Mr. Rodney’s house, and a visitor to the colonel appeared in the form of a middle-aged gentleman who never gave his name, and evaded, it seemed with practised dexterity, every effort, however adroit, to obtain it. The valet was tried on this head also, and replied with simplicity that he did not know the gentleman’s name, but he was always called the Baron.
In the middle of June a packet arrived one day by the coach, from the rector of Hurstley, addressed to Endymion, announcing his father’s dangerous illness, and requesting him instantly to repair home. Myra was too much occupied to write even a line.
CHAPTER XXIX
It was strange that Myra did not write, were it only a line. It was so unlike her. How often this occurred to Endymion during his wearisome and anxious travel! When the coach reached Hurstley, he found Mr. Penruddock waiting for him. Before he could inquire after his father, that gentleman said, “Myra is at the rectory; you are to come on there.”
“And my father?”——
“Matters are critical,” said Mr. Penruddock, as it were avoiding a direct answer, and hastening his pace.
It was literally not a five minutes’ walk from the village inn to the rectory, and they walked in silence. The rector took Endymion at once into his study; for we can hardly call it a library, though some shelves of books were there, and many stuffed birds.
The rector closed the door with care, and looked distressed; and, beckoning to Endymion to be seated, he said, while still standing and half turning away his head, “My dear boy, prepare yourself for the worst.”