"Then he's in very good company."
"Oh, I say, you know," said Angus, making a weak stand for the character of his absent friend, "Gartney isn't a bad fellow."
"I never said he was."
"No--but you think----"
"It's more than you do, or you wouldn't stand there talking such nonsense," said Victoria severely. "Come and buy me some peaches."
So Otterburn held his tongue in the meekest manner, and bought her peaches, which they devoured comfortably by the lake, talking of everything, except Eustace Gartney.
In the meanwhile that gentleman, considerably upset in his own mind by what he termed Macjean's selfishness (he was quite oblivious of his own), had gone round to some stables in the village, selected a carriage, and was now being driven along the dusty white road in the direction of Cantari.
The driver, a swarthy young man with a somewhat dilapidated suit of clothes, a shining hard hat, and a good-natured smile, called the weak-kneed animal which drew the vehicle "Tista," and "Tista" was the nearest approach to a skeleton ever seen outside the walls of a museum. Peppino (the driver) encouraged Tista (the horse) by first shouting and then abusing him in voluble Italian.
"Ah, pig of a horse why go so slow? Child of Satan, is not the corn of the illustrious Signor waiting for thee at Cantari?"
It might have been, but Tista seemed to have his doubts about the truth of this statement, for he did not mend his pace, but ambled complacently on, stopping every now and then to whisk a fly from his hide. At last, in despair, Peppino got down from his perch and trudged up the hill beside Tista, who shook his bells bravely and made a great show of speed over the irregular road.