Volume Three—Chapter Thirteen.
As Through a Glass.
“Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,” says the poet; and there he stops, leaving the rest of the places under the pink little god’s régime to our imagination.
He was busy as ever at Brackley, with people in a humbler walk in life and there was an attraction there for a person who plays no prominent part in this narrative, to wit, Thompson, private dragoon in Her Majesty’s service, and valet and confidential man to Captain Rolph.
He had long fixed his affections possibly in military temporary fashion upon Mason, Glynne’s maid. These affections had glowed during the many visits to Warren and Hall, cooled down during the activities of service—rubbing down his master as he would a horse, and helping him to train—sinking for a year and a half or so after “the upset” at Brackley, and turning up again when the captain came back to The Warren to be hitched on again, as he termed it. For, truth to tell, it was known that Mason had one hundred and fourteen pounds deposited in consols with a certain old lady in Threadneedle Street.
Thompson felt glad then, when one day the captain said to him,—
“All packed up, isn’t it?” and he replied that the luggage was ready. Whereupon the captain told him that he would not want him for a month.
“And, by the way, go down to The Warren before my mother returns, and get my guns, a few books in my room, and the knick-knacks and clothes, and the rest.”