“He is offensive. A coarse, overbearing, brutal sort of fellow. I don’t like the way he looks at me. I suppose in his eyes a man living down here in a cottage cannot be a gentleman. I shall have to give him a setting down. He is not coming to lord it over us. I saw him fishing below here the other day.”
“No, no, don’t speak to him,” cried Dinah hastily.
“Nonsense! I have commanded bigger and uglier fellows than he, my dear. The fellow’s insolent, and I saw him twice over clambering round the rocks and staring into the garden. I won’t have it. He shall respect my boundaries, and—Ah! good evening, Mr Reed. Down again, then! What is the last news in London?”
Clive Reed had come upon them suddenly from behind one of the angles of the perpendicular rock which rose up from the narrow pathway beside the river, and was quite unnoticed until he was close at hand.
Dinah turned pale as death as she uttered a low gasp, and for the moment looked as if she were about to turn and run.
“Good evening, Miss Gurdon,” said Clive.
He took off his hat to the Major’s daughter as he spoke; and then, as the fisherman released the hand which had been warmly grasped, the young man stood hesitating; but as Dinah made no sign, he let it fall to his side.
“I have been expecting to see something of you,” continued the Major. “Have you been to the cottage?”
“No,” said Clive, in a quiet, constrained tone, and to Dinah’s great relief he did not look her way, but seemed to stare about him strangely. “I did not call. I did not expect to meet you here.”
“Ah! well, never mind; we are glad to see you, but—Good heavens!—Mr Reed! You’ve been ill or something. My dear sir, have you had some accident up at the mine?”