The allocution was not delivered in the presence of an audience other than sympathetic, and Miss Halkett rightly guessed that it was intended to strike Captain Beauchamp by ricochet. He puffed at the mention of Beauchamp's name. He had read a reported speech or two of Beauchamp's, and shook his head over a quotation of the stuff, as though he would have sprung at him like a lion, but for his enrolment as a constable.
Not a whit the less did Mr. Tuckham drink his claret relishingly, and he told stories incidental to his travels now and then, commended the fishing here, the shooting there, and in some few places the cookery, with much bright emphasis when it could be praised; it appeared to be an endearing recollection to him. Still, as a man of progress, he declared his belief that we English would ultimately turn out the best cooks, having indubitably the best material. 'Our incomprehensible political pusillanimity' was the one sad point about us: we had been driven from surrender to surrender.
'Like geese upon a common, I have heard it said,' Miss Halkett assisted him to Dr. Shrapnel's comparison.
Mr. Tuckham laughed, and half yawned and sighed, 'Dear me!'
His laughter was catching, and somehow more persuasive of the soundness of the man's heart and head than his remarks.
She would have been astonished to know that a gentleman so uncourtly, if not uncouth—judged by the standard of the circle she moved in—and so unskilled in pleasing the sight and hearing of ladies as to treat them like junior comrades, had raised the vow within himself on seeing her: You, or no woman!
The colonel delighted in him, both as a strong and able young fellow, and a refreshingly aggressive recruit of his party, who was for onslaught, and invoked common sense, instead of waving the flag of sentiment in retreat; a very horse-artillery man of Tories. Regretting immensely that Mr. Tuckham had not reached England earlier, that he might have occupied the seat for Bevisham, about to be given to Captain Baskelett, Colonel Halkett set up a contrast of Blackburn Tuckham and Nevil Beauchamp; a singular instance of unfairness, his daughter thought, considering that the distinct contrast presented by the circumstances was that of Mr. Tuckham and Captain Baskelett.
'It seems to me, papa,—that you are contrasting the idealist and the realist,' she said.
'Ah, well, we don't want the idealist in politics,' muttered the colonel.
Latterly he also had taken to shaking his head over Nevil: Cecilia dared not ask him why.