"Not often, Jack—half-a-dozen times at most; certainly not more. He lived on the other side of the kingdom, you must remember; and then again, he was not the sort of youth of whom one would be anxious to see very much."
"What was he like?"
I hesitated before replying. The truth was, it was an awkward question, for upon the last occasion of my seeing him, he was sitting in the office of my kinsman, the Sir Benjamin Plowden before referred to, looking very frightened and miserable, and wondering how a certain interview which was being conducted in an adjoining room would end; that is, whether it would result in his being sent to gaol or abroad. As may be imagined, under these circumstances, he did not look his best. But then that was well-nigh twenty years ago.
So absorbed was I in recalling these recollections, that I had quite forgotten my companion's question. He brought me back to my senses with a start.
"Come, come, Cousin Luke, no day-dreams, if you please; you haven't answered my question yet."
"Well, Jack, as a young man, perhaps I cannot give you any better description of him than to say that he was, without doubt, the handsomest, and at the same time the most untrustworthy being, with whom I had ever come into contact. As old Darby, our coachman in those days, once put it, 'Young Master Marmaduke's as 'andsome as paint, but lor, there, it's all on top, like bad coach varnish!' In fact, there was something about the lad's good looks that repelled rather than attracted one."
"How do you mean—a sort of fierceness?"
"No; a something that was rather crafty than fierce, a something that betrayed cruelty as well as cunning. As a school-boy there was nobody more admired for his beauty or more despised for his moral character."
"Was he a plucky boy?"
"To an extraordinary degree, I believe, as far as personal bravery went; but somehow he was always at daggers drawn, not with his school-fellows alone, but with everybody with whom he came into contact."