The daring grew brighter in his eye. He sealed the letter with a coin from his waistcoat pocket, sprang up and jerked the bell-rope. The footman entered.
“Rushton, have Selim saddled at once and take this note to Mansfield. Ride like the devil. Do you hear?”
“Yes, my lord.” The boy looked at the superscription, put the note in his pocket and was gone.
Gordon laughed again—a burst of gusty excitement—and seized the full ink-well into which he had dipped his pen. “It shall serve no lesser purpose!” he exclaimed, and hurled it straight through the open window.
Then he threw open the door and walked hastily toward the hilarity of the great dining-room.
CHAPTER XII
“MAN’S LOVE IS OF MAN’S LIFE A THING APART”
What he saw as he emerged from the hall was Saturnalia indeed.
Sheridan, his robe thrown open from his capacious frame, sat with knees wide apart, his chair tilted back, his face crumpling with amusement. Hobhouse sat cross-legged on the stone coffin. Others, robed and tonsured, were grouped about the board, and on it was perched a stooped and ungainly figure in a somber dress of semi-clerical severity.
“Sunburn me, it’s Dr. Cassidy,” muttered Gordon, with a grim smile. “And without his tracts! What’s he doing at Newstead? The rascals—they’ve got him fuddled!”
The hospitality offered in the host’s absence had in truth proved too much for the doctor. Now, as he balanced on his gaitered feet among the overturned wine-bottles, he looked a very unclerical figure indeed. His neck-cloth was awry, and his flattish eyes had a look of comical earnestness and unaccustomed good-fellowship. He held a wine-glass and waved it in uncertain gestures, his discourse punctured by frequent and unstinted applause: