Sir Watkin belonged to the past in that respect rather than the present—to the age of port wine drinkers, when men got real port wine, and did not seem to be much the worse for it. The light wines of France had little charm for him, and soda-water and seltzer were equally obnoxious. His medical man had warned him, but Sir Watkin laughed at his warnings. He came of a long-lived family. His father and his grandfather had alike far exceeded their threescore years and ten when they were gathered to their fathers, and Sir Watkin argued that so it would be with him, a blunder which nearly cost him his life.
A later telegram, however, gave the particulars of the sad accident.
‘This is a sad ending to a pleasant day,’ said Wentworth, as they climbed the rock on which they had pitched their tent. Below was the town, with its noisy merry-makers. Up there, amongst the roses and the myrtles, they were alone. Over there was England, while between them lay a gorgeous ocean, on which scarce a ship was to be seen, blue as the heavens above, save where tinged by the crimson and gold of the setting sun. ‘How pleasant it is here!’ continued Wentworth; ‘no work to do, no friends to bother, no letters to worry.’
Rose burst out laughing.
‘Why do you laugh when I try to be poetical?’
‘Because, dear boy,’ was the reply, ‘it is not in your line, and because I see the postman coming up the hill with the letter-bag.’
Away rushed Wentworth to meet him with an ardour by no means consistent with his recent speech. The fact is, however tired of life we may be, however happy in some rural retreat, however absorbed and enraptured with one another a man and wife may be—especially during the idle season known as the honeymoon—there is a mysterious fascination in the appearance of the postman, and we bless the memory of Sir Rowland Hill.
‘There are no end of letters and newspapers. I vote we don’t look at them till after breakfast to-morrow, I will have a cigar, and you can work.’
‘Yes, that is how you men talk. I am to work like a slave, while you are to lie on the grass smoking. But I suppose I must do as you tell me, for
“Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.”