"What business had you to think, sir?—your duty was to obey. My orders were implicit, and how dared you disobey them? take the trash away!" and suiting the action to the word, with one kick his lordship literally smashed the frail door to pieces. The light thus admitted revealed for the first time the showy oil-cloth, which excited his ire not a little.
"And what the devil is this?—I ordered a carpet, and not this gin-palace snobbery!" shouted the enraged peer, forgetting in his passion whose house he was in.
Mr. Lennox here interposed, and said it was not Mr. Taylor's fault but his own, as he had thought it would look better.
"Then, another time, Mr. Lennox, I will thank you to mind your own business and let me mind mine—I am not accustomed to have my orders countermanded. Rip the accursed thing up. I will not move till it is gone."
Some workmen standing near executed this order with the utmost despatch, much fearing a more palpable display of wrath.
"And take off that gilt fringe, and let all be plain and quiet. Mr. Taylor, you have strangely mistaken my meaning: I wished a comfortable pew, not a vulgar display for every one to stare at. Let all this be done by to-morrow, and by heaven! let me catch you disobeying my orders again, and I will find some one else to execute them."
Mr. Taylor in mute fear only bowed acquiescence, and the Earl then turned on his heel, and as ill luck would have it nearly upset Johnny, who, half-amused, half-terrified, and laughing in his sleeve at Mr. Lennox's discomfiture, stood in stupid astonishment, till he was roused by an angry "Out of the way, boy—what are you blocking up the passage for?" and saw his lordship brush past to the door, where he mounted his fretting steed, coldly bowed to the bewildered throng—and, plunging his spurs into young Nimrod, left them to talk over their rebuff.
Bad temper is proverbially infectious, and as soon as he was gone a scene of mutual recrimination ensued. Mr. Ravensworth blamed Mr. Lennox for his officiousness; Mr. Lennox blamed Johnny, as the cause of all by refusing the offer of a ride. Mr. Taylor was much annoyed at his weakness in departing from orders, and even Johnny could not help muttering something about Mr. Lennox's good taste, which he did not fail to hear, and which added to his wrath and chagrin not a little. When Ellen heard the story she was more vexed than any of them,—vexed at this cloud which seemed to banish all her hopes risen on her heaven of blue. Her temper was not bettered by the arrival of Captain L'Estrange, who, however, treated the matter as a joke, and was vastly amused by Johnny's description of the scene, and the door, which he said was stove in as if it had been a band-box.
"I know the Earl," said L'Estrange, "his passions are as short-lived as they are violent; had it been the Captain, by Jove! you would not have got off so well: I think he would have floored the whole of you, and thrashed you, Johnny, with his horsewhip had you got in his way. I should have liked to have seen Lennox's face though."
Lord Wentworth rode to the Towers at a fiery speed, his temper decidedly not bettered by a drenching rain which overtook him on his way. When, however, he reached home and found his brother, the Captain, and the Marquis of Arranmore just arrived, all traces of his anger immediately vanished. That evening much had to be talked on over their wine, and after the young ladies had retired the gentlemen adjourned to the smoking-room, where they laughed well over the incidents of the day, till the clock striking twelve warned them Sunday had commenced.