"You, sir!" rejoined the Colonel. "You have the frame of an ox, if you had any flesh to cover it. Exercise is what you need, Nephew Jack! Fencing is what you want, sir! Take that walking-stick! Harry Monmouth! I'll give you a lesson, now. On guard! So! defend yourself! Ha! humph!" The last exclamation was one of disgust, for at the Colonel's first thrust, Jack's stick flew out of his hand, and knocked over a porcelain vase, shattering it in pieces, Jack, meanwhile, standing rubbing his arm and looking very foolish.
"Humph!" repeated Colonel Ferrers, looking rather disconcerted himself, and all the more fierce therefore. "That comes of trying to instruct a person who has not been taught to hold himself together. You are a milksop, my poor fellow! a sad milksop! but we are going to change all that. There! never mind about the pieces. Giuseppe will pick up the pieces. Get your supper, and then go to bed."
"I don't care about supper, thank you, uncle," said the lad.
"Pooh! pooh! don't talk nonsense!" cried the Colonel. "You don't go to bed without supper."
He led the way into the dining-room, a long, low room, panelled with dark oak. Walls, table, sideboard, shone like mirrors, with the polish of many years. Over the sideboard was the head of a gigantic moose, with huge, spreading antlers. On the sideboard itself were some beautiful pieces of old silver, shining with the peculiar blue lustre that comes from long rubbing, and from that alone. A tray stood on the table, and on it was a pitcher of milk, two glasses, and a plate of very attractive-looking little cakes. The colonel filled Jack's glass, and stood by with grim determination till he had drunk every drop.
"Now, a cake, sir," he added, sipping his own glass leisurely. "A plummy cake, of Mrs. Beadle's best make. Down with it, I insist!" In the matter of the plum cake, little insistence was necessary, and between uncle and nephew both plate and pitcher were soon empty.
"There," said the good Colonel, as they returned to the library, "now you have something to sleep on, my friend. No empty stomachs in this house, to distract people's brains and make mooncalves of them. Ten minutes' exercise with the Indian clubs—you have them in your room?—and then to bed. Hand me the 'Worthies of England,' will you? Bookcase on the right of the door, third shelf from the bottom, fifth book from the left. Thomas Fuller. Yes, thank you. Good-night, my boy! don't forget the clubs, and don't poke your head forward like a ritualist parson, because you are not otherwise cut out for one."
Leaving his uncle comfortably established with his book and reading-lamp, Jack Ferrers took his way upstairs. It was not late, but he had already found out that his uncle had nothing to say to him or any one else after the frugal nine o'clock supper, and his own taste for solitude prompted him to seek his room. As he passed along a dark corridor, a gleam of light shot out from a half-open door.
"Are you awake, Biddy?" he asked.
"Yes, dear!" answered a kind, hearty voice. "Come in, Master Jack, if you've a mind."