“Sir Norman has a very pleasant sound,” said the old lady plaintively.
How Mrs. Bonstone laughed. “And Lady Bonstone or Lady Medlington,” she said—“wouldn’t that be charming!—imagine a milkmaid and a poultry-woman with a title. That is all I aspire to be.”
The dogs, too, were very fond of talking about the baronet, and great discussions took place up in the orchard about his title, and his artificial leg, and his nice simple ways, and his clear manner of speaking.
Some of the dogs held that it was a great pity that a baronet should have a wooden or a cork leg—we couldn’t find out which it was, for his man-servant never talked, and Patsie, the fox-terrier, was no gossip.
“Why not a baronet?” said Gringo. “He’s just the one to afford time to go limping about.”
The dogs also could not understand his being a clergyman and rector of a church.
“Yeggie thought he’d wear a pink coat, and go round looking for foxes to hunt,” said the little cur, jumping up and down, “but he never kills anything but fish, and he bangs them on the head as soon as they’re caught so they won’t suffer—I heard him say so the other day.”
“I thought he’d get drunk every night,” said King Harry. “I once knew an English earl down in Virginia, and his valet had to sit up till one o’clock to undress him.”
This put the old country dogs on their mettle. Gringo, Walter Scott, and Cannie snapped at good King Harry, and told him that the English aristocracy were as sober as any class of people.