“In which you are by no means peculiar,” replied the doctor; “overbearing and tyrannical to the last degree, and strongly suspected of cowardice in the face of the enemy, he was cordially hated by many of his men.”
“Is he going to Lakeside, do you think?”
The doctor put his head out of the gig and glanced back at the house they had just left.
“Yes,” he said, drawing it in again; “he has reined in at the gate. I suspect the captain is to have a rival.”
“If it’s the colonel, I don’t think he need be alarmed,” returned Serena. “What chance has a homely, disagreeable old bachelor beside a handsome, good-humored young fellow like Captain Charlton?”
“Ah, but the colonel is said to be in very easy circumstances; while Warren, poor fellow, has next to nothing.”
The colonel had now dismounted, fastened his horse, and entered the gate. A middle-aged Irishman, a rough but good-humored-looking fellow, was at work at the flower-beds. He had saluted the doctor and his wife courteously as they passed him; the captain also; but looking up at the sound of Bangs’s entrance, and seeing who it was, he simply scowled and turned to his work again.
“What are you doing here, you—— rascal?” demanded Bangs, in an insolent tone.
“Mindin’ me own business, sor; an’ it’s yersilf that had betther be doin’ that same, an’ not meddlin’ wid an honest man as yees haven’t got no authority over no longer.”
A lightning glance of intense scorn, contempt, and hatred, accompanied by a volley of oaths and curses, not loud but deep; and with that Bangs turned and hurried up the path and around to the side porch, where the family and Captain Charlton were sitting. He was greeted politely, and invited to take a seat among them; but his arrival seemed to act as a damper upon the whole party; conversation flagged, and presently there was dead silence for a moment. It was broken by Bangs.