The salutations were returned and then, seated around the tea-table that was placed near the immense bow-window, the master of Lanyan requested his guest to pronounce the blessing. The squire, who was seated beside Mistress Betty, perhaps designedly, who knows, for that lady had not given up the custom of angling, proceeded according to his usual custom.
"We thank thee——Oh! zounds and the devil!"
The latter part was like the explosion of a battery of artillery, and with reason. Mistress Betty's lap-dog, an unsightly brute, deeming himself insulted by the proximity of the squire, or perhaps jealous of his mistress' attentions to another—like many a human rejected suitor filled with vengeful spleen, or perhaps—kept waiting for his dinner—and seeing a fat limb much larger than the usual chicken leg near him, he decided to forage for himself. Whatever reason he had within him, the results were the same, for he fastened his teeth most vindictively in the squire's nankeen trowsers. Human nature was not proof against such an assault, and the victim gave vent to the above startling and most unseemly expression. He leaped up from the table, slapping and rubbing the affected part to relieve the pain.
The young Etonian had a grin on his generally calm countenance. Captain Tom with more zeal than wisdom grasped the poker and shoved it through the bars of the grate, saying that they had best have the wound cauterised at once. Sir James was profuse in apologies and Mistress Betty, much vexed, hurried the snarling brute into the library.
"This is out—outrageous," faltered the squire, in the midst of his pain; "such a savage brute, I wonder why you don't have him killed, Sir James."
"Cruel man, to abuse poor Cæsar so," said Mistress Betty, with a flash of the eye.
"Zounds, madam," replied the squire, but he went no further. His inherent courtesy to ladies, and the ap pearance of Captain Tom with the hot poker, caused him to beat a hasty retreat to the table.
With a smile of anguish he sat down, saying, "It is nothing, madam, nothing, Captain Tom—I do assure you—no need of cauterising—the pain has already gone."
Captain Tom very reluctantly replaced the poker, and soon they were all seated, chatting merrily, as if nothing had happened. The squire, occasionally slipping his hand beneath the table and giving the smarting limb a soothing rub, talked as cheerfully as the rest.
"And you won't stand for re-election," said the squire to Sir James.