Sir Peter was too astonished, for a moment or two, to speak. The whole thing had fallen upon him like the shock of an earthquake. But in a little while he recovered his voice, and all of his voice, too; he shouted as if he were on the bridge of the Ajax, with a whole gale blowing, and the enemy in sight.
“Do!” he shrieked. “What shall I do? Bread and water, miss, for six months! Discipline, miss!” And much more of the same sort.
This roused Lady Hawkshaw to take our part. She shouted back at Sir Peter; and I, not to be outdone, shouted that Daphne was mine, and I was hers, as long as life should last; and presently Sir Peter flung out, in a royal rage, and Lady Hawkshaw flung after him; and Daphne sank, in tears, on my shoulder, and I kissed her a hundred times, and comforted her. But I knew Sir Peter was a determined man, in some respects; and I felt assured he would shortly carry out his threat to send me to sea, and, once at sea, it might be years before I should again set foot in England. Scotland, then, sounded sweetly in our ears. I found, in truth, that when it came actually to going off, Daphne’s romantic willingness changed to a natural hesitation at so bold a step. But the near prospect of going to the Bellona turned the scale in my favor, and I won from her a sort of oblique consent. And another thing seemed to play directly into our hands. Sir Peter had business at Scarborough, which might detain him some time; and, although it was late in the autumn, he determined to take his family with him. I believe it was by way of separating Daphne and me that he came to the decision. Lady Hawkshaw was to go, and his two wards; and they were to remain a month. This was so obviously showing us the road across the border, that I told my sweet Daphne, plainly, I should carry her off; at which she wept more, and protested less, than I had yet seen her.
In the whole affair, I had counted upon the assistance of Giles Vernon; and on the very night the party left for Scarborough, after a tearful farewell between Daphne and me, I went to Giles’ lodgings, to make a clean breast of it.
Giles’ voice called me up stairs; and when I reached his room, there, spread out on the bed, I saw a beautiful suit of brown and silver.
“Do you see that?” cried Giles. “That is my wedding suit. For it I spent fifty of the last hundred pounds I had in the world, and it is to marry Lady Arabella Stormont that I bought it.”
I thought he was crazy, but I soon perceived there was method in his madness. He told me seriously enough that he meant to carry off Lady Arabella Stormont from Scarborough.
“But—but—she does not like you,” I said, hesitating and amazed.
“We shall see about that, my lad,” he said, and then began to tell me of what he thought a great change in his favor with Arabella. He put many trifling things which I had not noted in such a light that under his eloquent persuasion I began to believe Lady Arabella really might have a secret weakness for him, which pride prevented her from discovering. He had never failed to win any woman’s regard yet; and it had always seemed a miracle to me, Richard Glyn, who had fallen under his spell so many years ago, how anybody could resist him. He wound up his argument by saying, in his usual confident manner,—
“Trust me, there is something compelling in the love I feel for Arabella. Women are all alike, my boy. They want a master. Once put the bit in their mouths, and they adore you for it. Let me have the spirit to run away with that adorable creature, and see how quickly she will come to my call. You will shortly see her clinging to me like peaches to a southern wall.”