"Why, yes! I intend stopping here for the night; and, Barnard, get me some mulled port, will you, lots of spice, and hot as the Devil."
"Yes, sir," said the Butler, with a slight shudder at the profanity. By the time I had roused the slumbering fire into a blaze, the house steward, an old retainer, entered with the wine, and respectfully congratulated me on my recovery; a few mutual enquiries followed, during which I could not help smiling to myself at the formal tone I felt compelled to adopt towards the grave old man who had known my boyhood; nothing would be too familiar with Mrs. O'Toole, but the stern Saxon nature demands a degree of reserve in their superiors, and would resent any freedom as something derogatory to both. The coldness between English masters and servants is quite as much the fault of the latter as the former, and so it must be while the Anglo-Saxon race exists; anything demonstrative is terribly out of place with them. Il ne faut jamais faire agir un homme dans un sens different de son caractère.
"My Lord takes the chair at a meeting of the Society for converting the Jews at—— to-day, sir, but he will return to dinner," said my informant, as he made his parting bow and retired.
"Heaven send my worthy brother may follow up the object of the meeting by converting Messrs. Levi and Co. from creditors into non-claimants, as well as all the other errors of their ways," was my mental ejaculation as I betook myself to the Record and its advertisements for pious footmen, and not sober, but serious cooks, as an escape from my own thoughts.
Egerton returned to dinner, bringing with him two sleek white neckcloth'd straight-haired gentlemen; "the deputation," he informed me, from the "Parent Society."
My brother received me very graciously, and remarking that I still looked indifferent after my illness, regretted I was not in time to attend the meeting to hear the reverend "somebody" hold forth. "Captain Egerton," said he, during one of the pauses in our repast, noticing, perhaps, something of carnal impatience in the glances of the Reverend J. E. Black towards the door, for the appearance of the next entrée, "Captain Egerton has been, and is quartered at Carrington; did you not reside there, or in its neighbourhood?"
"Yes, my Lord," replied the son of the "Parent Society;" "I had for some time a wide field of labour at A——."
This individual was a tall man, inclined to embonpoint, with heavy features, a large hooked nose, a thick sensual under lip, and a tuft of straight coarse hair at each side of his face.
"At A——," said I, glad to exchange a word with any one about a place so endeared to me; "I was there two days ago. Did you know a Mr. Winter, of Abbey Gardens? I am indebted to the kindness and care of him and his wife for my existence."
"Under Providence," he suggested, in a mild sugary voice, which, with a perpetual placid smile, characterised the revd. gentleman; his manner, too, was extremely courteous, almost well-bred, though one could not help perceiving a something lurking below, like the odour of cigars, when you endeavour to overpower it with mille fleurs or eau de miel.