Nance entered the yard somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, was polishing a curb-chain wit sand; the lantern at his feet letting up spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conical roof was peppered.
‘Hey, miss,’ said he jocularly, ‘you won’t look at me any more, now you have gentry at the castle.’
Her cheeks burned with anger.
‘That’s my lord’s chay,’ the man continued, nodding at the chaise, ‘Lord Windermoor’s. Came all in a fluster—dinner, bowl of punch, and put the horses to. For all the world like a runaway match, my dear—bar the bride. He brought Mr. Archer in the chay with him.’
‘Is that Holdaway?’ cried the landlord from the lighted entry, where he stood shading his eyes.
‘Only me, sir,’ answered Nance.
‘O, you, Miss Nance,’ he said. ‘Well, come in quick, my pretty. My lord is waiting for your uncle.’
And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot and lighted by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, for in that second she made sure that she had twice betrayed herself—betrayed by the involuntary flash of her black eyes her secret impatience to behold this new companion, and, what was far worse, betrayed her disappointment in the realisation of her dreams. He, meanwhile, as if unconscious, continued to regard her with unmoved decorum.
‘O, a man of wood,’ thought Nance.
‘What—what?’ said his lordship. ‘Who is this?’