“Why, no, sir: your cousin would have sent me to the right-about within a week of his succession. Still, I own to you that he offended something at least as deep as self-interest: the sight and scent of him habitually turned my gorge: whereas”—and he inclined to me with a dry smile—“your unwisdom at least was amiable, and—in short, sir, though you can be infernally provoking, it has been a pleasure to serve you.”
You may be sure that this did not lessen my contrition. We reached London late that night; and here Mr. Romaine took leave of us. Business waited for him at Amersham Place. After a few hours’ sleep, Rowley woke me to choose between two post-boys in blue jackets and white hats, and two in buff jackets and black hats, who were competing for the honour of conveying us as far as Barnet: and having decided in favour of the blue and white, and solaced the buff and black with a pourboire, we pushed forward once more.
We were now upon the Great North Road, along which the York mail rolled its steady ten miles an hour to the wafted music of the guard’s bugle; a rate of speed which to the more Dorian mood of Mr. Rowley’s flageolet, I proposed to better by one-fifth. But first, having restored the lad to his old seat beside me, I must cross-question him upon his adventures in Edinburgh, and the latest news of Flora and her aunt, Mr. Robbie, Mrs. McRankine, and the rest of my friends. It came out that Mr. Rowley’s surrender to my dear girl had been both instantaneous and complete. “She is a floorer, Mr. Anne. I suppose now, sir, you’ll be standing up for that knock-me-down kind of thing?”
“Explain yourself, my lad.”
“Beg your pardon, sir, what they call love at first sight.” He wore an ingenuous blush and an expression at once shy and insinuating.
“The poets, Rowley, are on my side.”
“Mrs. McRankine, sir——”
“The Queen of Navarre, Mr. Rowley——”
But he so far forgot himself as to interrupt. “It took Mrs. McRankine years, sir, to get used to her first husband. She told me so.”