"I can meet him or any man in England," replied the youth. "If there's any awkwardness about it, it sha'n't be on my side."
"Noo, John Chatterton, my young friend, I'm going to say some words to you that ye'll no like. Ye're very vain o' yoursel'—but maybe at your time o' life it's not a very great fault to have a decent bump o' self-conceit; you're the best-hearted, most honourable-minded, pleasantest lad I know any where, and very like some nephews of my own in the Company's service: ye'll be a baronet when your father dies, and as rich as a Jew. But oh, John Chatterton, ye're an ass—a reg'lar donkey, as a body may say, to get into tiffs of passion, and send back a beautiful girl's letters, because some land-louping vagabond on the top of a coach told you some report or other about a Mr Smith"—
"Captain Smith," said Chatterton, biting his lips; "he's a well known man; he was an ensign in this very regiment, succeeded to a large fortune, and retired: he's a very old man."
"He's very fine fellow, and as gallant a soldier as ever lived," answered the major; "and if you think that a man of six or seven-and-thirty is ow'r auld to marry, by my troth, Mister Chatterton, I tak' the liberty to tell you that you labour under a very considerable mistake."
Chatterton looked at the irate face of his companion, in which the crow-feet of forty years were distinctly visible, and perceived that he had gone on a wrong tack.
"Well, but then, major, what the deuce right had she to marry without giving me notice of her intentions?"
"Set ye up, and push ye forrit!—marry come up! as a body may say—who made you the young lassie's guardian? If you were really engaged to her, why didn't you go to Oakside at once and find out the truth, and then go instantaneously and kick the fellow you met on the top of the coach, round and round the barrack yard, till there was not enough of him left to plant your boot on?"
The young man looked down as if a little ashamed of himself.
"Never mind, major," said he, "it can't be helped now; so do, like a good fellow, go and find out the little rascal who insulted me so horribly just now. It would be an immense satisfaction to pull his nose with a regulation glove on."
"But you must describe him, and tell me his name, for it would be a sad occurrence if I were to give your message to the wrong man."