"Nothing like early rising for planting the roses in your cheeks—and if that argument," said he to himself, "won't make a young woman bundle herself from under the bed-clothes, I don't know what will." And then he walked on to the room in which Frank had slept, and which was the adjoining one to Vernon's, he began to drum away upon the door there; calling out, at the same time—"Come, Frank—Mr Trevelyan—if you intend to have a view of the sea before breakfast, as you proposed last evening, it's high time you should be up and stirring."
"I'm up and stirred already, sir," said Frank, popping his head out of the adjoining room door.
"Yes; you're up to any thing, I see," said the squire, good-humouredly extending his hand to his guest, as he entered the room; "and how's my patient this morning?" he continued, advancing towards the bed. "Ah!" he said, having felt Vernon's pulse, "just as I hoped, and indeed fully expected—you couldn't possibly be doing better; a little—very little care for a day or two, is all you seem to require. I looked in before this morning to see how you were getting on, and found you snoring away so comfortably, that, judging all was as it should be, I wouldn't disturb you with my inquiries."
"Snoring!" repeated Vernon, in alarmed surprise, looking exceedingly disconcerted, and doubting almost whether he had heard aright.
"Ay, snoring," resumed the squire; "but never mind that, my hearty fellow—the best men snore sometimes, take my word for it; and, I dare say, it wasn't loud enough to disturb the young ladies. It was pretty loud, though, I must confess; but still I think it could hardly reach so far, particularly when your door was shut."
"But I found it wide open," observed Frank, by no means ill-amused to see how annoyed his companion was at the conviction of having snored, and the possibility of such sounds having reached the ears of one so lovely. Oh, how Vernon longed to hurl his pillow, or even any harder missile within his reach, at the saucy little fellow's head who was looking so provokingly pleased with his distress, and which the presence of the squire alone restrained him from making a left-handed attempt at, for his right was, as we before mentioned, disabled for the present by his late accident. But Vernon was too good a judge to attempt any thing of the kind, or show any exhibition of displeasure before his kind entertainer who, telling him he must act as his doctor, having, as he said, been bred to, and practised for several years in the medical profession, examined into the state of his sprains and bruises, and told him he would soon be all right again, but that he must be content to spend a few hours longer in bed, where his breakfast of gruel should be sent up to him; and then, accompanied by Frank, he took his departure.
The old gentleman, however, gave the ladies a fresh hail as he passed by their bedroom door, to which two or three voices replied simultaneously, but in tones far less musical than Frank expected; and it seemed to him very different from what he had heard from the fair equestrians of the preceding day, when they kindly expressed their hopes that the sprawling poet had received no injury from his tumble.
"Ah! I see how it is," thought he to himself; "these pretty creatures, like too many of their sex, have a couple of tones to their voices—one for home, and the other for company. There's one-half of my admiration gone already." But wishing, at the same time, to put the best construction he could upon the matter, he tried to persuade himself that they must have taken cold, poor things! in consequence of having been caught in the heavy shower of the preceding day; and this it was which had caused the hoarseness of their voices. "I have known it have that effect before now on other people," he thought, "and why might not the same happen to these fair damsels; who, though lovely as angels, can scarcely escape from 'all the ills that flesh is heir to,' amongst which a cold, attended with hoarseness, can hardly be reckoned the worst?"