“Nothing,” answered Jekyl, “except that he seemed to know much more of your affairs than you would wish or are aware of. He smoked the truth of the rencontre betwixt Tyrrel and you, and what is worse—I must needs confess the truth—he contrived to wring out of me a sort of confirmation of his suspicions.”
“'Slife! wert thou mad?” said Lord Etherington, turning pale; “His is the very tongue to send the story through the whole country—Hal, you have undone me.”
“I hope not,” said Jekyl; “I trust in Heaven I have not!—His knowledge is quite general—only that there was some scuffle between you—Do not look so dismayed about it, or I will e'en go back and cut his throat, to secure his secrecy.”
“Cursed indiscretion!” answered the Earl—“how could you let him fix on you at all?”
“I cannot tell,” said Jekyl—“he has powers of boring beyond ten of the dullest of all possible doctors—stuck like a limpet to a rock—a perfect double of the Old Man of the Sea, who I take to have been the greatest bore on record.”
“Could you not have turned him on his back like a turtle, and left him there?” said Lord Etherington.
“And had an ounce of lead in my body for my pains? No—no—we have already had footpad work enough—I promise you the old buck was armed, as if he meant to bing folks on the low toby.”[8]
“Well—well—But Martigny, or Tyrrel, as you call him—what says he?”
“Why, Tyrrel, or Martigny, as your lordship calls him,” answered Jekyl, “will by no means listen to your lordship's proposition. He will not consent that Miss Mowbray's happiness shall be placed in your lordship's keeping; nay, it did not meet his approbation a bit the more, when I hinted at the acknowledgment of the marriage, or the repetition of the ceremony, attended by an immediate separation, which I thought I might venture to propose.”
“And on what grounds does he refuse so reasonable an accommodation?” said Lord Etherington—“Does he still seek to marry the girl himself?”