“You must confess yourself in the wrong here, Hector,” said his uncle, “although I know no man less willing to give up an argument; but you were in England at the time, and Mr. Lovel was probably concerned in the affair.”
“I am speaking to a military man, then?” said M’Intyre; “may I inquire to what regiment Mr. Lovel belongs?”—Mr. Lovel gave him the number of the regiment. “It happens strangely that we should never have met before, Mr. Lovel. I know your regiment very well, and have served along with them at different times.”
A blush crossed Lovel’s countenance. “I have not lately been with my regiment,” he replied; “I served the last campaign upon the staff of General Sir——.”
“Indeed! that is more wonderful than the other circumstance!—for although I did not serve with General Sir——, yet I had an opportunity of knowing the names of the officers who held situations in his family, and I cannot recollect that of Lovel.”
At this observation Lovel again blushed so deeply as to attract the attention of the whole company, while, a scornful laugh seemed to indicate Captain M’Intyre’s triumph. “There is something strange in this,” said Oldbuck to himself; “but I will not readily give up my phoenix of post-chaise companions—all his actions, language, and bearing, are those of a gentleman.”
Lovel in the meanwhile had taken out his pocket-book, and selecting a letter, from which he took off the envelope, he handed it to Mlntyre. “You know the General’s hand, in all probability—I own I ought not to show these exaggerated expressions of his regard and esteem for me.” The letter contained a very handsome compliment from the officer in question for some military service lately performed. Captain M’Intyre, as he glanced his eye over it, could not deny that it was written in the General’s hand, but drily observed, as he returned it, that the address was wanting. “The address, Captain M’Intyre,” answered Lovel, in the same tone, “shall be at your service whenever you choose to inquire after it!”
“I certainly shall not fail to do so,” rejoined the soldier.
“Come, come,” exclaimed Oldbuck, “what is the meaning of all this? Have we got Hiren here?—We’ll have no swaggering youngsters. Are you come from the wars abroad, to stir up domestic strife in our peaceful land? Are you like bull-dog puppies, forsooth, that when the bull, poor fellow, is removed from the ring, fall to brawl among themselves, worry each other, and bite honest folk’s shins that are standing by?”
Sir Arthur trusted, he said, the young gentlemen would not so far forget themselves as to grow warm upon such a trifling subject as the back of a letter.
Both the disputants disclaimed any such intention, and, with high colour and flashing eyes, protested they were never so cool in their lives. But an obvious damp was cast over the party;—they talked in future too much by the rule to be sociable, and Lovel, conceiving himself the object of cold and suspicious looks from the rest of the company, and sensible that his indirect replies had given them permission to entertain strange opinions respecting him, made a gallant determination to sacrifice the pleasure he had proposed in spending the day at Knockwinnock.