“What is the matter with you now?” said the Antiquary, “riding to and fro as your neck were upon the wager—why do you not keep up with the carriage?”
“I forgot my glove, sir,” said Hector.
“Forgot your glove!—I presume you meant to say you went to throw it down—But I will take order with you, my young gentleman—you shall return with me this night to Monkbarns.” So saying, he bid the postilion go on.
CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
—If you fail Honour here,
Never presume to serve her any more;
Bid farewell to the integrity of armes;
And the honourable name of soldier
Fall from you, like a shivered wreath of laurel
By thunder struck from a desertlesse forehead.
A Faire Quarrell.
Early the next morning, a gentleman came to wait upon Mr. Lovel, who was up and ready to receive him. He was a military gentleman, a friend of Captain M’Intyre’s, at present in Fairport on the recruiting service. Lovel and he were slightly known to each other. “I presume, sir,” said Mr. Lesley (such was the name of the visitor), “that you guess the occasion of my troubling you so early?”
“A message from Captain M’Intyre, I presume?”
“The same. He holds himself injured by the manner in which you declined yesterday to answer certain inquiries which he conceived himself entitled to make respecting a gentleman whom he found in intimate society with his family.”
“May I ask, if you, Mr. Lesley, would have inclined to satisfy interrogatories so haughtily and unceremoniously put to you?”