“Not that I recollect,” answered Hartley; “but your Excellency has hit upon his name.”
“That is odd enough—Certainly you said something about Middlemas?” replied General Witherington.
“I mentioned the name of the town,” said Hartley.
“Ay, and I caught it up as the name of the recruit—I was indeed occupied at the moment by my anxiety about my wife. But this Middlemas, since such is his name, is a wild young fellow, I suppose?”
“I should do him wrong to say so, your Excellency. He may have had his follies like other young men; but his conduct has, so far as I know, been respectable; but, considering we lived in the same house, we were not very intimate.”
“That is bad—I should have liked him—that is—it would have been happy for him to have had a friend like you. But I suppose you studied too hard for him. He would be a soldier, ha?—Is he good-looking?”
“Remarkably so,” replied Hartley; “and has a very prepossessing manner.”
“Is his complexion dark or fair?” asked the General.
“Rather uncommonly dark,” said Hartley,—“darker, if I may use the freedom, than your Excellency's.”
“Nay, then, he must be a black ouzel, indeed!—Does he understand languages?”