Lord Castlewood shrank back quite frightened at this cold reception of his august master.
“What does he say?” asked Harry.
“His Majesty thinks they play too high at White's, and is displeased,” whispered the nobleman.
“If he does not want us, we had better not come again, that is all,” said Harry, simply. “I never, somehow, considered that German fellow a real King of England.”
“Hush! for Heaven's sake, hold your confounded colonial tongue!” cries out my lord. “Don't you see the walls here have ears!”
“And what then?” asks Mr. Warrington. “Why, look at the people! Hang me, if it is not quite a curiosity! They were all shaking hands with me, and bowing to me, and flattering me just now; and at present they avoid me as if I were the plague!”
“Shake hands, nephew,” said a broad-faced, broad-shouldered gentleman, in a scarlet-laced waistcoat, and a great old-fashioned wig. “I heard what you said. I have ears like the wall, look you. And, now, if other people show you the cold shoulder, I'll give you my hand;” and so saying, the gentleman put out a great brown hand, with which he grasped Harry's. “Something of my brother about your eyes and face. Though I suppose in your island you grow more wiry and thin like. I am thine uncle, child. My name is Sir Miles Warrington. My lord knows me well enough.”
My lord looked very frightened and yellow. “Yes, my dear Harry. This is your paternal uncle, Sir Miles Warrington.”
“Might as well have come to see us in Norfolk, as dangle about playing the fool at Tunbridge Wells, Mr. Warrington, or Mr. Esmond,—which do you call yourself?” said the Baronet. “The old lady calls herself Madam Esmond, don't she?”
“My mother is not ashamed of her father's name, nor am I, uncle,” said Mr. Harry, rather proudly.