第59章

'Because of anything! Stop and face it, whatever it is.'

'Just so;--but I can't stop and face her.It would do no good.

For all our sakes I should be better away.I can get shooting with Musgrave and Carnegie in Perthshire.I dare say I shall go there, and take a share with them.'

'That's better than going into all quarters of the globe.'

'I didn't mean that I was to surrender and start at once.You take a fellow up so short.I shall do very well, I've no doubt, and shall be hunting here as jolly as ever at Christmas.But a fellow must say it all to somebody.' The elder brother put his hand out and laid it affectionately upon the younger one's arm.

'I'm not going to whimper about the world like a whipped dog.

The worst of it is so many people have known of this.'

'You mean down here.'

'Oh;--everywhere.I have never told them.It has been a kind of family affair and thought to be fit for general discussions.'

'That'll wear away.'

'In the meantime, it's a bore.But that shall be the end of it.

Don't you say another word to me about it, and I won't to you.

And tell mother not to, or Sarah.' Sarah was John Fletcher's wife.'It has got to be dropped, and let us drop it as quickly as we can.If she does marry this man, I don't suppose she'll be much at Longbarns or Wharton.'

'Not at Longbarns certainly, I should say,' replied John.'Fancy mother having to curtsey to her as Mrs Lopez! And I doubt whether Sir Alured would like him.He isn't of our sort.He's too clever, too cosmopolitan,--a sort of man whitewashed of all prejudices, who wouldn't mind whether he ate horseflesh or beef if horseflesh were as good as beef, and never had on any occasion in his life.I'm not sure that he's not on the safest side.

Good-night, old fellow.Pluck up, and send us plenty of grouse if you do go to Scotland.'

John Fletcher, as I hope may have been already seen, was by no means a weak man or an indifferent brother.He was warm-hearted, sharp-witted, and though perhaps a little self-opinionated, considered throughout the county to be one of the most prudent in it.Indeed no one ever ventured to doubt his wisdom on all practical matters,--save his mother, who seeing him almost every day, had a stronger bias towards her younger son.'Arthur has been hit hard about that girl,' he said to his wife that night.

'Emily Wharton?'

'Yes;--your cousin Emily.Don't say anything to him, but be as good to him as you know how.'

'Good to Arthur! Am I not always good to him?'

'Be a little more than usually tender with him.It makes one almost cry to see such a fellow hurt like that.I can understand it, though I never had anything of it myself.'

'You never had, John,' said the wife leaning close upon the husband's breast as she spoke.'It all came very easily to you;--too easily perhaps.'

'If any girl had refused me, I should have taken her at her word.

I can tell you.There would have been no second "hop" to that ball.'

'Then I suppose I was right to catch it the first time?'

'I don't say how that may be.'

'I was right.Oh, dear me!--Suppose I had doubted, just for once, and you had gone off.You should have tried once more,--wouldn't you?'

'You'd have gone about it like a broken-winged old hen, and have softened me in that way.'

'And now Arthur has had his wing broken.'

'You mustn't let on to know it's broken, and the wing will be healed in due time.But what fools girls are!'

'Indeed they are, John,--particularly me.'

'Fancy a girl like Emily Wharton,' said he, not condescending to notice her little joke, 'throwing herself over a fellow like Arthur for a greasy, black foreigner.'

'A foreigner!'

'Yes,--a man named Lopez.Don't say anything about it at present.Won't she live to find out the difference, and to know what she has done! I can tell her of one who won't pity her.'