of wind.'
'Let me point out,' said he, 'that you have made the lady run barefoot at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.'
'But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,' replied Wogan triumphantly.
'That hardly betters the matter,' returned Scrope. 'For in that case her feet might be bare but they would certainly not be snowy.'
He stooped down as he spoke and drew from under the seat a bottle of wine, which he opened.
'This,' he said, 'may help us to consider the poem in a more charitable light.'
He gave Wogan the bottle to hold, and stooping once more fetched out a couple of glasses. Then he held one in each hand.
'Now will you fill them?' he said. Wogan poured out the wine and while pouring it:
'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the conversation.'
Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again to the glasses.
'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.
They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.
'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.
Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.
'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'
'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.
'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's petticoats.'
'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied his glass.
'No shoes and stockings and no petticoats,' said he in a shocked voice. 'It is well you wrote a poem about her instead of painting her portrait,' and he filled Wogan's glass again, and added a little to his own, which was no more than half empty.
'Don't you comprehend, my friend,' exclaimed Wogan, 'that Smilinda's a nymph, an ancient Roman nymph?'
'Oh, she's a nymph!'
'Yes, and so wears no clothes but a sort of linsey-wolsey garment kirtled up to her knees.'
'Well, let that pass. But here's a line I view with profound discontent. "The grass will all its prickles hide." Thistles have prickles, Mr. Wogan, but the grass has blades like you and me; only, unlike you and me, it has no scabbards to sheathe them in.'
'Well,' said Wogan, 'but that's very wittily said,' and he laughed and chuckled.
'It is not bad, upon my faith,' replied Scrope. 'Let us drink to it in full glasses.'
He emptied the bottle into Wogan's glass and tossed it into the road.
'Now here's something more. The wind, you observe, makes lutestrings of Smilinda's hair.'
'There is little fault to be discovered in that image, I fancy,' said Wogan, lifting his glass to his lips with a smile.
'It is a whimsical image,' replied Scrope. 'It is as much as to call her hair catgut.'
Wogan was startled by the criticism. He sat up and scratched his nose.
'Well, I had not thought of that,' he said. He was somewhat crestfallen, and he looked to his glass for consolation. The glass was empty; he looked on to the road where the empty bottle rolled in the dust.
'I have its fellow,' said Scrope, interpreting Wogan's glance. He produced a second bottle from the same place. The second bottle brought them to the end of the verse. There was, however, a little discussion over the last line, and a third bottle was broached to assist.
'"At least that is what I expect." It is a very vile line, Mr. Wogan.'
'It is, perhaps, not so good as the others,' Wogan admitted. 'But you must blame the necessities of rhyming.'
'But the art of the poet is to conceal such necessities,' answered Scrope. 'And observe, Mr. Wogan, you sacrifice a great deal here to get an accurate rhyme, but in the remaining two lines of the next verse you do not trouble your head about a rhyme at all.'
'Oh, let me see that!' said Wogan, holding out a hand for the paper. He had clean forgotten by this time what those two lines described.
'Allegiance, Mr. Wogan,' said Scrope, politely handing him the verses, 'is no rhyme to obedience.'
'Allegiance—obedience—obedience—allegiance,' repeated Wogan as clearly as he could. 'Nay, I think it's a very good rhyme.'
'Oh!' exclaimed Scrope in a sudden comprehension. 'If you tell me the verses are conceived in the Irish dialect, I have not another word to say.'
Now Mr. Wogan, as a rule, was a little touchy on the subject of his accent. But at this moment he had the better part of three bottles of admirable Florence wine under his belt and was so disposed to see great humour in any remark. He grew uproarious over Mr. Scrope's witticism.
'Sure, but that's the most delicate jest I have heard for months,' he cried. 'Conceived in the Irish dialect! Ho! Ho! I must tell it at the Cocoa Tree—though it hits at me,' and he stood up in the chaise. 'Obedience—allegiance.' Mr. Scrope steadied him by the elbow. 'Faith, Mr. Scrope, but you and I must have another crack one of these days.' He put a foot out on the step of the chaise. 'I love a man that has some warmth in his merriment—and some warmth in his bottle too.' He stepped out of the chaise on to the ground. 'The best Florence I have tasted—the best joke I have heard—the Irish dialect. Ha, ha!' and he waved a hand at Scrope. Scrope called quickly to the coachman; the next instant the chaise started off at a gallop.
Wogan was left standing in the road, shouting his laughter. When the coach chaise was some thirty yards away, however, his laughter stopped completely. He rubbed his hand once or twice over his bemused forehead.
'Stop!' he yelled suddenly, and began to run after the chaise. Scrope stood up and spoke to the driver. The horses slackened their pace until Wogan got within twenty yards of it. Then Scrope spoke again, and the coachman drove the horses just as fast as Wogan was running.
'You have forgotten something, my friend,' cries Wogan.
'And what's that?' asked Scrope pleasantly, leaning over the back of the chaise.
'You have forgotten the duel.'
'No,' shouted Scrope with a grimace. 'It is you that forgot that.'
'Ah, you cheese-curd!—you white-livered coward!' cried Wogan, 'and I taking you for a fine man—equal to myself—you chalky cheese-curd!' He quickened his pace; Scrope called to the coachman; the coachman whipped up his horses. 'Oh wait a bit till I come up with you. I'll eat you in your clothes.'
Wogan bounded along the road, screaming out every vile epithet he could lay his tongue to in the heat of the moment. His hat and wig fell off on the road; he did not stop, but ran on bareheaded.
'But listen, the enamoured air
Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair,'
quoted Scrope, rubbing his hands with delight. Wogan's fury redoubled, he stripped off his coat and ran till the road grew dizzy and the air flashed sparks at him. But the chaise kept ever at the same distance. With this interval of twenty yards between them, chaise and Wogan dashed through the tiny street of Brampton Bryan. A horde of little boys tumbled out of the doors and ran at Wogan's heels. The more he cursed and raved, the more the little boys shouted and yelled. Scrope in the chaise shook with laughter, clapped his hands as if in commendation of Wogan's powers, and encouraged him to greater efforts. They passed out of the village; the children gave up the pursuit, and sent a few parting stones after