beg your pardon for spoiling your story,’ said Guy; but it was my fault, so I was obliged to interfere.’
‘Bosh!’ said Charles. ‘Who cares whether she smoked one or twenty? She is Mrs. Brownlow still.’
The point is, what was truth?’ said Laura.
‘Straining at gnats,’ said Charles.
‘Little wings?’ said Guy, glancing at Amabel.
‘Have it your won way,’ said Charles, throwing his head back; ‘they must be little souls, indeed that stick at such trash.’
Guy’s brows were contracted with vexation, but Laura looked up very prettily, saying—
‘Never mind him. We must all honour you for doing such an unpleasant thing.’
‘You will recommend him favourably to Philip,’ growled Charles.
There was no reply, and presently Guy asked whether he would go up to dress? Having no other way of showing his displeasure, he refused, and remained nursing his ill-humour, till he forgot how slight the offence had been, and worked himself into a sort of insane desire—half mischievous, half revengeful—to be as provoking as he could in his turn.
Seldom had he been more contrary, as his old nurse was wont to call it. No one could please him, and Guy was not allowed to do anything for him. Whatever he said was intended to rub on some sore place in Guy’s mind. His mother and Laura’s signs made him worse, for he had the pleasure of teasing them, also; but Guy endured it all with perfect temper, and he grew more cross at his failure; yet, from force of habit, at bed-time, he found himself on the stairs with Guy’s arm supporting him.
‘Good night,’ said Charles; ‘I tried hard to poke up the lion to-night, but I see it won’t do.’
This plea of trying experiments was neither absolutely true nor false; but it restored Charles to himself, by saving a confession that he had been out of temper, and enabling him to treat with him wonted indifference the expostulations of father, mother, and Laura.
Now that the idea of ‘poking up the lion’ had once occurred, it became his great occupation to attempt it. He wanted to see some evidence of the fiery temper, and it was a new sport to try to rouse it; one, too, which had the greater relish, as it kept the rest of the family on thorns.
He would argue against his real opinion, talk against his better sense, take the wrong side, and say much that was very far from his true sentiments. Guy could not understand at first, and was quite confounded at some of the views he espoused, till Laura came to his help, greatly irritating her brother by hints that he was not in earnest. Next time she could speak to Guy alone, she told him he must not take all Charles said literally.
‘I thought he could hardly mean it: but why should he talk so?’
‘I can’t excuse him; I know it is very wrong, and at the expense of truth, and it is very disagreeable of him—I wish he would not; but he always does what he likes, and it is one of his amusements, so we must bear with him, poor fellow.’
From that time Guy seemed to have no trouble in reining in his temper in arguing with Charles, except once, when the lion was fairly roused by something that sounded like a sneer about King Charles I.
His whole face changed, his hazel eye gleamed with light like an eagle’s, and he started up, exclaiming—
‘You did not mean that?’
‘Ask Strafford,’ answered Charles, coolly, startled, but satisfied to have found the vulnerable point.
‘Ungenerous, unmanly,’ said Guy, his voice low, but quivering with indignation; ‘ungenerous to reproach him with what he so bitterly repented. Could not his penitence, could not his own blood’—but as he spoke, the gleam of wrath faded, the flush deepened on the cheek, and he left the room.
‘Ha!’ soliloquized Charles, ‘I’ve done it! I could fancy his wrath something terrific when it was once well up. I didn’t know what was coming next; but I believe he has got himself pretty well in hand. It is playing with edge tools; and now I have been favoured with one flash of the Morville eye, I’ll let him alone; but it ryled me to be treated as something beneath his anger, like a woman or a child.’
In about ten minutes, Guy came back: ‘I am sorry that I was hasty just now,’ said he.
‘I did not know you had such personal feelings about King Charles.’
‘If you would do me a kindness,’ proceeded Guy, ‘you would just say you did not mean it. I know you do not, but if you would only say so.’
‘I am glad you have the wit to see I have too much taste to be a roundhead.’
‘Thank you,’ said Guy; ‘I hope I shall know your jest from your earnest another time. Only if you would oblige me, you would never jest again about King Charles.’
His brow darkened into a stern, grave expression, so entirely in earnest, that Charles, though making no answer, could not do otherwise than feel compliance unavoidable. Charles had never been so entirely conquered, yet, strange to say, he was not, as usual, rendered sullen.
At night, when Guy had taken him to his room, he paused and said—‘You are sure that you have forgiven me?’
‘What! You have not forgotten that yet?’ said Charles.
‘Of course not.’
‘I am sorry you bear so much malice,’ said Charles, smiling.
‘What are you imagining?’ cried Guy. ‘It was my own part I was remembering, as I must, you know.’
Charles did not choose to betray that he did not see the necessity.
‘I thought King Charles’s wrongs were rankling. I only spoke as taking liberties with a friend.’
‘Yes,’ said Guy, thoughtfully, ‘it may be foolish, but I do not feel as if one could do so with King Charles. He is too near home; he suffered to much from scoffs and railings; his heart was too tender, his repentance too deep for his friends to add one word even in jest to the heap of reproach. How one would have loved him!’ proceeded Guy, wrapped up in his own thoughts—‘loved him for the gentleness so little accordant with the rude times and the part he had to act—served him with half like a knight’s devotion to his lady-love, half like devotion to a saint, as Montrose did—
‘Great, good, and just, could I but rate
My grief, and thy too rigid fate,
I’d weep the world in such a strain,
As it should deluge once again.’
‘And, oh!’ cried he, with sudden vehemence, ‘how one would have fought for him!’
‘You would!’ said Charles. ‘I should like to see you and Deloraine charging at the head of Prince Rupert’s troopers.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Guy, suddenly recalled, and colouring deeply; ‘I believe I forgot where I was, and have treated you to one of my old dreams in my boatings at home. You may quiz me as much as you please tomorrow. Good night.’
‘It was a rhapsody!’ thought Charles; ‘yes it was. I wonder I don’t laugh at it; but I was naturally carried along. Fancy that! He did it so naturally; in fact, it was all from the bottom of his heart, and I could not quiz him—no, no more than Montrose himself. He is a strange article! But he keeps one awake, which is more than most people do!’
Guy was indeed likely to keep every one awake just then; for Mr. Edmonstone was going to take him out hunting for the first time, and he was half wild about it. The day came, and half an hour before Mr. Edmonstone was ready, Guy was walking about the hall, checking many an incipient whistle, and telling every one that he was beforehand with the world, for he had read one extra hour yesterday, and had got through