John, A Love Story; vol. 1 of 2Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
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John, A Love Story; vol. 1 of 2
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Fiction; Love stories
“You would enjoy that,” said Dr Mitford. “Downy is sure to be there
from Oxford, and I should not wonder if he gave a lecture on it. He is
one of the very great guns. He understands more about it than almost
any man in England, I must say, to do him justice. But almost is not
all, my dear Miss Crediton; and when you see a man setting himself
up for an authority in presence of others who----” Here the Doctor
stopped, and laughed a conscious complacent laugh; by which Kate
perceived that Dr Mitford himself was a greater authority still, or at
least thought he was.
“It is very funny,” said Kate, “but I shall be better off going with
you than if I had half-a-dozen archæological societies. I feel quite
sure of that.”
“Well, well, we must not brag,” said Dr Mitford, waving his white hand
softly. “This camp, you must know, was one of the camps of Agricola,
which he made on his journey northwards. It is constructed----”
And so the narrative went on. Kate kept looking up at him with her
bright eyes, and said yes, and said no, and made herself very
agreeable; but I cannot undertake to say that she was much the better
for it. In the first place, she took no interest whatever in Roman
camps, and then she had a good deal on her mind. What was John about
all this time? Why did not he manage to get into the phaeton in his
father’s place, and drive her? If the horse had not been the meekest
and most long-suffering of animals, Kate felt that there must have
been another running away, and another accident. And her recent
experience had made her nervous. When she had received an immense deal
of information about the _castrum_ which she was going with so
little enthusiasm to visit, she suddenly caught a glimpse of a group of
turrets among the trees, and gave a start, which made Dr Mitford and
his horse swerve aside, and shook the hood of the phaeton so that it
nearly descended upon the party, burying them alive.
“Oh, there is Westbrook, where the Huntleys live!” cried Kate. “I beg
your pardon, Dr Mitford, I am sure. Mrs Mitford said we were to call.
Don’t you think we had better go now, in case they should be out?
There was a message, you know, that you were to give.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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