Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 06Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 06
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
"Give yourself no trouble in the matter; it will do no good.
Marriages are made in heaven. Heaven's will be done. If I can get
away I will run down to you for a day or two. Perhaps in that case
you can ask Lady Glenalvon. I like her, and she likes Kenelm. Have
you finished? I see the brougham is at the door, and we have to call
at your hotel to take up your carpet-bag."
Mivers was deliberately sealing his notes while he thus spoke. He now
rang for his servant, gave orders for their delivery, and then
followed Sir Peter down stairs and into the brougham. Not a word
would he say more about Gordon, and Sir Peter shrank from telling him
about the L20,000. Chillingly Mivers was perhaps the last person to
whom Sir Peter would be tempted to parade an act of generosity.
Mivers might not unfrequently do a generous act himself, provided it
was not divulged; but he had always a sneer for the generosity of
others.
CHAPTER II.
WANDERING back towards Moleswich, Kenelm found himself a little before
sunset on the banks of the garrulous brook, almost opposite to the
house inhabited by Lily Mordaunt. He stood long and silently by the
grassy margin, his dark shadow falling over the stream, broken into
fragments by the eddy and strife of waves, fresh from their leap down
the neighbouring waterfall. His eyes rested on the house and the
garden lawn in the front. The upper windows were open. "I wonder
which is hers," he said to himself. At last he caught a glimpse of
the gardener, bending over a flower border with his watering-pot, and
then moving slowly through the little shrubbery, no doubt to his own
cottage. Now the lawn was solitary, save that a couple of thrushes
dropped suddenly on the sward.
"Good evening, sir," said a voice. "A capital spot for trout this."
Kenelm turned his head, and beheld on the footpath, just behind him, a
respectable elderly man, apparently of the class of a small retail
tradesman, with a fishing-rod in his hand and a basket belted to his
side.
"For trout," replied Kenelm; "I dare say. A strangely attractive spot
indeed."
"Are you an angler, sir, if I may make bold to inquire?" asked the
elderly man, somewhat perhaps puzzled as to the rank of the stranger;
noticing, on the one hand, his dress and his mien, on the other, slung
to his shoulders, the worn and shabby knapsack which Kenelm had
carried, at home and abroad, the preceding year.
"Ay, I am an angler."
"Then this is the best place in the whole stream. Look, sir, there is
Izaak Walton's summer-house; and further down you see that white,
neat-looking house. Well, that is my house, sir, and I have an
apartment which I let to gentleman anglers. It is generally occupied
throughout the summer months. I expect every day to have a letter to
engage it, but it is vacant now. A very nice apartment,
sir,--sitting-room and bedroom."
"/Descende ceolo, et dic age tibia/," said Kenelm.
"Sir?" said the elderly man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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