‘Be it so--I only warn you that if you get into any scrape I’ll accept none of the consequences. Lord Danesbury is ready enough to say that, because I am some ten years older than you, I should have kept you out of mischief. I never contracted for such a bear-leadership; though I certainly told Lady Maude I’d turn Queen’s evidence against you if you became a traitor.’ ‘I wonder you never told me that before,’ said Walpole, with some irritation of manner. ‘I only wonder that I told it now!’ replied the other gruffly. ‘Then I am to take it, that in your office of guardian, you’d rather we’d decline this invitation, eh?’ ‘I don’t care a rush for it either way, but, looking to the sort of day it is out there, I incline to keep the house.’ ‘I don’t mind bad weather, and I’ll go,’ said Walpole, in a way that showed temper was involved in the resolution. Lockwood made no other reply than heaping a quantity of turf on the fire, and seating himself beside it. When a man tells his fellow-traveller that he means to go his own road--that companionship has no tie upon him--he virtually declares the partnership dissolved; and while Lockwood sat reflecting over this, he was also canvassing with himself how far he might have been to blame in provoking this hasty resolution. ‘Perhaps he was irritated at my counsels, perhaps the notion of anything like guidance offended him; perhaps it was the phrase, “bear-leadership,” and the half-threat of betraying him, has done the mischief.’ Now the gallant soldier was a slow thinker; it took him a deal of time to arrange the details of any matter in his mind, and when he tried to muster his ideas there were many which would not answer the call, and of those which came, there were not a few which seemed to present themselves in a refractory and unwilling spirit, so that he had almost to suppress a mutiny before he proceeded to his inspection. Nor did the strong cheroots, which he smoked to clear his faculties and develop his mental resources, always contribute to this end, though their soothing influence certainly helped to make him more satisfied with his judgments. ‘Now, look here, Walpole,’ said he, determining that he would save himself all unnecessary labour of thought by throwing the burden of the case on the respondent--‘Look here; take a calm view of this thing, and see if it’s quite wise in you to go back into trammels it cost you some trouble to escape from. You call it spooning, but you won’t deny you went very far with that young woman--farther, I suspect, than you’ve told me yet. Eh! is that true or not?’