Lord Ormont and His Aminta — Volume 5 — John Shaqi
Lord Ormont and His Aminta — Volume 5Meredith, George
General
Lord Ormont and His Aminta — Volume 5
Meredith, George
English fiction -- 19th century
'My lord, I should venture to say the kind of man can be a common
annoyance because the breach of the law is countenanced.'
'Bad laws are best broken. A society that can't get a scouring now and
then will be a dirty set.'
With a bend of the head, in apology for speaking of himself, Weyburn
said: 'I have acted on my view. I declined a challenge from a sort of
henchman of his.'
'Oh! a poacher's lurcher? You did right. Fight such fellows with
constables. You have seen Lady Charlotte?'
'I am on my way to her ladyship.'
'Do me this favour. Fourteen doors up the street of her residence, my
physician lives. I have to consult him at once. Dr. Rewkes.'
Weyburn bowed. Lady Charlotte could not receive him later than half-past
ten of the morning, he said. 'This morning she can,' said my lord. 'You
will tell Dr. Rewkes that it is immediate. I rather regret your going.
I shall be in a controversy with the Horse Guards about our cavalry
saddles. It would be regiments of raw backs the first fortnight of a
campaign.'
The earl discoursed on saddles; and passed to high eulogy of our
Hanoverian auxiliary troopers in the Peninsula; 'good husbands,' he named
them quaintly, speaking of their management of their beasts. Thence he
diverged to Frederic's cavalry, rarely matched for shrewdness and
endurance; to the deeds of the Liechtenstein Hussars; to the great
things Blucher did with his horsemen.
The subject was interesting; but Weyburn saw the clock at past the half
after ten. He gave a slight sign of restiveness, and was allowed to go
when the earl had finished his pro and con upon Arab horses and Mameluke
saddles. Lord Ormont nicked his head, just as at their first interview:
he was known to have an objection to the English shaking of hands.
'Good-morning,' he said; adding a remark or two, of which et cetera may
stand for an explicit rendering. It concerned the young man's
prosperity: my lord's conservative plain sense was in doubt of the
prospering of a giddy pate, however good a worker. His last look at the
young man, who had not served him badly, held an anticipation of possibly
some day seeing a tatterdemalion of shipwreck, a rueful exhibition of
ideas put to the business of life.
Weyburn left the message with Dr. Rewkes in person. It had not seemed
to him that Lord Ormont was one requiring the immediate attendance of a
physician. By way of accounting to Lady Charlotte for the lateness of
his call, he mentioned the summons he had delivered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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