ordering his horse to be brought round
quickly, prepared to take a lengthened ride into the country.
Before the horse could be saddled, however, a servant announced Lord
Sherbrooke, and the next moment the son of the Earl of Byerdale entered
the room. There was something in the name that sounded familiar in the
ears of Wilton Brown, he could not tell why. He almost expected to see
a familiar face present itself at the open door; for so little had been
the communication between himself and the Earl of Byerdale, that he had
never known till that morning that the Earl had a son, nor ever heard
the second title of the family before. He received his visitor, however,
with pleasure, not exactly for the young nobleman's own sake, but rather
on account of the letters and messages which he had promised from the
Earl of Sunbury.
Lord Sherbrooke was now dressed as might well become a man of rank in
his day; with a certain spice of foppery in his apparel, indeed, and
with a slight difference in the fashion and materials of his clothes
from those ordinarily worn in England, which might just mark, to an
observing eye, that they had been made in a foreign country.
His demeanour was much more calm and sedate than it had been in the
morning; and sitting down, he began by a reproach to Wilton, for having
gone away without waiting to see him again.
"The fact is, my lord," replied Wilton, "that the Earl, though he did
not absolutely send me away, gave me such an intimation to depart, that
I could not well avoid it."
"It strikes me, Wilton," said Lord Sherbrooke, familiarly, "that my
father is treating you extremely ill; Lord Sunbury gave me a hint of the
kind, when I saw him in Rome; and I see that he said even less than the
truth."
"I have no right to complain, my lord," answered Wilton, after pausing
for a moment to master some very painful emotions--"I have no reason to
complain, my lord, of conduct that I voluntarily endure."
"Very well answered, Wilton!" replied the young lord, "but not
logically, my good friend. Every gentleman has a right to expect
gentlemanly treatment. He has a right to complain if he does not meet
with that which he has a right to expect; and he does not bar himself of
that right of complaint, because any circumstances render it expedient
or right for him not to resist the ill-treatment at which he murmurs.
However, it is more to your honour that you do not complain; but I know
my father well, and, of course, amongst a great many high qualiti