“Tut, tut, man!” the knight said.  “I speak only for the lad’s good, and I am sure that you cannot but feel the truth of what I have said.  What does Alured want to make enemies for?  It may be that it was only my son who openly resented his ill-timed remarks, but you may be sure that others were equally displeased, and maybe their resentment will last much longer than that which was quenched in a fair stand-up fight.  Certainly, there need be no malice between the boys.  Alured’s defeat may even do him good, for he cannot but feel that it is somewhat disgraceful to be beaten by one nearly a head shorter than he.”

“There is, no doubt, something in what you say, Sir Marmaduke,” John Dormay said blandly, “and I will make it my business that, should the boys meet again as antagonists, Alured shall be able to give a better account of himself.”

“He is a disagreeable fellow,” Sir Marmaduke said to himself, as he watched John Dormay ride slowly away through the park, “and, if it were not that he is husband to my cousin Celia, I would have nought to do with him.  She is my only kinswoman, and, were aught to happen to Charlie, that lout, her son, would be the heir of Lynnwood.  I should never rest quiet in my grave, were a Whig master here.

“I would much rather that he had spoken wrathfully, when I straightly gave him my opinion of the boy, who is growing up an ill-conditioned cub.  It would have been more honest.  I hate to see a man smile, when I know that he would fain swear.  I like my cousin Celia, and I like her little daughter Ciceley, who takes after her, and not after John Dormay; but I would that the fellow lived on the other side of England.  He is out of his place here, and, though men do not speak against him in my presence, knowing that he is a sort of kinsman, I have never heard one say a good word for him.

“It is not only because he is a Whig.  There are other Whig gentry in the neighbourhood, against whom I bear no ill will, and can meet at a social board in friendship.  It would be hard if politics were to stand between neighbours.  It is Dormay’s manner that is against him.  If he were anyone but Celia’s husband, I would say that he is a smooth-faced knave, though I altogether lack proof of my words, beyond that he has added half a dozen farms to his estate, and, in each case, there were complaints that, although there was nothing contrary to the law, it was by sharp practice that he obtained possession, lending money freely in order to build houses and fences and drains, and then, directly a pinch came, demanding the return of his advance.