第139章

Here Mr Drummle looked at his boots, and I looked at mine, and then Mr Drummle looked at my boots, and I looked at his.

`Have you been here long?' I asked, determined not to yield an inch of the fire.

`Long enough to be tired of it,' returned Drummle, pretending to yawn, but equally determined.

`Do you stay here long?'

`Can't say,' answered Mr Drummle. `Do you?'

`Can't say,' said I.

I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr Drummle's shoulder had claimed another hair's breadth of room, I should have jerked him into the window; equally, that if my own shoulder had urged a similar claim, Mr Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He whistled a little.

So did I.

`Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?' said Drummle.

`Yes. What of that?' said I.

Mr Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then said, `Oh!'

and laughed.

`Are you amused, Mr Drummle?'

`No,' said he, `not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the saddle.

I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses - and smithies - and that. Waiter!'

`Yes, sir.'

`Is that horse of mine ready?'

`Brought round to the door, sir.'

`I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won't ride to-day; the weather won't do.'

`Very good, sir.'

`And I don't dine, because I'm going to dine at the lady's.'

`Very good, sir.'

Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph on his great-jowled face that cut me to the heart, dull as he was, and so exasperated me, that I felt inclined to take him in my arms (as the robber in the story-book is said to have taken the old lady), and seat him on the fire.

One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that until relief came, neither of us could relinquish the fire. There was stood, well squared up before it, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with our hands behind us, not budging an inch. The horse was visible outside in the drizzle at the door, my breakfast was put on table, Drummle's was cleared away, the waiter invited me to begin, I nodded, we both stood our ground.

`Have you been to the Grove since?' said Drummle.

`No,' said I, `I had quite enough of the Finches the last time I was there.'

`Was that when we had a difference of opinion?'

`Yes,' I replied, very shortly.

`Come, come! They let you off easily enough,' sneered Drummle. `You shouldn't have lost your temper.'

`Mr Drummle,' said I, `you are not competent to give advice on that subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit having done so on that occasion), I don't throw glasses.'

`I do,' said Drummle.

Again glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state of smouldering ferocity, I said:

`Mr Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don't think it an agreeable one.'

`I am sure it's not,' said he, superciliously over his shoulder; `Idon't think anything about it.'

`And therefore,' I went on, `with your leave, I will suggest that we hold no kind of communication in future.'

`Quite my opinion,' said Drummle, `and what I should have suggested myself, or done - more likely - without suggesting. But don't lose your temper. Haven't you lost enough without that?'

`What do you mean, sir?'

`Wai-ter!,' said Drummle, by way of answering me.

The waiter reappeared.

`Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don't ride to-day, and that I dine at the young lady's?'

`Quite so, sir!'

When the waiter had felt my fast cooling tea-pot with the palm of his hand, and had looked imploringly at me, and had gone out, Drummle, careful not to move the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket and bit the end off, but showed no sign of stirring. Choking and boiling as I was, I felt that we could not go a word further, without introducing Estella's name, which I could not endure to hear him utter; and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if there were no one present, and forced myself to silence. How long we might have remained in this ridiculous position it is impossible to say, but for the incursion of three thriving farmers - laid on by the waiter, I think - who came into the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and rubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we were obliged to give way.

I saw him through the window, seizing his horse's mane, and mounting in his blundering brutal manner, and sidling and backing away. I thought he was gone, when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in his mouth, which he had forgotten. A man in a dustcoloured dress appeared with what was wanted - I could not have said from where: whether from the inn yard, or the street, or where not - and as Drummle leaned down from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his head towards the coffee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged hair of this man, whose back was towards me, reminded me of Orlick.

Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were he or no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather and the journey from my face and hands, and went out to the memorable old house that it would have been so much the better for me never to have entered, never to have seen.