It was the
inordinate length of this service at such a time of night that had
driven old Lord Fareborough to the verge of madness.
"Look at me!" he said to Lionel, in tones of deep and bitter
indignation. "Look at me--a skeleton--a wreck of a human being, who can
only get along by the most careful nursing of his nervous system. My
heart is affected; I have serious doubts about the state of my lungs? it
is only through the most assiduous nursing of my nerves that
I exist at all. And what is more maddening than enforced
restraint--imprisonment--no chance of leaving the room, with all those
strange servants at the door; why, God bless my soul, I call it an
outrage! I yield to no one in respect for the cloth, whether it is worn
by a Presbyterian, or a Catholic, or one of my own church; but I say
that no one has a right to thrust religious services down my throat!
What the devil did Cunyngham mean by asking him to stay to dinner at
all?"
"As I understand it," said Lionel, with a becoming diffidence, "it was
some suggestion of Captain Waveney's. He said the Free Church ministers
were particular friends of the crofters--and of course the good-will of
the crofters is of importance to a shooting-tenant--"
"The good-will of the crofters!" the bewigged old nobleman broke in,
impatiently.
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