'Very cold indeed, your Grace,--very cold.' The Duke had intended to pass on, but the Major managed to stop him by standing in the pathway.The Major did not in the least know his man.He had heard the Duke was shy, and therefore thought that he was timid.He had not hitherto been spoken to by the Duke,--a condition of things which he attributed to the Duke's shyness and timidity.But, with much thought on the subject, he had resolved that he would have a few words with his host, and had therefore passed backwards and forwards between the house and the stables rather frequently.'Very cold indeed, but yet we've had beautiful weather.I don't know when I have enjoyed myself so much altogether as I have at Gatherum Castle.' The Duke bowed, and made a little but a vain effort to get on.'A splendid pile!' said the Major, stretching his hand gracefully towards the building.
'It's a big house,' said the Duke.
'A noble mansion;--perhaps the noblest mansion in the three kingdoms,' said Major Pountney.'I have seen a great many of the best country residences in England, but nothing that at all equals Gatherum.' Then the Duke made a little effort at progression, but was still stopped by the daring Major.'By-the-by, your Grace, if your Grace has a few minutes to spare,--just a half a minute,--I wish you would allow me to say something.'
The Duke assumed a look of disturbance, but he bowed and walked on, allowing the Major to walk by his side.'I have the greatest possible desire, my Lord Duke, to enter public life.'
'I thought you were already in the army,' said the Duke.
'So I am,--was on Sir Bartholomew Bone's staff in Canada for two years, and have seen as much of what I call home service as any man going.One of my chief objects is to take up the army.'
'I seems that you have taken it up.'
'I mean in Parliament, your Grace.I am very fairly off as regards private means, and would stand all the racket of the expense of a contest myself,--if there were one.But the difficulty is to get a seat, and, of course, if it can be privately managed, it is very comfortable.' The Duke looked at him again,--this time without bowing.But the Major, who was not observant, rushed on to his destruction.'We all know that Silverbridge will soon be vacant.Let me assure your Grace that if it might be consistent with your Grace's plans in other respects to turn your kind countenance towards me, you would find that you have a supporter than whom none would be more staunch, and perhaps I may say one who in the House would not be the least useful!' That portion of the Major's speech which referred to the Duke's kind countenance had been learned by heart, and was thrown trippingly off the tongue with a kind of twang.The Major perceived that he had not been at once interrupted when he began to open the budget of political aspirations, and had allowed himself to indulge in pleasing auguries.'Nothing ask and nothing have,' had been adopted as the motto of his life, and more than once he had expressed to Captain Gunner his conviction that,--'By George, if you've only cheek enough, there is nothing you cannot get.' On this emergency the Major certainly was not deficient in cheek.'If I might be allowed to consider myself as your Grace's candidate, I should indeed be a happy man,' said the Major.
'I think, sir,' said the Duke, 'that your proposition is the most unbecoming and the most impertinent that ever was addressed to me.' The Major's mouth fell, and he stared with all his eyes as he looked up into the Duke's face.'Good afternoon,' said the Duke, turning quickly round and walking away.The Major stood for while transfixed to the place, and cold as was the weather, was bathed in perspiration.A keen sense of having 'put his foot in it' almost crushed him for a time.Then he assured himself that, after all, the Duke 'could not eat him', and with that consolatory reflection he crept back to the house and up to his room.
