"But Sir Walter Scott--I suppose Mr. Lydgate knows him," said young
Plymdale, a little cheered by this advantage.
"Oh, I read no literature now," said Lydgate, shutting the book, and
pushing it away. "I read so much when I was a lad, that I suppose it
will last me all my life. I used to know Scott's poems by heart."
"I should like to know when you left off," said Rosamond, "because then
I might be sure that I knew something which you did not know."
"Mr. Lydgate would say that was not worth knowing," said Mr. Ned,
purposely caustic.
"On the contrary," said Lydgate, showing no smart; but smiling with
exasperating confidence at Rosamond. "It would be worth knowing by the
fact that Miss Vincy could tell it me."
Young Plymdale soon went to look at the whist-playing, thinking that
Lydgate was one of the most conceited, unpleasant fellows it had ever
been his ill-fortune to meet.
"How rash you are!" said Rosamond, inwardly delighted. "Do you see
that you have given offence?"
"What! is it Mr. Plymdale's book? I am sorry. I didn't think about
it."
"I shall begin to admit what you said of yourself when you first came
here--that you are a bear, and want teaching by the birds."
"Well, there is a bird who can teach me what she will. Don't I listen
to her willingly?"
To Rosamond it seemed as if she and Lydgate were as good as engaged.
That they were some time to be engaged had long been an idea in her
mind; and ideas, we know, tend to a more solid kind of existence, the
necessary materials being at hand. It is true, Lydgate had the
counter-idea of remaining unengaged; but this was a mere negative, a
shadow cast by other resolves which themselves were capable of
shrinking. Circumstance was almost sure to be on the side of
Rosamond's idea, which had a shaping activity and looked through
watchful blue eyes, whereas Lydgate's lay blind and unconcerned as a
jelly-fish which gets melted without knowing it.
That evening when he went home, he looked at his phials to see how a
process of maceration was going on, with undisturbed interest; and he
wrote out his daily notes with as much precision as usual. The
reveries from which it was difficult for him to detach himself were
ideal constructions of something else than Rosamond's virtues, and the
primitive tissue was still his fair unknown. Moreover, he was
beginning to feel some zest for the growing though half-suppressed feud
between him and the other medical men, which was likely to become more
manifest, now that Bulstrode's method of managing the new hospital was
about to be declared; and there were various inspiriting signs that his
non-acceptance by some of Peacock's patients might be counterbalanced
by the impression he had produced in other quarters. Only a few days
later, when he had happened to overtake Rosamond on the Lowick road and
had got down from his horse to walk by her side until he had quite
protected her from a passing drove, he had been stopped by a servant on
horseback with a message calling him in to a house of some importance
where Peacock had never attended; and it was the second instance of
this kind. The servant was Sir James Chettam's, and the house was
Lowick Manor.