Lady Newstead accepted the invitation, and they moved over to a position nearer their hostess, who, with the aid of the head of the house and the younger branches of the family, was ably discharging her manifold duties.
Just then Mr. Banneret, whose ordinarily calm manner seemed to have acquired an accession of gaiety from the influence of the scene, had been explaining to Lady Woods, who, recently arrived from Perth, had assumed her well-known character of ‘the life and soul of the party,’ how delighted he and his wife were to find so many old friends able to keep high festival with them this day.
‘If I could (borrowing a joke from the “Goldfields Act and Regulations,” which I used to know by heart) obtain a Booth License to dispense wines and spirits, I should be inclined to call this the “Inn of Strange Meetings”—inasmuch as the number of friends and acquaintances who have “come up” from the Under World, as Tennyson hath it, is like an army with banners. Not only from the inmost deserts, but—and here’ (his face changing suddenly as he spoke) ‘comes one from the grave itself.’
With these words he hailed a tall man sauntering past, who, dressed in the height of the reigning race-course fashion, in no respect diverging from the canon of ‘good form’ in raiment or otherwise, bore yet an exceptional and striking personality.
A Maori response immediately followed, as the person addressed, drawing himself up, bent a pair of stern blue eyes upon his interlocutor, while Arnold Banneret, whose expression was compounded in almost equal parts of welcome and wonder, fear and amazement, gazed anxiously upon the stranger’s countenance. The new-comer was tall, considerably indeed above the height of men ordinarily thus described, though his broad chest and athletic frame caused his unusual height to be less apparent. His bronzed cheek was traversed by a scar, ‘a token true of Bosworth Field,’ or other engagement, where shrewd blows had been exchanged.
‘Glad to see you again,’ said the host. ‘Waiter, bring Captain—Captain——’
‘Bucklaw,’ interposed the stranger guest—‘been back to the old place.’
‘Of course, of course, quite natural!’ continued his entertainer; ‘bring Captain Bucklaw champagne.’