If Cashel was scarcely pleased at the allusions to himself in this speech, he speedily forgave them in his amusement at the commentary Simms passed on life at the villa; but yet would willingly have turned from either theme to that most engrossing one,--the circumstances of his altered fortune. Simms, however, was above such grovelling subjects; and, as he sat, glass in hand, gazing out upon the garden, where strolling parties came and went, and loitering groups lingered in the shade, he really fancied the scene a perfect paradise.
"Very hard to leave this, you'll find it!" exclaimed Simms. "I can well imagine life here must be rare fun. How jolly they do seem down there!" said he, with a half-longing look at the strange figures, who now and then favored him with a salute or a gesture of the hand, as they passed.
"Come, let us join them," said Cashel, who, despairing of recalling him to the wished-for topic, was fain to consent to indulge the stranger's humor.
"All naval men?" asked Simms, as they issued forth into the lawn.
"Most of them are sailors!" said Cashel, equivocating.
"That's a fine-looking old fellow beneath the beech-tree, with the long Turkish pipe in his mouth. He's captain of a seventy-four, I take it."
"He's a Greek merchantman," whispered Cashel; "don't look so hard at him, for he observes you, and is somewhat irascible in temper, if stared at."
"No matter, do as I tell you; he stabbed a travelling artist the other day, who fancied he was a fine study, and wished to make a drawing of his head."
Simms's jaw dropped suddenly, and a sickly faintness stole over him, that even all his late potations could not supply courage enough to hear such a story unmoved.
"And who is he, sir, yonder?" asked he, as a youth, with no other clothing than a shirt and trousers, was fencing against a tree, practising, by bounds and springs, every imaginable species of attack and assault.
"A young Spaniard from the Basque," said Cashel, coolly; "he has a duel to-morrow with some fellow in Barcelonetta, and he 's getting his wrist into play." Then calling out, he said, "Ah, José, you mean to let blood, I see!"
"He's only a student," said the youth, with an insolent toss of his head. "But who have we here?"