“I suppose,” returned Barbara—and it savoured of the savage Lestrange sometimes called her—“you will be ordering the nightingales not to sing in your apple-trees next!”
“I don't understand you!”
“Neither do you understand Mr. Tuke, or you would not speak to him that way!”
She rose and walked to the door, but turned as she went, and added—
“He was repeating the loveliest poem I ever heard—The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.—I didn't know there could be such a poem!” she added simply.
“It is not one I care about. But you need not take it second-hand from Tuke: I will lend it you.”
“Thank you!” said Barbara, in a tone which was not of gratitude, and left the room.
Lestrange stood for a moment, but finding nothing suitable to say, turned and followed her, while Richard bit his lip to keep himself silent. He knew, if he spoke, there would be an end; and he did not want this to be his last sight of the wonderful creature!
Barbara went to the door with the intention of going to the stables for Miss Brown and galloping straight home. But she bethought herself that so she might seem to be ashamed. She was not Arthur's guest! He had been insolent to her friend, who had done more for her already than ever Arthur was likely to do, but that was no reason why she should run away from him—just the contrary! She would like to punish him for it somehow!—not shoot him, for she would not kill a pigeon, and to kill a man would be worse, though he wasn't so nice as a pigeon!—but she would like—yes, she would like to give him just three good cuts across the shoulders with her new riding-whip! What right had he to speak so to his superior! By being a true workman, Mr. Tuke was a gentleman! Could Arthur Lestrange have talked like that? Could he have spoken the poetry like that? The bookbinder was worth a hundred of him! Could Arthur shoe a horse? What if the working man were to turn out the real lord of the creation, and the gentleman have to black his boots! There was something like it in the gospel!
She did not know that in general the working man is as foolish and unfit as the rich man; that he only wants to be rich, and trample on his own past. The working man may perish like the two hundred of the crew, and the rich man may be saved like the Ancient Mariner!