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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4489-0.txt b/4489-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7ce2bd --- /dev/null +++ b/4489-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3330 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4489 *** + +CELT AND SAXON + +By George Meredith + +1910. + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK 1. +I. WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND +II. MR. ADISTER +III. CAROLINE +IV. THE PRINCESS +V. AT THE PIANOS CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC +VI. A CONSULTATION: WITH OPINIONS UPON WELSH WOMEN AND THE CAMBRIAN + RACE +VII. THE MINIATURE +VIII. CAPTAIN CON AND MRS. ADISTER O'DONNELL +IX. THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN +X. THE BROTHERS +XI. INTRODUCING A NEW CHARACTER + +BOOK 2. +XII. MISS MATTOCK +XIII. THE DINNER-PARTY +XIV. OF ROCKNEY +XV. THE MATTOCK FAMILY +XVI. OF THE GREAT MR. BULL AND THE CELTIC AND SAXON VIEW OF HIM: + AND SOMETHING OF RICHARD ROCKNEY +XVII. CROSSING THE RUBICON +XVIII. CAPTAIN CON'S LETTER +X1X. MARS CONVALESCENT + + + +CELT AND SAXON + + +BOOK 1. + +I. WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND +II. MR. ADISTER +III. CAROLINE +IV. THE PRINCESS +V. AT THE PIANOS CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC +VI. A CONSULTATION: WITH OPINIONS UPON WELSH WOMEN AND THE CAMBRIAN + RACE +VII. THE MINIATURE +VIII. CAPTAIN CON AND MRS. ADISTER O'DONNELL +IX. THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN +X. THE BROTHERS +XI. INTRODUCING A NEW CHARACTER + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND + +A young Irish gentleman of the numerous clan O'Donnells, and a Patrick, +hardly a distinction of him until we know him, had bound himself, by +purchase of a railway-ticket, to travel direct to the borders of North +Wales, on a visit to a notable landowner of those marches, the Squire +Adister, whose family-seat was where the hills begin to lift and spy into +the heart of black mountains. Examining his ticket with an apparent +curiosity, the son of a greener island debated whether it would not be +better for him to follow his inclinations, now that he had gone so far as +to pay for the journey, and stay. But his inclinations were also subject +to question, upon his considering that he had expended pounds English for +the privilege of making the journey in this very train. He asked himself +earnestly what was the nature of the power which forced him to do it--a +bad genius or a good: and it seemed to him a sort of answer, inasmuch as +it silenced the contending parties, that he had been the victim of an +impetus. True; still his present position involved a certain outlay of +money simply, not at all his bondage to the instrument it had procured +for him, and that was true; nevertheless, to buy a ticket to shy it away +is an incident so uncommon, that if we can but pause to dwell on the +singularity of the act, we are unlikely to abjure our fellowship with +them who would not be guilty of it; and therefore, by the aid of his +reflections and a remainder of the impetus, Mr. Patrick O'Donnell stepped +into a carriage of the train like any ordinary English traveller, between +whom and his destination there is an agreement to meet if they can. + +It is an experience of hesitating minds, be they Saxon or others, that +when we have submitted our persons to the charge of public companies, +immediately, as if the renouncing of our independence into their hands +had given us a taste of a will of our own, we are eager for the +performance of their contract to do what we are only half inclined to; +the train cannot go fast enough to please us, though we could excuse it +for breaking down; stoppages at stations are impertinences, and the +delivery of us at last on the platform is an astonishment, for it is not +we who have done it--we have not even desired it. To be imperfectly in +accord with the velocity precipitating us upon a certain point, is to be +going without our heads, which have so much the habit of supposing it +must be whither we intend, when we go in a determined manner, that a, +doubt of it distracts the understanding--decapitates us; suddenly to +alight, moreover, and find ourselves dropped at the heels of flying Time, +like an unconsidered bundle, is anything but a reconstruction of the +edifice. The natural revelry of the blood in speed suffers a violent +shock, not to speak of our notion of being left behind, quite isolated +and unsound. Or, if you insist, the condition shall be said to belong +exclusively to Celtic nature, seeing that it had been drawn directly from +a scion of one of those tribes. + +Young Patrick jumped from the train as headless as good St. Denis. He +was a juvenile thinker, and to discover himself here, where he both +wished and wished not to be, now deeming the negative sternly in the +ascendant, flicked his imagination with awe of the influence of the +railway service upon the destinies of man. Settling a mental debate +about a backward flight, he drove across the land so foreign to his eyes +and affections, and breasted a strong tide of wishes that it were in a +contrary direction. He would rather have looked upon the desert under a +sand-storm, or upon a London suburb yet he looked thirstingly. Each +variation of landscape of the curved highway offered him in a moment +decisive features: he fitted them to a story he knew: the whole circle +was animated by a couple of pale mounted figures beneath no happy light. +For this was the air once breathed by Adiante Adister, his elder brother +Philip's love and lost love: here she had been to Philip flame along the +hill-ridges, his rose-world in the dust-world, the saintly in his +earthly. And how had she rewarded him for that reverential love of her? +She had forborne to kill him. The bitter sylph of the mountain lures men +to climb till she winds them in vapour and leaves them groping, innocent +of the red crags below. The delicate thing had not picked his bones: +Patrick admitted it; he had seen his brother hale and stout not long +back. But oh! she was merciless, she was a witch. If ever queen-witch +was, she was the crowned one! + +For a personal proof, now: he had her all round him in a strange district +though he had never cast eye on her. Yonder bare hill she came racing up +with a plume in the wind: she was over the long brown moor, look where he +would: and vividly was she beside the hurrying beck where it made edges +and chattered white. He had not seen, he could not imagine her face: +angelic dashed with demon beauty, was his idea of the woman, and there is +little of a portrait in that; but he was of a world where the elemental +is more individual than the concrete, and unconceived of sight she was a +recognised presence for the green-island brain of a youth whose manner of +hating was to conjure her spirit from the air and let fly his own in +pursuit of her. + +It has to be stated that the object of the youngster's expedition to +Earlsfont was perfectly simple in his mind, however much it went against +his nature to perform. it. He came for the purpose of obtaining Miss +Adister's Continental address; to gather what he could of her from her +relatives, and then forthwith to proceed in search of her, that he might +plead with her on behalf of his brother Philip, after a four years' +division of the lovers. Could anything be simpler? He had familiarised +himself with the thought of his advocacy during those four years. His +reluctance to come would have been accountable to the Adisters by a +sentiment of shame at his family's dealings with theirs: in fact, a +military captain of the O'Donnells had in old days played the adventurer +and charmed a maid of a certain age into yielding her hand to him; and +the lady was the squire of Earlsfont's only sister: she possessed funded +property. Shortly after the union, as one that has achieved the goal of +enterprise, the gallant officer retired from the service nor did north- +western England put much to his credit the declaration of his wife's +pronouncing him to be the best of husbands. She naturally said it of him +in eulogy; his own relatives accepted it in some contempt, mixed with a +relish of his hospitality: his wife's were constant in citing his gain by +the marriage. Could he possibly have been less than that? they +exclaimed. An excellent husband, who might easily have been less than +that, he was the most devoted of cousins, and the liberal expenditure of +his native eloquence for the furtherance of Philip's love-suit was the +principal cause of the misfortune, if misfortune it could subsequently be +called to lose an Adiante. + +The Adister family were not gifted to read into the heart of a young man +of a fanciful turn. Patrick had not a thought of shame devolving on him +from a kinsman that had shot at a mark and hit it. Who sees the shame of +taking an apple from a garden of the Hesperides? And as England +cultivates those golden, if sometimes wrinkled, fruits, it would have +seemed to him, in thinking about it, an entirely lucky thing for the +finder; while a question of blood would have fired his veins to rival +heat of self-assertion, very loftily towering: there were Kings in +Ireland: cry for one of them in Uladh and you will hear his name, and he +has descendants yet! But the youth was not disposed unnecessarily to +blazon his princeliness. He kept it in modest reserve, as common +gentlemen keep their physical strength. His reluctance to look on +Earlsfont sprang from the same source as unacknowledged craving to see +the place, which had precipitated him thus far upon his road: he had a +horror of scenes where a faithless girl had betrayed her lover. Love was +his visionary temple, and his idea of love was the solitary light in it, +painfully susceptible to coldair currents from the stories of love abroad +over the world. Faithlessness he conceived to be obnoxious to nature; it +stained the earth and was excommunicated; there could be no pardon of the +crime, barely any for repentance. He conceived it in the feminine; for +men are not those holy creatures whose conduct strikes on the soul with +direct edge: a faithless man is but a general villain or funny monster, a +subject rejected of poets, taking no hue in the flat chronicle of +history: but a faithless woman, how shall we speak of her! Women, +sacredly endowed with beauty and the wonderful vibrating note about the +very mention of them, are criminal to hideousness when they betray. Cry, +False! on them, and there is an instant echo of bleeding males in many +circles, like the poor quavering flute-howl of transformed beasts, which +at some remembering touch bewail their higher state. Those women are +sovereignly attractive, too, loathsomely. Therein you may detect the +fiend. + +Our moralist had for some time been glancing at a broad, handsome old +country mansion on the top of a wooded hill backed by a swarm of mountain +heads all purple-dark under clouds flying thick to shallow, as from a +brush of sepia. The dim silver of half-lighted lakewater shot along +below the terrace. He knew the kind of sky, having oftener seen that +than any other, and he knew the house before it was named to him and he +had flung a discolouring thought across it. He contemplated it placably +and studiously, perhaps because the shower-folding armies of the fields +above likened its shadowed stillness to that of his Irish home. There +had this woman lived! At the name of Earlsfont she became this witch, +snake, deception. Earlsfont was the title and summary of her black +story: the reverberation of the word shook up all the chapters to pour +out their poison. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MR. ADISTER + +Mr. Patrick O'Donnell drove up to the gates of Earlsfont notwithstanding +these emotions, upon which light matter it is the habit of men of his +blood too much to brood; though it is for our better future to have a +capacity for them, and the insensible race is the oxenish. + +But if he did so when alone, the second man residing in the Celt put that +fellow by and at once assumed the social character on his being requested +to follow his card into Mr. Adister's library. He took his impression of +the hall that had heard her voice, the stairs she had descended, the door +she had passed through, and the globes she had perchance laid hand on, +and the old mappemonde, and the severely-shining orderly regiment of +books breathing of her whether she had opened them or not, as he bowed to +his host, and in reply to, 'So, sir! I am glad to see you,' said +swimmingly that Earlsfont was the first house he had visited in this +country: and the scenery reminded him of his part of Ireland: and on +landing at Holyhead he had gone off straight to the metropolis by +appointment to meet his brother Philip, just returned from Canada a full +captain, who heartily despatched his compliments and respects, and hoped +to hear of perfect health in this quarter of the world. And Captain Con +the same, and he was very flourishing. + +Patrick's opening speech concluded on the sound of a short laugh coming +from Mr. Adister. + +It struck the young Irishman's ear as injurious and scornful in relation +to Captain Con; but the remark ensuing calmed him: + +'He has no children.' + +'No, sir; Captain Con wasn't born to increase the number of our clan,' +Patrick rejoined; and thought: By heaven! I get a likeness of her out of +you, with a dash of the mother mayhap somewhere. This was his Puck- +manner of pulling a girdle round about from what was foremost in his head +to the secret of his host's quiet observation; for, guessing that such +features as he beheld would be slumped on a handsome family, he was led +by the splendid severity of their lines to perceive an illimitable pride +in the man likely to punish him in his offspring, who would inherit that +as well; so, as is the way with the livelier races, whether they seize +first or second the matter or the spirit of what they hear, the vivid +indulgence of his own ideas helped him to catch the right meaning by the +tail, and he was enlightened upon a domestic unhappiness, although Mr. +Adister had not spoken miserably. The 'dash of the mother' was thrown in +to make Adiante, softer, and leave a loophole for her relenting. + +The master of Earlsfont stood for a promise of beauty in his issue, +requiring to be softened at the mouth and along the brows, even in men. +He was tall, and had clear Greek outlines: the lips were locked metal, +thin as edges of steel, and his eyes, when he directed them on the person +he addressed or the person speaking, were as little varied by motion of +the lids as eyeballs of a stone bust. If they expressed more, because +they were not sculptured eyes, it was the expression of his high and +frigid nature rather than any of the diversities pertaining to sentiment +and shades of meaning. + +'You have had the bequest of an estate,' Mr. Adister said, to compliment +him by touching on his affairs. + +'A small one; not a quarter of a county,' said Patrick. + +'Productive, sir?' + +''Tis a tramp of discovery, sir, to where bog ends and cultivation +begins.' + +'Bequeathed to you exclusively over the head of your elder brother, I +understand.' + +Patrick nodded assent. 'But my purse is Philip's, and my house, and my +horses.' + +'Not bequeathed by a member of your family?' + +'By a distant cousin, chancing to have been one of my godmothers.' + +'Women do these things,' Mr. Adister said, not in perfect approbation of +their doings. + +'And I think too, it might have gone to the elder,' Patrick replied to +his tone. + +'It is not your intention to be an idle gentleman?' + +'No, nor a vagrant Irishman, sir.' + +'You propose to sit down over there?' + +'When I've more brains to be of service to them and the land, I do.' + +Mr. Adister pulled the arm of his chair. 'The professions are crammed. +An Irish gentleman owning land might do worse. I am in favour of some +degree of military training for all gentlemen. You hunt?' + +Patrick's look was, 'Give me a chance'; and Mr. Adister continued: 'Good +runs are to be had here; you shall try them. You are something of a +shot, I suppose. We hear of gentlemen now who neither hunt nor shoot. +You fence?' + +'That's to say, I've had lessons in the art.' + +'I am not aware that there is now an art of fencing taught in Ireland.' + +'Nor am I,' said Patrick; 'though there's no knowing what goes on in the +cabins.' + +Mr. Adister appeared to acquiesce. Observations of sly import went by +him like the whispering wind. + +'Your priests should know,' he said. + +To this Patrick thought it well not to reply. After a pause between +them, he referred to the fencing. + +'I was taught by a Parisian master of the art, sir.' + +'You have been to Paris?' + +'I was educated in Paris.' + +'How? Ah!' Mr. Adister corrected himself in the higher notes of +recollection. 'I think I have heard something of a Jesuit seminary.' + +'The Fathers did me the service to knock all I know into me, and call it +education, by courtesy,' said Patrick, basking in the unobscured frown of +his host. + +'Then you are accustomed to speak French?' The interrogation was put to +extract some balm from the circumstance. + +Patrick tried his art of fence with the absurdity by saying: 'All but +like a native.' + +'These Jesuits taught you the use of the foils?' + +'They allowed me the privilege of learning, sir.' + +After meditation, Mr. Adister said: 'You don't dance?' He said it +speculating on the' kind of gentleman produced in Paris by the disciples +of Loyola. + +'Pardon me, sir, you hit on another of my accomplishments.' + +'These Jesuits encourage dancing?' + +'The square dance--short of the embracing: the valse is under interdict.' + +Mr. Adister peered into his brows profoundly for a glimpse of the devilry +in that exclusion of the valse. + +What object had those people in encouraging the young fellow to be a +perfect fencer and dancer, so that he should be of the school of the +polite world, and yet subservient to them? + +'Thanks to the Jesuits, then, you are almost a Parisian,' he remarked; +provoking the retort + +'Thanks to them, I've stored a little, and Paris is to me as pure a place +as four whitewashed walls:' Patrick added: 'without a shadow of a monk on +them.' Perhaps it was thrown in for the comfort of mundane ears afflicted +sorely, and no point of principle pertained to the slur on a monk. + +Mr. Adister could have exclaimed, That shadow of the monk! had he been +in an exclamatory mood. He said: 'They have not made a monk of you, +then.' + +Patrick was minded to explain how that the Jesuits are a religious order +exercising worldly weapons. The lack of precise words admonished him of +the virtue of silence, and he retreated--with a quiet negative: 'They +have not.' + +'Then, you are no Jesuit?' he was asked. + +Thinking it scarcely required a response, he shrugged. + +'You would not change your religion, sir?' said Mr. Adister in seeming +anger. + +Patrick thought he would have to rise: he half fancied himself summoned +to change his religion or depart from the house. + +'Not I,' said he. + +'Not for the title of Prince?' he was further pressed, and he replied: + +'I don't happen to have an ambition for the title of Prince.' + +'Or any title!' interjected Mr. Adister, 'or whatever the devil can +offer!--or,' he spoke more pointedly, 'for what fools call a brilliant +marriage?' + +'My religion?' Patrick now treated the question seriously and raised his +head: 'I'd not suffer myself to be asked twice.' + +The sceptical northern-blue eyes of his host dwelt on him with their full +repellent stare. + +The young Catholic gentleman expected he might hear a frenetic zealot +roar out: Be off! + +He was not immediately reassured by the words 'Dead or alive, then, you +have a father!' + +The spectacle of a state of excitement without a show of feeling was +novel to Patrick. He began to see that he was not implicated in a wrath +that referred to some great offender, and Mr. Adister soon confirmed his +view by saying: 'You are no disgrace to your begetting, sir!' + +With that he quitted his chair, and hospitably proposed to conduct his +guest over the house and grounds. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CAROLINE + +Men of the Adister family having taken to themselves brides of a very +dusty pedigree from the Principality, there were curious rough heirlooms +to be seen about the house, shields on the armoury walls and hunting- +horns, and drinking-horns, and spears, and chain-belts bearing clasps of +heads of beasts; old gold ornaments, torques, blue-stone necklaces, under +glass-cases, were in the library; huge rings that must have given the +wearers fearful fists; a shirt of coarse linen with a pale brown spot on +the breast, like a fallen beech-leaf; and many sealed parchment-skins, +very precious, for an inspection of which, as Patrick was bidden to +understand, History humbly knocked at the Earlsfont hall-doors; and the +proud muse made her transcripts of them kneeling. He would have been +affected by these wonders had any relic of Adiante appeased his thirst. +Or had there been one mention of her, it would have disengaged him from +the incessant speculations regarding the daughter of the house, of whom +not a word was uttered. No portrait of her was shown. Why was she +absent from her home so long? where was she? How could her name be +started? And was it she who was the sinner in her father's mind? But +the idolatrous love between Adiante and her father was once a legend: +they could not have been cut asunder. She had offered up her love of +Philip as a sacrifice to it: Patrick recollected that, and now with a +softer gloom on his brooding he released her from the burden of his grand +charge of unfaithfulness to the truest of lovers, by acknowledging that +he was in the presence of the sole rival of his brother. Glorious girl +that she was, her betrayal of Philip had nothing of a woman's base +caprice to make it infamous: she had sacrificed him to her reading of +duty; and that was duty to her father; and the point of duty was in this +instance rather a sacred one. He heard voices murmur that she might be +praised. He remonstrated with them, assuring them, as one who knew, that +a woman's first duty is her duty to her lover; her parents are her second +thought. Her lover, in the consideration of a real soul among the shifty +creatures, is her husband; and have we not the word of heaven directing +her to submit herself to him who is her husband before all others? That +peerless Adiante had previously erred in the upper sphere where she +received her condemnation, but such a sphere is ladder and ladder and +silver ladder high above your hair-splitting pates, you children of +earth, and it is not for you to act on the verdict in decrying her: +rather 'tis for you to raise hymns of worship to a saint. + +Thus did the ingenious Patrick change his ground and gain his argument +with the celerity of one who wins a game by playing it without an +adversary. Mr. Adister had sprung a new sense in him on the subject of +the renunciation of the religion. No thought of a possible apostasy had +ever occurred to the youth, and as he was aware that the difference of +their faith had been the main cause of the division of Adiante and +Philip, he could at least consent to think well of her down here, that +is, on our flat surface of earth. Up there, among the immortals, he was +compelled to shake his head at her still, and more than sadly in certain +moods of exaltation, reprovingly; though she interested him beyond all +her sisterhood above, it had to be confessed. + +They traversed a banqueting-hall hung with portraits, to two or three of +which the master of Earlsfont carelessly pointed, for his guest to be +interested in them or not as he might please. A reception-hall flung +folding-doors on a grand drawing-room, where the fires in the grates went +through the ceremony of warming nobody, and made a show of keeping the +house alive. A modern steel cuirass, helmet and plume at a corner of the +armoury reminded Mr. Adister to say that he had worn the uniform in his +day. He cast an odd look at the old shell containing him when he was a +brilliant youth. Patrick was marched on to Colonel Arthur's rooms, and +to Captain David's, the sailor. Their father talked of his two sons. +They appeared to satisfy him. If that was the case, they could hardly +have thrown off their religion. Already Patrick had a dread of naming +the daughter. An idea struck him that she might be the person who had +been guilty of it over there on the Continent. What if she had done it, +upon a review of her treatment of her lover, and gone into a convent to +wait for Philip to come and claim her?--saying, 'Philip, I've put the +knife to my father's love of me; love me double'; and so she just half +swoons, enough to show how the dear angel looks in her sleep: a trick of +kindness these heavenly women have, that we heathen may get a peep of +their secret rose-enfolded selves; and dream 's no word, nor drunken, for +the blessed mischief it works with us. + +Supposing it so, it accounted for everything: for her absence, and her +father's abstention from a mention of her, and the pretty good sort of +welcome Patrick had received; for as yet it was unknown that she did it +all for an O'Donnell. + +These being his reflections, he at once accepted a view of her that so +agreeably quieted his perplexity, and he leapt out of his tangle into the +happy open spaces where the romantic things of life are as natural as the +sun that rises and sets. There you imagine what you will; you live what +you imagine. An Adiante meets her lover another Adiante, the phantom +likeness of her, similar to the finger-tips, hovers to a meeting with +some one whose heart shakes your manful frame at but a thought of it. +But this other Adiante is altogether a secondary conception, barely +descried, and chased by you that she may interpret the mystical nature of +the happiness of those two, close-linked to eternity, in advance. You +would learn it, if she would expound it; you are ready to learn it, for +the sake of knowledge; and if you link yourself to her and do as those +two are doing, it is chiefly in a spirit of imitation, in sympathy with +the darting couple ahead . . . . + +Meanwhile he conversed, and seemed, to a gentleman unaware of the +vaporous activities of his brain, a young fellow of a certain practical +sense. + +'We have not much to teach you in: horseflesh,' Mr. Adister said, +quitting the stables to proceed to the gardens. + +'We must look alive to keep up our breed, sir,' said Patrick. 'We're +breeding too fine: and soon we shan't be able to horse our troopers. I +call that the land for horses where the cavalry's well-mounted on a +native breed.' + +'You have your brother's notions of cavalry, have you!' + +'I leave it to Philip to boast what cavalry can do on the field. He +knows: but he knows that troopers must be mounted: and we're fineing more +and more from bone: with the sales to foreigners! and the only chance +of their not beating us is that they'll be so good as follow our bad +example. Prussia's well horsed, and for the work it's intended to do, +the Austrian light cavalry's a model. So I'm told. I'll see for myself. +Then we sit our horses too heavy. The Saxon trooper runs headlong to +flesh. 'Tis the beer that fattens and swells him. Properly to speak, +we've no light cavalry. The French are studying it, and when they take +to studying, they come to the fore. I'll pay a visit to their breeding +establishments. We've no studying here, and not a scrap of system that +I see. All the country seems armed for bullying the facts, till the +periodical panic arrives, and then it 's for lying flat and roaring-- +and we'll drop the curtain, if you please.' + +'You say we,' returned Mr. Adister. 'I hear you launched at us English +by the captain, your cousin, who has apparently yet to learn that we are +one people.' + +'We 're held together and a trifle intermixed; I fancy it's we with him +and with me when we're talking of army or navy,' said Patrick. 'But +Captain Con's a bit of a politician: a poor business, when there's +nothing to be done.' + +'A very poor business!' Mr. Adister rejoined, + +'If you'd have the goodness to kindle his enthusiasm, he'd be for the +first person plural, with his cap in the air,' said Patrick. + +'I detest enthusiasm. + +'You're not obliged to adore it to give it a wakener. + +'Pray, what does that mean?' + +Patrick cast about to reply to the formal challenge for an explanation. + +He began on it as it surged up to him: 'Well, sir, the country that's got +hold of us, if we 're not to get loose. We don't count many millions in +Europe, and there's no shame in submitting to force majeure, if a stand +was once made; and we're mixed up, 'tis true, well or ill; and we're +stronger, both of us, united than tearing to strips: and so, there, for +the past! so long as we can set our eyes upon something to admire, +instead of a bundle squatting fat on a pile of possessions and vowing she +won't budge; and taking kicks from a big foot across the Atlantic, and +shaking bayonets out of her mob-cap for a little one's cock of the eye at +her: and she's all for the fleshpots, and calls the rest of mankind fools +because they're not the same: and so long as she can trim her ribands and +have her hot toast and tea, with a suspicion of a dram in it, she doesn't +mind how heavy she sits: nor that 's not the point, nor 's the land +question, nor the potato crop, if only she wore the right sort of face +to look at, with a bit of brightness about it, to show an idea inside +striking alight from the day that's not yet nodding at us, as the tops of +big mountains do: or if she were only braced and gallant, and cried, +Ready, though I haven't much outlook! We'd be satisfied with her for a +handsome figure. I don't know whether we wouldn't be satisfied with her +for politeness in her manners. We'd like her better for a spice of +devotion to alight higher up in politics and religion. But the key of +the difficulty's a sparkle of enthusiasm. It's part business, and the +greater part sentiment. We want a rousing in the heart of us; or else +we'd be pleased with her for sitting so as not to overlap us entirely: +we'd feel more at home, and behold her more respectfully. We'd see the +policy of an honourable union, and be joined to you by more than a +telegraphic cable. That's Captain Con, I think, and many like him.' + +Patrick finished his airy sketch of the Irish case in a key signifying +that he might be one among the many, but unobtrusive. + +'Stick to horses!' observed Mr. Adister. + +It was pronounced as the termination to sheer maundering. + +Patrick talked on the uppermost topic for the remainder of their stroll. + +He noticed that his host occasionally allowed himself to say, 'You +Irish': and he reflected that the saying, 'You English,' had been hinted +as an offence. + +He forgot to think that he had possibly provoked this alienation in a +scornfully proud spirit. The language of metaphor was to Mr. Adister +fool's froth. He conceded the use of it to the Irish and the Welsh as a +right that stamped them for what they were by adopting it; and they might +look on a country as a 'she,' if it amused them: so long as they were not +recalcitrant, they were to be tolerated, they were a part of us; +doubtless the nether part, yet not the less a part for which we are bound +to exercise a specially considerate care, or else we suffer, for we are +sensitive there: this is justice but the indications by fiddle-faddle +verbiage of anything objectionable to the whole in the part aroused an +irritability that speedily endued him with the sense of sanity opposing +lunacy; when, not having a wide command of the undecorated plain speech +which enjoyed his approval, he withdrew into the entrenchments of +contempt. + +Patrick heard enough to let him understand why the lord of Earlsfont and +Captain Con were not on the best of terms. Once or twice he had a twinge +or suspicion of a sting from the tone of his host, though he was not +political and was of a mood to pity the poor gentleman's melancholy state +of solitariness, with all his children absent, his wife dead, only a +niece, a young lady of twenty, to lend an air of grace and warmth to his +home. + +She was a Caroline, and as he had never taken a liking to a Caroline, +he classed her in the tribe of Carolines. To a Kathleen, an Eveleen, a +Nora, or a Bessy, or an Alicia, he would have bowed more cordially on his +introduction to her, for these were names with portraits and vistas +beyond, that shook leaves of recollection of the happiest of life--the +sweet things dreamed undesiringly in opening youth. A Caroline awakened +no soft association of fancies, no mysterious heaven and earth. The +others had variously tinted skies above them; their features wooed the +dream, led it on as the wooded glen leads the eye till we are deep in +richness. Nor would he have throbbed had one of any of his favourite +names appeared in the place of Caroline Adister. They had not moved his +heart, they had only stirred the sources of wonder. An Eveleen had +carried him farthest to imagine the splendours of an Adiante, and the +announcement of the coming of an Eveleen would perchance have sped a +little wild fire, to which what the world calls curiosity is frozenly +akin, through his veins. + +Mr. Adister had spoken of his niece Caroline. A lacquey, receiving +orders from his master, mentioned Miss Adister. There was but one Miss +Adister for Patrick. Against reason, he was raised to anticipate the +possible beholding of her, and Caroline's entrance into the drawing-room +brought him to the ground. Disappointment is a poor term for the descent +from an immoderate height, but the acknowledgment that we have shot up +irrationally reconciles even unphilosophical youth to the necessity of +the fall, though we must continue sensible of a shock. She was the Miss +Adister; and how, and why? No one else accompanied them on their march +to the dinner-table. Patrick pursued his double task of hunting his +thousand speculations and conversing fluently, so that it is not +astonishing if, when he retired to his room, the impression made on him +by this young Caroline was inefficient to distinguish her from the horde +of her baptismal sisters. And she had a pleasant face: he was able to +see that, and some individuality in the look of it, the next morning; and +then he remembered the niceness of her manners. He supposed her to have +been educated where the interfusion of a natural liveliness with a +veiling retenue gives the title of lady. She had enjoyed the advantage +of having an estimable French lady for her governess, she informed him, +as they sauntered together on the terrace. + +'A Protestant, of course,' Patrick spoke as he thought. + +'Madame Dugue is a Catholic of Catholics, and the most honourable of +women.' + +'That I'll believe; and wasn't for proselytisms,' said he. + +'Oh, no: she was faithful to her trust.' + +'Save for the grand example!' + +'That,' said Caroline, 'one could strive to imitate without embracing her +faith.' + +'There's my mind clear as print!' Patrick exclaimed. 'The Faith of my +fathers! and any pattern you like for my conduct, if it's a good one.' + +Caroline hesitated before she said: 'You have noticed my Uncle Adister's +prepossession; I mean, his extreme sensitiveness on that subject.' + +'He blazed on me, and he seemed to end by a sort of approval.' + +She sighed. 'He has had cause for great unhappiness.' + +'Is it the colonel, or the captain? Forgive me!' + +Her head shook. + +'Is it she? Is it his daughter? I must ask!' + +'You have not heard?' + +Oh! then, I guessed it,' cried Patrick, with a flash of pride in his +arrowy sagacity. 'Not a word have I heard, but I thought it out for +myself; because I love my brother, I fancy. And now, if you'll be so +good, Miss Caroline, let me beg, it's just the address, or the city, or +the country--where she is, can you tell me?--just whereabouts! You're +surprised: but I want her address, to be off, to see her; I'm anxious to +speak to her. It's anywhere she may be in a ring, only show me the ring, +I'll find her, for I've a load; and there's nothing like that for sending +you straight, though it's in the dark; it acts like an instinct. But you +know the clear address, and won't let me be running blindfold. She's on +the Continent and has been a long time, and it was the capital of +Austria, which is a Catholic country, and they've Irish blood in the +service there, or they had. I could drop on my knees to you!' + +The declaration was fortunately hushed by a supplicating ardour, or Mr. +Adister would have looked more surprised than his niece. He stepped out +of the library window as they were passing, and, evidently with a mind +occupied by his own affairs, held up an opened letter for Caroline's +perusal. She took a view of the handwriting. + +'Any others?' she said. + +'You will consider that one enough for the day,' was his answer. + +Patrick descended the terrace and strolled by the waterside, grieved at +their having bad news, and vexed with himself for being a stranger, +unable to console them. + +Half an hour later they were all three riding to the market-town, where +Mr. Adister paid a fruitless call on his lawyer. + +'And never is at home! never was known to be at home when wanted!' he +said, springing back to the saddle. + +Caroline murmured some soothing words. They had a perverse effect. + +'His partner! yes, his partner is at home, but I do not communicate +upon personal business with his partner; and by and by there will be, +I suppose, a third partner. I might as well deposit my family history +in the hands of a club. His partner is always visible. It is my belief +that Camminy has taken a partner that he may act the independent +gentleman at his leisure. I, meantime, must continue to be the mark for +these letters. I shall expect soon to hear myself abused as the positive +cause of the loss of a Crown!' + +'Mr. Camminy will probably appear at the dinner hour,' said Caroline. + +'Claret attracts him: I wish I could say as much of duty,' rejoined her +uncle. + +Patrick managed to restrain a bubbling remark on the respective charms of +claret and duty, tempting though the occasion was for him to throw in a +conversational word or two. + +He was rewarded for listening devoutly. + +Mr. Adister burst out again: 'And why not come over here to settle this +transaction herself?--provided that I am spared the presence of her +Schinderhannes! She could very well come. I have now received three +letters bearing on this matter within as many months. Down to the sale +of her hereditary jewels! I profess no astonishment. The jewels may +well go too, if Crydney and Welvas are to go. Disrooted body and soul! +--for a moonshine title!--a gaming-table foreign knave!--Known for a +knave!--A young gentlewoman?--a wild Welsh . . . !' + +Caroline put her horse to a canter, and the exclamations ended, leaving +Patrick to shuffle them together and read the riddle they presented, and +toss them to the wind, that they might be blown back on him by the powers +of air in an intelligible form. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE PRINCESS + +Dinner, and a little piano-music and a song closed an evening that was +not dull to Patrick in spite of prolonged silences. The quiet course of +things within the house appeared to him to have a listening ear for big +events outside. He dreaded a single step in the wrong direction, and +therefore forbore to hang on any of his conjectures; for he might +perchance be unjust to the blessedest heroine on the surface of the +earth--a truly awful thought! Yet her name would no longer bear the +speaking of it to himself. It conjured up a smoky moon under confounding +eclipse. + +Who was Schinderhannes? + +Mr. Adister had said, her Schinderhannes. + +Patrick merely wished to be informed who the man was, and whether he had +a title, and was much of a knave: and particularly Patrick would have +liked to be informed of the fellow's religion. But asking was not easy. + +It was not possible. And there was a barrel of powder to lay a fiery +head on, for a pillow! + +To confess that he had not the courage to inquire was as good as an +acknowledgment that he knew too much for an innocent questioner. And +what did he know? His brother Philip's fair angel forbade him to open +the door upon what he knew. He took a peep through fancy's keyhole, and +delighted himself to think that he had seen nothing. + +After a turbulent night with Schinderhannes, who let him go no earlier +than the opening of a December day, Patrick hied away to one of the dusky +nooks by the lake for a bracing plunge. He attributed to his desire for +it the strange deadness of the atmosphere, and his incapacity to get an +idea out of anything he looked on: he had not a sensation of cold till +the stinging element gripped him. It is the finest school for the cure +of dreamers; two minutes of stout watery battle, with the enemy close all +round, laughing, but not the less inveterate, convinced him that, in +winter at least, we have only to jump out of our clothes to feel the +reality of things in a trice. The dip was sharpening; he could say that +his prescription was good for him; his craving to get an idea ceased with +it absolutely, and he stood in far better trim to meet his redoubtable +adversary of overnight; but the rascal was a bandit and had robbed him of +his purse; that was a positive fact; his vision had gone; he felt himself +poor and empty and rejoicing in the keenness of his hunger for breakfast, +singularly lean. A youth despoiled of his Vision and made sensible by +the activity of his physical state that he is a common machine, is eager +for meat, for excess of whatsoever you may offer him; he is on the +highroad of recklessness, and had it been the bottle instead of +Caroline's coffee-cup, Patrick would soon have received a priming for a +delivery of views upon the sex, and upon love, and the fools known as +lovers, acrid enough to win the applause of cynics. + +Boasting was the best relief that a young man not without modesty could +find. Mr. Adister complimented him on the robustness of his habits, and +Patrick 'would like to hear of the temptation that could keep him from +his morning swim.' + +Caroline's needle-thrust was provoked: + +'Would not Arctic weather deter you, Mr. O'Donnell?' He hummed, and her +eyes filled with the sparkle. + +'Short of Arctic,' he had to say. 'But a gallop, after an Arctic bath, +would soon spin the blood-upon an Esquimaux dog, of course,' he pursued, +to anticipate his critic's remark on the absence of horses, with a bow. + +She smiled, accepting the mental alertness he fastened on her. + +We must perforce be critics of these tear-away wits; which are, moreover, +so threadbare to conceal the character! Caroline led him to vaunt his +riding and his shooting, and a certain time passed before she perceived +that though he responded naturally to her first sly attacks, his gross +exaggerations upon them had not been the triumph of absurdity she +supposed herself to have evoked. + +Her wish was to divert her uncle. Patrick discerned the intention and +aided her. + +'As for entertainment,' he said, in answer to Mr. Adister's courteous +regrets that he would have to be a prisoner in the house until his legal +adviser thought proper to appear, 'I'll be perfectly happy if Miss +Caroline will give me as much of her company as she can spare. It 's +amusing to be shot at too, by a lady who 's a good marksman! And birds +and hares are always willing to wait for us; they keep better alive. I +forgot to say that I can sing.' + +'Then I was in the presence of a connoisseur last night,' said Caroline. +Mr. Adister consulted his watch and the mantelpiece clock for a minute of +difference between them, remarking that he was a prisoner indeed, and for +the whole day, unless Camminy should decide to come. 'There is the +library,' he said, 'if you care for books; the best books on agriculture +will be found there. You can make your choice in the stables, if you +would like to explore the country. I am detained here by a man who seems +to think my business of less importance than his pleasures. And it is +not my business; it is very much the reverse but I am compelled to +undertake it as my own, when I abhor the business. It is hard for me to +speak of it, much more to act a part in it.' + +'Perhaps,' Caroline interposed hurriedly, 'Mr. O'Donnell would not be +unwilling to begin the day with some duets?' + +Patrick eagerly put on his shame-face to accept her invitation, +protesting that his boldness was entirely due to his delight in music. + +'But I've heard,' said he, 'that the best fortification for the exercise +of the a voice is hearty eating, so I 'll pay court again to that game- +pie. I'm one with the pigs for truffles.' + +His host thanked him for spreading the contagion of good appetite, and +followed his example. Robust habits and heartiness were signs with him +of a conscience at peace, and he thought the Jesuits particularly +forbearing in the amount of harm they had done to this young man. So +they were still at table when Mr. Camminy was announced and ushered in. + +The man of law murmured an excuse or two; he knew his client's eye, and +how to thaw it. + +'No, Miss Adister, I have not breakfasted,' he said, taking the chair +placed for him. 'I was all day yesterday at Windlemont, engaged in +assisting to settle the succession. Where estates are not entailed!' + +'The expectations of the family are undisciplined and certain not to be +satisfied,' Mr. Adister carried on the broken sentence. 'That house will +fall! However, you have lost no time this morning.--Mr. Patrick +O'Donnell.' + +Mr. Camminy bowed busily somewhere in the direction between Patrick and +the sideboard. + +'Our lawyers have us inside out, like our physicians,' Mr. Adister +resumed, talking to blunt his impatience for a private discussion with +his own. + +'Surgery's a little in their practice too, we think in Ireland,' said +Patrick. + +Mr. Camminy assented: 'No doubt.' He was hungry, and enjoyed the look of +the table, but the look of his client chilled the prospect, considered in +its genial appearance as a feast of stages; having luminous extension; +so, to ease his client's mind, he ventured to say: 'I thought it might be +urgent.' + +'It is urgent,' was the answer. + +'Ah: foreign? domestic?' + +A frown replied. + +Caroline, in haste to have her duties over, that she might escape the +dreaded outburst, pressed another cup of tea on Mr. Camminy and groaned +to see him fill his plate. She tried to start a topic with Patrick. + +'The princess is well, I hope?' Mr. Camminy asked in the voice of +discretion. 'It concerns her Highness?' + +'It concerns my daughter and her inheritance from her mad grandmother!' +Mr. Adister rejoined loudly; and he continued like a retreating thunder: +'A princess with a title as empty as a skull! At best a princess of +swamps, and swine that fight for acorns, and men that fight for swine!' + +Patrick caught a glance from Caroline, and the pair rose together. + +'They did that in our mountains a couple of thousand years ago,' said Mr. +Camminy, 'and the cause was not so bad, to judge by this ham. Men must +fight: the law is only a quieter field for them.' + +'And a fatter for the ravens,' Patrick joined in softly, as if carrying +on a song. + +'Have at us, Mr. O'Donnell! I'm ashamed of my appetite, Miss Adister, +but the morning's drive must be my excuse, and I'm bounden to you for +not forcing me to detain you. Yes, I can finish breakfast at my leisure, +and talk of business, which is never particularly interesting to ladies-- +though,' Mr. Camminy turned to her uncle, 'I know Miss Adister has a head +for it.' + +Patrick hummed a bar or two of an air, to hint of his being fanatico per +la musica, as a pretext for their departure. + +'If you'll deign to give me a lesson,' said he, as Caroline came away +from pressing her lips to her uncle's forehead. + +'I may discover that I am about to receive one,' said she. + +They quitted the room together. + +Mr. Camminy had seen another Miss Adister duetting with a young Irishman +and an O'Donnell, with lamentable results to that union of voices, and he +permitted himself to be a little astonished at his respected client's +defective memory or indifference to the admonition of identical +circumstances. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AT THE PIANO, CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC + +Barely had the door shut behind them when Patrick let his heart out: 'The +princess?' He had a famished look, and Caroline glided along swiftly +with her head bent, like one musing; his tone alarmed her; she lent him +her ear, that she might get some understanding of his excitement, +suddenly as it seemed to have come on him; but he was all in his hungry +interrogation, and as she reached her piano and raised the lid, she saw +it on tiptoe straining for her answer. + +'I thought you were aware of my cousin's marriage.' + +'Was I?' said Patrick, asking it of himself, for his conscience would not +acknowledge an absolute ignorance. 'No: I fought it, I wouldn't have a +blot on her be suspected. She's married! She's married to one of their +princes!--married for a title!--and changed her religion! And Miss +Adister, you're speaking of Adiante?' + +'My cousin Adiante.' + +'Well did I hate the name! I heard it first over in France. Our people +wrote to me of her; and it's a name to set you thinking: Is she tender, +or nothing like a woman,--a stone? And I put it to my best friend there, +Father Clement, who's a scholar, up in everything, and he said it was a +name with a pretty sound and an ill meaning--far from tender; and a bad +history too, for she was one of the forty-nine Danaides who killed their +husbands for the sake of their father and was not likely to be the +fiftieth, considering the name she bore. It was for her father's sake +she as good as killed her lover, and the two Adiantes are like enough: +they're as like as a pair of hands with daggers. So that was my brother +Philip's luck! She's married! It's done; it's over, like death: no +hope. And this time it's against her father; it's against her faith. +There's the end of Philip! I could have prophesied it; I did; and when +they broke, from her casting him off--true to her name! thought I. +She cast him off, and she couldn't wait for him, and there's his heart +broken. And I ready to glorify her for a saint! And now she must have +loved the man, or his title, to change her religion. She gives him her +soul! No praise to her for that: but mercy! what a love it must be. +Or else it's a spell. But wasn't she rather one for flinging spells than +melting? Except that we're all of us hit at last, and generally by our +own weapon. But she loved Philip: she loved him down to shipwreck and +drowning: she gave battle for him, and against her father; all the place +here and the country's alive with their meetings and partings:--she can't +have married! She wouldn't change her religion for her lover: how can +she have done it for this prince? Why, it's to swear false oaths!-- +unless it's possible for a woman to slip out of herself and be another +person after a death like that of a love like hers.' + +Patrick stopped: the idea demanded a scrutiny. + +'She's another person for me,' he said. 'Here's the worst I ever +imagined of her!--thousands of miles and pits of sulphur beyond the +worst and the very worst! I thought her fickle, I thought her heartless, +rather a black fairy, perched above us, not quite among the stars of +heaven. I had my ideas. But never that she was a creature to jump +herself down into a gulf and be lost for ever. She's gone, extinguished +--there she is, under the penitent's hoodcap with eyeholes, before the +faggots! and that's what she has married!--a burning torment, and none +of the joys of martyrdom. Oh! I'm not awake. But I never dreamed of +such a thing as this--not the hard, bare, lump-of-earth-fact:--and that's +the only thing to tell me I'm not dreaming now.' + +He subsided again; then deeply beseeching asked: + +'Have you by chance a portrait of the gentleman, Miss Adister? Is there +one anywhere?' + +Caroline stood at her piano, turning over the leaves of a music-book, +with a pressure on her eyelids. She was near upon being thrilled in +spite of an astonishment almost petrifying: and she could nearly have +smiled, so strange was his fraternal adoption, amounting to a +vivification--of his brother's passion. He seemed quite naturally to +impersonate Philip. She wondered, too, in the coolness of her alien +blood, whether he was a character, or merely an Irish character. As to +the unwontedness of the scene, Ireland was chargeable with that; and +Ireland also, a little at his expense as a citizen of the polite world, +relieved him of the extreme ridicule attached to his phrases and images. + +She replied: 'We have no portrait.' + +'May I beg to know, have you seen him?' said Patrick. Caroline shook her +head. + +'Is there no telling what he is like, Miss Adister?' + +'He is not young.' + +'An old man!' + +She had not said that, and she wished to defend her cousin from the +charge of contracting such an alliance, but Patrick's face had brightened +out of a gloom of stupefaction; he assured her he was now ready to try +his voice with hers, only she was to excuse a touch of hoarseness; he +felt it slightly in his throat: and could he, she asked him, wonder at +it after his morning's bath? + +He vindicated the saneness of the bath as well as he was able, showing +himself at least a good reader of music. On the whole, he sang +pleasantly, particularly French songs. She complimented him, with an +emphasis on the French. He said, yes, he fancied he did best in French, +and he had an idea of settling in France, if he found that he could not +live quietly in his own country. + +'And becoming a Frenchman?'said Caroline. + +'Why not?' said he. 'I 'm more at home with French people; they're +mostly of my creed; they're amiable, though they weren't quite kind to +poor Lally Tollendal. I like them. Yes, I love France, and when I'm +called upon to fix myself, as I suppose I shall be some day, I shan't +have the bother over there that I should find here.' + +She spoke reproachfully: 'Have you no pride in the title of Englishman?' + +'I 'm an Irishman.' + +'We are one nation.' + +'And it's one family where the dog is pulled by the collar.' + +There was a retort on him: she saw, as it were, the box, but the lid +would not open to assist her to it, and she let it go by, thinking in her +patriotic derision, that to choose to be likened to the unwilling dog of +the family was evidence of a want of saving pride. + +Besides, she could not trust to the glibness of her tongue in a contest +with a young gentleman to whom talking was as easy as breathing, even if +sometimes his volubility exposed him to attack. A superior position was +offered her by her being silent and critical. She stationed herself on +it: still she was grieved to think of him as a renegade from his country, +and she forced herself to say: 'Captain O'Donnell talks in that manner.' + +'Captain Con is constitutionally discontented because he's a bard by +nature, and without the right theme for his harp,' said Patrick. 'He has +a notion of Erin as the unwilling bride of Mr. Bull, because her lord is +not off in heroics enough to please her, and neglects her, and won't let +her be mistress of her own household, and she can't forget that he once +had the bad trick of beating her: she sees the marks. And you mayn't +believe it, but the Captain's temper is to praise and exalt. It is. +Irony in him is only eulogy standing on its head: a sort of an upside +down; a perversion: that's our view of him at home. All he desires is +to have us on the march, and he'd be perfectly happy marching, never mind +the banner, though a bit of green in it would put him in tune, of course. +The banner of the Cid was green, Miss Adister: or else it's his pennon +that was. And there's a quantity of our blood in Spain too. We've +watered many lands.' + +The poor young English lady's brain started wildly on the effort to be +with him, and to understand whether she listened to humour or emotion: +she reposed herself as well as she could in the contemplation of an +electrically-flashing maze, where every line ran losing itself in +another. + +He added: 'Old Philip!' in a visible throb of pity for his brother; after +the scrupulous dubitation between the banner and the pennon of the Cid! + +It would have comforted her to laugh. She was closer upon tears, and +without any reason for them in her heart. + +Such a position brings the hesitancy which says that the sitting is at an +end. + +She feared, as she laid aside her music-books, that there would be more +to come about Adiante, but he spared her. He bowed to her departing, and +strolled off by himself. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A CONSULTATION: WITH OPINIONS UPON WELSHWOMEN AND THE CAMBRIAN RACE + +Later in the day she heard that he was out scouring the country on one of +her uncle's horses. She had too many distressing matters to think of for +so singular a young man to have any other place than that which is given +to the fantastical in a troubled and serious mind. He danced there like +the whimsy sunbeam of a shaken water below. What would be his opinion of +Adiante if he knew of her determination to sell the two fair estates she +inherited from a grandmother whom she had venerated; that she might +furnish arms to her husband to carry out an audacious enterprise likely +to involve both of them in blood and ruin? Would he not bound up aloft +and quiver still more wildly? She respected, quaint though it was, his +imaginative heat of feeling for Adiante sufficiently to associate him +with her so far; and she lent him in fancy her own bewilderment and grief +at her cousin's conduct, for the soothing that his exaggeration of them +afforded her. She could almost hear his outcry. + +The business of the hour demanded more of her than a seeking for +refreshment. She had been invited to join the consultation of her uncle +with his lawyer. Mr. Adister tossed her another letter from Vienna, of +that morning's delivery. She read it with composure. It became her task +to pay no heed to his loss of patience, and induce him to acquiesce in +his legal adviser's view which was, to temporise further, present an +array of obstacles, and by all possible suggestions induce the princess +to come over to England, where her father's influence with her would have +a chance of being established again; and it might then be hoped that she, +who had never when under sharp temptation acted disobediently to his +wishes at home, and who certainly would not have dreamed of contracting +the abhorred alliance had she been breathing the air of common sense +peculiar to her native land, would see the prudence, if not the solemn +obligation, of retaining to herself these family possessions. Caroline +was urgent with her uncle to act on such good counsel. She marvelled at +his opposition, though she detected the principal basis of it. + +Mr. Adister had no ground of opposition but his own intemperateness. +The Welsh grandmother's legacy of her estates to his girl, overlooking +her brothers, Colonel Arthur and Captain David, had excessively vexed +him, despite the strong feeling he entertained for Adiante; and not +simply because of the blow he received in it unexpectedly from that old +lady, as the last and heaviest of the long and open feud between them, +but also, chiefly, that it outraged and did permanent injury to his ideas +of the proper balance of the sexes. Between himself and Mrs. Winnion +Rhys the condition of the balance had been a point of vehement +disputation, she insisting to have it finer up to equality, and he that +the naturally lighter scale should continue to kick the beam. Behold now +the consequence of the wilful Welshwoman's insanest of legacies! The +estates were left to Adiante Adister for her sole use and benefit, making +almost a man of her, and an unshackled man, owing no dues to posterity. +Those estates in the hands of a woman are in the hands of her husband; +and the husband a gambler and a knave, they are in the hands of the Jews +--or gone to smoke. Let them go. A devilish malignity bequeathed them: +let them go back to their infernal origin. And when they were gone, his +girl would soon discover that there was no better place to come to than +her home; she would come without an asking, and alone, and without much +prospect of the intrusion of her infamous Hook-nose in pursuit of her at +Earlsfont. The money wasted, the wife would be at peace. Here she would +have leisure to repent of all the steps she had taken since that fatal +one of the acceptance of the invitation to the Embassy at Vienna. Mr. +Adister had warned her both against her going and against the influence +of her friend Lady Wenchester, our Ambassadress there, another Welsh +woman, with the weathervane head of her race. But the girl would accept, +and it was not for him to hold out. It appeared to be written that the +Welsh, particularly Welsh women, were destined to worry him up to the end +of his days. Their women were a composition of wind and fire. They had +no reason, nothing solid in their whole nature. Englishmen allied to +them had to learn that they were dealing with broomstick witches and +irresponsible sprites. Irishwomen were models of propriety beside them: +indeed Irishwomen might often be patterns to their English sisterhood. +Mr. Adister described the Cambrian ladies as a kind of daughters of the +Fata Morgana, only half human, and deceptive down to treachery, unless +you had them fast by their spinning fancy. They called it being +romantic. It was the ante-chamber of madness. Mad, was the word for +them. You pleased them you knew not how, and just as little did you know +how you displeased them. And you were long hence to be taught that in a +certain past year, and a certain month, and on a certain day of the +month, not forgetting the hour of the day to the minute of the hour, and +attendant circumstances to swear loud witness to it, you had mortally +offended them. And you receive your blow: you are sure to get it: the +one passion of those women is for vengeance. They taste a wound from the +lightest touch, and they nurse the venom for you. Possibly you may in +their presence have had occasion to praise the military virtues of the +builder of Carnarvon Castle. You are by and by pierced for it as hard as +they can thrust. Or you have incidentally compared Welsh mutton with +Southdown:--you have not highly esteemed their drunken Bards:--you have +asked what the Welsh have done in the world; you are supposed to have +slighted some person of their family--a tenth cousin!--anything turns +their blood. Or you have once looked straight at them without speaking, +and you discover years after that they have chosen to foist on you their +idea of your idea at the moment; and they have the astounding presumption +to account this misreading of your look to the extent of a full +justification, nothing short of righteous, for their treachery and your +punishment! O those Welshwomen! + +The much-suffering lord of Earlsfont stretched forth his open hand, palm +upward, for a testifying instrument to the plain truth of his catalogue +of charges. He closed it tight and smote the table. 'Like mother--and +grandmother too--like daughter!' he said, and generalised again to +preserve his dignity: 'They're aflame in an instant. You may see them +quiet for years, but it smoulders. You dropped the spark, and they time +the explosion.' + +Caroline said to Mr. Camminy: 'You are sure you can give us the day?' + +'All of it,' he replied, apologising for some show of restlessness. 'The +fact is, Miss Adister, I married a lady from over the borders, and though +I have never had to complain of her yet, she may have a finale in store. +It's true that I love wild Wales.' + +'And so do I' Caroline raised her eyes to imagined mountains. + +'You will pardon me, Camminy,' said Mr. Adister. + +The lawyer cracked his back to bow to the great gentleman so +magnanimously humiliating himself. 'Sir! Sir!' he said. 'Yes, Welsh +blood is queer blood, I own. They find it difficult to forgive; and +trifles offend; and they are unhappily just as secretive as they are +sensitive. The pangs we cause them, without our knowing it, must be +horrible. They are born, it would seem, with more than the common +allowance of kibes for treading on: a severe misfortune for them. Now +for their merits: they have poetry in them; they are valiant; they are +hospitable to teach the Arab a lesson: I do believe their life is their +friend's at need--seriously, they would lay it down for him: or the +wherewithal, their money, their property, excepting the three-stringed +harp of three generations back, worth now in current value sixpence +halfpenny as a curiosity, or three farthings for firewood; that they'll +keep against their own desire to heap on you everything they have--if +they love you, and you at the same time have struck their imaginations. +Offend them, however, and it's war, declared or covert. And I must admit +that their best friend can too easily offend them. I have lost excellent +clients, I have never understood why; yet I respect the remains of their +literature, I study their language, I attend their gatherings and +subscribe the expenses; I consume Welsh mutton with relish; I enjoy the +Triads, and can come down on them with a quotation from Catwg the Wise: +but it so chanced that I trod on a kibe, and I had to pay the penalty. +There's an Arabian tale, Miss Adister, of a peaceful traveller who ate a +date in the desert and flung away the stone, which hit an invisible son +of a genie in the eye, and the poor traveller suffered for it. Well, you +commit these mortal injuries to the invisible among the Welsh. Some of +them are hurt if you call them Welsh. They scout it as the original +Saxon title for them. No, they are Cymry, Cambrians! They have forgiven +the Romans. Saxon and Norman are still their enemies. If you stir their +hearts you find it so. And, by the way, if King Edward had not trampled +them into the mire so thoroughly, we should hear of it at times even now. +Instead of penillions and englyns, there would be days for fiery +triplets. Say the worst of them, they are soundheaded. They have a +ready comprehension for great thoughts. The Princess Nikolas, I +remember, had a special fondness for the words of Catwg the Wise.' + +'Adiante,' had murmured Caroline, to correct his indiscretion. + +She was too late. + +'Nikolas!' Mr. Adister thundered. 'Hold back that name in this house, +title and all, if you speak of my daughter. I refuse admission to it +here. She has given up my name, and she must be known by the one her +feather-brained grandmother proposed for her, to satisfy her pleasure in +a fine sound. English Christian names are my preference. I conceded +Arthur to her without difficulty. She had a voice in David, I recollect; +with very little profit to either of the boys. I had no voice in +Adiante; but I stood at my girl's baptism, and Adiante let her be. At +least I saved the girl from the addition of Arianrod. It was to have +been Adiante Arianrod. Can you credit it? Prince-pah! Nikolas? Have +you a notion of the sort of prince that makes an English lady of the best +blood of England his princess?' + +The lawyer had a precise notion of the sort of prince appearing to Mr. +Adister in the person of his foreign son-in-law. Prince Nikolas had been +described to him before, with graphic touches upon the quality of the +reputation he bore at the courts and in the gambling-saloons of Europe. +Dreading lest his client's angry heat should precipitate him on the +prince again, to the confusion of a lady's ears, Mr. Camminy gave an +emphatic and short affirmative. + +'You know what he is like?' said Mr. Adister, with a face of disgust +reflected from the bare thought of the hideous likeness. + +Mr. Camminy assured him that the description of the prince's lineaments +would not be new. It was, as he was aware, derived from a miniature of +her husband, transmitted by the princess, on its flight out of her +father's loathing hand to the hearthstone and under his heel. + +Assisted by Caroline, he managed to check the famous delineation of the +adventurer prince in which a not very worthy gentleman's chronic fever of +abomination made him really eloquent, quick to unburden himself in the +teeth of decorum. + +'And my son-in-law! My son-in-law!' ejaculated Mr. Adister, tossing his +head higher, and so he stimulated his amazement and abhorrence of the +portrait he rather wondered at them for not desiring to have sketched for +their execration of it, alluringly foul as it was: while they in concert +drew him back to the discussion of his daughter's business, reiterating +prudent counsel, with a knowledge that they had only to wait for the +ebbing of his temper. + +'Let her be informed, sir, that by coming to England she can settle the +business according to her wishes in one quarter of the time it would take +a Commission sent out to her--if we should be authorised to send out +one,' said Mr. Camminy. 'By committing the business to you, I fancy I +perceive your daughter's disposition to consider your feelings: possibly +to a reluctance to do the deed unsanctioned by her father. It would +appear so to a cool observer, notwithstanding her inattention to your +remonstrances.' + +The reply was: 'Dine here and sleep here. I shall be having more of +these letters,' Mr. Adister added, profoundly sighing. + +Caroline slipped away to mark a conclusion to the debate; and Mr. Camminy +saw his client redden fast and frown. + +'Besides,' he spoke in a husky voice, descending upon a subject hateful, +'she tells me to-day she is not in a state to travel! Do you hear? Make +what you can of it.' + +The proud and injured gentleman had the aspect of one who receives a blow +that it is impossible for him to resent. He could not speak the shame he +felt: it was literally in his flesh. But the cause had been sufficiently +hinted to set the lawyer staring as men do when they encounter situations +of grisly humour, where certain of the passions of man's developed nature +are seen armed and furious against our mild prevailing ancient mother +nature; and the contrast is between our utter wrath and her simple +exposition of the circumstances and consequences forming her laws. There +are situations which pass beyond the lightly stirred perceptive wits to +the quiet court of the intellect, to be received there as an addition to +our acquaintance with mankind. We know not of what substance to name +them. Humour in its intense strain has a seat somewhere about the mouth +of tragedy, giving it the enigmatical faint wry pull at a corner visible +at times upon the dreadful mask. + +That Mr. Adister should be astonished at such a communication from the +princess, after a year of her marriage: and that he should take it for a +further outrage of his paternal sentiments, should actually redden and be +hoarse in alluding to it: the revelation of such points in our human +character set the humane old lawyer staring at the reserve space within +himself apart from his legal being, whereon he by fits compared his own +constitution with that of the individuals revealed to him by their acts +and confidential utterances. For him, he decided that he would have +rejoiced at the news. + +Granting the prince a monster, however, as Mr. Adister unforcedly +considered him, it was not so cheering a piece of intelligence that +involved him yet closer with that man's rank blood: it curdled his own. +The marriage had shocked and stricken him, cleaving, in his love for his +daughter, a goodly tree and withering many flowers. Still the marriage +was but Adiante's gulf: he might be called father-in-law of her spangled +ruffian; son-in-law, the desperado-rascal would never be called by him. +But the result of the marriage dragged him bodily into the gulf: he +became one of four, numbering the beast twice among them. The subtlety +of his hatred so reckoned it; for he could not deny his daughter in the +father's child; he could not exclude its unhallowed father in the +mother's: and of this man's child he must know and own himself the +grandfather. If ever he saw the child, if drawn to it to fondle it, +some part of the little animal not his daughter's would partake of his +embrace. And if neither of his boys married, and his girl gave birth to +a son! darkness rolled upon that avenue of vision. A trespasser and +usurper-one of the demon's brood chased his very name out of Earlsfont! + +'Camminy, you must try to amuse yourself,' he said briskly. 'Anything +you may be wanting at home shall be sent for. I must have you here to +make sure that I am acting under good advice. You can take one of the +keepers for an hour or two of shooting. I may join you in the afternoon. +You will find occupation for your gun in the north covers.' + +He wandered about the house, looking into several rooms, and only +partially at rest when he discovered Caroline in one, engaged upon some +of her aquarelle sketches. He asked where the young Irishman was. + +'Are you in search of him?' said she. 'You like him, uncle? He is out +riding, they tell me.' + +'The youngster is used to south-western showers in that climate of his,' +Mr. Adister replied. 'I dare say we could find the Jesuit in him +somewhere. There's the seed. His cousin Con O'Donnell has filled him +with stuff about Ireland and England: the man has no better to do than to +train a parrot. What do you think of him, my love?' + +The judgement was not easily formed for expression. 'He is not quite +like what I remember of his brother Philip. He talks much more, does he +not? He seems more Irish than his brother. He is very strange. His +feelings are strong; he has not an idea of concealing them. For a young +man educated by the Jesuits, he is remarkably open.' + +'The Jesuits might be of service to me just now!' Mr. Adister addressed +his troubled soul, and spoke upon another conception of them: 'How has he +shown his feelings?' + +Caroline answered quickly: 'His love of his brother. Anything that +concerns his brother moves him; it is like a touch on a musical +instrument. Perhaps I should say a native one.' + +'Concerns his brother?' Mr. Adister inquired, and his look requesting +enlightenment told her she might speak. + +'Adiante,' she said softly. She coloured. + +Her uncle mused awhile in a half-somnolent gloom. 'He talks of this at +this present day?' + +'It is not dead to him. He really appears to have hoped . . . he is +extraordinary. He had not heard before of her marriage. I was a witness +of the most singular scene this morning, at the piano. He gathered it +from what he had heard. He was overwhelmed by it. I could not +exaggerate. It was impossible to help being a little touched, though it +was curious, very strange.' + +Her uncle's attentiveness incited her to describe the scene, and as it +visibly relieved his melancholy, she did it with a few vivid indications +of the quaint young Irishman's manner of speech. She concluded: 'At last +he begged to see a portrait of her husband.' + +'Not of her?' said Mr. Adister abruptly. + +'No; only of her husband.' + +'Show him her portrait.' + +A shade of surprise was on Caroline's forehead. 'Shall I?' She had a dim +momentary thought that the sight of the beautiful face would not be good +for Patrick. + +'Yes; let him see the woman who could throw herself away on that branded +villain called a prince, abjuring her Church for a little fouler than +hangman to me and every gentleman alive. I desire that he should see it. +Submission to the demands of her husband's policy required it of her, +she says! Show it him when he returns; you have her miniature in your +keeping. And to-morrow take him to look at the full-length of her before +she left England and ceased to be a lady of our country. I will order it +to be placed in the armoury. Let him see the miniature of her this day.' + +Mr. Adister resolved at the same time that Patrick should have his +portrait of the prince for a set-off to the face of his daughter. He +craved the relief it would be to him to lay his colours on the prince for +the sparkling amazement of one whom, according to Caroline's description, +he could expect to feel with him acutely, which neither his niece nor his +lawyer had done: they never did when he painted the prince. He was +unstrung, heavily plunged in the matter of his chagrin and grief: his +unhealed wound had been scraped and strewn with salt by his daughter's +letter; he had a thirst for the kind of sympathy he supposed he would +find in the young Irishman's horror at the husband of the incomparable +beauty now past redemption degraded by her hideous choice; lost to +England and to her father and to common respect. For none, having once +had the picture of the man, could dissociate them; they were like heaven +and its reverse, everlastingly coupled in the mind by their opposition of +characters and aspects. Her father could not, and he judged of others by +himself. He had been all but utterly solitary since her marriage, +brooded on it until it saturated him; too proud to speak of the thing +in sadness, or claim condolence for this wound inflicted on him by the +daughter he had idolised other than through the indirect method of +causing people to wonder at her chosen yoke-fellow. Their stupefaction +refreshed him. Yet he was a gentleman capable of apprehending +simultaneously that he sinned against his pride in the means he adopted +to comfort his nature. But the wound was a perpetual sickness needing +soul-medicine. Proud as he was, and unbending, he was not stronger than +his malady, and he could disguise, he could not contain, the cry of +immoderate grief. Adiante had been to him something beyond a creature +beloved; she had with her glorious beauty and great-heartedness been the +sole object which had ever inspirited his imagination. He could have +thought no man, not the most illustrious, worthy of her. And there she +was, voluntarily in the hands of a monster! 'Husband!' Mr. Adister broke +away from Caroline, muttering: 'Her husband's policy!' + +She was used to his interjections; she sat thinking more of the strange +request to her to show Mr. O'Donnell the miniature of Adiante. She had +often thought that her uncle regretted his rejection of Philip. +It appeared so to her now, though not by any consecutive process of +reasoning. She went to fetch the miniature, and gazing on it, she tried +to guess at Mr. O'Donnell's thoughts when doing the same; for who so +inflammable as he? And who, woman or man, could behold this lighted +face, with the dark raised eyes and abounding auburn tresses, where the +contrast of colours was in itself thrilling, and not admire, or more, +half worship, or wholly worship? She pitied the youth: she fancied that +he would not continue so ingenuously true to his brother's love of +Adiante after seeing it; unless one might hope that the light above +beauty distinguishing its noble classic lines, and the energy of +radiance, like a morning of chivalrous promise, in the eyes, would subdue +him to distant admiration. These were her flitting thoughts under the +spell of her queenly cousin's visage. She shut up the miniature-case, +and waited to hand it to young Mr. O'Donnell. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE MINIATURE + +Patrick returned to Earlsfont very late; he had but ten minutes to dress +for dinner; a short allowance after a heated ride across miry tracks, +though he would have expended some of them, in spite of his punctilious +respect for the bell of the house entertaining him, if Miss Adister had +been anywhere on the stairs or corridors as he rushed away to his room. +He had things to tell; he had not been out over the country for nothing. + +Fortunately for his good social principles, the butler at Earlsfont was a +wary supervisor of his man; great guest or little guest; Patrick's linen +was prepared for him properly studded; he had only to spring out of one +suit into another; and still more fortunately the urgency for a rapid +execution of the manoeuvre prevented his noticing a large square envelope +posted against the looking-glass of his toilette-table. He caught sight +of it first when pulling down his shirt-cuffs with an air of recovered +ease, not to say genial triumph, to think that the feat of grooming +himself, washing, dressing and stripping, the accustomed persuasive final +sweep of the brush to his hair-crop, was done before the bell had rung. +His name was on the envelope; and under his name, in smaller letters, + +Adiante. + +'Shall I?' said he, doing the thing he asked himself about doing tearing +open the paper cover of the portrait of her who had flitted in his head +for years unseen. And there she was, remote but present. + +His underlip dropped; he had the look of those who bate breath and swarm +their wits to catch a sound. At last he remembered that the summoning +bell had been in his ears a long time back, without his having been +sensible of any meaning in it. He started to and fro. The treasure he +held declined to enter the breast-pocket of his coat, and the other +pockets he perhaps, if sentimentally, justly discarded as being beneath +the honour of serving for a temporary casket. He locked it up, with a +vow to come early to rest. Even then he had thoughts whether it might be +safe. + +Who spoke, and what they uttered at the repast, and his own remarks, he +was unaware of. He turned right and left a brilliant countenance that +had the glitter of frost-light; it sparkled and was unreceptive. No +wonder Miss Adister deemed him wilder and stranger than ever. She +necessarily supposed the excess of his peculiarities to be an effect of +the portrait, and would have had him, according to her ideas of a young +man of some depth of feeling, dreamier. On the contrary, he talked sheer +commonplace. He had ridden to the spur of the mountains, and had put up +the mare, and groomed and fed her, not permitting another hand to touch +her: all very well, and his praises of the mare likewise, but he had not +a syllable for the sublime of the mountains. He might have careered over +midland flats for any susceptibility that he betrayed to the grandeur of +the scenery she loved. Ultimately she fancied the miniature had been +overlooked in his hurry to dress, and that he was now merely excited by +his lively gallop to a certain degree of hard brightness noticeable in +hunting men at their dinner. + +The elixir in Patrick carried him higher than mountain crests. Adiante +illumined an expanded world for him, miraculous, yet the real one, only +wanting such light to show its riches. She lifted it out of darkness +with swift throbs of her heavenliness as she swam to his eyelids, +vanished and dazzled anew, and made these gleams of her and the dark +intervals his dream of the winged earth on her flight from splendour to +splendour, secresy to secresy;--follow you that can, the youth whose +heart is an opened mine, whose head is an irradiated sky, under the spell +of imagined magical beauty. She was bugle, banner, sunrise, of his +inmost ambition and rapture. + +And without a warning, she fled; her features were lost; his power of +imagining them wrestled with vapour; the effort contracted his outlook. +But if she left him blind of her, she left him with no lessened bigness +of heart. He frankly believed in her revelation of a greater world and a +livelier earth, a flying earth and a world wealthier than grouped history +in heroic marvels: he fell back on the exultation of his having seen her, +and on the hope for the speedy coming of midnight, when the fountain of +her in the miniature would be seen and drunk of at his full leisure, and +his glorious elation of thrice man almost up to mounting spirit would be +restored to make him worthy of the vision. + +Meanwhile Caroline had withdrawn and the lord of Earlsfont was fretting +at his theme. He had decided not to be a party in the sale of either of +his daughter's estates: let her choose other agents: if the iniquity was +committed, his hands would be clean of it. Mr. Adister spoke by way of +prelude to the sketch of 'this prince' whose title was a lurid delusion. +Patrick heard of a sexagenarian rake and Danube adventurer, in person a +description of falcon-Caliban, containing his shagginess in a frogged +hussar-jacket and crimson pantaloons, with hook-nose, fox-eyes, grizzled +billow of frowsy moustache, and chin of a beast of prey. This fellow, +habitually one of the dogs lining the green tables of the foreign Baths, +snapping for gold all day and half the night, to spend their winnings in +debauchery and howl threats of suicide, never fulfilled early enough, +when they lost, claimed his princedom on the strength of his father's +murder of a reigning prince and sitting in his place for six months, till +a merited shot from another pretender sent him to his account. 'What do +you say to such a nest of assassins, and one of them, an outcast and +blackleg, asking an English gentleman to acknowledge him as a member of +his family! I have,' said Mr. Adister, 'direct information that this +gibbet-bird is conspiring to dethrone--they call it--the present reigning +prince, and the proceeds of my daughter's estates are, by her desire--if +she has not written under compulsion of the scoundrel--intended to speed +their blood-mongering. There goes a Welshwoman's legacy to the sea, with +a herd of swine with devils in them!' + +Mr. Camminy kept his head bent, his hand on his glass of port. Patrick +stared, and the working of his troubled brows gave the unhappy gentleman +such lean comfort as he was capable of taking. Patrick in sooth was +engaged in the hard attempt at the same time to do two of the most +difficult things which can be proposed to the ingenuity of sensational +youth: he was trying to excuse a respected senior for conduct that he +could not approve, while he did inward battle to reconcile his feelings +with the frightful addition to his hoard of knowledge: in other words, he +sought strenuously to mix the sketch of the prince with the dregs of the +elixir coming from the portrait of Adiante; and now she sank into +obscurity behind the blackest of brushes, representing her incredible +husband; and now by force of some natural light she broke through the +ugly mist and gave her adored the sweet lines and colours of the features +he had lost. There was an ebb and flow of the struggle, until, able to +say to himself that he saw her clearly as though the portrait was in the +palm of his hand, the battle of the imagination ceased and she was fairer +for him than if her foot had continued pure of its erratic step: fairer, +owing to the eyes he saw with; he had shaken himself free of the exacting +senses which consent to the worship of women upon the condition of their +possessing all the precious and the miraculous qualities; among others, +the gift of an exquisite fragility that cannot break; in short, upon +terms flattering to the individual devotee. Without knowing it he had +done it and got some of the upholding strength of those noblest of honest +men who not merely give souls to women--an extraordinary endowment of +them--but also discourse to them with their souls. + +Patrick accepted Adiante's husband: the man was her husband. Hideous +(for there was no combating her father's painting of him), he was almost +interesting through his alliance:--an example of how much earth the +worshipper can swallow when he is quite sincere. Instead of his going +under eclipse, the beauty of his lady eclipsed her monster. He believed +in her right to choose according to her pleasure since her lover was +denied her. Sitting alone by his fire, he gazed at her for hours and +bled for Philip. There was a riddle to be answered in her cutting +herself away from Philip; he could not answer it; her face was the +vindication and the grief. The usual traverses besetting true lovers +were suggested to him, enemies and slanders and intercepted letters. He +rejected them in the presence of the beautiful inscrutable. Small marvel +that Philip had loved her. 'Poor fellow' Patrick cried aloud, and +drooped on a fit of tears. + +The sleep he had was urgently dream-ridden to goals that eluded him and +broadened to fresh races and chases waving something to be won which +never was won, albeit untiringly pursued amid a series of adventures, +tragic episodes; wild enthusiasm. The whole of it was featureless, +a shifting agitation; yet he must have been endowed to extricate a +particular meaning applied to himself out of the mass of tumbled events, +and closely in relation to realities, for he quitted his bed passionately +regretting that he had not gone through a course of drill and study of +the military art. He remembered Mr. Adister's having said that military +training was good for all gentlemen. + +'I could join the French Foreign Legion,' he thought. + +Adiante was as beautiful by day as by night. He looked. The riddle of +her was more burdensome in the daylight. + +He sighed, and on another surging of his admiration launched the resolve +that he would serve her blindly, without one question. How, when, where, +and the means and the aim, he did not think of. There was she, and here +was he, and heaven and a great heart would show the way. + +Adiante at eighteen, the full length of her, fresh in her love of Philip, +was not the same person to him, she had not the same secret; she was +beautiful differently. By right he should have loved the portrait best: +but he had not seen it first; he had already lived through a life of +emotions with the miniature, and could besides clasp the frame; and +moreover he fondled an absurd notion that the miniature would be +entrusted to him for a time, and was almost a possession. The pain of +the thought of relinquishing it was the origin of this foolishness. And +again, if it be fair to prove him so deeply, true to his brother though +he was (admiration of a woman does thus influence the tides of our blood +to render the noblest of us guilty of some unconscious wavering of our +loyalty), Patrick dedicated the full-length of Adiante to Philip, and +reserved the other, her face and neck, for himself. + +Obediently to Mr. Adister's order, the portrait had been taken from one +of his private rooms and placed in the armoury, the veil covering the +canvas of late removed. Guns and spears and swords overhead and about, +the youthful figure of Adiante was ominously encompassed. Caroline stood +with Patrick before the portrait of her cousin; she expected him to show +a sign of appreciation. He asked her to tell him the Church whose forms +of faith the princess had embraced. She answered that it was the Greek +Church. 'The Greek,' said he, gazing harder at the portrait. Presently +she said: 'It was a perfect likeness.' She named the famous artist who +had painted it. Patrick's 'Ah' was unsatisfactory. + +'We,' said she, 'think it a living image of her as she was then.' + +He would not be instigated to speak. + +'You do not admire it, Mr. O'Donnell?' she cried. + +'Oh, but I do. That's how she looked when she was drawing on her gloves +with good will to go out to meet him. You can't see her there and not be +sure she had a heart. She part smiles; she keeps her mouth shut, but +there's the dimple, and it means a thought, like a bubble bursting up +from the heart in her breast. She's tall. She carries herself like a +great French lady, and nothing beats that. It's the same colour, dark +eyebrows and fair hair. And not thinking of her pride. She thinks of +her walk, and the end of it, where he's waiting. The eyes are not the +same.' + +'The same?' said Caroline. + +'As this.' He tapped on the left side. She did not understand it at all. + +'The bit of work done in Vienna,' said he. + +She blushed. 'Do you admire that so much?' + +'I do.' + +'We consider it not to be compared to this.' + +'Perhaps not. I like it better.' + +'But why do you like that better?' said Caroline, deeming it his +wilfulness. + +Patrick put out a finger. 'The eyes there don't seem to say, "I'm yours +to make a hero of you." But look,' he drew forth from under his +waistcoat the miniature, 'what don't they say here! It's a bright day +for the Austrian capital that has her by the river Danube. Yours has a +landscape; I've made acquaintance with the country, I caught the print of +it on my ride yesterday; and those are your mountains. But mine has her +all to herself while she's thinking undisturbed in her boudoir. I have +her and her thoughts; that's next to her soul. I've an idea it ought to +be given to Philip.' He craned his head round to woo some shadow of +assent to the daring suggestion. 'Just to break the shock 'twill be to +my brother, Miss Adister. If I could hand him this, and say, "Keep it, +for you'll get nothing more of her; and that's worth a kingdom."' + +Caroline faltered: 'Your brother does not know?' + +'Pity him. His blow 's to come. He can't or he 'd have spoken of it to +me. I was with him a couple of hours and he never mentioned a word of +it, nor did Captain Con. We talked of Ireland, and the service, and some +French cousins we have.' + +'Ladies?' Caroline inquired by instinct. + +'And charming,' said Patrick, 'real dear girls. Philip might have one, +if he would, and half my property, to make it right with her parents. +There'd be little use in proposing it. He was dead struck when the shaft +struck him. That's love! So I determined the night after I'd shaken his +hand I'd be off to Earlsfont and try my hardest for him. It's hopeless +now. Only he might have the miniature for his bride. I can tell him a +trifle to help him over his agony. She would have had him, she would, +Miss Adister, if she hadn't feared he'd be talked of as Captain Con has +been--about the neighbourhood, I mean, because he,' Patrick added +hurriedly, 'he married an heiress and sank his ambition for distinction +like a man who has finished his dinner. I'm certain she would. I have +it on authority.' + +'What authority?' said Caroline coldly. + +'Her own old nurse.' + +'Jenny Williams?' + +'The one! I had it from her. And how she loves her darling Miss +Adiante! She won't hear of "princess." She hates that marriage. She +was all for my brother Philip. She calls him "Our handsome lieutenant." +She'll keep the poor fellow a subaltern all his life.' + +'You went to Jenny's inn?' + +'The Earlsfont Arms, I went to. And Mrs. Jenny at the door, watching the +rain. Destiny directed me. She caught the likeness to Philip on a lift +of her eye, and very soon we sat conversing like old friends. We were +soon playing at old cronies over past times. I saw the way to bring her +out, so I set to work, and she was up in defence of her darling, ready to +tell me anything to get me to think well of her. And that was the main +reason, she said, why Miss Adiante broke with him and went abroad her +dear child wouldn't have Mr. Philip abused for fortune-hunting. As for +the religion, they could each have practised their own: her father would +have consented to the fact, when it came on him in that undeniable shape +of two made one. She says, Miss Adiante has a mighty soul; she has brave +ideas. Miss Deenly, she calls her. Ay, and so has Philip: though the +worst is, they're likely to drive him out of the army into politics and +Parliament; and an Irishman there is a barrow trolling a load of +grievances. Ah, but she would have kept him straight. Not a soldier +alive knows the use of cavalry better than my brother. He wanted just +that English wife to steady him and pour drops of universal fire into +him; to keep him face to face with the world, I mean; letting him be true +to his country in a fair degree, but not an old rainpipe and spout. She +would have held him to his profession. And, Oh dear! She's a friend +worth having, lost to Ireland. I see what she could have done there. +Something bigger than an island, too, has to be served in our days: that +is, if we don't forget our duty at home. Poor Paddy, and his pig, and +his bit of earth! If you knew what we feel for him! I'm a landlord, but +I'm one with my people about evictions. We Irish take strong root. And +honest rent paid over to absentees, through an agent, if you think of it, +seems like flinging the money that's the sweat of the brow into a stone +conduit to roll away to a giant maw hungry as the sea. It's the bleeding +to death of our land! Transactions from hand to hand of warm human +flesh-nothing else will do: I mean, for men of our blood. Ah! she would +have kept my brother temperate in his notions and his plans. And why +absentees, Miss Adister? Because we've no centre of home life: the core +has been taken out of us; our country has no hearth-fire. I'm for union; +only there should be justice, and a little knowledge to make allowance +for the natural cravings of a different kind of people. Well, then, and +I suppose that inter-marriages are good for both. But here comes a man, +the boldest and handsomest of his race, and he offers himself to the +handsomest and sweetest of yours, and she leans to him, and the family +won't have him. For he's an Irishman and a Catholic. Who is it then +opposed the proper union of the two islands? Not Philip. He did his +best; and if he does worse now he's not entirely to blame. The +misfortune is, that when he learns the total loss of her on that rock- +promontory, he'll be dashing himself upon rocks sure to shiver him. +There's my fear. If I might take him this . . . ?' Patrick pleaded +with the miniature raised like the figure of his interrogation. + +Caroline's inward smile threw a soft light of humour over her features at +the simple cunning of his wind-up to the lecture on his country's case, +which led her to perceive a similar cunning simplicity in his +identification of it with Philip's. It startled her to surprise, for the +reason that she'd been reviewing his freakish hops from Philip to Ireland +and to Adiante, and wondering in a different kind of surprise, how and by +what profitless ingenuity he contrived to weave them together. Nor +was she unmoved, notwithstanding her fancied perception of his Jesuitry: +his look and his voice were persuasive; his love of his brother was deep; +his change of sentiment toward Adiante after the tale told him by her old +nurse Jenny, stood for proof of a generous manliness. + +Before she had replied, her uncle entered the armoury, and Patrick was +pleading still, and she felt herself to be a piece of damask, a very +fiery dye. + +To disentangle herself, she said on an impulse, desperately + +'Mr. O'Donnell begs to have the miniature for his brother.' + +Patrick swung instantly to Mr. Adister. 'I presumed to ask for it, sir, +to carry it to Philip. He is ignorant about the princess as yet; he +would like to have a bit of the wreck. I shan't be a pleasant messenger +to him. I should be glad to take him something. It could be returned +after a time. She was a great deal to Philip--three parts of his life. +He has nothing of her to call his own.' + +'That!' said Mr. Adister. He turned to the virgin Adiante, sat down and +shut his eyes, fetching a breath. He looked vacantly at Patrick. + +'When you find a man purely destructive, you think him a devil, don't +you?' he said. + +'A good first cousin to one,' Patrick replied, watchful for a hint to +seize the connection. + +'If you think of hunting to-day, we have not many minutes to spare before +we mount. The meet is at eleven, five miles distant. Go and choose your +horse. Caroline will drive there.' + +Patrick consulted her on a glance for counsel. 'I shall be glad to join +you, sir, for to-morrow I must be off to my brother.' + +'Take it,' Mr. Adister waved his hand hastily. He gazed at his idol of +untouched eighteen. 'Keep it safe,' he said, discarding the sight of the +princess. 'Old houses are doomed to burnings, and a devil in the family +may bring us to ashes. And some day . . . !' he could not continue his +thought upon what he might be destined to wish for, and ran it on to, +'Some day I shall be happy to welcome your brother, when it pleases him +to visit me.' + +Patrick bowed, oppressed by the mighty gift. 'I haven't the word to +thank you with, sir.' + +Mr. Adister did not wait for it. + +'I owe this to you, Miss Adister,' said Patrick. + +Her voice shook: 'My uncle loves those who loved her.' + +He could see she was trembling. When he was alone his ardour of +gratefulness enabled him to see into her uncle's breast: the inflexible +frigidity; lasting regrets and remorse; the compassion for Philip in +kinship of grief and loss; the angry dignity; the stately generosity. + +He saw too, for he was clear-eyed when his feelings were not over-active, +the narrow pedestal whereon the stiff figure of a man of iron pride must +accommodate itself to stand in despite of tempests without and within; +and how the statue rocks there, how much more pitiably than the common +sons of earth who have the broad common field to fall down on and our +good mother's milk to set them on their legs again. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CAPTAIN CON AND MRS. ADISTER O'DONNELL + +Riding homeward from the hunt at the leisurely trot of men who have +steamed their mounts pretty well, Mr. Adister questioned Patrick +familiarly about his family, and his estate, and his brother's prospects +in the army, and whither he intended first to direct his travels: +questions which Patrick understood to be kindly put for the sake of +promoting conversation with a companion of unripe age by a gentleman who +had wholesomely excited his blood to run. They were answered, except the +last one. Patrick had no immediate destination in view. + +'Leave Europe behind you,' said Mr. Adister warming, to advise him, and +checking the trot of his horse. 'Try South America.' The lordly +gentleman plotted out a scheme of colonisation and conquest in that +region with the coolness of a practised freebooter. 'No young man is +worth a job,' he said, 'who does not mean to be a leader, and as leader +to have dominion. Here we are fettered by ancestry and antecedents. Had +I to recommence without those encumbrances, I would try my fortune +yonder. I stood condemned to waste my youth in idle parades, and hunting +the bear and buffalo. The estate you have inherited is not binding on +you. You can realise it, and begin by taking over two or three hundred +picked Irish and English--have both races capable of handling spade and +musket; purchasing some thousands of acres to establish a legal footing +there. + +'You increase your colony from the mother country in the ratio of your +prosperity, until your power is respected, and there is a necessity for +the extension of your territory. When you are feared you will be on your +mettle. They will favour you with provocation. I should not doubt the +result, supposing myself to have under my sole command a trained body of +men of English blood--and Irish.' + +'Owners of the soil,' rejoined Patrick, much marvelling. + +'Undoubtedly, owners of the soil, but owing you service.' + +'They fight sir' + +'It is hardly to be specified in the calculation, knowing them. Soldiery +who have served their term, particularly old artillerymen, would be my +choice: young fellows and boys among them. Women would have to be taken. +Half-breeds are the ruin of colonists. Our men are born for conquest. +We were conquerors here, and it is want of action and going physically +forward that makes us a rusty people. There are--Mr. Adister's +intonation told of his proposing a wretched alternative,--'the Pacific +Islands, but they will soon be snapped up by the European and North +American Governments, and a single one of them does not offer space. It +would require money and a navy.' He mused. 'South America is the +quarter I should decide for, as a young man. You are a judge of horses; +you ride well; you would have splendid pastures over there; you might +raise a famous breed. The air is fine; it would suit our English stock. +We are on ground, Mr. O'Donnell, which my forefathers contested sharply +and did not yield.' + +'The owners of the soil had to do that,' said Patrick. 'I can show the +same in my country, with a difference.' + +'Considerably to your benefit.' + +'Everything has been crushed there barring the contrary opinion.' + +'I could expect such a remark from a rebel.' + +'I'm only interpreting the people, sir.' + +'Jump out of that tinder-box as soon as you can.' + +'When I was in South America, it astonished me that no Englishman had +cast an eye on so inviting a land. Australia is not comparable with it. +And where colonisations have begun without system, and without hard +fighting to teach the settlers to value good leadership and respect +their chiefs, they tumble into Republics.' + +Patrick would have liked to fling a word in about the Englishman's cast +of his eye upon inviting lands, but the trot was resumed, the lord of +Earlsfont having delivered his mind, and a minute made it happily too +late for the sarcastic bolt. Glad that his tongue had been kept from +wagging, he trotted along beside his host in the dusky evening over the +once contested land where the gentleman's forefathers had done their +deeds and firmly fixed their descendants. A remainder of dull red fire +prolonged the half-day above the mountain strongholds of the former +owners of the soil, upon which prince and bard and priest, and grappling +natives never wanting for fierceness, roared to-arms in the beacon-flames +from ridge to peak: and down they poured, and back they were pushed by +the inveterate coloniser--stationing at threatened points his old +'artillerymen' of those days and so it ends, that bard and priest and +prince; holy poetry, and divine prescription, and a righteous holding; +are as naught against him. They go, like yonder embers of the winter +sunset before advancing night: and to morrow the beacon-heaps are ashes, +the conqueror's foot stamps on them, the wind scatters them; strangest of +all, you hear victorious lawlessness appealing solemnly to God the law. + +Patrick was too young to philosophise upon his ideas; or else the series +of pictures projected by the troops of sensations running through him +were not of a solidity to support any structure of philosophy. He +reverted, though rather in name than in spirit, to the abstractions, +justice, consistency, right. They were too hard to think of, so he +abandoned the puzzle of fitting them to men's acts and their consciences, +and he put them aside as mere titles employed for the uses of a police +and a tribunal to lend an appearance of legitimacy to the decrees of them +that have got the upper hand. An insurrectionary rising of his breast on +behalf of his country was the consequence. He kept it down by turning +the whole hubbub within him to the practical contemplation of a visionary +South America as the region for him and a fighting tenantry. With a +woman, to crown her queen there, the prospect was fair. But where dwelt +the woman possessing majesty suitable to such a dream in her heart or her +head? The best he had known in Ireland and in France, preferred the +charms of society to bold adventure. + +All the same, thought he, it's queer counsel, that we should set to work +by buying a bit of land to win a clean footing to rob our neighbours: and +his brains took another shot at Mr. Adister, this time without +penetrating. He could very well have seen the matter he disliked in a +man that he disliked; but the father of Adiante had touched him with the +gift of the miniature. + +Patrick was not asked to postpone his departure from Earlsfont, nor was +he invited to come again. Mr. Adister drove him to the station in the +early morning, and gave him a single nod from the phaeton-box for a good- +bye. Had not Caroline assured him at the leave-taking between them that +he had done her uncle great good by his visit, the blank of the usual +ceremonial phrases would have caused him to fancy himself an intruder +courteously dismissed, never more to enter the grand old Hall. He was +further comforted by hearing the stationmaster's exclamation of +astonishment and pleasure at the sight of the squire 'in his place' +handling the reins, which had not been witnessed for many a day and +so it appeared that the recent guest had been exceptionally complimented. +'But why not a warm word, instead of turning me off to decipher a bit of +Egyptian on baked brick,' he thought, incurably Celtic as he was. + +From the moment when he beheld Mr. Adister's phaeton mounting a hill that +took the first leap for the Cambrian highlands, up to his arrival in +London, scarcely one of his 'ideas' darted out before Patrick, as they +were in the habit of doing, like the enchanted bares of fairyland, +tempting him to pursue, and changing into the form of woman ever, at some +turn of the chase. For as he had travelled down to Earlsfont in the +state of ignorance and hopefulness, bearing the liquid brains of that +young condition, so did his acquisition of a particular fact destructive +of hope solidify them about it as he travelled back: in other words, they +were digesting what they had taken in. Imagination would not have +stirred for a thousand fleeting hares: and principally, it may be, +because he was conscious that no form of woman would anywhere come of +them. Woman was married; she had the ring on her finger! He could at +his option look on her in the miniature, he could think of her as being +in the city where she had been painted; but he could not conjure her out +of space; she was nowhere in the ambient air. Secretly she was a feeling +that lay half slumbering very deep down within him, and he kept the +secret, choosing to be poor rather than call her forth. He was in truth +digesting with difficulty, as must be the case when it is allotted to the +brains to absorb what the soul abhors. + +'Poor old Philip!' was his perpetual refrain. 'Philip, the girl you +loved is married; and here's her portrait taken in her last blush; and +the man who has her hasn't a share in that!' Thus, throwing in the ghost +of a sigh for sympathy, it seemed to Patrick that the intelligence would +have to be communicated. Bang is better, thought he, for bad news than +snapping fire and feinting, when you're bound half to kill a fellow, and +a manly fellow. + +Determined that bang it should be, he hurried from the terminus to +Philip's hotel, where he had left him, and was thence despatched to the +house of Captain Con O'Donnell, where he created a joyful confusion, +slightly dashed with rigour on the part of the regnant lady; which is not +to be wondered at, considering that both the gentlemen attending her, +Philip and her husband, quitted her table with shouts at the announcement +of his name, and her husband hauled him in unwashed before her, crying +that the lost was found, the errant returned, the Prodigal Pat recovered +by his kinsman! and she had to submit to the introduction of the +disturber: and a bedchamber had to be thought of for the unexpected +guest, and the dinner to be delayed in middle course, and her husband +corrected between the discussions concerning the bedchamber, and either +the guest permitted to appear at her table in sooty day-garb, or else a +great gap commanded in the service of her dishes, vexatious extreme for a +lady composed of orderliness. She acknowledged Patrick's profound salute +and his excuses with just so many degrees in the inclining of her head as +the polite deem a duty to themselves when the ruffling world has +disarranged them. + +'Con!' she called to her chattering husband, 'we are in England, if you +please.' + +'To be sure, madam,' said the captain, 'and so 's Patrick, thanks to the +stars. We fancied him gone, kidnapped, burned, made a meal of and +swallowed up, under the earth or the water; for he forgot to give us +his address in town; he stood before us for an hour or so, and then the +fellow vanished. We've waited for him gaping. With your permission I'll +venture an opinion that he'll go and dabble his hands and sit with us as +he is, for the once, as it happens.' + +'Let it be so,' she rejoined, not pacified beneath her dignity. She +named the bedchamber to a footman. + +'And I'll accompany the boy to hurry him on,' said the captain, hurrying +Patrick on as he spoke, till he had him out of the dining-room, when he +whispered: 'Out with your key, and if we can scramble you into your +evening-suit quick we shall heal the breach in the dinner. You dip your +hands and face, I'll have out the dress. You've the right style for her, +my boy: and mind, she is an excellent good woman, worthy of all respect: +but formality's the flattery she likes: a good bow and short speech. +Here we are, and the room's lighted. Off to the basin, give me the key; +and here's hot water in tripping Mary's hands. The portmanteau opens +easy. Quick! the door's shut on rosy Mary. The race is for domestic +peace, my boy. I sacrifice everything I can for it, in decency. 'Tis +the secret of my happiness.' + +Patrick's transformation was rapid enough to satisfy the impatient +captain, who said: 'You'll tell her you couldn't sit down in her presence +undressed. I married her at forty, you know, when a woman has reached +her perfect development, and leans a trifle more to ceremonies than to +substance. And where have you been the while?' + +'I'll tell you by and by,' said Patrick. + +'Tell me now, and don't be smirking at the glass; your necktie's as neat +as a lady's company-smile, equal at both ends, and warranted not to relax +before the evening 's over. And mind you don't set me off talking over- +much downstairs. I talk in her presence like the usher of the Court to +the judge. 'Tis the secret of my happiness.' + +'Where are those rascally dress-boots of mine?' cried Patrick. + +Captain Con pitched the contents of the portmanteau right and left. +'Never mind the boots, my boy. Your legs will be under the table during +dinner, and we'll institute a rummage up here between that and the +procession to the drawing-room, where you'll be examined head to foot, +devil a doubt of it. But say, where have you been? She'll be asking, +and we're in a mess already, and may as well have a place to name to her, +somewhere, to excuse the gash you've made in her dinner. Here they are, +both of 'm, rolled in a dirty shirt!' + +Patrick seized the boots and tugged them on, saying 'Earlsfont, then.' + +'You've been visiting Earlsfont? Whack! but that's the saving of us! +Talk to her of her brother he sends her his love. Talk to her of the +ancestral hall--it stands as it was on the day of its foundation. Just +wait about five minutes to let her punish us, before you out with it. +'Twill come best from you. What did you go down there for? But don't +stand answering questions; come along. Don't heed her countenance at the +going in: we've got the talisman. As to the dressing, it's a perfect +trick of harlequinade, and she'll own it after a dose of Earlsfont. And, +by the way, she's not Mrs. Con, remember; she's Mrs. Adister O'Donnell: +and that's best rolled out to Mistress. She's a worthy woman, but she +was married at forty, and I had to take her shaped as she was, for +moulding her at all was out of the question, and the soft parts of me +had to be the sufferers, to effect a conjunction, for where one won't and +can't, poor t' other must, or the union's a mockery. She was cast in +bronze at her birth, if she wasn't cut in bog-root. Anyhow, you'll study +her. Consider her for my sake. Madam, it should be--madam, call her, +addressing her, madam. She hasn't a taste for jokes, and she chastises +absurdities, and England's the foremost country of the globe, indirect +communication with heaven, and only to be connected with such a country +by the tail of it is a special distinction and a comfort for us; we're +that part of the kite!--but, Patrick, she's a charitable soul; she's a +virtuous woman and an affectionate wife, and doesn't frown to see me turn +off to my place of worship while she drum-majors it away to her own; she +entertains Father Boyle heartily, like the good woman she is to good men; +and unfortunate females too have a friend in her, a real friend--that +they have; and that 's a wonder in a woman chaste as ice. I do respect +her; and I'd like to see the man to favour me with an opportunity of +proving it on him! So you'll not forget, my boy; and prepare for a cold +bath the first five minutes. Out with Earlsfont early after that. All +these things are trifles to an unmarried man. I have to attend to 'm, I +have to be politic and give her elbow-room for her natural angles. 'Tis +the secret of my happiness.' + +Priming his kinsman thus up to the door of the diningroom, Captain Con +thrust him in. + +Mistress Adister O'Donnell's head rounded as by slow attraction to the +clock. Her disciplined husband signified an equal mixture of contrition +and astonishment at the passing of time. He fell to work upon his plate +in obedience to the immediate policy dictated to him. + +The unbending English lady contrasted with her husband so signally +that the oddly united couple appeared yoked in a common harness for a +perpetual display of the opposition of the races. She resembled her +brother, the lord of Earlsfont, in her remarkable height and her calm air +of authority and self-sustainment. From beneath a head-dress built of +white curls and costly lace, half enclosing her high narrow forehead, a +pale, thin, straight bridge of nose descended prominently over her sunken +cheeks to thin locked lips. Her aspect suggested the repose of a winter +landscape, enjoyable in pictures, or on skates, otherwise nipping. . . . +Mental directness, of no greater breadth than her principal feature, was +the character it expressed; and candour of spirit shone through the +transparency she was, if that mild taper could be said to shine in proof +of a vitality rarely notified to the outer world by the opening of her +mouth; chiefly then, though not malevolently to command: as the portal of +some snow-bound monastery opens to the outcast, bidding it be known that +the light across the wolds was not deceptive and a glimmer of light +subsists among the silent within. The life sufficed to her. She was +like a marble effigy seated upright, requiring but to be laid at her +length for transport to the cover of the tomb. + +Now Captain Con was by nature ruddy as an Indian summer flushed in all +its leaves. The corners of his face had everywhere a frank ambush, or +child's hiding-place, for languages and laughter. He could worm with a +smile quite his own the humour out of men possessing any; and even under +rigorous law, and it could not be disputed that there was rigour in the +beneficent laws imposed upon him by his wife, his genius for humour and +passion for sly independence came up and curled away like the smoke of +the illicit still, wherein the fanciful discern fine sprites indulging in +luxurious grimaces at a government long-nosed to no purpose. Perhaps, as +Patrick said of him to Caroline Adister, he was a bard without a theme. +He certainly was a man of speech, and the having fearfully to contain +himself for the greater number of the hours of the day, for the +preservation of the domestic felicity he had learnt to value, fathered +the sentiment of revolt in his bosom. + +By this time, long after five minutes had elapsed, the frost presiding +at the table was fast withering Captain Con; and he was irritable to hear +why Patrick had gone off to Earlsfont, and what he had done there, and +the adventures he had tasted on the road; anything for warmth. His +efforts to fish the word out of Patrick produced deeper crevasses in the +conversation, and he cried to himself: Hats and crape-bands! mightily +struck by an idea that he and his cousins were a party of hired mourners +over the meat they consumed. Patrick was endeavouring to spare his +brother a mention of Earlsfont before they had private talk together. +He answered neither to a dip of the hook nor to a pull. + +'The desert where you 've come from 's good,' said the captain, sharply +nodding. + +Mrs. Adister O'Donnell ejaculated: 'Wine!' for a heavy comment upon one +of his topics, and crushed it. + +Philip saw that Patrick had no desire to spread, and did not trouble him. + +'Good horses in the stable too,' said the captain. + +Patrick addressed Mrs. Adister: 'I have hardly excused myself to you, +madam.' + +Her head was aloft in dumb apostrophe of wearifulness over another of her +husband's topics. + +'Do not excuse yourself at all,' she said. + +The captain shivered. He overhauled his plotting soul publicly: +'Why don't you out with it yourself!' and it was wonderful why he had +not done so, save that he was prone to petty conspiracy, and had thought +reasonably that the revelation would be damp, gunpowder, coming from him. +And for when he added: 'The boy's fresh from Earlsfont; he went down to +look at the brav old house of the Adisters, and was nobly welcomed and +entertained, and made a vast impression,' his wife sedately remarked to +Patrick, 'You have seen my brother Edward.' + +'And brings a message of his love to you, my dear,' the Captain bit his +nail harder. + +'You have a message for me?' she asked; and Patrick replied: 'The captain +is giving a free translation. I was down there, and I took the liberty +of calling on Mr. Adister, and I had a very kind reception. We hunted, +we had a good day with the hounds. I think I remember hearing that you +go there at Christmas, madam.' + +'Our last Christmas at Earlsfont was a sad meeting for the family. My +brother Edward is well?' + +'I had the happiness to be told that I had been of a little service in +cheering him.' + +'I can believe it,' said Mrs. Adister, letting her eyes dwell on the +young man; and he was moved by the silvery tremulousness of her voice. + +She resumed: 'You have the art of dressing in a surprisingly short time.' + +'There!' exclaimed Captain Con: for no man can hear the words which prove +him a prophet without showing excitement. 'Didn't I say so? Patrick's a +hero for love or war, my dear. He stood neat and trim from the silk +socks to the sprig of necktie in six minutes by my watch. And that's +witness to me that you may count on him for what the great Napoleon +called two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage; not too common even in his +immortal army:--when it's pitch black and frosty cold, and you're buried +within in a dream of home, and the trumpet springs you to your legs in a +trice, boots and trowsers, coat and sword-belt and shako, and one twirl +to the whiskers, and away before a second snap of the fingers to where +the great big bursting end of all things for you lies crouching like a +Java-Tiger--a ferocious beast painted undertaker's colour--for a leap at +you in particular out of the dark;--never waiting an instant to ask +what's the matter and pretend you don't know. That's rare, Philip; +that's bravery; Napoleon knew the thing; and Patrick has it; my hand's +on the boy's back for that.' + +The captain was permitted to discourse as he pleased: his wife was wholly +given to the recent visitor to Earlsfont, whom she informed that Caroline +was the youngest daughter of General Adister, her second brother, and an +excellent maiden, her dear Edward's mainstay in his grief. At last she +rose, and was escorted to the door by all present. But Captain Con +rather shame-facedly explained to Patrick that it was a sham departure; +they had to follow without a single spin to the claretjug: he closed the +door merely to state his position; how at half-past ten he would be a +free man, according to the convention, to which his wife honourably +adhered, so he had to do likewise, as regarded his share of it. +Thereupon he apologised to the brothers, bitterly regretting that, with +good wine in the cellar, his could be no house for claret; and promising +them they should sit in their shirts and stretch their legs, and toast +the old country and open their hearts, no later than the minute pointing +to the time for his deliverance. + +Mrs. Adister accepted her husband's proffered arm unhesitatingly at the +appointed stroke of the clock. She said: 'Yes,' in agreement with him, +as if she had never heard him previously enunciate the formula, upon his +pious vociferation that there should be no trifling with her hours of +rest. + +'You can find your way to my cabin,' he said to Philip over his shoulder, +full of solicitude for the steps of the admirable lady now positively +departing. + +As soon as the brothers were alone, Philip laid his hand on Patrick, +asking him, 'What does it mean?' + +Patrick fired his cannon-shot: 'She's married!' Consulting his feelings +immediately after, he hated himself for his bluntness. + +Philip tossed his head. 'But why did you go down there?' + +'I went,' said Patrick, 'well, I went . . . . I thought you looked +wretched, and I went with an idea of learning where she was, and seeing +if I couldn't do something. It's too late now; all's over.' + +'My dear boy, I've worse than that to think of.' + +'You don't mind it?' + +'That's old news, Patrick.' + +'You don't care for her any more, Philip?' + +'You wouldn't have me caring for a married woman?' + +'She has a perfect beast for a husband.' + +'I'm sorry she didn't make a better choice.' + +'He's a prince.' + +'So I hear.' + +'Ah! And what worse, Philip, can you be having to think of?' + +'Affairs,' Philip replied, and made his way to the cabin of Captain Con, +followed in wonderment by Patrick, who would hardly have been his dupe to +suppose him indifferent and his love of Adiante dead, had not the thought +flashed on him a prospect of retaining the miniature for his own, or for +long in his custody. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN + +Patrick left his brother at the second flight of stairs to run and fling +on a shooting-jacket, into which he stuffed his treasure, after one peep +that eclipsed his little dream of being allowed to keep it; and so he saw +through Philip. + +The captain's cabin was the crown of his house-top, a builder's addition +to the roof, where the detestable deeds he revelled in, calling them +liberty, could be practised, according to the convention, and no one save +rosy Mary, in her sense of smell, when she came upon her morning business +to clean and sweep, be any the wiser of them, because, as it is known to +the whole world, smoke ascends, and he was up among the chimneys. Here, +he would say to his friends and fellow-sinners, you can unfold, unbosom, +explode, do all you like, except caper, and there 's a small square of +lead between the tiles outside for that, if the spirit of the jig comes +upon you with violence, as I have had it on me, and eased myself mightily +there, to my own music; and the capital of the British Empire below me. +Here we take our indemnity for subjection to the tyrannical female ear, +and talk like copious rivers meandering at their own sweet will. Here we +roll like dogs in carrion, and no one to sniff at our coats. Here we +sing treason, here we flout reason, night is out season at half-past ten. + +This introductory ode to Freedom was his throwing off of steam, the +foretaste of what he contained. He rejoined his cousins, chirping +variations on it, and attired in a green silken suit of airy Ottoman +volume, full of incitement to the legs and arms to swing and set him +up for a Sultan. 'Now Phil, now Pat,' he cried, after tenderly pulling +the door to and making sure it was shut, 'any tale you've a mind for-- +infamous and audacious! You're licensed by the gods up here, and may +laugh at them too, and their mothers and grandmothers, if the fit seizes +ye, and the heartier it is the greater the exemption. We're pots that +knock the lid and must pour out or boil over and destroy the furniture. +My praties are ready for peelin', if ever they were in this world! Chuck +wigs from sconces, and off with your buckram. Decency's a dirty +petticoat in the Garden of Innocence. Naked we stand, boys! we're not +afraid of nature. You're in the annexe of Erin, Pat, and devil a +constable at the keyhole; no rats; I'll say that for the Government, +though it's a despotism with an iron bridle on the tongue outside to a +foot of the door. Arctic to freeze the boldest bud of liberty! I'd +like a French chanson from ye, Pat, to put us in tune, with a right +revolutionary hurling chorus, that pitches Kings' heads into the basket +like autumn apples. Or one of your hymns in Gaelic sung ferociously to +sound as horrid to the Saxon, the wretch. His reign 's not for ever; he +can't enter here. You're in the stronghold defying him. And now cigars, +boys, pipes; there are the boxes, there are the bowls. I can't smoke +till I have done steaming. I'll sit awhile silently for the operation. +Christendom hasn't such a man as your cousin Con for feeling himself a +pig-possessed all the blessed day, acting the part of somebody else, till +it takes me a quarter of an hour of my enfranchisement and restoration of +my natural man to know myself again. For the moment, I'm froth, scum, +horrid boiling hissing dew of the agony of transformation; I am; I'm that +pig disgorging the spirit of wickedness from his poor stomach.' + +The captain drooped to represent the state of the self-relieving victim +of the evil one; but fearful lest either of his cousins should usurp the +chair and thwart his chance of delivering himself, he rattled away +sympathetically with his posture in melancholy: 'Ay, we're poor +creatures; pigs and prophets, princes and people, victors and vanquished, +we 're waves of the sea, rolling over and over, and calling it life! +There's no life save the eternal. Father Boyle's got the truth. Flesh +is less than grass, my sons; 'tis the shadow that crosses the grass. I +love the grass. I could sit and watch grassblades for hours. I love an +old turf mound, where the grey grass nods and seems to know the wind and +have a whisper with it, of ancient times maybe and most like; about the +big chief lying underneath in the last must of his bones that a breath of +air would scatter. They just keep their skeleton shape as they are; for +the turf mound protects them from troubles: 'tis the nurse to that +delicate old infant!--Waves of the sea, did I say? We're wash in a hog- +trough for Father Saturn to devour; big chief and suckling babe, we all +go into it, calling it life! And what hope have we of reading the +mystery? All we can see is the straining of the old fellow's hams to +push his old snout deeper into the gobble, and the ridiculous curl of a +tail totally devoid of expression! You'll observe that gluttons have no +feature; they're jaws and hindquarters; which is the beginning and end of +'m; and so you may say to Time for his dealing with us: so let it be a +lesson to you not to bother your wits, but leave the puzzle to the +priest. He understands it, and why? because he was told. There 's +harmony in his elocution, and there's none in the modern drivel about +where we're going and what we came out of. No wonder they call it +an age of despair, when you see the big wigs filing up and down the +thoroughfares with a great advertisement board on their shoulders, +proclaiming no information to the multitude, but a blank note of +interrogation addressed to Providence, as if an answer from above would +be vouchsafed to their impudence! They haven't the first principles of +good manners. And some of 'm in a rage bawl the answer for themselves. +Hear that! No, Phil; No, Pat, no: devotion's good policy.--You're not +drinking! Are you both of ye asleep? why do ye leave me to drone away +like this, when it 's conversation I want, as in the days of our first +parents, before the fig-leaf?--and you might have that for scroll and +figure on the social banner of the hypocritical Saxon, who's a +gormandising animal behind his decency, and nearer to the Arch-devourer +Time than anything I can imagine: except that with a little exertion you +can elude him. The whisky you've got between you 's virgin of the +excise. I'll pay double for freepeaty any day. Or are you for claret, +my lads? No? I'm fortified up here to stand a siege in my old round +tower, like the son of Eremon that I am. Lavra Con! Con speaks at last! +I don't ask you, Pat, whether you remember Maen, who was born dumb, and +had for his tutors Ferkelne the bard and Crafting the harper, at pleasant +Dinree: he was grandson of Leary Lore who was basely murdered by his +brother Cova, and Cova spared the dumb boy, thinking a man without a +tongue harmless, as fools do: being one of their savings-bank tricks, +to be repaid them, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns +at compound interest, have no fear. So one day Maen had an insult put +on him; and 'twas this for certain: a ruffian fellow of the Court swore +he couldn't mention the name of his father; and in a thundering fury Maen +burst his tongue-tie, and the Court shouted Lavra Maen: and he had to go +into exile, where he married in the middle of delicious love-adventures +the beautiful Moira through the cunning of Craftine the harper. There's +been no harper in my instance but plenty of ruffians to swear I'm too +comfortable to think of my country.' The captain holloaed. 'Do they +hear that? Lord! but wouldn't our old Celtic fill the world with poetry +if only we were a free people to give our minds to 't, instead of to the +itch on our backs from the Saxon horsehair shirt we're forced to wear. +For, Pat, as you know, we're a loving people, we're a loyal people, +we burn to be enthusiastic, but when our skins are eternally irritated, +how can we sing? In a freer Erin I'd be the bard of the land, never +doubt it. What am I here but a discontented idle lout crooning over the +empty glories of our isle of Saints! You feel them, Pat. Phil's all for +his British army, his capabilities of British light cavalry. Write me +the history of the Enniskillens. I'll read it. Aha, my boy, when they +'re off at the charge! And you'll oblige me with the tale of Fontenoy. +Why, Phil has an opportunity stretching forth a hand to him now more than +halfway that comes to a young Irishman but once in a century: backed by +the entire body of the priesthood of Ireland too! and if only he was a +quarter as full of the old country as you and I, his hair would stand up +in fire for the splendid gallop at our head that's proposed to him. His +country's gathered up like a crested billow to roll him into Parliament; +and I say, let him be there, he 's the very man to hurl his gauntlet, and +tell 'm, Parliament, so long as you are parliamentary, which means the +speaking of our minds, but if you won't have it, then-and it 's on your +heads before Europe and the two Americas. We're dying like a nun that 'd +be out of her cloister, we're panting like the wife who hears of her +husband coming home to her from the field of honour, for that young man. +And there he is; or there he seems to be; but he's dead: and the +fisherman off the west coast after dreaming of a magical haul, gets more +fish than disappointment in comparison with us when we cast the net for +Philip. Bring tears of vexation at the emptiness we pull back for our +pains. Oh, Phil! and to think of your youth! We had you then. At +least we had your heart. And we should have had the length and strength +of you, only for a woman fatal to us as the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, +the beautiful Nesta:--and beautiful she was to match the mother of the +curses trooping over to Ireland under Strongbow, that I'll grant you. +But she reined you in when you were a real warhorse ramping and snorting +flame from your nostrils, challenging any other to a race for Ireland; +ay, a Cuchullin you were, Philip, Culann's chain-bound: but she unmanned +you. She soaked the woman into you and squeezed the hero out of you. +All for Adiante! or a country left to slavery! that's the tale. And what +are you now? A paltry captain of hussars on the General's staff! One +O'Donnell in a thousand! And what is she?--you needn't frown, Phil; I'm +her relative by marriage, and she 's a lady. More than that, she shot a +dart or two into my breast in those days, she did, I'll own it: I had the +catch of the breath that warns us of convulsions. She was the morning +star for beauty, between night and day, and the best colour of both. +Welshmen and Irishmen and Englishmen tumbled into the pit, which seeing +her was, and there we jostled for a glimpse quite companionably; we were +too hungry for quarrelling; and to say, I was one of 'm, is a title to +subsequent friendship. True; only mark me, Philip, and you, Patrick: +they say she has married a prince, and I say no; she's took to herself a +husband in her cradle; she's married ambition. I tell you, and this +prince of hers is only a step she has taken, and if he chases her first +mate from her bosom, he'll prove himself cleverer than she, and I dare +him to the trial. For she's that fiery dragon, a beautiful woman with +brains--which Helen of Troy hadn't, combustible as we know her to have +been: but brains are bombshells in comparison with your old-fashioned +pine-brands for kindling men and cities. Ambition's the husband of +Adiante Adister, and all who come nigh her are steps to her aim. She +never consulted her father about Prince Nikolas; she had begun her march +and she didn't mean to be arrested. She simply announced her approaching +union; and as she couldn't have a scion of one of the Royal House of +Europe, she put her foot on Prince Nikolas. And he 's not to fancy he 's +in for a peaceful existence; he's a stone in a sling, and probably +mistaken the rocking that's to launch him through the air for a condition +of remarkable ease, perfectly remarkable in its lullaby motion; ha! +well, and I've not heard of ambition that didn't kill its votary: somehow +it will; 'tis sure to. There she lies!' + +The prophetic captain pointed at the spot. He then said: 'And now I'm +for my pipe, and the blackest clay of the party, with your permission. +I'll just go to the window to see if the stars are out overhead. They're +my blessed guardian angels.' + +There was a pause. Philip broke from a brown study to glance at his +brother. Patrick made a queer face. + +'Fun and good-fellowship to-night, Con,' said Philip, as the captain +sadly reported no star visible. + +'Have I ever flown a signal to the contrary?' retorted the captain. + +'No politics, and I 'll thank you,' said Philip: 'none of your early +recollections. Be jovial.' + +'You should have seen me here the other night about a month ago; I +smuggled up an old countrywoman of ours, with the connivance of rosy +Mary,' said Captain Con, suffused in the merriest of grins. 'She sells +apples at a stall at a corner of a street hard by, and I saw her sitting +pulling at her old pipe in the cold October fog morning and evening for +comfort, and was overwhelmed with compassion and fraternal sentiment; and +so I invited her to be at the door of the house at half-past ten, just to +have a roll with her in Irish mud, and mend her torn soul with a stitch +or two of rejoicing. She told me stories; and one was pretty good, of a +relative of hers, or somebody's--I should say, a century old, but she +told it with a becoming air of appropriation that made it family history, +for she's come down in the world, and this fellow had a stain of red upon +him, and wanted cleaning; and, "What!" says the good father, "Mika! you +did it in cold blood?" And says Mika, "Not I, your Riverence. I got +myself into a passion 'fore I let loose." I believe she smoked this +identical pipe. She acknowledged the merits of my whisky, as poets do +hearing fine verses, never clapping hands, but with the expressiveness of +grave absorption. That's the way to make good things a part of you. She +was a treat. I got her out and off at midnight, rosy Mary sneaking her +down, and the old girl quiet as a mouse for the fun's sake. The whole +intrigue was exquisitely managed.' + +'You run great risks,' Philip observed. + +'I do,' said the captain. + +He called on the brothers to admire the 'martial and fumial' decorations +of his round tower, buzzing over the display of implements, while Patrick +examined guns and Philip unsheathed swords. An ancient clay pipe from +the bed of the Thames and one from the bed of the Boyne were laid side by +side, and strange to relate, the Irish pipe and English immediately, by +the mere fact of their being proximate, entered into rivalry; they all +but leapt upon one another. The captain judicially decided the case +against the English pipe, as a newer pipe of grosser manufacture, not so +curious by any means. + +'This,' Philip held up the reputed Irish pipe, and scanned as he twirled +it on his thumb, 'This was dropped in Boyne Water by one of William's +troopers. It is an Orange pipe. I take it to be of English make.' + +'If I thought that, I'd stamp my heel on the humbug the neighbour +minute,' said Captain Con. 'Where's the sign of English marks?' + +'The pipes resemble one another,' said Philip, 'like tails of Shannon- +bred retrievers.' + +'Maybe they 're both Irish, then?' the captain caught at analogy to +rescue his favourite from reproach. + +'Both of them are Saxon.' + +'Not a bit of it!' + +'Look at the clay.' + +'I look, and I tell you, Philip, it's of a piece with your lukewarmness +for the country, or you wouldn't talk like that.' + +'There is no record of pipe manufactories in Ireland at the period you +name.' + +'There is: and the jealousy of rulers caused them to be destroyed by +decrees, if you want historical evidence.' + +'Your opposition to the Saxon would rob him of his pipe, Con!' + +'Let him go to the deuce with as many pipes as he can carry; but he +shan't have this one.' + +'Not a toss-up of difference is to be seen in the pair.' + +'Use your eyes. The Irish bowl is broken, and the English has an inch +longer stem!' + +'O the Irish bowl is broken!' Philip sang. + +'You've the heart of a renegade-foreigner not to see it!' cried the +captain. + +Patrick intervened saying: 'I suspect they're Dutch.' + +'Well, and that 's possible.' Captain Con scrutinised them to calm his +temper: 'there's a Dutchiness in the shape.' + +He offered Philip the compromise of 'Dutch' rather plaintively, but it +was not accepted, and the pipes would have mingled their fragments on the +hearthstone if Patrick had not stayed his arm, saying: 'Don't hurt them.' + +'And I won't,' the captain shook his hand gratefully. + +'But will Philip O'Donnell tell me that Ireland should lie down with +England on the terms of a traveller obliged to take a bedfellow? Come! +He hasn't an answer. Put it to him, and you pose him. But he 'll not +stir, though he admits the antagonism. And Ireland is asked to lie down +with England on a couch blessed by the priest! Not she. Wipe out our +grievances, and then we'll begin to talk of policy. Good Lord!--love? +The love of Ireland for the conquering country will be the celebrated +ceremony in the concluding chapter previous to the inauguration of the +millennium. Thousands of us are in a starving state at home this winter, +Patrick. And it's not the fault of England?--landlordism 's not? Who +caused the ruin of all Ireland's industries? You might as well say that +it 's the fault of the poor beggar to go limping and hungry because his +cruel master struck him a blow to cripple him. We don't want half and +half doctoring, and it's too late in the day for half and half oratory. +We want freedom, and we'll have it, and we won't leave it to the Saxon to +think about giving it. And if your brother Philip won't accept this +blazing fine offer, then I will, and you'll behold me in a new attitude. +The fellow yawns! You don't know me yet, Philip. They tell us over here +we ought to be satisfied. Fall upon our list of wrongs, and they set to +work yawning. You can only move them by popping at them over hedges and +roaring on platforms. They're incapable of understanding a complaint a +yard beyond their noses. The Englishman has an island mind, and when +he's out of it he's at sea.' + +'Mad, you mean,' said Philip. + +'I repeat my words, Captain Philip O'Donnell, late of the staff of the +General commanding in Canada.' + +'The Irishman too has an island mind, and when he's out of it he's at +sea, and unable to manage his craft,' said Philip. + +'You'll find more craft in him when he's buffeted than you reckoned on,' +his cousin flung back. 'And if that isn't the speech of a traitor sold +to the enemy, and now throwing off the mask, traitors never did mischief +in Ireland! Why, what can you discover to admire in these people? Isn't +their army such a combination of colours in the uniforms, with their +yellow facings on red jackets, I never saw out of a doll-shop, and never +saw there. And their Horse Guards, weedy to a man! fit for a doll-shop +they are, by my faith! And their Foot Guards: Have ye met the fellows +marching? with their feet turned out, flat as my laundress's irons, and +the muscles of their calves depending on the joints to get 'm along, for +elasticity never gave those bones of theirs a springing touch; and their +bearskins heeling behind on their polls; like pot-house churls daring the +dursn't to come on. Of course they can fight. Who said no? But they +'re not the only ones: and they 'll miss their ranks before they can +march like our Irish lads. The look of their men in line is for all the +world to us what lack-lustre is to the eye. The drill they 've had +hasn't driven Hodge out of them, it has only stiffened the dolt; and dolt +won't do any longer; the military machine requires intelligence in all +ranks now. Ay, the time for the Celt is dawning: I see it, and I don't +often spy a spark where there isn't soon a blaze. Solidity and stupidity +have had their innings: a precious long innings it has been; and now +they're shoved aside like clods of earth from the risin flower. Off with +our shackles! We've only to determine it to be free, and we'll bloom +again; and I'll be the first to speak the word and mount the colours. +Follow me! Will ye join in the toast to the emblem of Erin-- +the shamrock, Phil and Pat?' + +'Oh, certainly,' said Philip. 'What 's that row going on?' Patrick also +called attention to the singular noise in the room. 'I fancy the time +for the Celt is not dawning, but setting,' said Philip, with a sharp +smile; and Patrick wore an artful look. + +A corner of the room was guilty of the incessant alarum. Captain Con +gazed in that direction incredulously and with remonstrance. 'The +tinkler it is!' he sighed. 'But it can't be midnight yet?' Watches were +examined. Time stood at half-past the midnight. He groaned: 'I must go. +I haven't heard the tinkler for months. It signifies she's cold in her +bed. The thing called circulation's unknown to her save by the aid of +outward application, and I 'm the warming pan, as legitimately I should +be, I'm her husband and her Harvey in one. Goodbye to my hop and skip. +I ought by rights to have been down beside her at midnight. She's the +worthiest woman alive, and I don't shirk my duty. Be quiet!' he bellowed +at the alarum; 'I 'm coming. Don't be in such a fright, my dear,' he +admonished it as his wife, politely. 'Your hand'll take an hour to warm +if you keep it out on the spring that sets the creature going.' He +turned and informed his company: 'Her hand'll take an hour to warm. +Dear! how she runs ahead: d' ye hear? That's the female tongue, and +once off it won't stop. And this contrivance for fetching me from my +tower to her bed was my own suggestion, in a fit of generosity! Ireland +all over! I must hurry and wash my hair, for she can't bear a perfume to +kill a stink; she carries her charitable heart that far. Good-night, +I'll be thinking of ye while I'm warming her. Sit still, I can't wait; +'tis the secret of my happiness.' He fled. Patrick struck his knee on +hearing the expected ballad-burden recur. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE BROTHERS + +'Con has learnt one secret,' said Philip, quitting his chair. + +Patrick went up to him, and, 'Give us a hug,' he said, and the hug was +given. + +They were of an equal height, tall young men, alert, nervously braced +from head to foot, with the differences between soldier and civilian +marked by the succintly military bearing of the elder brother, whose +movements were precise and prompt, and whose frame was leopardlike in +indolence. Beside him Patrick seemed cubbish, though beside another he +would not have appeared so. His features were not so brilliantly +regular, but were a fanciful sketch of the same design, showing a wider +pattern of the long square head and the forehead, a wavering at the dip +of the nose, livelier nostrils: the nostrils dilated and contracted, and +were exceeding alive. His eyelids had to do with the look of his eyes, +and were often seen cutting the ball. Philip's eyes were large on the +pent of his brows, open, liquid, and quick with the fire in him. Eyes of +that quality are the visible mind, animated both to speak it and to +render it what comes within their scope. They were full, unshaded +direct, the man himself, in action. Patrick's mouth had to be studied +for an additional index to the character. To symbolise them, they were +as a sword-blade lying beside book. + +Men would have thought Patrick the slippery one of the two: women would +have inclined to confide in him the more thoroughly; they bring feeling +to the test, and do not so much read a print as read the imprinting on +themselves; and the report that a certain one of us is true as steel, +must be unanimous at a propitious hour to assure them completely that the +steel is not two-edged in the fully formed nature of a man whom they have +not tried. They are more at home with the unformed, which lends itself +to feeling and imagination. Besides Patrick came nearer to them; he +showed sensibility. They have it, and they deem it auspicious of +goodness, or of the gentleness acceptable as an equivalent. Not the less +was Philip the one to inspire the deeper and the wilder passion. + +'So you've been down there?' said Philip. 'Tell us of your welcome. +Never mind why you went: I think I see. You're the Patrick of fourteen, +who tramped across Connaught for young Dermot to have a sight of you +before he died, poor lad. How did Mr. Adister receive you?' + +Patrick described the first interview. + +Philip mused over it. 'Yes, those are some of his ideas: gentlemen are +to excel in the knightly exercises. He used to fence excellently, and he +was a good horseman. The Jesuit seminary would have been hard for him to +swallow once. The house is a fine old house: lonely, I suppose.' + +Patrick spoke of Caroline Adister and pursued his narrative. Philip was +lost in thought. At the conclusion, relating to South America, he raised +his head and said: 'Not so foolish as it struck you, Patrick. You and I +might do that,--without the design upon the original owner of the soil! +Irishmen are better out of Europe, unless they enter one of the +Continental services.' + +'What is it Con O'Donnell proposes to you?' Patrick asked him earnestly. + +'To be a speaking trumpet in Parliament. And to put it first among the +objections, I haven't an independence; not above two hundred a year.' + +'I'll make it a thousand,' said Patrick, 'that is, if my people can pay.' + +'Secondly, I don't want to give up my profession. Thirdly, fourthly, +fifthly, once there, I should be boiling with the rest. I never could go +half way. This idea of a commencement gives me a view of the finish. +Would you care to try it?' + +'If I'm no wiser after two or three years of the world I mean to make a +better acquaintance with,' Patrick replied. 'Over there at home one +catches the fever, you know. They have my feelings, and part of my +judgement, and whether that's the weaker part I can't at present decide. +My taste is for quiet farming and breeding.' + +'Friendship, as far as possible; union, if the terms are fair,' said +Philip. 'It's only the name of union now; supposing it a concession that +is asked of them; say, sacrifice; it might be made for the sake of what +our people would do to strengthen the nation. But they won't try to +understand our people. Their laws, and their rules, their systems are +forced on a race of an opposite temper, who would get on well enough, and +thrive, if they were properly consulted. Ireland 's the sore place of +England, and I'm sorry for it. We ought to be a solid square, with +Europe in this pickle. So I say, sitting here. What should I be saying +in Parliament?' + +'Is Con at all likely, do you think, Philip?' + +'He might: and become the burlesque Irishman of the House. There must be +one, and the lot would be safe to fall on him.' + +'Isn't he serious about it?' + +'Quite, I fancy; and that will be the fun. A serious fellow talking +nonsense with lively illustrations, is just the man for House of Commons +clown. Your humorous rogue is not half so taking. Con would be the +porpoise in a fish tank there, inscrutably busy on his errand and watched +for his tumblings. Better I than he; and I should make a worse of it--at +least for myself.' + +'Wouldn't the secret of his happiness interfere?' + +'If he has the secret inside his common sense. The bulk of it I suspect +to be, that he enjoys his luxuries and is ashamed of his laziness; and so +the secret pulls both ways. One day a fit of pride may have him, or one +of his warm impulses, and if he's taken in the tide of it, I shall grieve +for the secret.' + +'You like his wife, Philip?' + +'I respect her. They came together,--I suppose, because they were near +together, like the two islands, in spite of the rolling waves between. +I would not willingly see the union disturbed. He warms her, and she +houses him. And he has to control the hot blood that does the warming, +and she to moderate the severity of her principles, which are an +essential part of the housing. Oh! shiver politics, Patrice. I wish +I had been bred in France: a couple of years with your Pere Clement, and +I could have met Irishmen and felt to them as an Irishman, whether they +were disaffected or not. I wish I did. When I landed the other day, +I thought myself passably cured, and could have said that rhetoric is the +fire-water of our country, and claptrap the springboard to send us diving +into it. I like my comrades-in-arms, I like the character of British +officers, and the men too--I get on well with them. I declare to you, +Patrice, I burn to live in brotherhood with them, not a rift of division +at heart! I never show them that there is one. But our early training +has us; it comes on us again; three or four days with Con have stirred +me; I don't let him see it, but they always do: these tales of +starvations and shootings, all the old work just as when I left, +act on me like a smell of powder. I was dipped in "Ireland for the +Irish"; and a contented Irishman scarcely seems my countryman.' + +'I suppose it 's like what I hear of as digesting with difficulty,' +Patrick referred to the state described by his brother. + +'And not the most agreeable of food,' Philip added. + +'It would be the secret of our happiness to discover how to make the +best of it, if we had to pay penance for the discovery by living in +an Esquimaux shanty,' said Patrick. + +'With a frozen fish of admirable principles for wife,' said Philip. + +'Ah, you give me shudders!' + +'And it's her guest who talks of her in that style! and I hope to be +thought a gentleman!' Philip pulled himself up. 'We may be all in the +wrong. The way to begin to think so, is to do them an injury and forget +it. The sensation's not unpleasant when it's other than a question of +good taste. But politics to bed, Patrice. My chief is right--soldiers +have nothing to do with them. What are you fiddling at in your coat +there?' + +'Something for you, my dear Philip.' Patrick brought out the miniature. +He held it for his brother to look. 'It was the only thing I could get. +Mr. Adister sends it. The young lady, Miss Caroline, seconded me. They +think more of the big portrait: I don't. And it 's to be kept carefully, +in case of the other one getting damaged. That's only fair.' + +Philip drank in the face upon a swift shot of his eyes. + +'Mr. Adister sends it?' His tone implied wonder at such a change in +Adiante's father. + +'And an invitation to you to visit him when you please.' + +'That he might do,' said Philip: it was a lesser thing than to send her +likeness to him. + +Patrick could not help dropping his voice: 'Isn't it very like?' +For answer the miniature had to be inspected closely. + +Philip was a Spartan for keeping his feelings under. + +'Yes,' he said, after an interval quick with fiery touches on the history +of that face and his life. 'Older, of course. They are the features, +of course. The likeness is not bad. I suppose it resembles her as she +is now, or was when it was painted. You 're an odd fellow to have asked +for it.' + +'I thought you would wish to have it, Philip.' + +'You're a good boy, Patrice. Light those candles we'll go to bed. I +want a cool head for such brains as I have, and bumping the pillow all +night is not exactly wholesome. We'll cross the Channel in a few days, +and see the nest, and the mother, and the girls.' + +'Not St. George's Channel. Mother would rather you would go to France +and visit the De Reuils. She and the girls hope you will keep out of +Ireland for a time: it's hot. Judge if they're anxious, when it's to +stop them from seeing you, Philip!' + +'Good-night, dear boy.' Philip checked the departing Patrick. 'You can +leave that.' He made a sign for the miniature to be left on the table. + +Patrick laid it there. His brother had not touched it, and he could have +defended himself for having forgotten to leave it, on the plea that it +might prevent his brother from having his proper share of sleep; and +also, that Philip had no great pleasure in the possession of it. The two +pleas, however, did not make one harmonious apology, and he went straight +to the door in an odd silence, with the step of a decorous office-clerk, +keeping his shoulders turned on Philip to conceal his look of +destitution. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +INTRODUCING A NEW CHARACTER + +Letters and telegrams and morning journals lay on the breakfast-table, +awaiting the members of the household with combustible matter. Bad news +from Ireland came upon ominous news from India. Philip had ten words of +mandate from his commanding officer, and they signified action, uncertain +where. He was the soldier at once, buckled tight and buttoned up over +his private sentiments. Vienna shot a line to Mrs. Adister O'Donnell. +She communicated it:'The Princess Nikolas has a son!' Captain Con tossed +his newspaper to the floor, crying: + +'To-day the city'll be a chimney on fire, with the blacks in everybody's +faces; but I must go down. It's hen and chicks with the director of a +City Company. I must go.' + +Did you say, madam?' Patrick inquired. 'A son,' said Mrs. Adister. + +'And the military holloaing for reinforcements,' exclaimed Con. +'Pheu! Phil!' + +'That's what it comes to,' was Philip's answer. 'Precautionary measures, +eh?' + +'You can make them provocative.' 'Will you beg for India?' 'I shall hear +in an hour.' 'Have we got men?' + +'Always the question with us.' + +'What a country!' sighed the captain. 'I'd compose ye a song of old +Drowsylid, except that it does no good to be singing it at the only time +when you can show her the consequences of her sluggery. A country of +compromise goes to pieces at the first cannon-shot of the advance, and +while she's fighting on it's her poor business to be putting herself +together again: So she makes a mess of the beginning, to a certainty. +If it weren't that she had the army of Neptune about her--' + +'The worst is she may some day start awake to discover that her protecting +deity 's been napping too.--A boy or girl did you say, my dear?' + +His wife replied: 'A son.' + +'Ah! more births.' The captain appeared to be computing. 'But this one's +out of England: and it's a prince I suppose they'll call him: and princes +don't count in the population for more than finishing touches, like the +crossing of t's and dotting of i's, though true they're the costliest, +like some flowers and feathers, and they add to the lump on Barney's +back. But who has any compassion for a burdened donkey? unless when you +see him standing immortal meek! Well, and a child of some sort must have +been expected? Because it's no miracle after marriage: worse luck for +the crowded earth!' + +'Things may not be expected which are profoundly distasteful,' Mrs. +Adister remarked. + +'True,' said her sympathetic husband. ''Tis like reading the list of the +dead after a battle where you've not had the best of it--each name 's a +startling new blow. I'd offer to run to Earlsfont, but here's my company +you would have me join for the directoring of it, you know, my dear, to +ballast me, as you pretty clearly hinted; and all 's in the city to-day +like a loaf with bad yeast, thick as lead, and sour to boot. And a howl +and growl coming off the wilds of Old Ireland! We're smitten to-day in +our hearts and our pockets, and it 's a question where we ought to feel +it most, for the sake of our families.' + +'Do you not observe that your cousins are not eating?' said his wife, +adding, to Patrick: 'I entertain the opinion that a sound breakfast- +appetite testifies to the proper vigour of men.' + +'Better than a doctor's pass: and to their habits likewise,' Captain Con +winked at his guests, begging them to steal ten minutes out of the fray +for the inward fortification of them. + +Eggs in the shell, and masses of eggs, bacon delicately thin and curling +like Apollo's locks at his temples, and cutlets, caviar, anchovies in the +state of oil, were pressed with the captain's fervid illustrations upon +the brothers, both meditatively nibbling toast and indifferent to the +similes he drew and applied to life from the little fish which had their +sharpness corrected but not cancelled by the improved liquid they swam +in. 'Like an Irishman in clover,' he said to his wife to pay her a +compliment and coax an acknowledgement: 'just the flavour of the salt of +him.' + +Her mind was on her brother Edward, and she could not look sweet-oily, as +her husband wooed her to do, with impulse to act the thing he was +imagining. + +'And there is to-morrow's dinner-party to the Mattocks: I cannot travel +to Earlsfont,' she said. + +'Patrick is a disengaged young verderer, and knows the route, and has a +welcome face there, and he might go, if you're for having it performed by +word of mouth. But, trust me, my dear, bad news is best communicated by +telegraph, which gives us no stupid articles and particles to quarrel +with. "Boy born Vienna doctor smiling nurse laughing." That tells it +all, straight to the understanding, without any sickly circumlocutory +stuff; and there's nothing more offensive to us when we're hurt at +intelligence. For the same reason, Colonel Arthur couldn't go, since +you'll want him to meet the Mattocks?' + +Captain Con's underlip shone with a roguish thinness. + +'Arthur must be here,' said Mrs. Adister. 'I cannot bring myself to +write it. I disapprove of telegrams.' + +She was asking to be assisted, so her husband said: + +'Take Patrick for a secretary. Dictate. He has a bold free hand and'll +supply all the fiorituri and arabesques necessary to the occasion +running.' + +She gazed at Patrick as if to intimate that he might be enlisted, and +said: 'It will be to Caroline. She will break it to her uncle.' + +'Right, madam, on the part of a lady I 've never known to be wrong! And +so, my dear, I must take leave of you, to hurry down to the tormented +intestines of that poor racked city, where the winds of panic are +violently engaged in occupying the vacuum created by knocking over what +the disaster left standing; and it 'll much resemble a colliery accident +there, I suspect, and a rescue of dead bodies. Adieu, my dear.' He +pressed his lips on her thin fingers. + +Patrick placed himself at Mrs. Adister's disposal as her secretary. She +nodded a gracious acceptance of him. + +'I recommended the telegraph because it's my wife's own style, and comes +better from wires,' said the captain, as they were putting on their +overcoats in the hall. 'You must know the family. "Deeds not words" +would serve for their motto. She hates writing, and doesn't much love +talking. Pat 'll lengthen her sentences for her. She's fond of Adiante, +and she sympathises with her brother Edward made a grandfather through +the instrumentality of that foreign hooknose; and Patrick must turn the +two dagger sentiments to a sort of love-knot and there's the task he'll +have to work out in his letter to Miss Caroline. It's fun about Colonel +Arthur not going. He's to meet the burning Miss Mattock, who has gold on +her crown and a lot on her treasury, Phil, my boy! but I'm bound in +honour not to propose it. And a nice girl, a prize; afresh healthy girl; +and brains: the very girl! But she's jotted down for the Adisters, if +Colonel Arthur can look lower than his nose and wag his tongue a bit. +She's one to be a mother of stout ones that won't run up big doctors' +bills or ask assistance in growing. Her name's plain Jane, and she 's a +girl to breed conquerors; and the same you may say of her brother John, +who 's a mighty fit man, good at most things, though he counts his +fortune in millions, which I've heard is lighter for a beggar to perform +than in pounds, but he can count seven, and beat any of us easy by +showing them millions! We might do something for them at home with a +million or two, Phil. It all came from the wedding of a railway +contractor, who sprang from the wedding of a spade and a clod--and +probably called himself Mattock at his birth, no shame to him.' + +'You're for the city,' said Philip, after they had walked down the +street. + +'Not I,' said Con. 'Let them play Vesuvius down there. I've got another +in me: and I can't stop their eruption, and they wouldn't relish mine. +I know a little of Dick Martin, who called on the people to resist, and +housed the man Liffey after his firing the shot, and I'm off to Peter +M'Christy, his brother-in-law. I'll see Distell too. I must know if it +signifies the trigger, or I'm agitated about nothing. Dr. Forbery'll be +able to tell how far they mean going for a patriotic song. + + "For we march in ranks to the laurelled banks, + On the bright horizon shining, + Though the fields between run red on the green, + And many a wife goes pining." + +Will you come, Phil?' + +'I 'm under orders.' + +'You won't engage yourself by coming.' + +'I'm in for the pull if I join hands.' + +'And why not?--inside the law, of course.' + +'While your Barney skirmishes outside!' + +'And when the poor fellow's cranium's cracking to fling his cap in the +air, and physician and politician are agreed it's good for him to do it, +or he'll go mad and be a dangerous lunatic! Phil, it must be a blow now +and then for these people over here, else there's no teaching their +imaginations you're in earnest; for they've got heads that open only to +hard raps, these English; and where injustice rules, and you'd spread a +light of justice, a certain lot of us must give up the ghost--naturally +on both sides. Law's law, and life's life, so long as you admit that the +law is bad; and in that case, it's big misery and chronic disease to let +it be and at worst a jump and tumble into the next world, of a score or +two of us if we have a wrestle with him. But shake the old villain; hang +on him and shake him. Bother his wig, if he calls himself Law. That 's +how we dust the corruption out of him for a bite or two in return. Such +is humanity, Phil: and you must allow for the roundabout way of moving to +get into the straight road at last. And I see what you're for saying: a +roundabout eye won't find it! You're wrong where there are dozens of +corners. Logic like yours, my boy, would have you go on picking at the +Gordian Knot till it became a jackasses' race between you and the rope +which was to fall to pieces last.--There 's my old girl at the stall, +poor soul! See her!' + +Philip had signalled a cabman to stop. He stood facing his cousin with a +close-lipped smile that summarised his opinion and made it readable. + +'I have no time for an introduction to her this morning,' he said. + +'You won't drop in on Distell to hear the latest brewing? And, by the +by, Phil, tell us, could you give us a hint for packing five or six +hundred rifles and a couple of pieces of cannon?' + +Philip stared; he bent a lowering frown on his cousin, with a twitch at +his mouth. + +'Oh! easy!' Con answered the look; 'it's for another place and harder to +get at.' + +He was eyed suspiciously and he vowed the military weapons were for +another destination entirely, the opposite Pole. + +'No, you wouldn't be in for a crazy villainy like that!' said Philip. + +'No, nor wink to it,' said Con. 'But it's a question about packing +cannon and small arms; and you might be useful in dropping a hint or two. +The matter's innocent. It's not even a substitution of one form of +Government for another: only a change of despots, I suspect. And here's +Mr. John Mattock himself, who'll corroborate me, as far as we can let you +into the secret before we've consulted together. And he's an Englishman +and a member of Parliament, and a Liberal though a landlord, a thorough +stout Briton and bulldog for the national integrity, not likely to play +at arms and ammunition where his country's prosperity 's concerned. +How d' ye do, Mr. Mattock--and opportunely, since it's my cousin, Captain +Philip O'Donnell, aide-de-camp to Sir Charles, fresh from Canada, of whom +you've heard, I'd like to make you acquainted with, previous to your +meeting at my wife's table tomorrow evening.' + +Philip bowed to a man whose notion of the ceremony was to nod. + +Con took him two steps aside and did all the talking. Mr. Mattock +listened attentively the first half-minute, after which it could be +perceived that the orator was besieging a post, or in other words a +Saxon's mind made up on a point of common sense. His appearance was +redolently marine; his pilot coat, flying necktie and wideish trowsers, +a general airiness of style on a solid frame, spoke of the element his +blue eyes had dipped their fancy in, from hereditary inclination. The +colour of a sandpit was given him by hair and whiskers of yellow-red on +a ruddy face. No one could express a negative more emphatically without +wording it, though he neither frowned nor gesticulated to that effect. + +'Ah!' said Con, abruptly coming to an end after an eloquent appeal. +'And I think I'm of your opinion: and the sea no longer dashes at the +rock, but makes itself a mirror to the same. She'll keep her money and +nurse her babe, and not be trying risky adventures to turn him into a +reigning prince. Only this: you'll have to persuade her the thing is +impossible. She'll not take it from any of us. She looks on you as +Wisdom in the uniform of a great commander, and if you say a thing can be +done it 's done.' + +'The reverse too, I hope,' said Mr. Mattock, nodding and passing on his +way. + +'That I am not so sure of,' Con remarked to himself. 'There's a change +in a man through a change in his position! Six months or so back, Phil, +that man came from Vienna, the devoted slave of the Princess Nikolas. +He'd been there on his father's business about one of the Danube +railways, and he was ready to fill the place of the prince at the head +of his phantom body of horse and foot and elsewhere. We talked of his +selling her estates for the purchase of arms and the enemy--as many as +she had money for. We discussed it as a matter of business. She had +bewitched him: and would again, I don't doubt, if she were here to repeat +the dose. But in the interim his father dies, he inherits; and he enters +Parliament, and now, mind you, the man who solemnly calculated her +chances and speculates on the transmission of rifled arms of the best +manufacture and latest invention by his yacht and with his loads of +rails, under the noses of the authorities, like a master rebel, and a +chivalrous gentleman to boot, pooh poohs the whole affair. You saw him. +Grave as an owl, the dead contrary of his former self!' + +'I thought I heard you approve him,' said Philip. + +'And I do. But the poor girl has ordered her estates to be sold to cast +the die, and I 'm taking the view of her disappointment, for she believes +he can do anything; and if I know the witch, her sole comfort lying in +the straw is the prospect of a bloody venture for a throne. The truth +is, to my thinking, it's the only thing she has to help her to stomach +her husband.' + +'But it's rank idiocy to suppose she can smuggle cannon!' cried Philip. + +'But that man Mattock's not an idiot and he thought she could. And it 's +proof he was under a spell. She can work one.' + +'The country hasn't a port.' + +'Round the Euxine and up the Danube, with the British flag at the stern. +I could rather enjoy the adventure. And her prince is called for. He's +promised a good reception when he drops down the river, they say. A bit +of a scrimmage on the landing-pier may be, and the first field or two, +and then he sits himself, and he waits his turn. The people change their +sovereigns as rapidly as a London purse. Two pieces of artillery and two +or three hundred men and a trumpet alter the face of the land there. +Sometimes a trumpet blown by impudence does it alone. They're +enthusiastic for any new prince. He's their Weekly Journal or Monthly +Magazine. Let them make acquaintance with Adiante Adister, I'd not swear +she wouldn't lay fast hold of them.' + +Philip signalled to his driver, and Captain Con sang out his dinner-hour +for a reminder to punctuality, thoughtful of the feelings of his wife. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A contented Irishman scarcely seems my countryman +A country of compromise goes to pieces at the first cannon-shot +A lady's company-smile +A superior position was offered her by her being silent +And it's one family where the dog is pulled by the collar +Arch-devourer Time +As if she had never heard him previously enunciate the formula +As secretive as they are sensitive +Be politic and give her elbow-room for her natural angles +Becoming air of appropriation that made it family history +Constitutionally discontented +Decency's a dirty petticoat in the Garden of Innocence +England's the foremost country of the globe +Enjoys his luxuries and is ashamed of his laziness +Fires in the grates went through the ceremony of warming nobody +Foist on you their idea of your idea at the moment +Grimaces at a government long-nosed to no purpose +He judged of others by himself +Hear victorious lawlessness appealing solemnly to God the law +Her aspect suggested the repose of a winter landscape +Here, where he both wished and wished not to be +I 'm the warming pan, as legitimately I should be +I detest enthusiasm +I never saw out of a doll-shop, and never saw there +Indirect communication with heaven +Ireland 's the sore place of England +Irishman there is a barrow trolling a load of grievances +Irony in him is only eulogy standing on its head +Lack of precise words admonished him of the virtue of silence +Married at forty, and I had to take her shaped as she was +Men must fight: the law is only a quieter field for them +Mika! you did it in cold blood? +No man can hear the words which prove him a prophet (quietly) +Not so much read a print as read the imprinting on themselves +Not to bother your wits, but leave the puzzle to the priest +Old houses are doomed to burnings +Our lawyers have us inside out, like our physicians +Philip was a Spartan for keeping his feelings under +Taste a wound from the lightest touch, and they nurse the venom +That fiery dragon, a beautiful woman with brains +The race is for domestic peace, my boy +We're all of us hit at last, and generally by our own weapon +We're smitten to-day in our hearts and our pockets +Welsh blood is queer blood +Where one won't and can't, poor t' other must +Winds of panic are violently engaged in occupying the vacuum +With a frozen fish of admirable principles for wife +Withdrew into the entrenchments of contempt +You'll tell her you couldn't sit down in her presence undressed + + +[The End] + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4489 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + + +Title: The Celt and Saxon, v1 + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4489] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 5, 2002] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Celt and Saxon, v1, by George Meredith +**********This file should be named 4489.txt or 4489.zip*********** + + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + +CELT AND SAXON + +By George Meredith + +1910. + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK 1. +I. WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND +II. MR. ADISTER +III. CAROLINE +IV. THE PRINCESS +V. AT THE PIANOS CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC +VI. A CONSULTATION: WITH OPINIONS UPON WELSH WOMEN AND THE CAMBRIAN + RACE +VII. THE MINIATURE +VIII. CAPTAIN CON AND MRS. ADISTER O'DONNELL +IX. THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN +X. THE BROTHERS +XI. INTRODUCING A NEW CHARACTER + +BOOK 2. +XII. MISS MATTOCK +XIII. THE DINNER-PARTY +XIV. OF ROCKNEY +XV. THE MATTOCK FAMILY +XVI. OF THE GREAT MR. BULL AND THE CELTIC AND SAXON VIEW OF HIM: + AND SOMETHING OF RICHARD ROCKNEY +XVII. CROSSING THE RUBICON +XVIII. CAPTAIN CON'S LETTER +X1X. MARS CONVALESCENT + + + +CELT AND SAXON + + +BOOK 1. + +I. WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND +II. MR. ADISTER +III. CAROLINE +IV. THE PRINCESS +V. AT THE PIANOS CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC +VI. A CONSULTATION: WITH OPINIONS UPON WELSH WOMEN AND THE CAMBRIAN + RACE +VII. THE MINIATURE +VIII. CAPTAIN CON AND MRS. ADISTER O'DONNELL +IX. THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN +X. THE BROTHERS +XI. INTRODUCING A NEW CHARACTER + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHEREIN AN EXCURSION IS MADE IN A CELTIC MIND + +A young Irish gentleman of the numerous clan O'Donnells, and a Patrick, +hardly a distinction of him until we know him, had bound himself, by +purchase of a railway-ticket, to travel direct to the borders of North +Wales, on a visit to a notable landowner of those marches, the Squire +Adister, whose family-seat was where the hills begin to lift and spy into +the heart of black mountains. Examining his ticket with an apparent +curiosity, the son of a greener island debated whether it would not be +better for him to follow his inclinations, now that he had gone so far as +to pay for the journey, and stay. But his inclinations were also subject +to question, upon his considering that he had expended pounds English for +the privilege of making the journey in this very train. He asked himself +earnestly what was the nature of the power which forced him to do it--a +bad genius or a good: and it seemed to him a sort of answer, inasmuch as +it silenced the contending parties, that he had been the victim of an +impetus. True; still his present position involved a certain outlay of +money simply, not at all his bondage to the instrument it had procured +for him, and that was true; nevertheless, to buy a ticket to shy it away +is an incident so uncommon, that if we can but pause to dwell on the +singularity of the act, we are unlikely to abjure our fellowship with +them who would not be guilty of it; and therefore, by the aid of his +reflections and a remainder of the impetus, Mr. Patrick O'Donnell stepped +into a carriage of the train like any ordinary English traveller, between +whom and his destination there is an agreement to meet if they can. + +It is an experience of hesitating minds, be they Saxon or others, that +when we have submitted our persons to the charge of public companies, +immediately, as if the renouncing of our independence into their hands +had given us a taste of a will of our own, we are eager for the +performance of their contract to do what we are only half inclined to; +the train cannot go fast enough to please us, though we could excuse it +for breaking down; stoppages at stations are impertinences, and the +delivery of us at last on the platform is an astonishment, for it is not +we who have done it--we have not even desired it. To be imperfectly in +accord with the velocity precipitating us upon a certain point, is to be +going without our heads, which have so much the habit of supposing it +must be whither we intend, when we go in a determined manner, that a, +doubt of it distracts the understanding--decapitates us; suddenly to +alight, moreover, and find ourselves dropped at the heels of flying Time, +like an unconsidered bundle, is anything but a reconstruction of the +edifice. The natural revelry of the blood in speed suffers a violent +shock, not to speak of our notion of being left behind, quite isolated +and unsound. Or, if you insist, the condition shall be said to belong +exclusively to Celtic nature, seeing that it had been drawn directly from +a scion of one of those tribes. + +Young Patrick jumped from the train as headless as good St. Denis. He +was a juvenile thinker, and to discover himself here, where he both +wished and wished not to be, now deeming the negative sternly in the +ascendant, flicked his imagination with awe of the influence of the +railway service upon the destinies of man. Settling a mental debate +about a backward flight, he drove across the land so foreign to his eyes +and affections, and breasted a strong tide of wishes that it were in a +contrary direction. He would rather have looked upon the desert under a +sand-storm, or upon a London suburb yet he looked thirstingly. Each +variation of landscape of the curved highway offered him in a moment +decisive features: he fitted them to a story he knew: the whole circle +was animated by a couple of pale mounted figures beneath no happy light. +For this was the air once breathed by Adiante Adister, his elder brother +Philip's love and lost love: here she had been to Philip flame along the +hill-ridges, his rose-world in the dust-world, the saintly in his +earthly. And how had she rewarded him for that reverential love of her? +She had forborne to kill him. The bitter sylph of the mountain lures men +to climb till she winds them in vapour and leaves them groping, innocent +of the red crags below. The delicate thing had not picked his bones: +Patrick admitted it; he had seen his brother hale and stout not long +back. But oh! she was merciless, she was a witch. If ever queen-witch +was, she was the crowned one! + +For a personal proof, now: he had her all round him in a strange district +though he had never cast eye on her. Yonder bare hill she came racing up +with a plume in the wind: she was over the long brown moor, look where he +would: and vividly was she beside the hurrying beck where it made edges +and chattered white. He had not seen, he could not imagine her face: +angelic dashed with demon beauty, was his idea of the woman, and there is +little of a portrait in that; but he was of a world where the elemental +is more individual than the concrete, and unconceived of sight she was a +recognised presence for the green-island brain of a youth whose manner of +hating was to conjure her spirit from the air and let fly his own in +pursuit of her. + +It has to be stated that the object of the youngster's expedition to +Earlsfont was perfectly simple in his mind, however much it went against +his nature to perform. it. He came for the purpose of obtaining Miss +Adister's Continental address; to gather what he could of her from her +relatives, and then forthwith to proceed in search of her, that he might +plead with her on behalf of his brother Philip, after a four years' +division of the lovers. Could anything be simpler? He had familiarised +himself with the thought of his advocacy during those four years. His +reluctance to come would have been accountable to the Adisters by a +sentiment of shame at his family's dealings with theirs: in fact, a +military captain of the O'Donnells had in old days played the adventurer +and charmed a maid of a certain age into yielding her hand to him; and +the lady was the squire of Earlsfont's only sister: she possessed funded +property. Shortly after the union, as one that has achieved the goal of +enterprise, the gallant officer retired from the service nor did north- +western England put much to his credit the declaration of his wife's +pronouncing him to be the best of husbands. She naturally said it of him +in eulogy; his own relatives accepted it in some contempt, mixed with a +relish of his hospitality: his wife's were constant in citing his gain by +the marriage. Could he possibly have been less than that? they +exclaimed. An excellent husband, who might easily have been less than +that, he was the most devoted of cousins, and the liberal expenditure of +his native eloquence for the furtherance of Philip's love-suit was the +principal cause of the misfortune, if misfortune it could subsequently be +called to lose an Adiante. + +The Adister family were not gifted to read into the heart of a young man +of a fanciful turn. Patrick had not a thought of shame devolving on him +from a kinsman that had shot at a mark and hit it. Who sees the shame of +taking an apple from a garden of the Hesperides? And as England +cultivates those golden, if sometimes wrinkled, fruits, it would have +seemed to him, in thinking about it, an entirely lucky thing for the +finder; while a question of blood would have fired his veins to rival +heat of self-assertion, very loftily towering: there were Kings in +Ireland: cry for one of them in Uladh and you will hear his name, and he +has descendants yet! But the youth was not disposed unnecessarily to +blazon his princeliness. He kept it in modest reserve, as common +gentlemen keep their physical strength. His reluctance to look on +Earlsfont sprang from the same source as unacknowledged craving to see +the place, which had precipitated him thus far upon his road: he had a +horror of scenes where a faithless girl had betrayed her lover. Love was +his visionary temple, and his idea of love was the solitary light in it, +painfully susceptible to coldair currents from the stories of love abroad +over the world. Faithlessness he conceived to be obnoxious to nature; it +stained the earth and was excommunicated; there could be no pardon of the +crime, barely any for repentance. He conceived it in the feminine; for +men are not those holy creatures whose conduct strikes on the soul with +direct edge: a faithless man is but a general villain or funny monster, a +subject rejected of poets, taking no hue in the flat chronicle of +history: but a faithless woman, how shall we speak of her! Women, +sacredly endowed with beauty and the wonderful vibrating note about the +very mention of them, are criminal to hideousness when they betray. Cry, +False! on them, and there is an instant echo of bleeding males in many +circles, like the poor quavering flute-howl of transformed beasts, which +at some remembering touch bewail their higher state. Those women are +sovereignly attractive, too, loathsomely. Therein you may detect the +fiend. + +Our moralist had for some time been glancing at a broad, handsome old +country mansion on the top of a wooded hill backed by a swarm of mountain +heads all purple-dark under clouds flying thick to shallow, as from a +brush of sepia. The dim silver of half-lighted lakewater shot along +below the terrace. He knew the kind of sky, having oftener seen that +than any other, and he knew the house before it was named to him and he +had flung a discolouring thought across it. He contemplated it placably +and studiously, perhaps because the shower-folding armies of the fields +above likened its shadowed stillness to that of his Irish home. There +had this woman lived! At the name of Earlsfont she became this witch, +snake, deception. Earlsfont was the title and summary of her black +story: the reverberation of the word shook up all the chapters to pour +out their poison. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MR. ADISTER + +Mr. Patrick O'Donnell drove up to the gates of Earlsfont notwithstanding +these emotions, upon which light matter it is the habit of men of his +blood too much to brood; though it is for our better future to have a +capacity for them, and the insensible race is the oxenish. + +But if he did so when alone, the second man residing in the Celt put that +fellow by and at once assumed the social character on his being requested +to follow his card into Mr. Adister's library. He took his impression of +the hall that had heard her voice, the stairs she had descended, the door +she had passed through, and the globes she had perchance laid hand on, +and the old mappemonde, and the severely-shining orderly regiment of +books breathing of her whether she had opened them or not, as he bowed to +his host, and in reply to, 'So, sir! I am glad to see you,' said +swimmingly that Earlsfont was the first house he had visited in this +country: and the scenery reminded him of his part of Ireland: and on +landing at Holyhead he had gone off straight to the metropolis by +appointment to meet his brother Philip, just returned from Canada a full +captain, who heartily despatched his compliments and respects, and hoped +to hear of perfect health in this quarter of the world. And Captain Con +the same, and he was very flourishing. + +Patrick's opening speech concluded on the sound of a short laugh coming +from Mr. Adister. + +It struck the young Irishman's ear as injurious and scornful in relation +to Captain Con; but the remark ensuing calmed him: + +'He has no children.' + +'No, sir; Captain Con wasn't born to increase the number of our clan,' +Patrick rejoined; and thought: By heaven! I get a likeness of her out of +you, with a dash of the mother mayhap somewhere. This was his Puck- +manner of pulling a girdle round about from what was foremost in his head +to the secret of his host's quiet observation; for, guessing that such +features as he beheld would be slumped on a handsome family, he was led +by the splendid severity of their lines to perceive an illimitable pride +in the man likely to punish him in his offspring, who would inherit that +as well; so, as is the way with the livelier races, whether they seize +first or second the matter or the spirit of what they hear, the vivid +indulgence of his own ideas helped him to catch the right meaning by the +tail, and he was enlightened upon a domestic unhappiness, although Mr. +Adister had not spoken miserably. The 'dash of the mother' was thrown in +to make Adiante, softer, and leave a loophole for her relenting. + +The master of Earlsfont stood for a promise of beauty in his issue, +requiring to be softened at the mouth and along the brows, even in men. +He was tall, and had clear Greek outlines: the lips were locked metal, +thin as edges of steel, and his eyes, when he directed them on the person +he addressed or the person speaking, were as little varied by motion of +the lids as eyeballs of a stone bust. If they expressed more, because +they were not sculptured eyes, it was the expression of his high and +frigid nature rather than any of the diversities pertaining to sentiment +and shades of meaning. + +'You have had the bequest of an estate,' Mr. Adister said, to compliment +him by touching on his affairs. + +'A small one; not a quarter of a county,' said Patrick. + +'Productive, sir?' + +''Tis a tramp of discovery, sir, to where bog ends and cultivation +begins.' + +'Bequeathed to you exclusively over the head of your elder brother, I +understand.' + +Patrick nodded assent. 'But my purse is Philip's, and my house, and my +horses.' + +'Not bequeathed by a member of your family?' + +'By a distant cousin, chancing to have been one of my godmothers.' + +'Women do these things,' Mr. Adister said, not in perfect approbation of +their doings. + +'And I think too, it might have gone to the elder,' Patrick replied to +his tone. + +'It is not your intention to be an idle gentleman?' + +'No, nor a vagrant Irishman, sir.' + +'You propose to sit down over there?' + +'When I've more brains to be of service to them and the land, I do.' + +Mr. Adister pulled the arm of his chair. 'The professions are crammed. +An Irish gentleman owning land might do worse. I am in favour of some +degree of military training for all gentlemen. You hunt?' + +Patrick's look was, 'Give me a chance'; and Mr. Adister continued: 'Good +runs are to be had here; you shall try them. You are something of a +shot, I suppose. We hear of gentlemen now who neither hunt nor shoot. +You fence?' + +'That's to say, I've had lessons in the art.' + +'I am not aware that there is now an art of fencing taught in Ireland.' + +'Nor am I,' said Patrick; 'though there's no knowing what goes on in the +cabins.' + +Mr. Adister appeared to acquiesce. Observations of sly import went by +him like the whispering wind. + +'Your priests should know,' he said. + +To this Patrick thought it well not to reply. After a pause between +them, he referred to the fencing. + +'I was taught by a Parisian master of the art, sir.' + +'You have been to Paris?' + +'I was educated in Paris.' + +'How? Ah!' Mr. Adister corrected himself in the higher notes of +recollection. 'I think I have heard something of a Jesuit seminary.' + +'The Fathers did me the service to knock all I know into me, and call it +education, by courtesy,' said Patrick, basking in the unobscured frown of +his host. + +'Then you are accustomed to speak French?' The interrogation was put to +extract some balm from the circumstance. + +Patrick tried his art of fence with the absurdity by saying: 'All but +like a native.' + +'These Jesuits taught you the use of the foils?' + +'They allowed me the privilege of learning, sir.' + +After meditation, Mr. Adister said: 'You don't dance?' He said it +speculating on the' kind of gentleman produced in Paris by the disciples +of Loyola. + +'Pardon me, sir, you hit on another of my accomplishments.' + +'These Jesuits encourage dancing?' + +'The square dance--short of the embracing: the valse is under interdict.' + +Mr. Adister peered into his brows profoundly for a glimpse of the devilry +in that exclusion of the valse. + +What object had those people in encouraging the young fellow to be a +perfect fencer and dancer, so that he should be of the school of the +polite world, and yet subservient to them? + +'Thanks to the Jesuits, then, you are almost a Parisian,' he remarked; +provoking the retort + +'Thanks to them, I've stored a little, and Paris is to me as pure a place +as four whitewashed walls:' Patrick added: 'without a shadow of a monk on +them.' Perhaps it was thrown in for the comfort of mundane ears afflicted +sorely, and no point of principle pertained to the slur on a monk. + +Mr. Adister could have exclaimed, That shadow of the monk! had he been +in an exclamatory mood. He said: 'They have not made a monk of you, +then.' + +Patrick was minded to explain how that the Jesuits are a religious order +exercising worldly weapons. The lack of precise words admonished him of +the virtue of silence, and he retreated--with a quiet negative: 'They +have not.' + +'Then, you are no Jesuit?' he was asked. + +Thinking it scarcely required a response, he shrugged. + +'You would not change your religion, sir?' said Mr. Adister in seeming +anger. + +Patrick thought he would have to rise: he half fancied himself summoned +to change his religion or depart from the house. + +'Not I,' said he. + +'Not for the title of Prince?' he was further pressed, and he replied: + +'I don't happen to have an ambition for the title of Prince.' + +'Or any title!' interjected Mr. Adister, 'or whatever the devil can +offer!--or,' he spoke more pointedly, 'for what fools call a brilliant +marriage?' + +'My religion?' Patrick now treated the question seriously and raised his +head: 'I'd not suffer myself to be asked twice.' + +The sceptical northern-blue eyes of his host dwelt on him with their full +repellent stare. + +The young Catholic gentleman expected he might hear a frenetic zealot +roar out: Be off! + +He was not immediately reassured by the words 'Dead or alive, then, you +have a father!' + +The spectacle of a state of excitement without a show of feeling was +novel to Patrick. He began to see that he was not implicated in a wrath +that referred to some great offender, and Mr. Adister soon confirmed his +view by saying: 'You are no disgrace to your begetting, sir!' + +With that he quitted his chair, and hospitably proposed to conduct his +guest over the house and grounds. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CAROLINE + +Men of the Adister family having taken to themselves brides of a very +dusty pedigree from the Principality, there were curious rough heirlooms +to be seen about the house, shields on the armoury walls and hunting- +horns, and drinking-horns, and spears, and chain-belts bearing clasps of +heads of beasts; old gold ornaments, torques, blue-stone necklaces, under +glass-cases, were in the library; huge rings that must have given the +wearers fearful fists; a shirt of coarse linen with a pale brown spot on +the breast, like a fallen beech-leaf; and many sealed parchment-skins, +very precious, for an inspection of which, as Patrick was bidden to +understand, History humbly knocked at the Earlsfont hall-doors; and the +proud muse made her transcripts of them kneeling. He would have been +affected by these wonders had any relic of Adiante appeased his thirst. +Or had there been one mention of her, it would have disengaged him from +the incessant speculations regarding the daughter of the house, of whom +not a word was uttered. No portrait of her was shown. Why was she +absent from her home so long? where was she? How could her name be +started? And was it she who was the sinner in her father's mind? But +the idolatrous love between Adiante and her father was once a legend: +they could not have been cut asunder. She had offered up her love of +Philip as a sacrifice to it: Patrick recollected that, and now with a +softer gloom on his brooding he released her from the burden of his grand +charge of unfaithfulness to the truest of lovers, by acknowledging that +he was in the presence of the sole rival of his brother. Glorious girl +that she was, her betrayal of Philip had nothing of a woman's base +caprice to make it infamous: she had sacrificed him to her reading of +duty; and that was duty to her father; and the point of duty was in this +instance rather a sacred one. He heard voices murmur that she might be +praised. He remonstrated with them, assuring them, as one who knew, that +a woman's first duty is her duty to her lover; her parents are her second +thought. Her lover, in the consideration of a real soul among the shifty +creatures, is her husband; and have we not the word of heaven directing +her to submit herself to him who is her husband before all others? That +peerless Adiante had previously erred in the upper sphere where she +received her condemnation, but such a sphere is ladder and ladder and +silver ladder high above your hair-splitting pates, you children of +earth, and it is not for you to act on the verdict in decrying her: +rather 'tis for you to raise hymns of worship to a saint. + +Thus did the ingenious Patrick change his ground and gain his argument +with the celerity of one who wins a game by playing it without an +adversary. Mr. Adister had sprung a new sense in him on the subject of +the renunciation of the religion. No thought of a possible apostasy had +ever occurred to the youth, and as he was aware that the difference of +their faith had been the main cause of the division of Adiante and +Philip, he could at least consent to think well of her down here, that +is, on our flat surface of earth. Up there, among the immortals, he was +compelled to shake his head at her still, and more than sadly in certain +moods of exaltation, reprovingly; though she interested him beyond all +her sisterhood above, it had to be confessed. + +They traversed a banqueting-hall hung with portraits, to two or three of +which the master of Earlsfont carelessly pointed, for his guest to be +interested in them or not as he might please. A reception-hall flung +folding-doors on a grand drawing-room, where the fires in the grates went +through the ceremony of warming nobody, and made a show of keeping the +house alive. A modern steel cuirass, helmet and plume at a corner of the +armoury reminded Mr. Adister to say that he had worn the uniform in his +day. He cast an odd look at the old shell containing him when he was a +brilliant youth. Patrick was marched on to Colonel Arthur's rooms, and +to Captain David's, the sailor. Their father talked of his two sons. +They appeared to satisfy him. If that was the case, they could hardly +have thrown off their religion. Already Patrick had a dread of naming +the daughter. An idea struck him that she might be the person who had +been guilty of it over there on the Continent. What if she had done it, +upon a review of her treatment of her lover, and gone into a convent to +wait for Philip to come and claim her?--saying, 'Philip, I've put the +knife to my father's love of me; love me double'; and so she just half +swoons, enough to show how the dear angel looks in her sleep: a trick of +kindness these heavenly women have, that we heathen may get a peep of +their secret rose-enfolded selves; and dream 's no word, nor drunken, for +the blessed mischief it works with us. + +Supposing it so, it accounted for everything: for her absence, and her +father's abstention from a mention of her, and the pretty good sort of +welcome Patrick had received; for as yet it was unknown that she did it +all for an O'Donnell. + +These being his reflections, he at once accepted a view of her that so +agreeably quieted his perplexity, and he leapt out of his tangle into the +happy open spaces where the romantic things of life are as natural as the +sun that rises and sets. There you imagine what you will; you live what +you imagine. An Adiante meets her lover another Adiante, the phantom +likeness of her, similar to the finger-tips, hovers to a meeting with +some one whose heart shakes your manful frame at but a thought of it. +But this other Adiante is altogether a secondary conception, barely +descried, and chased by you that she may interpret the mystical nature of +the happiness of those two, close-linked to eternity, in advance. You +would learn it, if she would expound it; you are ready to learn it, for +the sake of knowledge; and if you link yourself to her and do as those +two are doing, it is chiefly in a spirit of imitation, in sympathy with +the darting couple ahead . . . . + +Meanwhile he conversed, and seemed, to a gentleman unaware of the +vaporous activities of his brain, a young fellow of a certain practical +sense. + +'We have not much to teach you in: horseflesh,' Mr. Adister said, +quitting the stables to proceed to the gardens. + +'We must look alive to keep up our breed, sir,' said Patrick. 'We're +breeding too fine: and soon we shan't be able to horse our troopers. I +call that the land for horses where the cavalry's well-mounted on a +native breed.' + +'You have your brother's notions of cavalry, have you!' + +'I leave it to Philip to boast what cavalry can do on the field. He +knows: but he knows that troopers must be mounted: and we're fineing more +and more from bone: with the sales to foreigners! and the only chance +of their not beating us is that they'll be so good as follow our bad +example. Prussia's well horsed, and for the work it's intended to do, +the Austrian light cavalry's a model. So I'm told. I'll see for myself. +Then we sit our horses too heavy. The Saxon trooper runs headlong to +flesh. 'Tis the beer that fattens and swells him. Properly to speak, +we've no light cavalry. The French are studying it, and when they take +to studying, they come to the fore. I'll pay a visit to their breeding +establishments. We've no studying here, and not a scrap of system that +I see. All the country seems armed for bullying the facts, till the +periodical panic arrives, and then it 's for lying flat and roaring-- +and we'll drop the curtain, if you please.' + +'You say we,' returned Mr. Adister. 'I hear you launched at us English +by the captain, your cousin, who has apparently yet to learn that we are +one people.' + +'We 're held together and a trifle intermixed; I fancy it's we with him +and with me when we're talking of army or navy,' said Patrick. 'But +Captain Con's a bit of a politician: a poor business, when there's +nothing to be done.' + +'A very poor business!' Mr. Adister rejoined, + +'If you'd have the goodness to kindle his enthusiasm, he'd be for the +first person plural, with his cap in the air,' said Patrick. + +'I detest enthusiasm. + +'You're not obliged to adore it to give it a wakener. + +'Pray, what does that mean?' + +Patrick cast about to reply to the formal challenge for an explanation. + +He began on it as it surged up to him: 'Well, sir, the country that's got +hold of us, if we 're not to get loose. We don't count many millions in +Europe, and there's no shame in submitting to force majeure, if a stand +was once made; and we're mixed up, 'tis true, well or ill; and we're +stronger, both of us, united than tearing to strips: and so, there, for +the past! so long as we can set our eyes upon something to admire, +instead of a bundle squatting fat on a pile of possessions and vowing she +won't budge; and taking kicks from a big foot across the Atlantic, and +shaking bayonets out of her mob-cap for a little one's cock of the eye at +her: and she's all for the fleshpots, and calls the rest of mankind fools +because they're not the same: and so long as she can trim her ribands and +have her hot toast and tea, with a suspicion of a dram in it, she doesn't +mind how heavy she sits: nor that 's not the point, nor 's the land +question, nor the potato crop, if only she wore the right sort of face +to look at, with a bit of brightness about it, to show an idea inside +striking alight from the day that's not yet nodding at us, as the tops of +big mountains do: or if she were only braced and gallant, and cried, +Ready, though I haven't much outlook! We'd be satisfied with her for a +handsome figure. I don't know whether we wouldn't be satisfied with her +for politeness in her manners. We'd like her better for a spice of +devotion to alight higher up in politics and religion. But the key of +the difficulty's a sparkle of enthusiasm. It's part business, and the +greater part sentiment. We want a rousing in the heart of us; or else +we'd be pleased with her for sitting so as not to overlap us entirely: +we'd feel more at home, and behold her more respectfully. We'd see the +policy of an honourable union, and be joined to you by more than a +telegraphic cable. That's Captain Con, I think, and many like him.' + +Patrick finished his airy sketch of the Irish case in a key signifying +that he might be one among the many, but unobtrusive. + +'Stick to horses!' observed Mr. Adister. + +It was pronounced as the termination to sheer maundering. + +Patrick talked on the uppermost topic for the remainder of their stroll. + +He noticed that his host occasionally allowed himself to say, 'You +Irish': and he reflected that the saying, 'You English,' had been hinted +as an offence. + +He forgot to think that he had possibly provoked this alienation in a +scornfully proud spirit. The language of metaphor was to Mr. Adister +fool's froth. He conceded the use of it to the Irish and the Welsh as a +right that stamped them for what they were by adopting it; and they might +look on a country as a 'she,' if it amused them: so long as they were not +recalcitrant, they were to be tolerated, they were a part of us; +doubtless the nether part, yet not the less a part for which we are bound +to exercise a specially considerate care, or else we suffer, for we are +sensitive there: this is justice but the indications by fiddle-faddle +verbiage of anything objectionable to the whole in the part aroused an +irritability that speedily endued him with the sense of sanity opposing +lunacy; when, not having a wide command of the undecorated plain speech +which enjoyed his approval, he withdrew into the entrenchments of +contempt. + +Patrick heard enough to let him understand why the lord of Earlsfont and +Captain Con were not on the best of terms. Once or twice he had a twinge +or suspicion of a sting from the tone of his host, though he was not +political and was of a mood to pity the poor gentleman's melancholy state +of solitariness, with all his children absent, his wife dead, only a +niece, a young lady of twenty, to lend an air of grace and warmth to his +home. + +She was a Caroline, and as he had never taken a liking to a Caroline, +he classed her in the tribe of Carolines. To a Kathleen, an Eveleen, a +Nora, or a Bessy, or an Alicia, he would have bowed more cordially on his +introduction to her, for these were names with portraits and vistas +beyond, that shook leaves of recollection of the happiest of life--the +sweet things dreamed undesiringly in opening youth. A Caroline awakened +no soft association of fancies, no mysterious heaven and earth. The +others had variously tinted skies above them; their features wooed the +dream, led it on as the wooded glen leads the eye till we are deep in +richness. Nor would he have throbbed had one of any of his favourite +names appeared in the place of Caroline Adister. They had not moved his +heart, they had only stirred the sources of wonder. An Eveleen had +carried him farthest to imagine the splendours of an Adiante, and the +announcement of the coming of an Eveleen would perchance have sped a +little wild fire, to which what the world calls curiosity is frozenly +akin, through his veins. + +Mr. Adister had spoken of his niece Caroline. A lacquey, receiving +orders from his master, mentioned Miss Adister. There was but one Miss +Adister for Patrick. Against reason, he was raised to anticipate the +possible beholding of her, and Caroline's entrance into the drawing-room +brought him to the ground. Disappointment is a poor term for the descent +from an immoderate height, but the acknowledgment that we have shot up +irrationally reconciles even unphilosophical youth to the necessity of +the fall, though we must continue sensible of a shock. She was the Miss +Adister; and how, and why? No one else accompanied them on their march +to the dinner-table. Patrick pursued his double task of hunting his +thousand speculations and conversing fluently, so that it is not +astonishing if, when he retired to his room, the impression made on him +by this young Caroline was inefficient to distinguish her from the horde +of her baptismal sisters. And she had a pleasant face: he was able to +see that, and some individuality in the look of it, the next morning; and +then he remembered the niceness of her manners. He supposed her to have +been educated where the interfusion of a natural liveliness with a +veiling retenue gives the title of lady. She had enjoyed the advantage +of having an estimable French lady for her governess, she informed him, +as they sauntered together on the terrace. + +'A Protestant, of course,' Patrick spoke as he thought. + +'Madame Dugue is a Catholic of Catholics, and the most honourable of +women.' + +'That I'll believe; and wasn't for proselytisms,' said he. + +'Oh, no: she was faithful to her trust.' + +'Save for the grand example!' + +'That,' said Caroline, 'one could strive to imitate without embracing her +faith.' + +'There's my mind clear as print!' Patrick exclaimed. 'The Faith of my +fathers! and any pattern you like for my conduct, if it's a good one.' + +Caroline hesitated before she said: 'You have noticed my Uncle Adister's +prepossession; I mean, his extreme sensitiveness on that subject.' + +'He blazed on me, and he seemed to end by a sort of approval.' + +She sighed. 'He has had cause for great unhappiness.' + +'Is it the colonel, or the captain? Forgive me!' + +Her head shook. + +'Is it she? Is it his daughter? I must ask!' + +'You have not heard?' + +Oh! then, I guessed it,' cried Patrick, with a flash of pride in his +arrowy sagacity. 'Not a word have I heard, but I thought it out for +myself; because I love my brother, I fancy. And now, if you'll be so +good, Miss Caroline, let me beg, it's just the address, or the city, or +the country--where she is, can you tell me?--just whereabouts! You're +surprised: but I want her address, to be off, to see her; I'm anxious to +speak to her. It's anywhere she may be in a ring, only show me the ring, +I'll find her, for I've a load; and there's nothing like that for sending +you straight, though it's in the dark; it acts like an instinct. But you +know the clear address, and won't let me be running blindfold. She's on +the Continent and has been a long time, and it was the capital of +Austria, which is a Catholic country, and they've Irish blood in the +service there, or they had. I could drop on my knees to you!' + +The declaration was fortunately hushed by a supplicating ardour, or Mr. +Adister would have looked more surprised than his niece. He stepped out +of the library window as they were passing, and, evidently with a mind +occupied by his own affairs, held up an opened letter for Caroline's +perusal. She took a view of the handwriting. + +'Any others?' she said. + +'You will consider that one enough for the day,' was his answer. + +Patrick descended the terrace and strolled by the waterside, grieved at +their having bad news, and vexed with himself for being a stranger, +unable to console them. + +Half an hour later they were all three riding to the market-town, where +Mr. Adister paid a fruitless call on his lawyer. + +'And never is at home! never was known to be at home when wanted!' he +said, springing back to the saddle. + +Caroline murmured some soothing words. They had a perverse effect. + +'His partner! yes, his partner is at home, but I do not communicate +upon personal business with his partner; and by and by there will be, +I suppose, a third partner. I might as well deposit my family history +in the hands of a club. His partner is always visible. It is my belief +that Camminy has taken a partner that he may act the independent +gentleman at his leisure. I, meantime, must continue to be the mark for +these letters. I shall expect soon to hear myself abused as the positive +cause of the loss of a Crown!' + +'Mr. Camminy will probably appear at the dinner hour,' said Caroline. + +'Claret attracts him: I wish I could say as much of duty,' rejoined her +uncle. + +Patrick managed to restrain a bubbling remark on the respective charms of +claret and duty, tempting though the occasion was for him to throw in a +conversational word or two. + +He was rewarded for listening devoutly. + +Mr. Adister burst out again: 'And why not come over here to settle this +transaction herself?--provided that I am spared the presence of her +Schinderhannes! She could very well come. I have now received three +letters bearing on this matter within as many months. Down to the sale +of her hereditary jewels! I profess no astonishment. The jewels may +well go too, if Crydney and Welvas are to go. Disrooted body and soul! +--for a moonshine title!--a gaming-table foreign knave!--Known for a +knave!--A young gentlewoman?--a wild Welsh . . . !' + +Caroline put her horse to a canter, and the exclamations ended, leaving +Patrick to shuffle them together and read the riddle they presented, and +toss them to the wind, that they might be blown back on him by the powers +of air in an intelligible form. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE PRINCESS + +Dinner, and a little piano-music and a song closed an evening that was +not dull to Patrick in spite of prolonged silences. The quiet course of +things within the house appeared to him to have a listening ear for big +events outside. He dreaded a single step in the wrong direction, and +therefore forbore to hang on any of his conjectures; for he might +perchance be unjust to the blessedest heroine on the surface of the +earth--a truly awful thought! Yet her name would no longer bear the +speaking of it to himself. It conjured up a smoky moon under confounding +eclipse. + +Who was Schinderhannes? + +Mr. Adister had said, her Schinderhannes. + +Patrick merely wished to be informed who the man was, and whether he had +a title, and was much of a knave: and particularly Patrick would have +liked to be informed of the fellow's religion. But asking was not easy. + +It was not possible. And there was a barrel of powder to lay a fiery +head on, for a pillow! + +To confess that he had not the courage to inquire was as good as an +acknowledgment that he knew too much for an innocent questioner. And +what did he know? His brother Philip's fair angel forbade him to open +the door upon what he knew. He took a peep through fancy's keyhole, and +delighted himself to think that he had seen nothing. + +After a turbulent night with Schinderhannes, who let him go no earlier +than the opening of a December day, Patrick hied away to one of the dusky +nooks by the lake for a bracing plunge. He attributed to his desire for +it the strange deadness of the atmosphere, and his incapacity to get an +idea out of anything he looked on: he had not a sensation of cold till +the stinging element gripped him. It is the finest school for the cure +of dreamers; two minutes of stout watery battle, with the enemy close all +round, laughing, but not the less inveterate, convinced him that, in +winter at least, we have only to jump out of our clothes to feel the +reality of things in a trice. The dip was sharpening; he could say that +his prescription was good for him; his craving to get an idea ceased with +it absolutely, and he stood in far better trim to meet his redoubtable +adversary of overnight; but the rascal was a bandit and had robbed him of +his purse; that was a positive fact; his vision had gone; he felt himself +poor and empty and rejoicing in the keenness of his hunger for breakfast, +singularly lean. A youth despoiled of his Vision and made sensible by +the activity of his physical state that he is a common machine, is eager +for meat, for excess of whatsoever you may offer him; he is on the +highroad of recklessness, and had it been the bottle instead of +Caroline's coffee-cup, Patrick would soon have received a priming for a +delivery of views upon the sex, and upon love, and the fools known as +lovers, acrid enough to win the applause of cynics. + +Boasting was the best relief that a young man not without modesty could +find. Mr. Adister complimented him on the robustness of his habits, and +Patrick 'would like to hear of the temptation that could keep him from +his morning swim.' + +Caroline's needle-thrust was provoked: + +'Would not Arctic weather deter you, Mr. O'Donnell?' He hummed, and her +eyes filled with the sparkle. + +'Short of Arctic,' he had to say. 'But a gallop, after an Arctic bath, +would soon spin the blood-upon an Esquimaux dog, of course,' he pursued, +to anticipate his critic's remark on the absence of horses, with a bow. + +She smiled, accepting the mental alertness he fastened on her. + +We must perforce be critics of these tear-away wits; which are, moreover, +so threadbare to conceal the character! Caroline led him to vaunt his +riding and his shooting, and a certain time passed before she perceived +that though he responded naturally to her first sly attacks, his gross +exaggerations upon them had not been the triumph of absurdity she +supposed herself to have evoked. + +Her wish was to divert her uncle. Patrick discerned the intention and +aided her. + +'As for entertainment,' he said, in answer to Mr. Adister's courteous +regrets that he would have to be a prisoner in the house until his legal +adviser thought proper to appear, 'I'll be perfectly happy if Miss +Caroline will give me as much of her company as she can spare. It 's +amusing to be shot at too, by a lady who 's a good marksman! And birds +and hares are always willing to wait for us; they keep better alive. I +forgot to say that I can sing.' + +'Then I was in the presence of a connoisseur last night,' said Caroline. +Mr. Adister consulted his watch and the mantelpiece clock for a minute of +difference between them, remarking that he was a prisoner indeed, and for +the whole day, unless Camminy should decide to come. 'There is the +library,' he said, 'if you care for books; the best books on agriculture +will be found there. You can make your choice in the stables, if you +would like to explore the country. I am detained here by a man who seems +to think my business of less importance than his pleasures. And it is +not my business; it is very much the reverse but I am compelled to +undertake it as my own, when I abhor the business. It is hard for me to +speak of it, much more to act a part in it.' + +'Perhaps,' Caroline interposed hurriedly, 'Mr. O'Donnell would not be +unwilling to begin the day with some duets?' + +Patrick eagerly put on his shame-face to accept her invitation, +protesting that his boldness was entirely due to his delight in music. + +'But I've heard,' said he, 'that the best fortification for the exercise +of the a voice is hearty eating, so I 'll pay court again to that game- +pie. I'm one with the pigs for truffles.' + +His host thanked him for spreading the contagion of good appetite, and +followed his example. Robust habits and heartiness were signs with him +of a conscience at peace, and he thought the Jesuits particularly +forbearing in the amount of harm they had done to this young man. So +they were still at table when Mr. Camminy was announced and ushered in. + +The man of law murmured an excuse or two; he knew his client's eye, and +how to thaw it. + +'No, Miss Adister, I have not breakfasted,' he said, taking the chair +placed for him. 'I was all day yesterday at Windlemont, engaged in +assisting to settle the succession. Where estates are not entailed!' + +'The expectations of the family are undisciplined and certain not to be +satisfied,' Mr. Adister carried on the broken sentence. 'That house will +fall! However, you have lost no time this morning.--Mr. Patrick +O'Donnell.' + +Mr. Camminy bowed busily somewhere in the direction between Patrick and +the sideboard. + +'Our lawyers have us inside out, like our physicians,' Mr. Adister +resumed, talking to blunt his impatience for a private discussion with +his own. + +'Surgery's a little in their practice too, we think in Ireland,' said +Patrick. + +Mr. Camminy assented: 'No doubt.' He was hungry, and enjoyed the look of +the table, but the look of his client chilled the prospect, considered in +its genial appearance as a feast of stages; having luminous extension; +so, to ease his client's mind, he ventured to say: 'I thought it might be +urgent.' + +'It is urgent,' was the answer. + +'Ah: foreign? domestic?' + +A frown replied. + +Caroline, in haste to have her duties over, that she might escape the +dreaded outburst, pressed another cup of tea on Mr. Camminy and groaned +to see him fill his plate. She tried to start a topic with Patrick. + +'The princess is well, I hope?' Mr. Camminy asked in the voice of +discretion. 'It concerns her Highness?' + +'It concerns my daughter and her inheritance from her mad grandmother!' +Mr. Adister rejoined loudly; and he continued like a retreating thunder: +'A princess with a title as empty as a skull! At best a princess of +swamps, and swine that fight for acorns, and men that fight for swine!' + +Patrick caught a glance from Caroline, and the pair rose together. + +'They did that in our mountains a couple of thousand years ago,' said Mr. +Camminy, 'and the cause was not so bad, to judge by this ham. Men must +fight: the law is only a quieter field for them.' + +'And a fatter for the ravens,' Patrick joined in softly, as if carrying +on a song. + +'Have at us, Mr. O'Donnell! I'm ashamed of my appetite, Miss Adister, +but the morning's drive must be my excuse, and I'm bounden to you for +not forcing me to detain you. Yes, I can finish breakfast at my leisure, +and talk of business, which is never particularly interesting to ladies-- +though,' Mr. Camminy turned to her uncle, 'I know Miss Adister has a head +for it.' + +Patrick hummed a bar or two of an air, to hint of his being fanatico per +la musica, as a pretext for their departure. + +'If you'll deign to give me a lesson,' said he, as Caroline came away +from pressing her lips to her uncle's forehead. + +'I may discover that I am about to receive one,' said she. + +They quitted the room together. + +Mr. Camminy had seen another Miss Adister duetting with a young Irishman +and an O'Donnell, with lamentable results to that union of voices, and he +permitted himself to be a little astonished at his respected client's +defective memory or indifference to the admonition of identical +circumstances. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AT THE PIANO, CHIEFLY WITHOUT MUSIC + +Barely had the door shut behind them when Patrick let his heart out: 'The +princess?' He had a famished look, and Caroline glided along swiftly +with her head bent, like one musing; his tone alarmed her; she lent him +her ear, that she might get some understanding of his excitement, +suddenly as it seemed to have come on him; but he was all in his hungry +interrogation, and as she reached her piano and raised the lid, she saw +it on tiptoe straining for her answer. + +'I thought you were aware of my cousin's marriage.' + +'Was I?' said Patrick, asking it of himself, for his conscience would not +acknowledge an absolute ignorance. 'No: I fought it, I wouldn't have a +blot on her be suspected. She's married! She's married to one of their +princes!--married for a title!--and changed her religion! And Miss +Adister, you're speaking of Adiante?' + +'My cousin Adiante.' + +'Well did I hate the name! I heard it first over in France. Our people +wrote to me of her; and it's a name to set you thinking: Is she tender, +or nothing like a woman,--a stone? And I put it to my best friend there, +Father Clement, who's a scholar, up in everything, and he said it was a +name with a pretty sound and an ill meaning--far from tender; and a bad +history too, for she was one of the forty-nine Danaides who killed their +husbands for the sake of their father and was not likely to be the +fiftieth, considering the name she bore. It was for her father's sake +she as good as killed her lover, and the two Adiantes are like enough: +they're as like as a pair of hands with daggers. So that was my brother +Philip's luck! She's married! It's done; it's over, like death: no +hope. And this time it's against her father; it's against her faith. +There's the end of Philip! I could have prophesied it; I did; and when +they broke, from her casting him off--true to her name! thought I. +She cast him off, and she couldn't wait for him, and there's his heart +broken. And I ready to glorify her for a saint! And now she must have +loved the man, or his title, to change her religion. She gives him her +soul! No praise to her for that: but mercy! what a love it must be. +Or else it's a spell. But wasn't she rather one for flinging spells than +melting? Except that we're all of us hit at last, and generally by our +own weapon. But she loved Philip: she loved him down to shipwreck and +drowning: she gave battle for him, and against her father; all the place +here and the country's alive with their meetings and partings:--she can't +have married! She wouldn't change her religion for her lover: how can +she have done it for this prince? Why, it's to swear false oaths!-- +unless it's possible for a woman to slip out of herself and be another +person after a death like that of a love like hers.' + +Patrick stopped: the idea demanded a scrutiny. + +'She's another person for me,' he said. 'Here's the worst I ever +imagined of her!--thousands of miles and pits of sulphur beyond the +worst and the very worst! I thought her fickle, I thought her heartless, +rather a black fairy, perched above us, not quite among the stars of +heaven. I had my ideas. But never that she was a creature to jump +herself down into a gulf and be lost for ever. She's gone, extinguished +--there she is, under the penitent's hoodcap with eyeholes, before the +faggots! and that's what she has married!--a burning torment, and none +of the joys of martyrdom. Oh! I'm not awake. But I never dreamed of +such a thing as this--not the hard, bare, lump-of-earth-fact:--and that's +the only thing to tell me I'm not dreaming now.' + +He subsided again; then deeply beseeching asked: + +'Have you by chance a portrait of the gentleman, Miss Adister? Is there +one anywhere?' + +Caroline stood at her piano, turning over the leaves of a music-book, +with a pressure on her eyelids. She was near upon being thrilled in +spite of an astonishment almost petrifying: and she could nearly have +smiled, so strange was his fraternal adoption, amounting to a +vivification--of his brother's passion. He seemed quite naturally to +impersonate Philip. She wondered, too, in the coolness of her alien +blood, whether he was a character, or merely an Irish character. As to +the unwontedness of the scene, Ireland was chargeable with that; and +Ireland also, a little at his expense as a citizen of the polite world, +relieved him of the extreme ridicule attached to his phrases and images. + +She replied: 'We have no portrait.' + +'May I beg to know, have you seen him?' said Patrick. Caroline shook her +head. + +'Is there no telling what he is like, Miss Adister?' + +'He is not young.' + +'An old man!' + +She had not said that, and she wished to defend her cousin from the +charge of contracting such an alliance, but Patrick's face had brightened +out of a gloom of stupefaction; he assured her he was now ready to try +his voice with hers, only she was to excuse a touch of hoarseness; he +felt it slightly in his throat: and could he, she asked him, wonder at +it after his morning's bath? + +He vindicated the saneness of the bath as well as he was able, showing +himself at least a good reader of music. On the whole, he sang +pleasantly, particularly French songs. She complimented him, with an +emphasis on the French. He said, yes, he fancied he did best in French, +and he had an idea of settling in France, if he found that he could not +live quietly in his own country. + +'And becoming a Frenchman?'said Caroline. + +'Why not?' said he. 'I 'm more at home with French people; they're +mostly of my creed; they're amiable, though they weren't quite kind to +poor Lally Tollendal. I like them. Yes, I love France, and when I'm +called upon to fix myself, as I suppose I shall be some day, I shan't +have the bother over there that I should find here.' + +She spoke reproachfully: 'Have you no pride in the title of Englishman?' + +'I 'm an Irishman.' + +'We are one nation.' + +'And it's one family where the dog is pulled by the collar.' + +There was a retort on him: she saw, as it were, the box, but the lid +would not open to assist her to it, and she let it go by, thinking in her +patriotic derision, that to choose to be likened to the unwilling dog of +the family was evidence of a want of saving pride. + +Besides, she could not trust to the glibness of her tongue in a contest +with a young gentleman to whom talking was as easy as breathing, even if +sometimes his volubility exposed him to attack. A superior position was +offered her by her being silent and critical. She stationed herself on +it: still she was grieved to think of him as a renegade from his country, +and she forced herself to say: 'Captain O'Donnell talks in that manner.' + +'Captain Con is constitutionally discontented because he's a bard by +nature, and without the right theme for his harp,' said Patrick. 'He has +a notion of Erin as the unwilling bride of Mr. Bull, because her lord is +not off in heroics enough to please her, and neglects her, and won't let +her be mistress of her own household, and she can't forget that he once +had the bad trick of beating her: she sees the marks. And you mayn't +believe it, but the Captain's temper is to praise and exalt. It is. +Irony in him is only eulogy standing on its head: a sort of an upside +down; a perversion: that's our view of him at home. All he desires is +to have us on the march, and he'd be perfectly happy marching, never mind +the banner, though a bit of green in it would put him in tune, of course. +The banner of the Cid was green, Miss Adister: or else it's his pennon +that was. And there's a quantity of our blood in Spain too. We've +watered many lands.' + +The poor young English lady's brain started wildly on the effort to be +with him, and to understand whether she listened to humour or emotion: +she reposed herself as well as she could in the contemplation of an +electrically-flashing maze, where every line ran losing itself in +another. + +He added: 'Old Philip!' in a visible throb of pity for his brother; after +the scrupulous dubitation between the banner and the pennon of the Cid! + +It would have comforted her to laugh. She was closer upon tears, and +without any reason for them in her heart. + +Such a position brings the hesitancy which says that the sitting is at an +end. + +She feared, as she laid aside her music-books, that there would be more +to come about Adiante, but he spared her. He bowed to her departing, and +strolled off by himself. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A CONSULTATION: WITH OPINIONS UPON WELSHWOMEN AND THE CAMBRIAN RACE + +Later in the day she heard that he was out scouring the country on one of +her uncle's horses. She had too many distressing matters to think of for +so singular a young man to have any other place than that which is given +to the fantastical in a troubled and serious mind. He danced there like +the whimsy sunbeam of a shaken water below. What would be his opinion of +Adiante if he knew of her determination to sell the two fair estates she +inherited from a grandmother whom she had venerated; that she might +furnish arms to her husband to carry out an audacious enterprise likely +to involve both of them in blood and ruin? Would he not bound up aloft +and quiver still more wildly? She respected, quaint though it was, his +imaginative heat of feeling for Adiante sufficiently to associate him +with her so far; and she lent him in fancy her own bewilderment and grief +at her cousin's conduct, for the soothing that his exaggeration of them +afforded her. She could almost hear his outcry. + +The business of the hour demanded more of her than a seeking for +refreshment. She had been invited to join the consultation of her uncle +with his lawyer. Mr. Adister tossed her another letter from Vienna, of +that morning's delivery. She read it with composure. It became her task +to pay no heed to his loss of patience, and induce him to acquiesce in +his legal adviser's view which was, to temporise further, present an +array of obstacles, and by all possible suggestions induce the princess +to come over to England, where her father's influence with her would have +a chance of being established again; and it might then be hoped that she, +who had never when under sharp temptation acted disobediently to his +wishes at home, and who certainly would not have dreamed of contracting +the abhorred alliance had she been breathing the air of common sense +peculiar to her native land, would see the prudence, if not the solemn +obligation, of retaining to herself these family possessions. Caroline +was urgent with her uncle to act on such good counsel. She marvelled at +his opposition, though she detected the principal basis of it. + +Mr. Adister had no ground of opposition but his own intemperateness. +The Welsh grandmother's legacy of her estates to his girl, overlooking +her brothers, Colonel Arthur and Captain David, had excessively vexed +him, despite the strong feeling he entertained for Adiante; and not +simply because of the blow he received in it unexpectedly from that old +lady, as the last and heaviest of the long and open feud between them, +but also, chiefly, that it outraged and did permanent injury to his ideas +of the proper balance of the sexes. Between himself and Mrs. Winnion +Rhys the condition of the balance had been a point of vehement +disputation, she insisting to have it finer up to equality, and he that +the naturally lighter scale should continue to kick the beam. Behold now +the consequence of the wilful Welshwoman's insanest of legacies! The +estates were left to Adiante Adister for her sole use and benefit, making +almost a man of her, and an unshackled man, owing no dues to posterity. +Those estates in the hands of a woman are in the hands of her husband; +and the husband a gambler and a knave, they are in the hands of the Jews +--or gone to smoke. Let them go. A devilish malignity bequeathed them: +let them go back to their infernal origin. And when they were gone, his +girl would soon discover that there was no better place to come to than +her home; she would come without an asking, and alone, and without much +prospect of the intrusion of her infamous Hook-nose in pursuit of her at +Earlsfont. The money wasted, the wife would be at peace. Here she would +have leisure to repent of all the steps she had taken since that fatal +one of the acceptance of the invitation to the Embassy at Vienna. Mr. +Adister had warned her both against her going and against the influence +of her friend Lady Wenchester, our Ambassadress there, another Welsh +woman, with the weathervane head of her race. But the girl would accept, +and it was not for him to hold out. It appeared to be written that the +Welsh, particularly Welsh women, were destined to worry him up to the end +of his days. Their women were a composition of wind and fire. They had +no reason, nothing solid in their whole nature. Englishmen allied to +them had to learn that they were dealing with broomstick witches and +irresponsible sprites. Irishwomen were models of propriety beside them: +indeed Irishwomen might often be patterns to their English sisterhood. +Mr. Adister described the Cambrian ladies as a kind of daughters of the +Fata Morgana, only half human, and deceptive down to treachery, unless +you had them fast by their spinning fancy. They called it being +romantic. It was the ante-chamber of madness. Mad, was the word for +them. You pleased them you knew not how, and just as little did you know +how you displeased them. And you were long hence to be taught that in a +certain past year, and a certain month, and on a certain day of the +month, not forgetting the hour of the day to the minute of the hour, and +attendant circumstances to swear loud witness to it, you had mortally +offended them. And you receive your blow: you are sure to get it: the +one passion of those women is for vengeance. They taste a wound from the +lightest touch, and they nurse the venom for you. Possibly you may in +their presence have had occasion to praise the military virtues of the +builder of Carnarvon Castle. You are by and by pierced for it as hard as +they can thrust. Or you have incidentally compared Welsh mutton with +Southdown:--you have not highly esteemed their drunken Bards:--you have +asked what the Welsh have done in the world; you are supposed to have +slighted some person of their family--a tenth cousin!--anything turns +their blood. Or you have once looked straight at them without speaking, +and you discover years after that they have chosen to foist on you their +idea of your idea at the moment; and they have the astounding presumption +to account this misreading of your look to the extent of a full +justification, nothing short of righteous, for their treachery and your +punishment! O those Welshwomen! + +The much-suffering lord of Earlsfont stretched forth his open hand, palm +upward, for a testifying instrument to the plain truth of his catalogue +of charges. He closed it tight and smote the table. 'Like mother--and +grandmother too--like daughter!' he said, and generalised again to +preserve his dignity: 'They're aflame in an instant. You may see them +quiet for years, but it smoulders. You dropped the spark, and they time +the explosion.' + +Caroline said to Mr. Camminy: 'You are sure you can give us the day?' + +'All of it,' he replied, apologising for some show of restlessness. 'The +fact is, Miss Adister, I married a lady from over the borders, and though +I have never had to complain of her yet, she may have a finale in store. +It's true that I love wild Wales.' + +'And so do I' Caroline raised her eyes to imagined mountains. + +'You will pardon me, Camminy,' said Mr. Adister. + +The lawyer cracked his back to bow to the great gentleman so +magnanimously humiliating himself. 'Sir! Sir!' he said. 'Yes, Welsh +blood is queer blood, I own. They find it difficult to forgive; and +trifles offend; and they are unhappily just as secretive as they are +sensitive. The pangs we cause them, without our knowing it, must be +horrible. They are born, it would seem, with more than the common +allowance of kibes for treading on: a severe misfortune for them. Now +for their merits: they have poetry in them; they are valiant; they are +hospitable to teach the Arab a lesson: I do believe their life is their +friend's at need--seriously, they would lay it down for him: or the +wherewithal, their money, their property, excepting the three-stringed +harp of three generations back, worth now in current value sixpence +halfpenny as a curiosity, or three farthings for firewood; that they'll +keep against their own desire to heap on you everything they have--if +they love you, and you at the same time have struck their imaginations. +Offend them, however, and it's war, declared or covert. And I must admit +that their best friend can too easily offend them. I have lost excellent +clients, I have never understood why; yet I respect the remains of their +literature, I study their language, I attend their gatherings and +subscribe the expenses; I consume Welsh mutton with relish; I enjoy the +Triads, and can come down on them with a quotation from Catwg the Wise: +but it so chanced that I trod on a kibe, and I had to pay the penalty. +There's an Arabian tale, Miss Adister, of a peaceful traveller who ate a +date in the desert and flung away the stone, which hit an invisible son +of a genie in the eye, and the poor traveller suffered for it. Well, you +commit these mortal injuries to the invisible among the Welsh. Some of +them are hurt if you call them Welsh. They scout it as the original +Saxon title for them. No, they are Cymry, Cambrians! They have forgiven +the Romans. Saxon and Norman are still their enemies. If you stir their +hearts you find it so. And, by the way, if King Edward had not trampled +them into the mire so thoroughly, we should hear of it at times even now. +Instead of penillions and englyns, there would be days for fiery +triplets. Say the worst of them, they are soundheaded. They have a +ready comprehension for great thoughts. The Princess Nikolas, I +remember, had a special fondness for the words of Catwg the Wise.' + +'Adiante,' had murmured Caroline, to correct his indiscretion. + +She was too late. + +'Nikolas!' Mr. Adister thundered. 'Hold back that name in this house, +title and all, if you speak of my daughter. I refuse admission to it +here. She has given up my name, and she must be known by the one her +feather-brained grandmother proposed for her, to satisfy her pleasure in +a fine sound. English Christian names are my preference. I conceded +Arthur to her without difficulty. She had a voice in David, I recollect; +with very little profit to either of the boys. I had no voice in +Adiante; but I stood at my girl's baptism, and Adiante let her be. At +least I saved the girl from the addition of Arianrod. It was to have +been Adiante Arianrod. Can you credit it? Prince-pah! Nikolas? Have +you a notion of the sort of prince that makes an English lady of the best +blood of England his princess?' + +The lawyer had a precise notion of the sort of prince appearing to Mr. +Adister in the person of his foreign son-in-law. Prince Nikolas had been +described to him before, with graphic touches upon the quality of the +reputation he bore at the courts and in the gambling-saloons of Europe. +Dreading lest his client's angry heat should precipitate him on the +prince again, to the confusion of a lady's ears, Mr. Camminy gave an +emphatic and short affirmative. + +'You know what he is like?' said Mr. Adister, with a face of disgust +reflected from the bare thought of the hideous likeness. + +Mr. Camminy assured him that the description of the prince's lineaments +would not be new. It was, as he was aware, derived from a miniature of +her husband, transmitted by the princess, on its flight out of her +father's loathing hand to the hearthstone and under his heel. + +Assisted by Caroline, he managed to check the famous delineation of the +adventurer prince in which a not very worthy gentleman's chronic fever of +abomination made him really eloquent, quick to unburden himself in the +teeth of decorum. + +'And my son-in-law! My son-in-law!' ejaculated Mr. Adister, tossing his +head higher, and so he stimulated his amazement and abhorrence of the +portrait he rather wondered at them for not desiring to have sketched for +their execration of it, alluringly foul as it was: while they in concert +drew him back to the discussion of his daughter's business, reiterating +prudent counsel, with a knowledge that they had only to wait for the +ebbing of his temper. + +'Let her be informed, sir, that by coming to England she can settle the +business according to her wishes in one quarter of the time it would take +a Commission sent out to her--if we should be authorised to send out +one,' said Mr. Camminy. 'By committing the business to you, I fancy I +perceive your daughter's disposition to consider your feelings: possibly +to a reluctance to do the deed unsanctioned by her father. It would +appear so to a cool observer, notwithstanding her inattention to your +remonstrances.' + +The reply was: 'Dine here and sleep here. I shall be having more of +these letters,' Mr. Adister added, profoundly sighing. + +Caroline slipped away to mark a conclusion to the debate; and Mr. Camminy +saw his client redden fast and frown. + +'Besides,' he spoke in a husky voice, descending upon a subject hateful, +'she tells me to-day she is not in a state to travel! Do you hear? Make +what you can of it.' + +The proud and injured gentleman had the aspect of one who receives a blow +that it is impossible for him to resent. He could not speak the shame he +felt: it was literally in his flesh. But the cause had been sufficiently +hinted to set the lawyer staring as men do when they encounter situations +of grisly humour, where certain of the passions of man's developed nature +are seen armed and furious against our mild prevailing ancient mother +nature; and the contrast is between our utter wrath and her simple +exposition of the circumstances and consequences forming her laws. There +are situations which pass beyond the lightly stirred perceptive wits to +the quiet court of the intellect, to be received there as an addition to +our acquaintance with mankind. We know not of what substance to name +them. Humour in its intense strain has a seat somewhere about the mouth +of tragedy, giving it the enigmatical faint wry pull at a corner visible +at times upon the dreadful mask. + +That Mr. Adister should be astonished at such a communication from the +princess, after a year of her marriage: and that he should take it for a +further outrage of his paternal sentiments, should actually redden and be +hoarse in alluding to it: the revelation of such points in our human +character set the humane old lawyer staring at the reserve space within +himself apart from his legal being, whereon he by fits compared his own +constitution with that of the individuals revealed to him by their acts +and confidential utterances. For him, he decided that he would have +rejoiced at the news. + +Granting the prince a monster, however, as Mr. Adister unforcedly +considered him, it was not so cheering a piece of intelligence that +involved him yet closer with that man's rank blood: it curdled his own. +The marriage had shocked and stricken him, cleaving, in his love for his +daughter, a goodly tree and withering many flowers. Still the marriage +was but Adiante's gulf: he might be called father-in-law of her spangled +ruffian; son-in-law, the desperado-rascal would never be called by him. +But the result of the marriage dragged him bodily into the gulf: he +became one of four, numbering the beast twice among them. The subtlety +of his hatred so reckoned it; for he could not deny his daughter in the +father's child; he could not exclude its unhallowed father in the +mother's: and of this man's child he must know and own himself the +grandfather. If ever he saw the child, if drawn to it to fondle it, +some part of the little animal not his daughter's would partake of his +embrace. And if neither of his boys married, and his girl gave birth to +a son! darkness rolled upon that avenue of vision. A trespasser and +usurper-one of the demon's brood chased his very name out of Earlsfont! + +'Camminy, you must try to amuse yourself,' he said briskly. 'Anything +you may be wanting at home shall be sent for. I must have you here to +make sure that I am acting under good advice. You can take one of the +keepers for an hour or two of shooting. I may join you in the afternoon. +You will find occupation for your gun in the north covers.' + +He wandered about the house, looking into several rooms, and only +partially at rest when he discovered Caroline in one, engaged upon some +of her aquarelle sketches. He asked where the young Irishman was. + +'Are you in search of him?' said she. 'You like him, uncle? He is out +riding, they tell me.' + +'The youngster is used to south-western showers in that climate of his,' +Mr. Adister replied. 'I dare say we could find the Jesuit in him +somewhere. There's the seed. His cousin Con O'Donnell has filled him +with stuff about Ireland and England: the man has no better to do than to +train a parrot. What do you think of him, my love?' + +The judgement was not easily formed for expression. 'He is not quite +like what I remember of his brother Philip. He talks much more, does he +not? He seems more Irish than his brother. He is very strange. His +feelings are strong; he has not an idea of concealing them. For a young +man educated by the Jesuits, he is remarkably open.' + +'The Jesuits might be of service to me just now!' Mr. Adister addressed +his troubled soul, and spoke upon another conception of them: 'How has he +shown his feelings?' + +Caroline answered quickly: 'His love of his brother. Anything that +concerns his brother moves him; it is like a touch on a musical +instrument. Perhaps I should say a native one.' + +'Concerns his brother?' Mr. Adister inquired, and his look requesting +enlightenment told her she might speak. + +'Adiante,' she said softly. She coloured. + +Her uncle mused awhile in a half-somnolent gloom. 'He talks of this at +this present day?' + +'It is not dead to him. He really appears to have hoped . . . he is +extraordinary. He had not heard before of her marriage. I was a witness +of the most singular scene this morning, at the piano. He gathered it +from what he had heard. He was overwhelmed by it. I could not +exaggerate. It was impossible to help being a little touched, though it +was curious, very strange.' + +Her uncle's attentiveness incited her to describe the scene, and as it +visibly relieved his melancholy, she did it with a few vivid indications +of the quaint young Irishman's manner of speech. She concluded: 'At last +he begged to see a portrait of her husband.' + +'Not of her?' said Mr. Adister abruptly. + +'No; only of her husband.' + +'Show him her portrait.' + +A shade of surprise was on Caroline's forehead. 'Shall I?' She had a dim +momentary thought that the sight of the beautiful face would not be good +for Patrick. + +'Yes; let him see the woman who could throw herself away on that branded +villain called a prince, abjuring her Church for a little fouler than +hangman to me and every gentleman alive. I desire that he should see it. +Submission to the demands of her husband's policy required it of her, +she says! Show it him when he returns; you have her miniature in your +keeping. And to-morrow take him to look at the full-length of her before +she left England and ceased to be a lady of our country. I will order it +to be placed in the armoury. Let him see the miniature of her this day.' + +Mr. Adister resolved at the same time that Patrick should have his +portrait of the prince for a set-off to the face of his daughter. He +craved the relief it would be to him to lay his colours on the prince for +the sparkling amazement of one whom, according to Caroline's description, +he could expect to feel with him acutely, which neither his niece nor his +lawyer had done: they never did when he painted the prince. He was +unstrung, heavily plunged in the matter of his chagrin and grief: his +unhealed wound had been scraped and strewn with salt by his daughter's +letter; he had a thirst for the kind of sympathy he supposed he would +find in the young Irishman's horror at the husband of the incomparable +beauty now past redemption degraded by her hideous choice; lost to +England and to her father and to common respect. For none, having once +had the picture of the man, could dissociate them; they were like heaven +and its reverse, everlastingly coupled in the mind by their opposition of +characters and aspects. Her father could not, and he judged of others by +himself. He had been all but utterly solitary since her marriage, +brooded on it until it saturated him; too proud to speak of the thing +in sadness, or claim condolence for this wound inflicted on him by the +daughter he had idolised other than through the indirect method of +causing people to wonder at her chosen yoke-fellow. Their stupefaction +refreshed him. Yet he was a gentleman capable of apprehending +simultaneously that he sinned against his pride in the means he adopted +to comfort his nature. But the wound was a perpetual sickness needing +soul-medicine. Proud as he was, and unbending, he was not stronger than +his malady, and he could disguise, he could not contain, the cry of +immoderate grief. Adiante had been to him something beyond a creature +beloved; she had with her glorious beauty and great-heartedness been the +sole object which had ever inspirited his imagination. He could have +thought no man, not the most illustrious, worthy of her. And there she +was, voluntarily in the hands of a monster! 'Husband!' Mr. Adister broke +away from Caroline, muttering: 'Her husband's policy!' + +She was used to his interjections; she sat thinking more of the strange +request to her to show Mr. O'Donnell the miniature of Adiante. She had +often thought that her uncle regretted his rejection of Philip. +It appeared so to her now, though not by any consecutive process of +reasoning. She went to fetch the miniature, and gazing on it, she tried +to guess at Mr. O'Donnell's thoughts when doing the same; for who so +inflammable as he? And who, woman or man, could behold this lighted +face, with the dark raised eyes and abounding auburn tresses, where the +contrast of colours was in itself thrilling, and not admire, or more, +half worship, or wholly worship? She pitied the youth: she fancied that +he would not continue so ingenuously true to his brother's love of +Adiante after seeing it; unless one might hope that the light above +beauty distinguishing its noble classic lines, and the energy of +radiance, like a morning of chivalrous promise, in the eyes, would subdue +him to distant admiration. These were her flitting thoughts under the +spell of her queenly cousin's visage. She shut up the miniature-case, +and waited to hand it to young Mr. O'Donnell. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE MINIATURE + +Patrick returned to Earlsfont very late; he had but ten minutes to dress +for dinner; a short allowance after a heated ride across miry tracks, +though he would have expended some of them, in spite of his punctilious +respect for the bell of the house entertaining him, if Miss Adister had +been anywhere on the stairs or corridors as he rushed away to his room. +He had things to tell; he had not been out over the country for nothing. + +Fortunately for his good social principles, the butler at Earlsfont was a +wary supervisor of his man; great guest or little guest; Patrick's linen +was prepared for him properly studded; he had only to spring out of one +suit into another; and still more fortunately the urgency for a rapid +execution of the manoeuvre prevented his noticing a large square envelope +posted against the looking-glass of his toilette-table. He caught sight +of it first when pulling down his shirt-cuffs with an air of recovered +ease, not to say genial triumph, to think that the feat of grooming +himself, washing, dressing and stripping, the accustomed persuasive final +sweep of the brush to his hair-crop, was done before the bell had rung. +His name was on the envelope; and under his name, in smaller letters, + +Adiante. + +'Shall I?' said he, doing the thing he asked himself about doing tearing +open the paper cover of the portrait of her who had flitted in his head +for years unseen. And there she was, remote but present. + +His underlip dropped; he had the look of those who bate breath and swarm +their wits to catch a sound. At last he remembered that the summoning +bell had been in his ears a long time back, without his having been +sensible of any meaning in it. He started to and fro. The treasure he +held declined to enter the breast-pocket of his coat, and the other +pockets he perhaps, if sentimentally, justly discarded as being beneath +the honour of serving for a temporary casket. He locked it up, with a +vow to come early to rest. Even then he had thoughts whether it might be +safe. + +Who spoke, and what they uttered at the repast, and his own remarks, he +was unaware of. He turned right and left a brilliant countenance that +had the glitter of frost-light; it sparkled and was unreceptive. No +wonder Miss Adister deemed him wilder and stranger than ever. She +necessarily supposed the excess of his peculiarities to be an effect of +the portrait, and would have had him, according to her ideas of a young +man of some depth of feeling, dreamier. On the contrary, he talked sheer +commonplace. He had ridden to the spur of the mountains, and had put up +the mare, and groomed and fed her, not permitting another hand to touch +her: all very well, and his praises of the mare likewise, but he had not +a syllable for the sublime of the mountains. He might have careered over +midland flats for any susceptibility that he betrayed to the grandeur of +the scenery she loved. Ultimately she fancied the miniature had been +overlooked in his hurry to dress, and that he was now merely excited by +his lively gallop to a certain degree of hard brightness noticeable in +hunting men at their dinner. + +The elixir in Patrick carried him higher than mountain crests. Adiante +illumined an expanded world for him, miraculous, yet the real one, only +wanting such light to show its riches. She lifted it out of darkness +with swift throbs of her heavenliness as she swam to his eyelids, +vanished and dazzled anew, and made these gleams of her and the dark +intervals his dream of the winged earth on her flight from splendour to +splendour, secresy to secresy;--follow you that can, the youth whose +heart is an opened mine, whose head is an irradiated sky, under the spell +of imagined magical beauty. She was bugle, banner, sunrise, of his +inmost ambition and rapture. + +And without a warning, she fled; her features were lost; his power of +imagining them wrestled with vapour; the effort contracted his outlook. +But if she left him blind of her, she left him with no lessened bigness +of heart. He frankly believed in her revelation of a greater world and a +livelier earth, a flying earth and a world wealthier than grouped history +in heroic marvels: he fell back on the exultation of his having seen her, +and on the hope for the speedy coming of midnight, when the fountain of +her in the miniature would be seen and drunk of at his full leisure, and +his glorious elation of thrice man almost up to mounting spirit would be +restored to make him worthy of the vision. + +Meanwhile Caroline had withdrawn and the lord of Earlsfont was fretting +at his theme. He had decided not to be a party in the sale of either of +his daughter's estates: let her choose other agents: if the iniquity was +committed, his hands would be clean of it. Mr. Adister spoke by way of +prelude to the sketch of 'this prince' whose title was a lurid delusion. +Patrick heard of a sexagenarian rake and Danube adventurer, in person a +description of falcon-Caliban, containing his shagginess in a frogged +hussar-jacket and crimson pantaloons, with hook-nose, fox-eyes, grizzled +billow of frowsy moustache, and chin of a beast of prey. This fellow, +habitually one of the dogs lining the green tables of the foreign Baths, +snapping for gold all day and half the night, to spend their winnings in +debauchery and howl threats of suicide, never fulfilled early enough, +when they lost, claimed his princedom on the strength of his father's +murder of a reigning prince and sitting in his place for six months, till +a merited shot from another pretender sent him to his account. 'What do +you say to such a nest of assassins, and one of them, an outcast and +blackleg, asking an English gentleman to acknowledge him as a member of +his family! I have,' said Mr. Adister, 'direct information that this +gibbet-bird is conspiring to dethrone--they call it--the present reigning +prince, and the proceeds of my daughter's estates are, by her desire--if +she has not written under compulsion of the scoundrel--intended to speed +their blood-mongering. There goes a Welshwoman's legacy to the sea, with +a herd of swine with devils in them!' + +Mr. Camminy kept his head bent, his hand on his glass of port. Patrick +stared, and the working of his troubled brows gave the unhappy gentleman +such lean comfort as he was capable of taking. Patrick in sooth was +engaged in the hard attempt at the same time to do two of the most +difficult things which can be proposed to the ingenuity of sensational +youth: he was trying to excuse a respected senior for conduct that he +could not approve, while he did inward battle to reconcile his feelings +with the frightful addition to his hoard of knowledge: in other words, he +sought strenuously to mix the sketch of the prince with the dregs of the +elixir coming from the portrait of Adiante; and now she sank into +obscurity behind the blackest of brushes, representing her incredible +husband; and now by force of some natural light she broke through the +ugly mist and gave her adored the sweet lines and colours of the features +he had lost. There was an ebb and flow of the struggle, until, able to +say to himself that he saw her clearly as though the portrait was in the +palm of his hand, the battle of the imagination ceased and she was fairer +for him than if her foot had continued pure of its erratic step: fairer, +owing to the eyes he saw with; he had shaken himself free of the exacting +senses which consent to the worship of women upon the condition of their +possessing all the precious and the miraculous qualities; among others, +the gift of an exquisite fragility that cannot break; in short, upon +terms flattering to the individual devotee. Without knowing it he had +done it and got some of the upholding strength of those noblest of honest +men who not merely give souls to women--an extraordinary endowment of +them--but also discourse to them with their souls. + +Patrick accepted Adiante's husband: the man was her husband. Hideous +(for there was no combating her father's painting of him), he was almost +interesting through his alliance:--an example of how much earth the +worshipper can swallow when he is quite sincere. Instead of his going +under eclipse, the beauty of his lady eclipsed her monster. He believed +in her right to choose according to her pleasure since her lover was +denied her. Sitting alone by his fire, he gazed at her for hours and +bled for Philip. There was a riddle to be answered in her cutting +herself away from Philip; he could not answer it; her face was the +vindication and the grief. The usual traverses besetting true lovers +were suggested to him, enemies and slanders and intercepted letters. He +rejected them in the presence of the beautiful inscrutable. Small marvel +that Philip had loved her. 'Poor fellow' Patrick cried aloud, and +drooped on a fit of tears. + +The sleep he had was urgently dream-ridden to goals that eluded him and +broadened to fresh races and chases waving something to be won which +never was won, albeit untiringly pursued amid a series of adventures, +tragic episodes; wild enthusiasm. The whole of it was featureless, +a shifting agitation; yet he must have been endowed to extricate a +particular meaning applied to himself out of the mass of tumbled events, +and closely in relation to realities, for he quitted his bed passionately +regretting that he had not gone through a course of drill and study of +the military art. He remembered Mr. Adister's having said that military +training was good for all gentlemen. + +'I could join the French Foreign Legion,' he thought. + +Adiante was as beautiful by day as by night. He looked. The riddle of +her was more burdensome in the daylight. + +He sighed, and on another surging of his admiration launched the resolve +that he would serve her blindly, without one question. How, when, where, +and the means and the aim, he did not think of. There was she, and here +was he, and heaven and a great heart would show the way. + +Adiante at eighteen, the full length of her, fresh in her love of Philip, +was not the same person to him, she had not the same secret; she was +beautiful differently. By right he should have loved the portrait best: +but he had not seen it first; he had already lived through a life of +emotions with the miniature, and could besides clasp the frame; and +moreover he fondled an absurd notion that the miniature would be +entrusted to him for a time, and was almost a possession. The pain of +the thought of relinquishing it was the origin of this foolishness. And +again, if it be fair to prove him so deeply, true to his brother though +he was (admiration of a woman does thus influence the tides of our blood +to render the noblest of us guilty of some unconscious wavering of our +loyalty), Patrick dedicated the full-length of Adiante to Philip, and +reserved the other, her face and neck, for himself. + +Obediently to Mr. Adister's order, the portrait had been taken from one +of his private rooms and placed in the armoury, the veil covering the +canvas of late removed. Guns and spears and swords overhead and about, +the youthful figure of Adiante was ominously encompassed. Caroline stood +with Patrick before the portrait of her cousin; she expected him to show +a sign of appreciation. He asked her to tell him the Church whose forms +of faith the princess had embraced. She answered that it was the Greek +Church. 'The Greek,' said he, gazing harder at the portrait. Presently +she said: 'It was a perfect likeness.' She named the famous artist who +had painted it. Patrick's 'Ah' was unsatisfactory. + +'We,' said she, 'think it a living image of her as she was then.' + +He would not be instigated to speak. + +'You do not admire it, Mr. O'Donnell?' she cried. + +'Oh, but I do. That's how she looked when she was drawing on her gloves +with good will to go out to meet him. You can't see her there and not be +sure she had a heart. She part smiles; she keeps her mouth shut, but +there's the dimple, and it means a thought, like a bubble bursting up +from the heart in her breast. She's tall. She carries herself like a +great French lady, and nothing beats that. It's the same colour, dark +eyebrows and fair hair. And not thinking of her pride. She thinks of +her walk, and the end of it, where he's waiting. The eyes are not the +same.' + +'The same?' said Caroline. + +'As this.' He tapped on the left side. She did not understand it at all. + +'The bit of work done in Vienna,' said he. + +She blushed. 'Do you admire that so much?' + +'I do.' + +'We consider it not to be compared to this.' + +'Perhaps not. I like it better.' + +'But why do you like that better?' said Caroline, deeming it his +wilfulness. + +Patrick put out a finger. 'The eyes there don't seem to say, "I'm yours +to make a hero of you." But look,' he drew forth from under his +waistcoat the miniature, 'what don't they say here! It's a bright day +for the Austrian capital that has her by the river Danube. Yours has a +landscape; I've made acquaintance with the country, I caught the print of +it on my ride yesterday; and those are your mountains. But mine has her +all to herself while she's thinking undisturbed in her boudoir. I have +her and her thoughts; that's next to her soul. I've an idea it ought to +be given to Philip.' He craned his head round to woo some shadow of +assent to the daring suggestion. 'Just to break the shock 'twill be to +my brother, Miss Adister. If I could hand him this, and say, "Keep it, +for you'll get nothing more of her; and that's worth a kingdom."' + +Caroline faltered: 'Your brother does not know?' + +'Pity him. His blow 's to come. He can't or he 'd have spoken of it to +me. I was with him a couple of hours and he never mentioned a word of +it, nor did Captain Con. We talked of Ireland, and the service, and some +French cousins we have.' + +'Ladies?' Caroline inquired by instinct. + +'And charming,' said Patrick, 'real dear girls. Philip might have one, +if he would, and half my property, to make it right with her parents. +There'd be little use in proposing it. He was dead struck when the shaft +struck him. That's love! So I determined the night after I'd shaken his +hand I'd be off to Earlsfont and try my hardest for him. It's hopeless +now. Only he might have the miniature for his bride. I can tell him a +trifle to help him over his agony. She would have had him, she would, +Miss Adister, if she hadn't feared he'd be talked of as Captain Con has +been--about the neighbourhood, I mean, because he,' Patrick added +hurriedly, 'he married an heiress and sank his ambition for distinction +like a man who has finished his dinner. I'm certain she would. I have +it on authority.' + +'What authority?' said Caroline coldly. + +'Her own old nurse.' + +'Jenny Williams?' + +'The one! I had it from her. And how she loves her darling Miss +Adiante! She won't hear of "princess." She hates that marriage. She +was all for my brother Philip. She calls him "Our handsome lieutenant." +She'll keep the poor fellow a subaltern all his life.' + +'You went to Jenny's inn?' + +'The Earlsfont Arms, I went to. And Mrs. Jenny at the door, watching the +rain. Destiny directed me. She caught the likeness to Philip on a lift +of her eye, and very soon we sat conversing like old friends. We were +soon playing at old cronies over past times. I saw the way to bring her +out, so I set to work, and she was up in defence of her darling, ready to +tell me anything to get me to think well of her. And that was the main +reason, she said, why Miss Adiante broke with him and went abroad her +dear child wouldn't have Mr. Philip abused for fortune-hunting. As for +the religion, they could each have practised their own: her father would +have consented to the fact, when it came on him in that undeniable shape +of two made one. She says, Miss Adiante has a mighty soul; she has brave +ideas. Miss Deenly, she calls her. Ay, and so has Philip: though the +worst is, they're likely to drive him out of the army into politics and +Parliament; and an Irishman there is a barrow trolling a load of +grievances. Ah, but she would have kept him straight. Not a soldier +alive knows the use of cavalry better than my brother. He wanted just +that English wife to steady him and pour drops of universal fire into +him; to keep him face to face with the world, I mean; letting him be true +to his country in a fair degree, but not an old rainpipe and spout. She +would have held him to his profession. And, Oh dear! She's a friend +worth having, lost to Ireland. I see what she could have done there. +Something bigger than an island, too, has to be served in our days: that +is, if we don't forget our duty at home. Poor Paddy, and his pig, and +his bit of earth! If you knew what we feel for him! I'm a landlord, but +I'm one with my people about evictions. We Irish take strong root. And +honest rent paid over to absentees, through an agent, if you think of it, +seems like flinging the money that's the sweat of the brow into a stone +conduit to roll away to a giant maw hungry as the sea. It's the bleeding +to death of our land! Transactions from hand to hand of warm human +flesh-nothing else will do: I mean, for men of our blood. Ah! she would +have kept my brother temperate in his notions and his plans. And why +absentees, Miss Adister? Because we've no centre of home life: the core +has been taken out of us; our country has no hearth-fire. I'm for union; +only there should be justice, and a little knowledge to make allowance +for the natural cravings of a different kind of people. Well, then, and +I suppose that inter-marriages are good for both. But here comes a man, +the boldest and handsomest of his race, and he offers himself to the +handsomest and sweetest of yours, and she leans to him, and the family +won't have him. For he's an Irishman and a Catholic. Who is it then +opposed the proper union of the two islands? Not Philip. He did his +best; and if he does worse now he's not entirely to blame. The +misfortune is, that when he learns the total loss of her on that rock- +promontory, he'll be dashing himself upon rocks sure to shiver him. +There's my fear. If I might take him this . . . ?' Patrick pleaded +with the miniature raised like the figure of his interrogation. + +Caroline's inward smile threw a soft light of humour over her features at +the simple cunning of his wind-up to the lecture on his country's case, +which led her to perceive a similar cunning simplicity in his +identification of it with Philip's. It startled her to surprise, for the +reason that she'd been reviewing his freakish hops from Philip to Ireland +and to Adiante, and wondering in a different kind of surprise, how and by +what profitless ingenuity he contrived to weave them together. Nor +was she unmoved, notwithstanding her fancied perception of his Jesuitry: +his look and his voice were persuasive; his love of his brother was deep; +his change of sentiment toward Adiante after the tale told him by her old +nurse Jenny, stood for proof of a generous manliness. + +Before she had replied, her uncle entered the armoury, and Patrick was +pleading still, and she felt herself to be a piece of damask, a very +fiery dye. + +To disentangle herself, she said on an impulse, desperately + +'Mr. O'Donnell begs to have the miniature for his brother.' + +Patrick swung instantly to Mr. Adister. 'I presumed to ask for it, sir, +to carry it to Philip. He is ignorant about the princess as yet; he +would like to have a bit of the wreck. I shan't be a pleasant messenger +to him. I should be glad to take him something. It could be returned +after a time. She was a great deal to Philip--three parts of his life. +He has nothing of her to call his own.' + +'That!' said Mr. Adister. He turned to the virgin Adiante, sat down and +shut his eyes, fetching a breath. He looked vacantly at Patrick. + +'When you find a man purely destructive, you think him a devil, don't +you?' he said. + +'A good first cousin to one,' Patrick replied, watchful for a hint to +seize the connection. + +'If you think of hunting to-day, we have not many minutes to spare before +we mount. The meet is at eleven, five miles distant. Go and choose your +horse. Caroline will drive there.' + +Patrick consulted her on a glance for counsel. 'I shall be glad to join +you, sir, for to-morrow I must be off to my brother.' + +'Take it,' Mr. Adister waved his hand hastily. He gazed at his idol of +untouched eighteen. 'Keep it safe,' he said, discarding the sight of the +princess. 'Old houses are doomed to burnings, and a devil in the family +may bring us to ashes. And some day . . . !' he could not continue his +thought upon what he might be destined to wish for, and ran it on to, +'Some day I shall be happy to welcome your brother, when it pleases him +to visit me.' + +Patrick bowed, oppressed by the mighty gift. 'I haven't the word to +thank you with, sir.' + +Mr. Adister did not wait for it. + +'I owe this to you, Miss Adister,' said Patrick. + +Her voice shook: 'My uncle loves those who loved her.' + +He could see she was trembling. When he was alone his ardour of +gratefulness enabled him to see into her uncle's breast: the inflexible +frigidity; lasting regrets and remorse; the compassion for Philip in +kinship of grief and loss; the angry dignity; the stately generosity. + +He saw too, for he was clear-eyed when his feelings were not over-active, +the narrow pedestal whereon the stiff figure of a man of iron pride must +accommodate itself to stand in despite of tempests without and within; +and how the statue rocks there, how much more pitiably than the common +sons of earth who have the broad common field to fall down on and our +good mother's milk to set them on their legs again. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CAPTAIN CON AND MRS. ADISTER O'DONNELL + +Riding homeward from the hunt at the leisurely trot of men who have +steamed their mounts pretty well, Mr. Adister questioned Patrick +familiarly about his family, and his estate, and his brother's prospects +in the army, and whither he intended first to direct his travels: +questions which Patrick understood to be kindly put for the sake of +promoting conversation with a companion of unripe age by a gentleman who +had wholesomely excited his blood to run. They were answered, except the +last one. Patrick had no immediate destination in view. + +'Leave Europe behind you,' said Mr. Adister warming, to advise him, and +checking the trot of his horse. 'Try South America.' The lordly +gentleman plotted out a scheme of colonisation and conquest in that +region with the coolness of a practised freebooter. 'No young man is +worth a job,' he said, 'who does not mean to be a leader, and as leader +to have dominion. Here we are fettered by ancestry and antecedents. Had +I to recommence without those encumbrances, I would try my fortune +yonder. I stood condemned to waste my youth in idle parades, and hunting +the bear and buffalo. The estate you have inherited is not binding on +you. You can realise it, and begin by taking over two or three hundred +picked Irish and English--have both races capable of handling spade and +musket; purchasing some thousands of acres to establish a legal footing +there. + +'You increase your colony from the mother country in the ratio of your +prosperity, until your power is respected, and there is a necessity for +the extension of your territory. When you are feared you will be on your +mettle. They will favour you with provocation. I should not doubt the +result, supposing myself to have under my sole command a trained body of +men of English blood--and Irish.' + +'Owners of the soil,' rejoined Patrick, much marvelling. + +'Undoubtedly, owners of the soil, but owing you service.' + +'They fight sir' + +'It is hardly to be specified in the calculation, knowing them. Soldiery +who have served their term, particularly old artillerymen, would be my +choice: young fellows and boys among them. Women would have to be taken. +Half-breeds are the ruin of colonists. Our men are born for conquest. +We were conquerors here, and it is want of action and going physically +forward that makes us a rusty people. There are--Mr. Adister's +intonation told of his proposing a wretched alternative,--'the Pacific +Islands, but they will soon be snapped up by the European and North +American Governments, and a single one of them does not offer space. It +would require money and a navy.' He mused. 'South America is the +quarter I should decide for, as a young man. You are a judge of horses; +you ride well; you would have splendid pastures over there; you might +raise a famous breed. The air is fine; it would suit our English stock. +We are on ground, Mr. O'Donnell, which my forefathers contested sharply +and did not yield.' + +'The owners of the soil had to do that,' said Patrick. 'I can show the +same in my country, with a difference.' + +'Considerably to your benefit.' + +'Everything has been crushed there barring the contrary opinion.' + +'I could expect such a remark from a rebel.' + +'I'm only interpreting the people, sir.' + +'Jump out of that tinder-box as soon as you can.' + +'When I was in South America, it astonished me that no Englishman had +cast an eye on so inviting a land. Australia is not comparable with it. +And where colonisations have begun without system, and without hard +fighting to teach the settlers to value good leadership and respect +their chiefs, they tumble into Republics.' + +Patrick would have liked to fling a word in about the Englishman's cast +of his eye upon inviting lands, but the trot was resumed, the lord of +Earlsfont having delivered his mind, and a minute made it happily too +late for the sarcastic bolt. Glad that his tongue had been kept from +wagging, he trotted along beside his host in the dusky evening over the +once contested land where the gentleman's forefathers had done their +deeds and firmly fixed their descendants. A remainder of dull red fire +prolonged the half-day above the mountain strongholds of the former +owners of the soil, upon which prince and bard and priest, and grappling +natives never wanting for fierceness, roared to-arms in the beacon-flames +from ridge to peak: and down they poured, and back they were pushed by +the inveterate coloniser--stationing at threatened points his old +'artillerymen' of those days and so it ends, that bard and priest and +prince; holy poetry, and divine prescription, and a righteous holding; +are as naught against him. They go, like yonder embers of the winter +sunset before advancing night: and to morrow the beacon-heaps are ashes, +the conqueror's foot stamps on them, the wind scatters them; strangest of +all, you hear victorious lawlessness appealing solemnly to God the law. + +Patrick was too young to philosophise upon his ideas; or else the series +of pictures projected by the troops of sensations running through him +were not of a solidity to support any structure of philosophy. He +reverted, though rather in name than in spirit, to the abstractions, +justice, consistency, right. They were too hard to think of, so he +abandoned the puzzle of fitting them to men's acts and their consciences, +and he put them aside as mere titles employed for the uses of a police +and a tribunal to lend an appearance of legitimacy to the decrees of them +that have got the upper hand. An insurrectionary rising of his breast on +behalf of his country was the consequence. He kept it down by turning +the whole hubbub within him to the practical contemplation of a visionary +South America as the region for him and a fighting tenantry. With a +woman, to crown her queen there, the prospect was fair. But where dwelt +the woman possessing majesty suitable to such a dream in her heart or her +head? The best he had known in Ireland and in France, preferred the +charms of society to bold adventure. + +All the same, thought he, it's queer counsel, that we should set to work +by buying a bit of land to win a clean footing to rob our neighbours: and +his brains took another shot at Mr. Adister, this time without +penetrating. He could very well have seen the matter he disliked in a +man that he disliked; but the father of Adiante had touched him with the +gift of the miniature. + +Patrick was not asked to postpone his departure from Earlsfont, nor was +he invited to come again. Mr. Adister drove him to the station in the +early morning, and gave him a single nod from the phaeton-box for a good- +bye. Had not Caroline assured him at the leave-taking between them that +he had done her uncle great good by his visit, the blank of the usual +ceremonial phrases would have caused him to fancy himself an intruder +courteously dismissed, never more to enter the grand old Hall. He was +further comforted by hearing the stationmaster's exclamation of +astonishment and pleasure at the sight of the squire 'in his place' +handling the reins, which had not been witnessed for many a day and +so it appeared that the recent guest had been exceptionally complimented. +'But why not a warm word, instead of turning me off to decipher a bit of +Egyptian on baked brick,' he thought, incurably Celtic as he was. + +From the moment when he beheld Mr. Adister's phaeton mounting a hill that +took the first leap for the Cambrian highlands, up to his arrival in +London, scarcely one of his 'ideas' darted out before Patrick, as they +were in the habit of doing, like the enchanted bares of fairyland, +tempting him to pursue, and changing into the form of woman ever, at some +turn of the chase. For as he had travelled down to Earlsfont in the +state of ignorance and hopefulness, bearing the liquid brains of that +young condition, so did his acquisition of a particular fact destructive +of hope solidify them about it as he travelled back: in other words, they +were digesting what they had taken in. Imagination would not have +stirred for a thousand fleeting hares: and principally, it may be, +because he was conscious that no form of woman would anywhere come of +them. Woman was married; she had the ring on her finger! He could at +his option look on her in the miniature, he could think of her as being +in the city where she had been painted; but he could not conjure her out +of space; she was nowhere in the ambient air. Secretly she was a feeling +that lay half slumbering very deep down within him, and he kept the +secret, choosing to be poor rather than call her forth. He was in truth +digesting with difficulty, as must be the case when it is allotted to the +brains to absorb what the soul abhors. + +'Poor old Philip!' was his perpetual refrain. 'Philip, the girl you +loved is married; and here's her portrait taken in her last blush; and +the man who has her hasn't a share in that!' Thus, throwing in the ghost +of a sigh for sympathy, it seemed to Patrick that the intelligence would +have to be communicated. Bang is better, thought he, for bad news than +snapping fire and feinting, when you're bound half to kill a fellow, and +a manly fellow. + +Determined that bang it should be, he hurried from the terminus to +Philip's hotel, where he had left him, and was thence despatched to the +house of Captain Con O'Donnell, where he created a joyful confusion, +slightly dashed with rigour on the part of the regnant lady; which is not +to be wondered at, considering that both the gentlemen attending her, +Philip and her husband, quitted her table with shouts at the announcement +of his name, and her husband hauled him in unwashed before her, crying +that the lost was found, the errant returned, the Prodigal Pat recovered +by his kinsman! and she had to submit to the introduction of the +disturber: and a bedchamber had to be thought of for the unexpected +guest, and the dinner to be delayed in middle course, and her husband +corrected between the discussions concerning the bedchamber, and either +the guest permitted to appear at her table in sooty day-garb, or else a +great gap commanded in the service of her dishes, vexatious extreme for a +lady composed of orderliness. She acknowledged Patrick's profound salute +and his excuses with just so many degrees in the inclining of her head as +the polite deem a duty to themselves when the ruffling world has +disarranged them. + +'Con!' she called to her chattering husband, 'we are in England, if you +please.' + +'To be sure, madam,' said the captain, 'and so 's Patrick, thanks to the +stars. We fancied him gone, kidnapped, burned, made a meal of and +swallowed up, under the earth or the water; for he forgot to give us +his address in town; he stood before us for an hour or so, and then the +fellow vanished. We've waited for him gaping. With your permission I'll +venture an opinion that he'll go and dabble his hands and sit with us as +he is, for the once, as it happens.' + +'Let it be so,' she rejoined, not pacified beneath her dignity. She +named the bedchamber to a footman. + +'And I'll accompany the boy to hurry him on,' said the captain, hurrying +Patrick on as he spoke, till he had him out of the dining-room, when he +whispered: 'Out with your key, and if we can scramble you into your +evening-suit quick we shall heal the breach in the dinner. You dip your +hands and face, I'll have out the dress. You've the right style for her, +my boy: and mind, she is an excellent good woman, worthy of all respect: +but formality's the flattery she likes: a good bow and short speech. +Here we are, and the room's lighted. Off to the basin, give me the key; +and here's hot water in tripping Mary's hands. The portmanteau opens +easy. Quick! the door's shut on rosy Mary. The race is for domestic +peace, my boy. I sacrifice everything I can for it, in decency. 'Tis +the secret of my happiness.' + +Patrick's transformation was rapid enough to satisfy the impatient +captain, who said: 'You'll tell her you couldn't sit down in her presence +undressed. I married her at forty, you know, when a woman has reached +her perfect development, and leans a trifle more to ceremonies than to +substance. And where have you been the while?' + +'I'll tell you by and by,' said Patrick. + +'Tell me now, and don't be smirking at the glass; your necktie's as neat +as a lady's company-smile, equal at both ends, and warranted not to relax +before the evening 's over. And mind you don't set me off talking over- +much downstairs. I talk in her presence like the usher of the Court to +the judge. 'Tis the secret of my happiness.' + +'Where are those rascally dress-boots of mine?' cried Patrick. + +Captain Con pitched the contents of the portmanteau right and left. +'Never mind the boots, my boy. Your legs will be under the table during +dinner, and we'll institute a rummage up here between that and the +procession to the drawing-room, where you'll be examined head to foot, +devil a doubt of it. But say, where have you been? She'll be asking, +and we're in a mess already, and may as well have a place to name to her, +somewhere, to excuse the gash you've made in her dinner. Here they are, +both of 'm, rolled in a dirty shirt!' + +Patrick seized the boots and tugged them on, saying 'Earlsfont, then.' + +'You've been visiting Earlsfont? Whack! but that's the saving of us! +Talk to her of her brother he sends her his love. Talk to her of the +ancestral hall--it stands as it was on the day of its foundation. Just +wait about five minutes to let her punish us, before you out with it. +'Twill come best from you. What did you go down there for? But don't +stand answering questions; come along. Don't heed her countenance at the +going in: we've got the talisman. As to the dressing, it's a perfect +trick of harlequinade, and she'll own it after a dose of Earlsfont. And, +by the way, she's not Mrs. Con, remember; she's Mrs. Adister O'Donnell: +and that's best rolled out to Mistress. She's a worthy woman, but she +was married at forty, and I had to take her shaped as she was, for +moulding her at all was out of the question, and the soft parts of me +had to be the sufferers, to effect a conjunction, for where one won't and +can't, poor t' other must, or the union's a mockery. She was cast in +bronze at her birth, if she wasn't cut in bog-root. Anyhow, you'll study +her. Consider her for my sake. Madam, it should be--madam, call her, +addressing her, madam. She hasn't a taste for jokes, and she chastises +absurdities, and England's the foremost country of the globe, indirect +communication with heaven, and only to be connected with such a country +by the tail of it is a special distinction and a comfort for us; we're +that part of the kite!--but, Patrick, she's a charitable soul; she's a +virtuous woman and an affectionate wife, and doesn't frown to see me turn +off to my place of worship while she drum-majors it away to her own; she +entertains Father Boyle heartily, like the good woman she is to good men; +and unfortunate females too have a friend in her, a real friend--that +they have; and that 's a wonder in a woman chaste as ice. I do respect +her; and I'd like to see the man to favour me with an opportunity of +proving it on him! So you'll not forget, my boy; and prepare for a cold +bath the first five minutes. Out with Earlsfont early after that. All +these things are trifles to an unmarried man. I have to attend to 'm, I +have to be politic and give her elbow-room for her natural angles. 'Tis +the secret of my happiness.' + +Priming his kinsman thus up to the door of the diningroom, Captain Con +thrust him in. + +Mistress Adister O'Donnell's head rounded as by slow attraction to the +clock. Her disciplined husband signified an equal mixture of contrition +and astonishment at the passing of time. He fell to work upon his plate +in obedience to the immediate policy dictated to him. + +The unbending English lady contrasted with her husband so signally +that the oddly united couple appeared yoked in a common harness for a +perpetual display of the opposition of the races. She resembled her +brother, the lord of Earlsfont, in her remarkable height and her calm air +of authority and self-sustainment. From beneath a head-dress built of +white curls and costly lace, half enclosing her high narrow forehead, a +pale, thin, straight bridge of nose descended prominently over her sunken +cheeks to thin locked lips. Her aspect suggested the repose of a winter +landscape, enjoyable in pictures, or on skates, otherwise nipping. . . . +Mental directness, of no greater breadth than her principal feature, was +the character it expressed; and candour of spirit shone through the +transparency she was, if that mild taper could be said to shine in proof +of a vitality rarely notified to the outer world by the opening of her +mouth; chiefly then, though not malevolently to command: as the portal of +some snow-bound monastery opens to the outcast, bidding it be known that +the light across the wolds was not deceptive and a glimmer of light +subsists among the silent within. The life sufficed to her. She was +like a marble effigy seated upright, requiring but to be laid at her +length for transport to the cover of the tomb. + +Now Captain Con was by nature ruddy as an Indian summer flushed in all +its leaves. The corners of his face had everywhere a frank ambush, or +child's hiding-place, for languages and laughter. He could worm with a +smile quite his own the humour out of men possessing any; and even under +rigorous law, and it could not be disputed that there was rigour in the +beneficent laws imposed upon him by his wife, his genius for humour and +passion for sly independence came up and curled away like the smoke of +the illicit still, wherein the fanciful discern fine sprites indulging in +luxurious grimaces at a government long-nosed to no purpose. Perhaps, as +Patrick said of him to Caroline Adister, he was a bard without a theme. +He certainly was a man of speech, and the having fearfully to contain +himself for the greater number of the hours of the day, for the +preservation of the domestic felicity he had learnt to value, fathered +the sentiment of revolt in his bosom. + +By this time, long after five minutes had elapsed, the frost presiding +at the table was fast withering Captain Con; and he was irritable to hear +why Patrick had gone off to Earlsfont, and what he had done there, and +the adventures he had tasted on the road; anything for warmth. His +efforts to fish the word out of Patrick produced deeper crevasses in the +conversation, and he cried to himself: Hats and crape-bands! mightily +struck by an idea that he and his cousins were a party of hired mourners +over the meat they consumed. Patrick was endeavouring to spare his +brother a mention of Earlsfont before they had private talk together. +He answered neither to a dip of the hook nor to a pull. + +'The desert where you 've come from 's good,' said the captain, sharply +nodding. + +Mrs. Adister O'Donnell ejaculated: 'Wine!' for a heavy comment upon one +of his topics, and crushed it. + +Philip saw that Patrick had no desire to spread, and did not trouble him. + +'Good horses in the stable too,' said the captain. + +Patrick addressed Mrs. Adister: 'I have hardly excused myself to you, +madam.' + +Her head was aloft in dumb apostrophe of wearifulness over another of her +husband's topics. + +'Do not excuse yourself at all,' she said. + +The captain shivered. He overhauled his plotting soul publicly: +'Why don't you out with it yourself!' and it was wonderful why he had +not done so, save that he was prone to petty conspiracy, and had thought +reasonably that the revelation would be damp, gunpowder, coming from him. +And for when he added: 'The boy's fresh from Earlsfont; he went down to +look at the brav old house of the Adisters, and was nobly welcomed and +entertained, and made a vast impression,' his wife sedately remarked to +Patrick, 'You have seen my brother Edward.' + +'And brings a message of his love to you, my dear,' the Captain bit his +nail harder. + +'You have a message for me?' she asked; and Patrick replied: 'The captain +is giving a free translation. I was down there, and I took the liberty +of calling on Mr. Adister, and I had a very kind reception. We hunted, +we had a good day with the hounds. I think I remember hearing that you +go there at Christmas, madam.' + +'Our last Christmas at Earlsfont was a sad meeting for the family. My +brother Edward is well?' + +'I had the happiness to be told that I had been of a little service in +cheering him.' + +'I can believe it,' said Mrs. Adister, letting her eyes dwell on the +young man; and he was moved by the silvery tremulousness of her voice. + +She resumed: 'You have the art of dressing in a surprisingly short time.' + +'There!' exclaimed Captain Con: for no man can hear the words which prove +him a prophet without showing excitement. 'Didn't I say so? Patrick's a +hero for love or war, my dear. He stood neat and trim from the silk +socks to the sprig of necktie in six minutes by my watch. And that's +witness to me that you may count on him for what the great Napoleon +called two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage; not too common even in his +immortal army:--when it's pitch black and frosty cold, and you're buried +within in a dream of home, and the trumpet springs you to your legs in a +trice, boots and trowsers, coat and sword-belt and shako, and one twirl +to the whiskers, and away before a second snap of the fingers to where +the great big bursting end of all things for you lies crouching like a +Java-Tiger--a ferocious beast painted undertaker's colour--for a leap at +you in particular out of the dark;--never waiting an instant to ask +what's the matter and pretend you don't know. That's rare, Philip; +that's bravery; Napoleon knew the thing; and Patrick has it; my hand's +on the boy's back for that.' + +The captain was permitted to discourse as he pleased: his wife was wholly +given to the recent visitor to Earlsfont, whom she informed that Caroline +was the youngest daughter of General Adister, her second brother, and an +excellent maiden, her dear Edward's mainstay in his grief. At last she +rose, and was escorted to the door by all present. But Captain Con +rather shame-facedly explained to Patrick that it was a sham departure; +they had to follow without a single spin to the claretjug: he closed the +door merely to state his position; how at half-past ten he would be a +free man, according to the convention, to which his wife honourably +adhered, so he had to do likewise, as regarded his share of it. +Thereupon he apologised to the brothers, bitterly regretting that, with +good wine in the cellar, his could be no house for claret; and promising +them they should sit in their shirts and stretch their legs, and toast +the old country and open their hearts, no later than the minute pointing +to the time for his deliverance. + +Mrs. Adister accepted her husband's proffered arm unhesitatingly at the +appointed stroke of the clock. She said: 'Yes,' in agreement with him, +as if she had never heard him previously enunciate the formula, upon his +pious vociferation that there should be no trifling with her hours of +rest. + +'You can find your way to my cabin,' he said to Philip over his shoulder, +full of solicitude for the steps of the admirable lady now positively +departing. + +As soon as the brothers were alone, Philip laid his hand on Patrick, +asking him, 'What does it mean?' + +Patrick fired his cannon-shot: 'She's married!' Consulting his feelings +immediately after, he hated himself for his bluntness. + +Philip tossed his head. 'But why did you go down there?' + +'I went,' said Patrick, 'well, I went . . . . I thought you looked +wretched, and I went with an idea of learning where she was, and seeing +if I couldn't do something. It's too late now; all's over.' + +'My dear boy, I've worse than that to think of.' + +'You don't mind it?' + +'That's old news, Patrick.' + +'You don't care for her any more, Philip?' + +'You wouldn't have me caring for a married woman?' + +'She has a perfect beast for a husband.' + +'I'm sorry she didn't make a better choice.' + +'He's a prince.' + +'So I hear.' + +'Ah! And what worse, Philip, can you be having to think of?' + +'Affairs,' Philip replied, and made his way to the cabin of Captain Con, +followed in wonderment by Patrick, who would hardly have been his dupe to +suppose him indifferent and his love of Adiante dead, had not the thought +flashed on him a prospect of retaining the miniature for his own, or for +long in his custody. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN + +Patrick left his brother at the second flight of stairs to run and fling +on a shooting-jacket, into which he stuffed his treasure, after one peep +that eclipsed his little dream of being allowed to keep it; and so he saw +through Philip. + +The captain's cabin was the crown of his house-top, a builder's addition +to the roof, where the detestable deeds he revelled in, calling them +liberty, could be practised, according to the convention, and no one save +rosy Mary, in her sense of smell, when she came upon her morning business +to clean and sweep, be any the wiser of them, because, as it is known to +the whole world, smoke ascends, and he was up among the chimneys. Here, +he would say to his friends and fellow-sinners, you can unfold, unbosom, +explode, do all you like, except caper, and there 's a small square of +lead between the tiles outside for that, if the spirit of the jig comes +upon you with violence, as I have had it on me, and eased myself mightily +there, to my own music; and the capital of the British Empire below me. +Here we take our indemnity for subjection to the tyrannical female ear, +and talk like copious rivers meandering at their own sweet will. Here we +roll like dogs in carrion, and no one to sniff at our coats. Here we +sing treason, here we flout reason, night is out season at half-past ten. + +This introductory ode to Freedom was his throwing off of steam, the +foretaste of what he contained. He rejoined his cousins, chirping +variations on it, and attired in a green silken suit of airy Ottoman +volume, full of incitement to the legs and arms to swing and set him +up for a Sultan. 'Now Phil, now Pat,' he cried, after tenderly pulling +the door to and making sure it was shut, 'any tale you've a mind for-- +infamous and audacious! You're licensed by the gods up here, and may +laugh at them too, and their mothers and grandmothers, if the fit seizes +ye, and the heartier it is the greater the exemption. We're pots that +knock the lid and must pour out or boil over and destroy the furniture. +My praties are ready for peelin', if ever they were in this world! Chuck +wigs from sconces, and off with your buckram. Decency's a dirty +petticoat in the Garden of Innocence. Naked we stand, boys! we're not +afraid of nature. You're in the annexe of Erin, Pat, and devil a +constable at the keyhole; no rats; I'll say that for the Government, +though it's a despotism with an iron bridle on the tongue outside to a +foot of the door. Arctic to freeze the boldest bud of liberty! I'd +like a French chanson from ye, Pat, to put us in tune, with a right +revolutionary hurling chorus, that pitches Kings' heads into the basket +like autumn apples. Or one of your hymns in Gaelic sung ferociously to +sound as horrid to the Saxon, the wretch. His reign 's not for ever; he +can't enter here. You're in the stronghold defying him. And now cigars, +boys, pipes; there are the boxes, there are the bowls. I can't smoke +till I have done steaming. I'll sit awhile silently for the operation. +Christendom hasn't such a man as your cousin Con for feeling himself a +pig-possessed all the blessed day, acting the part of somebody else, till +it takes me a quarter of an hour of my enfranchisement and restoration of +my natural man to know myself again. For the moment, I'm froth, scum, +horrid boiling hissing dew of the agony of transformation; I am; I'm that +pig disgorging the spirit of wickedness from his poor stomach.' + +The captain drooped to represent the state of the self-relieving victim +of the evil one; but fearful lest either of his cousins should usurp the +chair and thwart his chance of delivering himself, he rattled away +sympathetically with his posture in melancholy: 'Ay, we're poor +creatures; pigs and prophets, princes and people, victors and vanquished, +we 're waves of the sea, rolling over and over, and calling it life! +There's no life save the eternal. Father Boyle's got the truth. Flesh +is less than grass, my sons; 'tis the shadow that crosses the grass. I +love the grass. I could sit and watch grassblades for hours. I love an +old turf mound, where the grey grass nods and seems to know the wind and +have a whisper with it, of ancient times maybe and most like; about the +big chief lying underneath in the last must of his bones that a breath of +air would scatter. They just keep their skeleton shape as they are; for +the turf mound protects them from troubles: 'tis the nurse to that +delicate old infant!--Waves of the sea, did I say? We're wash in a hog- +trough for Father Saturn to devour; big chief and suckling babe, we all +go into it, calling it life! And what hope have we of reading the +mystery? All we can see is the straining of the old fellow's hams to +push his old snout deeper into the gobble, and the ridiculous curl of a +tail totally devoid of expression! You'll observe that gluttons have no +feature; they're jaws and hindquarters; which is the beginning and end of +'m; and so you may say to Time for his dealing with us: so let it be a +lesson to you not to bother your wits, but leave the puzzle to the +priest. He understands it, and why? because he was told. There 's +harmony in his elocution, and there's none in the modern drivel about +where we're going and what we came out of. No wonder they call it +an age of despair, when you see the big wigs filing up and down the +thoroughfares with a great advertisement board on their shoulders, +proclaiming no information to the multitude, but a blank note of +interrogation addressed to Providence, as if an answer from above would +be vouchsafed to their impudence! They haven't the first principles of +good manners. And some of 'm in a rage bawl the answer for themselves. +Hear that! No, Phil; No, Pat, no: devotion's good policy.--You're not +drinking! Are you both of ye asleep? why do ye leave me to drone away +like this, when it 's conversation I want, as in the days of our first +parents, before the fig-leaf?--and you might have that for scroll and +figure on the social banner of the hypocritical Saxon, who's a +gormandising animal behind his decency, and nearer to the Arch-devourer +Time than anything I can imagine: except that with a little exertion you +can elude him. The whisky you've got between you 's virgin of the +excise. I'll pay double for freepeaty any day. Or are you for claret, +my lads? No? I'm fortified up here to stand a siege in my old round +tower, like the son of Eremon that I am. Lavra Con! Con speaks at last! +I don't ask you, Pat, whether you remember Maen, who was born dumb, and +had for his tutors Ferkelne the bard and Crafting the harper, at pleasant +Dinree: he was grandson of Leary Lore who was basely murdered by his +brother Cova, and Cova spared the dumb boy, thinking a man without a +tongue harmless, as fools do: being one of their savings-bank tricks, +to be repaid them, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns +at compound interest, have no fear. So one day Maen had an insult put +on him; and 'twas this for certain: a ruffian fellow of the Court swore +he couldn't mention the name of his father; and in a thundering fury Maen +burst his tongue-tie, and the Court shouted Lavra Maen: and he had to go +into exile, where he married in the middle of delicious love-adventures +the beautiful Moira through the cunning of Craftine the harper. There's +been no harper in my instance but plenty of ruffians to swear I'm too +comfortable to think of my country.' The captain holloaed. 'Do they +hear that? Lord! but wouldn't our old Celtic fill the world with poetry +if only we were a free people to give our minds to 't, instead of to the +itch on our backs from the Saxon horsehair shirt we're forced to wear. +For, Pat, as you know, we're a loving people, we're a loyal people, +we burn to be enthusiastic, but when our skins are eternally irritated, +how can we sing? In a freer Erin I'd be the bard of the land, never +doubt it. What am I here but a discontented idle lout crooning over the +empty glories of our isle of Saints! You feel them, Pat. Phil's all for +his British army, his capabilities of British light cavalry. Write me +the history of the Enniskillens. I'll read it. Aha, my boy, when they +'re off at the charge! And you'll oblige me with the tale of Fontenoy. +Why, Phil has an opportunity stretching forth a hand to him now more than +halfway that comes to a young Irishman but once in a century: backed by +the entire body of the priesthood of Ireland too! and if only he was a +quarter as full of the old country as you and I, his hair would stand up +in fire for the splendid gallop at our head that's proposed to him. His +country's gathered up like a crested billow to roll him into Parliament; +and I say, let him be there, he 's the very man to hurl his gauntlet, and +tell 'm, Parliament, so long as you are parliamentary, which means the +speaking of our minds, but if you won't have it, then-and it 's on your +heads before Europe and the two Americas. We're dying like a nun that 'd +be out of her cloister, we're panting like the wife who hears of her +husband coming home to her from the field of honour, for that young man. +And there he is; or there he seems to be; but he's dead: and the +fisherman off the west coast after dreaming of a magical haul, gets more +fish than disappointment in comparison with us when we cast the net for +Philip. Bring tears of vexation at the emptiness we pull back for our +pains. Oh, Phil! and to think of your youth! We had you then. At +least we had your heart. And we should have had the length and strength +of you, only for a woman fatal to us as the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, +the beautiful Nesta:--and beautiful she was to match the mother of the +curses trooping over to Ireland under Strongbow, that I'll grant you. +But she reined you in when you were a real warhorse ramping and snorting +flame from your nostrils, challenging any other to a race for Ireland; +ay, a Cuchullin you were, Philip, Culann's chain-bound: but she unmanned +you. She soaked the woman into you and squeezed the hero out of you. +All for Adiante! or a country left to slavery! that's the tale. And what +are you now? A paltry captain of hussars on the General's staff! One +O'Donnell in a thousand! And what is she?--you needn't frown, Phil; I'm +her relative by marriage, and she 's a lady. More than that, she shot a +dart or two into my breast in those days, she did, I'll own it: I had the +catch of the breath that warns us of convulsions. She was the morning +star for beauty, between night and day, and the best colour of both. +Welshmen and Irishmen and Englishmen tumbled into the pit, which seeing +her was, and there we jostled for a glimpse quite companionably; we were +too hungry for quarrelling; and to say, I was one of 'm, is a title to +subsequent friendship. True; only mark me, Philip, and you, Patrick: +they say she has married a prince, and I say no; she's took to herself a +husband in her cradle; she's married ambition. I tell you, and this +prince of hers is only a step she has taken, and if he chases her first +mate from her bosom, he'll prove himself cleverer than she, and I dare +him to the trial. For she's that fiery dragon, a beautiful woman with +brains--which Helen of Troy hadn't, combustible as we know her to have +been: but brains are bombshells in comparison with your old-fashioned +pine-brands for kindling men and cities. Ambition's the husband of +Adiante Adister, and all who come nigh her are steps to her aim. She +never consulted her father about Prince Nikolas; she had begun her march +and she didn't mean to be arrested. She simply announced her approaching +union; and as she couldn't have a scion of one of the Royal House of +Europe, she put her foot on Prince Nikolas. And he 's not to fancy he 's +in for a peaceful existence; he's a stone in a sling, and probably +mistaken the rocking that's to launch him through the air for a condition +of remarkable ease, perfectly remarkable in its lullaby motion; ha! +well, and I've not heard of ambition that didn't kill its votary: somehow +it will; 'tis sure to. There she lies!' + +The prophetic captain pointed at the spot. He then said: 'And now I'm +for my pipe, and the blackest clay of the party, with your permission. +I'll just go to the window to see if the stars are out overhead. They're +my blessed guardian angels.' + +There was a pause. Philip broke from a brown study to glance at his +brother. Patrick made a queer face. + +'Fun and good-fellowship to-night, Con,' said Philip, as the captain +sadly reported no star visible. + +'Have I ever flown a signal to the contrary?' retorted the captain. + +'No politics, and I 'll thank you,' said Philip: 'none of your early +recollections. Be jovial.' + +'You should have seen me here the other night about a month ago; I +smuggled up an old countrywoman of ours, with the connivance of rosy +Mary,' said Captain Con, suffused in the merriest of grins. 'She sells +apples at a stall at a corner of a street hard by, and I saw her sitting +pulling at her old pipe in the cold October fog morning and evening for +comfort, and was overwhelmed with compassion and fraternal sentiment; and +so I invited her to be at the door of the house at half-past ten, just to +have a roll with her in Irish mud, and mend her torn soul with a stitch +or two of rejoicing. She told me stories; and one was pretty good, of a +relative of hers, or somebody's--I should say, a century old, but she +told it with a becoming air of appropriation that made it family history, +for she's come down in the world, and this fellow had a stain of red upon +him, and wanted cleaning; and, "What!" says the good father, "Mika! you +did it in cold blood?" And says Mika, "Not I, your Riverence. I got +myself into a passion 'fore I let loose." I believe she smoked this +identical pipe. She acknowledged the merits of my whisky, as poets do +hearing fine verses, never clapping hands, but with the expressiveness of +grave absorption. That's the way to make good things a part of you. She +was a treat. I got her out and off at midnight, rosy Mary sneaking her +down, and the old girl quiet as a mouse for the fun's sake. The whole +intrigue was exquisitely managed.' + +'You run great risks,' Philip observed. + +'I do,' said the captain. + +He called on the brothers to admire the 'martial and fumial' decorations +of his round tower, buzzing over the display of implements, while Patrick +examined guns and Philip unsheathed swords. An ancient clay pipe from +the bed of the Thames and one from the bed of the Boyne were laid side by +side, and strange to relate, the Irish pipe and English immediately, by +the mere fact of their being proximate, entered into rivalry; they all +but leapt upon one another. The captain judicially decided the case +against the English pipe, as a newer pipe of grosser manufacture, not so +curious by any means. + +'This,' Philip held up the reputed Irish pipe, and scanned as he twirled +it on his thumb, 'This was dropped in Boyne Water by one of William's +troopers. It is an Orange pipe. I take it to be of English make.' + +'If I thought that, I'd stamp my heel on the humbug the neighbour +minute,' said Captain Con. 'Where's the sign of English marks?' + +'The pipes resemble one another,' said Philip, 'like tails of Shannon- +bred retrievers.' + +'Maybe they 're both Irish, then?' the captain caught at analogy to +rescue his favourite from reproach. + +'Both of them are Saxon.' + +'Not a bit of it!' + +'Look at the clay.' + +'I look, and I tell you, Philip, it's of a piece with your lukewarmness +for the country, or you wouldn't talk like that.' + +'There is no record of pipe manufactories in Ireland at the period you +name.' + +'There is: and the jealousy of rulers caused them to be destroyed by +decrees, if you want historical evidence.' + +'Your opposition to the Saxon would rob him of his pipe, Con!' + +'Let him go to the deuce with as many pipes as he can carry; but he +shan't have this one.' + +'Not a toss-up of difference is to be seen in the pair.' + +'Use your eyes. The Irish bowl is broken, and the English has an inch +longer stem!' + +'O the Irish bowl is broken!' Philip sang. + +'You've the heart of a renegade-foreigner not to see it!' cried the +captain. + +Patrick intervened saying: 'I suspect they're Dutch.' + +'Well, and that 's possible.' Captain Con scrutinised them to calm his +temper: 'there's a Dutchiness in the shape.' + +He offered Philip the compromise of 'Dutch' rather plaintively, but it +was not accepted, and the pipes would have mingled their fragments on the +hearthstone if Patrick had not stayed his arm, saying: 'Don't hurt them.' + +'And I won't,' the captain shook his hand gratefully. + +'But will Philip O'Donnell tell me that Ireland should lie down with +England on the terms of a traveller obliged to take a bedfellow? Come! +He hasn't an answer. Put it to him, and you pose him. But he 'll not +stir, though he admits the antagonism. And Ireland is asked to lie down +with England on a couch blessed by the priest! Not she. Wipe out our +grievances, and then we'll begin to talk of policy. Good Lord!--love? +The love of Ireland for the conquering country will be the celebrated +ceremony in the concluding chapter previous to the inauguration of the +millennium. Thousands of us are in a starving state at home this winter, +Patrick. And it's not the fault of England?--landlordism 's not? Who +caused the ruin of all Ireland's industries? You might as well say that +it 's the fault of the poor beggar to go limping and hungry because his +cruel master struck him a blow to cripple him. We don't want half and +half doctoring, and it's too late in the day for half and half oratory. +We want freedom, and we'll have it, and we won't leave it to the Saxon to +think about giving it. And if your brother Philip won't accept this +blazing fine offer, then I will, and you'll behold me in a new attitude. +The fellow yawns! You don't know me yet, Philip. They tell us over here +we ought to be satisfied. Fall upon our list of wrongs, and they set to +work yawning. You can only move them by popping at them over hedges and +roaring on platforms. They're incapable of understanding a complaint a +yard beyond their noses. The Englishman has an island mind, and when +he's out of it he's at sea.' + +'Mad, you mean,' said Philip. + +'I repeat my words, Captain Philip O'Donnell, late of the staff of the +General commanding in Canada.' + +'The Irishman too has an island mind, and when he's out of it he's at +sea, and unable to manage his craft,' said Philip. + +'You'll find more craft in him when he's buffeted than you reckoned on,' +his cousin flung back. 'And if that isn't the speech of a traitor sold +to the enemy, and now throwing off the mask, traitors never did mischief +in Ireland! Why, what can you discover to admire in these people? Isn't +their army such a combination of colours in the uniforms, with their +yellow facings on red jackets, I never saw out of a doll-shop, and never +saw there. And their Horse Guards, weedy to a man! fit for a doll-shop +they are, by my faith! And their Foot Guards: Have ye met the fellows +marching? with their feet turned out, flat as my laundress's irons, and +the muscles of their calves depending on the joints to get 'm along, for +elasticity never gave those bones of theirs a springing touch; and their +bearskins heeling behind on their polls; like pot-house churls daring the +dursn't to come on. Of course they can fight. Who said no? But they +'re not the only ones: and they 'll miss their ranks before they can +march like our Irish lads. The look of their men in line is for all the +world to us what lack-lustre is to the eye. The drill they 've had +hasn't driven Hodge out of them, it has only stiffened the dolt; and dolt +won't do any longer; the military machine requires intelligence in all +ranks now. Ay, the time for the Celt is dawning: I see it, and I don't +often spy a spark where there isn't soon a blaze. Solidity and stupidity +have had their innings: a precious long innings it has been; and now +they're shoved aside like clods of earth from the risin flower. Off with +our shackles! We've only to determine it to be free, and we'll bloom +again; and I'll be the first to speak the word and mount the colours. +Follow me! Will ye join in the toast to the emblem of Erin-- +the shamrock, Phil and Pat?' + +'Oh, certainly,' said Philip. 'What 's that row going on?' Patrick also +called attention to the singular noise in the room. 'I fancy the time +for the Celt is not dawning, but setting,' said Philip, with a sharp +smile; and Patrick wore an artful look. + +A corner of the room was guilty of the incessant alarum. Captain Con +gazed in that direction incredulously and with remonstrance. 'The +tinkler it is!' he sighed. 'But it can't be midnight yet?' Watches were +examined. Time stood at half-past the midnight. He groaned: 'I must go. +I haven't heard the tinkler for months. It signifies she's cold in her +bed. The thing called circulation's unknown to her save by the aid of +outward application, and I 'm the warming pan, as legitimately I should +be, I'm her husband and her Harvey in one. Goodbye to my hop and skip. +I ought by rights to have been down beside her at midnight. She's the +worthiest woman alive, and I don't shirk my duty. Be quiet!' he bellowed +at the alarum; 'I 'm coming. Don't be in such a fright, my dear,' he +admonished it as his wife, politely. 'Your hand'll take an hour to warm +if you keep it out on the spring that sets the creature going.' He +turned and informed his company: 'Her hand'll take an hour to warm. +Dear! how she runs ahead: d' ye hear? That's the female tongue, and +once off it won't stop. And this contrivance for fetching me from my +tower to her bed was my own suggestion, in a fit of generosity! Ireland +all over! I must hurry and wash my hair, for she can't bear a perfume to +kill a stink; she carries her charitable heart that far. Good-night, +I'll be thinking of ye while I'm warming her. Sit still, I can't wait; +'tis the secret of my happiness.' He fled. Patrick struck his knee on +hearing the expected ballad-burden recur. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE BROTHERS + +'Con has learnt one secret,' said Philip, quitting his chair. + +Patrick went up to him, and, 'Give us a hug,' he said, and the hug was +given. + +They were of an equal height, tall young men, alert, nervously braced +from head to foot, with the differences between soldier and civilian +marked by the succintly military bearing of the elder brother, whose +movements were precise and prompt, and whose frame was leopardlike in +indolence. Beside him Patrick seemed cubbish, though beside another he +would not have appeared so. His features were not so brilliantly +regular, but were a fanciful sketch of the same design, showing a wider +pattern of the long square head and the forehead, a wavering at the dip +of the nose, livelier nostrils: the nostrils dilated and contracted, and +were exceeding alive. His eyelids had to do with the look of his eyes, +and were often seen cutting the ball. Philip's eyes were large on the +pent of his brows, open, liquid, and quick with the fire in him. Eyes of +that quality are the visible mind, animated both to speak it and to +render it what comes within their scope. They were full, unshaded +direct, the man himself, in action. Patrick's mouth had to be studied +for an additional index to the character. To symbolise them, they were +as a sword-blade lying beside book. + +Men would have thought Patrick the slippery one of the two: women would +have inclined to confide in him the more thoroughly; they bring feeling +to the test, and do not so much read a print as read the imprinting on +themselves; and the report that a certain one of us is true as steel, +must be unanimous at a propitious hour to assure them completely that the +steel is not two-edged in the fully formed nature of a man whom they have +not tried. They are more at home with the unformed, which lends itself +to feeling and imagination. Besides Patrick came nearer to them; he +showed sensibility. They have it, and they deem it auspicious of +goodness, or of the gentleness acceptable as an equivalent. Not the less +was Philip the one to inspire the deeper and the wilder passion. + +'So you've been down there?' said Philip. 'Tell us of your welcome. +Never mind why you went: I think I see. You're the Patrick of fourteen, +who tramped across Connaught for young Dermot to have a sight of you +before he died, poor lad. How did Mr. Adister receive you?' + +Patrick described the first interview. + +Philip mused over it. 'Yes, those are some of his ideas: gentlemen are +to excel in the knightly exercises. He used to fence excellently, and he +was a good horseman. The Jesuit seminary would have been hard for him to +swallow once. The house is a fine old house: lonely, I suppose.' + +Patrick spoke of Caroline Adister and pursued his narrative. Philip was +lost in thought. At the conclusion, relating to South America, he raised +his head and said: 'Not so foolish as it struck you, Patrick. You and I +might do that,--without the design upon the original owner of the soil! +Irishmen are better out of Europe, unless they enter one of the +Continental services.' + +'What is it Con O'Donnell proposes to you?' Patrick asked him earnestly. + +'To be a speaking trumpet in Parliament. And to put it first among the +objections, I haven't an independence; not above two hundred a year.' + +'I'll make it a thousand,' said Patrick, 'that is, if my people can pay.' + +'Secondly, I don't want to give up my profession. Thirdly, fourthly, +fifthly, once there, I should be boiling with the rest. I never could go +half way. This idea of a commencement gives me a view of the finish. +Would you care to try it?' + +'If I'm no wiser after two or three years of the world I mean to make a +better acquaintance with,' Patrick replied. 'Over there at home one +catches the fever, you know. They have my feelings, and part of my +judgement, and whether that's the weaker part I can't at present decide. +My taste is for quiet farming and breeding.' + +'Friendship, as far as possible; union, if the terms are fair,' said +Philip. 'It's only the name of union now; supposing it a concession that +is asked of them; say, sacrifice; it might be made for the sake of what +our people would do to strengthen the nation. But they won't try to +understand our people. Their laws, and their rules, their systems are +forced on a race of an opposite temper, who would get on well enough, and +thrive, if they were properly consulted. Ireland 's the sore place of +England, and I'm sorry for it. We ought to be a solid square, with +Europe in this pickle. So I say, sitting here. What should I be saying +in Parliament?' + +'Is Con at all likely, do you think, Philip?' + +'He might: and become the burlesque Irishman of the House. There must be +one, and the lot would be safe to fall on him.' + +'Isn't he serious about it?' + +'Quite, I fancy; and that will be the fun. A serious fellow talking +nonsense with lively illustrations, is just the man for House of Commons +clown. Your humorous rogue is not half so taking. Con would be the +porpoise in a fish tank there, inscrutably busy on his errand and watched +for his tumblings. Better I than he; and I should make a worse of it--at +least for myself.' + +'Wouldn't the secret of his happiness interfere?' + +'If he has the secret inside his common sense. The bulk of it I suspect +to be, that he enjoys his luxuries and is ashamed of his laziness; and so +the secret pulls both ways. One day a fit of pride may have him, or one +of his warm impulses, and if he's taken in the tide of it, I shall grieve +for the secret.' + +'You like his wife, Philip?' + +'I respect her. They came together,--I suppose, because they were near +together, like the two islands, in spite of the rolling waves between. +I would not willingly see the union disturbed. He warms her, and she +houses him. And he has to control the hot blood that does the warming, +and she to moderate the severity of her principles, which are an +essential part of the housing. Oh! shiver politics, Patrice. I wish +I had been bred in France: a couple of years with your Pere Clement, and +I could have met Irishmen and felt to them as an Irishman, whether they +were disaffected or not. I wish I did. When I landed the other day, +I thought myself passably cured, and could have said that rhetoric is the +fire-water of our country, and claptrap the springboard to send us diving +into it. I like my comrades-in-arms, I like the character of British +officers, and the men too--I get on well with them. I declare to you, +Patrice, I burn to live in brotherhood with them, not a rift of division +at heart! I never show them that there is one. But our early training +has us; it comes on us again; three or four days with Con have stirred +me; I don't let him see it, but they always do: these tales of +starvations and shootings, all the old work just as when I left, +act on me like a smell of powder. I was dipped in "Ireland for the +Irish"; and a contented Irishman scarcely seems my countryman.' + +'I suppose it 's like what I hear of as digesting with difficulty,' +Patrick referred to the state described by his brother. + +'And not the most agreeable of food,' Philip added. + +'It would be the secret of our happiness to discover how to make the +best of it, if we had to pay penance for the discovery by living in +an Esquimaux shanty,' said Patrick. + +'With a frozen fish of admirable principles for wife,' said Philip. + +'Ah, you give me shudders!' + +'And it's her guest who talks of her in that style! and I hope to be +thought a gentleman!' Philip pulled himself up. 'We may be all in the +wrong. The way to begin to think so, is to do them an injury and forget +it. The sensation's not unpleasant when it's other than a question of +good taste. But politics to bed, Patrice. My chief is right--soldiers +have nothing to do with them. What are you fiddling at in your coat +there?' + +'Something for you, my dear Philip.' Patrick brought out the miniature. +He held it for his brother to look. 'It was the only thing I could get. +Mr. Adister sends it. The young lady, Miss Caroline, seconded me. They +think more of the big portrait: I don't. And it 's to be kept carefully, +in case of the other one getting damaged. That's only fair.' + +Philip drank in the face upon a swift shot of his eyes. + +'Mr. Adister sends it?' His tone implied wonder at such a change in +Adiante's father. + +'And an invitation to you to visit him when you please.' + +'That he might do,' said Philip: it was a lesser thing than to send her +likeness to him. + +Patrick could not help dropping his voice: 'Isn't it very like?' +For answer the miniature had to be inspected closely. + +Philip was a Spartan for keeping his feelings under. + +'Yes,' he said, after an interval quick with fiery touches on the history +of that face and his life. 'Older, of course. They are the features, +of course. The likeness is not bad. I suppose it resembles her as she +is now, or was when it was painted. You 're an odd fellow to have asked +for it.' + +'I thought you would wish to have it, Philip.' + +'You're a good boy, Patrice. Light those candles we'll go to bed. I +want a cool head for such brains as I have, and bumping the pillow all +night is not exactly wholesome. We'll cross the Channel in a few days, +and see the nest, and the mother, and the girls.' + +'Not St. George's Channel. Mother would rather you would go to France +and visit the De Reuils. She and the girls hope you will keep out of +Ireland for a time: it's hot. Judge if they're anxious, when it's to +stop them from seeing you, Philip!' + +'Good-night, dear boy.' Philip checked the departing Patrick. 'You can +leave that.' He made a sign for the miniature to be left on the table. + +Patrick laid it there. His brother had not touched it, and he could have +defended himself for having forgotten to leave it, on the plea that it +might prevent his brother from having his proper share of sleep; and +also, that Philip had no great pleasure in the possession of it. The two +pleas, however, did not make one harmonious apology, and he went straight +to the door in an odd silence, with the step of a decorous office-clerk, +keeping his shoulders turned on Philip to conceal his look of +destitution. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +INTRODUCING A NEW CHARACTER + +Letters and telegrams and morning journals lay on the breakfast-table, +awaiting the members of the household with combustible matter. Bad news +from Ireland came upon ominous news from India. Philip had ten words of +mandate from his commanding officer, and they signified action, uncertain +where. He was the soldier at once, buckled tight and buttoned up over +his private sentiments. Vienna shot a line to Mrs. Adister O'Donnell. +She communicated it:'The Princess Nikolas has a son!' Captain Con tossed +his newspaper to the floor, crying: + +'To-day the city'll be a chimney on fire, with the blacks in everybody's +faces; but I must go down. It's hen and chicks with the director of a +City Company. I must go.' + +Did you say, madam?' Patrick inquired. 'A son,' said Mrs. Adister. + +'And the military holloaing for reinforcements,' exclaimed Con. +'Pheu! Phil!' + +'That's what it comes to,' was Philip's answer. 'Precautionary measures, +eh?' + +'You can make them provocative.' 'Will you beg for India?' 'I shall hear +in an hour.' 'Have we got men?' + +'Always the question with us.' + +'What a country!' sighed the captain. 'I'd compose ye a song of old +Drowsylid, except that it does no good to be singing it at the only time +when you can show her the consequences of her sluggery. A country of +compromise goes to pieces at the first cannon-shot of the advance, and +while she's fighting on it's her poor business to be putting herself +together again: So she makes a mess of the beginning, to a certainty. +If it weren't that she had the army of Neptune about her--' + +'The worst is she may some day start awake to discover that her protecting +deity 's been napping too.--A boy or girl did you say, my dear?' + +His wife replied: 'A son.' + +'Ah! more births.' The captain appeared to be computing. 'But this one's +out of England: and it's a prince I suppose they'll call him: and princes +don't count in the population for more than finishing touches, like the +crossing of t's and dotting of i's, though true they're the costliest, +like some flowers and feathers, and they add to the lump on Barney's +back. But who has any compassion for a burdened donkey? unless when you +see him standing immortal meek! Well, and a child of some sort must have +been expected? Because it's no miracle after marriage: worse luck for +the crowded earth!' + +'Things may not be expected which are profoundly distasteful,' Mrs. +Adister remarked. + +'True,' said her sympathetic husband. ''Tis like reading the list of the +dead after a battle where you've not had the best of it--each name 's a +startling new blow. I'd offer to run to Earlsfont, but here's my company +you would have me join for the directoring of it, you know, my dear, to +ballast me, as you pretty clearly hinted; and all 's in the city to-day +like a loaf with bad yeast, thick as lead, and sour to boot. And a howl +and growl coming off the wilds of Old Ireland! We're smitten to-day in +our hearts and our pockets, and it 's a question where we ought to feel +it most, for the sake of our families.' + +'Do you not observe that your cousins are not eating?' said his wife, +adding, to Patrick: 'I entertain the opinion that a sound breakfast- +appetite testifies to the proper vigour of men.' + +'Better than a doctor's pass: and to their habits likewise,' Captain Con +winked at his guests, begging them to steal ten minutes out of the fray +for the inward fortification of them. + +Eggs in the shell, and masses of eggs, bacon delicately thin and curling +like Apollo's locks at his temples, and cutlets, caviar, anchovies in the +state of oil, were pressed with the captain's fervid illustrations upon +the brothers, both meditatively nibbling toast and indifferent to the +similes he drew and applied to life from the little fish which had their +sharpness corrected but not cancelled by the improved liquid they swam +in. 'Like an Irishman in clover,' he said to his wife to pay her a +compliment and coax an acknowledgement: 'just the flavour of the salt of +him.' + +Her mind was on her brother Edward, and she could not look sweet-oily, as +her husband wooed her to do, with impulse to act the thing he was +imagining. + +'And there is to-morrow's dinner-party to the Mattocks: I cannot travel +to Earlsfont,' she said. + +'Patrick is a disengaged young verderer, and knows the route, and has a +welcome face there, and he might go, if you're for having it performed by +word of mouth. But, trust me, my dear, bad news is best communicated by +telegraph, which gives us no stupid articles and particles to quarrel +with. "Boy born Vienna doctor smiling nurse laughing." That tells it +all, straight to the understanding, without any sickly circumlocutory +stuff; and there's nothing more offensive to us when we're hurt at +intelligence. For the same reason, Colonel Arthur couldn't go, since +you'll want him to meet the Mattocks?' + +Captain Con's underlip shone with a roguish thinness. + +'Arthur must be here,' said Mrs. Adister. 'I cannot bring myself to +write it. I disapprove of telegrams.' + +She was asking to be assisted, so her husband said: + +'Take Patrick for a secretary. Dictate. He has a bold free hand and'll +supply all the fiorituri and arabesques necessary to the occasion +running.' + +She gazed at Patrick as if to intimate that he might be enlisted, and +said: 'It will be to Caroline. She will break it to her uncle.' + +'Right, madam, on the part of a lady I 've never known to be wrong! And +so, my dear, I must take leave of you, to hurry down to the tormented +intestines of that poor racked city, where the winds of panic are +violently engaged in occupying the vacuum created by knocking over what +the disaster left standing; and it 'll much resemble a colliery accident +there, I suspect, and a rescue of dead bodies. Adieu, my dear.' He +pressed his lips on her thin fingers. + +Patrick placed himself at Mrs. Adister's disposal as her secretary. She +nodded a gracious acceptance of him. + +'I recommended the telegraph because it's my wife's own style, and comes +better from wires,' said the captain, as they were putting on their +overcoats in the hall. 'You must know the family. "Deeds not words" +would serve for their motto. She hates writing, and doesn't much love +talking. Pat 'll lengthen her sentences for her. She's fond of Adiante, +and she sympathises with her brother Edward made a grandfather through +the instrumentality of that foreign hooknose; and Patrick must turn the +two dagger sentiments to a sort of love-knot and there's the task he'll +have to work out in his letter to Miss Caroline. It's fun about Colonel +Arthur not going. He's to meet the burning Miss Mattock, who has gold on +her crown and a lot on her treasury, Phil, my boy! but I'm bound in +honour not to propose it. And a nice girl, a prize; afresh healthy girl; +and brains: the very girl! But she's jotted down for the Adisters, if +Colonel Arthur can look lower than his nose and wag his tongue a bit. +She's one to be a mother of stout ones that won't run up big doctors' +bills or ask assistance in growing. Her name's plain Jane, and she 's a +girl to breed conquerors; and the same you may say of her brother John, +who 's a mighty fit man, good at most things, though he counts his +fortune in millions, which I've heard is lighter for a beggar to perform +than in pounds, but he can count seven, and beat any of us easy by +showing them millions! We might do something for them at home with a +million or two, Phil. It all came from the wedding of a railway +contractor, who sprang from the wedding of a spade and a clod--and +probably called himself Mattock at his birth, no shame to him.' + +'You're for the city,' said Philip, after they had walked down the +street. + +'Not I,' said Con. 'Let them play Vesuvius down there. I've got another +in me: and I can't stop their eruption, and they wouldn't relish mine. +I know a little of Dick Martin, who called on the people to resist, and +housed the man Liffey after his firing the shot, and I'm off to Peter +M'Christy, his brother-in-law. I'll see Distell too. I must know if it +signifies the trigger, or I'm agitated about nothing. Dr. Forbery'll be +able to tell how far they mean going for a patriotic song. + + "For we march in ranks to the laurelled banks, + On the bright horizon shining, + Though the fields between run red on the green, + And many a wife goes pining." + +Will you come, Phil?' + +'I 'm under orders.' + +'You won't engage yourself by coming.' + +'I'm in for the pull if I join hands.' + +'And why not?--inside the law, of course.' + +'While your Barney skirmishes outside!' + +'And when the poor fellow's cranium's cracking to fling his cap in the +air, and physician and politician are agreed it's good for him to do it, +or he'll go mad and be a dangerous lunatic! Phil, it must be a blow now +and then for these people over here, else there's no teaching their +imaginations you're in earnest; for they've got heads that open only to +hard raps, these English; and where injustice rules, and you'd spread a +light of justice, a certain lot of us must give up the ghost--naturally +on both sides. Law's law, and life's life, so long as you admit that the +law is bad; and in that case, it's big misery and chronic disease to let +it be and at worst a jump and tumble into the next world, of a score or +two of us if we have a wrestle with him. But shake the old villain; hang +on him and shake him. Bother his wig, if he calls himself Law. That 's +how we dust the corruption out of him for a bite or two in return. Such +is humanity, Phil: and you must allow for the roundabout way of moving to +get into the straight road at last. And I see what you're for saying: a +roundabout eye won't find it! You're wrong where there are dozens of +corners. Logic like yours, my boy, would have you go on picking at the +Gordian Knot till it became a jackasses' race between you and the rope +which was to fall to pieces last.--There 's my old girl at the stall, +poor soul! See her!' + +Philip had signalled a cabman to stop. He stood facing his cousin with a +close-lipped smile that summarised his opinion and made it readable. + +'I have no time for an introduction to her this morning,' he said. + +'You won't drop in on Distell to hear the latest brewing? And, by the +by, Phil, tell us, could you give us a hint for packing five or six +hundred rifles and a couple of pieces of cannon?' + +Philip stared; he bent a lowering frown on his cousin, with a twitch at +his mouth. + +'Oh! easy!' Con answered the look; 'it's for another place and harder to +get at.' + +He was eyed suspiciously and he vowed the military weapons were for +another destination entirely, the opposite Pole. + +'No, you wouldn't be in for a crazy villainy like that!' said Philip. + +'No, nor wink to it,' said Con. 'But it's a question about packing +cannon and small arms; and you might be useful in dropping a hint or two. +The matter's innocent. It's not even a substitution of one form of +Government for another: only a change of despots, I suspect. And here's +Mr. John Mattock himself, who'll corroborate me, as far as we can let you +into the secret before we've consulted together. And he's an Englishman +and a member of Parliament, and a Liberal though a landlord, a thorough +stout Briton and bulldog for the national integrity, not likely to play +at arms and ammunition where his country's prosperity 's concerned. +How d' ye do, Mr. Mattock--and opportunely, since it's my cousin, Captain +Philip O'Donnell, aide-de-camp to Sir Charles, fresh from Canada, of whom +you've heard, I'd like to make you acquainted with, previous to your +meeting at my wife's table tomorrow evening.' + +Philip bowed to a man whose notion of the ceremony was to nod. + +Con took him two steps aside and did all the talking. Mr. Mattock +listened attentively the first half-minute, after which it could be +perceived that the orator was besieging a post, or in other words a +Saxon's mind made up on a point of common sense. His appearance was +redolently marine; his pilot coat, flying necktie and wideish trowsers, +a general airiness of style on a solid frame, spoke of the element his +blue eyes had dipped their fancy in, from hereditary inclination. The +colour of a sandpit was given him by hair and whiskers of yellow-red on +a ruddy face. No one could express a negative more emphatically without +wording it, though he neither frowned nor gesticulated to that effect. + +'Ah!' said Con, abruptly coming to an end after an eloquent appeal. +'And I think I'm of your opinion: and the sea no longer dashes at the +rock, but makes itself a mirror to the same. She'll keep her money and +nurse her babe, and not be trying risky adventures to turn him into a +reigning prince. Only this: you'll have to persuade her the thing is +impossible. She'll not take it from any of us. She looks on you as +Wisdom in the uniform of a great commander, and if you say a thing can be +done it 's done.' + +'The reverse too, I hope,' said Mr. Mattock, nodding and passing on his +way. + +'That I am not so sure of,' Con remarked to himself. 'There's a change +in a man through a change in his position! Six months or so back, Phil, +that man came from Vienna, the devoted slave of the Princess Nikolas. +He'd been there on his father's business about one of the Danube +railways, and he was ready to fill the place of the prince at the head +of his phantom body of horse and foot and elsewhere. We talked of his +selling her estates for the purchase of arms and the enemy--as many as +she had money for. We discussed it as a matter of business. She had +bewitched him: and would again, I don't doubt, if she were here to repeat +the dose. But in the interim his father dies, he inherits; and he enters +Parliament, and now, mind you, the man who solemnly calculated her +chances and speculates on the transmission of rifled arms of the best +manufacture and latest invention by his yacht and with his loads of +rails, under the noses of the authorities, like a master rebel, and a +chivalrous gentleman to boot, pooh poohs the whole affair. You saw him. +Grave as an owl, the dead contrary of his former self!' + +'I thought I heard you approve him,' said Philip. + +'And I do. But the poor girl has ordered her estates to be sold to cast +the die, and I 'm taking the view of her disappointment, for she believes +he can do anything; and if I know the witch, her sole comfort lying in +the straw is the prospect of a bloody venture for a throne. The truth +is, to my thinking, it's the only thing she has to help her to stomach +her husband.' + +'But it's rank idiocy to suppose she can smuggle cannon!' cried Philip. + +'But that man Mattock's not an idiot and he thought she could. And it 's +proof he was under a spell. She can work one.' + +'The country hasn't a port.' + +'Round the Euxine and up the Danube, with the British flag at the stern. +I could rather enjoy the adventure. And her prince is called for. He's +promised a good reception when he drops down the river, they say. A bit +of a scrimmage on the landing-pier may be, and the first field or two, +and then he sits himself, and he waits his turn. The people change their +sovereigns as rapidly as a London purse. Two pieces of artillery and two +or three hundred men and a trumpet alter the face of the land there. +Sometimes a trumpet blown by impudence does it alone. They're +enthusiastic for any new prince. He's their Weekly Journal or Monthly +Magazine. Let them make acquaintance with Adiante Adister, I'd not swear +she wouldn't lay fast hold of them.' + +Philip signalled to his driver, and Captain Con sang out his dinner-hour +for a reminder to punctuality, thoughtful of the feelings of his wife. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A contented Irishman scarcely seems my countryman +A country of compromise goes to pieces at the first cannon-shot +A lady's company-smile +A superior position was offered her by her being silent +And it's one family where the dog is pulled by the collar +Arch-devourer Time +As if she had never heard him previously enunciate the formula +As secretive as they are sensitive +Be politic and give her elbow-room for her natural angles +Becoming air of appropriation that made it family history +Constitutionally discontented +Decency's a dirty petticoat in the Garden of Innocence +England's the foremost country of the globe +Enjoys his luxuries and is ashamed of his laziness +Fires in the grates went through the ceremony of warming nobody +Foist on you their idea of your idea at the moment +Grimaces at a government long-nosed to no purpose +He judged of others by himself +Hear victorious lawlessness appealing solemnly to God the law +Her aspect suggested the repose of a winter landscape +Here, where he both wished and wished not to be +I 'm the warming pan, as legitimately I should be +I detest enthusiasm +I never saw out of a doll-shop, and never saw there +Indirect communication with heaven +Ireland 's the sore place of England +Irishman there is a barrow trolling a load of grievances +Irony in him is only eulogy standing on its head +Lack of precise words admonished him of the virtue of silence +Married at forty, and I had to take her shaped as she was +Men must fight: the law is only a quieter field for them +Mika! you did it in cold blood? +No man can hear the words which prove him a prophet (quietly) +Not so much read a print as read the imprinting on themselves +Not to bother your wits, but leave the puzzle to the priest +Old houses are doomed to burnings +Our lawyers have us inside out, like our physicians +Philip was a Spartan for keeping his feelings under +Taste a wound from the lightest touch, and they nurse the venom +That fiery dragon, a beautiful woman with brains +The race is for domestic peace, my boy +We're all of us hit at last, and generally by our own weapon +We're smitten to-day in our hearts and our pockets +Welsh blood is queer blood +Where one won't and can't, poor t' other must +Winds of panic are violently engaged in occupying the vacuum +With a frozen fish of admirable principles for wife +Withdrew into the entrenchments of contempt +You'll tell her you couldn't sit down in her presence undressed + + +[The End] + + + + +************************************************************************* +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Celt and Saxon, v1, by George Meredith +***********This file should be named gm95v10.txt or gm95v10.zip********** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm95v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm95v10a.txt + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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