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.