Celt and Saxon | Page 4

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.'