Dawn | Page 2

upon the scene; for George it was a very painful one,
so painful that he never quite forgot it. His nose, too, was never so
straight again. It was soon over, though to one of the parties time went
with unnatural slowness.
"Well, I think you've had about enough for once," soliloquized Philip,
as he critically surveyed the writhing mass on the ground before him;
and he looked a very handsome lad as he said it.
His curly black hair hung in waving confusion over his forehead, and
flung changing lights and shadows into the depths of his brown eyes,
whilst his massive and somewhat heavy features were touched into a
more active life by the light of that pleasing excitement which animates
nine men out of every ten of the Anglo-Saxon race when they are
engaged on killing or hurting some other living creature. The face, too,
had a certain dignity about it, a little of the dignity of justice; it was the
face of one who feels that if his action has been precipitate and severe,
it has at any rate been virtuous. The full but clear-cut lips also had their
own expression on them, half serious, half comical; humour, contempt,
and even pity were blended in it. Altogether Philip Caresfoot's
appearance in the moment of boyish vengeance was pleasing and not
uninteresting.
Presently, however, something of the same change passed over his face
that we see in the sky when a cloud passes over the sun; the light faded
out of it. It was astonishing to note how dull and heavy--ay, more, how
bad it made him look all in a breath.
"There will be a pretty business about this," he murmured, and then,
administering a sharp kick to the prostrate and groaning form on the
ground before him, he said, "Now, then, get up; I'm not going to touch
you again. Perhaps, though, you won't be in quite such a hurry to tell
lies about me another time, though I suppose that one must always
expect a certain amount of lying from a half-bred beggar like you. Like
mother, like son, you know."

This last sentence was accompanied by a bitter laugh, and produced a
decided effect on the grovelling George, who slowly raised himself
upon his hands, and, lifting his head, looked his cousin full in the face.
It was not the ghastly appearance of his mangled and blood-soaked
countenance that made Philip recoil so sharply from the sight of his
own handiwork--he had fought too often at school to be
chicken-hearted about a little bloodshed; and, besides, he knew that his
cousin was only knocked about, not really injured--but rather the
intense and almost devilish malignity of the expression that hovered on
the blurred features and in the half-closed eyes. But no attempt was
made by George to translate the look into words, and indeed Philip felt
that it was untranslatable. He also felt dimly that the hate and malice
with which he was regarded by the individual at his feet was of a more
concentrated and enduring character than most men have the power to
originate. In the lurid light of that one glance he was able, though he
was not very clever, to pierce the darkest recesses of his cousin's heart,
and to see his inmost thought, no longer through a veil, but face to face.
And what he saw was sufficient to make the blood leave his ruddy
cheek, and to fix his eyes into an expression of fear.
Next second George dropped his head on to the ground again, and
began to moan in an ostentatious manner, possibly in order to attract
some one whose footsteps could be plainly heard proceeding slowly
down a shrubbery-path on the other side of the yard wall. At any rate,
that was the effect produced; for next moment, before Philip could
think of escape, had he wished to escape, a door in the wall was opened,
and a gentleman, pausing on the threshold, surveyed the whole scene,
with the assistance of a gold-mounted eye-glass, with some evident
surprise and little apparent satisfaction.
The old gentleman, for he was old, made so pretty a picture, framed as
he was in the arched doorway, and set off by a natural background of
varying shades of green, that his general appearance is worth sketching
as he stood. To begin with, he was dressed in the fashion of the
commencement of this century, and, as has been said, old, though it
was difficult to say how old. Indeed, so vigorous and comparatively

youthful was his bearing that he was generally taken to be considerably
under seventy, but, as a matter of fact, he was but a few years short of
eighty. He was extremely tall, over six feet, and stood