Dawn | Page 3

upright as a
lifeguardsman; indeed, his height and stately carriage would alone have
made him a remarkable-looking man, had there been nothing else
unusual about him; but, as it happened, his features were as uncommon
as his person. They were clear-cut and cast in a noble mould. The nose
was large and aquiline, the chin, like his son Philip's, square and
determined; but it was his eyes that gave a painful fascination to his
countenance. They were steely blue, and glittered under the pent-house
of his thick eyebrows, that, in striking contrast to the snow-white of his
hair, were black in hue, as tempered steel glitters in a curtained room. It
was those eyes, in conjunction with sundry little peculiarities of temper,
that had earned for the old man the title of "Devil Caresfoot," a
sobriquet in which he took peculiar pride. So pleased was he with it,
indeed, that he caused it to be engraved in solid oak letters an inch long
upon the form of a life-sized and life-like portrait of himself that hung
over the staircase in the house.
"I am determined," he would say to his son, "to be known to my
posterity as I was known to my contemporaries. The picture represents
my person not inaccurately; from the nickname my descendants will be
able to gather what the knaves and fools with whom I lived thought of
my character. Ah! boy, I am wearing out; people will soon be staring at
that portrait and wondering if it was like me. In a very few years I shall
no longer be 'devil,' but 'devilled,'" and he would chuckle at his grim
and ill-omened joke.
Philip felt his father's eyes playing upon him, and shrunk from them.
His face had, at the mere thought of the consequences of his
chastisement of his cousin, lost the beauty and animation that had
clothed it a minute before; now it grew leaden and hard, the good died
away from it altogether, and, instead of a young god bright with
vengeance, there was nothing but a sullen youth with dull and
frightened eyes. To his son, as to most people who came under his
influence, "Devil" Caresfoot was a grave reality.

Presently the picture in the doorway opened its mouth and spoke in a
singularly measured, gentle voice.
"You will forgive me, Philip, for interrupting your tete-a-tete, but may I
ask what is the meaning of this?"
Philip returned no answer.
"Since your cousin is not in a communicative mood, George, perhaps
you will inform me why you are lying on your face and groaning in that
unpleasant and aggressive manner?"
George lifted his blood-stained face from the stones, and, looking at his
uncle, groaned louder than ever.
"May I ask you, Philip, if George has fallen down and hurt himself, or
if there has been an--an--altercation between you?"
Here George himself got up and, before Philip could make any reply,
addressed himself to his uncle.
"Sir," he said, "I will answer for Philip; there has been an altercation,
and he in the scuffle knocked me down, and I confess," here he put his
hand up to his battered face, "that I am suffering a good deal, but what I
want to say is, that I beg you will not blame Philip. He thought that I
had wronged him, and, though I am quite innocent, and could easily
have cleared myself had he given me a chance, I must admit that
appearances are to a certain extent against me----"
"He lies!" broke in Philip, sullenly.
"You will wonder, sir," went on the blood-stained George, "how I
allowed myself to be drawn into such a brutal affair, and one so
discreditable to your house. I can only say that I am very sorry,"--
which indeed he was--"and that I should never have taken any notice of
his words--knowing that he would regret them on reflection--had he not
in an unguarded moment allowed himself to taunt me with my birth.
Uncle, you know the misfortune of my father's marriage, and that she

was not his equal in birth, but you know too that she was my mother
and I love her memory though I never saw her, and I could not bear to
hear her spoken of like that, and I struck him. I hope that both you and
he will forgive me; I cannot say any more."
"He lies again, he cannot speak the truth."
"Philip, will you allow me to point out," remarked his father in his
blandest voice, "that the continued repetition of the very ugly word 'lie'
is neither narrative nor argument. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell
me your side of the story; you know I always wish to be perfectly
impartial."
"He lied to you this