In Kedars Tents | Page 4

minutes--earlier had had no thought
of violence, ran his fastest along the road by which he had lately come.
His heart was as water within his breast, and his staring eyes played

their part mechanically. He did not fall, but he noted nothing, and had
no knowledge whither he was running.
Alfred Pleydell lay quite still on the lawn in front of his father's house.
CHAPTER II.
ANOTHER REAPETH.

'Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt.'
During the course of a harum-scarum youth in the city of Dublin
certain persons had been known to predict that Mr. Frederick
Conyngham had a future before him. Mostly pleasant-spoken Irish
persons these, who had the racial habit of saying that which is likely to
be welcome. Many of them added, 'the young divil,' under their breath,
in a pious hope of thereby cleansing their souls from guilt.
'I suppose I'm idle, and what is worse, I know I'm a fool,' said
Conyngham himself to his tutor when that gentleman, with a toleration
which was undeserved, took him severely to task before sending him
up for the Bar examination. The tutor said nothing, but he suspected
that this, his wildest pupil, was no fool. Truth to tell, Frederick
Conyngham had devoted little thought to the matter of which he spoke,
namely, himself, and was perhaps none the worse for that. A young
man who thinks too often usually falls into the error of also thinking
too much, of himself.
The examination was, however, safely passed, and in due course
Frederick was called to the Irish Bar, where a Queen's Counsel, with an
accent like rich wine, told him that he was now a gintleman, and
entitled so to call himself.
All these events were left behind, and Conyngham, sitting alone in his
rooms in Norfolk Street, Strand, three days after the breaking of Sir
John Pleydell's windows, was engaged in realising that the predicted

future was still in every sense before him, and in nowise nearer than it
had been in his mother's lifetime.
This realisation of an unpleasant fact appeared in no way to disturb his
equanimity, for, as he knocked his pipe against the bars of the fire, he
murmured a popular air in a careless voice. The firelight showed his
face to be pleasant enough in a way that left the land of his birth
undoubted. Blue eyes, quick and kind; a square chin, closely curling
hair, and square shoulders bespoke an Irishman. Something, however,
in the cut of his lips--something close and firm--suggested an
admixture of Anglo-Saxon blood. The man looked as if he might have
had an English mother. It was perhaps this formation of the mouth that
had led those pleasant-spoken persons to name to his relatives their
conviction that Conyngham had a future before him. The best liars are
those who base their fancy upon fact. They knew that the ordinary
thoroughbred Irishman has usually a cheerful enough life before him,
but not that which is vaguely called a future. Fred Conyngham looked
like a man who could hold to his purpose, but at this moment he also
had the unfortunate appearance of not possessing one to hold to.
He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and held the hot briar bowl against
the ear of a sleeping fox terrier, which animal growled, without moving,
in a manner that suggested its possession of a sense of humour and a
full comprehension of the harmless practical joke.
A moment later the dog sat up and listened with an interest that
gradually increased until the door opened and Geoffrey Horner came
into the room.
'Faith, it's Horner!' said Conyngham. 'Where are you from?'
'The North.'
'Ah--sit down. What have you been doing up there--tub-thumping?'
Horner came forward and sat down in the chair indicated. He looked
five years older than when he had last been there. Conyngham glanced
at his friend, who was staring into the fire.

'Edith all right?' he asked carelessly.
'Yes.'
'And--the little chap?'
'Yes.'
Conyngham glanced at his companion again. Horner's eyes had the
hard look that comes from hopelessness; his lips were dry and white.
He wore the air of one whose stake in the game of life was heavy, who
played that game nervously. For this was an ambitious man with wife
and child whom he loved. Conyngham's attitude towards Fate was in
strong contrast. He held his head up and faced the world without
encumbrance, without a settled ambition, without any sense of
responsibility at all. The sharp-eyed dog on the hearthrug looked from
one to the other. A moment before, the atmosphere of the room had
been one of ease and comfortable assurance--an atmosphere that some
men, without any warrant or the justification of personal success or
distinction, seem to carry with