Sword and Gown | Page 2

and hair, except where the upper brow retained its original fairness--presenting a startling contrast, like a wreath of snow lying late in spring-time high up on the side of a black fell. You would hardly say that they were devoid of expression, any more than that a perfectly drilled soldier is incapable of activity; but you got puzzled in making out what their natural expression was: it was not sternness, far less ferocity--the face was much too impassible for either; and yet its listlessness could never be mistaken for languor. The thin short lips might be very pitiless when compressed, very contemptuous and provocative when curling; but the enormous mustache, sweeping over them like a wave, and ending in a clean stiff upward curve, made even this a matter of mere conjecture. The cold, steady, dark eyes seldom flashed or glittered; but, when their pupils contracted, there came into them a sort of sullen, suppressed, inward light, like that of jet or cannel coal. One curious thing about them was, that they never seemed to care about following you, and yet you felt you could not escape from them. The first hand-gripe, however, settled the question with most people: few, after experiencing the involuntary pressure, when he did not in the least mean to be cordial, doubted that there were passions in Royston Keene--difficult perhaps to rouse, but yet more difficult to appease or subdue.
His profession was evident. Indeed, it must be confessed that the dragoon is not easily dissembled. I know a very meritorious parish-priest, of fair repute too as a preacher, who has striven for years, hard but unavailingly, to divest himself of the martial air he brought with him out of the K.D.G. He strides down the village street with a certain swagger and roll, as if the steel scabbard were still trailing at his heel, acknowledging rustic bows with a slight quick motion of the finger, like troopers' salutes; on the smooth shaven face is shadowed forth the outline of a beard, nurtured and trimmed in old days with more than horticultural science; in the pulpit and reading-desk gown and surplice hang uneasily, like a disguise, on the erect soldierly figure, and the effect of his ministrations is thereby sadly marred; for apposite text, earnest exhortation, and grave rebuke flow with a curious inconsistency from the lips of that well-meaning but unmitigated Plunger.
Royston Keene was no exception to this rule, though he did not like to be told so, and rather ignored the profession than otherwise. Perhaps he had begun it early enough to have got tired of it; for he had now been for some time on half-pay, and a brevet-major, after doing good service in the Indian wars, and was not yet thirty-four. Molyneux had served in the same light cavalry regiment as his subaltern, and there the foundation was laid of their close alliance. It was not a very fair or well-balanced one, being made up of implicit obedience, reliance, and reverence on the one side, and a sort of protecting condescension on the other--much like the old Roman relation between Client and Patron; nevertheless it had outlasted many more sympathetic and better-looking friendships.
They used to say of "The Cool Captain" (so he was always called off parade), that "he could bring a boy to his bearings sooner than any man in the army." Yet he was a favorite with them all. There was a regular ovation among those "Godless horsemen" whenever he came into the Club, or into their mess-rooms; they hung upon his simplest words with a touchingly devout attention, and thought it was their own stupidity when they could see nothing in them to laugh at or admire; they wrote off all that they could remember of his sarcasms and repartees--generally strangely travestied and spoiled by carriage--to unlucky comrades, martyrized on far-off detachments, or vegetating with friends in the country; the more ambitious, after much private practice, strove to imitate his way of twisting his mustache as he stood before the fire, though with some, to whom nature had been niggard of hirsute honors, it was grasping a shadow and fighting with the air.
Certainly Molyneux never was so happy as in that society. Fond as he was of his pretty wife, her influence was as nothing in the scale. She complained of this, half in earnest, soon after they were married. The fever of post-nuptial felicity was strong upon Harry just then, but he did not attempt to deny the imputation. He only said, "My pet, I have known him so much the longest!" I wonder, now, how many brides would have admitted that somewhat unsatisfactory and illogical excuse? Fanny Molyneux did; she was the best-natured little woman alive, and wise, too, in her generation, for she never brought matters