The Eagles Shadow | Page 6

financial reports in the papers; and the pedigree of the Woodses hung in
the living-hall for all men to see, beginning gloriously with Woden, the
Scandinavian god, and attaining a respectable culmination in the names
of Frederick R. Woods and of William, his brother.
It is not to be supposed that he omitted to supply himself with a
coat-of-arms. Frederick R. Woods evinced an almost childlike pride in
his heraldic blazonings.
"The Woods arms," he would inform you, with a relishing gusto, "are
vert, an eagle displayed, barry argent and gules. And the crest is out of
a ducal coronet, or, a demi-eagle proper. We have no motto, sir--none
of your ancient coats have mottoes."
The Woods Eagle he gloried in. The bird was perched in every
available nook at Selwoode; it was carved in the woodwork, was set in
the mosaics, was chased in the tableware, was woven in the napery,
was glazed in the very china. Turn where you would, an eagle or two
confronted you; and Hunston Wyke, who is accounted something of a
wit, swore that Frederick R. Woods at Selwoode reminded him of "a
sore-headed bear who had taken up permanent quarters in an aviary."

There was one, however, who found the bear no very untractable
monster. This was the son of his brother, dead now, who dwelt at
Selwoode as heir presumptive. Frederick R. Woods's wife had died
long ago, leaving him childless. His brother's boy was an orphan; and
so, for a time, he and the grim old man lived together peaceably enough.
Indeed, Billy Woods was in those days as fine a lad as you would wish
to see, with the eyes of an inquisitive cherub and a big tow-head, which
Frederick R. Woods fell into the habit of cuffing heartily, in order to
conceal the fact that he would have burned Selwoode to the ground
rather than allow any one else to injure a hair of it.
In the consummation of time, Billy, having attained the ripe age of
eighteen, announced to his uncle that he intended to become a famous
painter. Frederick R. Woods exhorted him not to be a fool, and packed
him off to college.
Billy Woods returned on his first vacation with a fragmentary mustache
and any quantity of paint-tubes, canvases, palettes, mahl-sticks, and
such-like paraphernalia. Frederick R. Woods passed over the mustache,
and had the painters' trappings burned by the second footman. Billy
promptly purchased another lot. His uncle came upon them one
morning, rubbed his chin meditatively for a moment, and laughed for
the first time, so far as known, in his lifetime; then he tiptoed to his
own apartments, lest Billy--the lazy young rascal was still abed in the
next room--should awaken and discover his knowledge of this act of
flat rebellion.
I dare say the old gentleman was so completely accustomed to having
his own way that this unlooked-for opposition tickled him by its
novelty; or perhaps he recognised in Billy an obstinacy akin to his own;
or perhaps it was merely that he loved the boy. In any event, he never
again alluded to the subject; and it is a fact that when Billy sent for
carpenters to convert an upper room into an atelier, Frederick R. Woods
spent two long and dreary weeks in Boston in order to remain in
ignorance of the entire affair.
Billy scrambled through college, somehow, in the allotted four years.
At the end of that time, he returned to find new inmates installed at

Selwoode.
For the wife of Frederick R. Woods had been before her marriage one
of the beautiful Anstruther sisters, who, as certain New Yorkers still
remember--those grizzled, portly, rosy-gilled fellows who prattle on
provocation of Jenny Lind and Castle Garden, and remember
everything--created a pronounced furor at their début in the days of
crinoline and the Grecian bend; and Margaret Anstruther, as they will
tell you, was married to Thomas Hugonin, then a gallant cavalry officer
in the service of Her Majesty, the Empress of India.
And she must have been the nicer of the two, because everybody who
knew her says that Margaret Hugonin is exactly like her.
So it came about naturally enough, that Billy Woods, now an _Artium
Baccalaureus_, if you please, and not a little proud of it, found the
Colonel and his daughter, then on a visit to this country, installed at
Selwoode as guests and quasi-relatives. And Billy was twenty-two, and
Margaret was nineteen.
* * * * *
Precisely what happened I am unable to tell you. Billy Woods claims it
is none of my business; and Margaret says that it was a long, long time
ago and she really can't remember.
But I fancy we can all form a very fair notion of what is most