The Highwayman | Page 7

had the self-possession--as well as the
full-bottomed wig--of experience and worldly wisdom, and would have
liked to hear you say so. In its dark aquiline style his face was finely
moulded and imposing, and already it had a massive gravity. "A mighty
grand fellow indeed," said Lady Dorchester once, "if only his mouth
had grown since he was a baby." It has to be admitted that Mr.
Waverton's mouth, a small, pretty feature, was oddly assorted with the
haughty manner in which the rest of him was constructed. The ladies
who lamented that were, for the most part, consoled by his eyes--large,
dark eyes of a liquid melancholy. But my Lord Wharton complained
that they looked at him like a hound's.
Mr. Waverton was an only son, and fatherless. He had also great
possessions. From his house of Tetherdown all the fields that he could
see stretching away to the Essex border were of his inheritance. His
mother was no wiser than she should have been. She consisted
spiritually of admiration for herself, for the family into which she had
married, and the son whom she had borne. "After all," said Harry
Boyce in moments of geniality, "it's wonderful the boy has come out of
it so well."
Mr. Waverton, thanks to vacillation of himself and his mother, doubt as
to what career, what manner of education, what university, could be
worthy his talents, went up to Oxford at last and (for those days) very
late. After doing nothing for another year or two, he decided (which
was also unusual for a gentleman of means in those days) that he had a
genius in pure literature. Therefore Harry was hired to decorate him
with all the elegances of Greek and Latin.
The appointment was considered a great prize for a lad so awkward as
Harry Boyce. It might well end in a luxurious competence--a
stewardship, for example, and marriage with my lady's maid. "That is,
if you play your cards well, sirrah," the Sub-Warden felt it his duty to
warn Harry's difficult temper.
"Oh, sir, I could never play cards," said Harry, for the Sub-Warden was

a master at picquet. "I am too honest."
Yet he had not fallen out with Mr. Waverton. It is probable that he was
careful to keep on good terms with his bread and butter. But he had
always, I believe, a kindness for Geoffrey Waverton, and bore no ill
will for his parade of supremacy. Tyranny in small things, indeed, Mr.
Waverton did not affect. He had a desire to be magnificent. Those who
did not cross him, those who were content to be his inferiors, found
him amiable enough and, on occasion, generous....
"Shall we try another line, Mr. Waverton?" said Harry wearily.
"I have a mind to make an epigram," Mr. Waverton announced. "The
arrogance of the vulgar, the--the uninstructed--perhaps I lack the mot
juste, but _quand même_--the mansuetude of the loftier mind. A fine
antithesis that, I think." He stood up, walked to the window, and looked
out. Away down the hill the fields lay in a mellow mist, the kindly
autumn sun made the copses glow golden; it was a benign scene, apt to
encourage wit. Mr. Waverton lisped in numbers, but the numbers did
not come. He turned to seek stimulus from Harry. "You relish the
thought?"
"It is a perfect subject for your style," said Harry.
Mr. Waverton smiled, and turned again to the window for productive
meditation.
A third man came lounging in, unheard by Mr. Waverton's rapt mind.
He opened his eyes at the back which Mr. Waverton turned upon Harry
and the space between them. "Why, Geoffrey, have you been very
stupid this morning? And has schoolmaster stood you in the corner?
Well done, Mr. Boyce. I always told you, spare the rod and spoil the
child. Shall I go cut a birch for you?"
"I wonder you are not tired of that old jest, Charles," said Waverton
with a dignity which did not permit him to turn round.
"Never while it annoys you, child."

"Mr. Waverton is in labour with a poem," Harry explained.
"And it's indecent in me to be present at the ceremony? Well, Geoffrey,
postpone the birth." He sat himself down at his ease in Geoffrey's chair.
He was a compact man with only one arm. He looked ten years older
than Geoffrey and was, in fact, five. The campaign in Flanders which
had destroyed his right arm had set and hardened a frame and face by
nature solid enough. That face was long and angular, with a heavy chin
and an expression of sardonic complacency oddly increased by the
jauntiness of its shabby brown wig.
Waverton turned round wearily upon the unwelcome guest. "Well,
Charles, what is it?"
"It is nothing. My