Chapter 7

The Saturday night is waning, but Molyneux shows no signs of moving yet from Keene's apartments. He has been a model of prudence though so far, as to his drinks, and, in good truth, their companion is not amusing, or instructive, or convivial enough, to tempt or to excuse transgression.

Dick Tresilyan looks about twenty-five, strongly and somewhat heavily built; rather over the middle height, even with the decided stoop of his broad, round shoulders. He carries far too much flesh to please a professional eye, and by the time he is fifty will be very unwieldy; but there is more activity in him than might be supposed, and he walks strongly and well, as you would find if you tried to keep pace with him through the turnips on a sultry September day. His face, without a pretension to beauty in itself, suggests it--just the face that makes you say, "that man must have a handsome sister;" indeed, it bears an absurdly strong family likeness to Cecil's, amounting to a parody. But the outline of feature which in her is so fine and clear, is dull and filled out even to coarseness. It reminded one of looking at the same landscape, first through the medium of a bright blue sky, and then through driving mist, when crag, and cliff, and wood still show themselves, but blurred and dimly. His hair and eyes are, by several shades, the lighter of the two. The great difference is in the mouth. Cecil's is so delicately chiseled, so apt at all expressions, from tender to provocative, that many consider it one of her best points; her brother's is so weak and undecided in its character (or rather want of character), that it would make a more intellectual face vacuous and inane.

The "Tresilyan constitution" holds its own gallantly against the inroads of hardish living, and Dick looks the picture of rude health. Men endowed with an invincible obtuseness of intellect and feeling, have no mental wear and tear, and if the machine starts in good order, it seems as if it might last out indefinitely; so it would, I dare say, if it were not for a propensity to drink, and otherwise to abuse their bodily advantages, peculiar to this class. But for this neutralizing element in their composition perhaps they would live as long as crows or elephants, and we should be visited by a succession of stupid Old Parrs; which would be a very dreadful dispensation indeed. The present subject takes a good deal of exercise, to be sure, and naturally, few cares have ever troubled him; he has always had more money than he knew what to do with, and--as for serious annoyances, a certain train of thought is necessary to form them, while our poor Dick's brain is utterly incapable of holding more than one idea at a time. Whatever may happen to be the dominant thought, reigns with an undivided empire, and will not endure a rival even near its throne, till it is violently thrust out and annihilated by its successor, on the principle of

The priest that slays the slayer, And shall himself be slain.

He never originates a conception, of course, but is always open to a fair offer in the way of a suggestion from any body, and adopts it with the blind zeal of a proselyte. It follows that chance occurrences may bother him for the moment, but he is saved an infinity of trouble by being independent of foresight and memory. To this last defect there is one exception. If he is crossed, or vexed, or injured, he cherishes against the offender a dull, misty, purposeless sort of resentment, scarcely amounting to animosity, but can not explain, either to you or to himself, _why_ he does so. Fortunately he is tolerably harmless and unsuspicious, for to reconcile him would be simply impossible.

Not one _mésalliance_ could be detected in the main line of the Tresilyans; but there must have been a blot somewhere, a link of base metal in the golden chain, of which an adulteress and her confessor could have told. Perhaps the son of the transgressor bore no stigma on his forehead, and ruffled it among his peers as bravely as the best of them, never witting of his mother's dishonor; but the stain had come out in this generation. Even the faults and vices of that strong, stubborn race were curiously distorted and caricatured in their representative. His pride, for instance, chiefly displayed itself in a taste for low company, where he could safely lord it over his inferiors. He did this whenever he had a chance, but, to do him justice, by no means in an ill-natured or bullying way. He had resided almost entirely on his own estates; and, during his rare visits to London, had not extended his knowledge of the world beyond the experience that may be picked up by frequenting divers equivocal places of public resort, and from occasional forays on the extreme frontier of the _demi-monde_. The result was, that in general society he felt himself in a false position, and was evidently anxious to escape into a more congenial atmosphere.

Can you guess why I have lingered so long over a portrait that might well have been dispatched in three lines? It is because, in the eyes of those who knew Cecil Tresilyan, some interest must attach itself to the basest thing that bears her name; it is because there are men alive who think that the broidery of her skirt, or the trimming of her mantle, deserve describing better than the shield of Pelides; who hold that one of her dark chestnut tresses is worthier of a place among the stars than imperial Berenicè's hair. A lame excuse, I admit, to the many that never saw her--even in their dreams.

On this particular evening Dick was supremely happy. Keene had got him upon shooting--the only subject on which that unlucky man could talk without committing himself; and, by the time he was well into his fourth tumbler of iced Cogniac and water, he was achieving a rare conversational triumph; for he had left off answering monosyllabically, had volunteered an observation or two, and even ventured to banter his companions about their not availing themselves sufficiently of the sporting resources in the neighborhood.

"There are several boars near here," he was saying; "they shoot them sometimes, and you can go if you manage properly. I wonder you men never found that out."

"Ah! they _did_ talk a good deal about pigs," Royston remarked indifferently. "But, you see, we used to stick them in the Deccan. The first time I heard of their way of doing it here, I felt very like Deering when they asked him to shoot a fox in Scotland. Tom Deering, you know, the old boy that has hunted with the Warwickshire and Atherstone for thirty seasons, and could tell you the names, ages, and colors of the hounds better than he could those of his own small family--pedigrees, too, I shouldn't wonder."

Dick tried to look as if he had known the man from his childhood, and succeeded but very moderately.

"Well," the other went on, "they were beating a cover for roe, and the gillie suggested a particular pass, as the most likely to get a shot at what he called a 'tod.' It was some time before Tom realized the full horror of the proposition: when he did, he shut his eyes like a bull that is going to charge, and literally _fell_ upon the duinhe-wassel, bellowing savagely. He had no more idea of using his hands than a fractious baby; but it is rather a serious thing when sixteen stone of solid flesh becomes possessed by a devil. Robin Oig was overborne by the onset, and did not forget the effects of it that season."

Tresilyan laughed applaudingly, as he always did when he could understand more than half a story.

"I suppose it's pretty good fun hunting them out there?" he said, going off at score, as usual, on the fresh theme.

"Not bad," Keene replied; "sharp going while it lasts, and a little knack wanted to stick them scientifically. Some say it's more exciting than fox-hunting, but that's childish; I never heard a man assert it whose liver was not on the wane. It's more dangerous, certainly. A header into the Smite or the Whissendine is nothing to a fall backward into a nullah, with a beaten horse on the top of you."

Molyneux woke up from a reverie. The familiar word stirred his blood like a trumpet, and it flashed up brightly in his pale cheek as he spoke. "Ah! we have had a brushing gallop or two in the gay old times, before we got married, and invalided, and all that sort of thing. Dick, I should like to tell you how I got my first spear."

"Of course you would," the major said, resignedly; "it's my fault for starting the subject. Get over it quickly then, please." He did not stop him, though, as he would have done on another occasion--_pour cause_.

"I had been entered some time at boar," Harry began, "before I had any luck at all. Ride as hard as I would at the start, the old hands _would_ creep up at the finish, just in time to get 'first blood.' I gave long prices for my Arabs, too, and didn't spare them. I own I got discouraged, and thought the whole thing a robbery, a delusion, and a snare. One day, however, we had a good deal of deep, marshy ground at first, and a quick gallop afterward, which served my light weight well. I had it all to myself when he came to bay; so I went in, full of confidence, and gave point, as I thought, well behind the shoulder-blade. I did not calculate on the pace we were going, and I was just three inches too forward. My horse was as young and hot as I was, and though he had no idea of flinching, didn't know how to take care of himself. The instant the brute felt the steel he wheeled short round, and cut The Emperor's forelegs clean from under him. We all came down in a heap; my spear flew yards away; and there I was on my face, clear of my horse, with my right wrist badly sprained. Would you have fancied the position? _I_ didn't. The devil was too blown to begin offensive operations at once, for we had burst him along pretty sharply, but he stood right over me, champing and rasping his tusks, and getting his wind for a good vicious rip. I felt his boiling foam dropping upon me as I lay quite still. I thought that was the best thing to do. All at once hoofs came up at a hard gallop; something swept above me with a rush; there was a short, smothered sound like a tap on a padded door, and then the beast stretched himself slowly out across my legs, and shivered, and died. That man opposite to you had leapt his horse over us both, and, while he was in the air, speared the boar through the spinal marrow. If he had been struck any where else he might still have torn me badly before the life was out of him. Neatly done, wasn't it?"

Harry drank off the remains of his sherry and seltzer rather excitedly, and then sighed. He was thinking how often, in other days, when health and nerves were to the fore, he had drained a stronger and deeper draught to "Snaffle, spur, and spear!"

"A mere stage trick," Keene remarked; "effective, but not in the least dangerous, with a horse under you as steady as poor old Mahmoud. May his rest be glorious! Gilbert killed a tiger that had got loose in the same way, which _was_ something to talk about, for even clean-bred Arabs don't like facing tigers. You made rather better time than usual over that story to-night, Hal; it's practice, I suppose."

Tresilyan's eyes fastened on the speaker, full of a heavy, pertinacious admiration. You might have told him of the noblest action of generosity or self-denial that ever constituted the stock in trade of a moral hero, and he would have listened patiently, but without one responsive emotion. Bodily prowess and daring he could appreciate. Keene's physical _prestige_ was just the thing to captivate his limited imagination; besides which the ground was prepared for the seed-time. He had some soldier friends, and dining with these at the "Swashing Buckler," he had heard some of those club chronicles in which the Cool Captain's name figured prominently.

The latter interpreted perfectly well the gaze that was riveted upon him, without being in the least flattered by it. He felt, perhaps, the same sort of satisfaction that one experiences when, fighting for the odd trick, the first card in our hand is a heavy trump. Dick's thorough and undivided allegiance once secured, was a good card in the game he was playing at the moment. Whatever his thoughts might have been, his face told no tales. He had been flooring glass for glass with his guest till the liquor began to work its way into the cracks even of such a seasoned vessel; but, for any outward or visible sign in feature, speech, or manner, he might have been assisting at a teetotaller's _soirée_.

Very often--late on guest-nights, or other tournaments of deep drinking, where Trojan and Tyrian met to do battle for the credit of their respective corps--the calm, rigid face, never flushing beyond a clear swarthy brown, and the cold, bright, inevitable eyes, had stricken terror into the hearts of bacchanalian Heavies, and given consolation, if not confidence, to the Hussars, who were failing fast: these knew that though their own brains might be reeling and their legs rebelliously independent, their single champion was invincible. As the last of the Enomotæ went down, he saw Othryades standing steadfastly, with never a trace of wound or weakness, still able and willing to write [Greek: NIKH] on his shield.

When our poor Dick was once thoroughly impressed, for the first time, with awe or admiration, either for man or woman, he generally fell into a species of trance, from which it was exceedingly difficult to bring him round. He would have sat there, staring stupidly, till morning, with perfect satisfaction to himself, if Molyneux had not attacked him with a direct question, "How long do you think of staying at Dorade? And have you made any plans afterward?"

_Le mouton qui rêvait_ roused himself with an effort, and searched the bottom of his empty glass narrowly for a reply. Eventually he succeeded in finding one:

"Cecil talks about two months; then we are to go on by Nice, Genoa, Florence, Rome, and Naples, and so come back by--Italy." He had got up the first names by rote, and run them off glibly enough, but was evidently at fault about the last one. I fancy he had some vague idea of Austrian troops being quartered in these regions, and looked upon Hesperia in the light of an obscure state or moderate-sized town somewhere in the north of Europe.

Harry was balked in his inclination to laugh; the rising smile was checked upon his lip, just in time, by a glance from his chief, severely authoritative.

"Italy?" the latter said, without a muscle moving; "well, I shouldn't advise you to stay long there. It's rather a small place, and very stupid; no society whatever. The others will amuse you, as you have never seen them."

He rose as he spoke the last words. Perhaps he thought he had done that night "enough for profit and more than enough for glory." The Cool Captain seldom suffered himself to be bored without an adequate object very clearly in view.

"Hal, I am going to turn you out. It is far too late for you to be sitting up, and we have a good deal to do to-morrow."

Molyneux did not quite comprehend what extraordinary labors were before any of them, but he rose without making an objection, and Tresilyan prepared to accompany him. Dick considered that individually he had been remarkably brilliant, and had left a favorable impression behind him. But all this newly-acquired confidence, and much strong drink were not sufficient to embolden him to risk, as yet, a _tête-à-tête_ with Royston Keene.

Long after they had departed the major sat gazing steadfastly at the logs burning on the hearth. If he had gone straight to bed, the enormous dullness of one of the party would have weighed him down like a nightmare.

Is there one of us who can not remember having seen prettier pictures in a flame-colored setting than the Royal Academy has ever shown him? What earthly painter could emulate or imitate the coquettish caprice of light and shadow, that enhances the charms, and dissembles all possible defects in those fair, fleeting Fiamminas? Something like this effect was to be found in the miniatures that were in fashion a dozen years ago; where part only of a sweet face and a dangerously eloquent eye looked at you out of a wreath of dusky cloud, that shrouded all the rest and gave your imagination play. Truly it was not so utterly wrong, the ancient legend that wedded Hephæstus to Aphroditè. The Minnesingers and their coevals spoke fairly enough about Love, and probably had studied their subject; but, rely upon it, passionate Romance died in Germany when once the close stoves prevailed. Don't you envy the imagination of the dreamer who could trace a shape of loveliness in those dreadful glazed tiles?

Being rather a _Guebre_ myself, I once got enthusiastic on the subject in the company of an eccentric character, who very soon made me repent my expansiveness. If he had committed any atrocious crime (he was a small sandy-haired creature, and wore colored spectacles), no one knew of it, and he never hinted at its nature; but his whole ideas seemed tinged with a vague gloomy remorse that made him a sadder, but scarcely a wiser or better man. Perhaps it was a monomania; let us hope so. On that occasion he heard me out quite patiently; then the blue glasses raised themselves to the level of my eyes, and I felt convinced their owner was staring spectrally behind them. Considering that he measured about thirty-four inches round the chest, his voice was extraordinarily deep and solemn: it sounded preternaturally so as he said very slowly, "There is one face that does not often leave me alone here, and will follow me, I think, when I go to my appointed place: I see it now, as I shall see it throughout all ages--always _by firelight_."

I felt very wroth, for surely to suggest a new and unpleasant train of ideas is an infamous abuse of a _tête-à-tête_. I told my friend so; and, as he declined to retract or apologize, or in any wise explain himself, departed with the conviction that, though a clever man and an original thinker, he was by no means an exhilarating or instructive companion. I should have borne him a grudge to this day, but as I was walking home, decidedly disconsolate (there's no such bore as having a pet fancy spoiled, it is like having your favorite hunter sent home with two broken knees), it suddenly occurred to me that if the penitent was in the habit of looking at the fire through those blue barnacles, it was not likely there would be much rose-color in his visions. In great triumph I retraced my steps, and knocked the culprit up to put in this "demurrer." I flatter myself it floored him. He did attempt some lame excuse about "taking his spectacles off at such times," but I refused to listen to a word, and marched out of the place with drums beating and colors flying, first exasperating him by the assurance of my complete forgiveness. Since then, if sitting alone, _ligna super foco largè reponens_, I involuntarily recur to that ill-favored conception, it suffices to contrast with it the grotesque appearance of its originator, and the pale phantom evanisheth.

I have no excuse to offer for this long and egotistical anecdote, except the pendant which Maloney used to attach to his ultra-_marine_ stories--"The point of it is, that--it's strictly true."