CHAPTER II

MR. ADISTER

Mr. Patrick O'Donnell drove up to the gates of Earlsfont notwithstanding

these emotions, upon which light matter it is the habit of men of his

blood too much to brood; though it is for our better future to have a

capacity for them, and the insensible race is the oxenish.

But if he did so when alone, the second man residing in the Celt put that

fellow by and at once assumed the social character on his being requested

to follow his card into Mr. Adister's library. He took his impression of

the hall that had heard her voice, the stairs she had descended, the door

she had passed through, and the globes she had perchance laid hand on,

and the old mappemonde, and the severely-shining orderly regiment of

books breathing of her whether she had opened them or not, as he bowed to

his host, and in reply to, 'So, sir! I am glad to see you,' said

swimmingly that Earlsfont was the first house he had visited in this

country: and the scenery reminded him of his part of Ireland: and on

landing at Holyhead he had gone off straight to the metropolis by

appointment to meet his brother Philip, just returned from Canada a full

captain, who heartily despatched his compliments and respects, and hoped

to hear of perfect health in this quarter of the world. And Captain Con

the same, and he was very flourishing.

Patrick's opening speech concluded on the sound of a short laugh coming

from Mr. Adister.

It struck the young Irishman's ear as injurious and scornful in relation

to Captain Con; but the remark ensuing calmed him:

'He has no children.'

'No, sir; Captain Con wasn't born to increase the number of our clan,'

Patrick rejoined; and thought: By heaven! I get a likeness of her out of

you, with a dash of the mother mayhap somewhere. This was his Puck-manner

of pulling a girdle round about from what was foremost in his head to the

secret of his host's quiet observation; for, guessing that such features

as he beheld would be slumped on a handsome family, he was led by the

splendid severity of their lines to perceive an illimitable pride in the

man likely to punish him in his offspring, who would inherit that as

well; so, as is the way with the livelier races, whether they seize first

or second the matter or the spirit of what they hear, the vivid

indulgence of his own ideas helped him to catch the right meaning by the

tail, and he was enlightened upon a domestic unhappiness, although Mr.

Adister had not spoken miserably. The 'dash of the mother' was thrown in

to make Adiante, softer, and leave a loophole for her relenting.

The master of Earlsfont stood for a promise of beauty in his issue,

requiring to be softened at the mouth and along the brows, even in men.

He was tall, and had clear Greek outlines: the lips were locked metal,

thin as edges of steel, and his eyes, when he directed them on the person

he addressed or the person speaking, were as little varied by motion of

the lids as eyeballs of a stone bust. If they expressed more, because

they were not sculptured eyes, it was the expression of his high and

frigid nature rather than any of the diversities pertaining to sentiment

and shades of meaning.

'You have had the bequest of an estate,' Mr. Adister said, to compliment

him by touching on his affairs.

'A small one; not a quarter of a county,' said Patrick.

'Productive, sir?'

''Tis a tramp of discovery, sir, to where bog ends and cultivation

begins.'

'Bequeathed to you exclusively over the head of your elder brother, I

understand.'

Patrick nodded assent. 'But my purse is Philip's, and my house, and my

horses.'

'Not bequeathed by a member of your family?'

'By a distant cousin, chancing to have been one of my godmothers.'

'Women do these things,' Mr. Adister said, not in perfect approbation of

their doings.

'And I think too, it might have gone to the elder,' Patrick replied to

his tone.

'It is not your intention to be an idle gentleman?'

'No, nor a vagrant Irishman, sir.'

'You propose to sit down over there?'

'When I've more brains to be of service to them and the land, I do.'

Mr. Adister pulled the arm of his chair. 'The professions are crammed. An

Irish gentleman owning land might do worse. I am in favour of some degree

of military training for all gentlemen. You hunt?'

Patrick's look was, 'Give me a chance'; and Mr. Adister continued: 'Good

runs are to be had here; you shall try them. You are something of a shot,

I suppose. We hear of gentlemen now who neither hunt nor shoot. You

fence?'

'That's to say, I've had lessons in the art.'

'I am not aware that there is now an art of fencing taught in Ireland.'

'Nor am I,' said Patrick; 'though there's no knowing what goes on in the

cabins.'

Mr. Adister appeared to acquiesce. Observations of sly import went by him

like the whispering wind.

'Your priests should know,' he said.

To this Patrick thought it well not to reply. After a pause between them,

he referred to the fencing.

'I was taught by a Parisian master of the art, sir.'

'You have been to Paris?'

'I was educated in Paris.'

'How? Ah!' Mr. Adister corrected himself in the higher notes of

recollection. 'I think I have heard something of a Jesuit seminary.'

'The Fathers did me the service to knock all I know into me, and call it

education, by courtesy,' said Patrick, basking in the unobscured frown of

his host.

'Then you are accustomed to speak French?' The interrogation was put to

extract some balm from the circumstance.

Patrick tried his art of fence with the absurdity by saying: 'All but

like a native.'

'These Jesuits taught you the use of the foils?'

'They allowed me the privilege of learning, sir.'

After meditation, Mr. Adister said: 'You don't dance?' He said it

speculating on the' kind of gentleman produced in Paris by the disciples

of Loyola.

'Pardon me, sir, you hit on another of my accomplishments.'

'These Jesuits encourage dancing?'

'The square dance--short of the embracing: the valse is under interdict.'

Mr. Adister peered into his brows profoundly for a glimpse of the devilry

in that exclusion of the valse.

What object had those people in encouraging the young fellow to be a

perfect fencer and dancer, so that he should be of the school of the

polite world, and yet subservient to them?

'Thanks to the Jesuits, then, you are almost a Parisian,' he remarked;

provoking the retort:

'Thanks to them, I've stored a little, and Paris is to me as pure a place

as four whitewashed walls:' Patrick added: 'without a shadow of a monk on

them.' Perhaps it was thrown in for the comfort of mundane ears afflicted

sorely, and no point of principle pertained to the slur on a monk.

Mr. Adister could have exclaimed, That shadow of the monk! had he been in

an exclamatory mood. He said: 'They have not made a monk of you, then.'

Patrick was minded to explain how that the Jesuits are a religious order

exercising worldly weapons. The lack of precise words admonished him of

the virtue of silence, and he retreated--with a quiet negative: 'They

have not.'

'Then, you are no Jesuit?' he was asked.

Thinking it scarcely required a response, he shrugged.

'You would not change your religion, sir?' said Mr. Adister in seeming

anger.

Patrick thought he would have to rise: he half fancied himself summoned

to change his religion or depart from the house.

'Not I,' said he.

'Not for the title of Prince?' he was further pressed, and he replied:

'I don't happen to have an ambition for the title of Prince.'

'Or any title!' interjected Mr. Adister, 'or whatever the devil can

offer!--or,' he spoke more pointedly, 'for what fools call a brilliant

marriage?'

'My religion?' Patrick now treated the question seriously and raised his

head: 'I'd not suffer myself to be asked twice.'

The sceptical northern-blue eyes of his host dwelt on him with their full

repellent stare.

The young Catholic gentleman expected he might hear a frenetic zealot

roar out: Be off!

He was not immediately reassured by the words 'Dead or alive, then, you

have a father!'

The spectacle of a state of excitement without a show of feeling was

novel to Patrick. He began to see that he was not implicated in a wrath

that referred to some great offender, and Mr. Adister soon confirmed his

view by saying: 'You are no disgrace to your begetting, sir!'

With that he quitted his chair, and hospitably proposed to conduct his

guest over the house and grounds.