Sword and Gown

"There is something in this climate, after all. I suppose there are not many places where one could lie on the shore in December, and enjoy the air as much as I have done for the last two hours."

Harry Molyneux turned his face seaward again as he spoke, and drank in the soft breeze eagerly; he could scarcely help thanking it aloud, as it stole freshly over his frame, and played gently with his hair, and left a delicate caress on his cheek-the cheek that was now always so pale, save in the one round scarlet spot where, months ago, Consumption had hung out her flag of "No surrender."

There is enough in the scene to justify an average amount of enthusiasm. Those steep broken hills in the background form the frontier fortress of the maritime Alps, the last outwork of which is the rocky spur on which Molyneux and his companion are lying. Fir woods feather the sky-line; and from among these, here and there, the tall stone pines stand up alone, like sentinels-steady, upright, and unwearied, though their guard has not been relieved for centuries. All around, wild myrtle, and heath, and eglantine curl and creep up the stems of the olives, trying, from the contact of their fresh youth, to infuse new life and sap into the gray, gnarled old trees, even as a fair Jewish maiden once strove to cherish her war-worn, decrepit king. There are other flowers too left, though December has begun, enough to give a faint fragrance to the air and gay colors to the ground. Just below their feet is a narrow strip of dark ribbed sand, and then the tangle of weed, scarcely stirred by the water, that all along this coast fringes like a beard the languid lip of the Mediterranean Sea.

Molyneux appreciated and admired all this, after his simple fashion, and said so; his companion did not answer immediately; he only shrugged his shoulders and lifted his eyebrows, as if he could have disputed the point if it had not been too much trouble. An optimist in nothing, least of all was Royston Keene grateful or indulgent to the beauties and bounties of inanimate creation.

"Ah well!" Harry went on, resignedly, "I know it's useless trying to get a compliment to Nature out of you. I ought to have given you up that night when we showed you the Alps from the terrace at Berne. You had never seen the Jungfrau before, and she had got her prettiest pink evening dress on, poor thing! and all you would say was, 'There's not much the matter with the view.'"

"It was a concession to your wife's enthusiasm," Keene replied; "a sudden check might have been dangerous just then, or I should have spoken more bitterly, after being brought out to look at mountains, when I was dusty and travel-stained, wanting baths, and dinners, and other necessaries of life."

The voice was deep-toned and melodious enough that spoke these words, but too slow and deliberate to be quite a pleasant one, though there was nothing like a drawl in it. One could easily fancy such a voice ironical or sarcastic, but hardly raised much in anger; in the imperative mood it might be very successful, but it seemed as if it could never have pleaded or prayed. It matched the speaker's exterior singularly well. Had you seen him for the first time-couchant, as he was then-you would have had only an impression of great length and laziness; but as you gazed on, the vast deep chest expanded under your eye; the knotted muscles, without an ounce of superfluous flesh to dull their outline, developed themselves one by one; so that gradually you began to realize the extent of his surpassing bodily powers, and wondered that you could have been deceived even for a moment. The face guarded its secret far more successfully. The features were bold and sharply cut, bronzed up to the roots of the crisp light-brown beard 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 to a crisis, or measured her strength against the "heavy-weight."

Indeed, they got on together extremely well. Whenever Keene happened to be with them-which was not often-she gave up the management of Harry's Foreign Affairs to him, reserving to herself the control of the Home Department, and, between the two, they ruled their vassal right royally. After some months' acquaintance they became the greatest friends; on Royston's side it was one of the few quite pure and unselfish feelings he had ever cherished toward one of her sex not nearly akin to him in blood. He always seemed to look on her as a very nice, but rather spoiled child, to be humored and petted to any amount, but very seldom to be reasoned with or gravely consulted. Considering her numerous fascinations, and the little practice he had had in the paternal or fraternal line, he really did it remarkably well: be it understood, it was only en petite comité that all this went on; in general society his manner was strictly formal and deferential. It provoked her though, sometimes, and one day she ventured to say, "I wish you would learn to treat me like a grown-up woman!" Royston's eyes darkened strangely; and one glance flashed out of the gloom that made her shrink away from him then, and blush painfully when she thought of it afterward alone. He was frowning, too, as he answered, in a voice unusually harsh and constrained, "It seems to me we go on very well as it is. But women never will leave well alone." She did not like to analyze his answer or her own feelings too closely, so she tried to persuade herself it was a very rude speech, and that she ought to be offended at it. There was a coolness between those two for some days, amounting to distant courtesy. But the dignified style did not suit ma mignonne (as Harry delighted to call her) at all, and was, indeed, a lamentable failure; it made her look as if she had been trying on one of her great-grandmother's short-waisted dresses; so they soon fell back into their old ways, and, like the model prince and princess, "lived very happily ever afterward."