Page:The sentiment of the Sword.djvu/37

14 On seeing him for the first time a stranger would be apt to exclaim, “That's a hard-looking man!” and, after hearing where he had been and what he had done, the stranger would be apt to add, “He's just the man to do it.” Hard, indeed, was the character of Shughtie's weather-beaten features—hard as his heart was soft. High cheek bones, grey eyes, set deep in cave-like sockets, shining forth a fierce light, with prominent eyebrows jutting over them like a pent-house; forehead low and slightly retreating, nose thick and anything but classical, a beard falling to the waist, and grizzly, short-cropped hair which, they say, prevented his becoming bald; an upper lip clothed with a large moustache, stiff but not bristly—that shows the rough “son of Neptune”—yet hardly large enough to hide the setting of the lips, and jaws vast and square, as if settled down into a somewhat humorous war with the world, at the same time showing none of the futile pugnacity of the Celt.

Such was the countenance. He was a tallish man, whose vast breadth of chest and shoulders made him appear below middle size. The tout ensemble of face and figure was intended, said the jealous, for a born pugilist. Such men, who voluntarily assume the bearskin, are apt to growl, and sometimes to barb a growl with a venerable quotation from Mr Punch.

“Perhaps, gentlemen,” said Lord B., with even more than usual kindness, “to-morrow evening Capt. Burton will give us a sketch of his curriculum?"”

With all the pleasure in life ! But I would warn you that it will be as an improvisatore, not as a professor. And now goodnight. Seaton, have you brought your plastron? Shughtie, do not mistake in your dreams that other valley for the valley of the Nile! And under cover of these feeble shots I effected my escape.

spent part of the morning in the library, where a few treatises, old and new, had refreshed my memory in matters that had faded from it; yet I felt somewhat nervous as the smoking hour drew near, like a lecturer who had not thoroughly prepared his lecture, a professor unprovided with all his notes. As it was therefore understood that my introduction would not only deal with general principles, but also be somewhat historical, the Marchioness and her two daughters kindly declared their intention of joining us.