I'm
her husband and her Harvey in one. Goodbye to my hop and skip. I ought by
rights to have been down beside her at midnight. She's the worthiest
woman alive, and I don't shirk my duty. Be quiet!' he bellowed at the
alarum; 'I 'm coming. Don't be in such a fright, my dear,' he admonished
it as his wife, politely. 'Your hand'll take an hour to warm if you keep
it out on the spring that sets the creature going.' He turned and
informed his company: 'Her hand'll take an hour to warm. Dear! how she
runs ahead: d' ye hear? That's the female tongue, and once off it won't
stop. And this contrivance for fetching me from my tower to her bed was
my own suggestion, in a fit of generosity! Ireland all over! I must hurry
and wash my hair, for she can't bear a perfume to kill a stink; she
carries her charitable heart that far. Good-night, I'll be thinking of ye
while I'm warming her. Sit still, I can't wait; 'tis the secret of my
happiness.' He fled. Patrick struck his knee on hearing the expected
ballad-burden recur.

CHAPTER X

THE BROTHERS

'Con has learnt one secret,' said Philip, quitting his chair.

Patrick went up to him, and, 'Give us a hug,' he said, and the hug was
given.

They were of an equal height, tall young men, alert, nervously braced
from head to foot, with the differences between soldier and civilian
marked by the succintly military bearing of the elder brother, whose
movements were precise and prompt, and whose frame was leopardlike in
indolence. Beside him Patrick seemed cubbish, though beside another he
would not have appeared so. His features were not so brilliantly regular,
but were a fanciful sketch of the same design, showing a wider pattern of
the long square head and the forehead, a wavering at the dip of the nose,
livelier nostrils: the nostrils dilated and contracted, and were
exceeding alive. His eyelids had to do with the look of his eyes, and
were often seen cutting the ball. Philip's eyes were large on the pent of
his brows, open, liquid, and quick with the fire in him. Eyes of that
quality are the visible mind, animated both to speak it and to render it
what comes within their scope. They were full, unshaded direct, the man
himself, in action. Patrick's mouth had to be studied for an additional
index to the character. To symbolise them, they were as a sword-blade
lying beside book.

Men would have thought Patrick the slippery one of the two: women would
have inclined to confide in him