there
was a regular pilgrimage towards Loughlinter. Phineas resolved upon
sleeping a night at Edinburgh on his way, and he found himself joined
in the bands of close companionship with Mr. Ratler for the occasion.
The evening was by no means thrown away, for he learned much of his
trade from Mr. Ratler. And Mr. Ratler was heard to declare afterwards
at Loughlinter that Mr. Finn was a pleasant young man.

It soon came to be admitted by all who knew Phineas Finn that he had
a peculiar power of making himself agreeable which no one knew how to
analyse or define. "I think it is because he listens so well," said
one man. "But the women would not like him for that," said another.
"He has studied when to listen and when to talk," said a third. The
truth, however, was, that Phineas Finn had made no study in the
matter at all. It was simply his nature to be pleasant.

CHAPTER XIV

Loughlinter

Phineas Finn reached Loughlinter together with Mr. Ratler in a
post-chaise from the neighbouring town. Mr. Ratler, who had done this
kind of thing very often before, travelled without impediments, but
the new servant of our hero's was stuck outside with the driver, and
was in the way. "I never bring a man with me," said Mr. Ratler to his
young friend. "The servants of the house like it much better, because
they get fee'd; you are just as well waited on, and it don't cost
half as much." Phineas blushed as he heard all this; but there was
the impediment, not to be got rid of for the nonce, and Phineas made
the best of his attendant. "It's one of those points," said he, "as
to which a man never quite makes up his mind. If you bring a fellow,
you wish you hadn't brought him; and if you don't, you wish you had."
"I'm a great deal more decided in my ways that that," said Mr.
Ratler.

Loughlinter, as they approached it, seemed to Phineas to be a much
finer place than Saulsby. And so it was, except that Loughlinter
wanted that graceful beauty of age which Saulsby possessed.
Loughlinter was all of cut stone, but the stones had been cut only
yesterday. It stood on a gentle slope, with a greensward falling from
the front entrance down to a mountain lake. And on the other side of
the Lough there rose a mighty mountain to the skies, Ben Linter. At
the foot of it, and all round to the left, there ran the woods of
Linter, stretching for miles through crags and bogs and mountain
lands. No better ground for deer than the side of Ben Linter w