Sir George laughed and complied.
“You are a plausible advocate, Florian,” he observed, after a moment’s thought, “and your powers of argument are little inferior to your skill in fence. But this is a lee-shore, my good friend, to which you are driving, a lee-shore with bad anchorage, shoal water, and thick weather all round. I like to keep the lead going on such a course, and only to carry sail enough for steerage-way. As far as I am concerned, I should wish to see them ‘box it about’ a little longer, before I made up my mind how the game would go!”
“That is not like you!” exclaimed the Jesuit hotly. “The Hamiltons have never yet waited to draw till they knew which was the winning side.”
“No man shall say that of me,” answered the other, in a stern, almost an angry tone, and for a space, the two old comrades sat sipping their wine in silence.
Sir George had spoken the truth when he said that a full man is willing to sit still—at least as far as his own inclinations were concerned. He had nothing to gain by a change, and everything to lose, should that change leave him on the beaten side. Moreover, he relished the advantages of his present position far more than had he been born with the silver spoon in his mouth. Then, perhaps, he would have depreciated the luxury of plate and believed that the pewter he had not tried might be equally agreeable. People who have never been really hungry hardly understand the merits of a good dinner. You must sleep on the bare ground for a week or two before you know the value of sheets and blankets and a warm soft bed. Sir George had got into safe anchorage now, and it required a strong temptation to lure him out to sea again. True, the man’s habits were those of an adventurer. He had led a life of action from the day he first accompanied his father across the Channel in an open boat, at six years old, till he found himself a prosperous, wealthy, disengaged country gentleman at Hamilton Hill. He might grow tired of that respectable position—it was very likely he would—but not yet. The novelty was still pleasant; the ease, the leisure, the security, the freedom from anxiety, were delightful to a man who had never before been “off duty,” so to speak, in his life. Then he enjoyed above all things the field sports of the wild country in which he lived. His hawks were the best within a hundred miles. His hounds, hardy, rough, steady, and untiring, would follow a lean travelling fox from dawn to dark of the short November day, and make as good an account of him at last as of a fat wide-antlered stag under the blazing sun of August. He had some interest, some excitement for every season as it passed. If all his broad acres were not fertile in corn, he owned wide meres covered with wild-fowl, streams in which trout and grayling leaped in the soft May mornings, like rain-drops in a shower, where the otter lurked and vanished, where the noble salmon himself came arrowing up triumphant from the sea. Woods, too, in which the stately red deer found a shelter, and swelling hills of purple heather, where the moorcock pruned his wing, and the curlew’s plaintive wail died off in the surrounding wilderness.
All this afforded pleasant pastime, none the less pleasant that his limbs were strong, his health robust, and the happy, hungry sportsman could return at sundown to a comfortable house, an excellent table, and a cellar good enough for the Pope. Such material comforts are not to be despised—least of all by men who have known the want of them. Ask any old campaigner whether he does not appreciate warmth, food, and shelter; even idleness, so long as the effects of previous fatigue remain. These things may pall after a time, but until they do so pall they are delightful, and not to be relinquished but for weighty motives, nor even then without regret.
Sir George, too, in taking a wife, had “given pledges to fortune,” as Lord Bacon hath it. He loved Cerise very dearly, and although an elevating affection for a worldly object will never make a man a coward, it tones down all the wild recklessness of his nature, and bids the boldest hesitate ere he risks his earthly treasure even at the call of ambition. It is the sore heart that seeks an anodyne in the excitement of danger and the confusion of tumultuous change.
Moreover, men’s habits of thought are acted on far more easily than they will admit, by the opinions of those amongst whom they live.
Sir George’s friends and neighbours, the honest country gentlemen with whom he cheered his hounds or killed his game abroad, and drank his claret at home, were enthusiastic Jacobites in theory, but loyal and quiet subjects of King George in practice. They inherited, indeed, much of the high feeling, and many of the chivalrous predilections that had instigated their grandfathers and great-grandfathers to strike desperately for King Charles at Marston Moor and Naseby Field, but they inherited also the sound sense that was often found lurking under the Cavalier’s love-locks, the dogged patriotism, and strong affection for their church, which filled those hearts that beat so stoutly behind laced shirts and buff coats when opposed to Cromwell and his Ironsides.