“Mr. Goodal, you have tempted me into inviting an attack of my old enemy by sitting here so long. There is no necessity for your going to-morrow, is there, since you are simply on a walking tour? Roger is a great rambler, and there are many pretty spots about Leighstone, many an old ruin that will repay a visit. Indeed, ruins are the most interesting objects of these days. My walking days, I fear, are over. A visitor is a Godsend to us down here, and, though you ramblers soon tire of one spot, there is more in Leighstone than can be well seen in a day.”
Thus pressed, he consented, and our little party broke up.
“Are you an owl!” I asked Kenneth, as my father and sister retired.
“Somewhat,” he replied, smiling.
“Then come to my room, and you shall give your to-whoo to my to-whit. I was born an owl, having been introduced into this world, I am informed, in the small hours; and the habits of the species cling to me. Take that easy-chair and try this cigar. These slippers will ease your feet. Though not a drinking man, properly so called, I confess to a liking for the juice of the grape. The fondness for it is still strong in the sluggish blood of the Norse, and I cannot help my blood. Therefore, at an hour like this, a night-cap will not hurt us. Of what color shall it be? Of the deep claret tint of Bordeaux, the dark-red hue of Burgundy, or the golden amber of the generous Spaniard? Though, as I tell you, not a drinking man, I think a good cigar and a little wine vastly improves the moonlight, provided the quantity be not such as to obscure the vision of eye or brain. That is not exactly a theory of my own. It was constantly and deeply impressed upon me by a very reverend friend of mine, with whom I read for a year. Indeed I fear his faith in port was deeper than his faith in the Pentateuch. The drunkard is to me the lowest of animals, ever has been, and ever will be. Were the world ruled—as it is scarcely likely to be just yet—by my suggestions, the fate of the Duke of Clarence should be the doom of every drunkard, with only this difference; that each one be drowned in his own favorite liquor, soaked there till he dissolved, and the contents ladled out and poured down the throat of whoever, by any accident, mistook the gutter for his bed. You will pardon my air; in my own room I am supreme lord and master. Kenneth, my boy, I like you. I feel as though I had known you all my life. That must have been the reason for my unruly, ungracious, and unmannerly explosion down-stairs at dinner. I have an uncontrollable habit of breaking out in that style sometimes, and the effect on my father, whom I need not tell you I love and revere above all men living, is what you see.”
He smoked in silence a few seconds, and then, turning on me, suddenly asked:
“Where did you learn your theology?”
The question was the last in the world that would have presented itself to me, and was a little startling, but put in too earnest a manner for a sneer, and too kindly to give offence. I answered blandly that I was guiltless of laying claim to any special theology.
“Well, your opinions, then—the faith, the reasons, on which you ground your life and views of life. Your conversation at times drifts into a certain tone that makes me ask. Where or what have you studied?”
“Nowhere; nothing; everywhere; everything; everybody; I read whatever I come across. And as for theology—for my theology, such as it is—I suppose I am chiefly indebted to that remarkably clever organ of opinion known as the Journal of the Age.”