In his
own house, easy-going and autocratic; in his Church, a slave; a
confidential slave, whose gladiatorial gifts were valued, and whose
idiosyncrasies might be humoured, but none the less, a slave. He was
like an elephant in his hugeness, and suppleness, his dangerousness,
and his gentleness. His head was not crowned with the bald benevolence
that an elephant wears, but seated on his neck was a mahout, and the
mahout was Father Greer, the Parish Priest of Cluhir.
Now, on this quiet evening, he sat and smoked by the fire, and,
touching "the tender stops of various quills," his eager thought
paused longest on the note that stood for Tishy. Tishy was, in her own
way, as sound an asset as any that he possessed, a thoroughly
well-made article, a right-down handsome girl, the Big Doctor thought
complacently, good enough for any position, and for any man.
"But she's not for any man, I can tell them!" thought Tishy's father;
"that's just where the difference of it is! I'll see to that, you may
take your oath!"
Then he began to consider his son. He could not feel the same
confidence in Barty that Tishy inspired. Where Barty got hold of all
his dam-silly notions was more than anyone, least of all his father,
could imagine. Nevertheless, they had had their uses, and might still
justify themselves "in a sense," he thought; "if not in one way, maybe
in another.
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