It was true that Hilary had attained at last the great ambition of his life. He had changed the pen for the sword, the sand for powder, and the ink for blood; and in a few days he would be afloat, on his way to join Lord Wellington. His father’s obstinate objections had at last been overcome; for there seemed to be no other way to cut the soft net of enchantment and throw him into a sterner world. His Uncle Struan had done his best, and tried to the utmost stretch the patience of Sir Roland, with countless words, until the latter exclaimed at last, “Why, you seem to be worse than the boy himself! You went to spy out the nakedness of the land, and you returned in a fortnight with grapes of Eschol. Truly this Danish Lovejoy is more potent than the great Canute. He turns at his pleasure the tide of opinion.” “Roland, now you go too far. It is not the Grower that I indite of, but his charming daughter. If you could but once be persuaded to see her----” “Of course. Exactly what Hilary said. In him I could laugh at it; but in you---- Well, a great philosopher tells us that every jot of opinion (even that of a babe, I suppose) is to be regarded as an equal item of the ‘universal consensus.’ And the universal consensus becomes, or forms, or fructifies, or solidifies, into the great homogeneous truth. I may not quote him aright, and I beg his pardon for so lamely rendering him. However, that is a rude sketch of his view, a brick from his house--to mix metaphors--and perhaps you remember it better, Struan.” “God forbid! The only thing that I remember out of all my education is the stories--what do you call them?--mythologies. Capital some of them are, capital! Ah, they do so much good to boys--teach them manliness and self-respect.” “Do they? However, to return to this lovely daughter of the Kentish Alcinous--by the way, if his ancestors were Danes who took to gardening, it suggests a rather startling analogy. The old Corycian is believed (though without a particle of evidence) to have been a pirate in early life, and therefore have taken to pot-herbs. Let that pass. I could never have believed it, except for this instance of Lovejoy.” “And how, if you please,” broke in the Rector, who was always jealous of “Norman blood,” because he had never heard that he had any; “how were the Normans less piratical, if you please, than the Danes, their own grandfathers? Except that they were sick at sea--big rogues all of them, in my opinion. The Saxons were the only honest fellows. Ay, and they would have thrashed those Normans, but for the slightest accident. When I hear of those Normans, without any shoulders--don’t tell me; they never would have built such a house as this is, otherwise--what do you think I feel ready to do, sir? Why, to get up, and to lift my coat, and----”