“Is it far from here?”

“Not much more than a mile.  This wood joins the park, and there is a public right of way across the park to the Lidford road, so the gate is always open.  We can’t waste our walk, and I know Sir David quite well enough to ask him to let you see the pictures, if he should happen to be at home.”

“I should like it of all things,” said Gilbert eagerly.  “My friend John Saltram knows this Sir David Forster, and he talked of being down here at this time:  I forgot all about it till you spoke of Heatherly just now.  I have a knack of forgetting things now-a-days.”

“I wonder that you should forget anything connected with Mr. Saltram, Gilbert,” said Marian; “that Mr. Saltram of whom you think so much.  I cannot tell you how anxious I am to see what kind of person he is; not handsome—­you have confessed as much as that.”

“Yes, Marian, I admit the painful fact.  There are people who call John Saltram ugly.  But his face is not a common one; it is a very picturesque kind of ugliness—­a face that Velasquez would have loved to paint, I think.  It is a rugged, strongly-marked countenance with a villanously dark complexion; but the eyes are very fine, the mouth perfection; and there is a look of power in the face that, to my mind, is better than beauty.”

“And I think you owned that Mr. Saltram is hardly the most agreeable person in the world.”

“Well, no, he is not what one could well call an eminently agreeable person.  And yet he exercises a good deal of influence over the men he knows, without admitting many of them to his friendship.  He is very clever; not a brilliant talker by any means, except on rare occasions, when he chooses to give full swing to his powers; he does not lay himself out for social successes; but he is a man who seems to know more of every subject than the men about him.  I doubt if he will ever succeed at the Bar.  He has so little perseverance or steadiness, and indulges in such an erratic, desultory mode of life; but he has made his mark in literature already, and I think he might become a great man if he chose.  Whether he ever will choose is a doubtful question.”

“I am afraid he must be rather a dissipated, dangerous kind of person,” said Marian.

“Well, yes, he is subject to occasional outbreaks of dissipation.  They don’t last long, and they seem to leave not the faintest impression upon his herculean constitution; but of course that sort of thing does more or less injury to a man’s mind, however comparatively harmless the form of his dissipation may be.  There are very few men whom John Saltram cannot drink under the table, and rise with a steady brain himself when the wassail is ended; yet I believe, in a general way, few men drink less than he does.  At cards he is equally strong; a past-master in all games of skill; and the play is apt to be rather high at one or two of the clubs he belongs to.  He has a wonderful power of self-restraint when he cares to exert it; will play six or seven hours every night for three weeks at a stretch, and then not touch a card for six months.  Poor old John,” said Gilbert Fenton, with a half-regretful sigh; “under happy circumstances, he might be such a good man.”