It is not easy to understand, it is still harder to explain what it was in those fierce denunciations and complaints, outcome of that time of general revolt, the “Roaring Forties” of the nineteenth century, that made them echo in Larry’s heart, nor why the restless, passionate spirit that inspired them should have remained with him, a perturbing influence from which he never wholly escaped.  His young soul burned with hatred of England, borrowed from the Bards of “The Nation” Office; he lay awake at nights, stringing rhymes in emulation of their shouts of fury, or picturing rebellions, of which he was to be the leader and hero.  Larry’s enthusiasms were wont to devour not him only, but also his friends.  It is impossible to escape from the conclusion that the career of the Companionage of Finn was abbreviated by Larry’s determination to recite to the Companions of the Order, in season and out of season, the poems by which, during his first Irish summer, he was possessed.  There came a time when he had, as he believed, put away childish things, that, returning to these venerable trumpet-blasts, he asked himself, in the arrogance of youth, how these stale metaphors, these conventional phrases, these decorations as meretricious as stage jewellry, and metres that cantered along, as he told himself, like solemn old circus-horses, could have had the power to shake his voice and fill his eyes with tears, as he spoke them to Christian, who had so soon become his sole audience.

The strange thing was, as he acknowledged to himself, that while he could mock at them as poetry, he could not ignore their power.  The intensity of their hatred, and of their sincerity, made itself felt, as the light of the sun will shine through the crude commonness of a vulgar stained-glass window.

CHAPTER V

There was one person who viewed the enthusiastic intimacy that had sprung up between the houses of Coppinger and Talbot-Lowry, with a disapproval as deep as it was prejudiced.  It was a person whose opinion might, by the thoughtless, be considered unimportant, but in this the thoughtless would greatly err.  Robert Evans was the butler at Mount Music.  He had held that position since the year 1859, from which statement a brief and unexacting calculation will establish the fact that he had taken office when his present master was no more than twenty-one years old and, it being now 1894, he had so continued for 35 years.  Possibly a vision of an adoring and devoted retainer may here present itself.  If so, it must be immediately dispelled.  In Mr. Evans’ opinion, such devotion and adoration as the case demanded, were owed to him by the House on which he had for so long a time bestowed the boon of his presence, and those who were privileged with his acquaintance had no uncertainty in the matter, since his age, his length of service, his fidelity, and the difficulties with which he daily contended, formed the main subjects of his conversation.