What undisciplined, unawakened strength there was in him! how
far such a stride as that would carry him on in life! It was like the tread
of one of his own forefathers in Cromwell's unconquer-able, hymn-singing
armies. She loved to think of him as holding his descent from a line so
pious and so grim: it served to account to her for the quality of stern,
spiritual soldiership that still seemed to be the mastering trait of his
nature. How long would it remain so, was the question that she had often
asked of herself. A fighter in the world he would always be--she felt sure
of that; nor was it necessary to look into his past to obtain this
assurance; one had but to look into his eyes. Moreover, she had little doubt
that with a temper so steadily bent on conflict, he would never suffer
defeat where his own utmost strength was all that was needed to conquer. But
as he grew older, and the world in part conquered him as it conquers so many
of us, would he go into his later battles as he had entered his earlier
ones--to the measure of a sacred chant? Beneath the sweat and wounds of all
his victories would he carry the white lustre of conscience, burning
untarnished in him to the end?
It was this religious purity of his nature and his life, resting upon him as
a mantle visible to all eyes but invisible to him, that had, as she
believed, attracted her to him so powerfully.
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