CHAPTER II.

RICHARD AND HIS FATHER.





Richard Heywood, as to bodily fashion, was a tall and already
powerful youth. The clear brown of his complexion spoke of plentiful
sunshine and air. A merry sparkle in the depths of his hazel eyes
relieved the shadows of rather notably heavy lids, themselves
heavily overbrowed--with a suggestion of character which had not
yet asserted itself to those who knew him best. Correspondingly, his
nose, although of a Greek type, was more notable for substance than
clearness of line or modelling; while his lips had a boyish fulness
along with a definiteness of bow-like curve, which manly resolve had
not yet begun to compress and straighten out. His chin was at least
large enough not to contradict the promise of his face; his
shoulders were square, and his chest and limbs well developed:
altogether it was at present a fair tabernacle--of whatever sort the
indwelling divinity might yet turn out, fashioning it further after
his own nature.

His father and he were the only male descendants of an old Monmouthshire
family, of neither Welsh nor Norman, but as pure Saxon blood as might be
had within the clip of the ocean. Roger, the father, had once only or
twice in his lifetime been heard boast, in humorous fashion, that