gret took it very quietly, seeing her father flaming so. But
Margret never had any opinions to express. She was not like the
Parnells: they were noted for their clear judgment. Mrs. Howth was a
Parnell.

"The combat deepens,--on, ye brave!"

The Doctor's fat, leathery face was quite red now, and his sentences
were hurled out in a sarcastic bass, enough to wither the marrow of a
weak man. But the school-master was no weak man. His foot was entirely
on his native heath, I assure you. He knew every inch of the ground,
from the domination of the absolute faith in the ages of Fetichism, to
its pseudo-presentment in the tenth century, and its actual subversion
in the nineteenth. Every step. Our politicians might have picked up an
idea or two there, I should think! Then he was so cool about it, so
skilful! He fairly rubbed his hands with glee, enjoying the combat.
And he was so sure that the Doctor was savagely in earnest: why, any
one with half an ear could hear that! He did not see how, in the very
heat of the fray, his eyes would wander off listlessly. But Mr. Howth
did not wander; there was nothing careless or two-sided in the making
of this man,--no sham about him, or borrowing. They came down
gradually, or out,--for, as I told you, they dug into the very heart of
the matter at first,--they came out gradually to modern times. Things
began to assume a more familiar aspect. Spinoza, Fichte, Saint
Simon,--one heard about them now. If you could but have heard the
school-master deal with these his enemies! With what tender charity
for the man, what relentless vengeance for the belief, he pounced on
them, dragging the soul out of their systems, holding it up for slow
slaughter! As for Humanity, (how Knowles lingered on that word, with a
tenderness curious in so uncouth a mass of flesh!)--as for Humanity, it
was a study to see it stripped and flouted and thrown out of doors like
a filthy rag by this poor old Howth, a man too child-hearted to kill a
spider. It was pleasanter to hear him when he defended the great Past
in which his ideal truth had been faintly shadowed. How he caught the
salient tints of the feudal life! How the fine womanly nature of the
man rose exulting in the free picturesque glow of the day of crusader
and heroic deed! How he crowded in traits of perfected manhood in the
conqueror, simple trust in the serf, to colour and weaken his argument,
not seeing that he weakened it! How, when h