paid by Athens to the sword that slew the Pisistratid.




CHAPTER II.

"My only books
Were woman's looks,
And folly all they taught me."


The Count bore his honors very calmly, though every week some fresh feat
of bodily strength or daring kept adding to his popularity. It was no
slight temptation to his vanity; for, as some one has said truly, no
successful adventurer in after-life ever wins such undivided admiration
and hearty partisans as a school hero. The _prestige_ of the liberator
among the Irish peasantry comes nearest to it, I think; or the feeling
of a clan, a hundred years ago, toward their chief. It must be very
pleasant to be quoted so incessantly and believed in so implicitly, and
to know that your decisions are so absolutely without appeal. From that
first day when he interfered in my favor, Guy never ceased to accord me
the ægis of his protection, and it served me well; for, then as now, I
was strong neither in body nor nerve. Yet our tastes, save in one
respect, were as dissimilar as can be imagined. The solitary conformity
was, that we were both, in a desultory way, fond of reading, and our
favorite books were the same. Neither would do more school-work than was
absolutely necessary, but at light literature of a certain class we read
hard.