length for transport to the cover of the tomb.

Now Captain Con was by nature ruddy as an Indian summer flushed in all
its leaves. The corners of his face had everywhere a frank ambush, or
child's hiding-place, for languages and laughter. He could worm with a
smile quite his own the humour out of men possessing any; and even under
rigorous law, and it could not be disputed that there was rigour in the
beneficent laws imposed upon him by his wife, his genius for humour and
passion for sly independence came up and curled away like the smoke of
the illicit still, wherein the fanciful discern fine sprites indulging in
luxurious grimaces at a government long-nosed to no purpose. Perhaps, as
Patrick said of him to Caroline Adister, he was a bard without a theme.
He certainly was a man of speech, and the having fearfully to contain
himself for the greater number of the hours of the day, for the
preservation of the domestic felicity he had learnt to value, fathered
the sentiment of revolt in his bosom.

By this time, long after five minutes had elapsed, the frost presiding
at the table was fast withering Captain Con; and he was irritable to hear
why Patrick had gone off to Earlsfont, and what he had done there, and
the adventures he had tasted on the road; anything for warmth. His
efforts to fish the word out of Patrick produced deeper crevasses in the
conversation, and he cried to himself: Hats and crape-bands! mightily
struck by an idea that he and his cousins were a party of hired mourners
over the meat they consumed. Patrick was endeavouring to spare his
brother a mention of Earlsfont before they had private talk together.
He answered neither to a dip of the hook nor to a pull.

'The desert where you 've come from 's good,' said the captain, sharply
nodding.