“It was no tiger at all—that was the joke of the thing,” said the major. “Everyone roared with laughter when the brute—a great lumbering, floundering hyena, rushed into the daylight.”

“And what became of the man-eater?” asked Mark, looking disappointed.

“Lost in the jungle till it was safe to come out and go on with his delicate meals.”

“Just imagine that horrible growl behind you when you didn’t suspect it.”

“By George! for a young lady,” said the major, “you have an imagination! Too much of that, you know, won’t make you a good hunter of tigers.”

“Then perhaps you own your coolness to lack of imagination?” suggested Hester.

“Perhaps so. Perhaps after all,” returned the major with a merry twinkle in his eye, “we hunters are but a set of stupid fellows—too stupid to be frightened.”

“I didn’t mean that exactly. I think that perhaps you do not know so well as you might where your courage comes from. For my part I would rather be courageous to help the good than to destroy the bad.”

“Ah, but we’re not all good enough ourselves for that,” said the major with a serious expression, looking at her out of his clear eyes, from which their habitual twinkle of fun had for the moment vanished. “Some of us are only fit to destroy what is yet worse than ourselves.”

“To be sure we can’t make anything,” said Hester thoughtfully, “but we can help God to make. To destroy evil things is good, but the worst things can only be destroyed by being good, and that is so hard!”

“It is hard,” said the major—“so hard that most people never try it!” he added with a sigh and a gulp of his wine.

Mrs. Raymount rose, and with Hester and the children, withdrew. After they were gone the major rattled on again, his host putting in a word now and then, while Vavasor sat silently with an expression that seemed to say, “I am amused, but I don’t eat all that is put on my plate.”

19. A Walk Along the River

—Nineteen —

A Walk Along the River

The major had taken a strong fancy to Hester, and during the whole of his visit kept as near her as he could, much to the annoyance of Vavasor. Doubtless it was, in part, to keep the major from her that he himself sought her, for there was a natural repulsion between the two men. Vavasor thought the major a most objectionable, indeed low fellow, a vulgar braggart, and the major thought Vavasor a supercillious idiot. It is curious how differently a man’s character will be read by two people in the same company. If you like a man, you will judge him with more or less fairness. If you dislike him, you cannot fail to judge him unjustly.