CHAPTER XVI.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1604, 14 October 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XVI.

Fatluer Ormonde was unmistakeably an Irishman, and as unmistakably one who had received the polish of a Continental education. Somewhat below the middle height, he had a thin, aquiline nose, a ,d&tlf grey eye, and a firm, thin-lipped mouth.' His low, musical tones had a slightly foreign accent, and when, on learning that I understood Italian, he betook himself to that language, he spoke ifc with perfect ease and fluency. " Now, my enemy," he said to the Count, "are you prepared to resume the battle? Have you cracked the hard nuts I gave yqu yesterday? We have been disoussing the nature of Conscience," he added, turning to me. " Count Giustiniani denies that it is an inherent faculty. He asserts it to be merely an acquired standard of conduct; but I flatter myself that I yesterday gave his theory some • ( parl®us knocks,' as Shakespere has it.", "You do flatter yourself in thinking bo," said the .Count ; " but I will not answer you to-day. Mr. Raymond is a friend whom I have ndt seen for more than twenty years, and we have much •to say te each other at present, though I have no doubt he will hereafter make- an effective third in our discussions. To the besf'of my recollection, his 'opinions on matters ethical and 'theological occupy an < intermediate position to the poles of Ormonde jmd Giustiniani." „, " ,' "I am all' 'the more, glad to make Mr. Raymond's- acquaintance," said the priest, "and I nothing 'doubt that I shall be able to remove Iris' uncertainty." '• v > i r< A You have no rightto aßSume uncertainty," 'Said the Count.; " Theposition he trite up 1 , 'th'ougbftt 'lie- between yours and mine,' is not necessarily) therefore, "one of c6rhpromise. It maybe sui gendrit, andprove'thymqsfrimpregnable of the three. 'In medio,' <fee. — you /in thei meantime^ where is la signoiirimisms 'iMpfaracable; 'daughter, "of an impraofajmßfil

"1 cannot say that I do," said the Count ; " but we caiv judge better when they are side by side. " Well, yes," ho went on, when the young people had been summoned from the garden and Walter placed beside me. " There is a likeness, though 'not a very striking one." " I think it is quite remarkakle," said the priest, " and the more I look at them the more evident it appears. Well, Signorina, since I cannot return to the attack on your father to-day, I will break a lance with you." " Come into the garden, then," said Signorina Giustiniani. " Mr. Addisonwili come too, and you.will no doubt find him a foeman worthy of your steel." " You seem to be very intimate with this priest," I said to the Count, when the three had left the room. " Have you then modified your opinion of the clerical profession ?" " Not a jot," he replied. "My opinion of the profession is just whatit always was ; but J I never held that it did not embrace good men in its ranfts, and this Father Ormonde is essentially a good man. He is ardent and sincere in his belief, and labours hard to turn me from what he considers the error of my ways. Nature made him a polemic, as she made me a sceptic, so that we scarcely ever meet without an argument. Nevertheless, I like and respect the man, however much I may despise and abhor the system which he represents. But, enough of that ; you have not told me yet how you come to be in Australia. You will have heard from Walter, I daresay, what has brought vie here — my magnum oints on ethnology." The mention of ethnology recalled our adventure with ihe blacks, and, rightly judging that such an occurrence would strongly interest such a student of savage man as the Count, I described it to him at length. " These fellows displayed unusual determination," he said, when I had finished; " but Kojonga is a long way to the north, and, as a rule, the further we go in that direction the fiercer and bolder we find the Australian aborigines — witness the ferocity of the blacks of tropical Australia. And now we'll go into the courtyard and have a cigar while the others are chopping logic in the garden." " You seem to be very argumentatively disposed in this house," I remarked, as we stood smoking by the fountain. "Perhaps too much so," said the Count; " but you know what I am, and how much my opinions Tire likely to clash with those of a zealous upholder of authority in matters of belief. Then, as I have said already, Father Ormonde is a born polemic ; he dearly loves an intellectual battle, while my daughter, whose opinions incline towards your Protestant form of faith, is quite capable of holding her own with him on that score. Thus, you see, with Paola he can have a fight over religion in the concrete, while with me he is never tired oE arguing the broader questions which underlie all religions alike." " But have you no fears that he may make a convert of your daughter to his faith ?" I asked. The Count turned a 'surprised eye on me. " I thought you lmdw me better than your question would imply," he said. " I have no objection in the world to his doing so, if ho can. Most men and women are all the better for believing in somo one or other of these Christian creeds. Which — it matters little, for they all provide a simple and obvious inducement to morality — the fear of future punishment for a want of it ! But here come the others. Well, Walter, have you taken part in the war of words, or have you been only an edified listener ?" "A listener for the most part," said Walter. " I struck a blow now and then on Miss Giustiniani's behalf, but she seems •to be quite a match for Father Ormonde without assistance." " I fear I had rather the worst of the argument to-day, though," said Paola. " Nay, my dear young lady !" said the priest — " argument is not your weak point : but I wish you had a little more of that feminine intuition which would enable you to perceive the right 1" "You assume that you are right, thenf' laughed Paola. " That is what hiy father would call a begging of the question !" " Yes," said the Count — " a most undoubted peiitio principii 1 But that is nothing for a cleric ! They all prate of logic," he went on, abstractedly gazing into the basin of the fountain, " when they have deprived themselves of the very right to use the word. Not a man of them — Catholic, Protestant, or what not — but will appeal to your reasoning faculties to support a point which is in its turn intended to bolster up some monstrous religious fable, involving the nullification of reason altogether !" "Well, my good friend," said Father Ormonde, " I cannot stop to answer you to-day ; but when I come again I shall have plenty to say on that point. In the meantime, however, I must take my leave, I have stayed too long already I" " Of course you will take up your quarters here," the Count said to me, when the priest had gone. " I'll send to the hotel for your things." It was so settled, and under the vines that evening I gave the Count a history of the events with which the reader is already acquainted, while in return he told me the story of his marriage. How he had been nurse,d through a long and serious illness at Eome by his landlady and her -daughter, who were members of one of the decayed noble families so common in the Eternal City, and how, finding upon his recovery that the girl had become attached to him, he had married her — only. to lose her after the lapse of a couple'of years. "Paola resembles her mother much," he said, " and has even more of the old Roman type of face and'-figure. I fancy, too, that there is a good deal of the antique Eoman spirit lying beneath her quietness of manner. She differs very much from me in opinions, and I am' not sure that I would wish her to agree with me. The religionists,"' he went on, refleotively, " would snatch at' that as a confession ■of weakness, but they would be wrong — very wrong ! tMy opinions would ba dangerous, unless accepted in their entirety, and as no woman would be likely to so accept them, Paola is better as she is. '