These rapid fluctuations of the baron's physiognomy--the habitual,
reckless, resolute merriment in the jovial face of the friar,--
and the cheerful, elastic spirits that played on the lips
and sparkled in the eyes of Matilda,--would have presented
a very amusing combination to Sir Ralph, if one of the three
images in the group had not absorbed his total attention
with feelings of intense delight very nearly allied to pain.
The baron's wrath was somewhat counteracted by the reflection
that his daughter's good spirits seemed to show that they
would naturally rise triumphant over all disappointments;
and he had had sufficient experience of her humour to know
that she might sometimes be led, but never could be driven.
Then, too, he was always delighted to hear her sing, though he was
not at all pleased in this instance with the subject of her song.
Still he would have endured the subject for the sake of the melody
of the treble, but his mind was not sufficiently attuned to unison
to relish the harmony of the bass. The friar's accompaniment
put him out of all patience, and--"So," he exclaimed, "this is
the way, you teach my daughter to renounce the devil, is it?
A hunting friar, truly! Who ever heard before of a hunting friar?
A profane, roaring, bawling, bumper-bibbing, neck-breaking,
catch-singing friar?"
"Under favour, bold baron," said the friar; but the friar was warm
with canary, and in his singing vein; and he could not go on in plain
unmusical prose.
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