Cashel Byron's Profession

Lydia, with Mrs. Byron's charm fresh upon her, wondered what manner

of woman this Mrs. Skene could be who had supplanted her in the

affections of her son, and yet was no more than a prize-fighter's

old missis. Evidently she was not one to turn a young man from a

career in the ring. Again the theme of Cashel's occupation and the

chances of his quitting it ran away with Lydia's attention. She sat

with her eyes fixed on the arena, without seeing the soldiers,

swordsmen, or athletes who were busy there; her mind wandered

further and further from the place; and the chattering of the people

resolved itself into a distant hum and was forgotten.

Suddenly she saw a dreadful-looking man coming towards her across

the arena. His face had the surface and color of blue granite; his

protruding jaws and retreating forehead were like those of an

orang-outang. She started from her reverie with a shiver, and,

recovering her hearing as well as her vision of external things,

became conscious of an attempt to applaud this apparition by a few

persons below. The man grinned ferociously, placed one hand on a

stake of the ring, and vaulted over the ropes. Lydia now remarked

that, excepting his hideous head and enormous hands and feet, he was

a well-made man, with loins and shoulders that shone in the light,

and gave him an air of great strength and activity.

"Ain't he a picture?" she heard Mellish exclaim, ecstatically.

"There's condition for you!"

"Ah!" said Skene, disparagingly. "But ain't HE the gentleman! Just

look at him. It's like the Prince of Wales walking down Pall Mall."

Lydia, hearing this, looked again, and saw Cashel Byron, exactly as

she had seen him for the first time in the elm vista at Wiltstoken,

approaching the ring with the indifferent air of a man going through

some tedious public ceremony.

"A god coming down to compete with a gladiator," whispered Lord

Worthington, eagerly. "Isn't it, Miss Carew? Apollo and the satyr!

You must admit that our mutual friend is a splendid-looking fellow.

If he could go into society like that, by Jove, the women--"

"Hush," said Lydia, as if his words were intolerable.

Cashel did not vault over the ropes. He stepped through them

languidly, and, rejecting the proffered assistance of a couple of

officious friends, drew on a boxing-glove fastidiously, like an

exquisite preparing for a fashionable promenade. Having thus muffled

his left hand so as to make it useless for the same service to his

right, he dipped his fingers into the other glove, gripped it

between his teeth, and dragged it on with the action of a tiger

tearing its prey. Lydia shuddered again.