My Friend Prospero

  I

  Pacing together backwards and forwards, as they talked, John and hisfriend Winthorpe presented a striking and perhaps interesting contrast.John was tall, but Winthorpe seemed a good deal taller--though, (triflesin these matters looming so large), had actual measurements been taken,I dare say half an inch would have covered the difference. John was leanand sinewy, but rounded off at the joints, and of a pliant carriage, sothat it never occurred to you to think of him as _thin_. Winthorpe'sspare figure, spare and angular, with its greater height, heldunswervingly to the plane of the perpendicular, appeared absolutely tobe constructed of nothing but bone and tendon. John's head, with itsyellow hair, its curly beard verging towards red, its pink skin, andblue eyes full of laughter, might have served a painter as a model forthe head of Mirth. Winthorpe's,--with brown hair cropped close, andshowing the white of the scalp; clean-shaven, but of a steely tint wherethe razor had passed; with a marked jaw-bone and a salient square chin;with a high-bridged determined nose, and a white forehead risingvertical over thick black eyebrows, and rather deep-set greyeyes,--well, clap a steeple-crowned hat upon it, and you could haveposed him for one of his own Puritan ancestors. The very clothes of themen carried on their unlikeness,--John's loose blue flannels and redsailor's knot, careless-seeming, but smart in their effect, and showinghim careful in a fashion of his own; Winthorpe's black tie and darktweeds, as correct as Savile Row could turn them out, yet somehow, bythe way he wore them, proclaiming him immediately a man who never gavetwo thoughts to his dress. If, however, Winthorpe's face was the face ofa Puritan, it was the face of a Puritan with a sense of humour--thelines about the mouth were clearly the footprints of smiles. It seemedthe face of a sensitive Puritan, as well, and (maugre that high-bridgednose) of a gentle--the light in his clear grey eyes was a kindly andgentle light. After all, Governor Bradford, as his writingsshow,--though he tried hard, perhaps, not to let them show it--was aPuritan with a sense of humour; John Alden and Priscilla were surelysensitive and gentle: and Winthorpe was descended from GovernorBradford, and from John Alden and Priscilla. The two friends walkedbackwards and forwards in the great open space before the Castle, andtalked. They had not met for nearly two years, and had plenty to talkabout.