It was precisely the pride of the mighty hunter in his first kill; for Coplestone was big game in his way, and even of a leonine countenance, with his crested wave of tawny hair and his clear sunburnt skin. In early life, as an incomparable oar, he had made a name which still had a way of creeping into the sporting papers; and at forty the same fine figure and untarnished face were a walking advertisement of virtue. But now he had also the grim eyes and stubborn jaw of the man who has faced big trouble; he wore sombre ties that suggested the kind of trouble it had been; and he settled down among us to a solitude only broken in the holidays of his only child, then a boy of twelve at a preparatory school. I first heard of the boy's existence when Coplestone chose the papers for his house. Anything seemed good enough for the "three reception-rooms and usual offices"; but over a bedroom and a play room on the first floor we were an hour deciding against every pattern in the books, and then on the exact self-colour to be obtained elsewhere.
