It was a wise and
knowing eye. It was trained to many things--like one servant in a large
family. One side of his face was solemn, because of the gay but
unchanging blue eye, the other was gravely humourous, shrewdly playful.
His fellow citizens respected him; so much so, that they intended to give
him an office in the new-formed corporation; which means that he had
courage and downrightness, and that the rough, straightforward gospel of
the West was properly interpreted by him.
If a stranger came to the place, Phil was sent first to reconnoitre; if
any function was desirable, Phil was requested to arrange it; if justice
was to be meted out, Phil's opinion had considerable weight--for he had
much greater leisure than other more prosperous men; if a man was taken
ill (this was in the days before a doctor came), Phil was asked to
declare if he would "shy from the finish."
I heard Roscoe more than once declare that Phil was as good as two
curates to him. Not that Phil was at all pious, nor yet possessed of
those abstemious qualities in language and appetite by which good men are
known; but he had a gift of civic virtue--important in a wicked world,
and of unusual importance in Viking.
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