Grace had reason to pray at least, for the soldiers who were going
to the war. For as she prayed, the Orinoco, Ripon, and Manilla, were
steaming down Southampton Water, with the Guards on board; and but
that morning little Lord Scoutbush, left behind at the depot, had bid
farewell to his best friend, opposite Buckingham Palace, while the
bearskins were on the bayonet-points, with--
"Well, old fellow, you have the fun, after all, and I the work;" and
had been answered with--
"Fun? there will be no fighting; and I shall only have lost my season
in town."
Was there, then, no man among them that day, who
"As the trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
Heard in the wild March morning the angels call his soul"?
* * * * *
Verily they are gone down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of
heroes.
CHAPTER III.
ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE.
Penalva Court, about half a mile from the quay, is "like a house in a
story;"--a house of seven gables, and those very shaky ones; a house
of useless long passages, useless turrets, vast lumber attics where
maids see ghosts, lofty garden and yard walls of grey stone, round
which the wind and rain are lashing through the dreary darkness; low
oak-ribbed ceilings; windows which once were mullioned with stone, but
now with wood painted white; walls which were once oak-wainscot,
but have been painted like the mullions, to the disgust of Elsley
Vavasour, poet, its occupant in March 1854, who forgot that, while the
oak was left dark, no man could have seen to read in the rooms a yard
from the window.
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