CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



indeed would they come all flying back upon their 

 strong instinct, like black-sailed barks before the wind, 

 some from the depth of far-off fir-woods, where they 

 had lain quaking at the ceaseless cannonade, some 

 from the furrows of the new-brairded fields aloof on 

 the uplands, some from deep dell close at hand, and 

 some from the middle of the moorish wilderness. 



Happiest of all human homes, beautiful Craig- 

 Hall! For so even now dost thou appear to be in 

 the rich, deep, mellow, green light of imagination 

 trembling on tower and tree art thou yet undilapi- 

 dated and undecayed, in thy old manorial solemnity 

 almost majestical, though even then thou hadst long 

 been tenanted but by a humble farmer's family peo- 

 ple of low degree? The evening-festival of the First 

 Day of the Rooks nay, scoff not at such an anni- 

 versary was still held in thy ample kitchen of old 

 the bower of brave lords and ladies bright while 

 the harper, as he sung his song of love or war, kept 

 his eyes fixed on her who sat beneath the deas. The 

 days of chivalry were gone and the days had come 

 of curds and cream, and, preferred by some people 

 though not by us, of cream-cheese. Old men and old 

 women, widowers and widows, yet all alike cheerful 

 and chatty at a great age, for often as they near the 

 dead, how more lifelike seem the living! Middle-aged 

 men and middle-aged women, husbands and wives, 

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