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, a^ 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, prefeiTed 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, 

 [58] 



