"And when other nations dispute for recognition with Englishmen, your countrymen have but to point to that consecrated spot and say: 'There is our country's record. It is chiseled there by the old sculptor, Death; go and study it; it will carry you through thirty generations of men; from it you will learn how Englishmen were strong enough, while subduing the world, to subdue themselves; to create to themselves laws and a literature of their own, until they at last held aloft the banners of civilization when nearly all the world beside was dark; there is the record of England's soldiers, statesmen, poets, scholars; read the immortal list, and then if you will, come back and renew the argument.'
"That pile ought to be enough to make every Englishman a true man, a brave man, a gentleman, for to me the names there make the most august scroll ever written.
"Listening within those walls, it seemed to me I could hear mingling all the voices of the mighty dead; the battle-cry of soldiers, the appeals of statesmen; the edicts of kings; the hymns of churchmen, the rhythm of immortal numbers as from poets' harps they were flung off; the glory of a thousand years shone before my eyes; the splendor of almost everything that is immortal in English history was before me.
"That place ought to impress all who visit it with what mortals must do, if they would embalm their memories upon the world.
"You are right to reverence and to feel a solemn joy at that place; it is one of the few real splendors of this old world."
"Forgive me, Mr. Sedgwick," said Rose; "I should have known your thoughts." While she was speaking, Grace, under the lap-robe, pressed her lover's hand.
CHAPTER XIII.
TWO KINDS OF SORROW.
But as June wore away, one day when Jack visited the office of his step-father, he found Stetson there, and was informed by him that some evil-disposed persons were 'bearing' the stock of the Wedge of Gold Company, which was most unfortunate, as it interfered with the arrangements in progress for building the mill.