I lifted Lucy from the carriage, and passing my arm around her, was assisting her to mount the steps, when a bright gleam of moonlight burst forth and lit up the whole scene. It was, indeed, an impressive one. Among the assembled hundreds there who stood bare-headed, beneath the cold moonlight, not a word was now spoken, not a whisper heard. I turned from the lawn, where the tall beech-trees were throwing their gigantic shadows, to where the river, peering at intervals through the foliage, was flowing on its silvery track, plashing amidst the tall flaggers that lined its banks,—all were familiar, all were dear to me from childhood. How doubly were they so now! I lifted up my eyes towards the door, and what was my surprise at the object before them! Seated in a large chair was an old man, whose white hair, flowing in straggling masses upon his neck and shoulders, stirred with the night air; his hands rested upon his knees, and his eyes, turned slightly upward, seemed to seek for some one he found it difficult to recognize. Changed as he was by time, heavily as years had done their work upon him, the stern features were not to be mistaken; but as I looked, he called out in a voice whose unshaken firmness seemed to defy the touch of time,—
“Charley O’Malley, come here, my boy! Bring her to me, till I bless you both. Come here, Lucy,—I may call you so. Come here, my children. I have tried to live on to see this day, when the head of an old house comes back with honor, with fame, and with fortune, to dwell amidst his own people in the old home of his fathers.”
The old man bent above us, his white hair falling upon the fair locks of her who knelt beside him, and pressed his cold and quivering hand within her own.
“Yes, Lucy,” said I, as I led her within the house, “this is home.”
Here now ends my story. The patient reader who has followed me so far deserves at my hands that I should not trespass upon his kindness one moment beyond the necessity; if, however, any lurking interest may remain for some of those who have accompanied me through this my history, it may be as well that I should say a few words farther, ere they disappear forever.
Power went to India immediately after his marriage, distinguished himself repeatedly in the Burmese war, and finally rose to a high command that he this moment holds, with honor to himself and advantage to his country.
O’Shaughnessy, on half-pay, wanders about the Continent, passing his summers on the Rhine, his winters at Florence or Geneva. Known to and by everybody, his interest in the service keeps him au courant to every change and regulation, rendering him an invaluable companion to all to whom an army list is inaccessible. He is the same good fellow he ever was, and adds to his many excellent qualities the additional one of being the only man who can make a bull in French!
Monsoon, the major, when last I saw him, was standing on the pier at Calais, endeavoring, with a cheap telescope, to make out the Dover cliffs, from a nearer prospect of which certain little family circumstances might possibly debar him. He recognized me in a moment, and held out his hand, while his eye twinkled with its ancient drollery.
“Charley, my son, how goes it? Delighted to see you. What a pity I did not meet you yesterday! Had a little dinner at Crillon’s. Harding, Vivian, and a few others. They all wished for you; ‘pon my life they did.”
“Civil, certainly,” thought I, “as I have not the honor of being known to them.”