There lay their father, all the irritable marks of human frailty smoothed away, and the grand outline and long beard giving him a likeness to some kingly monument. The twins held by each other, their grief almost overpowered by shrinking awe. Jack frowned and set his mouth hard, and wrung Cherry’s hand in his stress of feeling till he almost crushed it, while Cheriton stood quite still and calm by Alvar’s side.
“Let us pray,” said Mr Ellesmere; and as they all knelt down he repeated the Lord’s Prayer, and such other words as came to him.
When they rose up again Cheriton bent down and kissed his father’s brow, and one by one the younger ones followed his example. Only Alvar stood still, till Cheriton turned to him, and taking his hand, with a look that Mr Ellesmere never forgot, drew him forward.
Alvar obeyed him, but as his lips touched his father’s face the thought suddenly struck Cheriton that it must have been for the first time—that never, even in babyhood, had a caress passed between the father and son; and then, in contrast, he thought of himself, and the grief, hitherto unrealised, broke forth at last. He hid his face in his hands, and hurried out of the room into his own, away from them all.
Part IV.
The Squire of Oakby.
“A lord of fat prize oxen and of sheep,
A raiser of huge melons and of pines,
A patron of some thirty charities,
A quarter-sessions chairman.”
The Squire of Oakby.
“A lord of fat prize oxen and of sheep,
A raiser of huge melons and of pines,
A patron of some thirty charities,
A quarter-sessions chairman.”