Chapter Five.
Leaving the Nest.
“I’ve kept old ways, and loved old friends,
Till, one by one, they’ve slipped away;
Stand where we will, cling as we like,
There’s none but God can be our stay.
’Tis only by our hold on Him
We keep a hold on those who pass
Out of our sight across the seas,
Or underneath the churchyard grass.”
Isabella Fyvie Mayo.
Carlisle, April the 5th, 1744 or 5.
I really feel that I must put a date to my writing now, when this is the first time of my going out into the great world. I have never been beyond Carlisle before, and now I am going, first into a new country, and then to London itself, if all go well.
News came last night, just before we started, that my Lord Orford is dead—he that was Sir Robert Walpole, and the Elector’s Prime Minister. Father says his death is a good thing for the country, for it gives more hope that the King may come by his own. I don’t know what would happen if he did. I suppose it would not make much difference to us. Indeed, I rather wish things would not happen, for the things that happen are so often disagreeable ones. I said so this evening, and Mr Keith smiled, and answered, “You are young to have reached that conviction, Miss Caroline.”
“Oh, rubbish!” said Angus. “Only old women talk so!”
“Angus, will you please tell me,” said I, “whether young men have generally more sense than old women?”
“Of course they have!” replied he.