"You are wonderfully correct, my lord. Cuthbert and Charles are shooting pheasants in the wood, and Mr. Ravenshoe is with them on his pony. If you will walk with me, we shall meet them."
So the grand old eagle and the pretty sweet-voiced robin passed out on to the terrace, and stood looking together, under the dull December sky, at the whispering surges. Right and left the misty headlands seemed to float on the quiet grey sea, which broke in sighs at their feet, as the long majestic ground-swell rolled in from the ocean; and these two stood there for a minute or more without speaking.
"The new school of men," said Lord Saltire at last, looking out to sea, "have perhaps done wisely, in thinking more of scenery and the mere externals of nature than we did. We lived the life of clubs and crowds, and we are going to our places one after another. There are but few left now. These Stephensons and Paxtons are fine men enough. They are fighting inert matter, but we fought the armies of the Philistine. We had no time for botany and that sort of thing; which was unfortunate. You young folks shouldn't laugh at us though."
"I laugh at you!" she said, suddenly and rapidly; "laugh at the giants who warred with the gods. My lord, the men of our time has not shown themselves equal to their fathers."
Lord Saltire laughed.
"No, not yet," she continued; "when the time comes they will. The time has not come yet."
"Not yet, Miss Corby. It will come,—mind the words of a very old man; an old fellow who has seen a confounded deal of the world."
"Are we to have any more wars, Lord Saltire?"
"Wars such as we never dreamt of, young lady."