"Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung,"
and the tints of which seemed all brown or gray as we saw them through the vapour exhaled in summer from the Ægean Sea, with their little white villages shadowed by trees, their rocks like sea-walls, crowned here and there by the columns, solitary and desolate, of some temple devoted to the gods of other days--"a country rich in historic reminiscence, but poor as Sahara in everything else."
And so on by Malta and old Gib; and exactly fourteen days after leaving the former we were cleaving the muddy bosom of Father Thames; and that night saw me in my old room at "the Rag," with the dull roar of mighty London in my ears; and after the rapid travelling I went to sleep, as addled as a fly could be in a drum.
[CHAPTER LVIII.--HOME.]
The comfort and splendour of the fashionable club-house, the tall mirrors, the gilded cornices, the soft carpets, the massive furniture, the powdered and liveried waiters gliding noiselessly about, all impressed me with a high sense of the intense snugness of England and of home, after my airy tent, with its embankment of earth for shelter, its smoky funnel of mess-tins, and the tiny trench cut round it to carry away the rainwater. Then I was discussing a breakfast which, after my Crimean experience, seemed a feast fit for Lucullus or Apicius, and listening with something of a smile to the rather loud conversation of some members of the club--wiry old Peninsulars, Waterloo and India men, who were certain "the service was going to the devil," and who drew somewhat disparaging comparisons between the way matters had been conducted by our generals and those of the war under Sir John Moore, Lynedoch, Hill, and "the Iron Duke;" and to me it seemed that the old fellows were right, and that after forty years of peace we had learned nothing new in the art of campaigning.
"Captain Hardinge, a gentleman for you, sir," said a waiter, presenting me with a card on a silver salver; and I had barely time to look at it ere Sir Madoc Lloyd, in top-boots and corded breeches as usual--his ruddy sunburnt face, his white hair and sparkling dark eyes, in his cheery breezy way the same as ever--entered, hat and whip in hand, and welcomed me home so warmly, that for a moment he drew the eyes of all in the room upon us. He had breakfasted two hours before--country time--and had a canter round the Park. He was in town on Parliamentary business, but was starting that afternoon for Craigaderyn. I should accompany him, of course, he added, in his hearty impetuous way. Then ere I could speak,--
"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "Poor Harry! till I have seen you I could not realise the idea of your being mutilated thus! No more hunting, no more shooting, no more fishing----"
"And no more dancing, the ladies would add," said I, smiling.
"And no more soldiering."
"Unless the Queen kindly permits me."