CHAPTER V.
A RAILWAY JOURNEY
The country homes of old England, standing amid their ancestral trees, what visions of quiet happiness do they recall to my mind! Memory loves to linger before thy hospitable portal, oh, Rookwood! and hear once more the kindly greeting of the amiable and affectionate family, some of whose members, alas! now sleep their last sleep—the others are dead, at least to me; for
“The absent are the dead, for they are cold,
And ne’er can we what once we did behold;
And they are changed—”
Far more so, than the departed, who ever watch us with their loving eyes, changeless, immortal.
A verdant spot in life’s desert was that dear home to me, whose halls ever resounded with the cheerful laughter of its happy and beloved inmates—the sisters all that women ought to be—the brothers, noble, manly, and gallant as the knights of old—the venerable father, indulgent, yet firm as a rock—the mother, whom I never knew, excepting by her portrait, a lovely countenance, gentle and tender as a Madonna of Raphael.
Each nook and dell of that fair Park is engraven on my heart of hearts. On this grassy slope, I walked with Mary, as she bent her steps toward the village, where the poor awaited her with blessings. In yonder pleasant path, Anne, the wit of the family, almost killed me with laughter. On that gently-rising eminence, the hounds threw off—and there, after a hard day’s run, William, the eldest son, who was ever in at the death, presented my delighted self with the brush. Under the shade of those wavy beeches, which every moment strewed their leaves in our path, did the graceful and chivalrous George teach the timid school girl to ride, or rather, to manage her rein; he was a very Bayard on horseback, and a kind horse-master to boot. He loved to see the noble animals well and judiciously treated, whether on the road or in the stable. I remember a saying he had, which amused us all immensely—it was this: