The scene changes again. Stately buildings appear before us, old courts and cloisters, the gleam of the river. Old familiar sounds ring in our ears: the thud of the oars in the rowlocks, the click of the cricket-bat, the tramp of feet on the football field.
Fair faces pass before us too. We hear the rustle of their dresses, their girlish laughter, their soft voices, we see the bright eyes that look into ours, the rosy lips that murmured words we shall never forget.
There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die!
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And a verse of a sweet old song
Is haunting my memory still:
A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
Where are they all—those friends of other days?
Gone—some dead—all scattered; we have lost sight of most of them. Some are sleeping on distant battlefields or beneath the waves of the hungry sea, some are preaching their message of peace in busy town or quiet village, some fighting with disease and death in the crowded hospitals of great cities, some working their way upwards through dusty law-courts or in foreign lands. But here—in Shadow-Land—they one and all come back to us.
CHAPTER X
CAPODISTRIA
Happy star reign now!
Here comes Bohemia.