Vanda was overjoyed at the idea of having a new friend more nearly of her own age, and declared that nothing was now wanting to ensure her perfect happiness. Australian friends would be forthcoming to complete the house-party. If the weather was reasonable, the Hexham Hall gathering would be one of the glories of the summer. Why, indeed, should it not be a triumphant success?
The day—the great day—was fine. Such a glowing morn, tempered, as the sun-dial advanced towards mid-day, with the deliciously modified shade of groves which in olden days had seen the ‘green gloom’ of their depths invaded by the gleam of knightly armour. The Banneret girls, who had become accustomed to the sumptuous leafage of the English woodlands, were not so demonstrative as in their first experience.
But to Corisande, retaining only a dim, [363] ]half-childish memory, it was a revelation as of a new heaven, a new earth. The immense girth of bole, the enormous spread of branch of the oaks, in the ‘King’s Chase,’ amazed her. There, indeed, the legend ran, had ‘bluff King Hal’ in person followed the deer. Here, beneath these leafy shades, had he feasted with nobles, courtiers, and ladies fair. In fancy’s ear, with cry of hound and huntsman’s hollo, the gay greenwood rang and re-echoed. What joyous days were those! she thought. How much more colour and light than in this sad-coloured, prosaic age!
This, in their hours of idleness, the young people were prone to imagine, and, indeed, to assert, in hasty generalisation, untempered by experience. On calmer retrospect they were, however, compelled to admit that, in larger outlook, variety of occupation, and the wondrous advance of scientific discovery, the moderns have immeasurably the best of it. If the age no longer affords such romantic situations as when
The Knight looked down from the Paynim Tower,
As a Christian Host, in its pride and power,
Through the pass beneath him wound,
we must admit that the captive with his ‘heavy chain’ despaired of release by those ‘whom he loved with a brother’s heart, those in whose wars he had borne a part, who had left him there to die.’
Sound again, clarion! clarion, pour thy blast!
Sound! for the captive’s dream of hope is past.