Then view St. David’s ruin’d pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair!’
‘Bravo, Eric!’ said Hermione. ‘I had no idea you had such poetical leanings. Do they examine in modern verse and elocution at Cambridge? [398] ]I didn’t know they taught anything but Greek and Latin.’
‘Didn’t you?’ replied her brother. ‘Perhaps you would like to enter next term?’
‘I shouldn’t mind,’ returned the young lady; ‘only it’s rather late in life to begin. If I thought I’d pull off the classic tripos, as Hypatia Tollemache did, it might be worth while. One girl did—an Australian, too—a year or two back. I forget her name now. Oh, listen! wasn’t that an owl? Let no one talk for five minutes, until “the distant Tweed is heard to rave.” There it is; you can hear it quite plainly now.’
The night was free from slightest breeze; no sound broke the air but the weird, occasional cry of the night bird.
‘I hear the Tweed,’ said Corisande suddenly, as the ripple of the river over the shallows of the upper stream came faintly but distinctly on the ear. ‘What a solemn rhythm it has! We shall never forget this night, shall we? I feel drawn so much nearer to dear Sir Walter, and to think that he should no sooner have built and planted this lovely place, decorated, beautified it—loved it, and benefited every one within his reach, than the great brain and the great heart wore out.’
‘Which exhibits the vanity of human wishes,’ said Mr. Banneret musingly. ‘His great aim was to found a family, and that his children’s children should inhabit Abbotsford after him.’
‘A very worthy ambition, sir,’ said Reggie, ‘which I trust other heads of families will bear in mind, and, not being poets and novelists, will be [399] ]wise in time, and neither over-build nor over-speculate until they have provided for the rising generation.’