This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen
and David Widger
The century has advanced. The rush of the deluge has ebbed back; the oldlandmarks have reappeared; the dynasties Napoleon willed into life havecrumbled to the dust; the plough has passed over Waterloo; autumn afterautumn the harvests have glittered on that grave of an empire. Throughthe immense ocean of universal change we look back on the single trackwhich our frail boat has cut through the waste. As a star shinesimpartially over the measureless expanse, though it seems to gild but onebroken line into each eye, so, as our memory gazes on the past, the lightspreads not over all the breadth of the waste where nations have battledand argosies gone down,—it falls narrow and confined along the singlecourse we have taken; we lean over the small raft on which we float, andsee the sparkles but reflected from the waves that it divides.
On the terrace at Laughton but one step paces slowly. The bride clingsnot now to the bridegroom's arm. Though pale and worn, it is still thesame gentle face; but the blush of woman's love has gone from itevermore.
Charles Vernon (to call him still by the name in which he is best knownto us) sleeps in the vault of the St. Johns. He had lived longer than hehimself had expected, than his physician had hoped,—lived, cheerful andhappy, amidst quiet pursuits and innocent excitements. Three sons hadblessed his hearth, to mourn over his grave. But the two elder weredelicate and sickly. They did not long survive him, and died within afew months of each other. The third seemed formed of a different mouldand constitution from his brethren. To him descended the ancientheritage of Laughton, and he promised to enjoy it long.
It is Vernon's widow who walks alone in the stately terrace; sad still,for she loved well the choice of her youth, and she misses yet thechildren in the grave. From the date of Vernon's death, she woremourning without and within; and the sorrows that came later broke morethe bruised reed,—sad still, but resigned. One son survives, and earthyet has the troubled hopes and the holy fears of affection. Though thatson be afar, in sport or in earnest, in pleasure or in toil, working outhis destiny as man, still that step is less solitary than it seems. Whendoes the son's image not walk beside the mother? Though she lives inseclusion, though the gay world tempts no more, the gay world is yetlinked to her thoughts. From the distance she hears its murmurs inmusic. Her fancy still mingles with the crowd, and follows on, to hereye, outshining all the rest. Never vain in herself, she is vain now ofanother; and the small triumphs of the young and well-born seem trophiesof renown to the eyes so tenderly deceived.
In the old-fashioned market-town still the business goes on, still thedoors of the bank open and close every moment on the great day of theweek; but the names over the threshold are partially changed. The juniorpartner is busy no more at the desk; not wholly forgotten, if his namestill is spoken, it is not with thankfulness and praise. A somethingrests on the name,—that something which dims and attaints; not proven,not certain, but suspected and dubious. The head shakes, the voicewhispers; and the attorney now lives in the solid red house at the vergeof the town.
In the vicarage, Time, the old scythe-bearer, has not paused from hiswork. Still employed on Greek texts, little changed, save that his hairis gray and that some lines in his kindly face tell of sorrows as ofyears, the vicar sits in his parlour; but the ch