Boys on the egg-trail
are not wont to pay much attention to the features of the country;
but Hubert remembered that at a certain meadow-gate he had always
rested for a moment to view the valley, some mute presage of things
unimagined stirring at his heart. Was it even then nineteenth
century? Not for him, seeing that the life of each of us reproduces
the successive ages of the world. Belwick, roaring a few miles away,
was but an isolated black patch on the earth's beauty, not, as he
now understood it, a malignant cancer-spot, spreading day by day,
corrupting, an augury of death. In those days it had seemed fast in
the order of things that Wanley Manor should be his home through
life; how otherwise? Was it not the abiding-place of the Eldons from
of old? Who had ever hinted at revolution? He knew now that
revolution had been at work from an earlier time than that; whilst
he played and rambled with his brother the framework of their life
was crumbling about them. Belwick was already throwing a shadow upon
Wanley. And now behold! he stood at the old gate, rested his hands
where they had been wont to rest, turned his eyes in the familiar
direction; no longer a mere shadow, there was Belwick itself.
His heart was hot with outraged affection, with injured pride. On
the scarcely closed grave of that passion which had flamed through
so brief a life sprang up the flower of natural tenderness,
infinitely sweet and precious.
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