OR, A KNIGHT OF OUR OWN DAY. BY THE AUTHOR OF "ALICE GODOLPHIN." "Indeed he seems to me Scarce other than my own ideal knight."-TENNYSON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. THA LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1876. [All rights reserved.] 2514 ARTHUR; OR, A KNIGHT OF OUR OWN DAY. CHAPTER I. 'I have no men to govern in this wood, TENNYSON. A PRETTY little Rectory, nestling under the shadow of the South Downs. There are hundreds like it in England, almost too well known to need any particular description. Who cannot picture to himself the long, low, brick house, the colour of the brick picturesquely varied with weatherstains and lichen, and for the most part VOL. I. 1 nearly covered with creepers? The broad, velvety lawn in front, with two or three gay flower-beds, and its one grand horsechestnut rearing its leafy head--the pride of the Rectory garden. Facing all thisso near that it seems less than its real distance (nearly half a mile) from the houserises the broad, swelling, green down. "Flocks of quiet sheep are feeding" here and there, and occasionally, by dint of close watching, you may discern the form of the shepherd moving about with his shaggy dog at his heels. Over all spreads the clear blue sky, flecked with small, fleecy clouds, gradually assuming a rosy tinge towards the west-for it is now evening, and the day is far spent. Pretty, soft white clouds-how well they have done their appointed tasks all day!—sometimes sailing kindly between the earth and the too scorching rays of the sun; sometimes distilling in refreshing drops of rain to moisten the thirsty ground, and now, all their work done, they are hastening to the west to array themselves in their gorgeous evening robes of scarlet and gold-part of that glorious pageant displayed every evening before our unobservant eyes-the setting of the sun! "To Fancy's eye it seems to prove They mantle round the sun for love." Some such thoughts as these are passing through the mind of old Mr. Helmore, the rector of this little village of Arling, as he sits in his trellised porch, enjoying the soft evening air, which comes to him laden with the sweets of heliotrope and mignonette. A book is lying on his knee, but he has closed it now, and slipped in a rose-leaf as a marker. It has long been too dark to read—too dark, at least, for him; for in spite of his vigorous, upright form, and clear, steady blue eye, he is a very old Several years more than those allotted by the Psalmist as the limit of human existence have passed over his venerable snowy head, yet is his "eye not dim, nor his natural force abated." Any moderately skilled physiognomist would tell his character at a glance. The square, well-deve man. |