Page:Explorers of the Dawn (February 1922).djvu/195

Rh of an Earl of Aberfalden. He had died at the age of fifteen, not a tender age to me, but the age toward which I was eagerly straining, the vigourous, untrammelled age of the big boy.

I stared at the young knight in the red cloak who, to me, represented Cosmo John, and thought it a great pity that he should have gone off in such a hurry, just when life was opening up such happy vistas before him, vistas no longer patrolled by governesses and maid servants, nor hedged in by petty restrictions. Cosmo John had died one hundred years ago, in May—and, by the Rood! this was May! Had he ever been a-fishing. Had the sudden tremor of the rod made his young heart to leap? I heard the Bishop's rich voice roll on:

"—Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Victoria; and so replenish her with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit that she may alway incline to Thy will"—the Bishop's voice became one with the murmur of the river, as it moved among the ridges; the mellow sunlight scarcely touched this sheltered pool, but one could see it in its full strength on the meadow beyond, where larks were nesting. I brought myself up with a start. The Bishop's voice came from a great distance—"beseech Thee to bless Albert Edward