"Close On Sixty Winters Have Run By Since That Day, When I,
Indefatigable Dancer, Figured In A Country Dance Of Thirty Couples.
My
footsteps, which now seem to me like lead, scarcely then left a trace
behind them.
All the young hearts who enlivened this gay meeting of
other days are mouldering in their tombs, even she, the most
beautiful of them all, la belle des belles - she, the partner of
my joys and of my sorrows - she who on that day accepted in the
circling dance, for the first time, this hand, which two years after
was to lead her to the hymeneal altar - yes, even she has been swept
away by the tide of death. [231] May not I also say, with Ossian,
'Why art thou sad, son of Fingal! Why grows the cloud of thy soul! the
sons of future years shall pass away, another race shall arise! The
people are like the waves of the ocean, like the leaves of woody
Morven - they pass away in the rustling blast, and other leaves lift
their green heads on high.'
"After all, why, indeed, yield up my soul in sadness? The children of
the coming generation will pass rapidly, and a new one will take its
place! Men are like the surges of the ocean, they resemble the leaves
which hang over the groves of my manor, autumnal storms cause them to
fall, but new and equally green ones each spring replace the fallen
ones. Why should I sorrow? Eighty-six children, grand-children, and
great-grand-children, will mourn the fell of the old oak when the
breach of the Almighty shall smite it. Should I have the good fortune
to find mercy before the Sovereign Judge: should it be vouchsafed to
me to meet again the angel of virtue who cheered the few happy days I
passed in this vale of sorrow, we will both pray together for the
numerous progeny we left behind us. But let us revert to the merry
meeting previously alluded to. It is half-past two in the afternoon,
we are gaily going through the figures of a country-dance, 'Speed the
plough' perhaps, when the music stops short, everyone is taken aback,
and wonders at the cause of interruption. The arrival of two prelates,
Bishop Plessis and Bishop Mountain, gave us the solution of the
enigma; an aide-de-camp had motioned to the bandmaster to stop on
noticing the entrance of the two high dignitaries of the respective
churches. The dance was interrupted whilst they were there, and was
resumed on their departure. Sir James had introduced this point of
etiquette from the respect he entertained for their persons.
"At three the loud sound of a hunters horn is heard in the distance;
all follow His Excellency in a path cut through the then virgin forest
of Powell Place. Some of the guests from the length of the walk, began
to think that Sir James had intended those who had not danced to take
a "constitutional" before dinner, when, on rounding an angle a huge
table, canopied with green boughs, groaning under the weight of
dishes, struck on their view - a grateful oasis in the desert.
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