“’Twas in solitude, then, that there came to my soul
    The halo of comfort that sympathy casts;
  He was strong, he was brave, and, though centuries roll,
    I shall love that one man whilst eternity lasts! 
  O my lord, I was weak, I was wrong, I was poor! 
    I had suffered so much through my journey of life,
  Hear! the worst of the crime that is laid at my door: 
    I said I was widow when, really a wife!

  “Here I stand to be judged, in the sight of the man
    Who from purity took a frail woman away. 
  Let him look in my face, if he dare, if he can! 
    Let him stand up on oath to deny what I say! 
  ’Tis a story that many a wife can repeat,
    From the day that the old curse of Eden began;
  In the dread name of Justice, look down from your seat! 
    Come, sentence the Woman, and shelter the Man!”

  A silence more terrible reigned than before,
    For the lip of the coward was cruelly curled;
  But the hand of the jailer slipped down from the door
    Made to shut this sad wanderer out from the world! 
  Said the Judge, “My poor woman, now listen to me: 
    Not one hour you shall stray from humanity’s heart
  When thirty swift minutes have sped, you are free
    In the name of the Law, which is Mercy, depart!”

CHAPTER XLVIII.

OLD TURF FRIENDS.

An announcement in the morning papers of the death of Mr. Richard C. Naylor of Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire, at the age of eighty-six, carried me back to the far-off days when, tempted by the hospitality and kind friendship of Lord Falmouth, I became a regular visitor of Newmarket Heath—­an habitue during the splendid dictatorship of Admiral Rous!

I would like to mention the names of some of the celebrities of the Turf of those days, many of them my frequent companions, and no less my real and sincere friends.  Time, however, fails.  But in looking through the piles of letters with which the kindness of my friends has favoured me from time to time, I come across many a relic of the past that recalls the pleasantest associations.  Even a telegram, most prosaic of correspondence, which I meet with at this moment, is a little poem in its way, and brings back scenes and circumstances over which memory loves to linger.

It is nothing in itself, but let any one who has loved country life and enjoyed its sports and its many friendships consider what forgotten pleasures may be brought to mind by this telegram.

Telegram.

DORCHESTER, November 2, ’97.

Handed in at QUORN at 9.10 a.m.

Received here at 11.1 a.m.

To SIR H. HAWKINS, The Judges’ House, Dorchester.

Just returned from Badminton to find the most charming present from you, which I shall always regard with the greatest value, and think you are too kind, in giving me such a present.  Am writing.—­LONSDALE.