Never, as I observed before, was there so beautiful an expanse of water.  How much must we sorrow that it has so often proved only the easiest mode of bringing the miseries of war to the doors of the unoffending!  Yet men are never weary of sailing to and fro upon it, and most of the cities of the present time are upon its shore.  And in the evening we walk by the beach, and from the rising grounds look over the waters, as if to gaze upon their loveliness were reward to us for the labour of the day.

Part II

WILD ENGLAND

CHAPTER I

SIR FELIX

On a bright May morning, the sunlight, at five o’clock, was pouring into a room which face the east at the ancestral home of the Aquilas.  In this room Felix, the eldest of the three sons of the Baron, was sleeping.  The beams passed over his head, and lit up a square space on the opposite whitewashed wall, where, in the midst of the brilliant light, hung an ivory cross.  There were only two panes of glass in the window, each no more than two or three inches square, the rest of the window being closed by strong oaken shutters, thick enough to withstand the stroke of an arrow.

In the daytime one of these at least would have been thrown open to admit air and light.  They did not quite meet, and a streak of sunshine, in addition to that which came through the tiny panes, entered at the chink.  Only one window in the house contained more than two such panes (it was in the Baroness’s sitting-room), and most of them had none at all.  The glass left by the ancients in their dwellings had long since been used up or broken, and the fragments that remained were too precious to be put in ordinary rooms.  When larger pieces were discovered, they were taken for the palaces of the princes, and even these were but sparingly supplied, so that the saying “he has glass in his window” was equivalent to “he belongs to the upper ranks”.

On the recess of the window was an inkstand, which had been recently in use, for a quill lay beside it, and a sheet of parchment partly covered with writing.  The ink was thick and very dark, made of powdered charcoal, leaving a slightly raised writing, which could be perceived by the finger on rubbing it lightly over.  Beneath the window on the bare floor was an open chest, in which were several similar parchments and books, and from which the sheet on the recess had evidently been taken.  This chest, though small, was extremely heavy and strong, being dug out with the chisel and gouge from a solid block of oak.  Except a few parallel grooves, there was no attempt at ornamentation upon it.  The lid, which had no hinges, but lifted completely off, was tilted against the wall.  It was, too, of oak some inches thick, and fitted upon the chest by a kind of dovetailing at the edges.