344 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND. (vil.

 

tender hearts at home, and love, that death cannot
abate nor time diminish, still cherishes the recollection
of these twe of Eton’s sons.

Alas! how many of her children had the old
College to mourn throughout that terrible war! How
many desolate homes, how many widowed hearts,
still testify to the miserable results of insatiable ambi-
tion and baffled diplomacy! how many ancient trees
bewail the rending of precious branches in the warlike
tempest. But, amid all those who fought and fell during
that eventful time, none fought more bravely, none
gave their lives more freely, than the sons of Eton,
and amongst the bold and fearless spirits whose deeds
have added another wreath to the deathless glories of
their country, none more bold, none more fearless, and
none more regretted passed away than the two of
whom my tale has told.

In a beautiful country home in one of England’s
midland counties, a venerable man mourns the hope of
his house cut off, and the prop of his declining years
removed when Ethelston fell ; other sons he has, and
other ties have wound themselves around him during
his busy life, but his heart is buried in that tomb on
Cathcart’s Hill, and the first-born child will never be
forgotten. And onthe banks of Father Thames, so
loved by Eton hearts, a quiet, homely, ivy-clad cottage
contains a widowed mother who still weeps for -her
only son, and the lapse of nearly twenty years has not
diminished the sisterly love with which the memory
of Moore is ever cherished by the two companions
of his early childhood.

So, alas! must it ever be : bright and joyous spirits,