bloody shore. "One
favor," faltered the dying man; "I have a father at home,--he, too, is a
soldier. In my tent is my will: it gives all I have to him,--he can take
it without shame. That is not enough! Write to him--you, with your own
hand--and tell him how his son fell!" And the hero fulfilled the prayer;
and that letter is dearer to Roland than all the long roll of the
ancestral dead! Nature has reclaimed her rights, and the forefathers
recede before the son.

In a side chapel of the old Gothic church, amidst the mouldering tombs
of those who fought at Acre and Agincourt, a fresh tablet records the
death of Herbert De Caxton, with the simple inscription,--

He Fell on the Field
His Country Mourned Him,
And His Father Is Resigned.

Years have rolled away since that tablet was placed there, and changes
have passed on that nook of earth which bounds our little world: fair
chambers have sprung up amidst the desolate ruins; far and near, smiling
corn-fields replace the bleak, dreary moors. The land supports more
retainers than ever thronged to the pennon of its barons of old, and
Roland can look from his Tower over domains that are reclaimed, year
by year, from the waste, till the ploughshare shall win a lordship more
opulent than those feudal chiefs ever held by the tenure of the sword.
And the hospitable mirth that had fled from the ruin has been renewed in
the Hall, and rich and poor, great and lowly, have welcomed the rise of
an ancient house from the dust of decay. All those dreams of Roland's
youth are fulfilled; but they do not gladden his heart like the thought
that his son, at the last, was worthy of his line, and the hope that no
gulf shall yawn between the two when the Grand Circle is rounded, and
man's past and man's future meet where Time disappears. Never was that
lost one forgotten; never was his name breathed but tears rushed to the
eyes; and each morning the peasant going to his labor might see Roland
steal down the dell to the deep-set door of the chapel. None presume
there to follow his steps or intrude on his solemn thoughts; for there,
in sight of that tablet, are his orisons made, and the remembrance of
the dead forms a part of the commune with heaven. But the old man's step
is still firm and his brow still erect; and you may see in his face that
it was no hollow boast which proclaimed that the "father was resigned."
And ye who doubt if too Roman a hardness might not be found in tha