CHAPTER XXXV.

     “Be the day weary or never so long,
     At length it ringeth to even song.”

There is little to chronicle in the events of the next few years.  Livingstone resided almost entirely at Kerton.  He rode as hard, and distinguished himself in all other field-sports as much as ever.  But even in these, his favorite pursuits, he had lost the intense faculty of enjoyment which once seemed a part of his powerful organization.

Do you remember that scene in the Nekuia, where the Eidolon of Achilles comes slowly through the twilight to meet his old brother in arms?  Not only are his form and features altered after so ghastly a fashion that even the wanderer, wave-worn and travel-stained, looks brilliant by comparison, but all his feelings are utterly and strangely changed.  Listen!  He asks after the father from whom he parted when quite a child; after the son, whom he never saw; but not one word of his fair first-love—­not one of her who was the passion of his manhood, whom he bucklered once against ten thousand.  He had rather hear of Peleus and Neoptolemus than of Deidamia or Briseis.  Of Polyxena, be sure that he remembers nothing but that he was holding her hand when her brother slew him.  Will he ever forgive her that?  Not if she could have made amends by the sacrifice of ten lives instead of that one which she gave, willingly, on Sigaeum.  Has ambition any hold on him either?  Only to breathe the fresh clear air above instead of that murky, heavy atmosphere, he would resign the empire of the dead, and be a drudge to the veriest boor.  Yet once, if we remember right, he chafed fiercely enough at a word of authority uttered by the King of Men.  One of his old tastes clings to him still—­a very simple one.  He has forgotten the savor of Sciote and Chian wine; but—­were it only for the sake of the carouses they have had together—­Odysseus will not grudge him another draught out of the black trench.  It is so long since be tasted blood!

Guy was no more like his former self than the shadow was like the substance of Pelides.  He was not languid, but simply apathetic and indifferent, so that one could not help being constantly struck by the contrast between his moral and physical state:  the latter was still the perfection of muscular power.

He was every thing that was kind to his mother, and to Isabel Forrester too, who spent much of her time at Kerton, and whose health was very delicate.  If Lady Catharine could only have seen him more cheerful, she would have been too happy.  It was her great delight to try and spoil him, as she used to do when he was a child—­trying to suit his tastes to the minutest shade.  For instance, Guy was always finding in his own rooms some new ornament or addition to their comfort.  Indifferent as he was to every thing, it was good in him that he never failed to remark these instantly.  You would not have thought a cold, haughty face could light up so brilliantly as his mother’s always did when he thanked her.  Poor lady!  Those last few years were her summer of St. Martin—­not the less pleasant because winter was gathering already on the crests of the whitening hills.