was not precocious, and in some respects was even decidedly
backward. I can see him now--it is my first clear recollection of
him--leaning back in the corner of my father's carriage as we drove
from the Newmarket station to our summer home at Mondisfield. He
and I were small boys of eight, and Derrick had been invited for the
holidays, while his twin brother--if I remember right--indulged in
typhoid fever at Kensington. He was shy and silent, and the ice was
not broken until we passed Silvery Steeple.

"That," said my father, "is a ruined church; it was destroyed by
Cromwell in the Civil Wars."

In an instant the small quiet boy sitting beside me was transformed.
His eyes shone; he sprang forward and thrust his head far out of the
window, gazing at the old ivy-covered tower as long as it remained
in sight.

"Was Cromwell really once there?" he asked with breathless interest.

"So they say," replied my father, looking with an amused smile at
the face of the questioner, in which eagerness, delight, and
reverence were mingled. "Are you an admirer of the Lord Protector?"

"He is my greatest hero of all," said Derrick fervently. "Do you
think--oh, do you think he possibly can ever have come to
Mondisfield?"

My father thought not, but said there was an old tradition that the
Hall had been attacked by the Royalists, and the bridge over the
moat defended by the owner of the house; but he had no great belief