soldier of them had served the East India Company both by sea and
land: tradition more than hinted that he had chiefly served
himself. Since then the heads of the house had been peaceful
farmers of their own land, contriving to draw what to many farmers
nowadays would seem but a scanty subsistence from an estate which
had dwindled to the twentieth part of what it had been a few
centuries before, though even then it could never have made its
proprietor rich in anything but the devotion of his retainers.

Growing too hot between the sun and the wall, Cosmo rose, and
passing to the other side of the house beyond the court-yard, and
crossing a certain heave of grass, came upon one unfailing delight
in his lot--a preacher whose voice, inarticulate, it is true, had,
ever since he was born, been at most times louder in his ear than
any other. It was a mountain stream, which, through a channel of
rock, such as nearly satisfied his most fastidious fancy, went
roaring, rushing, and sometimes thundering, with an arrow-like,
foamy swiftness, down to the river in the glen below. The rocks
were very dark, and the foam stood out brilliant against them. From
the hill-top above, it came, sloping steep from far. When you
looked up, it seemed to come flowing from the horizon itself, and
when you looked down, it seemed to have suddenly found it could no
more return to the upper regions it had left too high behind it,
and in disgust to shoot headlong to the abyss. There was not much
water in it now, but plenty to make a joyous white rush through the
deep-worn brown of the rock: in the autumn and spring it came down
gloriously, dark and fierce, as if it sought the very centre, wild
with greed after an absolute rest.

The boy stood and gazed, as was his custom. Always he would seek