direction, you may find your old father riding by your side. Let us now
bow down and implore the favour of the Almighty upon this expedition.'

We all knelt down in the low-roofed, heavy-raftered room while the old
man offered up an earnest, strenuous prayer for our success. Even now,
as I speak to ye, that group rises up before mine eyes. I see once
again your ancestor's stern, rugged face, with his brows knitted and his
corded hands writhed together in the fervour of his supplication.
My mother kneels beside him with the tears trickling down her sweet,
placid face, stifling her sobs lest the sound of them make my
leave-taking more bitter. The children are in the sleeping-room
upstairs, and we hear the patter of their bare feet upon the floor.
The man Saxon sprawls across one of the oaken chairs, half kneeling,
half reclining, with his long legs trailing out behind, and his face
buried in his hands. All round in the flickering light of the hanging
lamp I see the objects which have been so familiar to me from
childhood--the settle by the fireplace, the high-back stiff-elbowed
chairs, the stuffed fox above the door, the picture of Christian viewing
the Promised Land from the summit of the Delectable Mountains--all small
trifles in themselves, but making up among them the marvellous thing we
call home, the all-powerful lodestone which draws the wanderer's heart
from the farther end of the earth. Should I ever see it again save in
my dreams--I, who was leaving this sheltered cove to plunge into the
heart of the storm?

The prayer finished, we all rose with the exception of Saxon, who
remained with his face buried in his hands for a minute or so before
starting to his feet. I shrewdly suspect that he had been fast asleep,
though he explained that he had paused to offer up an additional
supplication. My father placed his hands upon my head and invoked the