I listened with glowing heart, and looked proudly at our men as I walked by their portraits in the halls on my way to bed. Perhaps my faith in their great deeds is not so childlike now; but it was pure and unlimited then, and those library stories can never fade from my memory.
I had been with my grandfather a week when the conversation with which my tale opens occurred, and I was to return to my parents in three days, under the protection of the very gentleman who was the subject of it. The two old friends were very intimate, and Mr. Erle spent every evening at the house; so I knew him well, and had no fear in asking him any question I chose, and I looked forward to the next evening as to a grand festival.
When we came in from dinner, I drew the window-shade, and saw that it was snowing fiercely.
"Perhaps he will not come," I said, turning to my grandfather disconsolately.
"Never fear that," he answered. "Mr. Erle is a man who is not kept at home by the weather, or anything else."
I came to the hearth. The last words had been added in the dry tone which always meant something, coming from his lips.
"And he never spends an evening at home?"
"I've not known him to do so for twenty years. Sing the 'Health to King Charles,' dear."
I sat down at the piano, and sang as I was bid.
We were stanch loyalists from tradition, and my list of Stuart songs was so long that I had sung scarcely half of it when the clock struck nine, and rapid wheels came over the pavements. Opposite our door the horse slipped, and we heard the instantaneous lash singing in the night air and descending unmercifully on the poor animal. An immense stamping and rearing ensued. "That is Erle, sure enough," my grandfather said, going to the window. I followed him, and lifted the shade in time to see Mr. Erle standing in the trampled snow at the horse's head, patting him as gently as a woman could have done. In a moment he nodded to his servant, and watched him drive round the corner before turning to our door.
He came in quickly, exquisitely dressed, and courteous, with the beautiful old manner they cannot teach us now. After the first words, my grandfather said, with a superb affectation of seriousness, "The merciful man is merciful to his beast."