Who and what were they, these wearied travellers, journeying together
silently towards a destination which promised but little of pleasure or
luxury by way of welcome--a destination which meant severance for those
two?
One was Sir John Kirkland, of the Manor Moat, Bucks, a notorious Malignant,
a grey-bearded cavalier, aged by trouble and hard fighting; a soldier and
servant who had sacrificed himself and his fortune for the King, and must
needs begin the world anew now that his master was murdered, his own goods
confiscated, the old family mansion, the house in which his parents died
and his children were born, emptied of all its valuables, and left to the
care of servants, and his master's son a wanderer in a foreign land, with
little hope of ever winning back crown and sceptre.
Sadness was the dominant expression of Sir John's stern, strongly marked
countenance, as he sat staring out at the level landscape through the
unglazed coach window, staring blankly across those wind-swept Flemish
fields where the cattle were clustering in sheltered corners, a monotonous
expanse, crossed by ice-bound dykes that looked black as ink, save where
the last rays of the setting sun touched their iron hue with blood-red
splashes.
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