"May the Lord have mercy on your soul!" was the pious exclamation
with which the slayer struck home. And, in all the circumstances,
there seems to have been occasion for the prayer.
IX. THE PATH OF EXILE
The Fall of Lord Clarendon
Tight-wrapped in his cloak against the icy whips of the black
winter's night, a portly gentleman, well advanced in years,
picked his way carefully down the wet, slippery steps of the
jetty by the light of a lanthorn, whose rays gleamed lividly on
crushed brown seaweed and trailing green sea slime. Leaning
heavily upon the arm which a sailor held out to his assistance,
he stepped into the waiting boat that rose and fell on the
heaving black waters. A boathook scraped against the stones, and
the frail craft was pushed off.
The oars dipped, and the boat slipped away through the darkness,
steering a course for the two great poop lanterns that were
swinging rhythmically high up against the black background of the
night. The elderly gentleman, huddled now in the stern-sheets,
looked behind him--to look his last upon the England he had loved
and served and ruled. The lanthorn, shedding its wheel of yellow
light upon the jetty steps, was all of it that he could now see.
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