During the time that Lionel and his wife were abroad the General went with his friend, Major Beauchamp, to Madeira, and wintered there.
It had been Lionel’s intention to stay abroad for about three years. But as it fell out, he and Edith were back at Park Newton by the end of twelve months, being brought thither by the expectation of an all-important event. Lionel has not since then left home for more than a month at a time. So full of painful memories was Park Newton to him, that it was only by Edith’s persuasion that he was induced to settle there at all. But years have come and gone since then, and nothing would now induce him to live anywhere else. Whatever gloomy associations might otherwise have clung to the old house have been exorcised long ago by the merry laughter of children. It was difficult at first for the Echoes of that murder-haunted roof to bring themselves to mimic the soft syllables of childhood, but when one little stranger after another came to teach them, then their voices, rusty and creaky at first through long disuse, gradually won back to themselves a long-forgotten sweetness; and now the Echoes follow the children wherever they go, and all the grim old pile is musical with the laughter and songs and free joyous shouts of childhood. Many a time they have a bout together—the children and the Echoes—trying which of them can make the more noise; and then the children call to the Echoes and bid them come out of their hiding-places and show themselves in the dusky twilight; but the Echoes only laugh back their answer, and are ever too timid to let themselves be seen.
Who, of all people in the world, should be the children’s primest favourite and slave but General St. George? His heart is in the nursery, and there he spends hours every day. He “keeps shop” with them, he plays at soldiers with them, he is their horse, their roaring lion, their wild man of the woods. It is certainly amusing to see the old warrior, whose very name was once a word of terror among the lawless hill-tribes of the far East see him led about by one boy by means of a piece of string tied round his arm, and while another youthful scapegrace deafens you with the noise of a drum, to watch him imitate, with dangling paws, the uncouth gracefulness of a dancing bear. There can be no doubt on one point—that the old soldier enjoys himself quite as much as the children do.