Anatole France
has written (La Messe des Morts). Above the witches' lake come
shadows of the women who suffered under Knox and the Bastard of
Scotland, poor creatures burned to ashes with none to help or pity.
The shades of Dominicans flit by the Black Friars wall--verily the
place is haunted, and among Murray's pleasures was this of pacing
alone, by night, in that airy press and throng of those who lived
and loved and suffered so long ago -
`The mist hangs round the College tower,
The ghostly street
Is silent at this midnight hour,
Save for my feet.
With none to see, with none to hear,
Downward I go
To where, beside the rugged pier,
The sea sings low.
It sings a tune well loved and known
In days gone by,
When often here, and not alone,
I watched the sky.'
But he was not always, nor often, lonely. He was fond of making his
speech at the Debating Societies, and his speeches are remembered as
good. If he declined the whisky and water, he did not flee the
weed. I borrow from College Echoes -
A TENNYSONIAN FRAGMENT
So in the village inn the poet dwelt.
His honey-dew was gone; only the pouch,
His cousin's work, her empty labour, left.
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