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Updated: May 24, 2025
Had this strange monotonous life with that old brute of a Major brought him some new perception of those words, "Neither do I condemn thee"? But when he stopped reading, I, true to my character, forgot his affairs in my own, as we sat talking far into the night talking of that luckless month at Mondisfield, of all the problems it had opened up, and of my wretchedness.
Beyond the unburnt paragraph about the attack on Mondisfield, he had nothing except a few hastily scribbled ideas in his note-book, and of course the very elaborate and careful historical notes which he had made on the Civil War during many years of reading and research for this period had always been a favourite study with him.
"So they say," replied my father, looking with an amused smile at the face of the questioner, in which eagerness, delight, and reverence were mingled. "Are you an admirer of the Lord Protector?" "He is my greatest hero of all," said Derrick fervently. "Do you think oh, do you think he possibly can ever have come to Mondisfield?"
But, curiously enough, it proved to be the germ of the celebrated romance, 'At Strife, which Derrick wrote in after years; and he himself maintains that his picture of life during the Civil War would have been much less graphic had he not lived so much in the past during his various visits to Mondisfield.
Looking back, I fancy Derrick must have been a clever child. But he was not precocious, and in some respects was even decidedly backward. I can see him now it is my first clear recollection of him leaning back in the corner of my father's carriage as we drove from the Newmarket station to our summer home at Mondisfield.
But all the same I felt annoyed about the whole business, and was glad to forget it in my own affairs at Mondisfield. Weeks passed by. I lived through a midsummer dream of happiness, and a hard awaking. That, however, has nothing to do with Derrick's story, and may be passed over.
He had listened so often and so patiently to my affairs, that it seemed an odd reversal to have to play the confidant; and if now and then my thoughts wandered off to the coming month at Mondisfield, and pictured violet eyes while he talked of grey, it was not from any lack of sympathy with my friend.
He skipped over an interval of ten years, represented on the page by ten laboriously made stars, and did for his hero in the following lines: "And now, reader, let us come into Mondisfield churchyard. There are three tombstones. On one is written, 'Mr. Paul Wharncliffe." The story was no better than the productions of most eight-year-old children, the written story at least.
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