"There, Lakyn, Lakyn!" he exclaimed; "run in, and never mind the bowls. Tell Sharpe to go round and take Mr. Seymour's horse at the garden gate. I will meet him there." The old man hastened to obey, and, with his usual composed step, Sir Harry West--for such was the gentleman's name--proceeded from the terrace, through the garden which we have mentioned, to the angle next to the rookery, where he waited, leaning upon a little gate, till the horseman he had seen on the road arrived at the spot. At the same moment another old servant dressed in grey ran down panting, and doffing his bonnet to the stranger with lowly reverence, held the bridle while he dismounted. The horseman then at a quick pace advanced to the gate, which was by this time open to receive him, and with a look of glad and well satisfied reverence kissed the hand of the master of the house. Sir Harry West, however, threw his arm around him affectionately, and gazed in his face, saying, "Welcome, my dear William, welcome! So you are back from Flanders at length. 'Tis eighteen months since I have seen you." "'Tis a long time indeed, sir," replied the visitor; "but time has made no change in you, I am glad to see." "It has in you, William," answered Sir Harry West; "a great change, but a good one--though why in our boyhood we should desire man's estate I know not. 'Tis but a step to the grave. However, you are a man now both in years and appearance, though you left me but a youth;" and once more he gazed over the young gentleman's face and form, as we look at a country we have known in our early years on returning after a long absence, tracing the changes that have been made therein, and sometimes perhaps regretting even the improvements. The countenance and the form that he looked upon were not indeed ill calculated to bear inspection, being those of an English gentleman of about one or two and twenty years of age, and of the best class and character. Now there can be little doubt to any one who has travelled far and wide over distant lands, that the English people are, on the whole--with the exception, perhaps, of some small tribes in the Tyrol, and of one or two districts in Spain, where the Moorish blood has been mixed with the Gothic--the handsomest race that this quarter of the world called Europe can produce; and the young stranger was certainly not inferior to any of his countrymen in personal appearance. He was tall and evidently powerful in form, though some of the slightness of youth was still there, and all its graces. His hair was dark brown and curling in large waves, and his features were as fine as those of any of the faces that poet, painter, or sculptor have ever dreamed or portrayed.