I met him there when I was sent up on a prospecting job.He was very young then, not more than twenty-five, and he was in his first years at the Bar. Beryl will write to you.' I continued my journey--I was going down to the Solent to see about laying up my boat, for I had lately taken to a mild sort of yachting--in an odd frame of mind.
When old Melbury spoke the word 'Lombard,' my thoughts were set racing down dim alleys of the past. I did not do justice to Lamancha's speech, for I thought of Lombard all through it.
A name can sometimes be like a scent or a tune, a key to long-buried memories. Lombard' showed how completely the man I once knew had dropped out of the world's ken.
Title: The Island of Sheep (1936) Author: John Buchan * A Project Gutenberg of Australia e Book * e Book No.: 0301551Edition: 1 Language: English Character set encoding: HTML (Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit) Date first posted: December 2003 Date most recently updated: December 2003 This e Book was produced by: Don Lainson [email protected] notes: Project Gutenberg of Australia e Books are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. He quoted a memorandum written years ago and incorporated in the report of a certain Commission; 'A very able memorandum,' he called it, 'by a certain Mr. I thought of him in my taxi going to the station, and, when I had found my compartment, his face came between me and the pages of my evening paper.
We do NOT keep any e Books in compliance with a particular paper edition. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. Lombard,' which contained the point he wished to make. I had not thought much about him for years, but now Melbury's chance quotation had started a set of pictures which flitted like a film series before my eyes.
This e Book is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. I saw Lombard as I had last seen him, dressed a little differently from to-day, a little fuller in the face than we lean kine who have survived the War, with eyes not blurred from motoring, and voice not high-pitched like ours to override the din of our environment.
You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at Contents PART I Fosse I. I saw his smile, the odd quick lift of his chin--and I realized that I was growing old and had left some wonderful things behind me.
My thoughts went back to that hilltop three thousand miles and thirty years away. He had been offered a post on the staff of the Governor of X--, which might be a good jumping-off ground. He had the chance of going into the firm of Y--, which was about to spend large sums on African development. We passed a station, and the next was obviously my companion's destination, for he got up, stretched his legs, and took down a parcel from the rack. My son came into it, and here I must beg leave to introduce Peter John, now in his fourteenth year.
Money was important, he said, and cited Rhodes and Beit. Lombard would of course have fought--he was the kind of man who must--and in some obscure action in some part of the world-wide battlefield death had closed his dreams. The kind of son I had hoped for when he was born was the typical English boy, good at games, fairly intelligent, reasonably honest and clean, the kind of public-school product you read about in books.
I do not think that I have ever had a stronger impression of a consuming purpose. He had put up his feet on the seat and was skimming a motoring journal. He was tall for his age and rather handsome in his own way.
Here was one who would never be content to settle among the fatted calves of the world. 'Some day,' I said, 'there will be a new British Dominion, and it will be called Lombardy. Mary's glorious hair in him took the form of a sandy thatch inclining to red, but he had her blue eyes and her long, slim hands and feet.
But it was not my friend's eloquence that filled my mind or his deadly handling of interruptions, but a reply which the Colonial Secretary gave to a question before the debate began.