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Literary Lapses
·
Stephen Leacock
5
A
ROMANCE
IN
ONE
CHAPTER
It
was
finished.
Ruin
had
come.
Lord
Oxhead
sat
gazing
fixedly
at
the
library
fire.
Without,
the
wind
soughed
(or
sogged)
around
the
turrets
of
Oxhead
Towers,
the
seat
of
the
Oxhead
family.
But
the
old
earl
heeded
not
the
sogging
of
the
wind
around
his
seat.
He
was
too
absorbed.
Before
him
lay
a
pile
of
blue
papers
with
printed
headings.
From
time
to
time
he
turned
them
over
in
his
hands
and
replaced
them
on
the
table
with
a
groan.
To
the
earl
they
meant
ruin--absolute,
irretrievable
ruin,
and
with
it
the
loss
of
his
stately
home
that
had
been
the
pride
of
the
Oxheads
for
generations.
More
than
that--the
world
would
now
know
the
awful
secret
of
his
life.
The
earl
bowed
his
head
in
the
bitterness
of
his
sorrow,
for
he
came
of
a
proud
stock.
About
him
hung
the
portraits
of
his
ancestors.
Here
on
the
right
an
Oxhead
who
had
broken
his
lance
at
Crecy,
or
immediately
before
it.
There
McWhinnie
Oxhead
who
had
ridden
madly
from
the
stricken
field
of
Flodden
to
bring
to
the
affrighted
burghers
of
Edinburgh
all
the
tidings
that
he
had
been
able
to
gather
in
passing
the
battlefield.
Next
him
hung
the
dark
half
Spanish
face
of
Sir
Amyas
Oxhead
of
Elizabethan
days
whose
pinnace
was
the
first
to
dash
to
Plymouth
with
the
news
that
the
English
fleet,
as
nearly
as
could
be
judged
from
a
reasonable
distance,
seemed
about
to
grapple
with
the
Spanish
Armada.
Below
this,
the
two
Cavalier
brothers,
Giles
and
Everard
Oxhead,
who
had
sat
in
the
oak
with
Charles
II.
Then
to
the
right
again
the
portrait
of
Sir
Ponsonby
Oxhead
who
had
fought
with
Wellington
in
Spain,
and
been
dismissed
for
it.
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