The
Gateways, Without Gates Now Of Course, Look Like The Arches Of A Bridge,
And The Walls Like Streets Hung Up Out Of The Way.
When one looks
through a loop hole or over a parapet, there does a faint remembrance
come up, like a ghost, of the stirring times that have wrapped
themselves in the mist of years, and slid back into the past.
I stood
over the gates - this one and that one - trying to look down the Foyle
toward the point where the ships lay beyond the boom, and to fancy the
feelings of the stout-hearted defenders of Derry, as they watched with
hungry eyes, and waited with sinking hearts but unflinching courage on
the relief that the infamous Colonel Kirk kept lying, a tantalizing
spectacle, inactive, making no effort of succor. But the houses are
thick outside the walls, and shut up the view and choke sentiment. Of
course I was in the cathedral, and looked at the rich memorial windows
that let in subdued light into the religious gloom. Saw the shell which
was thrown over with terms of capitulation, sitting in a socket on a
pillar in the cathedral like a dove on its nest. It might tell a tale of
what it saw in its flight through the air from one grim bank to the
other, but it maintains a blank silence.
Of course I looked up at Walker on his monument, and went home to read
Professor Witherow's book on the siege, which was kindly presented to me
by Mr. Black, and to listen to people who scruple not to say that the
monument, like the London monument of the great fire as described by
Pope,
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