The Life of Thomas Hardy
showed among the rich green of the trees or in the heat of the beflagged and bannered road. The children's sweet, trained voices rang out in the chorus from The Dynasts, specially set to music:
Like to sounds of joyance there.
That the rages of the ages
Shall be cancelled,
And deliverance offered from the darts that were;
Consciousness the will informing
Till it fashions all things fair.
At the top of the road the Prince was received by the Mayor and Corporation in a covered stand, where Mr. Hardy had a place. His Royal Highness was then conducted, through lines of the Dorsetshire Regiment, to a new Territorial drill-hall, which he declared open in a short speech. Those who had lived through the long years of the war, he said, would never wish to repeat the experience; but, at the same time, he was certain there was no finer training for young men than that they got in the Territorials, and he hoped the boys of Dorchester and the county would add, if need were, to the splendid record of the Dorsetshire Regiment.
Mr. Hardy was present at this ceremony. Prom the Drill Hall he drove with the Prince, amid the cheers of people pleased to see the young face and the old side by side, to Max Gate. As for Mr. Hardy, he may be 80-odd, but his lined countenance bore a very alert and cheerful expression, and, if it spoke truly, he enjoyed to the full the bustle and colour of the streets, and shared to the full in the joy of his fellow-townsmen.
I have already referred to the prevalent interest in the luncheon at Max Gate. It expressed itself in a desire, which in this case was wistful rather than vulgar, to overhear the conversation at that very private and informal little gathering. People spoke as though they would not have spied if they could; they only wondered what the talk of a young Prince and an aged[254]
