*CHAPTER II.*
*HARTSBOURNE.*
The soft June dusk was falling with dewy freshness over smiling meadowand forest glade, and the long, long shadows were melting away in thedimness of a night that would never be dark, when Grey Dumaresq haltedupon the brow of a little hill, and gazed before and around him witheager pleasure, not untinged with wistfulness.
Somewhere amid those swelling woodlands lying to the south-west lay hischildhood's home. He had hoped to make this spot ere the sun sank; andthen he knew he could have traced the gleam of the shining streamlet,slipping like a silver streak between masses of sombre green. He mighteven, if the leaves had not made too thick a screen, have descried thetwisted chimneys and timbered gables of the old house itself. His heartbeat and his throat swelled as he gazed out over the darkening prospect.How he had loved that home of his so long as it had been blessed by hismother's presence there! With what proud delight had he sometimespictured to himself the time when it might be his own, his very own!From childhood he had been called "the little master--the little heir."If his mother had not dubbed him so, the servants had. For Sir HughDumaresq, alas, had not been a man to inspire either affection orrespect in the hearts of servants or of son, and the child had dreameddreams of the golden days which he and his mother might some day enjoy,when he should be lord of all, and live to wipe away tears from hereyes, and ensure that nothing should trouble or harass her again.
That fond dream had died its own death when the mother was laid to sleepbeneath the churchyard sod, and the boy, broken-hearted and indifferentto his fate, had gone forth first to school and then to college, and hadknown the sweet word "home" no longer.
It was years now since he had seen Hartsbourne. At first he could notbear the idea of revisiting it, to find it empty of the one lovedpresence which had made it what it was to him. Afterwards his fatherhad ceased to dwell there, had lived more and more in London, had evenlet the old Manor, as Grey heard before he quitted England for theroving life of the past three years.
He had been somewhat hurt and angry when this was told him; for he hadplanned to go and bid the old place farewell, and he no longer cared todo so then. True, it was a kinsman who dwelt there now. His father hadspoken of him with a cynical smile.
"He is next of kin, after you, my son; and he has a greater gift ofthrift than will ever be mine or yours, I take it. If anything shouldbefall you on these wanderings upon which your heart is set, he would bethe one to come after me, and take title and estates in his own right.If he like now to pay me my price, he may share the old house with therats and the bats, for all I care. I love not to spend good money uponleaking roofs and bowing walls. Give me the parks and thecoffee-houses, the Mall and the play-house! The devil may fly away withthat rotten old house, for all I care!"
This sentiment, rapped out with a good many of the fashionable oaths ofthe time, had been Grey's first intimation that his beloved old home wasfalling into decay. As a child it had seemed all the more perfect fromthat lack of newness or primness, the wildness of the garden, theencroachments of weed and woodland, which mark the first stages ofdecay. These words had opened his eyes to the fact that his father wasletting the old place take care of itself, without regard to the future,and even then he had been conscious of the stirrings of a certain vagueresentment. But he had been powerless to act; for although he had justreceived a small fortune which his mother had hoarded for him, and whichhad been nursed for him by a kinsman on the Grey side, he had no powerto take over Hartsbourne and expend his wealth upon the old home;moreover, by that time the longing for travel and adventure was keenupon him, and he had made every arrangement for a tour of the then knownworld. His father rather encouraged than lamented his proposed absence;and the youth longed to be his own master, and to feel the strength ofhis wings.
Yet now, after three years' wandering about the world, Grey foundhimself gazing with a swelling heart upon the familiar outlines of theregion of his childhood's home, and the voices of the past seemedcalling him aloud--tender, sweet-toned voices, which had been silent forlong, but which awoke now to cry aloud with strange insistence.
The solemn moon rose over the tree-tops as Grey gazed breathlessly uponthe dim panorama before him, and instantly the world became flooded witha mystic radiance. A church spire stood suddenly out like a silverbeacon, and Grey caught his breath as he watched; for his mother's gravelay beneath the walls of that little church, and the cross upon its apexseemed like a finger beckoning to him to come.
"Yonder is our goal, Dicon," spoke the young man, as his servant, whomhe had outridden in his eager haste, spurred up the ridge to his side."You cannot see the house in this uncertain light; but it lies in yondeep hollow, away to the right from the church. The river winds aboutit, guarding it from ill, as I used to think in my boyish fantasy. Ihave seen the harts and does come down from the forest to drink at itswaters. Hartsbourne was the name they gave the house, and methinks itwas well named. Ah me!--to think how many years have passed since Ibeheld it all! Hark! Can you not hear the old familiar voices callingthe wanderer home?"
The honest servant nodded his head with a smile upon his ruggedfeatures. He loved his young master devotedly, and was not unaccustomedto share his musings, whether they were dashed with poetic melancholy orwere full of reckless daring. Whatever his master's mood, honest Dickadmired him with equal fervour. As their horses picked a way down thedescent in the darkness, he hazarded a question.
"You think you will find your noble father there, sir?"
"Why, surely yes, Dicon. Where should a man be when failing in healthand strength, if not at his own home?"
"As for that, sir, I know nothing. But you have told me how that heloved not his own house, but gave it over into the hands of his kinsman,that he might take his pleasure elsewhere."
"Very true, Dicon; but that was when he was hale and strong. Whenill-health and feebleness overtook him, I doubt not that all waschanged. True, I have not heard from him these many months; but that isno marvel, since I myself have been a very wandering Jew. But thegentleman who brought me news of him unawares did say that he was aboutto quit London, for whose giddy round he had no longer strength orinclination. I have never doubted but that Hartsbourne would be theplace of his choice; and hither have I come. I might have learned newsof him by going straight to London; but why turn aside from our way forthat, when I feel so sure that it is here we shall find him? Doth notnature call every man home to his bed at night, and to his own home atthe close of his life? My father is not old--Heaven send he may livelong yet; but if disease has crippled his powers and robbed him of hiszest of life, I doubt not but that it is here we shall surely find him."
Two days previously the travellers had landed safely at the port ofHarwich, having had a safe and speedy crossing from the Hague. The passgiven them by the Duke of Marlborough had rendered their journey fromLouvain an easy one. From the seaport, Grey had taken the direct roadinto Hertfordshire, feeling certain that here, and not in London, wouldhe now find his father. He had hoped to arrive ere set of sun; but afew mischances along the road, and the sultry heat of the midday hours,had delayed them. Nevertheless, being now so near, he pressed onsteadily. He could not rest so near to home, save beneath the oldroof-tree. As the windings of the path grew more familiar, his heartthrobbed in his breast. Here they passed the boundary of his father'sestate. That broken cross marked the spot. And yonder, sleeping in themoonlight, hoary and beautiful, lay the ruined fragments of what hadonce been an old priory. He could see that the walls had crumbled awayduring his years of absence; but one beautiful arch still stood as ofold, the delicate tracery showing clear in the moonlight. White owlsflitted from the thick wreaths of ivy, and hooted weirdly as they sailedby on noiseless wing. A wild cat leaped out with a menacing yell, andboth horses snorted and plunged at the sight and sound. Dick's hand wason his pistol stock; but seeing what it was, he uttered
a half uneasylaugh.
"A bad omen, my master," he spoke, as he quieted his horse. "That wildblack thing was liker some witch or devil than aught I have clapped eyeson this many a day. Saints preserve us from spell or charm!"
For Dick, albeit a good Protestant by profession, had caught some of thephrases of the people in whose lands he had dwelt, and he was by nomeans free from superstition, though a bold enough rogue to meet anyperil that he could combat with sword or bullet.
"Tush, Dicon! Dost fear a cat, man? For my part, I love all the wildthings of the woods, and would be the friend of all. See yonder! Thereshould be a tangled path leading down through the forest glade, andacross the stream by a ford to the house itself. Methinks I cannot losethe way, though the path be overgrown, and the lighttreacherous.--Onward, good Carlos! Fodder and rest are nigh at hand.Within the space of half an hour you and I should both be installedsafely at home."
Home! The word was as music to his ears. It seemed to set itself tothe beat of the horses' hoofs along the tangled path, which Grey hadsome trouble in finding. But once found, he was able to trace itwithout difficulty; and soon the soft whisper of the water fell upon hisears, and the stream lay before him shining in the moonlight.
How beautiful it was upon this still June night! The young green of thetrees could not shut out the silvery beams of the moon. The forest wasfull of whispering voices, and every voice seemed to be welcoming backthe stranger-son. The warblers amid the sedges and the fringe of aldersalong the course of the winding stream filled the air with soft music,not less sweet, if less powerful, than that of the nightingale pouringout his heart in song a little farther away. Sometimes a sleeping deerin some deep hollow sprang up almost from beneath their feet, anddashed, phantom-like, away into the dim aisles of the wood.
And now the wall loomed up before them which separated the house and itsprecincts from the wilderness of wood and water beyond. Grey well knewthis mouldering wall, from which the coping had fallen in many places,and which showed more than one ill-repaired breach in the once soundmasonry. The ivy had grown into a tangled mass upon it, and was helpingto drag it down. Any active marauder could have scaled it easily. ButGrey turned his horse, and skirted round it for some distance. For heknew that a door at the angle gave entrance into the stable-yard, andfrom thence to the courtyard and entrance-hall of the old house; and asit was already past midnight, he preferred to take this way rather thanapproach by the avenue to the front of the house.
He turned the angle of the wall, and there was the entrance he wasmaking for. But how desolate it all looked! The double doors hadrusted from off their hinges, and stood open, none seeming to care toclose them at night. The courtyard was so grass-grown that the feet ofthe horses scarcely sounded as they entered. A range of stables stoodhalf open, some mouldy straw rotting in the stalls, but no signs of lifeeither in the stables below or the living-rooms above. Grey directedDicon to the forage store, and bade him look if there were not somethingto be found there for the horses; and whilst the man was thus engaged,finding enough odds and ends to serve for a meal for the beasts, themaster passed through an inner door into a second courtyard, and gazedupward at a range of lancet windows which, in former days, had belongedto the rooms occupied by the servants.
Not a light glimmered in any casement; not a dog barked challenge orwelcome. It was not wonderful that the house should be dark and silentat such an hour; but it was more than darkness which reigned here.There was a look of utter desolation and neglect brooding over theplace. Broken casements hung crazily, and swung creaking in the nightair. Tiles had slipped from the roof, chimney stacks seemed tottering totheir fall. True, the great nail-studded oaken door, which Grey wellremembered as leading through a long arched passage past the servants'quarters and into the front entrance-hall, was closed and locked; butrust had eaten deep into all the iron work, and cobwebs hung in festoonsfrom the eaves of the dilapidated porch.
In vain Grey beat upon the door with the pommel of his sword. Not asound from within betokened the presence of living creature. A suddenfear shook him lest he had come too late. This idea had never troubledhim before. His father was still young in years. Dissipation mighthave weakened him, made him an easy prey to disease; but surely, surelyhad aught worse than that befallen, he would have heard it--he wouldhave been summoned back. It was not any very tender bond that hadexisted betwixt father and son; but after all, they had no one else.Grey felt his heart grow suddenly cold within him.
Then a new idea entered his head. He turned away from the door, andpassed hastily through the courtyard into a walled enclosure beyond,which had plainly once been a fine kitchen-garden, where giant espaliersstill lined the paths, and masses of apple blossom glimmered ghostly inthe moonlight. Striding along one of the paths under the house wall,where shuttered windows, looking like blind eyes, gave back a stonystare, he reached at last a quaint little offshoot of the house, set inan angle where house and garden wall joined; and he uttered a shortexclamation of satisfaction as he saw that here there were traces ofhabitation in clean, bright window panes, flowers in a strip of borderbeneath, and a door that looked as though it could move upon its hinges.Upon this door he thumped with hearty good will.
"Jock! Jock! Wake up, man--wake up! Don't tell me that you are aghost too--that the old house is peopled only with ghosts of thepast.--A dog's bark! Good! Where there is dog, there is man.--Wake up,Jock! Wake up and open the door. Have no fear. It is I--the youngmaster."
"God bless my soul! Ye don't say so!" cried a cracked voice fromwithin.--"Quiet, Ruff; be still, man!--Yes, yes, I'm comin', I'mcomin'."
The sound of a bolt slipped back gave evidence of this, and next momentthe door was opened from within, a shaggy head was thrust forth, and anold man, evidently just risen from his bed, gazed for a moment at theintruder, who stood plainly revealed in the moonlight and uttered aheartfelt exclamation.
"Heaven be praised!--it is Sir Grey himself!"
The young man fell back as though before a blow. "Sir Grey! What meanyou by that, Jock? Sir Grey!"
"Why, master dear, you surely have heard the news! You have been SirGrey since the week after Christmas."
"You mean--my father--nay, Jock--how can I speak the words?"
"He died two days after Christmas, Sir Grey. He had me with him to thelast. He never trusted that knave of a kinsman, not he, though he hadlet himself get fast into his clutches. Ah, if you had but been with usthen! Woe is me! for we wanted you sorely. It was hard upon AllSaints' Day that the old master came back. He was sick; he had lost theuse of his limbs. The leeches said they could do naught for him, butthat he might live to be an old man yet. He made light of it at first.He vowed he would cheat them all. But we all saw death in his face. Intwo months he lay over yonder by the side of our sweet lady."
Jock, though no great speaker at ordinary times, had made, for him, along speech, because the young master said not a word, but stood leaningagainst the angle of the wall as though overcome by the news he hadheard.
"And why was I not sent for?" The words were a whisper.
"You were, Sir Grey, you were--leastways the master told me so. He saidthat Mr. Barty had written many letters, and sent them after you bytrusty messengers. But Lord, if 'twere only what that rogue said,belike the trusty messenger was nothing better than the fire, into whichhe dropped his own letters after satisfying the master by writing them."
"What mean you, Jock?" asked Grey, with dry lips. "And who is this Mr.Barty of whom you speak?"
"Faith, none other but him as hopes one day to style himself SirBartholomew Dumaresq--your father's cousin, Sir Grey, and next of kinafter you. 'Tis he as has got his grip so fast upon Hartsbourne thatit'll be a tough bit of work to shake it off. He's got mortgages on theplace, the old master told me at the last, and he's been squeezing itlike a sponge these many years--cutting the timber, grinding thetenants, living like a miser in one corner of the house, letting allelse go to wrack
and ruin, that there may be nothing for the heir tocome into. Oh, the master saw through him at the last, that he did; but'twas too late then. Here he is, stuck fast like a leech to the oldplace, and sucking its life-blood dry, and protected by the law, so thateven you can't touch him; the master told me that before he died. He'dgot him to sign papers when he was merry with wine, and knew not norcared what he signed. So long as Mr. Barty supplied him with money, hecared for naught else; and now he's got such a grip on house and landsthat it'll be a matter of years before ever he can be got out, if everthat day come at all."
A numb feeling began to creep over Grey. He felt like one walking in abad dream. The blow of hearing of his father's death was a heavy one.It seemed to shake the foundations of his life to their very base. Andnow his home was lost to him! Little as he understood the machinationsof his kinsman, he grasped that he had come into nothing but a barrentitle and nominal possession of a ruinous and dilapidated old house, therevenues of which were in some way alienated to another. He had heardsuch tales before. He did not discredit old Jock's recital. It fittedin only too well with what he knew of his father's recklessness andselfish expenditure, and his kinsman's artful grasping policy. So,after all, he had come to a home that was not his; and he would have toface the world again as something very like a beggar.
Old Jock's hand upon his arm aroused him to a sense of outward things.Dicon had come up, and was listening with wide eyes and falling jaw tothe recital of the same story as had been told in outline to Grey. Thefuller details only made it sound more true and lifelike.
"Come in, Sir Grey, come in. There's bite and sup for you in thecupboard. The old master didn't forget me, and I can make shift to earnmy bread by hook or by crook even without regular wage. Come in, comein, and I'll give ye what I've got for ye. 'Twas all the old master hadleft from his hoard; but he said it would give you a start in life, andthat your wits must do the rest. He gave it me private like, when Mr.Barty was off the place, and I buried it beneath the hearthstone thatsame day. 'Tis all safe for you, Sir Grey; and you won't go pennilessinto the world, for all that this villain of a kinsman reigns atHartsbourne, where you should be."