WHAT do I know of Hoghton Towers? Very little; for I have been
gratefully unwilling to disturb my first impressions. A house, centuries
old, on high ground a mile or so removed from the road between Preston
and Blackburn, where the first James of England, in his hurry to make
money by making baronets, perhaps made some of those remunerative
dignitaries. A house, centuries old, deserted and falling to pieces, its
woods and gardens long since grass-land or ploughed up, the Rivers Ribble
and Darwen glancing below it, and a vague haze of smoke, against which
not even the supernatural prescience of the first Stuart could foresee a
counter-blast, hinting at steam-power, powerful in two distances.
What did I know then of Hoghton Towers? When I first peeped in at the
gate of the lifeless quadrangle, and started from the mouldering statue
becoming visible to me like its guardian ghost; when I stole round by the
back of the farm-house, and got in among the ancient rooms, many of them
with their floors and ceilings falling, the beams and rafters hanging
dangerously down, the plaster dropping as I trod, the oaken panels
stripped away, the windows half walled up, half broken; when I discovered
a gallery commanding the old kitchen, and looked down between balustrades
upon a massive old table and benches, fearing to see I know not what
dead-alive creatures come in and seat themselves, and look up with I know
not what dreadful eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when all over the house I
was awed by gaps and chinks where the sky stared sorrowfully at me, where
the birds passed, and the ivy rustled, and the stains of winter weather
blotched the rotten floors; when down at the bottom of dark pits of
staircase, into which the stairs had sunk, green leaves trembled,
butterflies fluttered, and bees hummed in and out through the broken
door-ways; when encircling the whole ruin were sweet scents, and sights
of fresh green growth, and ever-renewing life, that I had never dreamed
of,—I say, when I passed into such clouded perception of these things as
my dark soul could compass, what did I know then of Hoghton Towers?
I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me. Therein have I
anticipated the answer. I knew that all these things looked sorrowfully
at me; that they seemed to sigh or whisper, not without pity for me,
‘Alas! poor worldly little devil!’
There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the smaller pits of
broken staircase when I craned over and looked in. They were scuffling
for some prey that was there; and, when they started and hid themselves
close together in the dark, I thought of the old life (it had grown old
already) in the cellar.
How not to be this worldly little devil? how not to have a repugnance
towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid in a corner of one of
the smaller chambers, frightened at myself, and crying (it was the first
time I had ever cried for any cause not purely physical), and I tried to
think about it. One of the farm-ploughs came into my range of view just
then; and it seemed to help me as it went on with its two horses up and
down the field so peacefully and quietly.
There was a girl of about my own age in the farm-house family, and she
sat opposite to me at the narrow table at meal-times. It had come into
my mind, at our first dinner, that she might take the fever from me. The
thought had not disquieted me then. I had only speculated how she would
look under the altered circumstances, and whether she would die. But it
came into my mind now, that I might try to prevent her taking the fever
by keeping away from her. I knew I should have but scrambling board if I
did; so much the less worldly and less devilish the deed would be, I
thought.
From that hour, I withdrew myself at early morning into secret corners of
the ruined house, and remained hidden there until she went to bed. At
first, when meals were ready, I used to hear them calling me; and then my
resolution weakened. But I strengthened it again by going farther off
into the ruin, and getting out of hearing. I often watched for her at
the dim windows; and, when I saw that she was fresh and rosy, felt much
happier.
Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to the humanising of myself, I
suppose some childish love arose within me. I felt, in some sort,
dignified by the pride of protecting her,—by the pride of making the
sacrifice for her. As my heart swelled with that new feeling, it
insensibly softened about mother and father. It seemed to have been
frozen before, and now to be thawed. The old ruin and all the lovely
things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me only, but sorrowful for
mother and father as well. Therefore did I cry again, and often too.
The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper, and were
very short with me; though they never stinted me in such broken fare as
was to be got out of regular hours. One night when I lifted the kitchen
latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her pretty name) had but just
gone out of the room. Seeing her ascending the opposite stairs, I stood
still at the door. She had heard the clink of the latch, and looked
round.
‘George,’ she called to me in a pleased voice, ‘to-morrow is my birthday;
and we are to have a fiddler, and there’s a party of boys and girls
coming in a cart, and we shall dance. I invite you. Be sociable for
once, George.’
‘I am very sorry, miss,’ I answered; ‘but I—but, no; I can’t come.’
‘You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,’ she returned disdainfully;
‘and I ought not to have asked you. I shall never speak to you again.’
As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire, after she was gone, I felt
that the farmer bent his brows upon me.
‘Eh, lad!’ said he; ‘Sylvy’s right. You’re as moody and broody a lad as
never I set eyes on yet.’
I tried to assure him that I meant no harm; but he only said coldly,
‘Maybe not, maybe not! There, get thy supper, get thy supper; and then
thou canst sulk to thy heart’s content again.’
Ah! if they could have seen me next day, in the ruin, watching for the
arrival of the cart full of merry young guests; if they could have seen
me at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly statue, listening to the
music and the fall of dancing feet, and watching the lighted farm-house
windows from the quadrangle when all the ruin was dark; if they could
have read my heart, as I crept up to bed by the back way, comforting
myself with the reflection, ‘They will take no hurt from me,’—they would
not have thought mine a morose or an unsocial nature.
It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition; to be of a
timidly silent character under misconstruction; to have an inexpressible,
perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being sordid or worldly. It was in these
ways that my nature came to shape itself to such a mould, even before it
was affected by the influences of the studious and retired life of a poor
scholar.