"Young barbarians all at play."
Some few years ago Mr Gerald Lester was the head of a family of good
blood and position, and the owner of Oakby Hall, the great house of a
village of the same name in the county of Westmoreland. The border line
between Westmoreland and Yorkshire crossed his property; but his house
and park were in the former county, for which he was a deputy sheriff
and justice of the peace.
He was not a man of very large fortune, and Oakby Hall was not a show
place, but a well-built mansion of the last century, with some
architectural pretensions, and standing in the midst of that sort of
wild and romantic scenery which, perhaps more than any other, fixes the
affections of its inhabitants. Oakby, at any rate, was very dear to its
owner.
The great sweeps of heather-clad moor, the fell sides, with their short
green turf, the fertile valleys, had a character of their own, inferior
as they were to the better-known parts of Westmoreland.
Oakby village was situated in one of the largest of these valleys, and
the Hall lay low on the side of a hill over which the well-planted park
stretched on either side. The house could be seen all the way up the
long carriage drive, for it was only shut off from the park by an iron
railing, within which the turf was mown close and fine, instead of being
left to be cropped by sheep and cattle. The gardens were at the side,
and there were no trees in front of the house but one oak of great size
and beauty. There was a wide carriage sweep, and the space between this
and the house was paved, and on either side of the front-door was a
stone wolf of somewhat forbidding aspect--the crest of the Lesters.
The grey stone house thus exposed to view was stately enough, and though
too open and free to be exactly gloomy, this northern front was bleak
and cold, especially on a frosty winter twilight, when the light was
dying away in the distance, and the piece of ornamental water and the
pleasant bits of woodland, beyond were not distinctly visible. No such
thought ever crossed the minds of the young Lesters, who came back to it
from school and college as to the dearest of homes; but to a stranger, a
little doubtful of a welcome, it might perhaps look formidable.
Within doors a blazing fire and abundance of rugs and skins made the
hall the most attractive place in the house, both for dogs and men;
especially between the lights, when there was little to do anywhere
else, and all were tired with their day's work, or ready to discuss
their day's amusement.
Just before Christmas play was legitimate; and the young Lesters, skates
in hand, had just returned from the lake, and were grouped together
round, the fire, noisily praising and criticising each other's recent
performances.
"I never should have had a tumble all day if Bob hadn't come up against
me like a steam engine," cried the one girl, a tall creature of sixteen,
big, fair, and rosy.
"I came against you! That's a good one. Who could keep out of your
way?" ejaculated the aggrieved twin brother. "You can no more guide
yourself than--"
"A balloon," put in the more softly accented voice of the eldest brother
present, as he unfastened his skates from the neck of his great Saint
Bernard, who had dutifully carried them home for him.
"Now, Cherry, that's not true!" cried the girl in loud indignation. "Of
course I can't be expected to do figures of eight and spread-eagles like
you and Jack."
"I saw an American fellow the other day who skated twice as well as
either of us."
"No? All! I don't believe that!" from the girl.
"But then they've ice all the year round," from Bob.
"I daresay they can't do anything else," from Jack.
"Jack always is so liberal!" from Cheriton; and then, "Hush! here's the
squire."
It was sometimes said that no one of the young Lesters would be so fine
a man as his father; and certainly Mr Lester was a splendid specimen of
an English gentleman, though the big Jack rivalled him in inches, and
promised equal size and strength, while Cheriton, who was of a slighter
build, inherited his blue eyes and brilliant colouring. But they were
his own children--every one fair, and tall, and healthy; and their
characteristic differences did not destroy their strong resemblance to
each other and to their handsome father, who now stood in the midst of
them with a foreign letter in his hand, at which the children glanced
curiously.
He was not much above fifty; his hair and beard, which had once deserved
to be called golden, had rather faded than grizzled, his skin was still
fresh and healthy, and his eyes bright in colour and full of expression;
the level brows met over them. His children, as has been said, were
curiously like him--Annette, or Nettie, as she was commonly called,
perhaps the most so. Although she was big and unformed, she had the
promise of great beauty in her straight sulky brows and large sky-blue
eyes, resplendent colouring which defied sunburn, and abundant yellow
hair. Her nose was straight and fine, like her father's, but her full
red lips were a trifle sullen; the contour of her face was heavy, and
though she looked well born and well bred, she lacked the refinement of
intelligent expression. But if her great blue eyes looked stupid and
rather cross, they were as honest as the day; and at sixteen there was
still time for thoughts and feelings to come and print themselves on
this beautiful piece of flesh and blood.
She was very untidily though handsomely dressed, and had the awkwardness
of a girl too big for her age; but as she stood leaning back against the
oak table, there was such vigour and life in her strong young limbs as
to give them a kind of grace. She had a low voice of refined quality,
but she spoke with a strong north-country accent, as did her father. In
the brothers it was much modified by their southern schooling. The twin
brother, Robert, retained, however, a good deal of it. He was a
heavier, less handsome likeness of her, and might have been described as
a fine lad or a great lout, according to the prepossessions of the
speaker. The next brother, John, or, as he was usually called, Jack,
had, at nineteen, hardly yet outgrown the same ungainliness of manner;
but his height, and the strength trained by many an athletic struggle,
could not fail to be striking; and though he had something of the same
sullen straightness of brow, the eyes beneath were thoughtful and keen.
There was no lack of mental power in Jack's grave young face, and he was
a formidable opponent to his schoolfellows in contests of brain as well
as of muscle.
Cheriton, except that his brows arched a little, so that he could not
attain to the perfection of the family frown, and that he was an inch or
two shorter and much slighter, was so like Jack that when he was grave
and silent his brighter colouring and the moustaches to which he had
attained were, at first sight, the chief points of difference between
them. But then Jack's face to-day would be his face to-morrow, while
Cheriton's expression varied with almost every word he spoke, so that he
was sometimes said to be the image of his father, sometimes to be the
one Lester who was like nobody but himself; while, now and then old
friends wondered how this handsome young man came to have such a look of
the mother, who had been no beauty, but only a high-minded and
cultivated woman. He was his father's favourite, and somehow his
brothers were not jealous of the preference. "Cherry," as they called
him, was the family oracle, though he risked his place now and then when
his utterances were not in accordance with the prevailing sentiment.
Mr Lester's expression was now dark enough to indicate annoyance of no
common kind; but it did not take much to make him look cross, and if his
sons and daughter had not known that there was an unusual speck on the
family horizon, they would have surmised that the keepers were in
disgrace, the newspaper late in arriving, or that they themselves had
unwittingly transgressed.
As it was they were all silent, though Cheriton looked up with a
question in his eyes, and the twins glanced at each other.
"I have had a letter from--your brother; he has started on his journey,
and will be here in a day or two."