account, the last, as it was believed, of his immediate line; though a
few of the older tenants were sometimes heard to speak of an elder
brother, who had disappeared in early life, and never inherited the
estate. Rumors, too, of his having left a son in foreign lands, were at
one time rife; but they died away, nothing occurring to support them:
the property passed unchallenged to a collateral branch of the family,
and the secret, if secret there were, was buried in Denton churchyard,
in the lonely grave of the mysterious stranger. One circumstance alone
occurred, after a long-intervening period, to revive the memory of these
transactions. Some workmen employed in grubbing an old plantation, for
the purpose of raising on its site a modern shrubbery, dug up, in the
execution of their task, the mildewed remnants of what seemed to have
been once a garment. On more minute inspection, enough remained of
silken slashes and a coarse embroidery, to identify the relics as having
once formed part of a pair of trunk hose; while a few papers which fell
from them, altogether illegible from damp and age, were by the unlearned
rustics conveyed to the then owner of the estate.
Whether the squire was more successful in deciphering them was never
known; he certainly never alluded to their contents; and little would
have been thought of the matter but for the inconvenient memory of one
old woman, who declared she heard her grandfather say, that when the
"strange guest" was poisoned, though all the rest of his clothes were
there, his breeches, the supposed repository of the supposed documents,
could never be found. The master of Tapton Everard smiled when he heard
Dame Jones's hint of deeds which might impeach the validity of his own
title in favor of some unknown descendant of some unknown heir; and the
story was rarely alluded to, save by one or two miracle-mongers, who had
heard that others had seen the ghost of old Sir Giles, in his night-cap,
issue from the postern, enter the adjoining copse, and wring his shadowy
hands in agony, as he seemed to search vainly for something hidden among
the evergreens. The stranger's death-room had, of course, been
occasionally haunted from the time of his decease; but the periods of
visitation had latterly become very rare--even Mrs. Botherby, the
housekeeper, being forced to admit that, during her long sojourn at the
manor, she had never "met with anything worse than herself"; though, as
the old lady afterwards added upon more mature reflection, "I must say I
think I saw the devil _once_."
Such was the legend attached to Tapton Everard, and such the story which
the lively Caroline Ingoldsby detailed to her equally mercurial cousin,
Charles Seaforth, lieutenant in the Hon. East India Company's second
regiment of Bombay Fencibles, as arm-in-arm they promenaded a gallery
decked with some dozen grim-looking ancestral portraits, and, among
others, with that of the redoubted Sir Giles himself. The gallant
commander had that very morning paid his first visit to the house of his
maternal uncle, after an absence of several years passed with his
regiment on the arid plains of Hindostan, whence he was now returned on
a three years' furlough. He had gone out a boy--he returned a man; but
the impression made upon his youthful fancy by his favorite cousin
remained unimpaired, and to Tapton he directed his steps, even before he
sought the home of his widowed mother--comforting himself in this breach
of filial decorum by the reflection that, as the manor was so little out
of his way, it would be unkind to pass, as it were, the door of his
relatives, without just looking in for a few hours.
But he found his uncle as hospitable, and his cousin more charming than
ever; and the looks of one, and the requests of the other, soon
precluded the possibility of refusing to lengthen the "few hours" into
a few days, though the house was at the moment full of visitors.
The Peterses were from Ramsgate; and Mr., Mrs., and the two Miss
Simpkinsons, from Bath, had come to pass a month with the family; and
Tom Ingoldsby had brought down his college friend the Honorable Augustus
Sucklethumbkin, with his groom and pointers, to take a fortnight's
shooting. And then there was Mrs. Ogleton, the rich young widow, with
her large black eyes, who, people did say, was setting her cap at the
young squire, though Mrs. Botherby did not believe it; and, above all,
there was Mademoiselle Pauline, her _femme de chambre_, who
"_mon-Dieu'd_" everything and everybody, and cried "_Quel horreur!_" at
Mrs. Botherby's cap. In short, to use the last-named and much-respected
lady's own expression, the house was "choke-full" to the very
attics--all save the "oaken chamber," which, as the lieutenant expressed
a most magnanimous disregard of ghosts, was forthwith appropriated to
his particular accommodation. Mr. Maguire meanwhile was fain to share
the apartment of Oliver Dobbs, the squire's own man; a jocular proposal
of joint occupancy having been first indignantly rejected by
"Mademoiselle," though preferred with the "laste taste in life" of Mr.
Barney's most insinuating brogue.
* * * * *
"Come, Charles, the urn is absolutely getting cold; your breakfast will
be quite spoiled: what can have made you so idle?" Such was the morning
salutation of Miss Ingoldsby to the _militaire_ as he entered the
breakfast-room half an hour after the latest of the party.
"A pretty gentleman, truly, to make an appointment with," chimed in Miss
Frances. "What is become of our ramble to the rocks before breakfast?"
"Oh! the young men never think of keeping a promise now," said Mrs.
Peters, a little ferret-faced woman with underdone eyes.
"When I was a young man," said Mr. Peters, "I remember I always made a
point of----"
"Pray, how long ago was that?" asked Mr. Simpkinson from Bath.
"Why, sir, when I married Mrs. Peters, I was--let me see--I was----"
"Do pray hold your tongue, P., and eat your breakfast!" interrupted his
better half, who had a mortal horror of chronological references; "it's
very rude to tease people with your family affairs."
The lieutenant had by this time taken his seat in silence--a
good-humored nod, and a glance, half-smiling, half-inquisitive, being
the extent of his salutation. Smitten as he was, and in the immediate
presence of her who had made so large a hole in his heart, his manner
was evidently _distrait_, which the fair Caroline in her secret soul
attributed to his being solely occupied by her _agremens_: how would she
have bridled had she known that they only shared his meditations with a
pair of breeches!
Charles drank his coffee and spiked some half-dozen eggs, darting
occasionally a penetrating glance at the ladies, in hope of detecting
the supposed waggery by the evidence of some furtive smile or conscious
look. But in vain; not a dimple moved indicative of roguery, nor did the
slightest elevation of eyebrow rise confirmative of his suspicions.
Hints and insinuations passed unheeded--more particular inquiries were
out of the question--the subject was unapproachable.
In the meantime, "patent cords" were just the thing for a morning's
ride; and, breakfast ended, away cantered the party over the downs,
till, every faculty absorbed by the beauties, animate and inanimate,
which surrounded him. Lieutenant Seaforth of the Bombay Fencibles
bestowed no more thought upon his breeches than if he had been born on
the top of Ben Lomond.
* * * * *
Another night had passed away; the sun rose brilliantly, forming with
his level beams a splendid rainbow in the far-off west, whither the
heavy cloud, which for the last two hours had been pouring its waters on
the earth, was now flying before him.
"Ah! then, and it's little good it'll be the claning of ye,"
apostrophized Mr. Barney Maguire, as he deposited, in front of his
master's toilet, a pair of "bran new" jockey boots, one of Hoby's
primest fits, which the lieutenant had purchased in his way through
town. On that very morning had they come for the first time under the
valet's depurating hand, so little soiled, indeed, from the turfy ride
of the preceding day, that a less scrupulous domestic might, perhaps,
have considered the application of "Warren's Matchless," or oxalic acid,
altogether superfluous. Not so Barney: with the nicest care had he
removed the slightest impurity from each polished surface, and there
they stood, rejoicing in their sable radiance. No wonder a pang shot
across Mr. Maguire's breast as he thought on the work now cut out for
them, so different from the light labors of the day before; no wonder he
murmured with a sigh, as the scarce dried window-panes disclosed a road
now inch deep in mud! "Ah! then, it's little good claning of ye!"--for
well had he learned in the hall below that eight miles of a stiff clay
soil lay between the manor and Bolsover Abbey, whose picturesque ruins,
"Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay,"
the party had determined to explore. The master had already commenced
dressing, and the man was fitting straps upon a light pair of
crane-necked spurs, when his hand was arrested by the old
question--"Barney, where are the breeches?"
They were nowhere to be found!
* * * * *
Mr. Seaforth descended that morning, whip in hand, and equipped in a
handsome green riding-frock, but no "breeches and boots to match" were
there: loose jean trousers, surmounting a pair of diminutive
Wellingtons, embraced, somewhat incongruously, his nether man, _vice_
the "patent cords," returned, like yesterday's pantaloons, absent
without leave. The "top-boots" had a holiday.
"A fine morning after the rain," said Mr. Simpkinson from Bath.
"Just the thing for the 'ops," said Mr. Peters. "I remember when I was a
boy----"
"Do hold your tongue, P.," said Mrs. Peters--advice which that exemplary
matron was in the constant habit of administering to "her P." as she
called him, whenever he prepared to vent his reminiscences. Her precise
reason for this it would be difficult to determine, unless, indeed, the
story be true which a little bird had whispered into Mrs. Botherby's
ear--Mr. Peters, though now a wealthy man had received a liberal
education at a charity school, and was apt to recur to the days of his
muffin-cap and leathers. As usual, he took his wife's hint in good part,
and "paused in his reply."
"A glorious day for the ruins!" said young Ingoldsby. "But Charles, what
the deuce are you about? you don't mean to ride through our lanes in
such toggery as that?"
"Lassy me!" said Miss Julia Simpkinson, "won't yo' be very wet?"
"You had better take Tom's cab," quoth the squire.
But this proposition was at once over-ruled; Mrs. Ogleton had already
nailed the cab, a vehicle of all others the best adapted for a snug
flirtation.
"Or drive Miss Julia in the phaeton?" No; that was the post of Mr.
Peters, who, indifferent as an equestrian, had acquired some fame as a
whip while traveling through the midland counties for the firm of
Bagshaw, Snivelby, and Ghrimes.
"Thank you, I shall ride with my cousins," said Charles, with as much
_nonchalance_ as he could assume--and he did so; Mr. Ingoldsby, Mrs.
Peters, Mr. Simpkinson from Bath, and his eldest daughter with her
_album_, following in the family coach. The gentleman-commoner "voted
the affair d----d slow," and declined the party altogether in favor of
the gamekeeper and a cigar. "There was 'no fun' in looking at old
houses!" Mrs. Simpkinson preferred a short _sejour_ in the still-room
with Mrs. Botherby, who had promised to initiate her in that grand
_arcanum_, the transmutation of gooseberry jam into Guava jelly.
* * * * *
"Did you ever see an old abbey before, Mrs. Peters?"
"Yes, miss, a French one; we have got one at Ramsgate; he teaches the
Miss Joneses to parley-voo and is turned of sixty."
Miss Simpkinson closed her album with an air of ineffable disdain.
Mr. Simpkinson from Bath was a professed antiquary, and one of the
first water; he was master of Gwillim's Heraldry, and Mill's History of
the Crusades; knew every plate in the Monasticon; had written an essay
on the origin and dignity of the office of overseer, and settled the
date on a Queen Anne's farthing. An influential member of the
Antiquarian Society, to whose "Beauties of Bagnigge Wells" he had been a
liberal subscriber, procured him a seat at the board of that learned
body, since which happy epoch Sylvanus Urban had not a more
indefatigable correspondent. His inaugural essay on the President's
cocked hat was considered a miracle of erudition; and his account of the
earliest application of gilding to gingerbread, a masterpiece of
antiquarian research. His eldest daughter was of a kindred spirit: if
her father's mantle had not fallen upon her, it was only because he had
not thrown it off himself; she had caught hold of its tail, however,
while it yet hung upon his honored shoulders. To souls so congenial,
what a sight was the magnificent ruin of Bolsover! its broken arches,
its mouldering pinnacles, and the airy tracery of its half-demolished
windows. The party were in raptures; Mr. Simpkinson began to meditate an
essay, and his daughter an ode: even Seaforth, as he gazed on these
lonely relics of the olden time, was betrayed into a momentary
forgetfulness of his love and losses; the widow's eye-glass turned from
her _cicisbeo's_ whiskers to the mantling ivy; Mrs. Peters wiped her
spectacles; and "her P." supposed the central tower "had once been the
county jail." The squire was a philosopher, and had been there often
before, so he ordered out the cold tongue and chickens.
"Bolsover Priory," said Mr. Simpkinson, with the air of a
connoisseur--"Bolsover Priory was founded in the reign of Henry the
Sixth, about the beginning of the eleventh century. Hugh de Bolsover had
accompanied that monarch to the Holy Land, in the expedition undertaken
by way of penance for the murder of his young nephews in the Tower. Upon
the dissolution of the monasteries, the veteran was enfeoffed in the
lands and manor, to which he gave his own name of Bowlsover, or
Bee-owls-over (by corruption Bolsover)--a Bee in chief, over three Owls,
all proper, being the armorial ensigns borne by this distinguished
crusader at the siege of Acre."
"Ah! that was Sir Sidney Smith," said Mr. Peters; "I've heard tell of
him, and all about Mrs. Partington, and----"
"P. be quiet, and don't expose yourself!" sharply interrupted his lady.
P. was silenced, and betook himself to the bottled stout.
"These lands," continued the antiquary, "were held in grand serjeantry
by the presentation of three white owls and pot of honey----"
"Lassy me! how nice!" said Miss Julia. Mr. Peters licked his lips.
"Pray give me leave, my dear--owls and honey, whenever the king should
come a rat-catching into this part of the country."
"Rat-catching!" ejaculated the squire, pausing abruptly in the
mastication of a drumstick.
"To be sure, my dear sir; don't you remember the rats came under the
forest laws--a minor species of venison? 'Rats and mice, and such small
deer,' eh?--Shakespeare, you know. Our ancestors ate rats ('The nasty
fellows!' shuddered Miss Julia, in a parenthesis); and owls, you know,
are capital mousers----"
"I've seen a howl," said Mr. Peters; "there's one in the Sohological
Gardens--a little hook-nosed chap in a wig--only its feathers and----"
Poor P. was destined never to finish a speech.
"_Do_ be quiet!" cried the authoritative voice; and the would-be
naturalist shrank into his shell, like a snail in the "Sohological
Gardens."
"You should read Blount's _Jocular Tenures_, Mr. Ingoldsby," pursued
Simpkinson. "A learned man was Blount! Why, sir, His Royal Highness the
Duke of York once paid a silver horse-shoe to Lord Ferrers----"
"I've heard of him," broke in the incorrigible Peters; "he was hanged at
the Old Bailey in a silk rope for shooting Dr. Johnson."
The antiquary vouchsafed no notice of the interruption; but, taking a
pinch of snuff, continued his harangue.
"A silver horse-shoe, sir, which is due from every scion of royalty who
rides across one of his manors; and if you look into the penny county
histories, now publishing by an eminent friend of mine, you will find
that Langhale in Co. Norf. was held by one Baldwin _per saltum,
sufflatum, et pettum_; that is, he was to come every Christmas into
Westminster Hall, there to take a leap, cry hem! and----"
"Mr. Simpkinson, a glass of sherry?" cried Tom Ingoldsby, hastily.
"Not any, thank you, sir. This Baldwin, surnamed _Le----_"
"Mrs. Ogleton challenges you, sir; she insists upon it," said Tom still
more rapidly, at the same time filling a glass, and forcing it on the
_scavant_, who, thus arrested in the very crisis of his narrative,
received and swallowed the potation as if it had been physic.
"What on earth has Miss Simpkinson discovered there?" continued Tom;
"something of interest. See how fast she is writing."
The diversion was effectual; every one looked towards Miss Simpkinson,
who, far too ethereal for "creature comforts," was seated apart on the
dilapidated remains of an altar-tomb, committing eagerly to paper
something that had strongly impressed her; the air--the eye in a "fine
frenzy rolling"--all betokened that the divine _afflarus_ was come. Her
father rose, and stole silently towards her.
"What an old boar!" muttered young Ingoldsby; alluding, perhaps, to a
slice of brawn which he had just begun to operate upon, but which, from
the celerity with which it disappeared, did not seem so very difficult
of mastication.
But what had become of Seaforth and his fair Caroline all this while?
Why, it so happened that they had been simultaneously stricken with the
picturesque appearance of one of those high and pointed arches, which
that eminent antiquary, Mr. Horseley Curties, has described in his
_Ancient Records_, as "a _Gothic_ window of the _Saxon_ order"; and then
the ivy clustered so thickly and so beautifully on the other side, that
they went round to look at that; and then their proximity deprived it of
half its effect, and so they walked across to a little knoll, a hundred
yards off, and in crossing a small ravine, they came to what in Ireland
they call "a bad step," and Charles had to carry his cousin over it; and
then when they had to come back, she would not give him the trouble
again for the world, so they followed a better but more circuitous
route, and there were hedges and ditches in the way, and stiles to get
over and gates to get through, so that an hour or more had elapsed
before they were able to rejoin the party.
"Lassy me!" said Miss Julia Simpkinson, "how long you have been gone!"
And so they had. The remark was a very just as well as a very natural
one. They were gone a long while, and a nice cosy chat they had; and
what do you think it was all about, my dear miss?
"O lassy me! love, no doubt, and the moon, and eyes, and nightingales,
and----"
Stay, stay, my sweet young lady; do not let the fervor of your feelings
run away with you! I do not pretend to say, indeed, that one or more of
these pretty subjects might not have been introduced; but the most
important and leading topic of the conference was--Lieutenant Seaforth's
breeches.
"Caroline," said Charles, "I have had some very odd dreams since I have
been at Tappington."
"Dreams, have you?" smiled the young lady, arching her taper neck like a
swan in pluming. "Dreams, have you?"
"Ah, dreams--or dream, perhaps, I should say; for, though repeated, it
was still the same. And what do you imagine was its subject?"
"It is impossible for me to divine," said the tongue; "I have not the
least difficulty in guessing," said the eye, as plainly as ever eye
spoke.
"I dreamt--of your great-grandfather!"
There was a change in the glance--"My great-grandfather?"
"Yes, the old Sir Giles, or Sir John, you told me about the other day:
he walked into my bedroom in his short cloak of murrey-colored velvet,
his long rapier, and his Raleigh-looking hat and feather, just as the
picture represents him; but with one exception."
"And what was that?"
"Why, his lower extremities, which were visible, were those of a
skeleton."
"Well?"
"Well, after taking a turn or two about the room, and looking round him
with a wistful air, he came to the bed's foot, stared at me in a manner
impossible to describe--and then he--he laid hold of my pantaloons;
whipped his long bony legs into them in a twinkling; and strutting up to
the glass, seemed to view himself in it with great complacency. I tried
to speak, but in vain. The effort, however, seemed to excite his
attention; for, wheeling about, he showed me the grimmest-looking
death's head you can well imagine, and with an indescribable grin
strutted out of the room."
"Absurd! Charles. How can you talk such nonsense?"
"But, Caroline--the breeches are really gone."
* * * * *
On the following morning, contrary to his usual custom, Seaforth was the
first person in the breakfast parlor. As no one else was present, he did
precisely what nine young men out of ten so situated would have done; he
walked up to the mantelpiece, established himself upon the rug, and
subducting his coat-tails one under each arm, turned towards the fire
that portion of the human frame which it is considered equally
indecorous to present to a friend or an enemy. A serious, not to say
anxious, expression was visible upon his good-humored countenance, and
his mouth was fast buttoning itself up for an incipient whistle, when
little Flo, a tiny spaniel of the Blenheim breed--the pet object of Miss
Julia Simpkinson's affections--bounced out from beneath a sofa, and
began to bark at--his pantaloons.
They were cleverly "built," of a light-grey mixture, a broad stripe of
the most vivid scarlet traversing each seam in a perpendicular direction
from hip to ankle--in short, the regimental costume of the Royal Bombay
Fencibles. The animal, educated in the country, had never seen such a
pair of breeches in her life--_Omne ignotum pro magnifico!_ The scarlet
streak, inflamed as it was by the reflection of the fire, seemed to act
on Flora's nerves as the same color does on those of bulls and turkeys;
she advanced at the _pas de charge_, and her vociferation, like her
amazement, was unbounded. A sound kick from the disgusted officer
changed its character, and induced a retreat at the very moment when the
mistress of the pugnacious quadruped entered to the rescue.
"Lassy me! Flo, what _is_ the matter?" cried the sympathizing lady, with
a scrutinizing glance leveled at the gentleman.
It might as well have lighted on a feather bed. His air of imperturbable
unconsciousness defied examination; and as he would not, and Flora could
not, expound, that injured individual was compelled to pocket up her
wrongs. Others of the household soon dropped in, and clustered round the
board dedicated to the most sociable of meals; the urn was paraded
"hissing hot," and the cups which "cheer, but not inebriate," steamed
redolent of hyson and pekoe; muffins and marmalade, newspapers, and
Finnan haddies, left little room for observation on the character of
Charles's warlike "turn-out." At length a look from Caroline, followed
by a smile that nearly ripened to a titter, caused him to turn abruptly
and address his neighbor. It was Miss Simpkinson, who, deeply engaged in
sipping her tea and turning over her album, seemed, like a female
Chrononotonthologos, "immersed in cogibundity of cogitation." An
interrogatory on the subject of her studies drew from her the confession
that she was at that moment employed in putting the finishing touches to
a poem inspired by the romantic shades of Bolsover. The entreaties of
the company were of course urgent. Mr. Peters, "who liked verses," was
especially persevering, and Sappho at length compliant. After a
preparatory hem! and a glance at the mirror to ascertain that her look
was sufficiently sentimental, the poetess began:--
"There is a calm, a holy feeling,
Vulgar minds, can never know,
O'er the bosom softly stealing,--
Chasten'd grief, delicious woe!
Oh! how sweet at eve regaining
Yon lone tower's sequester'd shade--
Sadly mute and uncomplaining----"