for his favorite sister. Had she possessed a long name, he would
probably have abbreviated it; as she had a short one, he extended it.
"O Celestina! I am so tired of being good! I am tired of Sundays,
and grammar, and the catechism, and sermons, and keeping things tidy,
and going to church, and being scolded, and--I'm tired of
everything!" said Charley, suddenly lumping together the remainder of
his heterogeneous catalogue.
"Charley!" said Celia, slowly and wonderingly.
"I am! And I am half determined to go off, and have no more of it!
Father may say what he likes about treason, and hang the Pretender as
often as he pleases; but I say 'tis a grand thing to think of the
King's son, whom we have kicked out, living on charity in a foreign
land, and trying with such wonderful patience to recover the throne
of his fathers! I should like to be with him, and bivouac--isn't
that what Harry calls it?--bivouac in forests, and march on day after
day, always seeing something new, and then at last have a battle!
Wouldn't it be glorious?"
"For you to fight with Harry, and one of you kill the other? No, I
don't think it would."
"I didn't say anything about fighting with Harry," resumed Charley, a
little sulkily. "No, I should not like that. But as to anything
else, I just tell you, Celia, that if some day I am not to be found,
you will know I am gone to St. Germains to fight for the King--the
King!" And Charley drew himself up at least two inches as he said
the last words.
"Hush, Charley, do!"
"I won't hush! And I really mean it!"
"Charley, I shall have to tell Father, if you talk any more nonsense
like that!" said Celia, really alarmed.
"Celia, do you know what it is to feel downright wicked?" asked
Charley, in a different tone.
"Yes--no--not as you mean, I fancy."
"No, I don't think you do. I wish you did."
"Charley!"
"Well, I mean, I wish I didn't! Father talks of hanging things; I
feel sometimes as if I could hang everything."
"Me?" demanded Celia, smiling.
"No, I wouldn't hang you; and I wouldn't hang Mother," pursued
Charley, meditatively. "Nor Bay Fairy, nor Lucy, nor the black cat;
nor Harry--I think not; nor Cicely, except first thing in a morning
when she rouses me up out of a nice sleep, or last thing at night
when she packs me off to bed whether I will or not. I am not sure
about Father. As to the rest, they would have to look out for
themselves."
"Now, Charley!" said Celia, laughing.
"Celia, you don't know what it is to feel wicked, I wish I could get
something to make me--not keep good, because I have to do--but make
me want to be good."
Celia was silent for a moment. Then she said, very slowly and
hesitatingly, "Charley, I suppose we shall only want to be good, when
we want to please God, and to be like Jesus Christ."
"I don't know anything about that," said Charley, turning round to
look at her.
"I know very little about it," said Celia, blushing. "But I have
begun to think, Charley--only just lately--that we ought to care more
about pleasing God than anything else."
"Is that what makes you such a darling of a sister?" said Charley.
"I'll think about it if it be. You are always trying to please
everybody, it seems to me. But I don't think I could keep it up,
Celia. I don't care much about pleasing anybody but myself."
"Charley," said his sister, with a great effort, "there is a verse in
the Bible which I was reading this morning--'Even Christ pleased not
Himself.'" She spoke very shyly; but she loved this younger brother
dearly, and longed to see him grow up a really great and good man.
And she found it easier to talk to Charley, Lucy, and Cicely than to
others. She would not have dared to quote a text to Henrietta.
"Well, but you know we can't be like Him," said Charley, reverently.
"We must, before we can go to heaven."
"Well, then, I might as well give up at once!" answered Charley,
beginning to whistle.
"Oh no, Charley dear!" said Celia, so earnestly, that Charley stopped
whistling, and looked up in her face. "He will help us to do right
if we try. I do want you to grow up a good man, loving God and doing
good to men. Won't you ask Him, Charley?"
"Well, perhaps--I'll see about it," said Charley, as his sister
stroked the light hair affectionately away from his brow. "At any
rate, I don't think I'll go to St. Germains just yet. You are a dear
old Celestina!"
[1] Tennyson, "Idylls of the King"--Enid.
[2] The alphabet, which in the hornbooks was surmounted with a cross
and the lines:
"Christ's cross be my speed
In these letters to my need."
[3] Heb. x. 25.
[4] Matt. vii. 11.
[5] Luke xi. 13.
[6] Patches, scraps of black court-plaster, or gummed velvet cut in
shapes--stars, crescents, circles, lozenges, and even more elaborate
and absurd forms--became fashionable about 1650, and remained so for
many years. In the reign of Queen Anne, ladies showed their
political proclivities by their patches--those who patched on one
side of the face only being Tories, and on the other, Whigs.
Neutrals patched on both sides.
[7] Thomas Aquinas bore this flattering epithet.
[8] 2 Cor. v. 21.
[9] John ii. 25.
[10] John xvii. 3.
[11] Isaiah lxiv. 6.
[12] Henry Sacheverell, born at Marlborough in 1672, began life as a
Whig, but finding that unprofitable, became a fervid Tory and High
Churchman. He was presented to St. Saviour's, Southwark, in 1705.
His celebrated trial, which followed the sermon noticed above, began
February 27, and ended March 20, 1710. The Queen presented him to
St. Andrew's, Holborn, in 1713; and after some years spent in
comparative obscurity, he died on the 5th of June 1724.
[13] Sidney Godolphin, Earl of Godolphin.
II.
A BAT BEHIND THE WAINSCOT.
"He gazed on the river that gurgled by,
But he thought not of the reeds;
He clasped his gilded rosary,
But he did not tell the beads:
If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke
The Spirit that dwelleth there;
If he opened his lips, the words they spoke
Had never the tone of prayer.
A pious priest might the Abbot seem,--
He had swayed the crosier well;
But what was the theme of the Abbot's dream,
The Abbot were loath to tell."
W. M. PRAED.
"Harry!" said Celia, coming down with her cloak and hood on, one fine
day in the following spring, "one of the pegs in the closet in our
room is loose; will you make it secure for us while we are walking?"
The whole family were going for an excursion in the woods, as it was
Lucy's birthday, and Harry's sprained ankle kept him at home. He
could stand without pain for a short time, but could not walk far;
and a horse would not have been able to carry him through the thick
underwood. Delay was suggested; but, as Lucy very truly, if somewhat
selfishly, asserted, another day would not have been her birthday.
All things considered, the Squire had decided that the excursion
should not be put off, and the party set out accordingly. After they
were gone, Harry went up to Celia's room, to see what would be
required. The setting to rights of the offending peg was soon
effected. He was retiring from the closet, when he set his foot upon
a little round substance, which he guessed to be the head of a nail
sticking up from the floor of the closet close to one of the back
panels.
"Ah!" observed Harry, apostrophizing the nail, "you must come out.
You will be tearing Miss Lucy's gown, and she won't like having to
mend it."
Harry accordingly proceeded to attempt the removal of the nail. But
he found to his surprise that neither his hand nor his tools seemed
strong enough to pull it out. Its position, close to the back of the
closet, made it all the more difficult. Was it really a nail? He
looked at it more closely. It had a brass head, and Harry came to
the conclusion that it was a knob placed there on purpose. But for
what purpose? It would go neither backwards nor forwards; but when
Harry tried to pull it to one side, to his astonishment a little door
flew open, so neatly fitted into the closet floor as to defy
detection, the nail or knob being fixed in the midst. Below the
little door appeared a tiny box, with a second brass knob fixed in
it. At the bottom was a brass plate, from a small round hole in
which the knob protruded.
"Now then," remarked Harry, "let me look at you. What are _you_ for?"
He very soon discovered that upon touching it. The moment that the
little knob was pushed inwards, the whole panel in the back of the
closet suddenly sprang back, showing that it was in reality a
concealed door, the catch closing it having been liberated by
pressing the little knob in the tiny box. What was behind the door
it was impossible to see without a candle, for the closet was a deep
one, and the opening of its door cut off the light from the bedroom
window. Harry quietly came out of the closet, locked the bedroom
door, and went to his own chamber to fetch a taper and his sword. He
was determined to follow up his discovery.
The light of the candle revealed no array of skeletons, but a narrow
passage, which he saw, on stepping into it, to be the head of a very
narrow spiral staircase. With the candle in one hand, and the sword
in the other, Harry, in whose mental vocabulary fear had no place,
calmly walked down the staircase. The excitement of the adventure
overpowered any pain which he felt from his ankle. A faint smell of
dried roses met him at the foot of the stairs. On the right hand
stood a heavy door. Harry gave it a strong push, and being
unlatched, it slowly opened and admitted him. He stood in a very
small square chamber. There was no window. A table was in the
middle, two chairs stood against the wall, and in one corner was a
handsome chest on which two books were lying. All the furniture was
of carved oak. Harry opened the books, and then the chest. The
former were a Latin missal and breviary; the latter was occupied by a
set of church vestments, a crucifix, a thurible, and sundry other
articles, whose use was no mystery to the travelled discoverer.
"So you are a priest's hiding-place," said Harry, dryly, to the
concealed chamber. "So much is plain. They say mass at this table.
Well, I did not know we had one of these at Ashcliffe. I wonder how
many years it is since this was inhabited? I protest!--upon my word,
I do believe it is inhabited now!"
He had suddenly perceived that while on the stairs the dust lay
thick, there was none resting on the furniture within the chamber.
Books, chest, chairs, table--all bore evidence of having been used so
recently, that no considerable accumulation of dust had time to
gather on them. Harry looked coolly around, and descried another
door, opposite to the one by which he had entered. Opening this, he
found himself at the summit of a second spiral staircase, down which
he went--down, down, until he fancied that he must be descending
below the foundations of the house. At length the spiral form of the
staircase ended, and a further flight of steps ran straight down.
Harry wondered whether he was going into the bowels of the earth, but
he kept onwards, until once more stopped by a door. This door opened
readily, being unlatched like the others, and he looked out into
darkness. Casting his eyes upwards, he saw, in the direction wherein
he supposed the sky should be, a small round patch of blue.
"Well, you were a cunning fox who planned this hole!" thought he.
"One end opens into the closet in Celia's room, and the other into
the old well in the garden. There must be some means of climbing up
out of the well, I presume, and the worthy gentleman who makes this
his abode is probably well acquainted with them. I wonder if my
father and mother know of this? If not, I had better make up the
entrance, and not tell them. My mother would be too frightened to
sleep in any peace if she knew that such a place was hidden in the
house, and my father would rouse all Devonshire about it. I wonder,
too, who they are that use it? Are they still priests, or Jacobite
fugitives? or are they highwaymen? Whatever they be, I must make up
this door, as soon as I am a little better able to exert myself."
Thus thinking, Harry withdrew from the secret chamber, and regained
Celia's room. Pulling to the door, he found that the panel and the
hidden box closed each with a spring. He left the bedroom, and went
down-stairs meditating upon his discovery.[1]
A fortnight later, when his ankle had regained strength, he took the
opportunity, when both the sisters were out, to make a second visit
to the secret chamber. He found its arrangements slightly altered--a
proof that its mysterious occupant had been there within a few days.
The books were gone, and one of the chairs was now standing by the
table. Harry dragged some ponderous logs of wood to the outer door
which led into the well, and by means of these barricaded the door
effectually against any return of the refugee.
During the interval he had taken the opportunity of asking a few
questions of different persons, which might give him some idea
whether they were aware of the existence of this concealed chamber.
"Mother," he asked, one evening, when Madam Passmore had been
lamenting the sad fact that things wore out much sooner than when she
was a girl, "had you ever any of that fine carved furniture like
Madam Harvey's?"
"No, my dear, not a bit," said his mother.
"Bell," he asked, on another occasion, "do you ever hear rats or mice
in your wainscot?"
"Oh, they tease me infinitely!" answered Isabella. "They make noises
behind the wainscot till I cannot sleep, and for the last week I have
put cotton wool in my ears to keep out the sound."
"Cicely," he inquired, lastly, "did you ever see a ghost?"
"No, Master Harry, I never have," replied Cicely, mysteriously, thus
hinting that there might be some people who had done so. "I never
see one, nor never want. But they do haunt old houses, that's a
truth."
"How do you know that if you never saw one?" laughed Harry.
"Well, my dear!" exclaimed Cicely, "if you'd a been down with me in
the scullery one night last week--I couldn't sleep, and I went down
for to get a bit of victuals, and washed my hands in the scullery--I
say, if you'd a-heard the din they made over my head, you might have
thought somewhat."
"Who made it, Cicely?"
"Them!" said Cicely, in a mysterious whisper. "Nay, I never saw
none, but my grandmother's aunt's mother-in-law, she did."
"Ah! she is a good way off us," said Harry, satirically. "But you
know, this house is rather too new for ghosts. A fine old castle,
now, with all manner of winding stairs and secret passages--that
would be the place to see a ghost."
"Eh! my dear, don't you give me the horrors!" cried Cicely. "Why, I
could never sleep in my bed if I lived in a place where them secret
places and such was--no, never lie quiet, I couldn't! Nay, Master
Harry, nobody never seed no ghosteses in this house. I've lived here
eight-and-twenty year come Martlemas, and I ought to know."
"And pray, Cicely, who was your great-grandmother's first cousin's
niece, or whatever she were? and what did she see?"
"My grandmother's aunt's mother-in-law, Master," corrected Cicely.
"She see a little child in a white coat."
"How very extraordinary!" commented Harry gravely.
"Master Harry, I'm certain sure you don't believe a word of it, for
all you look so grave," said old Cicely, shaking her head sorrowfully.
"I can't say that I do at present. But you see I have not heard the
particulars yet."
"Then you shall, Master," said old Cicely, rather excitedly. "'Twas
at Dagworth in Suffolk, in the house of one Master Osborne, where she
served as chambermaid. He had been a while in the house, had the
ghost, and nobody couldn't get to see him--no, not the parson, though
he used to reason with him on doctrine and godliness. They oft heard
him a-calling for meat and drink, with the voice of a child of one
year, which meat being put in a certain place was no more seen. He
said his name was Malke. And after a while, one day she spoke to him
and begged him for a sight of him, promising not to touch him.
Whereupon he appeared to her as a young child in a white coat, and
told her that he was a mortal child, stole by the good-folk,[2] and
that he was born at Lanaham, and wore a hat that made him invisible,
and so, quoth he, doth many another. He spoke English after the
manner of the country, and had many roguish and laughter-stirring
sayings, that at last they grew not to fear him."[3]
"How long did he stay there?"
"Now you are asking me more than I know, Master. But don't you never
go to say again that there's no such things as ghosteses, when my
grandmother's aunt's mother-in-law seen him with her own two eyes!"
"And Mr. Osborne kept no dogs, or cats, I suppose?"
"Master Harry, you don't believe it! Well, to be sure, I never did!
You'll be saying next thing that there's no such things as the
good-folk, when I've seen their dancing-rings on the grass many a
hundred times! I'm sore afeared, Master Harry, that it haven't done
you no good a-going for a soldier--I am."
And Harry found that all his arguments produced no further effect
than the conviction of old Cicely that he had been in bad company.
From the information thus gained, however, he formed these
conclusions:--First, His mother knew nothing about the secret
chamber. Secondly, Cicely was equally ignorant. Thirdly, It was
situated, as he had surmised--above the scullery or behind
it--probably both--and below his sister Isabella's bedroom.
Fourthly, It had been inhabited as recently as the preceding week.
All the more reason, he thought, for stopping up the means of
ingress; and all the more for not revealing to old Cicely that her
ghost was in all probability a Popish priest.
On the evening of the spring day upon which Harry thus barred the
refugee out of his hiding-place, Celia was strolling through the park
alone. She fed the fawns and the swans on the ornamental water, and
wandered on with no definite object, until she reached the boundary
of her father's grounds. She sat down on the grass near a large
laurel, and became lost in thought. There happened at this place to
be a small gap in the hedge near her, through which her position was
plainly observable from the road. She started as she heard a sudden
appeal made to her:
"Young Madam, pray you a penny, for the love of God!"
Celia turned and looked at the speaker. He was a dark, good-looking
man, dressed in clothes which had once been handsome, but were now
ragged and thread-bare. His eyes, dark, sunken, and very bright,
were fixed earnestly upon her. She held out to him the penny for
which he asked, when he said, abruptly:
"Your pardon, Madam! but are you Squire Passmore's daughter?"
"Yes, I am Celia Passmore," she replied, thinking nothing of the
query.
"Be not too certain of it," answered the stranger, softly. "God and
our Lady bless you!"
And gently taking the offered coin from Celia's hand, he withdrew
before she could recover from her horror at the discovery that she
had been conversing with a Papist. When she recovered herself, his
words came back to her with strange meaning. The blessing she took
to be merely his way of thanking her for the alms which she had
bestowed. But had he not told her not to be too sure of something?
Of what? Had she said anything to him beyond telling her name?
Celia concluded that the poor fellow must have been wrong in his
head, and began to feel very compassionate towards him. She
sauntered back to the house, and into old Cicely's room, where she
found its occupant mending stockings, with her old brown Bible lying
open on the table before her.
"Cicely, I have had such an odd adventure."
"Have you so, Mrs. Celia? What was it, my dear?"
"Why, a poor man begged of me over the hedge, and said such strange
things!--asked me my name, and told me not to be too sure of it! Was
it not droll?"
Instead of a laugh rising to her lips, as Celia expected, a strange
light sprang to old Cicely's eyes as she lifted her head and gazed at
her. Not a glad light--far from it; a wild, startled, sad
expression, which Celia could not understand.
"Ay, sweetheart!" said the old woman, in a voice not like her usual
tones. "Did he so? And what manner of man?"
"Oh, not bad-looking," answered Celia. "A comely man, with black
hair and eyes. His clothes had been good, but they were very bad
now, and he was a Papist, for he said, 'Our Lady bless you.'"
"A Papist!" cried old Cicely, in a voice of horror.
"Yes," said Celia, smiling at her tone. "Why, Cicely, are you afraid
of being murdered because there is a Papist in the county?"
"Eh no, my dear," answered old Cicely, slowly; "that's not it. Poor
soul! God comfort you when you come to know!"
"Come to know what, Cicely?"
"What you've never been told yet, my dear--and yet he told you, if
you did but know."
"I don't understand you, Cicely."
"I am glad you don't, my dear."
"But tell me what you mean."
"No, Mrs. Celia. Ask Madam, if you must. Tell her what you have
told me. But if you'll take my counsel, you'll never ask her as long
as you live."
"Cicely, what riddles are you talking?" replied Celia. "I will ask
Mother."
The opportunity for doing so came the next day, about an hour after
dinner. Madam Passmore sat knitting peacefully in her especial chair
in the parlor. Henrietta was absent, superintending household
affairs; and Isabella, with the velvet ornaments tied round her neck
and arms, was occupied as usual with her endless embroidery-frame.
"We shall have an assembly on Monday," observed Madam Passmore,
speaking to nobody in particular.
"That is right!" said Isabella, rather less languidly than usual. "I
am so glad! Who are coming, Mother?"
"Dr. Braithwaite and his wife, Squire and Madam Harvey, and Squire
and Madam Rowe."
"Nobody else?" asked Isabella, in a disappointed tone.
"Well, that I don't know, child," answered her mother. "Maybe some
of the young folks may come from over the hill."
"Are they coming to dinner?"
"No, for the afternoon. Put on your blue satin petticoats, girls,
and your best gowns; and Bell, bid Harry to have ready the
basset-table in the corner. We will draw it out when 'tis wanted."
"But you will have dancing, Mother?" said Isabella, in a tone which
indicated that her enjoyment would be spoilt without it.
"Please yourself, child," said Madam Passmore. "I don't know who
you'll dance with, unless Johnny and Frank Rowe should come. The old
folks will want no dancing, I should think; they would rather have a
quiet game."
"How tiresome!" said Isabella.
"Well, I don't think so," replied Madam Passmore. "When you come to
my time of life, you won't want to be sent spinning about the room
like so many teetotums. Yet I was reckoned a good dancer once, to be
sure."
"And you liked it, Mother?" asked Celia.
"Yes, I suppose I did. I was young and foolish," said Madam
Passmore, with a little sigh. "But really, when you come to think it
over, 'tis only fit for children, I think. I would rather have a
good game of hunt-the-slipper--there is more sense in it, and quite
as much moving about, and a great deal more fun."
"So very vulgar!" sighed Isabella, contemptuously.
"Very vulgar, Madam!" bowed Harry, who had entered while his mother
was speaking; "almost as vulgar as eating and sleeping."
"I wish you would go away, Harry. I don't like arguing with you."
"By all means, Madam," said Harry, bowing himself out of the parlor.
Madam Passmore laughed. "Well, girls," she said, "I think I shall
have to give the ladies some tea, though it is a new-fangled drink;
and as you are used to pour it for your sisters, Bell, you had better
take the charge of it."
"Very well, Mother."
"And, Celia, can you get some flowers and bits of green from the
evergreens? They will look better than nothing in the jars. That
great laurel at the other end of the park can spare some, and as you
take long walks, I leave that to you."
"O Mother!" suddenly cried Celia, in a voice which showed that her
thoughts were on anything but evergreens, "I want to tell you
something. Yesterday I was sitting by that great laurel, when a man
begged of me through the hedge. I gave him a trifle, and he asked me
if I were Squire Passmore's daughter. I told him yes, my name was
Celia Passmore; and he told me in answer not to be too certain of it.
Was it not droll? But the thing yet more strange was, that when I
told Cicely of it, she said I had better tell you--no, she said I had
better not tell you--but that you could tell me what it meant if I
asked you. So very strange! What did it mean, Mother?"