THE STONE GARDEN.
When Mr. Long took his departure with Gilmore, he did not ask me to
accompany him, and assist in an undertaking which was likely to be
somewhat laborious. Perhaps he wished if the baronet did chance to
return in a fury, that he alone should bear the brunt of it. Perhaps he
thought there might be things at the Hall I had better not see, or
perhaps he wished to observe the butler's behaviour at leisure. I think,
however, he could scarcely have expected me to stay at home with my
books, while such doings as he had directed were on the point of taking
place. Euripides was doubtless in his day a sensation dramatist, but
the atrocities of Medea could not enchain me, with so much dreadful
mystery afoot in my immediate neighbourhood. Her departure through the
air in a chariot drawn by winged dragons, was indeed a striking
circumstance; but how much more wonderful was the disappearance of Sir
Massingberd, who had departed no man knew how!
The news had spread like wildfire through the village. Numbers of
country folk were hanging about the great gates of the avenue, drinking
in the impromptu information of the lodge-keeper; but they did not
venture to enter upon the forbidden ground. The universal belief among
them was, I found, that their puissant lord would soon reveal himself.
Doubting Castle, it was true, was for the present without its master;
but it was too much to expect that he would not return to it. The whole
community resembled prisoners in that fortress, who, although
temporarily relieved of the tyrant's presence, had little hope but that
he was only gone forth upon a ramble, and would presently return with
renewed zest for human flesh. The general consternation, however, was
extreme, and such as would probably not have been excited by the sudden
and unexplained removal of a far better man. The rumour had already got
abroad that there was to be an immediate search in the park, and that
Oliver Bradford had been empowered to select such persons as he thought
fit to assist in the same. There were innumerable volunteers for this
undertaking, principally on account of the excessive attraction of the
work itself, which promised some ghastly revelation; and secondarily,
for the mere sake of getting into Fairburn Chase at all--a demesne as
totally unknown to the majority of those present as the Libyan Desert.
The elders indeed remembered the time when a public footpath ran right
through the Chase, "close by the Heronry, and away under the Wolsey Oak,
and so through Davit's Copse, into the high road to Crittenden," said
one, "whereby a mile and a half was wont to be saved." "Ay, or two
mile," quoth another; "and Lawyer Moth always said as though the path
was ours by right, until Sir Massingberd got his son made a king's clerk
in London, which shut his mouth up and the path at the same time."
"Ay," said a third, mysteriously, "and it ain't too late to try the
matter again, in case the property has got _into other hands_."
This remark brought back at once the immediate cause of their assembling
together, and I began to be made the victim of cross-examination. To
avoid being compelled to give my own opinion (which I had already begun
to think a slander) upon the matter in hand, I took my leave as quietly
as could be, and escaped, whither they dared not follow me, through the
griffin-guarded gates. All within was, as usual, silent and deserted. A
few leaves were still left to flutter down in eddies from the trees, or
hop and rustle on the frosty ground, but their scarcity looked more
mournful than utter bareness would have done. It was now the saddest
time of all the year; the bleak east wind went wailing overhead; and
underneath, the soil was black with frost. Instead of pursuing the
avenue to the frontdoor of the Hall, where, as it seemed, I was not
wanted, I took a foot-track to the left, which I knew led to that
bowling-green whither I had been previously invited by Sir Massingberd,
although I had not taken advantage of his rare courtesy. If he did now
appear, no matter in what state of mental irritation, he could scarcely
quarrel with me for doing the very thing he had asked me to do. Had I
known, however, the character of the place in which I found myself, I
should have reserved my visit for a less eerie and mysterious occasion.
The time of year, it is true, had no unfavourable influence upon the
scene that presented itself, for all was clothed in garments of thickest
green. Vast walls of yew shut in on every side a lawn of perfect
smoothness; everything proclaimed itself to belong to that portion of
the Hall property which was "kept up" by subsidy from without. The
quaint oak-seats, though old, were in good repair; the yew hedges
clipped to a marvel. Still nothing could exceed the sombre and funereal
aspect of the spot. It seemed impossible that such a sober game as
bowls could ever have been played there, or jest and laughter broken
that awful stillness. The southern yew-screen was in a crescent form, at
the ends of which were openings unseen from within the enclosed space.
Passing through one of these, I came upon what was called the Stone
Garden. It took its name from four stone terraces, from the highest of
which I knew that there must be a very extensive view. This space was
likewise covered with yew trees, clipped and cut in every conceivable
form, after the vile taste of the seventeenth century. There was
something weird in the aspect of those towering Kings and Queens--easily
recognizable, however, for what they were intended--and of those maids
of honour, with their gigantic ruffs and farthingales. One was almost
tempted to imagine that they had been human once, and been turned into
yew trees for their sins. The whole area was black with them; and a
sense of positive oppression, notwithstanding the eager air which caught
me sharply whenever I lost the shelter of one of these ungainly forms,
led me on to the top terrace, where one could breathe freely, and have
something else than yews to look upon.
Truly, from thence the scene was wide and fair. I stood at that
extremity of the pleasure-grounds most remote from the Hall, and with my
back to it. Before me lay a solitary tract of wooded park, thickly
interspersed with planted knolls and coppices. Immediately beneath me
was the thicket called the Home Spinney, the favourite haunt of hare and
pheasant, and the spot in all the Chase most cherished by Sir
Massingberd. He would have resented a burglary, I do believe, with less
of fury than any trespass upon that sacred ground. Beyond the Spinney,
and standing by itself, far removed from any other tree, was the famous
Wolsey Oak. Why called so, I have not the least idea, for it had the
reputation of being a vast deal older than the days of the famous
Cardinal. Many a summer had it seen--
"When the monk was fat,
And issuing shorn and sleek,
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat
The girls upon the cheek;
Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's Pence,
And numbered bead and shrift,
Bluff Harry broke into the spence,
And turned the cowls adrift."
Yet still was it said to be as whole and sound as a bell. It was
calculated to measure over fourteen yards in circumference, and that for
many feet from its base; while its height, although it had lost some of
its upper branches, still far exceeded that of any other of its
compeers. Beyond this tree, but at another great interval, was the wood
known as the Old Plantation, where Oliver Bradford had last seen his
master alive. I was looking down, then, upon the very route which Sir
Massingberd had been seen to commence, but which he had never ended. It
was to the Home Spinney he had been apparently bound, when
something--none knew what--had changed his purpose. He would probably
have passed through it, and come up by that winding path yonder to the
spot where I now stood; it was the nearest way home for him. Perhaps he
had done so, although it was unlikely, since the watcher had not seen
him. Perhaps those very yews behind me had concealed his murderers. Shut
in by those unechoing walls of living green, no cry for aid would have
been heard, even if Sir Massingberd had been the man to call for it; he
would most certainly have never asked for mercy. But hark! what was
that sound that froze the current of my blood, and set my heart beating
and fluttering like the wings of a prisoned bird against its cage? Was
it a strangled cry for "Help!" repeated once, twice, thrice, or was it
the wintry wind clanging and grinding the naked branches of the Spinney?
A voice had terrified me in Fairburn Chase once before, which had turned
out to be no mere fancy; but there was this horror about the present
sound, that I seemed to dimly recognize it. It was the voice of Sir
Massingberd Heath, with an awful change in it, as if a powerful hand
were tightening upon his throat. It seemed, as I have said, to come from
the direction of the copse beneath, and yet I determined to descend into
it, rather than thread again the mazes of those melancholy yews. The
idea of my assistance being really required never entered into my
thoughts; what I wanted was to escape from this solitude, peopled only
with unearthly cries, and regain the companionship of my
fellow-creatures. How I regretted having left the society of those
honest folk outside the gates! To remain where I was, was impossible; I
should have gone mad. Fortunately, the Spinney was well-nigh leafless,
and a bright but wintry sun penetrated it completely. I fled over its
withered and frosted leaves, looking neither to left nor right, till I
leaped the deep ditch that formed its southern boundary, and found
myself in the open; then I stopped indeed quite short, for, before me,
not ten paces from the Spinney, from which he must have just emerged,
lay the body of Grimjaw. It was still warm, but lifeless. There were no
marks of violence about him; the struggle to extricate himself from the
ditch, it is probable, had cost the wretched creature his little
remaining vitality, weakened as he must have doubtless been by his
previous night's lodging on the cold stone steps. But how had he come
thither, who never moved anywhere out of doors, except with Sir
Massingberd or Gilmore? and whither, led perhaps by some mysterious
instinct, was he going when death had overtaken him--an easy task--and
glazed that solitary eye, which had witnessed so much which was still a
mystery to man?
Was it possible that he had perished in endeavouring to obey his
master's cry for aid? that terrible "Help! help!" which rang in my ears
a while ago, as I stood in the Stone Garden, and which rings, through
half a century, in them now?