CHAPTER I.

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TREVETHLAN:

A Cornish Story.

BY

WILLIAM DAVY WATSON, ESQ.,

BARRISTER-AT-LAW.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.

1848.

London:

Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,

Old Bailey.

TREVETHLAN.

CHAPTER I.

"What, am I poor of late?

'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,

Must fall out with men too. What the declined is,

He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,

As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,

Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;

And not a man, for being simply man,

Hath any honour; but honour for those honours

That are without him, as place, riches, favour,

Prizes of accident as oft as merit."

SHAKSPEARE.

Late in September, some thirty years ago, Henry Trevethlan lay dying

in the state-bedchamber of Trevethlan Castle; in Cornwall. It was a

large and lofty apartment, indifferently lighted by Gothic casements

overlooking the sea, and wearing a gloomy and desolate aspect. Old

hangings of tapestry, much faded and worn, covered the walls; the

furniture was scanty and inconvenient; the floor was bare, and the

dark oak had lost its polish; the very logs in the spacious chimney

seemed damped by the cheerlessness of the room, and threw a dull red

glare over the prodigious bed, where death was silently counting the

few sands yet remaining in the upper half of his hour-glass.

As soon as he found himself seriously ill, Mr. Trevethlan had solemnly

charged his medical attendant to warn him of the first approach of

danger; and immediately that the announcement was made, he caused

himself to be removed from the smaller but more commodious apartment

which he usually occupied, to the dreary greatness of the

state-chamber, taking no heed of the remonstrance that the change

would probably hasten his dissolution.

"Pshaw!" said he. "What matter a few days? The Trevethlans always die

in the state-rooms."

Accordingly their present representative was duly observing the

custom. Four days had elapsed since his removal, and he had sunk so

rapidly, that it was now doubtful whether as many more hours remained

to him; but his mental faculties were still clear and unclouded. His

son and daughter watched mournfully by his bedside.

"Helen," he said, "Helen Trevethlan, I wish to speak with your

brother. Leave us for a while."

The girl rose silently, and glided out of the room. As soon as she had

closed the door, the dying man turned feebly upon his pillows, fixed

his still bright eyes upon his son, and spoke in low but distinct

accents:

"Randolph, I leave you a beggar and a Trevethlan! May my curse cling

to you, if ever you suffer poverty to tamper with pride. Employment

will be open to you: may your appointment be your death-warrant. Ay,

methinks it may raise my ghost, if Randolph Trevethlan accept a favour

from Philip Pendarrel. Live, sir, here, as I have lived. Marry, sir,

as I married. Rear an heir to the castle, as I have reared you.

Bequeath him the same legacy, which I bequeath you. But there is my

fear. How much of your mother's blood runs in your veins? What base

leanings may you not have inherited from her? Feel you not a love for

your peasant relatives? Gratifying my revenge by engrafting a wild bud

on a noble stem, I forgot that the fruit might degenerate. Speak, sir,

is it so? Do the honours of Trevethlan descend upon a dastard? Say it,

that a father's curse may embitter the remainder of your days."

"Oh, my father," said the young man, in deep and earnest tones, "never

shall our name be degraded while it belongs to me. But may I not

strive to restore it to splendour? Must Trevethlan ever be desolate?

Shall the successors of our race wander in these halls, only to mourn

over their decay? And is the livery of office the sole passport to the

means of renovation? Have I not hands, and a head, and heart?"

"What would you, sir?" exclaimed the father. "Hands! would you dig?

There speaks your peasant mother. Head! learning! profession! What

portrait has its face turned to the wall in yonder gallery? Mr.

Justice Trevethlan, attaint of corruption. Heart! arms! Ay, but not in

peace. No Trevethlan wears a sword to adorn a levee. And now, sir, the

source of your commission would make it a disgrace."

"My father," Randolph again said, "to no patron will I be indebted for

advancement. On myself alone I rely. May I not exert the powers I

derive from nature? I thought not of the army: a uniform has no

temptations for me. But, gazing on the back of that picture, might I

not hope to wipe out the stain incurred in a corrupt age, by rising

to be an example in purer times?"

"Shall a Trevethlan descend among the paltry Chiquanous?" said the

dying man, with great bitterness. "Shall that name be mingled with the

low trickery of the modern forum; exposed to the risk of failure, and

to the mockery of upstart talent? Shall Esther Pendarrel smile at the

rude eloquence of her rejected suitor's heir, and exult over the

unretrieved ruin of his house? No, sir. Think it not. Starve, sir,

here in Trevethlan Castle."

"But my father," the young man urged, "if means could be found whereby

all such risk should be avoided; if success might restore our house,

while failure could not degrade it; might I not venture on a career so

guarded?"

"How, sir, is such a course practicable?"

"By permitting me, my father, for a time to wear a mask," answered

Randolph. "The name of Trevethlan may be supposed to be wandering

abroad, while the estates are recovering themselves at home; and the

real bearer of the name, assuming one less known, may live obscurely

in London, struggling honourably for an independence. If he fail, the

pilgrim returns: if he succeeds, he brings new honour to Trevethlan

Castle."

Mr. Trevethlan made no answer to this proposition for a considerable

time; and his son might see by the varying expression of his sharpened

features, the struggle which agitated his mind. At length he spoke, in

tones milder and more parental than he had used previously.

"Randolph, I consent. I have watched you well, and, in spite of the

taunts which break from my soured heart, I believe you are worthy of

your name."

"Father," said the son, "my life must show my gratitude: it shall be

passed, as if you still beheld it."

Again there was a long silence in the gloomy chamber. Then the dying

man spoke anew, in accents still tenderer than his last.

"Randolph, I mentioned Esther Pendarrel. You know her not by sight.

She was once, or I fancied she was, very dear to me. She coquetted

with me, discarded me, and wedded my kinsman. I never forgave her;

and, except on one provision, I now forbid all future intercourse with

her or hers. But I have sometimes thought I was not so indifferent to

her, as she, in her contempt, pretended. If it were so, she has

avenged me on herself, and has my pardon. You know my dying will. As I

have consented to the temporary obscuration of our race, so do you

promise, with the qualification I mentioned, to have no friendly

relations with the family of Philip Pendarrel."

Rashly and wrongfully the son gave the pledge wrongfully and

deliberately required by the father, and soon afterwards summoned his

sister back to her place beside the bed of death. The following

morning the blinds were not raised in the windows of the castle, and

the ragged flag which waved over the loftiest watch-tower, floated

from the middle of its staff. The last sand of the hour-glass had run,

and Henry Trevethlan was numbered with his fathers.

Trevethlan Castle was an extensive pile of Tudor architecture, situate

on a bold headland projecting into the sea between the Lizard and

Marazion. The state apartments stretched along the cliff, and

commanded a fine view of Mount's Bay and the surrounding uplands;

while the other buildings of the castle, strengthened at intervals by

lofty towers, enclosed an irregular court-yard. The remains of walls

and ruined turrets, sweeping inland, marked the circuit of what had

once been the base-court--a spacious area, where Owen Trevethlan

mustered his vassals to pursue Perkin Warbeck's rebels, obtaining for

his services on that occasion the title of baron. This honour had,

however, been allowed to lapse; and, although it was stated to be

easily recoverable, no subsequent head of the family had chosen to

moot the question. Perhaps they thought their name sufficiently

distinguished without any addition: perhaps the fact that, being a

crotchetty race, they were almost always in opposition to the Crown,

made them loth to seek even the shadow of a favour.

But the days of feudal violence and civil dudgeon were long gone by;

and instead of the clang of arms and the tramp of soldiers, the

base-court of Trevethlan Castle now echoed no sound more military than

the occasional crack of a fowling-piece; and its silence was more

generally broken by the mower sharpening his scythe, or the gardener

trailing a roller. Sooth to say, even these peaceful noises had been

very rare for a long time previous to the opening of this tale: the

garden which occupied the old place of arms had fallen into neglect;

the ivy, which might have been ornamental to the ruined walls and

outworks, stifled the trees and shrubs in its oppressive embrace; the

flowers struggled hard for life amidst a host of weeds; the grass of

the lawn, unmown since the summer, when it was cut for hay, was rusty

and patchy; the gravel walks were green and mouldy. One little plot of

ground, however, was an oasis in the general desert: it occupied an

angle of the castle, having a southern aspect, and was screened from

the sea-breezes by the wall along the cliff: here trim flower-beds

were cut in a small expanse of turf, and displayed, even at this

advanced season, not a few gems of horticulture.

And two or three windows, looking from the first floor on this still

blooming garden, presented no less striking a contrast to the rest of

the castle, than the garden itself afforded to the remainder of the

great court. Their florid decorations were sharp and fresh; their

glass was bright and clear; and white curtains within might temper the

radiance of the mid-day sun. But, everywhere else, the progress of

decay was manifest: the Gothic tracery was crumbling away; panes were

frequently wanting in the casements; and when they were perfect, the

winter spray and summer dust had rendered them nearly opaque. Weeds

grew between the stones and on the ledges of the walls; and long

creeping-plants hung from the battlements, and waved mournfully in the

wind. Desolation reigned paramount over Trevethlan Castle.

Nor did the interior of the building belie its external aspect. The

state bed-chamber was a sample of all the rest. In many of the rooms

the dust had been undisturbed for nearly thirty years. But two were

exceptions to the general neglect: one, the gallery to which Mr.

Trevethlan referred, where hung the portraits of the family,

generation after generation, from the days of Holbein to those of

Reynolds. This was the favourite walk of Mrs. Griffith, the wife of

the steward, whose office had been hereditary in his family almost

from the earliest of those portraits. Mrs. Griffith used to spend much

of her spare time in the gallery, walking to and fro with a long

flapper of feathers in her hand, gently and reverentially brushing the

dust from the pictures, and never passing that which was turned to the

wall without a deep sigh.

The last Mrs. Trevethlan--a new Griselda--had been treated with civil

neglect by her husband, and died under the weight of her position,

after bearing him the son and daughter already introduced. She was the

child of a small tenant upon the estate; and Mr. Trevethlan, having

attained the only object of his marriage, checked some presumption of

her family with marked disdain. The maternal care and early education

of his children devolved upon Mrs. Griffith, and the portrait-gallery

was their usual school-room. Here they learned the history of their

family as the history of England: not a bad _memoria technica_, but

one attended with some risk. However, it may easily be guessed that

they had no hard task-mistress, and that battledore-and-shuttlecock

often interrupted the story of Queen Elizabeth's maid-of-honour, or of

the colonel who fell in endeavouring to rally Fairfax's horse at

Marston Moor.

And whatever family pride might be acquired in this gallery was

chastened in the other apartment exempted from the general desolation.

This was the library, the especial domain of Polydore Riches, the

chaplain of the castle. Riches held a fellowship at Cambridge, but had

incurred, no matter how, the dislike of his superiors; being somewhat

timid and retiring, he thereupon gave up residence, and accepted Mr.

Trevethlan's offer of his chaplaincy and the curacy of the hamlet. And

when that gentleman's affairs became inextricably involved, the

worthy clergyman declined a release from his duties, and continued to

reside at Trevethlan, maintaining himself on the proceeds of his

fellowship. The people at the village said he might sometimes be seen

in the dusk of evening, leaning on the tombstone in their churchyard

which marked the resting-place of Rose Griffith, a relation of the

steward. It was also said that he had positively refused to perform

the marriage ceremony between his patron and Margaret Basset; and it

was true. For once, Mr. Trevethlan respected a pride that was equal to

his own, and contented himself with a sarcasm on the eccentricity of

poverty.

Polydore had now resided nearly thirty years at the castle, and was

more than fifty in age. But time sat light upon him, and he looked

much younger. From Mrs. Griffith he received as pupils his patron's

children, and the library took the place of the picture gallery.

Polydore was enthusiastic, and children love enthusiasm: there was a

tinge of sadness in his demeanour, and childish pity is more akin to

affection than that of older persons. It was not wonderful that

Randolph and Helen were frequently glad to escape from the presence of

the cold and stern man whom they called father, to the teaching of the

tender and gentle being who ruled in the library. Nor was it more

strange that with such an instructor they made rapid proficiency in

whatever pursuit he directed.

"Lonely," he exclaimed one day, when Randolph, then sixteen, inquired

if he did not feel so in the solitude of the castle, "lonely with a

library like this! Lonely in the society of those around me! Of Park,

first beholding the Niger! Of Columbus, seeing the light from the poop

of his ship! Of Watt, contemplating one of our Cornish engines! Of

Newton, observing the fall of the apple! Of Luther, taking his stand

at the Diet of Worms! Of Shakspeare, giving

'to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name!'

Of Bacon, writing 'Thus thought Francis of Verulam!' Lonely amidst the

triumphs of enterprise, art and science; of history, poetry and

philosophy! Lonely, where whatever science has discovered, and art

applied, and enterprise accomplished; what history has recorded, and

poetry exalted, and philosophy ordered, is visibly presented! Where

power, skill, and understanding, memory, fancy, and wisdom have

written their greatest names, their mightiest deeds, their noblest

thoughts! No, Randolph Trevethlan, there is no loneliness in such

society as this."

It was his own feeling, perhaps, that Randolph expressed in the

inquiry which extracted this speech from the chaplain. For to the

buoyancy of youth, the castle might well seem a dreary abode. When a

man gives up the world, the world generally returns the compliment;

and in this instance Mr. Trevethlan's violation of the bienseances in

his marriage widened the breach. No friend or relation visited him

during the last years of his life. And, indeed, their entertainment

would have been a serious burden on the finances of their host. It is

probable that the steward was a much richer man than his master; it is

not impossible that all the expenses of Trevethlan did not fall upon

its lord.

Yet the establishment had gradually declined to the lowest point. An

old porter, named Jeffrey, who occupied the entrance lodge to the

inner court, and cultivated a small kitchen garden, was the only male

domestic: his wife, and two or three maid-servants performed all the

other offices of the castle. People often wondered that Mr. Griffith

did not leave such a falling house. But Mr. Griffith was not a rat.

He had lived there more than half a century, and was prepared to

continue as long again.

Nor let it be supposed that this devotion was entirely due to the

place. Proud and reserved as had been its recent master, he was far

from being wholly unamiable; even his children, to whom he behaved

with uniform harshness, regarded him with as much affection as awe;

and his dependents, whom he treated with almost as constant kindness,

served him with real attachment. Well did Griffith recollect the day,

although it was five and thirty years past, and he was scarcely twenty

at the time, when Mr. Trevethlan galloped into the court-yard with his

horse in a foam, on his return from Pendarrel, ordered his carriage,

paced impatiently up and down the great hall while it was being

prepared, and departed to London without uttering another word. Well,

too, did the steward remember his father's grief, as missive after

missive came to Trevethlan in the few following years, of which the

constant burden was "money, money." Mortgage Tresylty, sell Penrevil,

fell Withewood; so it went on, until the extensive domain, once

appended to the castle, was reduced to its immediate precincts. Then

Mr. Trevethlan came home, and lived during the remainder of his days

in the secluded manner, which has already been sufficiently

described.