After a little more jolting along the highroad they turned to the
right up one less used, and soon came in full sight of the Abbey
ruins. Just a jagged dark grey mass they looked by the murky light of
this dull evening, with here and there a jutting point upwards, the
outline of the broken walls softened by the snow.
Freda sat quite silent, awestruck by the circumstances of her arrival,
and by the wild loneliness of the place. A little further, and they
could see the grey sea and the high cliffs frowning above it. Barnabas
glanced down at the grave little face, and made an effort to say
something cheering.
“It bean’t all so loansome as what this is, ye know. Theer’s t’ town
o’ t’other soide o’ t’ Abbey, at bottom of t’ hill. And from t’
windows o’ Capt’n Mulgrave’s home ye can see roight oop t’ river, as
pretty a soight as can be, wi’ boats a-building, an’ red cottages.”
“Oh!” said Freda, in a very peaceful voice, “I don’t mind the
loneliness. I like it best. And I have always lived by the sea, where
you could hear the waves till you went to sleep.”
“Aye, an’ you’ll hear ’em here sometimes; fit to split t’ owd cliffs
oop they cooms crashing in, an’ soonding like thoonder. Ye’ll have a
foin toime here, lass, if ye’re fond of t’ soond o’ t’ weaves.”
“My father has a yacht too, hasn’t he?”
“Aye, an a pretty seeght too, to see it scoodding along. But it goes
by steam, it isn’t one of yer white booterflies. That sort doan’t go
fast enough for t’ Capt’n.”
Freda was no longer listening. They were on the level ground now at
the top of the hill. To the right, the fields ran to the edge of the
cliff, and there was no building in sight but a poor sort of
farm-house, with a pond in front of it, and a few rather dilapidated
outhouses round about. But on the left hand hedged off from the road
by a high stone wall, and standing in the middle of a field, was the
ruined Abbey church, now near enough for Freda to see the tracery left
in the windows, and the still perfect turrets of the East end, and of
the North transept pointing to heaven, unmindful of the decay of the
old altars, and of the old faith that raised them.
Barnabas looked at her intent young face, the great burning eyes,
which seemed to be overwhelmed with a strange sorrow.
“Pretty pleace, this owd abbey of ours, isn’t it?” said he with all
the pride of ownership.
“It’s beautiful,” said Freda hoarsely, “it makes me want to cry.”
Now the rough farmer could understand sentiment about the old ruin;
considering as he did that the many generations of Protestant
excursionists who had picknicked in it had purged it pretty clear of
the curse of popery, he loved it himself with a free conscience.
“Aye,” said he, “there’s teales aboot it too, for them as loikes to
believe ’em. Ah’ve heard as there were another Abbey here, afore this
one, an’ not near so fine, wheer there was a leady, an Abbess, Ah
think they called her. An’ she was a good leady, kind to t’ poor, an’
not so much to be bleamed for being a Papist, seeing those were
dreadful toimes when there was no Protestants. An’ they do seay
(mahnd, Ah’m not seaying Ah believe it, not being inclined to them
soart o’ superstitious notions myself) they say how on an afternoon
when t’ soon shines you can see this Saint Hilda, as they call her,
standing in one of t’ windows over wheer t’ Communion table used for
to be.” Perceiving, however, that Freda was looking more reverently
interested than was quite seemly in a mere legend with a somewhat
unorthodox flavour about it, Barnabas, who was going to tell her some
more stories of the same sort, changed his mind and ended simply: “An’
theer’s lots more sooch silly feables which sensible fowk doan’t
trouble their heads with. Whoa then, Prince!”
The cart drew up suddenly in a sort of inclosure of stone walls. To
the right was an ancient and broken stone cross, on a circular flight
of rude and worn steps; to the left, a stone-built lodge, a
pseudo-Tudor but modern erection, was built over a gateway, the
wrought-iron gates of which were shut. In front, a turnstile led into
a churchyard. Barnabas got down and pulled the lodge-bell, which gave
a startingly loud peal.
“That yonder,” said he, pointing over the wall towards the churchyard,
in which Freda could dimly see a shapeless mass of building and a
squat, battlemented tower, “is Presterby Choorch. An’ this,” he
continued, as an old woman came out of the lodge and unlocked the
gate, “is owd Mary Sarbutt, an she’s as deaf as a poast. Now, hark ye,
missie,” and he held out his hand to help Freda down, “Ah can’t go no
further with ye, but ye’re all reeght now. Joost go oop along t’ wall
to t’ left, streight till ye coom to t’ house, an’ pull t’ bell o’ t’
gate an’ Mrs. Bean, or happen Crispin himself will coom an’ open to
ye.”
The fact was that Barnabas did not for a moment entertain the idea
that Captain Mulgrave would have the heart to leave his
newly-recovered daughter, and the farmer meant to come up to the
Abbey-house in a day or two and let him know quietly that he had
nothing to fear from him as long as he proved a good father to the
little lass. But just now Barnabas felt shy of showing himself again,
and he shook his head when Freda begged him to come a little way
further with her. For a glance through the gates at the house showed
her such a bare, gaunt, cheerless building that she began to feel
frightened and miserable.
“Noa, missie, Ah woan’t coom in,” said Barnabas, who seemed to have
grown both shyer and more deferential when he had landed the young
lady at the gates of the big house; “but Ah wish ye ivery happiness,
an’ if Ah meay mak’ so bawld, Ah’ll shak’ honds wi’ ye, and seay
good-bye.”
Freda with the tears coming, wrung his hand in both hers, and watched
him through the gates while he turned the horse, got up in his place
in the cart and drove away.
“Barnabas! Barnabas!” she cried aloud.
But the gates were locked, and the old woman, without one word of
question or of direction, had gone back into the lodge. Freda turned,
blinded with tears, and began to make her way slowly towards the
house.
Nothing could be more desolate, more bare, more dreary, than the
approach. An oblong, rectangular space, shut in by high stone walls,
and without a single shrub or tree, lay between her and the building.
Half-way down, to the right, a pillared gateway led to the stables,
which were very long and low, and roofed with red tiles. This bit of
colour, however, was now hidden by the snow, which lay also, in a
smooth sheet, over the whole inclosure. Freda kept close to the
left-hand wall, as she had been told to do, her heart sinking within
her at every step.
At last, when she had come very near to the façade of the house,
which filled the bottom of the inclosure from end to end, a cry burst
from her lips. It was shut up, unused, deserted, and roofless. What
had once been the front-door, with its classic arch over the top, was
now filled up with boards strengthened by bars of iron. The rows of
formal, stately Jacobian windows were boarded up, and seemed to turn
her sick with a sense of hideous deformity, like eye-sockets without
eyes. The sound of her voice startled a great bird which had found
shelter in the moss-grown embrasure of one of the windows. Flapping
its wings it flew out and wheeled in the air above her.
Shocked, chilled, bewildered, Freda crept back along the front of the
house, feeling the walls, from which the mouldy stucco fell in flakes
at her touch, and listening vainly for some sound of life to guide
her.