_Hilton Hall_.
As my father accompanied me to the door, where the gig, which was to
carry me over the first stage of my journey, was in waiting, a large
target of hide, well studded with brass nails, which had hung in the
hall for time unknown--to me, at least--fell on the floor with a dull
bang. My father started, but said nothing; and, as it seemed to me,
rather pressed my departure than otherwise. I would have replaced the
old piece of armour before I went, but he would not allow me to touch
it, saying, with a grim smile,--
“Take that for an omen, my boy, that your armour must be worn over the
conscience, and not over the body. Be a man, Duncan, my boy. Fear
nothing, and do your duty.”
A grasp of the hand was all the good-bye I could make; and I was soon
rattling away to meet the coach _for Edinburgh and London. Seated on the
top, I_ was soon buried in a reverie, from which I was suddenly startled
by the sound of tinkling iron. Could it be that my adversary was riding
unseen alongside of the coach? Was that the clank of the ominous shoe?
But I soon discovered the cause of the sound, and laughed at my own
apprehensiveness. For I observed that the sound was repeated every time
that we passed any trees by the wayside, and that it was the peculiar
echo they gave of the loose chain and steel work about the harness. The
sound was quite different from that thrown back by the houses on the
road. I became perfectly familiar with it before the day was over.
I reached London in safety, and slept at the house of an old friend of
my father, who treated me with great kindness, and seemed altogether to
take a liking to me. Before I left he held out a hope of being able,
some day or other, to procure for me what I so much desired--a
commission in the army.
After spending a day or two with him, and seeing something of London, I
climbed once more on the roof of a coach; and, late in the afternoon,
was set down at the great gate of Hilton Hall. I walked up the broad
avenue, through the final arch of which, as through a huge Gothic
window, I saw the hall in the distance. Everything about me looked
strange, rich, and lovely. Accustomed to the scanty flowers and
diminutive wood of my own country, what I now saw gave me a feeling of
majestic plenty, which I can recall at will, but which I have never
experienced again. Behind the trees which formed the avenue, I saw a
shrubbery, composed entirely of flowering plants, almost all unknown to
me. Issuing from the avenue, I found myself amid open, wide, lawny
spaces, in which the flower-beds lay like islands of colour. A statue on
a pedestal, the only white thing in the surrounding green, caught my
eye. I had seen scarcely any sculpture; and this, attracting my
attention by a favourite contrast of colour, retained it by its own
beauty. It was a Dryad, or some nymph of the woods, who had just glided
from the solitude of the trees behind, and had sprung upon the pedestal
to look wonderingly around her. A few large brown leaves lay at her
feet, borne thither by some eddying wind from the trees behind. As I
gazed, filled with a new pleasure, a drop of rain upon my face made me
look up. From a grey, fleecy cloud, with sun-whitened border, a light,
gracious, plentiful rain was falling. A rainbow sprang across the sky,
and the statue stood within the rainbow. At the same moment, from the
base of the pedestal rose a figure in white, graceful as the Dryad
above, and neither running, nor appearing to walk quickly, yet fleet as
a ghost, glided past me at a few paces, distance, and, keeping in a
straight line for the main entrance of the hall, entered by it and
vanished.
I followed in the direction of the mansion, which was large, and of
several styles and ages. One wing appeared especially ancient. It was
neglected and out of repair, and had in consequence a desolate, almost
sepulchral look, an expression heightened by the number of large
cypresses which grew along its line. I went up to the central door and
knocked. It was opened by a grave, elderly butler. I passed under its
flat arch, as if into the midst of the waiting events of my story. For,
as I glanced around the hall, my consciousness was suddenly saturated,
if I may be allowed the expression, with the strange feeling--known to
everyone, and yet so strange--that I had seen it before; that, in fact,
I knew it perfectly. But what was yet more strange, and far more
uncommon, was, that, although the feeling with regard to the hall faded
and vanished instantly, and although I could not in the least surmise
the appearance of any of the regions into which I was about to be
ushered, I yet followed the butler with a kind of indefinable
expectation of seeing something which I had seen before; and every room
or passage in that mansion affected me, on entering it for the first
time, with the same sensation of previous acquaintance which I had
experienced with regard to the hall. This sensation, in every case, died
away at once, leaving that portion such as it might be expected to look
to one who had never before entered the place.
I was received by the housekeeper, a little, prim, benevolent old lady,
with colourless face and antique head-dress, who led me to the room
prepared for me. To my surprise, I found a large wood-fire burning on
the hearth; but the feeling of the place revealed at once the necessity
for it; and I scarcely needed to be informed that the room, which was
upon the ground floor, and looked out upon a little solitary grass-grown
and ivy-mantled court, had not been used for years, and therefore
required to be thus prepared for an inmate. My bedroom was a few paces
down a passage to the right.
Left alone, I proceeded to make a more critical survey of my room. Its
look of ancient mystery was to me incomparably more attractive than any
show of elegance or comfort could have been. It was large and low,
panelled throughout in oak, black with age, and worm-eaten in many
parts--otherwise entire. Both the windows looked into the little court
or yard before mentioned. All the heavier furniture of the room was
likewise of black oak, but the chairs and couches were covered with
faded tapestry and tarnished gilding, apparently the superannuated
members of the general household of seats. I could give an individual
description of each, for every atom in that room, large enough for
discernable shape or colour, seems branded into my brain. If I happen to
have the least feverishness on me, the moment I fall asleep, I am in
that room.