LONEWOODLEE.
Within a few miles of this splendid and luxurious modern mansion a
very different scene was passing in another dwelling.
In a bleaker part of the Merse, more immediately adjoining the
Lammermuir range of hills, was situated the house of Lonewoodlee, a
fine example of what a Scottish fortalice required to be in the
troublesome times of the sixteenth century. "It grotesquely
associated with its rude strength the fantastic ornaments of a more
powerful and civilized people--a type of what the French alliance
must often have produced among the gentlemen of the age--the rugged
nature of the Scot, with the style and manners of the mercurial
Frank."
It was a small square tower, with round corbelled turrets at the
angles; but as it has changed hands since then, and been strangely
modernized within the last three years, the reader may look for it in
vain as we shall describe it.
Numerous loopholes, designed for arrows or arquebuses, were in the
angles of these four turrets, in the sills of the windows, and round
the floridly carved entrance-door, over which were the arms of the
family, with the legend, in quaint letters, in bold relief--
"_Yis tovr finished be Oliver Levenox, _10_th Aprile,_ 1560_, is ovr
inheritance_."
It was grey, gaunt, lichen spotted, and solitary, and was surrounded
by a grove of ancient trees on the pastoral slope, from whence it
took its most characteristic name of the Lonewoodlee. It was more
immediately girt by a massive wall, which had once been for defence,
but was ruinous now, for the long-tufted grass and fragrant
wallflower flourished along its cope, and the iron gate had long
since fallen from its hinges, while the proud court was almost
covered by the grass that sprung up between the stones.
Even prior to the period of which we write, some fifteen years ago,
an attempt had been made to modernize the tower a little, by removing
the rusted iron gratings from the windows and enlarging them; but
still the dwelling was gloomy, in consequence of the enormous
thickness of the walls and the vaultings of the lower basement.
Among the wood around it were many trees that had sprung from
seedlings of the ancient ash, which, by the law of an early Scottish
king, every man who built even a cottage was bound to plant near his
dwelling for shafts, when the "spear, six Scottish ells in length,"
was required to bear back alike the Norman knights and Saxon infantry
of England.
Many a gloomy old Border legend was connected with the Tower of
Lonewoodlee, and like some other ancient families, the proprietors
had their warning when fate was nigh--an unpleasant, however
romantic, adjunct; for it was said that when a Lennox was to die, as
the moon rose above a certain quarter of the Lammermuir hills, the
shadow of a large human hand--the hand of Destiny--was cast on the
eastern wall, with the forefinger pointed at length; and the local
papers actually asserted that such a shadow was visible before Major
Lennox was killed at the battle of Waterloo.
Within all was gloomy, dilapidated, and darkened by time; the
furniture was fully forty years old, and some of it was still older.
In the dining-room, or hall, the sofas were square-elbowed, of
horsehair, and furnished with back-squabs; the chairs were of dark
blue leather, and in the corners were circular stands for curious
china, large shells, and so forth. With cotton furniture, or
coloured calico, a meagre attempt had been made by a neat female hand
to render gay the apartment that passed as a drawing-room, where the
chiffounières of wood, painted white and gilded, the white marble
girandoles (minus half their crystal pendants), and everything else,
were old-fashioned, shabby, and worn, for they had been the new
furnishing of the mansion when George III. was King, and the mother
of the present proprietor had come home a blooming bride.
Here and there, in oval frames, or bordered only by black oak
mouldings, were portraits of a far older period than any of the
Georges, as the black wigs and breastplates of the subjects evinced.
Every way it was an old and worn-out establishment, where everything
looked mouldy and fading away.
On the same March evening when the maroon-coloured curtains were
drawn at Willowdean, and the pompous old butler was placing the row
of glittering decanters before Sir John Wedderburn, an old man was
seated in a high-backed leather chair, which was studded with rows of
brass-headed nails, seeking to warm his limbs at the fire, which
blazed cheerily enough in the great stone chimney of the dining-hall
at Lonewoodlee. The grate was old-fashioned, like everything else
there; it was a mere iron basket, adorned with four brass knobs, and
placed upon two square stones, quite unsuited to the form of the
fireplace. Thus the heat of the roaring pile of coals, turf, and
bog-oak roots, went all up the great tunnel-like vent, with a column
of sparks.
Oliver Lennox of Lonewoodlee looked much older than his years
warranted, for his wasted figure, clad in a well-worn Indian
dressing-gown, or _robe-de-chambre_ of the shawl pattern, tied by a
cord and tattered tassel, was bent severely, and his face was
furrowed by disease and the emotions of the mind, rather than time,
for he was not more, perhaps, than fifty-five years of age.
His right elbow rested on the arm of his chair; his chin was placed
in the hollow of his hand, and his keen, restless, yet clear blue
eyes were fixed dreamily on the ruddy flame that lighted up his sharp
aquiline features, and turned to threads of glittering silver his
thin white hair that had once been a rich dark brown.
Seated on a tabouret or little stool by his side, was his daughter
Mary, a girl not quite of twenty years; perhaps the only true friend
whom many reverses of fortune left him; his sole attendant, save a
couple of female domestics; others seldom remained long at the Tower,
as a querulous master and a gloomy house, which had moreover the
steady reputation of being haunted, rendered service unattractive at
Lonewoodlee.
Mary knew he was dying of some internal and mysterious disease with
which the doctors had totally failed to grapple--that, in spite of
her affection and their skill, of her prayers and their potions, he
was slowly and surely passing away from her; and she left nothing
unsaid or undone to soothe, by sweet devotedness, what she knew to be
too probably the few months of his last year on earth.
He had survived the winter, but might never live to see the summer
ripen into autumn, and the golden corn waving on the upland slopes
that were his own no more.
To God and herself alone were known the terrible thoughts of Mary
Lennox in the long, sleepless hours of the weary nights she passed;
yet unswerving in her filial duty, tenderly nursing and ministering
as only a woman--only a daughter or wife--can nurse or minister to
the wants of a querulous patient; springing from her pillow with
cheerful and affectionate alacrity, to anticipate his every wish, and
smiling to hide the sorrow that preyed upon her own heart.
Pale and sad usually, her face was beautiful; yet sadness had not
been its normal expression, but rather the result of local influence.
Her features were not quite regular, but there was a divine delicacy
about them; her finely lidded eyes were of that blue-grey which is
aptly termed violet colour, and her mouth and chin were beautifully
formed, so were her tiny ears and hands. Her whole figure, which was
_petite_ rather, and the contour of her head, with its masses of rich
brown hair, were eminently lady-like and indicative of high breeding
and tender culture; and a charming picture she would have formed, as
she sat then, with her father's passive left hand locked caressingly
in hers, and her soft little face upturned to his, every feature
teeming with affectionate solicitude.
Her dress was plain, inexpensive, and simple, for their means could
not afford her many luxuries; but her starched cuffs and collar--made
and dressed by her own hands--and the tiny velvet riband around her
slender white neck, made it quite a pretty toilette, while, save an
old ring or two that had been her mother's, she was destitute of
ornament; and there the father and daughter sat long in silence,
while the blustering March wind soughed in the old wood without, and
the flood of red and wavering light from the capacious fireplace fell
upon their faces, and fitfully too upon the portraits of those
ancestors, who, if their exchequer had been as low as that of Oliver
Lennox, would have chosen just such a moonless night for a quiet ride
among the beeves on the southern side of the Border.
Oliver Lennox had once been a man of considerable influence in the
Merse, and had even contrived to shine, for a short season, in London
society. But deep play, some unlucky bets at Newmarket, one or two
vexed law pleas with Sir John Wedderburn, in which he had been
nonsuited with great loss, domestic cares of many kinds, particularly
the deaths of his wife and several children, all combined to break
him down in health and spirit.
Much of his land had gone, piecemeal, to satisfy the creditors his
London career had raised around him, and now the little that remained
of Lonewoodlee was mortgaged to the utmost; and having but a bare
annuity, he knew too surely that when he died there would be neither
home nor shelter for his Mary.
He was a proud, fiery, and irritable man, who would brook neither the
pity of his friends nor the scorn of his enemies; and the knowledge
that his only child--his gentle and delicate daughter--would be left
to the mercy of the world, or to support herself by the
accomplishments she possessed, maddened him, so that there were times
when his mind wandered, and then it was that the soul of Mary Lennox
seemed to die within her with sorrow and terror!
"Shall I play to you, dear papa?" said she softly.
There was a wonderful chord in Mary's voice that made it very
seductive, but she had to repeat the offer three times before the
sense of it fell upon his drowsy ear.