MY COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.

People are fond of talking of the hereditary feuds of Italy--the

factions of the Capulets and Montagues, the Orsini and Colonne--and,

more especially, of the memorable _Vendette_ of Corsica--as if hatred

and revenge were solely endemic in the regions of

"The Pyrenean and the river Po!"

Mere prejudice! There is as good hating going on in England as

elsewhere. Independent of the personal antipathies generated by

politics, the envy, hatred, and malice arising out of every election

contest, not a country neighbourhood but has its raging factions; and

Browns and Smiths often cherish and maintain an antagonism every whit

as bitter as that of the sanguinary progenitors of Romeo and Juliet.

I, for instance, who am but a country gentleman in a small way--an

obscure bachelor, abiding from year's end to year's end on my

insignificant farm--have witnessed things in my time, which, had they

been said and done nearer the tropics, would have been cited far and

near in evidence of the turbulence of human passions, and that "the

heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Seeing

that they chanced in a homely parish in Cheshire, no one has been at

the trouble to note their strangeness; though, to own the truth, none

but the actors in the drama (besides myself, a solitary spectator) are

cognizant of its incidents and catastrophe. I might boast, indeed,

that I alone am thoroughly in the secret; for it is the spectator only

who competently judges the effects of a scene; and merely changing the

names, for reasons easily conceivable, I ask leave to relate in the

simplest manner a few facts in evidence of my assertion, that England

has its Capuletti e Montecchi as well as Verona.

In the first place, let me premise that I am neither of a condition of

life, nor condition of mind, to mingle as a friend with those of whose

affairs I am about to treat so familiarly, being far too crotchety a

fellow not to prefer a saunter with my fishing-tackle on my back, or

an evening tete-a-tete with my library of quaint old books, to all the

good men's feasts ever eaten at the cost of a formal country visit.

Nevertheless, I am not so cold of heart as to be utterly devoid of

interest in the destinies of those whose turrets I see peering over

the woods that encircle my corn-fields; and as the good old

housekeeper, who for these thirty years past has presided over my

household, happens to have grandchildren high in service in what are

called the two great families in the neighbourhood, scarcely an event

or incident passes within their walls that does not find an echo in

mine. So much in attestation of my authority. But for such an

introduction behind the scenes, much of the stage business of this

curious drama would have escaped my notice, or remained

incomprehensible.

I am wrong to say the two great "families;" I should have said the two

great "houses." At the close of the last century, indeed, our parish

of Lexley contained but one; one which had stood there since the days

of the first James, nay, even earlier--a fine old manorial hall of

grand dimensions and stately architecture, of the species of mixed

Gothic so false in taste, but so ornamental in effect, which is

considered as betraying the first symptoms of Italian innovation.

The gardens extending in the rear of the house were still more

decidedly in the Italian taste, having clipped evergreens and avenues

of pyramidal yews, which, combined with the intervening statues,

imparted to them something of the air of a cemetery. There were

fountains, too, which, in the memory of man, had been never known to

play, the marble basins being, if possible, still greener than the

grim visages of the fauns and dryads standing forlorn on their

dilapidated pedestals amid the neglected alleys.

The first thing I can remember of Lexley Hall, was peeping as a child

through the stately iron gratings of the garden, that skirted a

by-road leading from my grandfather's farm. The desolateness of the

place overawed my young heart. In summer time the parterres were

overgrown into a wilderness. The plants threw up their straggling arms

so high, that the sunshine could hardly find its way to the quaint old

dial that stood there telling its tale of time, though no man

regarded; and the cordial fragrance of the strawberry-beds, mingling

with entangled masses of honeysuckle in their exuberance of midsummer

blossom, seemed to mock me, as I loitered in the dusk near the old

gateway, with the tantalizing illusions of a fairy-tale--the

Barmecide's feast, or Prince Desire surveying his princess through the

impermeable walls of her crystal palace.

But if the enjoyment of the melancholy old gardens of Lexley Hall were

withheld from _me_, no one else seemed to find pleasure or profit

therein. Sir Laurence Altham, the lord of the manor and manor-house,

was seldom resident in the country. Though a man of mature years, (I

speak of the close of the last century,) he was still a man of

pleasure--the ruined hulk of the gallant vessel which, early in the

reign of George III., had launched itself with unequalled brilliancy

on the sparkling current of London life.

At that time, I have heard my grandfather say there was not a mortgage

on the Lexley estate! The timber was notoriously the finest in the

county. A whole navy was comprised in one of its coppices; and the

arching avenues were imposing as the aisles of our Gothic minsters.

Alas! it needed the lapse of only half a dozen years to lay bare to

the eye of every casual traveller the ancient mansion, so long

"Bosom'd high in tufted trees,"

and only guessed at till you approached the confines of the

court-yard.

It was hazard that effected this. The dice-box swept those noble

avenues from the face of the estate. Soon after Sir Laurence's coming

of age, almost before the church-bells had ceased to announce the

joyous event of the attainment of his majority, he was off to the

Continent--Paris--Italy--I know not where, and was thenceforward only

occasionally heard of in Cheshire as the ornament of the Sardinian or

Austrian courts. But these tidings were usually accompanied by a

shaking of the head from the old family steward. The timber was to be

thinned anew--the tenants to be again amerced. Sir Laurence evidently

looked upon the Lexley property as a mere hotbed for his vices. At

last the old steward turned surly to our enquiries, and would answer

no further questions concerning his master. My grandfather's small

farm was the only plot of ground in the parish that did not belong to

the estate; and from him the faithful old servant was as careful to

conceal the family disgraces, as to maintain the honour of Sir

Laurence's name in the ears of his grumbling tenants.

The truth, however, could not long be withheld. Chaisefuls of

suspicious-looking men in black arrived at the hall; loungers,

surveyors, auctioneers--I know not what. There was talk in the parish

about foreclosing a mortgage, no one exactly understood why, or by

whom. But it was soon clear that Wightman, the old steward, was no

longer the great man at Lexley. These strangers bade him come here and

go there exactly as they chose, and, unhappily, they saw fit to make

his comings and goings so frequent and so humiliating, that before the

close of the summer the old servitor betook himself to his rest in a

spot where all men cease from troubling. The leaves that dreary autumn

fell upon his grave.

According to my grandfather's account, however, few even of his

village contemporaries grieved for old Wightman. They felt that

Providence knew best; that the old man was happily spared the

mortification of all that was likely to ensue. For before another year

was out the ring fence, which had hitherto encircled the Lexley

property, was divided within itself; a paltry distribution of about a

hundred acres alone remaining attached to the old hall. The rest was

gone! The rest was the property of the foreclosee of that hateful

mortgage.

Within view of the battlements of the old manor-house, nearly a

hundred workmen were soon employed in digging the foundations of a

modern mansion of the noblest proportions. The new owner of the

estate, though only a manufacturer from Congleton, chose to dwell in a

palace; and by the time his splendid Doric temple was complete, under

the name of Lexley Park, the vain-glorious proprietor, Mr Sparks, had

taken his seat in Parliament for a neighbouring borough.

Little was known of him in the neighbourhood beyond his name and

calling; yet already his new tenants were prepared to oppose and

dislike him. Though they knew quite as little personally of the young

baronet by whom they had been sold into bondage to the unpopular

clothier--him, with the caprice of ignorance, they chose to prefer.

They were proud of the old family--proud of the hereditary lords of

the soil--proud of a name connecting itself with the glories of the

reign of Elizabeth, and the loyalty shining, like a sepulchral lamp,

through the gloomy records of the House of Stuart. The banners and

escutcheons of the Althams were appended in their parish church. The

family vault sounded hollow under their head whenever they approached

its altar. Where was the burial-place of the manufacturer? In what

obscure churchyard existed the mouldering heap that covered the

remains of the sires of Mr Jonas Sparks? Certainly not at Lexley!

Lexley knew not, and cared not to know, either him or his. It was no

fault of the parish that its young baronet had proved a spendthrift

and alienated the inheritance of his fathers; and, but that he had

preserved the manor-house from desecration, they would perhaps have

ostracized him altogether, as having lent his aid to disgrace their

manor with so noble a structure as the porticoed facade of Lexley

Park!

Meanwhile the shrewd Jonas was fully aware of his unpopularity and its

origin; and, during a period of three years, he allowed his

ill-advised subjects to chew, unmolested, the cud of their discontent.

Having a comfortable residence at the further extremity of the county,

he visited Lexley only to overlook the works, or notice the placing of

the costly new furniture; and the grumblers began to fancy they were

to profit as little by their new masters as by their old. The steward

who replaced the trusty Wightman, and had been instructed to legislate

among the cottages with a lighter hand, and distribute Christmas

benefaction in a double proportion, was careful to circulate in the

parish an impression that Mr Sparks and his family did not care to

inhabit the new house till the gardens were in perfect order, the

succession houses in full bearing, and the mansion thoroughly

seasoned. But the Lexleyans guessed the truth, that he had no mind to

confront the first outbreak of their ill-will.

Nearly four years elapsed before he took possession of the place; four

years, during which Sir Laurence Altham had never set foot in the

hall, and was heard of only through his follies and excesses; and when

Mr Sparks at length made his appearance, with his handsome train of

equipages, and surrounded by his still handsomer family, so far from

meeting him with sullen silence, the tenantry began to regret that

they had not erected a triumphal arch of evergreens for his entrance

into the park, as had been proposed by the less eager of the

Althamites.

After all, their former prejudice in favour of the young baronet was

based on very shallow foundations. What had he ever done for them

except raise their rents, and prosecute their trespasses? It was

nothing that his forefathers had endowed almshouses for their support,

or served up banquets for their delectation--Sir Laurence was an

absentee--Sir Laurence was as the son of the stranger. The fine old

kennel stood cold and empty, reminding them that to preserve their

foxes was no longer an article of Lexley religion; and if any of the

old October, brewed at the birth of the present baronet, still filled

the oaken hogsheads in the cellars of the hall, what mattered it to

them? No chance of their being broached, unless to grace the funeral

feast of the lord of the manor.

To Jonas Sparks, Esq. M.P., accordingly, they dedicated their

allegiance. A few additional chaldrons of coals and pairs of blankets,

the first frosty winter, bound them his slaves for ever. Food, physic,

and wine, were liberally distributed to the sick and aged whenever

they repaired for relief to the Doric portico; and, with the usual

convenient memory of the vulgar, the Lexleyans soon began to remember

of the Altham family only their recent backslidings and ancient feudal

oppressions: while of the Sparkses they chose to know only what was

evident to all eyes--viz., that their hands were open and faces

comely.

Into their hearts--more especially into that of Jonas, the head of the

house--they examined not at all; and were ill-qualified to surmise the

intensity of bitterness with which, while contemplating the beauty and

richness of his new domain, he beheld the turrets of the old hall

rising like a statue of scorn above the intervening woods. There stood

the everlasting monument of the ancient family--there the emblem of

their pride, throwing its shadow, as it were, over his dawning

prosperity! But for that force of contrast thus afforded, he would

scarcely have perceived the newness of all the objects around him--the

glare of the fresh freestone--the nakedness of the whited walls. A few

stately old oaks and elms, apparently coeval with the ancient

structure, which a sort of religious feeling had preserved from the

axe, that they might afford congenial shade to the successor of its

founder, seemed to impart meanness and vulgarity to the tapering

verdure of _his_ plantations, his modern trees--his pert poplars and

mean larches--his sycamores and planes. Even the incongruity between

his solid new paling and the decayed and sun-bleached wood of the

venerable fence to which it adjoined, with its hoary beard of silvery

lichen, was an eyesore to him. Every passer-by might note the limit

and circumscription dividing the new place from the ancient seat of

the lords of the manor.

Yet was the landscape of Lexley Park one of almost unequalled beauty.

The Dee formed noble ornament to its sweeping valleys; while the noble

acclivities were clothed with promising woods, opening by rich vistas

to a wide extent of champaign country. A fine bridge of granite,

erected by the late Sir Windsor Altham, formed a noble object from the

windows of the new mansion; and but for the evidence of the venerable

pile, that stood like an abdicated monarch surveying its lost

dominions, there existed no external demonstration that Lexley Park

had not from the beginning of time formed the estated seat of the

Sparkses.

The neighbouring families, if "neighbouring" could be called certain

of the nobility and gentry who resided at ten miles' distance, were

courteously careful to inspire the new settler with a belief that they

at least had forgotten any antecedent state of things at Lexley; for

they had even reason to congratulate themselves on the change. Jonas

had long been strenuously active in the House of Commons in promoting

county improvements. Jonas was useful as a magistrate, and invaluable

as a liberal contributor to the local charities. During the first five

years of his occupancy, he did more for Lexley and its inhabitants

than the half-dozen previous baronets of the House of Altham.

Of the man he had superseded, meanwhile, it was observed that Mr

Sparks was judiciously careful to forbear all mention. It might have

been supposed that he had purchased the estate of the Crown or the

Court of Chancery, so utterly ignorant did he appear of the age,

habits, and whereabout of his predecessor; and when informed by Sir

John Wargrane, one of his wealthy neighbours, that young Altham was

disgracing himself again--that at the public gaming-tables at Toplitz

he had been a loser of thirty thousand pounds--the cunning _parvenu_

listened with an air of as vague indifference as if he were not

waiting with breathless anxiety the gradual dissipation of the funds,

secured to the young spendthrift by the transfer of his estate, to

grasp at the small remaining portion of his property. Unconsciously,

when the tale of Sir Laurence's profligacy met his ear, he clenched

his griping hand, as though it already recognized its hold upon the

destined spoil, but not a word did he utter.

Meanwhile, the family of the new squire of Lexley were winning golden

opinions on all sides. "The boys were brave--the girls were fair," the

mother virtuous, pious, and unpretending. It would have been

scandalous, indeed, to sneer to shame the modest cheerfulness of such

people, because their ancestors had not fought at the Crusades. By

degrees, they assumed an honourable and even eminent position in the

county; and the first time Sir Laurence Altham condescended to visit

the county-palatine, he heard nothing but commendations and admiration

of the charming family at Lexley Park.

"Charming family!--a Jonas Sparks, and charming!" was his

supercilious reply. "I rejoice to find that the _fumier_ I have been

forced to fling on my worn-out ancestral estate is fertilizing its

barrenness. The village is probably the better for the change. But, as

regards the society, I must be permitted to mistrust the attractions

of the brood of a Congleton manufacturer."

The young baronet, who now, though still entitled to be called young,

was disfigured by the premature defeatures of a vicious life,

mistrusted it all the more, when, on visiting the old hall, he was

forced to recognize the improvements effected in the neighbouring

property (that he should be forced to call it "_neighbouring_!") by

the judicious administration of the new owner. It was impossible to

deny that Mr Sparks had doubled its value, while enhancing its

beauties. The low grounds were drained, the high lands planted, the

river widened, the forestry systematically organized. The estate

appeared to have attained new strength and vigour when dissevered from

the old manor-house; whose shadow might be supposed to have exercised

a baleful influence on the lands wherever it presided.

But it was not his recognition of this that was likely to animate the

esteem of Sir Laurence Altham for Mr Jonas Sparks. On the contrary, he

felt every accession of value to the Lexley property as so much

subtracted from his belongings; and his detestation of the upstarts,

whose fine mansion was perceptible from his lordly towers--like a blot

upon the fairness of the landscape--increased with the increase of

their prosperity.

Without having expected to take delight in a sojourn at Lexley Hall--a

spot where he had only resided for a few weeks now and then, from the

period of his early boyhood--he was not prepared for the excess of

irritation that arose in his heart on witnessing the total

estrangement of the retainers of his family. For the mortification of

seeing a fine new house, with gorgeous furniture, and a pompous

establishment, he came armed to the teeth. But no presentiments had

forewarned him, that at Lexley the living Althams were already as much

forgotten as those who were sleeping in the family vault. The sudden

glow that pervaded his whole frame when he chanced to encounter on the

highroad the rich equipage of the Sparkses; or the imprecation that

burst from his lips, when, on going to the window of a morning to

examine the state of the weather for the day, the first objects that

struck him was the fair mansion in the plain below, laughing as it

were in the sunshine, the deer grouped under its fine old trees, and

the river rippling past its lawns as if delighting in their

verdure----Yes! there was decided animosity betwixt the hill and the

valley.

Every successive season served to quicken the pulses of this growing

hatred. Whether on the spot or at a distance, a thousand aggravations

sprang up betwixt the parties: disputes between gamekeepers, quarrels

between labourers, encroachments by tenants. Every thing and nothing

was made the groundwork of ill-will. To Sir Laurence Altham's

embittered feelings, the very rooks of Lexley Park seemed evermore to

infringe upon the privileges of the rookery at Lexley Hall; and when,

in the parish church, the new squire (or rather his workmen, for he

was absent at the time attending his duties in Parliament)

inadvertently broke off the foot of a marble cherub, weeping its

alabaster tears, at the angle of a monument to the memory of a certain

Sir Wilfred Altham, of the time of James II., in raising the woodwork

of a pew occupied by Mr Sparks's family, the rage of Sir Laurence was

so excessive as to be almost deserving of a strait-waistcoat.

The enmity of the baronet was all the more painful to himself that he

felt it to be harmless against its object. In every way, Lexley Park

had the best of it. Jonas Sparks was not only rich in a noble income,

but in a charming wife and promising family. Every thing prospered

with him; and, as to mere inferiority of precedence, it was well known

that he had refused a baronetcy; and many people even surmised that,

so soon as he was able to purchase another borough, and give a seat in

Parliament to his second son, as well as resign his own to the eldest,

he would be promoted to the Upper House.

The only means of vengeance, therefore, possessed by the vindictive

man whose follies and vices had been the means of creating this

perpetual scourge to his pride, was withholding from him the purchase

of the remaining lands indispensable to the completion of his estate,

more especially as regarded the water-courses, which, at Lexley Park,

were commanded by the sluices of the higher grounds of the Hall; and

mighty was the oath sworn by Sir Laurence, that come what might,

however great his exigencies or threatening his poverty, nothing

should induce him to dispose of another acre to Jonas Sparks. He was

even at the trouble of executing a will, in order to introduce a

clause imposing the same reservation upon the man to whom he devised

his small remaining property--the heir-at-law, to whom, had he died

intestate, it would have descended without conditions.

"The Congleton shopkeepers," muttered he, (whenever, in his solitary

evening rides, he caught sight of the rich plate-glass windows of the

new mansion, burnished by the setting sun,) "shall never, never lord

it under the roof of my forefathers! Wherever else he may set his

plebeian foot, Lexley Hall shall be sacred. Rather see the old place

burned to the ground--rather set fire to it with my own hands--than

conceive that, when I am in my grave, it could possibly be subjected

to the rule of such a barbarian!"

For it had reached the ears of Sir Laurence--of course, with all the

exaggeration derived from passing through the medium of village

gossip--that a thousand local legends concerning the venerable

mansion, sanctified by their antiquity in the ears of the family,

afforded a fertile source of jesting to Jonas Sparks. The Hall

abounded in concealed staircases and iron hiding-places, connected

with a variety of marvellous traditions of the civil wars; besides a

walled-up suite of chambers, haunted, as becomes a walled-up suite of

chambers; and justice-rooms and tapestried-rooms, to which the long

abandonment of the house, and the heated imaginations of the few

menials left in charge of its desolate vastness, attributed romances

likely enough to have provoked the laughter of a matter-of-fact man

like the owner of Lexley Park. But neither Sir Laurence nor his old

servants were likely to forgive this insult offered to the family

legends of a house which had little else left to boast of. Even the

neighbouring families were displeased to hear them derided; and my

grandfather never liked to hear a joke on the subject of the

coach-and-four which was said to have driven into the court-yard of

the Hall on the eve of the execution of the rebel lords in 1745,

having four headless inmates, who were duly welcomed as guests by old

Sir Robert Altham. Nay, as a child, I had so often thrilled on my

nurse's knees during the relation of this spectral visitation, that I

own I felt indignant if any one presumed to laugh at a tale which had

made me quake for fear.

Among those who were known to resent the familiar tone in which Mr

Sparks had been heard to criticise the pomps and vanities exhibited at

Lexley Hall by the Althams of the olden time, was a certain General

Stanley, who, inhabiting a fine seat of his own at about ten miles'

distance, was fond of bringing over his visitors to visit the old

Hall, as an interesting specimen of county antiquity. _He_ knew the

peculiarities of the place, and could repeat the traditions connected

with the hiding-places better than the housekeeper herself; and I have

heard her say it was a pleasure to hear him relating these historical

anecdotes with all the fire of an old soldier, and see his venerable

grey hair blown about as he stood with his party on the battlements,

pointing out to the ladies the fine range of territory formerly

belonging to the Althams. The old lady protested that the general was

nearly as much grieved as herself to behold the old mansion so shorn

of its beams; and certain it is, that once when, on visiting the hall

after Sir Laurence had been some years an absentee, he found the grass

growing among the disjointed stones of the cloisters and justice-hall,

he made a handsome present to one of the housekeeper's nephews, on

condition of his keeping the purlieus of the venerable mansion free

from such disgraceful evidences of neglect.

All this eventually reached the ears of the baronet; but instead of

making him angry, as might have been expected, from one so tetchy and

susceptible, he never encountered General Stanley, either in town or

country, without demonstrations of respect. Though too reserved and

morose for conversation, Sir Laurence was observed to take off his hat

to him with a respect he was never seen to show towards the king or

queen.

About this time I began to take personal interest in the affairs of

the neighbourhood, though my own were now of a nature to engross my

attention. By my grandfather's death, I had recently come into the

enjoyment of the small inheritance which has sufficed to the happiness

of my life; and, renouncing the profession for which I was educated,

settled myself permanently at Lexley.

Well do I remember the melancholy face with which the good old rector,

the very first evening we spent together, related to me in confidence

that he had three years' dues in arrear to him from Lexley Hall; but

that so wretched was said to be the state of Sir Laurence's

embarrassments, that, for more than a year, his dread of arrest had

kept him a close prisoner in his house in London.

"We have not seen him here these six years!" observed Dr Whittingham;

"and I doubt whether he will ever again set foot in the county. Since

an execution was put into the Hall, he has never crossed the

threshold, and I suspect never will. Far better were he to dispose of

the property at once! Dismembered as it is, what pleasure can it

afford him? And, since he is unlikely to marry and have heirs, there

is less call upon him to retain this remaining relic of family pride;

yet I am assured--nay, have good reason to know, that he has refused a

very liberal offer on the part of Mr Sparks. Malicious people do say,

by the way, that it was by the advice of Sparks's favourite attorneys

the execution was enforced, and that no means have been left

unattempted to disgust him with the place. Yet he is firm, you see,

and persists in disappointing his creditors, and depriving himself of

the comforts of life, merely in order that he may die, as his fathers

did before him--the lord of Lexley Hall!"

"I don't wonder!" said I, with the dawning sentiments of a landed

proprietor--"'Tis a splendid old house, even in its present state of

degradation; and, by Jove! I honour his pertinacity."

Thus put upon the scent, I sometimes fancied I could detect wistful

looks on the part of my prosperous neighbour of the Park, when, in the

course of Dr Whittingham's somewhat lengthy sermons, he directed his

eyes towards the carved old Gothic tribune, containing the family-pew

of the Althams, in the parish church; and, whenever I happened to

encounter him in the neighbourhood of the Hall, his face was so

pointedly averted from the house, as if the mere object were an

offence. I could not but wonder at his vexation; being satisfied in my

own mind, that sooner or later the remaining heritage of the

spendthrift must fall to his share.

Judge, therefore, of my surprise, when one fine morning, as I

sauntered into the village, I found the whole population gathered in

groups on the little market-place, and discovered from the incoherent

exclamations of the crowd, that "the new proprietor of the Hall had

just driven through in a chaise-and-four!"

Yes--"the new proprietor!" The place was sold! The good doctor's

prediction was verified. Sir Laurence was never more to return to

Lexley Hall!

The satisfaction of the villagers almost equalled their surprise on

finding that General Stanley was their new landlord. It suited them

much better that there should be two families settled on the property

than one; and as it was pretty generally reported, that, in the event

of Sparks becoming the purchaser, he intended to demolish the old

house, and reconsolidate the estate around his own more commodious

mansion, they were right glad to find it rescued from such a

sentence--General Stanley, who was the father of a family, would

probably settle the hall on one of his daughters, after placing it in

the state of repair so much needed.

When the chaise-and-four returned, therefore, a few hours afterwards,

through the village, the General was loudly cheered by his subjects.

His partiality for the place was so well known at Lexley, that already

these people seemed to behold in him the guardian of a monument so

long the object of their pride.

For my own part, nothing surprised me so much in the business as that

Sparks should have allowed the purchase to slip through his fingers.

It was worth thrice as much to _him_ as to any body else. It was the

keystone of his property. It was the one thing needful to render

Lexley Park the most perfect seat in the county. But I was not slow in

learning (for every thing transpires in a small country neighbourhood)

that whatever _my_ surprise on finding that the old Hall had changed

its master, that of Sparks was far more overwhelming; that he was

literally frantic on finding himself frustrated in expectations which

formed the leading interest of his declining years. For the progress

of time which had made _me_ a man and a landed proprietor, had

converted the stout active squire into an infirm old man; and it was

his absorbing wish to die sole owner of the whole property to which

the baronets of the Altham family were born.

He even indulged in expressions of irritation, which nearly proved the

means of commencing this new neighbourship by a duel; accusing General

Stanley of having possessed himself by unfair means of Sir Laurence's

confidence, and employed agents, underhand, to effect the purchase. In

consequence of these groundless representations, it transpired in the

country that the decayed baronet had actually volunteered the offer of

the estate to the veteran proprietor of Stanley Manor; that he had

_solicited_ him to become the proprietor, and even accommodated him

with peculiar facilities of payment, on condition of his inserting in

the title-deeds an express undertaking, never to dispose of the old

Hall, or any portion of the property, to Jonas Sparks of Lexley Park,

or his heirs for ever. The solicitor by whom, under Sir Laurence's

direction, the deeds had been prepared, saw fit to divulge this

singular specification, rather than that a hostile encounter should

run the risk of embruing in blood the hands of two grey haired men.

Excepting as regarded the disappointment of our wealthy neighbour, all

was now established on the happiest footing at Lexley. The reparation

instantly commenced by the General, gave employment throughout the

winter to our workmen; and the evils arising from an absentee landlord

began gradually to disappear. It was a great joy to me to perceive

that the new proprietor of the Hall had the good taste to preserve the

antique character of the place in the minutest portion of his

alterations; and though the old gardens were no longer a wilderness,

not a shrub was displaced--not a mutilated statue removed. The

furniture had been sold off at the time of the execution; and that

which came down in cart-loads from town to replace it, was rigidly in

accordance with the semi-Gothic architecture of the lofty chambers.

Poor Sparks must have been doubly mortified; for not only did he find

his old eyesore converted into an irremediable evil by the restoration

of the Hall, but the supremacy hitherto maintained in the

neighbourhood by the modern elegance of his house and establishment,

was thrown into the shade by the rich and tasteful arrangements of the

Hall.

From the contracted look of his forehead, and sudden alteration of his

appearance, I have reason to think he was beginning to undergo all the

moral martyrdom sustained for thirty years past by the unfortunate Sir

Laurence Altham; and were I not by nature the most contented of men,

it would have sufficiently reconciled me to the mediocrity of my

fortunes, to see that these two great people of my neighbourhood--the

nobly-descended baronet and rich _parvenu_--were miserable men; that,

so long as I could remember, one or other of them had been given over

to surliness and discontent.

Before the close of the year the grand old Hall had become one of the

noblest seats in the county. There was talk about it in all the

country round, and even the newspapers took notice of its renovation,

and of General Stanley's removal thither from Stanley Manor. Many

people, of the species who love to detect spots in the sun, were

careful to point out the insufficiency of the estate, as at present

constituted, to maintain so fine a house. But, after all, what

mattered this to General Stanley, who had a fine rent-roll elsewhere?

The first thing he did, on taking possession, was to give a grand ball

to the neighbourhood; nor was it till the whole house was lighted up

for this festive occasion, that people were fully aware of the

grandeur of its proportions. He was good enough to send me an

invitation on so especial an occasion. But already I had imbibed the

distaste which has pursued me through life for what is called society;

and I accordingly contented myself with surveying from a distance the

fine effect produced by the light streaming from the multitude of

windows, and exhibiting to the whole country round the gorgeous nature

of the decorations within. To own the truth, I could scarcely forbear

regretting, as I surveyed them, the gloomy dilapidation of the

venerable mansion. This modernized antiquity was a very different

thing from the massy grandeur of its neglected years; and I am afraid

I loved the old house better with the weeds springing from its

crevices, than with all this carving and gilding, this ebony, and

iron, and light.

The people of Lexley imagined that nothing would induce the Sparks's

family to be seen under General Stanley's roof. But we were mistaken.

So much the contrary, that the squire of Lexley Park made a particular

point of being the first and latest of the guests--not only because

his reconciliation with his new neighbour was so recent, but from not

choosing to authenticate, by his absence, the rumours of his grievous

disappointment.

For all the good he was likely to derive from his visit, the poor man

had better have stayed away; for that unlucky night laid foundations

of evil for him and his, far greater than any he had incurred from the

animosity of Sir Laurence. Nay, when in the sequel these results

became matter of public commentation, superstitious people were not

wanting to hint that the evil spirit, traditionally said to haunt one

of the wings of the old manor, and to have manifested itself on more

than one occasion to members of the Altham family, (and more

especially to the late worthless proprietor of the Hall,) had acquired

a fatal power over the two supplanters of the ruined family the moment

they crossed the threshold.

General Stanley, after marrying late in life, had been some years a

widower--a widower with two daughters, his co-heiresses. The elder of

these young ladies was a hopeless invalid, slightly deformed, and so

little attractive in person, or desirous to attract, that there was

every prospect of the noble fortunes of the General centring in her

sister. Yet this sister, this girl, had little need of such an

accession to her charms; for she was one of those fortunate beings

endowed not only with beauty and excellence, but with a power of

pleasing not always united with even a combination of merit and

loveliness.

Every body agreed that Mary Stanley was charming. Old and young, rich

and poor, all loved her, all delighted in her. It is true, the good

rector's maiden sisters privately hinted to me their horror of the

recklessness with which--sometimes with her sister, oftener without,

but wholly unattended--she drove her little pony-chaise through the

village, laughing like a madcap at pranks of a huge Newfoundland dog

named Sergeant, the favourite of General Stanley, which, while

escorting the young ladies, used to gambol into the cottages, overset

furniture and children, and scamper out again amid a general uproar.

For though Miss Mary was but sixteen, the starched spinsters decided

that she was much too old for such folly; and that, if the General

intended to present her at court, it was high time for her to lay

aside the hoyden manners of childhood.

But, as every one argued against them, why should this joyous, bright,

and beautiful creature lay aside what became her so strangely? Mary

Stanley was not made for the formalities of what is called

high-breeding. Her light, easy, sinuous figure, did not lend itself to

the rigid deportment of a prude; and her gay laughing eyes, and

dimpled mouth, were ill calculated to grace a dignified position. The

long ringlets of her profuse auburn hair were always out of

order--either streaming in the wind, or straying over her white

shoulders--her long lashes and beautifully defined eyebrows of the

same rich tint, alone preserving any thing like uniformity--a

uniformity which, combined with her almost Grecian regularity of

features, gave her, on the rare occasions when her countenance and

figure were at rest, the air of some nymph or dryad of ancient

sculpture. But to compare Mary Stanley to any thing of marble is

strangely out of place; for her real beauty consisted in the

ever-varying play of her features, and a certain impetuosity of

movement, that would have been a little characteristic of the romp,

but that it was restrained by the spell of feminine sensibility. Heart

was evidently the impulse of every look and every gesture.

For a man of my years, methinks I am writing like a lover. And so I

was! From the first moment I saw that girl, at an humble and

unaspiring distance, I could dream of nothing else. Every thing and

every body seemed fascinated by Mary Stanley. When she walked out into

the fields with the General, her two hands clasping, like those of a

child, her father's arm, his favourite colts used to come neighing

playfully towards them; and not the fiercest dog of his extensive

kennel but, even when unmanageable by the keeper, would creep fawning

to her feet.

It was strange enough, but still more fortunate, that all the

adoration lavished upon this lovely creature by gentle and simple,

Christian and brute, provoked no apparent jealousy on the part of her

elder sister. Selina Stanley was afflicted with a cold, reserved,

unhappy countenance, only too completely in unison with her

disastrous position. But her heart was perhaps as genuine as her face

was forbidding; for she loved the merry, laughing, handsome Mary,

more as a mother her child, than as a sister nearly of her own

years--that is, exultingly, but anxiously. Every one else foresaw

nothing but prosperity, and joy, and love, in store for Mary. Selina

prayed that it might prove so;--but she prayed with tears in her

eyes, and trembling in her soul! For where are the destinies of

persons thus exquisitely organized--thus full of love and

loveliness--thus readily swayed to joy or sorrow, by the trivial

incidents of life--characterised by what the world calls

happiness--such happiness, I mean, as is enjoyed by the serene and

the prudent, the unexcitable, the unaspiring! Miss Stanley foresaw

only too truly, that the best days likely to be enjoyed by her

sister, were those she was spending under her father's roof--a

general idol--an object of deference and delight to all around.

At the General's housewarming, though not previously introduced into

society, Mary was the queen of the ball; and all present agreed, that

one of the most pleasing circumstances of the evening was to watch the

animated cordiality with which she flew from one to the other of those

old neighbours of Stanley Manor, (whom she alone had managed to

persuade that a dozen miles was no distance to prevent their accepting

her father's invitation;) and not the most brilliant of her young

friends received a more eager welcome, or more sustained attention

throughout the evening, than the few homely elderly people, (such as

my friends the Whittinghams,) who happened to share the hospitality of

General Stanley. I daresay that even _I_, had I found courage to

accept his invitation, should have received from the young beauty some

gentle word, in addition to the kindly smiles with which she was sure

to return my respectful obeisance whenever we met accidentally in the

village.

Mary was dressed in white, with a few natural flowers in her hair,

which, owing to the impetuosity of her movements, soon fell out,

leaving only a stray leaf or two, that would have looked ridiculous

any where but among her rich, but dishevelled locks; and the pleasant

anxieties of the evening imparted such a glow to her usually somewhat

pale complexion, that her beauty is said to have been, that night,

almost supernatural. She was more like the creature of a dream than

one of those wooden puppets, who move mechanically through the world

under the name of well brought-up young ladies.

It will easily be conceived how much this ball, so rare an event in

our quiet neighbourhood, was discussed, not only the following day,

but for days and weeks to come. Even at the rectory I heard of nothing

else; while by my good old housekeeper, who had a son in service at

General Stanley's, and a daughter waiting-maid to Miss Sparks, I was

let in to secrets concerning it of which even the rectory knew

nothing.

In the first place, though Mr Sparks had peremptorily signified from

the first to his family, his desire that all should accompany him to

Lexley Hall on this trying occasion, (and it was only natural he

should wish to solace his wounded pride, by appearing before his noble

neighbour surrounded by his handsome progeny,) two of his children

had risen up in rebellion against the decree--and for the first

time--for Sparks was happy in a dutiful and well-ordered family. But

the youngest daughter, Kezia, a girl of high spirits and intelligence,

who fancied she had been pointedly slighted by the Misses Stanley,

when, in one of Mary's harum-scarum expeditions on her Shetland pony,

she had passed without recognition the better-mounted young lady of

Lexley Park; and the eldest son, who so positively refused to

accompany his father to the house of a man by whom Mr Sparks had

inconsiderately represented himself as aggrieved, that, for once, the

kind parent was forced to play the tyrant, and insist on his

obedience.

It was, accordingly, with a very ill grace that these two, the

prettiest of the daughters, and by far the handsomest of his three

handsome sons, made their appearance at the _fete_. But no sooner were

they welcomed by General Stanley and his daughters, than the brother

and sister, who had mutually encouraged each other's disputes,

hastened to recant their opinions.

"How could you, dearest father, describe this courteous, high-bred old

gentleman, as insolent and overbearing?"--whispered Kezia.

"How could you possibly suppose that yonder lovely, gracious creature,

intended to treat you with impertinence?"--was the rejoinder of her

brother; and already the Stanleys had two enemies the less among their

neighbours at Lexley Park.

On the other hand, the General had been forced to have recourse to

severe schooling to bring his daughters to a sense of what was due to

_his guests_, as regarded the family of a man who was known to have

spoken disparagingly of them all. Moreover, if the truth must be

owned, Mary was not altogether free from the prejudices of her caste;

and, proud of her father's noble extraction, was apt to pout her

pretty lip on mention of "the people at Lexley Park;" for the General,

who had no secrets from his girls, had foolishly permitted them to see

certain letters addressed to him by the eccentric Sir Laurence Altham,

justifying himself concerning the peculiar clause introduced into his

deeds of conveyance of his Hall estate, on the grounds of the degraded

origin of "the upstart" he was so malignantly intent on discomposing.

"They will spoil our ball, dear papa--I _know_ these vulgar people

will completely spoil our ball!" said she. "I think I hear them

announced:--'Mr Jonas Sparks, Miss Basiliza and Miss Kezia

Sparks!'--What names?"

"The parents of Mr Sparks were dissenters," observed the General,

trying to look severe. "Dissenters are apt to hold to scriptural

names. But _name_ is not _nature_, Mary; and, to judge by appearances,

this man's--this gentleman's--this Mr Sparks's daughters, have every

qualification to be an ornament to society."

"With all my heart, papa, but I wish it were not ours!" cried the

wayward girl. "On the present occasion, especially, I could spare such

an accession to our circle; for I know that Mr Sparks has presumed to

speak of----"

She was interrupted by a sterner reproof on the part of the General

than he had ever before administered to his favourite daughter; and

the consequence of this unusual severity was the distinguished

reception bestowed, both by Selina and her sister, on the family from

Lexley Park.

Next day, however, General Stanley found a totally different cause for

rebuke in the conduct of his dear Mary.

"You talked to nobody last night, but those Sparks's!" said he. "Lord

Dudley informed me he had asked you to dance three times in vain; and

Lord Robert Stanley assured me _he_ could scarcely get a civil answer

from you!--Yet you found time, Mary, to dance twice in the course of

the evening with that son of Sparks's!"

"That son of Sparks's, as you so despisingly call him, dearest papa,

is a most charming partner; while Lord Dudley, and my cousin Robert,

are little better than boors. Everard Sparks can talk and dance, as

well as they ride across a country. Not but what he, too, passes for a

tolerable sportsman; and do you know, papa, Mr Sparks is thinking

seriously of setting up a pack of harriers at Lexley?"

"At Lexley Park!" insisted her father, who chose to enforce the

distinction instituted by Sir Laurence Altham. "I fancy he will have

to ask my permission first. My land lies somewhat inconveniently, in

case I choose to oppose his intentions."

"But you won't oppose them!--No, no, dear papa, you sha'n't oppose

them!"--cried Mary Stanley, throwing her arms coaxingly round her

father's neck, and imprinting a kiss on his venerable forehead. "_Why_

should we go on opposing and opposing, when it would be so much

happier for all of us to live together as friends and neighbours?"

The General surveyed her in silence for some moments as she looked up

lovingly into his face; then gravely, and in silence, unclasped her

arms from his neck. For the first time, he had gazed upon his

favourite child without discerning beauty in her countenance, or

finding favour for her supplications.

"_My_ opinion of Mr Sparks and his family is not altered since

yesterday," said he coldly, perceiving that she was about to renew her

overtures for a pacification. "Your father's prejudices, Mary, are

seldom so slightly grounded, that the adulation of a few gross

compliments, such as were paid you last night by Mr Everard Sparks,

may suffice for their obliteration. For the future, remember the less

I hear of Lexley Park the better. In a few weeks we shall be in

London, where our sphere is sufficiently removed, I am happy to say,

from that of Mr Jonas Sparks, to secure me against the annoyance of

familiarity with him or his."

The partiality of his darling Mary for the handsomest and most

agreeable young man who had ever sought to make himself agreeable to

her, had sufficed to turn the arguments of General Stanley as

decidedly _against_ his _parvenu_ neighbours, as, two days before, his

eloquence had been exercised in their defence.

And now commenced between the young people and their parents, one of

those covert warfares certain to arise from similar interdictions. Mr

Sparks--satisfied that he should have further insults to endure on the

part of General Stanley, in the event of his son pretending to the

hand of the proud old man's daughter--sought a serious explanation

with Everard, on finding that he neglected no opportunity of meeting

Mary Stanley in her drives, and walks, and errands of village

benevolence; and by the remonstrances of one father, and

peremptoriness of the other, the young couple were soon tempted to

seek comforts in mutual confidences. Residing almost within view of

each other, there was no great difficulty in finding occasion for an

interview. They met, moreover, naturally, and without effort, in all

the country houses in the neighbourhood; and so frequently, that I

often wondered they should consider it worth while to hazard the

General's displeasure by partaking a few moments' conversation, every

now and then, among the old thorns by the water-side, just where the

bend of the river secured them from observation; or in the green lane

leading from Lexley Park to my farm, while Miss Stanley took charge of

the pony-chaise during the hasty explanations of the imprudent couple.

Having little to occupy my leisure during the intervals of my

agricultural pursuits, I was constantly running against them, with my

gun on my shoulder or my fishing-rod in my hand. I almost feared young

Sparks might imagine that I was employed by the General as a spy upon

their movements, so fierce a glance did he direct towards me one day

when I was unlucky enough to vault over a hedge within a few yards of

the spot where they were standing together--Miss Mary sobbing like a

child. But, God knows! he was mistaken if he thought I was taking

unfair heed of their proceedings, or likely to gossip indiscreetly

concerning what fell accidentally under my notice.

Not that a single soul in the neighbourhood approved General Stanley's

opposition to the attachment. On the contrary, from the moment of the

liking between the young people becoming apparent, the whole country

decided that there could not be a more propitious mode of reuniting

the dismembered Lexley estates; for though the General was expressly

debarred from selling Lexley Hall to Sparks or his heirs, he could not

be prevented bequeathing it to his daughters--the heirs of Jonas

Sparks being the children of her body. And thus all objections would

have been remedied.

But such was not the proud old man's view of the case. He had set his

heart on perpetuating his own name in his family. He had set his

heart on the union of his dear Mary with her cousin Lord Robert

Stanley; and Everard Sparks might have been twice the handsome, manly

young fellow he was--twice the gentleman, and twice the scholar--it

would have pleaded little in his favour against the predetermined

projects of the positive General. There was certainly some excuse for

his ambition on Miss Mary's account. Beauty, merit, fortune,

connexion, every advantage was hers calculated to do honour to a noble

alliance; and as her father often exclaimed, with a bitter sneer, in

answer to the mild pleadings of Selina--"Such a girl as that--a girl

born to be a duchess--to sacrifice herself to the son of a Congleton

manufacturer!"

Two years did the struggle continue--during the greater part of which

I was a constant eyewitness of the sorrows which so sobered the

impetuous deportment of the light-hearted Mary Stanley. Her father

took her to London, with the project of separation he had haughtily

announced; but only to find, to his amazement, that Eton and Oxford

had placed the son of Mr Sparks of Lexley Park, a member of

Parliament, on as good a footing as himself in nearly all the circles

he frequented. Even when, in the desperation of his fears, he removed

his family to the Continent, the young lover (as became the lover of

so endearing and attractive a creature) followed her, at a distance,

from place to place. At length, one angry day, the General provoked

him to a duel. But Everard would not lift his hand against the father

of his beloved Mary. An insult from General Stanley was not as an

offence from any other man. The only revenge taken by the

high-spirited young man, was to urge the ungenerous conduct of the

father as an argument with the daughter to put an end, by an

elopement, to a state of things too painful to be borne. After much

hesitation, it seems, she most unhappily complied. They were

married--at Naples I think, or Turin, or some other city of Italy,

where we have a diplomatic resident; and after their marriage--poor,

foolish young people!--they went touring it about gaily in the

Archipelago and Levant, waiting a favourable moment to propose a

reconciliation with their respective fathers--as if the wrath and

malediction of parents was so mere a trifle to deal with.

The first step taken by General Stanley, on learning the ungrateful

rebellion of his favourite child, was to return to England. He seemed

to want to be at home again, the better to enjoy and cultivate his

abhorrence of every thing bearing the despised name of Sparks; for now

began the genuine hatred between the families. Nothing would satisfy

the obstinate old soldier, but that the elder Sparks had, from the

first, secretly encouraged the views of his son upon the heiress of

Lexley Hall; while Mr Sparks naturally resented with enraged spirit

the overbearing tone assumed by his aristocratic neighbour towards

those so nearly his equals. Every day produced some new grounds for

offence; and never had Sir Laurence Altham, in the extremity of his

poverty, regarded the thriving mansion in the valley with half the

loathing which the view of Lexley Park produced in the mind of General

Stanley. He was even at the trouble of trenching a plantation on the

brow of the hill, with the intention of shutting out the detested

object. But trees do not grow so hastily as antipathies; and the

General had to endure the certainty, that, for the remainder of _his_

life at least, that beautiful domain must be unrolled, map-like, at

his feet. Nor is it to be supposed that the battlements of the old

hall found greater favour in the sight of the _parvenu_ squire, than

when in Sir Laurence's time the very sight of them was wormwood to his

soul.

Unhappily, while the Congleton manufacturer contented himself with

angry words, the gentleman of thirty descents betook himself to

action. General Stanley swore to be mightily revenged--and he was so.

On the very day following his return to England, before he even

visited his desolate country-house, he sent for Lord Robert Stanley,

and made him the confidant of his indignation--avowed his former good

intentions in his favour--betrayed all Mary's--all _Mr Everard

Sparks's_ disparaging opposition; and ended by enquiring whether,

since whichever of his daughters became Lady Robert Stanley would

become sole heiress to his property, his lordship could make up his

mind to accept Selina as a wife? Proud as he was, the General almost

condescended to plead the cause of his deformed daughter: enlarging

upon her excellences of character, and, still more, upon her aversion

to society, which would secure the self-love of her husband against

any public remarks on her want of personal attractions.

Alas! all these arguments were thoroughly thrown away. Lord Robert

was, as his cousin Mary had truly described him, little better than a

boor. But he was also a spendthrift and a libertine; and had Miss

Stanley been as deformed in mind as she was in person, he would have

joyfully taken to wife the heiress of ten thousand a-year, and two of

the finest seats in the county of Chester.

To herself, meanwhile, no hint of these family negotiations was

vouchsafed; and Selina Stanley had every reason to suppose--when her

cousin became on a sudden an assiduous visitor at the house, and very

shortly a declared lover--that their intimacy from childhood had

accustomed his eye to her want of personal charms--she had become

endeared to him by her mild and submissive temper. So little was she

aware of her father's testamentary dispositions in her favour, that

the interested nature of Lord Robert's views did not occur to her

mind; and, little accustomed to protestations of attachment, Selina's

heart was not _very_ difficult to soften towards the only man who had

ever pretended to love her, and whose apparent attachment promised

some consolation for the loss of her sister's society, as well as the

chance of reunion with one whom her father had sworn should never,

under any possible circumstances, again cross his threshold.

Six months after General Stanley's pride had been wounded to the quick

by the newspaper account of a marriage between his favourite child and

"a man of the name of Sparks," balm was poured into the wound by

another and more pompous paragraph, announcing the union, by special

license, of the Right Hon. Lord Robert Stanley and the eldest daughter

and heiress of Lieut.-Gen. Stanley, of Stanley Manor, only son of the

late Lord Henry Stanley, followed by the usual list of noble relatives

gracing the ceremony with their presence, and a flourishing account of

the departure of the happy couple, in a travelling carriage and four,

for their seat in Cheshire.

This announcement, by the way, probably served to convey the

intelligence to Mr and Mrs Everard Sparks; for the General having

carefully intercepted every letter addressed by Mary to her sister,

Lady Robert had not the slightest idea in what direction to

communicate with one who possessed an undiminished share in her

affections.

On General Stanley's arrival in Cheshire, at the close of the

honeymoon, the most casual observer might have noticed the alteration

which had taken place in his appearance. Instead of the sadness I had

expected to find in his countenance after so severe a stroke as the

disobedience of his darling girl, I never saw him so exulting. Yet his

smiles were not smiles of good-humour. There was bitterness at the

bottom of every word he uttered; and a terrible sound of menace rung

in his unnatural laughter. Consciousness never seemed a moment absent

from his mind, that he had defeated the calculations of the designing

family; that he had distanced them; that he was triumphing over them.

Alas! none at present entertained the smallest suspicion to what

extent!

Preparatory to the settlements made by the General on Lord and Lady

Robert Stanley, it had been found necessary to place in the hands of

his lordship's solicitors the deeds of the Lexley Hall estate; when,

lo! to the consternation of all parties, it appeared that the

General's title was an unsound one; that by the general terms of this

ancient property, rights of heirship could only be evaded by the

payment of a certain fine, after intimation of sale in a certain form

to the nearest-of-kin of the heir in possession, which form had been

overlooked or wantonly neglected by Sir Laurence Altham!

The discovery was indeed embarrassing. Fortunately, however, the sum

of ten thousand pounds only had been paid by the General to satisfy

the immediate funds of the unthrifty baronet; the remainder of the

purchase-money having been left in the form of mortgage on the

property. There was consequently the less difficulty, though

considerable expense, in cancelling the existing deeds, going through

the necessary forms, and, after paying the forfeiture to the heir, (to

whom the very existence of his claims was unknown,) renewing the

contract with Sir Laurence; to whom, so considerable a sum being still

owing, it was as essential as to General Stanley that the covenant

should be completed without delay. But all this occurred at so

critical a moment, that the General had ample cause to be thankful for

the promptitude with which he decided Selina's marriage; for only four

days after the signature of the new deeds, Sir Laurence concluded his

ill-spent life--his death being, it was thought, accelerated by the

excitement consequent on this strange discovery, and the

investigations on the part of the heir to which it was giving rise.

For the clause in the original grant of the Lexley estate (which dated

from the Reformation) affected the property purchased by Jonas Sparks

as fully as that which had been assigned to the General; and the

baronet being now deceased, there was no possibility of co-operation

in rectifying the fatal error. It was more than probable, therefore,

that Lexley Park, with all its improvements, was now the property of

John Julius Altham, Esq.!--the only dilemma still to be decided by the

law, being the extent to which, his kinsman having died insolvent and

intestate, he was liable to the suit of Jonas Sparks for the return of

the purchase money, amounting to L.145,000.

Already the fatal intelligence had been communicated by the attorneys

of John Julius Altham to those of the astonished man, who, though

still convinced of the goodness of his cause, (which, on the strength

of certain various statutes affecting such a case, he was advised to

contest to the utmost,) foresaw a long, vexatious, and expensive

lawsuit, that would certainly last his life, and prevent the

possibility of one moment's enjoyment of the estate, from which he had

received the usual notice of ejection. Fortunately for him, the

present Mr Altham was not only a gentleman, and disposed to exercise

his rights in the most decorous manner; but, of course, unbiassed by

the personal prejudices so strongly felt by Sir Laurence, and so

unfairly communicated by him to the General. Still, the question was

proceeding at the snail's pace rate of Chancery suits at the

commencement of the present century, and the unfortunate Congleton

manufacturer had every reason to curse the day when he had become

enamoured of the grassy glades and rich woodlands of Lexley; seeing

that, at the close of an honourable and well-spent life, he was

uncertain whether the sons and daughters to whom he had laboured to

bequeath a handsome independence, might not be reduced to utter

destitution.

Such was the intelligence that saluted the ill-starred Mary and her

husband on their return to England! Instead of the brilliant prospects

in which she had been nurtured--disinheritance met her on the one

side, and ruin on the other!

Her vindictive father had even made it a condition of his bounties to

Lord and Lady Robert, that all intercourse should cease between them

and their sister; a condition which the former, in revenge for the

early slights of his fairer cousin, took care should be punctually

obeyed by his wife.

Till the event of the trial, Mr Sparks retained, of course, possession

of the Park; but so bitter was the mortification of the family, on

discovering in the village precisely the same ungrateful feeling which

had so embittered the soul of Sir Laurence, that they preferred

remaining in London--where no one has leisure to dwell upon the

mischances of his neighbours, and where sympathy is as little expected

as conceded. But when Mary arrived--_poor_ Mary! who had now the

prospect of becoming a mother--and who, though affectionately beloved

by her husband's family, saw they regarded her as the innocent origin

of their present reverses--she soon persuaded her husband to accompany

her to her old haunts.

"Do not imagine, dearest," said she, "that I have any project of

debasing you and myself, by intruding into my father's presence. Had

we been still prosperous, Everard, I would have gone to him--knelt to

him--prayed to him--wept to him--_so_ earnestly, that his forgiveness

could not have been long withheld from the child he loved so dearly. I

would have described to him all you are to me--all your

indulgences--all your devotion--and _you_, too, my own husband, would

have been forgiven. But as it is, believe me, I have too proud a sense

of what is due to ourselves, to combat the unnatural hostility in

which my sister and her husband appear to take their share. O Everard!

to think of Selina becoming the wife of that coarse and heartless man,

of whom, in former times, she thought even more contemptuously than I;

and who, with his dissolute habits, can only have made my poor

afflicted sister his wife from the most mercenary motives! I dread to

think of what may be her fate hereafter, when, having obtained at my

father's death all the advantages to which he looks forward, he will

show himself in his true colours."

Thus, even with such terrible prospects awaiting herself, the good,

generous Mary trembled only to contemplate those of her regardless

sister; and it was chiefly for the delight of revisiting the spots

where they had played together in childhood--the fondly-remembered

environs of Stanley Manor--that she persuaded her husband to take up

his abode in the deserted mansion at the Park, where, from prudential

motives, Mr Sparks had broken up his establishment, and sold off his

horses.

Attended by a single servant, in addition to the old porter and his

wife who were in charge of the house, Mary trusted that their arrival

at Lexley would be unnoticed in the neighbourhood. Confining herself

strictly within the boundaries of the Park, which neither her father

nor the bride and bridegroom were likely to enter, she conceived that

she might enjoy, on her husband's arm, those solitary rambles of which

every day circumscribed the extent; without affording reason to the

General to suppose, when, discerning every morning from his lofty

terraces the mansion of his falling enemy, that, in place of the man

he loathed, it contained his discarded child.

The dispirited young woman, on the other hand, delighted in

contemplating from the windows of her dressing-room the towers

beneath, whose shelter she had abided in such perfect happiness with

her doating father and apparently attached sister. They loved her no

longer, it is true. Perhaps it was her fault--(she would not allow

herself to conceive it could be a fault of _theirs_)--but at all

events she loved _them_ dearly as ever; and it was comforting to her

poor heart to catch a glimpse of their habitation, and know herself

within reach, should sickness or evil betide.

"If I should not survive my approaching time," thought Mary, often

surveying for hours, through her tears, the heights of Lexley Hall,

and fancying she could discern human figures moving from window to

window, or from terrace to terrace; "if I should be fated never to

behold this child, already loved--this child which is to be so dear a

blessing to us both--in my last hours my father would not surely

refuse to give me his blessing; nor would Selina persist in her

present cruel alienation. It is, indeed, a comfort to be here."

Her husband thought otherwise. To him nothing was more trying than

this compulsory sojourn at Lexley; not that he required other society

than that of his engaging and attached wife. At any other moment it

would have been delightful to him to enjoy the country pleasures

around them, with no officious intrusive world to interpose between

their affection. But in his present uncertainty as to his future

prospects, to be mocked by this empty show of proprietorship, and have

constantly before his eyes the residence of the man who had heaped

such contumely on his head, and inflicted such pain on the gentlest

and sweetest of human hearts, was a state of moral torment.

In the course of my fishing excursions--(for, thanks to Mr Sparks's

neighbourly liberality, I had a card of general access to his

parks)--I frequently met the young couple; and having no clue to their

secret sentiments, noticed, with deep regret, the sadness of Mary's

countenance and sinister looks of her husband. I feared--I greatly

feared--that they were not happy together. The General's daughter

repined, perhaps, after her former fortunes. The young husband sighed,

doubtless, over the liberty he had renounced.

It was spring time, and Lord Robert having satisfied his cravings

after the pleasures of London, by occasional bachelor visits on

pretence of business, the family were to remain at the Hall till after

the Easter holidays, so that Mary had every expectation of the

accomplishment of her hopes previous to their departure. Perhaps, in

the bottom of her heart, she flattered herself that, on hearing of her

safety, her obdurate relations might be moved, by a sudden burst of

pity and kindliness, to make overtures of reconciliation--at all

events to dispatch words of courteous enquiry; for she was ever

dwelling on her good fortune that her father should, on this

particular year, have so retarded the usual period of his departure.

Yet when the report of these exulting exclamations on her part reached

my ear, I was ungenerous enough to attribute them to a very different

origin, fancying that the poor submissive creature was thankful for

being within reach of protection from conjugal misusage.

Meanwhile, she was so far justified in one portion of her premises,

that no tidings of her residence at Lexley Park had as yet reached the

ear of her father. The fact was, that not a soul had courage to do so

much as mention, in his presence, the name of his once idolized child;

and Lord Robert, having been apprized of the circumstance, instantly

exacted a promise from his wife, that nothing should induce her to

hazard her father's displeasure by communication with her sister, or

by acquainting the General of the arrival of the offending pair. The

consequence was, that in the dread of encountering her sister, (whom

she felt ashamed to meet as the wife of the man they had so often

decried together,) Lady Robert rarely quitted the house; and these two

sisters, so long the affectionate inmates of the same chamber--the

sisters who had wept together over their mother's deathbed--abided

within sight of each other's windows, yet estranged as with the

estrangement of strangers.

And then, we pretend to talk with horror of the family feuds of

southern nations; and, priding ourselves on our calm and passionless

nature, feel convinced that all the domestic virtues extant on earth,

have taken refuge in the British empire!

Every day, meanwhile, I noticed that the handsome countenance of

Everard Sparks grew gloomier and gloomier; and how was I to know that

every day he received letters from his father, announcing the

unfavourable aspect of their suit; and that (owing, as was supposed,

to the suggestions of General Stanley's solicitors) even the conduct

of the adverse party was becoming offensive. The elder Sparks wrote

like a man overwhelmed with mortification, and stung by a sense of

undeserved injury; and his appeals to the sympathy and support of his

son, were such as to place the spirited young man in a most painful

predicament as regarded the family of his wife.

Unwilling to utter in her presence an injurious word concerning those

who, persecute her as they might, were still her nearest and dearest

by the indissoluble ties of nature, all he could do, in relief to his

overcharged feelings, was to rush forth into the Park, and curse the

day that he was born to behold all he loved in the world overwhelmed

in one common ruin.

On such occasions, while pretending to fix my attention on my float

upon the river, I often watched him from afar, till I was terrified by

the frantic vehemence of his gestures. There was almost reason to

fancy that the evil influences of the old Hall were extending their

power over the valley; and that this distracted young man was falling

into the eccentricities of Sir Laurence Altham.

After viewing with anxiety the wild deportment of poor Mary's husband,

I happened one day to pass along the lane I have described as skirting

the garden of the manor-house, on my way homewards to my farm; and on

plunging my eyes, as usual, into the verdant depths of the clipped

yew-walks, visible through the iron-palisades, was struck by the

contrast afforded to the scene I had just witnessed, not only by its

aristocratic tranquillity, but by the grave and subdued deportment of

Lady Robert Stanley, who was sauntering in one of the alleys,

accompanied by a favourite dog I had often seen following her sister

in former days, and looking the very picture of contented egotism.

I almost longed to call aloud to her, and confide all I knew and all

that I supposed. But what right had I to create alarms in her sister's

behalf? What right had I to incite her to disobedience against the

father on whom she and her husband were dependent? Better leave things

as they were--the common philosophy of selfish, timid people, afraid

of exposing their own heads to a portion of the storm their

interference may chance to bring down, while assisting the cause of

the weak against the strong.

I used often to go home and think of poor Mary till my heart ached.

That young and beautiful creature--that creature till lately so

beloved--to be thus cruelly abandoned, thus helpless, thus unhappy!

Perhaps not a soul sympathizing with her but myself--an obscure,

low-born, uninfluential man, of no more value as a protector than a

willow-wand shivered from the Lexley plantations! Not so much as the

merest trifle in which I could demonstrate my good-will. I thought and

thought it over, and there was nothing I could do--nothing I could

offer. When I _did_ hit upon some pretext of kindness, I only did

amiss. The fruit season was not begun--nay, the orchards were only in

blossom--and times were over for forcing-houses at Lexley Park!

Thinking, therefore, that the invalid might be pleased with a basket

of Jersey pears, of which a very fine kind grew in my orchard, I

ventured to send some to her address. But the very next time I

encountered Everard in the village, he cast a look at me as if he

would have killed me for my officiousness, or, perhaps, for taking the

liberty to suppose that Lexley Park was less luxuriously provisioned

than in former years. Nor was it till long afterwards I discovered

that my old housekeeper (who had taken upon herself to carry my humble

offering to the park) had not only seen the poor young lady, but been

foolish enough to talk of Lady Robert in a tone which appears to have

exercised a cruel influence over her gentle heart; so that, when her

husband returned home from rabbit-shooting, an hour afterwards, he

found her recovering from a fainting fit, he visited upon _me_ the

folly of my servant; and such was the cause of his angry looks.

A few days afterwards, however, he had far more to reproach his

conscience withal than poor Barbara. Having no concealments from his

wife, to whom he was in the habit of avowing every emotion of his

heart, he was rash enough to mention of having met the travelling

carriage of Lord and Lady Robert on the London road. They had quitted

the Hall ten days previous to the epoch originally fixed for their

departure.

"Gone--exactly gone!--already at two hundred miles' distance from me!"

cried poor Mary, nothing doubting that her father had, as usual,

accompanied them, and feeling herself now, for the first time, alone

in the dreary seclusion to which she had condemned herself, only that

she might breathe the same atmosphere with those she loved. "Yet they

had certainly decided to remain at the Hall till after Easter! Perhaps

they discovered my being here, and the discovery hastened their

journey. Unhappy creature that I am, to have become thus hateful to

those in whose veins my blood is flowing! Everard, Everard! O, what

have I done that God should thus abandon me?"

The soothing and affectionate remonstrances now addressed to her by

her husband, had so far a good effect, that they softened her despair

to tears. Long and unrestrainedly did she weep upon his shoulder;

tried to comfort him by the assurance that _she_ was comforted, or at

least that she would endeavour to _seek_ comfort from the protection

and goodness whence it had been so often derived.

A few minutes afterwards, having been persuaded by Everard to rest

herself on the sofa, to recover the effects of the agitation his

indiscreet communication had excited, she suddenly complained of cold,

and begged him to close the windows. It was a balmy April day, with a

genial sun shining fresh into the room. The air was as the air of

midsummer--one of those days on which you almost see the small green

leaves of spring bursting from their shelly covering, and the resinous

buds of the chestnut-trees expanding into maturity. Poor Everard saw

at once that the chilliness of which his wife complained must be the

effect of illness. More cautious, however, on this occasion than

before, he enquired, as her shivering increased, what preparations she

had made for the events which still left her some weeks for execution.

"None. His sisters had kindly undertaken to supply her with all she

might require; and the services of the nurse accustomed to attend his

married sister, were engaged on her behalf. At the end of the month

this woman was to arrive at Lexley, bringing with her the wardrobe of

the little treasure who was to accord renewed peace and happiness to

its mother."

Though careful to conceal his anxiety from his wife, Everard Sparks,

disappointed and distressed, quitted the room in haste to send for the

medical man who had long been the attendant of his family. But before

he arrived, the shivering fit of the poor sufferer had increased to an

alarming degree. A calming potion was administered, and orders issued

that she was to be kept quiet; but in the consternation created in the

little household by the communication Dr R. thought it necessary to

make of the possibility of a premature confinement, poor Mrs Sparks's

maid, a young inexperienced woman, dispatched a messenger to my house

for her old kinswoman, and it was through Barbara I became acquainted

with the melancholy incidents I am about to relate.

The sedatives administered failed in their effect. A fatal shock had

been already given; and while struggling through that direful night

with the increasing pangs that verified the doctor's prognostications,

the sympathizing women around the sufferer could scarcely restrain

their tears at the courage with which she supported her anguish,

rejoicing in it, as it were, in the prospect of embracing her

child--when all present were aware that the compensation was about to

be denied her, that the child was already dead. Just as the day

dawned, her anxious husband was congratulated on her safety, and then

the truth could no longer be concealed from Mary. She asked to see her

babe. Her husband was employed to persuade her to defer seeing it for

an hour or two, "till it was dressed--till she was more composed." But

the truth rushed into her mind, and she uttered not another word, in

the apprehension of increasing his disappointment and mortification.

So long did her silence continue, that, trusting she had fallen

asleep, old Barbara's granddaughter entreated poor Everard to withdraw

and leave her to her rest. But the moment he quitted the room, she

spoke, spoke resolutely, and in a firmer voice than her previous

sufferings had given them reason to suppose possible.

"Now, then, let me see my boy," said she. "I know that he is dead. But

do not be afraid of shocking or distressing me. I have courage to look

upon the poor little creature for whom I have suffered so much, and

who, I trusted, would reward me for all."

The women remonstrated, as it was their duty to remonstrate. But when

they saw that opposition on this point only excited her, dreading an

accession of fever, they brought the poor babe and laid it on the

pillow beside its mother. That first embrace, to which she had looked

forward with such intensity of delight, folded to her burning bosom

only a clay-cold child!

Even thus it was fair to look on--every promise in its little form,

that its beauty would have equalled that of its handsome parents; and

Mary, as she pressed her lips to its icy forehead, fancied she could

trace on those tiny features a resemblance to its father. Old Barbara,

perceiving how bitterly the tears of the sufferer were falling on the

cheeks of her lost treasure, now interfered. But the mother had still

a last request to make. A few downy curls were perceptible on the

temples--in colour and fineness resembling her own. She wished to

rescue from the grave this slight remembrance of her poor nameless

offspring; and her wish having been complied with, she suffered the

babe to be taken from her relaxed and moveless grasp.

"Leave me the hair," said she, in a faint voice. "Thanks--thanks! I am

happy now--I will try to sleep--I am happy--happy now!"

She slept--and never woke again. At the close of an hour or two, her

anxious husband, finding she had not stirred, gently and silently

approached the bedside, and took into his own the fair hand lying on

the coverlid, to ascertain whether fever had ensued. _Fever?_ It was

already cold with the damps of death!

Imagine, if you can, the agony and self-reproach of that bereaved man!

Again and again did he revile himself as her murderer; accusing

_himself_--her father--her _sister_--the whole world. At one moment,

he fancied that her condition had not been properly treated by her

attendants; at another, that the medical man ought not to have left

the house. Nay, hours and hours after she was gone for ever--after

the undertakers had commenced their hideous preparations--even while

she lay stretched before him, white and cold as marble, he persisted

that life might be still recalled; and, but for the better

discrimination of those around him, would have insisted on attempts at

resuscitation, calculated only to disturb, almost sacrilegiously, the

sound peace of the dead!

I was one of the first to learn the heart-rending news of this beloved

being's untimely end; for my old woman having asked permission to

remain with her through the night, (explaining the exigency of the

case,) I could not forbear hurrying to the house as soon as it was

day, in the hope of hearing she was a happy mother. Somehow or other,

I had never contemplated an unfavourable result. The idea of death

never presented itself to me in common with any thing so young and

fair; and as I walked through the park, and crossed the bridge, with

the white cheerful mansion before me, and the morning sun shining full

upon its windows, I thought how gladsome it looked, but could not

forbear feeling that, even with the prospect of losing it--even with

the certainty of beggary, Everard, as a husband and father, was the

fellow most to be envied upon earth!

I reached the house, and the old man who answered my ring at the

office entrance, was speechless from tears. Though usually hard as

iron, he sobbed as if his heart would break. I asked to speak with

Barbara--with my housekeeper. He told me I could not--that she was

"busy laying out the body." I was answered. That dreadful word told me

all--I had no more questions to ask. I cared not _who_ survived, or

what became of the survivors. And as I turned sickening away, to bend

my steps homewards, I remember wondering how that fair spring morning

could shine so bright and auspiciously, when _she_ was gone from us.

It seemed to triumph in our loss! Alas! it shone to welcome a new

angel to the kingdom of our Father who is in heaven!

Suddenly it struck me, that I, too, had a duty to perform. In that

scanty household there was no one to take thought of the common forms

of life; so I hastened to the rectory, to suggest to our good pastor a

visit of consolation to the house of mourning, and acquaint his

sisters with its forlorn condition. Like myself, they began

exclaiming, "Alas! alas! It was but the other day that"----reverting

to all the acts of charity and girlish graces of that dear departed

Mary Stanley, who had been among us as the shadow of a dream.

Before I left the rectory, Dr Whittingham had issued his orders; and

lo! as I proceeded homewards, with a heavy step and a heavier heart,

the sound of the passing bell from Lexley church pursued me with its

measured toll, till I could scarcely refrain from sitting me down by

the wayside, and weeping my very soul away.

On reaching the lane I have so often described as skirting the gardens

of the old Hall, I noticed, through the palisades, a person, probably

one of the gardeners, sauntering along Lady Robert's favourite

yew-walk. No! on a nearer approach, I saw, and almost shuddered to

see, that it was General Stanley himself (who, I fancied, had

accompanied his son-in-law to town) taking an early walk, to enjoy the

sweetness of that delicious morning.

As I drew nearer, I averted my head. At that moment I had not courage

to look him in the face. I could scarcely suppose him ignorant of what

had occurred; and, if aware of the sad event, his obduracy was unmanly

to a degree that filled me with disgust. But just as I came opposite

the iron gates, he hailed me by name--more familiarly and courteously

than he was wont--to ask whether I came from the village, and for

_whose_ death they were tolling?

If worlds had depended on my answer, I could not have uttered a word!

But I conclude that, catching sight of my troubled face and swollen

eyelids, the General supposed I had lost some near and dear friend;

for, instead of renewing his question, he merely touched his hat, and

passed on, leaving me to proceed in my turn. But the spectacle of my

profound affliction probably excited his curiosity; for I found

afterwards, that, instead of pursuing his walk, he returned straight

to the house, and addressed the enquiry which had so distressed _me_,

to others having more courage to reveal the fatal truth. I believe it

was the old family butler, who abruptly answered--"For my poor young

lady, General--for the sweetest angel that ever trod the earth!"

For my part, I wonder the announcement did not strike him to the

earth! But he heard it without apparent emotion; like a man who,

having already sustained the worst affliction this world can afford,

has no sensibility for further trials. Still the intelligence was not

ineffective. Without pausing an instant for reflection, or the

indulgence of his feelings, he set forth on foot to Lexley Park. With

his hat pulled over his eyes, and a determined air, rather as if about

to execute an act of vengeance than offer a tardy tribute of

tenderness to his victim, he hurried to the house--commanded the

startled old servant to show him the way to _her_ room--entered

it--and knelt down beside the bed on which she lay, with her dead

infant on her arm, asking her forgiveness, and the forgiveness of God,

as humbly as though he were not the General Stanley proverbial for

implacability and pride.

Old Barbara, who had not quitted the room, assured me it was a

heart-breaking sight to behold that white head bowed down in agony

upon the cold feet of his child. For he felt himself unworthy to press

her helpless hand to his lips, or remove the cambric from her face,

but called, in broken accents, upon the name of Mary! his child! his

darling! addressing her rather with the fondling terms bestowed upon

girlhood than as a woman--a wife--a mother!

"But a more affecting story still," said the old woman, "was to see

that Mr Everard took no more heed of the General's sudden entrance

than though it were a thing to be looked for. He seemed neither to

hear his exclamations nor perceive his distress." Poor gentleman! His

haggard eyes were fixed, his mind bewildered, his hopes blasted for

ever, his life a blank. He neither answered when spoken to, nor even

spoke, when the good rector, according to his promise, came to

announce that he had dispatched the fatal intelligence by express to

his family, beseeching his instructions concerning the steps to be

taken for the burial of the dead.

But why afflict you and myself by recurring to these melancholy

details! Suffice it, that this dreadful blow effected what nothing

else on earth could have effected in the mind of General Stanley.

Humbled to the dust, even the arrival of the once despised owner of

Lexley Park did not drive him from the house. He asked his pity--he

asked his pardon. Beside the coffin of his daughter he expressed all

the compunction a generous-hearted and broken-hearted man could

express; and all he asked in return, was leave to lay her poor head in

the grave of her ancestors.

No one opposed his desire. The young widower had not as much

consciousness left as would have enabled him to utter the negative

General Stanley seemed prepared to expect; and as to his father, about

to abandon Lexley for ever, to what purpose erect a family vault in a

church which neither he nor his were ever likely to see again?

To the chapel at Stanley Manor, accordingly, were the mother and child

removed. The General wrote expressly to forbid his son-in-law and

Selina returning to the Hall, on pretence of sustaining him in his

affliction. He _chose_ to give way to it; he _chose_ to be alone with

his despair.

Never shall I forget the day that mournful funeral procession passed

through the village! Young and old came forth weeping to their doors

to bid her a last farewell; even as they used to come and exchange

smiles with her, in those happy days when life lay before her,

bright--hopeful--without a care--without a responsibility. I had

intended to pay him the same respect. I meant, indeed, to have

followed the hearse, at an humble distance, to its final destination.

But when I rose that morning a sudden weakness came upon me, and I was

unable to quit my room. I, so strong, so hardy, who have passed

through life without sickness or doctor, was as powerless that day as

an infant.

It was from the good rector, therefore, I heard how the General (on

whom, in consequence of the precarious condition of the afflicted

husband, devolved the task of chief mourner) sustained his carriage to

perform with dignity and propriety his duty to the dead. As he

followed the coffin through the churchyard, crowded by his old

pensioners--many of them praying on their knees as it passed--his

step was as firm and his brow as erect as though at the head of his

regiment. It was not till all was over--the mournful ceremony done,

the crowd dispersed, the funeral array departed--that having descended

into the vault, ere the stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre,

in order to point out the exact spot where he wished her remains to be

deposited, so that hereafter his own might rest by her side, he

renounced all self-restraint, and throwing himself upon the ground,

gave himself up to his anguish, and refused to be comforted!

That summer was as dreary a season at Lexley as the dreariest winter!

Both the Park and the Hall were shut up; nor did General Stanley ever

again resume his tenancy of the old manor. When the result of the

Chancery suit left Mr Altham in possession of the former estate, the

General literally preferred forfeiting the moiety of the

purchase-money he had paid, and giving up the place to be re-united

with the property, which the rigour of the law thus singularly

restored to the last heirs of the Althams; and such was the cause of

my neighbour, the present Sir Julius Altham, regaining possession of

the Hall.

It was not for many years, however, that the cause was ultimately

decided. There was an appeal against the Chancellor's decree; and even

after the decree was confirmed, came an endless number of legal forms,

which so procrastinated the settlement, that not only the original

unfortunate purchaser, but poor Everard himself, was in his grave when

the mansion, in which they had so prided themselves, was pulled down,

and all trace of their occupancy effaced.

I sometimes ask myself, indeed, whether the whole of this "strange

eventful history," with which the earliest feelings of my heart were

painfully interwoven, really occurred? whether the manor ever passed

for a time out of the possession of the ancient house of Altham?

whether the domain, now one and indivisible, were literally

partitioned off--a park paling interposing only between the patrician

and plebeian. Often, after spending hour after hour by the river side,

when the fly is on the water and the old thorns in bloom, I recur to

the first day I came back into Lexley Park after the funeral had

passed through, and recollect the soreness of heart with which I

lifted my eyes towards the house, of which every trace has since

disappeared. At that moment there seemed to rise before me, sporting

among the gnarled branches of the old thorn-trees, the graceful form

of Mary Stanley, followed by old Sergeant, bounding and barking

through the fern; and the General looking on from a distance,

pretending to be angry, and desiring her to come out of the covert and

not disturb the game. Exactly thus, and there, I beheld them for the

first time. What would I not give to realize once more, if only for a

day, that happy, happy vision!

Stanley Manor is let to strangers during the minority of Lord Robert's

sickly son; the father being an absentee, the mother in an early

grave. She lived long enough, however, to be a repining wife; and my

neighbour, Sir Julius Altham, has more than once hinted to me, that,

of the whole family, the portion of Selina most deserved compassion.

To me, however, her callous conduct towards that gentle sister, always

rendered her the least interesting of my COUNTRY NEIGHBOURS.