Rusholme Place, a fine old mansion in the Midlands, is seated in
a picturesque and well-wooded park, and surrounded by the usual
accompaniments of lawns, pleasure-grounds, and gardens. The exterior
of Rusholme, although it presents a most attractive appearance, is as
nothing compared with the treasures within.
The large entrance hall, and billiard-room, which opens out of it,
are said to be an admixture of the Natural History and the Victoria
and Albert Museums of South Kensington! The walls of both are covered
with trophies of the chase (their owner was a dead-shot, and went far
afield for sport). A magnificent bull-moose from Nova Scotia faces a
life-like bison, late from Southern India; fine heads of deer surmount
the doorways; and along the walls are high glass cases, containing
specimens of rare birds, and small animals, such as snow-white hares,
weasels, etc. This is the natural history department; there are also
displayed in these rooms inlaid damascened Indian arms; Afghan guns;
old Spanish chairs upholstered in Cordova leather; a stand of rare
books--which include a beautifully illustrated Koran, picked up on a
battlefield. A wonderful Chinese embroidered curtain drapes a wall,
in front of which stands a table holding a Russian samovar, and a
Japanese incense-burner in bronze, of the most terrifying description.
In the hall is an ancient carved chest, said to have been washed ashore
from the Spanish Armada. Here are also several exquisite figures of
Grecian type, about two feet high--these had been dug up on the banks
of the Indus, and were said to have been left behind by the hosts of
Alexander the Great. Wherever you looked within these two rooms, there
was something interesting to see, but it was at night that--astonishing
fact--there was something interesting to _hear_.
After the genial party of billiard players had departed, when the
lights were extinguished, the house closed and buried in silence, the
collection from all parts of the world exchanged experiences--personal
or otherwise, and held discussions--but these were not always attended
with success. The stag and the tiger had high words; it had been found
necessary to interrupt and silence the stoat and the white hare. It
was considered more prudent to confine the evening entertainments to
the harmless form of story-telling. The great moose was chairman of
the company; the bison, his _vis-à-vis_, vice-chairman; the Chinese
incense-burner and an Afghan jazail occasionally interposed remarks,
but, on the whole, peace reigned supreme.
“I now call upon the Ferrara Blade,” said the deep bass of the moose;
“let us hear your tale.”
After a moment’s silence, a thin, sharp voice from a corner began
without further preamble: “My story, good listeners, is ancient
history, but it is true. I will merely relate one incident--no need
to more than touch on my own life, for to tell my adventures would
take hours. I am a well-tempered Andrea Ferrara blade, married to a
Spanish handle of great value. By chance, I entered a military family,
and descended from father to son. I have seen desperate fighting in
the Low Countries--aye, and in the New World. After a long time came
peace--there was no work for me, and I was hung up in my scabbard
over a fireplace in the library of the ancient mansion of my Lord of
Lanbryde. His home was right in the north of Scotland--its lands were
lipped by an ocean that had its further shore in the Arctic Circle. The
wind was fine and strong--the sunsets recalled the tropics; air and
land bred bold fishermen, and big-boned folk, who held themselves high,
and knew not the word ‘fear.’ It was recorded that the race came from
the Danes.
“Blairvie, my Lord, was heir to great estates, a tall old man, with a
high, hooked nose and bushy brows, a famous swordsman and gamester in
his day--which was over. Now he had nought to do but mind his property
and harry his tenants. He was a hard landlord--hard to all the world
except himself. Married to a lord’s daughter, he had two children--a
son in a Highland regiment, and one girl. Blairvie was a tyrant to
them, and to everyone within his reach; he turned out folk from places
where they and their forebears had lived for generations.
“One very old woman crawled to his door and begged for mercy, but he
was as stone. She went down on her knees, and said:
“‘Blairvie, let me die in my ain wee housie. I pray you to leave me
where I was born and bred--my time must now be short.’
“But it was all of no use--Blairvie was adamant--so she uprose, and
cursed him to his face.
“‘Ye have ta’en away the land from us, aye, and from many--ye that has
plenty. See now,’ she said, ‘I lay my malison on you: the land will be
ta’en away from you and yours--for ever and ever. Your descendants will
not own a yard of green turf, and will die beggars!’ and then she fell
in a sort of fit, and was thrown out.
“For some time afterwards there was great talk of the old witch and her
curse, and the ‘wierd’ pronounced against Blairvie; but by degrees the
whole thing died away. The lands of Lanbryde were fertile, for much of
the soil was old and rich; the sheep, cattle, and orchards were beyond
anything for excellence. The place, a great big house, square to the
winds, lay back in a bay between two big horns of shingle--but the
whole beach was covered with beautiful sand, so fine that it could run
through an hourglass.
“By gradual degrees, it was noticed that the sea was encroaching; huge
mounds of sands had accumulated--some of them one hundred feet in
height--and the sand seemed scarcely ever at rest. In strong westerly
gales it drifted about, and seemed so violent and tormented, one might
have supposed that the furies were locked in mortal combat. The size
and increase of the dunes were so imperceptibly stealthy, that it was
scarcely noticed by those who lived in the neighbourhood, but chiefly
spoken of by people who had been absent for some time. By and by, the
old coast-line began to break up, the sea made extensive inroads, and
there was a certain wasting of the fore-shore. These high banks of
sand afforded but a feeble barrier to the power of storms from the
north--which forced them further and further inshore; and still no
one minded, for a gale from the south usually blew them back to their
former position.
“One November night a fearful gale descended on the coast. A sand-flood
overwhelmed the fields, the orchards, the gardens of Lanbryde--here
was a deluge that nothing could arrest. Ghostly clouds of white sand,
falling and whirling, above, below--in short, everywhere. The torrent
seemed to be a living force; it poured over the mansion, and down
its chimneys, burst the doors and windows, and blocked the stairs.
The storm was as sudden as it was violent--it approached with a
howling, mighty wind, sheets and clouds of a thin, white substance,
tons--millions of tons--of sand. The people of the house had barely
time to escape with their lives, before the doors and stairs were
choked. The young heir--who happened to be home on leave--as he rushed
out last, bethought himself of the family sword--in short, of _me_! He
ran back, fought his way to the fireplace, while the wind roared and
the sand poured, wrenched me from the wall, and sped forth. But in the
doorway a blast met him and knocked him prostrate--the cruel sand fell
on him, and choked him where he lay; he struggled and fought--it was
like being in the heart of a quick-sand. After desperate efforts he
gave up the ghost, and so perished miserably--and there he and I rested
together for eighty long years. By midday, after the gale, such was the
result of shifting dunes, that the very situation of the mansion was
lost--and the whole property, a vast expanse of sand, was pointed out
to newcomers as the grave of the house, and estates, of Lanbryde.
“At last, after nearly a century had elapsed, a furious western
hurricane suddenly altered the figures of many sandhills. Another
violent storm arose, a whirlwind equal to the first, and it raged all
night with a ruthless force. At sunrise, when the folk began to stir,
they rubbed their eyes, and wondered if they were still asleep. Then
they recalled the story of Lanbryde. The mansion had reappeared--had
arisen, like a great, gaunt skeleton, from the mass of sand in which
it had been entombed, its rows of empty windows, like eyeless sockets,
dominating the scene.
“Naturally the news spread, and Lanbryde was immediately visited,
and, as far as possible, entered. But the interior was still choked.
The body of the unfortunate heir was discovered--that is to say, his
bones--and I, who lay unscathed in my scabbard, was carried away as
prize by a searcher, and sold for a few shillings to an armourer in
Inverness, who sent me south, where I fetched, as I deserved, a noble
price. Great efforts were made to recover furniture and pictures that
were known to be in Lanbryde, but beyond a few silver spoons and the
whorls of a distaff, nothing could be reclaimed, for before any active
steps could be taken, another furious sand-drift struck the coast, and
the ancient mansion of Lanbryde disappeared for ever.
“When the last owner’s daughter died in poverty abroad, the family
became extinct, and of their great fame, and high place in the world,
nothing now remains but an old Italian sword.--Good-night!”