I
It was an animated scene; and one you only find in England. The stubble
of the cornfields looked pale and bleak in the departing autumn, the
wind was shaking down the withered leaves from the trees, whose thinning
branches told unmistakably of the rapidly-advancing winter. But the day
was bright after the night's frost, and the sun shone on the glowing
scarlet coats of the hunting-men, and the hounds barked in every variety
of note and leaped with delight in the morning air. It was the first run
of the season, and the sportsmen were fast gathering at the appointed
spot--a field flanked by a grove of trees called Poachers' Copse.
Ten o'clock, the hour fixed for the throw-off, came and went, and still
Poachers' Copse was not relieved of its busy intruders. Many a gentleman
fox-hunter glanced at his hunting-watch as the minutes passed, many
a burly farmer jerked his horse impatiently; while the grey-headed
huntsman cracked his long whip amongst his canine favourites and
promised them they should soon be on the scent. The delay was caused
by the non-arrival of the Master of the Hounds.
But now all eyes were directed to a certain quarter, and by the
brightened looks and renewed stir, it might be thought that he was
appearing. A stranger, sitting his horse well and quietly at the edge of
Poachers' Copse, watched the newcomers as they came into view. Foremost
of them rode an elderly gentleman in scarlet, and by his side a young
lady who might be a few years past twenty.
"Father and daughter, I'll vow," commented the stranger, noting that
both had the same well-carved features, the same defiant, haughty
expression, the same proud bearing. "What a grandly-handsome girl! And
he, I suppose, is the man we are waiting for. Is that the Master of the
Hounds?" he asked aloud of the horseman next him, who chanced to be
young Mr. Threpp.
"No, sir, that is Captain Monk," was the answer. "They are saying
yonder that he has brought word the Master is taken ill and cannot hunt
to-day"--which proved to be correct. The Master had been taken with
giddiness when about to mount his horse.
The stranger rode up to Captain Monk; judging him to be regarded--by the
way he was welcomed and the respect paid him--as the chief personage
at the meet, representing in a manner the Master. Lifting his hat, he
begged grace for having, being a stranger, come out, uninvited, to join
the field; adding that his name was Hamlyn and he was staying with Mr.
Peveril at Peacock's Range.
Captain Monk wheeled round at the address; his head had been turned
away. He saw a tall, dark man of about five-and-thirty years, so dark
and sunburnt as to suggest ideas of his having recently come from a
warmer climate. His hair was black, his eyes were dark brown, his
features and manner prepossessing, and he spoke as a man accustomed to
good society.
Captain Monk, lifting his hat in return, met him with cordiality. The
field was open to all, he said, but any friend of Peveril's would be
doubly welcome. Peveril himself was a muff, in so far as that he never
hunted.
"Hearing there was to be a meet to-day, I could not resist the
temptation of joining it; it is many years since I had the opportunity
of doing so," remarked the stranger.
There was not time for more, the hounds were throwing off. Away dashed
the Captain's steed, away dashed the stranger's, away dashed Miss
Monk's, the three keeping side by side.
Presently came a fence. Captain Monk leaped it and galloped onwards
after the other red-coats. Miss Eliza Monk would have leaped it next,
but her horse refused it; yet he was an old hunter and she a fearless
rider. The stranger was waiting to follow her. A touch of the angry
Monk temper assailed her and she forced her horse to the leap. He had
a temper also; he did not clear it, and horse and rider came down
together.
In a trice Mr. Hamlyn was off his own steed and raising her. She was
not hurt, she said, when she could speak; a little shaken, a little
giddy--and she leaned against the fence. The refractory horse, unnoticed
for the moment, got upon his legs, took the fence of his own accord
and tore away after the field. Young Mr. Threpp, who had been in some
difficulty with his own steed, rode up now.
"Shall I ride back to the Hall and get the pony-carriage for you, Miss
Eliza?" asked the young man.
"Oh, dear, no," she replied, "thank you all the same. I should prefer
to walk home."
"Are you equal to walking?" interposed the stranger.
"Quite. The walk will do away with this faintness. It is not the first
fall I have had."
The stranger whispered to young Mr. Threpp--who was as good-natured a
young fellow as ever lived. Would he consent to forego the sport that
day and lead his horse to Mr. Peveril's? If so, he would accompany the
young lady and give her the support of his arm.
So William Threpp rode off, leading Mr. Hamlyn's horse, and Miss Monk
accepted the stranger's arm. He told her a little about himself as
they walked along. It might not have been an ominous commencement, but
intimacies have grown sometimes out of a slighter introduction. Their
nearest way led past the Vicarage. Mr. Grame saw them from its windows
and came running out.
"Has any accident taken place?" he asked hurriedly. "I hope not."
Eliza Monk's face flushed. He had been Lucy's husband several months
now, but she could not yet suddenly meet him without a thrill of
emotion. Lucy ran out next; the pretty young wife for whom she had been
despised. Eliza answered Mr. Grame curtly, nodded to Lucy, and passed
on.
"And, as I was telling you," continued Mr. Hamlyn, "when this property
was left to me in England, I made it a plea for throwing up my post in
India, and came home. I landed about six weeks ago, and have been since
busy in London with lawyers. Peveril, whom I knew in the days gone by,
wrote to invite me to come to him here on a week's visit, before he and
his wife leave for the South of France."
"They are going to winter there for Mrs. Peveril's health," observed
Eliza. "Peacock's Range, the place they live at, belongs to my cousin,
Harry Carradyne. Did I understand you to say that you were not an
Englishman?"
"I was born in the West Indies. My family were English and had settled
there."
"What a coincidence!" exclaimed Eliza Monk with a smile. "My mother was
a West Indian, and I was born there.--There's my home, Leet Hall!"
"A fine old place," cried Mr. Hamlyn, regarding the mansion before him.
"You may well say 'old,'" remarked the young lady. "It has been the
abode of the Monk family from generation to generation. For my part, I
sometimes half wish it would tumble down that we might move to a more
lively locality. Church Leet is a dead-alive place at best."
"We always want what we have not," laughed Mr. Hamlyn. "I would give all
I am worth to possess an ancestral home, no matter if it were grim and
gloomy. We who can boast of only modern wealth look upon these family
castles with an envy you have little idea of."
"If you possess modern wealth, you possess a very good and substantial
thing," she answered, echoing his laugh.--"Here comes my aunt, full of
wonder."
Full of alarm also. Mrs. Carradyne stood on the terrace steps, asking if
there had been an accident.
"Nothing serious, Aunt Emma. Saladin refused the fence at Ring Gap, and
we both came down together. This gentleman was so obliging as to forego
his day's sport and escort me home. Mr.--Mr. Hamlyn, I believe?" she
added. "My aunt, Mrs. Carradyne."
The stranger confirmed it. "Philip Hamlyn," he said to Mrs. Carradyne,
lifting his hat.
Gaining the hall-door with slow and gentle steps came a young man, whose
beautiful features were wasting more perceptibly day by day, and their
hectic growing of a deeper crimson. "What is wrong, Eliza?" he cried.
"Have you come to grief? Where's Saladin?"
"My brother," she said to Mr. Hamlyn.
Yes, it was indeed Hubert Monk. For he did not die of that run to the
church the past New Year's Eve. The death-like faint proved to be
a faint, nothing more. Nothing more _then_. But something else was
advancing with gradual steps: steps that seemed to be growing almost
perceptible now.
Now and again Hubert fainted in the same manner; his face taking a
death-like hue, the blue tinge surrounding his mouth. Captain Monk,
unable longer to shut his eyes to what might be impending, called in
the best medical advice that Worcestershire could afford; and the
doctors told him the truth--that Hubert's days were numbered.
To say that Captain Monk began at once to "set his house in order" would
not be quite the right expression, since it was not he himself who was
going to die. But he set his affairs straight as to the future, and
appointed another heir in his son's place--his nephew, Harry Carradyne.
Harry Carradyne, a brave young lieutenant, was then with his regiment in
some almost inaccessible fastness of the Indian Empire. Captain Monk
(not concealing his lamentation and the cruel grief it was to himself
personally) wrote word to him of the fiat concerning poor Hubert,
together with a peremptory order to sell out and return home as the
future heir. This was being accomplished, and Harry might now be
expected almost any day.
But it may as well be mentioned that Captain Monk, never given to be
confidential about himself or his affairs, told no one what he had done,
with one exception. Even Mrs. Carradyne was ignorant of the change in
her son's prospects and of his expected return. The one exception was
Hubert. Soon to lose him, Captain Monk made more of his son than he had
ever done, and seemed to like to talk with him.
"Harry will make a better master to succeed you than I should have made,
father," said Hubert, as they were slowly pacing home from the
parsonage, arm-in-arm, one dull November day, some little time after the
meet of the hounds, as recorded. It was surprising how often Captain
Monk would now encounter his son abroad, as if by accident, and give him
his arm home.
"What d'ye mean?" wrathfully responded the Captain, who never liked to
hear his own children disparaged, by themselves or by anyone else.
Hubert laughed a little. "Harry will look after things better than I
ever should. I was always given to laziness. Don't you remember, father,
when a little boy in the West Indies, you used to tell me I was good for
nothing but to bask in the heat?"
"I remember one thing, Hubert; and, strange to say, have remembered it
only lately. Things lie dormant in the memory for years, and then crop
up again. Upon getting home from one of my long voyages, your mother
greeted me with the news that your heart was weak; the doctor had told
her so. I gave the fellow a trimming for putting so ridiculous a notion
into her head--and it passed clean out of mine. I suppose he was right,
though."
"Little doubt of that, father. I wonder I have lived so long."
"Nonsense!" exploded the Captain; "you may live on yet for years. I
don't know that I did not act foolishly in sending post-haste for Harry
Carradyne."
Hubert smiled a sad smile. "You have done quite right, father; right in
all ways; be sure of that. Harry is one of the truest and best fellows
that ever lived: he will be a comfort to you when I am gone, and the
best of all successors later. Just--a--moment--father!"
"Why, what's the matter?" cried Captain Monk--for his son had suddenly
halted and stood with a rapidly-paling face and shortened breath,
pressing his hands to his side. "Here, lean on me, lad; lean on me."
It was a sudden faintness. Nothing very much, and it passed off in a
minute or two. Hubert made a brave attempt at smiling, and resumed his
way. But Captain Monk did not like it at all; he knew all these things
were but the beginning of the end. And that end, though not with actual
irreverence, he was resenting bitterly in his heart.
"Who's that coming out?" he asked, crossly, alluding to some figure
descending the steps of his house--for his sight was not what it used to
be.
"It is Mr. Hamlyn," said Hubert.
"Oh--Hamlyn! He seems to be always coming in. I don't like that man
somehow, Hubert. Wonder what he's lagging in the neighbourhood for?"
Hubert Monk had an idea that he could have told. But he did not want to
draw down an explosion on his own head. Mr. Hamlyn came to meet them
with friendly smiles and hand-shakes. Hubert liked him; liked him very
much.
Not only had Mr. Hamlyn prolonged his stay beyond the "day or two" he
had originally come for, but he evinced no intention of leaving. When
Mr. Peveril and his wife departed for the south, he made a proposal
to remain at Peacock's Range for a time as their tenant. And when the
astonished couple asked his reasons, he answered that he should like to
get a few runs with the hounds.