In a remote part of the country--for England had then remote parts and
lonely, which are now broad and open to the busy world--rode along, a
little before nightfall, a small party of about ten persons. The
weather was clear and mild; but there was in the evening light and in
the autumnal hues that touch of melancholy which always accompanies
the passing away of anything that is bright, whether it be a summer's
day or a fair season, a joy or a hope.
The country was flat and unbroken; but, nevertheless, the eye had no
scope to roam, for tall, gloomy-looking rows of trees flanked the
narrow road on either side, and many similar lines divided the plain
into small fields, which they shaded from the sun, except when he
towered at his highest noon. A river some five or six yards across,
slow almost to stagnation, crept along at the side of the lane, with
the current just perceptible in the middle, where the water seemed
bright and limpid enough; but farther towards the side, the thick
weeds were seen rising from the bottom and spreading over the surface,
till at the very edge they became tangled into an impenetrable green
mass, fringed with flags and rushes. Over the clearer part of the
stream darted the busy water-spider, and whirling in the air above
were myriads of gnats, rising with their irritating hum in tall
columns, like the sands of the desert when lifted up by the whirlwind.
The light was grey and solemn, and one needed to look to the sky to
see that the sun had not actually set.
After riding along this road for the distance of about a mile, a large
stone, somewhat like a gravestone, appeared on the side opposite to
the water; and one of the horsemen, having dismounted to examine what
inscription it bore deciphered, amongst the moss and lichens that
covered it, the following agreeable intelligence:--"Here, in the year
of grace 1613, and on the 19th day of the month of November, Matthew
Peters was murdered by his eldest son, Thomas, who was executed for
the same on the 10th of the month of December next ensuing, in the
town of Hull, the worshipful John Slackman, mayor. Reader, take
warning by his fate. Go and do not likewise."
If the party was sad before, this mememto of crime and suffering did
not tend to make it merrier: the horseman mounted his horse again, and
they rode on in silence for another mile and a half, when, at the
distance of about a hundred yards from the road, which, though it was
still seen proceeding in a straight line till it lost itself in the
shadows, seemed to lead nowhere, so dull and desolate did it look,
there appeared a large shady building, to the stone-paved fore-court,
of which the river formed a sort of moat.
First came a square tower of red brick, edged with stone which had
once been white, but now was green; then followed a dull, low wall,
probably that of some long corridor, for a slated roof hung over it,
and two narrow windows gave the interior a certain portion of light.
This was succeeded by a large centre, or _corps de logis_, flat and
formal, solemn and unresponding, with similar small windows, and a
vast deep doorway. Another long low line of brickwork came after, and
then another square tower, and then another mass of brickwork,
differing from the former in size and shape, but retaining the same
style, and displaying the same melancholy aspect. No ivy grew up
around it to break the lines and angles. Not a tree was before it to
take off its dull formality. All was heavy, and vast, and grave; and
to look upon it one could hardly convince one's self, not that it was
inhabited, but that it had been cheered by the warm presence of human
life for years. No sound was heard, no moving thing was seen, except
when one raised one's eyes in search of chimneys, and there one or two
tall columns of smoke rose slowly and seriously towards the sky, as if
they had made a covenant with the wind not to disturb their quiet and
upright course.
Over the water from the stone court that we have mentioned swung a
drawbridge, which was half elevated, being hooked up by one of the
links of the thick chain that suspended it to the posts on the other
side; and here one of the men of the party, for it consisted of both
men and women, pulled in his horse, saying--
"This is Langley Hall, my lord."
"I know," answered Lord Walton, with a sigh. "It is long since I have
been here, but I remember it. We see it at an unfavourable hour, dear
Annie, It looks more cheerful the full light."
"Oh! that matters not, Charles," answered Miss Walton, in a gentle
tone; "sunshine and shade are within the heart more than without; and
I shall find it gay or sad as those I love fare well or ill."
"How shall we get in?" asked Lord Walton; "the drawbridge is half up."
"Oh! there is the bell behind the posts," replied the man who had
first spoken; and, dismounting, he pulled a rope, which produced a
loud but heavy sound, more like the great bell of a church than that
of an ordinary mansion.
Some three or four minutes elapsed without any one appearing to answer
this noisy summons; but at length an old white-headed man came out,
and asked cautiously, before he let down the bridge, Who was there?
"It is Lord Walton and his sister," answered the young nobleman; "let
down the bridge, good man. Lady Margaret expects us."
"Oh! I know that, I know that," rejoined the old servant; but still,
instead of obeying the directions he received, he retrod his steps
slowly towards the house. His conduct was soon explained by his
calling aloud--"William! William! come and help here! The bridge is
too much for one, and here is the young lord and a whole host of
people, men, women, and children. Perhaps it is not the young lord
after all. He was a curly-pated boy when last I saw him, and this
looks like a colonel of horse."
"Time! time! Master Dixon; time may make us all Colonels of horse,"
answered a brisk-looking youth in a tight doublet, which set off his
sturdy limbs to good advantage, as he strode forward to the old man's
assistance.
"Time is a strange changer of curly hair. Doubtless your good dame
patted your head some years agone, and tailed you her pretty boy; and
now, if she were to see you, the mother would not know her son, but
would call you uncle or grandpapa."
"And so I was a pretty boy--that is very true," answered the old man,
coming forward again towards the bridge, well pleased with ancient
memories; "and my mother did often pat my head--Lord! I remember it as
if it were but yesterday."
"Ah! but you have seen a good many yesterdays since then, Master
Dixon," rejoined the young man, following to the edge of the river,
with the wise air of self-satisfied youth. "Now, Master Dixon, you
unhook while I pull;" and, as the bridge was slowly let down, he
added, "Give you good even, my lord. You are welcome to Langley. Good
even, lady. You are welcome, too, and so are all these pretty dames.
My lady will be right glad to see you all."
His words were cheerful, and there is something very reassuring in the
gay tones of the human voice. They seem, in the hour of despondency
and gloom, to assure us that all is not sadness in the world; that
there is truly such a thing as hope; that there are moments of
enjoyment, and that the heart is not altogether forbidden to be
happy--all matters of which we entertain many doubts when the cloud of
sorrow first falls upon us, and hides the brighter things of life from
our eyes.
How often is it that the reality belies the outside appearance--if not
always, at least generally. In dealing with all things, moral and
physical, man deceives himself and is deceived, and never can tell the
core by the rind. These are truisms, reader; very trite, very often
repeated. I know it; I write them as such: but do you act upon them?
or you? or you? Where is the man that does? And if there be a man,
where is the woman? The demagogue is judged by his words, the preacher
by his sermon, the statesman by his eloquence, the lover by his looks.
All seeming--nothing but seeming; and it is not till we come to taste
the fruit that we learn the real flavour.
All had seemed dark and gloomy in Langley Hall; and the sadness which
Annie Walton had felt in parting with her brother, when strife and
danger were before him, had, it is true, though she would not own it,
been deepened by the cold aspect of her future habitation. But the
man's cheerful tone first raised the corner of the curtain; and when
on entering the wide old hall, she saw the mellow light of the setting
sun pouring over a wide Champaign country, through a tall window on
the other side, and covering the marble floor as if with a network of
light and shade, while here a bright suit of armour, and there a
cluster of well-arranged arms, and there a large picture of some
ancient lord of the place, caught the rays and glowed with a look of
peaceful comfort, she felt revived and relieved.
The next moment, from a door at the far end on the right, came forth
an old lady, somewhat tall and upright, in her long stays, with a coif
upon her head in token of widowhood, and her silver-white hair
glistening beneath it, but withal a bland and pleasant smile upon her
wrinkled face, and fire, almost as bright as that of youth, in her
undimmed eye.
She embraced her nephew and niece with all the affection and
tenderness of a parent, and taking Annie by the hand, gazed on and
kissed her again, saying--
"Not like thy mother, Annie; not like thy mother; and yet the
eyes--ay, too, and the lips; now you look grave. But, come; Charles,
come. See where I sit, with my sole companion for the last five years,
except when good Dr. Blunt comes over from Hull to tell me news, or
the vicar sits with me for an hour on Friday."
As she spoke she led them into a large room, wainscotted with dark
chesnut-wood; and from out of the recess of the window, where the
sunshine fell, rose a tall shaggy deerhound, and, with steps
majestical and slow, walked up to the young lord and lady, examined
first the one and then the other with close attention, stretched
himself out with a weary yawn, and taking it for granted all was
right, laid himself down again to doze where he had been before.
"See, Charles, see what a shrewd dog he is," cried the old lady: "he
knows whom he may trust and whom he may not, in a moment. I had old
Colonel Northcote here the other day. What he came for I know not,
though I do know him to be a rogue; for Basto there did nought but
growl and show his white teeth close to the good man's legs, till he
was glad to get away unbitten."
"I sometimes wish we had their instinct, dear Aunt Margaret, rather
than our sense," replied her nephew; "for one is often much more
serviceable than the other."
"Much keener, Charles, at all events," answered the old lady. "And so
you are here at length. Well, I got all the letters, and Annie shall
be another in the hall when you are gone; and, when she is tired of
the old woman, she has a sunny chamber where the robins sing, for her
own thoughts; and she shall be free to come and go according to all
stipulations, and no question asked, were it to meet a gallant in the
wood."
"Nay, Charles, nay," cried Miss Walton, "why did you write my aunt
such tales of me? My only stipulation was, indeed, that I might join
him whenever a pause came in these sad doings, my dear aunt."
"Oh, you shall be as free as air, sweet nun," replied Lady Margaret.
"I never could abide to see a poor bird in a cage, or a dog tied by a
chain; and when I was young I was as wild and wilful as my poor sister
Ann was staid and good. I have now lived to well-nigh seventy years,
still loving all freedom but that which God forbids--still hating all
thraldom but that which love imposes. I was long happy, too, in
shaping my own course, and I would see others happy in the self-same
way. Come, dear child: while Charles disposes of his men, I will show
you your bower, where you may reign, queen of yourself and all within
it."
Annie followed her aunt from the room, passed through another behind
it, and entered a little sort of stone hall or vestibule, lighted from
the top. Four doors were in the walls, and a small staircase at the
further end, up which Lady Margaret led the way to the first floor
above, where two doors appeared on either hand, with a gallery, fenced
with an oaken balustrade running round the hall, at about twelve feet
from the ground. Along this gallery the old lady led her young niece,
and then through a long and somewhat tortuous passage, which was
crossed by another some twenty yards down, that branched off to more
rooms and corridors beyond. Then came a turn, and then another
passage, and at the end three broad low steps led up to a large door.
"Dear aunt," said Miss Walton, who had thought their journey would
never end, "your house is a perfect labyrinth. I shall never find my
way back."
"It is somewhat crooked in its ways, child," answered Lady Margaret;
"but you will make it out in time, never fear; that is to say, as far
as you need to know it. Now, here is your bower;" and, opening the
door, she led Miss Walton into a large roam looking to the south-west.
The sun had just gone down, and the whole western sky was on fire with
his parting look, so that a rosy light filled the wide chamber, from a
large bay window, where, raised a step above the rest of the room, was
a little platform with two seats, and a small table of inlaid wood.
"There I have sat and worked many a day," said the old lady, pointing
to the window, "when my poor knight was at the siege of Ostend. We
lived together happily for many years, Annie, and it was very wrong of
him to go away at last without taking me with him. However, we shall
soon meet again, that is some comfort; but I have never dwelt in this
room since."
As she spoke, a slow pattering sound was heard along the passage, and
then a scratch at the door. "It is Basto," said Lady Margaret; "he has
come to see that I am not moping myself in my old rooms. Come in,
Basto;" and, opening the door, the dog stalked in, first looking up in
his mistress's face and wagging his tail deliberately, and then in
that of her fair niece with a similar gratulation.
"Ah, thou art a wise man," said Lady Margaret, patting him on the
head. "We are growing old, Basto; we are growing old. My husband
brought him from Ireland ten years ago, Annie, and he was then some
two years old; so according to dogs' lives he is about fifty, and yet
see what teeth he has!" and she opened with her thin, fair, shrivelled
hands the beast's powerful jaws.
Miss Walton had in the mean time been taking a review of her chamber,
which her kind aunt had certainly made as comfortable and gay as might
be. The colours of all that it contained were light and sparkling,
contrasting pleasantly with the dark panelling which lined the whole
house. There were chairs and low seats covered with yellow silk, and
curtains of the same stuff to draw across the bay window. There were
sundry pieces of tapestry for the feet, covered with roses and lilies,
and on either side of the vast oaken mantel-piece hung brushes of
many-coloured feathers. But there was no bed; and the next minute,
after some further admiration of the dog's teeth, Lady Margaret opened
a door on the right of the fireplace, which led into another room
beyond, fitted up as a sleeping-chamber, with the same air of comfort
as the other. Everything was pointed out to Annie as long as any light
lasted, and then the old lady, showing her a third door, observed,
"There is a closet for your maids to sleep in; but we must get back,
sweet niece, for it is growing dark, and you will fancy goblins in the
passage."
Miss Walton laughed, assuring her that she feared nothing but losing
her way, and the old lady answered, "Oh! you must learn, you must
learn, Annie. 'Tis often good to have a place like this, where one may
set search at defiance. In the last reign we had conspiracies enow,
God wot! and one poor man, whose head they wanted, was here three days
while his enemies were in the house; but they never found him, and yet
he walked about at ease."'
"Indeed!" said Miss Walton, as they made their way back; "how might
that be, my dear aunt? If they searched well in the daylight, I should
think there would be little chance of escape."
"More than you know, Annie," answered her aunt drily; "but I will tell
you all about it some day; and now I will send up William, who is a
clever lad, with your maids, to show them the way, and bring your
goods and chattels up. But what is all this loud speaking, I wonder?"
"I know the voice, I think," answered Miss Walton; "but if I am right
as to the person, he should have been over the seas long ago."