On the very day when Charles I. was crowned with due
rejoicings--Candlemasday, in the year of our Lord 1626--a loyalty, quite
as deep and perhaps even more lasting, was having its beer at Ley
Manor in the north of Devon. A loyalty not to the king, for the old
West-country folk knew little and cared less about the house that came
over the Border; but to a lord who had won their hearts by dwelling
among them, and dealing kindly, and paying his way every Saturday night.
When this has been done for three generations general and genial respect
may almost be relied upon.
The present Baron de Wichehalse was fourth in descent from that Hugh de
Wichehalse, the head of an old and wealthy race, who had sacrificed his
comfort to his resolve to have a will of his own in matters of religion.
That Hugh de Wichehalse, having an eye to this, as well as the other
world, contrived to sell his large estates before they were confiscated,
and to escape with all the money, from very sharp measures then
enforced, by order of King Philip II., in the unhappy Low Countries.
Landing in England, with all his effects and a score of trusty
followers, he bought a fine property, settled, and died, and left a
good name behind him. And that good name had been well kept up, and the
property had increased and thriven, so that the present lord was loved
and admired by all the neighbourhood.
In one thing, however, he had been unlucky, at least in his own opinion.
Ten years of married life had not found issue in parental life. All
his beautiful rocks and hills, lovely streams and glorious woods, green
meadows and golden corn lands, must pass to his nephew and not to his
child, because he had not gained one. Being a good man, he did his
best to see this thing in its proper light. Children, after all, are a
plague, a risk, and a deep anxiety. His nephew was a very worthy boy,
and his rights should be respected. Nevertheless, the baron often longed
to supersede them. Of this there was every prospect now. The lady of the
house had intrusted her case to a highly celebrated simple-woman, who
lived among rocks and scanty vegetation at Heddon's Mouth, gathering
wisdom from the earth and from the sea tranquillity. De Wichehalse was
naturally vexed a little when all this accumulated wisdom culminated
in nothing grander than a somewhat undersized, and unhappily female
child--one, moreover, whose presence cost him that of his faithful and
loving wife. So that the heiress of Ley Manor was greeted, after all,
with a very brief and sorry welcome. “Jennyfried,” for so they named
her, soon began to grow into a fair esteem and good liking. Her father,
after a year or two, plucked up his courage and played with her; and the
more he played the more pleased he was, both with her and his own kind
self. Unhappily, there were at that time no shops in the neighbourhood;
unhappily, now there are too many. Nevertheless, upon the whole, she had
all the toys that were good for her; and her teeth had a fair chance of
fitting themselves for life's chief operation in the absence of sugared
allurements.
A brief and meagre account is this of the birth, and growth, and
condition of a maiden whose beauty and goodness still linger in the
winter tales of many a simple homestead. For, sharing her father's
genial nature, she went about among the people in her soft and playful
way; knowing all their cares, and gifted with a kindly wonder at them,
which is very soothing. All the simple folk expected condescension from
her; and she would have let them have it, if she had possessed it.
At last she was come to a time of life when maidens really must begin
to consider their responsibilities--a time when it does matter how the
dress sits and what it is made of, and whether the hair is well arranged
for dancing in the sunshine and for fluttering in the moonlight; also
that the eyes convey not from that roguish nook the heart any betrayal
of “hide and seek”; neither must the risk of blushing tremble on
perpetual brinks; neither must--but, in a word, 'twas the seventeenth
year of a maiden's life.
More and more such matters gained on her motherless necessity. Strictly
anxious as she was to do the right thing always, she felt more and more
upon every occasion (unless it was something particular) that her cousin
need not so impress his cousinly salutation.
Albert de Wichehalse (who received that name before it became so
inevitable) was that same worthy boy grown up as to whom the baron
had felt compunctions, highly honourable to either party, touching his
defeasance; or rather, perhaps, as to interception of his presumptive
heirship by the said Albert, or at least by his mother contemplated. And
Albert's father had entrusted him to his uncle's special care and love,
having comfortably made up his mind, before he left this evil world,
that his son should have a good slice of it.
Now, therefore, the baron's chief desire was to heal all breaches
and make things pleasant, and to keep all the family property snug by
marrying his fair Jennyfried (or “Frida,” as she was called at home)
to her cousin Albert, now a fine young fellow of five-and-twenty. De
Wichehalse was strongly attached to his nephew, and failed to see any
good reason why a certain large farm near Martinhoe, quite a huge cantle
from the Ley estates, which by a prior devise must fall to Albert
upon his own demise, should be allowed to depart in that way from his
posthumous control.
However, like most of our fallible race, he went the worst possible way
to work in pursuit of his favourite purpose. He threw the young people
together daily, and dinned into the ears of each perpetual praise of
the other. This seemed to answer well enough in the case of the simple
Albert. He could never have too much of his lively cousin's company,
neither could he weary of sounding her sweet excellence. But with the
young maid it was not so. She liked the good Albert well enough, and
never got out of his way at all. Moreover, sometimes his curly hair and
bright moustache, when they came too near, would raise not a positive
flutter, perhaps, but a sense of some fugitive movement in the
unexplored distances of the heart. Still, this might go on for years,
and nothing more to come of it. Frida loved her father best of all the
world, at present.