LAST DAYS AT HOLMCASTLE.
AT length the weary weeks allotted to Evelyn Manwaring in the home of
her fathers drew to their close. It had in all respects been a trying
time. It had been the girl’s delight to be on friendly terms with all
the poor people in the village, and the hearty North-country folks were
sore at heart at the bare idea of “the Lily of Arrow Dale” being taken
away from them. There was not one of the farmers, there was not one of
the labourers whom she did not visit in order to say good-bye, and to
almost all she contrived to bring some little present as a remembrance.
Wherever she went, she met with the same warm feelings, and the same
hearty yet sorrowful farewell; in every house she had God’s blessing
called down upon her head. The school-children she had petted, the
choir she had taught, and a class of great hobby-de-hoys whom she had
done her best to instruct, and whom on Sunday evenings she used to
amuse by reading aloud in the snug, wainscotted housekeeper’s room--all
these were miserable at her departure. “There will be no spring in
Arrow Dale, Miss Evelyn,” said a burly young farmer from the Yorkshire
side, “when its Lily has ceased to bloom;” and “the Lily” (and I)
thought that a very pretty compliment.
Evelyn only broke down once. One evening, when her cousin chanced
to be absent, she was called out of her sanctum, and there in the
entrance hall she found a _posse_ of great country lads, carters,
carpenters, shepherds, and the like, all painfully dressed in their
best Sunday clothes, and smelling strongly of mottled soap. They bore
with them a huge posy of autumnal flowers, and a great Prayer Book, in
a grand binding, bought far away over at smoky Preston itself, and of
these they begged her acceptance as a remembrance. Jack Woolstanhaugh,
the blacksmith’s son--a great hulking fellow, with an arm which would
have felled an ox--who was deputed formally to present the gift, and
to make a little speech in behalf of the rest, could not get beyond
his second sentence, though North-country lads are proud of the gift
they have of speaking on sufficient occasions. First he came to a full
stop, then he stammered out something quite unintelligible, and then
his voice altogether failed him. The next moment the big, honest fellow
burst into a great fit of crying, and in that he was joined by the rest
of his companions. Such a boohooing was seldom heard. As to Evelyn,
she broke down altogether, and with wild looks of sympathy, and great
beautiful eyes streaming with tears--sorrow mingled this time with
joy--she could only shake hands with each lad in turn as he shambled
sheepishly out of the room. Doubtless those tears were blessed which
bound her in sympathy with her poorer brethren!
Depend upon it, spite of what swells, æsthetes, and cynics may
allege to the contrary, mankind in general are grateful for benefits
received--the poor almost invariably so--and it will probably be found
that those who deny this to be the case have never themselves done
anything whatsoever to deserve the gratitude of their fellow-creatures.
Little by little, Evelyn’s furniture, books, and pictures, to which
were added the possessions of poor Wilfred, were packed up and stowed
away in a barn which Mr. Elthorne had placed at her disposal until such
time as she should have fixed upon a place of residence, and at last
all her arrangements were complete. Her pony, “Mouse,” she had given to
her friend Lucy Elthorne, but on the last afternoon at Holmcastle she
had arranged to take a solitary ride.
It was a warm, but clear day, early in autumn, when Evelyn, mounted
upon “Mouse,” and attended by “Floss,” the beautiful brown and white
spaniel which had belonged to Wilfred, took her lonely way up one of
the lateral valleys which conducted from the main Dale of the Arrow up
upon the Moors. Just as she reached the zone where the last signs of
cultivation melted into the wilder range of Nature, she encountered the
son of one of the small sheep-farmers of the neighbourhood.
“Matthew,” cried the young lady, “I do so want, before I leave
Holmcastle for ever, once more to get to the top of the Edge to see the
sun set; will you come up and hold Mouse, while I scramble up the last
part of the way on foot; I shall not keep you long?”
Would he do so? Of course he would; he would have gone to the end
of the world if the Lily of Arrow Dale had asked him; so the three
or four--for Floss was of the party--went on together. Up, up they
went; now rounding great swelling shoulders of brown moorland, now in
a hollow fording a baby-beck, swollen with the autumnal rains. Up,
further up; now passing warily over a treacherous peat-bog, whereon
flakes of white cotton-grass still flickered in the autumn wind, and
now skirting the edge of a scar of precipitous rock. Up, up, until
at last Mouse could go no farther, and Evelyn, leaving him with her
squire, went on with Floss. Ten minutes’ hard walking brought her to
the summit of the Edge, and then she turned round and faced the fresh
breeze and the sunset. It was a glorious sight, that which met her
view. The sun was low in the Western sky, which burned in hues of amber
and pale yellow, which, as they ascended the heavens, changed into a
tender green. In and over all this floated long crimson and purple
cloudlets, tipped with flame. Afar off, a doubtful shimmer seemed to
mark the Irish Sea. Below, the long, winding valley of the Arrow lay
for the most part in shadow, while far above, on either side, the
tops of the great hills reflected the sunset lights, and seemed to
burn in answering tints of glory. At last, the sun sank into a bank
of clouds, and a half-darkness shrouded the scene. It was then that
a singular circumstance took place. Suddenly, through some rifts in
the cloud-bank, unseen at the height on which the girl stood, the
sun’s rays burst forth, and for a moment illumined the knoll and
house of Holmcastle, and far above it, at the entrance of its solemn
amphitheatre of hills, the Long Maen of Stanwick, the earliest known
possession of her race. Then again the clouds rolled together with
majestic movement, and darkness strode on apace.
It is hard to describe the effect which this natural phenomenon had
on the highly-strung and imaginative mind of Evelyn Manwaring. She
immediately connected it with what a soberer judgment would have
concluded it could have no connection--her belief, namely, that she
saw her brother Wilfred’s name re-instated in the family pedigree.
This may have been--perhaps it was, for it is hard to trace the secret
connection between mind and matter--because she at that moment stood on
the very spot where her lost brother had performed his proudest act of
boyish prowess--the killing, namely, of the golden eagle which, as we
have seen, was the favourite ornament of his room. Be that, however, as
it may, Evelyn, for the first time since her last bereavement, felt a
thrill of hope, almost of joy, and with lightened step she sprang down
the steep descent, and speedily rejoined the young farmer and her pony.
Needs not to say it was long after dark when she arrived at the Manor.
It had been arranged that, instead of visiting the Elthornes at the
Rectory, Evelyn should be their guest in a small house, which, for the
benefit of his wife’s health, the Rector had hired for a couple of
months, upon one of the inlets of Morecambe Bay, near Arnside Knot;
and accordingly, early on the following morning, she repaired to the
Rectory, in order to commence the journey thence with her friends.
Before the party had got far upon the road to the station, they met
the postman, and a letter was put into the hands of Evelyn. Having
read it with deep thankfulness and emotion, she handed it on to Mr.
Elthorne, who forthwith insisted on reading it aloud for the benefit
of the rest. The letter was indeed an important one. It announced
that, in consideration of the great services of her brother, Captain
Lionel Manwaring, to his Queen and Country, Her Majesty was pleased to
offer to his sister, Miss Evelyn Manwaring, the suite of apartments in
Hampton Court Palace which had lately become vacant by the death of
Lady Glengriskin, and that it was the Queen’s gracious intention to put
them in a state of complete repair before she came to occupy them.