The Pillars of the House Part 86

'I have not been there yet.'

'Not there?'

'No. Old Abednego Tripp comes over here every market day, and he's the only person I wanted to see.'

'I thought you came here because you wanted to see the place?'

'Yes; but I was not up to the walk when I came here; and while you were ill I never durst go out of reach of the telegraph, and latterly I waited for you. After all, I have not much mind to it. I don't see the good of setting oneself a coveting one's neighbour's house.'

'It wouldn't be my house, any way,' said Lance quaintly. 'How far is it?'

'Rather more than three miles. We'll get a boat some day and do it.'

'That will be jolly!' and after shovelling a little longer, Lance added, 'How came we to be turned out?'

'That's just what I can't tell. I was only seven, you know, and my father never would talk of it. Sibby used to revile the mane nagur, Misther Fulbert, till it was current in the nursery that he was a black man who expelled us vi et armis. One day, my father found four or five of us in a row slas.h.i.+ng at an old black doll, by way of killing Misther Fulbert, and prohibited such executions. I think, too, that he quashed an attempt to call our own Fulbert by his other name.'

'I wonder what the nagur did?'

'By the light of maturer nature, I imagine that he may have succeeded as heir-at-law, and that his maneness may have consisted in not giving the living to my father; but I cannot tell. It always seemed my father's great desire to put it out of our minds. I remember before we left the place his catching me in a furious rage with some one who told me my pony was to be sold. He carried me off, and told me it was all true, and we were going away, and he trusted to me to be brave and make it as little hard to Mamma and the little girls as could be. He said the place had belonged to old Uncle Underwood, and that we had no right to stay there after his death. That was all the explanation he gave me, first or last; and I don't think we thought much about it after the neck of the change was broken.'

'You remember it, though.'

'I believe I know every step of the house and garden. I have never ceased to dream of them; and I am as much afraid of disturbing old impressions as of reviving wishes.'

'Holloa! what's up?' exclaimed Lance, as the landlady was seen coming in quest of them. 'I thought I saw a tidy little tiger going in there just now.'

'A note from Mr. Staples, if you please, Sir, and they wait for an answer.'

'I didn't know you had any acquaintance here.'

'Mr. Staples is the solicitor who did the business about Admiral Chester's legacy. He is retired now, and only holds some county office. He found me out last week, I believe, from some letters of mine going wool-gathering to the other F. Underwood. He called and said he knew my father, and was very civil and friendly. He sent to inquire after you the day you came. This is what he says:--

MY DEAR MR. FELIX UNDERWOOD--Your relative at Vale Leston wishes me to dine with him to-morrow evening. If you and your brother would like to accompany me on the drive, meet me at six o'clock on the top of the cliff. If you would prefer to return earlier than I do, I can direct you to a boatman to take you down by the river.--Believe me, yours truly, C. STAPLES.

'Hurrah! that's not half a bad fellow for an attorney,' cried Lance.

'Shall not you be tired? Will it not be too hot for you?'

'Not a bit of it. He,' indicating the sun, 'can only get at me asquint by that time, and I'm a match for him with my blue umbrella.

Come, fire away, you tardy Norseman. Say we are good for it. Fancy boating back!'

And Lance whistled a few bars of 'The Hardy Norseman,' the liveliest thing he had done since his illness.

At the appointed hour, the brothers were standing on the top of the cliff, with a broad estuary before them; on the opposite side of which lay the town of Ewmouth at the foot of the old castle, with fresh modern fortifications towards the sea. The town, with its church towers and gas chimneys, sloped away from it; vessels thronged the harbour; and a long weird-looking thready suspension-bridge spanned the broad tide-river to East Ewmouth, the village fast growing into a suburb. There had not been more than time to point out the details to Lance before a waggonet drove up from one of the roads that branched among pleasant 'villa residences;' and in it appeared a white-haired but hearty-looking gentleman, prepossessing and merry, very unlike Lance's notion of attorneys, who shook hands with them warmly, and took care to put the boy under the shade of the driving- seat.

It was a pretty drive, through rich meadows, shut in by the sloping wooded hills which gradually closed nearer; and by and by over the shoulder of one looked a very tall church tower, whereat Felix started with a thrill of responsive recognition, and suddenly faltered in the political discussion Mr. Staples had started, but dropped at once, looking at the young man's face with kindly interest.

At the same time road and river both made a sudden turn into a much narrower and wilder valley, the hills beyond more rough and rocky; but the river still broad and smooth, and crossed by a handsome high- backed five-arched bridge, the centre arch grandly high and broad, the other two rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng on either side. Over this the carriage turned; and from the crown Lance beheld an almost collegiate-looking ma.s.s of grey building, enclosing sunny lawns and flower-beds, and surrounded by park-like grounds and trees, all sloping towards the river, and backed by steep hills of wood and moorland, whence a little brook danced with much impetus down to the calm steady main stream of Ewe. The church and remnants of the old priory occupied the forefront of a sort of peninsula, the sweep of the Ewe on the south and east, and the little lively Leston on the north. There was slope enough to raise the buildings beyond damp, and display the flower-beds beautifully as they lay falling away from the house. The churchyard lay furthest north, skirted by the two rivers, and the east end with the lovely floriated window of the Lady Chapel rising some thirty yards from the bank of the Ewe, the outline a little broken by an immense willow tree that wept its fountain-like foliage into the river. The south transept was cloistered, and joined to the building beyond, a long low grey house with one row of windows above the sloping roof of the cloister, and this again connected with a big family mansion, built of the same gray stone with the rest, but in the style of the seventeenth century, and a good deal modernised upon that. A great plate-gla.s.s window looked out on the river in the east front, which projected nearly as far as did the Lady Chapel, the s.p.a.ce between being, as before said, laid out in a formal parterre, with stone steps leading down to the river.

'Oh, what a place! what a place!' shouted Lance, starting up in the carriage. 'It's like the minster, and the jolly old river besides!

Two of them! Oh! what fis.h.i.+ng there must be!'

'I did not know it was really so beautiful,' said Felix in a low voice.

'You remember it?' said Mr. Staples.--'I suppose you can't?' to Lance.

'Oh no! I wasn't born! More's the pity! Do the salmon come up here, Sir?'

'Yes, since the fisheries have been protected; but young Mr.

Underwood is a great fisherman, and I fear it is not easy to get a card.'

'Oh, I wasn't thinking about leave, Sir, thank you. I've got no tackle nor anything; but I _am_ glad _we_ have salmon,' said Lance, as though he had acquired an accession of dignity.

Descending from the bridge, they were in a road skirting the river, and on which presently opened the lodge gates of the Rectory. Here Mr. Staples got out, telling his servant to drive the young gentlemen round to the village.

'I say, Felix,' said Lance, as they were whirled on along the lane which swept round the long wall overhung by trees, 'that old party must know all about it.'

'Most likely,' said Felix; 'but if there had been any good in my hearing, my father could have told me himself. How well I remember his giving me my first ride along this lane! Do you smell the bean field? I don't believe I have thought of the scent since.'

Felix seemed absorbed in the pleasures of recognition; and Lance, amazed at the beauty and what seemed to him the splendour of the place, looked up at his brother with a kind of romantic feeling for a disinherited knight, as he contrasted the scene with the counter and printing-office.

The lane led to the village street, a very pretty one sloping upwards, and lying on each side of the Leston, which rippled along as clear as crystal, crossed every here and there by footbridges, some wooden, some a single stone; while the cottages on the opposite side were perched on a high shelf or terrace, and were approached by charming irregular flights of stairs with low walls or bal.u.s.trades.

Over the rail of one, smoking a pipe in summer evening enjoyment, was seen Abednego Tripp, with long nose, brown parchment cheeks, and lank hair not yet grey--one of the genuine almost extinct species of parish clerk. As the carriage stopped, he began to descend, keys in hand, for the church was a lion, and many carriages did stop there; but it was not till Felix jumped out and hailed him that he knew who were his visitors.

'Bless me, if it is not Master Felix after all! I did think you was never coming, Sir. And this is the young gentleman as has been so ill. You're kindly welcome, Sir. I think he'd favour poor Master Eddard if he didn't look so nesh.'

'I shall get well here,' said Lance. 'If it is not my native air, it ought to be.'

'Will you come and rest a bit, Sir? or would you like to go to the church?'

'The church,' they said. Felix first explained what he knew would give pleasure--that they had come depending on him for a cup of tea, and a cast in his boat which was wont to convey the marketables of Vale Leston twice a week to Ewmouth.

Abednego sped up his stairs like a lamplighter, to cause his grand- daughter to make preparations, and was speedily down again, delighted to hear Felix prove his memory by inquiries after the inhabitants of the old dwellings.

'Ha! the Miss Hepburns!' said Felix, looking at a tall narrow house completely embowered in trailing roses, and with the rails of the bridge of entrance wreathed with clematis. 'Are they there still?'

'Oh yes. Sir, all the four on 'em; and a sight of good they does to the poor!'

'I wonder whether I ought to call?' said Felix; 'they used to be very kind to me.'

'What, is that Rob's G.o.dmother, that never gave her anything but that queer name?' asked Lance.

'I shouldn't think they were rich,' said Felix. 'I fancy they used to be very fond of my mother, and made her promise that the next girl should be named for one of them. There was Miss Bridget, and Miss Martha, and something else as bad, and Robina was the least objectionable of the lot. I think they used to write to my mother; but it is late in the day for calling.'

'Here comes Miss Bridget,' said the clerk, as there appeared in sight a tall, rigid, angular figure, with a big brown hat and long straight cloak, and a decidedly charity-looking basket in her hand.