CHAPTER I.
QUITE IN THE COUNTRY.
The way to Berrie Down Hollow lay along a lane, winding and narrow: not a prosaic lane, bounded to right and left by low-cropped, unromantic hedges, and scanty banks covered with coarse wiry grass, where never a wild flower would dream of blooming, but a delicious lane, bordered by old elms and beech trees; where were smooth bits of turf, pleasantly suggestive of a gallop over the sward; a lane by the sides whereof trailed brambles and the dark-leaved ivy; a lane where the hawthorn in the sweet May-time, when it opened its earliest buds, stretched its white arms out across the grass, striving to touch the passer-by who idly paused to inhale its fragrance; a lane where twined in picturesque disorder wild bryony and traveller’s joy, dog-roses and honeysuckles, the woody nightshade and the greater bindweed (old man’s nightcap as the children irreverently call it); where the eye was refreshed by looking on soft cushions of moss and ferns, graceful, and drooping, and cool; where blossomed in their due season primroses and violets, the wild hyacinth, the blue speedwell, delicious clumps of birds-foot trefoil, the pink cranesbill, the wood strawberry and anemone, ground ivy, the “hindering” knot grass, “everywhere humble and everywhere green;” St. John’s Wort, that balm of the warrior wound; tufted vetch, the creeping cinquefoil, with many another wild flower, which in the early days little hands love to gather; which boyhood, and manhood, and middle age pass by unnoticed, but which come back fresh and bright as ever to the memory of the old man too feeble to totter away to the shady lane, to the warm sunny bank where the buds are springing, and the flowers blooming, and the lights and shadows flitting backwards and forwards, coming and going, coming and going just as they did half a century previously, when he was young and strong, and active like the best.
We all know such a lane: it may be in one county or it may be in another; in the far-away shire where the happiest years of our lives were spent, or within a walk of the great Babylon.
To the north of London there is still a perfect tangle of narrow country lanes, in some of which Lamb assured Barton he “made most of his tragicomedy.”
There are several not far from the churchyard where he sleeps so well. Close to his old home they wander away from Chace Side, up hill and down dale; they strike out of the Southgate Road; they wind in and out from Angel Lane to Bury Street, and thence by devious routes to Winchmore Hill and Enfield.
Some of the loveliest lanes on earth, perhaps, are those on the opposite side of the Lea, leading from Higham Hill to Chingford and Woodford.
Utterly still! utterly quiet! There the bee hums and the wild roses bloom, and there is heard no din or sound of that great city which lies so near at hand.
But Berrie Down Lane, as the road leading to Berrie Down Hollow was styled, wound on its pleasant way many and many a mile distant from London; so completely in the country, so entirely out of the way of strangers, or even ordinary traffic, that very few persons, excepting the family resident at the Hollow, and their visitors (who, save of their own kin), were far and few between, knew anything of the beauty of that quiet walk, of that lonely approach, to a still more lonely house.
Do you mind sauntering along it with me—sauntering slowly and lingeringly? It is in the bright summer noon-tide we follow its windings for the first time; but you can fancy how it looks in the spring and the autumn likewise; and the beauty of the lane grows upon you like the face of a woman who is more lovely than handsome, till you come to understand that even in mid-winter it will not look desolate; that even when the buds of spring, and the flowers of summer, and the last leaves of autumn have departed, there will still be something left for the snows and frosts of winter to deck and crown right royally with diadems and jewels that sparkle and glitter in the cold gleams of the December sun.
There are the banks where the earliest primrose is to be found; over which the full luxuriance of the summer greenery spreads and twines in lavish profusion of tendril, and branch, and drooping bough, and slender spray; against which the brown leaves pile themselves when the storm king rides abroad, and the October winds begin to strip the foliage off the trees.
You can imagine now how the place looks in every season; when the holly berries shine red and warm and glossy in the hedgerow; when their branches, clad with polished green leaves, are torn down to welcome Christmas in hall, and church, and cottage; when the birds begin to build; when children part the boughs of the privet and the hawthorn in order to look for the thrush and the linnet’s nest; when the hyacinths come with the sweet mid-spring; when the dog-roses, perishable as beautiful, open to the sun; when the May bursts into flower, and the honeysuckle perfumes the air; when you can pass over the brook dry-shod; when the August sun is pouring his beams on fields where the reapers are at work; when the leaves first change their colour, and then commence to fall; when autumn’s blasts whistle amongst the topmost branches of the elms, and winter’s hail and snow descend upon the earth. You can fancy how Berrie Down Lane must look under all these aspects; you know hereafter you could sketch the place from memory, when you come to recall its sweet tranquillity amidst the din and bustle of that great Babylon where your lot is cast.
The nearest railway-station, Palinsbridge, is eight miles distant; the nearest town, South Kemms, four; the nearest village, Fifield, more than two; so that, although, as the crow flies, Berrie Down Hollow is not actually above thirty miles from London, it might be a hundred or two in point of accessibility.
“Quite in the country, Mr. Dudley,” enchanted towns-people were wont to remark; whereupon, if the speaker chanced to be a man or one of his own kin, Mr. Dudley would answer, “Confoundedly in the country;” from which speech it will rightly be inferred that the owner of Berrie Down Hollow did not appreciate the advantages of his rural residence quite so highly as strangers had a way of doing.
And it was a pity, for a more picturesque spot could not have been found had you searched the home counties through. It was a place which took every one’s fancy. The great men, who came down from London to stay with Lord Kemms when the season was over and the Row deserted, were wont to draw rein and turn a little round in their saddles as they passed The Hollow; after which they would ride slowly on, looking back often at the dear old house planted on the side of a sloping hill.
But you shall not jump to the house in a minute after this fashion. You shall walk with me under the elm-trees; you shall go gently down the declivity whence you catch the first view of Arthur Dudley’s home; you shall look over the fields lying on the south side of Berrie Down Lane, where the corn, his corn, is ripening for the harvest; you shall pause and see in the distance, meadows where the haymakers, his haymakers, are at work; you shall watch the men, and the women, and the children mowing and tossing that which in due time will be converted into money, to buy bread for him and his; you shall descend the hill and cross the ford by means of a narrow foot-bridge, and, as you do so, you shall see his cows lying in the pasture lands chewing the cud, reflectively; you shall ascend more leisurely, if possible, the steeper hill beyond the brook; and, still pursuing your way onward, become conscious of hedges less picturesque, only because kept trim and closely cropped; of banks where the grass is smooth and even, by reason of constant cutting; where no brambles are allowed to trail their length along the ground; where even the honeysuckle has to submit to pruning and clipping; where the road is free from ruts; and now you know that to right as well as left lies Squire Dudley’s land, and that you are drawing close to his house, which is to be reached through those gates not more than half-a-dozen paces distant from where we stand.
One moment, however, ere entering. Do you notice how the grey pillars on which the gates are hinged scarcely show through the branches of the two trees of pyracantha that have grown around them?
Those shrubs are considered one of the great beauties of Berrie Down House. They are all white in the early spring. They are covered with green berries during the summer, which change into great masses of bright scarlet during the pleasant autumn weather, retaining their rich colour when the frost pinches the leaves of the evergreens, and the ice is thick on the mill-pond, and the snow lying on the ground.
They have taken years and years to grow, and the Dudleys are as proud of them as they are of their quaint home, of their broad acres, of their rich pasture lands, of the Hollow (whence their place takes its name), where the blackberries still grow, as they once grew over all the fields around; where there is quite a tangled thicket of underwood and broom and brambles, in which the children hide themselves, and tear their frocks, and pass the long summer days; whence they emerge, when the blackberrying season comes, with faces and hands dyed purple with the rich, luscious juice.
As the great men from London are wont to admire Berrie Down Hollow, so with all the strength of their souls the younger Dudleys love its every tree, and shrub, and stick, and stone.
The domestic chronicles contain no record as to whether Arthur Dudley, owner of the Hollow, had ever similarly cherished any such attachment. Of one thing, however, the reader may be certain, which is, that in his manhood he did not entertain the slightest affection for the place.
What was the old house, with its many gables—what were the fields, the trees, the tangle of brambles, the bloom of the broom, the scent of the hawthorn, the ripple of the brook to him?
Let us pass through the gates, and approach by means of a drive, hedged almost with laurestina and laurel, Arthur Dudley’s home.
The house is built of brick with curious dark stone facings, and over the doorway, carved in the same material, is the Dudley coat of arms; for before Lord Kemms, or Kemms’ Park, was so much as thought of, the Dudleys were great people in the county.
Their day had gone by, however, and their fortunes, when we make their acquaintance, are like their coat of arms—a good deal the worse for wear; for which reason, although the Hollow is a pretty place, it is not a grand one. It is a sweet home, but not a great mansion; and the front, which shows towards the road, is unpretentious in the extreme.
But there is another side—that which catches the last rays of the setting sun—that which reveals itself to Lord Kemms’ visitors when they have passed the gates flanked by pyracantha, and taken the turn leading away towards Kemms’ Park.
The north front of the house is nothing: it is red brick and grey stone, with two windows on each side the hall door, and five on the first floor, and three dormant windows looking out from the roof like heads thrust forth from among the slates to survey the world. It is masked a good deal from the road by evergreens and great trees of arbor-vitæ; and the dwelling-rooms in that part of the house are dark, and somewhat dull in consequence.
To the west all is different; there the ground sweeps down from the house to the Hollow, and the drawing-room windows look out on the rich champaign country lying beyond, which is steeped and bathed every evening in the golden beams of the setting sun. Over this west front climb roses, and clematis, and honeysuckle. Here is a westeria, which puts forth its purple blossoms long before the laburnums think of blooming. Pleasanter bedchambers there are none in England than those on the first floor, into the windows of which the earliest roses peep blushingly.
The lawn is shaded by many a grand old tree; beyond the Hollow trickles a stream, which runs through Mr. Dudley’s property, after supplying a mill on the road leading to South Kemms. There are sheep browsing in the fields beyond. There is a great peace in the quiet landscape; there is a stillness which strikes Londoners as almost oppressive. No hermitage could be more retired, no spot more perfect in its utterly homelike repose.
In such a place as this Time glides by, leaving few marks upon the road to show that his chariot has passed over it. Here the philosopher thinks he could meditate in peace, and eliminate truths which the world would not willingly let die. Here the clergyman deludes himself with the belief that he could compose sermons which might stir the hearts of thousands. Here, where the pace of life is slow, and the mental pulse languid, the author fancies that alone with himself and nature he could discourse eloquently about man. Here the musician imagines he might discover that roc’s egg—a melody resembling no other melody; but no! here indeed might the statesman rest, and the weary physician recruit his own exhausted energies; here the great engineer might forget his thousand schemes, and the speculator almost withdraw his mind from the price of shares and the rise and fall of debentures;—here is Nature’s temple, if you will, where men may come and hold communion with her; here is her infirmary likewise, where she visits with sleep the heavy eyelids, and recruits with wine and oil the body which has been worsted in the world’s fight; here she lays her cool hand on burning foreheads, and compels the overtaxed mind to lie fallow; here is the place for rest, if you will; but it is not the place for work.
Out in the battle-field, where the city streets are full of eager soldiers; out where the fray is fiercest, the fire strongest; out where life is not a tranquil dream, but a mad struggle; where men go to their long rest not rusted, but worn; where the night’s slumber is short, and the day’s labour long; out where as iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the face of a man his friend;—there is the only place for energies to be aroused and genius developed, for profitable work to be accomplished, for life’s best lessons to be learned.
Thus, at least a dozen times a day, Arthur Dudley, owner of “The Hollow,” is in the habit of expressing himself; and yet you know, as you look in his face, that he is a man whose energy is not to be depended on, whose genius even to a stranger seems problematical; who has never practically conjugated the word “work;” who could not be an apt pupil in any of life’s many schools, no matter who were his teachers, no matter what his opportunities.
A handsome man if you will, with his thick brown hair, with his soft, silky moustache, with his kindly-blue eyes, with his regular delicately-cut features, and yet many a plainer face might better, I should imagine, win and retain a woman’s love.
His body, like his mind, lacks thews and sinews. He is not one of whom you dare prophecy that God, giving him health and ordinary success, he would climb high. Rather he is one of those of whom you might safely predict, that if he attempted to climb at all, he would fall back grievously worsted.
There are some people who seem to be mentally surefooted; and there are others who find every step to fortune so slippery, that giving them time enough, they are certain ultimately to get their necks broken in attempting the ascent.
But, under the shelter of his own trees, what can Squire Dudley need with strength beyond that wherewith nature has provided him? It is for men to have their way to make that bone and muscle, an iron will, a ready wit are needful; and all the fields you have surveyed, all the broad meadows, all the rich pastures came to him, not because of the strength of his own right hand, or because of the capacity of his own brain, but simply because his father had owned Berrie Down Hollow before him, and left it to his eldest son.
“What could any human being desire more?” friend and stranger, looking over the property, were wont mentally to ask themselves; for the world knew that Squire Dudley was a dissatisfied and discontented man.
He had youth, strength, health, a happy home, a devoted wife—what more could any rational being ask of Heaven? What could the skeleton be which walked with Arthur Dudley under the elms, and across the meadows, or beside the brook? This was the question every person, who met the Squire even for the first time, put to those who knew him best. His manifest discontent inspired a certain curiosity in the mind of each individual who looked in his handsome, effeminate face. He had a certain grace of manner and lazy elegance of movement which attracted attention to him, and caused many eyeglasses to be directed towards the good-looking stranger in various assemblies in London to which he had the entrée. He was not a bad man in any relation of life. He was a gentleman by birth, education, and taste; and yet in his own neighbourhood Squire Dudley was not popular. His skeleton was too apparent, and people rather disliked one who had not mental strength enough to shake off the depressing influence of such a companion.
“Have your closets full of bones and bodies at home, if you will,” says society; “but for Heaven’s sake do not carry them about in the sunlight on your back. Weep your tears an’ you like to do so; but get through the ceremony in private. We have, every one of us, our troubles, yet we do not proclaim them aloud from the house-tops. We demand that if, either from choice or necessity, a man fast, he shall not appear in public with a sad countenance, but that he shall ‘anoint his head and wash his face,’ and bear his trouble bravely and with good courage.”
Virtually those were the words his neighbours addressed to Squire Dudley. Not for his skeleton did the world forsake him, but only because he had not courage to turn and grapple with it, and either lay the ghost, or shut it up in one chamber at home.
And, after all, it was such a commonplace ghost! If your curiosity be at all excited about the matter, in the next chapter you shall see its face.