CHAPTER I.
It was the morning of the first of May,
that merriest morning of the year, in the
old days of merry England; and never
did a brighter dawning illuminate a fairer
landscape, than that wherein the incidents
occurred, which form the basis of
one of those true tales that prove how
much there is of wild and strange romance
even in the most domestic circles
of existence.
The landscape was a portion of the
western slope of a broad English valley,
diversified with meadow-land and pasture,
and many a field of green luxuriant
wheat, and shadowy woods, and bosky
dells and dingles; and with a clear,
bright, shallow river rippling along its
pebbly channel, at the base of the soft
hills, which swept down to its flowery
marge in gentle loveliness.
The foreground of the picture, for it was
one indeed, on the left hand side, was
made up of a thick mass of orchards, and
beyond these by a clump of towering
lindens, above which might be seen the
arrowy spire of a village church, piercing
the cool air with its gilded vane and
weathercock—the river sweeping round
and half enclosing the garden grounds,
and cottages seen among the shrubbery,
in a blue glancing reach spanned by a
three-arched bridge of old red brick, all
overrun with ivy. Close to the bridge,
but on the west side of the stream, lay a
large tract of open common, carpeted
with rich short greensward, whereon a
thousand fairy rings were visible, and
sprinkled with all the bright wild flowers
of the early spring. A winding road of
yellow sand traversed the varied surface
of the waste, which was much broken up
by hillocks and deep hollows, alternating
clear sunny lights with cool blue
shadows; and, after crossing the river by
the old bridge, was lost for a little while
among the orchards of the village, till it
again reappeared, near the centre of the
middle distance, above the fringe of willow,
birch, and alder bushes, which
skirted all he eastern margin of the river.
Beyond this screen of coppice, the view
extended upward for nearly a mile in distance,
over a beautiful park-like lawn,
dotted with clumps of noble trees, and
enclosed on every side by woods of tall
dark oak.
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A large white gate gave access to this
fair demesne, with a snug porter's lodge
nestled into a shady covert close beside
it; and at the very crown of the slope
overlooking all the broad and fertile vale,
stood a large mansion of red brick, built in
the quaint architecture of the Elizabethan
era. with large projecting oriels and
tall clustered chimneys, and a wide freestone
terrace, bedecked with urns and
balustrades, in front; the dwelling evidently
of the lord of that fair manor. To
the right of the woods, which skirted that
side of the park, lay an abrupt ravine,
through which a brawling trout stream
made its way down, among large blocks
of limestone, and under tangled covert, to
join the river in the valley. Beyond this
gorge, the sides of which were feathered
thick with yew, and box, and juniper,
rose a broad barren hill, crowned by the
grey and weather-beaten keep of an old
Norman castle, frowning in dark sublimity
over the cultured fields, whose fruits its
lords of old had reaped, won by the mortal
sword—and beyond this a range of
purple moors towered, summit over summit,
till they were lost at length in the
grey mists of the horizon.
It was, as has been said, the early
dawning of the sweet first of May—so
early that the sun had not yet reared the
whole of his red dics above the eastern
hills, but half emerged was checkering all
the slopes and the level meadows at the
bottom of the valley with lengthened
streams of ruddy lustre, and casting long
clear shadows from every tree or bush or
stone that met his rays. Yet, early as it
was, the village was alive with merriment
and bustle. A joyous peal was chiming
from the bells of the tall steeple, while a
May-pole that almost vied in height with
the neighboring spire, was planted on the
common by the waterside, where the
ground lay most level to the sunshine,
and where the greensward grew the
mossiest and softest to the tread. The
whole waste land was covered with glad
groups of peasautry, all in their holiday
attire, speeding towards the rendezvous,
beneath a huge gnarled hawthorn, which
had beheld the sports of their grandsires,
now white as if a sudden snow storm
had powdered its dense foliage with the
sweet blossoms that derive their name
from the delicious month which witnesses
their birth—the sandy road, too, and the
bridge were glistening with moving parties;
while the shrill merry laugh of girls,
and the yet shriller whoop of childhood,
came frequent on the ear from many a sequestered
spot among the budding or
chards—nor did the rugged castle hill display
no joyous company; for there, and
through the dim-wood glen and over
the old turn-stile, and the park itself,
the happy yeomanry came flocking
to celebrate their feast of flowers.
Just at this moment the parkgates were
suddenly thrown open, and a young man
rode out into the sandy road, accompanied
by several dogs, and followed by three
serving men—two mounted and the third
on foot—and taking the downward track,
to the left hand towards the village and the
bridge, was quickly lost to view behind
the willows on the river bank. As he appeared,
however, even at that distance,
both by his dress and air to be a person of
superior rank to any of the groups around,
and as I shall have much to do with him
in the course of my narrative, I shall attach
myself to him during his ride from
the manor gates to the meadow of the
May-pole.
He was a young and extremely handsome
person, well formed and tall, and
giving promise of great future strength,
when his slender and almost boyish frame
should be developed to its full proportions;
for he was, in years, all but a boy,
having on that very morning attained to
his majority, and the possession of the
fine demesnes, and ample fortune, which
now called him master. His hair was
long and slightly curled, of a deep rich
chestnut color; and notwithstanding it
was the fashion of that day, even for the
young and comely, to cover the whole
head with a disfiguring mass of flowing
powdered horse-hair, under the title of a
periwig, he wore his locks all natural and
undisguised; and well they harmonized
with the fine coloring and noble outlines
of his well marked frank features, sparkling
as they were on that bright happy
morning with gratified ambition, and
high hope, and all the bounding energies
of prosperous unbroken manhood.
There were, it is true, some indications—
which would not easily be missed by
an experienced physiognomist—that told
of strong and fiery passions concealed beneath
that bold and beautiful exterior—
there was a quick and hasty sparkle in
the fine open eye, which indicated a temperament
prone to blaze out, at any check
to its desires, into fierce bursts of angry vehemence—
there were deep lines for one
so young about the mouth and nostrils,
that clearly spoke of latent but indomitable
pride; and something, too, of the existence
of many a voluptuous feeling,
ready to spring up giants from their birth,
when any chance occurrence should
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kindle them to sudden life; still, in despite
these drawbacks to his beauty, for
such in truth they were, he could not fail
to be pronounced, and that too in the
highest sense of the term, a fine and noble
looking man. He was dressed, too, in
the rich fashion of the day, with a low
crowned and broad brimmed beaver,
decked by a hatband set about with
short white ostrich feathers—his coat of
grass green velvet, ornamented by a slight
cord of gold, sat closely on his graceful
form; while breeches of white doeskin,
with heavy hunting boots and massive
silver spurs, completed his attire; a light
couteau de chasse hanging at his side, being
carried rather as an indication of the
wearer's rank, than us a weapon of defence;
which, in the set led and peaceful
state of England at that moment, was almost
as unnecessary as at the present
day.
The dogs, which ran beside his stirrup,
were six or eight in number, and noble
specimens of several choice and favorite
breeds. There was the tall lithe English
bloodhound, with his sleek tawny hide,
his pendulous ears, and coal black mnzzle;
there were two fleet and graceful greyhounds,
one white as snow, the other
black as the raven's wing, with their elastic
limbs and airy gait; there were a leash
of King Charles's spaniels, beautiful silky
creatures, with ears that swept the dew;
and last, though not least in the owner's
estimation, a savage-looking, wire-haired
Scotch terrier, with shaggy jaws, and keen
intelligent expression, though many a scar,
of wounds inflicted in desperate encounters
with the hill-fox or prowling wild-cat,
seamed his rough grizzly face.
The male attendants of the young gentleman
were three, as I have said, in number;
one a grey-headed, venerable-looking
man, dressed in a suit of plain snnffcolored
clothes, and mounted on a strong
brown cob, which set off admirably, by
the contrast, the fine points and superb
condition of the splendid hunter which
carried the young lord of the manor. This
aged man, who was, indeed, the steward,
who had lived on the property in the time
of this youth's father, and to whose care
and faithful management much of the present
wealth of the estate might be attributed,
rode not exactly abreast of his master,
nor yet entirely behind him, but so
that while preserving a respeetful distance,
to show that he laid claim to no
standing of equality, he was still near
enough to maintain, without any inconvenience,
whatever conversation it might
please the younger man to originate.
On the other side, among the dogs,
which looked up to him from time to time
with a very evident mixture of fear and
affection in their features, strode along a
well-built sturdy fellow of some eight-and-twenty
or thirty years, standing some six
feet in his stockings, and powerful in due
proportion to his height. This man, who
was dressed as a gamekeeper or forester,
with leather buskins on his legs, and a
short musquetoon or carabine in his hand,
was what would be generally called good-looking,
by those at least who, in the
habit of regarding the mere animal qualities
of humanity, neglect the nobler characteristics
of intellectual beauty—for he
was dark-haired and fresh complexioned,
with a full bright eye and prominent features.
There was a strong resemblance,
moreover, in all his lineaments to the calm
and serene face of the old steward; but it
was in the outlines only, and, even of
these, one of the most remarkable in the
father was wholly wanting to the son—for
such, indeed, was their relationship—
namely, the ample and majestic forehead;
which striking feature was changed in the
younger man for a low and receding brow,
giving a mean and vulgar expression to
the whole countenance, which was, moreover,
of a dogged and sullen cast, with
large thick sensual lips, heavy and massive
jaws, and all the animal portions of the
head unusually and ungracefully developed.
This unprepossessing face, for
such indeed it was, gloomy and lowering,
unless when it was lighted up by a smile
even more inauspicious than the darkness
it relieved, flashed out at times under that
brief illumination with a shrewd gleam,
half cunning, half malignant, which rendered
it, for the moment, almost fearful
to behold.
The third person was an ordinary
groom, in a blue coat, with a livery badge
on his farm, carrying pistols at his holsters,
and a heavy hunting whip in his right
hand.
Such was the little party which rode
down from the manor gate towards the
village-green, on that May morning, amidst
the loud and hearty congratulations of
every rustic group they passed on their
way—the honest heart of every jolly yeoman
expanding, as he welcomed to his
new possessions the young man, who had
dwelt among them when a gay and
thoughtless boy, and won affections which
had still remained unchanged throughout
his absence from the home of his fathers,
during his education at school and college,
or, in vacation time, at the distant mansions
of his guardians.
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It did not take the horsement long, although
the heir pansed several times for
a moment or two to converse cheerily
with some of the older farmers, whom he
remembered to have been kind to him
when a child, or with some of the stalwart
striplings with whom he had fished, or
birdnested, or ferreted wild rabbits, as
companions in the blithe days of boyhood—
it did not take the horsemen long to
thread the windings of the sandy road, to
cross the old brick bridge, and reach the
beautiful green meadow, where the tall
May-pole stood, as it had stood for ages,
surrounded by a merry concourse, engaged
in decking it with clusters of the flowery
hawthorn, and garlands of a thousand
dewy blossoms. While one bold boy,
who had elimbed to the summit of the
dizzy mast, was hoisting up a hollow globe
composed of many intersecting hoops,
all bound with wreaths of eglantine and
hawthorn and wild roses, with flaunting
streamers and bright ribbons of every hue
under the sun, to crown the flower-girt
fabric, another group was busied, as the
horsemen wheeled from the high road into
the wide velvet green, in piling up a rustic
throne beneath the aged hawthorn, composed
of turf bedecked with crocuses and
violets, and the sweet cuckoo buds, and
briony, and bright marsh marigolds from
the stream's berge, and water-lilies from
its stiller reaches, and buttercups and
daisies from the meadows.
All ceased, however, instantly from
their slight labors as the young gentleman
rode forward at a slow pace, his progress
actually hindered by the progress of the
people crowding up to greet their honored
landlord; and a lond ringing shout,
echoed back many times by each projecting
hill through the long valley, spoke,
and for once sincerely, more of heart-love
than of lip-loyalty.
A brilliant flush of pleasure suffused his
cheeks, and his eyes sparkled with excitement,
as he doffed his plumed hat and
bowed repeatedly to his assembled tenantry.
He said, however, nothing in reply to
their tumultuous cheering, until the old
steward, pricking his cob gently with the
spur, rode up unbidden to his master's side,
and whispered in his ear—
“Speak to them—speak to them, Sir
Edward—for they expect it; and will set
it down to pride, it may be, if you do not.
Speak to them, if it be only twenty
words.”
“Not I, faith!” said the young heir,
laughing; “I should stop short for very
bashfulness before I had got ten words
out, let alone twenty. But tell them, good
Adam”—
“No! no! Sir Edward”—the old man
interrnpted him, “you must, so please you,
be guided for this once by your old servant;
your father was a favorite with
them always; and so were you, God bless
you! while you were but a little boy;
and, take my word for it, you shall gain
more of good will, and of general favor
by speaking to them frankly for five minutes,
than by distributing five hundred
pounds.”
“Well, if it must be so, old Adam, I
suppose it must,” returned the other,
“but by my honor, I had rather scatter
the five hundred pounds you talk about,
among them.”
Then drawing himself up in his saddle
without a moment's thought or preparation,
he once more doffed his hat, and addressed
himself in clear and well enunciated
words, although his tones at first
were somewhat low, and his manner
flurried, to the yeomanry, who stood
around in silent and attentive admiration.
As he went on, however, and gradually
became accustomed to the sound of his
own voice, that voice grew stronger,
clearer, more sonorous, and his air less
embarrassed, till at length, before he had
been speaking quite five minutes, his
notes were even and sustained, flowing
into the ear like a continued strain of silvery
music.
“I thank you, my good friends,” he
said, “I thank you, from the bottom of
my soul, for this, your frank and warm-hearted
reception, and, when I say I thank
you, I would not have you fancy that I
am using a mere word, an empty form of
speech, filling the ear indeed, signifying
nothing. No, my good friends and neighbors,
when I say here, I thank you, I
mean in truth that my heart is full of
gratitude towards you, and that it is my
full and resolute intention, to prove that
gratitude by my deeds to be done among
you. I am a very young man yet, as you
all know—and, of the few years which
have hitherto been mine, the most have
been passed at a distance from you. Many
of you, whom I see round about, remember
well my birth and boyhood; as I remember
many whom I look upon for
their frank, manly kindness towards a
wayward schoolboy; but as I said even
now, I have hitherto lived afar from you,
and you know nothing of my heart or
habits; and therefore, though I feel that
your welcome is sincere, your congratulations
honest, I am not such a fool of
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vanity, as to suppose all this aflection and
respectful greeting to be won from you by
any merits of ray own. Oh! no, my
friends, I know it is the legacy, the precious
legacy of your esteem and love! left
to me by the virtues of a father, a grandfather,
a race who have lived here in the
midst of you, for ages, doing good, and receiving
ample payment in looking on a
free, a prosperous, and a grateful people.
My heart then would be dull, indeed, and
senseless, if I did not appreciate the richest
legacy of all, which they have left me,
in your hereditary love—my mind must
be brutish and irrational, if, in perceiving
and appreciating this, I did not perceive
also, how I must merit your affection—
how I must make it my own absolute possession,
even as it was my father's—how
I must leave it to my children, after me—
if it please God in his wisdom through me
to continue our line. My friends, I do perceive
it! I have come hither to-day, to
live among you, as my fathers did—to be
no more your landlord than your friend,
your neighbor, your protector. I will not
draw my revennes from the country, to
layish them on the idlers of the town!
No! my friends, where my father's life
was passed, there I will pass mine, likewise;
and when the time allotted here to
us shall be measured to its end, I trust
thet I shall lay my bones beside his bones
in your quiet churchyard! Now, mark
what I would say, for I must not be tedious;
I promise you that no man's rent
shall be screwed up by me, beyond his
own ability to psy, so he be sober, industrious,
and frugal! I promise you that no
new tenant shall be preferred before an
old one, so long as he deal with me justly.
I promise you, that no strong man shall
want good work, and ready payment—no
sick man medicine and succor—no old
man aid and comfort—no poor man whatsoever
help his exigencies need, that I can
give to him, so long as God continue me
among you. This, then, I promise you,
not as a boon or bounty, but as I hold it
here to be my bounden duty—and this
will I make good to you, so surely as my
name is Edward Hale of Arrington! Now
I will trouble you no more, except to pray
you to continue your sports, as if I were not
present; and to request you all to dine
with me at noon, on good old English
beef and pudding. My fellows will be
down anon, to pitch some tents here on
the green, and set the ale a-flowing—and
so once more I thank you.”
It is probable that no set oration, delivered
by the mightiest of the world's
rhetoricians, bedecked with all the gor
geous ornaments that genins can produce
from its immortal garners, was ever listened
to with more profound and rapt attention,
than the few simple words, which
flowed as it appeared so naturally from
the heart to the tongue of the young landlord.
It is certain, that none ever sank
more deeply into the feelings of the audience—
their better, holier feelings! There
was no violent outburst of pleasure—no
loud tumultnous cheering—but a deep
hush—a breathing silence! Many of the
old men, and all the women, were in
tears; and when they spoke, at length, it
was with husky interrupted voices that
they invoked Heaven's blessings on his
head; and when they thought, it was
with gratitude for their own happy lot in
owning such a master.
Sir Edward was himself affected, partly
it might be from the excitement of delivering
a first speech, and that with success
so apparent and complete—it might
be from the geauine warmth of his own
heart, and strength of his own feelings;
for the hearts of the young are almost ever
warm, whether for good or for evil, and
their emotions powerful and abundant;
and oftentimes it happens, that the mere
speaking forcibly of feelings, which perhaps
at the time exist but faintly—and as
I might say speculatively—will give those
feelings actual force, and cause them to
develope themselves with new and unsuspected
vigor. And so it surely was with
Edward Hale, in this case.
He was, as we have seen, extremely
young—not in years only, but in knowledge
of the world—and volatile, and
hasty, and impetnous—too much, indeed,
a creature and a child of impulse—I say
not that his impulses were evil—I believe
not that the impulses of the very young
are so, except in rare and almost monstrous
instances; but they were impulses,
ungoverned, uncontrolled by any principle,
any set rule of action, any guide of
religion—and, therefore, even when most
originally good, they were liable to be
pushed into excesses; to be deceptive; to
be self-deceivers; to degenerate into
downright vices. That Edward Hale had
thought at times of the condition of his
subordinate fellows, is most true—that he
had often dreamed bright day-dreams
concerning the happiness of a half patriarchal
life among his tenants, is undoubted;
and that his tastes, his habits, his pursuits,
all led him to prefer a country to a
city residence, no less so.
So it is true, that being liberal as the
wind—nay, almost lavish—charity, so far
at least as charity consists in giving, was
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an accustomed and familiar pleasure;
that, like all men of glowing and enthusiastic
minds, he was by no means without
some crude and undigested notions of
a wild species of Utopian justice! that he
was of too bold and fiery a temperament
not to abhor and loathe the very name of
fraud or falsehood—and more, to do him
simple justice, too kindly-hearted to be
cruel, or systematically overbearing and
oppressive. Still, it is no less certain that
until that very morning—nay, until the
very minute when accident called on him
to deliver an impromptu speech, when the
excitability of his emotions, and his gratification
at his warm reception by his tenants
set loose the flood-gates of his fancy
and his heart—for in this instance, both
were acted on, and both reacted in connexion—
he had never thought consecutively
for half an hour on the subject;
never had laid out for himself any rule or
principle at all; never had, indeed, considered
that he owed any duties to his fellow
men.
“What then,” I fancy I can hear the
reader say, “What then, was Edward
Hale a hypocrite? Was all his fine, apparently
free-hearted speech a piece of absolute
deception” Neither, dear reader,
neither; the young are rarely, oh! very
rarely, hypocrites; rarely deceivers even,
nuless it be from fear, in timid dispositions,
of some contingent evils, which
they imagine they can shum by falsehood.
And Edward Hale was neither; scarce
even a deceiver of himself.
He had returned, only the previous
night, to the home of his happy boyhood,
after years of absence; had looked upon
the picture of a mother, whom he almost
adored; had trodden the floors, along which
he had bounded years ago; how changed
and yet the same; and everything he saw,
and heard, and thought of, conspired to
call up his better feelings, and to attune
his spirit to a mood more reflective—nay,
almost melancholy—than his wont. A
passionate lover of the charms of nature,
he had felt, while he gazed out from his
window over the lovely landscape, while
he rode in all the consciousness of power
and health, on his splendid hunter, beneath
his ancestral trees, he had felt, I say,
that he could never love a spot on earth
so well as his own fair demesnes; that he
could never live so happily or with so
calm a dignity in any other place, as he
could here among his people. Theu,
when he found himself quite unexpectedly
the object of affection so enthusiastic,
of greetings so sincere and earnest, his
fancy pictured to him in a moment, the
pure and exquisite delights of such a life
as he described in his brief speech; his
heart yearned to the kind and humble
yeomanry, whose very souls, apparently,
were overflowing with love to all his race.
He spoke embarrassed at the first, and
faltering and undecided; but, as he warmed
to his task, his rich imagination woke;
image suggested image, and though perhaps,
he actually thought, now for the
first time of many of the things he stated,
they glowed so vividly before the eyes of
his mind, that he believed them for the
moment to be old and familiar ideas—the
well remembered consequences of past
reasoning. He believed from the bottom
of his heart, that every word he uttered
was strictly and indisputably true; not for
his life would he have uttered one, had
he not so believed! And when he ceased
to speak, he was affected by the very
ideas that his own lively fancy had, for
the first time, set before him; and he
could safely then have registered a vow in
heaven that such had always been his view
of his own duties; and that so he would
surely act, as long as he lived to act on
earth at all.
As he ceased speaking, he turned his
horse half round, as if to leave the green,
saying to a fine hearty-looking yeoman
who stood nearest to him, one of the patriarchs,
unquestionably, of the place.
“I must ride, Master Marvel, to Stowcum-Barnesley,
to meet some college
friends of mine, who promised to come
down and spend my birth-day with me;
but it is early yet, you know, and Oliver
here.” patting as he spoke the proud neck
of his horse, “makes nothing of fifteen
miles an hour; so I can ride thither easily,
and he back with my friends to dinner.”
“Aye, that thou canst, Sir Edward,” returned
the old man, laughing cheerily—
“Aye, that thou canst; so go thy ways, go
thy ways, and God speed thee!”
Edward Hale touched his horse lightly
with the spur, that he made one quick
bound forward; but as he did so, the rider
turned half round in his saddle, for
something caught his attention so keenly
that his eye sparkled, and his cheek flushed
suddenly. The consequence was, that
he checked Oliver so sharply with the
curb, although involuntarily, that he reared
bolt upright, and by the suddenness of the
movement, so nearly unseated his master,
that his hold on the saddle depended for
a moment on the rein, and consequently
the strain was increased greatly on the bit.
The hunter stood erect, pawing the air
with his fore-feet, as if in an effort to retrieve
his balance. Every one thought
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he must have fallen backward, crushing
his rider in the fall, and a shrill female
shriek rang piercingly into the air; but,
active, young, and fearless, Sir Edward
scarce perceived the error he had committed
before he repaired it. Throwing
himself forward in his stirrups, by a rapid
and elastic spring, he wreathed his fore-finger
lightly in the mane, and gave the
horse the spur so sharply that he made a
violent plunge forward and alighted on his
fore-feet with a dint that threw the turf into
the air, in fifty several fragments, but failed
to move the horseman in his saddle in the
slightest degree.
Then the hot temper of the young man
rose; and though a moment's thought
would have shown him that the horse was
in no respect to blame, he checked him
again almost fiercely with the heavy curb,
and spurred him till the blood spirted from
his sides, under the galling rowels. Stung
by the treatment, the noble beast yerked
out his heels, and fell into a quick succession
of balotades, croupades, and caprioles,
and furious plunges, such as must
have inevitably cast headlong to the earth
a less accomplished cavalier than he who
backed him now.
Firm as a rock in his demique sat Edward
Hale, as though he had been a portion
of the animal which he bestrode;
but maddened by the resistance offered to
his first momentary action of injustice, he
plied both lash and spur with almost savage
impetuosity, yet with so rare a skill,
that in five minutes' space, or even less,
the brown horse stood stock still, panting,
and humbled, and subdued.
He gazed around him for a moment,
with a triumphant and defying glance;
and without again looking in the direction
of the object, whatsoever it was, that had
before attracted his attention, he bade his
mounted groom give up his horse to the
game-keeper, and stay himself to wait on
master Adam Eversley. The change was
accomplished in a minute; and, without
any further words, he dashed into a gallop,
and was speedily lost to view beyond the
summit of the hills, which bounded the
valley to the westward.
“Oh! father,” cried a beautiful country
girl, who was leaning on the arm of an old
grey-headed farmer, “Oh, father, father,
how beautifully young Sir Edward spoke,
and what a kind speech that was, and
then how well he sat on that vicious horse
of his, and how quickly he did master
him. He is the handsomest gentleman, I
think, in all the country; and the best-hearted
too, I'll warrant him.”
“And yet, Rose,” answered a young
stalwart yeoman, who had been standing
close beside her, leaning on a long twohauded
quarter staff, “and yet Rose, it
was all of his own fault, that the poor
horse was vicions; and then see how he
dealt with the dumb beast for his own
failing. He is a handsome man, that's true,
as ever an eye looked upon; but did you
see the way his black brows met together;
how the passion flashed out, almost like
lightning, under them; and how he bit
his lips till the blood came? Be sure, now,
he has a fearful temper. Why he looked
liker to a handsome devil, than to a Christian
man! I would be loth to stand against
him, in aught he had set his heart on.”
“For shame—for shame to thee, Frank
Hunter,” cried the girl he had addressed
as Rose—“For shame on thee, to speak so
of the young winsome gentleman. I hate
an envious spirit; and he so kind, too,
and so gentle—didst not hear what he
promised—how no poor man should ever
want for anything; and how no sick man
should need doctoring, so long as his
name was Edward Hale—and then to liken
him to a devil! I'm sure, I think he looked
like an angel, and spoke like an angel,
too, just come down to us out of heaven!”
“Have a care, Rose,” returned the other,
gloomily, “have a care, lest he lure thee
to somewhat that will not lead thee up
there; whether he came down out of heaven
or no. I reckon it 'was all along o'
looking at those brown curls and hazel
eyes o' thine, that he came so near falling
from his saddle.”
“Why, here's a nice to do,” answered
the girl, very sharply, “and what
an' he was looking at my curls, or my eyes
either; what is that, master Hunter, to
thee, I'd be pleased to know—or who gave
thee the right to say who shall look at me:
or whom I shall look at either, for that matter?
You are no kin of mine—much less
a master.”
“Oh, Rose! Rose! can it be come to this,
between us—and we troth-plighted, too!'
“Aye has it,” answered Rose, tossing
her pretty head, “aye, has it come to this—
and better now than later!—better troth-plighted,
and rue the plighting! than wed
and rue the wedding!—better an envious
sweetheart and a jealous, than a hard tyrannizing
husband! Aye, has it come to
this, and thou must mend thy manners,
ere aught else come of it, I tell thee.”
Her father tried to interpose; but the
village beauty was quite too indignant to
be appeased so readily; and she left his
arm instantly, turning her back without
ceremony on her luckless swain, saying
that she must go and join Susan Fairly,
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for all the girls were seeking her. So little
does it need to raise a quarrel between
those who truly and sincerely love each
other especially in quick and ardent dispositions.
Herbert, Henry William, 1807-1858 [1847], Ingleborough Hall, and Lord of the manor (Burgess, Stringer & Co., New York) [word count] [eaf147].
