the traveller of thirty years ago, whom pleasure or business took through the heart of gloucestershire, and who had the satisfaction of enjoying the box-seat of the admirably-appointed mail-coach which ran through that district,--if he had an eye for the picturesque and a proper appreciation of the beauties of nature, exhibiting themselves in the freshest turf, the oldest trees, the loveliest natural landscape-gardening combination of grassy upland, wooded knoll, and silver stream,--seldom refrained from inquiring the name of the owner of the property which was skirted by the well-kept road along which they were bowling, and was invariably informed by the coachman that all belonged "to the challoners, of whom you've doubtless heerd; the challoners of rowley court." by his phrase, "of whom you've doubtless heerd," the coachman expressed literally what he meant. he and his compeers, born and bred in the county, were so impressed with the seignorial dignities of the challoners of rowley court, that they ignored the possibility of the position of the family being unknown throughout the length and breadth of the land. that they were, not what they had been was indeed admitted, that the grand old estate had some what diminished, that the family revenues had decreased, that the present members of it were to a certain extent impoverished, that the hand of poverty was one of the many objectionable hands which had an unpleasant grip upon the old squire,--all these were facts which were tacitly admitted in privileged regions--such as the servants'-hall at the court, or the snuggery at the challoners' arms--but which were never hinted at to passing strangers. so jealous, indeed, of the honour of the family were its retainers--among whom the mail-driver was to be classed, as he was doubtless connected with the tenantry by family or marriage--that if "the box" ventured to comment on the evident want of attention to the property, manifested in broken hedges, unmended thatch, in undrained fen or unreclaimed common, he received but a short answer, conveying an intimation that they knew pretty well what was right down in those parts, the challoners did; at all events, as well as most cockneys: the biting sarcasm conveyed in this retort having generally the effect of closing the conversation, and reducing the fee given to the driver at the journey's end to one-half the sum originally intended.
there are no mail-coaches now, and the traveller by rail has no chance of getting a glimpse of rowley court, save a momentary one in the short interval between a cutting and a tunnel which are on the extreme border of the park. the court itself stands towards the centre of the park on low ground encircled by wooded hills, towards which, in the good old times, avenues of stately oak, elm, and lime trees extended in long vistas. but under the dire pressure of necessity the woodman's axe has been frequently at work lately in these "cool colonnades," and the avenues are consequently much shorn of their fair proportions. the house is a big incongruous mass of two distinct styles of architecture--a grafting of inigo jones's plain fa?ade and corinthian pillars on a red-brick elizabethan foundation, with projecting mullioned windows, octagonal turrets, quaintly-carved cornices, and ornamental doorways. round the house runs a broad stone terrace bounded by a low balustrade, and flanked at each of the corners by a large stone vase, which, in the time of prosperity, had contained choice flowers varying with the season, but which were now full of cracks and fissures, and were overgrown with creeping weeds and common parasites. the very stones of the terrace were chipped moss-edged, and grass-fringed; the black-faced old clock in the stable-turret had lost one of its hands, while several of its gilt numerals had become effaced by time and tempest; the vane above it had only two points of the compass remaining for the brass fox, whose bushy tail had gone in the universal wreck, to point at; the pump in the stable-yard was dry; the trough in front of it warped and blistered; a piece of dirty oil-cloth had been roughly nailed over the kennel, in front of which the big old mastiff lay blinking in the sunshine; and a couple of cart-horses, a pair of superannuated carriage-horses, the squire's old roan cob, and "the pony" (a strong, rough, undersized, welsh-bred brute, with untiring energy and no mouth), were the sole tenants of the stables which had once been occupied by the best-bred hacks, and hunters of the county.
they were bad times now for the challoners of rowley court--bad times enough, heaven knew; but they had been great people, and that was some consolation for mark challoner, the old squire, as he stiffly returned the bow of sir thomas walbrook, ex-lord mayor of london, carpet-maker, and millionaire, who had recently built an italian villa and laid out an italian garden on a three-hundred acre "lot" which he had purchased from the challoner estate. they had been the great lords of all that district. queen elizabeth had lodged for some time at rowley court on one of her progresses; and charles the first and henrietta maria had slept there, the royal pair finding "all the highways strewed with roses and all manner of sweet flowers," as was recorded in a worm-eaten parchment manuscript kept among the archives in the old oak-chest in the library. there was no sign then of the evil days in store; evil days which began in 1643, when colonel sands' troopers pillaged the court, and sent off five wagons loaded with spoil to london.
it is the custom of the challoners to say that then began that decadence which has continued for ever since; and in truth, though there have been many vicissitudes of fortune undergone by the old family, the tendency has been for ever downward. the final blow to their fortunes was dealt by mark challoner's immediate predecessor, his brother howard, who was one of the ornaments of the prince regent's court, and who gambled and drank and diced and drabbed with the very finest of those fine gentlemen. it was in his time that the axe was laid to the root of the tree; that sir thomas walbrook's father, the old carpet-maker, made the first money advances which resulted in his ultimate purchase on easy terms of the three hundred acres; and that ultimate ruin began decidedly to establish and proclaim itself at rowley court. when providence removed howard challoner from this world by a timely attack of gout in the stomach, long after his beloved king and patron had been gathered to his fathers, it was felt that there was every chance of a beneficial change in the family fortunes. the godless old bachelor was succeeded by his brother mark, then a clear-headed, energetic man in the prime of life, a widower with two remarkably promising boys--the elder a frank, free-hearted jovial fellow, fond of country sports, a good shot, a bold rider, "a downright englishman," as the tenantry delighted to call him; the younger a retiring, shy lad, wanting in the attributes of popularity, but said to be wondrous clever "with his head," and to know more than people double his age, which in itself was something bordering on the miraculous to the simple gloucestershire folk. and, for a time, all went very well. mark challoner was his own steward, and almost his own bailiff; at all events, he allowed no one on the property to be more thoroughly master of its details than he. without any undue amount of niggardliness he devised and carried out unsparing retrenchments; thriftless tenants, after warning, were got rid of, and energetic men introduced in their places; a better style of farming was suggested, and all who adopted it were helped by their landlord. the estate improved so greatly and so rapidly that vacant farms were largely competed for, and rents were rising, when suddenly mark challoner withdrew himself from the life into which he had plunged with such eagerness, and in which he had succeeded so well, and became a confirmed recluse, a querulous, moody, silent man, loving solitude, hating companionship, shutting out from him all human interest.
a sudden change this, and one which did not happen without exciting remarks from all the little world round rowley court, both high and low. the walbrooks and their set (for during the few later years there had been frequent irruptions of the plutocracy into the old county families, and the walbrooks were now the shining centre of a circle of people with almost as much money and as little breeding as themselves)--the walbrooks and their set shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, and secretly rejoiced that the old man from whom they never received anything but the sternest courtesy, and who so pertinaciously repelled all attempts at familiar intercourse from them, had at last come upon the evil days in store for him, and would no longer twit them by his aristocratic presence and frigid behaviour. the more humble classes--the old tenantry, who had been rejoicing at the better turn which things on the estate had undoubtedly taken, and who were looking forward to a long career of good management under the reign of mark challoner and his sons--were wofully disappointed at the change, and expressed their disappointment loudly amongst themselves, while taking due care that it should never reach the master's ear. no one, however, either among the neighbours or the dependents, seemed to notice that the change in mark challoner's life--that his fading from the hearty english squire into the premature old man, that his abnegating the exercise of his tastes and pleasures, and giving up everything in which he had hitherto felt the keenest interest--was contemporaneous with the departure of his younger son, geoffrey, from the paternal roof. in that act there was nothing to create surprise: it had always been known that master geoffrey's talents were destined to find exercise in the great arena of london, and now that he was eighteen years of age, it was natural that he should wish to bring those talents into play; and though nothing had been said in or out of the house about his going, until one morning when he told the coachman to bring round the dogcart and to come with him to the station, there was no expression, of surprise on the part of any of the household--beings to whom the expression of anything they might feel was of the rarest occurrence. the old butler, indeed, a relic of the past, who had been howard challoner's body-servant in his later years, and who was almost superannuated, remarked that the squire sent for his eldest son immediately after his younger son's departure; that the two were closeted together for full two hours (a most unusual thing at rowley court, where, in general, all matters were discussed before the servants, or, indeed, before anyone that might be present); and that "master miles" came out with pallid cheeks and red eyes, and in a state which the narrator described as one of "flustration."
seven years had passed since geoffrey challoner's departure,--seven years, during which his name had never been mentioned by his father or his brother; seven years, during which the old man, wrapped in the reserve, the silence, and the moodiness which had become his second nature, had been gradually, but surely, breaking in health, and wending his way towards the trysting-place where the shadow cloaked from head to foot was in waiting for him. that meeting was very close at hand just now. so thought the servants, as from the ivy-covered windows of the office they peered occasionally at their master, propped up by pillows in his bath-chair, which had been wheeled into a corner of the stone terrace where the light spring sunshine fell fullest; so thought dr. barford, the brightest, cheeriest, rosiest little medico, on whom all within the cotswold district pinned their faith ungrudgingly, and who had just sent his dark green gig, drawn by that flea-bitten gray mare, which was known within a circuit of fifty miles round, to the stables, and who approached the invalid with a brisk step and an inquiring, pleasant smile.
"sitting in the sunshine," said the doctor aloud (having previously said, sotto voce, "hem!--hem! much changed, by george!"), "sitting in the sunshine, my dear old friend! and quite right too--
'the sunshine, broken in the rill,
though turned astray, is sunshine still,'
as somebody says. well, and how do we feel to-day?"
"badly enough, doctor; badly enough!" replied the squire, in a low thick voice. "i'm running down very fast, and there's very little more sunshine for me--" here an attack of coughing interrupted him for a moment; "so i'm making the most of it."
"o, you mustn't say that," said dr. barford cheerily. "while there's life there's hope, you know; and you've gone through some baddish bouts since we've known each other."
"none so bad as this," said mark challoner. "your skill, under providence, has kept me alive hitherto; but though you're as skilful as ever, and as kind--god bless you for it!--you've not got providence working with you now. i'm doomed, and i know it. what's more, i don't repine, only i want to make the most of the time that's left me; and, above all, i want to see miles again."
"miles? o, ay! he's staying in town, is he not?"
"yes, with my old friend sandilands, who loves him as if he were his own son. poor miles, it's a shame to drag him away from his enjoyment to come down to a poor, dull, dying old man."
"you would not hurt his feelings by saying that before him," said the doctor shortly, "and you've no right to say it now. has he been sent for?"
"yes, they telegraphed for him this morning."
"well, there can be no harm in that, though i won't have you give way to this feeling of lowness that is coming over you."
"coming over me!" the old man repeated wearily. "ah, barford, my dear friend, you know how long it is since the light died out of my life, and left me the mere shell and husk of man that i have been since; you know, doctor, how long it is ago, though you don't know the cause of it."
"nor ever sought to know it, squire; bear me witness of that," said the little doctor. "it's no part of my business or of my nature to seek confidences; and though perhaps if i had been aware of what was troubling you--and at the first i knew perfectly well that animo magis quam corpore was the seat of your illness--and though, being unable to 'minister to a mind diseased,' as somebody says, i was labouring, as it were, at a disadvantage,--you will do me the justice to say, that i never for a moment hinted that--hum! you understand?" and dr. barford, who would have given the results of a week's practice to know really what had first worked the change in the old man, stopped short and looked at him with a confidence-inviting glance.
"perfectly," said the squire; "but it could never have been. my secret must die with me; and when after my death the closet is broken open, and people find the skeleton in it, they will merely come upon a lot of old bones jumbled together, and, not having got the key of the puzzle to fit them together, will wonder what i can have been afraid of. why do you stare so earnestly?"
"a skeleton, my dear squire!" said the little doctor, on tiptoe with eagerness; "you said a skeleton in a closet, and a lot of old bones jumbled together--"
a smile, the first seen for many a day, passed across mark challoner's wan face as he said, "i was speaking metaphorically, barford; that is all. no belated traveller was ever robbed and murdered at rowley court--in my time at least, believe me."
dr. barford laughed a short laugh, and shrugged his shoulders as though deprecating a pursuance of the subject, but he evidently did not place entire credence on his friend's assertion. however, he plunged at once into a series of medical questions, and shortly afterwards took his leave. as he passed the hall-door, which was open, on his way to the stables, he saw a neatly-dressed middle-aged woman pacing quietly up and down the hall; and recognising her as the nurse from london, who for some time past had been in nightly attendance on the old man, he beckoned her to him.
"coming out to get a little breath of fresh air, nurse?" he said pleasantly, as she approached. "you must need it, i should think."
"well, sir, it is warm and close in the squire's room now, there's no denying; and what it'll be when the summer comes on i often dread to think."
"no you don't, nurse," said the doctor, eyeing her keenly. "you know better than that, with all the practice and experience you've had. no summer for the squire, poor fellow, this side the grave."
"you think not, sir?"
"i know it, nurse, and so do you, if you only chose to say so. however, he's gone down so very rapidly since i was here last, and his tone is altogether so very low and depressed, that i imagine the end to be very close upon us; so close that i think you had better tell mr. miles--the son that has been telegraphed for, you know, and who will probably be down to-night--that if he has anything special to say to his father he had better do so very shortly after his arrival. what's that?" he asked, as a dull sound fell upon his ear.
"that's the squire knocking for barnard to fetch his chair, sir; see, barnard has heard, and is going to him."
"o, all right! poor old squire! poor good old fellow! don't forget about mr. miles, nurse. goodnight;" and the little doctor, casting a kindly look towards the spot where the figure of the old man in the chair loomed hazily in the dim distance, hurried away.
when mark challoner's servant had reached his master's chair, and, obedient to the signal he had received, was about to wheel it towards the house, he found that the old man had changed his intention, and was desirous of remaining out on the terrace yet a few minutes. on receiving this order barnard looked over his shoulder at the nurse, who was still standing at the hall-door; and as she made no sign to him to hasten his movements, he concluded that his master's wish might be obeyed, and so, after touching his hat respectfully, he returned to the genial society of the gardener and the stable-lad. and mark challoner was once more left alone. the fact in its broadest significance seemed to become patent to him as he watched the retreating figure of his servant, and two tears coursed down his wan cheeks. mark challoner knew that his last illness was then upon him; for weeks he had felt that he should never again shake off the lassitude and weakness so stealthily yet so surely creeping over him; but now, within the last few minutes, the conviction had flashed across him that the end was close at hand--that he had arrived at the final remnant of that originally grand strength and vitality which, slowly decaying, had enabled him to make head against disease so long, and that he was taking his last look at the fair fields which he had inherited, and in the improvement of which he had at one time--ah, how long ago!--found his delight. it was this thought that made him dismiss barnard. the old man, with the new-born consciousness of his approaching end fresh in him, wanted to gaze once more at his diminished possessions; and for the last time to experience the old associations which a contemplation of them never failed to revive. there, with the westering sun just gilding its topmost branches, was the home copse, where he had shot his first pheasant, to his old father's loudly-expressed delight. just below it lay the black pool, out of which, at the risk of his own life, he had pulled charles gammock, a rosy-faced boy with fair hair--charles gammock! ay, ay, they buried him a year ago, and his grandson now holds the land. there, bare and attenuated now, but as he first remembered it young and strong and full of promise, was the regent's plantation, so called in honour of the illustrious personage who, staying for the night with howard challoner, had honoured him by planting the first tree in it. beyond it, dirck's land, now--and as that thought crossed him the squire's brow became furrowed, and his wan colour deepened into a leaden hue, for dirck was one of the moneyed interest, one of the manufacturers who had come in sir thomas walbrook's wake, and were bent on the acquisition of all the county property which might come into the market. beyond it lay thurston gap, the surest place for finding a fox in the whole county, old tom horniblow used to say. old tom horniblow! why, there had been three or four huntsmen to the cotswold since him: he must have been dead these forty years, during which time the squire had not thought of him a dozen times; and yet then, at that moment, the stout figure of the old huntsman mounted on his famous black horse, just as he had seen him at the cover-side half a century ago, rose before his eyes. this reminiscence turned mark challoner's thoughts from places to people; and though his glance still rested on the landscape, his mind was busy recalling the ghosts of the past. his father, a squire indeed of the old type--hearty, boisterous, and hot-headed: it was well--and a faint smile dawned on mark challoner's cheek as the thought crossed his mind--it was as well that his father had died before the irruption of the walbrooks, dircks, and such-like; it would have been too much for him. his brother, the dandy with the high cravat and the buckskin breeches and hessian boots, ridiculed by his country neighbours, and regarding his estate but as a means to supply his town dissipation. his wife--she seemed more dim and ghost-like to him than any of the others; he had known her so short a time, so much of his life had been passed since her death; since the gentle little woman, whose wedding-ring he had worn on his little finger until it had eaten into the flesh, glided out of the world after having given birth to her second son. and, with the train of thought awakened by the reminiscence of the career of that second son, from his birth until the morning of his abrupt departure from the ancestral home, surging round him, the old man's head sunk upon his breast, a fresh access of feebleness seemed to come over him; and when the watchful barnard sallied from his retreat and advanced towards the chair, he found his master in a state bordering on collapse, and made the utmost haste to get him to his room, and place him under the professional care of the nurse.
in the course of a very few minutes, however, the squire, aided by stimulants, revived; and his senses rapidly returning, he ordered his desk to be brought to the side of the bed into which he had been moved, and commenced listlessly sorting the papers therein. they were few and unimportant; the old man's illness had not been sudden; he had always been a thoroughly methodical man, and he had had plenty of time and opportunity to attend to his correspondence. propped up by the pillows, he was leisurely looking through the orderly bundles of letters, neatly tied together and scrupulously docketed, when the sound of a horse's hoofs on the gravel outside, the grating of wheels, the barking of the dogs in the stable-yard, and the almost simultaneous ringing of the house-bell, gave warning of an arrival. mark challoner had scarcely time to note these various occurrences when the room-door was thrown open, and in the next instant the old man's wavering and unsteady hands were fast in the grasp of his son miles.
a tall man, over six feet in height, with a bright red-and-white complexion, large brown eyes, a straight nose too big for his face, a large mouth full of sound white teeth, with dark brown hair curling crisply at the sides of his head and over his poll, with long moustache and flowing brown beard, with a strongly-knit but somewhat ungainly figure, dressed in a well-made but loosely-fitting gray suit, and with large, well-shaped, brown hands, which, after releasing the first grip of the squire's fingers, joined themselves together and kept working in tortuous lissom twists: this was miles challoner. a faint smile, half of pleasure, half of amusement--something odd in miles had always been remarked by his father--flitted over the squire's face, as he said, after the first greeting, "you've come in time, miles: you received the telegram?"
"and started off at once, sir. all i could do to prevent his lordship from coming with me--wanted to come immensely; but i told him i thought he'd better not. even such an old friend as he is in the way when one's seedy--don't you think i'm right, sir?"
"you're right enough, miles; more especially when, as in the present case, it's a question of something more than 'seediness,' as you call it. my time," continued the squire, in tones a little thickened by emotion,--"my time has come, my boy. i'm only waiting for you, before, like hezekiah, i should 'turn my face unto the wall.' i have, i hope, 'set my house in order,' and i know that now 'i shall die, and not live;' but i wanted to see you before--before i go."
the young man leaned quickly forward and looked earnestly in his father's face, as he heard these words; then with a gesture of inquiry elevated his eyebrows at the nurse, who was standing just inside the door. receiving for answer an affirmative nod, miles challoner's cheek for an instant turned as pale as that of the invalid; but he speedily recovered himself, and said in a voice which lacked the cheery ring that should have accompanied the words: "you're a little down, sir, and that's natural enough, considering your illness; but you'll make head against it now, and we shall soon have you about as usual. it was only yesterday lord sandilands was saying that though he's some quarter of a century your junior, he should be very sorry to back himself against you at 'anything british,' as he expressed it--anything where strength and bottom were required."
the old man smiled again as he said: "sandilands has been a townman for so long that he's lost all condition, and has ruined his health for want of air and exercise. but at least he lives; while i--i've vegetated for the last few years, and now there's an end even to that."
"why didn't you send for me before, sir? if i'd had any idea you thought yourself so ill, i'd have come long since."
"i know that, my dear boy, and that's the very reason why i didn't send. why should i fetch you from your friends and your gaiety to potter about an old man's bedside? i would not have sent for you even now, save that i have that inward feeling which is unmistakable, and which tells me that i can't last many days, many hours more, and i wanted, selfishly enough, to have you near me at the last." the old man spoke these words with indescribable affection, and, half involuntarily as it seemed, threw his arm round his son's neck. the big strong frame of the young man shook with ill-repressed emotion as he took the thin hand hanging round his shoulder, and pressed it reverently to his lips. "father!" he said; and as he said it, both the men felt how many years had passed since he had chanced to use the term "father!"
"true, my boy," said mark challoner quietly,--"it is a pleasure, though i fear a selfish one. 'on some fond breast the parting soul relies,' you know, miles; and you're all that's left to me in the world. besides, the tie between us has been such a happy one; as long as i can recollect we've had no difference,--we were more like brothers than father and son, miles."
miles answered only by a pressure of his father's hand. he dared not trust himself to speak, he knew that his voice was thick and choked with tears. his father looked at him for an instant, and then said: "now, boy, go and get some dinner. how thoughtless of me to keep you so long fasting after your journey!--nurse, take mr. miles away, and see that he is properly attended to. be as careful of him as you are of me, that's all i ask;" and the old man, half-exhausted, sank back on his pillow.
miles challoner left the room with the nurse, and when they were alone, he took the first opportunity of asking her real opinion as to his father's state. this she gave him frankly and fully, telling him moreover what dr. barford had said as to the necessity of not delaying anything which he might have to say to the squire. miles thanked her, and then sat down to his cheerless meal. his thoughts were preoccupied, and he ate and drank but little, pausing every now and then, bestriding the room, reseating himself, and leaning his head on his hand with a helpless puzzled air, as one to whom the process of thought was unfamiliar. he could scarcely realise the fact that the presiding spirit of the place, the man whose will had been law ever since he could recollect, "the squire," who, with diminished possessions and failing fortunes, had commanded, partly through his own style and manner, partly through the prestige attaching to the family, more respect and esteem than all the members of the invading calicocracy put together,--he could scarcely realise that this rural autocrat's power was ebbing, and that he himself lay on his death-bed. on his death-bed!--that was a curious thought: miles challoner had never attempted to realise the position, and now; when vaguely he attempted it, he failed. only one thing came out clearly to him after his attempted examination of the subject, and that was that it would be most desirable to be at peace with all the world, and that any enmity cherished to the last would probably have a most disturbing and uncomfortable effect. pondering all this he returned to the sick-room. during his absence, the curtains had been closed and the night-lamp lighted. the nurse sat nodding in a large easy-chair by the bedside, and the squire lay in a dozing state, half-waking now and again as his head slipped off the high pillow on which it rested, or when the heaviness of his breathing became specially oppressive. miles seated himself on a couch at the foot of the bed, and fatigued by his journey, soon fell asleep. he seemed to have been unconscious only a few minutes, but in reality had slept nearly an hour, when he was awakened by a touch on the shoulder, and opening his eyes, saw the nurse standing by him. "the squire's calling for you," she said, adding in a whisper, "he's going fast!" miles roused himself, and crept silently to the head of the bed, where he found his father gasping for breath. the squire's dim eyes recognised his son, and between the paroxysms of laboured respiration he again threw his arm round miles's neck and touched the bowed forehead with his lips. then the thoughts that had been fermenting in miles challoner's heart for so many years, and which had caused him such mental disturbance that night, at length found vent in words. with his father's arm around him, and with his face close to the old man's, miles said: "father! one word, only one! you hear and understand me?" a pressure of the hand on his cheeks--o, such a feeble pressure, but still a recognition--answered him. "father, what of geoffrey?" a low moan escaped the old man's lips; other sign made he none. "what of geoffrey?" continued miles,--"years ago you forbade me ever to ask what had become of him, why he had left us, even to mention his name. i have obeyed you, as you know: but now, father, now--"
"never!" said the old man in dull low accents. "your brother geoffrey is, and must be for ever, dead to you. miles, my boy, my own boy, listen! should you ever meet him, as you may do, shun him, i urge, i command you! think of what i say to you now, here, as i am--shun him, fly from him, let nothing earthly induce you to know him or acknowledge him."
"but, father, you will surely tell me why---"
the nurse touched miles on the shoulder as he spoke, and pointed to the squire, whose swooning had been noticed by her observant eyes. when he recovered himself he essayed again to speak, but his strength failing him he laid his hand in his son's, and so peacefully passed away.
