At that time in the world's history when watches, in their decline from the fat comeliness of the turnip to the scanty meagerness of the half-crown, had arrived at the intermediate form of a biffin--when the last remnant of a chivalrous spirit instigated men to wear swords every day, and to take purses on horseback--when quadrupeds were preferred to steam, and sails were necessary to a ship--when Chatham and Blackstone appeared in the senate and at the bar, and Goldsmith, Johnson, and Burke, Cowper, Reynolds, Robertson Hume, and Smollett, were just beginning to cumber the highways of arts and sciences--at that period of the dark ages, the events which are about to be related undoubtedly took place, in a county which shall be nameless.

It may be that the reader would rather have the situation more precisely defined, in order, as he goes along, to fix each particular incident that this book may hereafter contain to the precise spot and person for which it was intended. Nevertheless, such disclosures must not be; in the first place, because the story, being totally and entirely a domestic one, depends little upon locality; and, in the next place, because greater liberties can be taken with people and things when their identity is left in doubt, than when it is clearly ascertained; for, although--

yet no one likes to have his name written upon his fool's cap, and handed down for the benefit of posterity, attached to such an ornament.

It was, then, on an evening in the early autumn, at that particular period of history which we have described, that two persons on horseback were seen riding through a part of the country, the aspect of which was one whereon we delight to dwell; that is to say, it was a purely English aspect. Now, this character is different from all others, yet subject to a thousand varieties; for although England, in its extent, contains more, and more beautiful scenes, of different kinds and sorts of the picturesque, than any other country under heaven, nevertheless there is an aspect in them all that proclaims them peculiarly English. It is not a sameness--far, far from it; but it is a harmony; and whether the view be of a mountain or a valley, a plain or a wood, a group of cottages by the side of a clear, still trout stream, or a country town cheering the upland, there is still to be seen in each a fresh green Englishness, which--like the peculiar tone of a great composer's mind, pervading all his music, from his requiem to his lightest air--gives character and identity to every object, and mingles our country, and all its sweet associations, with the individual scene.

The spot through which the travellers were riding, and which was a wide piece of forest ground, one might have supposed, from the nature of the scenery, to be as common to all lands as possible; but no such thing! and any one who gazed upon it required not to ask themselves in what part of the world they were. The road, which, though sandy, was smooth, neat, and well tended, came down the slope of a long hill, exposing its course to the eye for near a mile. There was a gentle rise on each side, covered with wood; but this rise, and its forest burden, did not advance within a hundred yards of the road on either hand, leaving between--except where it was interrupted by some old sand-pits--a space of open ground covered with short green turf, with here and there an ancient oak standing forward before the other trees, and spreading its branches to the way-side. To the right was a little rivulet gurgling along the deep bed it had worn for itself among the short grass, in its way towards a considerable river that flowed through the valley at about two miles' distance; and, on the left, the eye might range far amid the tall, separate trees--now, perhaps, lighting upon a stag at gaze, or a fallow deer tripping away over the dewy ground as light and gracefully as a lady in a ballroom--till sight became lost in the green shade and the dim wilderness of leaves and branches.

Amid the scattered oaks in advance of the wood, and nestled into the dry nooks of the sand-pits, appeared about half a dozen dirty brown shreds of canvass, none of which seemed larger than a dinner napkin, yet which--spread over hoops, cross sticks, and other contrivances--served as habitations to six or seven families of that wild and dingy race, whose existence and history is a phenomenon, not among the least strange of all the wonderful things that we pass by daily without investigation or inquiry. At the mouths of one or two of these little dwelling-places might be seen some gipsy women with their peculiar straw bonnets, red cloaks, and silk handkerchiefs; some withered, shrunk, and witch-like, bore evident the traces of long years of wandering exposure and vicissitude; while others, with the warm rose of health and youth glowing through the golden brown of their skins, and their dark gem-like eyes flashing undimmed by sorrow or infirmity, gave the beau idÉal of a beautiful nation long passed away from thrones and dignities, and left but as the fragments of a wreck dashed to atoms by the waves of the past.

At one point, amid white wood ashes, and many an unlawful feather from the plundered cock and violated turkey, sparkled a fire and boiled a caldron; and, round about the ancient beldam who presided over the pot were placed in various easy attitudes several of the male members of the tribe--mostly covered with long loose great-coats, which bespoke the owners either changed or shrunk. A number of half-naked brats, engaged in many a sport, filled up the scene, and promised a sturdy and increasing race of rogues and vagabonds for after years.

Over the whole--wood, and road, and streamlet, and gipsy encampment--was pouring in full stream the purple light of evening, with the long shadows stretching across, and marking the distances all the way up the slope of the hill. Where an undulation of the ground, about half-way up the ascent, gave a wider space of light than ordinary, were seen, as we have before said, two strangers riding slowly down the road, whose appearance soon called the eyes of the gipsy fraternity upon their movements; for the laws in regard to vagabondism^[1] had lately been strained somewhat hard, especially in that part of the country, and the natural consequence was, that the gipsy and the beggar looked upon almost every human thing as an enemy.

With their usual quick perception, however, they soon gathered that the travellers were not of that cast from whom they had anything to fear; and indeed there was nothing of the swaggering bailiff or bullying constable in the aspect of either. The one was a man of about six-and-twenty years of age, with fine features, a slight but well-made person, and a brown but somewhat pale complexion. His eyes were remarkably fine, and his mouth and chin beautifully cut; he rode his horse, too, with skill and grace; and withal he had that air of consequence which is at any time worth the riband of the Bath. His companion was older, taller, stronger. In age he might be thirty-two or three, in height he was fully six feet, and seldom was there ever a form which excelled his in all those points where great strength is afforded without any appearance of clumsiness. He rode his horse, which was a powerful dark-brown gelding, as if half his life were spent on horseback; and as he came down the hill with the peculiar appearance of ease and power which great bodily strength and activity usually give, one might well have concluded that he was as fine-looking a man as one had ever beheld. But when he approached so as to allow his features to be seen, all one's prepossessions were dispelled, and one perceived that, notwithstanding this fine person, he was in some respects as ugly a man as it was possible to conceive.

Thanks to Jenner and vaccination, we (the English) are nowadays as handsome a people as any, perhaps, in Europe, with smooth skins and features as nature made them; but in the times I talk of, vaccination, alas! was unknown; and whatever the traveller we speak of might have been before he had been attacked by the smallpox, the traces which that horrible malady had left upon his face had deprived it of every vestige of beauty--if, indeed, we except his eyes and eyelashes, which had been spared as if just to redeem his countenance from the frightful. They--his eyes and eyelashes--were certainly fine, very fine; but they were like the beauty of Tadmor in the wilderness, for all was ugliness around them. However, his countenance had a good-humoured expression, which made up for much; neither was it of that vulgar ugliness which robes and ermine but serve to render more low and unprepossessing. But still, when first you saw him, you could not but feel that he was excessively plain; and yet there was always something at the heart which made one--as the ravages of the disease struck the eye--think, if not say, "What a pity!"

The dress of the two strangers was alike, and it was military; but although an officer of those days did not feel it at all scandalous or wrong to show himself in his regimentals, yet such was not the case in the present instance; and the habiliments of the two horsemen consisted, as far as could be seen, of a blue riding-coat, bound round the waist by a crimson scarf, with a pair of heavy boots, of that form which afterward obtained the name of Pendragon. Swords were at their sides, and--as was usual in those days, even for the most pacific travellers--large fur-covered holsters were at their saddle-bows; so that, although they had no servants with them, and were evidently of that class of society upon which the more liberal-minded prey and have preyed in all ages, there was about them "something dangerous," to attack which would have implied great necessity or a very combative disposition.

As the travellers rode on, the gipsy men, without moving from the places they had before occupied, eyed them from under their bent brows, affecting withal hardly to see them; while the urchins ran like young apes by the side of their horses, performing all sorts of antics, and begging hard for halfpence; and at length a girl of about fifteen or sixteen--notwithstanding some forcible injunctions to forbear on the part of the old woman who was tending the caldron--sprang up the bank, beseeching the gentlemen, in the usual singsong of her tribe, to cross her hand with silver, and have their fortunes told; promising them at the same time a golden future, and, like Launcelot, "a pretty trifle of wives."

In regard to her chiromantic science the gentlemen were obdurate, though each of them gave her one of those flat polished pieces of silver which were sixpences in our young days; and having done this, they rode on, turning for a moment or two their conversation, which had been flowing in a very different channel, to the subject of the gipsies they had just passed, moralizing deeply on their strange history and wayward fate, and wondering that no philanthropic government had ever endeavoured to give them a "local habitation and a name" among the sons and daughters of honest industry.

"I am afraid that the attempt would be in vain," answered the younger of the two to his companion. "And besides, it would be doing a notable injustice to the profession of petty larceny to deprive it of its only avowed and honourable professors, while we have too many of its amateur practitioners in the very best society already."

"Nay, nay! Society is not as bad as that would argue it," rejoined the other. "Thank God, there are few thieves or pilferers within the circle of my acquaintance, which is not small."

"Indeed!" said his companion. "Think for a moment, my dear colonel, how many of your dearly-beloved friends are there who, for but a small gratification, would pilfer from you those things that you value most highly! How many would steal from one the affection of one's mistress or wife! How many, for some flimsy honour, some dignity of riband or of place, would pocket the reputation of deeds they had never done! How many, for some party interest or political rancour, would deprive you of your rightful renown, strip you of your credit and your fame, and 'filch from you your good name!' Good God! those gipsies are princes of honesty compared with the great majority of our dear friends and worldly companions."

His fellow-traveller replied nothing for a moment or two, unless a smile, partly gay, partly bitter, could pass for answer. The next minute, however, he read his own comment upon it, saying, "I thought, De Vaux, you were to forget your misanthropy when you returned to England."

"Oh, so I have," replied the other in a gayer tone; "it was only a single seed of the wormwood sprouting up again. But, as you must have seen throughout our journey, my heart is all expansion at coming back again to my native land, and at the prospect of seeing so many beings that I love: though God knows," he added, somewhat gloomily--"God knows whether the love be as fully returned. However, imagination serves me for Prince Ali's perspective glass; and I can see them all, even now, at their wonted occupations, while my vanity dresses up their faces in smiles when they think of my near approach."

His companion sighed; and as he did not at all explain why he did so, we must take the liberty of asking the worthy reader to walk into the tabernacle of his bosom, and examine which of the mind's gods it was that gave forth that oracular sigh, so that the officiating priest may afford the clear interpretation thereof. But, to leave an ill-conceived figure of speech, the simple fact was, that the picture of home, and friends, and smiling welcome, and happy love, which his companion's speech had displayed, had excited somewhat like envy in the breast of Colonel Manners. Envy, indeed, properly so called, it was not; for the breast of Colonel Manners was swept out and garnished every day by a body of kindly spirits, who left not a stain of envy, hatred, or malice in any corner thereof. The proper word would have been regret; for regret it certainly was that he felt when he reflected that, though he had many of what the world calls friends, and a milky-way of acquaintances--though he was honoured and esteemed wherever he came, and felt a proud consciousness that he deserved to be so--yet that on all the wide surface of the earth there was no sweet individual spot where dearer love, and brighter smiles, and outstretched arms, glad voices, and sparkling eyes, waited to welcome the wanderer home from battle, and danger, and privation, and fatigue. He felt that there was a vacancy to him in all things; that the magic chain of life's associations wanted a link; and he sighed--not with envy, but with regret. That it was so was partly owing to events over which he had no control. Left an orphan at an early age, the father's mansion and the mother's bosom he had never known; and neither brother nor sister had accompanied his pilgrimage through life. His relations were all distant ones; and though (being the last of a long line) great care had been bestowed upon his infancy and youth, yet all the sweet ties and kindred fellowship which gather thickly round us in a large family were wanting to him.

So far his isolated situation depended upon circumstances which he could neither alter nor avoid; but that he had not created for himself a home, and ties as dear as those which fortune had at first denied him, depended on himself; or rather what in vulgar parlance is called a crotchet, which was quite sufficiently identified with his whole nature, to be considered as part of himself, though it was mingled intimately--woven in and out--with qualities of a very different character.

This crotchet--for that is the only term fitted for it, as it was certainly neither a whim nor a caprice--this crotchet may be considered as a matter of history--of his history, I mean; for it depended upon foregone facts, which must be here explained. It is sad to overturn all that imagination may have already done for the reader on the very first news that Colonel Manners had a foregone history at all. He had not been crossed in love, as may be supposed, nor had he seen the object of his affections swept away by a torrent, burned in a house on fire, killed by an unruly horse, or die by any of those means usually employed for such a purpose. No; he had neither to bewail the coldness nor the loss of her he loved, because, up to the moment when we have set him before the reader, he had unfortunately never been in love at all.

The fact is, that during his youth Colonel Manners had possessed one of the finest faces in the world, and every one of his judicious friends had taken care to impress deeply upon his mind that it was the best portion of all his present possessions or future expectations. By nature he was quite the reverse of a vain man; but when he saw that the great majority of those by whom he was surrounded admired the beauties of his face far more than the beauties of his mind, and loved him for the symmetry of his external person more than for the qualities of his heart, of course the conviction that, however much esteem and respect might be gained by mental perfections, affection was only given to beauty, became an integral part of that fine texture of memories and ideas which, though I do not think it, as some have done, the mind itself, I yet look upon as the mind's innermost garment. Such was the case when, at the age of about twenty, he was attacked by the smallpox. For a length of time he was not allowed to see a looking-glass, the physicians mildly telling him that his appearance would improve; that they trusted no great traces would remain: but when he did see a looking-glass, he certainly saw the reflection of somebody he had never seen before. In the mean while his relations had too much regard for their own persons to come near him; and when, after having purified in the country, he went to visit an antique female cousin, who had been a card-playing belle in the reign of his majesty of blessed memory, King George the First, the old lady first made him a profound courtesy, taking him for a stranger; and when she discovered who he was, burst forth with, "Good God, Charles! you are perfectly frightful!"

To the same conclusion Charles Manners had by this time come himself; and the very modesty of his original nature now leagued with one of the deceptions of vanity, and made him believe that he could never, by any circumstances, or events, obtain love. Nevertheless he made up his mind to his fate entirely, and determined neither to seek for nor to think of a good that could not be his. Indeed, at first, according to the usual extravagance of man's nature, he flew to the very far extreme, and believed that, putting woman's love out of the question, even the more intimate friendship and affection of his fellow-men might be influenced by his changed appearance, and that he would be always more or less an object of that pity which touches upon scorn. These ideas his commerce with the world soon showed him to be fallacious; but in the mean time they had a certain effect upon his conduct. Possessing a consciousness of great powers of mind and fine qualities of the heart, he determined to cultivate and employ them to the utmost, and compel esteem and respect, if love and affection were not to be obtained. In his course through the army, too, the sort of animosity which he felt against his own ugliness, which had cut him off from happiness of a sort that he was well calculated to enjoy, together with that mental and corporeal complexion which did not suffer him to know what fear is, led him to be somewhat careless of his own person; and during his earlier years of service he acquired the name of rash Charles Manners. But it was soon found that wherever the conduct of any enterprise was intrusted to his judgment, its success was almost certain, and that skill and intrepidity with him went hand-in-hand.

Gradually he found that, with men at least, and with soldiers especially, personal beauty formed no necessary ingredient in friendship; and with a warm heart and noble feelings--guarded, however, by wisdom and discretion--he soon rendered himself universally liked and esteemed in the different corps with which he served, and had an opportunity of selecting one or two of his fellow-officers for more intimate regard. Unfortunately, however, he saw no reason to change his opinion in respect to woman's love. Indeed, he sought not to change it; for, as we have already said, the belief that female affection could only be won by personal beauty was one of those intimate convictions which were interwoven with all the fabric of his ideas. He ceased to think of it; he devoted himself entirely to his profession; he won honour and the highest renown; he found himself liked and esteemed by his military companions, courted and admired in general society, and he was content: at least, if he was not content, the regrets which would not wholly be smothered--the yearnings for nearer ties and dearer affections, which are principles, not thoughts--only found vent occasionally in such a sigh as that which we have just described.

His companion, though he remarked it, made no comment on his sigh; for, notwithstanding the most intimate relationships of friendship which existed between himself and his fellow-traveller, and which had arisen in mutual services that may hereafter be more fully mentioned, he felt that the length of their acquaintance had not been such as to warrant his inquiring more curiously into those private intricacies of the bosom from which such signs of feeling issued forth. He saw, however, that the proximate cause of the slight shadow that came over his friend lay in something that he himself had said in picturing the happy dreams that checkered his misanthropy; and putting his horse into a quicker pace as they got upon the level ground, he changed the subject while they rode on.

The time, as we have said, was evening; and as the strangers passed by the gipsy encampment, a flood of purple light, pouring from as splendid a heaven as ever held out the promise of bright after-days, was streaming over the road; but as the travellers reached the flat, and turned the angle of the wood where the road wound round the bases of the hills, the sky was already waxing gray, and a small twinkling spot of gold here and there told that darkness was coming fast. At the distance of about half a mile farther, the river was first seen flowing broad and silvery through the valley; and a quarter of an hour more brought the travellers to a spot where the water, taking an abrupt turn round a salient promontory thrown out from the main body of the hills, left hardly room for the road between the margin and the wood. On the other side of the river, which might be a hundred yards broad, was a narrow green meadow, backed by some young fir plantings, and just beyond the first turn of the bank a deep sombre dell led away to the right; while the shadows of the trees over the water, the darkening hue of the sky, and the wild uninhabited aspect of the whole scene, gave a sensation of gloom, which was not diminished by a large raven flapping heavily up from the edge of the water, and hovering with a hoarse croak over some carrion it had found among the reeds.

"This is a murderous-looking spot enough!" said Colonel Manners, turning slightly towards De Vaux, who had been silent for some minutes; "this is a murderous-looking spot enough!"

"Well may it be so!" answered his companion abruptly; "well may it be so; for on this very spot my uncle was murdered twenty years ago."

"Indeed!" exclaimed his fellow-traveller; "indeed--but on reflection," he added, "I remember having heard something of it, though I was then a boy, and have forgotten all the circumstances."

He spoke as if he would willingly have heard them again detailed; but, for a moment or two, De Vaux made no reply; and the next instant the sound of a horse's feet at a quick trot suddenly broke upon the ear, and called the attention of both. In a minute more, a horseman wrapped in a large roquelaure passed them rapidly; and though he neither spoke nor bowed, his sudden appearance was enough to break off the thread of their discourse. When he was gone, Colonel Manners felt that, though De Vaux might take it up again if he would, he himself could not in propriety do so. De Vaux, however, was silent; for he was not one of those men to whom the accidents and misfortunes of their friends and relations furnished matter for pleasant discourse; and the topic of course dropped there. Perhaps, indeed, the younger traveller showed some inclination even to avoid the subject; for he led the conversation almost immediately into another channel, pointing out to his friend the various hills and landmarks which distinguished the grounds of his father from those of his aunt, and dwelling with enthusiasm upon the pleasures that his boyhood had there known, and the hopes which his return had re-awakened in his bosom; and yet there was mingled with the whole a touch of fastidiousness which contrasted strangely enough with the warmth of feeling and expression to which he gave way in other respects. He seemed to doubt the very love, the happiness of which he pictured so brightly; he seemed to distrust the joys to which he was so sensitively alive; he even seemed, in some degree, to sneer at himself for giving the credence that he did to those things which he most desired to believe true.

But Edward de Vaux had been brought up in a fastidious school. He had lived at the acmÉ of fortune and trod upon circumstances all his life, and this we hold to be the true way of becoming misanthropical. It is nonsense to suppose that a man turns misanthrope in consequence of great misfortunes. No such thing! it is by being fortunate ter et amplius. The spoiled children of the blind goddess are those that kick at her wheel; and those on whom she showers nothing but misfortunes cling tight to the tire, in hopes of a better turn, till the next whirl casts them off into the wide hereafter.

Edward de Vaux stood at the climax of fortune. Never in his life had he known what a serious reverse or great misfortune is; and consequently he had gathered together all the petty vexations and minor disappointments that he had met with, and, to use the term of Napoleon Bonaparte, had nearly stung himself to death with wasps. Perhaps, too, he might be fastidious by inheritance, for his father was so in a still higher degree than himself; though in the father it showed itself in irritable impatience, and a sort of contempt both tyrannical and insulting towards those whom he disliked; while in the son, mingled with, if not springing from, finer feelings: passing, too, through the purifying medium of a gentler heart, and corrected by a high sense of what is gentlemanly, his fastidiousness seldom showed itself except in a passing sneer at any thing that is false, affected, or absurd, in an indignant sarcasm at that which is base or evil, or in petulant irritability at that which is weak.

As he now rode onward to rejoin those friends whom he had not seen for nearly three years, accompanied by a companion who had never seen them at all, the little world of his heart was in a strange commotion. All the joy which an affectionate disposition can feel was rising up at every point against the sway of cold propriety, and yet he tormented himself with a thousand imaginary annoyances. Now he fancied that the delight he felt and expressed was undignified, and might lower him in the eyes of his companion; now he chose to doubt that his reception from those he had left behind would be warm enough to justify the exuberant pleasure that he himself experienced; while, keenly alive to the slightest ridicule, he shrunk from the idea of exposing, even to his dearest friend, one single spot in his heart to which the lash could be applied.

"I was foolish," he thought, "not to leave Manners in London for a day, and get all the joyful absurdities of a first welcome over before he came down. However, my aunt would have it so; and it cannot be avoided now."

As they proceeded, the purple of the evening died entirely away, and a gray dimness fell over tree, and stream, and hill. Star by star looked out, grew brighter and brighter, as the wandering ball on which we travel through the inconceivable depth turned our hemisphere from the superior light, and at length all was night.

In the lapse of ten minutes more, the road--which, winding about between the hills and the stream, was forced often out of its true direction,--had conducted them to a steep bank overhanging a wider part of the valley, and here Colonel Manners divined--for he could scarcely be said to see--that a scattered but considerable village lay before them. Up and down the sides of the hill, a hundred twinkling lights in cottage windows were sprinkled like glow-worms among the darker masses of orchard and copsewood; and now and then, as the travellers advanced, a bright glare suddenly flashed forth from some opening door; and then again was as speedily extinguished, when the entrance or the exit of the visiter was accomplished. Some watchful dog, too, caught the sound of horses' feet, and, after one or two desultory barks, set up his tongue into a continual peal. His neighbours of the canine race took the signal, and--not at all unlike the human species--ever inclined to clamour, yelped forth in concert, whether they had heard or not the noise that roused their comrade's indignation, so that the village was soon one continued roar with the efforts of various hairy throats.

The salutation, however, was sweet to Edward de Vaux, for it spoke of home--or at least of a dwelling that was dearer than any other home he might possess; and, pausing a moment, he pointed onward to a spot, where, on the edge of the hill beyond the village, might be seen, cutting sharp upon the pale silvery gray of the western sky, the dark outline of a large house, with a plentiful supply of chimneys, of an architecture somewhat less light and fanciful than that of Palladio, but very well suited to a dwelling in the land of peace and comfort.

"That is my aunt's house," said De Vaux, "and, though it is nearly three miles by the road from the spot where that horseman passed us, it is not much more than three-quarters of a mile by the path over the hill. But that path," he added, "is impracticable for horses, or I should certainly have risked breaking your neck, Manners, rather than take this long tedious round."

Now, strange to say, the round that they had taken seemed longer and more tedious to Edward de Vaux, when he came within sight of the mansion which was to end his journey, than it had done at any other moment of the ride. But so it was; and without inquiring into things with which we have nothing to do, we may conclude that he felt some of those vague, unreasonable doubts and apprehensions, which almost every one experiences on the first view of one's home after a long absence--those fears which are the very children of our hopes--that anxiety which the uncertainty of human fate impresses upon our minds, till we are sure that all is well. Who is there that has not gazed up at his own dwelling-place as he returned from far, and asked himself, with a sudden consciousness of the instability of all things, "Shall I find nothing gone amiss? Has no misfortune trod that threshold? Has disease or sorrow never visited it? Has death turned his steps aside?"

Whatever it was that Edward de Vaux felt, although the round seemed a long one, and the time tedious that it had consumed, he yet drew in his rein, not so as to bring his horse quite up, but to check him into a walk; while he pointed out the house to his companion, and gazed at its dark and distant mass himself. At that very moment, a single ray glimmered in one of the windows, passed on into another, and then three windows suddenly streamed forth with light. It looked like a beacon to say that all was well; and though no man in the present day cares a straw for things that in other years, when skilfully applied, have won battles and overthrown dynasties--I mean omens--yet every man has a silent, unacknowledged, foolish little system of augury of his own; and Edward de Vaux and his companion, at the sight of this dexter omen, set spurs to their horses, and rode merrily on their way.