The History of Sir Richard Calmady. Lucas Malet

And, in the chronicles of this delightful dwelling-place, even as in those of Eden itself, the angels are proven not to have had things altogether their own gracious way.

      The pierced stone parapet, which runs round three sides of the house, and constitutes, architecturally, one of its most noteworthy features, is broken in the centre of the north front by a tall, stepped and sharply pointed gable, flanked on either hand by slender, four-sided pinnacles. From the niche in the said gable, arrayed in sugar-loaf hat, full doublet and trunk hose, his head a trifle bent so that the tip of his pointed beard rests on the pleatings of his marble ruff, a carpenter's rule in his right hand, Sir Denzil Calmady gazes meditatively down. Delicate, coral-like tendrils of the Virginian creeper, which covers the house walls, and strays over the bay windows of the Long Gallery below, twine themselves yearly about his ankles and his square-toed shoes. The swallows yearly attempt to fix their gray, mud nests against the flutings of the scallop-shell canopy sheltering his bowed head; and are yearly ejected by cautious gardeners armed with imposing array of ladders and conscious of no little inward reluctance to face the dangers of so aerial a height.

      And here, it may not be unfitting to make further mention of that same little spot of darkness, germ of canker, echo of the cry of fear, that had come to mar the fair records of Brockhurst For very certain it was that among the varying scenes, moving merry or majestic, upon which Sir Denzil had looked down during the two and a quarter centuries of his sojourn in the lofty niche of the northern gable, there was one his eyes had never yet rested upon—one matter, and that a very vital one, to which had he applied his carpenter's rule the measure of it must have proved persistently and grievously short.

      Along the straight walks, across the smooth lawns, and beside the brilliant flower-borders of the formal gardens, he had seen generations of babies toddle and stagger, with gurglings of delight, as they clutched at glancing bird or butterfly far out of reach. He had seen healthy, clean-limbed, boisterous lads and dainty, little maidens laugh and play, quarrel, kiss, and be friends again. He had seen ardent lovers—in glowing June twilights, while the nightingales shouted from the laurels, or from the coppices in the park below—driven to the most desperate straits, to visions of cold poison, of horse-pistols, of immediate enlistment, or the consoling arms of Betty the housemaid, by the coquetries of some young lady captivating in powder and patches, or arrayed in the high-waisted, agreeably-revealing costume which our grandmothers judged it not improper to wear in their youth. He had seen husband and wife, too, wandering hand in hand at first, tenderly hopeful and elate. And then, sometimes, as the years lengthened—they growing somewhat sated with the ease of their high estate—he had seen them hand in hand no longer, waxing cold and indifferent, debating even, at moments, reproachfully whether they might not have invested the capital of their affections to better advantage elsewhere.

      All this and much more Sir Denzil had seen, and doubtless measured, for all that he appears so immovably calm and apart. But that which he had never yet seen was a man of his name and race, full of years and honours, come slowly forth from the stately house to sun himself, morning or evening, in the comfortable shelter of the high, red-brick, rose-grown garden walls. Looking the while, with the pensive resignation of old age, at the goodly, wide-spreading prospect. Smiling again over old jokes, warming again over old stories of prowess with horse and hound, or rod and gun. Feeling the eyes moisten again at the memory of old loves, and of those far-away first embraces which seemed to open the gates of paradise and create the world anew; at remembrances of old hopes too, which proved still-born, and of old distresses, which often enough proved still-born likewise—the whole of these simplified now, sanctified, the tumult of them stilled, along with the hot, young blood which went to make them, by the kindly torpor of increasing age and the approaching footsteps of greatly reconciling Death.

      For Sir Denzil's male descendants, one and all—so says tradition, so say too the written and printed family records, the fine monuments in the chancel of Sandyfield Church, and more than one tombstone in the yew-shaded church-yard—have displayed a disquieting incapacity for living to the permitted "threescore years and ten," let alone fourscore, and dying decently, in ordinary, commonplace fashion, in their beds. Mention is made of casualties surprising in number and variety; and not always, it must be owned, to the moral credit of those who suffered them. It is told how Sir Thomas, grandson of Sir Denzil, died miserably of gangrene, caused by a tear in the arm from the antler of a wounded buck. How his nephew Zachary—who succeeded him—was stabbed during a drunken brawl in an eating-house in the Strand. How the brother of the said Zachary, a gallant young soldier, was killed at the battle of Ramillies in 1706. Dueling, lightning during a summer storm, even the blue-brown waters of the Brockhurst Lake in turn claim a victim. Later it is told how a second Sir Denzil, after hard fighting to save his purse, was shot by highwaymen on Bagshot Heath, when riding with a couple of servants—not notably distinguished, as it would appear, for personal valour—from Brockhurst up to town.

      Lastly comes Courtney Calmady, who, living in excellent repute until close upon sixty, seemed destined by Providence to break the evil chain of the family fate. But he too goes the way of all flesh, suddenly enough, after a long run with the hounds, owing to the opening of a wound, received when he was little more than a lad, at the taking of Frenchtown under General Proctor, during the second American war. So he too died, and they buried him with much honest mourning, as befitted so kindly and honourable a gentleman; and his son Richard—of whom more hereafter—reigned in his stead.

      CHAPTER II

      GIVING THE VERY EARLIEST INFORMATION OBTAINABLE OF THE HERO OF THIS BOOK

      It happened in this way, towards the end of August, 1842.

      In the gray of the summer evening, as the sunset faded and the twilight gathered, spreading itself tenderly over the pastures and corn-fields—over the purple-green glooms of the fir forest—over the open moors, whose surface is scored for miles by the turf-slane of the cottager and squatter—over the clear brown streams that trickle out of the pink and emerald mosses of the peat-bogs, and gain volume and vigour as they sparkle away by woodside, and green-lane, and village street—and over those secret, bosky places, in the heart of the great common-lands, where the smooth, white stems and glossy foliage of the self-sown hollies spring up between the roots of the beech trees, where plovers cry, and stoat and weazel lurk and scamper, while the old poacher's lean, ill-favoured, rusty-coloured lurcher picks up a shrieking hare, and where wandering bands of gypsies—those lithe, onyx-eyed children of the magic East—still pitch their dirty, little, fungus-like tents around the camp-fire—as the sunset died and the twilight thus softly widened and deepened, Lady Calmady found herself, for the first time during all the long summer day, alone.

      For though no royal personage had graced the occasion with his presence, nor had bears suffered martyrdom to promote questionably amiable mirth, Brockhurst, during the past week, had witnessed a series of festivities hardly inferior to those which marked Sir Denzil's historic house-warming. Young Sir Richard Calmady had brought home his bride, and it was but fitting the whole countryside should see her. So all and sundry received generous entertainment according to their degree.—Labourers, tenants, school-children. Weary old-age from Pennygreen poorhouse taking its pleasure of cakes and ale half suspiciously in the broad sunshine. The leading shopkeepers of Westchurch and their humbler brethren from Farley Row. All the country gentry too. Lord and Lady Fallowfeild and a goodly company from Whitney Park, Lord Denier and a large contingent from Grimshott Place, the Cathcarts of Newlands, and many more persons of undoubted consequence—specially perhaps in their own eyes.

      Not to mention a small army of local clergy—who ever display a touching alacrity in attending festivals, even those of a secular character—with camp-followers, in the form of wives and families, galore.

      And now, at last, all was over—balls, sports, theatricals, dinners—the last in the case of the labourers, with the unlovely adjunct of an ox roasted whole. Even the final garden-party, designed to include such persons as it was, socially speaking, a trifle difficult to place—Image, owner of the big Shotover brewery, for instance, who was shouldering his way so vigorously towards fortune and a seat on the bench of magistrates; the younger members of the firm of Goteway & Fox, Solicitors of Westchurch; Goodall, the Methodist miller from Parson's Holt, and certain sporting yeoman farmers with their comely womankind—even this