It is just like a bit out of a foreign country."
"That is what we tried to make it, Hugh. You see, on the side next to the house where there is a wall, we have had a Mexican view painted with a blue sky, such as we have there, and mountains, and a village at the foot of the hills. As I lie here I can fancy myself back again, if I don't look up at the sashes overhead. Oh, how I wish one could do without them, and that it could be covered with one great sheet of glass!"
"It would be better," Hugh admitted, "but it is stunning as it is. Uncle told me, as he drove me over from Carlisle, that he had been altering the conservatory, and making it a sort of sitting-room for you, but I never thought that it would be like this. What are those plants growing on the rocks?"
"Those are American aloes, they are one of our most useful plants, Hugh. They have strong fibres which we use for string, and they make a drink out of the juice fermented; it is called pulque, and is our national drink, though of late years people drink spirits too, which are bad for them, and make them quarrelsome."
During the holidays Hugh got over his former dislike for his aunt, and came to like her more than his uncle. She was always kind and pleasant with him, while he found that, although his uncle at times was very friendly, his temper was uncertain. The want of some regular occupation, and the absence of anything like excitement, told heavily upon a man accustomed to both. At first there was the interest in playing his part: of meeting people who had known him in his boyhood, of receiving and returning the visits of the few resident gentry within a circuit of ten miles, of avoiding mistakes and evading dangers; but all this was so easy that he soon tired of it. He had tried to make Lola contented, and yet her lazy contentment with her surroundings irritated him.
She had created a good impression upon the ladies who had called. The expression of her face had softened since her first visit to Carlisle, and the nervous expression that had struck Mr. Randolph then had disappeared. Her slight accent, and the foreign style of her dress, were interesting novelties to her visitors, and after the first dinner-party given in their honour, at which she appeared in a dress of dull gold with a profusion of rich black lace, she was pronounced charming. Her husband, too, was considered to be an acquisition to the county. Everyone had expected that he would have returned, after so long an absence, rough and unpolished, whereas his manners were quiet and courteous.
He was perhaps less popular among the sturdy Cumberland squires than with their wives. He did not hunt; he did not shoot. "I should have thought," one of his neighbours said to him, "that everyone who had been living a rough life in the States would have been a good shot."
"A good many of us are good shots, perhaps most of us, but it is with the pistol and rifle. Shot-guns are not of much use when you have a party of Red-skins yelling and shooting round you, and it is not a handy weapon to go and fetch when a man draws a revolver on you. As to shooting little birds, it may be done by men who live on their farms and like an occasional change from the bacon and tinned meat that they live on from year's end to year's end. Out there a hunter is a man who shoots game – I mean deer and buffalo and bear and other animals – for the sake of their skins, although, of course, he does use the meat of such as are eatable. With us a good shot means a man who can put a ball into a Red-skin's body at five hundred yards certain, and who with a pistol can knock a pipe out of a man's mouth ten yards away, twenty times following; and it isn't only straightness of shooting, but quickness of handling, that is necessary. A man has to draw, and cock, and fire, in an instant. The twinkling of an eye makes the difference of life or death.
"Oh, yes! I am a good shot, but not in your way. I went away from here too young to get to care about tramping over the country all day to shoot a dozen or two of birds, and I have never been in the way of learning to like it since. I wish I had, for it seems an important part of country life here, and I know I shall never be considered as a credit to the county unless I spend half my time in winter riding after foxes or tramping after birds; but I am afraid I am too old now ever to take to those sports. I heartily wish I could, for I find it dull having no pursuit. When a man has been earning his living by hunting, or gold digging, or prospecting for mines all his life, he finds it hard to get up in the morning and know that there is nothing for him to do but just to look round the garden or to go out for a drive merely for the sake of driving."
When summer came Mr. Tunstall found some amusements to his taste. If there was a wrestling match anywhere in the county or in Westmoreland he would be present, and he became a regular attendant at all the race-courses in the north of England. He did not bet. As he said to a sporting neighbour, who always had a ten-pound note on the principal races, "I like to bet when the chances are even, or when I can match my skill against another man's; but in this horse-racing you are risking your money against those who know more than you do. Unless you are up to all the tricks and dodges, you have no more chance of winning than a man has who gambles with a cheat who plays with marked cards. I like to go because it is an excitement; besides, at most of the large meetings there is a little gambling in the evening. In Mexico and California everyone gambles more or less. It is one of the few ways of spending money, and I like a game occasionally." The result was that Mr. Tunstall was seldom at home during the summer.
When Hugh came home his aunt said: "I have been talking to your uncle about you, and he does not care about going away this year. He has taken to have an interest in horse-racing. Of course it is a dull life for him here after leading an active one for so many years, and I am very glad he has found something to interest him."
"I should think that it is very dull for you, aunt."
"I am accustomed to be alone, Hugh. In countries where every man has to earn his living, women cannot expect to have their husbands always with them. They may be away a month at a time up in the mountains, or at the mines, or hunting in the plains. I am quite accustomed to that. But I was going to talk about you. I should like a change, and you and I will go away where we like. Not, of course, to travel about as we did last year, but to any seaside place you would like to go to. We need not stop all the time at one, but can go to three or four of them. I have been getting some books about them lately, and I think it would be most pleasant to go down to Devonshire. There seem to be lots of pretty watering-places there, and the climate is warmer than in the towns on the east coast."
"I should like it very much, aunt; but I should like a fortnight here first, if you don't mind. My pony wants exercise terribly, Jim says. He has been out at grass for months now; besides, I shall forget how to ride if I don't have some practice."
So for the next fortnight Hugh was out from morning until night either riding or sailing with Gowan, and then he went south with his aunt and spent the rest of his holidays in Devonshire and Cornwall. He had a delightful time of it, his aunt allowing him to do just as he liked in the way of sailing and going out excursions. She always took rooms overlooking the sea, and was well content to sit all day at the open window; seldom moving until towards evening, when she would go out for a stroll with Hugh. Occasionally she would take long drives with him in a pony-carriage; but she seldom proposed these expeditions. As Hugh several times met with schoolfellows, and always struck up an acquaintance a few hours after arriving at a place with some of the boatmen and fishermen, he never found it dull. At first he was disposed to pity his aunt and to urge her to go out with him; but she assured him that she was quite contented to be alone, and to enjoy the sight of the sea and to breathe the balmy air.
"I have not enjoyed myself so much, Hugh," she said when the holidays were drawing to a close, "since I was a girl."
"I am awfully glad of that, aunt. I have enjoyed myself tremendously; but it always seems to me that it must be dull for you."
"You English never seem to be happy unless you are exerting yourselves, Hugh; but that is not our idea of happiness. People in warm climates find their pleasure in sitting still, in going out after the heat of the day is over for a promenade, and in listening to the music, just as we have been doing here. Besides it has been a pleasure to me to see that you have been happy."
When
