kind face was still before me, and her words of comfort and promise in my ears. The early sharpness of morning was still in the air; the frosty dew still glistened on the window-panes. We had made a hasty breakfast, my share of which was a single cup of tea. The aspect of the house how strange! Uncarpeted, uninhabited, doors for the most part locked, all the servants but Mrs. Rusk and Branston departed. The drawing-room door stood open, and a charwoman was washing the bare floor. I was looking my last — for who could say how long? — on the old house, and lingered. The luggage was all up. I made Mary Quince get in first, for every delay was precious; and now he moment was come. I hugged and kissed Mrs. Rusk in the hall.
“God bless you, Miss Maud, darling. You must not fret; mind, the time won’t be long going over — no time at all; and you’ll be bringing back a fine young gentleman — who know? as great as the Duke of Wellington, for your husband; and I’ll take the best care of everything, and the birds and the dogs, till you come back; and I’ll go and see you and Mary, if you’ll allow, in Derbyshire;” and so forth.
I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door, good-bye, and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and drying her eyes and courtesying on the hall-door steps. The dogs, who had started gleefully with the carriage, were called back by Branston, and driven home, wondering and wistful, looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails dejected. My heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a stranger, and very desolate.
It was a bright, clear morning. I had been settled that it was not worth the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway for sake of five-and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of sixty miles was to be made by the post road — the pleasantest travelling, if the mind were free. The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well enough from the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history; and that we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It was more than travelling picquet. Something of all conditions of life — luxury and misery — high spirits and low; — all sorts of costume, livery, rags, millinery; faces buxom, faces wrinkled, faces kind, faces wicked; — no end of interest and suggestion, passing in a procession silent and vivid, and all in their proper scenery. The golden corn-sheafs — the old dark-alleyed orchards, and the high streets of antique towns. There were few dreams brighter, few books so pleasant.
We drove by the dark wood — it always looked dark to me — where the “mausoleum” stands — where my dear parents both lay now. I gazed on its sombre masses not with a softened feeling, but a peculiar sense of pain, and was glad when it was quite past.
All the morning I had not shed a tear. Good Mary Quince cried at leaving Knowl; Lady Knollys’ eyes were not dry as she kissed and blessed me, and promised an early visit; and the dark, lean, energetic face of the housekeeper was quivering, and her cheeks wet, as I drove away. But I, whose grief was sorest, never shed a tear. I only looked about from one familiar object to another, pale, excited, not quite apprehending my departure, and wondering at my own composure.
But when we reached the old bridge, with the tall osiers standing by the buttress, and looked back at poor Knowl — the places we love and are leaving look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear distance, and this is the finest view of the gabled old house, with its slanting meadow-lands and noble timber reposing in solemn groups — I gazed at the receding vision, and the tears came at last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture was hidden from view by the intervening uplands.
I was relieved, and when we had made our next change of horses, and got into a country that was unknown to me, the new scenery and the sense of progress worked their accustomed effects on a young traveller who had lived a particularly secluded life, and I began to experience, on the whole, a not unpleasurable excitement.
Mary Quince and I, with the hopefulness of inexperienced travellers, began already to speculate about our proximity to Bartram–Haugh, and were sorely disappointed when we heard from the nondescript courier — more like a ostler than a servant, who sat behind in charge of us and the luggage, and represented my guardian’s special care — at nearly one o’clock, that we had still forty miles to go, a considerable portion of which was across the high Derbyshire mountains, before we reached Bartram–Haugh.
The fact was, we had driven at a pace accommodated rather to the convenience of the horses than to our impatience; and finding, at the quaint little inn where we now halted, that we must wait for a nail or two in a loose shoe of one of our relay, we consulted, and being both hungry, agreed to beguile the time with an early dinner, which we enjoyed very sociably in a queer little parlour with a bow window, and commanding, with a little garden for foreground, a very pretty landscape.
Good Mary Quince, like myself, had quite dried her tears by this time, and we were both highly interested, and I a little nervous, too, about our arrival and reception at Bartram. Some time, of course, was lost in this pleasant little parlour, before we found ourselves once more pursuing our way.
The slowest part of our journey was the pull up the long mountain road, ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. I forget the name of the pretty little group of houses — it did not amount to a village — buried in trees, where we got our four horses and two postilions, for the work was severe. I can only designate it as the place where Mary Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and bought some gingerbread, very curious to look upon, but quite uneatable.
The greater portion of the ascent, when we were fairly upon the mountain, was accomplished at a walk, and at some particularly steep points we had to get out and go on foot. But this to me was quite delightful. I had never scaled a mountain before, and the ferns and heath, the pure boisterous air, and above all the magnificent view of the rich country we were leaving behind, now gorgeous and misty in sunset tints, stretching in gentle undulations far beneath us, quite enchanted me.
We had just reached the summit when the sun went down. The low grounds at the other side were already lying in cold grey shadow, and I got the man who sat behind to point out as well as he could the site of Bartram–Haugh. But mist was gathering over all by this time. The filmy disk of the moon which was to light us on, so soon as twilight faded into night, hung high in the air. I tried to see the sable mass of wood which he described. But it was vain, and to acquire a clear idea of the place, as of its master, I must only wait that nearer view which an hour or two more would afford me.
And now we rapidly descended the mountain side. The scenery was wilder and bolder than I was accustomed to. Our road skirted the edge of a great heathy moor. The silvery light of the moon began to glimmer, and we passed a gipsy bivouac with fires alight and caldrons hanging over them. It was the first I had seen. Two or three low tents; a couple of dark, withered crones, veritable witches; a graceful girl standing behind, gazing after us; and men in odd-shaped hats, with gaudy waistcoats and bright-coloured neck-handkerchiefs and gaitered legs, stood lazily in front. They had all a wild tawdry display of colour; and a group of alders in the rear made a background of shade for tents, fires, and figures.
I opened a front window of the chariot, and called to the postboys to stop. The groom from behind came to the window.
“Are not those gipsies?” I enquired.
“Yes, please’m, them’s gipsies, sure, Miss,” he answered, glancing with that odd smile, half contemptuous, half superstitious, with which I have since often observed the peasants of Derbyshire eyeing those thievish and uncanny neighbours.
Chapter 31.
Bartram-Haugh
IN
