This exquisite pause in life was suddenly ended by an exclamation from the Judge. They were at the great iron gates of Rawdon Park, and soon were slowly traversing its woody solitudes. The soft light, the unspeakable green of the turf, the voice of ancient days murmuring in the great oak trees, the deer asleep among the ferns, the stillness of the summer afternoon filling the air with drowsy peace this was the atmosphere into which they entered. Their road through this grand park of three hundred acres was a wide, straight avenue shaded with beech trees. The green turf on either hand was starred with primroses. In the deep undergrowth, ferns waved and fanned each other, and the scent of hidden violets saluted as they passed. Drowsily, as if half asleep, the blackbirds whistled their couplets, and in the thickest hedges the little brown thrushes sang softly to their brooding mates. For half an hour they kept this heavenly path, and then a sudden turn brought them their first sight of the old home.
It was a stately, irregular building of red brick, sandaled and veiled in ivy. The numerous windows were all latticed, the chimneys in picturesque stacks, the sloping roof made of flags of sandstone. It stood in the center of a large garden, at the bottom of which ran a babbling little river—a cheerful tongue of life in the sweet, silent place. They crossed it by a pretty bridge, and in a few minutes stood at the great door of the mansion. It was wide open, and the Squire, with outstretched hands, rose to meet them. While yet upon the threshold he kissed both Ethel and Ruth, and, clasping the Judge’s hand, gazed at him with such a piercing, kindly look that the eyes of both men filled with tears.
He led them into the hall, and standing there he seemed almost a part of it. In his youth he had been a son of Anak, and his great size had been matched by his great strength. His stature was still large, his face broad and massive, and an abundance of snow-white hair emphasized the dignity of a countenance which age had made nobler. The generations of eight hundred years were crystallized in this benignant old man, looking with such eager interest into the faces of his strange kindred from a far-off land.
In the evening they sat together in the old hall talking of the Rawdons. “There is great family of us, living and dead,” said the Squire, “and I count them all my friends. Bare is the back that has no kin behind it. That is not our case. Eight hundred years ago there was a Rawdon in Rawdon, and one has never been wanting since. Saxon, Danish, Norman, and Stuart kings have been and gone their way, and we remain; and I can tell you every Rawdon born since the House of Hanover came to England. We have had our share in all England’s strife and glory, for if there was ever a fight going on anywhere Rawdon was never far off. Yes, we can string the centuries together in the battle flags we have won. See there!” he cried, pointing to two standards interwoven above the central chimney-piece; “one was taken from the Paynim in the first Crusade, and the other my grandson took in Africa. It seems but yesterday, and Queen Victoria gave him the Cross for it. Poor lad, he had it on when he died. It went to the grave with him. I wouldn’t have it touched. I fancy the Rawdons would know it. No one dare say they don’t. I think they meddle a good deal more with this life than we count on.”
The days that followed were days in The House Wonderful. It held the treasure-trove of centuries; all its rooms were full of secrets. Even the common sitting-room had an antique homeliness that provoked questions as to the dates of its furniture and the whereabouts of its wall cupboards and hidden recesses. Its china had the marks of forgotten makers, its silver was puzzling with half-obliterated names and dates, its sideboard of oak was black with age and full of table accessories, the very names of which were forgotten. For this house had not been built in the ordinary sense, it had grown through centuries; grown out of desire and necessity, just as a tree grows, and was therefore fit and beautiful. And it was no wonder that about every room floated the perfume of ancient things and the peculiar family aura that had saturated all the inanimate objects around them.
In a few days, life settled itself to orderly occupations. The Squire was a late riser; the Judge and his family breakfasted very early. Then the two women had a ride in the park, or wandered in the garden, or sat reading, or sewing, or writing in some of the sweet, fair rooms. Many visitors soon appeared, and there were calls to return and courtesies to accept. Among these visitors the Tyrrel-Rawdons were the earliest. The representatives of that family were Nicholas Rawdon and his wife Lydia. Nicholas Rawdon was a large, stout man, very arrogant, very complete, very alert for this world, and not caring much about the other. He was not pleased at Judge Rawdon’s visit, but thought it best to be cousinly until his cousin interfered with his plans—“rights” he called them—“and then!” and his “THEN” implied a great deal, for Nicholas Rawdon was a man incapable of conceiving the idea of loving an enemy.
His wife was a pleasant, garrulous woman, who interested Ethel very much. Her family was her chief topic of conversation. She had two daughters, one of whom had married a baronet, “a man with money and easy to manage”; and the other, “a rich cotton lord in Manchester.”
“They haven’t done badly,” she said confidentially, “and it’s a great thing to get girls off your hands early. Adelaide and Martha were well educated and suitable, but,” she added with a glow of pride, “you should see my John Thomas. He’s manager of the mill, and he loves the mill, and he knows every pound of warp or weft that comes in or goes out of the mill; and what his father would do without him, I’m sure I don’t know. And he is a member of Parliament, too—Radical ticket. Won over Mostyn. Wiped Mostyn out pretty well. That was a thing to do, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose Mr. Mostyn was the Conservative candidate?”
“You may be sure of that. But my John Thomas doesn’t blame him for it—the gentry have to be Conservatives. John Thomas said little against his politics; he just set the crowd laughing at his ways—his dandified ways. And he tried to wear one eyeglass, and let it fall, and fall, and then told the men ‘he couldn’t manage half a pair of spectacles; but he could manage their interests and fight for their rights,’ and such like talk. And he walked like Mostyn, and he talked like Mostyn, and spread out his legs, and twirled his walking stick like Mostyn, and asked them ‘if they would wish him to go to Parliament in that kind of a shape, as he’d try and do it if they wanted a tailor-made man’; and they laughed him down, and then he spoke reasonable to them. John Thomas knows what Yorkshire weavers want, and he just prom-ised them everything they had set their hearts on; and so they sent him to Parliament, and Mostyn went to America, where, perhaps, they’ll teach him that a man’s life is worth a bit more than a bird or a rabbit. Mostyn is all for preserving game, and his father was a mean creature. When one thinks of his father, one has to excuse the young man a little bit.”