The boy caught his hand, and kissed it; and Smeaton went on, more lightly, saying--
"To-morrow, you shall have your first lesson in the art of using it."
"Oh, let me come and see," cried Emmeline, eagerly.
"Nay, I must refuse you," answered Smeaton. "Every one is awkward in his first essays, and you must not see your young cousin exhibit till he is somewhat of a master in the art of fence. Am I not right, Sir John?"
"Perfectly, perfectly," replied Sir John Newark. "You must content yourself, Emmeline, with listening to the stamping, only thankful if it does not bring the old house down; for I can assure you an assaut d'armes is no joke in a peaceable dwelling."
The lesson was given, and certainly Richard Newark was awkward enough; but he was proud and pleased, and the rest of that second day was spent in rides about the country. The third day passed much in the same manner, without any event of note; but, as the proceedings of the fourth day will require somewhat more detail, I shall reserve them for the following chapter.
CHAPTER VII.
An old Norman church, built in the earliest style of that fine but somewhat heavy architecture, stands about five miles from Ale Head and Bay, upon the slope of a gentle hill, with many other hills around it. It is a large structure for the present population of the adjacent country, if one may judge from the appearance of the land immediately round. The hill is part of a long range of downs, undivided by enclosure, and covered by short dry sward, very much like that which spreads over Ale Head itself. No trees are to be seen as far as the eye can reach, except, indeed, two old yew trees standing close to the church, and, probably, planted there by Saxon hands long before the first stone of the present edifice was laid. So close are they, indeed, that the long branches of one of them wave against the mouldings of one of the deep round arched windows, and would, in stormy weather, break the lozenges of the casement were they not kept under by the pruning-knife or shears. A piece of ground is taken in from the hill to form the burial-ground, and is surrounded by a low wall, with only one entrance, covered over with a penthouse raised upon high posts. By this gate, pass in and out all who come to the consecrated ground; the child, to its baptism, the gay wedding party, to the altar; the congregation, to the worship of God; the corpse, to the grave.
About three or four hundred yards below the church, in the bottom of the little valley, through which runs a stream of the clearest and brightest water, are four or five small houses, or cottages, I should call them, built of the grey stone of the country, and most of them thatched. One, however, is of two stories, and has a tiled roof. They have all their little gardens attached, and are kept in tolerably neat order; yet, then one looks at this little hamlet from the downs above, and sees it lying grey upon the green and undivided turf, it has a desolate and neglected look, as if it had been left behind in the world's march to rest in the desert expanse around it. Except those two old yews, there is not a tree near bigger than a currant-bush.
Neither is there any other house to be seen, look which way you will; for the wide downs only serve for sheep-pasture, and have such a look of depopulation that, in some of the slopes of the ground, one might fancy one was standing alone upon the earth, just after the universal deluge had subsided. I know not whether it looks more lonely when all the heavens are covered with grey clouds, or when the bright sun shines upon it from the broad undimmed sky.