Those who have remained any time in Dorchester or its neighborhood will know that within a circle of not many miles' diameter around that town, there are many spots to be found as wild and solitary as in any part of the island of Great Britain; on the side of Weymouth especially, there are some scenes in the midst of which one might fancy one's self very far removed, indeed, from the high cultivation which closely surrounds them. In the days of James the Second, when agriculture, as a science, had made very little advance upon the knowledge possessed by the Anglo-Saxons, and when cultivation had spread but slowly under the influence of a great many deterring causes, these solitary spots were, of course, more numerous in all counties of England; and it was upon one of these in Dorsetshire, not very many miles distant from the capital of the county, that was built an ancient, fortified house, dating probably from two centuries before. It was placed upon an eminence overhanging a river, brief in its course, and utterly unimportant till it reached a point about five miles from its mouth, where it widened out into a creek or narrow bay of salt water, which afforded a convenient refuge for fishing-boats. Near a spot where the first considerable extension of the banks of the stream took place, a sort of sandy bar had formed itself, marking the navigable from the unnavigable water, and it was just at this point that the house, or castle as it was called, had been built. I will name the river the Orme; and from it and the sandy bar I have mentioned, the house had derived the name of Orme-bar Castle.
The ground around was covered with smooth, green turf, or short, but rich grass, disposed in easy undulations, and watered by many a clear and beautiful stream, and such a thing as a hedgerow or a wall was not to be seen for some miles round the inclosure of the park. It was a gloomy-looking building too, consisting of tall, wide, irregular masses of masonry, put together any how; and one could easily see from the outside, from the numerous and very much varied windows, and from the irregular distribution of the chimneys about the house, that in searching for any room within, one might have a real journey to go, in order to reach a door hard by.
It was in this curious old building, and amid the solitary scene around, that a little party had met together on the night of Margaret's visit to Hortensia. The kitchen and the hall were well tenanted--better, indeed, than they had been for many a year--for a large household had been transported there from a distant part of the country, and two or three old servants, who had remained for years in the place, were added to those who had freshly arrived. But in a large, curious, old-fashioned hall above, only three persons were seated at the hour of sunset. They were a mother and her two sons, and they grouped themselves together near the window, not to watch the passing away of the western light, but upon business which two of them, at least, considered of no light importance. In the midst, on a tall, high-backed, velvet-covered chair, with a foot-stool under her feet, sat old Lady Coldenham. Her eldest son was on her right hand, looking somewhat listlessly out toward the sea, in a direction where the tower of a little church was just visible over the slope of the ground. His arm was thrown over the back of the chair, his head leaning somewhat on one side, and his whole figure disposed in an attitude of graceful idleness. On the other side appeared his brother Robert, with a very different air. He leaned rather forward than otherwise, with his right hand resting on his knee, and his eyes fixed on his mother, as if watching for some oracular word from her lips.
At length, as the day began to grow dim, Robert inquired, "Shall I call for lights, madam?"
"No," replied Lady Coldenham; "I love this sort of light--ay, and enjoy seeing the stars come out one by one, when darkness resumes her sway over the earth like a powerful monarch triumphing in stern, proud serenity over some weak and glittering pretender who had disputed his sway. Besides, Robert, it is full as well to talk of all we have to notice under the shadow."
She paused, and relapsed into silence again; and then, when the sky was nearly dark, she said, "You have done your part well, Robert; and now we must make sure that the blow goes home. You have lodged him in prison as you promised--but he must die."
"I think you may leave that to the care of the good old lord," replied Robert. "He is as eager for his blood as a hound for the blood of a deer."
"I will leave it to no one with entire trust," replied Lady Coldenham; "too much depends upon him to have any thing risked upon the conduct of a blundering old man, or a heedless, inattentive lawyer."
"I wonder what poor Ralph has done," said Lord Coldenham, breaking silence for the first time during a quarter of an hour, "to make you two so bitterly his enemies. One pursues him like a blood-hound, and the other says he must die."
Lady Coldenham fixed her large dark eyes upon him with a look of angry astonishment; but the young lord had long been growing somewhat restive, and he repeated, "I wonder what he has done, I say--what is his fault, I should like to know?"