Like more than one old northern family, the Cheynes of Essilmont were supposed—nay, were confidently alleged—to have a mysterious warning of death or approaching woe, such as the spectre drummer whose beat at Cortachy announces when fate is nigh the 'bonnie House of Airlie,' like the bell of Coull that tolls of itself when a Dorward dies, the hairy-handed Meg Moulach of the Grants, the headless horseman of Maclean, or the solitary swan that floats on a certain lake at times fatal to another race; and so the Cheynes of Essilmont were supposed to be haunted by a spectral black hound, in the appearance of which Sir Ranald strove to disbelieve in spite of himself, though its solemn baying had been heard when Ellon died in India and his mother in London; and as for old Archy Auchindoir, the family factotum, he believed in it as he did in his own existence.
'Original sin,' i.e., the accumulated debts of a generation or two past, with his own mad extravagance in youth, had so completely impaired Sir Ranald's exchequer that, on a few hundreds per annum, the wreck of all his fortune, he was compelled, though not content, to live, 'vegetate' he deemed it, quietly in an old house in Hampshire; and times there were when in the great weariness of his heart—especially after the death of his two sons—he often thought, could he but see Alison provided for as he wished, he had no other desire than to be laid where many of his ancestors lay, a right which none could deny him, in the ancient chapel of Essilmont, where often he had with envy regarded the stiff and prostrate mailed effigies on their altar tombs, lying there with sword and shield, their faces expressive of stern serenity, and their hands folded in eternal prayer.
Chilcote, his present abode, was buried deep in woods that must have been a portion of the New Forest or the relics thereof, and had been built somewhere about the time of Queen Anne. Thus a great amount of solid oak formed a portion of its structure; and in the principal rooms the mantel-pieces ascended in carved work nearly to the ceilings, while the jambs were of massive stone, with caryatides, like the god Terminus, wreathed to the waist in leaves, supporting the entablatures.
The walls were divided into compartments by moulded panelling, painted with imaginary landscapes and ruins; the armorial bearings of the Chilcotes of other days; and beneath the surbase (or chairbelt, as it used to be called) were smaller panels, all painted with fruit and flowers.
The windows were deeply embayed, with cushioned seats. One of these was, in the summer evenings, the favourite niche in which Alison was wont to perch herself with one of Mudie's latest novels.
The furniture was all old, faded, 'shabby,' Alison truly deemed it; but in tone it seemed much in unison with the rooms, on the walls of which her father had hung a few family pictures, the pride of his heart, gentlemen in ruffs and cloaks, dames in stomachers and capuchins, and two there were in whom he loved to trace a fancied resemblance to his dead sons, Ranald and Ellon, for they were brothers, and bore the same names—Ranald Cheyne, who fell at the head of the Scots Life Guards at Worcester, and Ellon Cheyne, who had died previously at the storming of Newcastle; both men portrayed in the gorgeous costume of their time, and both looked to the life, 'blue-blooded Scottish cavaliers, pale, smooth-skinned, with moustache and love lock, haughty and imperious,' and each with an expression of face that seemed to say they would have thought as little of spitting a crop-eared roundhead as a lark, with their long Toledoes.
On the day after the hunt Lord Cadbury's groom, Gaskins, came riding to Chilcote with a magnificent bouquet from the conservatories for Alison, and his master's anxious inquiries as to how she had enjoyed the sport of the previous day, and a hope that she had not suffered from fatigue; and Alison, as she buried her pretty pink nostrils among the cool and fragrant roses, smiled covertly and mischievously as she heard from Gaskins how his master had 'got such a precious spill by funking at a bull-finch, when the hounds were thrown off, that he would be confined to the house for some days.'
Thus for a time she would be free from the annoyance of his presence.
Archie, the white-haired man-of-all-work, gave Mr. Gaskins a tankard of beer after he had leaped into his saddle, where he took what Archie called a 'standing drink, like the coo o' Forfar.' Lord Cadbury's powdered servants, in elaborate liveries, were always a source of supreme contempt (mingled, perhaps, with envy) to Sir Ranald's staunch henchman, and now he felt inclined to sneer if he could at the well-appointed groom, in his dark grey surtout, waistbelt, cockade, and top-boots.
'Braw leathers, thae o' yours,' said he, regarding the latter with some interest.