The moon shone peacefully over the park as they crossed it, and made silvery sparkles on the windows of the long, fashionable row of houses.
The trees stood out in the uncertain lights, with early spring leaves upon them. The long rows of lamps looked yellow and out of place in the pure light of the moon; and the distant whistle of a railway engine seemed all the more to mark the morning stillness.
That whistle came home to Lionel Hammerton; it seemed to upbraid him, and at the same time invite him to the country of the Berne Hills. He had promised to return to his brother (who had been lying ill there for several weeks) two days ago; but the infatuation of play had come upon him, and his large losses of this evening had prompted him to endeavour to retrieve his ill-luck on the morrow. Mr. Gibbs had promised him his revenge, and Tallant and he were pledged to visit the Ashford on the next night.
Mr. Tallant was light-hearted enough over his losses, whilst Hammerton sat gloomily thinking of his, and the sick brother, for whom he had a real affection. Mr. Richard Tallant hummed bits of an operatic chorus, and the most popular bars of the latest waltz.
The two card acquaintances said scarcely a word until they bade each other good-night; and before Mr. Tallant was up the next day the Hon. Lionel Hammerton was steaming away on the Great Western to the halls of his fathers by the Berne Hills.
A glorious old place that castle where Earl Verner resided, full of odd nooks and corners, with quaint gables, and grey, ivy-clad turrets; a castle which had held out for months during the great rebellion. The older portion had been supplemented with some new buildings designed in harmony with the ancient architecture of the original building.
Before this history is complete the reader may be called upon to visit Montem Castle: until then it is not necessary, perhaps, to say more than that it was the ancient seat of the Verner family.
CHAPTER IX.
WHICH INTRODUCES THE READER TO THE SUMMER-HOUSE ON BERNE HILLS, AND ILLUSTRATES THE TRUTH OF AN OLD PROVERB ABOUT EAVES-DROPPERS.
It was pleasantly situated at the top of Berne Hills. It had originally been a watch-tower, but Mr. Tallant had converted it into what they called the summer-house. There were comfortable seats in it, and a few odd books and pictures. It commanded sixty miles or more of scenery, flat, undulating, and mountainous; wood, water, and pastures; towns, villages, and hamlets.
You might search the country through, and not find a scene more truly English and more perfectly beautiful. In spring, if you journeyed to that summit from Barton Hall, when the sun was shining and the sky serene, you might fancy yourself in the Happy Valley indeed.