"Truly a fine-looking people!" said my mother. "And the cottages are far better than I expected to see in these remote parts."
"That is mostly my late mistress' doing," remarked Master Penrose. "She could abide naught like sluttishness, or waste, or unthrift, and made constant war on them. Then we have an excellent parish priest—no drunken Sir John, like him down at the place we left this morning but a good and devout man, whose life is as pure as his prayers. Sir Stephen, there stands an old playmate of yours and mine—old Jasper, who helped us to take the falcons on the cliff."
My father must needs stop to see his ancient friend, and we soon had a crowd about us, all naturally eager to see their new lady and their old friend Master Joslyn. But they were no ways rude or prying, and when we rode away, followed us with many good wishes and welcomes, or so my cousin said, for they almost all speak the Cornish tongue, which, of course, is so much Greek to me.
Our road, now a fairly good one, led us away from the village, and skirted a long and high hill, near the top of which was perched the church, with a very high gray tower.
"What an odd place for the church!" says Harry.
"Yes, they say the devil had a hand in the building of many of our Cornish churches, and I don't wonder," answered Cousin Joslyn: "they are put in such inaccessible places. In the winter storms 'tis all but impossible for the village folk to reach this one, and my Lady had a scheme for erecting a chapel down in the hamlet yonder, but she never carried it out."
We went on for nearly another mile, rising ever higher, though by somewhat slow gradations, till we reached all at once the top of the ridge. Then what a view burst upon us! There was the sea standing up like a blue wall, so high were we above it, the land falling off to our right in a sheer precipice, at the foot of which were jagged rocks, among which the waves broke wildly, though it was a clear, calm day. In front of us opened a lovely valley—what we in our parts call a coombe—filled with woods, among which roared a brawling stream, which tumbled into the glen at the upper end in a fine cataract, of which we could catch a glimpse.
Nestling in the mouth of this glen, with a south-western exposure, lay the gray old house of Tremador, surrounded with great nut trees, and one huge pile of verdure, which Cousin Joslyn said was a Spanish chestnut. It had a homelike look to mine eyes from the first.
"The old house looks just the same," quoth my father: "I could expect to find my aunt seated in her parlor, with her cat and its kitlings in a basket by her side, just as I left them thirty years agone."
"You will find the cat and the kitlings, though not quite the same that you left," answered Cousin Joslyn. "But the house can never be the same to me again, now that my dear old friend and mistress is gone! But here we are. Welcome home to your own house, my fair Cousin Rosamond! Master Toby, you remember my Cousin Stephen; and this is his Lady, and this is Mistress Rosamond, your new lady and mistress."