The parish of Nowelhurst straggles away far into the depths of the forest. To the southward indeed it has moorland and heather, with ridges, and spinneys, and views of the sea, and fir–trees naked and worn to the deal by the chafing of the salt winds. But all away to the west, north, and east, the dark woods hold dominion, and you seem to step from the parish churchyard into the grave of ages. The village and the village warren, the chase, and the Hall above them, are scooped from out the forest shadow, in the shape of a hunting boot. Lay the boot on its side with the heel to the east, and the top towards the north, and we get pretty near the topography. The village scattered along the warren forms the foot and instep, the chase descending at right angles is the leg and ankle, the top will serve to represent the house with its lawns and gardens, the back seam may run as the little river which flows under Nowelhurst bridge. The shank of the spur is the bridge and road, the rowel the church and rectory. Away to the west beyond the toe, some quarter of a mile on the Ringwood–road, stands the smithy kept by the well–known Roger Sweetland, who can out–swear any man in the parish, and fears no one except Bull Garnet. Our sketchy boot will leave unshown the whereabouts of the Garnet cottage, unless we suppose the huntsman to insert just his toe in the stirrup. Then the top of the iron rung will mark the house of the steward, a furlong or so north–west of the village, with its back to the lane which leads from the smithy to the Hall. And this lane is the short cut from Nowelhurst Hall to Ringwood. It saves three–quarters of a mile, and risks a little more than three–quarters of the neck. Large and important as the house is, it has no high road to Ringwood, and gets away with some difficulty even towards Lyndhurst or Lymington. Bull Garnet was always down upon the barbarity of the approaches, but Sir Cradock never felt sore on the subject, save perhaps for a week at Christmas–tide. He had never been given to broad indiscriminate hospitality, but loved his books and his easy–chair, and his friend of ancient standing.
The sun came out and touched the trees with every kind of gilding, as John Rosedew having done the village, and learned every gammerʼs alloverishness, and every gafferʼs rheumatics, drew the snaffle upon Coræbus longside of Job Smithʼs pigsty, and plunged southward into the country. He saw how every tree was leaning forth its green with yellowness; even proud of the novelty, like a child who has lost his grandmother. And though he could not see very far, he observed a little thing which he had never noticed before. It was that while the other trees took their autumn evenly, the elm was brushed with a flaw of gold while the rest of the tree was verdure. A single branch would stand forth from the others, mellow against their freshness, like a harvest–sheaf set up perhaps on the foreground of a grass–plot. The rector thought immediately of the golden spray of Æneas, and how the Brazilian manga glistens in the tropic moonlight. Then soothing his pony with novel sounds, emulous of equestrianism, he struck into a moorland track leading to distant cottages. Thence he would bear to the eastward, arrive at his hostel by one oʼclock, visit the woodmen, and home through the forest, with the evening shadows falling.
CHAPTER XVI.
Beside the embowered stream that forms the eastern verge of the chase, young Cradock Nowell sat and gazed, every now and then, into the water. Through a break in the trees beyond it, he could see one chimney–top and a streak of the thatch of the Rectory. In vain he hoped that Dr. Hutton would leave him to himself; for he did not wish to go into the proofs, but to meditate on the consequences. Some bitterness, no doubt, there was in the corner of his heart, when he thought of all that Clayton now had to offer Amy Rosedew. He had lately been told, as a mighty secret, something which grieved and angered him; and the more, that he must not speak of it, as his straightforward nature urged him. The secret was that innocent Amy met his brother Clayton, more than once, in the dusk of the forest, and met him by appointment. It grieved poor Cradock, because he loved Amy with all his unchangeable heart; it angered him, because he thought it very mean of Clayton to take advantage of one so young and ignorant of the world. But never until the present moment, as he looked at the homely thatch in the distance, and the thin smoke curling over it, had it occurred to his honest mind, that his brother might not be like himself—that Clayton might mean ill by the maiden.
And now for the moment it seemed more likely, as he glanced back at the lordly house, commanding the country for miles around, and all that country its fief and its thrall, and now the whole destined for Clayton. He thought of the meanness about the Ireland, and two or three other little things, proofs of a little nature. Then he gazed at the Rectory thatch again, and the smoke from the kitchen chimney, and seemed to see pure playful Amy making something nice for her father.
“Good God! I would shoot him if he did; or strike him dead into this water”.
In the hot haste of youth he had spoken aloud, with his fist gathered up, and his eyes flashing fire. Rufus Hutton saw and heard him, and thought of it many times after that day.
“Oh, you are thinking of Caldo, because he snapped at me. There are no signs of hydrophobia. You must not think of shooting him”.