Mr. Denison was well seconded in his saving propensities by his old servant, Aaron Stone. Aaron was born on the Heron Dyke estate, as had been his ancestors before him for two hundred years. Thus it fell out that, at the age of nineteen, he was appointed by the late Squire to attend his nephew when he set out on the Grand Tour, and from that day to the present he had never left him. There were many points of similarity in the tempers and dispositions of master and man. Both of them were obstinate, cross-grained men, with strong wills of their own, and both of them were inclined to play the small tyrant as far as their opportunities would allow. They grumbled at each other from January till December, but were none the less true friends on that account. No other person dare say to the Squire a tithe of the things that Aaron said with impunity, and probably no other servant would have put up with Mr. Denison's wayward humours and variable temper as Aaron did. Twenty times a year the Squire threatened to discharge his old servant as being lazy, wasteful, and good-for-nothing; and a month seldom passed without Aaron vowing that he would pack up his old hair trunk, and never darken the doors of Heron Dyke again. But neither of them meant what he said.
Aaron's wife, Dorothy, had been a Nullington girl, and had heard people talk about the Denisons of Heron Dyke ever since she could remember anything. She was now sixty-five years old: a little, withered, timid woman, slightly deaf, and very much in awe of her husband. She believed in dreams and omens, and was imbued with all sorts of superstitious fancies local to the neighbourhood and to the Hall. Perhaps her deafness had something to do with her reticence of speech, for she was certainly a woman of few words, who went about her duties in a silent, methodical way, and did not favour strangers.
One son alone had blessed the union of Aaron and Dorothy. He proved to be something of a wild spark, and ran away from home before he was one-and-twenty. Subsequently he joined a set of strolling players, and a year or two later he married one of the company. The young lady whom he made his wife was reported to come of a good family, and, like himself, was said to have run away from home. Anyhow, they did not live long to enjoy their wedded happiness. Four years later the little boy, Hubert, fatherless and motherless, was brought to Heron Dyke, and then it was that Aaron Stone learnt for the first time that he had a grandson.
The Squire was pleased with the lad's looks, and took pity on his forlorn condition. He was sent to Easterby, and brought up by one of the fishermen's wives, and when he was old enough he was put to a good school, Mr. Denison paying all expenses. He always spent his holidays at the Hall, and there it was, when he was about twelve years old, that he first saw Ella, who was his junior by two years. Children, as a rule, think little of the differences of social rank; at all events, Ella did not, and she and handsome, bright-eyed Hubert soon became great friends. Mr. Denison, if he noticed the intimacy, did not disapprove of it. They were but children, and no harm could come of it; and perhaps it was as well that Ella should have some one with her besides Nero, the big retriever, when she went for her lonely rambles along the shore, or gathering nuts and blackberries in the country lanes. This pleasant companionship--both pleasant and dangerous to Hubert, young though he still was--was renewed and kept up every holiday season till the boy was sixteen. Then all at once there came a great gap. Ella was sent abroad to finish her education, and although she saw her uncle several times in the interim, Hubert, as it happened, saw no more of her till she came home for good at nineteen years of age. But before this came about, Hubert's own career in life had been settled: at least, for some time to come. When the boy was seventeen the Squire decided that he had had enough schooling, and that it was time for him to set about earning his living. How he was to set about it was apparently a point that required some consideration; meanwhile, the boy stayed on at Heron Dyke. He was a bold rider and a good shot. He wrote an excellent hand, and was quick at figures. In fact, he was an intelligent, teachable young fellow, who had made good use of his opportunities at school: moreover, he could keep his temper well under control when it suited him to do so; and, little by little, the Squire began to find him useful in many ways. He himself was growing old, and Aaron got more stupid every year that he lived. By-and-by nothing more was said about Hubert having to earn a living elsewhere. He relieved the Squire of many duties that had become irksome to him; and when a man of his years has once dropped a burden he rarely cares to pick it up again. In short, by the time Hubert was twenty years old he had made himself thoroughly indispensable to the Squire.
No one but Hubert himself ever knew with what a fever of unrest he awaited the coming home of Ella Winter. Had she forgotten him? Would she recognise him after all these years? How would she greet him? He tormented himself with a thousand vain questions. He knew now that he loved her with all the devotion of a deeply passionate heart.
Miss Winter came at last. The moment her eyes rested on Hubert she recognised him, changed though he was. She came up to him at once, and held out her hand.
"When I see so many faces about me that I remember, then I know that I am at home," she said, looking into his eyes with that sweetly serious look of hers.
Hubert touched her hand, blushed, and stammered; although, as a rule, there were few young men more self-possessed than he was. At the same moment a chill ran through him. His heart seemed as if it must break. The Ella of his day-dreams--the bright-eyed, sunny-haired little maiden, who had treated him almost like a brother, who had grasped his wrist when she leaped across the runlets in the sands, who had imperiously ordered him to drag down the tall branches of the nut-trees till the fruit was within her reach--had vanished from his ken for ever. In her stead stood Miss Winter, a strangely-beautiful young lady, whose face was familiar and yet unfamiliar. As he saw and recognised this, he saw, too, and recognised for the first time, the impassable gulf that divided them. She was a lady, the daughter of an ancient house: he was not a gentleman, and nothing could ever make him one, at least in her eyes, or in the eyes of the world to which she belonged. He was a son of the soil. He was Gurth the swineherd, and she was the Lady Rowena. What folly, what madness, to love one so utterly beyond his reach!