I began to hate the unknown proprietor. Here clearly was some mushroom usurper who had bought out the old simple hospitable family, neglected its ancient servants, left them to earn tizzies by showing waterfalls, and insulted their eyes by his selfish wealth.
"There's the water, all spil't—it warn't so in my day," said the guide.
A rivulet, whose murmur I had long heard, now stole suddenly into view, and gave to the scene the crowning charm. As, relapsing into silence, we tracked its silvan course, under dipping chestnuts and shady limes—the house itself emerged on the opposite side—a modern building, of white stone, with the noblest Corinthian portico I ever saw in this country.
"A fine house, indeed," said I. "Is Mr Trevanion here much?"
"Ay, ay—I don't mean to say that he goes away altogether, but it aint as it wor in my day, when the Hogtons lived here all the year round in their warm house, not that one."
Good old woman, and these poor banished Hogtons! thought I: hateful parvenu! I was pleased when a curve in the shrubberies shut out the house from view, though in reality bringing us nearer to it. And the boasted cascade, whose roar I had heard for some moments, came in sight.
Amidst the Alps, such a waterfall would have been insignificant, but contrasting ground highly dressed, with no other bold features, its effect was striking, and even grand. The banks were here narrowed and compressed; rocks, partly natural, partly no doubt artificial, gave a rough aspect to the margin; and the cascade fell from a considerable height into rapid waters, which my guide mumbled out were "mortal deep."
"There wor a madman leapt over where you be standing," said the old woman, "two years ago last June."
"A madman! why," said I, observing, with an eye practised in the gymnasium of the Hellenic Institute, the narrow space of the banks over the gulf which veiled the falls—"Why, my good lady, it need not be a madman to perform that leap."
And so saying, with one of those sudden impulses which it would be wrong to ascribe to the noble quality of courage, I drew back a few steps, and cleared the abyss. But when, from the other side, I looked back at what I had done, and saw that failure had been death, a sickness came over me, and I felt as if I would not have re-leaped the gulf to have become lord of the domain.