The old house stood in its ample gardens. A low brick wall, surmounted by a hedge of roses fenced it in from the road, which ran by from the village to Cotmanhaye, and further up the valley. A straight walk led up to the handsome, ample porch—you could not enter the garden in a carriage, but must walk up it,—in summer, amid a glow and perfume of flowers and a murmur of bees, and a flickering dance of butterflies, that was delicious. Around and beyond the house extended the flower-garden with evergreens, and here and there a fruit-tree. Then down the slope stretched the kitchen-garden, with its tall south fruit wall, with its trellises of roses and jasmines bordering beds of raspberries and gooseberries. Its abundant growth of peas, beans, and all vegetables, its asparagus beds, strawberry beds, beds of salsify and scorzonera; its quince and medlar and filbert trees. Then, below still, stretched an old orchard, with seats here and there under its trees, some of the old trees stooping one way, some another; and at the bottom ran the Trent, in phrase of Christopher North, “one of the sincerest streams in England.”
Tolerably elevated stood the house, overlooking undulating fields, studded with cattle and sheep, or waving with corn, the patrimonial estate, and beyond them the woods of Cotmanhaye, and across the river an expanse of level meadows of some miles in width, with the ruddy walls of the village of Breton bounding them. On the other hand, southward, rose a range of sand cliffs, at the foot of which ran the highway from Rockville to Cotmanhaye, and still beyond the cliffs, and the patches of trees on their brow, rose the country to the large farming village of Hillmartin.
Leonard Woodburn, of Woodburn Grange, though styled but yeoman, had a homestead which a king might envy, and when Simon and Mrs. Degge returned the Woodburns’ call, they could not sufficiently express their delight at it, and went over the house and the cheese-chamber, with its growing display of goodly cheeses, over the farm-yard, and through garden and orchard. They were charmed with the view from the windows, which were different from their own, and no less with the kindly intelligence of the Woodburns themselves, free, simple, and at ease; and inly promised themselves much pleasure in their friendship, which they resolved to cultivate.
Before rambling farther in our discoveries in this neighbourhood, we have still a friend of ours to introduce at the Grange, and then a promenade to make through the village—at least to make a passing note of it, and say, “Here lives so-and-so, and there lives somebody else.” Our acquaintance at the Grange is only a servant, however. It is Betty Trapps, a sort of miscellany of housemaid and cook, in past days adding something of the nurse to the rest of her duties. Betty has lived with the Woodburns since she was five-and-twenty, and she is now—let me see—what? Five-and thirty? Yes—she has lived at least fifteen years at the Grange, and that makes her—upon my word!—forty! And yet Betty does not look more than five-and-thirty. She is middle-sized, middle-bulkish in body, but lithe and active. Never idle, never weary, never ill, never grumbling, but with a wit and a will of her own, and always ready to give, as she says, as good as she gets. In fact, they must be awake that venture on a jest or trick with Betty. She is the freest of free-spoken women: Mr. Woodburn, who likes a good-natured nickname, calls her “Meg Merrymouth.” She says often what she thinks—almost unmercifully; and yet Betty is full of kindness, and is knowing and shrewd. There is nobody thereabout that can see half so thoroughly through those she comes into contact with. But we shall see Betty Trapps again, for she says she means to stay at the Grange as long as there is a tile on the house, unless Master should discharge her for chaffing a little, and she does not think he will. And she has given a good many proofs that she means to keep her word, for Betty is a Methodist, and is a woman of consequence at chapel and at the class, and has had a good many offers of marriage from the brethren, some very well to do; and Betty has so far always said, “No, thank you.” Civilly, be it understood, and as secretly as possible, for she does not really, smart as she is sometimes, like to hurt any one’s feelings. But Betty is shrewdly supposed to have saved a pretty little stock of money, having lived so long in a good place, and never indulged in finery, and the brethren may not be always so easily rebuffed, for this is one of those charms which continue growing even when others fade. However, the tiles on Woodburn Grange are extremely good yet, so we shall see.
A little above Woodburn Grange, and nearer to Rockville, lies the village of Woodburn. It is not very large, and chiefly built round a spacious green, on which the young men in summer evenings enjoy their games of cricket, ninepins, bowls, and quoits. At the corner where the road enters the green from Rockville, and, of course, from Castleborough, stands the blacksmith’s shop, where frequently two or three farm-horses stand waiting to be shod; and a number of ploughs and harrows lie expecting repairs. There the sturdy smith, Job Latter, is generally found working and perspiring, and conversing with a number of village-lads and young men hanging about, whom he contrives to disperse when they incommode him, by rubbing his hot iron in his heap of sand, and thus sending a storm of burning stars in every direction, that makes a sudden scamper. Not far thence, a congregation of dilapidated carts, waggons, and disabled wheels, mark the shop of Will Spokeshave, the wainwright. In the centre of the south side of the green, rises a somewhat large old house with porch and tall gabled roof, which is the village school, frequented, more particularly in winter, by the farmers’ and labourers’ sons of the neighbourhood. This school has now for master a worthy half-Welshman, named Howell Crusoe (after his mother and father), a man noted far around as “a great scollard”—a very great, long-headed “scollard.” He has written a book to teach boys good manners, and a genuine curiosity it is in its way; and his profound acquaintance with the customs of polite society may be at once discerned by the following rules in this his “Book of Etiquette for Boys”—a work now become very rare, yet of which an odd, and it must be admitted, a very odd copy, may now and then be met with on the shelves of the bookworms of Castleborough:—“When a gentleman or lady speaks to you”—thus teaches Howell Crusoe boy-etiquette—“immediately touch your forehead with the back of your right hand; then place three fingers of the same hand between the buttons of the centre of your waistcoat, and expect the observations of your superior in an attitude of easy but respectful attention. At any remark of the respected lady or gentleman, incline your head with a graceful dignity, and scrape backward with your left foot. Whenever you are asked to sit down in company, place one leg over the other; rest your elbow on the elevated knee, repose your chin on the hand of the same arm, with two fingers extended upright between your cheek and your ear. In an attitude at once so easy and so graceful, await the wisdom which is sure to fall from beauty, learning, and experience, and hoard up the precious results for the future occasions of life, as the busy bee hoards up the honey of spring for the winter of age.”
A company of boys educated by Crusoe, or on Crusoe’s plan, seated round a room in his most approved attitude, must have been a pleasing sight!
Crusoe is the oracle of the “Grey Goose,” the public-house opposite; for he has a number of theories which he there defends against all comers, and very few comers, it may be supposed, ever go away having won any sort of advantage over the erudite Howell Crusoe.
Howell has distinguished himself in his determined onslaughts on bull-baiting, dog-fighting, badger-baiting, cock-fighting, and the like; and has been supported in these eventually successful achievements by Jasper Heritage, David Qualm, and Sylvanus Crook, persons as yet unknown to the reader, but to whom I most probably shall, by permission, very soon introduce them. Howell does not find, however, that he can altogether dispense with boy-baiting, or beating with his cane. He manages to frighten the young ones, nevertheless, by threatening to “look over their heads to the wall,” which has something awful in it to their imaginations; and he thinks, in time, cudgels may be used to drive beasts with, and boys be ruled by appealing to what Sylvanus Crook calls their “inner man.” Howell Crusoe is also secretary of both men and women’s clubs, and is much disgusted with the drunkenness displayed by these members at Whitsuntide; finds, indeed, he has a rude and uncouth generation to deal with, and makes but little progress in refining them. In a word, Howell Crusoe is an out-and-out social reformer.
Not far from the village on the Rockville-road, you see a large pair of gates, a capacious lodge with flowering plants in the windows, and under one of them a little wooden trough, very much resembling a pig-trough. It is, in fact, a trough which Sylvanus Crook, the good Quaker, who lives at this gentleman’s lodge, has set there for the refreshment of dogs, having often seen them passing with lolling tongues, and eyes anxiously cast about for water. Sylvanus soon had his first trough stolen, but this he has secured by stout iron fastenings to the wall, and he trusts that he relieves much canine discomfort. He says, indeed, that he has never had the pleasure of seeing a dog drink at it; neither has Dorothy, his wife; but he hopes they do. At least they have the opportunity.
But this lodge is but the entrance to the extensive grounds and house of Jasper Heritage, the wealthy Quaker banker of Castleborough. Enter; advance up the well-kept carriage-drive, and very soon you will see standing on an open, level, extensive lawn, a very large square brick house. It is one of the country houses so frequently seen, which are built at no expense of architecture whatever. It is as simple and as exactly square as any box or square block of stone that you can see anywhere. Take a good, big deal box, chalk on it a door in the centre, and two or three rows of windows, and a parapet-wall at the top, showing no roof, and then you have the exact representation of some hundreds, or, indeed, thousands of houses which raise themselves as proudly on the soil of England, as if they boasted all the architectural graces ever displayed. And truly they are houses capable of lodging and entertaining a great number of people in the perfection of comfort. They are ample, convenient, and opulent abodes of opulent families, though they look so cubical and featureless outside. This house of Mr. Jasper Heritage, is, moreover, made somewhat attractive by such ornaments as the very simple taste of its owner could, or perhaps would, give it. It has an ample portico on plain Tuscan pillars; a broad flight of easy stone steps up to it; a very highly-burnished brass-knocker and bell-handle; and in a row under the windows, a range of splendid orange-trees in large square tubs, and a fountain in the centre of the lawn, which plays on particular occasions. Right and left you see broad, exquisitely rolled gravel walks going off into very tempting-looking shrubberies and gardens. Ah! it will be a great treat to penetrate in there, and see all the lawns and alleys, and gardens, ponds, and conservatories, and snug summer-houses in corners, which give you from a second storey a prospect over the country round. But we must come again some day for that. We shall get an invitation. Now it is enough to say, that in that house is not Jasper Heritage; he is just now at his bank in Castleborough, whither his coachman, Sylvanus Crook, also a Friend, and dressed in the plainest drab, with the most approved cocked-hat and knee-breeches of that society, and that day, has driven him, and will fetch him back, at four o’clock, in the handsome, roomy dark-green family carriage, without, I may add, the slightest vanity of coat-of-arms, crest, or any such badge of a worldly pride. At home, are—but not to be intruded upon by us at this moment, for they are busy cutting out a very multitude of clothes for the Dorcas Society—yes, there are Rebecca Heritage, the wealthy banker’s wife, and Millicent Heritage, the fair and only child of this wealthy banker—only think of that! What! you say, is the young lady handsome? Oh, don’t be so curious! Wait a bit. I will tell you about the mother first. Mrs. Rebecca Heritage is a lady of apparently forty-five. She is not very tall, she is not very short, she is not very thin, nor very stout; but she is fair, very fair, yet with dark hair neatly laid back from the centre of the forehead under a very white and very plain Quaker cap. A silk gown she wears—pale very dovelike silk; a white muslin handkerchief covers her shoulders and bosom, and she has extremely well-cut features. Her nose is perfect. Her eyes blue-grey, large, and thoughtful. Her forehead is broad and ample, and, in a word, she looks like a grave and comely duchess dressed up for a female Friend in a domestic theatrical. In that noble face—in that smooth, soft, yet healthy face—where no approach to a wrinkle, one thinks, would ever dare to come—there is a thought, a spirit, a fire—yes, a fire—even in the calm that rules all in that tranquil aspect. Depend upon it, Rebecca Heritage is no common woman. She is like one of those women Friends, who used to enter Whitehall, and tell the king-destroyer Cromwell or the laughing, reckless Charles II., in tones that made them still as children, of the oppression of the saints which they were perpetrating; of the foul and hideous dungeons in which they were holding those whose only crime was a religion of peace. There! if you want the picture of a mother in Israel—of a brave, self-possessed, yet loving and large-hearted woman—send for a painter, and let him pourtray Rebecca Heritage.