Years have rolled on. The groves and river banks, and islands of Rockville are still greatly frequented, but are never known to be injured. Poachers are never known, for excellent reasons: nobody would like to annoy the good Mr. Degge. Game is not very numerous there; there is no fun in killing it, where there is no resistance, and it is vastly more amusing to kill it where it is abundant, and is jealously watched and guarded by the proprietor of the demesnes, and where there is the chance of a good spree with the keepers.
And with what different feelings does the good Simon Degge look down from his lofty eyrie over the princely expanse of meadows, and over the glittering river, and over the stately woods to where Great Castleborough still stretches farther and farther its red-brick walls, its red-tiled roofs, and its tall, smoke-emitting chimneys! There he sees no haunts of crowded men, enemies to himself or to any one. No upstarts, no envious opponents, but a vast family of human beings, all toiling for the good of their families and their country. All advancing, some faster, some slower, to a better education, a better social condition, a better conception of the principles of art and commerce, a clearer recognition of their rights and duties, and a more cheering faith in the upward tendency of humanity.
Looking on this interesting scene from his distant and quiet home, Simon Degge sees what blessings flow—and deeply he feels them in his own case—from the circulation not only of trade but of human reciprocities. How this corrects the mischiefs, moral and physical, of false systems and rusty prejudices, and he ponders not on poachers and encroachers, but on schemes of no ordinary beauty and beneficence yet to reach his beloved town through him. He sees lecture halls and academies, means of sanitary purification and delicious recreation, in which baths and wash-houses and airy homes figure largely, whilst the public walks round the town are still farther extended, including woods, hills, meadows, and rivers, in a circuit of many miles. There he lives and labours, around him a noble family of sons and daughters to perpetuate his labours and his virtues.
And what a change has fallen on all the country and the families, rich and poor, around! The friends of Sir Roger have fallen out of the circuit, as it were. The old leaven of heart-burnings and conflicting principles has died out from amongst those in whom we are most interested. In that lovely little district, which includes Cotmanhaye, Woodburn, Rockville, Bilts’ Farm, Fair Manor, and Castleborough, the abodes of the Claverings, the Woodburns, Degges, and Heritages, the old sunny and Arcadian days have returned. Young families are springing up here and there, bringing with them new floods of happiness, and a spirit of peace and harmony floats over all that charmed region, and from no cause more conspicuously than from the simple circumstance of the providential removal of one single man out of so many thousands—THE LAST OF A LONG LINE.
No longer antagonist—no longer mutually irritant, the towers and woods of Rockville look down with an affectionate smile on the russet roof and green paddocks of Woodburn Grange.
THE END.
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
The History of Discovery in Australia, Tasmania,
and New Zealand, from the earliest date to the
present day. By William Howitt, Author of “Two
Years in Victoria,” etc. etc. With Maps of the Recent
Explorations, from Official Sources. In 2 Vols. 20s. London,
Longman and Co.
NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
Times, Dec. 8, 1865.