University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

When Sir Edward Hale left the meadow
of the May-pole in the manner I have
described, he galloped forward at three-quarter's
speed of his fine brown hunter,
Eversly having some difficulty in keeping
up with him, until he reached the foot of
the western slope of the valley, where he
slackened his pace, and rode on, for a
while, in a deep reverie. And was it indeed
Rose, on whom, as Hunter insinuated,
the young baronet cast that quick glance,
which had so nearly cost him a heavy
fall from his horse? Reader, it was—for
like most youths of hot impetuous dispositions,
he was a passionate admirer of female
beauty; and Rose's loveliness was, in
truth, of so high an order, that it might
well have attracted the eyes even of a
colder and less inflammable nature.

She was, indeed, in face and figure, a paragon,
more fitted for the sphere of courts,
than for the simple and somewhat hard realities
of a plain country life. Her beauty
was not the mere animal beauty, consisting
chiefly of fresh coloring and vigorous
health, which marks so frequently the country
maiden—it was of a far higher and more
delicate order.

Had she been robed in unison, she might
have moved, her birth and rank unquestioned,
among the most magnificent array
of England's aristocracy—for she was very
tall, and though her swelling bust and ample
shoulders, and all her lower limbs were
exquisitely modelled and developed to the

most voluptuous symmetry, her waist was
small and tapering, and the whole contour
of her person slender and graceful. Her
arms were like rounded ivory—her hands,
small, delicate and fair, as if they had been
little used to any hard or menial labor—
her ankles trim and shapely, and her feet
singularly little for so full and tall a figure.

Her face, however, was yet more striking
than her person—it was that of a clear
brunette, with but the palest flush of the
most delicate rose tinging the lustrous
darkness of her cheek—her features approached
nearly to the classic model, but
there was a trifling upward inclination in
the outlines of the well shaped thin nose,
which added a charm of archness, that regularity
too often will be found to lack—
her pouting lips were, if such a thing can
be, almost too deeply crimson; for to nothing
that exists, of warm and soft and sentient,
could the hue of that balmy mouth be
possibly compared.

It was the eyes, however, the large, deep
lustrous eyes, of the darkest hazel, that
caught most suddenly the observation of all
who looked upon her, if it were but for a
passing moment—there was an indescribable
fascination in those eyes, an inexplicable
mixture of wild out-flashing light, and
soft voluptuous languor, half amorous, half
melancholy, such as is rarely indeed seen
at all, and never but in orbs of that clear
translucent brown, that is so far more beautiful
than the dull bead-like black, or the
more shallow glitter of the blue. Her hair,
of a dark sunny brown, shining with many
an auburn gloss, where the light fell strong
upon its heavy masses, was luxuriantly
abundant; falling off on each side of her
high polished forehead in a maze of thick
clustering ringlets, and flowing down her
neck, and over her sloping shoulders, in
large and natural curls.

The dress of this fair girl was simple as
it could be; yet, perhaps, no magnificence
of garb would have so well displayed her
wondrous charms as that undecorated garment.
A low-necked frock of plain white
muslin, sitting quite close to her bust and
slender waist, with tight sleeves reaching
to the elbow, and terminating there in ample
plaited ruffles, and a long flowing skirt
—a little cottage bonnet of home-made
straw, with a pink ribbon to match her
silken neckerchief and sash, a cluster of
violets in the bosom of her frock, and a
nosegay in her hand, the gift—much prized
that morning—of the now half-rejected
lover.

Such was the choicest finery of the village
belle, and, as I have already said, it
would have been hard indeed to deck her
comely person in any thing that could have
displayed her beauties with more advantage.
Those were the days, in courts, of
whalebone stomachers and hoops five fathoms
in circumference; of stiff brocaded
stuffs, and powdered head-dresses; of art,
and most ungraceful art, against any touch
of nature. Grace and simplicity were discarded,
and every native movement, so
beautiful in its natural ease, was hampered
and confined by every species of ligature
and bandage that the most depraved and
artificial taste could by any means imagine
or suggest.

What wonder, then, that Edward Hale,
a passionate admirer, as he was, of female
beauty, accustomed so much to the stiff
airs and affected minauderies of starched
ladies, should have been momentarily struck
by the natural and simple loveliness of that
fair villager, whose every turn and motion
was full of poetry, and instinct with easy life.
What wonder, then, that when he crossed
the hill, and lost sight of the gay concourse,
he should have called the keeper up to his
side, and asked him quite abruptly—

“Tell me, Mark Eversly, tell me,” he
said, not without a slight shade of embarrassment
appearing in his manner, “who
was that fine old silver-headed farmer who
stood close to me on the left-hand side,
when my horse reared so suddenly? There
was a tall young fellow at his elbow, with a
quarter staff—Frank Hunter, I believe, if I
have not forgotten more than I think I have.
I used to ferret rabbits with him, if it be
the same, many a year ago, in the Monk's

coppice. But who was the old farmer,
Mark? I can't remember him.”

“Oh, that was Master Castleton, I think,
Sir Edward,” answered the fellow, with a
cunning grin, clearly perceiving the drift
of his master's question, “there was a very
pretty lass upon his arm, wasn't there,
sir?”

The hot blood rushed to the brow—the
ingenuous brow—of the young gentleman;
and, vexed at the bare idea that his thoughts
should be read, his secret penetrated by a
menial, he answered hastily—

“Was there? I did not notice—I hardly
think there was, though; for I suppose I
should have observed her, if there had been
—seeing that I am a great admirer of
pretty faces.”

“I'm sure, then, you'd admire Rose's,”
answered the wily keeper, “for it's the
prettiest eye, and the handsomest face,
too, in all the village; and then her shape
is not behind her face, neither. But I'm
a-thinking it couldn't have been Master
Castleton, else, as you say, you must have
noticed Rose. It might have been old Andrew
Bell, or Simon Carter, or John Hall,
they were all gathered thereabout, and
they are all grey-headed men, too.”

“No, no!” replied the landlord, “it was
not any one of these; I recollect them all
right well. It must have been old Castleton;
what did you call him—Harry?”

“No. James, so please your honor; but I
don't think it could have been he, anyhow,
Sir Edward; least ways I don't see how
you could have missed observing Rose.
Why, bless you! she's the beauty of the
village; there's not a girl like her for
twenty miles around. I don't believe, Sir
Edward, you ever saw a handsomer in London.”

“Well, now I think on it, I believe there
was a girl—a very tall girl—on his arm;
dressed all in white, was she? but Oliver
reared up, just then, and that prevented
me from taking notice, I suppose. What is
she? daughter to old Castleton?”

“Yes, sir; and troth-plighted, they say,
to that Frank Hunter, d—n him? but I
don't reckon much of that, for she's an
arrant jilt—is pretty Rose. Why she kept
company with me, Sir Edward, six months
and better, and then flew off as if she was
meat for a king, when I asked her to be
my wife. I warrant me she'd fly from
Frank, there, just as sudden, so be she
could 'light on a higher or a richer sweetheart.”

“Well, well!” said Hale, half angrily,
perhaps, at feeling that his servant was
tampering with thoughts that were even
then, though faintly and uncertainly, at
work in his own bosom, and not being yet
prepared to be hurried on his way—“well,
all that's nothing to me, Mark. But why
did you damn the young fellow, Eversley?
He used to be as fine a lad as any in the
country; and, if he did win your sweetheart,
I dare say that he won her fairly.
You should not bear a grudge, man; all
goes by luck in love and liking.”

“Oh! it's not that, Sir Edward, it is not
that at all! I would not now have the
girl if I could; I'm very glad he took her
off my hands, and very grateful to him for
it. I would not have her now, I'm sure,
unless it was for a mistress—and that she
is not like to be for a poor fellow, whatever
she might for a born gentleman. It is not
that, at all, that made me damn him; but,
bless you! he's the biggest poacher in the
country!”

“Ha! is he—is he? that's bad; we
must see to that. Have you got any proof
against him?”

“Not clear—not clear, Sir Edward; but
I keep a tight watch on him always, and
I'll be nabbing him, I warrant me, one
of these times.”

“Do so—do so!” returned the other,
forming, almost unconsciously, a secret
feeling of dislike to the young man, who
was known as the accepted suitor of Rose
Castleton. “Do so; and if we catch him
tripping badly, we can send him out of the
county, or, perhaps, get him pressed on
board the fleet; and then you can get the
pretty Rose, you know.”

“Oh! I don't want, her, sir—not I,”

returned the keeper, “I would not marry
her at all, unless I was to be well paid for
it, and then I'd marry the foul fiend, if
need were.”

“Fie! fie! Mark!” answered Hale—
“don't talk in that profligate manner, I
beg of you. But, tell me, where does old
Castleton live now? Your father was saying
something to me about his lease, I
think, this morning. It has run out, I
fancy, and he wants it renewed.”

“Yes, yes, Sir Edward,” the other interrupted,
eagerly, “it has run out; and he
does want it renewed; but then, Sir Edward,
it's the home-farm, like; between Monks'
coppice and Raywood; and the spring-brook
trout pond lies in the very middle of
it—all the best ground for game in the
whole manor—and the best water, too, for
fishing! Now I've been thinking that it
will make bad work, if Hunter marries
Rose, and Castleton gets a new lease.
Why, bless you, sir! Frank would not
leave a feather in the woods, or a fin in the
waters, after he'd lived in the home-farm
a fortnight; besides, the kennel lies so
handy; it always seemed to me the keeper
should live there. I was going to speak
to you about that myself. I should like
well to rent it; and my two brothers
could look after it, so that I would not be
kept from my duties, neither.”

“I'm afraid, Mark, that can't well be;
for, you see, I promised not to remove any
tenant; and, besides, old Castleton lived
there, under my grandfather, if I remember
rightly; and has been a good tenant, too.
But I won't forget you, Mark, never fear;
for I won't forget you. But now we must
make haste, or we shall be late at Barnsley;”
and, with the words, he again put
spurs to his horse, and rode on as fast as he
could gallop, until he reached the little
post-town; where he drew bridle at the
door of the next country inn, and called
aloud to the hostler—who came running
across the court-yard toward him—asking
whether “Lord Henry St. Maur and Captain
Spencer had arrived from London?”

But, before the man had time to answer,
a loud burst of laughter from within replied;
and then a gay voice cried—

“Here we are, Ned; here we are; and
here have we been these two hours. Come
in—come in hither; quick man, or that
rogue Percy Harbottle will finish the cool
tankard before you get a taste of it. Our
horses will be ready in a minute; come,
make haste, you must be athirst this hot
day!”

Edward Hale leaped down at the jovial
summons, and flinging his rein to the
keeper, ran up the steps, and entered the
small clean parlor, to the left of the passage,
where he found his three friends
merrily employed in circulating a mighty
silver flagon, filled with the generous
compound of ale and sherry, sugar and
toast and spices.

Three very comely personages were
they, who occupied the solitary parlor of
the country inn; three such, indeed, as it
had probably never contained at one time
before, such that not the landlord and land-lady
only, but Doll the chambermaid, and
Dick the tapster, and even fat old drunken
Deborah, the cook, had contrived to find
something or other to do in that parlor, in
order to get a glimpse of the handsome
gentlemen from London.

They were three in number, all of distinguished
family, and of appearance and
manners suitable to their rank, and none
of them above the middle age, though
two were scarcely beyond their boyhood.

The eldest of the three was the notorious
Captain Spencer, a peer's second son, the
commander of a gallant frigate now in
commission, and as Lady Beverly had
truly designated him, within an hour of
the time when he was sitting there so
calm and unruffled, although he knew it
not, the most celebrated pendable of the
metropolis. Of tried and distinguished
courage, a good seaman for those days, a
gentleman of the most courtly and finished
manners, the Honorable Edmund Spencer
was perhaps as thorough a debauchee and
reprobate as existed at that day in all England.

An admirable player at all games,
a perfect musician, a very graceful dancer,
his success among women had been almost
unparallelled; and, although several of his
adventures had been marked by very
thorough depravity, and had terminated
miserably for his fair victims, still fair
and virtuous and innocent and noble women
were found to smile upon the cold-hearted
seducer, while they had not one
tear to shed for the hapless beings he
had brought down to shame and misery
and untimely death.

With men, his ready wit, his liberality,
his frankness and his courage made him
even more generally a favorite than he
was with the softer sex. The very boldness
of his vice was to him a protection;
and, as it seemed, a fresh claim on the
world's admiration. No subterfuge had
ever sullied his character for truth—whatever
wrong he did to any one, he avowed it
openly, and gave honorable satisfaction.
He had shot one husband dead, and desperately
wounded two brothers, fighting
to avenge wife's and sister's reputation.
An honorable man par excellence was the
Honorable Edmund Spencer. Yet many a
better man had expiated his crimes on the
gallows.

Spencer was at this time about forty-three
years old, although no person would
have suspected him of being nearly that
age; he was extremely handsome, though
of a dark and somewhat saturnine complexion,
with a full bright black eye, an
aquiline nose, and one of the most fascinating
smiles that ever wreathed a lip in
blandishment. His hair black as the raven's
wing, and without one speck or line
of gray, was exquisitely soft and glossy,
and almost as redundant in its fall of natural
tresses as the huge wigs of the day.
His voice was silvery music, and by long
habit he had learned to modulate his accents
like the tones of a delicate instrument.

For the young of both sexes never was
created an enemy more dangerous than
Edmund Spencer. In the slightest glance
of his eye there lurked wily fascination—
in the most trivial word he uttered there
was a covert meaning—a concealed power!
But his smile, his caress, his friendship,
or his love, were ruin—utter, inevitable
ruin!

His dress, although in some degree professional,
was rich and magnificent; for
at that period a gentleman could be recognized,
by his distinctive garb alone, from
his valet. He wore a coat, cut in the naval
form, with the open sleeves of the period,
showing from the elbow to the wrist the
shirt sleeves of plaited lawn fringed with
ruffles of superb Valenciennes lace. It
was of dark blue cloth, long waisted and
broad skirted, lined throughout with white
sarcenet. His breeches were of blue velvet,
and his vest of the same color, both
slashed with white silk, and adorned with
many buttons of solid gold, embossed with
the crown and anchor. He wore high boots
and spurs, having travelled thither on
horseback, being rather an uncommon
thing for a sailor, a perfect and graceful
cavalier—his hat, with a band of feathers,
and a short crooked hanger lay on the
table near him.

Lord Henry St. Maur, who was standing
up with his back to the fire-place,
now filled with greens and May-flowers,
instead of its winter decoration of sea coal,
was a tall, slight, fair young man, with
nothing particular in his appearance, unless
it were a mixed expression of licentiousness
and audacity, which ill became
his beardless lip, and smooth, effeminate
features. He was dressed far more splendidly
than the sea captain, in a full suit of
maroon colored velvet, lined and slashed
with philomot satin, and decorated with
large ribbon shoulder knots of the same
color. He had much costly lace at his
bosom and wrists; the buttons of his coat
and his knee buckles and sword hilt glittered
with brilliantly cut steel; and to
complete the picture, a huge fleece of
curls, the natural hue of which was disguised
by a profusion of reddish marechal
powder, fell down over his shoulders, and

impregnated the whole atmosphere of the
inn-parlor with musk and ambergris, and
Heaven knows what beside.

Percy Harbottle, the third of the company,
was the youngest likewise, and the
least worthy of notice, though perhaps the
most worthy to be esteemed a gentleman.
He was good looking, and good humored;
and, though by no means a fool, certainly
neither a genius nor a wit—in a word, he
was a frank, lively, generous-hearted, rash,
impetuous young man, likely enough to be
hurried by evil association into the contracting
of bad habits, and of committing
follies, or becoming subject to the more
venial vices—but kindly at the same time,
and honorable if unthinking.

In fact, he was a type of that large class
of youths at all times floating like the froth
on the top of that great syllabub—the social
world!—whom every one pronounces
an “excellent good fellow,” without being
able in the least degree to specify wherein
their excellence consists—whose greatest
merits are good looks and animal good-humor,
and whose greatest demerit is a want
of ballast, of stability of character, and singleness
of purpose, without which a man
may be agreeable, but cannot possibly be
great.

Such was Percy Harbottle—and there
be many Percy Harbottles around us every
where—who, exquisitely, and rather coxcombically
attired in light blue silk, laced
with gold, and bewigged and bepowdered
to the very acme of the mode, was, at the
moment of Sir Edward's entrance, apparently
justifying the apprehensions of the
others concerning the contents of the tankard,
by the prodigious draught which he
was making on its racy mixture. He set
it down, however, and drawing a long
breath, as Hale came in, jumped up with
a good deal of eagerness, and with his
hand extended, to meet him.

Spencer arose also, and put out his hand;
but though there was much elegance and
grace in every motion, though his tones were
perfect harmony, and his words not well
chosen only, but courteous and even friend
ly, there was something that gave the
young baronet a strong impression of the
sea-captain's heartlessness; for he had
known him before but slightly, and was
now receiving him rather as a friend of
his school-fellow St. Maur, than as an intimate
of his own choosing.

The truth was, that although the captain's
manner was exquisite, it was too
evident that it was manner only—there
was a total want of cordiality, or warmth,
or in fact of any feeling. And, sooth to
say, it would have been very strange had
there not been that want—for it was on
his total freedom from all touch of genuine
nature, his complete mastery over his
strongest feelings, his absolute impossibility
of temper, and immobility of feature,
on which Edward Spencer prided himself
the most. He had been all his life acquiring
it—and though he had given much
pains to many fine accomplishments, to
none had he devoted half the study this
had cost him. No wonder he was perfect
in it!

St. Maur nodded, and smiled, and thrust
out a single finger, with a delicious attempt
at nonchalance. He was really
glad to see Edward Hale, whom he liked,
as well as he liked anything, except himself;
that is to say, so far as he amused
him, and gave him no trouble—and he said
he was glad—but he said it as if he was
rather sorry than otherwise. He wanted
to be easy and careless; he had heard
Spencer ridicule enthusiasm as boyish and
ladylike—and he had the greatest horror
in the world of being thought a boy; and
in endeavoring to be un-enthusiastic, one of
the nil admirari school, he became as stiff
as the poker, and as unnatural and unlike
his model, whom he flattered himself he
was very closely imitating, as it is possible
to conceive.

In a few minutes, however—for St.
Maur's character was far too impulsive
and ill-regulated to be true to any thing—
even to itself, for above half an hour—he
became boisterous and noisy, and displayed
spirits so exuberant as to justify in some

measure Percy Harbottle's assertion, that
he had only drained the tankard, which it
appeared on inspection he had done to the
very dregs, for the purpose of preserving
him from the commission of such a solecism
as to be drunk before dinner.

“Upon my life!” said Spencer, “I do
not feel so perfectly assured that you were
in time enough to save him, Percy! Who
will bet odds that he does not tumble off
his horse before we reach Arrington?”

“I will, by heaven!” cried St. Maur
himself; “I will, in rouleaux! Is it
done!”

“No, not exactly,” aswered Spencer,
laughing, “not with you, my dear fellow;
for if I did, you would not drink any more
in the first place; and in the second you
would keep yourself quiet; and, in short,
I should not be sure of winning.”

“And do you never bet, Captain Spencer,”
asked Hale, half jesting and half serious,
“but when you are sure to win?”

“Never, my dear sir, never,” replied
Spencer, in his blandest tones, “do you?”

“Generally, I am afraid,” said Sir Edward,
laughing merrily.

“Ah! so does Harbottle; except that
for `generally' you may read `always.'
Harbottle always bets when he is not sure
to win; or, in other words, when he is
sure to lose. He pays too, which is something
in these days. Harbottle is an undeniable
man to bet with. I bet with him
myself, a good deal.”

Nothing could, indeed, be more strictly
true than this last assertion of the gallant
captain, to whose gentlemanlike necessities
Percy Harbottle's betting-book annually
ministered, to the tune of a cool thousand,
at the least reckoning. A more cunning
and less artful man than he would
have shunned the topic and been detected
by his silence. Spencer knew better, and
talking of it openly, those who knew it to
be true scarcely believed it, and those who
were not certain utterly scouted the idea.

For a few minutes after this, the young
men conversed merrily and gaily of fifty
trivial incidents which had occurred since
their last meeting; and light jokes called
forth lighter laughter; as for the most part
is the case when the gay-hearted and the
cheerful, over whose head time has not shed
a single sorrow, meet after passing absence.
But by-and-by the replenished tankard was
once again exhausted, and the young comrades
soon began to lack some newer and
more keen excitement.

“Come, come,” cried Edward Hale, “let
us get, all of us, to horse, and ride, as quickly
as we may, back to the manor. There is
a kind of merry-making of the villagers—
a May-day frolic on the green; and, as it is
my birth-day, too, I was obliged to promise
the good people there that I would join
their sports; and, what is more, to ask
them all to dine with me at noon, under a
tent. I am afraid it will be but a tedious
sort of merriment to you, my boys, after the
gaieties of London; but we must make the
best of it; and, to compensate for it, we'll
sup at eight, when all is over, and try my
father's choice old Bargundy.”

“Ods-life!” cried St. Maur, “there will
be nothing tedious in it, so far as I'm concerned;
for, I doubt not, you have store of
pretty lasses here among your tenantry; and
if we are to pass the summer here with you,
you know, we must look out for something
in the shape of bona robas to while away
the time before the shooting season.”

“Well, well, Lord harry, you shall see
all of them, I promise,” answered the baronet,
with a quick meaning smile; “but
then it must be honor bright. You shall
have every help from me in your amours,
but then you must not interfere with mine
—hey, St. Maur?”

“Hark to him—hark to him, Spencer;
hark to him, Harbottle!” cried the young
lord, laughing; “did you, in all your lives,
did you ever hear such a Turk? Why,
he only came down hither last night, for
the first time these sixteen years, and the
dog has cut out an intrigue already!”

“Oh, I don't wonder at it, not I, in the
least,” Harbottle answered; “the fellow
always had the eye of a hawk for a pretty
wench, and the devil's own luck in winning

them, too. Don't you remember, St.
Maur, how he tricked Neville, at Christ
Church, out of his black-browed Julia, after
two days' acquaintance, when Neville had
been better than six months in bringing
her to reason?”

“And Neville such a lady-killer, too!”
lisped St. Maur; “but I suppose we had
better promise him.”

“To be sure, to be sure we had!” answered
the other in a breath, “for if he
has got the least start in the world with
the girl, we have no more chance of her
than the merest bumpkin in the country.”

“So it's a bargain, Hale,” continued St.
Maur; “you will give each of us the best
of your countenance and assistance, provided
we keep all due distance from your
own dulcinea.”

“A bargain!” answered the young baronet;
and “a bargain! a bargain!” chimed
in his gay, licentious comrades.

“And now, Sir Edward,” inquired Spencer,
gravely, after they had mounted, and
galloped a few hundred yards from the inn
door, “what is your wench's name? that
we may have no mistake here; and what
does she look like?”

“Her name is Rose Castleton,” answered
Sir Edward Hale, the hot blood rushing
hurriedly to his brow and cheek, as he
named her, against whose peace and honor
the wild words of his reckless and unprincipled
companions had almost instantaneously
matured his vague thoughts into violent
designs.

“Her name is Rose Castleton; and she
is like—simply the most beautiful woman
it ever was my luck to gaze upon. The
finest and most voluptuous figure—the
brightest and most sparkling face—the most
luxuriant hair—the softest and most passionate
eye! By heavon! the loveliest
girl I ever yet have looked upon were but
a foil to her transcendant beauties!—but
let us hurry on our way, or we shall be
too late!”

And, at the word, they gave the rein to
their good steeds, and touched their sleek
sides with the spur, and no one could have
found fault with the pace thereafter, till
they came to the hill which overlooked the
vale of Arrington.