A Bid for Fortune - Guy Boothby (ready player one ebook TXT) 📗

And that selfsame sticking at home is one of the things about England and yokel Englishmen that for the life of me I cannot understand. It seems to me⁠—of course, I don’t put it forward that I’m right⁠—that a man might just as well be dead as only know God’s world for twenty miles around him. It argues a poverty of interest in the rest of creation⁠—a sort of mud-turtle existence, that’s neither encouraging nor particularly ornamental. And yet if everybody went a-travelling where would the prosperity of England be? That’s a point against my argument, I must confess. Well, perhaps we had travelled a matter of two miles when it struck me to ask my charioteer about the place to which we were proceeding. It was within the bounds of possibility, I thought, that he might once have known my father. I determined to try him. So waiting till we had passed a load of hay coming along the lane, I put the question to him.

To my surprise, he had no sooner heard the name than he became as excited as it was possible for him to be.

“Hatteras!” he cried. “Be ye a Hatteras? Well, well, now, dearie me, who’d ha’ thought it!”

“Do you know the name so well, then?”

“Ay! ay! I know the name well enough; who doesn’t in these parts? There was the old squire and Lady Margaret when first I remember. Then Squire Jasper and his son, the captain, as was killed in the mutiny in foreign parts⁠—and Master James⁠—”

“James⁠—that was my father’s name. James Dymoke Hatteras.”

“You Master James’ son⁠—you don’t say! Well! well! Now to think of that too! Him that ran away from home after words with the Squire and went to foreign parts. Who’d have thought it! Lawksee me! Sir William will be right down glad to see ye, I’ll be bound.”

“Sir William, and who’s Sir William?”

“He’s the only one left now, sir. Lives up at the House. Ah, dear! ah, dear! There’s been a power o’ trouble in the family these years past.”

By this time the aspect of the country was changing. We had left the lane behind us, ascended a short hill, and were now descending it again through what looked to my eyes more like a stately private avenue than a public road. Beautiful elms reared themselves on either hand and intermingled their branches overhead; while before us, through a gap in the foliage, we could just distinguish the winding river, with the thatched roofs of the village, of which we had come in search, lining its banks, and the old grey tower of the church keeping watch and ward over all.

There was to my mind something indescribably peaceful and even sad about that view, a mute sympathy with the past that I could hardly account for, seeing that I was Colonial born and bred. For the first time since my arrival in England the real beauty of the place came home upon me. I felt as if I could have looked forever on that quiet and peaceful spot.

When we reached the bottom of the hill, and had turned the corner, a broad, well-made stone bridge confronted us. On the other side of this was an old-fashioned country inn, with its signboard dangling from the house front, and opposite it again a dilapidated cottage lolling beside two iron gates. The gates were eight feet or more in height, made of finely wrought iron, and supported by big stone posts, on the top of which two stone animals, griffins, I believe they are called, holding shields in their claws, looked down on passersby in ferocious grandeur. From behind the gates an avenue wound and disappeared into the wood.

Without consulting me, my old charioteer drove into the inn yard, and, having thrown the reins to an ostler, descended from the vehicle. I followed his example, and then enquired the name of the place inside the gates. My guide, philosopher, and friend looked at me rather queerly for a second or two, and then recollecting that I was a stranger to the place, said:⁠—

“That be the Hall I was telling ’ee about. That’s where Sir William lives!”

“Then that’s where my father was born?”

He nodded his head, and as he did so I noticed that the ostler stopped his work of unharnessing the horse, and looked at me in rather a surprised fashion.

“Well, that being so,” I said, taking my stick from the trap, and preparing to stroll off, “I’m just going to investigate a bit. You bring yourself to an anchor in yonder, my friend, and don’t stir till I come for you again.”

He took himself into the inn without more ado, and I crossed the road towards the gates. They were locked, but the little entrance by the tumble-down cottage stood open, and passing through this I started up the drive. It was a perfect afternoon, the sunshine straggled in through the leafy canopy overhead and danced upon my path. To the right were the thick fastnesses of the preserves; while on my left, across the meadows I could discern the sparkle of water on a weir. I must have proceeded for nearly a mile through the wood before I caught sight of the house. Then, what a strange experience was mine.

Leaving the shelter of the trees, I opened on to as beautiful a park as the mind of man could imagine. A herd of deer were grazing quietly just before me, a woodman was eating his dinner in the shadow of an oak; but it was not upon deer or woodman that I looked, but at the house that stared at me across the undulating sea of grass.

It was a noble building, of grey stone, in shape almost square, with many curious buttresses and angles. The drive ran up to it with a grand sweep, and upon the green that fronted it some big trees reared their stately heads. In my