Chapter II

Blessings in boyhood’s marvelling hour,
Bright dreams and fancyings strange;
Blessings where Reason’s awful power
Gave thought a bolder range.
LYRA APOSTOLICA.

Oh! he is bright and jocund as the morn,
And there is not on earth that wilderness
Which he could not reclaim, and in its wastes
Detect the springs of fruitfulness and joy.
EDWIN THE FAIR.

The wishes of childhood are rarely obliterated, for they are the expression of some strong feature in the character. I do not mean common wishes; I do not mean such a common desire, as the fancy to be a soldier, which is expressed by most boys, and even by many girls, in the course of their early years; but I mean wishes of a rarer and more determined kind; such a strong passionate wish as that which animated the youthful heart of Ernest De Grey.

Such wishes are rarely obliterated; but they are often superseded by a new passion, and so it was in the case before us. The peculiar feature in his character which had prompted so intense a desire to be a soldier, remained unchanged within him; but the desire itself with advancing years, with the awakening of new interests, was lulled to sleep. At sixteen his whole heart, his whole affections, his fancy and his imagination were centered on Clare Abbey, the abode of his forefathers, and his own future inheritance.

“Il y a des lieux,” says La Bruyère, “qu’on admire--il y en a d’autres qui touchent, et où l’on aimeroit à vivre.” Clare Abbey was of the latter class. It was very pretty, but in describing the great features of its beauty, you would seem to be describing a thousand other places which ornament the face of the country in England. There was the broad clear stream, the verdant meadows, the luxuriant woods, the fine spreading trees, the sloping hills, which the inhabitants of the district dignified with the name of mountains, but which had no claim to the name; all these beauties it had, and yet with all these it might only have been a fine place, and, as I think is the case with many fine places, would have had little power to “toucher le cœur.” Clare Abbey had however its own individuality, and it was in the small touches which gave it its distinctive character that the attraction lay; it had many features of a fine place, but no admirer on record had ever been known to compliment it with such an epithet. I must endeavour to describe it, that the scenes of this tale may have a local habitation and a name.

The Abbey stood on a flat piece of ground which formed a terrace, beneath a wooded hill which protected it from the north, and with about a quarter of a mile of gently sloping meadow above the river. On one side it was approached by a long avenue of elm trees; on the other side was a low copse wood, interspersed here and there with oak trees and firs of larger growth; and through this wood, which formed a kind of pleasure ground, many wandering ways had been cut, which led with more or less directness to the pretty village of Cranleigh. On the south front the windows opened on a broad gravel walk with a lawn beyond; beyond the lawn was another gravel walk, and a flower garden stood on each side; the upper part of the lawn was ornamented with a variety of dark shrubs of low growth, and beyond the further walk, on the verge from whence the meadow began to slope, tall cypresses and stiff-looking pines planted at regular distances, and forming vistas into the park, stood like sentinels, as if to guard the precincts of the dwelling from intrusion.

The architecture of the Abbey was irregular, and perhaps, strictly considered, was liable to many objections. A part of it was very old,--long, low, and ecclesiastical-looking, with cloistral passages, jutting buttresses, and chapel-like windows. Additions had been made from time to time, both in old and modern days, and sometimes in some defiance of the laws of architecture; yet upon the whole, notwithstanding some strange blending of styles and periods, a certain order and proportion in all the additions had been observed, which delighted the eye; and you felt as you often feel with the human countenance, that it was beautiful, although by right and rule it had no business to be so. All in, and around, and about the house had the same attraction. There was nothing regular: everything had a distinctive character, not amounting to eccentricity, but possessing a mixture of wildness and quaintness, formality and grace, which came home to your heart, and took a place in your imagination. The ground fell, sloped, or broke, where you least expected it, and yet you could not but say that it was well done; the stream curved, now gracefully, now with a sharp and angular turning, which astonished and yet delighted you. The trees grew as trees should not grow, losing their leaders, hanging and drooping in quaint and picturesque attitudes; and the mazy pleasure-grounds, although they had been laid out with art and care, appeared but to wander at their own sweet will, and that will, however sweet, a very wayward and capricious one. Altogether, though it was not to all minds equally attractive, Clare Abbey had the peculiar gift of taking hold upon the fancy, and becoming, consciously or unconsciously, the haunt of the airy castles and fantastic creations of those who even once beheld it.

To Ernest De Grey it was at once the home and resort of his every day fancy, and the ideal of his imaginative perfection.

At one of the drawing-room windows opening to the ground, on a soft summer evening early in August, ten years after the date of the last chapter, the youthful heir of this fondly-cherished abode sate with his mother alone. The lapse of years, and of those years which seem like eternity to youth, had made but little change in him. The handsome child had grown into a tall and handsome youth; but in his smile and in his eye you read that he was still a boy. In his whole air and manner there was a fresh and boyish grace, which I regret to think is now but seldom seen at the mature and advanced age of sixteen. In some respects he was even more boyish at sixteen than he had been at six; for as his added years left him more free and unrestrained, the natural bent of his mind towards sport and action had developed itself, the exercises of the body usurping a greater share of his favours than the exercises of the intellect. His character, however, will, I hope, be sufficiently gathered in all its points and variations from the record of the following conversation; and trusting to this hope, description shall be spared.

“You are very thoughtful to-night, Ernest,” said Mrs. De Grey, breaking at last a long and, when Ernest was present, a rather unusual silence.

“Yes, mother, I _was_ thinking,” he replied, raising himself in the chair on which he was comfortably reclining.

“And may I ask the subject of these serious meditations?” she rejoined, smiling.

“Why, yes, mother, you are to know some of my thoughts; but I was thinking of so many things, that I hardly know what to begin upon. Do you remember Mr. Markham, mother, how angry he used to be because I said I could think of twenty things at once? I remember his telling me at last, that I was very insolent to set up my opinion against that of the wisest philosophers, who had pronounced it to be impossible. But, notwithstanding Mr. Markham and his friends, my opinion has remained unchanged. I don’t know what philosophers can do; but _I_ can think of twenty things at once--twenty at least--and so I have been doing to-night.”

“I am afraid, Ernest,” said his mother, with a smile, “these variegated thoughts are not very wise ones.”

“They are good, I think, some of them. Some I hope, some I am sure, will please you. They are plans, mother,--plans of things I want to do. I plan till I am quite mad. I will tell you one, now, which I think you will like: it is about the old church. It is so pretty, it is a pity to leave it as it is. I want so much to repair and improve it.”

“Really, my dear Ernest, have you thought of that?” his mother said, with some surprise; for the sportive and pleasure-loving boy was little given to schemes of a serious or a useful kind.

“I can’t say that it is quite my own idea, mother: it was put into my head; but, having been put in, I get very mad about it. You know that Lady Frances Leicester, who is so good-natured to me and the other boys at Overton? Well, she has new done the church there: it is quite beautiful now. And one day, while I was admiring it, she asked me about our church; and when I described it, she laughed excessively at the high pulpit and our great pew, and said what a shame it was, and drew me a sketch of how it should be. It might be the prettiest church in England, mother, that I am sure of; and I never shall rest till it is so. I meant to have asked my father to do it when I came home this time; but he has been looking so grave, and you too, mother, that I thought perhaps I had better not.”

“You are right, Ernest; you had better not,” his mother replied, a shade passing over her face, which always was a sad one. “Your father is worried about money just now, and he could not attend to you. But, my dear boy, your wish makes me very happy, and I hope you _will_ dream of it. Young as you are, you might already begin to think of accomplishing it.”

“Not very soon, mother,” he said, laughing. “Lady Frances said one or two thousand would be necessary. I should not care to do it badly. However, we must wait for that, and many other things. Oh! mother, don’t you wish my education was over.”

She shook her head with a smile.

“Why, mother, then I could always live here, and always be with you; don’t you care for that?”

“I am afraid, Ernest, I think you want a little education; and, besides, I am too old to wish away years as you do.”

“I don’t wish them away,” he said, eagerly. “I have got enough to do for years and years to come. I only want the time to come when I may use the years. This education takes me up entirely. I will just count over some of the things I want to do here. There is the church, and then there is a tennis-court....”

Mrs. De Grey again shook her head.

“You mean that is very expensive too. Well, but, mother, I thought we were rich. However, never mind; only let me tell you my wants. I am so very fond of tennis: Lady Frances lets us play in her court at Overton, and sometimes I feel as if I could not live without it. Then I wish to have a pack of hounds. My father said something about it five years ago, and I have been watching, and waiting, and expecting to hear more; but he has never mentioned it again to me. Does he ever speak about it to you, mother?”

“No, Ernest, never,” she said gravely.

“I hope he will. I should like to hunt, and look after hounds.... Well, and then a very good cricket-ground; and then, mother, there are some of _our_ plans, yours and mine, the cuttings, and the new drives; and then, besides all that. I want to do a great deal of good. I have no end of plans about the poor people. Lady Frances talks to me whenever I go to Overton, and shows me _her_ plans, because she says I have a good head for such things--and I think I have.”

Mrs. De Grey said nothing in reply to this enumeration of his wants; but he read in her countenance a mother’s interest in all his plans and desires; and, to say the truth, it was no unusual thing for Ernest to bear the principal share in their confidential conversations.

He paused for a moment, then continued: “And now, mother, about my plans.”

“Your plans, Ernest!” she said, laughing. “Why, have you more of them?”

“Oh yes! I have only been telling you my vague dreams, for I dream about Clare Abbey day and night: my plans are more formed, and are very important. They must begin with a question. My dear mother,”--he spoke in an anxious, and rather an insinuating voice,--“can you tell me--am I to go back to old Crackinthorpe’s?”

“Your father has not quite made up his mind. _I_ wish you to go for another year before you go to Oxford. What do you think yourself? I meant to talk to you about it some day.”

“I had _much_ rather not,” he replied decidedly.

“Why, Ernest?”

“Why, mother,” he said, again raising himself eagerly in his chair, “the fact is, I am not made for what is called a sedentary life. At Mr. Crackinthorpe’s we read from morning till night, and I am getting tired of it.”

“I thought you were fond of reading, Ernest. I am sorry to hear you speak as you do.”

“I am fond of reading in a certain way; but then it must be my way, and not Mr. Crackinthorpe’s. Percy and Lovel call me a book-worm sometimes, because I like to read Shakspere, and Hollingshed, and Plutarch’s Lives on a rainy day. I do like that sort of reading very much; but I don’t care for what old Crackinthorpe likes. I don’t like Greek and Latin; and as to mathematics, if I go on with them, I know, mother, the end will be that you will have to visit me in Bedlam. And, after all, as I am not to belong to any learned profession, what _is_ the use of it? Really, mother, I had much better do something more improving, and not bore myself with things I hate any longer.”

“Do you think you never are to do anything you dislike, Ernest?” his mother asked, rather gravely.

The boy coloured. “Not _never_, mother; and I don’t object to doing what I dislike, when there is any use in it; but when there is no particular use....”

“And are you the best person to decide what is useful or not?” she continued seriously, though she smiled. “You must not suppose, Ernest, that I don’t understand what you mean. When I was young, I felt and argued just as you do. I remember when I was first made to learn German, that I hated it; and because I hated it, I thought it was useless to take any trouble about it. I told my governess that, when once she was gone, I never would look at it again; but, notwithstanding all my entreaties, she insisted upon my going on; and I found afterwards that her reason for making such a point of it was _because_ I hated it. I was rather a spoiled child; and she saw that it would be good for me to overcome my own feelings, at her desire, without regard to the usefulness of the study. And she was right. My dislike to the language has always continued, and I have looked at it but little since she went away. But I feel, in other ways, that the hard study at the German I hated has been more useful to me than almost any other part of my education. Do you see the application to yourself, Ernest?”

“Am _I_ a spoiled child, mother?”

“Not _quite_ spoiled, I hope,” she replied fondly, as she met the glance of his clear bright eyes; “but you are a little too much accustomed to have your own way, and to think that all your wishes must be gratified;--rather fond of your own will and pleasure. Is it not so?” And she looked smilingly in his face.

“Perhaps,” he said, thoughtfully.

“Then, my dear boy, you will not, I hope, be surprised if, notwithstanding your strong wish, I still think it better for you to go to Mr. Crackinthorpe’s again.”

Ernest made no answer: he was meditating. When he spoke, it was with something of timidity and anxiety.

“I am afraid, mother, you will think I am only anxious for my _pleasure_, if I tell you my plan, my chief plan of all--the one I have been coming to all this time. But, indeed, if I can judge about myself at all, I don’t think I speak only for my pleasure. I don’t wish to be idle; I really wish to improve myself--I wish to be useful when I am a man; and, after a great deal of consideration, I think that, under my plan, I should learn a great deal more than if I went on in the regular way.”

He stopped, and looked at his mother. She smiled, but rather anxiously.

“Don’t be afraid of speaking, Ernest; you know I shall not be afraid of telling you what I think.”

“Well, mother, then the fact is, I don’t want to go to Oxford: I want to travel instead. You see,” he continued, speaking very fast, to prevent a remonstrance until all his arguments had been laid before his mother, “I don’t think I learn very much from studying. _Perhaps_ it is my fault; but I think it is the fault of my nature. I always find that from anything I see or hear, I learn twice as much as I do by reading. When I _see_ anything curious or striking, it sets me thinking, and I find that I very seldom forget what I have once seen and thought about; but with reading it is different--nothing makes much impression. I was reading about a man the other day, who seemed just like me. His biographer said that he could be taught nothing, he was obliged to learn everything by observation and experience; and so you see, mother, that if I were to travel, and to observe and take pains while I was travelling, I should learn a great deal more than if I went to Oxford, where I should only see one set of things and people. Do you see what I mean, mother?--do you like what I say?” And he bent forward to look at her with eager sparkling eyes.

“I am afraid, Ernest,” she said, rather sadly, “that your old soldier fancy is stirring again. You will not be satisfied without some great excitement.”

“No, mother, no, no, no,” he repeated, vehemently, “I don’t want to be a soldier: I should hate to be a soldier. I wish education and all the bother of it was over, that I might come and settle here for good; for I care for nothing but Clare Abbey in all the world. I only wish, as this education must take place, to get over it the best way I can, and to learn as much as I can while it is going on. So, my dear mother....”

The conversation was interrupted by a loud ring at the door-bell.