Ernest Richard Seymour

“ Else why should my uncle permit this man to visit the house, unchecked, during so long a period, and the two to be thrown together in unreserved intercourse in rides and drives, and in other ways, on all occasions?
This licence was more dangerous, perhaps, for a girl of Edith’s temperament, circumstanced as she was then, than it would have been for another. Trustful and confiding as she was herself, she had found, during her young life, but few receptacles for those feelings for which an ardent, passionate nature most craves. ”

“ THE LAKE AT YSSBROOKE.
BY THE AUTHOR OF MIGNONETTE.
I have often fancied that nature meant me for a painter, not because I have a taste for pictures, or the smallest talent in the way of design, but because the chief epochs of my life have always presented themselves to me through a halo of colour. ”

“ The whole establishment seemed but an abortive display of prosperity, which left its cold shade upon every person and thing brought within its compass; not that we were any of us habitually miserable, that I remember. The society at Yssbrooke was undoubtedly of a grave kind, but I do not think that it was distasteful to me on that account. I carried with me such schoolboy elasticity as was consistent with my temperament. It was not much, perhaps, for I was ordinarily a dreamy boy, and may have been more in my element in my uncle’s domain than would most of my schoolfellows ”

“ At sixteen I spent my holidays at Yssbrooke. Yssbrooke belonged to my mother’s brother; at least he occupied it, and his executors at his death disposed of it. There was a story about a trust, but that is neither here nor there. My vacations were, in most cases, passed there. It was a dull, odd, profitless sort of place, with gables of any age, that never seemed to grow older; large unthinned woods, and farmyards that never appeared either to thrive or to fall into decay ”

“ When the persons present rose from prayer, they were grouped in a sort of semi-circle, looking towards the vase of water, the rector and my uncle being alone with their backs towards it. On a sudden, one of the party raised a cry, and the eyes of all, the two persons last mentioned included, turned in the direction of his gaze. Standing by the vase stood Edith—so plain that I for one, could have vouched for her being there in life. ”

“ Everything is colour to me—blue or black or green or azure; and yet I would not have my readers suppose me a spooney follow. I never was in love after the fashion with which men love in books. I am married, and I love my wife ”

“ A few murky crows flapped their presence over the fields; but life had to all appearance died out, or was to be found only in the red berries which decorated the tavern windows, or the few straggling children casting pebbles on the ice of the village pond. ”

“ My marriage and its concomitant circumstances are about the only part of my life which is to me devoid of colour. I can afford to look back upon them with little of interest. Their results have been so welded into the progress of my daily life, that I care not to dream over them, or at all events I never do. It is widely different with other portions of my experiences. I recall often enough, against my own will, too, the day when Rhoda Gray committed suicide down at Purley, and her midnight funeral in the old churchyard ”

“ That Edith should feel this acutely, and that the result, after all that had passed, would go nearly to break her heart, I knew her too well to doubt; but why the affection existing between them should be impaired by the result was a question much more hard to solve. There is an awful cold doubt clinging to my heart which I have in vain endeavoured to clear up. I hate to recall it, and why should I? After my uncle’s ultimatum was passed, Eldred did not at first cease all communication with his mistress or with Yssbrooke. ”

“ On a signal, a species of tombolo ensued: certain of the crumbs were thrown out; the first person who felt himself inspired made a grab, or as it was more correctly termed a “pick,” and a lecture, or rather series of interlocutory sermons followed, upon the text so drawn, which, with others, more or less diversified the evening until it was time for psalms and prayer again. To this amusement my uncle had rigidly adhered during my last two vacations. ”

“ But the rector of our parish, I found out afterwards, thought differently: he felt that either Edith was close by, or further off than human aid could reach. Having some influence with the Colonel, he ventured to suggest, on the night of my arrival, that the woods, the farm cottages, and even the outlying thickets, should be searched. “Why,” he pointed out, “should she have left home without clothing or means, if she meant to go a journey? Why, if your refusal of Mr. Eldred was only contingent, should she go at all? ”

“ For eighteen months previous to the moment of which I have last been speaking, he had become, so to speak, an ascetic The idea upon him, which communicated itself to a considerable knot in the neighbourhood, was, that God was best propitiated by acts of retirement, sorrowful presence, and by grave repellant bearing towards the outer world. Melancholy réunions were consequently instituted at Yssbrooke, which were attended by all the converts to this view; mostly males, though there were a few of the gentler sex. ”

“ She was gone and so was he, and up to the present moment they were, in fact, as if neither of them had ever been.
alt = In the foreground, the shore of a sedgy lake; beyond it, an open carriage drawn by a dark horse, with two people in it looking at the lake apprehensively. The light is dim, the sky oppressive.
And what said my uncle to all this? I was mad to know what his hopes of her recovery were, and how he bore the disaster. On the first point I was enlightened that evening. He returned to Yssbrooke, with the idea impressed upon his mind that his child was hiding from him. ”