Rockburg

“ Major Jimmy Bass would exclaim; "don't we all know Little Compton like a book? And ain't he got a right to wear his own duds?"
Rockville, like every other railroad town in the South at that period, had become the site of a Confederate hospital; and sometimes the hangers-on and convalescents paid brief visits of inspection to the neighboring villages. On one occasion a little squad of them made their appearance on the streets of Hillsborough, and made a good-natured attempt to fraternize with [91] the honest citizens who gathered daily at Perdue's Corner. ”

“ Rockhurst’s countenance at sight of Master Smelter, with the black fists, as the proposed evening comrade!... He could see the dilation of the nostrils, the haughty lips, barely apart upon a smile. What a tale would not Rockhurst’s tongue make of it for royal ears!—As for the inn, were he to find there some chance gentlefolk, how could he hope to induce them to come forth again on such a night, when, in truth, no coach was like to find a passage through the snow? ”

“ Almost as far as the eye could reach, the land and all that stood on it—timber, meadow, homestead, hamlet—belonged to Rockhurst, fit appanage to those massy castle walls that rose clear-cut against the blue air, in all the majesty of ancient power. And as he gazed, Lionel Ratcliffe’s heart grew sombre even as his glance. A keen-faced man, old-looking for his thirty years, somewhat below the middle height, with marked features, cold blue eyes and thin lips that betrayed the working of an intellect as sharp as the steel that hung by his side. ”

“ Roseburg, originally Deer Creek, the present county-seat of Douglas, and named after its founder, Aaron Rose, has a population of two thousand five hundred. It is the gem of the Umpqua Yalley, resting upon the river Umpqua, where it is a fine large stream bounded by beautiful park-like oak openings. Nothing could be finer than the sweep of the river as i from the south, the railroad on one side, and teeming gardens and attractive houses on the other. A handsome bridge spans it in the centre of the town. Roseburg, like Drain, is to have a railroad to the sea. ”

“ Pulling his full underlip between finger and thumb, Charles stared alternately out of the window at the picture of grey river, vanishing skiff, and brooding sky, and at Enguerrand’s delicate white face. Beneath the boy’s tensely still attitude it was easy to divine quiver of nerves, fierce eagerness.
“Why, now,” said the King at last, somewhat maliciously, “we are not too proud to be taught by our subject. Our Lord Constable and ourself had, as I said, a wager who should capture the linnet’s next song. My Lord Rockhurst is an old soldier: he trusts no one. ”

“ Whilst you play with bolts and delay your lord with fond embrace, we, on our side, vanish by the garden whence we came. Aye, and let out the señor, for ’tis still I who have the key.—Go, dear madam; leave the rest to us.”
“Alack, alack!” she moaned, “this supper table, laid for two, will yet betray me!”
“Say you so!” exclaimed Rockhurst, his wits leaping to the humorous opportunity. “Nay, then shall the supper vanish, too! Your Flemish household still sleeps heavily; our chances are good. ”

“ Opposite Floors Castle, at the confluence of the Tweed and Teviot is the green tree-clad mound with a few crumbling walls, all that remains of the illustrious Castle of Roxburgh, one of the strongest on the Borders, the birthplace and abode of kings, and parliaments, and mints, and so often a bone of bitter contention between Scots and English. The town itself, the most important on the Middle Marches, has entirely disappeared, its site and environs forming now some of the most fertile fields in the county:
"Roxburgh! ”

“ Rockhurst had not lived the life of camps for so many years without becoming familiar with every variety of your soldado. He was able, by this time, to read very clearly that here was but one of those ubiquitous “officers of fortune” who, behind a punctilious manner and a conquering exterior, screen anything but a chivalric soul—mercenaries [32] who, no doubt, will fight when occasion is imperative, but who reckon upon looks as much as upon “derring-do” for the securing of this world’s comforts. ”

“ Why, there is not a kinsman can afford to show countenance to such a falling house, not a lady in Europe who has heart enough to risk her fate with my hopes. Nay, there’s not even a fat tallow merchant of Flanders who thinks it worth his while to risk a present guilder for future favour. You would do better, my lord, to go seek your peace with the powers that be—and for this you have recent high precedent—rather than remain to share the last ruin of our line.”
“Sire,” exclaimed Rockhurst then, “how shall my house stand if yours fall? How shall my body [11] keep health if yours ail? ”

“ Tell him I am dull, que je m’ennuie, Vidame, et qu’il vienne s’ennuyer avec moi, for I am persuaded he is as dull as I am. ’Tis the fate of good wit in a weary world. How now—not gone?”
“Sire,” said the lad, in a toneless voice, “Lord Rockhurst is at Whitehall. I saw him at his writing [230] but just now, as I passed the Window of his apartment.”
“All the better fortune! Haste, then,” said the King. “But hark ye, Little Satan: Rockhurst alone! God forbid there should be a flounce near our presence to-night! Bid the Lord Constable come and crack a bottle with us as in the old days of Flanders.” ”

“ There was war henceforth between Rockville and Great Castleborough.
On the next Sunday there came literally thousands of the jubilant Castleburghians to Rockville. They had brought baskets and wine for dining and drinking success to all foot-paths. But in the great grove there were keepers and watchers, who warned them to keep the path, that narrow, well-worn line up the middle of the grove. “What! were they not to sit on the grass?” “No.” “What! were they not to pic-nic?” “No; not there!” ”

“ Out, little phial! It lay in the hollow of his palm, no larger than a lady’s thimble. Break, silken thread! His moment had come: the lover would kiss his dark mistress on the lips! There was buzzing as of a thousand angry bees in his ears.... He never noted how still the room had grown. Now his hand hovered over the rim of the full beaker—a strange gesture, as of the priest blessing the cup...!
“Little Satan....” said the King.
Though neither loud nor sharp, there was something so singular in Charles’s voice that Rockhurst started from his wonted abstraction. ”

“ His Majesty can do nought without my lord Viscount Rockhurst—my merry Rockhurst, he has dubbed his lordship, in a raillery, you will understand, of that countenance which keeps its gravity through the maddest freak. And mad he can be, sir; hence that nickname of Rakehell, which no doubt has astonished your French elegancy.—Nay, but in truth there is an eye that wanders, as you say, prodigious languorously upon my lord Constable!” Mr. Petherick went on, narrowing his own watchful gaze: “I congratulate you, Vidame, upon your fair [95] sister ... yet, I trust she is as wise as she is fair.... ”

“ So, having scrambled down to Wechselburg again, they struck out on the flat, and began their walk. The whole day lay before them; they were bound to no fixed hours; and, throughout the morning, they made frequent halts, to gather the wild raspberries that grew by the roadside. Having passed under a great railway viaduct, which dominated the landscape, they stopped at a village inn, to rest and drink coffee. About two o’clock, they came to Rochsburg, and finally arrived, towards the middle of the afternoon, at the picturesque restaurant that bore the name, of Amerika. ”

“ If any one wants to talk to the burgomaster, I say he is not at home. If they say they saw him at the window, I answer that it makes no difference, he is still not at home. People in Hamburg know at once what that answer means; they slip a thaler into Henrich's hand, and his Honor promptly comes home. If he has been ill, he recovers at once; if he has had visitors, they leave at once; if he has been lying down, he gets up at once. I run about with the lackeys of the gentry, now and then, and I know well enough what goes on in those houses. ”

“ In utter dejection, the long figure—“a tall man, above two yards high,” so had run the description on the Council of State’s Warrant for the apprehension of Charles Stuart—extended itself as if unconsciously to the warmth, chin sunk upon breast, eyes fixed and moody under drooping lids and singularly bushy eyebrows.
Upon the left, the fitful tongues of flame revealed a face of equal melancholy if of greater energy and comeliness. My lord Rockhurst sat forward, supporting his cheek upon his hand. ”

“ Woods, too, clothed the steep hillsides, and swept down to the noble river, their very boughs hanging far out over its clear and rapid waters. In the midst of these fine woods stood Rockville Hall, the family seat of the Rockvilles. It reared its old brick walls above the towering mass of elms, and travelers at a distance recognized it for what it was, the mansion of an ancient and wealthy family.
The progress of England in arts, science, commerce, and manufacture, had carried Sir Roger's estate along with it. It was full of active and moneyed farmers, and flourished under modern influences. ”

“ What! that most ancient, honourable, and substantial family suffer any of the common earth of humanity to gather about its roots! The Rockvilles were so careful of their good blood that they never allied it to any but blood as pure and inane as their own. Their elms [Pg 15] flourished in the rotten earth of plebeian accumulations, and their acres produced large crops of corn from the sewage of towns and fat sinks, but the Rockvilles themselves took especial care that no vulgar vigour from the real heap of ordinary human nature should infuse a new force of intellect into their race. ”

“ Rockhurst had had Heaven or Hades knew what vast experience of women, of the women of Second Charles’s Court, whether in exile or in Whitehall. Scarce a challenging beauty of the posy that he had not measured swords with; and, as the practised fencer will, he knew every trick of the play, every line of assault and defence, every feint and every parry. And women, being proverbially unfair fighters, pretty dears! he had a smile as well as a wary eye for the tricky pass and the treacherous thrust. ”

“ Roseburg, the county-seat, is a pretty little town of five hundred inhabitants, charmingly located in one of the oak parks bordering the Umpqua River. It has an academy, four churches, a Masonic and Odd Fellows' Hall, and public schools; and all the usual trades and manufactures of an inland town. Too much can not be said of the landscape beauty of this part of the county. It is easy to foresee that when these valleys are made accessible they will be populated rapidly; as well from their attractiveness as from the excellence of soil and climate. ”

“ Hardly had he reached the second stave when, overhead, a window guarded with ornamental bowed iron grille-work was cautiously opened, and a woman’s voice took up the refrain as gently as a swallow twitters.
Rockhurst instantly halted, and doffing his hat with gallant alertness, glanced up at the square of faint light, against which a woman’s head, leaning forward behind the curving bars, was just visible. ”

“ Rockhurst had not used him to such wearisome moods. Yet he loved the man.
“Nay, nay,” he explained at length; “I’d have you remember, my lord, that it is my cousin of France who is responsible for our Little Satan yonder. Nay, Rockhurst,” he went on, in his easy kindness and his sense of royal prerogative, unable to grasp the fact that any one could be in earnest in refusing the favour of his personal interest; “I’ll have the lad with my own sons. We’d keep our eye upon him, man.”
Rockhurst’s glance rested on the King’s countenance now with an unwonted tenderness. ”

“ My Lord Viscount Rockhurst—” He was feverishly stripping his glove from his left hand as he spoke; but the Lord Constable, with a single gesture, swept him and his argument from the path with no more emotion than that of a man who rids himself of an importunate fly. With the same measured step he then resumed his course up the garden alley.
For a second the Vidame stood, staring after him, paralysed with rage. A faint snigger—of mingled relief and amusement—from the watcher on the bench started him to fresh action, as the prick of the spur starts the mettled horse. ”

“ Bowing deeply, Rockhurst answered in a low voice:—
“My son is brought up in the country, sire.”
“Nay, fie!” said Charles. “Is not that even what we would reproach you with? So fair a stripling should never grow a mere rustic. We’ll have him about us,” insisted the King. ”

“ Rockhurst drew up a chair and sat him down, deliberately facing her. Then he crossed his fine white hands upon his knee, letting his eyes rest upon hers.
“Madam,” he said at last, “do you not hear how the wind begins again to moan outside? I warrant you, behind the thick walls of this old house the snow is whirling in great white drifts. It must be parlous cold without. Here, madam, the firelight is rosy; do you not think we are very well together? ’Tis a quaint hour, stolen from dull old Time’s grudging casket. We do not know each other—why, that has a marvellous charm of its own! ”

“ A subtle change swept over Rockhurst’s countenance. The air of grave severity, the shadow of regretful tenderness, passed from him, to be replaced by the mocking glance, the expression at [53] once reckless and cynical which, before the world’s eyes, characterised the man who had won for himself—among a company of reprobates—that second if scarcely more appropriate nickname of his, “Rakehell Rockhurst.”
“Nay, but you’re a promising lad!” said he, gibing. “And you’ll make your way, my son, I doubt me not. Time advances, old types die out, and manners change. ”