Woodbourne

“ Heritage, beaming with radiance of youth and beauty from beneath those jetty eye-lashes; Harry Thorsby, by an equal chance, sate close to Letty, whose fair, fresh, heart-lit features cast a sunshine round her; and George, the grave but genial George Woodburn, occupied a place betwixt Mr. and Mrs. Degge, to whom he could show all attention. Mr. Woodburn and Mrs. Heritage were neighbours, and seemed to have much of interest to talk of, in which Ann and her mother occasionally joined, but what they said could not be heard from the clatter of plates and youthful tongues in full play. ”

“ The winter is over. There were pleasant cheery times again at Woodburn Grange, at Hillmartin Hall, and at Cotmanhaye Manor. There were splendid dinners at Christmas; and many a one that we know seated at them; and faces as joyous as could be at the after games and dances. There were all the Woodburns, but with some of them also under other names. Mrs. Letty Thorsby, and fair Ann of Cotmanhaye Manor, and their loving husbands, and the worthy Thomas Clavering, as fond of a rubber at whist as ever. ”

“ When Letty, that sunbeam which was ever darting here and there, yet always making bright the house, returns, it will be to Castleborough. Not far off, to be sure, but still not exactly at Woodburn. Meantime, Ann and George, too, have their friend, Miss Drury, to enliven them by her genial and ever lively society. There are frequent passings between the Grange and Bilts’ Farm, where Mr. Trant Drury is always busy, though there really, just now, seems little to do, but for the dews to fall, and the crops to grow in the sunshine. ”

“ Such was blithe Letty—simple, yet shrewd, loving and light-hearted, the happy embodiment of ardent and out-blossoming womanhood.
But Woodburn Grange was a spot made for a happy home, for substantial ease and abundance, not for grandeur. There was everything there which enabled its possessors to enjoy the country. A handsome income; all the rural luxuries of life; horses, an open, but not a close carriage, a boat on the charming river below, hearts ready to love good and intelligent neighbours, and such neighbours to love. ”

“ We can picture to ourselves the bandy legs bearing the unwieldly body up a steep brae side; stumbling over loose stones, struggling through the tall heather, till breathless he would pause, while the agile gillies would, chuckling, leave him behind; pause and ponder with the conclusion not slowly arrived at, “What a fool I was to leave Woodhall for work like this.” ”

“ George Woodburn was a young man of very pleasing person, but considered, by young men in general, peculiar. He had [Pg 164] been educated at Repton, the great Derbyshire grammar school, where he had made the acquaintance of the sons of the principal nobles and gentry of the county. Henry Clavering, the son of Sir Emanuel, their near neighbour, had been one of his schoolfellows, and they had ever since been great friends. They had enjoyed together all the pleasures and sports of country life. Clavering was now away, and Thorsby was a very acceptable companion for George. ”

“ In the summer I trust once more to see England, and a wife who will add to all her other undeserved goodness that of receiving her repentant and for-ever sobered
“Henry Thorsby.”
“Well,” said Mr. Woodburn, “God grant that he may be as completely sobered as he says. That big hammer is one of the best things for taming a man I ever heard of. If it has effected a cure, as we will hope it has, [Pg 84] Thorsby ought to have it emblazoned in his arms.”
“Yes, truly,” said Mrs. Woodburn; “and I pray that it may have done that good work with all my heart.”
“And you can still forgive him, Letty?” ”

“ George rode up to Bilts’ Farm, made the inquiry, and returned, saying that Barrowclouch stuck to his expressed intention, and Ann was authorised to write to Elizabeth with the news. This was done; a prompt reply brought the joyful assurance that her father was delighted with the opportunity, and would in another week be at Woodburn Grange to see the Farm. [Pg 59] Great was the exultation in the Woodburn family. All rejoiced in the prospect of having Elizabeth so near, and Mr. Woodburn in the prospect of so accomplished an agriculturist coming amongst them. ”

“ A little above Woodburn Grange, and nearer to Rockville, lies the village of Woodburn. It is not very large, and chiefly built round a spacious green, on which the young men in summer evenings enjoy their games [Pg 112] of cricket, ninepins, bowls, and quoits. At the corner where the road enters the green from Rockville, and, of course, from Castleborough, stands the blacksmith’s shop, where frequently two or three farm-horses stand waiting to be shod; and a number of ploughs and harrows lie expecting repairs. ”

“ Woodburn,” replied the other, while a scarcely perceptible tinge appeared on her fair cheek; “feel not thus. You do to yourself, and I doubt not to many others, great injustice; certainly to one who can only think of you with the warmest gratitude.”
“O, if all were like you, Miss Haviland!” returned Woodburn, with much feeling; “so just, so generous, so pure, so beautiful! But I have already said too much,” he continued checking himself. ”

“ With what pride Letty on her next visit to the Grange showed the newest Woodburn to the grandfather,—mother and sister and George had already taken their view of the miniature youth in Castleborough. With what pride she told her father that she was charmed with the opportunity of giving the name of Leonard—Leonard Woodburn Thorsby—to a fresh claimant of the honours and virtues of the house! Thorsby was himself no less proud of the young aspirant to manhood. ”

“ By his side he still sees that gentle embodiment of unpretending wisdom and domestic sunshine, whose kind glance, if he is low, re-inspires him; if he is ready, in some momentary flush of his once excitable spirits, to say or do anything too prominent, steadies and sobers him. With such a pilot and such a sheet-anchor, we will venture to predict a safe voyage of [Pg 288] life to his mortal bark, and that never again will the sunshine of peace now lying on Woodburn, on Cotmanhaye Manor, on Bilts’ Farm, and on Fair Manor be disturbed on his account. ”

“ Woodburn. “That is all the silly talk of the silly, superstitious country people—that is, country people of all sorts—for the farmers are as superstitious as the labourers: and when Sir Emanuel appeared at the hustings at Castleborough to nominate a friend of his as candidate for a parliamentary seat for the county, the farmers set up a great yell, and would not hear him, saying, ‘That is old Clavering who deals with the Devil.’ But it is all because he is a great astronomer, and is seen going out at night to his observatory. ”

“ Vast wealth, a married home and a [Pg 268] parental one existed for them, for, like Woodburn Grange, Fair Manor was the resort of the younger branches in almost daily intercourse. A sphere of great usefulness, as well as of a splendid future, lay before Dr. and Millicent Leroy; and those who believe they will show themselves worthy of such superb advantages, we may venture to prognosticate will not be deceived.
[Pg 269]
CHAPTER VIII. IT IS ALL OWING TO LETTY.
Our history may wind itself up in comfort. The dark cloud which fell on the happy home at Woodburn has thoroughly dispersed. ”

“ Woodburn, “of their pleasures and amusements; I am talking of their society. They give you good dinners and good wine, I grant you, and you have all that you say—music, and dancing, and fine singing. You have great crowds of fine and titled people of whom you learn to know nothing but their fine clothes, and fine jewels, and fine outsides. At their more select and domestic parties—dinner-parties, say—all is very outwardly agreeable, polite, and even, to a casual eye, unassuming, for such great people ”

“ During all this time the woodman and his wife stood helpless and trembling. The light spring cart was soon brought by Boddily and Palin through the wood and over the heath; Scammel was hoisted in, and Sir Henry Clavering and George Woodburn came and took a view of him. There the great strong fellow lay on the straw at the bottom of the cart with his eyes shut, and his features, rendered almost black with rage, wore a sullen air of dogged endurance. ”

“ The violent death of so strong and active a man as Mr. Trant Drury, in passing that quiet ferry, never before stained by any human blood or witness to any human crime, on one of the loveliest evenings of summer, in brightest sunshine, and within a few hundred yards of Woodburn village. It would be equally impossible to express the great distress which existed within Woodburn Grange—the still more agonising and horrified affliction of the wife and daughter of the deceased. ”

“ And what a change has fallen on all the country and the families, rich and poor, around! The friends of Sir Roger have fallen out of the circuit, as it were. The old leaven of heart-burnings and conflicting principles has died out from amongst those in whom we are most interested. In that lovely little district, which includes Cotmanhaye, Woodburn, [Pg 307] Rockville, Bilts’ Farm, Fair Manor, and Castleborough, the abodes of the Claverings, the Woodburns, Degges, and Heritages, the old sunny and Arcadian days have returned. ”

“ Woodburn’s well-known character—than a gentleman whose family was on the very point of forming the [Pg 65] most intimate ties with the family of Mr. Drury. As to the question of crossing the ferry, he would show that it was impossible that Mr. Woodburn could have been present at the catastrophe, for he had witnesses to prove that Mr. Drury did not leave the hay-meadow beyond the river till nearly half an hour after Mr. Woodburn was seated quietly with his family at tea in his own garden. ”

“ A more painful state of things cannot be conceived. To George Woodburn and Elizabeth Drury it was a state of perpetual torture. Mr. Woodburn wished George to take a house somewhere not far off, get married, and manage the paternal property. He named to him a handsome income, which he would appropriate to him; but George knew that at such a wedding his father would never meet Mr. Drury, and to such a scandal neither he nor Elizabeth would consent. ”

“ But many an earlier riser than Sylvanus had already read it, and it had entered into the oral curiosities of Woodburn, and even travelled to Castleborough.
In company David Qualm preserved the same solid reticence, the same inexhaustible capacity for silence as in his own domicile. At home, his pipe was his constant companion even more inseparable than his equally quiescent wife. What was he? He was the companion of Jasper Heritage, and that was all, so far as the most inquisitive mortal ever knew. Did he and brother Jasper ever converse at home, or in their rides? No one lives to tell us. ”

“ Presently Frank came up with a good dose of compound tincture of cardamoms for the cook, which soon set her all right; and he tumbled into his bed again, to laugh himself asleep.”
“What an arrant coward,” said Mr. Woodburn again, “is that Green!”
“When Frank was nearly out of his time,” Thorsby went on, “Green’s brother—a doctor in a country place in Yorkshire—wanted to go to the sea-side for a month. And then, the country people being too busy with their harvests to be sick, he got this valiant Mr. Green of ours to send Frank Leroy to look after any casual patient that should turn up. ”

“ Letty was bravely working on with the business in Castleborough. Mrs. Thorsby was dead: and little Leonard, growing every day more interesting, was the great consolation of Letty’s life. Over Woodburn Grange lay a dark cloud of care and mortification, only relieved by the marriage of Ann and Sir Henry Clavering, which was at last fixed for the commencement of August, and was to be followed by a tour on the continent. ”

“ The news of such an event flies fast, and when the doctor came with George from Castleborough, for there was none nearer, there was a great crowd of men, women, and children surrounding the ferry, and a hundred different speculations were passing from mouth to mouth as to the catastrophe George Woodburn’s horse showed, by his reeking skin and panting flanks, at what a rate he had ridden, and the doctor’s smoking horse at what a rate they had returned. ”

“ Though there is no longer such a cluster of young life there as made its old shady rooms, and its garden alleys, and its pleasant fields ring with laughter and merriment in the days of our great hayfield fête, a sober happiness rests on that now familiar Grange. Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn live a life of quiet enjoyment, only interrupted by frequent invasions of children and friends that send a fresh tide of pleasure around them, and make even the old times seem pale in comparison. ”

“ Throwing a look of silent scorn on his contemptible foe, Woodburn, having been anxiously casting about him in thought for some means of rescuing the ill-fated girl from her impending doom, now, with the air of one acting only on his own responsibility, hastily called on his companions to follow him, and led the way, with rapid strides, down along the banks of the stream, as near the main channel as the water and ice, already bursting over the banks into the road, would permit. ”

“ He generally looked in at the Grange in going to and returning from Castleborough; and whilst Ann was there, at Letty’s, he frequently went in and dined with them. Every day tended to present the excellence of his heart and the [Pg 263] clear solidity of his mind more attractively to the whole Woodburn family. Ann only was held back from the goal of her earthly happiness by the cloud that lay on her most beloved ones.
The settlement of Mr. Trant Drury in their immediate neighbourhood had not proved such a source of satisfaction as had been hoped for. ”