Woodburn

“ Jaggers?" he cried.
"Miss Woodburn rode the winner, my lord," answered the trainer at the top of his voice.
The words ran like a flame along the top of the crowd.
They leapt from mouth to mouth, out of the Paddock, on to the course, and round it. And where they fell there was instant hush followed by a roar, in which a new note sounded: All was not lost. The Americans, cast down to earth a moment since, rose like a wild-maned breaker towering before it falls in thunder and foam upon the beach. There was wrath still in their clamour; but their cry now was for Justice and not for Revenge. ”

“ Woodburn might be seen daily riding on a good sturdy horse about his farm, and in harvest time he did not hesitate to take a hand at raking or forking in the hay-field, or binding after his reapers in the corn-field; and on such occasions his children would turn out for a frolic, rather than for serious work. His harvest done, Leonard Woodburn shot over his own land, accompanied by his son George, now just come of age, and who was treading in his father’s steps, being fond of both agricultural pursuits and of the gun. ”

“ The early married days of Letty Woodburn seemed perfect in their felicity. Often she used to drive over in the handsome open carriage which Thorsby kept chiefly for her use, and whenever she came it was with all the flush of happy life and gaiety about her. She seemed to like her town life, and the new circle of friends that her marriage had introduced her to, yet she always appeared to inhale a fresh draught of joy as she sat in the old rooms, rambled round the old garden, and saw the accustomed objects and people about her as formerly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Woodburn, “can this apostrophised beloved one be? A mere girl’s fancy, I expect.”
“No,” said Letty; “Miss Drury says it was some young fellow of a cousin who got drowned in the Trent when he was about eighteen, bathing. I wonder what Dr. Leroy would say to this poem?”
“He would not mind,” said Mrs. Woodburn. “Miss Heritage is not likely to pine in reality after a youth drowned years ago, with such a good-looking and clever lover as Dr. Frank Leroy. Perhaps it was a good thing the lad did get drowned. [Pg 18] These Friends make too many cousin-marriages.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Scarcely were the young amateur haymakers, who, by-the-by, were furnished with light forks and rakes suited to such delicate hands as those of the ladies—scarcely were all engaged in raking and throwing up the hay into wainrow under the generalship of George Woodburn, with much mutual merriment over one another’s awkwardness, and over Thorsby’s mercurial capers and flourishes—when a novel sight arrested their attention, and brought them all to a full stand. ”

“ What a joy it is to George to have him back again, and you, Ann?”
“Oh! I am very glad indeed that he is [Pg 2] come back; poor Sir Emanuel must have been so lonely by himself up in that great house.”
“True,” said Mrs. Woodburn. “But you, Ann? Has he altered his opinions at all?”
Ann shook her head, the tears started to her eyes, and she said, “No, dear mother, he is just the same; it is very sad.”
“It is sad,” said Mrs. Woodburn; “but let us wait God’s time, my dear child; I will still hope that so excellent a young man, with such sense and such a heart, must come right at last.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Woodburn, who was a stiff, impracticable man, and a stout adherent of the Degge and pauper clique. Had this speech reached Sir Henry Clavering, he and Simon Degge would have insisted that Sir Benjamin should not occupy a place on the bench on this occasion. Able lawyers were engaged on each side. To make a short story of the proceedings, some of Mr. Woodburn’s own men were brought forward to prove that he had expressed a wish that Mr. Drury were removed from the neighbourhood, and that he was a nuisance. ”

“ Things were going on blithely at Woodburn, everybody deeply interested in the preparations for the approaching wedding, as were all the relatives and connections on the neighboring estates and those on more southern plantations. Woodburn seemed a centre of attraction; relatives and friends were constantly coming and going, many consultations were held as to suitable gifts, especially for Grace and Harold. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Woodburn. "Lay that sheet over her, George, to keep the flies off, and get a handful of sweet hay and put it under her nose to peck at it. You've brought the barrow, Mr. Silver. Thank you."
"Can you lift the foal in?" asked Boy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Drury, accompanied by George Woodburn, [Pg 101] and lastly, Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn, with the lovely, blushing Letty, with somewhat flushed cheeks, and eyes in which joy and tears stood together. Every creature was out as they passed through the village, and bows and curtseys, and women with apron corners to their eyes, and yet with the most beaming delight on their faces. At the church appeared already, Harry Thorsby, in superb costume, and his best man, Sir Henry Clavering, his mother, and two or three other friends. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ Many labourers were called who gave the same evidence. Mr. Balguy then called several haymakers to show that Mr. Woodburn’s words were, not that he wished something would fortunately rid the country of Mr. Drury, but that some fortunate circumstance would take him somewhere else. He next showed by the evidence of Mr. Drury’s own bailiff, who was in the meadows when Mr. Drury left, that it was half-past six o’clock by his watch, and then by the evidence of George Woodburn and Betty Trapps that Mr. Woodburn entered the house exactly as the old cuckoo clock in the hall struck six. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”