LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 558, 1 April 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THORLEIGH MOAT. A Grandmother’s Tale. Scene : A drawing-room in a country house. Personages: The Grandmother (.s -peaking), the Grandchildren [mute). Yes, my dears, it certainly has been a very dreary winter’s day snow without and dismal faces within. I can quite understand that you are sick of the frivolity of bagatelle, and weary with the hard work of chess. Come to the fire, then, and let us enliven the evening with a little cheerful chat. A story ? Ob, but what a tax on the old woman’s brains ! I did not bargain for that. The story of Thorleigh Moat? You have never heard it properly ? Ah, well, I daresay not; it all happened so long ago, and for years it gave me so much pain to hear it alluded to, that the subject was forbidden, and at last almost forgotten. Now that all is softened by Time’s ‘effacing fingers,’ I can bear to think of it with the melancholy interest cne feels in a tragedy represented on the stage. Ah, I can scarcely believe that I ever was a wild impulsive girl, and the heroine of so terrible a tale. Stir the fire, and let us have a ruddy blaze to warm our limbs and cheer our hearts. No, don’t ring for the lamp ; there’s plenty of light to tell a story by—the fire blazes merrily. Now little Fan and Tommy had better go up to the nursery. Yes, dears, it would not amuse you at all; and here arc some goodies to sweeten exile. Good night, little ones. And now, you ‘ children of a larger growth.’ come near and listen with all your ears. You must know ray father and mother lived in London, and my brother and I were their only children. My brother, several years the elder, went into the Royal Navy, at an early age ; and soon afterwards, in consequence of my mother’s delicate health and nervous temperament, it was thought advisable, for both our sakes, to send me to school abroad. O, I’m not going to tell you anything about my school days at Geneva now ; you have heard of all my pranks there over and over again. I will begin when I was fifteen, and was suddenly summoned to England in consequence of the death of my fathei’. Going on business to the north, the coach in which he travelled was overturned ; he was thrown on his head, and never spoke again. I found my mother in agonies of grief, which deepened info utter despair when, a few months later, we heard of my bi’other’s death by fever in a foreign port. Two such shocks proved too much for her delicate frame, and she died before I had completed my seventeenth year, leaving me an orphan indeed. I see tears in some of your dear young eyes. Yes, my darlings, it was indeed sad to be left as I was, still almost a child, alone in the world ; for I really was alone. I had but few relatives, and with those few I w r as —in consequence of the time I had spent abroad and my mother’s ill-health since my return, which had prevented her seeing any company—totally unacquainted, I found myself mistress of a competent though not a large fortune, and I and my worldly possessions were entrusted to the guidance of my nearest relative, my father’s elder brother, who always lived on the family estate in the west of England ; and to his residence, Thorleigh Moat, I was to travel, in the companionship of an old and faithful servant, as soon as the necessary arrangements were completed. I shall pass over my journey, which was tedious but quite uneventful, and proceed at once to tell you of Thorleigh Moat, and my arrival there.

You must remember there were no railroads in those days to whirl us across the country, and it was not till towards the close of the third day’s journey that I opened my weary eyes as the post-chaise stopped before the gates. I had often of Thorleigh Moat, and my mother, who had been there on a visit soon after her marriage, loved to expatiate on the beauty and venerable antiquity of this home of her husband’s family ; but no description had prepared me for what I then beheld, and I fear that I shall fail to convey to your minds a just idea of the scene which greeted my eyes on that lovely autumn evening. I am to try ? So§l will. Well, then, picture to yourselves a stately dwelling of the Middle Ages, rearing its head unscathed amid the common-place buildings of the present day. It was a large square building, with courtyard in the centre, surrounded by its moat, broad, deep, and clear, as when it formed a necessary defence against the enemy. The mansion was of various periods and styles of architecture, but none, I believe, later than the reigns of the last Tudors ; all in good order and repair, but undesecrated by the sacrilegious hand of modern taste. It was a fossil mansion ; a ghost of the past reappearing in the daylight of modern civilisation ; a castle wherein the Sleeping Beauty might awaken from dreams of more than a hundred years. The drawbridge existed no longer, but its place was supplied by a regular bridge, with a gate at either end, and over it I passed into the interior. The outside had struck me chiefly for its well-preserved antiquity, but on alighting from Ithe carriage in the courtyard I was absohitely dazzled by the beauty of the scene. The architecture was, as I have said, picturesque and various, but here the gardener’s art had contributed not a little to the effect by the splendid creepers which draped the walls on every side. The tower which surmounted the entrance was a perfect pyramid of gorgeous blossoms. The American creeper, then displaying its finest scarlet hues, Hashed through masses of monthly roses and garlands of some lovely white clustering plant, while geraniums, the handsomest I have ever seen, glowed and bloomed around. 0, yes, I know what you

would Fay : ‘ There were no Giants in those days,’ No, nor ‘Tom Thumbs,’ nor ‘Frogmores,’ nor any of the grandly-named blossoms of the last half-century indeed, I believe they have all been changed into Pelargoniums since I was young—but for all that 1 shall live and die in the belief that no flowers ever bloomed like those which beautified old Thorleigh Moat. You see, like all old fogies (is there a female fogy ?), I fancy that the objects which I beheld without spectacles were far finer than any these dim eyes can see nowadays. All sorts of images presented themselves to my young mind as I looked upon this life and beauty glowing amid the shadows of the past : a hoary monarch in his coronation robes, a fair corpse tricked out for the grave in bridal dress, a ghost ‘ revisiting the glimpses of the moonwhile Nature seemed pleased with the work and harmonised the whole.

I discovered subsequently that my uncle cherished this home of his ancestors with equal love and pride, and that to his good taste and care were chiefly owing its beautiful appearance and fine preservation. I began to wonder who would welcome me to this enchanted palace. The ‘ Beauty’ had arrived, but where was the ‘ Beast ?’ Ah, yon may laugh, you wicked ones, but I was a beauty half a century ago. Ah, as you boys say, ‘ and no mistake. ’ Well, my wonder was of short duration ; for, looking round admiringly, through an archway on the opposite to that on which I had entered I spied an old-fashioned garden, with high clipped hedges and terraces of velvet turf, and advancing down its slopes a handsome man of middle age, who, from his likeness to my father, I knew at once to be my uncle. He crossed the bridge that spanned the moat and took me in his arms. 0, how my heart warned towards him as he folded me to his breast, and welcomed me as a daughter to his house. I felt as if I had indeed found a father again. The poor fledgling, fallen from the nest and left fluttering on the ground, had found a fostering hand to warm and cherish it.

He led me into the house. We passed first through an ancient dining-hall, with large windows, in which holy saints and un-holy-looking warriors made dim the light of day, and old oaken settles looked as uncomfortable as the warmest lover of the antique could desire ; and thence, by many mysterious stairs and winding galleries, to a room furnished in more modern style, with soft luxurious arm-chairs, and windows that let the sunshine in, and draperies of vivid hues.

There, engaged in some feminine occupation, sat my aunt—a pleasing-looking woman, though it struck me, I remember, at the first glance, that care sat on her brow. She welcomed me as kindly as my uncle, thereby removing from my mind a lurking anxiety, for the little I had heard about her had rather alarmed me.

She had been married to my uncle only a few years, and neither my father nor my mother had ever seen her. She had been a widow with one son and a handsome fortune ; and a report had reached us that she was, to use an expressive phrase, a masterful woman, and ruled my good but rather indolent uncle most despotically. However this might be, to me she then seemed all gracious kindness, and to her husband sweet wifely submission ; and the only drawback to my perfect satisfaction with my present lot was the information that her son, the young Osmund Eay, was for the time absent—for the same report that brought an account of my aunt’s disposition had spoken of the beauty and talents of this youth, and I naturally longed for the companionship of one of my own age. Next day, refreshed by a good night’s rest, I longed to explore my new abode, so unlike anything I had ever seen before ; and my uncle wished no better task than to be my guide—his interest in me and his pride in the old place combining to make it indeed a ‘ labour of love.’ The house was, all altogether, very large ; but much of it, kept up as it was in the ancient form,(was of course useless for modern requirements. There were many rooms for which no use could now be assigned, with strange mediaeval names, which clung" to them, though sometimes the very meaning was lost, except to learned antiquaries. My uncle explained everything, but still I remained in rather a puzzled though pleased frame of mind ; more delighted with the picturesque and poetical view, than edified by all the archaeological learning my uncle poured into my ears. Of all I then saw for the first time, I was most struck with the ancient chapel, certainly the most beautiful part of the building, and in some respects the most curious. My uncle told me it was a perfect specimen of some particular style of Gothic architecture with a long mane, which at this moment I forget—a matter of very little consequence, as I believe you would none of you be much the wiser for hearing it. It was enough for me, and it must be for you, that the chapel was beautiful, and, better still, was haunted. Need I say more to make it thoroughly interesting ? (To he continued.)