Trevethlan: A Cornish Story. Volume 1. Watson William Davy
the clang of arms and the tramp of soldiers, the base-court of Trevethlan Castle now echoed no sound more military than the occasional crack of a fowling-piece; and its silence was more generally broken by the mower sharpening his scythe, or the gardener trailing a roller. Sooth to say, even these peaceful noises had been very rare for a long time previous to the opening of this tale: the garden which occupied the old place of arms had fallen into neglect; the ivy, which might have been ornamental to the ruined walls and outworks, stifled the trees and shrubs in its oppressive embrace; the flowers struggled hard for life amidst a host of weeds; the grass of the lawn, unmown since the summer, when it was cut for hay, was rusty and patchy; the gravel walks were green and mouldy. One little plot of ground, however, was an oasis in the general desert: it occupied an angle of the castle, having a southern aspect, and was screened from the sea-breezes by the wall along the cliff: here trim flower-beds were cut in a small expanse of turf, and displayed, even at this advanced season, not a few gems of horticulture.
And two or three windows, looking from the first floor on this still blooming garden, presented no less striking a contrast to the rest of the castle, than the garden itself afforded to the remainder of the great court. Their florid decorations were sharp and fresh; their glass was bright and clear; and white curtains within might temper the radiance of the mid-day sun. But, everywhere else, the progress of decay was manifest: the Gothic tracery was crumbling away; panes were frequently wanting in the casements; and when they were perfect, the winter spray and summer dust had rendered them nearly opaque. Weeds grew between the stones and on the ledges of the walls; and long creeping-plants hung from the battlements, and waved mournfully in the wind. Desolation reigned paramount over Trevethlan Castle.
Nor did the interior of the building belie its external aspect. The state bed-chamber was a sample of all the rest. In many of the rooms the dust had been undisturbed for nearly thirty years. But two were exceptions to the general neglect: one, the gallery to which Mr. Trevethlan referred, where hung the portraits of the family, generation after generation, from the days of Holbein to those of Reynolds. This was the favourite walk of Mrs. Griffith, the wife of the steward, whose office had been hereditary in his family almost from the earliest of those portraits. Mrs. Griffith used to spend much of her spare time in the gallery, walking to and fro with a long flapper of feathers in her hand, gently and reverentially brushing the dust from the pictures, and never passing that which was turned to the wall without a deep sigh.
The last Mrs. Trevethlan—a new Griselda—had been treated with civil neglect by her husband, and died under the weight of her position, after bearing him the son and daughter already introduced. She was the child of a small tenant upon the estate; and Mr. Trevethlan, having attained the only object of his marriage, checked some presumption of her family with marked disdain. The maternal care and early education of his children devolved upon Mrs. Griffith, and the portrait-gallery was their usual school-room. Here they learned the history of their family as the history of England: not a bad memoria technica, but one attended with some risk. However, it may easily be guessed that they had no hard task-mistress, and that battledore-and-shuttlecock often interrupted the story of Queen Elizabeth's maid-of-honour, or of the colonel who fell in endeavouring to rally Fairfax's horse at Marston Moor.
And whatever family pride might be acquired in this gallery was chastened in the other apartment exempted from the general desolation. This was the library, the especial domain of Polydore Riches, the chaplain of the castle. Riches held a fellowship at Cambridge, but had incurred, no matter how, the dislike of his superiors; being somewhat timid and retiring, he thereupon gave up residence, and accepted Mr. Trevethlan's offer of his chaplaincy and the curacy of the hamlet. And when that gentleman's affairs became inextricably involved, the worthy clergyman declined a release from his duties, and continued to reside at Trevethlan, maintaining himself on the proceeds of his fellowship. The people at the village said he might sometimes be seen in the dusk of evening, leaning on the tombstone in their churchyard which marked the resting-place of Rose Griffith, a relation of the steward. It was also said that he had positively refused to perform the marriage ceremony between his patron and Margaret Basset; and it was true. For once, Mr. Trevethlan respected a pride that was equal to his own, and contented himself with a sarcasm on the eccentricity of poverty.
Polydore had now resided nearly thirty years at the castle, and was more than fifty in age. But time sat light upon him, and he looked much younger. From Mrs. Griffith he received as pupils his patron's children, and the library took the place of the picture gallery. Polydore was enthusiastic, and children love enthusiasm: there was a tinge of sadness in his demeanour, and childish pity is more akin to affection than that of older persons. It was not wonderful that Randolph and Helen were frequently glad to escape from the presence of the cold and stern man whom they called father, to the teaching of the tender and gentle being who ruled in the library. Nor was it more strange that with such an instructor they made rapid proficiency in whatever pursuit he directed.
"Lonely," he exclaimed one day, when Randolph, then sixteen, inquired if he did not feel so in the solitude of the castle, "lonely with a library like this! Lonely in the society of those around me! Of Park, first beholding the Niger! Of Columbus, seeing the light from the poop of his ship! Of Watt, contemplating one of our Cornish engines! Of Newton, observing the fall of the apple! Of Luther, taking his stand at the Diet of Worms! Of Shakspeare, giving
'to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name!'
Of Bacon, writing 'Thus thought Francis of Verulam!' Lonely amidst the triumphs of enterprise, art and science; of history, poetry and philosophy! Lonely, where whatever science has discovered, and art applied, and enterprise accomplished; what history has recorded, and poetry exalted, and philosophy ordered, is visibly presented! Where power, skill, and understanding, memory, fancy, and wisdom have written their greatest names, their mightiest deeds, their noblest thoughts! No, Randolph Trevethlan, there is no loneliness in such society as this."
It was his own feeling, perhaps, that Randolph expressed in the inquiry which extracted this speech from the chaplain. For to the buoyancy of youth, the castle might well seem a dreary abode. When a man gives up the world, the world generally returns the compliment; and in this instance Mr. Trevethlan's violation of the bienséances in his marriage widened the breach. No friend or relation visited him during the last years of his life. And, indeed, their entertainment would have been a serious burden on the finances of their host. It is probable that the steward was a much richer man than his master; it is not impossible that all the expenses of Trevethlan did not fall upon its lord.
Yet the establishment had gradually declined to the lowest point. An old porter, named Jeffrey, who occupied the entrance lodge to the inner court, and cultivated a small kitchen garden, was the only male domestic: his wife, and two or three maid-servants performed all the other offices of the castle. People often wondered that Mr. Griffith did not leave such a falling house. But Mr. Griffith was not a rat. He had lived there more than half a century, and was prepared to continue as long again.
Nor let it be supposed that this devotion was entirely due to the place. Proud and reserved as had been its recent master, he was far from being wholly unamiable; even his children, to whom he behaved with uniform harshness, regarded him with as much affection as awe; and his dependents, whom he treated with almost as constant kindness, served him with real attachment. Well did Griffith recollect the day, although it was five and thirty years past, and he was scarcely twenty at the time, when Mr. Trevethlan galloped into the court-yard with his horse in a foam, on his return from Pendarrel, ordered his carriage, paced impatiently up and down the great hall while it was being prepared, and departed to London without uttering another word. Well, too, did the steward remember his father's grief, as missive after missive came to Trevethlan in the few following years, of which the constant burden was "money, money." Mortgage Tresylty, sell Penrevil, fell Withewood; so it went on, until the extensive domain, once appended to the castle, was reduced to its immediate precincts. Then Mr. Trevethlan came home, and lived during the remainder of his days in the secluded manner, which has already been sufficiently described.
CHAPTER II
"Strange is it, that our bloods, Of colour, weight, and heat, poured all together, Would