The Grey Monk. T. W. Speight

       CHAPTER II.

      AN OLD FAMILY AND ITS HOME.

      Withington Chase was a fine old Jacobean mansion, which had been added to from time to time as whim or necessity had dictated.

      The walls of the original structure were composed of small red bricks, relieved at frequent intervals, as far as the main frontage was concerned, by fluted pilasters of white stone with Ionic capitals, which, when seen from a little distance, had all the effect of marble. However incongruous and out of keeping with the general scheme of the house the various additions which had been patched on to it during the course of the last two centuries might have seemed when they were crude and new, Time's chastening fingers had mellowed them to a certain degree of beauty, so that in these latter days the general effect was that of a harmonious and homogeneous whole.

      Originally there had been a much older mansion, which, after having been partially destroyed by fire, had been razed to the ground, all of it save one sturdy fragment which, for some unknown reason, had been allowed to stand.

      This relic of a state of things long vanished was an octagonal tower, about sixty feet in height, built of undressed blocks of grey stone, held together by a mortar as hard as themselves. The interior of the tower consisted of three small rooms, one above the other, with a leaded roof surmounted by a breast-high parapet. Each of the rooms was lighted by a couple of long narrow openings in the wall, which at one time might have been glazed, but were so no longer. Of these rooms the ground floor one alone was now put to any service, access to the others, owing to the rotten state of the woodwork, being deemed a risk not worth adventuring. The basement in question was used as a receptacle for gardeners' tools, and a general storage place for things horticultural, which had been allowed to accumulate there for years.

      As already stated, the tower had formed a part of the older mansion of Withington Chase, although what the intention had been in building it, and to what special purposes it had been put, nobody nowadays seemed to know. There it was, however; and there--the elements being its only enemies--it was likely to remain for some centuries to come. It was about five or six hundred yards apart from the more modern mansion, the space between the two being occupied by the belt of timber before mentioned.

      The main entrance to Withington Chase was approached by a broad carriage-drive, which swept with a graceful curve from the lodge some half a mile away. The park was well timbered, and contained a number of grand old trees said to have been planted before the present mansion was in existence. In front of the house, but intersected by the drive, was a spacious expanse of closely-shaven lawn, to the right of which was a small but choicely kept flower-garden, while on its left was a shrubbery of tall clipped hedges and thick clumps of evergreens, among the sheltered paths of which Sir Gilbert found it pleasant to take his constitutional when the weather was too cold and raw to allow of his walking elsewhere in the open air.

      The master of Withington Chase was proud of his long descent, and that not without reason.

      He could trace back his pedigree on the male side in unbroken sequence to the time of Henry IV. One head of the family had fought at Agincourt, another had distinguished himself at Malplaquet; while scions of the family, more than one could count on one's fingers, had fought and, in several cases, died for their king and country wherever the British flag had penetrated. Quite a number of Clares had been in Parliament from time to time, and if none of them had been noted for his eloquence, or had risen to office, they had all possessed the negative virtue of being staunch voters, men whose political opinions could be relied upon never to stray beyond the hard and fast lines laid down by their own party.

      The present baronet had taken no share in public affairs, and had declined more than once to allow himself to be nominated for a seat in Parliament. An occasional appearance on the magisterial bench, which grew still more occasional with advancing years, just sufficed to remind his brother justices and the good folk of Mapleford, that Sir Gilbert Clare of Withington Chase had not yet been gathered to his ancestors in the family vault.

      Sir Gilbert, at the age of five-and-twenty, had inherited an impoverished estate, and, by consequence, a diminished revenue.

      His father had been a man of fashion and a gamester, under the Regency, and in the course of a few years of reckless expenditure had contrived to undo the work of several generations of thrifty progenitors. This was a state of things which the young baronet at once set himself to remedy. The town house and its contents were sold to the highest bidder; the Yorkshire property was let on lease to a wealthy manufacturer; while the Withington establishment was cut down to the lowest limits compatible with keeping up his station in the county.

      Unfortunately for his worldly prospects--and he was the first to admit the fact later on--Sir Gilbert had married about a year prior to his father's death, and, little likely as one would have deemed him, with his cold temperament, to commit such an imprudence, had married for love. His bride had come of a good family, but beyond a trifling dowry of a few thousand pounds, had had nothing save a pretty face, and a piquant manner to recommend her. Such as she was, however, she had contrived to fascinate the haughty young heir of Withington Chase.

      Alas! that it should have to be told, but in the course of a few brief years after marriage the pretty face had become a memory of the past, and the piquant manner had degenerated into the querulous repinings of a semi-invalid; for Lady Clare was one of those women who find in a naturally delicate constitution an ample excuse for shirking all the active duties of life, and for coddling themselves into a state of chronic invalidism, the chief features of which, in her case, seemed to be reclining the day through on a couch, and being waited on, hand and foot, by everyone about her.

      Under these circumstances it was scarcely to be wondered at that, after a time, Sir Gilbert's home-life became intolerable to him. He was by nature of a restless disposition, with a strong inclination for travel and adventure, and by degrees his absences from the Chase grew longer, till at length it came to pass that he would be away for several months at a time.

      It was during one of these absences that his wife died, greatly to his surprise and relief. She had so coddled herself up for years, and had made of herself such a hothouse plant, that a slight chill, too trivial in the first instance to seem worth notice, had sufficed to carry her off. She left behind her a son ten years old, the John Alexander Clare to whom we have already been introduced.

      Whatever might have been Lady Clare's defects in other ways, she had passionately loved her child.

      Unfortunately, however, not content with loving him, she