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Chapter IV. Anthony.

General Hawke’s breakfast-time was ten. But Mabel passed a restless night and woke early, with the strangest new feeling of being able to do as she liked. The first thing she did, therefore, was to get up, and made her way down-stairs before eight, to the surprise and terror of a housemaid who was dusting the drawing-room. Mabel had no feeling of responsibility to Miss Wrench, or any one, except the General, who had told her last night that she was to be mistress of the house, and to pour out his coffee. She saw no reason why she should not explore the place before breakfast, and set forth at once from the drawing-room window.

If Pensand Castle was lovely in the evening it was still more so in the morning, with the sun shining brilliantly over all that landscape of waving wood and dancing water. A breeze had sprung up in the night, and was driving a few white clouds across the sky; they threw soft shadows on the rivers as they floated along. The water seemed to be alive with movement; another ship had come up and anchored at the mouth of the Penyr; far away, beyond wooded points and ships and buildings, there was the deep-blue dazzling line of the sea.

As Mabel walked through the garden, the roses shook their petals at her feet; the birds sang and hopped across her path. It was not long before she got out of sight of the house, and then she soon lost her way, down among little grassy glens full of roses, with small paths leading in all directions. She gathered one or two rosebuds, and carrying them in her hand went on, not much caring page 30 where, presently coming out of one of these rose-preserves into a grove of oaks bedded in fern, and going on slowly through it to a little gate opening out on a steep green field. There the sun was shining in all his strength. She looked back into the chequered shade through which she had been travelling, then out again into the field, with the first shade of doubt in her mind—ought she to go any further? But it was scarcely more than half-past eight, and the attraction of the sunshine was too strong; she felt like a flower that had been brought up in a dark place, and longed to bask in it. So she went into the field. It was itself a lower part of the Castle mound, stretching away to the south. It sloped down in natural terraces to a rough pathway and a line of oaks, and then broke away into cliffs draped with ivy and bushes. To the cliff’s foot sloped up the sands of the tidal creek.

Mabel had not gone very far along the field—for her progress was always slow—when a large black dog came rushing up, and sprang upon her so roughly as almost to knock her down. She gave a little scream, and a tall man instantly appeared, striding up the hill with long quick steps. He was an odd-looking smooth-faced person in spectacles, perhaps about forty. As he came up, looking flushed and excited, Mabel forgot her fright, and felt inclined to laugh.

‘Down, Prince!’ cried the stranger. ‘I hope my dog has not hurt you.’

He took off his hat and stood still, with an air of the deepest anxiety, looking hard at Mabel through his spectacles.

‘Not at all, thank you; he only frightened me. I was silly,’ said she; and then she thought she had better turn back to the garden, for the earnest gaze of her new acquaintance was almost embarrassing.

Now don’t let me and my dog spoil your walk!’ he page 31 exclaimed. ‘We shall never forgive ourselves. Come to the other end of this field, and let me show you the prettiest view of the Castle. You have plenty of time. The General does not breakfast till ten, I know. Shocking that an old soldier should be so lazy!’

Mabel regarded him with grave astonishment.

‘Thank you; I think I must go back now,’ she said, and with a slight bow she was turning away.

But the stranger was not so easily got rid of, and began to walk on by her side.

Mabel did not know what to do. He had the voice and appearance of a gentleman; but who could he be, and what could his behaviour mean? He, meanwhile, seeing her limp, suddenly offered her his arm, saying that the field was too rough for her. This was enough; Mabel stopped, and once more looked him gravely in the face.

‘I don’t know who you are,’ she said, ‘and I cannot think how you know me. I wish I had never come out of the garden. I would much rather go back by myself, please.’

Her new acquaintance smiled very amiably.

‘Go back by yourself! Why? Because we have not been introduced to each other! I thought of asking the General to let me breakfast with him, as he is so lazy; but if you don’t like me I will go home.’

‘O, I beg your pardon! I did not know you were a friend of the General’s,’ said Mabel, much confused. ‘He will be very glad to see you, I daresay.’

‘About that I have no doubt. I believe I have the honour of speaking to Miss Ashley,’ taking off his hat again. ‘I, your unfortunate servant, am Anthony Strange, of Carweston. Now this is dreadful; you never heard of me before?’

Mabel shook her head. ‘But how did you know it was me?’ she said.

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‘Because I have been expecting you to dawn upon us; and there is no other young lady nearer than St. Denys; and none of them would be walking in Pensand Combe at this hour. Have I satisfied you, and will you forgive me?’

‘Yes,’ said Mabel, beginning to smile.

‘Are you tired?’

‘No, I am lame, but I can walk very well,’ said Mabel, in a low voice, with the strangest feeling that she had known this man all her life, and was quite sure from experience what he would say next.

‘Do, then, trust yourself to me and Prince along this field and into the lane at the other end. There are such roses in the hedge—red, red—” newly sprung in June.” I am not talking nonsense. They are red.’

‘Yes, I believe it,’ said Mabel. ‘I saw them yesterday as we came from the station.’

‘Not these. These are the reddest in the country. And there is an old mill, a much older and prettier one than you have seen. We won’t go as far as that now, though; for it is low tide, as you see, and the dear old wheels will be resting themselves. Now you know who I am you really must take my arm. There is no harm in me; I am a clergyman.’

Mabel laughed and took his arm, though unwillingly; but she found it a very firm and pleasant support to her weak little steps. Anthony was silent for a minute or two, and an idea flashed into her mind.

‘Is it you who are so fond of Pensand Castle, and of antiquities?’

‘I spend my whole life in the past. When did my fame reach you? I am a real antiquary—not one of your archæological fellows, who write papers for societies that never read them. I never wrote a line in my life. How did you hear of me?’

‘General Hawke mentioned you last night. He said page 33 you could tell me when the Castle was built, and all about it.’

‘He gave me credit for a good deal,’ said Mr. Strange thoughtfully. ‘I have my theories, certainly. I’ll explain them to you after breakfast. We must visit the keep together.’

‘Was it the ancient Britons?’

‘Who put that into your head? Nobody believes it but me. I say that Pensand was one of King Arthur’s strongholds.’

‘But was King Arthur a real person?’ said Mabel doubtfully, remembering her lessons in English history.

‘My dear young friend! Was Queen Elizabeth a real person? But how did you happen to hit on Celtic builders of the Castle?’

‘That is a long story,’ said Mabel.

‘Then it will just last till we reach the roses.’

‘Well, I travelled down yesterday with Mr. Northcote, whose aunt lives at St. Denys. We talked about the Castle, and he told me that,’ said Mabel, her long story melting into air.

‘Good boy, to remember my early lessons. Well, what has New Zealand done for him?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mabel.

‘Of course you don’t. I forgot he was a stranger to you. Poor Dick! if good influences will do anything, he ought to be a fine fellow. A sweeter woman than Kate Northcote never breathed Cornish air.’

‘Do you mean his aunt? He told me she was an angel.’

‘So she is—and something better than an angel.’

Mabel wondered what that might be, but did not ask. Mr. Strange’s kind regretful manner in speaking of Dick seemed to her a confirmation of what the General had said. It was sad that any one who was good-natured should be so very odious.

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By the time that, after long round about wanderings, they got back to the Castle, Mabel and Anthony were great friends. After the first, he was like other people in treating her rather as a child, though certainly in nothing else. His kind odd face beamed down upon her, his hand was always ready to help her over any uneven ground. He told her several stories about the Castle and its neighbourhood, and encouraged her questions, and talked away so agreeably that she was quite sorry to find herself at the door. The General and Miss Wrench were waiting, both with grave faces, for it was past ten. Anthony, however, was a welcome guest, and his excuses mollified the General at once. He was pleased, too, to see Mabel’s eyes so bright, and a fresh colour in her cheeks.

‘If she would walk over every morning to Carweston, to see me,’ said Anthony, ‘she would be a giantess in six months. As to strength, I mean. Miss Ashley, you would be able to pitch a fellow from the top of the keep, as Lady Janet did to the Puritan, when he told her that the prospect before them was better worth studying than her mirror.’

‘The Puritan was right, for once,’ said Miss Wrench. ‘Was he killed, poor man? I hope she was punished.’

‘I sincerely hope not, but history does not say,’ answered Mr. Strange. ‘Ladies in those days knew how to keep up their dignity. I wish we had some Lady Janets now. Do make her your model,’ smiling at Mabel. ‘I can tell you a great many more things about her.’

‘Just now, Anthony, be good enough to read prayers,’ said the General.

The long line of servants came in, and Mabel remembered, with a sort of shock, that her odd friend was a clergyman. She was aware the next minute that his voice in reading was singularly beautiful; low, musical, page 35 and reverent. He seemed to abstract himself suddenly from the things round him, and to pass into a higher region of calm bright air. Not that it seemed in the least an unfamiliar region. Mabel thought afterwards that he always lived in it, and that in the silences which sometimes fell upon him in the midst of his liveliest talk, he had simply retired into it for a few minutes of peace. This was a fancy of hers, for most of those who knew him thought him a little mad.

It was a fact, however, that all stiffness, all uneasiness, vanished from Pensand Castle when Anthony was there. Even Miss Wrench laughed and enjoyed herself. Mabel entered into all his jokes, and talked almost as fast as he did. The General watched her with a good deal of amusement; there was a shade of contempt in his liking for Anthony, but he quite understood that women might think him clever and original.

After breakfast they all walked up together to the keep, where Mabel had a lecture on Roman and British building. Anthony poked among the stones, and showed her what rough uneven blocks they were, put together without any sign of mortar or cement. The tower was hollow inside, and they climbed up by a flight of wooden steps to the battlements. Miss Wrench said something about ‘that poor Puritan,’ and shuddered as she looked down the wall and the steep descent below.

‘Yes,’ said Anthony; ‘he must have rolled and rolled and rolled, smashing the trees on his way, till he tumbled into the water down there, and was fished out by the miller. What a fate! And Lady Janet nearly shared it, she flew down so fast after him—for she had a soft heart of her own, bless her! But the genius of her house caught her in his open arms, and lodged her in an oak. There she sat and wept, till her tears bubbled up in a little spring at the foot of a tree, and flowed down, down, past the mill, in the channel the poor man had page 36 scraped for them, till they trickled over into the head of the creek, as they do to this day.’

‘Suppose you look at the view, Mabel, that caused all this commotion,’ said General Hawke, almost impatient at the way in which she hung on Anthony’s words.

It was glorious indeed, that meeting of the waters, dancing and glittering under the midday sun. All the clouds were gone, and the heavy green of the woods, the reddened gold of the grass fields deep in sorrel and buttercups, only made more intense the blue of water and sky, and the glow of sapphire sea that trembled against the horizon.

‘He deserved it,’ said Anthony, ‘if it were only for speaking in face of such a sight as this; certainly for judging a neighbour so much fairer and better than himself.’