It was all gone now, I remembered, getting up from
the fire. It was not for me to muse over bygones,
but to act with a cheerful spirit and a grateful heart.
So I said to myself, “Esther, Esther, Esther!
Duty, my dear!” and gave my little basket of
housekeeping keys such a shake that they sounded like
little bells and rang me hopefully to bed.
The Ghost’s Walk
While Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is
still wet weather down at the place in Lincolnshire.
The rain is ever falling—drip, drip, drip—by
day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement,
the Ghost’s Walk. The weather is so very
bad down in Lincolnshire that the liveliest imagination
can scarcely apprehend its ever being fine again.
Not that there is any superabundant life of imagination
on the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, truly,
even if he were, would not do much for it in that
particular), but is in Paris with my Lady; and solitude,
with dusky wings, sits brooding upon Chesney Wold.
There may be some motions of fancy among the lower
animals at Chesney Wold. The horses in the stables—the
long stables in a barren, red-brick court-yard, where
there is a great bell in a turret, and a clock with
a large face, which the pigeons who live near it and
who love to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always
consulting—they may contemplate some
mental pictures of fine weather on occasions, and
may be better artists at them than the grooms.
The old roan, so famous for cross-country work, turning
his large eyeball to the grated window near his rack,
may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at
other times and the scents that stream in, and may
have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper,
clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his
pitchfork and birch-broom. The grey, whose place
is opposite the door and who with an impatient rattle
of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so
wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the opener
says, “Woa grey, then, steady! Noabody
wants you to-day!” may know it quite as well
as the man. The whole seemingly monotonous and
uncompanionable half-dozen, stabled together, may
pass the long wet hours when the door is shut in livelier
communication than is held in the servants’ hall
or at the Dedlock Arms, or may even beguile the time
by improving (perhaps corrupting) the pony in the
loose-box in the corner.
So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard
with his large head on his paws, may think of the
hot sunshine when the shadows of the stable-buildings
tire his patience out by changing and leave him at
one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow
of his own house, where he sits on end, panting and
growling short, and very much wanting something to
worry besides himself and his chain. So now,
half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house
full of company, the coach-houses full of vehicles,
the stables full of horses, and the out-buildings
full of attendants upon horses, until he is undecided
about the present and comes forth to see how it is.
Then, with that impatient shake of himself, he may
growl in the spirit, “Rain, rain, rain!
Nothing but rain—and no family here!”
as he goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn.
