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.

CHAPTER VII

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.