It was a lovely summer evening for the Squire’s
rural entertainment. Mr.
Travers had some guests
staying with him: they had dined early for the
occasion, and were now grouped with their host a little
before six o’clock on the lawn. The house
was of irregular architecture, altered or added to
at various periods from the reign of Elizabeth to that
of Victoria: at one end, the oldest part, a gable
with mullion windows; at the other, the newest part,
a flat-roofed wing, with modern sashes opening to
the ground, the intermediate part much hidden by a
veranda covered with creepers in full bloom.
The lawn was a spacious table-land facing the west,
and backed by a green and gentle hill, crowned with
the ruins of an ancient priory. On one side of
the lawn stretched a flower-garden and pleasure-ground,
originally planned by Repton; on the opposite angles
of the sward were placed two large marquees,—one
for dancing, the other for supper. Towards the
south the view was left open, and commanded the prospect
of an old English park, not of the stateliest character;
not intersected with ancient avenues, nor clothed
with profitless fern as lairs for deer: but the
park of a careful agriculturist, uniting profit with
show, the sward duly drained and nourished, fit to
fatten bullocks in an incredibly short time, and somewhat
spoilt to the eye by subdivisions of wire fence.
Mr. Travers was renowned for skilful husbandry, and
the general management of land to the best advantage.
He had come into the estate while still in childhood,
and thus enjoyed the accumulations of a long minority.
He had entered the Guards at the age of eighteen,
and having more command of money than most of his
contemporaries, though they might be of higher rank
and the sons of richer men, he had been much courted
and much plundered. At the age of twenty-five
he found himself one of the leaders of fashion, renowned
chiefly for reckless daring where-ever honour could
be plucked out of the nettle danger: a steeple-chaser,
whose exploits made a quiet man’s hair stand
on end; a rider across country, taking leaps which
a more cautious huntsman carefully avoided. Known
at Paris as well as in London, he had been admired
by ladies whose smiles had cost him duels, the marks
of which still remained in glorious scars on his person.
No man ever seemed more likely to come to direst
grief before attaining the age of thirty, for at twenty-seven
all the accumulations of his minority were gone; and
his estate, which, when he came of age, was scarcely
three thousand a year, but entirely at his own disposal,
was mortgaged up to its eyes.
Copyrights
Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 03 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
