SOLOMON, the wisest of men, has expressed his conviction that there is nothing new under the sun. If our great-grandparents were to come out of their graves, they might feel inclined to reverse this well-known saying, and might exclaim, in amazement and in somewhat a regretful tone, that there is nothing old under the sun. For in these times of invention and discovery, of increasingly rapid motion, and of life at the highest tension, they would find it difficult to come across any reminiscence of their own slow-going, leisurely days, and would be inclined to pity us, their descendants, and to deplore the racket and hurry in which we are compelled to spend our short span of earthly life. They might roam in spirit form disconsolately up and down our island, like the wandering demons of old, seeking rest and finding none, trying to discover some vestige of the peaceful times in which they used to live, and striving to find a spot from which the rush of life is excluded, and in which they might once more feel at home.
Should any of these ghosts of our ancestors return to earth, and consult us with regard to the locality in which they would still be reminded of the peaceful Britain of their days, we should most certainly advise them to turn their attention to the promontory known by the name of the Garroch, which stretches into the sea for several miles, and forms one of the most beautiful parts of our picturesque western coast. There our ancestors might still come across village after village, each so remote from the noise and the bustle of the railway, so primitive in its customs, so unconventional in its mode of life, so thoroughly peaceful in its surroundings, that they might feel that they were brought once more into touch with life, and might enjoy to the full many quiet and peaceful memories of the well-known days of old.
The large and busy town of Llantrug is the only link that the people of the Garroch possess with the busy world, and many of them live fourteen, sixteen, or even twenty miles away from it, and barely ever visit it. Indeed, many of the older people pass year after year without hearing the whistle of an engine or the noisy rattle of an approaching train; and they count themselves most fortunate that their lot is cast in calm and still waters, far removed from the stormy waves of modern life. They do not, for even a moment, envy the young people who are able to go to town, and to whom an occasional visit to its busy streets and shops is a welcome break in the dull monotony of country life.
Outside the railway station at Llantrug the Garroch coach was standing, waiting for the arrival of the evening train. It was only twice a week that this coach came to town, and gave the inhabitants of those far-off regions an opportunity of reaching the world beyond the promontory, and a certain number of them always availed themselves of it. They came in by the early coach, called irreverently on the Garroch the ‘bus, did their marketing and other business in Llantrug, and returned by it in the evening, arriving at the end of their long drive between nine and ten o’clock at night.
As it stood in the station yard, the inside of the coach was filled with these country people—women with large market-baskets, farmers with good-natured, sunburnt faces, girls who had been to see the fashions and to buy their new hats, and children taken into town by their parents as a wonderful treat, that they might see the shops, and the trams, and the bustle of Llantrug.
But the coach never started till the evening train was in, and the Garroch people had to wait, patiently or impatiently as the case might be, for the train was an hour late. The driver stood by the horses and looked anxiously from time to time in the direction of the expected train. Again and again he had turned round with a disappointed air, but at length, with satisfaction beaming on his countenance, he put his head inside the coach and announced: ‘She’s coming.’
Many a sigh of relief escaped from the long-suffering passengers when they heard this welcome news, and now all looked out to discover whether anyone bound for the Garroch had arrived by the train. In a few minutes a porter appeared with a heavily laden truck of luggage.
‘All that!’ exclaimed the driver.
‘Yes, and more to follow,’ said the man; ‘and four passengers!’
At this moment two of the passengers appeared, and the country people inside eyed them curiously. They saw an elderly gentleman in spectacles and a long grey overcoat, and with him a young lady who they concluded was his daughter. Most of the luggage appeared to belong to them, for the gentleman was scanning it anxiously, and was counting each package as it was taken off the truck.
‘Five, six, seven; I thought there were eight, Doris,’ he said.
‘Yes, there were eight; it’s your portmanteau that’s missing, father.’
The elderly gentleman went off in search of it, followed by the porter, and whilst they were away the two other passengers came up. One was a short, sickly looking man with thin lips and sharp features, a man of thirty-five or thereabouts, who looked as if he had seen the shady side of life and had not much chance of seeing any other. He had evidently been into the Garroch before, for he greeted the driver as an old friend, and nodded familiarly to several of those inside the coach. The fourth passenger was a tall, young man, more than six feet high, in a long, light overcoat. His luggage consisted of several extraordinary packages sewn up in canvas, and two portmanteaus, evidently quite new and unused before, on which were inscribed the initials, N. S. F. He had light brown hair, grey eyes, regular features, and a distinctly handsome face; but as the young lady, who was standing near the coach and waiting for her father, glanced at him, she thought she had never in her life seen a more melancholy expression on any human face. And yet the next moment, when he was speaking to the driver and helping him to adjust some of the packages on the, top of the coach, he smiled at some remark that was made, and she immediately wondered at herself for having thought him melancholy, and decided that his was the merriest face she had ever seen. But the brightness was only a passing gleam, like a ray of sunshine streaming through a rent in a storm cloud. For the melancholy returned immediately and seemed more settled than before.
It took some time to pack the luggage and to find places for the four passengers. None of them wished to go inside, for which the Garroch people were devoutly thankful, as they were already tightly wedged into their places. The two younger men climbed on to the box, and the father and daughter were helped by the driver to mount to the seat behind.
It was a relief to everyone when all was ready and they were actually off. Then the tongues inside the coach were busy, for the Garroch people all knew each other and had plenty of interests in common; but there was not much conversation amongst the outside passengers. The driver was a taciturn man, and was depressed by the long delay in Llantrug, so that, beyond answering an occasional question from the middle-aged man who sat next him, he took no notice of the passengers.
The old gentleman on the back seat brought a newspaper from his pocket, and began to read it as soon as they had left the streets of the town behind, whilst the girl amused herself by looking at the scenery through which they were passing, and occasionally glancing at her fellow-passengers. As for the young man, he spoke to no one, but lighted a cigar and smoked in silence.
They had been driving for some miles when they came to an extensive common, covered with bracken and gorse, and now and again with patches of purple heather; a breezy, pleasant place, far removed from the germ-laden smoke of the town. The sun was getting low in the sky as they crossed it, and the light was becoming mellow and golden.
The common seemed full of life: flocks of geese were wandering over the heather; crows and jackdaws were strutting about on the short grass; countless small birds were sitting on the furze bushes, and larks were singing their lullaby overhead.
The girl, whom her father had called Doris, had come from Birmingham, and the freshness and beauty of the scene charmed her beyond measure. The very stillness of the place—a silence broken only by the cries of the birds and the rumbling of the coach wheels —was a delightful change from the din and the racket of town life. The clear sky, the lovely tints of tree and fern and hedgerow were wonderfully refreshing to her, after gazing for months on the smoky atmosphere and begrimed vegetation of the Black Country. It would be a pleasure to live, even for a time, she thought, in such a beautiful, peaceful world as this.
It was when they were getting to the far side of the common, and were leaving its wildness behind, that the long silence was broken by another voice than that of the birds. It was the young man in the light overcoat who broke it. He took his cigar from his mouth and, turning to the driver, said:
‘What sort of hotel is there at Hildick?’
The driver and the man next him exchanged glances and laughed.
‘Hotel!—Hildick!’ said the driver; ‘you’ll have to look far enough, and long enough, before you find a hotel there. There isn’t such a thing, sir!’
‘Well, inn, public house, anything you like,’ said the young man.
‘There isn’t such a thing,’ echoed the thin-lipped passenger; ‘it’s plain to see you haven’t been to Hildick.’
‘Well, it’s to be hoped I can get a bed somewhere,’ answered the young man, as he put his cigar in his mouth again and relapsed into silence.
After some minutes the man next him looked at the driver, and said, ‘What about the Bank?’
‘Then there is a bank!’ said the young man in surprise.
The driver seemed, to think this an excellent joke, for he chuckled to himself as he answered, ‘A bank! Yes, sir, but never any money in it!’
‘Any room?’ asked the middle-aged man.
‘No, full up,’ answered the driver.
The sun had now set, and the sunset tints were coloring the sky in front of them. To the left they could see the grey sea, dull and cheerless; to the right, wooded hills, and quiet valleys in which the evening mists were gathering.
They passed through several villages, and by many lone cottages and solitary farmhouses, and as the night came on the load behind the horses became lighter, for one by one the Garroch people inside the coach reached their destination and departed, shouting goodnight to those left behind.
The road was a good one, well made and maintained, but Doris thought she had never seen one more hilly. It was like a switchback in its construction. At one moment the tired horses were toiling with their load up a terribly steep ascent, at the next they were going steeply downhill with the Leavy coach almost on their backs. Every now and then these hills were so long and difficult that everyone turned out of the coach to walk to the top.
It was on one of these occasions that Doris spoke to her tall fellow-passenger for the first time. The old gentleman had found such difficulty in getting down from his high seat and afterwards in climbing up to it again, that the driver advised him to stay where he was; but Doris was eager to walk, not only for the sake of the tired horses, but also because she was weary of sitting still on her high seat and longed for a little exercise. It was then that the young man came forward to help her to dismount, and gave her his strong hand as she made the final leap from the wheel. Doris thanked him, and for some time they walked on together in silence a little ahead of the coach. It was almost dark, and a heavy black cloud was driving up from the sea. Then suddenly the rain came, driving across the open country in a heavy pelting shower.
‘Let me get your coat,’ he said; and without waiting for an answer he ran back to the coach for it.
On his return Doris felt that, after his kindness to her, she ought not to let the silence continue; but he seemed little inclined for conversation. His answers were short and abrupt, and he spoke sometimes as if he were hardly conscious that he was speaking at all. Behind them came the horses, toiling patiently up the long hill. It was just as they drew near the top of it that he suddenly turned to her and asked, ‘Are you going to Hildick?’
‘Yes, we are going there for about six weeks,’ she answered.
Nothing more passed between them, and when they once more had to walk, downhill this time, and over a muddy, heavy road, he strode on alone and spoke to no one.
Doris thought she had seldom come across so unsociable a man. ‘And yet he looks as if he ought to be so different,’ she said to herself.
The laconic driver announced, when they were once more taking their seats at the bottom of the hilly that they were in Hildick Bay, and that they would soon be there—meaning by ‘there’ at the end of their long drive.
What the road was like it was impossible to see, for it was too dark to distinguish anything, and the rain still continued to fall heavily.
The thin-lipped man remarked that it would be a wild night at sea, but beyond a grunt from the driver no one took any notice of what he said. They were cold and wet, tired and hungry, and were longing above all things for the coach to reach its destination.
But even the longest drive comes to an end at last, and about a quarter of an hour after this the coach drew up at the door of the little post office at Hildick.
A crowd of villagers had collected, in spite of the wind and the rain, to await the arrival of the well-known ‘bus. Some of them were expecting parcels from Llantrug, others had come to meet friends who had been to the town, some were there merely to keep in touch with the outside world.
Doris and her father were going to a lodging at some little distance up the street, and the coach was going also to take their luggage.
‘Where can I get a bed?’ said the tall young man to the driver, as his packages were lifted down from the roof of the coach.
‘Can’t say,’ he answered; ‘every place almost is full up. P’r’aps they can tell you in there.’
He pointed with his whip in the direction of the post office. It was a little general shop with a tiny square window in which some of its wares were exhibited, and with a small counter at one end of it, where the post office business was transacted.
The young man went inside, but quickly came out again. ‘They can’t tell me of any place,’ he said. ‘Can none of you help me?’ he asked, turning to the crowd. ‘I’ve got my tent here,’ pointing to the large packages lying on the ground, ‘but I can’t get it up till morning.’
‘Here, Rupert, can’t you put him up at your place?’ said an old man who was standing by the horses. ‘Your folks haven’t come yet; have they?’
A tall, good-looking man stepped forward. He had dark hair and eyes, and a healthy sunburnt face. His voice and manner were very superior to those of the village people round him.
‘If you like to come with me, sir,’ he said, ‘I’ll see what we can do for you. I’ll get them to take your traps in here for the night.’
After a little confabulation inside the shop he returned, and helped the driver to carry in the canvas bundles and the tent pole. Then as the coach drove away he took up one of the new portmanteaus and led the way, whilst, with a short word of thanks, the tall young man took up the other portmanteau and followed him into the darkness.
As they passed under the light of the post office window, the first man looked at the luggage label which was tied to the handle of the portmanteau he was carrying, and this is what he saw there:
‘FORESTER,
Llantrug, via G.W.R.’
‘Forester; a good name that,’ he said to himself as he walked in front of the stranger up the steep hill; ‘I wonder if it belongs to a good sort of man?’
His companion did not say much to enlighten him on the subject, and Rupert glanced behind him from time to time, trying to discover what he was like, and wondering, somewhat anxiously, what his father would say when he told him he had brought a stranger to stay with them for the night.
At length, after climbing the hill for some way, Rupert stopped before a white gate, and put down the portmanteau for a moment whilst he opened it.
‘Where are we going?’ asked the stranger.
‘To the Castle, sir,’ said his guide.
‘The Castle; whose castle?’
‘Our castle’ —(this with a touch of justifiable pride in his voice)— ‘we’ve lived in it about four hundred years.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘We have, sir. I’m speaking the truth; father and son—father and son for four hundred years. There has always been a Norris at the Castle since Henry VIII. was king.’
‘Does it belong to you?’
‘No, not to own it; but we’ve rented it all the time. All the land, right away along the top of the hill on to the sea, is ours. You can see the old tombs of the Norris family in the church if you like. I often wonder what they were like, those old chaps whose names are there. See, that’s the Castle, sir, among the trees on the hill.’
The rain had stopped, and at this moment the full moon came out from behind a cloud. Forester looked up and saw in the moonlight one of the finest ruins he had ever beheld. High castle walls towered into the sky; a square keep stood out before him in which he could count the windows of six different stories; the whole place looked solemn and weird in the moonlight.
‘This is the back way in,’ said Rupert; ‘but it’s the shortest.’
They climbed a narrow stone stile and passed through the mysterious-looking ruins. A shrill cry made Forester start as he followed his guide. But it was only an owl, flying out of the ivy hanging from the high ruined wall which they were passing on their right. Several bats were whirling round overhead, doing their business by night as we men do it by day. They seemed in keeping with the place in which they lived, for the day of the old castle was over and its night had begun.
In a few moments, however, the scene was changed. They came to a part of the Castle still inhabited and which had never been allowed to fall into ruin, and from a large window the bright light of fire and lamp was illuminating the darkness outside. Forester was almost dazzled by the light as he came in from the gloom of the ruins.
Rupert led the way into the large farm kitchen, which was the very picture of cleanliness and comfort. If Forester had been an artist he would have liked to paint that old room, for it would have made a splendid subject for a picture; but he was no artist, and he was too tired and depressed to do more than glance at it and wait for his newfound friend. to introduce him to its occupants.
These were three in number. Sitting on a dark oak settle by the great open fire was an old man, spreading his hands to the warm blaze of the logs burning in the wide fireplace. In an ancient high-backed chair opposite him was a boy of ten, bending over a book which he was reading by the light of the fire, whilst his mother, a woman of about thirty, with light hair and a gentle refined face, was busily engaged in laying the supper table.
‘You’re late, Rupert!’ said the old man as he entered.
‘Yes, father; the bus was late, left Llantrug late; the London train was an hour behind time. I’ve got the parcel you wanted, and I’ve brought a gentleman with me.’
They all looked up at these words, and glanced at Forester, who was standing in the doorway, and whom they had not noticed before.
‘He has come to camp out, and has brought his tent with him.’ Rupert explained; but, of course, he can’t put it up tonight, and he can’t find a bed in the village anywhere; they’re all full up. So I thought perhaps we could put him up tonight; it’s a wild kind of night to be wandering about in a strange place.’
‘I’m sure if you can give me a bed I shall be most grateful,’ said the young man, coming forward into the light. ‘I had no idea there was no inn here; any place will do, the barn if you like; I’m not at all particular.’
The old man and his daughter-in-law exchanged glances. To take in a stranger at that time of night, of whom they knew absolutely nothing, seemed to them to be a somewhat risky proceeding.
The stranger saw their hesitation, and putting his hand in his pocket drew out his card case, and taking, a card from it handed it to Mrs. Norris. She took it to the light and read on it these words:
‘Dr. FORESTER,
The Albynes,
W. Kensington.’
When the old man had also read the card he seemed to dismiss his doubts, and to be quite ready to give the stranger, who had dropped in upon them so unexpectedly, a hearty welcome to the Castle. He invited him to sit upon the oak settle, and to warm himself till supper was ready. Then, with true gentlemanlike tact, he soon put the visitor at ease, and talked to him on all kinds of subjects, showing Forester, by the questions he asked and by the remarks he made, that, although the old man lived in this out-of-the-world place, he was extremely well-informed, and kept himself thoroughly in touch with what was going on in his own and other countries.
Forester was very glad of the meal that followed, for he had tasted nothing since he left London. He had had neither the heart nor the inclination for a meal on his way down; but the entire change of surroundings, and the strange place in which he found himself, had turned his thoughts in a fresh direction at least for a time, and the fresh sea air which he had been breathing all the way from Llantrug had given him an appetite. He did full justice to the savory rabbit stew, the homemade bread and butter, and the little round cakes, crisp and hot from the oven.
Then, whilst the supper was being cleared away, Forester went back to the cozy corner on the settle and looked round the old-fashioned kitchen. It was worth looking at, for it was filled with relics of bygone days. Behind the chimney-corner in which he was sitting was a cupboard, which the old man told him used to be the bed-place in the old time; and in the woodwork at the back of the dark settle were two round holes, through which the master and mistress used to peer from their bed to discover whether the servants in the kitchen were doing their work properly and diligently. Along one side of the room was a high oak dresser on which were standing two long rows of brightly polished ancient pewter dishes— worth untold money in these antiquarian days — whilst below were willow-pattern china plates, antique jugs, old-fashioned teapots, and other treasures of the past, which had been handed down from father to son through many generations.
When at last he went up to bed, with Rupert carrying a candle before him, Norman Forester felt as if he were walking in a dream. Rupert led the way up a rickety oak staircase with dark paneling on either side, and, passing an old chest where the household linen was stored, turned into a long narrow corridor which ran the whole length of the farmhouse.
Forester felt as if he were in some foreign monastery. He went back in thought to a night he had spent, some years before, in the convent at Ramleh, on his way from Jaffa to Jerusalem. On his right he saw the deep narrow Castle windows in walls four feet in thickness, windows which had been beautifully mullioned in their day, but the greater part of which had been filled up at the time of the window tax. Overhead were rough beams and rafters, and on the left were the various bedroom doors, of dark oak, and opening by means of primitive latches. The deep window seats, the long narrow ceiling, and the high walls of the corridor were all whitewashed, and looked bare and monastic in their simplicity.
‘Any ghosts here?’ asked the Doctor.
‘I never met one,’ Rupert replied. ‘Every castle has its ghost; and ours is no exception. A murder was committed in the courtyard below in the olden time. There was a shipwreck in Hildick Bay on the shore near the old church. It was in the time of Henry VII., and before we Norrises came to the Castle. A French ship was driven ashore; it was on its way to Scotland, I believe, but it went to pieces on the rocks, and the beach below here was strewn with gold and jewels.
‘The lord of Hildick Castle seized the plunder; he searched the shore carefully, and collected all that the tide brought in, and carried it up here to the Castle, But Sir Harry D’Arcy, who owned the property on the other side of the bay, came in a great rage and demanded his share of the spoil. Then when the Castle folks declined to part with any of it, Sir Harry brought his armed retainers to the gate to take the treasure by force.
‘The lord of the Castle, Sir John Mandeville, was from home when they arrived, but his sister came out of the Castle, and standing just below these windows ordered the soldiers to depart; and one of them, taking a stone from the ground, hurled it at her and killed her on the spot. Yes, there’s a ghost, or said to be one,’ he added with a laugh; ‘but all I can say is, I have never caught sight of it.’ ‘What became of the treasure?’
‘No one knows, sir,’ said Rupert. ‘Some say it was buried in the Castle yard, or hidden behind the paneling somewhere, but none of us Norrises have ever come across it. I only wish we had.’
As he said this he lifted the latch of one of the doors, and led the way into a large bedroom where a bed had been prepared for the visitor. Then putting the candlestick down on a handsome mahogany chest of drawers, he wished the doctor goodnight and left him.