Rookwood, William Harrison Ainsworth [best classic books txt] 📗

not do that , though thou hast twice aimed at my life to-night. But I will silence thee, at all events." Saying which, he dealt the keeper a blow on the head that terminated all further resistance on his part.

Leaving the inert mass to choke up the current, with whose waters the blood, oozing from the wound, began to commingle, Luke prepared to depart. His perils were not yet past. Guided by the firing, the report of which alarmed them, the keeper's assistants hastened in the direction of the sound, presenting themselves directly in the path Luke was about to take. He had either to retrace his steps, or face a double enemy. His election was made at once. He turned and fled.

For an instant the men tarried with their bleeding companion. They then dragged him from the brook, and with loud oaths followed in pursuit.

Threading, for a second time, the bosky labyrinth, Luke sought the source of the stream. This was precisely the course his enemies would have desired him to pursue; and when they beheld him take it, they felt confident of his capture.

The sides of the hollow became more and more abrupt as they advanced, though they were less covered with brushwood. The fugitive made no attempt to climb the bank, but still pressed forward. The road was tortuous, and wound round a jutting point of rock. Now he was a fair mark--no, he had swept swiftly by, and was out of sight before a gun could be raised. They reached the same point. He was still before them, but his race was nearly run. Steep, slippery rocks, shelving down to the edges of a small, deep pool of water, the source of the stream, formed an apparently insurmountable barrier in that direction. Rooted--Heaven knows how!--in some reft or fissure of the rock, grew a wild ash, throwing out a few boughs over the solitary pool; this was all the support Luke could hope for, should he attempt to scale the rock. The rock was sheer--the pool deep--yet still he hurried on. He reached the muddy embankment; mounted its sides; and seemed to hesitate. The keepers were now within a hundred yards of him. Both guns were discharged. And, sudden as the reports, with a dead, splashless plunge, like a diving otter, the fugitive dropped into the water.

The pursuers were at the brink. They gazed at the pool. A few bubbles floated upon its surface, and burst. The water was slightly discolored with sand. No ruddier stain crimsoned the tide; no figure rested on the naked rock; no hand clung to the motionless tree.

"Devil take the rascal!" growled one; "I hope he harn't escaped us, arter all."

"Noa, noa, he be fast enough, never fear," rejoined the other; "sticking like a snig at the bottom o' the pond; and, dang him! he deserves it, for he's slipped out of our fingers like a snig often enough to-night. But come, let's be stumping, and give poor Hugh Badger a helping hand."

Whereupon they returned to the assistance of the wounded and discomfited keeper.


CHAPTER IV

THE HALL

I am right against my house--seat of my ancestors.

Yorkshire Tragedy.


Rookwood Place was a fine, old, irregular pile, of considerable size, presenting a rich, picturesque outline, with its innumerable gable-ends, its fantastical coigns, and tall crest of twisted chimneys. There was no uniformity of style about the building, yet the general effect was pleasing and beautiful. Its very irregularity constituted a charm. Nothing except convenience had been consulted in its construction: additions had from time to time been made to it, but everything dropped into its proper place, and, without apparent effort or design, grew into an ornament, and heightened the beauty of the whole. It was, in short, one of those glorious manorial houses that sometimes unexpectedly greet us in our wanderings, and gladden us like the discovery of a hidden treasure. Some such ancestral hall we have occasionally encountered, in unlooked-for quarters, in our native county of Lancaster, or in its smiling sister shire; and never without feelings of intense delight, rejoicing to behold the freshness of its antiquity, and the greenness of its old age. For, be it observed in passing, a Cheshire or Lancashire hall, time-honored though it be, with its often renovated black and white squares, fancifully filled up with trefoils and quatrefoils, rosettes, and other figures, seems to bear its years so lightly, that its age, so far from detracting from its beauty, only lends it a grace; and the same mansion, to all outward appearance, fresh and perfect as it existed in the days of good Queen Bess, may be seen in admirable preservation in the days of the youthful Victoria. Such is Bramall--such Moreton, and many another we might instance; the former of these houses may, perhaps, be instanced as the best specimen of its class,--and its class in our opinion, is the best--to be met with in Cheshire, considered with reference either to the finished decoration of its exterior, rich in the chequered coloring we have alluded to, preserved with a care and neatness almost Dutch, or to the consistent taste exhibited by its possessor to the restoration and maintenance of all its original and truly national beauty within doors. As an illustration of old English hospitality--that real, hearty hospitality for which the squirearchy of this country was once so famous--Ah! why have they bartered it for other customs less substantially English ?--it may be mentioned, that a road conducted the passenger directly through the great hall of this house, literally "of entertainment," where, if he listed, strong ale, and other refreshments, awaited his acceptance and courted his stay. Well might old King, the Cheshire historian, in the pride of his honest heart, exclaim, " I know divers men, who are but farmers, that in their housekeeping may compare with a lord or baron, in some countries beyond the seas;--yea, although I named a higher degree, I were able to justify it. " We have no such "golden farmers" in these degenerate days!

The mansion, was originally built by Sir Ranulph de Rookwood--or, as it was then written, Rokewode--the first of the name, a stout Yorkist, who flourished in the reign of Edward IV., and received the fair domain and broad lands upon which the edifice was raised, from his sovereign, in reward for good service; retiring thither in the decline of life, at the close of the Wars of the Roses, to sequestrate himself from scenes of strife, and to consult his spiritual weal in the erection and endowment of the neighboring church. It was of mixed architecture, and combined the peculiarities of each successive era. Retaining some of the sterner features of earlier days, the period ere yet the embattled manor-house peculiar to the reigns of the later Henrys had been merged into the graceful and peaceable hall, the residence of the Rookwoods had early anticipated the gentler characteristics of a later day, though it could boast little of that exuberance of external ornament, luxuriance of design, and prodigality of beauty, which, under the sway of the Virgin Queen, distinguished the residence of the wealthier English landowner; and rendered the hall of Elizabeth, properly so called, the pride and boast of our domestic architecture.

The site selected by Sir Ranulph for his habitation had been already occupied by a vast fabric of oak, which he in part removed, though some vestiges might still be traced of that ancient pile. A massive edifice succeeded, with gate and tower, court and moat complete; substantial enough, one would have thought, to have endured for centuries. But even this ponderous structure grew into disuse, and Sir Ranulph's successors, remodelling, repairing, almost rebuilding the whole mansion, in the end so metamorphosed its aspect, that at last little of its original and distinctive character remained. Still, as we said before, it was a fine old house, though some changes had taken place for the worse, which could not be readily pardoned by the eye of taste: as, for instance, the deep embayed windows had dwindled into modernized casements, of lighter construction; the wide porch, with its flight of steps leading to the great hall of entrance, had yielded to a narrow door; and the broad quadrangular court was succeeded by a gravel drive. Yet, despite all these changes, the house of the Rookwoods, for an old house--and, after all, what is like an old house?--was no undesirable or uncongenial abode for any worshipful country gentleman "who had a great estate."

The hall was situated near the base of a gently declining hill, terminating a noble avenue of limes, and partially embosomed in an immemorial wood of the same timber, which had given its name to the family that dwelt amongst its rook-haunted shades. Descending the avenue, at the point of access afforded by a road that wound down the hill-side, towards a village distant about half a mile, as you advanced, the eye was first arrested by a singular octagonal turret of brick, of more recent construction than the house; and in all probability occupying the place where the gateway stood of yore. This tower rose to a height corresponding with the roof of the mansion; and was embellished on the side facing the house with a flamingly gilt dial, peering, like an impudent observer, at all that passed within doors. Two apartments, which it contained, were appropriated to the house-porter. Despoiled of its martial honors, the gateway still displayed the achievements of the family--the rook and the fatal branch--carved in granite, which had resisted the storms of two centuries, though stained green with moss, and mapped over with lichens. To the left, overgrown with ivy, and peeping from out a tuft of trees, appeared the hoary summit of a dovecot, indicating the near neighborhood of an ancient barn, contemporary with the earliest dwelling-house, and of a little world of offices and outbuildings buried in the thickness of the foliage. To the right was the garden--the pleasaunce of the place--formal, precise, old-fashioned, artificial, yet exquisite!--for commend us to the bygone, beautiful English garden-- really a garden --not that mixture of park, meadow, and wilderness[3], brought up to one's very windows--which, since the days of the innovators, Kent, and his "bold associates," Capability Brown and Co., has obtained so largely--this
was a garden! There might be seen the stately terraces, such as Watteau, and our own Wilson, in his earlier works, painted--the trim alleys exhibiting all the triumphs of topiarian art--

The sidelong walls
Of shaven yew; the holly's prickly arms,
Trimm'd into high arcades; the tonsile box,
Wove in mosaic mode of many a curl,
Around the figured carpet of the lawn; [4]

the gayest of parterres and greenest of lawns, with its admonitory sun-dial, its marble basin in the centre, its fountain, and conched water-god; the quaint summer-house, surmounted with its gilt vane; the statue, glimmering from out its covert of leaves; the cool cascade, the urns, the bowers, and a hundred luxuries besides, suggested and contrived by Art to render Nature most enjoyable, and to enhance the recreative delights of home-out-of-doors--for such a garden should be--, with least sacrifice of indoor comfort and convenience.