John Halifax, Gentleman | Page 9

once, weighing eight stone."
I burst out laughing, which maybe was what he wanted, and forthwith
consented to assume the place of the meal-sack. He took me on his

back---what a strong fellow he was!--and fairly trotted with me down
the garden walk. We were both very merry; and though I was his senior
I seemed with him, out of my great weakness and infirmity, to feel
almost like a child.
"Please to take me to that clematis arbour; it looks over the Avon. Now,
how do you like our garden?"
"It's a nice place."
He did not go into ecstasies, as I had half expected; but gazed about
him observantly, while a quiet, intense satisfaction grew and diffused
itself over his whole countenance.
"It's a VERY nice place."
Certainly it was. A large square, chiefly grass, level as a bowling-green,
with borders round. Beyond, divided by a low hedge, was the kitchen
and fruit garden--my father's pride, as this old-fashioned pleasaunce
was mine. When, years ago, I was too weak to walk, I knew, by
crawling, every inch of the soft, green, mossy, daisy-patterned carpet,
bounded by its broad gravel walk; and above that, apparently shut in as
with an impassable barrier from the outer world, by a three-sided fence,
the high wall, the yew-hedge, and the river.
John Halifax's comprehensive gaze seemed to take in all.
"Have you lived here long?" he asked me.
"Ever since I was born."
"Ah!--well, it's a nice place," he repeated, somewhat sadly. "This grass
plot is very even--thirty yards square, I should guess. I'd get up and
pace it; only I'm rather tired."
"Are you? Yet you would carry--"
"Oh--that's nothing. I've often walked farther than to-day. But still it's a
good step across the country since morning."

"How far have you come?"
"From the foot of those hills--I forget what they call them--over there. I
have seen bigger ones--but they're steep enough--bleak and cold, too,
especially when one is lying out among the sheep. At a distance they
look pleasant. This is a very pretty view."
Ay, so I had always thought it; more so than ever now, when I had
some one to say to how "very pretty" it was. Let me describe it-- this
first landscape, the sole picture of my boyish days, and vivid as all such
pictures are.
At the end of the arbour the wall which enclosed us on the riverward
side was cut down--my father had done it at my asking--so as to make a
seat, something after the fashion of Queen Mary's seat at Stirling, of
which I had read. Thence, one could see a goodly sweep of country.
First, close below, flowed the Avon--Shakspeare's Avon-- here a
narrow, sluggish stream, but capable, as we at Norton Bury sometimes
knew to our cost, of being roused into fierceness and foam. Now it
slipped on quietly enough, contenting itself with turning a flour-mill
hard by, the lazy whirr of which made a sleepy, incessant monotone
which I was fond of hearing.
From the opposite bank stretched a wide green level, called the Ham--
dotted with pasturing cattle of all sorts. Beyond it was a second river,
forming an arch of a circle round the verdant flat. But the stream itself
lay so low as to be invisible from where we sat; you could only trace
the line of its course by the small white sails that glided in and out,
oddly enough, from behind clumps of trees, and across meadow lands.
They attracted John's attention. "Those can't be boats, surely. Is there
water there?"
"To be sure, or you would not see the sails. It is the Severn; though at
this distance you can't perceive it; yet it is deep enough too, as you may
see by the boats it carries. You would hardly believe so, to look at it
here--but I believe it gets broader and broader, and turns out a noble
river by the time it reaches the King's Roads, and forms the Bristol

Channel."
"I've seen that!" cried John, with a bright look. "Ah, I like the Severn."
He stood gazing at it a good while, a new expression dawning in his
eyes. Eyes in which then, for the first time, I watched a thought grow,
and grow, till out of them was shining a beauty absolutely divine.
All of a sudden the Abbey chimes burst out, and made the lad start.
"What's that?"
"Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London," I sang to the bells;
and then it seemed such a commonplace history, and such a very low
degree of honour to arrive at, that I was really glad I had forgotten to
tell John the story. I merely showed him where, beyond our garden wall,
and in the invisible high road that interposed,