Mary Anerley | Page 9

any further?
At the head of this road stood the old gray house, facing toward the south of east, to claim whatever might come up the valley, sun, or storm, or columned fog. In the days of the past it had claimed much more--goods, and cattle, and tribute of the traffic going northward--as the loop-holed quadrangle for impounded stock, and the deeply embrasured tower, showed. At the back of the house rose a mountain spine, blocking out the westering sun, but cut with one deep portal where a pass ran into Westmoreland--the scaur-gate whence the house was named; and through this gate of mountain often, when the day was waning, a bar of slanting sunset entered, like a plume of golden dust, and hovered on a broad black patch of weather-beaten fir-trees. The day was waning now, and every steep ascent looked steeper, while down the valley light and shade made longer cast of shuttle, and the margin of the west began to glow with a deep wine-color, as the sun came down--the tinge of many mountains and the distant sea--until the sun himself settled quietly into it, and there grew richer and more ripe (as old bottled wine is fed by the crust), and bowed his rubicund farewell, through the postern of the scaur-gate, to the old Hall, and the valley, and the face of Mr. Jellicorse.
That gentleman's countenance did not, however, reply with its usual brightness to the mellow salute of evening. Wearied and shaken by the long, rough ride, and depressed by the heavy solitude, he hated and almost feared the task which every step brought nearer. As the house rose higher and higher against the red sky, and grew darker, and as the sullen roar of blood-hounds (terrors of the neighborhood) roused the slow echoes of the crags, the lawyer was almost fain to turn his horse's head, and face the risks of wandering over the moor by night. But the hoisting of a flag, the well-known token (confirmed by large letters on a rock) that strangers might safely approach, inasmuch as the savage dogs were kennelled--this, and the thought of such an entry for his day-book, kept Mr. Jellicorse from ignominious flight. He was in for it now, and must carry it through.
In a deep embayed window of leaded glass Mistress Yordas and her widowed sister sat for an hour, without many words, watching the zigzag of shale and rock which formed their chief communication with the peopled world. They did not care to improve their access, or increase their traffic; not through cold morosity, or even proud indifference, but because they had been so brought up, and so confirmed by circumstance. For the Yordas blood, however hot and wild and savage in the gentlemen, was generally calm and good, though steadfast, in the weaker vessels. For the main part, however, a family takes it character more from the sword than the spindle; and their sword hand had been like Esau's.
Little as they meddled with the doings of the world, of one thing at least these stately Madams--as the baffled squires of the Riding called them--were by no means heedless. They dressed themselves according to their rank, or perhaps above it. Many a nobleman's wife in Yorkshire had not such apparel; and even of those so richly gifted, few could have come up to the purpose better. Nobody, unless of their own sex, thought of their dresses when looking at them.
"He rides very badly," Philippa said; "the people from the lowlands always do. He may not have courage to go home tonight. But he ought to have thought of that before."
"Poor man! We must offer him a bed, of course," Mrs. Carnaby answered; "but he should have come earlier in the day. What shall we do with him, when he has done his business?"
"It is not our place to amuse our lawyer. He might go and smoke in the Justice-room, and then Welldrum could play bagatelle with him."
"Philippa, you forget that the Jellicorses are of a good old county stock. His wife is a stupid, pretentious thing; but we need not treat him as we must treat her. And it may be as well to make much of him, perhaps, if there really is any trouble coming."
"You are thinking of Pet. By-the-bye, are you certain that Pet can not get at Saracen? You know how he let him loose last Easter, when the flag was flying, and the poor man has been in his bed ever since."
"Jordas will see to that. He can be trusted to mind the dogs well, ever since you fined him in a fortnight's wages. That was an excellent thought of yours."
Jordas might have been called the keeper, or the hind, or the henchman, or the ranger, or the porter, or the