She went down the road at a swift trot, and presently it was blocked by
a pair of wrought-iron gates, so exquisite in their antique
conscientiousness that many a mushroom peer would have given almost
their weight in gold to place them at the beginning of his newly made
park; but no one came to open them, they were closed by a heavily
padlocked chain, and the lodge beside them was empty and dilapidated;
and the girl rode beside the lichen-covered wall in which they stood
until she came to an opening leading to an old arch which faced a broad
and spacious court-yard. As she rode beneath the arch a number of dogs
yelped a welcome from kennels or behind stable half-doors, and a bent
old man, dressed like something between a stableman and a butler, came
forward, touching his forehead, to take her horse. She slipped from the
saddle, patted the horse, and murmured a word or two of endearment; but
her bright eyes flashed round the court-yard with a glance of
responsibility.
"Have you brought the colt in, Jason?" she asked.
Jason touched his forehead again.
"Yes, Miss Ida. It took me three-quarters of an hour; it won't come to
me like it does to you. It's in a loose stall."
"Saddle it to-morrow morning," she said, "and I will come and try it.
The brindle cow has got into the corn, and the fence wants mending down
by the pool; you must get William to help you, and do it at once. He
has taken the steers to market, I suppose? I didn't see them in the
three acre. Oh, and, Jason, I found someone fishing in the dale; you
must get a notice board and put it up where the road runs near the
river; the tourists' time is coming on, and though they don't often
come this side of the lake, some of them may, and we can't afford to
have the river poached. And, Jason, look to Ruppert's off-hind shoe; I
think it's loose; and--" She stopped with a short laugh. "But that's
enough for one time, isn't it? Oh, Jason, if I were only a man, how
much better it would be!"
"Yes, miss," assented Jason, simply, with another touch of his
forehead.
She sighed and laughed again, and gathering up her habit--she hadn't to
raise it much--she went through an open door-way into a wild, but
pretty garden, and so to the back of one of the most picturesque houses
in this land of the picturesque. It was built of grey stone which age
had coloured with a tender and an appreciative hand; a rich growth of
ivy and clematis clung lovingly over a greater portion of it so that
the mullioned windows were framed by the dark leaves and the purple
flower. The house was long and rambling and had once been flourishing
and important, but it was now eloquent of decay and pathetic with the
signs of "better times" that had vanished long ago. A flight of worn
steps led to a broad glass door, and opening the latter, the girl
passed under a curved wooden gallery into a broad hall. It was dimly
lit by an oriel window of stained glass, over which the ivy and
clematis had been allowed to fall; there was that faint odour which
emanates from old wood and leather and damask; the furniture was
antique and of the neutral tint which comes from age; the weapons and
the ornaments of brass, the gilding of the great pictures, were all dim
and lack-lustre for want of the cleaning and polishing which require
many servants. In the huge fire-place some big logs were burning, and
Donald and Bess threw themselves down before it with a sigh of
satisfaction. The girl looked round her, just as she had looked round
the stable-yard; then, tossing her soft hat and whip on the old oak
table, she went to one of the large heavy doors, and knocking, said in
her clear voice: "Father, are you there?"