________________________________________________
_ WHAT do I know of Hoghton Towers? Very little; for I have been
gratefully unwilling to disturb my first impressions. A house,
centuries old, on high ground a mile or so removed from the road
between Preston and Blackburn, where the first James of England, in
his hurry to make money by making baronets, perhaps made some of
those remunerative dignitaries. A house, centuries old, deserted
and falling to pieces, its woods and gardens long since grass-land
or ploughed up, the Rivers Ribble and Darwen glancing below it, and
a vague haze of smoke, against which not even the supernatural
prescience of the first Stuart could foresee a counter-blast,
hinting at steam-power, powerful in two distances.
What did I know then of Hoghton Towers? When I first peeped in at
the gate of the lifeless quadrangle, and started from the
mouldering statue becoming visible to me like its guardian ghost;
when I stole round by the back of the farm-house, and got in among
the ancient rooms, many of them with their floors and ceilings
falling, the beams and rafters hanging dangerously down, the
plaster dropping as I trod, the oaken panels stripped away, the
windows half walled up, half broken; when I discovered a gallery
commanding the old kitchen, and looked down between balustrades
upon a massive old table and benches, fearing to see I know not
what dead-alive creatures come in and seat themselves, and look up
with I know not what dreadful eyes, or lack of eyes, at me; when
all over the house I was awed by gaps and chinks where the sky
stared sorrowfully at me, where the birds passed, and the ivy
rustled, and the stains of winter weather blotched the rotten
floors; when down at the bottom of dark pits of staircase, into
which the stairs had sunk, green leaves trembled, butterflies
fluttered, and bees hummed in and out through the broken door-ways;
when encircling the whole ruin were sweet scents, and sights of
fresh green growth, and ever-renewing life, that I had never
dreamed of, - I say, when I passed into such clouded perception of
these things as my dark soul could compass, what did I know then of
Hoghton Towers?
I have written that the sky stared sorrowfully at me. Therein have
I anticipated the answer. I knew that all these things looked
sorrowfully at me; that they seemed to sigh or whisper, not without
pity for me, 'Alas! poor worldly little devil!'
There were two or three rats at the bottom of one of the smaller
pits of broken staircase when I craned over and looked in. They
were scuffling for some prey that was there; and, when they started
and hid themselves close together in the dark, I thought of the old
life (it had grown old already) in the cellar.
How not to be this worldly little devil? how not to have a
repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats? I hid in a
corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened at myself, and
crying (it was the first time I had ever cried for any cause not
purely physical), and I tried to think about it. One of the farm-
ploughs came into my range of view just then; and it seemed to help
me as it went on with its two horses up and down the field so
peacefully and quietly.
There was a girl of about my own age in the farm-house family, and
she sat opposite to me at the narrow table at meal-times. It had
come into my mind, at our first dinner, that she might take the
fever from me. The thought had not disquieted me then. I had only
speculated how she would look under the altered circumstances, and
whether she would die. But it came into my mind now, that I might
try to prevent her taking the fever by keeping away from her. I
knew I should have but scrambling board if I did; so much the less
worldly and less devilish the deed would be, I thought.
From that hour, I withdrew myself at early morning into secret
corners of the ruined house, and remained hidden there until she
went to bed. At first, when meals were ready, I used to hear them
calling me; and then my resolution weakened. But I strengthened it
again by going farther off into the ruin, and getting out of
hearing. I often watched for her at the dim windows; and, when I
saw that she was fresh and rosy, felt much happier.
Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to the humanising of
myself, I suppose some childish love arose within me. I felt, in
some sort, dignified by the pride of protecting her, - by the pride
of making the sacrifice for her. As my heart swelled with that new
feeling, it insensibly softened about mother and father. It seemed
to have been frozen before, and now to be thawed. The old ruin and
all the lovely things that haunted it were not sorrowful for me
only, but sorrowful for mother and father as well. Therefore did I
cry again, and often too.
The farm-house family conceived me to be of a morose temper, and
were very short with me; though they never stinted me in such
broken fare as was to be got out of regular hours. One night when
I lifted the kitchen latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her
pretty name) had but just gone out of the room. Seeing her
ascending the opposite stairs, I stood still at the door. She had
heard the clink of the latch, and looked round.
'George,' she called to me in a pleased voice, 'to-morrow is my
birthday; and we are to have a fiddler, and there's a party of boys
and girls coming in a cart, and we shall dance. I invite you. Be
sociable for once, George.'
'I am very sorry, miss,' I answered; 'but I - but, no; I can't
come.'
'You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,' she returned
disdainfully; 'and I ought not to have asked you. I shall never
speak to you again.'
As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire, after she was gone, I
felt that the farmer bent his brows upon me.
'Eh, lad!' said he; 'Sylvy's right. You're as moody and broody a
lad as never I set eyes on yet.'
I tried to assure him that I meant no harm; but he only said
coldly, 'Maybe not, maybe not! There, get thy supper, get thy
supper; and then thou canst sulk to thy heart's content again.'
Ah! if they could have seen me next day, in the ruin, watching for
the arrival of the cart full of merry young guests; if they could
have seen me at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly statue,
listening to the music and the fall of dancing feet, and watching
the lighted farm-house windows from the quadrangle when all the
ruin was dark; if they could have read my heart, as I crept up to
bed by the back way, comforting myself with the reflection, 'They
will take no hurt from me,' - they would not have thought mine a
morose or an unsocial nature.
It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition; to be
of a timidly silent character under misconstruction; to have an
inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being sordid or
worldly. It was in these ways that my nature came to shape itself
to such a mould, even before it was affected by the influences of
the studious and retired life of a poor scholar. _
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