William Kingston - Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales

We had our choice given us whether we would spend our Christmas holidays with our most kind and estimable old relative, our mother’s cousin, Miss Gillespie, in Russell-square, and go to the theatre and panoramas, and other highly edifying entertainments, or at Foxholme, in the New Forest, with our great uncle, Sir Hugh Worsley. “Foxholme for ever, I should think indeed!” exclaimed my brother Jack, making a face which was not complimentary to Cousin Barbara. “But she is a good kind old soul, if she wasn’t so pokerish and prim; and that was a dead-alive fortnight we spent with her two winters ago. I say Foxholme for ever.”

“Foxholme for ever,” I repeated. “Of course there couldn’t be the thinnest slice of a shadow of doubt about the matter. There’ll be Cousin Peter, and Julia, and Tom and Ned Oxenberry, and Sam Barnby, and Ponto, and Hector, and Beauty, and Polly; and there’ll be hunting, and shooting, and skating, if there’s a frost – and of course there will be a frost – and, oh, it will be such jolly fun!”

A few weeks after this we were bowling along the road to Southampton on the top of the old Telegraph, driven by Taylor – as fine a specimen of a Jehu as ever took whip in hand – with four white horses – a team of which he was justly proud. I see him now before me, his fine tall figure, truly Roman nose, and eagle eye, looking as fit to command an army as to drive a coach, with his white great-coat buttoned well up to his gay-coloured handkerchief, a flower of some sort decking his breast, a broad-brimmed beaver of white or grey, and a whip which looked as if it had just come from the maker’s hands – indeed, everything about him was polished, from the crown of his hat to his well-fitting boots; and I believe that no accident ever happened to the coach he drove. There was the Independent, also a first-rate coach, and, in those days, Collier’s old coach, which carried six inside, in which we once made a journey – that is, Jack and I – with four old ladies who ate apples and drank gin, with the windows up, all the way, and talked about things which seemed to interest them very much, but which soon sent us to sleep.

The sky was bright, the air fresh, with just a touch of a frosty smell in it, and we were in exuberant spirits. We had our pea-shooters ready, and had long been on the watch for the lumbering old vehicle, when we saw it approaching. Didn’t we pepper the passengers, greatly to their indignation! What damage we did we could not tell, for we were by them like a flash of lightning.

At Southampton we changed into a much slower coach, which, however, conveyed us safely through the forest to the neighbourhood of Lyndhurst, when, waiting in the road, we espied, to our intense delight, a pony-carriage driven by Sam Barnby, who held the office of extra coachman, gamekeeper, and fisherman, besides several other employments, in the establishment at Foxholme. With us he was a prodigious favourite, as he was with all the youngsters who went to the place; and Sir Hugh, I know, trusted him completely, and employed him in numerous little private services of beneficence and charity when a confidential agent was required. He was the invariable companion of all the youngsters in our boating, fishing, and shooting excursions.

It was dusk when we got into the carriage, and as our way lay for some distance through the thickest part of the forest by a cross-road which few people but Sam Barnby would have attempted to take at that late hour, we could often scarcely distinguish the track under the thick branches of the leafless trees which, stretching across it, formed a trellis-work over our heads, while the thick hollies and other evergreens formed an impenetrable wall on either side. Now and then, when the forest opened out and the forms of the trees were rather more clearly defined, they often assumed shapes so fantastic and strange, that I could scarcely prevent a sort of awe creeping over me, and half expected that the monsters I fancied I saw would move from their places and grab up Jack, Sam Barnby, the carriage, and me, and bolt off with us into some recess of the forest. Jack was talking away to Sam. I had been up bolstering the night before, and had not slept a wink. Suddenly the carriage stopped, and I heard Sam and Jack utter an exclamation. I echoed it, and pretty loudly too; for I thought that one of the monsters I had been dreaming about had really got hold of us.

“Hillo! who have we got here?” exclaimed Sam. “Do you hold the reins, Master Jack, and I’ll get out and see.”

I was now fully awake. I asked Jack what it was.

“We nearly drove over somebody; but the pony shied, fortunately. There he is; I can just see him moving.”

“Why, I do believe it’s poor silly Dick Green!” exclaimed Sam. “Is it you, Dicky? Speak out, man! How came you here?”

“Yes, it be I,” said the idiot. “Can’t I sleep here? It’s very comfortable – all clean and nice – no smoke, no noise.”

“Why, you would be frozen to death, man, if you did,” answered Sam. “But, I ask, what brought you here?”

“That’s a secret I bean’t a-going to tell thee,” whispered the idiot. “But just do thee stop here; thee’ll foind it very pleasant.”

“No, thank you; we’d rather not,” said Sam. “But just do thee get into the carriage alongside Master William there, and we’ll take thee to the Hall, and give thee some supper – that’s what thee wants, lad.”

“Well, now, that’s kind like,” simpered the idiot. “I know thee well, Sam Barnby; thee had’st always a good heart.”

“Well, well, lad, don’t stand talking there, but scramble in at once,” cried Sam, as he forced the poor creature down by my side.

Soon afterwards we passed a woodman’s or a keeper’s hut, from the window of which a gleam of light streamed forth on the idiot’s face, and a creeping feeling of fear stole over me as I caught his large lack-lustre eyes peering into mine, the teeth in his ever-grinning mouth looking white and shining under his upturned lip. I knew that he was said to be perfectly harmless and good-natured, but I would have given anything if Jack would have changed places with me. I did not drop off to sleep again, that is very certain. The way seemed far longer than I had expected, and I almost fancied that Sam must have mistaken his road – not a very likely thing to occur, however.

As we neared the lodge-gate of Foxholme, I shut my eyes, lest the light from the window should again show me the poor idiot’s face staring at me. All disagreeable feelings, however, speedily vanished as we drove up in front of the chief entrance, and the hall-door was flung open, and a perfect blaze of light streamed forth, and the well-known smiling faces of Purkin, the butler, and James Jarvis, the footman, appeared; and the latter, descending the steps, carried up our trunk and hat-boxes and a play-box we had brought empty, though to go back in a very different condition, we had a notion. Then we ran into the drawing-room, and found our uncle Sir Hugh, and our kind, sweet-smiling aunt, and our favourite Cousin Julia – she was Sir Hugh’s only daughter by a first marriage – and our little Cousin Hugh – his only son by the present Lady Worsley; and there, too, was Cousin Peter. He was Sir Hugh’s cousin and Aunt Worsley’s cousin, and was cousin to a great number of people besides – indeed everybody who came to the house called him cousin, it seemed.

Some few, perhaps, at first formally addressed him as Mr Peter, or Mr Peter Langstone; but they soon got into the way of calling him Mr Peter, or Cousin Peter, or Peter alone. He wasn’t old, and he couldn’t have been very young. He wasn’t good-looking, I fancy – not that we ever thought about the matter. He had a longish sallow face, and a big mouth with white teeth, and lips which twisted and curled about in a curious manner, and large soft grey eyes – not green-grey, but truly blue-grey – with almost a woman’s softness in them, an index, I suspect, of his heart; and yet I don’t think that there are many more daring or cool and courageous men than Cousin Peter. He had been in the navy in his youth, and had seen some pretty hard service, but had come on shore soon after he had received his promotion as lieutenant, and, for some reason or other, had never since been afloat. Sir Hugh was very much attached to him, and had great confidence in his judgment and rectitude; so that he tried to keep him at Foxholme as much as he could. He might have lived there and been welcome all the year round.