SERIAL STORY

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 71, 25 March 1914, Page 3

SERIAL STORY

PURPU Af!D FIRE ,Umi. t (By Lillias Campbell Davidson). ™ [all rights reserved.] CHAPTER XI. "Wealth, however got, in England makes lords of mechanics." —-Defoe. As the express drew up panting ax, the small wayside station where the signal had brought it to a standstill, the heads of many passengers along the. train popped indignantly from their windows. Passengers who are not .having expresses stopped for them by special signal at <small private stations have a way of feeling aggrieved by the practice. All that the watching, irate heads saw was one insignificant young man, in an excessively shabby coat, a quoer, foreign-looking fiat canvas valise in his hand, emerge' from a first-class carriage. The "watchers snorted. "A pretty thing to stop an express for some.body's chaiiifeur or valet! Bad enough if i* uas stopped for the owner, at those little potty, private places. The aristocracy were overdoing it. It was time they learnt joheir places." A good deal moro L ssevere speech went to the event be- t forr> the express spread its wings and I flew away shrieking. " Wynnstanley, landing on the trim , platform, with, its beds of roses and , wallflowers showing their spring ~ neatness, wondered why there should !" !be such commotion amongst English | officials, just because one passenger j got out of a train, i A breathless, heated station-master , came rushing up. Two porters, one 1 respectfully carrying the small box, the other hastily trying to take his grip-sack. from him, the whole staff, in fact, were circling about him. If their curious glances raked him, he was not aware of it in his surprise a,t their care over him. He found.it difficult to walk up the platform to the gate without treading on one of them. "The car is here, sir. This way, sir. Only a step, sir.'"' Wynnstanley found himself being uirged and coaxed through a- small gate, where, one of the porters re- ' lieved him of his; ticket as if he. apologised for the act. Just outside a huge limousine' stood dark against the- little background of Hampshire firs.' Two men' in blu« and silver livery were by it. At sight of Wynnstanley and his escort one man jumped fleetly-to his place at the wheel, tho other stood at attention by the door and touched his hat. Wynnstanley looked past them. "Is there a taxi," he asked, "or— or anything that hasn't got an indicator? Is it far to the house? I suppose I coiildn't walk, could I, and somebody bring my traps up after me?" ' * The chauffeur hid a grin under tho ~ hand that covered a cough. The footman, stolid, ismileless, told them 4 afterwards in the servants' ihaU, that I he was like to bust hisself. I "The car, sir ! The car's from Re- I velly." The horrified station-master I choked at the mistake. He gently j propelled Wynnstanley towards it. j ; His shabby box rose to the railed-in roof; his shabbier grip-sack took its Slace on the foot-board in front. The oor shut softly and gently upon him, and the station-master, standing and touching his hati with such convolui tions of a respectful body as made , Wynnstanley wonder if he'd get ! himself untied again, stood to watcli I them off, crying, "Very glad to welj come you, sir! A great day for Re- > vellv. sir!" | A great day for Revelly? Who and I what was ReVelly that people seemed ) to speak of it as. if it held royal rej verence r ■He could not tell, he could j but wonder, wonder. As the fresh, i sweet air, laden with the scent of pine J warmed by tihe March sun, of springing daffodils, and violets hid deep in .the budding hedges—as the country breath, so grateful after the stuffy, 5 acrid smell of town, smote his nostrils/ the larks in the upper air above the green meadows trilled their anthems, a strange sense of rapture stole over the heart of Wynnstanley. It was all so lovely, so desirable, so , perfect. It was all so alien to anything he had ever dreamed of! They 1 ran_ on, swallowing the miles with ' their swift and! easy pace—passing epinny, just bursting into green— , brown meadows still a-ploughing— ■caught a glimpse of blue and distant) hill, and the.: wave of pine forests. Now they were traversing a tract of broom and heather and whin,—all 1 ' golden with a sea of glory. i They turned, great gates were be- ' fore them, flung wide—gates between , old mossy portals, gates; of wonderful wrought ironwork, with shields and escutcheons. There were herons in stone, on the. high posts, holding shields of stone with the same half-worn-out blazoning. They slid beftween them, went on through a long, long way lined with evergreens, big ' budded rhododendrons, azaleas, that by and by would .flame with fiery color. ' . _ Between them Wynnstanley caught ' sight of wide green stretches, where deer—surely they were deer! He 'didn't know deer were in the English country!—tossed their heads and fled like shadows at the hoot of the musical horn, with its three graduated .[■ notes. They ran on, till at last they came to a sudden turn, and Wynnstanley looked out wonderstruck. For they had reached .an old, old .wall, ivy-grown to : its summit---with queer little slits through the ivy and ■ through the stone beneath it. Before' I' them lay a gateway—stately arched, » with a rounded mullioned" window \ crowning it, under the jagged battle- [ ments«on high. Between"them and | the afrchway were other walls, lower, j edging a kind of-bridge, that leapt a capal-likc width ,of water. Along this bridge ran stone figures. On either side of the entrance arch stood great iron baskets high on poles. Through the arch one glimpsed green tiirf, vivid beds of crocuses and daffodils and1. wallflowers. Beyond yet " another door,. arched too, stood open. i The car ran through the outer arch- , way, slow-ed down, came with a fine and^ graceful sweep to a standstill. Wynnstanley sat in petrified asi ■tonishmeht.. '■ This, was some palace, most likely. The place the King of England' lived in. Yet it didn't look quite like the pictures of Windsor in the hotel album. They had come to call here for something or somebody. He sat tranquil till the door of the car opened wide, with .the-blue and j silver footman orect beside it. And \ down the steps—only two or three oi \ them, that led-to the rounded door • damped ard studded with iron, there | came running a man in haste to greet him. Tt wo.™ th& honp<?i-stn"rnrcl—a per^ona.s;-? whose function Wynnstanlev had )>fi.Vf'r even heard of. He bowed1 with roverpii"c-—prpc^-rle:! fhe how nrM rival to the low-arched, somewhat in-

~~---— ~~—"=—— -jr- ■ mirm i rniTlTiitin* i significant .entrance. The way into * Revelly had been made when the : doors of castles were things to jealous- ' ly guard, not flung wide with reckless hospitality;, and enlarged portal. j Inside, just ia the semi-dimness or ! a great vaulted space,- were gathered \ long rows of people—men in blue and . silver—some whiteheaded. Wynn- \ Stanley vaguely grasped the fact that ! they must be servants, like the two ■ on the car. Some of them were old men, then! He applauded in his dizzied soul the kindness that in this strange country must keep men on in one's service when they were hoar with years. The notion soothed him in its charity. There were tows of women, too—beginning with a quite resplendent dame in black satin and a lace cap. Had the late Mr Whitney a mother who had lived with him? Beyond her ran the line of aproned, capped young damsels, all as deferentially dropping curtseys as the men were deferentially bowing. Wynnstanley remembered ■ with a sudden, tickled sense of mirth, amidst all his startled amaze and wonder, the scene he had once watched on the stage of a minor theatre, himself in the cheap places. ; He had been saved from shaking hands with the groom of the chambers and calling him "sir" bj that highly respectable individual himself, who tactfully eluded him. If he had not recognised and felt abashed by that.first mistake, he would have made a better impression on-his first entrance into Revelly. For to shake hands with Mrs Bilson, and with Trent, the majestic butler, would have been,an act of grace, and one that would have been deeply appreiciated. But after Holmes had backed from before him, seeing the new master's error, and that he himself was taken for an equal, Wynnstanley dared no more.. He walked between the bowing lines, rigid in his eiribarrassmenti and, almost consternation. . Through the bare, vaulted stone outer entrance he passed, led by the! house steward. They passed round a tall, old black carved screen,' with painted and gilded coats of arms on it, into a space so broad, so long, so high that Wynnstanley quailed before 1t- .Down all one long,.and..spacious side ran deep window embrasures^ in winch; glowed the stain of colored glass "between stone muilions. Again that bleeding heart atod those, many quarterings that had leapt at him from the old oak screen that, crossed the greati,hall at,its.lower,end. -~- ■ The other wall was all, hiing witli faded tapestries, where ■vrdrn' scenes of tne hunt and chase showed dimly amidst coronals and festoons of fruit and flowers. All down the hall's great length ran a table of rough black oak—narrow and ponderous At the. further end of the hall a dais was raised, half a dozen stone steps carpeted with crimson led' to it. There stood a round-table •■"of iriahogatiy ■> policed and shining, with a back ground of a fireplace so vast under its stone -cap that one might* have roasted two oxen at it.' Above it hung the carved and fretted stone of a minstrel's gallery. • Strickeii dumb, giddy, Wynnstanley followed on through a door, a passage, halted at the foot of curving stone stairs, heavily carpeted. The place they stood in was vaulted with , great leaping stone ribs, carved at their ends. Mr Carter coughed slightly, Wynnstanley s eyes came down in haste | from the vaulting above him. . "Tea is in the small study, ,sir ; I thought you might prefer it to-day iiU stead of in one of the large drawingrooms." He opened a door, and W ynnstanley stepped into a cosy ; room panelled with dark oak arid | having a pretty oriel window, stall with those übiquitous arms: upon it. A fire of wood burnt on the open hearth. ' Revelly was warmed tha-qughout with hot pipes, installed by its last owner. But when they were not on the chill of the great old stone walls made fires pleasant of an evening, even in springtime. There Were water colors, easy chairs arid i sofas, books in a low stretch of shelves, pots of flowering hyacinths , and tulips stood on pedestals, j It looked so warm and small and | friendly after the state and pomp and ( glory of the great hall that WynnI Stanley felt graiteful to it. Tea was on a little spindle-legged table by the fire. Wynnstanley sat I down before it as the door noiselessly >-■ closed. He took off. a lace: and satin: .; hood that covered a shining silver teaj pot, aridi removed the silver cover of j a muffin-dish that was standing on a J feopper stand with a lamp flame under •}■■ it.*. He was -used to afternoon tea from board-ship life. ;'}7 He had ceased to wonder that tihey '|f gave you so little to eat for tea over i here, how he knew there was a-din- [ ncr always to follow. He bit a toasted muffin, delicately browned and j buttered and salted, and he tried to tell himself that he was awake, I awake—not dreaming. | Through the window with the ; stained escutcheon on it, the daylightwas waning. ' But he could catch the glimpse,of upper branches of tall old trees, and the line' of blue hills far, | ■ far : away, • -beyond rolling park and j distant red-roofed village. ', It stood high up, then, this mysi • terious overwhelming Kevelly ! He I 1 did not know enough of castles to be | j aware that that was their * usual I habit. He did not know that the old, : old leaded roof he sat.- ..under had I ! stood siege in the civil, wars, and I ! sheltered half the refugee country- ■ | side.. He only knew that'this, this was his inheritance! He was master of Revelly! And he was he, himself, [ and not the victim of some lying ;. I vision. • .' . j|. (To be, Continued.)