CHAPTER I.

In a certain county of England, which cannot exactly be called a midland county, because at one point it comes within a few miles of the sea, there is a village, with a somewhat detailed description of which I must trouble the reader; and, moreover, I must beg him, as he proceeds, to mark all the particulars, and to remember them throughout, for in this village and its immediate neighborhood took place the principal incidents of the story about to be told. The scene is narrow, certainly, but very important things are often enacted in a very confined space; and, though amongst the personages to be introduced appear neither kings nor statesmen, yet there are as strong passions moved, and as deep interest affected in private life, as in the movements of parties or govern

ments.

The village, then, is situated upon the slope of a hill, and extending from the top to the bottom. A few houses, indeed, are scattered along the valley, by the side of a river swarming with fine trout; and there, too, in a pleasant and sheltered situation, stands the church, with the clergyman's house, a low-roofed but neat and comfortable residence, at the distance of about a hundred yards from the gate of the churchyard.

Half way up the hill is a white house, with a brass knocker on a mahogany door, and the traveler as he passes by, if he be not shut up in a close carriage, may see, through the left-hand window, ranges of bottles and gallipots upon numerous shelves, and a lad, with an apron before him, pounding in a mortar, or pouring liquids from one bottle into another. Written in letters so large that those who run may read, is inscribed upon a brass plate, "Mr. Nethersole, surgeon, &c."; and very often, before the door, is seen standing a neat one-horse chaise, with a very respectable, plump, and well-conditioned horse figuring in the harness.

At the top of the hill, and at a short distance from the actual village, is a large red-brick dwelling-house, raised upon a bank formed by the cutting of the high road, along the side of which runs the wall of the extensive and wellstocked garden. The mansion has every appearance of comfort and opulence, the windows are numerous and large, the spaces between wide, the chimneys many-indicating at least twenty rooms possessing the advantage of a fire-place-and the state of repair in which the whole is kept is exact and perfect. A high brick wall, with broken glass bottles upon the top-very unpleasant for the hands of urchins possessed with the spirit of appropriating other people's apples-encircles the premises, containing, perhaps, a couple of acres; and in this

wall are three different entrances to the grounds: one a small door, reached by a flight of steps up the bank; another at the north side, presenting two large gates and a graveled road; and the third on the side directly opposite to the small door above the bank, and communicating with a path, through some pleasant fields and lanes at the back of the village, which leads down to the church and the rectory. I may add, to render the picture complete, that the garden wall and entrance on the north side is sheltered by a fine grove of tall trees from the bleak air of a wide common beyond.

On the other side of the valley and the river, is another hill, higher, though less abrupt, than that on which the village stands. The thick trees of a park, which lies on that side, hide the face of the ground from the lower part of the village; but the windows of the mansion which we have described, looking over these giants of the forest, give a view of the interior of the park and of a fine old gray building, known in that part of the country as "The Hall."

At the time at which the events I am about to relate took place, the hall was not in the very best state of repair, though by no means dilapidated. The old stones were rather green and mossy; a part of the copings might be seen here and there suffering from the ravages of time; the doors and windows had not been painted for more than thirty years; and the latter, though perfectly sound, were seldom cleaned. It was a large, rambling, irregular edifice, with a vast door and porch in the old style; many curious, ancient halls within; and having, without beauty, a grand and imposing air, from the gravity of its coloring and from its extent. The park, however, and all that it containedits long winding walks, the lawn before the house, the broad gravel terrace at the back, the gamekeeper's cottage, the kitchen garden, the very wilderness-regular in its irregularity— were kept with the utmost neatness and propriety. The secret of this difference between the appearance of the house and the grounds, was simply this: the proprietor was a nobleman of somewhat singular character, immersed in the politics of the day, passing the greater part of his time in London, and rarely spending more than six weeks in the course of each year at his house in the country. He was reputed to be avaricious, and was certainly haughty. That he was stern and reserved he made sufficiently apparent during his short residences in that neighborhood, never associating with any of the gentlemen around, seldom exchanging a word with any one, and when forced to do so upon business, making his communications as laconic as might be.

He was, also, it must be remarked, without wife or child, and never brought any party down with him from London to the