We were not many miles distant from the course, and Lord Chester mounted me on one of his horses. Our shortest way lay through rather an intricate series of cross roads: and as I was very little interested in the conversation of my companions, I paid more attention to the scenery we passed, than is my customary wont: for I study nature rather in men than fields, and find no landscape afford such variety to the eye, and such subject to the contemplation, as the inequalities of the human heart.
But there were to be fearful circumstances hereafter to stamp forcibly upon my remembrance some traces of the scenery which now courted and arrested my view. The chief characteristics of the country were broad, dreary plains, diversified at times by dark plantations of fir and larch; the road was rough and stony, and here and there a melancholy rivulet, swelled by the first rains of spring, crossed our path, and lost itself in the rank weeds of some inhospitable marsh.
About six miles from Chester Park, to the left of the road, stood an old house with a new face; the brown, time-honoured bricks which composed the fabric, were strongly contrasted by large Venetian windows newly inserted in frames of the most ostentatious white. A smart, green veranda, scarcely finished, ran along the low portico, and formed the termination to two thin rows of meagre and dwarfish sycamores, which did duty for an avenue, and were bounded, on the roadside, by a spruce white gate, and a sprucer lodge, so moderate in its dimensions, that it would scarcely have boiled a turnip: if a rat had got into it, he might have run away with it. The ground was dug in various places, as if for the purpose of further improvements, and here and there a sickly little tree was carefully hurdled round, and seemed pining its puny heart out at the confinement.
In spite of all these well-judged and well-thriving graces of art, there was such a comfortless and desolate appearance about the place, that it quite froze one to look at it; to be sure, a damp marsh on one side, and the skeleton rafters and beams of an old stable on the other, backed by a few dull and sulky-looking fir trees, might, in some measure, create, or at least considerably add to, the indescribable cheerlessness of the tout ensemble. While I was curiously surveying the various parts of this northern "Delices," and marvelling at the choice of two crows who were slowly walking over the unwholesome ground, instead of making all possible use of the black wings with which Providence had gifted them, I perceived two men on horseback wind round from the back part of the building and proceed in a brisk trot down the avenue. We had not advanced many paces before they overtook us; the foremost of them turned round as he passed me, and pulling up his horse abruptly, discovered to my dismayed view, the features of Mr. Thornton. Nothing abashed by the slightness of my bow, or the grave stares of my lordly companions, who never forgot the dignity of their birth, in spite of the vulgarity of their tastes, Thornton instantly and familiarly accosted me.
"Told you so, Mr. Pelham--silent sow, Sure I should have the pleasure of seeing you, though you kept it so snug. Well, will you bet now? No!--Ah, you're a sly one. Staying here at that nice-looking house--belongs to Dawson, an old friend of mine--shall be happy to introduce you!"
"Sir," said I, abruptly, "you are too good. Permit me to request that you will rejoin your friend Mr. Dawson."
"Oh," said the imperturbable Thornton, "it does not signify; he won't be affronted at my lagging a little. However," (and here he caught my eye, which was assuming a sternness that perhaps little pleased him,) "however, as it gets late, and my mare is none of the best, I'll wish you good morning." With these words Thornton put spurs to his horse and trotted off.
"Who the devil have you got there, Pelham?" said Lord Chester.
"A person," said I, "who picked me up at Paris, and insists on the right of treasure trove to claim me in England. But will you let me ask, in my turn, whom that cheerful mansion we have just left, belongs to?"
"To a Mr. Dawson, whose father was a gentleman farmer who bred horses, a very respectable person, for I made one or two excellent bargains with him. The son was always on the turf, and contracted the worst of its habits. He bears but a very indifferent character, and will probably become a complete blackleg. He married, a short time since, a woman of some fortune, and I suppose it is her taste which has so altered and modernized his house. Come, gentlemen, we are on even ground, shall we trot?"
We proceeded but a few yards before we were again stopped by a precipitous ascent, and as Lord Chester was then earnestly engaged in praising his horse to one of the cavalcade, I had time to remark the spot. At the foot of the hill we were about slowly to ascend, was a broad, uninclosed patch of waste land; a heron, flapping its enormous wings as it rose, directed my attention to a pool overgrown with rushes, and half-sheltered on one side by a decayed tree, which, if one might judge from the breadth and hollowness of its trunk, had been a refuge to the wild bird, and a shelter to the wild cattle, at a time when such were the only intruders upon its hospitality; and when the country, for miles and leagues round, was honoured by as little of man's care and cultivation as was at present the rank waste which still nourished its gnarled and venerable roots.