CHAPTER IV.

_Progress of Affairs at Armine_.

LIFE is adventurous. Events are perpetually occurring, even in the

calmness of domestic existence, which change in an instant the whole

train and tenor of our thoughts and feelings, and often materially

influence our fortunes and our character. It is strange, and sometimes

as profitable as it is singular, to recall our state on the eve of

some acquaintance which transfigures our being; with some man whose

philosophy revolutionises our mind; with some woman whose charms

metamorphose our career. These retrospective meditations are fruitful of

self-knowledge.

The visit of Glastonbury was one of those incidents which, from the

unexpected results that they occasion, swell into events. He had not

been long a guest at Armine before Sir Ratcliffe and his lady could not

refrain from mutually communicating to each other the gratification they

should feel could Glastonbury be induced to cast his lot among them. His

benevolent and placid temper, his many accomplishments, and the entire

affection which he evidently entertained for everybody that bore the

name, and for everything that related to the fortunes of Armine, all

pointed him out as a friend alike to be cherished and to be valued.

Under his auspices the garden of the fair Constance soon flourished:

his taste guided her pencil, and his voice accompanied her lute. Sir

Ratcliffe, too, thoroughly enjoyed his society: Glastonbury was with him

the only link, in life, between the present and the past. They talked

over old times together; and sorrowful recollections lost half their

bitterness, from the tenderness of his sympathetic reminiscences. Sir

Ratcliffe, too, was conscious of the value of such a companion for his

gifted wife. And Glastonbury, moreover, among his many accomplishments,

had the excellent quality of never being in the way. He was aware that

young people, and especially young lovers, are not averse sometimes to

being alone; and his friends, in his absence, never felt that he was

neglected, because his pursuits were so various and his resources so

numerous that they were sure he was employed and amused.

In the pleasaunce of Armine, at the termination of a long turfen avenue

of purple beeches, there was a turreted gate, flanked by round towers,

intended by Sir Ferdinand for one of the principal entrances of his

castle. Over the gate were small but convenient chambers, to which you

ascended by a winding stair-. case in one of the towers; the other was

a mere shell. It was sunset; the long vista gleamed in the dying rays,

that shed also a rich breadth of light over the bold and baronial arch.

Our friends had been examining the chambers, and Lady Armine, who was a

little wearied by the exertion, stood opposite the building, leaning on

her husband and his friend.

‘A man might go far, and find a worse dwelling than that portal,’ said

Glastonbury, musingly. ‘Me-thinks life might glide away pleasantly

enough in those little rooms, with one’s books and drawings, and this

noble avenue for a pensive stroll.’

‘I wish to heaven, my dear Glastonbury, you would try the experiment,’

said Sir Ratcliffe.

‘Ah! do, Mr. Glastonbury,’ added Lady Armine, ‘take pity upon us!’

‘At any rate, it is not so dull as a cloister,’ added Sir Ratcliffe;

‘and say what they like, there is nothing like living among friends.’

‘You would find me very troublesome,’ replied Glastonbury, with a smile;

and then, turning the conversation, evidently more from embarrassment

than distaste, he remarked the singularity of the purple beeches.

Their origin was uncertain; but one circumstance is sure: that, before

another month had passed, Glastonbury was a tenant for life of the

portal of Armine Castle, and all his books and collections were safely

stowed and arranged in the rooms with which he had been so much pleased.

The course of time for some years flowed on happily at Armine. In the

second year of their marriage Lady Armine presented her husband with a

son. Their family was never afterwards increased, but the proud father

was consoled by the sex of his child for the recollection that the

existence of his line depended upon the precious contingency of a single

life. The boy was christened Ferdinand. With the exception of an annual

visit to Lord Grandison, the Armine family never quitted their home.

Necessity as well as taste induced this regularity of life. The affairs

of Sir Ratcliffe did not improve. His mortgagees were more strict in

their demands of interest than his tenants in payment of their rents.

His man of business, who had made his fortune in the service of the

family, was not wanting in accommodation to his client; but he was a

man of business; he could not sympathise with the peculiar feelings and

fancies of Sir Ratcliffe, and he persisted in seizing every opportunity

of urging on him the advisability of selling his estates. However, by

strict economy and temporary assistance from his lawyer, Sir Ratcliffe,

during the first ten years of his marriage, managed to carry on affairs;

and though occasional embarrassments sometimes caused him fits of gloom

and despondency, the sanguine spirit of his wife, and the confidence in

the destiny of their beautiful child which she regularly enforced upon

him, maintained on the whole his courage. All their hopes and joys were

indeed centred in the education of the little Ferdinand. At ten years of

age he was one of those spirited and at the same time docile boys,

who seem to combine with the wild and careless grace of childhood the

thoughtfulness and self-discipline of maturer age. It was the constant

and truthful boast of his parents, that, in spite of all his liveliness,

he had never in the whole course of his life disobeyed them. In the

village, where he was idolised, they called him ‘the little prince;’

he was so gentle and so generous, so kind and yet so dignified in his

demeanour. His education was remarkable; for though he never quitted

home, and lived in such extreme seclusion, so richly gifted were those

few persons with whom he passed his life, that it would have been

difficult to have fixed upon a youth, however favoured by fortune, who

enjoyed greater advantages for the cultivation of his mind and manners.

From the first dawn of the intellect of the young Armine, Glastonbury

had devoted himself to its culture; and the kind scholar, who had not

shrunk from the painful and patient task of impregnating a young mind

with the seeds of knowledge, had bedewed its budding promise with all

the fertilising influence of his learning and his taste. As Ferdinand

advanced in years, he had participated in the accomplishments of his

mother; from her he derived not only a taste for the fine arts, but no

unskilful practice. She, too, had cultivated the rich voice with which

Nature had endowed him, and it was his mother who taught him not only to

sing, but to dance. In more manly accomplishments, Ferdinand could

not have found a more skilful instructor than his father, a consummate

sportsman, and who, like all his ancestors, was remarkable for his

finished horsemanship and the certainty of his aim. Under a roof, too,

whose inmates were distinguished for their sincere piety and unaffected

virtue, the higher duties of existence were not forgotten; and Ferdinand

Armine was early and ever taught to be sincere, dutiful, charitable,

and just; and to have a deep sense of the great account hereafter to

be delivered to his Creator. The very foibles of his parents which he

imbibed tended to the maintenance of his magnanimity. His illustrious

lineage was early impressed upon him, and inasmuch as little now was

left to them but their honour, so it was doubly incumbent upon him to

preserve that chief treasure, of which fortune could not deprive them,

unsullied.

This much of the education of Ferdinand Armine. With great gifts

of nature, with lively and highly cultivated talents, and a most

affectionate and disciplined temper, he was adored by the friends who

nevertheless had too much sense to spoil him. But for his character,

what was that? Perhaps, with all their anxiety and all their care, and

all their apparent opportunities for observation, the parent and the

tutor are rarely skilful in discovering the character of their child or

charge. Custom blunts the fineness of psychological study: those with

whom we have lived long and early are apt to blend our essential and our

accidental qualities in one bewildering association. The consequences of

education and of nature are not sufficiently discriminated. Nor is it,

indeed, marvellous, that for a long time temperament should be disguised

and even stifled by education; for it is, as it were, a contest between

a child and a man.

There were moments when Ferdinand Armine loved to be alone, when he

could fly from all the fondness of his friends, and roam in solitude

amid the wild and desolate pleasure-grounds, or wander for hours in

the halls and galleries of the castle, gazing on the pictures of his

ancestors. He ever experienced a strange satisfaction in beholding the

portrait of his grandfather. He would sometimes stand abstracted for

many minutes before the portrait of Sir Ferdinand in the gallery,

painted by Reynolds, before his grandfather left England, and which the

child already singularly resembled. But was there any other resemblance

between them than form and feature? Did the fiery imagination and the

terrible passions of that extraordinary man lurk in the innocent heart

and the placid mien of his young descendant? No matter now! Behold, he

is a light-hearted and airy child! Thought passes over his brow like a

cloud in a summer sky, or the shadow of a bird over the sunshiny earth;

and he skims away from the silent hall and his momentary reverie to fly

a kite or chase a butterfly!