The captain did not look as much impressed by the announcement as his young informant expected that he would be.
“Papa, of course, went to his poor aunt’s funeral,” said Emmie, “and took Bruce with him to see what he thought of the place.”
“There was plenty of business to be transacted,” observed Vibert; “I fancy that there always is when landed property changes hands. My father asked for a week’s holiday from office-work. Perhaps he will give up his appointment altogether; all depends on whether he decide to live on his own estate, or to let it and take a new lease of Summer Villa.”
“You must have had letters from your father; to which decision does he appear to incline?” asked the captain, addressing himself to his niece.
“Papa has been very busy, and wrote but briefly,” said Emmie. “I believe that a good deal will depend on whether papa is satisfied with what he sees of a gentleman at S——, who has been highly recommended as a private tutor for my brothers. S—— is but three miles from Myst Court, so that if we lived at that place, Vibert and Bruce could go over to Mr. Blair’s for study every week-day.”
“My father’s plan, now that Bruce and I have left Cheltenham,” interrupted Vibert, “is to keep us with him at home for a year or two, and have us prepared for Cambridge or some competitive examination by a private tutor, either in London, or at S——, if we go into Wiltshire.”
“What description does Bruce give of Myst Court?” inquired Captain Arrows.
“Bruce is a lazy dog with his pen, and seldom honours me with a scratch of it,” answered Vibert.
“Bruce wrote to me the day after he went into Wiltshire,” said Emmie. “He knew that I should be interested to hear of the place which may soon be our home. Bruce writes that the house is of the date of the reign of Queen Anne; that it is built of red brick, and looks rather formal, but has splendid trees around it. Myst Court stands quite by itself, with no other country-house near it, and has the reputation of being haunted.”
Arrows smiled at the gravity with which the young lady pronounced the last word.
“Myst Court must be a horridly dull place, at least for those who are not sportsmen!” cried Vibert. “Bruce and I may find a little liveliness at S——; but for you, Emmie, it will be a case of—
‘And still she cried, “’Tis very dreary—
’Tis dreary and sad,” she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary;
I wish I were dead!”’”
Emmie laughed, but the laugh was rather a forced one.
“Your sister will never, I hope, echo the peevish complaint of an idle girl, who had not energy enough to nail up her peaches,” observed Captain Arrows. “If Emmie go to Wiltshire, it will be, I trust, to lead there an active, useful, and happy life.”
“I wonder on what course papa will decide,” said Emmie; “we are very anxious to know. A great deal will depend on what Bruce thinks desirable,—papa has such an opinion of the judgment of Bruce.”
“Bruce has a precious good opinion of his own,” said Vibert, with something like scorn.
“For shame!—how can you!” cried Emmie, in a tone of playful reproof.
“Here they are! here come my father and Bruce!” cried Vibert, rising from his easy-chair as he caught sight of two figures at the gate.
Emmie had started up, and was out of the room to receive the travellers, before Vibert had finished the sentence.
CHAPTER II.
COMING TO A DECISION.
“Yes, I am satisfied in regard to educational advantages for my sons,” said Mr. Trevor, in reply to a question asked by the captain, when, a few minutes afterwards, the family were gathered together in the drawing-room. “The tutor, Mr. Blair, appears to be in every way qualified to do full justice to his pupils; I had a very satisfactory interview with him at S——.”
“But Myst Court itself, what do you think of the place?” inquired Vibert.
“The house was originally handsome, but it is now utterly out of repair,” replied Mr. Trevor.
“I don’t suppose that painter or glazier has entered the door for these last fifty years,” observed Bruce.
“The grounds are extensive,” continued Mr. Trevor; “but the trees are choking each other for lack of thinning; and the brushwood, through neglect, has thickened into a jungle.”
“A good cover for rabbits and hares,” observed Vibert, who had an eye to sport.
“I never before saw such wretched cottages,” said Bruce; “and there are sixty-one of them on the estate, besides two farms. The hovels are dotted in groups of threes and fours in every corner where one would not expect to find them. Some lean forward, as if bending under the weight of their roofs; some to one side, as if trying to get away from their neighbours; some cottages look as if they were tired of standing at all. I cannot imagine how the men and women, and swarms of bare-footed children, manage to live in such dirty dens.”
“Is there no one to look after the people?” asked Captain Arrows.
“There is no church or school-house nearer than S——,” replied Mr. Trevor. “The people either work for the neighbouring farmers, or in a dyeing factory which stands about a mile from Myst Court. Wages are low in that part of the country; but that is not sufficient to account for the misery which we saw there. Ignorance prevails—ignorance more dense than I could have believed to have been found in any part of our favoured land. I doubt whether of the peasants one in four is able even to read. As a matter of course, drunkenness and every other vice spread as weeds over a field so neglected.”
“It is there that the labourer is called to lay his hand to the plough,” observed Captain Arrows.
Vibert gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders; Bruce as slight an inclination of his head. A very faint sigh escaped from the lips of Emmie.
“I have been giving the matter serious, very serious thought,” said Mr. Trevor. “My first idea, when I found that my aunt had bequeathed the property to me, was to let Myst Court, and to remain at least for some years in Summer Villa, where we have been for long so comfortably settled. But I found, on visiting Myst Court, that it would be impossible to let the house without effecting such extensive and thorough repairs as I could not at present undertake. Even if this were not so—” Mr. Trevor paused, as if to reflect.
“No mere tenant could be expected to take the same interest in the people as would be felt by you, their landlord and natural protector,” observed the captain, concluding the sentence which his brother-in-law had left unfinished.
“And so you think that we are bound to act as props to the cottages that are leaning forwards or sideways, and make them hold themselves straight, as respectable cottages ought to do!” laughed Vibert.
“But what have you to say about the haunted room?” timidly inquired Emmie, who had been sitting with her hand in that of her father, a hitherto silent but much interested listener to the conversation.
“Haunted! Oh, that’s all nonsense!” exclaimed Bruce. “Myst Court is no more haunted than is Summer Villa; it is simply a big, dreary-looking house that wants new mortar on its walls,