E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading
Team
1905
'Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child?'
'The child of love, though born in bitterness
And nurtured in convulsion.'
In happier hours, when I first mentioned to you the idea of this Work,it was my intention, while inscribing it with your name, to haveentered into some details as to the principles which had guided me inits composition, and the feelings with which I had attempted to shadowforth, though as 'in in a glass darkly,' two of the most renowned andrefined spirits that have adorned these our latter days. But now Iwill only express a hope that the time may come when, in these pages,you may find some relaxation from the cares, and some distractionfrom the sorrows, of existence, and that you will then receive thisdedication as a record of my respect and my affection.
This Work was first published in the year 1837.
Some ten years before the revolt of our American colonies, there wassituate in one of our midland counties, on the borders of an extensiveforest, an ancient hall that belonged to the Herberts, but which,though ever well preserved, had not until that period been visited byany member of the family, since the exile of the Stuarts. It was anedifice of considerable size, built of grey stone, much covered withivy, and placed upon the last gentle elevation of a long ridge ofhills, in the centre of a crescent of woods, that far overtopped itsclusters of tall chimneys and turreted gables. Although the principalchambers were on the first story, you could nevertheless step forthfrom their windows on a broad terrace, whence you descended into thegardens by a double flight of stone steps, exactly in the middleof its length. These gardens were of some extent, and filled withevergreen shrubberies of remarkable overgrowth, while occasionallyturfy vistas, cut in the distant woods, came sloping down to thesouth, as if they opened to receive the sunbeam that greeted thegenial aspect of the mansion, The ground-floor was principallyoccupied by the hall itself, which was of great dimensions, hung roundwith many a family portrait and rural picture, furnished with longoaken seats covered with scarlet cushions, and ornamented with aparti-coloured floor of alternate diamonds of black and white marble.From the centre of the roof of the mansion, which was always coveredwith pigeons, rose the clock-tower of the chapel, surmounted by avane; and before the mansion itself was a large plot of grass, with afountain in the centre, surrounded by a hedge of honeysuckle.
This plot of grass was separated from an extensive park, that openedin front of the hall, by tall iron gates, on each of the pillars ofwhich was a lion rampant supporting the escutcheon of the family. Thedeer wandered in this enclosed and well-wooded demesne, and about amile from the mansion, in a direct line with the iron gates, was anold-fashioned lodge, which marked the limit of the park, and fromwhich you emerged into a fine avenue of limes bounded on both sidesby fields. At the termination of this avenue was a strong but simplegate, and a woodman's cottage; and then spread before you a vastlandscape of open, wild lands, which seemed on one side interminable,while on the other the eye rested on the dark