Fourteen of the sixteen miles intervening between the railway terminus and the end of their journey had been gone over, when they began to pass along the brink of a valley some miles in extent, wherein the wintry skeletons of a more luxuriant vegetation than had hitherto surrounded them proclaimed an increased richness of soil, which showed signs of far more careful enclosure and management than had any slopes they had yet passed. A little farther, and an opening in the elms stretching up from this fertile valley revealed a mansion.
“That’s Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian’s,” said the driver.
“Endelstow House, Lord Luxellian’s,” repeated the other mechanically. He then turned himself sideways, and keenly scrutinized the almost invisible house with an interest which the indistinct picture itself seemed far from adequate to create. “Yes, that’s Lord Luxellian’s,” he said yet again after a while, as he still looked in the same direction.
“What, be we going there?”
“No; Endelstow Vicarage, as I have told you.”
“I thought you m’t have altered your mind, sir, as ye have stared that way at nothing so long.”
“Oh no; I am interested in the house, that’s all.”
“Most people be, as the saying is.”
“Not in the sense that I am.”
“Oh! … Well, his family is no better than my own, ’a b’lieve.”
“How is that?”
“Hedgers and ditchers by rights. But once in ancient times one of ’em, when he was at work, changed clothes with King Charles the Second, and saved the king’s life. King Charles came up to him like a common man, and said offhand, ‘Man in the smock-frock, my name is Charles the Second, and that’s the truth on’t. Will you lend me your clothes?’ ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ said Hedger Luxellian; and they changed there and then. ‘Now mind ye,’ King Charles the Second said, like a common man, as he rode away, ‘if ever I come to the crown, you come to court, knock at the door, and say out bold, “Is King Charles the Second at home?” Tell your name, and they shall let you in, and you shall be made a lord.’ Now, that was very nice of Master Charley?”
“Very nice indeed.”
“Well, as the story is, the king came to the throne; and some years after that, away went Hedger Luxellian, knocked at the king’s door, and asked if King Charles the Second was in. ‘No, he isn’t,’ they said. ‘Then, is Charles the Third?’ said Hedger Luxellian. ‘Yes,’ said a young feller standing by like a common man, only he had a crown on, ‘my name is Charles the Third.’ And—”
“I really fancy that must be a mistake. I don’t recollect anything in English history about Charles the Third,” said the other in a tone of mild remonstrance.
“Oh, that’s right history enough, only ’twasn’t prented; he was rather a queer-tempered man, if you remember.”
“Very well; go on.”
“And, by hook or by crook, Hedger Luxellian was made a lord, and everything went on well till some time after, when he got into a most terrible row with King Charles the Fourth—”
“I can’t stand Charles the Fourth. Upon my word, that’s too much.”
“Why? There was a George the Fourth, wasn’t there?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, Charleses be as common as Georges. However I’ll say no more about it. … Ah, well! ’tis the funniest world ever I lived in—upon my life ’tis. Ah, that such should be!”
The dusk had thickened into darkness while they thus conversed, and the outline and surface of the mansion gradually disappeared. The windows, which had before been as black blots on a lighter expanse of wall, became illuminated, and were transfigured to squares of light on the general dark body of the night landscape as it absorbed the outlines of the edifice into its gloomy monochrome.
Not another word was spoken for some time, and they climbed a hill, then another hill piled on the summit of the first. An additional mile of plateau followed, from which could be discerned two lighthouses on the coast they were nearing, reposing on the horizon with a calm lustre of benignity. Another oasis was reached; a little dell lay like a nest at their feet, towards which the driver pulled the horse at a sharp angle, and descended a steep slope which dived under the trees like a rabbit’s burrow. They sank lower and lower.
“Endelstow Vicarage is inside here,” continued the man with the reins. “This part about here is West Endelstow; Lord Luxellian’s is East Endelstow, and has a church to itself. Pa’son Swancourt is the pa’son of both, and bobs backward and forward. Ah, well! ’tis a funny world. ’A b’lieve there was once a quarry where this house stands. The man who built it in past time scraped all the glebe for earth to put round the vicarage, and laid out a little paradise of flowers and trees in the soil he had got together in this way, whilst the fields he scraped have been good for nothing ever since.”
“How long has the present incumbent been here?”
“Maybe about a year, or a year and half: ’tisn’t two years; for they don’t scandalize him yet; and, as a rule, a parish begins to scandalize the pa’son at the end of two years among ’em familiar. But he’s a very nice party. Ay, Pa’son Swancourt knows me pretty well from often driving over; and I know Pa’son Swancourt.”
They emerged from the bower, swept round in a curve, and the chimneys and gables
