Fallen Fortunes

hadows were melting away in the dimness of a night that would never be dark, when Grey Dumaresq halted upon t

he old house itself. His heart beat and his throat swelled as he gazed out over the darkening prospect. How he had loved that home of his so long as it had been blessed by his mother's presence there! With what proud delight had he sometimes pictured to himself the time when it might be his own, his very own! From childhood he had been called "the little master-the little heir." If his mother

churchyard sod, and the boy, broken-hearted and indifferent to his fate, had gone for

one loved presence which had made it what it was to him. Afterwards his father had ceased to dwell there, had lived more and m

o and bid the old place farewell, and he no longer cared to do so then. True, it wa

, he would be the one to come after me, and take title and estates in his own right. If he like now to pay me my price, he may share the old house with the rats and the bats, for all I care. I love

is eyes to the fact that his father was letting the old place take care of itself, without regard to the future, and even then he had been conscious of the stirrings of a certain vague resentment. But he had been powerless to act; for although he had just received a small fortune which his mother had hoarded for him, and which had been nursed for him by a kinsman on the Grey si

familiar outlines of the region of his childhood's home, and the voices of the past seemed calling him aloud-ten

ooded with a mystic radiance. A church spire stood suddenly out like a silver beacon, and Grey caught his breath as he watched; for hi

hollow, away to the right from the church. The river winds about it, guarding it from ill, as I used to think in my boyish fantasy. I have seen the harts and does come down from the forest to drink at its waters. Ha

med to share his musings, whether they were dashed with poetic melancholy or were full of reckless daring. Whatever his master's moo

l find your noble

d a man be when failing in health an

hat he loved not his own house, but gave it over into the han

that he was about to quit London, for whose giddy round he had no longer strength or inclination. I have never doubted but that Hartsbourne would be the place of his choice; and hither have I come. I might have learned news of him by going straight to London; but why turn aside from our way for that, when I feel so sure t

eat of the midday hours, had delayed them. Nevertheless, being now so near, he pressed on steadily. He could not rest so near to home, save beneath the old roof-tree. As the windings of the path grew more familiar, his heart throbbed in his breast. Here they passed the boundary of his father's estate. That broken cross marked the spot. And yonder, sleeping in the moonlight, hoary and beautiful, lay the ruined fragments of what had once been an old priory. He could

ld black thing was liker some witch or devil than aught I have clapp

e people in whose lands he had dwelt, and he was by no means free from superstition, t

ath leading down through the forest glade, and across the stream by a ford to the house itself. Methinks I cannot lose the way, though the path be overgrown, and

led path, which Grey had some trouble in finding. But once found, he was able to trace it without difficulty; an

back the stranger-son. The warblers amid the sedges and the fringe of alders along the course of the winding stream filled the air with soft music, not less sweet, if less powerful, than that of the nighting

aired breach in the once sound masonry. The ivy had grown into a tangled mass upon it, and was helping to drag it down. Any active marauder could have scaled it easily. But Grey turned his horse, and skirted round it for some distance. For he knew that

sounded as they entered. A range of stables stood half open, some mouldy straw rotting in the stalls, but no signs of life either in the stables below or the living-rooms above. Grey directed Dicon to the forage store, and bade him look if there were not something to be found there for the ho

d neglect brooding over the place. Broken casements hung crazily, and swung creaking in the night air. Tiles had slipped from the roof, chimney stacks seemed tottering to their fall. True, the great nail-studded oaken door, which Grey well rememb

troubled him before. His father was still young in years. Dissipation might have weakened him, made him an easy prey to disease; but surely, surely had aught worse than that befallen, he would have he

ostly in the moonlight. Striding along one of the paths under the house wall, where shuttered windows, looking like blind eyes, gave back a stony stare, he reached at last a quaint little offshoot of the house, set in an angle where house and garden wall joined; and he utt

se is peopled only with ghosts of the past.-A dog's bark! Good! Where there is dog, there

cracked voice from within.-"Quiet, Ruff; be

in, a shaggy head was thrust forth, and an old man, evidently just risen from his bed, gazed for a mo

ised!-it is Si

before a blow. "Sir Grey! What m

heard the news! You have been Sir G

-nay, Jock-how can

th us then! Woe is me! for we wanted you sorely. It was hard upon All Saints' Day that the old master came back. He was sick; he had lost the use of his limbs. The leeches said they could do naught for him,

ng speech, because the young master said not a word, but stood leaning a

sent for?" The wo

sent them after you by trusty messengers. But Lord, if 'twere only what that rogue said, belike the trusty messenger

y, with dry lips. "And who is th

tting the timber, grinding the tenants, living like a miser in one corner of the house, letting all else go to wrack and ruin, that there may be nothing for the heir to come into. Oh, the master saw through him at the last, that he did; but 'twas too late then. Here he is, stuck fast like a leech to the old place, and sucking its life-blood dry, and protected by the law, so t

nations of his kinsman, he grasped that he had come into nothing but a barren title and nominal possession of a ruinous and dilapidated old house, the revenues of which were in some way alienated to another. He had heard such tales before. He did not discredit old Jock's rec

and was listening with wide eyes and falling jaw to the recital of the same story as had b

give ye what I've got for ye. 'Twas all the old master had left from his hoard; but he said it would give you a start in life, and that your wits must do the rest. He gave it me private like, when Mr. Barty was off the p