The Trial [79]
Aubrey. 'Do you think so badly of your own trade, Hardy?' But he could not get an answer from the oracle on this head. Hardy continued, 'He's a nice young gentleman, but he'll never put up with it.' 'Put up with what?' asked Aubrey, anxiously; but at that instant a carter appeared at the door with a question for Master Hardy, and Aubrey was left to his own devices, and the hum and clatter of the mill, till the clock had struck four; and beginning to think that Hardy had forgotten him, he was about to set out and reconnoitre, when to his great joy Leonard himself came hurrying up, and heartily shook him by the hand. 'Hardy told me you were here,' he said. 'Well done, old fellow, I didn't think they would have let you come and see me.' 'The girls did make a great row about it,' said Aubrey, triumphantly, 'but I was not going to stand any nonsense.' Leonard looked a little doubtful; then said, 'Well, will you see the place, or come and sit in my room? There is the parlour, but we shall not be so quiet there.' Aubrey decided for Leonard's room, and was taken through the front door into a vestibule paved with white stone, with black lozenges at the intersections. 'There,' said Leonard, 'the office is here, you see, and my uncle's rooms beyond, all on the ground floor, he is too infirm to go up-stairs. This way is the dining-room, and Sam has got a sitting-room beyond, then there are the servants' rooms. It is a great place, and horridly empty.' Aubrey thought so, as his footsteps echoed up the handsome but ill- kept stone staircase, with its fanciful balusters half choked with dust, and followed Leonard along a corridor, with deep windows overlooking the garden and river, and great panelled doors opposite, neither looking as if they were often either cleaned or opened, and the passage smelling very fusty. 'Pah!' said Aubrey; 'it puts me in mind of the wings of houses in books that get shut up because somebody has been murdered! Are you sure it is not haunted, Leonard?' 'Only by the rats,' he answered, laughing; 'they make such an intolerable row, that poor little Mab is frightened out of her wits, and I don't know whether they would not eat her up if she did not creep up close to me. I'm tired of going at them with the poker, and would poison every man Jack of them if it were not for the fear of her getting the dose by mistake.' 'Is that what Hardy says you will never put up with?' asked Aubrey; but instead of answering, Leonard turned to one of the great windows, saying, 'There now, would not this be a charming place if it were properly kept?' and Aubrey looked out at the great cedar, spreading out its straight limbs and flakes of dark foliage over the sloping lawn, one branch so near the window as to invite adventurous exits, and a little boat lying moored in the dancing water below. 'Perfect!' said Aubrey. 'What fish there must lie in the mill tail!' 'Ay, I mean to have a try at them some of these days, I should like you to come and help, but perhaps-- Ha, little Mab, do you wonder what I'm after so long? Here's a friend for you: as the little dog danced delighted round him, and paid Aubrey her affectionate respects. Her delicate drawing-room beauty did not match with the spacious but neglected-looking room whence she issued. It had three great uncurtained windows looking into the court, with deep window- seats, olive-coloured painted walls, the worse for damp and wear, a small amount of old-fashioned solid furniture, and all Leonard's individual goods, chiefly disposed of in a cupboard in the wall, but Averil's beautiful water-coloured drawings hung over the chimney. To Aubrey's petted home-bred notions it was very bare and dreary, and he could not help exclaiming, 'Well, they don't lodge you sumptuously!' 'I don't fancy many clerks in her Majesty's dominions have so big and airy an apartment to boast of,' said Leonard. 'Let's see these flies of yours.' Their mysteries occupied the boys for some space; but Aubrey returned to the charge. 'What is it that Hardy says you'll never put up with, Leonard?' 'What