I had not time to explore this noble old house as my curiosity
prompted; for Milly was in such a fuss to set out for the 'blackberry dell'
that I saw little more than just so much as I necessarily traversed in
making my way to and from my room.
The actual decay of the house had been prevented by my dear
father; and the roof, windows, masonry, and carpentry had all
been kept in repair. But short of indications of actual ruin, there are many manifestations of poverty and neglect which impress with a feeling of desolation. It was plain that not nearly a tithe of this great house was inhabited; long corridors and galleries stretched away in dust and silence, and were crossed by others, whose dark arches inspired me in the distance with an awful sort of sadness. It was plainly one of those great structures in which you might easily lose yourself, and with a pleasing terror it reminded me of that delightful old abbey in Mrs. Radcliffe's romance, among whose silent staircases, dim passages, and long suites of lordly, but forsaken chambers, begirt without by the sombre forest, the family of La Mote secured a gloomy asylum.
My cousin Milly and I, however, were bent upon an open-air
ramble, and traversing several passages, she conducted me to
a door which led us out upon a terrace overgrown with weeds, and by a broad flight of steps we descended to the level of the grounds beneath. Then on, over the short grass, under the noble trees, we walked; Milly in high good-humour, and talking away volubly, in her short garment, navvy boots, and a weather-beaten hat. She carried a stick in her gloveless hand. Her conversation was quite new to me, and resembled very much what I would have fancied the holiday recollections of a schoolboy; and the language in which it was sustained was sometimes so outlandish, that I was forced to laugh outright—a demonstration which she plainly did not like.
Her talk was about the great jumps she had made—how she
snow-balled the chaps' in winter—how she could slide twice the
length of her stick beyond 'Briddles, the cow-boy.'
With this and similar conversation she entertained me.
The grounds were delightfully wild and neglected. But we
had now passed into a vast park beautifully varied with hollows
and uplands, and such glorious old timber massed and scattered
over its slopes and levels. Among these, we got at last into a
picturesque dingle; the grey rocks peeped from among the ferns
and wild flowers, and the steps of soft sward along its sides were
dark in the shadows of silver-stemmed birch, and russet thorn, and oak, under which, in the vaporous night, the Erl-king and his daughter might glide on their aërial horses.
In the lap of this pleasant dell were the finest blackberry
bushes, I think, I ever saw, bearing fruit quite fabulous; and
plucking these, and chatting, we rambled on very pleasantly.
I had first thought of Milly's absurdities, to which, in description, I
cannot do justice, simply because so many details have, by distance of time, escaped my recollection. But her ways and her talk were so indescribably grotesque that she made me again and again quiver with suppressed laughter.
But there was a pitiable and even a melancholy meaning underlying
the burlesque.
This creature, with no more education than a dairy-maid, I
gradually discovered had fine natural aptitudes for accomplishment—a
very sweet voice, and wonderfully delicate ear, and a
talent for drawing which quite threw mine into the shade. It was
really astonishing.
Poor Milly, in all her life, had never read three books, and
hated to think of them. One, over which she was wont to yawn
and sigh, and stare fatiguedly for an hour every Sunday, by command of the
Governor, was a stout volume of sermons of the
earlier school of George III., and a drier collection you can't
fancy. I don't think she read anything else. But she had, notwithstanding, ten times the cleverness of half the circulating library misses one meets with. Besides all this, I had a long sojourn before me at Bartram-Haugh, and I had learned from Milly, as I had heard before, what a perennial solitude it was, with a ludicrous fear of learning Milly's preposterous dialect, and turning at last into something like her. So I resolved to do all I could for her—teach her whatever I knew, if she would allow me—and gradually, if possible, effect some civilising changes in her language, and, as they term it in boarding-schools, her demeanour.