NORSTON'S REST.

BY

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

AUTHOR of "BERTHA'S ENGAGEMENT," "FASHION AND FAMINE," "MABEL'S MISTAKE," "THE OLD COUNTESS," "RUBY GRAY'S STRATEGY," "THE REIGNING BELLE," "LORD HOPE'S CHOICE," "MARRIED IN HASTE," "THE SOLDIER'S ORPHANS," "WIVES AND WIDOWS; OR, THE BROKEN LIFE," "MARY DERWENT," "THE OLD HOMESTEAD," "A NOBLE WOMAN," "THE CURSE OF GOLD," "THE GOLD BRICK," "DOUBLY FALSE," "PALACES AND PRISONS," "THE HEIRESS," "SILENT STRUGGLES," "REJECTED WIFE," "BELLEHOOD AND BONDAGE," "WIFE'S SECRET."

PHILADELPHIA; T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS; 306 CHESTNUT STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.

Each work is complete in one volume, 12mo.

NORSTON'S REST. BERTHA'S ENGAGEMENT. BELLEHOOD AND BONDAGE; or, Bought With A Price. LORD HOPE'S CHOICE; or, More Secrets Than One. THE OLD COUNTESS. Sequel to Lord Hope's Choice. A NOBLE WOMAN; or, A Gulf Between Them. PALACES AND PRISONS; or, The Prisoner of the Bastile. WIVES AND WIDOWS; or, The Broken Life. RUBY GRAY'S STRATEGY; or, Married By Mistake. FASHION AND FAMINE. THE CURSE OF GOLD; or, The Bound Girl and Wife's Trials. MABEL'S MISTAKE; or, The Lost Jewels. SILENT STRUGGLES; or, Barbara Stafford. THE WIFE'S SECRET; or, Gillian. THE HEIRESS; or, The Gipsy's Legacy. THE REJECTED WIFE; or, The Ruling Passion. THE OLD HOMESTEAD; or, The Pet From the Poor House. DOUBLY FALSE; or, Alike and Not Alike. THE REIGNING BELLE. MARRIED IN HASTE. THE SOLDIER'S ORPHANS. MARY DERWENT. THE GOLD BRICK.

Price of each, $1.75 in Cloth; or $1.50 in Paper Cover.

Above books are for sale by all Booksellers. Copies of any one or all of the above books, will be sent to any one, to any place, postage pre-paid, on receipt of their price by the Publishers,

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,

306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

TO MRS. GEN. WILLIAM LESLIE CAZNEAU, OF KEITH HALL, JAMAICA, W. I. ONE OF THE OLDEST AND DEAREST FRIENDS THAT I HAVE, THIS BOOK IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

ANN S. STEPHENS.

New York, May 31, 1877.

NORSTON'S REST.

[25]

CHAPTER I.

GATHERING OF THE HUNT.

IN the highest grounds of a park, almost an estate in itself, stood one of those noble old mansions that are so interwoven with the history of mother England, that their architecture alone is a record of national stability and ever-increasing civilization, written out in the strength of stone and the beauty of sculpture. This building, however grand in historical associations, was more especially the monument of one proud race, the Hursts of "Norston's Rest."

Generation after generation the Hursts had succeeded in unbroken descent to "The Rest" and its vast estates since the first foundation stone was laid, and that was so long ago that its present incumbent, Sir Noel Hurst, would have smiled in derision had the Queen offered to exchange his title for that of a modern duke.

Sir Noel might well be proud of his residence, which, like its owners, had kept pace with the progress of art and the discoveries of science known to the passing generations; for each had contributed something to its[26] gradual construction, since the first rough tower was built with the drawbridge and battlements of feudal times, to the present imposing structure, where sheets of plate glass took the place of arrow slits, and the lace-work of sculpture was frozen into stone upon its walls.

This glorious old park, like the mansion it surrounded, brought much of its antique beauty from the dead ages. Druid stones were to be found beneath its hoary old oaks. Its outer verge was wild as an American forest, and there one small lake of deep and inky blackness scarcely felt a gleam of sunshine from month to month. But nearer the old mansion this wilderness was turned into an Eden: lawns of velvet grass—groves where the sunshine shone through the bolls of the trees, turning the grass under them to gold—lakes starred half the summer with the snow of water-lilies—rose gardens that gave a rare sweetness to the passing wind—shadowy bridle-paths and crystal streams spanned by stone bridges—all might be seen or guessed at from the broad terrace that fronted the mansion.

Here all was light gayety and pleasant confusion. Sir Noel had many guests in the house, and they were all out upon the terrace, forming a picture of English life such as no country on earth can exhibit with equal perfection.

It was the first day of the hunt, and the gay inmates of the house were out in the bright freshness of the morning, prepared for a glorious run with the hounds. The gentlemen brilliant in scarlet, the ladies half rivalling them in masculine hats, but softening the effect with gossamer veils wound scarf-like around them, and a graceful flow of dark drapery.

Beneath, breaking up the gravel of the carriage road[27] with many an impatient hoof, was a crowd of grooms holding slender-limbed horses, whose coats shone like satin, when the sun touched them, while their hoofs smote the gravel like the restless feet of gipsy dancing-girls when a thrill of music stirs the blood.

Further on keepers were scattered about, some looking admiringly at the brilliant picture before them, others holding back fiery young dogs, wild for a run with their companions of the kennel.

Gradually the light laughter and cheerful badinage passing on the terrace died into the silence of expectation. The party was evidently incomplete. Sir Noel was there in his usual dress, speaking with polite composure, but casting an anxious look now and then into the open doors of the hall.

Some fair lady was evidently waited for who was to ride the chestnut horse drawn up nearest the steps, where he was tossing his head with an impatience that half lifted the groom from his feet when he attempted to restrain the reckless action.

It was the Lady Rose, a distant relative of Sir Noel's, who had been her guardian from childhood, and now delighted to consider her mistress of "The Rest," a position he fondly hoped she might fill for life.

Sir Noel came forward as she appeared, and for a moment the two stood together, contrasted by years, but alike in the embodiment of patrician elegance. She in the bloom and loveliness of her youth: he in that exquisite refinement which had been his inheritance through a long line of cultivated and honorable ancestry. Turning from Sir Noel, Lady Rose apologized to his guests, and with a winning smile, besought their forgiveness for her tardy appearance.[28]

That moment a young man, who had been giving some orders to the grooms, came up the steps and approached the lady.

"Have you become impatient?" she said, blushing a little. "I am so grieved!"

The young man smiled, as he gave her a fitting answer. Then you saw at once the relationship that he held with Sir Noel. It was evident, not only in the finely cut features, but in the dignified quietude of manner that marked them both.

"Mack has no idea of good breeding, and is getting fiercely impatient," he said, glancing down at the chestnut horse.

Lady Rose cast a bright smile upon her guests.

"Ladies, do not let me keep you waiting."

There was a general movement toward the steps, but the young lady turned to Sir Noel again.

"Dear uncle, I wish you were going. I remember you in hunting-dress when I was a little girl."

"But I have grown old since then," answered the baronet, with a faint smile.

"This is my first day, and I shall be almost afraid without you," she pleaded.

The baronet smiled, shook his head, and glanced at his son.

"You will have younger and better care," he said.

The young man understood this as a request that he should take especial care of his cousin, for such the lady was in a remote degree, and for an instant seemed to hesitate. Lady Rose saw this, and, with a hot flush on her face, ran down the steps.

Young Hurst was by her side in a second, but she sprang to the saddle, scarcely touching his proffered hand[29] with her foot; then wheeled the chestnut on one side, and waited for the rest to mount.

Down came the party, filling the broad stairway with shifting colors, chatting, laughing, and occasionally giving out little affected screams, as one fell short of the saddle, or endangered her seat by a too vigorous leap; but all this only added glee to the occasion, and a gayer party than that never left the portal of "Norston's Rest" even in the good old hawking days of long ago.

Young Hurst took his place by the side of Lady Rose, and was about to lead the cavalcade down the broad avenue, which swept through more than a mile of the park before it reached the principal entrance gate, but instantly there arose a clamor of feminine opposition.

"Not that way! It would lead them in the wrong direction; let them take a run through the park. They would have rougher riding than that before the day was over."

Young Hurst seemed disturbed by this proposal; he even ventured to expostulate with his father's guests. "The park was rough in places," he said, "and the side entrance narrow for so large a party."

His argument was answered by a merry laugh. The ladies turned their horses defiantly, and a cloud of red coats followed them. Away to the right the whole cavalcade took its way where the sun poured its golden streams on the turf under the trees, or scattered itself among the leaves of the hoary old oaks that in places grew dangerously close together.

As they drew toward that portion of the park known as "The Wilderness," a wonderfully pretty picture arrested the swift progress of the party, and the whole cavalcade moved more slowly as it came opposite a small[30] rustic cottage of stone, old, moss-grown, and picturesque, wherever its hoary walls could be seen, through masses of ivy and climbing roses. One oriel window was discovered through the white jasmine that clustered around it, and the verbenas, heliotrope, and scarlet geraniums that crept beneath it from the ground.

The vast park, in whose deepest and coolest verdure this little dwelling stood, was like a world in itself; but through the noble old trees the stately mansion-house they had left could be seen in glimpses from this more humble dwelling. This stood on the edge of a ravine, left in all its ferny wildness, through which a stream of crystal water leaped and sparkled, and sent back soft liquid murmurs, as it flowed down in shadows, or leaped in bright cascades to a lake that lay in the wildest and lowest depths of the park, as yet invisible. Young Hurst had urged his horse forward when he came in sight of this wood-nest, and an angry flush swept over his face when the party slackened its speed to a walk, and for an instant stopped altogether, as it came in front of the rustic porch; for there, as if startled by the sudden rush of hoofs, stood a young girl, framed in by the ivy and jasmine. She had one foot on the threshold of the door, and was looking back over her left shoulder, as if held in that charming attitude by a sudden impulse of

curiosity while she was retreating. Two or three exclamations broke from the gentlemen, who were taken by surprise by this beautiful picture; for in her pose, in the dark frightened eyes, and the warm coloring of face and garments, the girl was a wonder of picturesque beauty.

"Who is she? Where did the pretty gipsy come from?" questioned one of the gentlemen nearest to Hurst. "Upon my word, she hardly seems real."[31]

"She is the daughter of my father's gardener," said Hurst, lifting his hunting-cap as the girl's eyes sought him out in her sudden panic. "Shall we ride on, gentlemen? Our presence seems to disturb her."

"Is it true? Is the pretty thing only a gardener's child?" questioned one of the ladies, drawing close to Lady Rose.

"She certainly is only that," was the low, almost forced answer. "We have always thought her pretty, and she is certainly good."

Hurst heard this and turned a grateful look upon the fair girl. She saw it, and for an instant the color left her face. Then she touched her horse, and the cavalcade dashed after her through the depths of the park and into the open country, where the hounds were to meet, all feeling in a different way that there was some mystery in the living picture they had admired.

CHAPTER II.

THE HILL-SIDE HOUSE.

AT the grand entrance of the park a young man had been waiting with a desperate determination to take some part in the hunt, though he was well aware that his presence in such company must be an intrusion; for he was the only son of a farmer on the estate, and had just received education enough to unfit him for usefulness in his own sphere of life and render his presumption intolerable to those above him.

He had not ventured on a full hunting-suit, but wore[32] the cap, boots, and gloves with an air that should, he was determined, distinguish him from any of the grooms, and perhaps admit him into the outskirts of the hunt, if audacity could accomplish nothing more. The horse, which he sat with some uneasiness, had been purchased for the occasion unknown to his father, who had intrusted the selection of a farm-horse to his judgment, and was quite ignorant that the beast had been taken out for any other purpose. As the young man rode this horse up and down in sight of the gate, a groom came through and answered, when questioned about the hunting party, that it had started half an hour before across the park.

With an oath at the time he had lost, young Storms put the horse to his speed and was soon in the open country, but the animal, though a good one, was no match for the full-blooded action for which Sir Noel's stables were famous. After riding across the country for an hour, as it seemed to him, wondering what course the hunt would take, the horse suddenly lifted his ears, gathered up his limbs, and, before his rider could guide the movement, leaped a low wall into a corn-field and was scouring toward some broken land beyond, when a flash of darkness shot athwart his path, and the fox, routed from his covert, dashed across the field. After it came the dogs, red-mouthed with yelping, clearing the hedges with scattered leaps, and darting swiftly, as shot arrows, in the track of the fox.

After them came the hunt, storming across the field, over walls and ditches, and winding up the long slope of the hill, scattering rays of scarlet flame as it went.

The rush of the dogs, the desperate speed of the fox, maddened Storms, as the first bay of the hounds had inspired[33] his horse. He plunged on like the rest, eager and cruel as the hounds. For once he would be in at the death.

Storms had done some rough riding in preparation for this event, but he lacked the cool courage that aids a horse in a swift race or dangerous leap. In wild excitement he wheeled and made a dash at the wall. The horse took his leap bravely, but a ditch lay on the other side, and he fell short, hurling his rider among the weeds and brambles that had concealed its depths.

The young man was stunned by the sudden shock, and lay for a time motionless among the weeds that had probably saved his life, but he gathered himself up at last and looked around. The hunt was just sweeping over the crest of the hill, and half-way up its face his horse was following, true to its instincts.

The young man felt too giddy for anger, and for a time his mind was confused; still no absolute injury had happened to him, and after gathering up his cap and dusting his garments, he would have been quite ready to mount again, and saw his horse go over the hill with an oath which might have been changed to blows had the beast been within his control.

The scenery around him was in some respects familiar, but he could not recognize it from that standpoint or determine how far he was from home. In order to make himself sure of this he mounted the hill, from whence he could command a view of the country.

A lovely prospect broke upon the young man when he paused to survey it: below him lay a broad valley, composed of a fine expanse of forest and farming land, through which a considerable stream sparkled and wound and sent its huddling crystal through green hollows and shady places till its course was lost in the distance.[34]

This river Storms knew well. It passed through the "Norston's Rest" estate, but that was so broad and covered so many miles in extent that his position was still in doubt.

Storms was not a man to occupy himself with scenery for its own sake, however beautiful or grand; so, after a hurried glance around him, he proceeded to mount higher up the hill. The declivity where he stood sank down to the river so gradually that several houses were built on its slope, and most of the land was under some sort of cultivation. The nearest of these houses was a low structure, old and dilapidated, on which the sunshine was lying with pleasant brightness. If nature had not been so bountiful to this lovely spot, the house might have been set down as absolutely poverty-stricken, but, years before, some training hand had so guided nature in behalf of the beautiful, that Time, in destroying, made it also picturesque.

Storms observed this without any great interest, but he had attained some idea of thrift on his father's farm, and saw, with contempt, that no sign of plenty, or even comfort, was discernible about the place. It was a broken picture—nothing more; but an artist would have longed to sketch the old place, for a giant walnut-tree flung its great canopy of branches over the roof, and, farther down the slope of the hill, a moss-grown old apple orchard, whose gnarled limbs and quivering leaves would have driven him wild, had yielded up its autumnal fruit.

There was a low, wide porch in front of the house, over which vines of scant leafiness and bristling with dead twigs crept toward the thatched roof. The walls about the house were broken in many places, and left in gaps, through which currant and gooseberry-bushes wound themselves outward in green masses.[35]

At the end of this enclosure there had been some attempts at gardening; but plenty of weeds were springing up side by side with the vegetables, and both were richly overtopped in irregular spaces by clusters of thyme that had found root at random among the general neglect.

All this might have given joy to a man of æsthetic taste, but Storms would never have looked at it a second time but for some object that he saw flitting through the garden, that brightened everything around, as a tropical bird kindles up the dense foliage of a jungle.

It was a young girl, with a good deal of scarlet in her dress and a silk handkerchief of many colors knotted about her neck. She was bareheaded, and the sunshine striking down on her abundant black hair, sifted a gleam of purple through it, rich beyond description.

The young man was bewildered by this sudden appearance, and stood a while gazing upon it. Then his face flushed and a vivid light came into his eyes.

"By Jove, there's something worth looking after here," he said. "The creature moves like a leopard, and jumps—goodness, how she does jump across the beds! I must get a nearer view."

From that distance it was difficult to judge accurately of the girl's face; but there was no mistaking the easy sway of her movements or the picturesque contrast of her warmly hued garments with the leafy shadows around her.

She was evidently a reckless gardener, for half the time she leaped directly into the vegetable beds, treading down the shoots that were tinging them with departing greenness. All at once she dropped on her knees and began to pull up some beets, from which she vigorously shook the clinging soil.[36]

When she arose with her handful of green leaves and roots, Storms became conscious that the old house, with all its proofs of neglect, made an attractive picture.

"I will ask for a cup of milk or a drink of water," he thought; "that will give me a good look at her face."