Scenes and Characters, or, Eighteen Months at Beechcroft

The next afternoon, as soon as luncheon was over, Lily drew Claude out to his favourite place under the plane-tree, where she proceeded to inflict her poem upon his patient ears, while he lay flat upon the grass looking up to the sky; Emily and Jane had promised to join them there in process of time, and the four younger ones were, as usual, diverting themselves among the farm buildings at the Old Court.

Lily began: ‘I meant to have two parts about Sir Maurice going out to fight when he was very young, and then about his brothers being killed, and King Charles knighting him, and his betrothed, Phyllis Crossthwayte, embroidering his black engrailed cross on his banner, and then the taking the castle, and his being wounded, and escaping, and Phyllis not thinking it right to leave her father; but I have not finished that, so now you must hear about his return home.’

‘A romaunt in six cantos, entitled Woe woe,
By Miss Fanny F. known more commonly so,’

muttered Claude to himself; but as Lily did not understand or know whence his quotation came, it did not hurt her feelings, and she went merrily on:—

‘’Tis the twenty-ninth of merry May;
Full cheerily shine the sunbeams to-day,
Their joyous light revealing
Full many a troop in garments gay,
With cheerful steps who take their way
By the green hill and shady lane,
While merry bells are pealing;
And soon in Beechcroft’s holy fane
The villagers are kneeling.
Dreary and mournful seems the shrine
Where sound their prayers and hymns divine;
For every mystic ornament
By the rude spoiler’s hand is rent;
Scarce is its ancient beauty traced
In wood-work broken and defaced,
Reft of each quaint device and rare,
Of foliage rich and mouldings fair;
Yet happy is each spirit there;
The simple peasantry rejoice
To see the altar decked with care,
To hear their ancient Pastor’s voice
Reciting o’er each well-known prayer,
To view again his robe of white,
And hear the services aright;
Once more to chant their glorious Creed,
And thankful own their nation freed
From those who cast her glories down,
And rent away her Cross and Crown.
A stranger knelt among the crowd,
And joined his voice in praises loud,
And when the holy rites had ceased,
Held converse with the aged Priest,
Then turned to join the village feast,
Where, raised on the hill’s summit green,
The Maypole’s flowery wreaths were seen;
Beneath the venerable yew
The stranger stood the sports to view,
Unmarked by all, for each was bent
On his own scheme of merriment,
On talking, laughing, dancing, playing—
There never was so blithe a Maying.
So thought each laughing maiden gay,
Whose head-gear bore the oaken spray;
So thought that hand of shouting boys,
Unchecked in their best joy—in noise;
But gray-haired men, whose deep-marked scars
Bore token of the civil wars,
And hooded dames in cloaks of red,
At the blithe youngsters shook the head,
Gathering in eager clusters told
How joyous were the days of old,
When Beechcroft’s lords, those Barons bold,
Came forth to join their vassals’ sport,
And here to hold their rustic court,
Throned in the ancient chair you see
Beneath our noble old yew tree.
Alas! all empty stands the throne,
Reserved for Mohun’s race alone,
And the old folks can only tell
Of the good lords who ruled so well.
“Ah!  I bethink me of the time,
The last before those years of crime,
When with his open hearty cheer,
The good old squire was sitting here.”
“’Twas then,” another voice replied,
“That brave young Master Maurice tried
To pitch the ball with Andrew Grey—
We ne’er shall see so blithe a day—
All the young squires have long been dead.”
“No, Master Webb,” quoth Andrew Grey,
“Young Master Maurice safely fled,
At least so all the Greenwoods say,
And Walter Greenwood with him went
To share his master’s banishment;
And now King Charles is ruling here,
Our own good landlord may be near.”
“Small hope of that,” the old man said,
And sadly shook his hoary head,
“Sir Maurice died beyond the sea,
Last of his noble line was he.”
“Look, Master Webb!” he turned, and there
The stranger sat in Mohun’s chair;
At ease he sat, and smiled to scan
The face of each astonished man;
Then on the ground he laid aside
His plumed hat and mantle wide.
One moment, Andrew deemed he knew
Those glancing eyes of hazel hue,
But the sunk cheek, the figure spare,
The lines of white that streak the hair—
How can this he the stripling gay,