The Changeling

"I am glad you came here," said Hilarie. "It is your own. When you know it you will love everything in it – the church and the churchyard, the trees and the birds, the old men and the children, the living and the dead."

Her eyes filled with tears. Those of the man with the violin-case softened, and he listened and looked round. Those of the other showed no response – they were resting with admiration upon the other girl.

"Come" – Hilarie returned to the duty of hostess, – "let me show you the house – the old, old house – where your ancestors lived."

She led the way to the gate by which she had entered. She conducted them along a path under the trees into a small park. In the middle of the park were buildings evidently of great age. They were surrounded by a moat, now dry, with a bridge over it, and beyond the bridge a little timbered cottage which had taken the place of gate tower and drawbridge. Within was a garden, with flowers, fruit, and vegetables, all together. And beyond the garden was the house. And surely there is no other house like unto it in the whole country. In the middle was a high-roofed hall; at either end were later buildings; beyond these buildings, at one end, was a low broad tower, embattled. The windows of the hall were the same as those of the church, the school, and the almshouse.

"You cannot wonder," said the girl, "that I love to call this house my own – my very own. There is nothing in the world that I would take in exchange for this house. Come in, Cousin Humphrey," she said hospitably. "And – and – my other cousin, Cousin Dick. Besides, you are a friend of Molly's. Come in. You are both welcome."

She opened the door. Within, the great hall had a stone bench running all round; the high-pitched roof was composed of thick beams, black with age; the floor was boarded; the daïs stood raised three or four inches for the high table; the circular space was still preserved beneath the lantern, where the fire was formerly made.

"Here lived Robert," said the chatelaine, "with his four sons. There was no floor to the hall then. The servants took their meals with the master, but below him. The men slept on the floor. This was the common living-room." She led the way to the north end. "Here was the kitchen, built out beyond the hall" – there were signs of women-servants – "and above it" – she led the way up a rude stair – "the solar of three or four rooms, where the lord and lady slept, and the daughters, and the women-servants. At the other end" – she led them to the south end of the hall – "was the lady's bower, where the lady with her maids sat at their work all day. And beyond is the tower, where the men-at-arms, our garrison, lay."

These rooms were furnished. "They are our sitting-rooms." Three or four girls now rose as Hilarie entered the room. She presented her cousins to them. "My friends," she said, simply. "Here we live; we take our meals in the hall. Our servants sleep in the gate-house; we in the solar. Confess, now, my newly-found cousins, is it not a noble house?"

She showed them the tower and the dungeon and the guard-room, all belonging to the Wars of the Roses. And then she led them back to the hall, where a dainty luncheon was spread on a sideboard. The high table was laid for about a dozen. The girls, to whom the cousins had been presented, trooped in after them. At the lower table stood the servants, the coachman and grooms, the gardener and his staff, the women-servants, the wives and children of the men. All sat down together at their table, which ran along the middle of the hall. Before Hilarie's chair, in the middle of the high table, stood an ancient ship in silver; ready for her use was a silver-gilt cup, also ancient; silver cups stood for each of her guests.

"We all dine together," she said – "my friends and I at our table, my servants below; we are one family. My ancestors" – her cousins sat on each side of her – "dined in this fashion. There is something in humanity which makes those friends who break bread together."

"It is like a picnic five hundred years back," said Humphrey. "I have heard talk, all my life, about this place. My father always intended to visit it, but at last grew too old."

Hilarie watched her two guests. The taller, Humphrey, had the manners of society; he seemed to be what the world, justly jealous, allows to be a gentleman. Yet he had a certain coldness of manner, and he accepted the beauty of this ancient place without surprise or enthusiasm.

"What are you by profession, Cousin Humphrey?" she asked.

"Nothing, as yet; I have been travelling since I left Cambridge." He laid his card before her – "Sir Humphrey Woodroffe."

"You have the title from your father. I hope you will create new distinctions for yourself."

"I suppose," he said coldly, "that I shall go into the House. My people seem to want it. There are too many cads in the House, but it seems that we cannot get through the world without encountering cads." He looked through his hostess, so to speak, and upon the third cousin, perhaps accidentally.

"You certainly cannot," observed the third. "For instance, I am sitting with you at luncheon."

"You will play something presently, Dick, won't you?"

Molly, sitting on the other side of the table, saw a quick flush upon her friend's cheek, and hastened to avert further danger. One may be a cad, but some cads are sensitive to an openly avowed contempt for cads.

Dick laughed. "All right, Molly. What shall I play? Something serious, befitting the place? Luncheon is over – I will play now, if you like." He looked down the hall. "That, I suppose, is the musicians' loft?"

"That is the musicians' gallery. It is a late addition – Elizabethan, I believe."

"The musicians' gallery? Well, Miss Woodroffe, I am the music. Let me play you something in return for the fine ancestors you have given me, and for your gracious hospitality."

He took up his violin-case, to which he had clung with fidelity, marched down the hall, climbed up into the gallery, and began to tune his fiddle.

"Hilarie," Molly said, "Dick plays in the most lovely way possible. He carries you quite out of yourself. That is why everybody loves him so."

However, the artist, standing up alone in the gallery, struck a chord, and began to play.

I suppose that the magic belonged to the fiddle itself. It is astonishing what magical powers a fiddle may possess. This was the most sympathetic instrument possible. It was a thought leader or inspirer. The moment it began, all the listeners, including the servants below the salt, sat upright, their eyes fixed upon the gallery, rapt out of themselves.

Hilarie, for her part, saw in a vision, but with a clearness and distinctness most marvellous, her ancestor Robert with Hilarie his wife. They were both well-stricken in years; they were standing in the porch with their eldest son, his wife and children, to receive their visitors. And first, across the drawbridge, rode the great Lord Archbishop and Lord Chancellor, followed by his retinue. When the Archbishop dismounted, the old man and his wife, and the son, and his wife, and his children went on their knees; but the Archbishop bade them rise, and kissed his parents lovingly. Meantime, the pages and the varlets were unloading pack-horses and pack-mules, because the Archbishop would not lay upon his father so great a charge as the entertainment of his following. And she saw next how the Lord Mayor and the Sheriff, his brother, rode up side by side, the Sheriff a little behind the Mayor, and how they dismounted and knelt for their father's blessing; and so all into the hall together, to take counsel for the great things they were minded to do for their native village.

Hilarie turned to her cousin on the right. "Cousin," she said, still in her dream, "we must think of our forefathers, and of what they did. We must ask what the Archbishop would have done in our place."

But her cousin made no reply. He was looking with a kind of wonder at Molly. Had the man never seen an attractive girl before? He had; but out of a thousand attractive girls a man may be attracted by one only.

And the music went on. What was it that the musician played? Indeed, I know not; things that awakened the imagination and touched the heart.

"No one knows," said Molly, "what he plays; only he makes one lost to everything."

As for herself, she had a delicious dream of going on the tramp with Dick, he and she alone – he to play, and she – But when she was about to tell this dream, she would not confess her part in the tramp.

The music was over; the fiddle was replaced in its case; the musician was going away.

In the porch stood Hilarie. "Cousin," she said, "do you go on tramp for pleasure or for necessity?"

"For both. I must needs go on tramp from time to time. There is a restlessness in me. I suppose it is in the blood. Perhaps there was a gipsy once among my ancestors."

"But do you really – live – by playing to people?"

"He needn't," said Molly; "but he must. He leaves his money at home, and carries his fiddle. Oh, heavenly!"

"Why not? I fiddle on village greens and in rustic inns. I camp among the gipsies; I walk with the tramps and casuals. There is no more pleasant life, believe me!"

He began to sing in a light, musical tenor —

"When daffodils began to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The lark that tirra-lirra chants
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay."

"You are a strange man," said Hilarie. "Come and see me again."

"I am a vagabond," he replied, "and my name is Autolycus."

Dick took off his hat and bowed low, not in Piccadilly style at all; he waved his hand to Molly; he glared defiance at Humphrey, who loftily bent his head; and then, catching up his violin-case, he started off with a step light and elastic.

Humphrey, the other cousin, half an hour later, stood beside his carriage.

"I must congratulate myself," he said, "on the good fortune which has presented me to the head of my family."

"To two cousins, say."

"Oh! I fancy we shall not see much of Autolycus. Meanwhile, since you kindly grant me permission, I hope to call upon you again."