CHAPTER XXV.

CONCLUSION.

Eight months after all this, it was in the drawing-room of Laurel Lodge that those whose adventures we have traced so far were all waiting for the boom of the dinner-gong, for it was the evening of Ethel's birthday; and she had been a bride four months, while Rose had been wedded but a few weeks--so both were all smiles, white lace, and loveliness.

All that day the familiar chimes of Acton-Rennel (which had rung in honour of their return) had jangled merrily in the square Norman tower, sending their notes over the chase, the mere, the long green English lanes, and kindling joy in many a worthy heart that loved the Bassets, and who now, in home-brewed brown October, drank deep to their healths, and welcome home!

Many of "Papa's household gods," as Ethel named them, which had been bought by old friends, found their way back again to Laurel Lodge. "Mamma's" picture hung in the usual place--even on its old nails; and Rose's azaleas still bloomed in the conservatory, as on the night when Hawkshaw laughed at them.

Morley and Ethel occupied her old room, and often, when she drew the curtains, she thought of that terrible morning when she looked up to Acton Chine and thought a darkness had fallen on the outer world. How difficult to realise all that had passed since then!

There was present the old rector (papa's friend); he had read the last service for Ethel's mamma, and who preached the sermon prior to their departure; and there, too, were Lucy Page and her brother Jack, who looked not a whit the worse for being jilted by Rose, as all the folks in the village say he was, for the rector's black-eyed daughter has undertaken to console him, while Lucy leans with pleasant confidence on the arm of the young fox-hunting squire of Cherrywood Hill, in out-door sports the rival of Jack, who is a first-class shot, and scores with ease his ninety odd points among the members of the 1st A.R.R.R.V.C., which mysterious letters mean the Acton-Rennel Royal Rifle Volunteer Corps, a distinguished body of men, which our friend Morley has since joined.

The squire of Acton-Rennel had come over in his old lumbering coach, and sat as of yore in a cosy easy-chair, opposite Mr. Basset, whose hair has become rather gray, for he has been much aged by all he has undergone, though carefully tended by his daughters, by Morley and Heriot (who, though quite independent, is rapidly acquiring a splendid country practice at Acton-Kennel), and by old Nance Folgate, whose voyaging she believes to exceed in marvel all that ever was recorded by Sir John Mandeville or old Richard Hakluyt.

Bluff Captain Phillips (who is about to persuade the plump little widow of Gravesend to change her name to his) was there too, and his presence made them regret the absence of honest Morrison, who had gone home to Scotland, and of jovial Tom Bartelot, who was in London, it was whispered, with certain matrimonial views upon the girl of the Hampton Court memories, in which he indulged when on the wreck, and which views, we hope, he may realise ere long.

Noah Gawthrop, who was then, as he would have phrased it, "a brilin' aboard the _Clyde_," in the Indian Seas, was not forgotten when the cloth was removed after dinner; and we believe he will yet cast anchor in charge of the gate lodge, with its heraldic unicorns, and may yet teach a little Morley Ashton to handle an oar in the skiff on Acton mere, and may become in the bar of the "Basset Arms" a great oracle upon all that appertaineth unto salt water.

On this evening they were all very happy and merry, and the jolly rector, in proposing Ethel's health and prosperity, declared that Mr. Basset's daughters were alike improved in quality and tint, for having been--like good Madeira--twice round the Cape, a species of compliment which the two squires laughed at uproariously, so the hearty good-humour and merriment waxed apace.

"How unlike the past!" thought Morley, as he glanced at his beautiful young wife in diamonds and lace; "here, indeed, 'the world seems a good one to live in, and easy to get on with!'"

Morley felt half as in a dream.

It was the last day of October, the sun's declining rays were gilding the shamble-oak, and his brethren of the old Saxon chase, the tower of the village church, and the rocks of the chine. (You remember them, reader? If you don't, we rather think Mr. Ashton does.) A sky of clouds that were white, broken, and dappled, edged with gold, and floating in amber, was over all. Fragrance and verdure, fertility and vegetable life, that they may bud and bloom in all their strength in spring, were going to sleep for the winter in the coppice and on the uplands.

The nearly-stripped woodlands loomed darkly out of the golden evening haze, and the glorious sun, as he sank, while the village chimes rang out, made Morley feel somehow happy, charitable, and kind to the world in general. And so he thought, as he glanced from Ethel, who was now singing at the piano one of her old familiar songs to Rose, who, though a wedded wife, was seated on a hassock near her father's knee, which had always been her place after dinner, since she cut her first pearly teeth and drank milk out of the sponsorial silver mug, given her by old Mr. Page, Jack's father.

She was rollicking, as of old, with Lucy, a charming specimen of a frank-hearted, fresh-complexioned country girl, and teasing her brother Jack, a young Englishman complete, ruddy-cheeked, with a smart moustache, long whiskers, and a head of close curly brown hair.

Though the prime bowler of the Acton eleven, the crack shot of the Acton Corps, a fellow who could run, leap, or shoot even with a Highlandman, the good wine he had drunk loosed his tongue, and, as Morley and he promenaded in the avenue, he told him rather mysteriously, between the puffs of Latakia, which rose from his meerschaum, that he "had been jilted by Rose chiefly because he was a thundering bad dancer, and never knew a note of music in his life." But Jack, we have said, was likely to find consolation.

Though leaving them all happy in their old English home, we feel loath alike to part with them and with the reader, who has accompanied us so far; but we leave them all, we hope, with health, wealth, and young life before them.

The sun has set, and the Acton bells have ceased, so part we must, though, perhaps, for a time.

THE END.

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.

End of Project Gutenberg's Morley Ashton, Volume 3 (of 3), by James Grant