Lost Hearts

It was, as far as I can ascertain, in September of the year 1811 that a

post-chaise drew up before the door of Aswarby Hall, in the heart of

Lincolnshire. The little boy who was the only passenger in the chaise, and

who jumped out as soon as it had stopped, looked about him with the

keenest curiosity during the short interval that elapsed between the

ringing of the bell and the opening of the hall door. He saw a tall, square,

red-brick house, built in the reign of Anne; a stone-pillared porch had

been added in the purer classical style of 1790; the windows of the house

were many, tall and narrow, with small panes and thick white woodwork.

A pediment, pierced with a round window, crowned the front. There were

wings to right and left, connected by curious glazed galleries, supported

by colonnades, with the central block. These wings plainly contained the

stables and offices of the house. Each was surmounted by an ornamental

cupola with a gilded vane.

An evening light shone on the building, making the window-panes glow

like so many fires. Away from the Hall in front stretched a flat park

studded with oaks and fringed with firs, which stood out against the sky.

The clock in the church-tower, buried in trees on the edge of the park,

only its golden weather-cock catching the light, was striking six, and the

sound came gently beating down the wind. It was altogether a pleasant

impression, though tinged with the sort of melancholy appropriate to an

evening in early autumn, that was conveyed to the mind of the boy who

was standing in the porch waiting for the door to open to him.

The post-chaise had brought him from Warwickshire, where, some six

months before, he had been left an orphan. Now, owing to the generous

offer of his elderly cousin, Mr Abney, he had come to live at Aswarby. The

offer was unexpected, because all who knew anything of Mr Abney looked

upon him as a somewhat austere recluse, into whose steady-going

household the advent of a small boy would import a new and, it seemed,

incongruous element. The truth is that very little was known of Mr

Abney’s pursuits or temper. The Professor of Greek at Cambridge had

been heard to say that no one knew more of the religious beliefs of the

later pagans than did the owner of Aswarby. Certainly his library

contained all the then available books bearing on the Mysteries, the

Orphic poems, the worship of Mithras, and the Neo–Platonists. In the

marble-paved hall stood a fine group of Mithras slaying a bull, which had

been imported from the Levant at great expense by the owner. He had

contributed a description of it to the Gentleman’s Magazine , and he had

written a remarkable series of articles in the Critical Museum on the

superstitions of the Romans of the Lower Empire. He was looked upon, in

fine, as a man wrapped up in his books, and it was a matter of great

surprise among his neighbours that he should ever have heard of his

orphan cousin, Stephen Elliott, much more that he should have

volunteered to make him an inmate of Aswarby Hall.

Whatever may have been expected by his neighbours, it is certain that Mr

Abney — the tall, the thin, the austere — seemed inclined to give his

young cousin a kindly reception. The moment the front-door was opened

he darted out of his study, rubbing his hands with delight.

‘How are you, my boy?— how are you? How old are you?’ said he —‘that

is, you are not too much tired, I hope, by your journey to eat your

supper?’

‘No, thank you, sir,’ said Master Elliott; ‘I am pretty well.’

‘That’s a good lad,’ said Mr Abney. ‘And how old are you, my boy?’

It seemed a little odd that he should have asked the question twice in the

first two minutes of their acquaintance.

‘I’m twelve years old next birthday, sir,’ said Stephen.

‘And when is your birthday, my dear boy? Eleventh of September, eh?

That’s well — that’s very well. Nearly a year hence, isn’t it? I like — ha,

ha!— I like to get these things down in my book. Sure it’s twelve?

Certain?’

‘Yes, quite sure, sir.’