My Lady of Cleeve

I held up my hand and the troopers halted. The rain, which had been falling steadily since noon, had now ceased; and a watery gleam of sunshine bursting from the sullen stormclouds overhead lighted up the crest of the hill upon which we stood, and the well-wooded Cleeve valley below us, than which there is none more beautiful in all Devonshire. Behind us lay the barren surface of the torrs—mile upon mile of rock-strewn, wind-swept summits—thrusting their gaunt and rugged outlines high into the air in spurs as varied as they were fantastical. But at our feet the ground fell sharply away, covered with a wealth of golden gorse and bracken and scattered clumps of timber that grew ever thicker toward the bottom of the valley; yielding nevertheless the glimpse of a white road which wound its way serpentlike down the centre.

Here and there also the glitter of water showed through the trees, where some streamlet kissed by the sun’s rays shone with the radiance of burnished silver. From thence the woods rose in one dense mass upon the opposite slope, until they broke at length upon the very edge of the rocky cliffs that guard this portion of the coast, and beyond these again were the dark green waters of the Channel.

It was a scene that at any other time would have compelled my ardent admiration. The fertile valley nestling at our feet, clothed with its rich carpet of oaks and beeches, and rendered doubly welcome by contrast with the bleak, treeless surface of the torrs through which we had toiled since daybreak. But befouled with mud, wet and weary, we were in no condition to mark its beauties or to appreciate them. Moreover, though it was yet early June, a cold wind was rising, rustling in the treetops below us and bringing with it the odour of the sea.

As we sat there upon the brow of the hill, the steam from our jaded horses rising around us, we shivered in our saddles. For the last two hours, save for a muttered oath from one or other of the troopers when their weary animals stumbled, we had ridden for the most part in silence. Even Graham—gayest and most debonnaire of cornets—had scarce opened his lips save to answer some remark in monosyllables. And that fact alone was more significant than words to prove to what a state of depression the lonely torrs and the falling rain had reduced us. He had fallen somewhat behind with De Brito, but they spurred forward now upon seeing me halt. I had, I confess, no great liking for Cornet Brito; though to give him his due, had he paid less attention to the wine bottle he had the making of a good sword. But his was a coarse, brutal nature—sullen, revengeful, and without restraint—alien alike in every respect to my own. For I hold that a man may be forced to live by the wits that Nature has provided him with—he may be forced to sell his sword and service to the highest bidder—but he need not forget, thank God, that he was born a gentleman.

As for Cornet Graham, he was a merry, careless-hearted boy in appearance, with an eye for every comely maid, and a mind, one would have thought, running only upon the sit of his peruke or the latest fashion in sword knots. Yet his slight figure and fair boyish face belied his nature, which was as keen and ruthless as any of the troopers plodding at our heels. Even now I noted at a glance that though he was as wet through as the rest of us, no mud splash soiled his clothes. And his white cravat limp though it was, was yet tied in a fashion that would have done credit to the Mall or St. James’s. Indeed, to him London was the world.

“A curse on these endless hills!” said De Brito sullenly, as they drew rein at my side. “Why do we halt?”

For answer I pointed to where some three miles to our right, on the opposite side of the valley, and perched apparently upon the very edge of the cliff, the grey stone chimneys of a house rose above the surrounding trees. Beyond this the mighty head of Cleevesborough reared itself into the sky. And at its foot, marked by the smoke which hung, motionless, in the heavy air above it, lay the little port of Cleeve, to which it gives its name.