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RAVENSHOE


[Illustration: CHARLES IN THE BALACLAVA CHARGE.

_Drawn by R. Caton Woodville._

_Ravenshoe._ _Page 355._]


RAVENSHOE

by

HENRY KINGSLEY

New Edition--Third Thousand

With a Frontispiece by R. Caton Woodville







London
Ward, Lock and Bowden, Limited
Warwick House, Salisbury Square, E.C.
New York and Melbourne
1894

[All rights reserved]




To

MY BROTHER,

CHARLES KINGSLEY,

I DEDICATE THIS TALE,
IN TOKEN OF A LOVE WHICH ONLY GROWS STRONGER
AS WE BOTH GET OLDER.




PREFACE.


The language used in telling the following story is not (as I hope the
reader will soon perceive) the Author's, but Mr. William Marston's.

The Author's intention was, while telling the story, to develop, in the
person of an imaginary narrator, the character of a thoroughly
good-hearted and tolerably clever man, who has his fingers (as he would
say himself) in every one's pie, and who, for the life of him, cannot
keep his own counsel--that is to say, the only person who, by any
possibility, could have collected the mass of family gossip which makes
up this tale.

Had the Author told it in his own person, it would have been told with
less familiarity, and, as he thinks, you would not have laughed quite so
often.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE


CHAPTER I
AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF RAVENSHOE                                  1

CHAPTER II.
SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE FOREGOING                                        10

CHAPTER III.
IN WHICH OUR HERO'S TROUBLES BEGIN                                    14

CHAPTER IV.
FATHER MACKWORTH                                                      20

CHAPTER V.
RANFORD                                                               23

CHAPTER VI.
THE "WARREN HASTINGS"                                                 34

CHAPTER VII.
IN WHICH CHARLES AND LORD WELTER DISTINGUISH
THEMSELVES AT THE UNIVERSITY                                          44

CHAPTER VIII.
JOHN MARSTON                                                          50

CHAPTER IX.
ADELAIDE                                                              57

CHAPTER X.
LADY ASCOT'S LITTLE NAP                                               63

CHAPTER XI.
GIVES US AN INSIGHT INTO CHARLES'S DOMESTIC RELATIONS,
AND SHOWS HOW THE GREAT CONSPIRATOR
SOLILOQUISED TO THE GRAND CHANDELIER                                  69

CHAPTER XII.
CONTAINING A SONG BY CHARLES RAVENSHOE, AND ALSO
FATHER TIERNAY'S OPINION ABOUT THE FAMILY                             79

CHAPTER XIII.
THE BLACK HARE                                                        86

CHAPTER XIV.
LORD SALTIRE'S VISIT, AND SOME OF HIS OPINIONS                        92

CHAPTER XV.
CHARLES'S "LIDDELL AND SCOTT"                                         99

CHAPTER XVI.
MARSTON'S ARRIVAL                                                    104

CHAPTER XVII.
IN WHICH THERE IS ANOTHER SHIPWRECK                                  107

CHAPTER XVIII.
MARSTON'S DISAPPOINTMENT                                             114

CHAPTER XIX.
ELLEN'S FLIGHT                                                       121

CHAPTER XX.
RANFORD AGAIN                                                        124

CHAPTER XXI.
CLOTHO, LACHESIS, AND ATROPOS                                        131

CHAPTER XXII.
THE LAST GLIMPSE OF OXFORD                                           139

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LAST GLIMPSE OF THE OLD WORLD                                    142


CHAPTER XXIV.
THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE NEW WORLD                                   146

CHAPTER XXV.
FATHER MACKWORTH BRINGS LORD SALTIRE TO BAY, AND WHAT CAME OF IT     152

CHAPTER XXVI.
THE GRAND CRASH                                                      160

CHAPTER XXVII.
THE COUP DE GRACE                                                    167

CHAPTER XXVIII.
FLIGHT                                                               176

CHAPTER XXIX.
CHARLES'S RETREAT UPON LONDON                                        180

CHAPTER XXX.
MR. SLOANE                                                           185

CHAPTER XXXI.
LIEUTENANT HORNBY                                                    190

CHAPTER XXXII.
SOME OF THE HUMOURS OF A LONDON MEWS.                                194

CHAPTER XXXIII.
A GLIMPSE OF SOME OLD FRIENDS                                        200

CHAPTER XXXIV.
IN WHICH FRESH MISCHIEF IS BREWED                                    203

CHAPTER XXXV.
IN WHICH AN ENTIRELY NEW, AND, AS WILL BE SEEN
HEREAFTER, A MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER IS
INTRODUCED                                                           211

CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE DERBY                                                            219

CHAPTER XXXVII.
LORD WELTER'S MENAGE                                                 227

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE HOUSE FULL OF GHOSTS                                             235

CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHARLES'S EXPLANATION WITH LORD WELTER                               242

CHAPTER XL.
A DINNER PARTY AMONG SOME OLD FRIENDS                                246

CHAPTER XLI.
CHARLES'S SECOND EXPEDITION TO ST. JOHN'S WOOD                       252

CHAPTER XLII.
RAVENSHOE HALL, DURING ALL THIS                                      261

CHAPTER XLIII.
THE MEETING                                                          270

CHAPTER XLIV.
ANOTHER MEETING                                                      275

CHAPTER XLV.
HALF A MILLION                                                       285

CHAPTER XLVI.
TO LUNCH WITH LORD ASCOT                                             288

CHAPTER XLVII.
LORD HAINAULT'S BLOTTING-BOOK                                        302

CHAPTER XLVIII.
IN WHICH CUTHBERT BEGINS TO SEE THINGS IN A NEW LIGHT                309

CHAPTER XLIX.
THE SECOND COLUMN OF "THE TIMES" OF THIS DATE, WITH OTHER MATTERS    317

CHAPTER L.
SHREDS AND PATCHES                                                   320

CHAPTER LI.
IN WHICH CHARLES COMES TO LIFE AGAIN                                 327

CHAPTER LII.
WHAT LORD SALTIRE AND FATHER MACKWORTH SAID
WHEN THEY LOOKED OUT OF THE WINDOW                                   335

CHAPTER LIII.
CAPTAIN ARCHER TURNS UP                                              343

CHAPTER LIV.
CHARLES MEETS HORNBY AT LAST                                         349

CHAPTER LV.
ARCHER'S PROPOSAL                                                    358

CHAPTER LVI.
SCUTARI                                                              369

CHAPTER LVII.
WHAT CHARLES DID WITH HIS LAST EIGHTEEN SHILLINGS                    374

CHAPTER LVIII.
THE NORTH SIDE OF GROSVENOR SQUARE                                   379

CHAPTER LIX.
LORD ASCOT'S CROWNING ACT OF FOLLY                                   391

CHAPTER LX.
THE BRIDGE AT LAST                                                   400

CHAPTER LXI.
SAVED                                                                411

CHAPTER LXII.
MR. JACKSON'S BIG TROUT                                              415

CHAPTER LXIII.
IN WHICH GUS CUTS FLORA'S DOLL'S CORNS                               420

CHAPTER LXIV.
THE ALLIED ARMIES ADVANCE ON RAVENSHOE                               423

CHAPTER LXV.
FATHER MACKWORTH PUTS THE FINISHING TOUCH ON
HIS GREAT PIECE OF EMBROIDERY                                        427

CHAPTER LXVI.
GUS AND FLORA ARE NAUGHTY IN CHURCH, AND THE
WHOLE BUSINESS COMES TO AN END                                       438




RAVENSHOE.




CHAPTER I.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF RAVENSHOE.


I had intended to have gone into a family history of the Ravenshoes,
from the time of Canute to that of her present Majesty, following it
down through every change and revolution, both secular and religious;
which would have been deeply interesting, but which would have taken
more hard reading than one cares to undertake for nothing. I had meant,
I say, to have been quite diffuse on the annals of one of our oldest
commoner families; but, on going into the subject, I found I must either
chronicle little affairs which ought to have been forgotten long ago, or
do my work in a very patchy and inefficient way. When I say that the
Ravenshoes have been engaged in every plot, rebellion, and civil war,
from about a century or so before the Conquest to 1745, and that the
history of the house was marked by cruelty and rapacity in old times,
and in those more modern by political tergiversation of the blackest
dye, the reader will understand why I hesitate to say too much in
reference to a name which I especially honour. In order, however, that I
may give some idea of what the hereditary character of the family is, I
must just lead the reader's eye lightly over some of the principal
events of their history.

The great Irish families have, as is well known, a banshee, or familiar
spirit, who, previous to misfortune or death, flits moaning round the
ancestral castle. Now although the Ravenshoes, like all respectable
houses, have an hereditary lawsuit; a feud (with the Humbys of Hele); a
ghost (which the present Ravenshoe claims to have repeatedly seen in
early youth); and a buried treasure: yet I have never heard that they
had a banshee. Had such been the case, that unfortunate spirit would
have had no sinecure of it, but rather must have kept howling night and
day for nine hundred years or so, in order to have got through her work
at all. For the Ravenshoes were almost always in trouble, and yet had a
facility of getting out again, which, to one not aware of the cause, was
sufficiently inexplicable. Like the Stuarts, they had always taken the
losing side, and yet, unlike the Stuarts, have always kept their heads
on their shoulders, and their house over their heads. Lady Ascot says
that, if Ambrose Ravenshoe had been attainted in 1745, he'd have been
hung as sure as fate: there was evidence enough against him to hang a
dozen men. I myself, too, have heard Squire Densil declare, with great
pride, that the Ravenshoe of King John's time was the only Baron who did
not sign Magna Charta; and if there were a Ravenshoe at Runnymede, I
have not the slightest doubt that such was the case. Through the Rose
wars, again, they were always on the wrong side, whichever that might
have been, because your Ravenshoe, mind you, was not bound to either
side in those times, but changed as he fancied fortune was going. As
your Ravenshoe was the sort of man who generally joined a party just
when their success was indubitable--that is to say, just when the
reaction against them was about to set in--he generally found himself
among the party which was going down hill, who despised him for not
joining them before, and opposed to the rising party, who hated him
because he had declared against them. Which little game is common enough
in this present century among some men of the world, who seem, as a
general rule, to make as little by it as ever did the Ravenshoes.

Well, whatever your trimmers make by their motion nowadays, the
Ravenshoes were not successful either at liberal conservatism or
conservative liberalism. At the end of the reign of Henry VII. they were
as poor as Job, or poorer. But, before you have time to think of it,
behold, in 1530, there comes you to court a Sir Alured Ravenshoe, who
incontinently begins cutting in at the top of the tune, swaggering,
swearing, dressing, fighting, dicing, and all that sort of thing, and,
what is more, paying his way in a manner which suggests successful
burglary as the only solution. Sir Alured, however, as I find, had done
no worse than marry an old maid (Miss Hincksey, one of the Staffordshire
Hinckseys) with a splendid fortune; which fortune set the family on its
legs again for some generations. This Sir Alured seems to have been an
audacious rogue. He made great interest with the king, who was so far
pleased with his activity in athletic sports that he gave him a post in
Ireland. There our Ravenshoe was so fascinated by the charming manners
of the Earl of Kildare that he even accompanied that nobleman on a
visit to Desmond; and, after a twelvemonth's unauthorised residence in
the interior of Ireland, on his return to England he was put into the
Tower for six months to "consider himself."

This Alured seems to have been a deuce of a fellow, a very good type of
the family. When British Harry had that difference we wot of with the
Bishop of Rome, I find Alured to have been engaged in some five or six
Romish plots, such as had the king been in possession of facts, would
have consigned him to a rather speedy execution. However, the king seems
to have looked on this gentleman with a suspicious eye, and to have been
pretty well aware what sort of man he was, for I find him writing to his
wife, on the occasion of his going to court--"The King's Grace looked
but sourly upon me, and said it should go hard, but that the pitcher
which went so oft to the well should be broke at last. Thereto I making
answer, 'that that should depend on the pitcher, whether it were iron or
clomb,' he turned on his heel, and presently departed from me."

He must have been possessed of his full share of family audacity to
sharpen his wits on the terrible Harry, with such an unpardonable amount
of treason hanging over him. I have dwelt thus long on him, as he seems
to have possessed a fair share of the virtues and vices of his family--a
family always generous and brave, yet always led astray by bad advisers.
This Alured built Ravenshoe House, as it stands to this day, and in
which much of the scene of this story is laid.

They seem to have got through the Gunpowder Plot pretty well, though I
can show you the closet where one of the minor conspirators, one Watson,
lay _perdu_ for a week or so after that gallant attempt, more I suspect
from the effect of a guilty conscience than anything else, for I never
heard of any distinct charge being brought against him. The Forty-five,
however, did not pass quite so easily, and Ambrose Ravenshoe went as
near to lose his head as any one of the family since the Conquest. When
the news came from the north about the alarming advance of the
Highlanders, it immediately struck Ambrose that this was the best
opportunity for making a fool of himself that could possibly occur. He
accordingly, without hesitation or consultation with any mortal soul,
rang the bell for his butler, sent for his stud-groom, mounted every man
about the place (twenty or so), armed them, grooms, gardeners, and all,
with crossbows and partisans from the armoury, and rode into the cross,
at Stonnington, on a market-day, and boldly proclaimed the Pretender
king. It soon got about that "the squire" was making a fool of himself,
and that there was some fun going; so he shortly found himself
surrounded by a large and somewhat dirty rabble, who, with cries of
"Well done, old rebel!" and "Hurrah for the Pope!" escorted him, his
terror-stricken butler and his shame-stricken grooms, to the Crown and
Sceptre. As good luck would have it, there happened to be in the town
that day no less a person than Lord Segur, the leading Roman Catholic
nobleman of the county. He, accompanied by several of the leading
gentlemen of the same persuasion, burst into the room where the Squire
sat, overpowered him, and, putting him bound into a coach, carried him
off to Segur Castle, and locked him up. It took all the strength of the
Popish party to save him from attainder. The Church rallied right
bravely round the old house, which had always assisted her with sword
and purse, and never once had wavered in its allegiance. So while nobler
heads went down, Ambrose Ravenshoe's remained on his shoulders.

Ambrose died in 1759.

John (Monseigneur) in 1771.

Howard in 1800. He first took the Claycomb hounds.

Petre in 1820. He married Alicia, only daughter of Charles, third Earl
of Ascot, and was succeeded by Densil, the first of our dramatis
personae--the first of all this shadowy line that we shall see in the
flesh. He was born in the year 1783, and married, first in 1812, at his
father's desire, a Miss Winkleigh, of whom I know nothing; and second,
at his own desire, in 1823, Susan, fourth daughter of Lawrence
Petersham, Esq., of Fairford Grange, county Worcester, by whom he had
issue--

Cuthbert, born 1826;

Charles, born 1831.

Densil was an only son. His father, a handsome, careless, good-humoured,
but weak and superstitious man, was entirely in the hands of the
priests, who during his life were undisputed masters of Ravenshoe. Lady
Alicia was, as I have said, a daughter of Lord Ascot, a Staunton, as
staunchly a Protestant a house as any in England. She, however, managed
to fall in love with the handsome young Popish Squire, and to elope with
him, changing not only her name, but, to the dismay of her family, her
faith also, and becoming, pervert-like, more actively bigoted than her
easy-going husband. She brought little or no money into the family; and,
from her portrait, appears to have been exceedingly pretty, and
monstrously silly.

To this strong-minded couple was born, two years after their marriage, a
son who was called Densil.

This young gentleman seems to have got on much like other young
gent