Chapter 7

SHOCK AND SORROW

There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green,
There's not a bonnie bird that sings,
But minds me of my Jean.

Only a child of Nature's rarest making,
Wistful and sweet--and with a heart for breaking.

Life is a great school and its lessons go on continually. Now and then
perhaps we have a vacation--a period in which all appears to be at
rest--but in this very placidity there are often bred the storms that
are to trouble and perhaps renew us. For some time after the departure
of Harry and his bride, John's life appeared to flow in a smooth but
busy routine. Between the mill and Harlow House, he found the days all
too short for the love and business with which they were filled. And
Mrs. Hatton missed greatly the happy and confidential conversations that
had hitherto made her life with her son so intimate and so affectionate.

Early in the spring John began the building of his own home, and this
necessarily required some daily attention, especially as he had designs
in his mind which were unusual to the local builders, and which seemed
to them well worthy of being quietly passed over. For the house was
characteristic of the man and the man was not of a common type.

There was nothing small or mean about John's house. The hill on which it
stood was the highest ground on the Hatton Manor. It commanded a wide
vista of meadows, interspersed with peacefully flowing waters, until the
horizon on every hand was closed by ranges of lofty mountains. On this
hill the house stood broadly facing the east. It was a large, square
Georgian mansion, built of some white stone found in Yorkshire. Its
rooms were of extraordinary size and very lofty, their windows being
wide and high and numerous. Its corridors were like streets, its
stairways broad enough for four people to ascend them abreast. Light,
air, space were throughout its distinguishing qualities, and its
furnishings were not only very handsome, they had in a special manner
that honest size, solidity, and breadth which make English household
belongings so comfortable and satisfactory. The grounds were full of
handsome forest trees and wonderful grassy glades and just around the
house the soil had been enriched and planted with shrubbery and flowers.

Its great proportions in every respect suited both John Hatton and the
woman for whom it was built. Both of them appeared to gain a positive
majesty of appearance in the splendid reaches of its immense rooms.
Certainly they would have dwarfed small people, but John and Jane
Hatton were large enough to appropriate and become a part of their
surroundings. John felt that he had realized his long, long dream of a
modern home, and Jane knew that its