Sequel

Anglebury - Enckworth - Sandbourne

Two years and a half after the marriage of Ethelberta and the evening adventures which followed it, a man young in years, though considerably older in mood and expression, walked up to the 'Red Lion' Inn at Anglebury. The anachronism sat not unbecomingly upon him, and the voice was precisely that of the Christopher Julian of heretofore. His way of entering the inn and calling for a conveyance was more off-hand than formerly; he was much less afraid of the sound of his own voice now than when he had gone through the same performance on a certain chill evening the last time that he visited the spot. He wanted to be taken to Knollsea to meet the steamer there, and was not coming back by the same vehicle.

It was a very different day from that of his previous journey along the same road; different in season; different in weather; and the humour of the observer differed yet more widely from its condition then than did the landscape from its former hues. In due time they reached a commanding situation upon the road, from which were visible knots and plantations of trees on the Enckworth manor. Christopher broke the silence.

'Lord Mountclere is still alive and well, I am told?'

'O ay. He'll live to be a hundred. Never such a change as has come over the man of late years.'

'Indeed!'

'O, 'tis my lady. She's a one to put up with! Still, 'tis said here and there that marrying her was the best day's work that he ever did in his life, although she's got to be my lord and my lady both.'

'Is she happy with him?'

'She is very sharp with the pore man--about happy I don't know. He was a good-natured old man, for all his sins, and would sooner any day lay out money in new presents than pay it in old debts. But 'tis altered now. 'Tisn't the same place. Ah, in the old times I have seen the floor of the servants' hall over the vamp of your boot in solid beer that we had poured aside from the horns because we couldn't see straight enough to pour it in. See? No, we couldn't see a hole in a ladder! And now, even at Christmas or Whitsuntide, when a man, if ever he desires to be overcome with a drop, would naturally wish it to be, you can walk out of Enckworth as straight as you walked in. All her doings.'

'Then she holds the reins?'

'She do! There was a little tussle at first; but how could a old man hold his own against such a spry young body as that! She threatened to run away from him, and kicked up Bob's-a-dying, and I don't know what all; and being the woman, of course she was sure to beat in the long run. Pore old nobleman, she marches him off to church every Sunday as regular as a clock, makes him read family prayers that haven't been read in Enckworth for the last thirty years to my certain knowledge, and keeps him down to three glasses of wine a day, strict, so that you never see him any the more generous for liquor or a