Читать книгу Mary Boyle, Her Book онлайн

59 страница из 63

COWDRAY—THE POYNTZ FAMILY

My uncle and aunt lived about a mile from the ruins, in a house which had originally been the gamekeeper’s lodge, with low, small rooms in the cottage style, but constant additions and improvements had converted it into a pretty dwelling-house. A beautiful wood, with winding paths and natural terraces, skirted the lodge on one side. In my eye that wood was a primeval forest, and in the summer and autumn, when the leaves were still on the trees, I used to snatch a fearful joy by losing myself in its depths. In those, as it appeared to me, vast recesses, was pointed out the “Priest’s Walk,” named after that stern ecclesiastic who, according to tradition, had been instrumental in bringing about the curse pronounced upon the family. There is, indeed, an earlier tradition of a curse overhanging the fortunes of the possessors of Cowdray, on which I never laid much stress, as the malediction never appeared to have been carried out until after the secession from the Roman Catholic faith of the last Lord Montague but one. On the other side of the house the park stretched away for many miles with broken ground, swelling uplands and large clumps of timber trees of all kinds, one of the most beautiful parks in England. Close to the ruined house are some Spanish chestnuts, among the loftiest I have ever seen, and I believe they were the first that were planted in this country.