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The Eve of St. John

"'He was sitting in his library . . .'

"Simple words, which, if one comes upon them in the course of a story call up a pleasing picture of cultured ease, and literary leisure. One may lay down the book on one’s knee, and shut one’s eyes, and see in a vision the snug room, crimson-curtained; hear the gentle patter on the hearth of the ashes from the glowing fire, the only sound that breaks the silence, save perhaps the rustle of the leaves, as the occupant turns his page. On the walls, dimly seen by the light of the shaded lamp, are the well-stored shelves, volumes rich with the sombre splendour of morocco and gilding, folios in the wider shelves below, quartos and octavos above; the spacious leather covered table, with silver inkstand and ample room for atlas volumes, is drawn in front of the fire; along the walls are comfortable stuffed morocco seats, and by the corner of the table is the master’s favourite easy chair, luxuriously padded, leather-clad, and well worn by constant use; before the shining brass fender lies the bearskin rug, beloved by Tim, the fox-terrier, sole sharer with his lord of this temple of study, and comfort, and not infrequently of repose.

"It was summer, and the hearth was cold, but otherwise the library in which Cecil Maynard was sitting fully satisfied the conditions of this imaginary picture. It was a lofty and stately apartment with long windows and deep window seats, the fretted plaster ceiling, rich with interlacing ribs and floreated borders bore the arms of the Maynard who had restored and improved the old building three hundred years before, altering it from the chateau fort of the middle ages into a habitation suitable to times when private wars had been suppressed, and a better administration of public justice had taken their place. Through the open casements came the soft summer air bringing in the scent of the hay-field, and in the gathering twilight could just be distinguished well-wooded slopes and green pastures falling rapidly to the river that brawled along its rocky bed, with many an eddy and stickle where the fisherman might look to tempt with his fly a lusty trout.

"Cecil Maynard had only a short time before come into possession of the estate of Castle Maynard, which he inherited from an uncle who had died a widower and childless. He knew nothing of the history of his new home, and since taking possession, and settling down after the troublesome technicalities of succession, he had amused himself by hunting up information about it in county histories, and by diving into the materials afforded in plenty by family papers in the muniment-room, which had been well kept in orderly arrangement by his predecessors. He had read of Maynards who went to the crusades, selling half their estates to raise a contingent of their followers, and impoverishing their successors for several generations. He read of other Maynards who partly retrieved the family fortune only to lose it again in the Wars of the Roses. Recovering their estates under the Tudors, on whose side by a happy accident they had been engaged, they managed to struggle through the civil wars of Charles and the Parliament without much loss of goods, but some loss of credit, owing to the shifty policy of Sir Everard Maynard who then owned the estate, and who by crafty intrigue, and by judiciously trimming his sails to catch the breeze of prosperity that blew sometimes from one quarter and sometimes from another, managed never to compromise himself with the losing party and to turn up in the nick of time on the side of the winner." . . .