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They were not standing when Tarleton paid his famous visit to Matocton. In the main hall, you may still see the stairs up which he rode on horseback, and the slashes which his saber hacked upon the hand-rail. To the front of the mansion lies a close-shaven lawn, dotted with sundry oaks and maples; and thence, the formal gardens descend in six broad terraces.
But now we reach the annals of the house of Musgrave: and further adventuring is blocked by R. V. Musgrave's monumental work The Musgraves of Matocton.
Pendomer reflected, "I dare say it is best, upon the whole, you shouldn't. And now you must excuse me, for I am leaving for the Ullwethers' to-day, and I shan't ever be invited to Matocton again, and I must tell my maid to pack up. She is a little fool and it will break her heart to be leaving Pilkins. All human beings are tediously alike.
Patricia sat in the great maple-grove that stands behind Matocton, and pondered over a note from her husband, who was in Lichfield superintending the appearance of the July number of the Lichfield Historical Association's Quarterly Magazine. Mr. Charteris lay at her feet, glancing rapidly over a lengthy letter, which was from his wife, in Richmond.
"The ones that had a cabin near Matocton? Very deserving people, I believe." "And their son, sir, wants to marry my daughter," said Mr. Stapylton, "my daughter, who is shortly to be connected by marriage with the Musgraves of Matocton! I don't know what this world will come to next." It was a treat to see him shake his head in deprecation of such anarchy.
Time has mellowed them into harmony with the major part of the house, and the kindly Virginia creeper has done its utmost to conceal the fact that they are constructed of plebeian bricks which were baked in this country; but Matocton was Matocton long before these wings were built, and a mere affair of yesterday, such as the Revolution, antedates them.
Matocton was decked in its spring fripperies of burgeoning, and the sky was a great, pale turquoise, and the buttercups left a golden dust high up on one's trousers. One had not become entirely accustomed to long trousers then, and one was rather proud of them.
He was wondering if Patricia had married him in the belief that she was marrying a man who, appraised by any standards, had acted infamously. "I was only thinking you had better ask Judge Allardyce, Patricia. You see, he is absolutely certain not to come " This year the Musgraves had decided not to spend the spring alone together at Matocton, as they had done the four preceding years.
He joyed in his old home, in the hipped roof of it, the mullioned casements, the wide window-seats, the high and spacious rooms, the geometrical gardens and broad lawns, in all that was quaint and beautiful at Matocton, because it would be Patricia's so very soon, the lovely frame of a yet lovelier picture, as the colonel phrased it with a flight of imagery.
He had tolerated Pevensey, had indeed been prepared to purchase him much as he would have ordered any other expensive trinket or knickknack which Patricia desired. But he had never viewed the match with enthusiasm. Now, though, old Stapylton exulted. His daughter half a Vartrey already would become by marriage a Musgrave of Matocton, no less.
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