Chapter VI: Part 6

Marguerite was alarmed. ‘You are unhappy, love,’ she exclaimed; ‘but do not think I am capable of abandoning you in your misfortunes. No! I will wander with you through the wide world, and be your servant, your slave, if you will have it so. I will be true to you, and though the cold world may scorn you, though friends fall off and associates wither in the grave, there shall be one fond heart who will love you better in your misfortune, and cherish you, bless you still.’

She ceased, and her blue eyes swam in tears as she turned them glistening with affection towards the stranger. He averted his head from her gaze, and a scornful sneer of the darkest, the deadliest malice passed over his fine countenance. In an instant the expression subsided, his fixed glassy eye resumed its unearthly chillness, and he turned once again to his companion.

‘It is the hour of sunset,’ he exclaimed; ‘the soft, the beauteous hour, when the hearts of lovers are happy, and Nature smiles in unison with their feelings; but to me it will smile no longer. Ere the morrow dawns I shall be far, very far, from the house of my beloved, from the scenes where my heart is enshrined, as in a sepulchre. Must I leave you, sweetest flower of the wilderness, to be the sport of the whirlwind, the prey of the mountain blast?’

‘No, we will not part,’ replied the impassioned girl: ‘where thou goest will I go; thy home shall be my home, and thy God shall be my God.’

‘Swear it, swear it,’ resumed the stranger, wildly grasping her by the hand; ‘swear to the oath I shall dictate.’ He then desired her to kneel, and holding his right hand in a menacing attitude towards heaven, and throwing back his dark raven locks, he exclaimed with the ghastly smile of an incarnate fiend, ‘May the curses of an offended God haunt you, cling to you for ever, in the tempest and in the calm, in the day and in the night, in sickness and in sorrow, in life and in death, should you swerve from the promise you have made to be mine. May the dark spirits of the damned howl in your ears the accursed chorus of fiends; may despair rack your bosom with the quenchless flames of hell! May your soul be as the lazar-house of corruption, where the ghost of departed pleasure sits enshrined, as in a grave, where the hundred-headed worm never dies, where the fire is never extinguished. May a spirit of evil lord it over your brow, and proclaim as you pass by, “This is the abandoned of God and man”; may fearful spectres haunt you in the night season; may your dearest friends drop day by day into the grave, and curse you with their dying breath; may all that is most horrible in human nature, more solemn than language can frame or lips can utter, may this, and more than this, be your eternal portion should you violate the oath you have taken.’ He ceased, and hardly knowing what she did, the terrified girl acceded to the awful adjuration, and promised eternal fidelity to him who was henceforth to be her lord.

‘Spirits of the damned, I thank you for your assistance,’ exclaimed the count, as if he had become suddenly frenzied. ‘I have wooed my fair bride bravely. She is mine--mine for ever. Aye, body and soul, both mine; mine in life, and mine in death. What, in tears, my sweet one, ere yet the honeymoon is past? Why! indeed, you have cause for weeping; but when next we meet we shall meet to sign the nuptial bond.’ He then imprinted a cold salute on the cheek of his young bride, and softening down the unutterable horrors of his countenance, requested her to meet him at eight o’clock on the ensuing evening in the chapel adjoining the castle of Wolfspring. She turned round to him with a passionate cry of pain, and as if to implore him to release her from her rash vow, but he had gone--disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.

Marguerite arose with a sense of unutterable horror weighing her down. On entering the castle she was observed to be weeping, and her relations vainly endeavoured to ascertain the cause of her uneasiness; but the tremendous oath she had sworn completely paralysed her faculties, and she was fearful of betraying herself by even the slightest intonation of her voice or the least variable expression of her countenance. When the evening was concluded the family retired to rest; but Marguerite, who was unable to sleep, owing to the troubled state of her mind, requested to be allowed to remain alone in the library that adjoined her apartment.

Midnight came; every domestic had long since retired to rest, and the only sound that could be distinguished was the sullen howl of the ban-dog as he bayed the waning moon. Marguerite remained in the library in an attitude of deep meditation. The lamp that burnt on the table where she sat was dying away, and the lower end of the apartment was already more than half obscured. The clock from the northern angle of the castle tolled out the hour of twelve, and the sound echoed dismally in the solemn stillness of the night. Suddenly the oaken door at the farther end of the room was gently lifted on its latch, and a bloodless figure, apparelled in the habiliments of the grave, advanced slowly up the apartment. No sound heralded its approach, as it moved with noiseless steps to the table where the lady was stationed. She did not at first perceive it, till she felt a death-cold hand fast grasped in her own, and heard a solemn voice whisper in her ear, ‘Marguerite.’ She looked up; a dark figure was standing beside her. She endeavoured to scream, but her voice was unequal to the exertion; her eyes were fixed, as if by magic, on the form, which slowly removed the garb that concealed its countenance, and disclosed the livid eyes and skeleton shape of her father. It seemed to gaze on her with pity and regret, and mournfully exclaimed, ‘Marguerite, the dresses and the servants are ready, the church bell has tolled, and the priest is at the altar, but where is the affianced bride? There is room for her in the grave, and to-morrow shall she be with me.’

‘To-morrow?’ faltered out the distracted girl.

‘The spirits of hell shall have registered it,’ answered the spirit, ‘and to-morrow must the bond be cancelled.’ The figure ceased, slowly retired, and disappeared.

The morning--evening--arrived; and already, as the clock struck eight, Marguerite was on her road to the chapel. It was a dark, gloomy night; thick masses of dun clouds sailed across the firmament; and the roar of the winter wind echoed awfully through the forest trees. She reached the appointed place; a figure was in waiting for her; it advanced, and disclosed the features of the count. ‘Why! this is well, my bride,’ he exclaimed, with a sneer; ‘and well will I repay your fondness. Follow me.’ They proceeded together in silence through the winding avenues of the chapel, until they reached the adjoining cemetery. Here they paused for an instant; and the count, in a softened tone, said, ‘But one hour more, and the struggle will be over. And yet this heart of incarnate malice can feel when it devotes so young, so pure a spirit to the grave. But it must--it must be,’ he proceeded, as the memory of her love for him rushed through his mind; ‘for the fiend whom I obey has so willed it. Poor girl, I am leading you indeed to our nuptials; but the priest will be death, thy parents the mouldering skeletons that rot in heaps around, and the witnesses of our union the lazy worms that revel on the rotting bones of the dead. Come, my young bride, the priest is impatient for his victim.’ As they proceeded a dim blue light moved swiftly before them, and displayed at the extremity of the churchyard the portals of a vault. It was open, and they entered it in silence. The hollow wind came rushing through the gloomy abode of the dead; and on every side were piled the mouldering remnants of coffins, which dropped piece by piece upon the damp earth. Every step they took was on a dead body, and the bleached bones rattled horribly beneath their feet. In the centre of the vault rose a heap of unburied skeletons, whereon was seated a figure too awful even for the darkest imagination to conceive. As they approached it the hollow vault rung with a hellish peal of laughter; and every mouldering corpse seemed endued with unearthly life. The count paused, and as he grasped his victim in one hand, one sigh burst from his heart--one tear glistened in his eye. It was but for an instant; the figure frowned awfully at his vacillation, and waved his gaunt hand.

The count advanced; he made certain mystic circles in the air, uttered unearthly words, and paused in excess of terror. On a sudden he raised his voice, and wildly exclaimed, ‘Spouse of the spirit of darkness, a few moments are yet yours; you may know to whom you have consigned yourself. I am the undying spirit of the wretch who cursed his Saviour on the Cross. He looked at me in the closing hour of His existence, and that look has not yet passed away, for I am cursed above all on earth. I am eternally condemned to hell, and must cater for my master’s taste till the world is parched as is a scroll, and the heavens and the earth have passed away. I am he of whom you may have read, and of whose feats you may have heard. A million souls has my master condemned me to ensnare, and then my penance is accomplished, and I may know the repose of the grave. You are the thousandth soul that I have damned. I saw you in your hour of purity, and I marked you at once for my own. Your father I killed for his temerity, and permitted him to warn you of your fate; and yourself have I beguiled for your simplicity. Ha! the spell works bravely, and you shall soon see, my sweet one, to whom you have linked your undying fortunes, for as long as the seasons shall move on their course of nature--as long as the lightning shall flash, and the thunders roll--your penance shall be eternal. Look below and see to what you are destined.’

She looked, with a sense of unutterable horror freezing the very blood in her veins. The vault split in a thousand different directions; the earth yawned asunder; and the roar of mighty waters was heard. A living ocean of molten fire glowed in the abyss beneath her, and blending with the shrieks of the damned and the triumphant shouts of the fiends, rendered horror more horrible than imagination. Ten millions of souls were writhing in the fiery flames, and as the boiling billows dashed them against the blackened rocks of adamant, they cursed with the blasphemies of despair, and each curse echoed in thunder across the wave. The count rushed towards his victim. For an instant he held her over the burning lake, looked fondly in her face, and wept as if he were a child. This was but the impulse of a moment; again he grasped her in his arms, strained her to his bosom passionately, as if some finer emotion had overcome him; then, with a wild and sudden movement, he dashed her from him to the ground, and as she fell, paralysed and dying at his feet, he exclaimed fiercely, ‘Not mine is the crime, but the religion you profess; for is it not said in that religion that there is a fire of eternity prepared for the souls of the wicked, and have you not deserved its torments? Had you spurned me at the first hour we met, when I sought your destruction, you would have been saved. But you were weak, and though good men and true sought to woo you, you would not listen to them, but threw yourself into my arms, stranger though I was.’

Stooping with these words he raised her insensible form as easily as if she had been a child, poised her for an instant above his head, and then, with an awful imprecation, he hurled her from him. Her delicate form bounded from rock to rock, and the chorus of a thousand voices seemed to shake the very earth in a fierce exultant cry. Then the tomb closed. A darkness as of death fell, and a strange silence followed. For a few minutes the count stood like a statue, a pale blue lambent flame playing about him, until suddenly he turned, the light faded, he drew his cloak about him, and went forth into the darkness, and was seen no more.

From that day the inhabitants of Wolfspring fled in horror from the accursed spot, and the castle gradually crumbled into ruins. Nothing now remains but a heap of grass-grown stones, where in summer time the forest adder glides. The peasant passes the place with a shudder; and around the wood fires on a winter night the humble forest folk will recall the story, current for generations, of the Fair Maid of Wolfspring and the Mysterious Count.

VII

THE WHITE RAVEN

THE STORY AS TOLD BY LYDIA STAINSBY.

It was generally said of my father--who was a son of the late Sir John Mark Stainsby--that he was somewhat of an oddity. He certainly had original ideas, and it was a favourite remark of his that he did not care to baa, because the great family of human sheep baaed in chorus. It was due, no doubt, to this faculty of originality that he became the owner of Moorland Grange, which was situated on the edge of wild Dartmoor. My father was a widower; I was his only daughter, but I had four brothers, and I doubt if any girl’s brothers were more devoted to her than mine were to me. We were a very united family, and had for many years resided in London, and as my father had ample means we found life very enjoyable. I was considered to be an exceedingly fortunate young woman. My friends all too flatteringly told me I was beautiful, and I know that when I looked into my mirror the reflection that met my gaze was certainly not one to make me shudder. Of course this was vanity, but then that is a woman’s especial privilege, and so I don’t intend to make any apology for the remark, for I am quite sure that I never was a plain-looking girl.

When my father purchased Moorland Grange I was just turned twenty years of age, and was looking forward with eager pleasure--what girl does not?--to my marriage with one of the dearest and most devoted of men. His name was Herbert Wilton. By profession he was a civil engineer, and for some time he had been in the Brazils, surveying for a new line of railroad which an English company had undertaken to construct. Herbert’s engagement had nearly expired, and we were to be married on the New Year’s Day following his return.

My father had some relatives in Devonshire; he was exceedingly fond of that part of the country. And on one occasion, after having been on a visit there, he said:

‘Lydia, how would you like to go and live in Devonshire?’

I told him that hardly anything could give me greater pleasure, and then he astonished me by telling me that he had bought one of the ‘queerest, tumble-down, romantic, ghost-haunted old houses imaginable.’ It was known as ‘Moorland Grange,’ and he had got it for, as he said, ‘an old song,’ as it had been without a tenant for twenty-five years. The cause of this was, as I learnt, mainly attributable to an evil reputation it had acquired, owing to a remarkable murder that had been committed in the house at some remote period. That at least was the current legend, and it certainly affected the interests of the owners of the property. It was another instance of the truth of the adage about giving a dog a bad name. This house had got a bad name, and people shunned it as they might have shunned a leper. For some time the estate had been in Chancery, and as no purchaser could be found for it, my father had been able to secure it at a ridiculously low figure, and he intended--as he told me cheerfully--to purge it of its evil reputation.

At this time only my two younger brothers--who were mere boys--were at home, the others being in India; and so they, my father and I, with three servants, started for Moorland Grange, so as to get it in order, as we intended to reside there permanently.

The time of year was April, and the nearest station to the Grange was Tavistock, where we arrived about five in the afternoon, on as wild, bleak, and windy a day as our fickle and varying climate is capable of giving us even in tearful April. From the station we had a drive of over three miles. My father had deputed an old man named Jack Bewdley to meet us with a trap. Jack had been promised work on our new estate as handy man, woodcutter, or anything else in which he could be useful. He had nearly reached the allotted span, and was gnarled and twisted like an ancient oak. Born and bred in the neighbourhood of Dartmoor, he had never been fifty miles away from his native place in his life. He was a blunt, rugged, honest rustic, very superstitious and very simple: and as soon as he saw me he exclaimed, as he opened his bleared old eyes to their fullest capacity:

‘By goom, miss, but you be powerful handsome! I hope as how you won’t be a seeing of the White Raven in th’ owd Grange.’

This compliment made me blush, and I asked him what the White Raven was, whereupon he looked very melancholy, and answered:

‘Ah, I woan’t be the chap to make your pretty face white wi’ fright, so doan’t ye ask me, please.’

As I was in no way a nervous or superstitious girl, I was amused rather than otherwise at old Jack’s mysterious air, and I did not question him further then, as I felt pretty sure when we had become better acquainted he would be more communicative. We reached the Grange after a very cold and windy drive. The day was done, but there was just light enough lingering in the angry sky to outline the place in ghostly silhouette. It was a house of many gables, with all sorts of angles and projecting eaves, and a grotesque gothic porch that was approached by a flight of steps with stone balustrades. The whole building was covered with a mantling of dense ivy, which obscured the windows and hung down in ragged streamers, that swayed and rasped mournfully in the chill wind. All around were gloomy woods, and the garden was a forlorn wilderness of rank weeds. Old Jack’s wife had got a few of the rooms cleaned out for our immediate use, and some furniture had been sent in, so that we were enabled to make ourselves tolerably comfortable on this the first night in our strange abode.

The next day I set to work with my brothers to explore the house, and soon I was quite able to endorse my father’s opinion that it was the queerest, oddest, most romantic and ghostly place imaginable. I have already said that I was neither nervous nor superstitious, but I honestly confess that the rambling, draughty, echoing building quite depressed me. The Grange was said to be over 400 years old, though in some respects it had been modernised; nevertheless it was full of surprises in the shape of nooks and corners, deep, dark recesses, strange angles, dimly-lighted passages, winding staircases, and wainscoted and raftered rooms. One of these rooms was long and narrow, tapering away at one end almost to a point. The walls were wainscoted right to the ceiling, and the ceiling itself panelled with oak. There was a wide open fireplace, and a very massive carved mantel. Two diamond-paned windows lighted the room, one of the windows being filled in with blue and red glass. But at this time the windows were so obscured by the hanging ivy that we had to cut it away to let in the light. I became greatly interested in this antique chamber, and in a spirit of fun and ridicule I at once dubbed it ‘the haunted chamber,’ and declared I would use it as my bedroom. Afterwards, when talking about it to my father, I said laughingly:

‘If that room, pa, hasn’t got a ghost, it will have to have one, and we must invent one for it.’

‘Oh,’ he added, ‘according to old Jack Bewdley that’s the room where the White Raven shows itself.’

A little later I went to Jack, who was busy trying to clear some of the weeds away from the long-neglected grounds, and I said to him:

‘Look here, Bewdley, what’s this story about the White Raven? Come, now, you must tell me.’

He paused in his work, leaned his grizzled chin on the handle of his spade, and as a scared look spread itself over his shrivelled face, he answered me thus:

‘There be zum foak in these parts, miss, as vow they’ve seen th’ White Raven, and they doa say as how them as sees it dies within th’ week. But I doan’t know if them as said they’ve seen it died or not.’

‘Have you seen it, Jack,’ I asked, trying to look very serious, though I could scarcely keep from laughing.

‘Noa, noa, thank God, noa!’ he exclaimed with startling earnestness, and mopping his bald head with his red handkerchief, although the weather was cold, while his tanned and weather-beaten cheeks seemed to me to become pale. Then he asked, ‘Have you been in what we foak call the oak chamber?’

Guessing what room he referred to I told him that I had, and he at once said that it was in that chamber that the mysterious White Raven always showed itself to the doomed person.

Of course I was incredulous, and ridiculed the whole idea; nor can I say I was more deeply impressed when on a subsequent and more critical examination of the chamber I found the following doggerel carved in old English on one of the panels--

The stranger who beneath this roof shall lie,
And sees the White Raven is sure to die;
For a curse rests on the unhallowed place,
And the blood that was shed you here may trace.
So, stranger, beware, sleep not in the room,
Lest you should meet with a terrible doom.

From people in the neighbouring villages I learned that in this very room, which I had been prompted to call the haunted chamber, tradition said that at some distant period a very beautiful lady had been brutally done to death by a jealous and dissipated husband, who gave out that she had eloped. He allowed her body to fester and moulder away in the room, and many years afterwards her skeleton was found, and that since then she had haunted the place in the shape of a white raven, while to anyone to whom she appeared it was a fatal sign. But why that should have been so nobody attempted to explain.

Now I will honestly confess that the gruesomeness of the story--which, however, I did not believe in its entirety--so far affected me that I changed my mind about occupying the room myself, and my father said he would take it for his own bedroom. But he also, for some reason or other, did not occupy it, although it was made into a most luxurious sleeping apartment. In the course of a few weeks the Grange began to present a very different appearance, and where gloom and melancholy had reigned, cheerfulness and light spread themselves. Under the fostering care of three or four gardeners the gardens blazed with flowers; some of the timber that encroached too much on the house was cut away, and the windows of the building were cleared of the ivy. I came at last to love the old place, for it was so bizarre, so unlike anything else I had ever seen: and in spite of all the predictions and croakings of the ignorant peasantry round about, who declared that sooner or later the curse which had affected everyone who had ever lived there since the poor lady was murdered would affect us, we were very comfortable and very happy. The summer lingered long that year, but the autumn was short, and winter set in with quite startling suddenness; by the end of the first week in December snow began to fall, and it continued snowing more or less for several days until the country round about was buried.

During all the year I had been pining for my love, who came not, although I knew that he was on his way home. But he had remained in Brazil longer than he intended, owing to the death from yellow fever of one of the surveying party, so that Herbert had been induced to renew his engagement for another six months, to do the dead man’s work. With painful suspense and anxiety I had for days been scanning the papers for a report of the vessel which was bearing him to me, for she was overdue, but the weather at sea had been fearful, and old seamen said that vessels making for the Channel would have a hard time of it. As she was to call at Plymouth I persuaded my father to take me there in order that we might welcome Herbert as soon as ever he touched English soil again. As papa denied me nothing, he readily consented to this, but it was not until three days before Christmas that the welcome news came to me that the vessel had entered the Sound.

Need I dwell upon the joy I experienced when, after our long separation, I felt Herbert’s dear arms around me once more. How handsome and manly he looked! The sun had tanned him brown, the fine sea voyage home had braced him up after the enervating Brazilian climate, and he declared that he had never been in better health in his life. He was possessed of a wonderful constitution, and during the whole time he had been in Brazil had never had a day’s illness.

Of course I told him that, selfish as it seemed, I was going to keep him for Christmas Day, and on New Year’s Day I was to become his bride, according to the long prior arrangement. He said that it was necessary for him to go to London to see his friends and to make some preparations, but he promised that he would be with me again on Christmas Eve. And so I parted from him, and as we were to meet again so soon, and in less than a fortnight he was to be my husband, I was verily at that moment one of the happiest girls alive.

As my father was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of old-fashioned English hospitality he generally kept open house at Christmas time, and this being our first Christmas at the Grange we had a large number of visitors, so that the house was quite full. In order that Herbert, when he came, might be fittingly bestowed as the bridegroom-elect, we decided that he should occupy the haunted chamber, for it certainly was the best sleeping room in the house; and though some silly and unusual nervousness--as I believed then--had prevented my occupying it as I intended, neither I nor my father attached the slightest importance to the supernatural stories current in the district. With my own hands I arranged the room for Herbert, filling it with nick-nacks and odds and ends, and everything I could think of that was likely to give him pleasure or add to his comfort.

Christmas Eve of that year was marked by a snowstorm such as, the country people said, had not been known for forty years. The train that brought my love from London was very late, and I had become quite anxious, but all anxiety was forgotten when I helped him to divest himself of his snow-laden topcoat in the hall, and taking me in his arms he kissed me in his hearty, cheery way. We were a very jovial party, and that night was a happy, gladsome night, the memory of which will never leave me. Nor shall I ever forget dear Herbert’s words, as he kissed me good-night on the stairs as the great hall clock struck one.

‘Darling little woman,’ he whispered, ‘what joy, what happiness, what ecstasy, to think that in a week’s time you will belong to me!’

I had no words. I could only sigh in token of the supreme happiness that filled my heart to overflowing.

Christmas morning broke bright, clear, and beautiful. The snow had ceased to fall, and a hard frost had set in. It was veritable Canadian weather--crisp, crystalline, and invigorating. As soon as breakfast was over Herbert took me on one side and said:

‘You know, Lydia, I am about one of the most practical men that you could find in a day’s march, and hitherto I have been without, as I believe, a scrap of superstition in my composition. But, by Jove! after last night’s experience I’ll be hanged if I don’t believe with Shakespeare that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.’

At these words I turned deadly pale. I scarcely knew why, but such was the case, and I gasped out:

‘What--what do you mean?’

‘Well,’ he answered, with a laugh that wasn’t sincere, for it was obviously forced, ‘I believe that room in which I slept is positively haunted.’

Now, I may state here that not a word of any kind had been mentioned to Herbert about the stories that were current with regard to the house. Both my father and I had resolved that the subject should be strictly avoided, so that none of our lady guests might be alarmed. As he spoke, I looked up into his brown face, and I saw that it was filled with a puzzled and troubled expression, while his splendid eyes had an unusual expression in them.

‘Tell me,’ I said quickly, ‘what did you see or hear?’

‘Oh, don’t let us talk about it,’ he answered lightly. ‘Perhaps, after all, I have simply been dreaming.’

‘Yes, yes--tell me--you must tell me, Herbert,’ I exclaimed. ‘You know that I am strong-nerved.’

He seemed to hesitate; but laughing again, though it was the same forced laugh, he said:

‘Well, the fact is, if ever I saw a raven in my life, I saw one last night, only it was white.’

At this I almost fainted, and he caught me by the arm. I made a desperate effort, however, and recovered myself.

‘Go on; tell me all about it,’ I said peremptorily.

And the sum and substance of what he told me was this. He had seen a white raven, or what appeared to be a white raven, flying round and round the room. It made no noise, which amazed him and, as he confessed, startled him. He tried to catch this mysterious and noiseless bird, but it had no substantiality--it was an airy phantom; but once or twice, when he appeared to grasp it, a deep groan and sigh broke upon his ears.

Although a strange fear seemed to turn my heart cold, I endeavoured not to show it, nor could I bring myself to tell my lover of the tradition so common all over the country side about the murdered lady and the White Raven.

If the extraordinary apparition had any real effect on Herbert, he soon shook it off, and his hearty ringing laughter made music in the house, and his eyes were filled again with the old look of love with which they always greeted me. It had been arranged that the gentlemen were to form a shooting party, to go out on to the moor and try and bag some wild ducks. At first I was disposed to dissuade Herbert from going--ah, would that I had done so!--but it seemed to me weak and foolish. Moreover, he was so anxious to go for the novelty of the thing, and so I whispered in his ear as he was standing on the steps:

‘Take care of yourself, love, for my sake.’

‘Of course I will, darling; and you do the same,’ he answered cheerily.

I watched his manly form until he was hidden from my sight by the trees. He looked splendid in his perfect health, and his magnificent physique was set off to every possible advantage by the superb coat of Russian sable that he wore. How proud I felt of him! for truly he was a man to be proud of.

Three hours later the party returned, minus Herbert. They said he had got separated from them in some way, and they quite thought he had come back. Although a sense of something being wrong overcame me for the moment, I tried to think that it was simply nervousness. Of course, the gentlemen at once hurried back to the moor, and when they came again they brought my lover mangled and shattered, and, as it seemed then, in the agony of death. Oh, my God! how awful it was! I thought I should have gone raving mad. It appears that Herbert had been found in a hollow, whither he had fallen by the breaking away of the snow under his feet. In his fall he had not only fractured an arm and some of his ribs, but his gun had gone off full in his face, and, besides disfiguring him frightfully, had destroyed both his eyes.

It can be imagined what a terrible shock it was to the household, and how the joy and mirth were turned to lamentations and moaning. Doctors were procured, but they pronounced the sufferer’s condition as critical; they left us no room to hope that the sight would be restored under any circumstances.

Ah, what a fearful dark Christmas that became to me! I think in my agony of mind I cursed my fate, my God; and how I hated the house, and shuddered as I thought of the horrible room where my beloved had seen the strange apparition of the White Raven.

Up to a short time previously, it would have been difficult to have found a girl more sceptical than I was about anything that savoured of superstition; but now I was filled with a strange dread, and feared my own shadow.

When I saw old Jack for the first time after the accident, he said to me:

‘Is it true, miss, that Meester Wilton’s been asleeping in the haunted room?’

‘Yes, Jack; it is,’ I answered, in heartbroken tones.

‘Then, maybe, he’s seen the White Raven?’

‘He has,’ I replied; whereupon I thought the old man would have fallen down in a fit, so scared did he seem; and he mumbled out:

‘God bless us and preserve us all! I wouldn’t sleep in that room, miss, not if Queen Victoriey was to give me her golden crown. That there room, miss, ought to be shut up, and no one ever allowed to go anigh it agen.’

The shadow that had so suddenly and cruelly fallen upon us rendered the Christmas festivities out of the question, and most of the guests sorrowfully departed the following day. Many long weeks ensued--dark, torturing weeks to me, for my loved one was suspended, as it were, by a single hair over that profound abyss into which all living atoms finally fall, and from which no sound ever comes to break the mystery. But if they were dark weeks to me, how much, how infinitely, how unspeakably darker to him who, in the pride of his manhood, had been deprived of the power of ever again beholding the wonders of God’s creation. And yet he murmured not, nor uttered complaint nor groan. To me the one consolation I had in this hideous calamity was being near him, being able to tend him, and hear his voice, which had lost none of its old cheerfulness. Slowly, very slowly, as the summer drifted by, he began to regain some of his lost strength, and we led him out beneath the trees and into the sunlight, though it was ever, ever night to him, for not a glimmer of vision remained. And as I looked at his sightless orbs and his maimed and torn face, from which no human power could banish the cruel and ghastly scars, I hated the Grange with a hate that hath no words.

One day he asked to be taken to where my father was, and, putting his arm in mine, we entered my father’s presence.

‘Mr. Stainsby,’ he began, with an attempt at a smile, ‘I am not quite the same man I was when I came here last Christmas. But in my misfortune an angel has watched over me in the person of your daughter, who, but for this mishap, would now have been my wife. She has brought me out of the shadow of the grave, and I owe a duty to her no less than to you. That duty is to release her from all promises and vows, and leave her perfectly free to bestow her heart on someone who is whole and sound. I am now but a battered wreck, and all I can hope for is to break up soon and drift away into the great and mysterious ocean of eternal silence. But let me ask you, sir, to see to it that the man upon whom you bestow your daughter is as near perfection as a man may come; for no more perfect woman than she is walks the world. I have nothing more to add further than, in such poor words as well up from my stricken heart, to thank you for your hospitality.’

He had tried so hard to be strong and collected, and show no sign of the awful despair that was crushing him. But is the man born who could go through such an ordeal unmoved? His lips quivered, his voice grew weak, and something like a spasm caught his breath.

My own eyes were filled with blinding, scalding tears, and my heart fluttered like the wing of a bird in pain. Gliding over to where he stood, I placed my arms about his neck, and laying my cheek against his scarred face, I found voice to say to my father, who was also deeply affected and moved:

‘Father, the man whom Herbert would have you choose for me need be sought no further than this room. He is here. My heart beats to his heart; my face is pressed to his.’

My father came to us. He laid one hand on Herbert’s shoulder, and the other on my head; and thus he spoke:

‘A woman’s love that clings not to a man when calamity overtakes him is worthless. Freely do I bestow her upon you, Herbert, if it is her wish and your wish that you should be united.’

‘My husband,’ I murmured, as I clung closer to him, and it was my only answer.

Herbert tried to persuade me that it was to my happiness and my interest to abandon him; but he might as well have tried to convince the winds of heaven that they should not blow. Externally the Herbert as I had first known him had changed. His handsome face was handsome no longer, and his wondrous eyes were sightless for ever. But his heart was the same. What could change that--the bravest, truest, tenderest that ever beat in man’s breast? And so ere the next Christmas had dawned I was Herbert’s wife, and soon after that my father abandoned the accursed Grange to the gloom and the silence and the melancholy from which he had reclaimed it, and a little later it was burned to the ground. We never knew how the fire originated; but it was generally supposed that some of the superstitious people in the neighbourhood wilfully set it alight, under the impression that a place that was accursed by the spilling of human blood should no longer be allowed to encumber the earth. When I heard of its destruction I confess that I rejoiced, and I said to myself:

‘Never again will the White Raven bring calamity to a household as it has brought to ours.’

For five years I walked with my husband in his darkness, and let him see the world through my eyes. Two children blessed--literally blessed--our union, a girl and a boy. But my beloved husband never fully recovered from the shock of the awful accident on that dark and memorable Christmas Day; and, though he uttered no moan, his blindness preyed upon his mind, and a short, brief illness took him from me.

For long years the grass has waved over his grave. Other men have praised my face and sought my hand; but to all I have turned a deaf ear, for my love was buried in Herbert’s grave. But in my son the father lives again, and when I gaze upon his handsome face and splendid figure, I feel that God is very good, and that He chastens us to make us more perfect in His sight.

VIII

WITH FIRE AND DEATH

A STORY OF A GREAT DEED.

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.

The scene of this story is Meerut, the time May Day, 1857, a year in which England’s hold on India was well nigh shaken off. Meerut is situated on a plain, and lies forty miles or so to the north and east of Delhi. It is bounded on the east by the Ganges and on the west by the Jumna, and covers an area of, roughly speaking, about five miles in circumference. In the fateful ’57 it was one of the most important military stations, and the largest cantonment in British India. A great wall, or esplanade, which in its turn was cut in two by a deep nullah, divided the town into two separate parallelograms, one of which was occupied by the European force, the other by the natives.

The hot day--and Meerut is hot--had closed, and the short Indian twilight had given place to a night of exceeding beauty. A refreshing breeze was blowing from the east, and the moon burnished with a sheen that was almost dazzling the domes of the numerous mosques, and threw into silhouette relief the palms and cocoa trees, and the masses of native huts. The majority of the European population were taking their airing as was customary after the sun had set, and the ‘Park Road’ was a scene of gaiety. Strings of vehicles, numberless horsemen, and crowds of natives moved to and fro. The air was filled with the murmur of many voices; the laughter of women, the sweet prattle of children, and wafted on the breeze came the monotonous sounds of tom-toms, and the wail-like singing of groups of natives as they prepared their suppers over the open braziers of charcoal that scented the atmosphere with its fumes. Abutting on the Park Road, and commanding a wide and extensive view, was a handsome bungalow surrounded with a well kept garden. On the verandah were a party of ladies and gentlemen. The men were military men, and the ladies were their relatives, and playing about on the verandah, under the care of an old ayah, was a sweet English child, fragile, and white of face, as most English children are who are born in India, but of an exquisite beauty that promised a magnificent womanhood. But though well and hearty then, that dear child was in a few days to be lying dead, gashed and hacked almost beyond recognition. From the roof of the verandah a swinging lamp threw a soft light over the little group seated in a semicircle, with small tables before them, on which were glasses and the inevitable brandy pawnee. Two silent khitmurgars stood like dusky statues ready to obey the slightest order given by their master or mistress.

This bungalow was the home of an officer whom it is only necessary to refer to as the colonel. The sweet child playing there was his only daughter, and one of the ladies, whose beautiful face was clouded with an expression that might be described as half fear, half anxiety, was his wife. All the colonel’s male companions were officers, one of them being Lieutenant George Willoughby, of the Ordnance Commissariat Department. He was a young man, but was the officer in charge of the great Delhi magazine. He looked every inch a soldier, and his face expressed determination and force of character. Lounging there in a large chair, toying with a fragrant cigar, and apparently deeply interested in watching the little volumes of smoke curl upward as he puffed them from under his moustache, his legs crossed, his head thrown back, and one arm hanging listlessly over the rail of the chair, he was the picture of a quiet, unobtrusive English gentleman. But a slight study of the face would have convinced anyone that beneath that calm exterior lay a tremendous latent power that once aroused could be terrible and deadly to his enemies, and that this was really the case was soon to be amply proved.

Another of the group was a still younger man, handsome as Apollo, and with a frame that seemed to be knit with steel. Although younger his military rank was equal to Willoughby’s, for he too was a lieutenant of the Bengal Artillery, and was also stationed at Delhi. His name was Richard Shelton, and, like his friend and colleague, he had a pronounced soldierly bearing, and his fine bright blue eyes, of the true English type, and his clear cut features and firm mouth, spoke of a frank, open, loyal, and brave nature.

These two officers and friends had ridden over that afternoon from Delhi on a visit to their friend, the colonel, with the object of discussing the portentous signs of the times, for the air was filled with rumours, and mutiny had displayed itself. Discontent was rampant in the native regiments, and the question was to what extent would it go? If there were those amongst the British who read the handwriting on the wall with ill-concealed alarm, it is none the less true that the majority of the officers in Upper India were rather disposed to laugh these fears to scorn. For with the almost fatuous self-reliance peculiar to the English, they believed they were powerful enough to hold their own against any number of natives. With one exception, perhaps, all the gentlemen there belonged to the first category. The exception was Richard Shelton. He was young, and had but recently received his promotion, and not only was he endowed with an unusual share of animal spirits, but he was of a sanguine, almost enthusiastic temperament, and moreover he was in love. On the first blush that may seem a reason why he should have been more anxious, but love is ever hopeful, and indisposed to look on the gloomy side of things. At any rate, being full of the fire of youth, and not having yet acquired the staid wisdom of his elders, young Shelton did not trouble himself much about what the morrow or the next week might bring forth. Very likely, if somebody had said to him--

‘I say, Shelton, old fellow, if the natives were to rise what would you do?’ This answer would have come with a ringing laugh--‘Why, go for them, and smash them. What else would you have me do?’

The young lady with whom Shelton was in love was the colonel’s niece, Blanche Merton, an orphan girl of great beauty, and the colonel’s ward. She had only come out to India a year before as governess to her cousin--the colonel’s daughter. Blanche had been born and had spent most of her life in one of the sweetest and breeziest of Hampshire villages, and she had not resided long enough in India to become jaded and enervated by the climate, which, in course of time, insidiously undermines the constitutions of white women. A handsomer couple, and a couple more suited to each other than Lieutenant Shelton and Blanche Merton, could not have been found in the whole of British India. They had known each other eight months, and been desperately in love nearly the whole time. The conversation of the little party had flagged somewhat, but suddenly Willoughby asked in a preoccupied way:

‘What is going to be the upshot of matters, colonel, do you think?’

This question had reference to the mutinous spirit that had shown itself. There had been a parade on the 24th of April, when eighty-five out of ninety men had mutinied, and that very week, beginning with the 1st of May, they were to be tried, and the cantonment was accordingly greatly excited.

‘Well,’ answered the colonel, thoughtfully, as he stroked his moustache and twirled his cigar between his long white fingers, ‘the prisoners will be convicted on the clearest of evidence, and exemplary punishment meted out to them.’

‘And what after that?’ asked Willoughby, significantly.

‘Ah, that remains to be seen. I think and hope we are strong enough to hold our own, but if there was a general rising, that is about all we could do, and might succumb unless succour was speedily sent to us.’

This remark had rather a depressing effect, and there was silence again; but Blanche had gone into the house for something, and Shelton, thinking only of her, and how entrancingly beautiful she looked in her white gauze dress, and with the bunch of Indian roses in her dark hair, had slipped away after her.

Presently Willoughby said: ‘Yes, we might hold our own for a time--a short time, but it’s no use blinking the fact, we are weak in numbers.’

‘It seems to me,’ returned the colonel, with the same thoughtful air, ‘that you in Delhi are worse off than we are.’

‘True,’ said Willoughby, with a bitter little laugh, ‘for the first thing the mutineers would do if they got the upper hand would be to endeavour to loot the magazine to obtain the vast supplies of the munitions of war that we’ve got there.’

‘It would be a terrible thing if they should succeed in doing that,’ put in the colonel’s wife, and shuddering as she spoke.

‘It would,’ answered Willoughby, quietly.

‘And there are such a few of you to guard the magazine,’ added the lady.

‘Very few,’ said Willoughby in the same quiet way. Then, after a pause, he continued with a significant emphasis, ‘But, nevertheless, I don’t think if all the regiments here and in Delhi were to mutiny they would obtain possession of the magazine while I am in charge.’

‘Why not?’ asked the colonel’s wife.

‘Because I would blow it up if I found that I couldn’t hold the place,’ was the quiet but impressively emphatic answer.

‘Well, well,’ said the colonel, wishing to change the subject, for he saw that it was affecting the ladies, ‘it won’t come to that. We may have a little trouble, but we shall get over it. Any mutinous spirit will be put down with an iron hand. Besides, I really don’t think the natives generally have any bad feeling for us.’

Backwards and forwards along the road went a continuous stream of natives--Hindoos and Brahmins, high caste and low caste--mingling freely with the Europeans. And could the colonel at that moment have read the hearts that beat beneath those dusky skins he would have seen how grievously in error he was, for the hatred and loathing for the Feringhees were all but universal. And, though ‘white-robed peace’ seemed to smile on all that fair scene, there was beneath a seething mass of discontent, only wanting a tiny vent as a beginning, when the whole mine might explode and spread desolation and ruin throughout India. But little did any of those ladies and gentlemen sitting on that verandah that hot May night dream of the volcano beneath their feet, and least of all did Shelton and Blanche trouble themselves with the portents in the air. These two young people, so full of life and health and hope, were building castles in the air and dreaming of the day that should see them united.

There was a considerable pause again in the conversation, and then Willoughby, in that quiet, emphatic way of his which was well calculated to carry conviction, remarked in answer to what the colonel had just said: