“Nay, he could not tell,—not he. He had heard that the young lady, for

all as quiet as she seemed, played strange pranks at times.” He shook

his head when I asked him for more particulars, and refused to give them,

which made me doubt if he knew any, for he was in general a talkative and

communicative man. In default of other interests, after my uncle left, I

set myself to watch these two people. I hovered about their walks drawn

towards them with a strange fascination, which was not diminished by

their evident annoyance at so frequently meeting me. One day, I had the

sudden good fortune to be at hand when they were alarmed by the attack of

a bull, which, in those unenclosed grazing districts, was a particularly

dangerous occurrence. I have other and more important things to relate,

than to tell of the accident which gave me an opportunity of rescuing

them, it is enough to say, that this event was the beginning of an

acquaintance, reluctantly acquiesced in by them, but eagerly prosecuted

by me. I can hardly tell when intense curiosity became merged in love,

but in less than ten days after my uncle’s departure I was passionately

enamoured of Mistress Lucy, as her attendant called her; carefully—for

this I noted well—avoiding any address which appeared as if there was an

equality of station between them. I noticed also that Mrs. Clarke, the

elderly woman, after her first reluctance to allow me to pay them any

attentions had been overcome, was cheered by my evident attachment to the

young girl; it seemed to lighten her heavy burden of care, and she

evidently favoured my visits to the farmhouse where they lodged. It was

not so with Lucy. A more attractive person I never saw, in spite of her

depression of manner, and shrinking avoidance of me. I felt sure at

once, that whatever was the source of her grief, it rose from no fault of

her own. It was difficult to draw her into conversation; but when at

times, for a moment or two, I beguiled her into talk, I could see a rare

intelligence in her face, and a grave, trusting look in the soft, gray

eyes that were raised for a minute to mine. I made every excuse I

possibly could for going there. I sought wild flowers for Lucy’s sake; I

planned walks for Lucy’s sake; I watched the heavens by night, in hopes

that some unusual beauty of sky would justify me in tempting Mrs. Clarke

and Lucy forth upon the moors, to gaze at the great purple dome above.

It seemed to me that Lucy was aware of my love; but that, for some motive

which I could not guess, she would fain have repelled me; but then again

I saw, or fancied I saw, that her heart spoke in my favour, and that

there was a struggle going on in her mind, which at times (I loved so

dearly) I could have begged her to spare herself, even though the

happiness of my whole life should have been the sacrifice; for her

complexion grew paler, her aspect of sorrow more hopeless, her delicate

frame yet slighter. During this period I had written, I should say, to

my uncle, to beg to be allowed to prolong my stay at Harrogate, not

giving any reason; but such was his tenderness towards me, that in a few

days I heard from him, giving me a willing permission, and only charging

me to take care of myself, and not use too much exertion during the hot

weather.

One sultry evening I drew near the farm. The windows of their parlour

were open, and I heard voices when I turned the corner of the house, as I

passed the first window (there were two windows in their little

ground-floor room). I saw Lucy distinctly; but when I had knocked at

their door—the house-door stood always ajar—she was gone, and I saw only

Mrs. Clarke, turning over the work-things lying on the table, in a

nervous and purposeless manner. I felt by instinct that a conversation

of some importance was coming on, in which I should be expected to say

what was my object in paying these frequent visits. I was glad of the

opportunity. My uncle had several times alluded to the pleasant

possibility of my bringing home a young wife, to cheer and adorn the old

house in Ormond Street. He was rich, and I was to succeed him, and had,

as I knew, a fair reputation for so young a lawyer. So on my side I saw

no obstacle. It was true that Lucy was shrouded in mystery; her name (I

was convinced it was not Clarke), birth, parentage, and previous life

were unknown to me. But I was sure of her goodness and sweet innocence,

and although I knew that there must be something painful to be told, to

account for her mournful sadness, yet I was willing to bear my share in

her grief, whatever it might be.

Mrs. Clarke began, as if it was a relief to her to plunge into the

subject.

“We have thought, sir—at least I have thought—that you knew very little

of us, nor we of you, indeed; not enough to warrant the intimate

acquaintance we have fallen into. I beg your pardon, sir,” she went on,

nervously; “I am but a plain kind of woman, and I mean to use no

rudeness; but I must say straight out that I—we—think it would be better

for you not to come so often to see us. She is very unprotected, and—”

“Why should I not come to see you, dear madam?” asked I, eagerly, glad of

the opportunity of explaining myself. “I come, I own, because I have

learnt to love Mistress Lucy, and wish to teach her to love me.”

Mistress Clarke shook her head, and sighed.

“Don’t, sir—neither love her, nor, for the sake of all you hold sacred,

teach her to love you! If I am too late, and you love her already,

forget her,—forget these last few weeks. O! I should never have allowed

you to come!” she went on passionately; “but what am I to do? We are

forsaken by all, except the great God, and even He permits a strange and

evil power to afflict us—what am I to do! Where is it to end?” She wrung

her hands in her distress; then she turned to me: “Go away, sir! go away,

before you learn to care any more for her. I ask it for your own sake—I

implore! You have been good and kind to us, and we shall always

recollect you with gratitude; but go away now, and never come back to

cross our fatal path!”

“Indeed, madam,” said I, “I shall do no such thing. You urge it for my

own sake. I have no fear, so urged—nor wish, except to hear more—all. I

cannot have seen Mistress Lucy in all the intimacy of this last

fortnight, without acknowledging her goodness and innocence; and without

seeing—pardon me, madam—that for some reason you are two very lonely

women, in some mysterious sorrow and distress. Now, though I am not

powerful myself, yet I have friends who are so wise and kind that they

may be said to possess power. Tell me some particulars. Why are you in

grief—what is your secret—why are you here? I declare solemnly that

nothing you have said has daunted me in my wish to become Lucy’s husband;

nor will I shrink from any difficulty that, as such an aspirant, I may

have to encounter. You say you are friendless—why cast away an honest

friend? I will tell you of people to whom you may write, and who will

answer any questions as to my character and prospects. I do not shun

inquiry.”

She shook her head again. “You had better go away, sir. You know

nothing about us.”

“I know your names,” said I, “and I have heard you allude to the part of

the country from which you came, which I happen to know as a wild and

lonely place. There are so few people living in it that, if I chose to

go there, I could easily ascertain all about you; but I would rather hear

it from yourself.” You see I wanted to pique her into telling me

something definite.

“You do not know our true names, sir,” said she, hastily.

“Well, I may have conjectured as much. But tell me, then, I conjure you.

Give me your reasons for distrusting my willingness to stand by what I

have said with regard to Mistress Lucy.”

“Oh, what can I do?” exclaimed she. “If I am turning away a true friend,

as he says?—Stay!” coming to a sudden decision—“I will tell you

something—I cannot tell you all—you would not believe it. But, perhaps,

I can tell you enough to prevent your going on in your hopeless

attachment. I am not Lucy’s mother.”

“So I conjectured,” I said. “Go on.”

“I do not even know whether she is the legitimate or illegitimate child

of her father. But he is cruelly turned against her; and her mother is

long dead; and for a terrible reason, she has no other creature to keep

constant to her but me. She—only two years ago—such a darling and such a

pride in her father’s house! Why, sir, there is a mystery that might

happen in connection with her any moment; and then you would go away like

all the rest; and, when you next heard her name, you would loathe her.

Others, who have loved her longer, have done so before now. My poor

child! whom neither God nor man has mercy upon—or, surely, she would

die!”

The good woman was stopped by her crying. I confess, I was a little

stunned by her last words; but only for a moment. At any rate, till I

knew definitely what was this mysterious stain upon one so simple and

pure, as Lucy seemed, I would not desert her, and so I said; and she made

me answer:—

“If you are daring in your heart to think harm of my child, sir, after

knowing her as you have done, you are no good man yourself; but I am so

foolish and helpless in my great sorrow, that I would fain hope to find a

friend in you. I cannot help trusting that, although you may no longer

feel toward her as a lover, you will have pity upon us; and perhaps, by

your learning you can tell us where to go for aid.”

“I implore you to tell me what this mystery is,” I cried, almost maddened

by this suspense.

“I cannot,” said she, solemnly. “I am under a deep vow of secrecy. If

you are to be told, it must be by her.” She left the room, and I

remained to ponder over this strange interview. I mechanically turned

over the few books, and with eyes that saw nothing at the time, examined

the tokens of Lucy’s frequent presence in that room.

When I got home at night, I remembered how all these trifles spoke of a

pure and tender heart and innocent life. Mistress Clarke returned; she

had been crying sadly.

“Yes,” said she, “it is as I feared: she loves you so much that she is

willing to run the fearful risk of telling you all herself—she

acknowledges it is but a poor chance; but your sympathy will be a balm,

if you give it. To-morrow, come here at ten in the morning; and, as you

hope for pity in your hour of agony, repress all show of fear or

repugnance you may feel towards one so grievously afflicted.”

I half smiled. “Have no fear,” I said. It seemed too absurd to imagine

my feeling dislike to Lucy.

“Her father loved her well,” said she, gravely, “yet he drove her out

like some monstrous thing.”

Just at this moment came a peal of ringing laughter from the garden. It

was Lucy’s voice; it sounded as if she were standing just on one side of

the open casement—and as though she were suddenly stirred to

merriment—merriment verging on boisterousness, by the doings or sayings

of some other person. I can scarcely say why, but the sound jarred on me

inexpressibly. She knew the subject of our conversation, and must have

been at least aware of the state of agitation her friend was in; she

herself usually so gentle and quiet. I half rose to go to the window,

and satisfy my instinctive curiosity as to what had provoked this burst

of, ill-timed laughter; but Mrs. Clarke threw her whole weight and power

upon the hand with which she pressed and kept me down.

“For God’s sake!” she said, white and trembling all over, “sit still; be

quiet. Oh! be patient. To-morrow you will know all. Leave us, for we

are all sorely afflicted. Do not seek to know more about us.”

Again that laugh—so musical in sound, yet so discordant to my heart. She

held me tight—tighter; without positive violence I could not have risen.

I was sitting with my back to the window, but I felt a shadow pass

between the sun’s warmth and me, and a strange shudder ran through my

frame. In a minute or two she released me.

“Go,” repeated she. “Be warned, I ask you once more. I do not think you

can stand this knowledge that you seek. If I had had my own way, Lucy

should never have yielded, and promised to tell you all. Who knows what

may come of it?”

“I am firm in my wish to know all. I return at ten to-morrow morning,

and then expect to see Mistress Lucy herself.”

I turned away; having my own suspicions, I confess, as to Mistress

Clarke’s sanity.

Conjectures as to the meaning of her hints, and uncomfortable thoughts

connected with that strange laughter, filled my mind. I could hardly

sleep. I rose early; and long before the hour I had appointed, I was on

the path over the common that led to the old farm-house where they

lodged. I suppose that Lucy had passed no better a night than I; for

there she was also, slowly pacing with her even step, her eyes bent down,

her whole look most saintly and pure. She started when I came close to

her, and grew paler as I reminded her of my appointment, and spoke with

something of the impatience of obstacles that, seeing her once more, had

called up afresh in my mind. All strange and terrible hints, and giddy

merriment were forgotten. My heart gave forth words of fire, and my

tongue uttered them. Her colour went and came, as she listened; but,

when I had ended my passionate speeches, she lifted her soft eyes to me,

and said—

“But you know that you have something to learn about me yet. I only want

to say this: I shall not think less of you—less well of you, I mean—if

you, too, fall away from me when you know all. Stop!” said she, as if

fearing another burst of mad words. “Listen to me. My father is a man

of great wealth. I never knew my mother; she must have died when I was

very young. When first I remember anything, I was living in a great,

lonely house, with my dear and faithful Mistress Clarke. My father,

even, was not there; he was—he is—a soldier, and his duties lie aboard.

But he came from time to time, and every time I think he loved me more

and more. He brought me rarities from foreign lands, which prove to me

now how much he must have thought of me during his absences. I can sit

down and measure the depth of his lost love now, by such standards as

these. I never thought whether he loved me or not, then; it was so

natural, that it was like the air I breathed. Yet he was an angry man at

times, even then; but never with me. He was very reckless, too; and,

once or twice, I heard a whisper among the servants that a doom was over

him, and that he knew it, and tried to drown his knowledge in wild

activity, and even sometimes, sir, in wine. So I grew up in this grand

mansion, in that lonely place. Everything around me seemed at my

disposal, and I think every one loved me; I am sure I loved them. Till

about two years ago—I remember it well—my father had come to England, to

us; and he seemed so proud and so pleased with me and all I had done.

And one day his tongue seemed loosened with wine, and he told me much

that I had not known till then,—how dearly he had loved my mother, yet

how his wilful usage had caused her death; and then he went on to say how

he loved me better than any creature on earth, and how, some day, he

hoped to take me to foreign places, for that he could hardly bear these

long absences from his only child. Then he seemed to change suddenly,

and said, in a strange, wild way, that I was not to believe what he said;

that there was many a thing he loved better—his horse—his dog—I know not

what.

“And ’twas only the next morning that, when I came into his room to ask

his blessing as was my wont, he received me with fierce and angry words.

‘Why had I,’ so he asked, ‘been delighting myself in such wanton

mischief—dancing over the tender plants in the flower-beds, all set with

the famous Dutch bulbs he had brought from Holland?’ I had never been out

of doors that morning, sir, and I could not conceive what he meant, and

so I said; and then he swore at me for a liar, and said I was of no true

blood, for he had seen me doing all that mischief himself—with his own

eyes. What could I say? He would not listen to me, and even my tears

seemed only to irritate him. That day was the beginning of my great

sorrows. Not long after, he reproached me for my undue familiarity—all

unbecoming a gentlewoman—with his grooms. I had been in the stable-yard,

laughing and talking, he said. Now, sir, I am something of a coward by

nature, and I had always dreaded horses; be-sides that, my father’s

servants—those whom he brought with him from foreign parts—were wild

fellows, whom I had always avoided, and to whom I had never spoken,

except as a lady must needs from time to time speak to her father’s

people. Yet my father called me by names of which I hardly know the

meaning, but my heart told me they were such as shame any modest woman;

and from that day he turned quite against me;—nay, sir, not many weeks

after that, he came in with a riding-whip in his hand; and, accusing me

harshly of evil doings, of which I knew no more than you, sir, he was

about to strike me, and I, all in bewildering tears, was ready to take

his stripes as great kindness compared to his harder words, when suddenly

he stopped his arm mid-way, gasped and staggered, crying out, ‘The

curse—the curse!’ I looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I

saw myself, and right behind, another wicked, fearful self, so like me

that my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which

similitude of body it belonged. My father saw my double at the same

moment, either in its dreadful reality, whatever that might be, or in the

scarcely less terrible reflection in the mirror; but what came of it at

that moment I cannot say, for I suddenly swooned away; and when I came to

myself I was lying in my bed, and my faithful Clarke sitting by me. I

was in my bed for days; and even while I lay there my double was seen by

all, flitting about the house and gardens, always about some mischievous

or detestable work. What wonder that every one shrank from me in

dread—that my father drove me forth at length, when the disgrace of which

I was the cause was past his patience to bear. Mistress Clarke came with

me; and here we try to live such a life of piety and prayer as may in

time set me free from the curse.”

All the time she had been speaking, I had been weighing her story in my

mind. I had hitherto put cases of witchcraft on one side, as mere

superstitions; and my uncle and I had had many an argument, he supporting

himself by the opinion of his good friend Sir Matthew Hale. Yet this

sounded like the tale of one bewitched; or was it merely the effect of a

life of extreme seclusion telling on the nerves of a sensitive girl? My

scepticism inclined me to the latter belief, and when she paused I said:

“I fancy that some physician could have disabused your father of his

belief in visions—”

Just at that instant, standing as I was opposite to her in the full and

perfect morning light, I saw behind her another figure—a ghastly

resemblance, complete in likeness, so far as form and feature and

minutest touch of dress could go, but with a loathsome demon soul looking

out of the gray eyes, that were in turns mocking and voluptuous. My

heart stood still within me; every hair rose up erect; my flesh crept

with horror. I could not see the grave and tender Lucy—my eyes were

fascinated by the creature beyond. I know not why, but I put out my hand

to clutch it; I grasped nothing but empty air, and my whole blood curdled

to ice. For a moment I could not see; then my sight came back, and I saw

Lucy standing before me, alone, deathly pale, and, I could have fancied,

almost, shrunk in size.

“IT has been near me?” she said, as if asking a question.

The sound seemed taken out of her voice; it was husky as the notes on an

old harpsichord when the strings have ceased to vibrate. She read her

answer in my face, I suppose, for I could not speak. Her look was one of

intense fear, but that died away into an aspect of most humble patience.

At length she seemed to force herself to face behind and around her: she

saw the purple moors, the blue distant hills, quivering in the sunlight,

but nothing else.

“Will you take me home?” she said, meekly.

I took her by the hand, and led her silently through the budding

heather—we dared not speak; for we could not tell but that the dread

creature was listening, although unseen,—but that IT might appear and

push us asunder. I never loved her more fondly than now when—and that

was the unspeakable misery—the idea of her was becoming so inextricably

blended with the shuddering thought of IT. She seemed to understand what

I must be feeling. She let go my hand, which she had kept clasped until

then, when we reached the garden gate, and went forwards to meet her

anxious friend, who was standing by the window looking for her. I could

not enter the house: I needed silence, society, leisure, change—I knew

not what—to shake off the sensation of that creature’s presence. Yet I

lingered about the garden—I hardly know why; I partly suppose, because I

feared to encounter the resemblance again on the solitary common, where

it had vanished, and partly from a feeling of inexpressible compassion

for Lucy. In a few minutes Mistress Clarke came forth and joined me. We

walked some paces in silence.

“You know all now,” said she, solemnly.

“I saw IT,” said I, below my breath.

“And you shrink from us, now,” she said, with a hopelessness which

stirred up all that was brave or good in me.

“Not a whit,” said I. “Human flesh shrinks from encounter with the

powers of darkness: and, for some reason unknown to me, the pure and holy

Lucy is their victim.”

“The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children,” she said.

“Who is her father?” asked I. “Knowing as much as I do, I may surely

know more—know all. Tell me, I entreat you, madam, all that you can

conjecture respecting this demoniac persecution of one so good.”

“I will; but not now. I must go to Lucy now. Come this afternoon, I

will see you alone; and oh, sir! I will trust that you may yet find some

way to help us in our sore trouble!”

I was miserably exhausted by the swooning affright which had taken

possession of me. When I reached the inn, I staggered in like one

overcome by wine. I went to my own private room. It was some time

before I saw that the weekly post had come in, and brought me my letters.

There was one from my uncle, one from my home in Devonshire, and one,

re-directed over the first address, sealed with a great coat of arms, It

was from Sir Philip Tempest: my letter of inquiry respecting Mary

Fitzgerald had reached him at Liége, where it so happened that the Count

de la Tour d’Auvergne was quartered at the very time. He remembered his

wife’s beautiful attendant; she had had high words with the deceased

countess, respecting her intercourse with an English gentleman of good

standing, who was also in the foreign service. The countess augured evil

of his intentions; while Mary, proud and vehement, asserted that he would

soon marry her, and resented her mistress’s warnings as an insult. The

consequence was, that she had left Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne’s

service, and, as the Count believed, had gone to live with the

Englishman; whether he had married her, or not, he could not say. “But,”

added Sir Philip Tempest, “you may easily hear what particulars you wish

to know respecting Mary Fitzgerald from the Englishman himself, if, as I

suspect, he is no other than my neighbour and former acquaintance, Mr.

Gisborne, of Skipford Hall, in the West Riding. I am led to the belief

that he is no other, by several small particulars, none of which are in

themselves conclusive, but which, taken together, furnish a mass of

presumptive evidence. As far as I could make out from the Count’s

foreign pronunciation, Gisborne was the name of the Englishman: I know

that Gisborne of Skipford was abroad and in the foreign service at that

time—he was a likely fellow enough for such an exploit, and, above all,

certain expressions recur to my mind which he used in reference to old

Bridget Fitzgerald, of Coldholme, whom he once encountered while staying

with me at Starkey Manor-house. I remember that the meeting seemed to

have produced some extraordinary effect upon his mind, as though he had

suddenly discovered some connection which she might have had with his

previous life. I beg you to let me know if I can be of any further

service to you. Your uncle once rendered me a good turn, and I will

gladly repay it, so far as in me lies, to his nephew.”

I was now apparently close on the discovery which I had striven so many

months to attain. But success had lost its zest. I put my letters down,

and seemed to forget them all in thinking of the morning I had passed

that very day. Nothing was real but the unreal presence, which had come

like an evil blast across my bodily eyes, and burnt itself down upon my

brain. Dinner came, and went away untouched. Early in the afternoon I

walked to the farm-house. I found Mistress Clarke alone, and I was glad

and relieved. She was evidently prepared to tell me all I might wish to

hear.

“You asked me for Mistress Lucy’s true name; it is Gisborne,” she began.

“Not Gisborne of Skipford?” I exclaimed, breathless with anticipation.

“The same,” said she, quietly, not regarding my manner. “Her father is a

man of note; although, being a Roman Catholic, he cannot take that rank

in this country to which his station entitles him. The consequence is

that he lives much abroad—has been a soldier, I am told.”

“And Lucy’s mother?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I never knew her,” said she. “Lucy was about three

years old when I was engaged to take charge of her. Her mother was

dead.”

“But you know her name?—you can tell if it was Mary Fitzgerald?”

She looked astonished. “That was her name. But, sir, how came you to be

so well acquainted with it? It was a mystery to the whole household at

Skipford Court. She was some beautiful young woman whom he lured away

from her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard said he practised

some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came to know it, she was

neither to have nor to hold, but rushed off from his very arms, and threw

herself into a rapid stream and was drowned. It stung him deep with

remorse, but I used to think the remembrance of the mother’s cruel death

made him love the child yet dearer.”

I told her, as briefly as might be, of my researches after the descendant

and heir of the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and added—something of my old

lawyer spirit returning into me for the moment—that I had no doubt but

that we should prove Lucy to be by right possessed of large estates in

Ireland.

No flush came over her gray face; no light into her eyes. “And what is

all the wealth in the whole world to that poor girl?” she said. “It will

not free her from the ghastly bewitchment which persecutes her. As for

money, what a pitiful thing it is! it cannot touch her.”

“No more can the Evil Creature harm her,” I said. “Her holy nature

dwells apart, and cannot be defiled or stained by all the devilish arts

in the whole world.”

“True! but it is a cruel fate to know that all shrink from her, sooner or

later, as from one possessed—accursed.”

“How came it to pass?” I asked.

“Nay, I know not. Old rumours there are, that were bruited through the

household at Skipford.”

“Tell me,” I demanded.

“They came from servants, who would fain account for every thing. They

say that, many years ago, Mr. Gisborne killed a dog belonging to an old

witch at Coldholme; that she cursed, with a dreadful and mysterious

curse, the creature, whatever it might be, that he should love best; and

that it struck so deeply into his heart that for years he kept himself

aloof from any temptation to love aught. But who could help loving

Lucy?”

“You never heard the witch’s name?” I gasped.

“Yes—they called her Bridget: they said he would never go near the spot

again for terror of her. Yet he was a brave man!”

“Listen,” said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to arrest her full

attention: “if what I suspect holds true, that man stole Bridget’s only

child—the very Mary Fitzgerald who was Lucy’s mother; if so, Bridget

cursed him in ignorance of the deeper wrong he had done her. To this

hour she yearns after her lost child, and questions the saints whether

she be living or not. The roots of that curse lie deeper than she knows:

she unwittingly banned him for a deeper guilt than that of killing a dumb

beast. The sins of the fathers are indeed visited upon the children.”

“But,” said Mistress Clarke, eagerly, “she would never let evil rest on

her own grandchild? Surely, sir, if what you say be true, there are

hopes for Lucy. Let us go—go at once, and tell this fearful woman all

that you suspect, and beseech her to take off the spell she has put upon

her innocent grandchild.”

It seemed to me, indeed, that something like this was the best course we

could pursue. But first it was necessary to ascertain more than what

mere rumour or careless hearsay could tell. My thoughts turned to my

uncle—he could advise me wisely—he ought to know all. I resolved to go

to him without delay; but I did not choose to tell Mistress Clarke of all

the visionary plans that flitted through my mind. I simply declared my

intention of proceeding straight to London on Lucy’s affairs. I bade her

believe that my interest on the young lady’s behalf was greater than

ever, and that my whole time should be given up to her cause. I saw that

Mistress Clarke distrusted me, because my mind was too full of thoughts

for my words to flow freely. She sighed and shook her head, and said,

“Well, it is all right!” in such a tone that it was an implied reproach.

But I was firm and constant in my heart, and I took confidence from that.

I rode to London. I rode long days drawn out into the lovely summer

nights: I could not rest. I reached London. I told my uncle all, though

in the stir of the great city the horror had faded away, and I could

hardly imagine that he would believe the account I gave him of the

fearful double of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side. But my

uncle had lived many years, and learnt many things; and, in the deep

secrets of family history that had been confided to him, he had heard of

cases of innocent people bewitched and taken possession of by evil

spirits yet more fearful than Lucy’s. For, as he said, to judge from all

I told him, that resemblance had no power over her—she was too pure and

good to be tainted by its evil, haunting presence. It had, in all

probability, so my uncle conceived, tried to suggest wicked thoughts and

to tempt to wicked actions but she, in her saintly maidenhood, had passed

on undefiled by evil thought or deed. It could not touch her soul: but

true, it set her apart from all sweet love or common human intercourse.

My uncle threw himself with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixty

into the consideration of the whole case. He undertook the proving

Lucy’s descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, and

obtain, firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds of

Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting the

working of the curse, and whether any and what means had been taken to

exorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of instances where, by

prayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had been driven forth with

howling and many cries from the body which it had come to inhabit; he

spoke of those strange New England cases which had happened not so long

before; of Mr. Defoe, who had written a book, wherein he had named many

modes of subduing apparitions, and sending them back whence they came;

and, lastly, he spoke low of dreadful ways of compelling witches to undo

their witchcraft. But I could not endure to hear of those tortures and

burnings. I said that Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than a

malignant witch; and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; and

that, in putting her to the trial, by water or by fire, we should be

torturing—it might be to the death—the ancestress of her we sought to

redeem.

My uncle thought awhile, and then said, that in this last matter I was

right—at any rate, it should not be tried, with his consent, till all

other modes of remedy had failed; and he assented to my proposal that I

should go myself and see Bridget, and tell her all.

In accordance with this, I went down once more to the wayside inn near

Coldholme. It was late at night when I arrived there; and, while I

supped, I inquired of the landlord more particulars as to Bridget’s ways.

Solitary and savage had been her life for many years. Wild and despotic

were her words and manner to those few people who came across her path.

The country-folk did her imperious bidding, because they feared to

disobey. If they pleased her, they prospered; if, on the contrary, they

neglected or traversed her behests, misfortune, small or great, fell on

them and theirs. It was not detestation so much as an indefinable terror

that she excited.

In the morning I went to see her. She was standing on the green outside

her cottage, and received me with the sullen grandeur of a throneless

queen. I read in her face that she recognized me, and that I was not

unwelcome; but she stood silent till I had opened my errand.

“I have news of your daughter,” said I, resolved to speak straight to all

that I knew she felt of love, and not to spare her. “She is dead!”

The stern figure scarcely trembled, but her hand sought the support of

the door-post.

“I knew that she was dead,” said she, deep and low, and then was silent

for an instant. “My tears that should have flowed for her were burnt up

long years ago. Young man, tell me about her.”

“Not yet,” said I, having a strange power given me of confronting one,

whom, nevertheless, in my secret soul I dreaded.

“You had once a little dog,” I continued. The words called out in her

more show of emotion than the intelligence of her daughter’s death. She

broke in upon my speech:—

“I had! It was hers—the last thing I had of hers—and it was shot for

wantonness! It died in my arms. The man who killed that dog rues it to

this day. For that dumb beast’s blood, his best-beloved stands

accursed.”

Her eyes distended, as if she were in a trance and saw the working of her

curse. Again I spoke:—

“O, woman!” I said, “that best-beloved, standing accursed before men, is

your dead daughter’s child.”

The life, the energy, the passion, came back to the eyes with which she

pierced through me, to see if I spoke truth; then, without another

question or word, she threw herself on the ground with fearful vehemence,

and clutched at the innocent daisies with convulsed hands.

“Bone of my bone! flesh of my flesh! have I cursed thee—and art thou

accursed?”

So she moaned, as she lay prostrate in her great agony. I stood aghast

at my own work. She did not hear my broken sentences; she asked no more,

but the dumb confirmation which my sad looks had given that one fact,

that her curse rested on her own daughter’s child. The fear grew on me

lest she should die in her strife of body and soul; and then might not

Lucy remain under the spell as long as she lived?

Even at this moment, I saw Lucy coming through the woodland path that led

to Bridget’s cottage; Mistress Clarke was with her: I felt at my heart

that it was she, by the balmy peace which the look of her sent over me,

as she slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her soft quiet

eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell on the woman

lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of tender pity; and

she came forward to try and lift her up. Seating herself on the turf,

she took Bridget’s head into her lap; and, with gentle touches, she

arranged the dishevelled gray hair streaming thick and wild from beneath

her mutch.

“God help her!” murmured Lucy. “How she suffers!”

At her desire we sought for water; but when we returned, Bridget had

recovered her wandering senses, and was kneeling with clasped hands

before Lucy, gazing at that sweet sad face as though her troubled nature

drank in health and peace from every moment’s contemplation. A faint

tinge on Lucy’s pale cheeks showed me that she was aware of our return;

otherwise it appeared as if she was conscious of her influence for good

over the passionate and troubled woman kneeling before her, and would not

willingly avert her grave and loving eyes from that wrinkled and careworn

countenance.

Suddenly—in the twinkling of an eye—the creature appeared, there, behind

Lucy; fearfully the same as to outward semblance, but kneeling exactly as

Bridget knelt, and clasping her hands in jesting mimicry as Bridget

clasped hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a prayer. Mistress

Clarke cried out—Bridget arose slowly, her gaze fixed on the creature

beyond: drawing her breath with a hissing sound, never moving her

terrible eyes, that were steady as stone, she made a dart at the phantom,

and caught, as I had done, a mere handful of empty air. We saw no more

of the creature—it vanished as suddenly as it came, but Bridget looked

slowly on, as if watching some receding form. Lucy sat still, white,

trembling, drooping—I think she would have swooned if I had not been

there to uphold her. While I was attending to her, Bridget passed us,

without a word to any one, and, entering her cottage, she barred herself

in, and left us without.

All our endeavours were now directed to get Lucy back to the house where

she had tarried the night before. Mistress Clarke told me that, not

hearing from me (some letter must have miscarried), she had grown

impatient and despairing, and had urged Lucy to the enterprise of coming

to seek her grandmother; not telling her, indeed, of the dread reputation

she possessed, or how we suspected her of having so fearfully blighted

that innocent girl; but, at the same time, hoping much from the

mysterious stirring of blood, which Mistress Clarke trusted in for the

removal of the curse. They had come, by a different route from that

which I had taken, to a village inn not far from Coldholme, only the

night before. This was the first interview between ancestress and

descendant.

All through the sultry noon I wandered along the tangled brush-wood of

the old neglected forest, thinking where to turn for remedy in a matter

so complicated and mysterious. Meeting a countryman, I asked my way to

the nearest clergyman, and went, hoping to obtain some counsel from him.

But he proved to be a coarse and common-minded man, giving no time or

attention to the intricacies of a case, but dashing out a strong opinion

involving immediate action. For instance, as soon as I named Bridget

Fitzgerald, he exclaimed:—

“The Coldholme witch! the Irish papist! I’d have had her ducked long

since but for that other papist, Sir Philip Tempest. He has had to

threaten honest folk about here over and over again, or they’d have had

her up before the justices for her black doings. And it’s the law of the

land that witches should be burnt! Ay, and of Scripture, too, sir! Yet

you see a papist, if he’s a rich squire, can overrule both law and

Scripture. I’d carry a faggot myself to rid the country of her!”

Such a one could give me no help. I rather drew back what I had already

said; and tried to make the parson forget it, by treating him to several

pots of beer, in the village inn, to which we had adjourned for our

conference at his suggestion. I left him as soon as I could, and

returned to Coldholme, shaping my way past deserted Starkey Manor-house,

and coming upon it by the back. At that side were the oblong remains of

the old moat, the waters of which lay placid and motionless under the

crimson rays of the setting sun; with the forest-trees lying straight

along each side, and their deep-green foliage mirrored to blackness in

the burnished surface of the moat below—and the broken sun-dial at the

end nearest the hall—and the heron, standing on one leg at the water’s

edge, lazily looking down for fish—the lonely and desolate house scarce

needed the broken windows, the weeds on the door-sill, the broken shutter

softly flapping to and fro in the twilight breeze, to fill up the picture

of desertion and decay. I lingered about the place until the growing

darkness warned me on. And then I passed along the path, cut by the

orders of the last lady of Starkey Manor-House, that led me to Bridget’s

cottage. I resolved at once to see her; and, in spite of closed doors—it

might be of resolved will—she should see me. So I knocked at her door,

gently, loudly, fiercely. I shook it so vehemently that a length the old

hinges gave way, and with a crash it fell inwards, leaving me suddenly

face to face with Bridget—I, red, heated, agitated with my so long

baffled efforts—she, stiff as any stone, standing right facing me, her

eyes dilated with terror, her ashen lips trembling, but her body

motionless. In her hands she held her crucifix, as if by that holy

symbol she sought to oppose my entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame

relaxed, and she sank back upon a chair. Some mighty tension had given

way. Still her eyes looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air,

made more opaque by the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed

before the picture of the Virgin.

“Is she there?” asked Bridget, hoarsely.

“No! Who? I am alone. You remember me.”

“Yes,” replied she, still terror stricken. “But she—that creature—has

been looking in upon me through that window all day long. I closed it up

with my shawl; and then I saw her feet below the door, as long as it was

light, and I knew she heard my very breathing—nay, worse, my very

prayers; and I could not pray, for her listening choked the words ere

they rose to my lips. Tell me, who is she?—what means that double girl I

saw this morning? One had a look of my dead Mary; but the other curdled

my blood, and yet it was the same!”

She had taken hold of my arm, as if to secure herself some human

companionship. She shook all over with the slight, never-ceasing tremor

of intense terror. I told her my tale as I have told it you, sparing

none of the details.

How Mistress Clarke had informed me that the resemblance had driven Lucy

forth from her father’s house—how I had disbelieved, until, with mine own

eyes, I had seen another Lucy standing behind my Lucy, the same in form

and feature, but with the demon-soul looking out of the eyes. I told her

all, I say, believing that she—whose curse was working so upon the life

of her innocent grandchild—was the only person who could find the remedy

and the redemption. When I had done, she sat silent for many minutes.

“You love Mary’s child?” she asked.

“I do, in spite of the fearful working of the curse—I love her. Yet I

shrink from her ever since that day on the moor-side. And men must

shrink from one so accompanied; friends and lovers must stand afar off.

Oh, Bridget Fitzgerald! loosen the curse! Set her free!”

“Where is she?”

I eagerly caught at the idea that her presence was needed, in order that,

by some strange prayer or exorcism, the spell might be reversed.

“I will go and bring her to you,” I exclaimed. Bridget tightened her

hold upon my arm.

“Not so,” said she, in a low, hoarse voice. “It would kill me to see her

again as I saw her this morning. And I must live till I have worked my

work. Leave me!” said she, suddenly, and again taking up the cross. “I

defy the demon I have called up. Leave me to wrestle with it!”

She stood up, as if in an ecstasy of inspiration, from which all fear was

banished. I lingered—why I can hardly tell—until once more she bade me

begone. As I went along the forest way, I looked back, and saw her

planting the cross in the empty threshold, where the door had been.

The next morning Lucy and I went to seek her, to bid her join her prayers

with ours. The cottage stood open and wide to our gaze. No human being

was there: the cross remained on the threshold, but Bridget was gone.

CHAPTER III.

What was to be done next? was the question that I asked myself. As for

Lucy, she would fain have submitted to the doom that lay upon her. Her

gentleness and piety, under the pressure of so horrible a life, seemed

over-passive to me. She never complained. Mrs. Clarke complained more

than ever. As for me, I was more in love with the real Lucy than ever;

but I shrunk from the false similitude with an intensity proportioned to

my love. I found out by instinct that Mrs. Clarke had occasional

temptations to leave Lucy. The good lady’s nerves were shaken, and, from

what she said, I could almost have concluded that the object of the

Double was to drive away from Lucy this last, and almost earliest friend.

At times, I could scarcely bear to own it, but I myself felt inclined to

turn recreant; and I would accuse Lucy of being too patient—too resigned.

One after another, she won the little children of Coldholme. (Mrs.

Clarke and she had resolved to stay there, for was it not as good a place

as any other, to such as they? and did not all our faint hopes rest on

Bridget—never seen or heard of now, but still we trusted to come back, or

give some token?) So, as I say, one after another, the little children

came about my Lucy, won by her soft tones, and her gentle smiles, and

kind actions. Alas! one after another they fell away, and shrunk from

her path with blanching terror; and we too surely guessed the reason why.

It was the last drop. I could bear it no longer. I resolved no more to

linger around the spot, but to go back to my uncle, and among the learned

divines of the city of London, seek for some power whereby to annul the

curse.

My uncle, meanwhile, had obtained all the requisite testimonials relating

to Lucy’s descent and birth, from the Irish lawyers, and from Mr.

Gisborne. The latter gentleman had written from abroad (he was again

serving in the Austrian army), a letter alternately passionately

self-reproachful and stoically repellant. It was evident that when he

thought of Mary—her short life—how he had wronged her, and of her violent

death, he could hardly find words severe enough for his own conduct; and

from this point of view, the curse that Bridget had laid upon him and

his, was regarded by him as a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which

she was moved by a Higher Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper

vengeance than for the death of the poor dog. But then, again, when he

came to speak of his daughter, the repugnance which the conduct of the

demoniac creature had produced in his mind, was but ill-disguised under a

show of profound indifference as to Lucy’s fate. One almost felt as if

he would have been as content to put her out of existence, as he would

have been to destroy some disgusting reptile that had invaded his chamber

or his couch.

The great Fitzgerald property was Lucy’s; and that was all—was nothing.

My uncle and I sat in the gloom of a London November evening, in our

house in Ormond Street. I was out of health, and felt as if I were in an

inextricable coil of misery. Lucy and I wrote to each other, but that

was little; and we dared not see each other for dread of the fearful

Third, who had more than once taken her place at our meetings. My uncle

had, on the day I speak of, bidden prayers to be put up on the ensuing

Sabbath in many a church and meeting-house in London, for one grievously

tormented by an evil spirit. He had faith in prayers—I had none; I was

fast losing faith in all things. So we sat, he trying to interest me in

the old talk of other days, I oppressed by one thought—when our old

servant, Anthony, opened the door, and, without speaking, showed in a

very gentlemanly and prepossessing man, who had something remarkable

about his dress, betraying his profession to be that of the Roman

Catholic priesthood. He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It was

to me he bowed.

“I did not give my name,” said he, “because you would hardly have

recognised it; unless, sir, when, in the north, you heard of Father

Bernard, the chaplain at Stoney Hurst?”

I remembered afterwards that I had heard of him, but at the time I had

utterly forgotten it; so I professed myself a complete stranger to him;

while my ever-hospitable uncle, although hating a papist as much as it

was in his nature to hate anything, placed a chair for the visitor, and

bade Anthony bring glasses, and a fresh jug of claret.

Father Bernard received this courtesy with the graceful ease and pleasant

acknowledgement which belongs to a man of the world. Then he turned to

scan me with his keen glance. After some alight conversation, entered

into on his part, I am certain, with an intention of discovering on what

terms of confidence I stood with my uncle, he paused, and said gravely—

“I am sent here with a message to you, sir, from a woman to whom you have

shown kindness, and who is one of my penitents, in Antwerp—one Bridget

Fitzgerald.”

“Bridget Fitzgerald!” exclaimed I. “In Antwerp? Tell me, sir, all that

you can about her.”

“There is much to be said,” he replied. “But may I inquire if this

gentleman—if your uncle is acquainted with the particulars of which you

and I stand informed?”

“All that I know, he knows,” said I, eagerly laying my hand on my uncle’s

arm, as he made a motion as if to quit the room.

“Then I have to speak before two gentlemen who, however they may differ

from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact that there are

evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of our evil

thoughts: and, if their Master gives them power, to bring them into overt

action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin, which I dare not

disbelieve—as some sceptics would have us do—the sin of witchcraft. Of

this deadly sin, you and I are aware, Bridget Fitzgerald has been guilty.

Since you saw her last, many prayers have been offered in our churches,

many masses sung, many penances undergone, in order that, if God and the

holy saints so willed it, her sin might be blotted out. But it has not

been so willed.”

“Explain to me,” said I, “who you are, and how you come connected with

Bridget. Why is she at Antwerp? I pray you, sir, tell me more. If I am

impatient, excuse me; I am ill and feverish, and in consequence

bewildered.”

There was something to me inexpressibly soothing in the tone of voice

with which he began to narrate, as it were from the beginning, his

acquaintance with Bridget.

“I had known Mr. and Mrs. Starkey during their residence abroad, and so

it fell out naturally that, when I came as chaplain to the Sherburnes at

Stoney Hurst, our acquaintance was renewed; and thus I became the

confessor of the whole family, isolated as they were from the offices of

the Church, Sherburne being their nearest neighbour who professed the

true faith. Of course, you are aware that facts revealed in confession

are sealed as in the grave; but I learnt enough of Bridget’s character to

be convinced that I had to do with no common woman; one powerful for good

as for evil. I believe that I was able to give her spiritual assistance

from time to time, and that she looked upon me as a servant of that Holy

Church, which has such wonderful power of moving men’s hearts, and

relieving them of the burden of their sins. I have known her cross the

moors on the wildest nights of storm, to confess and be absolved; and

then she would return, calmed and subdued, to her daily work about her

mistress, no one witting where she had been during the hours that most

passed in sleep upon their beds. After her daughter’s departure—after

Mary’s mysterious disappearance—I had to impose many a long penance, in

order to wash away the sin of impatient repining that was fast leading

her into the deeper guilt of blasphemy. She set out on that long journey

of which you have possibly heard—that fruitless journey in search of

Mary—and during her absence, my superiors ordered my return to my former

duties at Antwerp, and for many years I heard no more of Bridget.

“Not many months ago, as I was passing homewards in the evening, along

one of the streets near St. Jacques, leading into the Meer Straet, I saw

a woman sitting crouched up under the shrine of the Holy Mother of

Sorrows. Her hood was drawn over her head, so that the shadow caused by

the light of the lamp above fell deep over her face; her hands were

clasped round her knees. It was evident that she was some one in

hopeless trouble, and as such it was my duty to stop and speak. I

naturally addressed her first in Flemish, believing her to be one of the

lower class of inhabitants. She shook her head, but did not look up.

Then I tried French, and she replied in that language, but speaking it so

indifferently, that I was sure she was either English or Irish, and

consequently spoke to her in my own native tongue. She recognized my

voice; and, starting up, caught at my robes, dragging me before the

blessed shrine, and throwing herself down, and forcing me, as much by her

evident desire as by her action, to kneel beside her, she exclaimed:

“‘O Holy Virgin! you will never hearken to me again, but hear him; for

you know him of old, that he does your bidding, and strives to heal

broken hearts. Hear him!’

“She turned to me.

“‘She will hear you, if you will only pray. She never hears _me_: she

and all the saints in heaven cannot hear my prayers, for the Evil One

carries them off, as he carried that first away. O, Father Bernard, pray

for me!’

“I prayed for one in sore distress, of what nature I could not say; but

the Holy Virgin would know. Bridget held me fast, gasping with eagerness

at the sound of my words. When I had ended, I rose, and, making the sign

of the Cross over her, I was going to bless her in the name of the Holy

Church, when she shrank away like some terrified creature, and said—

“‘I am guilty of deadly sin, and am not shriven.’

“‘Arise, my daughter,’ said I, ‘and come with me.’ And I led the way

into one of the confessionals of St. Jaques.

“She knelt; I listened. No words came. The evil powers had stricken her

dumb, as I heard afterwards they had many a time before, when she

approached confession.

“She was too poor to pay for the necessary forms of exorcism; and

hitherto those priests to whom she had addressed herself were either so

ignorant of the meaning of her broken French, or her Irish-English, or

else esteemed her to be one crazed—as, indeed, her wild and excited

manner might easily have led any one to think—that they had neglected the

sole means of loosening her tongue, so that she might confess her deadly

sin, and, after due penance, obtain absolution. But I knew Bridget of

old, and felt that she was a penitent sent to me. I went through those

holy offices appointed by our Church for the relief of such a case. I

was the more bound to do this, as I found that she had come to Antwerp

for the sole purpose of discovering me, and making confession to me. Of

the nature of that fearful confession I am forbidden to speak. Much of

it you know; possibly all.

“It now remains for her to free herself from mortal guilt, and to set

others free from the consequences thereof. No prayers, no masses, will

ever do it, although they may strengthen her with that strength by which

alone acts of deepest love and purest self-devotion may be performed.

Her words of passion, and cries for revenge—her unholy prayers could

never reach the ears of the holy saints! Other powers intercepted them,

and wrought so that the curses thrown up to heaven have fallen on her own

flesh and blood; and so, through her very strength of love, have brused

and crushed her heart. Henceforward her former self must be buried,—yea,

buried quick, if need be,—but never more to make sign, or utter cry on

earth! She has become a Poor Clare, in order that, by perpetual penance

and constant service of others, she may at length so act as to obtain

final absolution and rest for her soul. Until then, the innocent must

suffer. It is to plead for the innocent that I come to you; not in the

name of the witch, Bridget Fitzgerald, but of the penitent and servant of

all men, the Poor Clare, Sister Magdalen.”

“Sir,” said I, “I listen to your request with respect; only I may tell

you it is not needed to urge me to do all that I can on behalf of one,

love for whom is part of my very life. If for a time I have absented

myself from her, it is to think and work for her redemption. I, a member

of the English Church—my uncle, a Puritan—pray morning and night for her

by name: the congregations of London, on the next Sabbath, will pray for

one unknown, that she may be set free from the Powers of Darkness.

Moreover, I must tell you, sir, that those evil ones touch not the great

calm of her soul. She lives her own pure and loving life, unharmed and

untainted, though all men fall off from her. I would I could have her

faith!”

My uncle now spoke.

“Nephew,” said he, “it seems to me that this gentleman, although

professing what I consider an erroneous creed, has touched upon the right

point in exhorting Bridget to acts of love and mercy, whereby to wipe out

her sin of hate and vengeance. Let us strive after our fashion, by

almsgiving and visiting of the needy and fatherless, to make our prayers

acceptable. Meanwhile, I myself will go down into the north, and take

charge of the maiden. I am too old to be daunted by man or demon. I

will bring her to this house as to a home; and let the Double come if it

will! A company of godly divines shall give it the meeting, and we will

try issue.”

The kindly, brave old man! But Father Bernard sat on musing.

“All hate,” said he, “cannot be quenched in her heart; all Christian

forgiveness cannot have entered into her soul, or the demon would have

lost its power. You said, I think, that her grandchild was still

tormented?”

“Still tormented!” I replied, sadly, thinking of Mistress Clarke’s last

letter—He rose to go. We afterwards heard that the occasion of his

coming to London was a secret political mission on behalf of the

Jacobites. Nevertheless, he was a good and a wise man.

Months and months passed away without any change. Lucy entreated my

uncle to leave her where she was,—dreading, as I learnt, lest if she

came, with her fearful companion, to dwell in the same house with me,

that my love could not stand the repeated shocks to which I should be

doomed. And this she thought from no distrust of the strength of my

affection, but from a kind of pitying sympathy for the terror to the

nerves which she clearly observed that the demoniac visitation caused in

all.

I was restless and miserable. I devoted myself to good works; but I

performed them from no spirit of love, but solely from the hope of reward

and payment, and so the reward was never granted. At length, I asked my

uncle’s leave to travel; and I went forth, a wanderer, with no distincter

end than that of many another wanderer—to get away from myself. A

strange impulse led me to Antwerp, in spite of the wars and commotions

then raging in the Low Countries—or rather, perhaps, the very craving to

become interested in something external, led me into the thick of the

struggle then going on with the Austrians. The cities of Flanders were

all full at that time of civil disturbances and rebellions, only kept

down by force, and the presence of an Austrian garrison in every place.

I arrived in Antwerp, and made inquiry for Father Bernard. He was away

in the country for a day or two. Then I asked my way to the Convent of

Poor Clares; but, being healthy and prosperous, I could only see the dim,

pent-up, gray walls, shut closely in by narrow streets, in the lowest

part of the town. My landlord told me, that had I been stricken by some

loathsome disease, or in desperate case of any kind, the Poor Clares

would have taken me, and tended me. He spoke of them as an order of

mercy of the strictest kind, dressing scantily in the coarsest materials,

going barefoot, living on what the inhabitants of Antwerp chose to

bestow, and sharing even those fragments and crumbs with the poor and

helpless that swarmed all around; receiving no letters or communication

with the outer world; utterly dead to everything but the alleviation of

suffering. He smiled at my inquiring whether I could get speech of one

of them; and told me that they were even forbidden to speak for the

purposes of begging their daily food; while yet they lived, and fed

others upon what was given in charity.

“But,” exclaimed I, “supposing all men forgot them! Would they quietly

lie down and die, without making sign of their extremity?”

“If such were the rule the Poor Clares would willingly do it; but their

founder appointed a remedy for such extreme cases as you suggest. They

have a bell—’tis but a small one, as I have heard, and has yet never been

rung in the memory man: when the Poor Clares have been without food for

twenty-four hours, they may ring this bell, and then trust to our good

people of Antwerp for rushing to the rescue of the Poor Clares, who have

taken such blessed care of us in all our straits.”

It seemed to me that such rescue would be late in the day; but I did not

say what I thought. I rather turned the conversation, by asking my

landlord if he knew, or had ever heard, anything of a certain Sister

Magdalen.

“Yes,” said he, rather under his breath, “news will creep out, even from

a convent of Poor Clares. Sister Magdalen is either a great sinner or a

great saint. She does more, as I have heard, than all the other nuns put

together; yet, when last month they would fain have made her

mother-superior, she begged rather that they would place her below all

the rest, and make her the meanest servant of all.”

“You never saw her?” asked I.

“Never,” he replied.

I was weary of waiting for Father Bernard, and yet I lingered in Antwerp.

The political state of things became worse than ever, increased to its

height by the scarcity of food consequent on many deficient harvests. I

saw groups of fierce, squalid men, at every corner of the street, glaring

out with wolfish eyes at my sleek skin and handsome clothes.

At last Father Bernard returned. We had a long conversation, in which he

told me that, curiously enough, Mr. Gisborne, Lucy’s father, was serving

in one of the Austrian regiments, then in garrison at Antwerp. I asked

Father Bernard if he would make us acquainted; which he consented to do.

But, a day or two afterwards, he told me that, on hearing my name, Mr.

Gisborne had declined responding to any advances on my part, saying he

had adjured his country, and hated his countrymen.

Probably he recollected my name in connection with that of his daughter

Lucy. Anyhow, it was clear enough that I had no chance of making his

acquaintance. Father Bernard confirmed me in my suspicions of the hidden

fermentation, for some coming evil, working among the “blouses” of

Antwerp, and he would fain have had me depart from out the city; but I

rather craved the excitement of danger, and stubbornly refused to leave.

One day, when I was walking with him in the Place Verte, he bowed to an

Austrian officer, who was crossing towards the cathedral.

“That is Mr. Gisborne,” said he, as soon as the gentleman was past.

I turned to look at the tall, slight figure of the officer. He carried

himself in a stately manner, although he was past middle age, and from

his years might have had some excuse for a slight stoop. As I looked at

the man, he turned round, his eyes met mine, and I saw his face. Deeply

lined, sallow, and scathed was that countenance; scarred by passion as

well as by the fortunes of war. ’Twas but a moment our eyes met. We

each turned round, and went on our separate way.

But his whole appearance was not one to be easily forgotten; the thorough

appointment of the dress, and evident thought bestowed on it, made but an

incongruous whole with the dark, gloomy expression of his countenance.

Because he was Lucy’s father, I sought instinctively to meet him

everywhere. At last he must have become aware of my pertinacity, for he

gave me a haughty scowl whenever I passed him. In one of these

encounters, however, I chanced to be of some service to him. He was

turning the corner of a street, and came suddenly on one of the groups of

discontented Flemings of whom I have spoken. Some words were exchanged,

when my gentleman out with his sword, and with a slight but skilful cut

drew blood from one of those who had insulted him, as he fancied, though

I was too far off to hear the words. They would all have fallen upon him

had I not rushed forwards and raised the cry, then well known in Antwerp,

of rally, to the Austrian soldiers who were perpetually patrolling the

streets, and who came in numbers to the rescue. I think that neither Mr.

Gisborne nor the mutinous group of plebeians owed me much gratitude for

my interference. He had planted himself against a wall, in a skilful

attitude of fence, ready with his bright glancing rapier to do battle

with all the heavy, fierce, unarmed men, some six or seven in number.

But when his own soldiers came up, he sheathed his sword; and, giving

some careless word of command, sent them away again, and continued his

saunter all alone down the street, the workmen snarling in his rear, and

more than half-inclined to fall on me for my cry for rescue. I cared not

if they did, my life seemed so dreary a burden just then; and, perhaps,

it was this daring loitering among them that prevented their attacking

me. Instead, they suffered me to fall into conversation with them; and I

heard some of their grievances. Sore and heavy to be borne were they,

and no wonder the sufferers were savage and desperate.

The man whom Gisborne had wounded across his face would fain have got out

of me the name of his aggressor, but I refused to tell it. Another of

the group heard his inquiry, and made answer—“I know the man. He is one

Gisborne, aide-de-camp to the General-Commandant. I know him well.”

He began to tell some story in connection with Gisborne in a low and

muttering voice; and while he was relating a tale, which I saw excited

their evil blood, and which they evidently wished me not to hear, I

sauntered away and back to my lodgings.

That night Antwerp was in open revolt. The inhabitants rose in rebellion

against their Austrian masters. The Austrians, holding the gates of the

city, remained at first pretty quiet in the citadel; only, from time to

time, the boom of the great cannon swept sullenly over the town. But if

they expected the disturbance to die away, and spend itself in a few

hours’ fury, they were mistaken. In a day or two, the rioters held

possession of the principal municipal buildings. Then the Austrians

poured forth in bright flaming array, calm and smiling, as they marched

to the posts assigned, as if the fierce mob were no more to them then the

swarms of buzzing summer flies. Their practised manœuvres, their

well-aimed shot, told with terrible effect; but in the place of one slain

rioter, three sprang up of his blood to avenge his loss. But a deadly

foe, a ghastly ally of the Austrians, was at work. Food, scarce and dear

for months, was now hardly to be obtained at any price. Desperate

efforts were being made to bring provisions into the city, for the

rioters had friends without. Close to the city port, nearest to the

Scheldt, a great struggle took place. I was there, helping the rioters,

whose cause I had adopted. We had a savage encounter with the Austrians.

Numbers fell on both sides: I saw them lie bleeding for a moment: then a

volley of smoke obscured them; and when it cleared away, they were

dead—trampled upon or smothered, pressed down and hidden by the

freshly-wounded whom those last guns had brought low. And then a

gray-robed and grey-veiled figure came right across the flashing guns and

stooped over some one, whose life-blood was ebbing away; sometimes it was

to give him drink from cans which they carried slung at their sides;

sometimes I saw the cross held above a dying man, and rapid prayers were

being uttered, unheard by men in that hellish din and clangour, but

listened to by One above. I saw all this as in a dream: the reality of

that stern time was battle and carnage. But I knew that these gray

figures, their bare feet all wet with blood, and their faces hidden by

their veils, were the Poor Clares—sent forth now because dire agony was

abroad and imminent danger at hand. Therefore, they left their

cloistered shelter, and came into that thick and evil mêlée.

Close to me—driven past me by the struggle of many fighters—came the

Antwerp burgess with the scarce-healed scar upon his face; and in an

instant more, he was thrown by the press upon the Austrian officer

Gisborne, and ere either had recovered the shock, the burgess had

recognized his opponent.

“Ha! the Englishman Gisborne!” he cried, and threw himself upon him with

redoubled fury. He had struck him hard—the Englishman was down; when out

of the smoke came a dark-gray figure, and threw herself right under the

uplifted flashing sword. The burgess’s arm stood arrested. Neither

Austrians nor Anversois willingly harmed the Poor Clares.

“Leave him to me!” said a low stern voice. “He is mine enemy—mine for

many years.”

Those words were the last I heard. I myself was struck down by a bullet.

I remember nothing more for days. When I came to myself, I was at the

extremity of weakness, and was craving for food to recruit my strength.

My landlord sat watching me. He, too, looked pinched and shrunken; he

had heard of my wounded state, and sought me out. Yes! the struggle

still continued, but the famine was sore: and some, he had heard, had

died for lack of food. The tears stood in his eyes as he spoke. But

soon he shook off his weakness, and his natural cheerfulness returned.

Father Bernard had been to see me—no one else. (Who should, indeed?)

Father Bernard would come back that afternoon—he had promised. But

Father Bernard never came, although I was up and dressed, and looking

eagerly for him.

My landlord brought me a meal which he had cooked himself: of what it was

composed he would not say, but it was most excellent, and with every

mouthful I seemed to gain strength. The good man sat looking at my

evident enjoyment with a happy smile of sympathy; but, as my appetite

became satisfied, I began to detect a certain wistfulness in his eyes, as

if craving for the food I had so nearly devoured—for, indeed, at that

time I was hardly aware of the extent of the famine. Suddenly, there was

a sound of many rushing feet past our window. My landlord opened one of

the sides of it, the better to learn what was going on. Then we heard a

faint, cracked, tinkling bell, coming shrill upon the air, clear and

distinct from all other sounds. “Holy Mother!” exclaimed my landlord,

“the Poor Clares!”

He snatched up the fragments of my meal, and crammed them into my hands,

bidding me follow. Down stairs he ran, clutching at more food, as the

women of his house eagerly held it out to him; and in a moment we were in

the street, moving along with the great current, all tending towards the

Convent of the Poor Clares. And still, as if piercing our ears with its

inarticulate cry, came the shrill tinkle of the bell. In that strange

crowd were old men trembling and sobbing, as they carried their little

pittance of food; women with tears running down their cheeks, who had

snatched up what provisions they had in the vessels in which they stood,

so that the burden of these was in many cases much greater than that

which they contained; children, with flushed faces, grasping tight the

morsel of bitten cake or bread, in their eagerness to carry it safe to

the help of the Poor Clares; strong men—yea, both Anversois and

Austrians—pressing onward with set teeth, and no word spoken; and over

all, and through all, came that sharp tinkle—that cry for help in

extremity.

We met the first torrent of people returning with blanched and piteous

faces: they were issuing out of the convent to make way for the offerings

of others. “Haste, haste!” said they. “A Poor Clare is dying! A Poor

Clare is dead for hunger! God forgive us and our city!”

We pressed on. The stream bore us along where it would. We were carried

through refectories, bare and crumbless; into cells over whose doors the

conventual name of the occupant was written. Thus it was that I, with

others, was forced into Sister Magdalen’s cell. On her couch lay

Gisborne, pale unto death, but not dead. By his side was a cup of water,

and a small morsel of mouldy bread, which he had pushed out of his reach,

and could not move to obtain. Over against his bed were these words,

copied in the English version “Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed

him; if he thirst, give him drink.”

Some of us gave him of our food, and left him eating greedily, like some

famished wild animal. For now it was no longer the sharp tinkle, but

that one solemn toll, which in all Christian countries tells of the

passing of the spirit out of earthly life into eternity; and again a

murmur gathered and grew, as of many people speaking with awed breath, “A

Poor Clare is dying! a Poor Clare is dead!”

Borne along once more by the motion of the crowd, we were carried into

the chapel belonging to the Poor Clares. On a bier before the high

altar, lay a woman—lay Sister Magdalen—lay Bridget Fitzgerald. By her

side stood Father Bernard, in his robes of office, and holding the

crucifix on high while he pronounced the solemn absolution of the Church,

as to one who had newly confessed herself of deadly sin. I pushed on

with passionate force, till I stood close to the dying woman, as she

received extreme unction amid the breathless and awed hush of the

multitude around. Her eyes were glazing, her limbs were stiffening; but

when the rite was over and finished, she raised her gaunt figure slowly

up, and her eyes brightened to a strange intensity of joy, as, with the

gesture of her finger and the trance-like gleam of her eye, she seemed

like one who watched the disappearance of some loathed and fearful

creature.

“She is freed from the curse!” said she, as she fell back dead.

Now, of all our party who had first listened to my Lady Ludlow, Mr.

Preston was the only one who had not told us something, either of

information, tradition, history, or legend. We naturally turned to him;

but we did not like asking him directly for his contribution, for he

was a grave, reserved, and silent man.

He understood us, however, and, rousing himself as it were, he said—

“I know you wish me to tell you, in my turn, of something which I have

learnt during my life. I could tell you something of my own life, and

of a life dearer still to my memory; but I have shunk from narrating

anything so purely personal. Yet, shrink as I will, no other but those

sad recollections will present themselves to my mind. I call them sad

when I think of the end of it all. However, I am not going to moralize.

If my dear brother’s life and death does not speak for itself, no words

of mine will teach you what may be learnt from it.”

THE HALF-BROTHERS

My mother was twice married. She never spoke of her first husband, and

it is only from other people that I have learnt what little I know

about him. I believe she was scarcely seventeen when she was married to

him: and he was barely one-and-twenty. He rented a small farm up in

Cumberland, somewhere towards the sea-coast; but he was perhaps too

young and inexperienced to have the charge of land and cattle: anyhow,

his affairs did not prosper, and he fell into ill health, and died of

consumption before they had been three years man and wife, leaving my

mother a young widow of twenty, with a little child only just able to

walk, and the farm on her hands for four years more by the lease, with

half the stock on it dead, or sold off one by one to pay the more

pressing debts, and with no money to purchase more, or even to buy the

provisions needed for the small consumption of every day. There was

another child coming, too; and sad and sorry, I believe, she was to

think of it. A dreary winter she must have had in her lonesome

dwelling, with never another near it for miles around; her sister came

to bear her company, and they two planned and plotted how to make every

penny they could raise go as far as possible. I can’t tell you how it

happened that my little sister, whom I never saw, came to sicken and

die; but, as if my poor mother’s cup was not full enough, only a

fortnight before Gregory was born the little girl took ill of scarlet

fever, and in a week she lay dead. My mother was, I believe, just

stunned with this last blow. My aunt has told me that she did not cry;

aunt Fanny would have been thankful if she had; but she sat holding the

poor wee lassie’s hand and looking in her pretty, pale, dead face,

without so much as shedding a tear. And it was all the same, when they

had to take her away to be buried. She just kissed the child, and sat

her down in the window-seat to watch the little black train of people

(neighbours—my aunt, and one far-off cousin, who were all the friends

they could muster) go winding away amongst the snow, which had fallen

thinly over the country the night before. When my aunt came back from

the funeral, she found my mother in the same place, and as dry-eyed as

ever. So she continued until after Gregory was born; and, somehow, his

coming seemed to loosen the tears, and she cried day and night, till my

aunt and the other watcher looked at each other in dismay, and would

fain have stopped her if they had but known how. But she bade them let

her alone, and not be over-anxious, for every drop she shed eased her

brain, which had been in a terrible state before for want of the power

to cry. She seemed after that to think of nothing but her new little

baby; she had hardly appeared to remember either her husband or her

little daughter that lay dead in Brigham churchyard—at least so aunt

Fanny said, but she was a great talker, and my mother was very silent

by nature, and I think aunt Fanny may have been mistaken in believing

that my mother never thought of her husband and child just because she

never spoke about them. Aunt Fanny was older than my mother, and had a

way of treating her like a child; but, for all that, she was a kind,

warm-hearted creature, who thought more of her sister’s welfare than

she did of her own and it was on her bit of money that they principally

lived, and on what the two could earn by working for the great Glasgow

sewing-merchants. But by-and-by my mother’s eye-sight began to fail. It

was not that she was exactly blind, for she could see well enough to

guide herself about the house, and to do a good deal of domestic work;

but she could no longer do fine sewing and earn money. It must have

been with the heavy crying she had had in her day, for she was but a

young creature at this time, and as pretty a young woman, I have heard

people say, as any on the country side. She took it sadly to heart that

she could no longer gain anything towards the keep of herself and her

child. My aunt Fanny would fain have persuaded her that she had enough

to do in managing their cottage and minding Gregory; but my mother knew

that they were pinched, and that aunt Fanny herself had not as much to

eat, even of the commonest kind of food, as she could have done with;

and as for Gregory, he was not a strong lad, and needed, not more

food—for he always had enough, whoever went short—but better

nourishment, and more flesh-meat. One day—it was aunt Fanny who told me

all this about my poor mother, long after her death—as the sisters were

sitting together, aunt Fanny working, and my mother hushing Gregory to

sleep, William Preston, who was afterwards my father, came in. He was

reckoned an old bachelor; I suppose he was long past forty, and he was

one of the wealthiest farmers thereabouts, and had known my grandfather

well, and my mother and my aunt in their more prosperous days. He sat

down, and began to twirl his hat by way of being agreeable; my aunt

Fanny talked, and he listened and looked at my mother. But he said very

little, either on that visit, or on many another that he paid before he

spoke out what had been the real purpose of his calling so often all

along, and from the very first time he came to their house. One Sunday,

however, my aunt Fanny stayed away from church, and took care of the

child, and my mother went alone. When she came back, she ran straight

upstairs, without going into the kitchen to look at Gregory or speak

any word to her sister, and aunt Fanny heard her cry as if her heart

was breaking; so she went up and scolded her right well through the

bolted door, till at last she got her to open it. And then she threw

herself on my aunt’s neck, and told her that William Preston had asked

her to marry him, and had promised to take good charge of her boy, and

to let him want for nothing, neither in the way of keep nor of

education, and that she had consented. Aunt Fanny was a good deal

shocked at this; for, as I have said, she had often thought that my

mother had forgotten her first husband very quickly, and now here was

proof positive of it, if she could so soon think of marrying again.

Besides as aunt Fanny used to say, she herself would have been a far

more suitable match for a man of William Preston’s age than Helen, who,

though she was a widow, had not seen her four-and-twentieth summer.

However, as aunt Fanny said, they had not asked her advice; and there

was much to be said on the other side of the question. Helen’s eyesight

would never be good for much again, and as William Preston’s wife she

would never need to do anything, if she chose to sit with her hands

before her; and a boy was a great charge to a widowed mother; and now

there would be a decent steady man to see after him. So, by-and-by,

aunt Fanny seemed to take a brighter view of the marriage than did my

mother herself, who hardly ever looked up, and never smiled after the

day when she promised William Preston to be his wife. But much as she

had loved Gregory before, she seemed to love him more now. She was

continually talking to him when they were alone, though he was far too

young to understand her moaning words, or give her any comfort, except

by his caresses.

At last William Preston and she were wed; and she went to be mistress

of a well-stocked house, not above half-an-hour’s walk from where aunt

Fanny lived. I believe she did all that she could to please my father;

and a more dutiful wife, I have heard him himself say, could never have

been. But she did not love him, and he soon found it out. She loved

Gregory, and she did not love him. Perhaps, love would have come in

time, if he had been patient enough to wait; but it just turned him

sour to see how her eye brightened and her colour came at the sight of

that little child, while for him who had given her so much, she had

only gentle words as cold as ice. He got to taunt her with the

difference in her manner, as if that would bring love: and he took a

positive dislike to Gregory,—he was so jealous of the ready love that

always gushed out like a spring of fresh water when he came near. He

wanted her to love him more, and perhaps that was all well and good;

but he wanted her to love her child less, and that was an evil wish.

One day, he gave way to his temper, and cursed and swore at Gregory,

who had got into some mischief, as children will; my mother made some

excuse for him; my father said it was hard enough to have to keep

another man’s child, without having it perpetually held up in its

naughtiness by his wife, who ought to be always in the same mind that

he was; and so from little they got to more; and the end of it was,

that my mother took to her bed before her time, and I was born that

very day. My father was glad, and proud, and sorry, all in a breath;

glad and proud that a son was born to him; and sorry for his poor

wife’s state, and to think how his angry words had brought it on. But

he was a man who liked better to be angry than sorry, so he soon found

out that it was all Gregory’s fault, and owed him an additional grudge

for having hastened my birth. He had another grudge against him before

long. My mother began to sink the day after I was born. My father sent

to Carlisle for doctors, and would have coined his heart’s blood into

gold to save her, if that could have been; but it could not. My aunt

Fanny used to say sometimes, that she thought that Helen did not wish

to live, and so just let herself die away without trying to take hold

on life; but when I questioned her, she owned that my mother did all

the doctors bade her do, with the same sort of uncomplaining patience

with which she had acted through life. One of her last requests was to

have Gregory laid in her bed by my side, and then she made him take

hold of my little hand. Her husband came in while she was looking at us

so, and when he bent tenderly over her to ask her how she felt now, and

seemed to gaze on us two little half-brothers, with a grave sort of

kindness, she looked up in his face and smiled, almost her first smile

at him; and such a sweet smile! as more besides aunt Fanny have said.

In an hour she was dead. Aunt Fanny came to live with us. It was the

best thing that could be done. My father would have been glad to return

to his old mode of bachelor life, but what could he do with two little

children? He needed a woman to take care of him, and who so fitting as

his wife’s elder sister? So she had the charge of me from my birth; and

for a time I was weakly, as was but natural, and she was always beside

me, night and day watching over me, and my father nearly as anxious as

she. For his land had come down from father to son for more than three

hundred years, and he would have cared for me merely as his flesh and

blood that was to inherit the land after him. But he needed something

to love, for all that, to most people, he was a stern, hard man, and he

took to me as, I fancy, he had taken to no human being before—as he

might have taken to my mother, if she had had no former life for him to

be jealous of. I loved him back again right heartily. I loved all

around me, I believe, for everybody was kind to me. After a time, I

overcame my original weakness of constitution, and was just a bonny,

strong-looking lad whom every passer-by noticed, when my father took me

with him to the nearest town.

At home I was the darling of my aunt, the tenderly-beloved of my

father, the pet and plaything of the old domestics, the “young master”

of the farm-labourers, before whom I played many a lordly antic,

assuming a sort of authority which sat oddly enough, I doubt not, on

such a baby as I was.

Gregory was three years older than I. Aunt Fanny was always kind to him

in deed and in action, but she did not often think about him, she had

fallen so completely into the habit of being engrossed by me, from the

fact of my having come into her charge as a delicate baby. My father

never got over his grudging dislike to his stepson, who had so

innocently wrestled with him for the possession of my mother’s heart. I

mistrust me, too, that my father always considered him as the cause of

my mother’s death and my early delicacy; and utterly unreasonable as

this may seem, I believe my father rather cherished his feeling of

alienation to my brother as a duty, than strove to repress it. Yet not

for the world would my father have grudged him anything that money

could purchase. That was, as it were, in the bond when he had wedded my

mother. Gregory was lumpish and loutish, awkward and ungainly, marring

whatever he meddled in, and many a hard word and sharp scolding did he

get from the people about the farm, who hardly waited till my father’s

back was turned before they rated the stepson. I am ashamed—my heart is

sore to think how I fell into the fashion of the family, and slighted

my poor orphan step-brother. I don’t think I ever scouted him, or was

wilfully ill-natured to him; but the habit of being considered in all

things, and being treated as something uncommon and superior, made me

insolent in my prosperity, and I exacted more than Gregory was always

willing to grant, and then, irritated, I sometimes repeated the

disparaging words I had heard others use with regard to him, without

fully understanding their meaning. Whether he did or not I cannot tell.

I am afraid he did. He used to turn silent and quiet—sullen and sulky,

my father thought it: stupid, aunt Fanny used to call it. But every one

said he was stupid and dull, and this stupidity and dullness grew upon

him. He would sit without speaking a word, sometimes, for hours; then

my father would bid him rise and do some piece of work, maybe, about

the farm. And he would take three or four tellings before he would go.

When we were sent to school, it was all the same. He could never be

made to remember his lessons; the school-master grew weary of scolding

and flogging, and at last advised my father just to take him away, and

set him to some farm-work that might not be above his comprehension. I

think he was more gloomy and stupid than ever after this, yet he was

not a cross lad; he was patient and good-natured, and would try to do a

kind turn for any one, even if they had been scolding or cuffing him

not a minute before. But very often his attempts at kindness ended in

some mischief to the very people he was trying to serve, owing to his

awkward, ungainly ways. I suppose I was a clever lad; at any rate, I

always got plenty of praise; and was, as we called it, the cock of the

school. The schoolmaster said I could learn anything I chose, but my

father, who had no great learning himself, saw little use in much for

me, and took me away betimes, and kept me with him about the farm.

Gregory was made into a kind of shepherd, receiving his training under

old Adam, who was nearly past his work. I think old Adam was almost the

first person who had a good opinion of Gregory. He stood to it that my

brother had good parts, though he did not rightly know how to bring

them out; and, for knowing the bearings of the Fells, he said he had

never seen a lad like him. My father would try to bring Adam round to

speak of Gregory’s faults and shortcomings; but, instead of that, he

would praise him twice as much, as soon as he found out what was my

father’s object.

One winter-time, when I was about sixteen, and Gregory nineteen, I was

sent by my father on an errand to a place about seven miles distant by

the road, but only about four by the Fells. He bade me return by the

road, whichever way I took in going, for the evenings closed in early,

and were often thick and misty; besides which, old Adam, now paralytic

and bedridden, foretold a downfall of snow before long. I soon got to

my journey’s end, and soon had done my business; earlier by an hour, I

thought, than my father had expected, so I took the decision of the way

by which I would return into my own hands, and set off back again over

the Fells, just as the first shades of evening began to fall. It looked

dark and gloomy enough; but everything was so still that I thought I

should have plenty of time to get home before the snow came down. Off I

set at a pretty quick pace. But night came on quicker. The right path

was clear enough in the day-time, although at several points two or

three exactly similar diverged from the same place; but when there was

a good light, the traveller was guided by the sight of distant

objects,—a piece of rock,—a fall in the ground—which were quite

invisible to me now. I plucked up a brave heart, however, and took what

seemed to me the right road. It was wrong, nevertheless, and led me

whither I knew not, but to some wild boggy moor where the solitude

seemed painful, intense, as if never footfall of man had come thither

to break the silence. I tried to shout—with the dimmest possible hope

of being heard—rather to reassure myself by the sound of my own voice;

but my voice came husky and short, and yet it dismayed me; it seemed so

weird and strange, in that noiseless expanse of black darkness.

Suddenly the air was filled thick with dusky flakes, my face and hands

were wet with snow. It cut me off from the slightest knowledge of where

I was, for I lost every idea of the direction from which I had come, so

that I could not even retrace my steps; it hemmed me in, thicker,

thicker, with a darkness that might be felt. The boggy soil on which I

stood quaked under me if I remained long in one place, and yet I dared

not move far. All my youthful hardiness seemed to leave me at once. I

was on the point of crying, and only very shame seemed to keep it down.

To save myself from shedding tears, I shouted—terrible, wild shouts for

bare life they were. I turned sick as I paused to listen; no answering

sound came but the unfeeling echoes. Only the noiseless, pitiless snow

kept falling thicker, thicker—faster, faster! I was growing numb and

sleepy. I tried to move about, but I dared not go far, for fear of the

precipices which, I knew, abounded in certain places on the Fells. Now

and then, I stood still and shouted again; but my voice was getting

choked with tears, as I thought of the desolate helpless death I was to

die, and how little they at home, sitting round the warm, red, bright

fire, wotted what was become of me,—and how my poor father would grieve

for me—it would surely kill him—it would break his heart, poor old man!

Aunt Fanny too—was this to be the end of all her cares for me? I began

to review my life in a strange kind of vivid dream, in which the

various scenes of my few boyish years passed before me like visions. In

a pang of agony, caused by such remembrance of my short life, I

gathered up my strength and called out once more, a long, despairing,

wailing cry, to which I had no hope of obtaining any answer, save from

the echoes around, dulled as the sound might be by the thickened air.

To my surprise I heard a cry—almost as long, as wild as mine—so wild

that it seemed unearthly, and I almost thought it must be the voice of

some of the mocking spirits of the Fells, about whom I had heard so

many tales. My heart suddenly began to beat fast and loud. I could not

reply for a minute or two. I nearly fancied I had lost the power of

utterance. Just at this moment a dog barked. Was it Lassie’s bark—my

brother’s collie?—an ugly enough brute, with a white, ill-looking face,

that my father always kicked whenever he saw it, partly for its own

demerits, partly because it belonged to my brother. On such occasions,

Gregory would whistle Lassie away, and go off and sit with her in some

outhouse. My father had once or twice been ashamed of himself, when the

poor collie had yowled out with the suddenness of the pain, and had

relieved himself of his self-reproach by blaming my brother, who, he

said, had no notion of training a dog, and was enough to ruin any

collie in Christendom with his stupid way of allowing them to lie by

the kitchen fire. To all which Gregory would answer nothing, nor even

seem to hear, but go on looking absent and moody.

Yes! there again! It was Lassie’s bark! Now or never! I lifted up my

voice and shouted “Lassie! Lassie! for God’s sake, Lassie!” Another

moment, and the great white-faced Lassie was curving and gambolling

with delight round my feet and legs, looking, however, up in my face

with her intelligent, apprehensive eyes, as if fearing lest I might

greet her with a blow, as I had done oftentimes before. But I cried

with gladness, as I stooped down and patted her. My mind was sharing in

my body’s weakness, and I could not reason, but I knew that help was at

hand. A gray figure came more and more distinctly out of the thick,

close-pressing darkness. It was Gregory wrapped in his maud.

“Oh, Gregory!” said I, and I fell upon his neck, unable to speak

another word. He never spoke much, and made me no answer for some

little time. Then he told me we must move, we must walk for the dear

life—we must find our road home, if possible; but we must move, or we

should be frozen to death.

“Don’t you know the way home?” asked I.

“I thought I did when I set out, but I am doubtful now. The snow blinds

me, and I am feared that in moving about just now, I have lost the

right gait homewards.”

He had his shepherd’s staff with him, and by dint of plunging it before

us at every step we took—clinging close to each other, we went on

safely enough, as far as not falling down any of the steep rocks, but

it was slow, dreary work. My brother, I saw, was more guided by Lassie

and the way she took than anything else, trusting to her instinct. It

was too dark to see far before us; but he called her back continually,

and noted from what quarter she returned, and shaped our slow steps

accordingly. But the tedious motion scarcely kept my very blood from

freezing. Every bone, every fibre in my body seemed first to ache, and

then to swell, and then to turn numb with the intense cold. My brother

bore it better than I, from having been more out upon the hills. He did

not speak, except to call Lassie. I strove to be brave, and not

complain; but now I felt the deadly fatal sleep stealing over me.

“I can go no farther,” I said, in a drowsy tone. I remember I suddenly

became dogged and resolved. Sleep I would, were it only for five

minutes. If death were to be the consequence, sleep I would. Gregory

stood still. I suppose, he recognized the peculiar phase of suffering

to which I had been brought by the cold.

“It is of no use,” said he, as if to himself. “We are no nearer home

than we were when we started, as far as I can tell. Our only chance is

in Lassie. Here! roll thee in my maud, lad, and lay thee down on this

sheltered side of this bit of rock. Creep close under it, lad, and I’ll

lie by thee, and strive to keep the warmth in us. Stay! hast gotten

aught about thee they’ll know at home?”

I felt him unkind thus to keep me from slumber, but on his repeating

the question, I pulled out my pocket-handkerchief, of some showy

pattern, which Aunt Fanny had hemmed for me—Gregory took it, and tied

it round Lassie’s neck.

“Hie thee, Lassie, hie thee home!” And the white-faced ill-favoured

brute was off like a shot in the darkness. Now I might lie down—now I

might sleep. In my drowsy stupor I felt that I was being tenderly

covered up by my brother; but what with I neither knew nor cared—I was

too dull, too selfish, too numb to think and reason, or I might have

known that in that bleak bare place there was nought to wrap me in,

save what was taken off another. I was glad enough when he ceased his

cares and lay down by me. I took his hand.

“Thou canst not remember, lad, how we lay together thus by our dying

mother. She put thy small, wee hand in mine—I reckon she sees us now;

and belike we shall soon be with her. Anyhow, God’s will be done.”

“Dear Gregory,” I muttered, and crept nearer to him for warmth. He was

talking still, and again about our mother, when I fell asleep. In an

instant—or so it seemed—there were many voices about me—many faces

hovering round me—the sweet luxury of warmth was stealing into every

part of me. I was in my own little bed at home. I am thankful to say,

my first word was “Gregory?”

A look passed from one to another—my father’s stern old face strove in

vain to keep its sternness; his mouth quivered, his eyes filled slowly

with unwonted tears.

“I would have given him half my land—I would have blessed him as my

son,—oh God! I would have knelt at his feet, and asked him to forgive

my hardness of heart.”

I heard no more. A whirl came through my brain, catching me back to

death.

I came slowly to my consciousness, weeks afterwards. My father’s hair

was white when I recovered, and his hands shook as he looked into my

face.

We spoke no more of Gregory. We could not speak of him; but he was

strangely in our thoughts. Lassie came and went with never a word of

blame; nay, my father would try to stroke her, but she shrank away; and

he, as if reproved by the poor dumb beast, would sigh, and be silent

and abstracted for a time.

Aunt Fanny—always a talker—told me all. How, on that fatal night, my

father,—irritated by my prolonged absence, and probably more anxious

than he cared to show, had been fierce and imperious, even beyond his

wont, to Gregory; had upbraided him with his father’s poverty, his own

stupidity which made his services good for nothing—for so, in spite of

the old shepherd, my father always chose to consider them. At last,

Gregory had risen up, and whistled Lassie out with him—poor Lassie,

crouching underneath his chair for fear of a kick or a blow. Some time

before, there had been some talk between my father and my aunt

respecting my return; and when aunt Fanny told me all this, she said

she fancied that Gregory might have noticed the coming storm, and gone

out silently to meet me. Three hours afterwards, when all were running

about in wild alarm, not knowing whither to go in search of me—not even

missing Gregory, or heeding his absence, poor fellow—poor, poor

fellow!—Lassie came home, with my handkerchief tied round her neck.

They knew and understood, and the whole strength of the farm was turned

out to follow her, with wraps, and blankets, and brandy, and every

thing that could be thought of. I lay in chilly sleep, but still alive,

beneath the rock that Lassie guided them to. I was covered over with my

brother’s plaid, and his thick shepherd’s coat was carefully wrapped

round my feet. He was in his shirt-sleeves—his arm thrown over me—a

quiet smile (he had hardly ever smiled in life) upon his still, cold

face.

My father’s last words were, “God forgive me my hardness of heart

towards the fatherless child!”

And what marked the depth of his feeling of repentance, perhaps more

than all, considering the passionate love he bore my mother, was this:

we found a paper of directions after his death, in which he desired

that he might lie at the foot of the grave, in which, by his desire,

poor Gregory had been laid with OUR MOTHER.