THE HAUNTED CHAPEL.
"The chapel was a ruin old,
That stood so low, in lonely glen.
The gothic windows high and dark
Were hung with ivy, brier, and yew."
The Haunted Chapel to which Mr. and Mrs. Berners were going was in a
dark and lonely gorge on the other side of the mountain across Black
River, but near its rise in the Black Torrent. To reach the chapel, they
would have to ride three miles up the shore and ford the river, and then
pass over the opposite mountain. The road was as difficult and dangerous
as it was lonely and unfrequented.
Lyon and Sybil rode on together in silence, bending their heads before
the driving mist, and keeping close to the banks of the river until they
should reach the fording place.
At length Sybil's anguish broke forth in words.
"Oh! Lyon, is this nightmare? Or is it true that I am so suddenly cast
down from my secure place, as to become in one hour a fugitive from my
home, a fugitive from justice! Oh! Lyon, speak to me. Break the spell
that binds my senses. Wake me up. Wake me up," she wildly exclaimed.
"Dear Sybil, be patient, calm, and firm. This is a terrible calamity.
But to meet calamity bravely, is the test of a true high soul. You are
compelled to seek safety in flight, to conceal yourself for the present,
to avoid a train of unmerited humiliations that even the consciousness
of innocence would not enable you to bear. But you have only to be
patient, and a few days or weeks must bring the truth to light, and
restore you to your home."
"But flight itself looks like guilt; will be taken as additional
evidence of guilt," groaned Sybil.
"Not so. Not when it is understood that the overwhelming weight of
deceptive circumstantial evidence and deceptive direct testimony had so
compromised you as to render flight your only means of salvation. Be
brave, my own Sybil. And now, here we are at the ford. Take care of
yourself. Let me lead your horse."
"No, no; that would embarrass you, without helping me. Go on before, and
I will follow."
Lyon Berners plunged into the stream. Sybil drew up her long skirts and
dashed in after him. And they were both soon splashing through the Black
River, blacker now than ever with the double darkness of night and mist.
A few minutes of brave effort on the part of horses and riders brought
them all in safety to the opposite bank, up which they successfully
struggled, and found themselves upon firm ground.
"The worst part of the journey is over, dear Sybil. Now I will ride in
advance and find the pass, and do you keep close behind me," said Lyon
Berners, riding slowly along the foot of the mountain until he came to a
dark opening, which he entered, calling Sybil to follow him.
It was one of those fearful passes so frequently to be found in the
Allegheny Mountains, and which I have described so often that I may be
excused from describing this. They went in, cautiously picking their way
through this deeper darkness, and trusting much to the instinct of their
mountain-trained steeds to take them safely through. An hour's slow,
careful, breathless riding brought them out upon the other side of the
mountain.
As they emerged from the dark labyrinth, Lyon Berners pulled up his
horse to breathe, and to look about him. Sybil followed his example.
Day was now dawning over the broken and precipitous country.
"Where is that chapel of which you speak? I have heard of it all my
life, but I have never seen it; and beyond the fact that it is on this
side of the mountain, and not far from the Black Torrent, I know nothing
about it," said Sybil.
"It is near the Black Torrent; almost under the bed of the cascade, in
fact. And we shall have to turn our horses' heads up stream again to
reach it," answered Lyon Berners.
"You know exactly where it is; you have been there, perhaps?" inquired
Sybil.
"I have seen it but once in my life. But I can easily find it. It is not
a frequented place of resort, dear Sybil. But that makes it all the
safer as a place of concealment for you," said Lyon Berners, as he
started his horse and rode on.
Sybil followed him closely.
Day was broadening over the mountains, and bringing out a thousand
prismatic colors from the autumn foliage of the trees, gemmed now with
the rain drops that had fallen during the night.
"It will be quite clear when the sun rises," said Lyon, encouragingly to
Sybil, as they went on.
He was right. Sunrise in the mountains is sometimes almost as sudden in
its effects as sunrise at sea. The eastern horizon had been ruddy for
sometime, but when the sun suddenly came up from behind the mountain,
the mist lifted itself, rolled into soft white wreaths and crowned the
summits, while all the land below broke out into an effulgence of light,
color, and glory.
But people who are flying for life do not pause to enjoy scenery, even
of the finest. Lyon and Sybil rode on towards the upper banks of the
Black River, hearing at every step the thunder of the Black Torrent, as
it leaped from rock to rock in its passionate descent to the valley.
At length they came to a narrow opening in the side of the mountain.
"Here is a path I know," said Mr. Berners, "though its entrance is so
concealed by undergrowth as to be almost impossible to discover."
Lyon Berners dismounted, and began to grope for the entrance in a
thicket of wild-rose bushes, that were now closely covered with scarlet
seed-pods that glowed, and raindrops that sparkled, in the rays of the
morning sun.
At length he found the path, and then he returned to his wife, and said:
"We cannot take our horses through the thicket, dear Sybil. You will
have to dismount and remain concealed in here until I lead them back
across the river, where I will turn them loose. There will be a great
advantage gained by that move. Our horses being found on the other side,
will mislead our pursuers on a false scent."
While Lyon Berners spoke, he assisted his wife to alight from her
saddle, and guided her to the entrance of the thicket.
"This path has not been trodden for a score of years, I can well
believe. Just go far enough to be out of sight of any chance spy, and
there remain until I return. I shall not be absent over half an hour,"
said Mr. Berners, as he took leave of Sybil.
She sank wearily down upon a fragment of a rock, and prepared to await
his return.
He mounted his own horse, and led hers, and so went his way down the
stream to the fording place.
He successfully accomplished the difficult task of taking both horses
over the river to the opposite bank, where he turned them loose.
Next with a strong pocket jack-knife he cut a leaping pole from a
sapling near, and went still farther up the stream to the rapids, where,
by a skilful use of his pole and dexterous leaping from rock to rock, he
was enabled to recross the river almost dry-shod.
He rejoined Sybil, whom he found just where he had left her.
She was sitting on a piece of rock, with her head bowed upon her hands.
"Have I been gone long? Were you anxious or lonely, dearest?" he
inquired, as he gave her his hand to assist her in rising.
"Oh, no! I take no note of time! But oh! Lyon, _when shall I wake?_" she
exclaimed in wild despair.
"What is it you say, dear Sybil?" he gently asked.
"When shall I wake--wake from this ghastly nightmare, in which I seem to
myself to be a fugitive from justice! an exile from my home! a
houseless, hunted stranger in the land! It _is_ a nightmare! It can
_not_ be real, you know! Oh, that I could wake!"
"Dear Sybil, collect your faculties. Do not let despair drive you to
distraction. Be mistress of yourself in this trying situation," said
Lyon Berners, gravely.
"But oh, Heaven! the crushing weight and stunning suddenness of this
blow! It is like death! like perdition!" exclaimed Sybil, pressing her
hands to her head.
Lyon Berners could only gaze on her with infinite compassion, expressed
in every lineament of his eloquent countenance.
She observed this, and quickly, with a great effort, from a strong
resolution, throwing her hands apart like one who disperses a cloud, and
casts off a weight, she said:
"It is over! I will not be nervous or hysterical again. I have brought
trouble on you as well as on myself, dear Lyon; but I will show you that
I can bear it. I will look this calamity firmly in the face, and come
what may, I will not drag you down by sinking under it."
And so saying, she gave him her hand, and arose and followed him as he
pushed on before, breaking down or bearing aside the branches that
overhung and obstructed the path.
Half an hour of this difficult and tedious travelling brought them down
into a deep dark dell, in the midst of which stood the "Haunted Chapel."
It was an old colonial church, a monument of the earliest settlement in
the valley. It was now a wild and beautiful ruin, with its surroundings
all glowing with color and sparkling with light. In itself it was a
small Gothic edifice, built of the dark iron-grey rock dug from the
mountain quarries. Its walls, window-frames, and roof were all still
standing, and were almost entirely covered by creepers, among which the
wild rose vine, now full of scarlet berries, was conspicuous.
A broken stonewall overgrown with brambles enclosed the old church-yard,
where a few fallen and mouldering gravestones, half sunk among the dead
leaves, still remained.
All around the church, on the bottom of the dell, and up the sides of
the steeps, were thickly clustered forest-trees, now glowing refulgent
in their gorgeous autumn livery of crimson and gold, scarlet and purple.
A little rill, an offspring of the Black Torrent, tumbled down the side
of the mountain behind the church, and ran frolicking irreverently
through the old graveyard. The great cascade was out of sight, though
very near for its thunder filled the air.
"See," said Sybil, pointing to the little singing rill; "Nature is
unsympathetic. She can laugh and frolic over the dead, and, besides, the
suffering."
"It would seem, then, that Nature is wiser as well as gladder than we
are; since she, who is transitory, rejoices while we, who are immortal,
pine," answered Lyon Berners, pleased that any thought should win her
from the contemplation of her misfortune.
He then led the way into the old ruined church through the door frames,
from which the doors had long been lost. The stone floor, and the stone
altar still remained; all else within the building was gone.
Lyon Berners looked all around, up and down the interior, from the
arched ceiling to the side-walls with their window spaces and the
flagstone floor with its mouldy seams. The wild creeping vines nearly
filled the window spaces, and shaded the interior more beautifully than
carved shutters, velvet curtains, or even stained glass could have done.
The flagstone floor was strewn with fallen leaves that had drifted in.
Up and down, in every nook and corner of the roof and windows, last
year's empty birds nests perched. And here and there along the walls,
the humble "mason's" little clay house stuck.
But there seemed no resting place for the weary travellers, until Sybil,
with a serious smile, went up to the altar and sank upon the lowest
step, and beckoned Lyon to join her, saying:
"At the foot of the altar, dear Lyon, there was sanctuary in the olden
times. We seem to realize the idea now."
"You are cold. Your clothes are all damp. Stop! I must try to raise a
fire. But you, in the meantime, must walk briskly up and down, to keep
from being chilled to death," answered Lyon Berners very practically, as
he proceeded to gather dry leaves and twigs that had drifted into the
interior of the old church.
He piled them up in the centre of the floor, just under the break in
the roof, and then he went out and gathered sticks and brushwood, and
built up a little mound. Lastly he took a box of matches from his pocket
and struck a light, and kindled the fire.
The dried leaves and twigs crackled and blazed, and the smoke ascended
in a straight column to the hole in the roof through which it escaped.
"Come, dear Sybil, and walk around the fire until your clothes are dry,
and then sit down by it. This fire, with its smoke ascending and
escaping through that aperture, is just such a fire as our forefathers
in the old, old times enjoyed, as the best thing of the kind they knew
anything about. Kings had no better," said Lyon Berners, cheerfully.
Sybil approached the fire, but instead of walking around it, she sat
down on the flagstones before it. She looked very weary, thoroughly
prostrated in body, soul, and spirit.
"What are we waiting for, in this horrible pause?" she inquired at
length.
"We are waiting for Pendleton. He is to bring us news, as soon as he can
slip away and steal to us without fear of detection," answered Lyon
Berners.
"Oh, Heaven! what words have crept into our conversation about ourselves
and friends too! 'Steal,' 'fear,' 'detection!' Oh, Lyon!--But there, I
will say no more. I will _not_ revert to the horror and degradation of
this position again, if I can help it," groaned Sybil.
"My wife, you are very faint. Try to take some nourishment," urged Lyon,
as he began to open the small parcel of refreshments thoughtfully
provided by Captain Pendleton.
"No, no, I cannot swallow a morsel. My throat is parched and
constricted," she answered.
"If I only had a little coffee for you," said Lyon.
"If we only had liberty to go home again," sighed Sybil, "then we
should have all things. But there; indeed I will not backslide into weak
complaints again," she added, compunctuously.
"Modify your grief, dear Sybil, but do not attempt entirely to suppress
it. Nature is not to be so restrained," said Lyon Berners, kindly.
There was silence between them for a little while, during which Sybil
still sat down upon the flagstones, with her elbows resting on her
knees, and her head bowed upon the palms of her hands; and Lyon stood up
near her with an attitude and expression of grave and sad reflection and
self-control.
At length Sybil spoke:
"Oh, Lyon! who could have murdered that poor woman, and brought us into
such a horrible position?"
"My theory of the tragedy is this, dear Sybil: that some robber, during
the confusion of the fancy ball, found an opportunity of entering and
concealing himself in Mrs. Blondelle's room; that his first purpose
might have been simple robbery, but that, being discovered by Mrs.
Blondelle, and being alarmed lest her shrieks should bring the house
upon him and occasion his capture, he impulsively sought to stop her
cries by death; and then that, hearing your swift approach down the
stairs leading into her room, he made his escape through the window."
"But then the windows were all found, as they had been left, fastened,"
objected Sybil.
"But, dearest, you must remember that these windows, having spring
bolts, may be fastened by being pushed to from the outside. It is quite
possible for a robber, escaping through them, to close them in this
manner to conceal his flight."
"That must have been the case in this instance. Everybody must see now
that that was the manner in which the miscreant escaped. Oh, Lyon! I
think we were wrong to have left home."
"No, dear Sybil, we were not. Our only hope is in the discovery of the
real murderer, and that may be a work of time; meanwhile we wish to be
free, even at the price of being called fugitives from justice."
"Lyon, that poor child! If we ever go home again, we must adopt and
educate him."
"We will do so, Sybil."
"For, oh! Lyon, although I am entirely innocent of that most heinous
crime, and entirely incapable of it, yet, when I remember how my rage
burned against that poor woman only an hour before her death, I feel--I
feel as if I were half guilty of it! as if--Heaven pardon me!--I might,
in some moment of madness, have been wholly guilty of it! Lyon, I
shudder at myself!" cried Sybil, growing very pale.
"You should thank Heaven that you have been saved from such mortal sin,
dear wife, and also pray Heaven always to save you from your own fierce
passions," said Mr. Berners, very gravely.
"I have breathed that thanksgiving and that prayer with every breath I
have drawn. And I will continue to do so. But, oh! Lyon, all my
passions, all my sufferings grew out of my great love for you."
"I can well believe it, dear wife. And I myself have not been free from
blame; though in reality your jealousy was very causeless, Sybil."
"I know that now," said Sybil, sadly.
"And now, dearest, I would like to make 'a clean breast of it,' as the
sinners say, and tell you all--the whole 'head and front of my
offending' with that poor dead woman," said Mr. Berners, seating himself
on the floor beside his wife.
Sybil did not repel his offered confidence, for though her jealousy had
died a violent death, she was still very much interested in hearing his
confession.
Then Lyon Berners told her everything, up to the very last moment when
she had surprised them in the first and last kiss that had ever passed
between them.
"But in all, and through all, my heart, dear wife, was loyal in its love
to you," he concluded.
"I know that, dearest Lyon--I know that well," replied Sybil.
And with that tenderness towards the faults of the dead, which all
magnanimous natures share, she forbore to say, or even to think, how
utterly unprincipled had been the course of Rosa Blondelle from the
first to the last of their acquaintance with that vain and frivolous
coquette.
Sybil was now almost sinking with weariness. Lyon perceived her
condition, and said:
"Remain here, dear Sybil, while I go and try to collect some boughs and
leaves to make you a couch. The sun must have dried up the moisture by
this time."
And he went out and soon returned with his arms full of boughs, which he
spread upon the flagstones. Then he took off his own overcoat and
covered them with it.
"Now, dear Sybil," he said, "if you will divest yourself of your long
riding skirt, you may turn that into a blanket to cover with, and so
sleep quite comfortably."
With a grave smile Sybil followed his advice, and then she laid herself
down on the rude couch he had spread for her. No sooner had her head
touched it, than she sank into that deep sleep of prostration which is
more like a swoon than a slumber.
Lyon Berners covered her carefully with the long riding skirt, and stood
watching her for some minutes. But she neither spoke nor stirred;
indeed, she scarcely breathed.
Then, after still more carefully tucking the covering around her, he
left her, and walked out to explore the surroundings of the chapel.