although I knew that he was on his way home. But he had remained in
Brazil longer than he intended, owing to the death from yellow fever of
one of the surveying party, so that Herbert had been induced to renew
his engagement for another six months, to do the dead man’s work. With
painful suspense and anxiety I had for days been scanning the papers
for a report of the vessel which was bearing him to me, for she was
overdue, but the weather at sea had been fearful, and old seamen said
that vessels making for the Channel would have a hard time of it. As
she was to call at Plymouth I persuaded my father to take me there in
order that we might welcome Herbert as soon as ever he touched English
soil again. As papa denied me nothing, he readily consented to this,
but it was not until three days before Christmas that the welcome news
came to me that the vessel had entered the Sound.
Need I dwell upon the joy I experienced when, after our long
separation, I felt Herbert’s dear arms around me once more. How
handsome and manly he looked! The sun had tanned him brown, the fine
sea voyage home had braced him up after the enervating Brazilian
climate, and he declared that he had never been in better health in
his life. He was possessed of a wonderful constitution, and during the
whole time he had been in Brazil had never had a day’s illness.
Of course I told him that, selfish as it seemed, I was going to keep
him for Christmas Day, and on New Year’s Day I was to become his
bride, according to the long prior arrangement. He said that it was
necessary for him to go to London to see his friends and to make
some preparations, but he promised that he would be with me again on
Christmas Eve. And so I parted from him, and as we were to meet again
so soon, and in less than a fortnight he was to be my husband, I was
verily at that moment one of the happiest girls alive.
As my father was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of old-fashioned
English hospitality he generally kept open house at Christmas time,
and this being our first Christmas at the Grange we had a large number
of visitors, so that the house was quite full. In order that Herbert,
when he came, might be fittingly bestowed as the bridegroom-elect, we
decided that he should occupy the haunted chamber, for it certainly was
the best sleeping room in the house; and though some silly and unusual
nervousness--as I believed then--had prevented my occupying it as I
intended, neither I nor my father attached the slightest importance to
the supernatural stories current in the district. With my own hands
I arranged the room for Herbert, filling it with nick-nacks and odds
and ends, and everything I could think of that was likely to give him
pleasure or add to his comfort.
Christmas Eve of that year was marked by a snowstorm such as, the
country people said, had not been known for forty years. The train
that brought my love from London was very late, and I had become quite
anxious, but all anxiety was forgotten when I helped him to divest
himself of his snow-laden topcoat in the hall, and taking me in his
arms he kissed me in his hearty, cheery way. We were a very jovial
party, and that night was a happy, gladsome night, the memory of which
will never leave me. Nor shall I ever forget dear Herbert’s words, as
he kissed me good-night on the stairs as the great hall clock struck
one.
‘Darling little woman,’ he whispered, ‘what joy, what happiness, what
ecstasy, to think that in a week’s time you will belong to me!’
I had no words. I could only sigh in token of the supreme happiness
that filled my heart to overflowing.
Christmas morning broke bright, clear, and beautiful. The snow had
ceased to fall, and a hard frost had set in. It was veritable Canadian
weather--crisp, crystalline, and invigorating. As soon as breakfast was
over Herbert took me on one side and said:
‘You know, Lydia, I am about one of the most practical men that you
could find in a day’s march, and hitherto I have been without, as I
believe, a scrap of superstition in my composition. But, by Jove!
after last night’s experience I’ll be hanged if I don’t believe with
Shakespeare that there are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in our philosophy.’
At these words I turned deadly pale. I scarcely knew why, but such was
the case, and I gasped out:
‘What--what do you mean?’
‘Well,’ he answered, with a laugh that wasn’t sincere, for it was
obviously forced, ‘I believe that room in which I slept is positively
haunted.’
Now, I may state here that not a word of any kind had been mentioned to
Herbert about the stories that were current with regard to the house.
Both my father and I had resolved that the subject should be strictly
avoided, so that none of our lady guests might be alarmed. As he spoke,
I looked up into his brown face, and I saw that it was filled with a
puzzled and troubled expression, while his splendid eyes had an unusual
expression in them.
‘Tell me,’ I said quickly, ‘what did you see or hear?’
‘Oh, don’t let us talk about it,’ he answered lightly. ‘Perhaps, after
all, I have simply been dreaming.’
‘Yes, yes--tell me--you must tell me, Herbert,’ I exclaimed. ‘You know
that I am strong-nerved.’
He seemed to hesitate; but laughing again, though it was the same
forced laugh, he said:
‘Well, the fact is, if ever I saw a raven in my life, I saw one last
night, only it was white.’
At this I almost fainted, and he caught me by the arm. I made a
desperate effort, however, and recovered myself.
‘Go on; tell me all about it,’ I said peremptorily.
And the sum and substance of what he told me was this. He had seen
a white raven, or what appeared to be a white raven, flying round
and round the room. It made no noise, which amazed him and, as he
confessed, startled him. He tried to catch this mysterious and
noiseless bird, but it had no substantiality--it was an airy phantom;
but once or twice, when he appeared to grasp it, a deep groan and sigh
broke upon his ears.
Although a strange fear seemed to turn my heart cold, I endeavoured not
to show it, nor could I bring myself to tell my lover of the tradition
so common all over the country side about the murdered lady and the
White Raven.
If the extraordinary apparition had any real effect on Herbert, he soon
shook it off, and his hearty ringing laughter made music in the house,
and his eyes were filled again with the old look of love with which
they always greeted me. It had been arranged that the gentlemen were to
form a shooting party, to go out on to the moor and try and bag some
wild ducks. At first I was disposed to dissuade Herbert from going--ah,
would that I had done so!--but it seemed to me weak and foolish.
Moreover, he was so anxious to go for the novelty of the thing, and so
I whispered in his ear as he was standing on the steps:
‘Take care of yourself, love, for my sake.’
‘Of course I will, darling; and you do the same,’ he answered cheerily.
I watched his manly form until he was hidden from my sight by the
trees. He looked splendid in his perfect health, and his magnificent
physique was set off to every possible advantage by the superb coat of
Russian sable that he wore. How proud I felt of him! for truly he was a
man to be proud of.
Three hours later the party returned, minus Herbert. They said he had
got separated from them in some way, and they quite thought he had come
back. Although a sense of something being wrong overcame me for the
moment, I tried to think that it was simply nervousness. Of course,
the gentlemen at once hurried back to the moor, and when they came
again they brought my lover mangled and shattered, and, as it seemed
then, in the agony of death. Oh, my God! how awful it was! I thought
I should have gone raving mad. It appears that Herbert had been found
in a hollow, whither he had fallen by the breaking away of the snow
under his feet. In his fall he had not only fractured an arm and some
of his ribs, but his gun had gone off full in his face, and, besides
disfiguring him frightfully, had destroyed both his eyes.
It can be imagined what a terrible shock it was to the household,
and how the joy and mirth were turned to lamentations and moaning.
Doctors were procured, but they pronounced the sufferer’s condition as
critical; they left us no room to hope that the sight would be restored
under any circumstances.
Ah, what a fearful dark Christmas that became to me! I think in my
agony of mind I cursed my fate, my God; and how I hated the house, and
shuddered as I thought of the horrible room where my beloved had seen
the strange apparition of the White Raven.
Up to a short time previously, it would have been difficult to have
found a girl more sceptical than I was about anything that savoured of
superstition; but now I was filled with a strange dread, and feared my
own shadow.
When I saw old Jack for the first time after the accident, he said to
me:
‘Is it true, miss, that Meester Wilton’s been asleeping in the haunted
room?’
‘Yes, Jack; it is,’ I answered, in heartbroken tones.
‘Then, maybe, he’s seen the White Raven?’
‘He has,’ I replied; whereupon I thought the old man would have fallen
down in a fit, so scared did he seem; and he mumbled out:
‘God bless us and preserve us all! I wouldn’t sleep in that room, miss,
not if Queen Victoriey was to give me her golden crown. That there
room, miss, ought to be shut up, and no one ever allowed to go anigh it
agen.’
The shadow that had so suddenly and cruelly fallen upon us rendered
the Christmas festivities out of the question, and most of the guests
sorrowfully departed the following day. Many long weeks ensued--dark,
torturing weeks to me, for my loved one was suspended, as it were, by
a single hair over that profound abyss into which all living atoms
finally fall, and from which no sound ever comes to break the mystery.
But if they were dark weeks to me, how much, how infinitely, how
unspeakably darker to him who, in the pride of his manhood, had been
deprived of the power of ever again beholding the wonders of God’s
creation. And yet he murmured not, nor uttered complaint nor groan. To
me the one consolation I had in this hideous calamity was being near
him, being able to tend him, and hear his voice, which had lost none of
its old cheerfulness. Slowly, very slowly, as the summer drifted by, he
began to regain some of his lost strength, and we led him out beneath
the trees and into the sunlight, though it was ever, ever night to him,
for not a glimmer of vision remained. And as I looked at his sightless
orbs and his maimed and torn face, from which no human power could
banish the cruel and ghastly scars, I hated the Grange with a hate that
hath no words.
One day he asked to be taken to where my father was, and, putting his
arm in mine, we entered my father’s presence.
‘Mr. Stainsby,’ he began, with an attempt at a smile, ‘I am not
quite the same man I was when I came here last Christmas. But in my
misfortune an angel has watched over me in the person of your daughter,
who, but for this mishap, would now have been my wife. She has brought
me out of the shadow of the grave, and I owe a duty to her no less than
to you. That duty is to release her from all promises and vows, and
leave her perfectly free to bestow her heart on someone who is whole
and sound. I am now but a battered wreck, and all I can hope for is to
break up soon and drift away into the great and mysterious ocean of
eternal silence. But let me ask you, sir, to see to it that the man
upon whom you bestow your daughter is as near perfection as a man may
come; for no more perfect woman than she is walks the world. I have
nothing more to add further than, in such poor words as well up from my
stricken heart, to thank you for your hospitality.’
He had tried so hard to be strong and collected, and show no sign of
the awful despair that was crushing him. But is the man born who could
go through such an ordeal unmoved? His lips quivered, his voice grew
weak, and something like a spasm caught his breath.
My own eyes were filled with blinding, scalding tears, and my heart
fluttered like the wing of a bird in pain. Gliding over to where he
stood, I placed my arms about his neck, and laying my cheek against his
scarred face, I found voice to say to my father, who was also deeply
affected and moved:
‘Father, the man whom Herbert would have you choose for me need be
sought no further than this room. He is here. My heart beats to his
heart; my face is pressed to his.’
My father came to us. He laid one hand on Herbert’s shoulder, and the
other on my head; and thus he spoke:
‘A woman’s love that clings not to a man when calamity overtakes him is
worthless. Freely do I bestow her upon you, Herbert, if it is her wish
and your wish that you should be united.’
‘My husband,’ I murmured, as I clung closer to him, and it was my only
answer.
Herbert tried to persuade me that it was to my happiness and my
interest to abandon him; but he might as well have tried to convince
the winds of heaven that they should not blow. Externally the Herbert
as I had first known him had changed. His handsome face was handsome no
longer, and his wondrous eyes were sightless for ever. But his heart
was the same. What could change that--the bravest, truest, tenderest
that ever beat in man’s breast? And so ere the next Christmas had
dawned I was Herbert’s wife, and soon after that my father abandoned
the accursed Grange to the gloom and the silence and the melancholy
from which he had reclaimed it, and a little later it was burned to the
ground. We never knew how the fire originated; but it was generally
supposed that some of the superstitious people in the neighbourhood
wilfully set it alight, under the impression that a place that was
accursed by the spilling of human blood should no longer be allowed to
encumber the earth. When I heard of its destruction I confess that I
rejoiced, and I said to myself:
‘Never again will the White Raven bring calamity to a household as it
has brought to ours.’
For five years I walked with my husband in his darkness, and let
him see the world through my eyes. Two children blessed--literally
blessed--our union, a girl and a boy. But my beloved husband never
fully recovered from the shock of the awful accident on that dark and
memorable Christmas Day; and, though he uttered no moan, his blindness
preyed upon his mind, and a short, brief illness took him from me.
For long years the grass has waved over his grave. Other men have
praised my face and sought my hand; but to all I have turned a deaf
ear, for my love was buried in Herbert’s grave. But in my son the
father lives again, and when I gaze upon his handsome face and splendid
figure, I feel that God is very good, and that He chastens us to make
us more perfect in His sight.
VIII
WITH FIRE AND DEATH
A STORY OF A GREAT DEED.
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
The scene of this story is Meerut, the time May Day, 1857, a year in
which England’s hold on India was well nigh shaken off. Meerut is
situated on a plain, and lies forty miles or so to the north and east
of Delhi. It is bounded on the east by the Ganges and on the west by
the Jumna, and covers an area of, roughly speaking, about five miles
in circumference. In the fateful ’57 it was one of the most important
military stations, and the largest cantonment in British India. A great
wall, or esplanade, which in its turn was cut in two by a deep nullah,
divided the town into two separate parallelograms, one of which was
occupied by the European force, the other by the natives.
The hot day--and Meerut is hot--had closed, and the short Indian
twilight had given place to a night of exceeding beauty. A refreshing
breeze was blowing from the east, and the moon burnished with a sheen
that was almost dazzling the domes of the numerous mosques, and threw
into silhouette relief the palms and cocoa trees, and the masses of
native huts. The majority of the European population were taking their
airing as was customary after the sun had set, and the ‘Park Road’
was a scene of gaiety. Strings of vehicles, numberless horsemen, and
crowds of natives moved to and fro. The air was filled with the murmur
of many voices; the laughter of women, the sweet prattle of children,
and wafted on the breeze came the monotonous sounds of tom-toms, and
the wail-like singing of groups of natives as they prepared their
suppers over the open braziers of charcoal that scented the atmosphere
with its fumes. Abutting on the Park Road, and commanding a wide and
extensive view, was a handsome bungalow surrounded with a well kept
garden. On the verandah were a party of ladies and gentlemen. The men
were military men, and the ladies were their relatives, and playing
about on the verandah, under the care of an old ayah, was a sweet
English child, fragile, and white of face, as most English children
are who are born in India, but of an exquisite beauty that promised a
magnificent womanhood. But though well and hearty then, that dear child
was in a few days to be lying dead, gashed and hacked almost beyond
recognition. From the roof of the verandah a swinging lamp threw a soft
light over the little group seated in a semicircle, with small tables
before them, on which were glasses and the inevitable brandy pawnee.
Two silent khitmurgars stood like dusky statues ready to obey the
slightest order given by their master or mistress.
This bungalow was the home of an officer whom it is only necessary to
refer to as the colonel. The sweet child playing there was his only
daughter, and one of the ladies, whose beautiful face was clouded with
an expression that might be described as half fear, half anxiety, was
his wife. All the colonel’s male companions were officers, one of
them being Lieutenant George Willoughby, of the Ordnance Commissariat
Department. He was a young man, but was the officer in charge of the
great Delhi magazine. He looked every inch a soldier, and his face
expressed determination and force of character. Lounging there in
a large chair, toying with a fragrant cigar, and apparently deeply
interested in watching the little volumes of smoke curl upward as he
puffed them from under his moustache, his legs crossed, his head
thrown back, and one arm hanging listlessly over the rail of the chair,
he was the picture of a quiet, unobtrusive English gentleman. But a
slight study of the face would have convinced anyone that beneath that
calm exterior lay a tremendous latent power that once aroused could be
terrible and deadly to his enemies, and that this was really the case
was soon to be amply proved.
Another of the group was a still younger man, handsome as Apollo, and
with a frame that seemed to be knit with steel. Although younger his
military rank was equal to Willoughby’s, for he too was a lieutenant
of the Bengal Artillery, and was also stationed at Delhi. His name
was Richard Shelton, and, like his friend and colleague, he had a
pronounced soldierly bearing, and his fine bright blue eyes, of the
true English type, and his clear cut features and firm mouth, spoke of
a frank, open, loyal, and brave nature.
These two officers and friends had ridden over that afternoon from
Delhi on a visit to their friend, the colonel, with the object of
discussing the portentous signs of the times, for the air was filled
with rumours, and mutiny had displayed itself. Discontent was rampant
in the native regiments, and the question was to what extent would it
go? If there were those amongst the British who read the handwriting
on the wall with ill-concealed alarm, it is none the less true that
the majority of the officers in Upper India were rather disposed to
laugh these fears to scorn. For with the almost fatuous self-reliance
peculiar to the English, they believed they were powerful enough to
hold their own against any number of natives. With one exception,
perhaps, all the gentlemen there belonged to the first category. The
exception was Richard Shelton. He was young, and had but recently
received his promotion, and not only was he endowed with an unusual
share of animal spirits, but he was of a sanguine, almost enthusiastic
temperament, and moreover he was in love. On the first blush that may
seem a reason why he should have been more anxious, but love is ever
hopeful, and indisposed to look on the gloomy side of things. At any
rate, being full of the fire of youth, and not having yet acquired the
staid wisdom of his elders, young Shelton did not trouble himself much
about what the morrow or the next week might bring forth. Very likely,
if somebody had said to him--
‘I say, Shelton, old fellow, if the natives were to rise what would you
do?’ This answer would have come with a ringing laugh--‘Why, go for
them, and smash them. What else would you have me do?’
The young lady with whom Shelton was in love was the colonel’s niece,
Blanche Merton, an orphan girl of great beauty, and the colonel’s
ward. She had only come out to India a year before as governess to her
cousin--the colonel’s daughter. Blanche had been born and had spent
most of her life in one of the sweetest and breeziest of Hampshire
villages, and she had not resided long enough in India to become jaded
and enervated by the climate, which, in course of time, insidiously
undermines the constitutions of white women. A handsomer couple, and a
couple more suited to each other than Lieutenant Shelton and Blanche
Merton, could not have been found in the whole of British India. They
had known each other eight months, and been desperately in love nearly
the whole time. The conversation of the little party had flagged
somewhat, but suddenly Willoughby asked in a preoccupied way:
‘What is going to be the upshot of matters, colonel, do you think?’
This question had reference to the mutinous spirit that had shown
itself. There had been a parade on the 24th of April, when eighty-five
out of ninety men had mutinied, and that very week, beginning with the
1st of May, they were to be tried, and the cantonment was accordingly
greatly excited.
‘Well,’ answered the colonel, thoughtfully, as he stroked his moustache
and twirled his cigar between his long white fingers, ‘the prisoners
will be convicted on the clearest of evidence, and exemplary punishment
meted out to them.’
‘And what after that?’ asked Willoughby, significantly.
‘Ah, that remains to be seen. I think and hope we are strong enough to
hold our own, but if there was a general rising, that is about all we
could do, and might succumb unless succour was speedily sent to us.’
This remark had rather a depressing effect, and there was silence
again; but Blanche had gone into the house for something, and Shelton,
thinking only of her, and how entrancingly beautiful she looked in her
white gauze dress, and with the bunch of Indian roses in her dark hair,
had slipped away after her.
Presently Willoughby said: ‘Yes, we might hold our own for a time--a
short time, but it’s no use blinking the fact, we are weak in numbers.’
‘It seems to me,’ returned the colonel, with the same thoughtful air,
‘that you in Delhi are worse off than we are.’
‘True,’ said Willoughby, with a bitter little laugh, ‘for the first
thing the mutineers would do if they got the upper hand would be to
endeavour to loot the magazine to obtain the vast supplies of the
munitions of war that we’ve got there.’
‘It would be a terrible thing if they should succeed in doing that,’
put in the colonel’s wife, and shuddering as she spoke.
‘It would,’ answered Willoughby, quietly.
‘And there are such a few of you to guard the magazine,’ added the lady.
‘Very few,’ said Willoughby in the same quiet way. Then, after a pause,
he continued with a significant emphasis, ‘But, nevertheless, I don’t
think if all the regiments here and in Delhi were to mutiny they would
obtain possession of the magazine while I am in charge.’
‘Why not?’ asked the colonel’s wife.
‘Because I would blow it up if I found that I couldn’t hold the place,’
was the quiet but impressively emphatic answer.
‘Well, well,’ said the colonel, wishing to change the subject, for he
saw that it was affecting the ladies, ‘it won’t come to that. We may
have a little trouble, but we shall get over it. Any mutinous spirit
will be put down with an iron hand. Besides, I really don’t think the
natives generally have any bad feeling for us.’