[Frontispiece: "SHE STOOD SPELLBOUND ON THE THRESHOLD AT THE SIGHT OF
LADY BRYN UPON ON HER KNEES UPON THE FLOOR."--P. 254.]
A NOBLE SACRIFICE
BY
EMILY GRACE HARDING,
AUTHOR OF
"A MOUNTAIN DAISY," "HAZEL; OR, PERILPOINT LIGHTHOUSE,"
ETC., ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. EYRE MACKLIN.
_THIRTY-EIGHTH THOUSAND._
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, LTD., PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
1. THE GIPSY'S WARNING
2. LITTLE MISS PRIMROSE
3. THE STAR IN THE EAST
4. THE EARL'S VISIT
5. A MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY
6. WITHIN THE CASTLE
7. SHADOWS
8. FORTUNE-TELLING
9. SIR GALAHAD
10. THE LADY OF THE CASTLE.
11. A NEW NAME
12. A GLIMPSE OF THE WORLD
13. SIR GALAHAD'S MISSION
14. THE LEGEND OF THE POOL
15. THE SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE.
16. THE CHAPLAIN'S VISION
17. THE VISION EMBODIED
18. THE GIPSY'S HAUNT
19. MASTER VERE'S CONFESSION
20. THE WORLD ONCE MORE
21. A LONG-DREADED SUMMONS
22. A MOTHER'S STORY
23. PERCIVAL'S PRIVILEGE
24. THE PHYSICIAN'S DISCOVERY
25. A NEW REVELATION
26. THE "LILY" AND THE "PRIMROSE"
27. BEFORE THE WEDDING
28. THE GIPSY'S TALE
29. LADY SHANNO'S VOW
30. RENUNCIATION
31. AMONG THE MOUNTAINS
32. THE RIVER-SPRINGS
33. THE WEDDING-DAY
34. A DEATH-BED
35. THE BOATMAN'S REFUSAL
36. THE CURSE UNDONE
37. FETTERS OF GOLD
38. MASTER TAYLOR AT CRAIG ARTHUR
39. THE WARNING FULFILLED
40. REUNION
A NOBLE SACRIFICE.
CHAPTER I.
THE GIPSY'S WARNING.
"All within is dark as night;
In the windows is no light;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.
Come away: no more of mirth
Is here or merry-making sound.
The house was builded of the earth,
And shall fall again to ground!"
--TENNYSON.
"'Tis many a year since the River Spirit hath burst his bonds, and
thus run riot in the valley!" soliloquised Jack the boatman, pausing
in his task of re-soling a much-worn shoe, to look out, from the tiny
window of his workshop, upon the brawling river below, which, swollen
by the winter rains to a roaring, foaming current, dashed angrily
past the little dwelling close upon its banks, threatening to sweep
it bodily away in its fury, while through the valley the wind howled
a melancholy accompaniment to the noisy music of the waters, and
moaned, like a human being in pain, in the dark woods beyond.
"It will verily be well an my bridge should prove itself equal to so
fierce a foe!" continued Jack, leaning his elbows on the window-sill,
and gazing out into the blackness, in which the frail hand-bridge,
stretched across the river, just showed itself, like a streak of
white light, in the surrounding gloom.
Jack was proud of the bridge, for it was his own. The thought of
building a bridge over the river had been his own original thought;
the device of the bridge had been his own original device, and the
money required for its erection had come solely out of his own
pocket, advanced for the public good, with no hope of its return till
after the lapse of many years, when the penny toll levied upon every
crosser should have realised the outlay. The bridge might not be
built upon very scientific principles, but in spite of many a laugh
at Jack's expense, and many a prophecy from some wise passer-by, that
it would last as many nights as days, it had already borne three
years' wear, and at least one good winter-flood before this
particular night with which we have to do. But this night's flood
was a different thing to that of two years back; indeed the
country-folk had said, as they had crossed the bridge to market on
Saturday morning, that never in their memory had the river risen so
high. And though Jack wore a cheerful countenance as he took his
toll, and assured each one that his bridge was good for sixty years,
deep down in his heart there lurked a secret fear each night, as he
lay down to sleep, that he might wake to find it had been carried
away while he slept; but since market-day three days had gone by, and
still the bridge hung bravely over the roaring stream.
Jack's little home was a noisy one at this flood-time, built, as it
was, so close upon the water's edge, that the roar of the river,
foaming and dashing over its rocky bed, was like constant thunder in
his ear. But he lived all alone, and, as he said, "did not want to
hear himself speak," so the noise did not matter. He could ply his
shoemaking trade, which he took up between times, when boating was
slack, and fishing out of season, just as well with a roar of water
in his ear as without. Moreover, he did not know but that "a bit of
a noise was company." His mind was, however, a little perturbed
to-night; there was something uncanny to his ear in the wild
whistling of the wind, and he could not settle to his work as calmly
as usual. In fact, he had a superstitious fit upon him, and felt
nervous, though he would on no account acknowledge it, even to
himself.
In order to explain the reason of this unwonted condition of his
usually well-regulated mind, we must go back some few hours, and
relate the events of the morning. At his dinner-hour Jack had gone
with a bundle of mended boots and shoes to the village, by which name
were dignified the dozen or so of thatched and whitewashed cottages,
clustered under the brow of Bryn Afon, the old Castle Hill, which
loomed above the river and the tiny workshop. Though well content to
spend his working hours and solitary nights in his own lonely
dwelling, Jack was by no means averse to spending his meal-time hours
amongst his neighbours, either discussing political matters with John
Jones over the counter of the little shop which undertook to provide
the village with the common necessaries of life--each wrapped gratis
in the leaves of the most scurrilous and Puritanical of the little
grocer's chapel sermons--or speculating with a group of ever-curious
and never-satisfied spirits upon the nature of the mysterious curse
said to hang over the half-ruined castle on the hill. Perhaps the
dreary, monotonous roar of the wind and the waters, and the wild
weather generally, had touched a chord of romance in the rough hearts
of the villagers on this particular morning, for their converse
seemed unable to take any more cheerful and healthy tone than that of
the mysterious fortunes of the Bryn Afon family--at no time anything
but a depressing subject. "Times back it was a good old family, and
as well-kept a place as you could wish to see," said Evans the
miller. "So when I was a boy I was wont to hear my old grandfather
tell; not that it was so in his time whatever, but his
great-grandfather could mind the good old days well enough." "And
that reckoning brings us back to a matter of some three hundred years
ago," remarked Master Jones reflectively; "for your family, Master
Evans, has been a long-lived one these many generations. It would
seem verily that the house were haunted, from the curious sounds that
have been heard from within, and from the unwillingness of the family
to reside therein for the space of more than three or four days
together."
"There is no saying," said the Widow Griffiths, pausing in her task
of choosing calico for her Dame School children, to shake her head
ominously, and add in mysterious tones: "I call to mind the last time
I saw the late lord ride by, as I stood at my school-door at the
Three Cross Roads--a matter of six years ago--and never a word of him
since, save only the passing-bell a few weeks after." "And he a
great favourite of King James, whatever," said the miller; "a fine
man, verily, to look upon, and as good a friend of our king as any
noble gentleman in Wales." "The love of the king stood him not in
much good stead," said Master Jones with a Puritanical sneer, "since
forsooth he must needs go the way of all his forbears, and die ere he
had reached the age of fifty, with the same cloud of mystery hanging
over his death-bed! Who knows but that the young man, his son, may
not likewise be dead ere now? It is long since we have known him to
be at the castle." "He may perchance be there now, for all we know!"
said his wife, glancing half askance up the steep greensward; "for
who has ever known when the lords of Bryn Afon have come and gone,
save for those shriekings and wailings ever heard while they are
within yon walls?" "And those times when the shriekings and wailings
were at their worst were ever quickly followed by the master's
death," said Dame Griffiths. "Verily the curse hangeth heavily, and
I for one marvel not that the young lord remains away."
"The last time I saw him," said Jack the boatman, who had listened
without speaking, "was seven years gone by, when he tarried some long
while at the castle, and was wont to spend many an hour with me,
salmon-fishing. A light-hearted young man, with pretty, fair-spoken
ways, and many a story to tell of the ways of the Court, and the
fondness the king had for his father. How my little girl used to
listen, and prick up her ears at the fine tales!" "It had been
better for her," said Master Jones, "as I said in my discourse at the
chapel after her untimely decease, that she had shown less vain
curiosity about the ways of this wicked world. For what was it but
an idle curiosity that led her into the subterranean passage, where
her end overtook her as a thief in the night?" "Peace, prithee, good
neighbours," said Jack wearily; "the child is in another world, where
it may be her fault will not be too harshly judged. But I would fain
see the curse removed, and the lords of Bryn Afon dwelling among
their people, and ruling them for their good, as surely our betters
were meant to do. Will it ever be taken away, think you?"
The usual ominous silence and shaking of heads followed this
oft-repeated query, but this time the silence was broken by a hoarse
voice, muttering in deep, harsh tones, "Will the curse ever be taken
away from the hill, say you? Ay, when the boatman's bridge cracks
across the middle, and the primrose and the lily float together down
the stream! But the curse hath already set the castle walls
a-crumbling, and they shall crumble till the end of time!"
Close at Jack the boatman's ear was the voice which spake the
mysterious prophecy; and as in anger he turned, to deny the
possibility of any such fate being in store for his beloved bridge,
he encountered the wild glance of a dark-faced gipsy-woman, whose
sudden appearance at the open doorway had already caused the
women-gossips to beat a hasty retreat into the farther corner of the
shop. "My bridge will stand these hundred years, woman!" he
exclaimed indignantly. "It was for a blessing to my neighbours that
I built it, and a blessing it shall stand, long after you and I are
laid in our graves!"
The old hag laughed harshly; and Mistress Griffiths, laying a
persuasive hand on Jack's arm, said entreatingly, "Ah, Jack, thou art
never the man to wish aught to stand in the way of taking off the
awful curse! Let the bridge break to-night and willing, if the
castle curse should go with it!" Jack laughed a sorrowful laugh.
"The woman is a witch," he said impatiently, "and her talk has no
more meaning than the screaming wind." "Eh!" said the gipsy; and
placing her lean hand on his arm, and peering into his face with her
coal-black eyes, she chanted in a monotonous tone--
"The curse shall not fall from the castle
Till the last heir lies in the grave;
And the grave shall lie deep in the river,
Wherein sleep the fair and the brave."
"_My_ bridge shall never be the death of the last heir!" muttered
Jack savagely, while his friends, in breathless silence, pressed
closer to the gipsy. She went on with uplifted finger--
"The bridge shall be broken asunder,
Shall sink in the raging deep;
And in the dark waters together
The primrose and lily shall sleep."
While her listeners were looking at each other with awe-struck faces,
the gipsy was gone as suddenly as she had come. No one followed her;
the women were too frightened; the men laughed, and declared that it
was not worth while. But when they had sufficiently recovered from
their surprise to fall into an animated discussion upon her and her
rude rhymes, they heard her voice again, singing hoarsely in the
distance--
"Together they'll float down the rushing river;
In Heaven be one for ever and ever."
"What can she mean, the old witch?" asked Mistress Evans, the
miller's wife, in a frightened whisper. "What does a gipsy ever
mean, good mistress?" exclaimed the boatman impatiently. "Had I my
will, she should verily have long ere now been put in the stocks."
And thoroughly out of temper on behalf of his bridge, he went home,
and betook himself in somewhat savage mood to his shoemaking, driving
in nails with vicious industry.