Castle Avon. By the author of 'Emilia Wyndham, etc.'

Chapter I

" A voice was heard in Ramali, Rachel mourning for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not." Oh, what a fearful night it is ! How the wind roars and howls round the house, and what torrents of rain pour down between the blasts ! Surely a water-spout must have burst among the hills. The rain faUs in flakes, in flashes, in streams of water, rather than descends in drops. Sometimes she leaves that bedside by which she is sitting, her hand clasped in his, and hastens to a room of which the window over- VOL. I. P. looks the front door. She opens the casement, and thrusts her head out, regardless of the driving storm, and vainly striving to pierce the thick darkness of that pitiless night. Vainly, indeed ! • — a pitchy darkness is round her ; she cannot even trace the faintest image of the neighbouring woods ; she cannot see the trees close to the house; she cannot even see her hand.

The tempest howls furiously ; the casement shakes in her fingers, she with difficulty draws it in. She fastens it, turns yet one glance upon the impenetrable darkness without — one straining, anxious, almost despairing glance, and then returns to watch by the bedside. The sufferer raises his heavy eyelids as she enters, and one fitful gleam of intelligence is cast upon her from eyes which never met hers but in love ; then he murmurs a few words, which she bends her head down with anxious, hungry impatience to understand. " Is he come ?" the sufferer faintly articulates. " Not yet, not yet ; but I expect him every moment." " A long, weary night. Oh, when wiU it be morning ?" And the heavy eye-lids closed again. And then another blast rushed bv, wilder and louder than ever, and the rain poured against the windows.

And it seemed as if a shrieking might be heard, as of spirits passing over the roof of the many-gabled wilderness of a house, and the wind roared among the old chimneys, and shook at the casements, as if clamouring to come in. The sinking spirits of the dying man, though he was too far gone to listen to the tempest, were evidently shaken and exhausted by this tumult of external nature, and the flame of life just flashing, as in a sinking candle, wasted all the faster because of this. And the breath came with more difficulty, and the dark shadows began to deepen over his face, and he seemed to sink into a state half slumber, half death, and still she sat by his side. Sometimes she cast those eyes, so fuU of passionate love, upwards, imploring the mercy from above to abate this pitiless storm without, to assuage the cruel anguish within.

But she prayed without hope, for he she loved was B rapidly departing ; and still the storm without raged on, and her other treasure — the treasure also so passionately, so desperately loved — where was he ? In that storm ? Among those wild woods, or traversing those desolate moors? And in such a night as this ? Then she stole out of the chamber of death again, and went and stood at the top of the stairs, and looked down into the hall, now dimly lighted by a half-expiring lamp. There was a dark figure standing by one of the pillars below7. She spoke in a low, trembling voice, and asked : " Who is that ?" " Only me, Madam." " What are you doing there ?" " Only listening and watching." She came half-way down the stairs to speak to him over the banisters. " Willmore," in a low, trembling whisper.

" Yes, Madam." " You are sure Mr. Yates is not come back ? He might have come in the stable-way." " Oh no, Madam, he is not come back." " How did he go ? On horseback ?" "Yes, Madam. The roads are so bad, he said he could bring the child more safely upon a cushion before him than in any other way." " What horse did he take ?" " Old Black Bess." " She is very quiet?" " As a lamb, Madam." " But in such a night as this ! Surely he would take a chaise." " No doubt he would do so, Madam ; but the road for carriages is a very long way round, and even that, at best, but a narrow lane, full of ruts." " A chaise would, of necessity, be a long time coming ?" " At any time ; and on a night like — " And as he spoke such a hurricane beat against the great heavy haU door, that it seemed as if it would burst it open.

Every window rattled violently, the house itself seemed to rock to its foundation, and rain in deluges poured down upon the skylight. " I almost think," said Wfllmore, " Mr. Yates would hardly venture out at all with the child in such weather as this. He must have determined to stay till morning." " God grant it may be as you say." And swiftly she re-ascended the stairs and stole into her husband's room, and sat down by his bedside and slid her hand into his. He still slumbered. And so she sat, and hour and hour roUed by, told off by the sullen clang of the large stable clock. Gradually, however, the violence of the storm seemed to abate, and as the chill hours before dawn drew onwards, the deluge of rain was assuaged and the windows of heaven ap peared to be closing again, and the water-drops fell in a sort of measured cadence, and the wind mourned rather than raged.

StiU the sufferer slumbered, and she, as she held his hand, sank insensibly into a dose and slumbered too; and the lamp threw a flickering ray upon the chamber, its wide extent and gloomy magnificence in part dimly seen through that gray twilight, in part lost in impenetrable shadow. But the light feU fuU upon the bed with its heavy dark green velvet curtains and its covering of quilted satin, in which lay one whom not all his wealth and splendour, not all his goodness and usefulness, not all the passionate devotion of a young and yearning heart, could redeem from an early grave. For He had summoned him, whose sen tence is without appeal. The span of Use was at an end, the thread of life was spun out, and he must go. In the sure and certain hope of a blessed futurity ? Yes. Through God's infinite mercies, in the sure and certain hope.

And though she, that young and fair, and idolizing and idolized one, on whom his heart doated, must be left behind. Yet in that sure and certain hope they both prepared to part, and bowed the head and accepted the cross in patience, and in faith in the restitution of all things. They should meet again ! Yes, they should meet again ! The flame of the lamp casts its long dim ray upon that angel face and figure, covered with her white dressing-gown, and her beautiful golden hair gathered up under her close nursing cap, her long throat, bending like a lily, bowed down, for her head has sunk and rests against a pillow lying on one side of the bed, where she still holds his hand. He had prepared himself to go, so soon as his doom had been pronounced by the medical attendant, and he had only requested that the few hours which remained to him in this world might be passed with his wife in quiet and peace, without the hurry of attendance or the bustle of now useless endeavour.

They had taken leave of each other, as hearts that truly love do. For the infinite of We is a revelation in itself. Those who love most, believe most. Such feelings as theirs are made for eternity, and reveal eternity. But one fond feeling still remained unsatisfied, one tender tie still drew him back to earth. His little child. He must see his little child again before he died. The boy was at his grand mother's, some twenty miles distance, and a track of desolate mountain, moor and woodland lay between the two houses. Twenty miles it was, right across the country ; but by the car riage road, or rather through the deep lanes by which carriages might possibly make their way, nearly twenty miles more. During the agonising paroxysms of extreme suffering on the one side and the almost equally agonising alternations of hope and fear upon the other, neither parent had seemed to miss or to wish for the child ; but when the fatal sentence was pronounced, and the calm of a terrible cer tainty succeeded to the agitations of suspense, the father asked to embrace his baby-boy before he died ; and the poor mother's heart yearned with an intensity indescribable to see her infant once more, though for the last time, in his father's arms, and to hear him bless him before he died.

All — all he could do for this son of his love now. But oh, that blessing ! Let him but have his father's dying blessing ! was her heart's prayer. Immediately upon this Mr. Yates had started, and owing to the state of the roads and the circumstances above mentioned, had decided upon crossing the country, mounted on a large pow erful black horse, whose gentleness and steadi ness were only equalled by his mighty strength, and upon bringing home the little boy placed upon a cushion before him — a manner of carrying young children at that time not uncommon, when the state of the cross-roads was often such, as to make travelling in carriages very slow and inconvenient, not to say dangerous work. The steward — for Mr. Yates was the steward, head and confidential man in this large esta blishment — had set forwards about twelve o'clock that morning; he calculated upon arriving at the Grange in about two hours and a half, resting there a couple of hours, and being back at Glistonbury between seven and eight o'clock in the evening.

The equinox was already past ; yet still be tween seven and eight, though that night there happened to be no moon, sufficient light, he hoped, would remain to enable him to find his way easily through the moors home, to say nothing of the instincts of Black Bess, who was well acquainted with every foot of the way. But seven and eight, and nine and ten, and midnight had passed, and no Mr. Yates had appeared ; until at last the wearied household, concluding that the desperate state of the weather had prevented him setting out, or that he had taken a chaise, stole one after another to bed, leaving nobody up in that large household but Mr. Willmore and the housekeeper, and one or two of the older women-servants, whose sorrow and anxiety for their master and mistress made it impossible for them to rest.

The old coachman and two or three of the grooms also sat dozing in the servants' hall, whose windows looked towards the stable-yard, imagining that at any hour Mr. Yates might arrive. So all was very still in that mansion of death, over which a feeling of solemn awfulness hung, and a heaviness crept over one and over another as it had done over the gentle and loving wife and mother herself. It was so quiet, you might distinctly hear the death-watch ticking behind the case of the great kitchen clock, which was now down, lest its striking should disturb the master ; and the snoring of the old bloodhound, which had been the old Lord's, and now lay stretched upon the kitchen hearth. For the raging tempest had begun to subside, and the winds to sing a mournful lullaby and requiem over the good man who was about to depart — the man whom aU loved and honoured much, and deeply.

Nature, at last, seemed to yield to the aU pervading melancholy, and to mourn, " As things inanimate will mourn," over the unreturning grave, alas ! And so he slumbers : and she, her hand in his, dozes ; and now opens her eyes, and gazes at him ; and now the heavy Uds close again — for her heart is overladen with grief, and her eyes with watching, and the profound quiet sheds its influence upon her. And in her doze, she sees that lovely, loving child, with his golden curling locks, and his large eyes of blue — so full of the mysterious depths of infant love and passion, and his cherub arms are round his father's neck; and that extenuated, but still most beautiful hand, is upon the child's head, and those eyes — those eyes into which she was wont to look, with something of the adoration of a poor Pagan when looking at his god — those eyes are raised up in prayer, and he is blessing his boy — their boy — the bond which bound them, if possible, still closer and closer together.

Oh ! sweet dream ! She awakes suddenly from it. She springs up and listens. A cry ! — yes ! she heard a cry, surely. Again — again ! What is it ? — what is it ?

Chapter II

The cry sounded as if it made a part of the dreams of an uneasy slumber, yet it started her awake ; and as she still Ustened, confused and scarcely herself, it was repeated. Then there was a sort of subdued noise and hurry to be heard, upon that side of the house which was occupied by the servants, and with which the passage, into which her bed-room opened, communicated by a back staircase. There was, also, a large window at the end of this passage, which looked into the stable yard. As she listened, her ear rendered preter naturally acute by her state of nervous agitation, she thought she caught the sound of horses' hoofs in the yard. A moment she stood still, with lifted ear, listening breathless, as if life depended on the sound ; then she cast one fond look upon the bed where the dying man lay, and quick as lightning darted from his side, and flew down the staircase, and along the passage which led to the stable-yard door.

It was open, and the servants were gathered outside it ; and strange noises, as of men in distress and perplexity, proceeded from with out. Such were not the delighted greetings that ought to have welcomed her boy ! Her heart began to quiver and tremble, to fail and sink again ; but she was rushing forward, when, just before she reached the open door, she was met and her dress caught by Willmore. " Come ! come ! He is come ! — I heard the horse's feet. Where is he? — where is he? My child — -my treasure !" No answer ; but an endeavour upon the part of the faithful old servant, gently to push her back. "What — why — what is the matter, Will more ?" The old man's face was pale as ashes. " My boy ! — my boy !" She looked in his face, then desperately tore away from him, dashed forward, and wildly rushed into the stable-yard.

There it stood ; yes, there stood the horse — the good black steed; but covered with mire, bathed in moisture, scared, panting and alone ! A groom held his head. But Mr. Yates and the child, where were they ? " What— what ! what is this ? My boy ! Mr. Yates ! What is this ? The horse ! — What is this?" " The horse came home alone ; he rushed into the stable-yard full gallop, as if he was mad ; all drowned over, as one may say, with water and mud ; his eye wild, and his nostril distended, as if he had been scared out of his wits. And, oh ! the ford — the ford !" cried the groom, as he finished his relation. " The ford ! — the ford !" was taken up by the voices around ; " swelled by the rains — swelled by the rains !" " Do you mean to say the horse has come home alone, and that the steward and the boy are drowned !" she screamed, rather than cried.

" Oh ! my God !— my God ! the ford— the ford !" and she darted forwards, as if she would rush out of the stable-yard, and seek the lost herself. Oh ! how the wind came howling from that wilderness, and as if the cries of drowning wretches were mingling in the blast ! But old Willmore hurried after his lady, and once more caught her by the gown. " Madam— my lady — mistress ! my master — my dying master !" "Oh, yes! he is dying !— I know he is dying! But what wfll he do for his boy? Let me go !— let me go!" she cried, pas sionately, again endeavouring to rend her gar ments from his hands; "they are struggling in the waters! Run! run aU of us— aU of you ! We may yet save them !" " Alas ! my lady — mistress, dear mistress ! be patient. Think of God, dear mistress, and be patient. Oh dear— oh dear!

The ford is six miles off!" cried the old man, bursting into tears. " Six miles off! Do you say six mUes off? WeU, weU, let us run right across the moor : what is six miles ? My God ! wfll you none of you move an inch to save them !" " They are gone already, mistress — Madam. John Gardner, and the coachman, and Wfll, started off as soon as Black Bess drove like a mad thing into the yard. They thought there must be a mischief: they are gone to see. Dear, dear mistress, what could you do ? And my poor master dying aU alone !" said the old man, sobbing aloud. " Ah weU — ah well !" she answered, looking round composedly, and as if her wits were beginning to leave her. " One dying, and the other drowned ! You told me to call upon God, didn't you, old man ? — ' Out of the depths' — ay, that is it.

Take me back to my husband's death-bed, Willmore ! for my knees are knocking together, and I think I can't stand. Take me back to my husband, my lover, my only — only friend, to his death bed. He'll soon be lost and gone, too ! Take me back, WiUmore !" The old man obeyed, assisted by the house keeper. They lifted, rather than led her back to her husband's bedside. She sank down again into the chair she had quitted. She vol. i. c neither sighed, nor shed a tear ; her heart felt as a stone within her; her glazed eyes turned wistfully to her husband. He lay there, still in a sort of quiet, unbroken doze ; his breath ings low and regular, except for a few pauses ; one fair hand stretched out upon the bed. Gradually she slipped down upon her knees, took it in both hers, and laid her cheek against it.

It was very cold : no pressure answered to hers. The soul had already retreated to its last citadel, before taking its last flight ! Suddenly, as the flame of a candle before it expires leaps up in the socket, a glow seemed to revisit the frame. The eyes of the expiring man suddenly opened : " The child," he uttered distinctly ; " the child, love ! — love, the child !" and he expired. She could not and would not believe for some time that he was reaUy gone; that the dark, mysterious curtain which severs the living and the dead had faUen ; and that the one so loved, so clung to, the great reality of her existence, was dissolved. That, become an object of faith, an existence to her spirit alone, which had been the most beloved of all actual exist ences. She was stunned, confused as a stone ; the idea was too overwhelming, too stupendous, too unintelligible for conception.

She stood and gazed — and gazed — and gazed. She did not know where she was : aU material things seemed reeling round her. It was no longer a sub stantial world in which she stood ; everything was a dream now, for he was become a dream. The poor servants, who had now crowded into the room — for aU ceremony and distinction of rank had vanished before the awful realities of that night — -her poor servants knew not what to do for her. Poor things, they were bewildered themselves, with grief and horror, and this dumb, tearless sorrow, terrified and perplexed them. They expected wailings and tears, and hysterical cries ; but this terrible silence was the more terrible, because they could not understand it. They looked one at another, uncertain what to do. Willmore was quite at a stand. The housekeeper, good woman, who had known the loss c of child and husband herself, comprehended a trifle better.

She felt that out of this stupor the poor young creature must be roused, or that .he would lose her senses. To do this she could imagine nothing better, than gently to lay her hand upon the lifeless body, as if with intent to move it. The poor young thing started at this, and stretched hastily forward, as if to prevent an impious hand from touching a sacred relic. " How dare you ?" she cried. The speU was dissolved — she had spoken. Willmore now ventured to come up to her, and with his kind, respectful, old servant's voice and manner, say: "Dear missis, you must corne out of this ; you must indeed." " Must I ?— must I ? Yes, yes : it is aU over now," and bursting into a flood of tears, she wailed, and cried aloud, as the old man gently led her away. This kindly rehef of nature lasted but till she entered the passage, and cast her eyes upon the window which looked towards the stables ; then she suddenly begun shuddering and shaking.

Then as suddenly she cried out : " I remember, I remember ; there is nothing to keep me here now. Get out the cart as fast as you can, that can go over the moors any way, and let me be off to the ford ; let us foUow the track — track the horse's feet, Willmore, as the wild Indians do ; follow the trail — foUow the traU ; we shall find them yet — we shaU find them yet." Her speech was hurried and incoherent, but the old man was glad to find that the matter of it was sound. " Yes, Madam," he said, " I wiU have the cart out instantly, and drive you myself the way to the ford. The track is easy enough to find ; it lies right across the hills. Black Bess would be sure to take that one, as, poor beast, she could not have found a nigher. There, Mrs. Fulmer, get your mistress's cloak and bonnet, and fetch her a cup of warm milk and water too," he whispered; "she'll drink that.

Don't try for anything more yet awhile." He was glad to get his poor lady out upon the moors ; though the wind whistled mournfully, and it was dismaUy cold ; and the rain, though it had abated, stiU from time to time came gushing down in sudden showers. So she suffered them to put on her cloak and bonnet, and placed herself hastily in the spring cart; for, as her recollection gradually returned, her whole soul was agonizing to be at the ford, with that natural impatience to see and act herself, which possesses every one 'upon such occasions. And so they set out for the moors. And now, the dawn began to break, and a silver line of light to show itself behind the desolate hills, from beneath a heavy, lifted cloud. They followed a broken, irregular track over the waste, interrupted every here and there by pools of water left by the last night's rain, and by black miry bogs, through which the way was difficult and dangerous ; and she, who kept her head over the side of the cart, and her eyes bent upon the road,, could, though often intercepted, still follow the track which the horse, in his wild paroxysm of terror, had left through the black mire and clay.

The deep indentations of his hoofs were plainly to be seen, but nothing else — no trace of anything else ; not the shred of a garment ; not a vestige ; not a footstep ! And so, over these dismal hills, and through the deep valleys, mostly clothed on each side with a rough, brambly, almost impervious brushwood that intersected them, they arrived at last where a mountain stream came rushing impetuously across the road, which was usually a brawling, and not very wide torrent, but now swelled by the night's rain to a deep, overwhelming river. Not only the usual bed of the stream was fiUed, but the banks high upwards were covered by the deluge of water which still came sweeping down. The track ended ; they had arrived at the ford. There, upon the steep side of the bank, where the road terminated, the ground was all torn up, as by the hoofs of a horse struggling upwards.

The miry clay was trampled over ; and here, at last, the marks of human footsteps were discernible. Of different sizes and shapes, however, and but little could be made out of them, for the earth was nearly reduced to one. puddle. The road lay here in a hollow way, between high banks entirely growm over with broom, gorse and brushwood, and carpeted beneath with moss and bilberries ; and the narrow track between appeared recently to have been trampled over by numbers. The deep print of the horse's hoofs were, however, yet discernible, amid the indistinct and confused footsteps of men. There the cart stopped, and the young mother sprang to the ground. And first, almost on hands and knees, she examined the track, striving to discover the footsteps of a child amid the confusion of horses' feet which had trampled over the place.

But no — no such footstep was there, not one, hunt as she might. Footsteps of men, and it might be of women — but not one of a child. " I see no child's footsteps," she said at last, sadly, to her companion. " Dear me, no, Madam. They would never have reached the bank through that deluge of w7ater." "Black Bess can swim. Black Bess did reach the bank. Mr. Yates was a bold and brave rider — ay, and a splendid swimmer, too. I am certain they were not drowned." And as the mother, in the faith and divi nation of affection, pronounced these words in a raised tone, a sort of indistinct, odd sound was heard close by, seeming to issue from an almost impervious thicket which hung over the road. " What was that ? Did you hear anything ?" she said to Willmore, turning suddenly towards the place whence the sound had proceeded.

And as she did so, she fancied she saw the tangled branches moving, as if some living being was concealed within. " There is somebody there. I heard a low laugh. I saw the branches move — I am sure I did." " Alas ! Madam, the wind sings and wails wildly among the trees and hills, and blows the branches up and down. There is nothing there." The men that had been sent out a few hours before had some time ago left this place, and had gone on, skirting the banks of the river, in hopes of discovering some vestiges of the lost ones. They were now heard returning ; and the lady and her servant, uncertain what to do next, awaited their approach. They came up; they had something in their hands. " What is that ?" she caUed out. " Poor Mr. Yates's hat. It has his mark in it." " Where did you find it ?"

" Low down the river. It seemed to have floated that way. It had been stopped by a bough which had faUen across the water, and so we were able to reach it. Poor man !" " And nothing more ?" she cried with feverish impatience, "nothing more?" " Yes, Madam," said one of them, in a hesitating manner, it was the gardener, " a little child's glove, close by the water just below where my lady stands." " Wet or dry ?" " Dry." " My child is not drowned, then !" she almost shrieked. " I was certain of it." But, oh ! it rained and rained. The heavens were pitiless, or perhaps they poured down their torrents in sympathy with her who shed no tear. She passed that long and dreadful day, searching and searching, over and over again, the same spot. But what could it avail ? No vestige of child or man, except the little child's glove, which was found unwetted upon the bank, and the hat which had been swept forwards by the waters.