The Mystery of Dark Hollow

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Chapter I. The Valley And The Lily

HE village of Millburn extends semi-circularly

around the borders of a delightful valley, at least

two days’ journey from any town of importance, by the best means of transportation obtainable.

This little vale is about twenty miles long from north to south, two miles wide from east to west, and is shut out from the rest of the world by a belt of lofty, wooded mountains, which admit of but one winding pass through them. It skirts their base, and affords the only access and egress to and from the valley.

The houses, constructed of frame, and rarely more than two stories in height, are exceedingly neat, and generally ornate, the prevailing color being drab or fawn.

Each has its little front flower-garden, and these bordering the highway, with here and there a flour or lumber mill, two hotels, a distillery, one church, and the iron and zine works, constitute the village.

The rest of the valley is divided into pasture, grain, and corn-fields, by loose stone walls, breast high, running in diverse directions.

Confused by the echoes, and mellowed by distance, by day and by night are heard the hum of heavy machinery in motion, the muffled thump of the trip-hammer, crushing mineral ore; the ring of the sledge, fashioning the glowing “lope” or “loop,” to be converted into massive anchors, and the dash of water over the dam, or the sides of revolving wheels.

Nearer, the babble and murmur of a multitude of rapid brooks, which thread the whole valley, narrowing and widening at intervals, at last mingling with the river four miles off, whose occasional sails are visible through a cleft of the mountains.

These streams all proceed from inexhaustible lakes, overhead, among the hills, which are themselves fed by innumerous springs.

Reader, we have taken you out of the dusty and in every way foul city—if it be your fate to inhabit the town—and descended with you into as beautiful and peaceful a spot as existed on earth this bright morning in June, of the year 186—

Will it continue so?

We shall see.

We will not leave you on the charming country road bordered with forest trees, which is the main street, when we can as readily enter “ Millburn House,” whose inmates you should know.

It is a courtesy most travellers, and all sojourners, show Father Millburn, the venerable proprietor, in whose honor the village was named, first to call upon him and listen a while, rather than talk, to the good old man.

His house, scarcely more pretentious than its neigh-

THE VALLEY AND THE LILY. 20 bors, is the last on the right of the road, at the foot of Bald Mountain; down which a furious cataract rushes, foaming between jagged rocks, and gurgles hollowly away under the one-arched stone bridge, which spans the road a few paces from bis door.

The old man, seventy-six years of age, over six feet in height, with hair white as snow—or rather yellow with age, and rich, soft, and glossy as the silk of corn—is sitting on his porch, as usual, bareheaded, and leaning on his well-worn cane; warming himself in the mild beams of the morning sun.

He is nearly blind, yet can distinguish any one ap-~ proaching or object interposed between him and the light, through that remarkable substituted sense born of his infirmity. He never fails to detect the stranger, or identify a friend.

He rises, after an apparent close scrutiny, salutes the approaching visitor in a loud, cheery voice, and invites to enter the house—or, is a seat preferred in the sunshine?

“Mammy has gone of an errand, and Blanche is putting things to rights up-stairs. She’ll be down presently, and then if you will stop to breakfast, cook will have it ready. Mammy is a stupid old nigger, and there’s no knowing when she'll get back—but she loves us—she loves us, and we can’t do without her. We are used to seeing her around. She nursed Blanche and—and—all the others, now in heaven. They’re all gone—all gone but Blanche and me, and old Mammy. But I’m not sorrowful—blessed be God for all his mercies—I’ve much to be thankful for. Blanche is a good child, and will never leave her old father.”

Father Millburn here draws carefully out, from the depth of his capacious waistcoat, an old-fashioned silver watch, without a crystal, and, fumbling the dial, glaneing up at the sun the while, as though to inquire of that luminary and compare notes, remarks :

“ Bless me, it is seventeen minutes after eight.” Then, holding the watch out for inspection, “I have the advantage of you—you can’t tell the time by this!”

One hand has the end broken off, and the old gentleman has made the accident subservient to his use, telling the time infallibly by the touch.

A figure here stumbles up, scarce, at first, distinguishable as human; possessing the graceful appearance and proportions of a moderate-sized feather bed, tied in the middle, bent nearly double, and enveloped in a neat ticking of striped gingham. On the upper end is a man’s straw hat, tied down by a strip of rag over the crown.

This clumsy shape supports itself from falling by a short, stout, straight stick or cudgel, with which it makes irregular stabs at the earth, as though it were a floating bag and might escape. The hat is plucked off with a sort of camp-meeting jerk, and Mammy—for it is she— tumbles up three steps at a time, deposits the stick, the hat, and herself on the floor of the porch, with a flop, aud exclaims, mopping her black, shining visage:

% he eee Marse ie drefful hard on dic ole nigger, an’ she ain’t gwine to stand it nohow—slie gwine away, shure! Dar’s a letter from de postis-ofiice, an’ now, Miss Blanche, she got to come an’ help ole critter in wid dese here bundles, sartain.

“No she shan’t, nudder, de darlin’ little babby—she shan’t do no sich ting—I take ’em in myself!”

Leaving the hat and cane outside, as though the precincts of the house were sacred, she gathered up the scat-

THE VALLEY AND THE LILY. 27 tered bundles, and courtesying and pulling her crispy white wool by way of “good-by,” Mammy, who must be among the eighties, goes around, back of the house, to “see Miss Blanche.”

But how describe Blanche Millburn ?

“Some angel guide my pencil while I draw What nothing else than angel can exceed.”

Leaving the old man alone on the porch, in the material sunshine, awaiting the sound of the breakfast bell, and the kind offices of his daughter—who is the light of his eyes and sunshine of his soul—to acquaint him with the contents of the letter, which he has placed in his pocket-book to abide her leisure, we will enter the house.

The sounds of vigorous bustling overhead have ceased, and the rustling approach—not of rich summer silks, but of an unmistakable broom on the stairs, as the sweeper, step by step, descends, ushers in, in a manner exceed~ ingly novel and admirable we are happy to think, the fair Blanche Millburn, the lily of the valley, as she is frequently called.

She differs from the Scriptural one to her advantage, inasmuch as she is both ornamental and useful.

Blanche is just eighteen. ‘Tall, slender, and graceful. More like the stately pride of the floral kingdom, the garden lily.

Her morning dress is confined at the waist with cord and tassel ; she wears no ornament, unless a plain linen collar and cuffs may be called such. Her faultless figure and exquisite taste are thereby exhibited to the best advantage.

Of this result was she conscious? Who was there likely to see her, except Mammy, or Lucy the cook, Mammy’s grandchild ?

Notwithstanding, her rich, dark tresses seemed looped and braided with uncommon care, and her large, fine eyes appeared somewhat restless and uneasy.

Did the circumstance that “ father’s breakfast” was an hour behindhand account for this?

Lucy, coming in to set the table, announced Mammy in the kitchen, and down-stairs flew our unpretending beauty to clasp in affectionate embrace the old black narse, whose tender care of her infancy she was not sufliciently refined or fashionable to have forgotten.

“Goramity bless you, honey—deed an’ deed is dis you? Why you is so big, ole Mammy’d hab to git up on de kitchen table to smoove an’ comb your har, as I use to do ebery day ob your life, when you was sich a little piccaninny I could rock you to sleep in a punkin shell. Nebber mind, you is younger dan I is, honey. you'll hab to stoop down to ole Mammy, now—she’s parse climbin’ up, ’cept to glory when de Lord calls her, which it won’t be long neider, honey; ’case I’s bery ole, bress de Lord, I’s bery ole.”

In the midst of the old woman’s prattle Blanche was summoned up-stairs.

The morning meal was ready—and a visitor had arrived,

“John has come over to breakfast with us, Blanche,” announced her father, by way of explaining the presence of the guest.

“Tle is very kind and welcome,” assented Blanche politely, smiling and inclining her head in salutation,

While they are discussing the abundant country feast spread on the snowy damask before them, we will discuss the visitor, for whom, it would appear, it had been thus delayed,

THE VALLEY AND THE LILY. 29

John Watt called himself a Cornish miner.

He is not refined, not polished, not educated apparently ; at least no one had reason to suspect the contrary, or had said so concerning him.

Nor is he over polite on all occasions ; nay, he is downright rude on some, which his pager physique might serve to excuse as inevitable.

Though his occupation, for a short time, had been that of a miner, upon his first appearance in the valley, some years before, there was something about him which seemed to indicate that he had received gentler nurture than his occupation explained. In mining phrase, it eropped out all over the man.

He was about twenty-five or six years of age. Of stalwart height and proportions; and in breadth of shoulders and girth of chest he was an Hercules,

He had a handsome, well-raised forehead, well-shaped head, densely thatched with close-cropped jet-black hair, honest wide-open hazel eyes, shaded with thick lashes, and heavy arched brows, to match with a full beard of oriental luxuriance.

The nose, of accurate Grecian shape, with wide nostrils denoting passion and generosity, vouched for the perfection of the mouth and chin, hidden beneath its hirsute covering.

It is ignorance or prejudice—which is still ignorance —to assert that the presence of the beard has the effect to mar or destroy expression.

Every artist and anatomist knows that the facial lines are as completely defined by the curves which that appendage takes from the muscles beneath, as though no such mask intervened.

The passions have been delineated by the beard alone.

When John laughed you knew there were dimples about the mouth, just as evident to the physiognomist as those in Blanche’s velvety chin, whose merry jest produced them.

But the old man, despite his assertion that he was not sorrowful, sat silent and abstracted, and ate nothing.

At length both Blanche and John noticed it, which the merry flow of the former’s spirits hitherto had prevented.

While Blanche talked, John would have been deaf to the voice of Fate itself.

“Wather, what is the matter with you? You did not ask a blessing, as you do at every meal. I have failed to win a smile from you, or even a look in my direction, where your dear old eyes are accustomed to turn every moment. Your coffee is untasted, and you have eaten nothing. I have noticed all the morning you are not quite like yourself. I fear the breakfast being so late has made you ill, You must forgive your lazy Blanche this time.”

She did not say your sly, little, scheming, plotting, deceitful puss-in-boots of a Blanche.

Ah no! that would have been letting puss out of the bag. And perhaps, after all, she meant to give somebody “ the sack.”

The old man, half aroused by Blanche’s address, mechanically withdrew the letter from his pocket-book, which, in the preoceupation of his mind, he had been clasping and unclasping in his lap, concealed by the table-cloth ; and Blanche’s quick eyes caught sight of the unopened letter, bearing the stamp of the New York office.

“Why, father, you have a letter there,” she exclaimed.

THE VALLEY AND THE LILY. 31

“Does that annoy you? Give it to me; I see you are impatient to have the subject off your mind. I will acquaint you with the contents in a moment, and you can take your breakfast. Poor dear, you make me reproach myself more and more.”

“Oh, no, no, no!” replied the old man, with manifest confusion, “another time, another time—after breakfast— it would not be polite to John.”

“ Never mind me, Father Millburn, never mind me— I’m nobody !” said John.

Blanche looked up quickly at him; but there was no covert acerbity in his fresh, honest face.

“Well,” hesitated the old man, “you can look it over, and if it’s important, tell me another time, not now.”

It was passed to her by John, and, with the nonchalant business air with which she had opened many previous letters of insufficient consequence to be confided to her father’s solicitor, Blanche withdrew a folded note from the envelope, and read to herself.

It was only three lines. But, as though the ink employed in the writing had been the deadly distillation of the Borgias, and, with the sight, the frightful poison had penetrated the brain through the optic nerve, she arose gasping, one hand extended as though for support, dropping the letter from the nerveless fingers of the other at the feet of John, and, as the room whirled round, and the world seemed leaving her in darkness, with drawn and livid lips, she cried out :

“Father! Victor—Victor is—” and fell, insensible, heavily to the floor.

The old man could see enough to comprehend, as he supposed, and the knowledge of his own secret, so long, so well concealed from his daughter, led him to imagine the worst.

With a cry of anguish, like that of one stricken a mortal blow, he called aloud: “ My God—my child—she knows—she knows all!” and sank back motionless in his chair.

His jaw fell, and his now quite sightless eyes were set, staring and glassy as those of a corpse.

Chapter II. Besieged

OB REDFERN, better known as “ Bachelor Bob,” geologist, naturalist, taxidermist, mineralogist, botanist, artist, florist, and every other ist, was a verification of the adage, “Jack of all trades and master of none.”

He was “an eccentric” to that degree he might safely have added to the multitude of his ists “the What-is’t” without provoking further inquiry or curiosity.

Those hours which he did not pass locked and barred in his “studio,” or “atelier,” which he was vain enough to call his one unplastered room and garret, admitting to the mystery of his secret occupation therein only the north light and the boy, Beetle, he employed in excursions, accompanied by the same boy, and followed by a dog, in which he explored the intricacies of the surrounding country.

This boy, Beetle, was always followed by Grigg, another boy.

Who ever knew a boy to go anywhere alone when he might obtain the company of' a satellite ?

Bachelor Bob had a horror of “ parsons and wimmin,” as he irreverently termed the clergy and the fair sex,

This was unaccountable, as he was neither a naturally ill-favored nor evil-disposed person, unless habit explained it. Per contra, he was a perfectly harmless but unapproachable recluse.

Among his other curiosities he had at one time picked up “ Rennard,” as he called him, a vagabond yellow dog, so named in commemoration of the mistake which had nearly cost the animal his life, from Bob’s leveled gun, as he was skulking away among the bushes, having approached his future master too closely, impelled by animal magnetism. The doy was unaware of his own close resemblance to the “ pesky critter” he was so nearly taken for.

Shortly after, Bob picked up Beetle, a lost or purposely mislaid “babe in the woods,” then scarcely a year old,

The child, nearly naked, was sprawling in the brush, and crowing with all his might, as he endeavored to detain and capture a huge black beetle, whose companion he already held in one fat fist, while he scrambled in pursuit of the demoralized mate.

The predilections of the infant had adhered to and developed in the boy.

What Beetle was for “bugs,” Grigg was for eels, snakes, terrapins, toads, and all aquatic repulsions.

Grigg conceived a sneaking—not snaking—kindness for Beetle, and was accustomed to loiter in his wake, dodging behind corners, walls, trees and bushes, sometimes daring close approach, and at others hanging back oa out of sight, with the vain hope of being pain*uiiy missed, and ultimately meeting with more encouragement.

Boys know better than men the weaknesses of human nature.

Instinct teaches them. We have left that behind, and reason misleads us.

How, and precisely when, all the parties in consideration ratified a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, would puzzle them and us to tell exactly. But the approach to it was thus:

Beetle was observed, at first, to be anxious to turn suddenly in some other direction than that contemplated in the outset. Or, he would walk very fast—almost on the run—begging “ Uncle Redfern” to “ hurry up, for that there place, where I seed that quare bug, was clean on t’other side o’ Pimple Hill.”

At such times he would wear a mingled expression of apprehension and desire of being followed by something or somebody, so manifest, that the sharp eye of the naturalist could not fail to perceive it.

Bachelor Bob sought the cause of this, and was rewarded with the privilege of bidding a terribly disconcerted little atomy, somewhat smaller than “his boy,” to “git along home, you little vagabone—where the blazes you’re coming to ?—Here, Rennard !”

This, at first, was sufficient; but, as the boy who

called “wolf” too often, when there was no wolf, was soon despised, so happened it to the man who called Reynard. _ At other times Redfern detected Beetle emitting sly, shrill whistles, evident signals, when they were setting out together on expeditions. These were immediately answered by others, at less or greater distance, or sucio ceeded by a glimpse of Grigg’s tiny, superannuated, monkey phiz, cautiously projected and withdrawn beyond the outline of a neighboring rock, or corner, bridge or tree.

In brief, Bob realized that Beetle had contracted a sincere and natural childish friendship. Notwithstanding his often asserted sentiment, “'Two’s company and ‘ three’s a crowd,” he found that his affection for his protegé disposed him to relent.

Reynard never watched his master’s face with sharper intelligent scrutiny than Grigg did the same countenance. This last occasion was his flood-tide. He perceived, took it, and was led on to fortune, with passport in hand, as follows:

“ Mister Redfern, sir; {axes pardon, but I’ve brought you the curious-est ribbon snake I ever knowed, and there’s another thing there, where I cotch it, beats this one all hollow. I was ’feard of it, but you could catch it easy, Mister Redfern. I'll show you where it is.”

Bravo! Grigg.

The citadel surrendered, and the two boys indulged in an expressive grin as the portcullis was lowered.

“You're a good boy. Come along with us. What’s your name, sonny ?”

Grigg was thenceforth installed, and proved not the least zealous or useful contributor to the humble interests of science.

Now for the personnel of this provincial society.

Bachelor Bob was forty-five. A little over the medium height. Had, originally, a Roman nose, lately degenerating into the style called “hook,” caused partly by age and partly by the loss of one or two—not to say more—front teeth. Which loss, he says, was occasioned py the habit of biting “kettridges,” “ontying knots,” and so on.

He stooped somewhat from the middle, and had grown round-shouldered to the degree of spinal curvature termed “ Bible-back,” despite his aversion to the clergy.

He possessed another religious feature, in the shape of a complete tonsure, like that of a monk; being perfectly bald on the top of his head, and revealing a thick border or rim of very straight, coarse hair around the base of the skull, in approved monastic style.

His sight—through small, gray, twinkling eyes, one of which was half closed, or squinting, from the habit of sighting along the barrel of his gun—was perfect.

His costume—consisting of a black slouch felt hat, brown cassimere coat with metal buttons, and gray trousers, winter and summer the same—although of good material and make, fitted his person as a sailor’s undergarment is supposed to fit a handspike.

He was careless, awkward, taciturn, slovenly aad altogether out of gear, as nine out of ten men are sure to become, either in dress, manners or morals—often in all—who have reached forty years of age without ever having married. |

Whatever may be alleged against matrimony, it cannot be denied that “it humanizes one so.”

Well—such was Bachelor Bob.

He couldn’t talk to a woman with any pretensions to being considered a lady, to save his life, and would run farther and faster to avoid such than from the fiercest wild beast of forest or mountain. All his presence of mind forsook him if suddenly encountered by a young unmarried female.

He was either struck dumb altogether, or broke out in a cold perspiration, and stammered and fidgeted until he could make his escape from the fearful propinquity,

Reynard it is unnecessary to describe. He was a big yellow dog, and yellow dogs are mainly alike. He had the additional misfortune to attach himself to an old bachelor, and, if he had not contracted all his master’s ideas and habits, had acquired somewhat the same general appearance, Ile was an untidy, mangy, often surly dog, but could be pleased by the judicious presentation of “a sop to Cerberus,”

Beetle was now about twelve years old, and would have been a pretty boy, had he not associated too much with his Uncle Redfern.

The consequence was, his thick mop of brown hair, which looked like a seratch wig, hung straight down over his eyes, almost rendering problematical the existence of those important organs. His clothes were generally torn and stained ; the buttons, especially where most needful and important, were always missing, Tis hat usually slouched down one side, that he might resemble “the bold buccaneer” in the story book, Seven out of his ten toes protruded from his shoes, faithfully and punctually two weeks after said articles were brought home to him, new, from the maker,

Grigg would capture and secure all horrid monstrosities in the water line, hand them over to Redfern and have done with it,

Not so with Beetle. He had a passion for carrying, in unsuspected pockets, and producing on the shortest notice—or without any—on the most unsuitable eccasions which could possibly be selected, grass-snakes, piuching-bugs, rear-horses, terrapins, and craw-lish— iM THH MYATHRY OF DARK HOLLOW, whieh lwel te would borrow fron Grigg, aa the Taad aflondod nothing so awlil (tinny? ia his estimation,

Those he would dvop on parlor earpeta, tn ehureh dlisted, vide dinner tables, tn Sundayeschool, ander pido Wherever he was admitted, ta fet, and that was everywhere, Mor, although he was a most misehleyous wrehin anid aitolemable nilsanee da such Ways, he was a Hrave, beivht, kind-hearted, generous, manly little raseal, Anan niveraal Hiyorite,

Ciivuy wae a suigwerlng tittle, red-headed, freak le-fieed Hip, Whe adored Heetle and laughed at all lls trials,

Therefore, and beowise he hinsell waa alfbetionate and heave, aud lt was his native to proteat, Heetle loved (iiive

Miss Clotilla Spinner, the old mald par eweellence, hat wv plete hoveor af the boys, espoolally Heeile j only walla by her doth admiration for May Robert Hallarn, )

H pon Win she manifestly had designe, and proposed When he should proposieeto “take Kia tn hand and Polen Win altogether”

Ii ie probable her acheme of ragenerablon did not wivhiiee Hoelle Th any manner, ehape, or fen,

What dancin of mischief ar envious tite waa tt then, eligwoalal to Tob that, by sending Beetle to the apothe: oany’a fay a plat of aleohol, to preserve entomologteal apoolivene a Hew atipply af whieh fuld) waa regularly Howled on every coavlon of an exouralon, anil as Yopus

Mey larly smelled, aye and tasted, like brandy—that he might save time thereby.

He could occupy that period, he thought, in looking after his garden, regulating his “studio,” putting former collections of plants and insects through the first process of “preparing” them, He could skin, stuff, or mount a bird,

All that would then remain to be done would be, t« equip himself with gun, hammer, satchel, ete., bar and bolt his den, and set out immediately with the boys on their arrival,

Beetle was despatched with the flask and the price of the purchase, with the usual strict injunctions to “ go straight there and straight home again”’—which he invariably disregarded,

Grige followed Beetle, Reynard brought up the rear,

There’s no doubt about it that, since the advent of Grigg, Reynard showed marked preference for the boys.

Bachelor Bob had satisfied himself, over and over, that nothing more remained to be done in and about the “Atelier,” Ile had picked dead leaves off the plants and flowers in the little patch of ground before the door. Within he had “touched up” an oil painting or two, here and there, representing remarkable fruits, flowers, birds, fish, or insects, Ie had dusted his cabinet of minerals, bugs, and coins; not forgetting his pet and grotesquely arranged collection of the memorable seyenteon year locust or cicada, Tle had even fixed his movable ladder by which he ascended to his eyry—the gurret-where he and Beetle slept, and reconnoitred the entire premises within, finding everything safe, With patience quite exhausted, he stepped in front of the door, for the twentieth time, to see if the boys were yet in sight,

Not a bit of it. But—in an opposite direction—not an hundred yards off—horror of horrors—the green cotton umbrella of Miss Clotilda Spinner,

As the huge parachute swung from side to side—the motion caused by the feminine weakness of her wrist, whose strained sinews were perceptible even at that distance—the identity of that tall, tight-laced, attenuated figure could never for a moment be mistaken by Bob, who had successfully dodged it for the previous five years.

There was no attributing that infantile pan-cake, butter-dish, lamp-mat of a hat, set sliding down toward the sharp, red, frosty point of that pinched nose to any other wearer than Clotilda.

He would have sworn to the little, hard, thin, yellow ball of hair, tied behind with a black shoe-string, the tin ends depending, as ornaments; which desolate, arid promontory Miss Spinner gushingly called her “ waterfall.”

A rocky waterfall it was. A waterfall, which, alas, no beaux invested, save their namesakes in ribbon on her hat.

In an instant, like the fearful mental retrospect said to precede dissolution, he recalled Clotilda’s “lily-white,” rouged cheeks, her green-persimmon-puckered mouth, like a venomous stab with a hacked tea-knife in a halfdone blackberry pie—which had never previously received a dimple from the prongs of the fork. The thin, blue lips receding, reveal the filling—in the shape of fangs verdigrised with verjuice and venom.

Unhappily, Clotilda delighted in gossip, scandal and slander. It was the only resource of her lonely state, which is all the plea I have to offer in her behalf.

Of course it was not requisite for one so extremely young to wear spectacles, but suspended from her long, skinny neck, by a long, thin, “ dollar-jewelry” chain, was a near-sighted eye-glass.

Before she could adjust this to those pale orbs, of which

“The cat has twa the very color,” her fell object, that she was seeking him—that she was about “to drop in on him ”—to “have him out of that,” ete. ; as she was reported to have threatened on divers occasions ; flashed upon the bewildered intellect of the old bachelor just in time—just in time.

He made one agile bound in the midst of his curiosity shop, before he had been at all perceived—gained the foot of his ladder—climbed up, with the celerity of a belated lamplighter of the olden time, or Robinson Crusoe pursued by savages, and similarly hauled the ladder up after him. Here he threw himself on his bed—a pile of skins of beasts—and with bated breath and heart beating like a catapult he awaited the denowuement,

The “kangaroo-jump,” rather than foot-fall, on her high-heeled gaiters, grew more appallingly audible, and the “ Grecian-bend ” of the divine Clotilda violated the sanctity of that gravel path no feminine step had ever traversed before.

He heard her enter that door he had had no time to close after him. He heard that little gasp of fatigue, more frightful to his apprehension than the shriek in his ear of an unexpected express locomotive. That finicky, asthmatic cough, followed by the terribly familiar, piping, vinegary tones of her ejaculation,

“Gone out—and left his filthy kennel wide open!

But, thank my stars, I’ve got in at last, and I'll stay hae till he comes home, if I wait—if I wait—till doomsday !”

A

Chapter III. The Unknown Guest

E left Blanche Millburn in a swoon upon the

floor of her father’s dwelling, and we have seen