On the twenty-fourth of December Miss Carden and Jael Dence drove to Cairnhope village, and stopped at the farm: but Nathan and his eldest daughter had already gone up to the Hall; so they waited there but a minute or two to light the carriage lamps, and then went on up the hill. It was pitch dark when they reached the house. Inside, one of Mr. Raby's servants was on the look-out for the sound of wheels, and the visitors had no need to knock or ring; this was a point of honor with the master of the mansion; when he did invite people, the house opened its arms; even as they drove up, open flew the great hall-door, and an enormous fire inside blazed in their faces, and shot its flame beyond them out into the night.
Grace alighted, and was about to enter the house, when Jael stopped her, and said, “Oh, miss, you will be going in left foot foremost. Pray don't do that: it is so unlucky.”
Grace laughed, but changed her foot, and entered a lofty hall, hung with helmets, pikes, breast-plates, bows, cross-bows, antlers etc., etc. Opposite her was the ancient chimneypiece and ingle-nook, with no grate but two huge iron dogs, set five feet apart; and on them lay a birch log and root, the size of a man, with a dozen beech billets burning briskly and crackling underneath and aside it. This genial furnace warmed the staircase and passages, and cast a fiery glow out on the carriage, and glorified the steep helmets and breast-plates of the dead Rabys on the wall, and the sparkling eyes of the two beautiful women who now stood opposite it in the pride of their youth, and were warmed to the heart by its crackle and glow. “Oh! what a glorious fire, this bitter night. Why, I never saw such a—”
“It is the yule log, miss. Ay, and you might go all round England, and not find its fellow, I trow. But our Squire he don't go to the chandler's shop for his yule log, but to his own woods, and fells a great tree.”
A housemaid now came forward with bed candles, to show Miss Carden to her room. Grace was going up, as a matter of course, when Jael, busy helping the footman with her boxes, called after her: “The stocking, miss! the stocking!”
Grace looked down at her feet in surprise.
“There it is, hung up by the door. We must put our presents into it before we go upstairs.”
“Must we? what on earth am I to give?”
“Oh, any thing will do. See, I shall put in this crooked sixpence.”
Grace examined her purse, and complained that all her stupid sixpences were straight.
“Never mind, miss; put in a hairpin, sooner than pass the stocking o' Christmas Eve.”
Grace had come prepared to encounter old customs. She offered her shawl-pin: and Jael, who had modestly inserted her own gift, pinned Grace's offering on the outside of the stocking with a flush of pride. Then they went upstairs with the servant, and Grace was ushered into a bedroom of vast size, with two huge fires burning at each end; each fireplace was flanked with a coal-scuttle full of kennel coal in large lumps, and also with an enormous basket of beech billets. She admired the old-fashioned furniture, and said, “Oh, what a palace of a bedroom! This will spoil me for my little poky room. Here one can roam about and have great thoughts. Hillsborough, good-by! I end my days in the country.”
Presently her quick ears caught the rattle of swift wheels upon the hard road: she ran to the window, and peeped behind the curtain. Two brilliant lamps were in sight, and drew nearer and nearer, like great goggling eyes, and soon a neat dog-cart came up to the door. Before it had well-stopped, the hospitable door flew open, and the yule fire shone on Mr. Coventry, and his natty groom, and his dog cart with plated axles; it illumined the silver harness, and the roan horse himself, and the breath that poured into the keen air from his nostrils red inside.
Mr. Coventry dropped from his shoulders, with easy grace, something between a coat and a cloak, lined throughout with foxes' skin; and, alighting, left his groom to do the rest. The fur was reddish, relieved with occasional white; and Grace gloated over it, as it lay glowing in the fire-light. “Ah,” said she, “I should never do for a poor man's wife: I'm so fond of soft furs and things, and I don't like poky rooms.” With that she fell into a reverie, which was only interrupted by the arrival of Jael and her boxes.
Jael helped her unpack, and dress. There was no lack of conversation between these two, but most of it turned upon nothings. One topic, that might have been interesting to the readers of this tale, was avoided by them both. They had now come to have a high opinion of each other's penetration, and it made them rather timid and reserved on that subject.
Grace was dressed, and just going down, when she found she wanted a pin. She asked Jael for one.
Jael looked aghast. “Oh, miss, I'd rather you would take one, in spite of me.”
“Well, so I will. There!” And she whipped one away from the bosom of Jael's dress.
“Mind, I never gave it you.”
“No. I took it by brute force.”
“I like you too well to give you a pin.”
“May I venture to inquire what would be the consequence?”
“Ill luck, you may be sure. Heart-trouble, they do say.”
“Well, I'm glad to escape that so easily. Why, this is the temple of superstition, and you are the high-Priestess. How shall I ever get on at dinner, without you? I know I shall do something to shock Mr. Raby. Perhaps spill the very salt. I generally do.”
“Ay, miss, at home. But, dear heart, you won't see any of them nasty little salt-cellars here, that some crazy creature have invented to bring down bad luck. You won't spill the salt here, no fear: but don't ye let any body help you to it neither, if he helps you to salt, he helps you to sorrow.”
“Oh, does he? Then it is fortunate nobody ever does help anybody to salt. Well, yours is a nice creed. Why, we are all at the mercy of other people, according to you. Say I have a rival: she smiles in my face, and says, 'My sweet friend, accept this tribute of my esteem;' and gives me a pinch of salt, before I know where I am. I wither on the spot; and she sails off with the prize. Or, if there is no salt about, she comes behind me with a pin, and pins it to my skirt, and that pierces my heart. Don't you see what abominable nonsense it all is?”
The argument was cut short by the ringing of a tremendous bell.
Grace gave the last, swift, searching, all-comprehensive look of her sex into the glass, and went down to the drawing-room. There she found Mr. Raby and Mr. Coventry, who both greeted her cordially; and the next moment dinner was announced.
“Raby Hall” was a square house, with two large low wings. The left wing contained the kitchen, pantry, scullery, bakehouse, brew-house, etc.; and servants' bedrooms above. The right wing the stables, coach-houses, cattle-sheds, and several bedrooms. The main building of the hall, the best bedrooms, and the double staircase, leading up to them in horse-shoe form from the hall: and, behind the hall, on the ground-floor, there was a morning-room, in which several of the Squire's small tenants were even now preparing for supper by drinking tea, and eating cakes made in rude imitation of the infant Saviour. On the right of the hall were the two drawing-rooms en suite, and on the left was the remarkable room into which the host now handed Miss Carden, and Mr. Coventry followed. This room had been, originally, the banqueting-hall. It was about twenty feet high, twenty-eight feet wide, and fifty feet long, and ended in an enormous bay window, that opened upon the lawn. It was entirely paneled with oak, carved by old Flemish workmen, and adorned here and there with bold devices. The oak, having grown old in a pure atmosphere, and in a district where wood and roots were generally burned in dining-rooms, had acquired a very rich and beautiful color, a pure and healthy reddish brown, with no tinge whatever of black; a mighty different hue from any you can find in Wardour Street. Plaster ceiling there was none, and never had been. The original joists, and beams, and boards, were still there, only not quite so rudely fashioned as of old; for Mr. Raby's grandfather had caused them to be planed and varnished, and gilded a little in serpentine lines. This woodwork above gave nobility to the room, and its gilding, though worn, relieved the eye agreeably.
The further end was used as a study, and one side of it graced with books, all handsomely bound: the other side, with a very beautiful organ that had an oval mirror in the midst of its gilt dummy-pipes. All this made a cozy nook in the grand room.
What might be called the dining-room part, though rich, was rather somber on ordinary occasions; but this night it was decorated gloriously. The materials were simple—wax-candles and holly; the effect was produced by a magnificent use of these materials. There were eighty candles, of the largest size sold in shops, and twelve wax pillars, five feet high, and the size of a man's calf; of these, four only were lighted at present. The holly was not in sprigs, but in enormous branches, that filled the eye with glistening green and red: and, in the embrasure of the front window stood a young holly-tree entire, eighteen feet high, and gorgeous with five hundred branches of red berries. The tree had been dug up, and planted here in an enormous bucket, used for that purpose, and filled with mold.
Close behind this tree were placed two of the wax pillars, lighted, and their flame shone through the leaves and berries magically.
As Miss Carden entered, on Mr. Raby's arm, her eye swept the room with complacency, and settled on the holly-tree. At sight of that she pinched Mr. Raby's arm, and cried “Oh!” three times. Then, ignoring the dinner-table altogether, she pulled her host away to the tree, and stood before it, with clasped hands. “Oh, how beautiful!”
Mr. Raby was gratified. “So then our forefathers were not quite such fools as some people say.”
“They were angels, they were ducks. It is beautiful, it is divine.”
Mr. Raby looked at the glowing cheek, and deep, sparkling, sapphire eye. “Come,” said he; “after all, there's nothing here so beautiful as the young lady who now honors the place with her presence.”
With this he handed her ceremoniously to a place at his right hand; said a short grace, and sat down between his two guests.
“But, Mr. Raby,” said Grace, ruefully, “I'm with my back to the holly-tree.”
“You can ask Coventry to change places.”
Mr. Coventry rose, and the change was effected.
“Well, it is your doing, Coventry. Now she'll overlook YOU.”
“All the better for me, perhaps. I'm content: Miss Carden will look at the holly, and I shall look at Miss Carden.”
“Faute de mieux.”
“C'est mechant.”
“And I shall fine you both a bumper of champagne, for going out of the English language.”
“I shall take my punishment like a man.”
“Then take mine as well. Champagne with me means frenzy.”
But, in the midst of the easy banter and jocose airy nothings of the modern dining-room, an object attracted Grace's eye. It was a picture, with its face turned to the wall, and some large letters on the back of the canvas.
This excited Grace's curiosity directly, and, whenever she could, without being observed, she peeped, and tried to read the inscription; but, what with Mr. Raby's head, and a monster candle that stood before it, she could not decipher it unobserved. She was inclined to ask Mr. Raby; but she was very quick, and, observing that the other portraits were of his family, she suspected at once that the original of this picture had offended her host, and that it would be in bad taste, and might be offensive, to question him. Still the subject took possession of her.
At about eight o'clock a servant announced candles in the drawing-room.
Upon this Mr. Raby rose, and, without giving her any option on the matter, handed her to the door with obsolete deference.
In the drawing-room she found a harpsichord, a spinet, and a piano, all tuned expressly for her. This amused her, as she had never seen either of the two older instruments in her life. She played on them all three.
Mr. Raby had the doors thrown open to hear her.
She played some pretty little things from Mendelssohn, Spohr, and Schubert.
The gentlemen smoked and praised.
Then she found an old music-book, and played Hamlet's overture to Otho, and the minuet.
The gentlemen left off praising directly, and came silently into the room to hear the immortal melodist. But this is the rule in music; the lips praise the delicate gelatinous, the heart beats in silence at the mighty melodious.
Tea and coffee came directly afterward, and ere they were disposed of, a servant announced “The Wassailers.”
“Well, let them come in,” said Mr. Raby.
The school-children and young people of the village trooped in, and made their obeisances, and sang the Christmas Carol—
“God rest you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.”
Then one of the party produced an image of the Virgin and Child, and another offered comfits in a box; a third presented the wassail-cup, into which Raby immediately poured some silver, and Coventry followed his example. Grace fumbled for her purse, and, when she had found it, began to fumble in it for her silver.
But Raby lost all patience, and said, “There, I give this for the lady, and she'll pay me NEXT CHRISTMAS.”
The wassailers departed, and the Squire went to say a kind word to his humbler guests.
Miss Carden took that opportunity to ask Mr. Coventry if he had noticed the picture with its face to the wall. He said he had.
“Do you know who it is?”
“No idea.”
“Did you read the inscription?”
“No. But, if you are curious, I'll go back to the dining-room, and read it.”
“I'm afraid he might be angry. There is no excuse for going there now.”
“Send me for your pocket-handkerchief.”
“Please see whether I have left my pocket-handkerchief in the dining-room, Mr. Coventry,” said Grace, demurely.
Mr. Coventry smiled, and hurried away. But he soon came back to say that the candles were all out, the windows open, and the servants laying the cloth for supper.
“Oh, never mind, then,” said Grace; “when we go in to supper I'll look myself.”
But a considerable time elapsed before supper, and Mr. Coventry spent this time in making love rather ardently, and Grace in defending herself rather feebly.
It was nearly eleven o'clock when Mr. Raby rejoined them, and they all went in to supper. There were candles lighted on the table and a few here and there upon the walls; but the room was very somber: and Mr. Raby informed them this was to remind them of the moral darkness, in which the world lay before that great event they were about to celebrate.
He then helped each of them to a ladleful of frumety, remarking at the same time, with a grim smile, that they were not obliged to eat it; there would be a very different supper after midnight. Then a black-letter Bible was brought him, and he read it all to himself at a side-table.
After an interval of silence so passed there was a gentle tap at the bay window. Mr. Raby went and threw it open, and immediately a woman's voice, full, clear, and ringing, sang outside:
“The first Noel the angels did say,
Was to three poor shepherds, in fields as they lay,
In fields where they were keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Chorus.—Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.”
The chorus also was sung outside.
During the chorus one of the doors opened, and Jael Dence came in by it; and the treble singer, who was the blacksmith's sister, came in at the window, and so the two women met in the room, and sang the second verse in sweetest harmony. These two did not sing like invalids, as their more refined sisters too often do; from their broad chests, and healthy lungs, and noble throats, and above all, their musical hearts, they poured out the harmony so clear and full, that every glass in the room rang like a harp, and a bolt of ice seemed to shoot down Grace Carden's backbone; and, in the chorus, gentle George's bass was like a diapason.
“They looked up and saw a star
That shone in the East beyond them far,
And unto the earth it gave a great light,
And so it continued both day and night.
Chorus—Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
Born is the King of Israel.”
As the Noel proceeded, some came in at the window, others at the doors, and the lower part of the room began to fill with singers and auditors.
The Noel ended: there was a silence, during which the organ was opened, the bellows blown, and a number of servants and others came into the room with little lighted tapers, and stood, in a long row, awaiting a signal from the Squire.
He took out his watch, and, finding it was close on twelve o'clock, directed the doors to be flung open, that he might hear the great clock in the hall strike the quarters.
There was a solemn hush of expectation, that made the sensitive heart of Grace Carden thrill with anticipation.
The clock struck the first quarter—dead silence; the second—the third—dead silence.
But, at the fourth, and with the first stroke of midnight, out burst the full organ and fifty voices, with the “Gloria in excelsis Deo;” and, as that divine hymn surged on, the lighters ran along the walls and lighted the eighty candles, and, for the first time, the twelve waxen pillars, so that, as the hymn concluded, the room was in a blaze, and it was Christmas Day.
Instantly an enormous punch-bowl was brought to the host. He put his lips to it, and said, “Friends, neighbors, I wish you all a merry Christmas.” Then there was a cheer that made the whole house echo; and, by this time, the tears were running down Grace Carden's cheeks.
She turned aside, to hide her pious emotion, and found herself right opposite the picture, with this inscription, large and plain, in the blaze of light—
“GONE INTO TRADE”
If, in the middle of the pious harmony that had stirred her soul, some blaring trumpet had played a polka, in another key, it could hardly have jarred more upon her devotional frame, than did this earthly line, that glared out between two gigantic yule candles, just lighted in honor of Him, whose mother was in trade when he was born.
She turned from it with deep repugnance, and seated herself in silence at the table.
Very early in the supper she made an excuse, and retired to her room: and, as she went out, her last glance was at the mysterious picture.
She saw it again next morning at breakfast-time; but, it must be owned, with different eyes. It was no longer contrasted with a religious ceremony, and with the sentiments of gratitude and humility proper to that great occasion, when we commemorate His birth, whose mother had gone into trade. The world, and society, whose child she was, seemed now to speak with authority from the canvas, and to warn her how vain and hopeless were certain regrets, which lay secretly, I might say clandestinely, at her heart.
She revered her godfather, and it was no small nor irrelevant discovery to find that he had actually turned a picture in disgrace to the wall, because its owner had descended to the level, or probably not quite to the level, of Henry Little.
Jael Dence came up from the farm on Christmas afternoon, and almost the first word Grace spoke was to ask her if she knew whose picture that was in the dining-room. This vague description was enough for Jael. She said she could not tell for certain, but she had once heard her father say it was the Squire's own sister; but, when she had pressed him on the subject, the old man had rebuked her—told her not to meddle too much with other folks' business. “And, to be sure, Squire has his reasons, no doubt,” said Jael, rather dryly.
“The reason that is written on the back?”
“Ay: and a very poor reason too, to my mind.”
“You are not the best judge of that—excuse me for saying so. Oh dear, I wish I could see it.”
“Don't think of such a thing, miss. You can't, however, for it's padlocked down that way you could never loose it without being found out. No longer agone than last Yule-time 'twas only turned, and not fastened. But they say in the kitchen, that one day last month Squire had them all up, and said the picture had been tampered with while he was at Hillsboro'; and he scolded, and had it strapped and padlocked down as 'tis.”
The reader can imagine the effect of these fresh revelations. And a lover was at hand, of good birth, good manners, and approved by her godfather. That lover saw her inclining toward him, and omitted nothing to compliment and please her. To be sure, that was no uphill work, for he loved her better than he had ever loved a woman in his life, which was a good deal to say, in his case.
They spent Christmas Day very happily together. Church in the morning; then luncheon; then thick boots, a warmer shawl, and a little walk all together; for Mr. Raby took a middle course; since no positive engagement existed, he would not allow his fair guest to go about with Mr. Coventry alone, and so he compromised, even in village eyes; but, on the other hand, by stopping now and then to give an order, or exchange a word, he gave Coventry many opportunities, and that gentleman availed himself of them with his usual tact.
In the evening they sat round the great fire, and Mr. Raby mulled and spiced red wine by a family receipt, in a large silver saucepan; and they sipped the hot and generous beverage, and told stories and legends, the custom of the house on Christmas night. Mr. Raby was an inexhaustible repertory of ghost-stories and popular legends. But I select one that was told by Mr. Coventry, and told with a certain easy grace that gave it no little interest.
MR. COVENTRY'S TALE.
“When I was quite a child, there was a very old woman living in our village, that used to frighten me with her goggle eyes, and muttering. She passed for a witch, I think; and when she died—I was eight years old then—old people put their heads together, and told strange stories about her early life. It seems that this Molly Slater was away in service at Bollington, a village half way between our place and Hillsborough, and her fellow-servants used to quiz her because she had no sweetheart. At last, she told them to wait till next Hilisboro' fair, and they should see. And just before the fair, she reminded them of their sneers, and said she would not come home without a sweetheart, though she took the Evil one himself. For all that, she did leave the fair alone. But, as she trudged home in the dark, a man overtook her, and made acquaintance with her. He was a pleasant fellow, and told her his name was William Easton. Of course she could not see his face very well, but he had a wonderfully sweet voice. After that night, he used to court her, and sing to her, but always in the dark. He never would face a candle, though he was challenged to more than once. One night there was a terrible noise heard—it is described as if a number of men were threshing out corn upon the roof—and Molly Slater was found wedged in between the bed and the wall, in a place where there was scarcely room to put your hand. Several strong men tried to extricate her by force; but both the bed and the woman's body resisted so strangely that, at last, they thought it best to send for the parson. He was a great scholar, and himself under some suspicion of knowing more than it would be good for any less pious person to know. Well, the parson came, and took a candle that was burning, and held it to the place where poor Molly was imprisoned, and moaning; and they say he turned pale, and shivered, for all his learning. I forget what he said or did next; but by-and-by there was a colloquy in a whisper between him and some person unseen, and they say that this unseen whisper was very sweet, and something like the chords of a harp, only low and very articulate. The parson whispered, 'God gives a sinner time.' The sweet voice answered, 'He can afford to; he is the stronger.' Then the parson adjured the unseen one to wait a year and a day. But he refused, still in the gentlest voice. Then the parson said these words: 'By all we love and fear, by all you fear and hate, I adjure you to loose her, or wait till next Christmas Eve.'
“I suppose the Evil Spirit saw some trap in that proposal, for he is said to have laughed most musically. He answered, 'By all I fear and hate, I'll loose her never; but, but I'll wait for her—till the candle's burnt out;' and he chuckled most musically again.
“'Then wait to all eternity,' the parson roared; and blew the candle out directly, and held it, with his hands crossed over it.”
Grace Carden's eyes sparkled in the firelight. “Go on,” she cried, excitedly.
“The girl was loosed easily enough after that; but she was found to be in a swoon; and not the least bruised, though ten villagers had been pulling at her one after another.”
“And what became of her afterward?”
“She lived to be ninety-six, and died in my time. I think she had money left her. But she never married; and when she was old she wandered about the lanes, muttering, and frightening little boys, myself among the number. But now my little story follows another actor of the tale.”
“Oh, I'm so glad it is not over.”
“No. The parson took the candle away, and it was never seen again. But, somehow, it got wind that he had built it into the wall of the church; perhaps he didn't say so, but was only understood to say so. However, people used to look round the church for the place. And now comes the most remarkable thing of all; three years ago the present rector repaired the floor of the chancel, intending to put down encaustic tiles. Much to his surprise, the workmen found plenty of old encaustic tiles; they had been interred as rubbish at some period, when antiquity and beauty were less respected than they are now, I suppose.”
Mr. Raby broke in, “The Puritans. Barbarians! beasts! It was just like them. Well, sir—?”
“When the rector found that, he excavated more than was absolutely necessary for his purpose, and the deeper he went the more encaustic tiles. In one place they got down to the foundation, and they found an oak chest fast in the rock—a sort of channel had been cut in the rock for this chest, or rather box (for it was only about eighteen inches long), to lie in. The master mason was there luckily, and would not move it till the rector had seen it. He was sent for, but half the parish was there before him; and he tells me there were three theories firmly established and proved, before he could finish his breakfast and get to the spot. Theory of Wilder, the village grocer: 'It is treasure hidden by them there sly old monks.' Mr. Wilder is a miser, and is known to lay up money. He is, I believe, the only man left in the North Country who can show you a hundred spade guineas.”
Mr. Raby replied, energetically, “I respect him. Wilder forever! What was the next theory?”
“The skeleton of a child. I forget who propounded this; but I believe it carried the majority. But the old sexton gave it a blow. 'Nay, nay,' said he; 'them's the notions of strangers. I was born here, and my father afore me. It will be Molly Slater's candle, and naught else.' Then poor Molly's whole story came up again over the suspected box. But I am very tedious.”
“Tedious! You are delightful, and thrilling, and pray go on. The rector had the box opened?”
“On the spot.”
“Well!”
“The box went to pieces, in spite of all their care. But there was no doubt as to its contents.”
Grace exclaimed, enthusiastically, “A candle. Oh, do say a candle!”
Mr. Coventry responded, “It's awfully tempting; but I suspect the traditional part of my story is SLIGHTLY EMBELLISHED, so the historical part must be accurate. What the box did really contain, to my knowledge, was a rush-wick, much thicker than they are made nowadays: and this rush-wick was impregnated with grease, and even lightly coated with a sort of brown wafer-like paste. The rector thinks it was a combination of fine dust from the box with the original grease. He shall show it you, if you are curious to see it.”
“Of course we are curious. Oh, Mr. Raby, what a strange story. And how well he told it.”
“Admirably. We must drink his health.”
“I'll wish it him instead, because I require all my reason just now to understand his story. And I don't understand it, after all. There: you found the candle, and so it is all true. But what does the rector think?”
“Well, he says there is no connection whatever between the rush-wick and—”
“Don't tell her what HE says,” cried Raby, with a sudden fury that made Grace start and open her eyes. “I know the puppy. He is what is called a divine nowadays; but used to be called a skeptic. There never was so infidel an age. Socinus was content to prove Jesus Christ a man; but Renan has gone and proved him a Frenchman. Nothing is so gullible as an unbeliever. The right reverend father in God, Cocker, has gnawed away the Old Testament: the Oxford doctors are nibbling away the New: nothing escapes but the apocrypha: yet these same skeptics believe the impudent lies, and monstrous arithmetic of geology, which babbles about a million years, a period actually beyond the comprehension of the human intellect; and takes up a jaw-bone, that some sly navvy has transplanted over-night from the churchyard into Lord knows what stratum, fees the navvy, gloats over the bone, and knocks the Bible down with it. No, Mr. Coventry, your story is a good one, and well told; don't let us defile it with the comments of a skeptical credulous pedant. Fill your glass, sir. Here's to old religion, old stories, old songs, old houses, old wine, old friends, or” (recovering himself with admirable grace) “to new friends that are to be old ones ere we die. Come, let the stronger vessel drink, and the weaker vessel sip, and all say together, after me—
“Well may we all be,
Ill may we never see,
That make good company,
Beneath the roof of Raby.”
When this rude rhyme had been repeated in chorus, there was a little silence, and the conversation took a somewhat deeper tone. It began through Grace asking Mr. Raby, with all the simplicity of youth, whether he had ever seen anything supernatural with his own eyes. “For instance,” said she, “this deserted church of yours, that you say the shepherd said he saw on fire—did YOU see that?”
“Not I. Indeed, the church is not in sight from here. No, Grace, I never saw any thing supernatural: and I am sorry for it, for I laugh at people's notion that a dead man has any power to injure the living; how can a cold wind come from a disembodied spirit? I am all that a ghost is, and something more; and I only wish I COULD call the dead from their graves; I'd soon have a dozen gentlemen and ladies out of that old church-yard into this very room. And, if they would only come, you would see me converse with them as civilly and as calmly as I am doing with you. The fact is, I have some questions to put, which only the dead can answer—passages in the family correspondence, referring to things I can't make out for the life of me.”
“Oh, Mr. Raby, pray don't talk in this dreadful way, for fear they should be angry and come.” And Grace looked fearfully round over her shoulder.
Mr. Raby shook his head; and there was a dead silence.
Mr. Raby broke it rather unexpectedly. “But,” said he, gravely, “if I have seen nothing, I've heard something. Whether it was supernatural, I can't say; but, at least, it was unaccountable and terrible. I have heard THE GABRIEL HOUNDS.”
Mr. Coventry and Grace looked at one another, and then inquired, almost in a breath, what the Gabriel hounds were.
“A strange thing in the air that is said, in these parts, to foretell calamity.”
“Oh dear!” said Grace, “this is thrilling again; pray tell us.”
“Well, one night I was at Hillsborough on business, and, as I walked by the old parish church, a great pack of beagles, in full cry, passed close over my head.”
“Oh!”
“Yes; they startled me, as I never was startled in my life before. I had never heard of the Gabriel hounds then, and I was stupefied. I think I leaned against the wall there full five minutes, before I recovered myself, and went on.”
“Oh dear! But did any thing come of it?”
“You shall judge for yourself. I had left a certain house about an hour and a half: there was trouble in that house, but only of a pecuniary kind. To tell the truth, I came back with some money for them, or rather, I should say, with the promise of it. I found the wife in a swoon: and, upstairs, her husband lay dead by his own hand.”
“Oh, my poor godpapa!” cried Grace, flinging her arm tenderly round his neck.
“Ay, my child, and the trouble did not end there. Insult followed; ingratitude; and a family feud, which is not healed yet, and never will be—till she and her brat come on their knees to me.”
Mr. Raby had no sooner uttered these last words with great heat, than he was angry with himself. “Ah!” said he, “the older a man gets, the weaker. To think of my mentioning that to you young people!” And he rose and walked about the room in considerable agitation and vexation. “Curse the Gabriel hounds! It is the first time I have spoken of them since that awful night; it is the last I ever will speak of them. What they are, God, who made them, knows. Only I pray I may never hear them again, nor any friend of mine.”
Next morning Jael Dence came up to the hall, and almost the first question Grace asked her was, whether she had ever heard of the Gabriel hounds.
Jael looked rather puzzled. Grace described them after Mr. Raby.
“Why, that will be Gabble Retchet,” said Jael. “I wouldn't talk much about the like, if I was you, miss.”
But Grace persisted, and, at last, extracted from her that sounds had repeatedly been heard in the air at night, as of a pack of hounds in full cry, and that these hounds ran before trouble. “But,” said Jael, solemnly, “they are not hounds at all; they are the souls of unbaptized children, wandering in the air till the day of judgment.”
This description, however probable, had the effect of making Grace disbelieve the phenomenon altogether, and she showed her incredulity by humming a little air.
But Jael soon stopped that. “Oh, miss, pray don't do so. If you sing before breakfast, you'll cry before supper.”
At breakfast, Mr. Coventry invited Miss Carden to go to the top of Cairnhope Peak, and look over four counties. He also told her she could see Bollinghope house, his own place, very well from the Peak.
Grace assented: and, immediately after breakfast, begged Jael to be in the way to accompany her. She divined, with feminine quickness, that Mr. Coventry would be very apt, if he pointed out Bollinghope House to her from the top of a mountain, to say, “Will you be its mistress?” but, possibly, she did not wish to be hurried, or it may have been only a mere instinct, an irrational impulse of self-defense, with which the judgment had nothing to do; or perhaps it was simple modesty. Any way, she engaged Jael to be of the party.
It was talked of again at luncheon, and then Mr. Raby put in a word. “I have one stipulation to make, young people, and that is that you go up the east side, and down the same way. It is all safe walking on that side. I shall send you in my four-wheel to the foot of the hill, and George will wait for you there at the 'Colley Dog' public-house, and bring you home again.”
This was, of course, accepted with thanks, and the four-wheel came round at two o'clock. Jael was seated in front by the side of George, who drove; Mr. Coventry and Grace, behind. He had his fur-cloak to keep his companion warm on returning from the hill; but Mr. Raby, who did nothing by halves, threw in some more wraps, and gave a warm one to Jael; she was a favorite with him, as indeed were all the Dences.
They started gayly, and rattled off at a good pace. Before they had got many yards on the high-road, they passed a fir-plantation, belonging to Mr. Raby, and a magpie fluttered out of this, and flew across the road before them.
Jael seized the reins, and pulled them so powerfully, she stopped the pony directly. “Oh, the foul bird!” she cried, “turn back! turn back!”
“What for?” inquired Mr. Coventry.
“We shall meet with trouble else. One magpie! and right athwart us too.”
“What nonsense!” said Grace.
“Nay, nay, it is not; Squire knows better. Wait just one minute, till I speak to Squire.” She sprang from the carriage with one bound, and, holding up her dress with one hand, ran into the house like a lapwing.
“The good, kind, silly thing!” said Grace Carden.
Jael soon found Mr. Raby, and told him about the magpie, and begged him to come out and order them back.
But Mr. Raby smiled, and shook his head. “That won't do. Young ladies and gentlemen of the present day don't believe in omens.”
“But you do know better, sir. I have heard father say you were going into Hillsborough with him one day, and a magpie flew across, and father persuaded you to turn back.”
“That is true; he was going in to buy some merino sheep, and I to deposit my rents in Carrington's bank. Next day the bank broke. And the merino sheep all died within the year. But how many thousand times does a magpie cross us and nothing come of it? Come, run away, my good girl, and don't keep them waiting.”
Jael obeyed, with a sigh. She went back to her party—they were gone. The carriage was just disappearing round a turn in the road. She looked at it with amazement, and even with anger. It seemed to her a brazen act of bad faith.
“I wouldn't have believed it of her,” said she, and went back to the house, mortified and grieved. She did not go to Mr. Raby again; but he happened to catch sight of her about an hour afterward, and called to her—“How is this, Jael? Have you let them go alone, because of a magpie?” And he looked displeased.
“Nay, sir: she gave me the slip, while I went to speak to you for her good; and I call it a dirty trick, saving your presence. I told her I'd be back in a moment.”
“Oh, it is not her doing, you may be sure; it is the young gentleman. He saw a chance to get her alone, and of course he took it. I am not very well pleased; but I suppose she knows her own mind. It is to be a marriage, no doubt.” He smoothed it over, but was a little put out, and stalked away without another word: he had said enough to put Jael's bosom in a flutter, and open a bright prospect to her heart; Miss Carden once disposed of in marriage, what might she not hope? She now reflected, with honest pride, that she had merited Henry's love by rare unselfishness. She had advised him loyally, had even co-operated with him as far as any poor girl, with her feelings for him, could do; and now Mr. Coventry was going to propose marriage to her rival, and she believed Miss Carden would say “yes,” though she could not in her heart believe that even Miss Carden did not prefer the other. “Ay, lad,” said she, “if I am to win thee, I'll be able to say I won thee fair.”
These sweet thoughts and hopes soon removed her temporary anger, and nothing remained to dash the hopeful joy that warmed that large and loyal heart this afternoon, except a gentle misgiving that Mr. Coventry might make Grace a worse husband than she deserved. It was thus she read the magpie, from three o'clock till six that afternoon.
When a man and a woman do any thing wrong, it is amusing to hear the judgments of other men and women thereupon. The men all blame the man, and the women all the woman. That is judgment, is it not?
But in some cases our pitch-farthing judgments must be either heads or tails; so Mr. Raby, who had cried heads, when a Mrs. Raby would have cried “woman,” was right; it WAS Mr. Coventry, and not Miss Carden, who leaned over to George, and whispered, “A sovereign, to drive on without her! Make some excuse.”
The cunning Yorkshire groom's eye twinkled at this, and he remained passive a minute or two: then, said suddenly, with well-acted fervor, “I can't keep the pony waiting in the cold, like this;” applied the whip, and rattled off with such decision, that Grace did not like to interfere, especially as George was known to be one of those hard masters, an old servant.
So, by this little ruse, Mr. Coventry had got her all to himself for the afternoon. And now she felt sure he would propose that very day.
She made no movement whatever either to advance or to avoid the declaration.
It is five miles from Raby Hall, through Cairnhope village, to the eastern foot of Cairnhope; and while George rattles them over the hard and frosty road, I will tell the reader something about this young gentleman, who holds the winning cards.
Mr. Frederick Coventry was a man of the world. He began life with a good estate, and a large fund accumulated during his minority.
He spent all the money in learning the world at home and abroad; and, when it was all gone, he opened one eye.
But, as a man cannot see very clear with a single orb, he exchanged rouge-et-noir, etc., for the share-market, and, in other respects, lived as fast as ever, till he had mortgaged his estate rather heavily. Then he began to open both eyes.
Next, he fell in love with Grace Carden; and upon that he opened both eyes very wide, and wished very much he had his time to live over again.
Nevertheless, he was not much to be pitied. He had still an estate which, with due care, could pay off its incumbrances; and he had gathered some valuable knowledge. He knew women better than most men, and he knew whist profoundly. Above all, he had acquired what Voltaire justly calls “le grand art de plaire;” he had studied this art, as many women study it, and few men. Why, he even watched the countenance, and smoothed the rising bristles of those he wished to please, or did not wish to displease. This was the easier to him that he had no strong convictions on any great topic. It is your plaguy convictions that make men stubborn and disagreeable.
A character of this kind is very susceptible, either of good or evil influences; and his attachment to Grace Carden was turning him the right way.
Add to this a good figure and a distinguished air, and you have some superficial idea of the gentleman toward whom Grace Carden found herself drawn by circumstances, and not unwillingly, though not with that sacred joy and thrill which marks a genuine passion.
They left George and the trap at the “Colley Dog,” and ascended the mountain. There were no serious difficulties on this side; but still there were little occasional asperities, that gave the lover an opportunity to offer his arm; and Mr. Coventry threw a graceful devotion even into this slight act of homage. He wooed her with perfect moderation at first; it was not his business to alarm her at starting; he proceeded gradually; and, by the time they had reached the summit, he had felt his way, and had every reason to hope she would accept him.
At the summit the remarkable beauty of the view threw her into raptures, and interrupted the more interesting topic on which he was bent.
But the man of the world showed no impatience (I don't say he felt none); he answered all Grace's questions, and told her what all the places were.
But, by-and-by, the atmosphere thickened suddenly in that quarter, and he then told her gently he had something to show her on the other side of the knob.
He conducted her to a shed the shepherds had erected, and seated her on a rude bench. “You must be a little tired,” he said.
Then he showed her, in the valley, one of those delightful old red brick houses, with white stone facings. “That is Bollinghope.”
She looked at it with polite interest.
“Do you like it?”
“Very much. It warms the landscape so.”
He expected a more prosaic answer; but he took her cue. “I wish it was a great deal prettier than it is, and its owner a much better man; richer—wiser—”
“You are hard to please, Mr. Coventry.”
“Miss Carden—Grace—may I call you Grace?”
“It seems to me you have done it.”
“But I had no right.”
“Then, of course, you will never do it again.”
“I should be very unhappy if I thought that. Miss Carden, I think you know how dear you are to me, and have been ever since I first met you. I wish I had ten times more to offer you than I have. But I am only a poor gentleman, of good descent, but moderate means, as you see.” Comedie! (Bollinghope was the sort of house that generally goes with L5000 a year at least.)
“I don't care about your means, Mr. Coventry,” said Grace, with a lofty smile. “It is your amiable character that I esteem.”
“You forgive me for loving you; for hoping that you will let me lead you to my poor house there, as my adored wife?”
It had come; and, although she knew it was coming, yet her face was dyed with blushes.
“I esteem you very much,” she faltered. “I thank you for the honor you do me; but I—oh, pray, let me think what I am doing.” She covered her face with her hands, and her bosom panted visibly.
Mr. Coventry loved her sincerely, and his own heart beat high at this moment. He augured well from her agitation; but presently he saw something that puzzled him, and gave a man of his experience a qualm.
A tear forced its way between her fingers; another, and another, soon followed.
Coventry said to himself, “There's some other man.” And he sighed heavily; but even in this moment of true and strong feeling he was on his guard, and said nothing.
It was his wisest course. She was left to herself, and an amazing piece of female logic came to Mr. Coventry's aid. She found herself crying, and got frightened at herself. That, which would have made a man pause, had just the opposite effect on her. She felt that no good could come to any body of those wild and weak regrets that made her weep. She saw she had a weakness and a folly to cure herself of; and the cure was at hand. There was a magic in marriage; a gentleman could, somehow, MAKE a girl love him when once she had married him. Mr. Coventry should be enabled to make her love him; he should cure her of this trick of crying; it would be the best thing for every body—for HIM, for Jael, for Mr. Coventry, and even for herself.
She dried her eyes, and said, in a low, tremulous voice: “Have you spoken to papa of—of this?”
“No. I waited to be authorized by you. May I speak to him?”
“Yes.”
“May I tell him—?”
“Oh I can't tell you what to tell him. How dark it is getting. Please take me home.” Another tear or two.
Then, if Coventry had not loved her sincerely, and also been a man of the world, he would have lost his temper; and if he had lost his temper, he would have lost the lady, for she would have seized the first fair opportunity to quarrel. But no, he took her hand gently, and set himself to comfort her. He poured out his love to her, and promised her a life of wedded happiness. He drew so delightful a picture of their wedded life, and in a voice so winning, that she began to be consoled, and her tears ceased.
“I believe you love me,” she murmured; “and I esteem you sincerely.”
Mr. Coventry drew a family ring from his pocket. It was a sapphire of uncommon beauty.
“This was my mother's,” said he. “Will you do me the honor to wear it, as a pledge?”
But the actual fetter startled her, I think. She started up, and said, “Oh, please take me home first! IT IS GOING TO SNOW.”
Call her slippery, if you don't like her; call her unhappy and wavering, if you do like her.
Mr. Coventry smiled now at this attempt to put off the inevitable, and complied at once.
But, before they had gone a hundred yards, the snow did really fall, and so heavily that the air was darkened.
“We had better go back to the shed till it is over,” said Mr. Coventry.
“Do you think so?” said Grace, doubtfully. “Well.”
And they went back.
But the snow did not abate, and the air got darker. So, by-and-by, Grace suggested that Mr. Coventry should run down the hill, and send George up to her with an umbrella.
“What, and leave you alone?” said he.
“Well, then, we had better go together.”
They started together.
By this time the whole ground was covered about three inches deep; not enough to impede their progress; but it had the unfortunate effect of effacing the distinct features of the ground; and, as the declining sun could no longer struggle successfully through the atmosphere, which was half air, half snow, they were almost in darkness, and soon lost their way. They kept slanting unconsciously to the left, till they got over one of the forks of the mountain and into a ravine: they managed to get out of that, and continued to descend; for the great thing they had to do was to reach the valley, no matter where.
But, after a long laborious, and even dangerous descent, they found themselves beginning to ascend. Another mountain or hill barred their progress. Then they knew they must be all wrong, and began to feel rather anxious. They wished they had stayed up on the hill.
They consulted together, and agreed to go on for the present; it might be only a small rise in the ground.
And so it proved. After a while they found themselves descending again.
But now the path was full of pitfalls, hidden by the snow and the darkness.
Mr. Coventry insisted on going first.
In this order they moved cautiously on, often stumbling.
Suddenly Mr. Coventry disappeared with a sudden plunge, and rolled down a ravine, with a loud cry.
Grace stood transfixed with terror.
Then she called to him.
There was no answer.
She called again.
A faint voice replied that he was not much hurt, and would try to get back to her.
This, however, was impossible, and all he could do was to scramble along the bottom of the ravine.
Grace kept on the high ground, and they called to each other every moment. They seemed to be a long way from each other; yet they were never sixty yards apart. At last the descent moderated, and Grace rejoined him.
Then they kept in the hollow for some time, but at last found another acclivity to mount: they toiled up it, laden with snow, yet perspiring profusely with the exertion of toiling uphill through heather clogged with heavy snow.
They reached the summit, and began to descend again. But now their hearts began to quake. Men had been lost on Cairnhope before to-day, and never found alive: and they were lost on Cairnhope; buried in the sinuosities of the mountain, and in a tremendous snowstorm.
They wandered and staggered, sick at heart; since each step might be for the worse.
They wandered and staggered, miserably; and the man began to sigh, and the woman to cry.
At last they were so exhausted, they sat down in despair: and, in a few minutes, they were a couple of snow-heaps.
Mr. Coventry was the first to see all the danger they ran by this course.
“For God's sake, let us go on!” he said; “if we once get benumbed, we are lost. We MUST keep moving, till help comes to us.”
Then they staggered, and stumbled on again, till they both sank into a deep snow-drift.
They extricated themselves, but, oh, when they felt that deep cold snow all round them, it was a foretaste of the grave.
The sun had set, it was bitterly cold, and still the enormous flakes fell, and doubled the darkness of the night.
They staggered and stumbled on, not now with any hope of extricating themselves from the fatal mountain, but merely to keep the blood alive in their veins. And, when they were exhausted, they sat down, and soon were heaps of snow.
While they sat thus, side by side, thinking no more of love, or any other thing but this: should they ever see the sun rise, or sit by a fireside again? suddenly they heard a sound in the air behind them, and, in a moment, what seemed a pack of hounds in full cry passed close over their heads.
They uttered a loud cry.
“We are saved!” cried Grace. “Mr. Raby is hunting us with his dogs. That was the echo.”
Coventry groaned. “What scent would lie?” said he. “Those hounds were in the air; a hundred strong.”
Neither spoke for a moment, and then it was Grace who broke the terrible silence.
“THE GABRIEL HOUNDS!”
“The Gabriel hounds; that run before calamity! Mr. Coventry, there's nothing to be done now, but to make our peace with God. For you are a dead man, and I'm a dead woman. My poor papa! poor Mr. Little!”
She kneeled down on the snow, and prayed patiently, and prepared to deliver up her innocent soul to Him who gave it.
Not so her companion. He writhed away from death. He groaned, he sighed, he cursed, he complained. What was Raby thinking of, to let them perish?
Presently he shouted out—“I'll not die this dog's death, I will not. I'll save myself, and come back for you.”
The girl prayed on, and never heeded him.
But he was already on his feet, and set off to run: and he actually did go blundering on for a furlong and more, and fell into a mountain-stream, swollen by floods, which whirled him along with it like a feather, it was not deep enough to drown him by submersion, but it rolled him over and over again, and knocked him against rocks and stones, and would infallibly have destroyed him, but that a sudden sharp turn in the current drove him, at last, against a projecting tree, which he clutched, and drew himself out with infinite difficulty. But when he tried to walk, his limbs gave way; and he sank fainting on the ground, and the remorseless snow soon covered his prostrate body.
All this time, Grace Carden was kneeling on the snow, and was, literally a heap of snow. She was patient and composed now, and felt a gentle sleep stealing over.
That sleep would have been her death.
But, all of a sudden something heavy touched her clothes, and startled her, and two dark objects passed her.
They were animals.
In a moment it darted through her mind that animals are wiser than man in some things. She got up with difficulty, for her limbs were stiffened, and followed them.
The dark forms struggled on before. They knew the ground, and soon took her to the edge of that very stream into which Coventry had fallen.
They all three went within a yard of Mr. Coventry, and still they pursued their way; and Grace hoped they were making for some shelter. She now called aloud to Mr. Coventry, thinking he must be on before her. But he had not recovered his senses.
Unfortunately, the cry startled the sheep, and they made a rush, and she could not keep up with them: she toiled, she called, she prayed for strength; but they left her behind, and she could see their very forms no more. Then she cried out in agony, and still, with that power of self-excitement, which her sex possess in an eminent degree, she struggled on and on, beyond her strength till, at last, she fell down from sheer exhaustion, and the snow fell fast upon her body.
But, even as she lay, she heard a tinkling. She took it for sheep-bells, and started up once more, and once more cried to Mr. Coventry; and this time he heard her, and shook off his deadly lethargy, and tried to hobble toward her voice.
Meantime, Grace struggled toward the sound, and lo, a light was before her, a light gleaming red and dullish in the laden atmosphere. With her remnant of life and strength, she dashed at it, and found a wall in her way. She got over it somehow, and saw the light quite close, and heard the ringing of steel on steel.
She cried out for help, for she felt herself failing. She tottered along the wall of the building, searching for a door. She found the porch. She found the church door. But by this time she was quite spent; her senses reeled; her cry was a moan.
She knocked once with her hands. She tried to knock again; but the door flew suddenly open, and, in the vain endeavor to knock again, her helpless body, like a pillar of snow, fell forward; but Henry Little caught her directly, and then she clutched him feebly, by mere instinct.
He uttered a cry of love and alarm. She opened her filmy eyes, and stared at him. Her cold neck and white cheek rested on his bare and glowing arm.
The moment he saw it was really Grace Carden that had fallen inanimate into his arms, Henry Little uttered a loud cry of love and terror, and, putting his other sinewy arm under her, carried her swiftly off to his fires, uttering little moans of fear and pity as he went; he laid her down by the fire, and darted to the forge, and blew it to a white heat; and then darted back to her, and kissed her cold hands with pretty moans of love; and then blew up the other fires; and then back to her, and patted her hands, and kissed them with all his soul, and drew them to his bosom to warm them; and drew her head to his heart to warm her; and all with pretty moans of love, and fear, and pity; and the tears rained out of his eyes at sight of her helpless condition, and the tears fell upon her brow and her hands; and all this vitality and love soon electrified her; she opened her eyes, and smiled faintly, but such a smile, and murmured, “It's you,” and closed her eyes again.
Then he panted out, “Yes, it is I,—a friend. I won't hurt you—I won't tell you how I love you any more—only live! Don't give way. You shall marry who you like. You shall never be thwarted, nor worried, nor made love to again; only be brave and live; don't rob the world of the only angel that is in it. Have mercy, and live! I'll never ask more of you than that. Oh, how pale! I am frightened. Cursed fires, have you no warmth IN you?” And he was at the bellows again. And the next moment back to her, imploring her, and sighing over her, and saying the wildest, sweetest, drollest things, such as only those who love can say, in moments when hearts are bursting.
How now? Her cheek that was so white is pink—pinker—red—scarlet. She is blushing.
She had closed her eyes at love's cries. Perhaps she was not altogether unwilling to hear that divine music of the heart, so long as she was not bound to reply and remonstrate—being insensible.
But now she speaks, faintly, but clearly, “Don't he frightened. I promise not to die. Pray don't cry so.” Then she put out her hand to him, and turned her head away, and cried herself, gently, but plenteously.
Henry, kneeling by her, clasped the hand she lent him with both his, and drew it to his panting heart in ecstasy.
Grace's cheeks were rosy red.
They remained so a little while in silence.
Henry's heart was too full of beatitude to speak. He drew her a little nearer to the glowing fires, to revive her quite; but still kneeled by her, and clasped her hand to his heart. She felt it beat, and turned her blushing brow away, but made no resistance: she was too weak.
“Halloo!” cried a new voice, that jarred with the whole scene; and Mr. Coventry hobbled in sight. He gazed in utter amazement on the picture before him.
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