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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11750 ***
+
+J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES, VOLUME 3
+
+The Haunted Baronet (1871)
+
+by
+
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Haunted Baronet
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The George and Dragon
+
+The pretty little town of Golden Friars--standing by the margin of the
+lake, hemmed round by an amphitheatre of purple mountain, rich in tint
+and furrowed by ravines, high in air, when the tall gables and narrow
+windows of its ancient graystone houses, and the tower of the old
+church, from which every evening the curfew still rings, show like
+silver in the moonbeams, and the black elms that stand round throw
+moveless shadows upon the short level grass--is one of the most singular
+and beautiful sights I have ever seen.
+
+There it rises, 'as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand,' looking so
+light and filmy, that you could scarcely believe it more than a picture
+reflected on the thin mist of night.
+
+On such a still summer night the moon shone splendidly upon the front of
+the George and Dragon, the comfortable graystone inn of Golden Friars,
+with the grandest specimen of the old inn-sign, perhaps, left in
+England. It looks right across the lake; the road that skirts its margin
+running by the steps of the hall-door, opposite to which, at the other
+side of the road, between two great posts, and framed in a fanciful
+wrought-iron border splendid with gilding, swings the famous sign of St.
+George and the Dragon, gorgeous with colour and gold.
+
+In the great room of the George and Dragon, three or four of the old
+_habitués_ of that cozy lounge were refreshing a little after the
+fatigues of the day.
+
+This is a comfortable chamber, with an oak wainscot; and whenever in
+summer months the air is sharp enough, as on the present occasion, a
+fire helped to light it up; which fire, being chiefly wood, made a
+pleasant broad flicker on panel and ceiling, and yet did not make the
+room too hot.
+
+On one side sat Doctor Torvey, the doctor of Golden Friars, who knew the
+weak point of every man in the town, and what medicine agreed with each
+inhabitant--a fat gentleman, with a jolly laugh and an appetite for all
+sorts of news, big and little, and who liked a pipe, and made a tumbler
+of punch at about this hour, with a bit of lemon-peel in it. Beside him
+sat William Peers, a thin old gentleman, who had lived for more than
+thirty years in India, and was quiet and benevolent, and the last man in
+Golden Friars who wore a pigtail. Old Jack Amerald, an ex-captain of the
+navy, with his short stout leg on a chair, and its wooden companion
+beside it, sipped his grog, and bawled in the old-fashioned navy way,
+and called his friends his 'hearties.' In the middle, opposite the
+hearth, sat deaf Tom Hollar, always placid, and smoked his pipe, looking
+serenely at the fire. And the landlord of the George and Dragon every
+now and then strutted in, and sat down in the high-backed wooden
+arm-chair, according to the old-fashioned republican ways of the place,
+and took his share in the talk gravely, and was heartily welcome.
+
+"And so Sir Bale is coming home at last," said the Doctor. "Tell us any
+more you heard since."
+
+"Nothing," answered Richard Turnbull, the host of the George. "Nothing
+to speak of; only 'tis certain sure, and so best; the old house won't
+look so dowly now."
+
+"Twyne says the estate owes a good capful o' money by this time, hey?"
+said the Doctor, lowering his voice and winking.
+
+"Weel, they do say he's been nout at dow. I don't mind saying so to
+_you_, mind, sir, where all's friends together; but he'll get that right
+in time."
+
+"More like to save here than where he is," said the Doctor with another
+grave nod.
+
+"He does very wisely," said Mr. Peers, having blown out a thin stream of
+smoke, "and creditably, to pull-up in time. He's coming here to save a
+little, and perhaps he'll marry; and it is the more creditable, if, as
+they say, he dislikes the place, and would prefer staying where he is."
+
+And having spoken thus gently, Mr. Peers resumed his pipe cheerfully.
+
+"No, he don't like the place; that is, I'm told he _didn't_," said the
+innkeeper.
+
+"He _hates_ it," said the Doctor with another dark nod.
+
+"And no wonder, if all's true I've heard," cried old Jack Amerald.
+"Didn't he drown a woman and her child in the lake?"
+
+"Hollo! my dear boy, don't let them hear you say that; you're all in the
+clouds."
+
+"By Jen!" exclaimed the landlord after an alarmed silence, with his
+mouth and eyes open, and his pipe in his hand, "why, sir, I pay rent for
+the house up there. I'm thankful--dear knows, I _am_ thankful--we're all
+to ourselves!"
+
+Jack Amerald put his foot on the floor, leaving his wooden leg in its
+horizontal position, and looked round a little curiously.
+
+"Well, if it wasn't him, it was some one else. I'm sure it happened up
+at Mardykes. I took the bearings on the water myself from Glads Scaur to
+Mardykes Jetty, and from the George and Dragon sign down here--down to
+the white house under Forrick Fells. I could fix a buoy over the very
+spot. Some one here told me the bearings, I'd take my oath, where the
+body was seen; and yet no boat could ever come up with it; and that was
+queer, you know, so I clapt it down in my log."
+
+"Ay, sir, there _was_ some flummery like that, Captain," said Turnbull;
+"for folk will be gabbin'. But 'twas his grandsire was talked o', not
+him; and 'twould play the hangment wi' me doun here, if 'twas thought
+there was stories like that passin' in the George and Dragon.'
+
+"Well, his grandfather; 'twas all one to him, I take it."
+
+"There never was no proof, Captain, no more than smoke; and the family
+up at Mardykes wouldn't allow the king to talk o' them like that, sir;
+for though they be lang deod that had most right to be angered in the
+matter, there's none o' the name but would be half daft to think 'twas
+still believed, and he full out as mich as any. Not that I need care
+more than another, though they do say he's a bit frowsy and
+short-waisted; for he can't shouther me out o' the George while I pay my
+rent, till nine hundred and ninety-nine year be rin oot; and a man, be
+he ne'er sa het, has time to cool before then. But there's no good
+quarrellin' wi' teathy folk; and it may lie in his way to do the George
+mony an ill turn, and mony a gude one; an' it's only fair to say it
+happened a long way before he was born, and there's no good in vexin'
+him; and I lay ye a pound, Captain, the Doctor hods wi' me."
+
+The Doctor, whose business was also sensitive, nodded; and then he said,
+"But for all that, the story's old, Dick Turnbull--older than you or I,
+my jolly good friend."
+
+"And best forgotten," interposed the host of the George.
+
+"Ay, best forgotten; but that it's not like to be," said the Doctor,
+plucking up courage. "Here's our friend the Captain has heard it; and
+the mistake he has made shows there's one thing worse than its being
+quite remembered, and that is, its being _half_ remembered. We can't
+stop people talking; and a story like that will see us all off the
+hooks, and be in folks' mouths, still, as strong as ever."
+
+"Ay; and now I think on it, 'twas Dick Harman that has the boat down
+there--an old tar like myself--that told me that yarn. I was trying for
+pike, and he pulled me over the place, and that's how I came to hear it.
+I say, Tom, my hearty, serve us out another glass of brandy, will you?"
+shouted the Captain's voice as the waiter crossed the room; and that
+florid and grizzled naval hero clapped his leg again on the chair by its
+wooden companion, which he was wont to call his jury-mast.
+
+"Well, I do believe it will be spoke of longer than we are like to
+hear," said the host, "and I don't much matter the story, if it baint
+told o' the wrong man." Here he touched his tumbler with the spoon,
+indicating by that little ring that Tom, who had returned with the
+Captain's grog, was to replenish it with punch. "And Sir Bale is like to
+be a friend to this house. I don't see no reason why he shouldn't. The
+George and Dragon has bin in our family ever since the reign of King
+Charles the Second. It was William Turnbull in that time, which they
+called it the Restoration, he taking the lease from Sir Tony Mardykes
+that was then. They was but knights then. They was made baronets first
+in the reign of King George the Second; you may see it in the list of
+baronets and the nobility. The lease was made to William Turnbull, which
+came from London; and he built the stables, which they was out o'
+repair, as you may read to this day in the lease; and the house has
+never had but one sign since--the George and Dragon, it is pretty well
+known in England--and one name to its master. It has been owned by a
+Turnbull from that day to this, and they have not been counted bad men."
+A murmur of applause testified the assent of his guests. "They has been
+steady churchgoin' folk, and brewed good drink, and maintained the best
+o' characters, hereaways and farther off too, though 'tis I, Richard
+Turnbull, that says it; and while they pay their rent, no man has power
+to put them out; for their title's as good to the George and Dragon, and
+the two fields, and the croft, and the grazing o' their kye on the
+green, as Sir Bale Mardykes to the Hall up there and estate. So 'tis
+nout to me, except in the way o' friendliness, what the family may think
+o' me; only the George and they has always been kind and friendly, and I
+don't want to break the old custom."
+
+"Well said, Dick!" exclaimed Doctor Torvey; "I own to your conclusion;
+but there ain't a soul here but ourselves--and we're all friends, and
+you are your own master--and, hang it, you'll tell us that story about
+the drowned woman, as you heard it from your father long ago."
+
+"Ay, do, and keep us to our liquor, my hearty!" cried the Captain.
+
+Mr. Peers looked his entreaty; and deaf Mr. Hollar, having no interest
+in the petition, was at least a safe witness, and, with his pipe in his
+lips, a cozy piece of furniture.
+
+Richard Turnbull had his punch beside him; he looked over his shoulder.
+The door was closed, the fire was cheery, and the punch was fragrant,
+and all friendly faces about him. So said he:
+
+"Gentlemen, as you're pleased to wish it, I don't see no great harm in
+it; and at any rate, 'twill prevent mistakes. It is more than ninety
+years since. My father was but a boy then; and many a time I have heard
+him tell it in this very room."
+
+And looking into his glass he mused, and stirred his punch slowly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The Drowned Woman
+
+"It ain't much of a homminy," said the host of the George. "I'll not
+keep you long over it, gentlemen. There was a handsome young lady, Miss
+Mary Feltram o' Cloostedd by name. She was the last o' that family; and
+had gone very poor. There's but the walls o' the house left now; grass
+growing in the hall, and ivy over the gables; there's no one livin' has
+ever hard tell o' smoke out o' they chimblies. It stands on t'other side
+o' the lake, on the level wi' a deal o' a'ad trees behint and aside it
+at the gap o' the clough, under the pike o' Maiden Fells. Ye may see it
+wi' a spyin'-glass from the boatbield at Mardykes Hall."
+
+"I've been there fifty times," said the Doctor.
+
+"Well there was dealin's betwixt the two families; and there's good and
+bad in every family; but the Mardykes, in them days, was a wild lot. And
+when old Feltram o' Cloostedd died, and the young lady his daughter was
+left a ward o' Sir Jasper Mardykes--an ill day for her, poor
+lass!--twenty year older than her he was, an' more; and nothin' about
+him, they say, to make anyone like or love him, ill-faur'd and little
+and dow."
+
+"Dow--that's gloomy," Doctor Torvey instructed the Captain aside.
+
+"But they do say, they has an old blud-stean ring in the family that
+has a charm in't; and happen how it might, the poor lass fell in love
+wi' him. Some said they was married. Some said it hang'd i' the
+bell-ropes, and never had the priest's blessing; but anyhow, married or
+no, there was talk enough amang the folk, and out o' doors she would na
+budge. And there was two wee barns; and she prayed him hard to confess
+the marriage, poor thing! But t'was a bootlese bene, and he would not
+allow they should bear his name, but their mother's; he was a hard man,
+and hed the bit in his teeth, and went his ain gait. And having tired of
+her, he took in his head to marry a lady of the Barnets, and it behoved
+him to be shut o' her and her children; and so she nor them was seen no
+more at Mardykes Hall. And the eldest, a boy, was left in care of my
+grandfather's father here in the George."
+
+"That queer Philip Feltram that's travelling with Sir Bale so long is a
+descendant of his?" said the Doctor.
+
+"Grandson," observed Mr. Peers, removing his pipe for a moment; "and is
+the last of that stock."
+
+"Well, no one could tell where she had gone to. Some said to distant
+parts, some said to the madhouse, some one thing, some another; but
+neither she nor the barn was ever seen or spoke to by the folk at
+Mardykes in life again. There was one Mr. Wigram that lived in them
+times down at Moultry, and had sarved, like the Captain here, in the
+king's navy in his day; and early of a morning down he comes to the town
+for a boat, sayin' he was looking towards Snakes Island through his
+spyin'-glass, and he seen a woman about a hundred and fifty yards
+outside of it; the Captain here has heard the bearings right enough.
+From her hips upwards she was stark and straight out o' the water, and a
+baby in her arms. Well, no one else could see it, nor he neither, when
+they went down to the boat. But next morning he saw the same thing, and
+the boatman saw it too; and they rowed for it, both pulling might and
+main; but after a mile or so they could see it no more, and gave over.
+The next that saw it was the vicar, I forget his name now--but he was up
+the lake to a funeral at Mortlock Church; and coming back with a bit of
+a sail up, just passin' Snakes Island, what should they hear on a sudden
+but a wowl like a death-cry, shrill and bleak, as made the very blood
+hoot in their veins; and looking along the water not a hundred yards
+away, saw the same grizzled sight in the moonlight; so they turned the
+tiller, and came near enough to see her face--blea it was, and drenched
+wi' water--and she was above the lake to her middle, stiff as a post,
+holdin' the weeny barn out to them, and flyrin' [smiling scornfully] on
+them as they drew nigh her. They were half-frighted, not knowing what to
+make of it; but passing as close as the boatman could bring her side,
+the vicar stretched over the gunwale to catch her, and she bent forward,
+pushing the dead bab forward; and as she did, on a sudden she gave a
+yelloch that scared them, and they saw her no more. 'Twas no livin'
+woman, for she couldn't rise that height above the water, as they well
+knew when they came to think; and knew it was a dobby they saw; and ye
+may be sure they didn't spare prayer and blessin', and went on their
+course straight before the wind; for neither would a-took the worth o'
+all the Mardykes to look sich a freetin' i' the face again. 'Twas seen
+another time by market-folk crossin' fra Gyllenstan in the self-same
+place; and Snakes Island got a bad neam, and none cared to go nar it
+after nightfall."
+
+"Do you know anything of that Feltram that has been with him abroad?"
+asked the Doctor.
+
+"They say he's no good at anything--a harmless mafflin; he was a long
+gaumless gawky when he went awa," said Richard Turnbull. "The Feltrams
+and the Mardykes was sib, ye know; and that made what passed in the
+misfortune o' that young lady spoken of all the harder; and this young
+man ye speak of is a grandson o' the lad that was put here in care o' my
+grandfather."
+
+"_Great_-grandson. His father was grandson," said Mr. Peers; "he held a
+commission in the army and died in the West Indies. This Philip Feltram
+is the last o' that line--illegitimate, you know, it is held--and the
+little that remained of the Feltram property went nearly fourscore years
+ago to the Mardykes, and this Philip is maintained by Sir Bale; it is
+pleasant, notwithstanding all the stories one hears, gentlemen, that the
+only thing we know of him for certain should be so creditable to his
+kindness."
+
+"To be sure," acquiesced Mr. Turnbull.
+
+While they talked the horn sounded, and the mail-coach drew up at the
+door of the George and Dragon to set down a passenger and his luggage.
+
+Dick Turnbull rose and went out to the hall with careful bustle, and
+Doctor Torvey followed as far as the door, which commanded a view of it,
+and saw several trunks cased in canvas pitched into the hall, and by
+careful Tom and a boy lifted one on top of the other, behind the corner
+of the banister. It would have been below the dignity of his cloth to go
+out and read the labels on these, or the Doctor would have done
+otherwise, so great was his curiosity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Philip Feltram
+
+The new guest was now in the hall of the George, and Doctor Torvey could
+hear him talking with Mr. Turnbull. Being himself one of the dignitaries
+of Golden Friars, the Doctor, having regard to first impressions, did
+not care to be seen in his post of observation; and closing the door
+gently, returned to his chair by the fire, and in an under-tone informed
+his cronies that there was a new arrival in the George, and he could not
+hear, but would not wonder if he were taking a private room; and he
+seemed to have trunks enough to build a church with.
+
+"Don't be too sure we haven't Sir Bale on board," said Amerald, who
+would have followed his crony the Doctor to the door--for never was
+retired naval hero of a village more curious than he--were it not that
+his wooden leg made a distinct pounding on the floor that was inimical,
+as experience had taught him, to mystery.
+
+"That can't be," answered the Doctor; "Charley Twyne knows everything
+about it, and has a letter every second day; and there's no chance of
+Sir Bale before the tenth; this is a tourist, you'll find. I don't know
+what the d---l keeps Turnbull; he knows well enough we are all naturally
+willing to hear who it is."
+
+"Well, he won't trouble us here, I bet ye;" and catching deaf Mr.
+Hollar's eye, the Captain nodded, and pointed to the little table beside
+him, and made a gesture imitative of the rattling of a dice-box; at
+which that quiet old gentleman also nodded sunnily; and up got the
+Captain and conveyed the backgammon-box to the table, near Hollar's
+elbow, and the two worthies were soon sinc-ducing and catre-acing, with
+the pleasant clatter that accompanies that ancient game. Hollar had
+thrown sizes and made his double point, and the honest Captain, who
+could stand many things better than Hollar's throwing such throws so
+early in the evening, cursed his opponent's luck and sneered at his
+play, and called the company to witness, with a distinctness which a
+stranger to smiling Hollar's deafness would have thought hardly civil;
+and just at this moment the door opened, and Richard Turnbull showed his
+new guest into the room, and ushered him to a vacant seat near the other
+corner of the table before the fire.
+
+The stranger advanced slowly and shyly, with something a little
+deprecatory in his air, to which a lathy figure, a slight stoop, and a
+very gentle and even heartbroken look in his pale long face, gave a more
+marked character of shrinking and timidity.
+
+He thanked the landlord aside, as it were, and took his seat with a
+furtive glance round, as if he had no right to come in and intrude upon
+the happiness of these honest gentlemen.
+
+He saw the Captain scanning him from under his shaggy grey eyebrows
+while he was pretending to look only at his game; and the Doctor was
+able to recount to Mrs. Torvey when he went home every article of the
+stranger's dress.
+
+It was odd and melancholy as his peaked face.
+
+He had come into the room with a short black cloak on, and a rather tall
+foreign felt hat, and a pair of shiny leather gaiters or leggings on his
+thin legs; and altogether presented a general resemblance to the
+conventional figure of Guy Fawkes.
+
+Not one of the company assembled knew the appearance of the Baronet. The
+Doctor and old Mr. Peers remembered something of his looks; and
+certainly they had no likeness, but the reverse, to those presented by
+the new-comer. The Baronet, as now described by people who had chanced
+to see him, was a dark man, not above the middle size, and with a
+certain decision in his air and talk; whereas this person was tall,
+pale, and in air and manner feeble. So this broken trader in the world's
+commerce, with whom all seemed to have gone wrong, could not possibly be
+he.
+
+Presently, in one of his stealthy glances, the Doctor's eye encountered
+that of the stranger, who was by this time drinking his tea--a thin and
+feminine liquor little used in that room.
+
+The stranger did not seem put out; and the Doctor, interpreting his look
+as a permission to converse, cleared his voice, and said urbanely,
+
+"We have had a little frost by night, down here, sir, and a little fire
+is no great harm--it is rather pleasant, don't you think?"
+
+The stranger bowed acquiescence with a transient wintry smile, and
+looked gratefully on the fire.
+
+"This place is a good deal admired, sir, and people come a good way to
+see it; you have been here perhaps before?"
+
+"Many years ago."
+
+Here was another pause.
+
+"Places change imperceptibly--in detail, at least--a good deal," said
+the Doctor, making an effort to keep up a conversation that plainly
+would not go on of itself; "and people too; population shifts--there's
+an old fellow, sir, they call _Death_."
+
+"And an old fellow they call the _Doctor_, that helps him," threw in the
+Captain humorously, allowing his attention to get entangled in the
+conversation, and treating them to one of his tempestuous ha-ha-ha's.
+
+"We are expecting the return of a gentleman who would be a very leading
+member of our little society down here," said the Doctor, not noticing
+the Captain's joke. "I mean Sir Bale Mardykes. Mardykes Hall is a pretty
+object from the water, sir, and a very fine old place."
+
+The melancholy stranger bowed slightly, but rather in courtesy to the
+relator, it seemed, than that the Doctor's lore interested him much.
+
+"And on the opposite side of the lake," continued Doctor Torvey, "there
+is a building that contrasts very well with it--the old house of the
+Feltrams--quite a ruin now, at the mouth of the glen--Cloostedd House, a
+very picturesque object."
+
+"Exactly opposite," said the stranger dreamily, but whether in the tone
+of acquiescence or interrogatory, the Doctor could not be quite sure.
+
+"That was one of our great families down here that has disappeared. It
+has dwindled down to nothing."
+
+"Duce ace," remarked Mr. Hollar, who was attending to his game.
+
+"While others have mounted more suddenly and amazingly still," observed
+gentle Mr. Peers, who was great upon county genealogies.
+
+"Sizes!" thundered the Captain, thumping the table with an oath of
+disgust.
+
+"And Snakes Island is a very pretty object; they say there used to be
+snakes there," said the Doctor, enlightening the visitor.
+
+"Ah! that's a mistake," said the dejected guest, making his first
+original observation. "It should be spelt _Snaiks_. In the old papers it
+is called Sen-aiks Island from the seven oaks that grew in a clump
+there."
+
+"Hey? that's very curious, egad! I daresay," said the Doctor, set right
+thus by the stranger, and eyeing him curiously.
+
+"Very true, sir," observed Mr. Peers; "three of those oaks, though, two
+of them little better than stumps, are there still; and Clewson of
+Heckleston has an old document----"
+
+Here, unhappily, the landlord entered the room in a fuss, and walking up
+to the stranger, said, "The chaise is at the door, Mr. Feltram, and the
+trunks up, sir."
+
+Mr. Feltram rose quietly and took out his purse, and said,
+
+"I suppose I had better pay at the bar?"
+
+"As you like best, sir," said Richard Turnbull.
+
+Mr. Feltram bowed all round to the gentlemen, who smiled, ducked or
+waved their hands; and the Doctor fussily followed him to the hall-door,
+and welcomed him back to Golden Friars--there was real kindness in this
+welcome--and proffered his broad brown hand, which Mr. Feltram took; and
+then he plunged into his chaise, and the door being shut, away he
+glided, chaise, horses, and driver, like shadows, by the margin of the
+moonlighted lake, towards Mardykes Hall.
+
+And after a few minutes' stand upon the steps, looking along the shadowy
+track of the chaise, they returned to the glow of the room, in which a
+pleasant perfume of punch still prevailed; and beside Mr. Philip
+Feltram's deserted tea-things, the host of the George enlightened his
+guests by communicating freely the little he had picked up. The
+principal fact he had to tell was, that Sir Bale adhered strictly to his
+original plan, and was to arrive on the tenth. A few days would bring
+them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its
+interest. But in the meantime, all Golden Friars was anxious to see what
+Sir Bale Mardykes was like.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The Baronet Appears
+
+As the candles burn blue and the air smells of brimstone at the approach
+of the Evil One, so, in the quiet and healthy air of Golden Friars, a
+depressing and agitating influence announced the coming of the
+long-absent Baronet.
+
+From abroad, no good whatever had been at any time heard of him, and a
+great deal that was, in the ears of simple folk living in that
+unsophisticated part of the world, vaguely awful.
+
+Stories that travel so far, however, lose something of their authority,
+as well as definiteness, on the way; there was always room for charity
+to suggest a mistake or exaggeration; and if good men turned up their
+hands and eyes after a new story, and ladies of experience, who knew
+mankind, held their heads high and looked grim and mysterious at mention
+of his name, nevertheless an interval of silence softened matters a
+little, and the sulphureous perfume dissipated itself in time.
+
+Now that Sir Bale Mardykes had arrived at the Hall, there were hurried
+consultations held in many households. And though he was tried and
+sentenced by drum-head over some austere hearths, as a rule the law of
+gravitation prevailed, and the greater house drew the lesser about it,
+and county people within the visiting radius paid their respects at the
+Hall.
+
+The Reverend Martin Bedel, the then vicar of Golden Friars, a stout
+short man, with a mulberry-coloured face and small gray eyes, and
+taciturn habits, called and entered the drawing-room at Mardykes Hall,
+with his fat and garrulous wife on his arm.
+
+The drawing-room has a great projecting Tudor window looking out on the
+lake, with its magnificent background of furrowed and purple mountains.
+
+Sir Bale was not there, and Mrs. Bedel examined the pictures, and
+ornaments, and the books, making such remarks as she saw fit; and then
+she looked out of the window, and admired the prospect. She wished to
+stand well with the Baronet, and was in a mood to praise everything.
+
+You may suppose she was curious to see him, having heard for years such
+strange tales of his doings.
+
+She expected the hero of a brilliant and wicked romance; and listened
+for the step of the truant Lovelace who was to fulfil her idea of manly
+beauty and fascination.
+
+She sustained a slight shock when he did appear.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes was, as she might easily have remembered, a
+middle-aged man--and he looked it. He was not even an imposing-looking
+man for his time of life: he was of about the middle height, slightly
+made, and dark featured. She had expected something of the gaiety and
+animation of Versailles, and an evident cultivation of the art of
+pleasing. What she did see was a remarkable gravity, not to say gloom,
+of countenance--the only feature of which that struck her being a pair
+of large dark-gray eyes, that were cold and earnest. His manners had the
+ease of perfect confidence; and his talk and air were those of a person
+who might have known how to please, if it were worth the trouble, but
+who did not care twopence whether he pleased or not.
+
+He made them each a bow, courtly enough, but there was no smile--not
+even an affectation of cordiality. Sir Bale, however, was chatty, and
+did not seem to care much what he said, or what people thought of him;
+and there was a suspicion of sarcasm in what he said that the rustic
+literality of good Mrs. Bedel did not always detect.
+
+"I believe I have not a clergyman but _you_, sir, within any reasonable
+distance?"
+
+"Golden Friars _is_ the nearest," said Mrs. Bedel, answering, as was her
+pleasure on all practicable occasions, for her husband. "And southwards,
+the nearest is Wyllarden--and by a bird's flight that is thirteen miles
+and a half, and by the road more than nineteen--twenty, I may say, by
+the road. Ha, ha, ha! it is a long way to look for a clergyman."
+
+"Twenty miles of road to carry you thirteen miles across, hey? The
+road-makers lead you a pretty dance here; those gentlemen know how to
+make money, and like to show people the scenery from a variety of
+points. No one likes a straight road but the man who pays for it, or
+who, when he travels, is brute enough to wish to get to his journey's
+end."
+
+"That is so true, Sir Bale; one never cares if one is not in a hurry.
+That's what Martin thinks--don't we, Martin?--And then, you know, coming
+home is the time you _are_ in a hurry--when you are thinking of your cup
+of tea and the children; and _then_, you know, you have the fall of the
+ground all in your favour."
+
+"It's well to have anything in your favour in this place. And so there
+are children?"
+
+"A good many," said Mrs. Bedel, with a proud and mysterious smile, and a
+nod; "you wouldn't guess how many."
+
+"Not I; I only wonder you did not bring them all."
+
+"That's very good-natured of you, Sir Bale, but all could not come at
+_one_ bout; there are--tell him, Martin--ha, ha, ha! there are eleven."
+
+"It must be very cheerful down at the vicarage," said Sir Bale
+graciously; and turning to the vicar he added, "But how unequally
+blessings are divided! You have eleven, and I not one--that I'm aware
+of."
+
+"And then, in that direction straight before you, you have the lake, and
+then the fells; and five miles from the foot of the mountain at the
+other side, before you reach Fottrell--and that is twenty-five miles by
+the road----"
+
+"Dear me! how far apart they are set! My gardener told me this morning
+that asparagus grows very thinly in this part of the world. How thinly
+clergymen grow also down here--in one sense," he added politely, for the
+vicar was stout.
+
+"We were looking out of the window--we amused ourselves that way before
+you came--and your view is certainly the very best anywhere round this
+side; your view of the lake and the fells--what mountains they are, Sir
+Bale!"
+
+"'Pon my soul, they are! I wish I could blow them asunder with a charge
+of duck-shot, and I shouldn't be stifled by them long. But I suppose, as
+we can't get rid of them, the next best thing is to admire them. We are
+pretty well married to them, and there is no use in quarrelling."
+
+"I know you don't think so, Sir Bale, ha, ha, ha! You wouldn't take a
+good deal and spoil Mardykes Hall."
+
+"You can't get a mouthful or air, or see the sun of a morning, for those
+frightful mountains," he said with a peevish frown at them.
+
+"Well, the lake at all events--that you _must_ admire, Sir Bale?"
+
+"No ma'am, I don't admire the lake. I'd drain the lake if I could--I
+hate the lake. There's nothing so gloomy as a lake pent up among barren
+mountains. I can't conceive what possessed my people to build our house
+down here, at the edge of a lake; unless it was the fish, and precious
+fish it is--pike! I don't know how people digest it--_I_ can't. I'd as
+soon think of eating a watchman's pike."
+
+"I thought that having travelled so much abroad, you would have acquired
+a great liking for that kind of scenery, Sir Bale; there is a great deal
+of it on the Continent, ain't there?" said Mrs. Bedel. "And the
+boating."
+
+"Boating, my dear Mrs. Bedel, is the dullest of all things; don't you
+think so? Because a boat looks very pretty from the shore, we fancy the
+shore must look very pretty from a boat; and when we try it, we find we
+have only got down into a pit and can see nothing rightly. For my part I
+hate boating, and I hate the water; and I'd rather have my house, like
+Haworth, at the edge of a moss, with good wholesome peat to look at, and
+an open horizon--savage and stupid and bleak as all that is--than be
+suffocated among impassable mountains, or upset in a black lake and
+drowned like a kitten. O, there's luncheon in the next room; won't you
+take some?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Mrs. Julaper's Room
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes being now established in his ancestral house, people
+had time to form conclusions respecting him. It must be allowed he was
+not popular. There was, perhaps, in his conduct something of the caprice
+of contempt. At all events his temper and conduct were uncertain, and
+his moods sometimes violent and insulting.
+
+With respect to but one person was his conduct uniform, and that was
+Philip Feltram. He was a sort of aide-de-camp near Sir Bale's person,
+and chargeable with all the commissions and offices which could not be
+suitably intrusted to a mere servant. But in many respects he was
+treated worse than any servant of the Baronet's. Sir Bale swore at him,
+and cursed him; laid the blame of everything that went wrong in house,
+stable, or field upon his shoulders; railed at him, and used him, as
+people said, worse than a dog.
+
+Why did Feltram endure this contumelious life? What could he do but
+endure it? was the answer. What was the power that induced strong
+soldiers to put off their jackets and shirts, and present their hands to
+be tied up, and tortured for hours, it might be, under the scourge, with
+an air of ready volition? The moral coercion of despair; the result of
+an unconscious calculation of chances which satisfies them that it is
+ultimately better to do all that, bad as it is, than try the
+alternative. These unconscious calculations are going on every day with
+each of us, and the results embody themselves in our lives; and no one
+knows that there has been a process and a balance struck, and that what
+they see, and very likely blame, is by the fiat of an invisible but
+quite irresistible power.
+
+A man of spirit would rather break stones on the highway than eat that
+bitter bread, was the burden of every man's song on Feltram's bondage.
+But he was not so sure that even the stone-breaker's employment was open
+to him, or that he could break stones well enough to retain it on a fair
+trial. And he had other ideas of providing for himself, and a different
+alternative in his mind.
+
+Good-natured Mrs. Julaper, the old housekeeper at Mardykes Hall, was
+kind to Feltram, as to all others who lay in her way and were in
+affliction.
+
+She was one of those good women whom Nature provides to receive the
+burden of other people's secrets, as the reeds did long ago, only that
+no chance wind could steal them away, and send them singing into strange
+ears.
+
+You may still see her snuggery in Mardykes Hall, though the
+housekeeper's room is now in a different part of the house.
+
+Mrs. Julaper's room was in the oldest quarter of that old house. It was
+wainscoted, in black panels, up to the ceiling, which was stuccoed over
+in the fanciful diagrams of James the First's time. Several dingy
+portraits, banished from time to time from other statelier rooms, found
+a temporary abode in this quiet spot, where they had come finally to
+settle and drop out of remembrance. There is a lady in white satin and a
+ruff; a gentleman whose legs have faded out of view, with a peaked
+beard, and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a black periwig lost
+in the dark background, and with a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out
+of the darkness strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable
+across it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes, who crossed the Border
+and joined Dundee, and was shot through the temple at Killiecrankie and
+whom more prudent and whiggish scions of the Mardykes family removed
+forthwith from his place in the Hall, and found a retirement here, from
+which he has not since emerged.
+
+At the far end of this snug room is a second door, on opening which you
+find yourself looking down upon the great kitchen, with a little balcony
+before you, from which the housekeeper used to issue her commands to the
+cook, and exercise a sovereign supervision.
+
+There is a shelf on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible, her _Whole Duty of
+Man_, and her _Pilgrim's Progress_; and, in a file beside them, her
+books of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes,
+cookery-books, and some too on surgery and medicine, as practised by the
+Ladies Bountiful of the Elizabethan age, for which an antiquarian would
+nowadays give an eye or a hand.
+
+Gentle half-foolish Philip Feltram would tell the story of his wrongs,
+and weep and wish he was dead; and kind Mrs. Julaper, who remembered him
+a child, would comfort him with cold pie and cherry-brandy, or a cup of
+coffee, or some little dainty.
+
+"O, ma'am, I'm tired of my life. What's the good of living, if a poor
+devil is never let alone, and called worse names than a dog? Would not
+it be better, Mrs. Julaper, to be dead? Wouldn't it be better, ma'am? I
+think so; I think it night and day. I'm always thinking the same thing.
+I don't care, I'll just tell him what I think, and have it off my mind.
+I'll tell him I can't live and bear it longer."
+
+"There now, don't you be frettin'; but just sip this, and remember
+you're not to judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean it, not he.
+They all had a rough side to their tongue now and again; but no one
+minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the
+tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard
+words break no bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea--ye like a cup o'
+tea--and we'll take a cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see
+how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines on the lake this evening."
+
+She was patting him gently on the shoulder, as she stood slim and stiff
+in her dark silk by his chair, and her rosy little face smiled down on
+him. She was, for an old woman, wonderfully pretty still. What a
+delicate skin she must have had! The wrinkles were etched upon it with
+so fine a needle, you scarcely could see them a little way off; and as
+she smiled her cheeks looked fresh and smooth as two ruddy little
+apples.
+
+"Look out, I say," and she nodded towards the window, deep set in the
+thick wall. "See how bright and soft everything looks in that pleasant
+light; _that's_ better, child, than the finest picture man's hand ever
+painted yet, and God gives it us for nothing; and how pretty Snakes
+Island glows up in that light!"
+
+The dejected man, hardly raising his head, followed with his eyes the
+glance of the old woman, and looked mournfully through the window.
+
+"That island troubles me, Mrs. Julaper."
+
+"Everything troubles you, my poor goose-cap. I'll pull your lug for ye,
+child, if ye be so dowly;" and with a mimic pluck the good-natured old
+housekeeper pinched his ear and laughed.
+
+"I'll go to the still-room now, where the water's boiling, and I'll make
+a cup of tea; and if I find ye so dow when I come back, I'll throw it
+all out o' the window, mind."
+
+It was indeed a beautiful picture that Feltram saw in its deep frame of
+old masonry. The near part of the lake was flushed all over with the low
+western light; the more distant waters lay dark in the shadow of the
+mountains; and against this shadow of purple the rocks on Snakes Island,
+illuminated by the setting sun, started into sharp clear yellow.
+
+But this beautiful view had no charm--at least, none powerful enough to
+master the latent horror associated with its prettiest feature--for the
+weak and dismal man who was looking at it; and being now alone, he rose
+and leant on the window, and looked out, and then with a kind of shudder
+clutching his hands together, and walking distractedly about the room.
+
+Without his perceiving, while his back was turned, the housekeeper came
+back; and seeing him walking in this distracted way, she thought to
+herself, as he leant again upon the window:
+
+"Well, it _is_ a burning shame to worrit any poor soul into that state.
+Sir Bale was always down on someone or something, man or beast; there
+always was something he hated, and could never let alone. It was not
+pretty; it was his nature. Happen, poor fellow, he could not help it;
+but so it was."
+
+A maid came in and set the tea-things down; and Mrs. Julaper drew her
+sad guest over by the arm, and made him sit down, and she said: "What
+has a man to do, frettin' in that way? By Jen, I'm ashamed o' ye, Master
+Philip! Ye like three lumps o' sugar, I think, and--look cheerful, ye
+must!--a good deal o' cream?"
+
+"You're so kind, Mrs. Julaper, you're so cheery. I feel quite
+comfortable after awhile when I'm with you; I feel quite happy," and he
+began to cry.
+
+She understood him very well by this time and took no notice, but went
+on chatting gaily, and made his tea as he liked it; and he dried his
+tears hastily, thinking she had not observed.
+
+So the clouds began to clear. This innocent fellow liked nothing better
+than a cup of tea and a chat with gentle and cheery old Mrs. Julaper,
+and a talk in which the shadowy old times which he remembered as a child
+emerged into sunlight and lived again.
+
+When he began to feel better, drawn into the kindly old times by the
+tinkle of that harmless old woman's tongue, he said:
+
+"I sometimes think I would not so much mind--I should not care so
+much--if my spirits were not so depressed, and I so agitated. I suppose
+I am not quite well."
+
+"Well, tell me what's wrong, child, and it's odd but I have a recipe on
+the shelf there that will do you good."
+
+"It is not a matter of that sort I mean; though I'd rather have you than
+any doctor, if I needed medicine, to prescribe for me."
+
+Mrs. Julaper smiled in spite of herself, well pleased; for her skill in
+pharmacy was a point on which the good lady prided herself, and was open
+to flattery, which, without intending it, the simple fellow
+administered.
+
+"No, I'm well enough; I can't say I ever was better. It is only, ma'am,
+that I have such dreams--you have no idea."
+
+"There are dreams and dreams, my dear: there's some signifies no more
+than the babble of the lake down there on the pebbles, and there's
+others that has a meaning; there's dreams that is but vanity, and
+there's dreams that is good, and dreams that is bad. Lady
+Mardykes--heavens be her bed this day! that's his grandmother I
+mean--was very sharp for reading dreams. Take another cup of tea. Dear
+me! what a noise the crows keep aboon our heads, going home! and how
+high they wing it!--that's a sure sign of fine weather. An' what do you
+dream about? Tell me your dream, and I may show you it's a good one,
+after all. For many a dream is ugly to see and ugly to tell, and a good
+dream, with a happy meaning, for all that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The Intruder
+
+"Well, Mrs. Julaper, dreams I've dreamed like other people, old and
+young; but this, ma'am, has taken a fast hold of me," said Mr. Feltram
+dejectedly, leaning back in his chair and looking down with his hands in
+his pockets. "I think, Mrs. Julaper, it is getting into me. I think it's
+like possession."
+
+"Possession, child! what do you mean?"
+
+"I think there is something trying to influence me. Perhaps it is the
+way fellows go mad; but it won't let me alone. I've seen it three times,
+think of that!"
+
+"Well, dear, and what _have_ ye seen?" she asked, with an uneasy
+cheerfulness, smiling, with eyes fixed steadily upon him; for the idea
+of a madman--even gentle Philip in that state--was not quieting.
+
+"Do you remember the picture, full-length, that had no frame--the lady
+in the white-satin saque--she was beautiful, _funeste_," he added,
+talking more to himself; and then more distinctly to Mrs. Julaper
+again----"in the white-satin saque; and with the little mob cap and blue
+ribbons to it, and a bouquet in her fingers; that was--that--you know
+who she was?"
+
+"That was your great-grandmother, my dear," said Mrs. Julaper, lowering
+her eyes. "It was a dreadful pity it was spoiled. The boys in the pantry
+had it for a year there on the table for a tray, to wash the glasses on
+and the like. It was a shame; that was the prettiest picture in the
+house, with the gentlest, rosiest face."
+
+"It ain't so gentle or rosy now, I can tell you," said Philip. "As fixed
+as marble; with thin lips, and a curve at the nostril. Do you remember
+the woman that was found dead in the clough, when I was a boy, that the
+gipsies murdered, it was thought,--a cruel-looking woman?"
+
+"Agoy! Master Philip, dear! ye would not name that terrible-looking
+creature with the pretty, fresh, kindly face!"
+
+"Faces change, you see; no matter what she's like; it's her talk that
+frightens me. She wants to make use of me; and, you see, it is like
+getting a share in my mind, and a voice in my thoughts, and a command
+over me gradually; and it is just one idea, as straight as a line of
+light across the lake--see what she's come to. O Lord, help me!"
+
+"Well, now, don't you be talkin' like that. It is just a little bit
+dowly and troubled, because the master says a wry word now and then; and
+so ye let your spirits go down, don't ye see, and all sorts o' fancies
+comes into your head."
+
+"There's no fancy in my head," he said with a quick look of suspicion;
+"only you asked me what I dreamed. I don't care if all the world knew. I
+dreamed I went down a flight of steps under the lake, and got a message.
+There are no steps near Snakes Island, we all know that," and he laughed
+chillily. "I'm out of spirits, as you say; and--and--O dear! I
+wish--Mrs. Julaper--I wish I was in my coffin, and quiet."
+
+"Now that's very wrong of you, Master Philip; you should think of all
+the blessings you have, and not be makin' mountains o' molehills; and
+those little bits o' temper Sir Bale shows, why, no one minds 'em--that
+is, to take 'em to heart like you do, don't ye see?"
+
+"I daresay; I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you are right. I'm unreasonable
+often, I know," said gentle Philip Feltram. "I daresay I make too much
+of it; I'll try. I'm his secretary, and I know I'm not so bright as he
+is, and it is natural he should sometimes be a little impatient; I ought
+to be more reasonable, I'm sure. It is all that thing that has been
+disturbing me--I mean fretting, and, I think, I'm not quite well;
+and--and letting myself think too much of vexations. It's my own fault,
+I'm sure, Mrs. Julaper; and I know I'm to blame."
+
+"That's quite right, that's spoken like a wise lad; only I don't say
+you're to blame, nor no one; for folk can't help frettin' sometimes, no
+more than they can help a headache--none but a mafflin would say
+that--and I'll not deny but he has dowly ways when the fit's on him, and
+he frumps us all round, if such be his humour. But who is there hasn't
+his faults? We must bear and forbear, and take what we get and be
+cheerful. So chirp up, my lad; Philip, didn't I often ring the a'd rhyme
+in your ear long ago?
+
+  "Be always as merry as ever you can,
+  For no one delights in a sorrowful man.
+
+"So don't ye be gettin' up off your chair like that, and tramping about
+the room wi' your hands in your pockets, looking out o' this window, and
+staring out o' that, and sighing and crying, and looking so
+black-ox-trodden, 'twould break a body's heart to see you. Ye must be
+cheery; and happen you're hungry, and don't know it. I'll tell the cook
+to grill a hot bit for ye."
+
+"But I'm not hungry, Mrs. Julaper. How kind you are! dear me, Mrs.
+Julaper, I'm not worthy of it; I don't deserve half your kindness. I'd
+have been heartbroken long ago, but for you."
+
+"And I'll make a sup of something hot for you; you'll take a
+rummer-glass of punch--you must."
+
+"But I like the tea better; I do, indeed, Mrs. Julaper."
+
+"Tea is no drink for a man when his heart's down. It should be something
+with a leg in it, lad; something hot that will warm your courage for ye,
+and set your blood a-dancing, and make ye talk brave and merry; and will
+you have a bit of a broil first? No? Well then, you'll have a drop o'
+punch?--ye sha'n't say no."
+
+And so, all resistance overpowered, the consolation of Philip Feltram
+proceeded.
+
+A gentler spirit than poor Feltram, a more good-natured soul than the
+old housekeeper, were nowhere among the children of earth.
+
+Philip Feltram, who was reserved enough elsewhere, used to come into her
+room and cry, and take her by both hands piteously, standing before her
+and looking down in her face, while tears ran deviously down his cheeks.
+
+"Did you ever know such a case? was there ever a fellow like _me_? did
+you ever _know_ such a thing? You know what I am, Mrs. Julaper, and who
+I am. They call me Feltram; but Sir Bale knows as well as I that my true
+name is not that. I'm Philip Mardykes; and another fellow would make a
+row about it, and claim his name and his rights, as she is always
+croaking in my ear I ought. But you know that is not reasonable. My
+grandmother was married; she was the true Lady Mardykes; _think_ what it
+was to see a woman like that turned out of doors, and her children
+robbed of their name. O, ma'am, you _can't_ think it; unless you were
+me, you couldn't--you couldn't--you couldn't!"
+
+"Come, come, Master Philip, don't you be taking on so; and ye mustn't be
+talking like that, d'ye mind? You know he wouldn't stand that; and it's
+an old story now, and there's naught can be proved concerning it; and
+what I think is this--I wouldn't wonder the poor lady was beguiled. But
+anyhow she surely thought she was his lawful wife; and though the law
+may hev found a flaw somewhere--and I take it 'twas so--yet sure I am
+she was an honourable lady. But where's the use of stirring that old
+sorrow? or how can ye prove aught? and the dead hold their peace, you
+know; dead mice, they say, feels no cold; and dead folks are past
+fooling. So don't you talk like that; for stone walls have ears, and ye
+might say that ye couldn't _un_say; and death's day is doom's day. So
+leave all in the keeping of God; and, above all, never lift hand when ye
+can't strike."
+
+"Lift my hand! O, Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that; you little know
+me; I did not mean that; I never dreamed of hurting Sir Bale. Good
+heavens! Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that! It all comes of my poor
+impatient temper, and complaining as I do, and my misery; but O, Mrs.
+Julaper, you could not think I ever meant to trouble him by law, or any
+other annoyance! I'd like to see a stain removed from my family, and my
+name restored; but to touch his property, O, no!--O, no! that never
+entered my mind, by heaven! that never entered my mind, Mrs. Julaper.
+I'm not cruel; I'm not rapacious; I don't care for money; don't you know
+that, Mrs. Julaper? O, surely you won't think me capable of attacking
+the man whose bread I have eaten so long! I never dreamed of it; I
+should hate myself. Tell me you don't believe it; O, Mrs. Julaper, say
+you don't!"
+
+And the gentle feeble creature burst into tears and good Mrs. Julaper
+comforted him with kind words; and he said,
+
+"Thank you, ma'am; thank you. God knows I would not hurt Bale, nor give
+him one uneasy hour. It is only this: that I'm--I'm so miserable; and
+I'm only casting in my mind where to turn to, and what to do. So little
+a thing would be enough, and then I shall leave Mardykes. I'll go; not
+in any anger, Mrs. Julaper--don't think that; but I can't stay, I must
+be gone."
+
+"Well, now, there's nothing yet, Master Philip, to fret you like that.
+You should not be talking so wild-like. Master Bale has his sharp word
+and his short temper now and again; but I'm sure he likes you. If he
+didn't, he'd a-said so to me long ago. I'm sure he likes you well."
+
+"Hollo! I say, who's there? Where the devil's Mr. Feltram?" called the
+voice of the baronet, at a fierce pitch, along the passage.
+
+"La! Mr. Feltram, it's him! Ye'd better run to him," whispered Mrs.
+Julaper.
+
+"D--n me! does nobody hear? Mrs. Julaper! Hollo! ho! house, there! ho!
+D--n me, will nobody answer?"
+
+And Sir Bale began to slap the wainscot fast and furiously with his
+walking-cane with a clatter like a harlequin's lath in a pantomime.
+
+Mrs. Julaper, a little paler than usual, opened her door, and stood with
+the handle in her hand, making a little curtsey, enframed in the
+door-case; and Sir Bale, being in a fume, when he saw her, ceased
+whacking the panels of the corridor, and stamped on the floor, crying,
+
+"Upon my soul, ma'am, I'm glad to see you! Perhaps you can tell me where
+Feltram is?"
+
+"He is in my room, Sir Bale. Shall I tell him you want him, please?"
+
+"Never mind; thanks," said the Baronet. "I've a tongue in my head;"
+marching down the passage to the housekeeper's room, with his cane
+clutched hard, glaring savagely, and with his teeth fast set, like a
+fellow advancing to beat a vicious horse that has chafed his temper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The Bank Note
+
+Sir Bale brushed by the housekeeper as he strode into her sanctuary, and
+there found Philip Feltram awaiting him dejectedly, but with no signs of
+agitation.
+
+If one were to judge by the appearance the master of Mardykes presented,
+very grave surmises as to impending violence would have suggested
+themselves; but though he clutched his cane so hard that it quivered in
+his grasp, he had no notion of committing the outrage of a blow. The
+Baronet was unusually angry notwithstanding, and stopping short about
+three steps away, addressed Feltram with a pale face and gleaming eyes.
+It was quite plain that there was something very exciting upon his mind.
+
+"I've been looking for you, Mr. Feltram; I want a word or two, if you
+have done your--your--whatever it is." He whisked the point of his stick
+towards the modest tea-tray. "I should like five minutes in the
+library."
+
+The Baronet was all this time eyeing Feltram with a hard suspicious
+gaze, as if he expected to read in his face the shrinkings and
+trepidations of guilt; and then turning suddenly on his heel he led the
+way to his library--a good long march, with a good many turnings. He
+walked very fast, and was not long in getting there. And as Sir Bale
+reached the hearth, on which was smouldering a great log of wood, and
+turned about suddenly, facing the door, Philip Feltram entered.
+
+The Baronet looked oddly and stern--so oddly, it seemed to Feltram, that
+he could not take his eyes off him, and returned his grim and somewhat
+embarrassed gaze with a stare of alarm and speculation.
+
+And so doing, his step was shortened, and grew slow and slower, and came
+quite to a stop before he had got far from the door--a wide stretch of
+that wide floor still intervening between him and Sir Bale, who stood
+upon the hearthrug, with his heels together and his back to the fire,
+cane in hand, like a drill-sergeant, facing him.
+
+"Shut that door, please; that will do; come nearer now. I don't want to
+bawl what I have to say. Now listen."
+
+The Baronet cleared his voice and paused, with his eyes upon Feltram.
+
+"It is only two or three days ago," said he, "that you said you wished
+you had a hundred pounds. Am I right?"
+
+"Yes; I think so."
+
+"_Think_? you know it, sir, devilish well. You said that you wished to
+get away. I have nothing particular to say against that, more especially
+now. Do you understand what I say?"
+
+"Understand, Sir Bale? I do, sir--quite."
+
+"I daresay quite" he repeated with an angry sneer. "Here, sir, is an odd
+coincidence: you want a hundred pounds, and you can't earn it, and you
+can't borrow it--there's another way, it seems--but I have got it--a
+Bank-of-England note of £100--locked up in that desk;" and he poked the
+end of his cane against the brass lock of it viciously. "There it is,
+and there are the papers you work at; and there are two keys--I've got
+one and you have the other--and devil another key in or out of the house
+has any one living. Well, do you begin to see? Don't mind. I don't want
+any d----d lying about it."
+
+Feltram was indeed beginning to see that he was suspected of something
+very bad, but exactly what, he was not yet sure; and being a man of that
+unhappy temperament which shrinks from suspicion, as others do from
+detection, he looked very much put out indeed.
+
+"Ha, ha! I think we do begin to see," said Sir Bale savagely. "It's a
+bore, I know, troubling a fellow with a story that he knows before; but
+I'll make mine short. When I take my key, intending to send the note to
+pay the crown and quit-rents that you know--you--you--no matter--you
+know well enough must be paid, I open it so--and so--and look _there_,
+where I left it, for my note; and the note's gone--you understand, the
+note's _gone_!"
+
+Here was a pause, during which, under the Baronet's hard insulting eye,
+poor Feltram winced, and cleared his voice, and essayed to speak, but
+said nothing.
+
+"It's gone, and we know where. Now, Mr. Feltram, _I_ did not steal that
+note, and no one but you and I have access to this desk. You wish to go
+away, and I have no objection to that--but d--n me if you take away that
+note with you; and you may as well produce it now and here, as hereafter
+in a worse place."
+
+"O, my good heaven!" exclaimed poor Feltram at last. "I'm very ill."
+
+"So you are, of course. It takes a stiff emetic to get all that money
+off a fellow's stomach; and it's like parting with a tooth to give up a
+bank-note. Of course you're ill, but that's no sign of innocence, and
+I'm no fool. You had better give the thing up quietly."
+
+"May my Maker strike me----"
+
+"So He will, you d----d rascal, if there's justice in heaven, unless you
+produce the money. I don't want to hang you. I'm willing to let you off
+if you'll let me, but I'm cursed if I let my note off along with you;
+and unless you give it up forthwith, I'll get a warrant and have you
+searched, pockets, bag, and baggage."
+
+"Lord! am I awake?" exclaimed Philip Feltram.
+
+"Wide awake, and so am I," replied Sir Bale. "You don't happen to have
+got it about you?"
+
+"God forbid, sir! O, Sir--O, Sir Bale--why, Bale, _Bale_, it's
+impossible! You _can't_ believe it. When did I ever wrong you? You know
+me since I was not higher than the table, and--and----"
+
+He burst into tears.
+
+"Stop your snivelling, sir, and give up the note. You know devilish well
+I can't spare it; and I won't spare you if you put me to it. I've said
+my say."
+
+Sir Bale signed towards the door; and like a somnambulist, with dilated
+gaze and pale as death, Philip Feltram, at his wit's end, went out of
+the room. It was not till he had again reached the housekeeper's door
+that he recollected in what direction he was going. His shut hand was
+pressed with all his force to his heart, and the first breath he was
+conscious of was a deep wild sob or two that quivered from his heart as
+he looked from the lobby-window upon a landscape which he did not see.
+
+All he had ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire
+paroxysm. Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real
+capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain
+intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and
+consequence, in his torture.
+
+Sir Bale, in the meantime, had walked out a little more excited than he
+would have allowed. He was still convinced that Feltram had stolen the
+note, but not quite so certain as he had been. There were things in his
+manner that confirmed, and others that perplexed, Sir Bale.
+
+The Baronet stood upon the margin of the lake, almost under the evening
+shadow of the house, looking towards Snakes Island. There were two
+things about Mardykes he specially disliked.
+
+One was Philip Feltram, who, right or wrong, he fancied knew more than
+was pleasant of his past life.
+
+The other was the lake. It was a beautiful piece of water, his eye,
+educated at least in the excellences of landscape-painting,
+acknowledged. But although he could pull a good oar, and liked other
+lakes, to this particular sheet of water there lurked within him an
+insurmountable antipathy. It was engendered by a variety of
+associations.
+
+There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout
+and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.
+His boding was made-up of omens, dreams, and such stuff as he most
+affected to despise, and there fluttered at his heart a presentiment and
+disgust.
+
+His foot was on the gunwale of the boat, that was chained to its ring at
+the margin; but he would not have crossed that water in it for any
+reason that man could urge.
+
+What was the mischief that sooner or later was to befall him from that
+lake, he could not define; but that some fatal danger lurked there, was
+the one idea concerning it that had possession of his fancy.
+
+He was now looking along its still waters, towards the copse and rocks
+of Snakes Island, thinking of Philip Feltram; and the yellow level
+sunbeams touched his dark features, that bore a saturnine resemblance to
+those of Charles II, and marked sharply their firm grim lines, and left
+his deep-set eyes in shadow.
+
+Who has the happy gift to seize the present, as a child does, and live
+in it? Who is not often looking far off for his happiness, as Sidney
+Smith says, like a man looking for his hat when it is upon his head? Sir
+Bale was brooding over his double hatred, of Feltram and of the lake. It
+would have been better had he struck down the raven that croaked upon
+his shoulder, and listened to the harmless birds that were whistling all
+round among the branches in the golden sunset.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Feltram's Plan
+
+This horror of the beautiful lake, which other people thought so lovely,
+was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a distinct
+creation of downright superstition.
+
+The nursery tales which had scared him in his childhood were founded on
+the tragedy of Snakes Island, and haunted him with an unavowed
+persistence still. Strange dreams untold had visited him, and a German
+conjuror, who had made some strangely successful vaticinations, had told
+him that his worst enemy would come up to him from a lake. He had heard
+very nearly the same thing from a fortune-teller in France; and once at
+Lucerne, when he was waiting alone in his room for the hour at which he
+had appointed to go upon the lake, all being quiet, there came to the
+window, which was open, a sunburnt, lean, wicked face. Its ragged owner
+leaned his arm on the window-frame, and with his head in the room, said
+in his patois, "Ho! waiting are you? You'll have enough of the lake one
+day. Don't you mind watching; they'll send when you're wanted;" and
+twisting his yellow face into a malicious distortion, he went on.
+
+This thing had occurred so suddenly, and chimed-in so oddly with his
+thoughts, which were at that moment at distant Mardykes and the haunted
+lake, that it disconcerted him. He laughed, he looked out of the window.
+He would have given that fellow money to tell him why he said that. But
+there was no good in looking for the scamp; he was gone.
+
+A memory not preoccupied with that lake and its omens, and a
+presentiment about himself, would not have noted such things. But _his_
+mind they touched indelibly; and he was ashamed of his childish slavery,
+but could not help it.
+
+The foundation of all this had been laid in the nursery, in the winter's
+tales told by its fireside, and which seized upon his fancy and his
+fears with a strange congeniality.
+
+There is a large bedroom at Mardykes Hall, which tradition assigns to
+the lady who had perished tragically in the lake. Mrs. Julaper was sure
+of it; for her aunt, who died a very old woman twenty years before,
+remembered the time of the lady's death, and when she grew to woman's
+estate had opportunity in abundance; for the old people who surrounded
+her could remember forty years farther back, and tell everything
+connected with the old house in beautiful Miss Feltram's time.
+
+This large old-fashioned room, commanding a view of Snakes Island, the
+fells, and the lake--somewhat vast and gloomy, and furnished in a
+stately old fashion--was said to be haunted, especially when the wind
+blew from the direction of Golden Friars, the point from which it blew
+on the night of her death in the lake; or when the sky was overcast, and
+thunder rolled among the lofty fells, and lightning gleamed on the wide
+sheet of water.
+
+It was on a night like this that a lady visitor, who long after that
+event occupied, in entire ignorance of its supernatural character, that
+large room; and being herself a lady of a picturesque turn, and loving
+the grander melodrama of Nature, bid her maid leave the shutters open,
+and watched the splendid effects from her bed, until, the storm being
+still distant, she fell asleep.
+
+It was travelling slowly across the lake, and it was the deep-mouthed
+clangour of its near approach that startled her, at dead of night, from
+her slumber, to witness the same phenomena in the tremendous loudness
+and brilliancy of their near approach.
+
+At this magnificent spectacle she was looking with the awful ecstasy of
+an observer in whom the sense of danger is subordinated to that of the
+sublime, when she saw suddenly at the window a woman, whose long hair
+and dress seemed drenched with water. She was gazing in with a look of
+terror, and was shaking the sash of the window with vehemence. Having
+stood there for a few seconds, and before the lady, who beheld all this
+from her bed, could make up her mind what to do, the storm-beaten
+figure, wringing her hands, seemed to throw herself backward, and was
+gone.
+
+Possessed with the idea that she had seen some poor woman overtaken in
+the storm, who, failing to procure admission there, had gone round to
+some of the many doors of the mansion, and obtained an entry there, she
+again fell asleep.
+
+It was not till the morning, when she went to her window to look out
+upon the now tranquil scene, that she discovered what, being a stranger
+to the house, she had quite forgotten, that this room was at a great
+height--some thirty feet--from the ground.
+
+Another story was that of good old Mr. Randal Rymer, who was often a
+visitor at the house in the late Lady Mardykes' day. In his youth he had
+been a campaigner; and now that he was a preacher he maintained his
+hardy habits, and always slept, summer and winter, with a bit of his
+window up. Being in that room in his bed, and after a short sleep lying
+awake, the moon shining softly through the window, there passed by that
+aperture into the room a figure dressed, it seemed to him, in gray that
+was nearly white. It passed straight to the hearth, where was an
+expiring wood fire; and cowering over it with outstretched hands, it
+appeared to be gathering what little heat was to be had. Mr. Rymer,
+amazed and awestruck, made a movement in his bed; and the figure looked
+round, with large eyes that in the moonlight looked like melting snow,
+and stretching its long arms up the chimney, they and the figure itself
+seemed to blend with the smoke, and so pass up and away.
+
+Sir Bale, I have said, did not like Feltram. His father, Sir William,
+had left a letter creating a trust, it was said, in favour of Philip
+Feltram. The document had been found with the will, addressed to Sir
+Bale in the form of a letter.
+
+"That is mine," said the Baronet, when it dropped out of the will; and
+he slipped it into his pocket, and no one ever saw it after.
+
+But Mr. Charles Twyne, the attorney of Golden Friars, whenever he got
+drunk, which was pretty often, used to tell his friends with a grave
+wink that he knew a thing or two about that letter. It gave Philip
+Feltram two hundred a-year, charged on Harfax. It was only a direction.
+It made Sir Bale a trustee, however; and having made away with the
+"letter," the Baronet had been robbing Philip Feltram ever since.
+
+Old Twyne was cautious, even in his cups, in his choice of an audience,
+and was a little enigmatical in his revelations. For he was afraid of
+Sir Bale, though he hated him for employing a lawyer who lived seven
+miles away, and was a rival. So people were not quite sure whether Mr.
+Twyne was telling lies or truth, and the principal fact that
+corroborated his story was Sir Bale's manifest hatred of his secretary.
+In fact, Sir Bale's retaining him in his house, detesting him as he
+seemed to do, was not easily to be accounted for, except on the
+principle of a tacit compromise--a miserable compensation for having
+robbed him of his rights.
+
+The battle about the bank-note proceeded. Sir Bale certainly had doubts,
+and vacillated; for moral evidence made powerfully in favour of poor
+Feltram, though the evidence of circumstance made as powerfully against
+him. But Sir Bale admitted suspicion easily, and in weighing
+probabilities would count a virtue very lightly against temptation and
+opportunity; and whatever his doubts might sometimes be, he resisted and
+quenched them, and never let that ungrateful scoundrel Philip Feltram so
+much as suspect their existence.
+
+For two days Sir Bale had not spoken to Feltram. He passed by on stair
+and passage, carrying his head high, and with a thundrous countenance,
+rolling conclusions and revenges in his soul.
+
+Poor Feltram all this time existed in one long agony. He would have left
+Mardykes, were it not that he looked vaguely to some just power--to
+chance itself--against this hideous imputation. To go with this
+indictment ringing in his ears, would amount to a confession and flight.
+
+Mrs. Julaper consoled him with might and main. She was a sympathetic and
+trusting spirit, and knew poor Philip Feltram, in her simplicity, better
+than the shrewdest profligate on earth could have known him. She cried
+with him in his misery. She was fired with indignation by these
+suspicions, and still more at what followed.
+
+Sir Bale showed no signs of relenting. It might have been that he was
+rather glad of so unexceptionable an opportunity of getting rid of
+Feltram, who, people thought, knew something which it galled the
+Baronet's pride that he should know.
+
+The Baronet had another shorter and sterner interview with Feltram in
+his study. The result was, that unless he restored the missing note
+before ten o'clock next morning, he should leave Mardykes.
+
+To leave Mardykes was no more than Philip Feltram, feeble as he was of
+will, had already resolved. But what was to become of him? He did not
+very much care, if he could find any calling, however humble, that would
+just give him bread.
+
+There was an old fellow and his wife (an ancient dame,) who lived at the
+other side of the lake, on the old territories of the Feltrams, and who,
+from some tradition of loyalty, perhaps, were fond of poor Philip
+Feltram. They lived somewhat high up on the fells--about as high as
+trees would grow--and those which were clumped about their rude dwelling
+were nearly the last you passed in your ascent of the mountain. These
+people had a multitude of sheep and goats, and lived in their airy
+solitude a pastoral and simple life, and were childless. Philip Feltram
+was hardy and active, having passed his early days among that arduous
+scenery. Cold and rain did not trouble him; and these people being
+wealthy in their way, and loving him, would be glad to find him
+employment of that desultory pastoral kind which would best suit him.
+
+This vague idea was the only thing resembling a plan in his mind.
+
+When Philip Feltram came to Mrs. Julaper's room, and told her that he
+had made up his mind to leave the house forthwith--to cross the lake to
+the Cloostedd side in Tom Marlin's boat, and then to make his way up the
+hill alone to Trebeck's lonely farmstead, Mrs. Julaper was overwhelmed.
+
+"Ye'll do no such thing to-night, anyhow. You're not to go like that.
+Ye'll come into the small room here, where he can't follow; and we'll
+sit down and talk it over a bit, and ye'll find 'twill all come
+straight; and this will be no night, anyhow, for such a march. Why,
+man,'twould take an hour and more to cross the lake, and then a long
+uphill walk before ye could reach Trebeck's place; and if the night
+should fall while you were still on the mountain, ye might lose your
+life among the rocks. It can't be 'tis come to that yet; and the call
+was in the air, I'm told, all yesterday, and distant thunder to-day,
+travelling this way over Blarwyn Fells; and 'twill be a night no one
+will be out, much less on the mountain side."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The Crazy Parson
+
+Mrs. Julaper had grown weather-wise, living for so long among this noble
+and solitary scenery, where people must observe Nature or else
+nothing--where signs of coming storm or change are almost local, and
+record themselves on particular cliffs and mountain-peaks, or in the
+mists, or in mirrored tints of the familiar lake, and are easily learned
+or remembered. At all events, her presage proved too true.
+
+The sun had set an hour and more. It was dark; and an awful
+thunder-storm, whose march, like the distant reverberations of an
+invading army, had been faintly heard beyond the barriers of Blarwyn
+Fells throughout the afternoon, was near them now, and had burst in
+deep-mouthed battle among the ravines at the other side, and over the
+broad lake, that glared like a sheet of burnished steel under its
+flashes of dazzling blue. Wild and fitful blasts sweeping down the
+hollows and cloughs of the fells of Golden Friars agitated the lake, and
+bent the trees low, and whirled away their sere leaves in melancholy
+drift in their tremendous gusts. And from the window, looking on a scene
+enveloped in more than the darkness of the night, you saw in the
+pulsations of the lightning, before "the speedy gleams the darkness
+swallowed," the tossing trees and the flying foam and eddies on the
+lake.
+
+In the midst of the hurlyburly, a loud and long knocking came at the
+hall-door of Mardykes. How long it had lasted before a chance lull made
+it audible I do not know.
+
+There was nothing picturesquely poor, any more than there were evidences
+of wealth, anywhere in Sir Bale Mardykes' household. He had no lack of
+servants, but they were of an inexpensive and homely sort; and the
+hall-door being opened by the son of an old tenant on the estate--the
+tempest beating on the other side of the house, and comparative shelter
+under the gables at the front--he saw standing before him, in the
+agitated air, a thin old man, who muttering, it might be, a benediction,
+stepped into the hall, and displayed long silver tresses, just as the
+storm had blown them, ascetic and eager features, and a pair of large
+light eyes that wandered wildly. He was dressed in threadbare black; a
+pair of long leather gaiters, buckled high above his knee, protecting
+his thin shanks through moss and pool; and the singularity of his
+appearance was heightened by a wide-leafed felt hat, over which he had
+tied his handkerchief, so as to bring the leaf of it over his ears, and
+to secure it from being whirled from his head by the storm.
+
+This odd and storm-beaten figure--tall, and a little stooping, as well
+as thin--was not unknown to the servant, who saluted him with something
+of fear as well as of respect as he bid him reverently welcome, and
+asked him to come in and sit by the fire.
+
+"Get you to your master, and tell him I have a message to him from one
+he has not seen for two-and-forty years."
+
+As the old man, with his harsh old voice, thus spoke, he unknotted his
+handkerchief and bet the rain-drops from his hat upon his knee.
+
+The servant knocked at the library-door, where he found Sir Bale.
+
+"Well, what's the matter?" cried Sir Bale sharply, from his chair before
+the fire, with angry eyes looking over his shoulder.
+
+"Here's 't sir cumman, Sir Bale," he answered.
+
+"Sir," or "the Sir," is still used as the clergyman's title in the
+Northumbrian counties.
+
+"What sir?"
+
+"Sir Hugh Creswell, if you please, Sir Bale."
+
+"Ho!--mad Creswell?--O, the crazy parson. Well, tell Mrs. Julaper to let
+him have some supper--and--and to let him have a bed in some suitable
+place. That's what he wants. These mad fellows know what they are
+about."
+
+"No, Sir Bale Mardykes, that is not what he wants," said the loud wild
+voice of the daft sir over the servant's shoulder. "Often has Mardykes
+Hall given me share of its cheer and its shelter and the warmth of its
+fire; and I bless the house that has been an inn to the wayfarer of the
+Lord. But to-night I go up the lake to Pindar's Bield, three miles on;
+and there I rest and refresh--not here."
+
+"And why not _here_, Mr. Creswell?" asked the Baronet; for about this
+crazy old man, who preached in the fields, and appeared and disappeared
+so suddenly in the orbit of his wide and unknown perambulations of those
+northern and border counties, there was that sort of superstitious
+feeling which attaches to the mysterious and the good--an idea that it
+was lucky to harbour and dangerous to offend him. No one knew whence he
+came or whither he went. Once in a year, perhaps, he might appear at a
+lonely farmstead door among the fells, salute the house, enter, and be
+gone in the morning. His life was austere; his piety enthusiastic,
+severe, and tinged with the craze which inspired among the rustic
+population a sort of awe.
+
+"I'll not sleep at Mardykes to-night; neither will I eat, nor drink, nor
+sit me down--no, nor so much as stretch my hands to the fire. As the man
+of God came out of Judah to king Jeroboam, so come I to you, sent by a
+vision, to bear a warning; and as he said, 'If thou wilt give me half
+thy house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor
+drink water in this place,' so also say I."
+
+"Do as you please," said Sir Bale, a little sulkily. "Say your say; and
+you are welcome to stay or go, if go you will on so mad a night as
+this."
+
+"Leave us," said Creswell, beckoning the servant back with his thin
+hands; "what I have to say is to your master."
+
+The servant went, in obedience to a gesture from Sir Bale, and shut the
+door.
+
+The old man drew nearer to the Baronet, and lowering his loud stern
+voice a little, and interrupting his discourse from time to time, to
+allow the near thunder-peals to subside, he said,
+
+"Answer me, Sir Bale--what is this that has chanced between you and
+Philip Feltram?"
+
+The Baronet, under the influence of that blunt and peremptory demand,
+told him shortly and sternly enough.
+
+"And of all these facts you are sure, else ye would not blast your early
+companion and kinsman with the name of thief?"
+
+"I _am_ sure," said Sir Bale grimly.
+
+"Unlock that cabinet," said the old man with the long white locks.
+
+"I've no objection," said Sir Bale; and he did unlock an old oak cabinet
+that stood, carved in high relief with strange figures and gothic
+grotesques, against the wall, opposite the fireplace. On opening it
+there were displayed a system of little drawers and pigeon-holes such as
+we see in more modern escritoires.
+
+"Open that drawer with the red mark of a seal upon it," continued Hugh
+Creswell, pointing to it with his lank finger.
+
+Sir Bale did so; and to his momentary amazement, and even consternation,
+there lay the missing note, which now, with one of those sudden caprices
+of memory which depend on the laws of suggestion and association, he
+remembered having placed there with his own hand.
+
+"That is it," said old Creswell with a pallid smile, and fixing his wild
+eyes on the Baronet. The smile subsided into a frown, and said he: "Last
+night I slept near Haworth Moss; and your father came to me in a dream,
+and said: 'My son Bale accuses Philip of having stolen a bank-note from
+his desk. He forgets that he himself placed it in his cabinet. Come with
+me.' I was, in the spirit, in this room; and he led me to this cabinet,
+which he opened; and in that drawer he showed me that note. 'Go,' said
+he, 'and tell him to ask Philip Feltram's pardon, else he will but go in
+weakness to return in power;' and he said that which it is not lawful to
+repeat. My message is told. Now a word from myself," he added sternly.
+"The dead, through my lips, has spoken, and under God's thunder and
+lightning his words have found ye. Why so uppish wi' Philip Feltram? See
+how ye threaped, and yet were wrong. He's no tazzle--he's no taggelt.
+Ask his pardon. Ye must change, or he will no taggelt. Go, in weakness,
+come in power: mark ye the words. 'Twill make a peal that will be heard
+in toon and desert, in the swirls o' the mountain, through pikes and
+valleys, and mak' a waaly man o' thee."
+
+The old man with these words, uttered in the broad northern dialect of
+his common speech, strode from the room and shut the door. In another
+minute he was forth into the storm, pursuing what remained of his long
+march to Pindar's Bield.
+
+"Upon my soul!" said Sir Bale, recovering from his sort of stun which
+the sudden and strange visit had left, "that's a cool old fellow! Come
+to rate me and teach me my own business in my own house!" and he rapped
+out a fierce oath. "Change his mind or no, here he sha'n't stay
+to-night--not an hour."
+
+Sir Bale was in the lobby in a moment, and thundered to his servants:
+
+"I say, put that fool out of the door--put him out by the shoulder, and
+never let him put his foot inside it more!"
+
+But the old man's yea was yea, and his nay nay. He had quite meant what
+he said; and, as I related, was beyond the reach of the indignity of
+extrusion.
+
+Sir Bale on his return shut his door as violently as if it were in the
+face of the old prophet.
+
+"Ask Feltram's pardon, by Jove! For what? Why, any jury on earth would
+have hanged him on half the evidence; and I, like a fool, was going to
+let him off with his liberty and my hundred pound-note! Ask his pardon
+indeed!"
+
+Still there were misgivings in his mind; a consciousness that he did owe
+explanation and apology to Feltram, and an insurmountable reluctance to
+undertake either. The old dislike--a contempt mingled with fear--not any
+fear of his malevolence, a fear only of his carelessness and folly; for,
+as I have said, Feltram knew many things, it was believed, of the
+Baronet's Continental and Asiatic life, and had even gently remonstrated
+with him upon the dangers into which he was running. A simple fellow
+like Philip Feltram is a dangerous depository of a secret. This Baronet
+was proud, too; and the mere possession of his secrets by Feltram was an
+involuntary insult, which Sir Bale could not forgive. He wished him far
+away; and except for the recovery of his bank-note, which he could ill
+spare, he was sorry that this suspicion was cleared up.
+
+The thunder and storm were unabated; it seemed indeed that they were
+growing wilder and more awful.
+
+He opened the window-shutter and looked out upon that sublimest of
+scenes; and so intense and magnificent were its phenomena, that Sir
+Bale, for a while, was absorbed in this contemplation.
+
+When he turned about, the sight of his £100 note, still between his
+finger and thumb, made him smile grimly.
+
+The more he thought of it, the clearer it was that he could not leave
+matters exactly as they were. Well, what should he do? He would send for
+Mrs. Julaper, and tell her vaguely that he had changed his mind about
+Feltram, and that he might continue to stay at Mardykes Hall as usual.
+That would suffice. She could speak to Feltram.
+
+He sent for her; and soon, in the lulls of the great uproar without, he
+could hear the jingle of Mrs. Julaper's keys and her light tread upon
+the lobby.
+
+"Mrs. Julaper," said the Baronet, in his dry careless way, "Feltram may
+remain; your eloquence has prevailed. What have you been crying about?"
+he asked, observing that his housekeeper's usually cheerful face was, in
+her own phrase, 'all cried.'
+
+"It is too late, sir; he's gone."
+
+"And when did he go?" asked Sir Bale, a little put out. "He chose an odd
+evening, didn't he? So like him!"
+
+"He went about half an hour ago; and I'm very sorry, sir; it's a sore
+sight to see the poor lad going from the place he was reared in, and a
+hard thing, sir; and on such a night, above all."
+
+"No one asked him to go to-night. Where is he gone to?"
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure; he left my room, sir, when I was upstairs; and
+Janet saw him pass the window not ten minutes after Mr. Creswell left
+the house."
+
+"Well, then, there's no good, Mrs. Julaper, in thinking more about it;
+he has settled the matter his own way; and as he so ordains it--amen,
+say I. Goodnight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Adventure in Tom Marlin's Boat
+
+Philip Feltram was liked very well--a gentle, kindly, and very timid
+creature, and, before he became so heart-broken, a fellow who liked a
+joke or a pleasant story, and could laugh heartily. Where will Sir Bale
+find so unresisting and respectful a butt and retainer? and whom will he
+bully now?
+
+Something like remorse was worrying Sir Bale's heart a little; and the
+more he thought on the strange visit of Hugh Creswell that night, with
+its unexplained menace, the more uneasy he became.
+
+The storm continued; and even to him there seemed something exaggerated
+and inhuman in the severity of his expulsion on such a night. It was his
+own doing, it was true; but would people believe that? and would he have
+thought of leaving Mardykes at all if it had not been for his kinsman's
+severity? Nay, was it not certain that if Sir Bale had done as Hugh
+Creswell had urged him, and sent for Feltram forthwith, and told him how
+all had been cleared up, and been a little friendly with him, he would
+have found him still in the house?--for he had not yet gone for ten
+minutes after Creswell's departure, and thus, all that was to follow
+might have been averted. But it was too late now, and Sir Bale would let
+the affair take its own course.
+
+Below him, outside the window at which he stood ruminating, he heard
+voices mingling with the storm. He could with tolerable certainty
+perceive, looking into the obscurity, that there were three men passing
+close under it, carrying some very heavy burden among them.
+
+He did not know what these three black figures in the obscurity were
+about. He saw them pass round the corner of the building toward the
+front, and in the lulls of the storm could hear their gruff voices
+talking.
+
+We have all experienced what a presentiment is, and we all know with
+what an intuition the faculty of observation is sometimes heightened. It
+was such an apprehension as sometimes gives its peculiar horror to a
+dream--a sort of knowledge that what those people were about was in a
+dreadful way connected with his own fate.
+
+He watched for a time, thinking that they might return; but they did
+not. He was in a state of uncomfortable suspense.
+
+"If they want me, they won't have much trouble in finding me, nor any
+scruple, egad, in plaguing me; they never have."
+
+Sir Bale returned to his letters, a score of which he was that night
+getting off his conscience--an arrear which would not have troubled him
+had he not ceased, for two or three days, altogether to employ Philip
+Feltram, who had been accustomed to take all that sort of drudgery off
+his hands.
+
+All the time he was writing now he had a feeling that the shadows he had
+seen pass under his window were machinating some trouble for him, and an
+uneasy suspense made him lift his eyes now and then to the door,
+fancying sounds and footsteps; and after a resultless wait he would say
+to himself, "If any one is coming, why the devil don't he come?" and
+then he would apply himself again to his letters.
+
+But on a sudden he heard good Mrs. Julaper's step trotting along the
+lobby, and the tiny ringing of her keys.
+
+Here was news coming; and the Baronet stood up looking at the door, on
+which presently came a hurried rapping; and before he had answered, in
+the midst of a long thunder-clap that suddenly broke, rattling over the
+house, the good woman opened the door in great agitation, and cried with
+a tremulous uplifting of her hands.
+
+"O, Sir Bale! O, la, sir! here's poor dear Philip Feltram come home
+dead!"
+
+Sir Bale stared at her sternly for some seconds.
+
+"Gome, now, do be distinct," said Sir Bale; "what has happened?"
+
+"He's lying on the sofer in the old still-room. You never saw--my
+God!--O, sir--what is life?"
+
+"D--n it, can't you cry by-and-by, and tell me what's the matter now?"
+
+"A bit o' fire there, as luck would have it; but what is hot or cold
+now? La, sir, they're all doin' what they can; he's drowned, sir, and
+Tom Warren is on the gallop down to Golden Friars for Doctor Torvey."
+
+"_Is_ he drowned, or is it only a ducking? Come, bring me to the place.
+Dead men don't usually want a fire, or consult doctors. I'll see for
+myself."
+
+So Sir Bale Mardykes, pale and grim, accompanied by the light-footed
+Mrs. Julaper, strode along the passages, and was led by her into the old
+still-room, which had ceased to be used for its original purpose. All
+the servants in the house were now collected there, and three men also
+who lived by the margin of the lake; one of them thoroughly drenched,
+with rivulets of water still trickling from his sleeves, water along the
+wrinkles and pockets of his waistcoat and from the feet of his trousers,
+and pumping and oozing from his shoes, and streaming from his hair down
+the channels of his cheeks like a continuous rain of tears.
+
+The people drew back a little as Sir Bale entered with a quick step and
+a sharp pallid frown on his face. There was a silence as he stooped over
+Philip Feltram, who lay on a low bed next the wall, dimly lighted by two
+or three candles here and there about the room.
+
+He laid his hand, for a moment, on his cold wet breast.
+
+Sir Bale knew what should be done in order to give a man in such a case
+his last chance for life. Everybody was speedily put in motion. Philip's
+drenched clothes were removed, hot blankets enveloped him, warming-pans
+and hot bricks lent their aid; he was placed at the prescribed angle, so
+that the water flowed freely from his mouth. The old expedient for
+inducing artificial breathing was employed, and a lusty pair of bellows
+did duty for his lungs.
+
+But these helps to life, and suggestions to nature, availed not. Forlorn
+and peaceful lay the features of poor Philip Feltram; cold and dull to
+the touch; no breath through the blue lips; no sight in the fish-like
+eyes; pulseless and cold in the midst of all the hot bricks and
+warming-pans about him.
+
+At length, everything having been tried, Sir Bale, who had been
+directing, placed his hand within the clothes, and laid it silently on
+Philip's shoulder and over his heart; and after a little wait, he shook
+his head, and looking down on his sunken face, he said,
+
+"I am afraid he's gone. Yes, he's gone, poor fellow! And bear you this
+in mind, all of you; Mrs. Julaper there can tell you more about it. She
+knows that it was certainly in no compliance with my wish that he left
+the house to-night: it was his own obstinate perversity, and perhaps--I
+forgive him for it--a wish in his unreasonable resentment to throw some
+blame upon this house, as having refused him shelter on such a night;
+than which imputation nothing can be more utterly false. Mrs. Julaper
+there knows how welcome he was to stay the night; but he would not; he
+had made up his mind, it seems, without telling any person. Had he told
+you, Mrs. Julaper?"
+
+"No, sir," sobbed Mrs. Julaper from the centre of a pocket-handkerchief
+in which her face was buried.
+
+"Not a human being: an angry whim of his own. Poor Feltram! and here's
+the result," said the Baronet. "We have done our best--done everything.
+I don't think the doctor, when he comes, will say that anything has been
+omitted; but all won't do. Does any one here know how it happened?"
+
+Two men knew very well--the man who had been ducked, and his companion,
+a younger man, who was also in the still-room, and had lent a hand in
+carrying Feltram up to the house.
+
+Tom Marlin had a queer old stone tenement by the edge of the lake just
+under Mardykes Hall. Some people said it was the stump of an old tower
+that had once belonged to Mardykes Castle, of which in the modern
+building scarcely a relic was discoverable.
+
+This Tom Marlin had an ancient right of fishing in the lake, where he
+caught pike enough for all Golden Friars; and keeping a couple of boats,
+he made money beside by ferrying passengers over now and then. This
+fellow, with a furrowed face and shaggy eyebrows, bald at top, but with
+long grizzled locks falling upon his shoulders, said,
+
+"He wer wi' me this mornin', sayin' he'd want t' boat to cross the lake
+in, but he didn't say what hour; and when it came on to thunder and blow
+like this, ye guess I did not look to see him to-night. Well, my wife
+was just lightin' a pig-tail--tho' light enough and to spare there was
+in the lift already--when who should come clatterin' at the latch-pin in
+the blow o' thunder and wind but Philip, poor lad, himself; and an ill
+hour for him it was. He's been some time in ill fettle, though he was
+never frowsy, not he, but always kind and dooce, and canty once, like
+anither; and he asked me to tak the boat across the lake at once to the
+Clough o' Cloostedd at t'other side. The woman took the pet and wodn't
+hear o't; and, 'Dall me, if I go to-night,' quoth I. But he would not be
+put off so, not he; and dingdrive he went to it, cryin' and putrein'
+ye'd a-said, poor fellow, he was wrang i' his garrets a'most. So at long
+last I bethought me, there's nout o' a sea to the north o' Snakes
+Island, so I'll pull him by that side--for the storm is blowin' right up
+by Golden Friars, ye mind--and when we get near the point, thinks I,
+he'll see wi' his een how the lake is, and gie it up. For I liked him,
+poor lad; and seein' he'd set his heart on't, I wouldn't vex nor frump
+him wi' a no. So down we three--myself, and Bill there, and Philip
+Feltram--come to the boat; and we pulled out, keeping Snakes Island
+atwixt us and the wind. 'Twas smooth water wi' us, for 'twas a scug
+there, but white enough was all beyont the point; and passing the
+finger-stone, not forty fathom from the shore o' the island, Bill and me
+pullin' and he sittin' in the stern, poor lad, up he rises, a bit
+rabblin' to himself, wi' his hands lifted so.
+
+"'Look a-head!' says I, thinkin' something wos comin' atort us.
+
+"But 'twasn't that. The boat was quiet, for while we looked, oo'er our
+shouthers, oo'er her bows, we didn't pull, so she lay still; and lookin'
+back again on Philip, he was rabblin' on all the same.
+
+"'It's nobbut a prass wi' himsel", poor lad,' thinks I.
+
+"But that wasn't it neither; for I sid something white come out o' t'
+water, by the gunwale, like a hand. By Jen! and he leans oo'er and tuk
+it; and he sagged like, and so it drew him in, under the mere, before I
+cud du nout. There was nout to thraa tu him, and no time; down he went,
+and I followed; and thrice I dived before I found him, and brought him
+up by the hair at last; and there he is, poor lad! and all one if he lay
+at the bottom o' t' mere."
+
+As Tom Marlin ended his narrative--often interrupted by the noise of the
+tempest without, and the peals of thunder that echoed awfully above,
+like the chorus of a melancholy ballad--the sudden clang of the
+hall-door bell, and a more faintly-heard knocking, announced a new
+arrival.
+
+[Illustration: "I sid something white come out o' t' water, by the
+gunwale, like a hand."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Sir Bale's Dream
+
+It was Doctor Torvey who entered the old still-room now, buttoned-up to
+the chin in his greatcoat, and with a muffler of many colours wrapped
+partly over that feature.
+
+"Well!--hey? So poor Feltram's had an accident?"
+
+The Doctor was addressing Sir Bale, and getting to the bedside as he
+pulled off his gloves.
+
+"I see you've been keeping him warm--that's right; and a considerable
+flow of water from his mouth; turn him a little that way. Hey? O, ho!"
+said the Doctor, as he placed his hand upon Philip, and gently stirred
+his limbs. "It's more than an hour since this happened. I'm afraid
+there's very little to be done now;" and in a lower tone, with his hand
+on poor Philip Feltram's arm, and so down to his fingers, he said in Sir
+Bale Mardykes' ear, with a shake of his head,
+
+"Here, you see, poor fellow, here's the cadaveric stiffness; it's very
+melancholy, but it's all over, he's gone; there's no good trying any
+more. Come here, Mrs. Julaper. Did you ever see any one dead? Look at
+his eyes, look at his mouth. You ought to have known that, with half an
+eye. And you know," he added again confidentially in Sir Bale's ear,
+"trying any more _now_ is all my eye."
+
+Then after a few more words with the Baronet, and having heard his
+narrative, he said from time to time, "Quite right; nothing could be
+better; capital practice, sir," and so forth. And at the close of all
+this, amid the sobs of kind Mrs. Julaper and the general whimpering of
+the humbler handmaids, the Doctor standing by the bed, with his knuckles
+on the coverlet, and a glance now and then on the dead face beside him,
+said--by way of 'quieting men's minds,' as the old tract-writers used to
+say--a few words to the following effect:
+
+"Everything has been done here that the most experienced physician could
+have wished. Everything has been done in the best way. I don't know
+anything that has not been done, in fact. If I had been here myself, I
+don't know--hot bricks--salt isn't a bad thing. I don't know, I say,
+that anything of any consequence has been omitted." And looking at the
+body, "You see," and he drew the fingers a little this way and that,
+letting them return, as they stiffly did, to their former attitude, "you
+may be sure that the poor gentleman was quite dead by the time he
+arrived here. So, since he was laid there, nothing has been lost by
+delay. And, Sir Bale, if you have any directions to send to Golden
+Friars, sir, I shall be most happy to undertake your message."
+
+"Nothing, thanks; it is a melancholy ending, poor fellow! You must come
+to the study with me, Doctor Torvey, and talk a little bit more;
+and--very sad, doctor--and you must have a glass of sherry, or some
+port--the port used not to be bad here; I don't take it--but very
+melancholy it is--bring some port and sherry; and, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+be good enough to see that everything that should be done here is looked
+to; and let Marlin and the men have supper and something to drink. You
+have been too long in your wet clothes, Marlin."
+
+So, with gracious words all round, he led the Doctor to the library
+where he had been sitting, and was affable and hospitable, and told him
+his own version of all that had passed between him and Philip Feltram,
+and presented himself in an amiable point of view, and pleased the
+Doctor with his port and flatteries--for he could not afford to lose
+anyone's good word just now; and the Doctor was a bit of a gossip, and
+in most houses in that region, in one character or another, every three
+months in the year.
+
+So in due time the Doctor drove back to Golden Friars, with a high
+opinion of Sir Bale, and higher still of his port, and highest of all of
+himself: in the best possible humour with the world, not minding the
+storm that blew in his face, and which he defied in good-humoured
+mock-heroics spoken in somewhat thick accents, and regarding the thunder
+and lightning as a lively gala of fireworks; and if there had been a
+chance of finding his cronies still in the George and Dragon, he would
+have been among them forthwith, to relate the tragedy of the night, and
+tell what a good fellow, after all, Sir Bale was; and what a fool, at
+best, poor Philip Feltram.
+
+But the George was quiet for that night. The thunder rolled over
+voiceless chambers; and the lights had been put out within the windows,
+on whose multitudinous small panes the lightning glared. So the Doctor
+went home to Mrs. Torvey, whom he charmed into good-humoured curiosity
+by the tale of wonder he had to relate.
+
+Sir Bale's qualms were symptomatic of something a little less sublime
+and more selfish than conscience. He was not sorry that Philip Feltram
+was out of the way. His lips might begin to babble inconveniently at any
+time, and why should not his mouth be stopped? and what stopper so
+effectual as that plug of clay which fate had introduced? But he did not
+want to be charged with the odium of the catastrophe. Every man cares
+something for the opinion of his fellows. And seeing that Feltram had
+been well liked, and that his death had excited a vehement
+commiseration, Sir Bale did not wish it to be said that he had made the
+house too hot to hold him, and had so driven him to extremity.
+
+Sir Bale's first agitation had subsided. It was now late, he had written
+many letters, and he was tired. It was not wonderful, then, that having
+turned his lounging-chair to the fire, he should have fallen asleep in
+it, as at last he did.
+
+The storm was passing gradually away by this time. The thunder was now
+echoing among the distant glens and gorges of Daulness Fells, and the
+angry roar and gusts of the tempest were subsiding into the melancholy
+soughing and piping that soothe like a lullaby.
+
+Sir Bale therefore had his unpremeditated sleep very comfortably, except
+that his head was hanging a little uneasily; which, perhaps, helped him
+to this dream.
+
+It was one of those dreams in which the continuity of the waking state
+that immediately preceded it seems unbroken; for he thought that he was
+sitting in the chair which he occupied, and in the room where he
+actually was. It seemed to him that he got up, took a candle in his
+hand, and went through the passages to the old still-room where Philip
+Feltram lay. The house seemed perfectly still. He could hear the chirp
+of the crickets faintly from the distant kitchen, and the tick of the
+clock sounded loud and hollow along the passage. In the old still-room,
+as he opened the door, was no light, except what was admitted from the
+candle he carried. He found the body of poor Philip Feltram just as he
+had left it--his gentle face, saddened by the touch of death, was turned
+upwards, with white lips: with traces of suffering fixed in its
+outlines, such as caused Sir Bale, standing by the bed, to draw the
+coverlet over the dead man's features, which seemed silently to upbraid
+him. "Gone in weakness!" said Sir Bale, repeating the words of the "daft
+sir," Hugh Creswell; as he did so, a voice whispered near him, with a
+great sigh, "Come in power!" He looked round, in his dream, but there
+was no one; the light seemed to fail, and a horror slowly overcame him,
+especially as he thought he saw the figure under the coverlet stealthily
+beginning to move. Backing towards the door, for he could not take his
+eyes off it, he saw something like a huge black ape creep out at the
+foot of the bed; and springing at him, it griped him by the throat, so
+that he could not breathe; and a thousand voices were instantly round
+him, holloaing, cursing, laughing in his ears; and in this direful
+plight he waked.
+
+Was it the ring of those voices still in his ears, or a real shriek, and
+another, and a long peal, shriek after shriek, swelling madly through
+the distant passages, that held him still, freezing in the horror of his
+dream?
+
+I will tell you what this noise was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Marcella Bligh and Judith Wale Keep Watch
+
+After his bottle of port with Sir Bale, the Doctor had gone down again
+to the room where poor Philip Feltram lay.
+
+Mrs. Julaper had dried her eyes, and was busy by this time; and two old
+women were making all their arrangements for a night-watch by the body,
+which they had washed, and, as their phrase goes, 'laid out' in the
+humble bed where it had lain while there was still a hope that a spark
+sufficient to rekindle the fire of life might remain. These old women
+had points of resemblance: they were lean, sallow, and wonderfully
+wrinkled, and looked each malign and ugly enough for a witch.
+
+Marcella Bligh's thin hooked nose was now like the beak of a bird of
+prey over the face of the drowned man, upon whose eyelids she was
+placing penny-pieces, to keep them from opening; and her one eye was
+fixed on her work, its sightless companion showing white in its socket,
+with an ugly leer.
+
+Judith Wale was lifting the pail of hot water with which they had just
+washed the body. She had long lean arms, a hunched back, a great sharp
+chin sunk on her hollow breast, and small eyes restless as a ferret's;
+and she clattered about in great bowls of shoes, old and clouted, that
+were made for a foot as big as two of hers.
+
+The Doctor knew these two old women, who were often employed in such
+dismal offices.
+
+"How does Mrs. Bligh? See me with half an eye? Hey--that's rhyme, isn't
+it?--And, Judy lass--why, I thought you lived nearer the town--here
+making poor Mr. Feltram's last toilet. You have helped to dress many a
+poor fellow for his last journey. Not a bad notion of drill either--they
+stand at attention stiff and straight enough in the sentry-box. Your
+recruits do you credit, Mrs. Wale."
+
+The Doctor stood at the foot of the bed to inspect, breathing forth a
+vapour of very fine old port, his hands in his pockets, speaking with a
+lazy thickness, and looking so comfortable and facetious, that Mrs.
+Julaper would have liked to turn him out of the room.
+
+But the Doctor was not unkind, only extremely comfortable. He was a
+good-natured fellow, and had thought and care for the living, but not a
+great deal of sentiment for the dead, whom he had looked in the face too
+often to be much disturbed by the spectacle.
+
+"You'll have to keep that bandage on. You should be sharp; you should
+know all about it, girl, by this time, and not let those muscles
+stiffen. I need not tell you the mouth shuts as easily as this
+snuff-box, if you only take it in time.--I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+send to Jos Fringer for the poor fellow's outfit. Fringer is a very
+proper man--there ain't a properer und-aker in England. I always
+re-mmend Fringer--in Church-street in Golden Friars. You know Fringer, I
+daresay."
+
+"I can't say, sir, I'm sure. That will be as Sir Bale may please to
+direct," answered Mrs. Julaper.
+
+"You've got him very straight--straighter than I thought you could; but
+the large joints were not so stiff. A very little longer wait, and you'd
+hardly have got him into his coffin. He'll want a vr-r-ry long one, poor
+lad. Short cake is life, ma'am. Sad thing this. They'll open their eyes,
+I promise you, down in the town. 'Twill be cool enough, I'd shay, affre
+all th-thunr-thunnle, you know. I think I'll take a nip, Mrs. Jool-fr,
+if you wouldn't mine makin' me out a thimmle-ful bran-band-bran-rand-andy,
+eh, Mishs Joolfr?"
+
+And the Doctor took a chair by the fire; and Mrs. Julaper, with a
+dubious conscience and dry hospitality, procured the brandy-flask and
+wine-glass, and helped the physician in a thin hesitating stream, which
+left him ample opportunity to cry "Hold--enough!" had he been so minded.
+But that able physician had no confidence, it would seem, in any dose
+under a bumper, which he sipped with commendation, and then fell asleep
+with the firelight on his face--to tender-hearted Mrs. Julaper's
+disgust--and snored with a sensual disregard of the solemnity of his
+situation; until with a profound nod, or rather dive, toward the fire,
+he awoke, got up and shook his ears with a kind of start, and standing
+with his back to the fire, asked for his muffler and horse; and so took
+his leave also of the weird sisters, who were still pottering about the
+body, with croak and whisper, and nod and ogle. He took his leave also
+of good Mrs. Julaper, who was completing arrangements with teapot and
+kettle, spiced elderberry wine, and other comforts, to support them
+through their proposed vigil. And finally, in a sort of way, he took his
+leave of the body, with a long business-like stare, from the foot of the
+bed, with his short hands stuffed into his pockets. And so, to Mrs.
+Julaper's relief, this unseemly doctor, speaking thickly, departed.
+
+And now, the Doctor being gone, and all things prepared for the 'wake'
+to be observed by withered Mrs. Bligh of the one eye, and yellow Mrs.
+Wale of the crooked back, the house grew gradually still. The thunder
+had by this time died into the solid boom of distant battle, and the
+fury of the gale had subsided to the long sobbing wail that is charged
+with so eerie a melancholy. Within all was stirless, and the two old
+women, each a 'Mrs.' by courtesy, who had not much to thank Nature or
+the world for, sad and cynical, and in a sort outcasts told off by
+fortune to these sad and grizzly services, sat themselves down by the
+fire, each perhaps feeling unusually at home in the other's society; and
+in this soured and forlorn comfort, trimming their fire, quickening the
+song of the kettle to a boil, and waxing polite and chatty; each
+treating the other with that deprecatory and formal courtesy which
+invites a return in kind, and both growing strangely happy in this
+little world of their own, in the unusual and momentary sense of an
+importance and consideration which were delightful.
+
+The old still-room of Mardykes Hall is an oblong room wainscoted. From
+the door you look its full length to the wide stone-shafted Tudor window
+at the other end. At your left is the ponderous mantelpiece, supported
+by two spiral stone pillars; and close to the door at the right was the
+bed in which the two crones had just stretched poor Philip Feltram, who
+lay as still as an uncoloured wax-work, with a heavy penny-piece on each
+eye, and a bandage under his jaw, making his mouth look stern. And the
+two old ladies over their tea by the fire conversed agreeably, compared
+their rheumatisms and other ailments wordily, and talked of old times,
+and early recollections, and of sick-beds they had attended, and corpses
+that "you would not know, so pined and windered" were they; and others
+so fresh and canny, you'd say the dead had never looked so bonny in
+life.
+
+Then they began to talk of people who grew tall in their coffins, of
+others who had been buried alive, and of others who walked after death.
+Stories as true as holy writ.
+
+"Were you ever down by Hawarth, Mrs. Bligh--hard by Dalworth Moss?"
+asked crook-backed Mrs. Wale, holding her spoon suspended over her cup.
+
+"Neea whaar sooa far south, Mrs. Wale, ma'am; but ma father was off
+times down thar cuttin' peat."
+
+"Ah, then ye'll not a kenned farmer Dykes that lived by the Lin-tree
+Scaur. 'Tweer I that laid him out, poor aad fellow, and a dow man he was
+when aught went cross wi' him; and he cursed and sweared, twad gar ye
+dodder to hear him. They said he was a hard man wi' some folk; but he
+kep a good house, and liked to see plenty, and many a time when I was
+swaimous about my food, he'd clap t' meat on ma plate, and mak' me eat
+ma fill. Na, na--there was good as well as bad in farmer Dykes. It was a
+year after he deed, and Tom Ettles was walking home, down by the Birken
+Stoop one night, and not a soul nigh, when he sees a big ball, as high
+as his knee, whirlin' and spangin' away before him on the road. What it
+wer he could not think; but he never consayted there was a freet or a bo
+thereaway; so he kep near it, watching every spang and turn it took,
+till it ran into the gripe by the roadside. There was a gravel pit just
+there, and Tom Ettles wished to take another gliff at it before he went
+on. But when he keeked into the pit, what should he see but a man
+attoppa a horse that could not get up or on: and says he, 'I think ye be
+at a dead-lift there, gaffer.' And wi' the word, up looks the man, and
+who sud it be but farmer Dykes himsel; and Tom Ettles saw him plain
+eneugh, and kenned the horse too for Black Captain, the farmer's aad
+beast, that broke his leg and was shot two years and more before the
+farmer died. 'Ay,' says farmer Dykes, lookin' very bad;
+'forsett-and-backsett, ye'll tak me oot, Tom Ettles, and clap ye doun
+behint me quick, or I'll claw ho'd o' thee.' Tom felt his hair risin'
+stiff on his heed, and his tongue so fast to the roof o' his mouth he
+could scarce get oot a word; but says he, 'If Black Jack can't do it o'
+noo, he'll ne'er do't and carry double.' 'I ken my ain business best,'
+says Dykes. 'If ye gar me gie ye a look, 'twill gie ye the creepin's
+while ye live; so git ye doun, Tom;' and with that the dobby lifts its
+neaf, and Tom saw there was a red light round horse and man, like the
+glow of a peat fire. And says Tom, 'In the name o' God, ye'll let me
+pass;' and with the word the gooast draws itsel' doun, all a-creaked,
+like a man wi' a sudden pain; and Tom Ettles took to his heels more deed
+than alive."
+
+They had approached their heads, and the story had sunk to that
+mysterious murmur that thrills the listener, when in the brief silence
+that followed they heard a low odd laugh near the door.
+
+In that direction each lady looked aghast, and saw Feltram sitting
+straight up in the bed, with the white bandage in his hand, and as it
+seemed, for one foot was below the coverlet, near the floor, about to
+glide forth.
+
+Mrs. Bligh, uttering a hideous shriek, clutched Mrs. Wale, and Mrs.
+Wale, with a scream as dreadful, gripped Mrs. Bligh; and quite
+forgetting their somewhat formal politeness, they reeled and tugged,
+wrestling towards the window, each struggling to place her companion
+between her and the 'dobby,' and both uniting in a direful peal of
+yells.
+
+This was the uproar which had startled Sir Bale from his dream, and was
+now startling the servants from theirs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The Mist on the Mountain
+
+Doctor Torvey was sent for early next morning, and came full of wonder,
+learning and scepticism. Seeing is believing, however; and there was
+Philip Feltram living, and soon to be, in all bodily functions, just as
+usual.
+
+"Upon my soul, Sir Bale, I couldn't have believed it, if I had not seen
+it with my eyes," said the Doctor impressively, while sipping a glass of
+sherry in the 'breakfast parlour,' as the great panelled and pictured
+room next the dining-room was called. "I don't think there is any
+similar case on record--no pulse, no more than the poker; no
+respiration, by Jove, no more than the chimney-piece; as cold as a lead
+image in the garden there. Well, you'll say all that might possibly be
+fallacious; but what will you say to the cadaveric stiffness? Old Judy
+Wale can tell you; and my friend Marcella--Monocula would be nearer the
+mark--Mrs. Bligh, she knows all those common, and I may say up to this,
+infallible, signs of death, as well as I do. There is no mystery about
+them; they'll depose to the literality of the symptoms. You heard how
+they gave tongue. Upon my honour, I'll send the whole case up to my old
+chief, Sir Hervey Hansard, to London. You'll hear what a noise it will
+make among the profession. There never was--and it ain't too much to
+say there never _will_ be--another case like it."
+
+During this lecture, and a great deal more, Sir Bale leaned back in his
+chair, with his legs extended, his heels on the ground, and his arms
+folded, looking sourly up in the face of a tall lady in white satin, in
+a ruff, and with a bird on her hand, who smiled down superciliously from
+her frame on the Baronet. Sir Bale seemed a little bit high and dry with
+the Doctor.
+
+"You physicians are unquestionably," he said, "a very learned
+profession."
+
+The Doctor bowed.
+
+"But there's just one thing you know nothing about----"
+
+"Eh? What's that?" inquired Doctor Torvey.
+
+"Medicine," answered Sir Bale. "I was aware you never knew what was the
+matter with a sick man; but I didn't know, till now, that you couldn't
+tell when he was dead."
+
+"Ha, ha!--well--ha, ha!--_yes_--well, you see, you--ha, ha!--you
+certainly have me there. But it's a case without a parallel--it is, upon
+my honour. You'll find it will not only be talked about, but written
+about; and, whatever papers appear upon it, will come to me; and I'll
+take care, Sir Bale, you shall have an opportunity of reading them."
+
+"Of which I shan't avail myself," answered Sir Bale. "Take another glass
+of sherry, Doctor."
+
+The Doctor made his acknowledgments and filled his glass, and looked
+through the wine between him and the window.
+
+"Ha, ha!--see there, your port, Sir Bale, gives a fellow such
+habits--looking for the beeswing, by Jove. It isn't easy, in one sense
+at least, to get your port out of a fellow's head when once he has
+tasted it."
+
+But if the honest Doctor meant a hint for a glass of that admirable bin,
+it fell pointless; and Sir Bale had no notion of making another libation
+of that precious fluid in honour of Doctor Torvey.
+
+"And I take it for granted," said Sir Bale, "that Feltram will do very
+well; and, should anything go wrong, I can send for you--unless he
+should die again; and in that case I think I shall take my own opinion."
+
+So he and the Doctor parted.
+
+Sir Bale, although he did not consult the Doctor on his own case, was
+not particularly well. "That lonely place, those frightful mountains,
+and that damp black lake"--which features in the landscape he cursed all
+round--"are enough to give any man blue devils; and when a fellow's
+spirits go, he's all gone. That's why I'm dyspeptic--that and those
+d----d debts--and the post, with its flight of croaking and screeching
+letters from London. I wish there was no post here. I wish it was like
+Sir Amyrald's time, when they shot the York mercer that came to dun him,
+and no one ever took anyone to task about it; and now they can pelt you
+at any distance they please through the post; and fellows lose their
+spirits and their appetite and any sort of miserable comfort that is
+possible in this odious abyss."
+
+Was there gout in Sir Bale's case, or 'vapours'? I know not what the
+faculty would have called it; but Sir Bale's mode of treatment was
+simply to work off the attack by long and laborious walking.
+
+This evening his walk was upon the Fells of Golden Friars--long after
+the landscape below was in the eclipse of twilight, the broad bare sides
+and angles of these gigantic uplands were still lighted by the misty
+western sun.
+
+There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the
+silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the
+level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and
+colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a
+strange fear and elation--an ascent above the reach of life's vexations
+or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgiving.
+The filmy disc of the moon had risen in the east, and was already
+faintly silvering the shadowy scenery below, while yet Sir Bale stood in
+the mellow light of the western sun, which still touched also the
+summits of the opposite peaks of Morvyn Fells.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes did not, as a stranger might, in prudence, hasten his
+descent from the heights at which he stood while yet a gleam of daylight
+remained to him. For he was, from his boyhood, familiar with those
+solitary regions; and, beside this, the thin circle of the moon, hung in
+the eastern sky, would brighten as the sunlight sank, and hang like a
+lamp above his steps.
+
+There was in the bronzed and resolute face of the Baronet, lighted now
+in the parting beams of sunset, a resemblance to that of Charles the
+Second--not our "merry" ideal, but the more energetic and saturnine face
+which the portraits have preserved to us.
+
+He stood with folded arms on the side of the slope, admiring, in spite
+of his prejudice, the unusual effects of a view so strangely
+lighted--the sunset tints on the opposite peaks, lost in the misty
+twilight, now deepening lower down into a darker shade, through which
+the outlines of the stone gables and tower of Golden Friars and the
+light of fire or candle in their windows were dimly visible.
+
+As he stood and looked, his more distant sunset went down, and sudden
+twilight was upon him, and he began to remember the beautiful Homeric
+picture of a landscape coming out, rock and headland, in the moonlight.
+
+There had hung upon the higher summits, at his right, a heavy fold of
+white cloud, which on a sudden broke, and, like the smoke of artillery,
+came rolling down the slopes toward him. Its principal volume, however,
+unfolded itself in a mighty flood down the side of the mountain towards
+the lake; and that which spread towards and soon enveloped the ground on
+which he stood was by no means so dense a fog. A thick mist enough it
+was; but still, to a distance of twenty or thirty yards, he could
+discern the outline of a rock or scaur, but not beyond it.
+
+There are few sensations more intimidating than that of being thus
+enveloped on a lonely mountain-side, which, like this one, here and
+there breaks into precipice.
+
+There is another sensation, too, which affects the imagination.
+Overtaken thus on the solitary expanse, there comes a new chill and
+tremour as this treacherous medium surrounds us, through which
+unperceived those shapes which fancy conjures up might approach so near
+and bar our path.
+
+From the risk of being reduced to an actual standstill he knew he was
+exempt. The point from which the wind blew, light as it was, assured him
+of that. Still the mist was thick enough seriously to embarrass him. It
+had overtaken him as he was looking down upon the lake; and he now
+looked to his left, to try whether in that direction it was too thick to
+permit a view of the nearest landmarks. Through this white film he saw a
+figure standing only about five-and-twenty steps away, looking down, as
+it seemed, in precisely the same direction as he, quite motionless, and
+standing like a shadow projected upon the smoky vapour. It was the
+figure of a slight tall man, with his arm extended, as if pointing to a
+remote object, which no mortal eye certainly could discern through the
+mist. Sir Bale gazed at this figure, doubtful whether he were in a
+waking dream, unable to conjecture whence it had come; and as he looked,
+it moved, and was almost instantly out of sight.
+
+He descended the mountain cautiously. The mist was now thinner, and
+through the haze he was beginning to see objects more distinctly, and,
+without danger, to proceed at a quicker pace. He had still a long walk
+by the uplands towards Mardykes Hall before he descended to the level of
+the lake.
+
+The mist was still quite thick enough to circumscribe his view and to
+hide the general features of the landscape; and well was it, perhaps,
+for Sir Bale that his boyhood had familiarised him with the landmarks on
+the mountain-side.
+
+He had made nearly four miles on his solitary homeward way, when,
+passing under a ledge of rock which bears the name of the Cat's Skaitch,
+he saw the same figure in the short cloak standing within some thirty or
+forty yards of him--the thin curtain of mist, through which the
+moonlight touched it, giving to it an airy and unsubstantial character.
+
+Sir Bale came to a standstill. The man in the short cloak nodded and
+drew back, and was concealed by the angle of the rock.
+
+Sir Bale was now irritated, as men are after a start, and shouting to
+the stranger to halt, he 'slapped' after him, as the northern phrase
+goes, at his best pace. But again he was gone, and nowhere could he see
+him, the mist favouring his evasion.
+
+Looking down the fells that overhang Mardykes Hall, the mountain-side
+dips gradually into a glen, which, as it descends, becomes precipitous
+and wooded. A footpath through this ravine conducts the wayfarer to the
+level ground that borders the lake; and by this dark pass Sir Bale
+Mardykes strode, in comparatively clear air, along the rocky path
+dappled with moonlight.
+
+As he emerged upon the lower ground he again encountered the same
+figure. It approached. It was Philip Feltram.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+A New Philip Feltram
+
+The Baronet had not seen Feltram since his strange escape from death.
+His last interview with him had been stern and threatening; Sir Bale
+dealing with appearances in the spirit of an incensed judge, Philip
+Feltram lamenting in the submission of a helpless despair.
+
+Feltram was full in the moonlight now, standing erect, and smiling
+cynically on the Baronet.
+
+There was that in the bearing and countenance of Feltram that
+disconcerted him more than the surprise of the sudden meeting.
+
+He had determined to meet Feltram in a friendly way, whenever that not
+very comfortable interview became inevitable. But he was confused by the
+suddenness of Feltram's appearance; and the tone, cold and stern, in
+which he had last spoken to him came first, and he spoke in it after a
+brief silence.
+
+"I fancied, Mr. Feltram, you were in your bed; I little expected to find
+you here. I think the Doctor gave very particular directions, and said
+that you were to remain perfectly quiet."
+
+"But I know more than the Doctor," replied Feltram, still smiling
+unpleasantly.
+
+"I think, sir, you would have been better in your bed," said Sir Bale
+loftily.
+
+"Come, come, come, come!" exclaimed Philip Feltram contemptuously.
+
+[Illustration: It was the figure of a slight tall man, with his arm
+extended, as if pointing to a remote object.]
+
+"It seems to me," said Sir Bale, a good deal astonished, "you rather
+forget yourself."
+
+"Easier to forget oneself, Sir Bale, than to forgive others, at times,"
+replied Philip Feltram in his unparalleled mood.
+
+"That's the way fools knock themselves up," continued Sir Bale. "You've
+been walking ever so far--away to the Fells of Golden Friars. It was you
+whom I saw there. What d----d folly! What brought you there?"
+
+"To observe you," he replied.
+
+"And have you walked the whole way there and back again? How did you get
+there?"
+
+"Pooh! how did I come--how did you come--how did the fog come? From the
+lake, I suppose. We all come up, and then down." So spoke Philip
+Feltram, with serene insolence.
+
+"You are pleased to talk nonsense," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Because I like it--with a _meaning_."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him, not knowing whether to believe his eyes and
+ears. He did not know what to make of him.
+
+"I had intended speaking to you in a conciliatory way; you seem to wish
+to make that impossible"--Philip Feltram's face wore its repulsive
+smile;--"and in fact I don't know what to make of you, unless you are
+ill; and ill you well may be. You can't have walked much less than
+twelve miles."
+
+"Wonderful effort for me!" said Feltram with the same sneer.
+
+"Rather surprising for a man so nearly drowned," answered Sir Bale
+Mardykes.
+
+"A dip: you don't like the lake, sir; but I do. And so it is: as Antaeus
+touched the earth, so I the water, and rise refreshed."
+
+"I think you'd better get in and refresh there. I meant to tell you that
+all the unpleasantness about that bank-note is over."
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"Yes. It has been recovered by Mr. Creswell, who came here last night.
+I've got it, and you're not to blame," said Sir Bale.
+
+"But some one _is_ to blame," observed Mr. Feltram, smiling still.
+
+"Well, _you_ are not, and that ends it," said the Baronet peremptorily.
+
+
+"Ends it? Really, how good! how very good!"
+
+Sir Bale looked at him, for there was something ambiguous and even
+derisive in the tone of Feltram's voice.
+
+But before he could quite make up his mind, Feltram spoke again.
+
+"Everything is settled about you and me?"
+
+"There is nothing to prevent your staying at Mardykes now," said Sir
+Bale graciously.
+
+"I shall be with you for two years, and then I go on my travels,"
+answered Feltram, with a saturnine and somewhat wild look around him.
+
+"Is he going mad?" thought the Baronet.
+
+"But before I go, I'm to put you in a way of paying off your mortgages.
+That is my business here."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him sharply. But now there was not the unpleasant
+smile, but the darkened look of a man in secret pain.
+
+"You shall know it all by and by."
+
+And without more ceremony, and with a darkening face, Philip Feltram
+made his way under the boughs of the thick oaks that grew there, leaving
+on Sir Bale's mind an impression that he had been watching some one at a
+distance, and had gone in consequence of a signal.
+
+In a few seconds he followed in the same direction, halloaing after
+Feltram; for he did not like the idea of his wandering about the country
+by moonlight, or possibly losing his life among the precipices, and
+bringing a new discredit upon his house. But no answer came; nor could
+he in that thick copse gain sight of him again.
+
+When Sir Bale reached Mardykes Hall he summoned Mrs. Julaper, and had a
+long talk with her. But she could not say that there appeared anything
+amiss with Philip Feltram; only he seemed more reserved, and as if he
+was brooding over something he did not intend to tell.
+
+"But, you know, Sir Bale, what happened might well make a thoughtful man
+of him. If he's ever to think of Death, it should be after looking him
+so hard in the face; and I'm not ashamed to say, I'm glad to see he has
+grace to take the lesson, and I hope his experiences may be sanctified
+to him, poor fellow! Amen."
+
+"Very good song, and very well sung," said Sir Bale; "but it doesn't
+seem to me that he has been improved, Mrs. Julaper. He seems, on the
+contrary, in a queer temper and anything but a heavenly frame of mind;
+and I thought I'd ask you, because if he is ill--I mean feverish--it
+might account for his eccentricities, as well as make it necessary to
+send after him, and bring him home, and put him to bed. But I suppose it
+is as you say,--his adventure has upset him a little, and he'll sober in
+a day or two, and return to his old ways."
+
+But this did not happen. A change, more comprehensive than at first
+appeared, had taken place, and a singular alteration was gradually
+established.
+
+He grew thin, his eyes hollow, his face gradually forbidding.
+
+His ways and temper were changed: he was a new man with Sir Bale; and
+the Baronet after a time, people said, began to grow afraid of him. And
+certainly Feltram had acquired an extraordinary influence over the
+Baronet, who a little while ago had regarded and treated him with so
+much contempt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The Purse of Gold
+
+The Baronet was very slightly known in his county. He had led a reserved
+and inhospitable life. He was pressed upon by heavy debts; and being a
+proud man, held aloof from society and its doings. He wished people to
+understand that he was nursing his estate; but somehow the estate did
+not thrive at nurse. In the country other people's business is admirably
+well known; and the lord of Mardykes was conscious, perhaps, that his
+neighbours knew as well he did, that the utmost he could do was to pay
+the interest charged upon it, and to live in a frugal way enough.
+
+The lake measures some four or five miles across, from the little jetty
+under the walls of Mardykes Hall to Cloostedd.
+
+Philip Feltram, changed and morose, loved a solitary row upon the lake;
+and sometimes, with no one to aid him in its management, would take the
+little sailboat and pass the whole day upon those lonely waters.
+
+Frequently he crossed to Cloostedd; and mooring the boat under the
+solemn trees that stand reflected in that dark mirror, he would
+disembark and wander among the lonely woodlands, as people thought,
+cherishing in those ancestral scenes the memory of ineffaceable
+injuries, and the wrath and revenge that seemed of late to darken his
+countenance, and to hold him always in a moody silence.
+
+One autumnal evening Sir Bale Mardykes was sourly ruminating after his
+solitary meal. A very red sun was pouring its last low beams through the
+valley at the western extremity of the lake, across its elsewhere sombre
+waters, and touching with a sudden and blood-red tint the sail of the
+skiff in which Feltram was returning from his lonely cruise.
+
+"Here comes my domestic water-fiend," sneered Sir Bale, as he lay back
+in his cumbrous arm-chair. "Cheerful place, pleasant people, delicious
+fate! The place alone has been enough to set that fool out of his little
+senses, d--n him!"
+
+Sir Bale averted his eyes, and another subject not pleasanter entered
+his mind. He was thinking of the races that were coming off next week at
+Heckleston Downs, and what sums of money might be made there, and how
+hard it was that he should be excluded by fortune from that brilliant
+lottery.
+
+"Ah, Mrs. Julaper, is that you?"
+
+Mrs. Julaper, who was still at the door, curtsied, and said, "I came,
+Sir Bale, to see whether you'd please to like a jug of mulled claret,
+sir."
+
+"Not I, my dear. I'll take a mug of beer and my pipe; that homely solace
+better befits a ruined gentleman."
+
+"H'm, sir; you're not that, Sir Bale; you're no worse than half the
+lords and great men that are going. I would not hear another say that of
+you, sir."
+
+"That's very kind of you, Mrs. Julaper; but you won't call _me_ out for
+backbiting myself, especially as it is true, d----d true, Mrs. Julaper!
+Look ye; there never was a Mardykes here before but he could lay his
+hundred or his thousand pounds on the winner of the Heckleston Cup; and
+what could I bet? Little more than that mug of beer I spoke of. It was
+my great-grandfather who opened the course on the Downs of Heckleston,
+and now _I_ can't show there! Well, what must I do? Grin and bear it,
+that's all. If you please, Mrs. Julaper, I will have that jug of claret
+you offered. I want spice and hot wine to keep me alive; but I'll smoke
+my pipe first, and in an hour's time it will do."
+
+When Mrs. Julaper was gone, he lighted his pipe, and drew near the
+window, through which he looked upon the now fading sky and the twilight
+landscape.
+
+He smoked his pipe out, and by that time it had grown nearly dark. He
+was still looking out upon the faint outlines of the view, and thinking
+angrily what a little bit of luck at the races would do for many a man
+who probably did not want it half so much as he. Vague and sombre as his
+thoughts were, they had, like the darkening landscape outside, shape
+enough to define their general character. Bitter and impious they
+were--as those of egotistic men naturally are in suffering. And after
+brooding, and muttering by fits and starts, he said:
+
+"How many tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds will change hands at
+Heckleston next week; and not a shilling in all the change and shuffle
+will stick to me! How many a fellow would sell himself, like Dr.
+Faustus, just for the knowledge of the name of the winner! But he's no
+fool, and does not buy his own."
+
+Something caught his eye; something moving on the wall. The fire was
+lighted, and cast a flickering and gigantic shadow upward; the figure of
+a man standing behind Sir Bale Mardykes, on whose shoulder he placed a
+lean hand. Sir Bale turned suddenly about, and saw Philip Feltram. He
+was looking dark and stern, and did not remove his hand from his
+shoulder as he peered into the Baronet's face with his deep-set mad
+eyes.
+
+"Ha, Philip, upon my soul!" exclaimed Sir Bale, surprised. "How time
+flies! It seems only this minute since I saw the boat a mile and a half
+away from the shore. Well--yes; there has been time; it is dark now. Ha,
+ha! I assure you, you startled me. Won't you take something? Do. Shall I
+touch the bell?"
+
+"You have been troubled about those mortgages. I told you I should pay
+them off, I thought."
+
+Here there was a pause, and Sir Bale looked hard in Feltram's face. If
+he had been in his ordinary spirits, or perhaps in some of his haunts
+less solitary than Mardykes, he would have laughed; but here he had
+grown unlike himself, gloomy and credulous, and was, in fact, a nervous
+man.
+
+Sir Bale smiled, and shook his head dismally.
+
+"It is very kind of you, Feltram; the idea shows a kindly disposition. I
+know you would do me a kindness if you could."
+
+As Sir Bale, each looking in the other's eyes, repeated in this sentence
+the words "kind," "kindly," "kindness," a smile lighted Feltram's face
+with at each word an intenser light; and Sir Bale grew sombre in its
+glare; and when he had done speaking, Feltram's face also on a sudden
+darkened.
+
+"I have found a fortune-teller in Cloostedd Wood. Look here."
+
+And he drew from his pocket a leathern purse, which he placed on the
+table in his hand; and Sir Bale heard the pleasant clink of coin in it.
+
+"A fortune-teller! You don't mean to say she gave you that?" said Sir
+Bale.
+
+Feltram smiled again, and nodded.
+
+"It _was_ the custom to give the fortuneteller a trifle. It is a great
+improvement making _her_ fee you," observed Sir Bale, with an approach
+to his old manner.
+
+"He put that in my hand with a message," said Feltram.
+
+"He? O, then it was a male fortune-teller!"
+
+"Gipsies go in gangs, men and women. _He_ might lend, though _she_ told
+fortunes," said Feltram.
+
+"It's the first time I ever heard of gipsies lending money;" and he eyed
+the purse with a whimsical smile.
+
+With his lean fingers still holding it, Feltram sat down at the table.
+His face contracted as if in cunning thought, and his chin sank upon his
+breast as he leaned back.
+
+"I think," continued Sir Bale, "ever since they were spoiled, the
+Egyptians have been a little shy of lending, and leave that branch of
+business to the Hebrews."
+
+"What would you give to know, now, the winner at Heckleston races?" said
+Feltram suddenly, raising his eyes.
+
+"Yes; that would be worth something," answered Sir Bale, looking at him
+with more interest than the incredulity he affected would quite warrant.
+
+"And this money I have power to lend you, to make your game."
+
+"Do you mean that really?" said Sir Bale, with a new energy in tone,
+manner, and features.
+
+"That's heavy; there are some guineas there," said Feltram with a dark
+smile, raising the purse in his hand a little, and letting it drop upon
+the table with a clang.
+
+"There is _something_ there, at all events," said Sir Bale.
+
+Feltram took the purse by the bottom, and poured out on the table a
+handsome pile of guineas.
+
+"And do you mean to say you got all that from a gipsy in Cloostedd
+Wood?"
+
+"A friend, who is--_myself_," answered Philip Feltram.
+
+"Yourself! Then it is yours--_you_ lend it?" said the Baronet, amazed;
+for there was no getting over the heap of guineas, and the wonder was
+pretty equal whence they had come.
+
+"Myself, and not myself," said Feltram oracularly; "as like as voice and
+echo, man and shadow."
+
+Had Feltram in some of his solitary wanderings and potterings lighted
+upon hidden treasure? There was a story of two Feltrams of Cloostedd,
+brothers, who had joined the king's army and fought at Marston Moor,
+having buried in Cloostedd Wood a great deal of gold and plate and
+jewels. They had, it was said, intrusted one tried servant with the
+secret; and that servant remained at home. But by a perverse fatality
+the three witnesses had perished within a month: the two brothers at
+Marston Moor; and the confidant, of fever, at Cloostedd. From that day
+forth treasure-seekers had from time to time explored the woods of
+Cloostedd; and many a tree of mark was dug beside, and the earth beneath
+many a stone and scar and other landmark in that solitary forest was
+opened by night, until hope gradually died out, and the tradition had
+long ceased to prompt to action, and had become a story and nothing
+more.
+
+The image of the nursery-tale had now recurred to Sir Bale after so long
+a reach of years; and the only imaginable way, in his mind, of
+accounting for penniless Philip Feltram having all that gold in his
+possession was that, in some of his lonely wanderings, chance had led
+him to the undiscovered hoard of the two Feltrams who had died in the
+great civil wars.
+
+"Perhaps those gipsies you speak of found the money where you found
+them; and in that case, as Cloostedd Forest, and all that is in it is my
+property, their sending it to me is more like my servant's handing me my
+hat and stick when I'm going out, than making me a present."
+
+"You will not be wise to rely upon the law, Sir Bale, and to refuse the
+help that comes unasked. But if you like your mortgages as they are,
+keep them; and if you like my terms as they are, take them; and when you
+have made up your mind, let me know."
+
+Philip Feltram dropped the heavy purse into his capacious coat-pocket,
+and walked, muttering, out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The Message from Cloostedd
+
+"Come back, Feltram; come back, Philip!" cried Sir Bale hastily. "Let us
+talk, can't we? Come and talk this odd business over a little; you must
+have mistaken what I meant; I should like to hear all about it."
+
+"All is not much, sir," said Philip Feltram, entering the room again,
+the door of which he had half closed after him. "In the forest of
+Cloostedd I met to-day some people, one of whom can foretell events, and
+told me the names of the winners of the first three races at Heckleston,
+and gave me this purse, with leave to lend you so much money as you care
+to stake upon the races. I take no security; you shan't be troubled; and
+you'll never see the lender, unless you seek him out."
+
+"Well, those are not bad terms," said Sir Bale, smiling wistfully at the
+purse, which Feltram had again placed upon the table.
+
+"No, not bad," repeated Feltram, in the harsh low tone in which he now
+habitually spoke.
+
+"You'll tell me what the prophet said about the winners; I should like
+to hear their names."
+
+"The names I shall tell you if you walk out with me," said Feltram.
+
+"Why not here?" asked Sir Bale.
+
+"My memory does not serve me here so well. Some people, in some places,
+though they be silent, obstruct thought. Come, let us speak," said
+Philip Feltram, leading the way.
+
+Sir Bale, with a shrug, followed him.
+
+By this time it was dark. Feltram was walking slowly towards the margin
+of the lake; and Sir Bale, more curious as the delay increased, followed
+him, and smiled faintly as he looked after his tall, gaunt figure, as
+if, even in the dark, expressing a ridicule which he did not honestly
+feel, and the expression of which, even if there had been light, there
+was no one near enough to see.
+
+When he reached the edge of the lake, Feltram stooped, and Sir Bale
+thought that his attitude was that of one who whispers to and caresses a
+reclining person. What he fancied was a dark figure lying horizontally
+in the shallow water, near the edge, turned out to be, as he drew near,
+no more than a shadow on the elsewhere lighter water; and with his
+change of position it had shifted and was gone, and Philip Feltram was
+but dabbling his hand this way and that in the water, and muttering
+faintly to himself. He rose as the Baronet drew near, and standing
+upright, said,
+
+"I like to listen to the ripple of the water among the grass and
+pebbles; the tongue and lips of the lake are lapping and whispering all
+along. It is the merest poetry; but you are so romantic, you excuse me."
+
+There was an angry curve in Feltram's eyebrows, and a cynical smile, and
+something in the tone which to the satirical Baronet was almost
+insulting. But even had he been less curious, I don't think he would
+have betrayed his mortification; for an odd and unavowed influence which
+he hated was gradually establishing in Feltram an ascendency which
+sometimes vexed and sometimes cowed him.
+
+"You are not to tell," said Feltram, drawing near him in the dusk. "The
+secret is yours when you promise."
+
+"Of course I promise," said Sir Bale. "If I believed it, you don't think
+I could be such an ass as to tell it; and if I didn't believe it, I'd
+hardly take the trouble."
+
+Feltram stooped, and dipping the hollow of his hand in the water, he
+raised it full, and said he, "Hold out your hand--the hollow of your
+hand--like this. I divide the water for a sign--share to me and share to
+you." And he turned his hand, so as to pour half the water into the
+hollow palm of Sir Bale, who was smiling, with some uneasiness mixed in
+his mockery.
+
+"Now, you promise to keep all secrets respecting the teller and the
+finder, be that who it may?"
+
+"Yes, I promise," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Now do as I do," said Feltram. And he shed the water on the ground, and
+with his wet fingers touched his forehead and his breast; and then he
+joined his hand with Sir Bale's, and said, "Now you are my safe man."
+
+Sir Bale laughed. "That's the game they call 'grand mufti,'" said he.
+
+"Exactly; and means nothing," said Feltram, "except that some day it
+will serve you to remember by. And now the names. Don't speak;
+listen--you may break the thought else. The winner of the first is
+_Beeswing_; of the second, _Falcon_; and of the third, _Lightning_."
+
+He had stood for some seconds in silence before he spoke; his eyes were
+closed; he seemed to bring up thought and speech with difficulty, and
+spoke faintly and drowsily, both his hands a little raised, and the
+fingers extended, with the groping air of a man who moves in the dark.
+In this odd way, slowly, faintly, with many a sigh and scarcely audible
+groan, he gradually delivered his message and was silent. He stood, it
+seemed, scarcely half awake, muttering indistinctly and sighing to
+himself. You would have said that he was exhausted and suffering, like a
+man at his last hour resigning himself to death.
+
+At length he opened his eyes, looked round a little wildly and
+languidly, and with another great sigh sat down on a large rock that
+lies by the margin of the lake, and sighed heavily again and again. You
+might have fancied that he was a second time recovering from drowning.
+
+Then he got up, and looked drowsily round again, and sighed like a man
+worn out with fatigue, and was silent.
+
+Sir Bale did not care to speak until he seemed a little more likely to
+obtain an answer. When that time came, he said, "I wish, for the sake of
+my believing, that your list was a little less incredible. Not one of
+the horses you name is the least likely; not one of them has a chance."
+
+"So much the better for you; you'll get what odds you please. You had
+better seize your luck; on Tuesday Beeswing runs," said Feltram. "When
+you want money for the purpose, I'm your banker--here is your bank."
+
+He touched his breast, where he had placed the purse, and then he turned
+and walked swiftly away.
+
+Sir Bale looked after him till he disappeared in the dark. He fluctuated
+among many surmises about Feltram. Was he insane, or was he practising
+an imposture? or was he fool enough to believe the predictions of some
+real gipsies? and had he borrowed this money, which in Sir Bale's eyes
+seemed the greatest miracle in the matter, from those thriving shepherd
+mountaineers, the old Trebecks, who, he believed, were attached to him?
+Feltram had, he thought, borrowed it as if for himself; and having, as
+Sir Bale in his egotism supposed, "a sneaking regard" for him, had meant
+the loan for his patron, and conceived the idea of his using his
+revelations for the purpose of making his fortune. So, seeing no risk,
+and the temptation being strong, Sir Bale resolved to avail himself of
+the purse, and use his own judgment as to what horse to back.
+
+About eleven o'clock Feltram, unannounced, walked, with his hat still
+on, into Sir Bale's library, and sat down at the opposite side of his
+table, looking gloomily into the Baronet's face for a time.
+
+"Shall you want the purse?" he asked at last.
+
+"Certainly; I always want a purse," said Sir Bale energetically.
+
+"The condition is, that you shall back each of the three horses I have
+named. But you may back them for much or little, as you like, only the
+sum must not be less than five pounds in each hundred which this purse
+contains. That is the condition, and if you violate it, you will make
+some powerful people very angry, and you will feel it. Do you agree?"
+
+"Of course; five pounds in the hundred--certainly; and how many hundreds
+are there?"
+
+"Three."
+
+"Well, a fellow with luck may win something with three hundred pounds,
+but it ain't very much."
+
+"Quite enough, if you use it aright."
+
+"Three hundred pounds," repeated the Baronet, as he emptied the purse,
+which Feltram had just placed in his hand, upon the table; and
+contemplating them with grave interest, he began telling them off in
+little heaps of five-and-twenty each. He might have thanked Feltram, but
+he was thinking more of the guineas than of the grizzly donor.
+
+"Ay," said he, after a second counting, "I think there _are_ exactly
+three hundred. Well, so you say I must apply three times five--fifteen
+of these. It is an awful pity backing those queer horses you have named;
+but if I must make the sacrifice, I must, I suppose?" he added, with a
+hesitating inquiry in the tone.
+
+"If you don't, you'll rue it," said Feltram coldly, and walked away.
+
+"Penny in pocket's a merry companion," says the old English proverb, and
+Sir Bale felt in better spirits and temper than he had for many a day as
+he replaced the guineas in the purse.
+
+It was long since he had visited either the race-course or any other
+place of amusement. Now he might face his kind without fear that his
+pride should be mortified, and dabble in the fascinating agitations of
+the turf once more.
+
+"Who knows how this little venture may turn out?" he thought. "It is
+time the luck should turn. My last summer in Germany, my last winter in
+Paris--d--n me, I'm owed something. It's time I should win a bit."
+
+Sir Bale had suffered the indolence of a solitary and discontented life
+imperceptibly to steal upon him. It would not do to appear for the first
+time on Heckleston Lea with any of those signs of negligence which, in
+his case, might easily be taken for poverty. All his appointments,
+therefore, were carefully looked after; and on the Monday following, he,
+followed by his groom, rode away for the Saracen's Head at Heckleston,
+where he was to put up, for the races that were to begin on the day
+following, and presented as handsome an appearance as a peer in those
+days need have cared to show.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+On the Course--Beeswing, Falcon, and Lightning
+
+As he rode towards Golden Friars, through which his route lay, in the
+early morning light, in which the mists of night were clearing, he
+looked back towards Mardykes with a hope of speedy deliverance from that
+hated imprisonment, and of a return to the continental life in which he
+took delight. He saw the summits and angles of the old building touched
+with the cheerful beams, and the grand old trees, and at the opposite
+side the fells dark, with their backs towards the east; and down the
+side of the wooded and precipitous clough of Feltram, the light, with a
+pleasant contrast against the beetling purple of the fells, was breaking
+in the faint distance. On the lake he saw the white speck that indicated
+the sail of Philip Feltram's boat, now midway between Mardykes and the
+wooded shores of Cloostedd.
+
+"Going on the same errand," thought Sir Bale, "I should not wonder. I
+wish him the same luck. Yes, he's going to Cloostedd Forest. I hope he
+may meet his gipsies there--the Trebecks, or whoever they are."
+
+And as a momentary sense of degradation in being thus beholden to such
+people smote him, "Well," thought he, "who knows? Many a fellow will
+make a handsome sum of a poorer purse than this at Heckleston. It will
+be a light matter paying them then."
+
+Through Golden Friars he rode. Some of the spectators who did not like
+him, wondered audibly at the gallant show, hoped it was paid for, and
+conjectured that he had ridden out in search of a wife. On the whole,
+however, the appearance of their Baronet in a smarter style than usual
+was popular, and accepted as a change to the advantage of the town.
+
+Next morning he was on the race-course of Heckleston, renewing old
+acquaintance and making himself as agreeable as he could--an object,
+among some people, of curiosity and even interest. Leaving the
+carriage-sides, the hoods and bonnets, Sir Bale was soon among the
+betting men, deep in more serious business.
+
+How did he make his book? He did not break his word. He backed Beeswing,
+Falcon, and Lightning. But it must be owned not for a shilling more than
+the five guineas each, to which he stood pledged. The odds were
+forty-five to one against Beeswing, sixty to one against Lightning, and
+fifty to one against Falcon.
+
+"A pretty lot to choose!" exclaimed Sir Bale, with vexation. "As if I
+had money so often, that I should throw it away!"
+
+The Baronet was testy thinking over all this, and looked on Feltram's
+message as an impertinence and the money as his own.
+
+Let us now see how Sir Bale Mardykes' pocket fared.
+
+Sulkily enough at the close of the week he turned his back on Heckleston
+racecourse, and took the road to Golden Friars.
+
+He was in a rage with his luck, and by no means satisfied with himself;
+and yet he had won something. The result of the racing had been curious.
+In the three principal races the favourites had been beaten: one by an
+accident, another on a technical point, and the third by fair running.
+And what horses had won? The names were precisely those which the
+"fortune-teller" had predicted.
+
+Well, then, how was Sir Bale in pocket as he rode up to his ancestral
+house of Mardykes, where a few thousand pounds would have been very
+welcome? He had won exactly 775 guineas; and had he staked a hundred
+instead of five on each of the names communicated by Feltram, he would
+have won 15,500 guineas.
+
+He dismounted before his hall-door, therefore, with the discontent of a
+man who had lost nearly 15,000 pounds. Feltram was upon the steps, and
+laughed dryly.
+
+"What do you laugh at?" asked Sir Bale tartly.
+
+"You've won, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, I've won; I've won a trifle."
+
+"On the horses I named?"
+
+"Well, yes; it so turned out, by the merest accident."
+
+Feltram laughed again dryly, and turned away.
+
+Sir Bale entered Mardykes Hall, and was surly. He was in a much worse
+mood than before he had ridden to Heckleston. But after a week or so
+ruminating upon the occurrence, he wondered that Feltram spoke no more
+of it. It was undoubtedly wonderful. There had been no hint of repayment
+yet, and he had made some hundreds by the loan; and, contrary to all
+likelihood, the three horses named by the unknown soothsayer had won.
+Who was this gipsy? It would be worth bringing the soothsayer to
+Mardykes, and giving his people a camp on the warren, and all the
+poultry they could catch, and a pig or a sheep every now and then. Why,
+that seer was worth the philosopher's stone, and could make Sir Bale's
+fortune in a season. Some one else would be sure to pick him up if he
+did not.
+
+So, tired of waiting for Feltram to begin, he opened the subject one day
+himself. He had not seen him for two or three days; and in the wood of
+Mardykes he saw his lank figure standing among the thick trees, upon a
+little knoll, leaning on a staff which he sometimes carried with him in
+his excursions up the mountains.
+
+"Feltram!" shouted Sir Bale.
+
+Feltram turned and beckoned. Sir Bale muttered, but obeyed the signal.
+
+"I brought you here, because you can from this point with unusual
+clearness today see the opening of the Clough of Feltram at the other
+side, and the clump of trees, where you will find the way to reach the
+person about whom you are always thinking."
+
+"Who said I am always thinking about him?" said the Baronet angrily; for
+he felt like a man detected in a weakness, and resented it.
+
+"_I_ say it, because I _know_ it; and _you_ know it also. See that clump
+of trees standing solitary in the hollow? Among them, to the left, grows
+an ancient oak. Cut in its bark are two enormous letters H--F; so large
+and bold, that the rugged furrows of the oak bark fail to obscure them,
+although they are ancient and spread by time. Standing against the trunk
+of this great tree, with your back to these letters, you are looking up
+the Glen or Clough of Feltram, that opens northward, where stands
+Cloostedd Forest spreading far and thick. Now, how do you find our
+fortune-teller?"
+
+"That is exactly what I wish to know," answered Sir Bale; "because,
+although I can't, of course, believe that he's a witch, yet he has
+either made the most marvellous fluke I've heard of, or else he has got
+extraordinary sources of information; or perhaps he acts partly on
+chance, partly on facts. Be it which you please, I say he's a marvellous
+fellow; and I should like to see him, and have a talk with him; and
+perhaps he could arrange with me. I should be very glad to make an
+arrangement with him to give me the benefit of his advice about any
+matter of the same kind again."
+
+"I think he's willing to see you; but he's a fellow with a queer fancy
+and a pig-head. He'll not come here; you must go to him; and approach
+him his own way too, or you may fail to find him. On these terms he
+invites you."
+
+Sir Bale laughed.
+
+"He knows his value, and means to make his own terms."
+
+"Well, there's nothing unfair in that; and I don't see that I should
+dispute it. How is one to find him?"
+
+"Stand, as I told you, with your back to those letters cut in the oak.
+Right before you lies an old Druidic altar-stone. Cast your eye over its
+surface, and on some part of it you are sure to see a black stain about
+the size of a man's head. Standing, as I suppose you, against the oak,
+that stain, which changes its place from day to day, will give you the
+line you must follow through the forest in order to light upon him. Take
+carefully from it such trees or objects as will guide you; and when the
+forest thickens, do the best you can to keep to the same line. You are
+sure to find him."
+
+"You'll come, Feltram. I should lose myself in that wilderness, and
+probably fail to discover him," said Sir Bale; "and I really wish to see
+him."
+
+"When two people wish to meet, it is hard if they don't. I can go with
+you a bit of the way; I can walk a little through the forest by your
+side, until I see the small flower that grows peeping here and there,
+that always springs where those people walk; and when I begin to see
+that sign, I must leave you. And, first, I'll take you across the lake."
+
+"By Jove, you'll do no such thing!" said Sir Bale hastily.
+
+"But that is the way he chooses to be approached," said Philip Feltram.
+
+"I have a sort of feeling about that lake; it's the one childish spot
+that is left in my imagination. The nursery is to blame for it--old
+stories and warnings; and I can't think of that. I should feel I had
+invoked an evil omen if I did. I know it is all nonsense; but we are
+queer creatures, Feltram. I must only ride there."
+
+"Why, it is five-and-twenty miles round the lake to that; and after all
+were done, he would not see you. He knows what he's worth, and he'll
+have his own way," answered Feltram. "The sun will soon set. See that
+withered branch, near Snakes Island, that looks like fingers rising from
+the water? When its points grow tipped with red, the sun has but three
+minutes to live."
+
+"That is a wonder which I can't see; it is too far away."
+
+"Yes, the lake has many signs; but it needs sight to see them," said
+Feltram.
+
+"So it does," said the Baronet; "more than most men have got. I'll ride
+round, I say; and I make my visit, for this time, my own way."
+
+"You'll not find him, then; and he wants his money. It would be a pity
+to vex him."
+
+"It was to you he lent the money," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, you are the proper person to find him out and pay him," urged Sir
+Bale.
+
+"Perhaps so; but he invites you; and if you don't go, he may be
+offended, and you may hear no more from him."
+
+"We'll try. When can you go? There are races to come off next week, for
+once and away, at Langton. I should not mind trying my luck there. What
+do you say?
+
+"You can go there and pay him, and ask the same question--what horses, I
+mean, are to win. All the county are to be there; and plenty of money
+will change hands."
+
+"I'll try," said Feltram.
+
+"When will you go?"
+
+"To-morrow," he answered.
+
+"I have an odd idea, Feltram, that you are really going to pay off those
+cursed mortgages."
+
+He laid his hand with at least a gesture of kindness on the thin arm of
+Feltram, who coldly answered,
+
+"So have I;" and walked down the side of the little knoll and away,
+without another word or look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+On the Lake, at Last
+
+Next day Philip Feltram crossed the lake; and Sir Bale, seeing the boat
+on the water, guessed its destination, and watched its progress with no
+little interest, until he saw it moored and its sail drop at the rude
+pier that affords a landing at the Clough of Feltram. He was now
+satisfied that Philip had actually gone to seek out the 'cunning man,'
+and gather hints for the next race.
+
+When that evening Feltram returned, and, later still, entered Sir Bale's
+library, the master of Mardykes was gladder to see his face and more
+interested about his news than he would have cared to confess.
+
+Philip Feltram did not affect unconsciousness of that anxiety, but, with
+great directness, proceeded to satisfy it.
+
+"I was in Cloostedd Forest to-day, nearly all day--and found the old
+gentleman in a wax. He did not ask me to drink, nor show me any
+kindness. He was huffed because you would not take the trouble to cross
+the lake to speak to him yourself. He took the money you sent him and
+counted it over, and dropped it into his pocket; and he called you hard
+names enough and to spare; but I brought him round, and at last he did
+talk."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"He said that the estate of Mardykes would belong to a Feltram."
+
+"He might have said something more likely," said Sir Bale sourly. "Did
+he say anything more?"
+
+"Yes. He said the winner at Langton Lea would be Silver Bell."
+
+"Any other name?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Silver Bell? Well, that's not so odd as the last. Silver Bell stands
+high in the list. He has a good many backers--long odds in his favour
+against most of the field. I should not mind backing Silver Bell."
+
+The fact is, that he had no idea of backing any other horse from the
+moment he heard the soothsayer's prediction. He made up his mind to no
+half measures this time. He would go in to win something handsome.
+
+He was in great force and full of confidence on the race-course. He had
+no fears for the result. He bet heavily. There was a good margin still
+untouched of the Mardykes estate; and Sir Bale was a good old name in
+the county. He found a ready market for his offers, and had soon
+staked--such is the growing frenzy of that excitement--about twenty
+thousand pounds on his favourite, and stood to win seven.
+
+He did not win, however. He lost his twenty thousand pounds.
+
+And now the Mardykes estate was in imminent danger. Sir Bale returned,
+having distributed I O Us and promissory notes in all directions about
+him--quite at his wit's end.
+
+Feltram was standing--as on the occasion of his former happier
+return--on the steps of Mardykes Hall, in the evening sun, throwing
+eastward a long shadow that was lost in the lake. He received him, as
+before, with a laugh.
+
+Sir Bale was too much broken to resent this laugh as furiously as he
+might, had he been a degree less desperate.
+
+He looked at Feltram savagely, and dismounted.
+
+"Last time you would not trust him, and this time he would not trust
+you. He's huffed, and played you false."
+
+"It was not he. I should have backed that d----d horse in any case,"
+said Sir Bale, grinding his teeth. "What a witch you have discovered!
+One thing is true, perhaps. If there was a Feltram rich enough, he might
+have the estate now; but there ain't. They are all beggars. So much for
+your conjurer."
+
+"He may make amends to you, if you make amends to him."
+
+"He! Why, what can that wretched impostor do? D--n me, I'm past helping
+now."
+
+"Don't you talk so," said Feltram. "Be civil. You must please the old
+gentleman. He'll make it up. He's placable when it suits him. Why not go
+to him his own way? I hear you are nearly ruined. You must go and make
+it up."
+
+"Make it up! With whom? With a fellow who can't make even a guess at
+what's coming? Why should I trouble my head about him more?"
+
+"No man, young or old, likes to be frumped. Why did you cross his fancy?
+He won't see you unless you go to him as he chooses."
+
+"If he waits for that, he may wait till doomsday. I don't choose to go
+on that water--and cross it I won't," said Sir Bale.
+
+But when his distracting reminders began to pour in upon him, and the
+idea of dismembering what remained of his property came home to him, his
+resolution faltered.
+
+"I say, Feltram, what difference can it possibly make to him if I choose
+to ride round to Cloostedd Forest instead of crossing the lake in a
+boat?"
+
+Feltram smiled darkly, and answered.
+
+"I can't tell. Can you?"
+
+"Of course I can't--I say I can't; besides, what audacity of a fellow
+like that presuming to prescribe to me! Utterly ludicrous! And he can't
+predict--do you really think or believe, Feltram, that he can?"
+
+"I know he can. I know he misled you on purpose. He likes to punish
+those who don't respect his will; and there is a reason in it, often
+quite clear--not ill-natured. Now you see he compels you to seek him
+out, and when you do, I think he'll help you through your trouble. He
+said he would."
+
+"Then you have seen him since?"
+
+"Yesterday. He has put a pressure on you; but he means to help you."
+
+"If he means to help me, let him remember I want a banker more than a
+seer. Let him give me a lift, as he did before. He must lend me money."
+
+"He'll not stick at that. When he takes up a man, he carries him
+through."
+
+"The races of Byermere--I might retrieve at them. But they don't come
+off for a month nearly; and what is a man like me to do in the
+meantime?"
+
+"Every man should know his own business best. I'm not like you," said
+Feltram grimly.
+
+Now Sir Bale's trouble increased, for some people were pressing.
+Something like panic supervened; for it happened that land was bringing
+just then a bad price, and more must be sold in consequence.
+
+"All I can tell them is, I am selling land. It can't be done in an hour.
+I'm selling enough to pay them all twice over. Gentlemen used to be able
+to wait till a man sold his acres for payment. D--n them! do they want
+my body, that they can't let me alone for five minutes?"
+
+The end of it was, that before a week Sir Bale told Feltram that he
+would go by boat, since that fellow insisted on it; and he did not very
+much care if he were drowned.
+
+It was a beautiful autumnal day. Everything was bright in that mellowed
+sun, and the deep blue of the lake was tremulous with golden ripples;
+and crag and peak and scattered wood, faint in the distance, came out
+with a filmy distinctness on the fells in that pleasant light.
+
+Sir Bale had been ill, and sent down the night before for Doctor Torvey.
+He was away with a patient. Now, in the morning, he had arrived
+inopportunely. He met Sir Bale as he issued from the house, and had a
+word with him in the court, for he would not turn back.
+
+"Well," said the Doctor, after his brief inspection, "you ought to be in
+your bed; that's all I can say. You are perfectly mad to think of
+knocking about like this. Your pulse is at a hundred and ten; and, if
+you go across the lake and walk about Cloostedd, you'll be raving before
+you come back."
+
+Sir Bale told him, apologetically, as if his life were more to his
+doctor than to himself, that he would take care not to fatigue himself,
+and that the air would do him good, and that in any case he could not
+avoid going; and so they parted.
+
+Sir Bale took his seat beside Feltram in the boat, the sail was spread,
+and, bending to the light breeze that blew from Golden Friars, she
+glided from the jetty under Mardykes Hall, and the eventful voyage had
+begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Mystagogus
+
+The sail was loosed, the boat touched the stone step, and Feltram sprang
+out and made her fast to the old iron ring. The Baronet followed. So! he
+had ventured upon that water without being drowned. He looked round him
+as if in a dream. He had not been there since his childhood. There were
+no regrets, no sentiment, no remorse; only an odd return of the
+associations and fresh feelings of boyhood, and a long reach of time
+suddenly annihilated.
+
+The little hollow in which he stood; the three hawthorn trees at his
+right; every crease and undulation of the sward, every angle and crack
+in the lichen-covered rock at his feet, recurred with a sharp and
+instantaneous recognition to his memory.
+
+"Many a time your brother and I fished for hours together from that bank
+there, just where the bramble grows. That bramble has not grown an inch
+ever since, not a leaf altered; we used to pick blackberries off it,
+with our rods stuck in the bank--it was later in the year than now--till
+we stript it quite bare after a day or two. The steward used to come
+over--they were marking timber for cutting and we used to stay here
+while they rambled through the wood, with an axe marking the trees that
+were to come down. I wonder whether the big old boat is still anywhere.
+I suppose she was broken up, or left to rot; I have not seen her since
+we came home. It was in the wood that lies at the right--the other wood
+is called the forest; they say in old times it was eight miles long,
+northward up the shore of the lake, and full of deer; with a forester,
+and a reeve, and a verderer, and all that. Your brother was older than
+you; he went to India, or the Colonies; is he living still?"
+
+"I care not."
+
+"That's good-natured, at all events; but do you know?"
+
+"Not I; and what matter? If he's living, I warrant he has his share of
+the curse, the sweat of his brow and his bitter crust; and if he is
+dead, he's dust or worse, he's rotten, and smells accordingly."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him; for this was the brother over whom, only a year
+or two ago, Philip used to cry tears of pathetic longing. Feltram looked
+darkly in his face, and sneered with a cold laugh.
+
+"I suppose you mean to jest?" said Sir Bale.
+
+"Not I; it is the truth. It is what you'd say, if you were honest. If
+he's alive, let him keep where he is; and if he's dead, I'll have none
+of him, body or soul. Do you hear that sound?"
+
+"Like the wind moaning in the forest?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I feel no wind. There's hardly a leaf stirring."
+
+"I think so," said Feltram. "Come along."
+
+And he began striding up the gentle slope of the glen, with many a rock
+peeping through its sward, and tufted ferns and furze, giving a wild and
+neglected character to the scene; the background of which, where the
+glen loses itself in a distant turn, is formed by its craggy and wooded
+side.
+
+Up they marched, side by side, in silence, towards that irregular clump
+of trees, to which Feltram had pointed from the Mardykes side.
+
+As they approached, it showed more scattered, and two or three of the
+trees were of grander dimensions than in the distance they had appeared;
+and as they walked, the broad valley of Cloostedd Forest opened grandly
+on their left, studding the sides of the valley with solitary trees or
+groups, which thickened as it descended to the broad level, in parts
+nearly three miles wide, on which stands the noble forest of Cloostedd,
+now majestically reposing in the stirless air, gilded and flushed with
+the melancholy tints of autumn.
+
+I am now going to relate wonderful things; but they rest on the report,
+strangely consistent, it is true, of Sir Bale Mardykes. That all his
+senses, however, were sick and feverish, and his brain not quite to be
+relied on at that moment, is a fact of which sceptics have a right to
+make all they please and can.
+
+Startled at their approach, a bird like a huge mackaw bounced from the
+boughs of the trees, and sped away, every now and then upon the ground,
+toward the shelter of the forest, fluttering and hopping close by the
+side of the little brook which, emerging from the forest, winds into the
+glen, and beside the course of which Sir Bale and Philip Feltram had
+ascended from the margin of the lake.
+
+It fluttered on, as if one of its wings were hurt, and kept hopping and
+bobbing and flying along the grass at its swiftest, screaming all the
+time discordantly.
+
+"That must be old Mrs. Amerald's bird, that got away a week ago," said
+Sir Bale, stopping and looking after it. "Was not it a mackaw?"
+
+"No," said Feltram; "that was a gray parrot; but there are stranger
+birds in Cloostedd Forest, for my ancestors collected all that would
+live in our climate, and were at pains to find them the food and shelter
+they were accustomed to until they grew hardy--that is how it happens."
+
+"By Jove, that's a secret worth knowing," said Sir Bale. "That would
+make quite a feature. What a fat brute that bird was! and green and
+dusky-crimson and yellow; but its head is white--age, I suspect; and
+what a broken beak--hideous bird! splendid plumage; something between a
+mackaw and a vulture."
+
+Sir Bale spoke jocularly, but with the interest of a bird-fancier; a
+taste which, when young, he had indulged; and for the moment forgot his
+cares and the object of his unwonted excursion.
+
+A moment after, a lank slim bird, perfectly white, started from the same
+boughs, and winged its way to the forest.
+
+"A kite, I think; but its body is a little too long, isn't it?" said Sir
+Bale again, stopping and looking after its flight also.
+
+"A foreign kite, I daresay?" said Feltram.
+
+All this time there was hopping near them a jay, with the tameness of a
+bird accustomed to these solitudes. It peered over its slender wing
+curiously at the visitors; pecking here and nodding there; and thus
+hopping, it made a circle round them more than once. Then it fluttered
+up, and perched on a bough of the old oak, from the deep labyrinth of
+whose branches the other birds had emerged; and from thence it flew down
+and lighted on the broad druidic stone, that stood like a cyclopean
+table on its sunken stone props, before the snakelike roots of the oak.
+
+Across this it hopped conceitedly, as over a stage on which it figured
+becomingly; and after a momentary hesitation, with a little spring, it
+rose and winged its way in the same direction which the other birds had
+taken, and was quickly lost in thick forest to the left.
+
+"Here," said Feltram, "this is the tree."
+
+"I remember it well! A gigantic trunk; and, yes, those marks; but I
+never before read them as letters. Yes, H.F., so they are--very odd I
+should not have remarked them. They are so large, and so strangely
+drawn-out in some places, and filled-in in others, and distorted, and
+the moss has grown about them; I don't wonder I took them for natural
+cracks and chasms in the bark," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Very like," said Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale had remarked, ever since they had begun their walk from the
+shore, that Feltram seemed to undergo a gloomy change. Sharper, grimmer,
+wilder grew his features, and shadow after shadow darkened his face
+wickedly.
+
+The solitude and grandeur of the forest, and the repulsive gloom of his
+companion's countenance and demeanour, communicated a tone of anxiety to
+Sir Bale; and they stood still, side by side, in total silence for a
+time, looking toward the forest glades; between themselves and which, on
+the level sward of the valley, stood many a noble tree and fantastic
+group of forked birch and thorn, in the irregular formations into which
+Nature had thrown them.
+
+"Now you stand between the letters. Cast your eyes on the stone," said
+Feltram suddenly, and his low stern tones almost startled the Baronet.
+
+Looking round, he perceived that he had so placed himself that his point
+of vision was exactly from between the two great letters, now
+half-obliterated, which he had been scrutinizing just as he turned about
+to look toward the forest of Cloostedd.
+
+"Yes, so I am," said Sir Bale.
+
+There was within him an excitement and misgiving, akin to the sensation
+of a man going into battle, and which corresponded with the pale and
+sombre frown which Feltram wore, and the manifest change which had come
+over him.
+
+"Look on the stone steadily for a time, and tell me if you see a black
+mark, about the size of your hand, anywhere upon its surface," said
+Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale affected no airs of scepticism now; his imagination was
+stirred, and a sense of some unknown reality at the bottom of that which
+he had affected to treat before as illusion, inspired a strange interest
+in the experiment.
+
+"Do you see it?" asked Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale was watching patiently, but he had observed nothing of the
+kind.
+
+Sharper, darker, more eager grew the face of Philip Feltram, as his eyes
+traversed the surface of that huge horizontal block.
+
+"Now?" asked Feltram again.
+
+No, he had seen nothing.
+
+Feltram was growing manifestly uneasy, angry almost; he walked away a
+little, and back again, and then two or three times round the tree, with
+his hands shut, and treading the ground like a man trying to warm his
+feet, and so impatiently he returned, and looked again on the stone.
+
+Sir Bale was still looking, and very soon said, drawing his brows
+together and looking hard,
+
+"Ha!--yes--hush. There it is, by Jove!--wait--yes--there; it is growing
+quite plain."
+
+It seemed not as if a shadow fell upon the stone, but rather as if the
+stone became semi-transparent, and just under its surface was something
+dark--a hand, he thought it--and darker and darker it grew, as if coming
+up toward the surface, and after some little wavering, it fixed itself
+movelessly, pointing, as he thought, toward the forest.
+
+"It looks like a hand," said he. "By Jove, it is a hand--pointing
+towards the forest with a finger."
+
+"Don't mind the finger; look only on that black blurred mark, and from
+the point where you stand, taking that point for your direction, look to
+the forest. Take some tree or other landmark for an object, enter the
+forest there, and pursue the same line, as well as you can, until you
+find little flowers with leaves like wood-sorrel, and with tall stems
+and a red blossom, not larger than a drop, such as you have not seen
+before, growing among the trees, and follow wherever they seem to grow
+thickest, and there you will find him."
+
+All the time that Feltram was making this little address, Sir Bale was
+endeavouring to fix his route by such indications as Feltram described;
+and when he had succeeded in quite establishing the form of a peculiar
+tree--a melancholy ash, one huge limb of which had been blasted by
+lightning, and its partly stricken arm stood high and barkless,
+stretching its white fingers, as it were, in invitation into the forest,
+and signing the way for him----
+
+"I have it now," said he. "Come Feltram, you'll come a bit of the way
+with me."
+
+Feltram made no answer, but slowly shook his head, and turned and walked
+away, leaving Sir Bale to undertake his adventure alone.
+
+The strange sound they had heard from the midst of the forest, like the
+rumble of a storm or the far-off trembling of a furnace, had quite
+ceased. Not a bird was hopping on the grass, or visible on bough or in
+the sky. Not a living creature was in sight--never was stillness more
+complete, or silence more oppressive.
+
+It would have been ridiculous to give way to the old reluctance which
+struggled within him. Feltram had strode down the slope, and was
+concealed by a screen of bushes from his view. So alone, and full of an
+interest quite new to him, he set out in quest of his adventures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+The Haunted Forest
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes walked in a straight line, by bush and scaur, over the
+undulating ground, to the blighted ash-tree; and as he approached it,
+its withered bough stretched more gigantically into the air, and the
+forest seemed to open where it pointed.
+
+He passed it by, and in a few minutes had lost sight of it again, and
+was striding onward under the shadow of the forest, which already
+enclosed him. He was directing his march with all the care he could, in
+exactly that line which, according to Feltram's rule, had been laid down
+for him. Now and then, having, as soldiers say, taken an object, and
+fixed it well in his memory, he would pause and look about him.
+
+As a boy he had never entered the wood so far; for he was under a
+prohibition, lest he should lose himself in its intricacies, and be
+benighted there. He had often heard that it was haunted ground, and that
+too would, when a boy, have deterred him. It was on this account that
+the scene was so new to him, and that he cared so often to stop and look
+about him. Here and there a vista opened, exhibiting the same utter
+desertion, and opening farther perspectives through the tall stems of
+the trees faintly visible in the solemn shadow. No flowers could he see,
+but once or twice a wood anemone, and now and then a tiny grove of
+wood-sorrel.
+
+Huge oak-trees now began to mingle and show themselves more and more
+frequently among the other timber; and gradually the forest became a
+great oak wood unintruded upon by any less noble tree. Vast trunks
+curving outwards to the roots, and expanding again at the branches,
+stood like enormous columns, striking out their groining boughs, with
+the dark vaulting of a crypt.
+
+As he walked under the shadow of these noble trees, suddenly his eye was
+struck by a strange little flower, nodding quite alone by the knotted
+root of one of those huge oaks.
+
+He stooped and picked it up, and as he plucked it, with a harsh scream
+just over his head, a large bird with heavy beating wings broke away
+from the midst of the branches. He could not see it, but he fancied the
+scream was like that of the huge mackaw whose ill-poised flight he had
+watched. This conjecture was but founded on the odd cry he had heard.
+
+The flower was a curious one--a stem fine as a hair supported a little
+bell, that looked like a drop of blood, and never ceased trembling. He
+walked on, holding this in his fingers; and soon he saw another of the
+same odd type, then another at a shorter distance, then one a little to
+the right and another to the left, and farther on a little group, and at
+last the dark slope was all over trembling with these little bells,
+thicker and thicker as he descended a gentle declivity to the bank of
+the little brook, which flowing through the forest loses itself in the
+lake. The low murmur of this forest stream was almost the first sound,
+except the shriek of the bird that startled him a little time ago, which
+had disturbed the profound silence of the wood since he entered it.
+Mingling with the faint sound of the brook, he now heard a harsh human
+voice calling words at intervals, the purport of which he could not yet
+catch; and walking on, he saw seated upon the grass, a strange figure,
+corpulent, with a great hanging nose, the whole face glowing like
+copper. He was dressed in a bottle-green cut-velvet coat, of the style
+of Queen Anne's reign, with a dusky crimson waistcoat, both overlaid
+with broad and tarnished gold lace, and his silk stockings on thick
+swollen legs, with great buckled shoes, straddling on the grass, were
+rolled up over his knees to his short breeches. This ill-favoured old
+fellow, with a powdered wig that came down to his shoulders, had a
+dice-box in each hand, and was apparently playing his left against his
+right, and calling the throws with a hoarse cawing voice.
+
+Raising his black piggish eyes, he roared to Sir Bale, by name, to come
+and sit down, raising one of his dice-boxes, and then indicating a place
+on the grass opposite to him.
+
+Now Sir Bale instantly guessed that this was the man, gipsy, warlock,
+call him what he might, of whom he had come in search. With a strange
+feeling of curiosity, disgust, and awe, he drew near. He was resolved to
+do whatever this old man required of him, and to keep him, this time, in
+good humour.
+
+Sir Bale did as he bid him, and sat down; and taking the box he
+presented, they began throwing turn about, with three dice, the
+copper-faced old man teaching him the value of the throws, as he
+proceeded, with many a curse and oath; and when he did not like a throw,
+grinning with a look of such real fury, that the master of Mardykes
+almost expected him to whip out his sword and prick him through as he
+sat before him.
+
+After some time spent at this play, in which guineas passed now this
+way, now that, chucked across the intervening patch of grass, or rather
+moss, that served them for a green cloth, the old man roared over his
+shoulder,
+
+"Drink;" and picking up a longstemmed conical glass which Sir Bale had
+not observed before, he handed it over to the Baronet; and taking
+another in his fingers, he held it up, while a very tall slim old man,
+dressed in a white livery, with powdered hair and cadaverous face, which
+seemed to run out nearly all into a long thin hooked nose, advanced with
+a flask in each hand. Looking at the unwieldly old man, with his heavy
+nose, powdered head, and all the bottle-green, crimson, and gold about
+him, and the long slim serving man, with sharp beak, and white from head
+to heel, standing by him, Sir Bale was forcibly reminded of the great
+old macaw and the long and slender kite, whose colours they, after their
+fashion, reproduced, with something, also indescribable, of the air and
+character of the birds. Not standing on ceremony, the old fellow held up
+his own glass first, which the white lackey filled from the flask, and
+then he filled Sir Bale's glass.
+
+It was a large glass, and might have held about half a pint; and the
+liquor with which the servant filled it was something of the colour of
+an opal, and circles of purple and gold seemed to be spreading
+continually outward from the centre, and running inward from the rim,
+and crossing one another, so as to form a beautiful rippling net-work.
+
+"I drink to your better luck next time," said the old man, lifting his
+glass high, and winking with one eye, and leering knowingly with the
+other; "and you know what I mean."
+
+Sir Bale put the liquor to his lips. Wine? Whatever it was, never had he
+tasted so delicious a flavour. He drained it to the bottom, and placing
+it on the grass beside him, and looking again at the old dicer, who was
+also setting down his glass, he saw, for the first time, the graceful
+figure of a young woman seated on the grass. She was dressed in deep
+mourning, had a black hood carelessly over her head, and, strangely,
+wore a black mask, such as are used at masquerades. So much of her
+throat and chin as he could see were beautifully white; and there was a
+prettiness in her air and figure which made him think what a beautiful
+creature she in all likelihood was. She was reclining slightly against
+the burly man in bottle-green and gold, and her arm was round his neck,
+and her slender white hand showed itself over his shoulder.
+
+"Ho! my little Geaiette," cried the old fellow hoarsely; "it will be
+time that you and I should get home.--So, Bale Mardykes, I have nothing
+to object to you this time; you've crossed the lake, and you've played
+with me and won and lost, and drank your glass like a jolly companion,
+and now we know one another; and an acquaintance is made that will last.
+I'll let you go, and you'll come when I call for you. And now you'll
+want to know what horse will win next month at Rindermere
+races.--Whisper me, lass, and I'll tell him."
+
+So her lips, under the black curtain, crept close to his ear, and she
+whispered.
+
+"Ay, so it will;" roared the old man, gnashing his teeth; "it will be
+Rainbow, and now make your best speed out of the forest, or I'll set my
+black dogs after you, ho, ho, ho! and they may chance to pull you down.
+Away!"
+
+He cried this last order with a glare so black, and so savage a shake of
+his huge fist, that Sir Bale, merely making his general bow to the
+group, clapped his hat on his head, and hastily began his retreat; but
+the same discordant voice yelled after him:
+
+"You'll want that, you fool; pick it up." And there came hurtling after
+and beside him a great leather bag, stained, and stuffed with a heavy
+burden, and bounding by him it stopped with a little wheel that brought
+it exactly before his feet.
+
+He picked it up, and found it heavy.
+
+Turning about to make his acknowledgments, he saw the two persons in
+full retreat; the profane old scoundrel in the bottle-green limping and
+stumbling, yet bowling along at a wonderful rate, with many a jerk and
+reel, and the slender lady in black gliding away by his side into the
+inner depths of the forest.
+
+So Sir Bale, with a strange chill, and again in utter solitude, pursued
+his retreat, with his burden, at a swifter pace, and after an hour or
+so, had recovered the point where he had entered the forest, and passing
+by the druidic stone and the mighty oak, saw down the glen at his right,
+standing by the edge of the lake, Philip Feltram, close to the bow of
+the boat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Rindermere
+
+Feltram looked grim and agitated when Sir Bale came up to him, as he
+stood on the flat-stone by which the boat was moored.
+
+"You found him?" said he.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The lady in black was there?"
+
+"She was."
+
+"And you played with him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what is that in your hand?"
+
+"A bag of something, I fancy money; it is heavy; he threw it after me.
+We shall see just now; let us get away."
+
+"He gave you some of his wine to drink?" said Feltram, looking darkly in
+his face; but there was a laugh in his eyes.
+
+"Yes; of course I drank it; my object was to please him."
+
+"To be sure."
+
+The faint wind that carried them across the lake had quite subsided by
+the time they had reached the side where they now were.
+
+There was now not wind enough to fill the sail, and it was already
+evening.
+
+"Give me an oar; we can pull her over in little more than an hour," said
+Sir Bale; "only let us get away."
+
+He got into the boat, sat down, and placed the leather bag with its
+heavy freightage at his feet, and took an oar. Feltram loosed the rope
+and shoved the boat off; and taking his seat also, they began to pull
+together, without another word, until, in about ten minutes, they had
+got a considerable way off the Cloostedd shore.
+
+The leather bag was too clumsy a burden to conceal; besides, Feltram
+knew all about the transaction, and Sir Bale had no need to make a
+secret. The bag was old and soiled, and tied about the "neck" with a
+long leather thong, and it seemed to have been sealed with red wax,
+fragments of which were still sticking to it.
+
+He got it open, and found it full of guineas.
+
+"Halt!" cried Sir Bale, delighted, for he had half apprehended a trick
+upon his hopes; "gold it is, and a lot of it, by Jove!"
+
+Feltram did not seem to take the slightest interest in the matter.
+Sulkily and drowsily he was leaning with his elbow on his knee, and it
+seemed thinking of something far away. Sir Bale could not wait to count
+them any longer. He reckoned them on the bench, and found two thousand.
+
+It took some time; and when he had got them back into the leather bag,
+and tied them up again, Feltram, with a sudden start, said sharply,
+
+"Come, take your oar--unless you like the lake by night; and see, a wind
+will soon be up from Golden Friars!"
+
+He cast a wild look towards Mardykes Hall and Snakes Island, and
+applying himself to his oar, told Sir Bale to take his also; and nothing
+loath, the Baronet did so.
+
+It was slow work, for the boat was not built for speed; and by the time
+they had got about midway, the sun went down, and twilight and the
+melancholy flush of the sunset tints were upon the lake and fells.
+
+"Ho! here comes the breeze--up from Golden Friars," said Feltram; "we
+shall have enough to fill the sails now. If you don't fear spirits and
+Snakes Island, it is all the better for us it should blow from that
+point. If it blew from Mardykes now, it would be a stiff pull for you
+and me to get this tub home."
+
+Talking as if to himself, and laughing low, he adjusted the sail and
+took the tiller, and so, yielding to the rising breeze, the boat glided
+slowly toward still distant Mardykes Hall.
+
+The moon came out, and the shore grew misty, and the towering fells rose
+like sheeted giants; and leaning on the gunwale of the boat, Sir Bale,
+with the rush and gurgle of the water on the boat's side sounding
+faintly in his ear, thought of his day's adventure, which seemed to him
+like a dream--incredible but for the heavy bag that lay between his
+feet.
+
+As they passed Snakes Island, a little mist, like a fragment of a fog,
+seemed to drift with them, and Sir Bale fancied that whenever it came
+near the boat's side she made a dip, as if strained toward the water;
+and Feltram always put out his hand, as if waving it from him, and the
+mist seemed to obey the gesture; but returned again and again, and the
+same thing always happened.
+
+It was three weeks after, that Sir Bale, sitting up in his bed, very
+pale and wan, with his silk night-cap nodding on one side, and his thin
+hand extended on the coverlet, where the doctor had been feeling his
+pulse, in his darkened room, related all the wonders of this day to
+Doctor Torvey. The doctor had attended him through a fever which
+followed immediately upon his visit to Cloostedd.
+
+"And, my dear sir, by Jupiter, can you really believe all that delirium
+to be sober fact?" said the doctor, sitting by the bedside, and actually
+laughing.
+
+"I can't help believing it, because I can't distinguish in any way
+between all that and everything else that actually happened, and which I
+must believe. And, except that this is more wonderful, I can find no
+reason to reject it, that does not as well apply to all the rest."
+
+"Come, come, my dear sir, this will never do--nothing is more common.
+These illusions accompanying fever frequently antedate the attack, and
+the man is actually raving before he knows he is ill."
+
+"But what do you make of that bag of gold?"
+
+"Some one has lent it. You had better ask all about it of Feltram when
+you can see him; for in speaking to me he seemed to know all about it,
+and certainly did not seem to think the matter at all out of the
+commonplace. It is just like that fisherman's story, about the hand that
+drew Feltram into the water on the night that he was nearly drowned.
+Every one can see what that was. Why of course it was simply the
+reflection of his own hand in the water, in that vivid lightning. When
+you have been out a little and have gained strength you will shake off
+these dreams."
+
+"I should not wonder," said Sir Bale.
+
+It is not to be supposed that Sir Bale reported all that was in his
+memory respecting his strange vision, if such it was, at Cloostedd. He
+made a selection of the incidents, and threw over the whole adventure an
+entirely accidental character, and described the money which the old man
+had thrown to him as amounting to a purse of five guineas, and mentioned
+nothing of the passages which bore on the coming race.
+
+Good Doctor Torvey, therefore, reported only that Sir Bale's delirium
+had left two or three illusions sticking in his memory.
+
+But if they were illusions, they survived the event of his recovery, and
+remained impressed on his memory with the sharpness of very recent and
+accurately observed fact.
+
+He was resolved on going to the races of Rindermere, where, having in
+his possession so weighty a guarantee as the leather purse, he was
+determined to stake it all boldly on Rainbow--against which horse he was
+glad to hear there were very heavy odds.
+
+The race came off. One horse was scratched, another bolted, the rider of
+a third turned out to have lost a buckle and three half-pence and so was
+an ounce and a half under weight, a fourth knocked down the post near
+Rinderness churchyard, and was held to have done it with his left
+instead of his right knee, and so had run at the wrong side. The result
+was that Rainbow came in first, and I should be afraid to say how much
+Sir Bale won. It was a sum that paid off a heavy debt, and left his
+affairs in a much more manageable state.
+
+From this time Sir Bale prospered. He visited Cloostedd no more; but
+Feltram often crossed to that lonely shore as heretofore, and it is
+believed conveyed to him messages which guided his betting. One thing is
+certain, his luck never deserted him. His debts disappeared; and his
+love of continental life seemed to have departed. He became content with
+Mardykes Hall, laid out money on it, and although he never again cared
+to cross the lake, he seemed to like the scenery.
+
+In some respects, however, he lived exactly the same odd and unpopular
+life. He saw no one at Mardykes Hall. He practised a very strict
+reserve. The neighbours laughed at and disliked him, and he was voted,
+whenever any accidental contact arose, a very disagreeable man; and he
+had a shrewd and ready sarcasm that made them afraid of him, and himself
+more disliked.
+
+Odd rumours prevailed about his household. It was said that his old
+relations with Philip Feltram had become reversed; and that he was as
+meek as a mouse, and Feltram the bully now. It was also said that Mrs.
+Julaper had one Sunday evening when she drank tea at the Vicar's, told
+his good lady very mysteriously, and with many charges of secrecy, that
+Sir Bale was none the better of his late-found wealth; that he had a
+load upon his spirits, that he was afraid of Feltram, and so was every
+one else, more or less, in the house; that he was either mad or worse;
+and that it was an eerie dwelling, and strange company, and she should
+be glad herself of a change.
+
+Good Mrs. Bedel told her friend Mrs. Torvey; and all Golden Friars heard
+all this, and a good deal more, in an incredibly short time.
+
+All kinds of rumours now prevailed in Golden Friars, connecting Sir
+Bale's successes on the turf with some mysterious doings in Cloostedd
+Forest. Philip Feltram laughed when he heard these stories--especially
+when he heard the story that a supernatural personage had lent the
+Baronet a purse full of money.
+
+"You should not talk to Doctor Torvey so, sir," said he grimly; "he's
+the greatest tattler in the town. It was old Farmer Trebeck, who could
+buy and sell us all down here, who lent that money. Partly from
+good-will, but not without acknowledgment. He has my hand for the first,
+not worth much, and yours to a bond for the two thousand guineas you
+brought home with you. It seems strange you should not remember that
+venerable and kind old farmer whom you talked with so long that day. His
+grandson, who expects to stand well in his will, being a trainer in Lord
+Varney's stables, has sometimes a tip to give, and he is the source of
+your information."
+
+"By Jove, I must be a bit mad, then, that's all," said Sir Bale, with a
+smile and a shrug.
+
+Philip Feltram moped about the house, and did precisely what he pleased.
+The change which had taken place in him became more and more pronounced.
+Dark and stern he always looked, and often malignant. He was like a man
+possessed of one evil thought which never left him.
+
+There was, besides, the good old Gothic superstition of a bargain or
+sale of the Baronet's soul to the arch-fiend. This was, of course, very
+cautiously whispered in a place where he had influence. It was only a
+coarser and directer version of a suspicion, that in a more credulous
+generation penetrated a level of society quite exempt from such follies
+in our day.
+
+One evening at dusk, Sir Bale, sitting after his dinner in his window,
+saw the tall figure of Feltram, like a dark streak, standing movelessly
+by the lake. An unpleasant feeling moved him, and then an impatience. He
+got up, and having primed himself with two glasses of brandy, walked
+down to the edge of the lake, and placed himself beside Feltram.
+
+"Looking down from the window," said he, nerved with his Dutch courage,
+"and seeing you standing like a post, do you know what I began to think
+of?"
+
+Feltram looked at him, but answered nothing.
+
+"I began to think of taking a wife--_marrying_."
+
+Feltram nodded. The announcement had not produced the least effect.
+
+"Why the devil will you make me so uncomfortable! Can't you be like
+yourself--what you _were_, I mean? I won't go on living here alone with
+you. I'll take a wife, I tell you. I'll choose a good church-going
+woman, that will have every man, woman, and child in the house on their
+marrow-bones twice a day, morning and evening, and three times on
+Sundays. How will you like that?"
+
+"Yes, you will be married," said Feltram, with a quiet decision which
+chilled Sir Bale, for he had by no means made up his mind to that
+desperate step.
+
+Feltram slowly walked away, and that conversation ended.
+
+Now an odd thing happened about this time. There was a family of
+Feltram--county genealogists could show how related to the vanished
+family of Cloostedd--living at that time on their estate not far from
+Carlisle. Three co-heiresses now represented it. They were great
+beauties--the belles of their county in their day.
+
+One was married to Sir Oliver Haworth of Haworth, a great family in
+those times. He was a knight of the shire, and had refused a baronetage,
+and, it was said, had his eye on a peerage. The other sister was married
+to Sir William Walsingham, a wealthy baronet; and the third and
+youngest, Miss Janet, was still unmarried, and at home at Cloudesly
+Hall, where her aunt, Lady Harbottle, lived with her, and made a
+dignified chaperon.
+
+Now it so fell out that Sir Bale, having business at Carlisle, and
+knowing old Lady Harbottle, paid his respects at Cloudesly Hall; and
+being no less than five-and-forty years of age, was for the first time
+in his life, seriously in love.
+
+Miss Janet was extremely pretty--a fair beauty with brilliant red lips
+and large blue eyes, and ever so many pretty dimples when she talked and
+smiled. It was odd, but not perhaps against the course of nature, that a
+man, though so old as he, and quite _blasé_, should fall at last under
+that fascination.
+
+But what are we to say of the strange infatuation of the young lady? No
+one could tell why she liked him. It was a craze. Her family were
+against it, her intimates, her old nurse--all would not do; and the
+oddest thing was, that he seemed to take no pains to please her. The end
+of this strange courtship was that he married her; and she came home to
+Mardykes Hall, determined to please everybody, and to be the happiest
+woman in England.
+
+With her came a female cousin, a good deal her senior, past
+thirty--Gertrude Mainyard, pale and sad, but very gentle, and with all
+the prettiness that can belong to her years.
+
+This young lady has a romance. Her hero is far away in India; and she,
+content to await his uncertain return with means to accomplish the hope
+of their lives, in that frail chance has long embarked all the purpose
+and love of her life.
+
+When Lady Mardykes came home, a new leaf was, as the phrase is, turned
+over. The neighbours and all the country people were willing to give the
+Hall a new trial. There was visiting and returning of visits; and young
+Lady Mardykes was liked and admired. It could not indeed have been
+otherwise. But here the improvement in the relations of Mardykes Hall
+with other homes ceased. On one excuse or another Sir Bale postponed or
+evaded the hospitalities which establish intimacies. Some people said he
+was jealous of his young and beautiful wife. But for the most part his
+reserve was set down to the old inhospitable cause, some ungenial defect
+in his character; and in a little time the tramp of horses and roll of
+carriage-wheels were seldom heard up or down the broad avenue of
+Mardykes Hall.
+
+Sir Bale liked this seclusion; and his wife, "so infatuated with her
+idolatry of that graceless old man," as surrounding young ladies said,
+that she was well content to forego the society of the county people for
+a less interrupted enjoyment of that of her husband. "What she could see
+in him" to interest or amuse her so, that for his sake she was willing
+to be "buried alive in that lonely place," the same critics were
+perpetually wondering.
+
+A year and more passed thus; for the young wife, happily--_very_ happily
+indeed, had it not been for one topic on which she and her husband could
+not agree. This was Philip Feltram; and an odd quarrel it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Sir Bale is Frightened
+
+To Feltram she had conceived, at first sight, a horror. It was not a
+mere antipathy; fear mingled largely in it. Although she did not see him
+often, this restless dread grew upon her so, that she urged his
+dismissal upon Sir Bale, offering to provide, herself, for him a
+handsome annuity, charged on that part of her property which, by her
+marriage settlement, had remained in her power. There was a time when
+Sir Bale was only too anxious to get rid of him. But that was changed
+now. Nothing could now induce the Baronet to part with him. He at first
+evaded and resisted quietly. But, urged with a perseverance to which he
+was unused, he at last broke into fury that appalled her, and swore that
+if he was worried more upon the subject, he would leave her and the
+country, and see neither again. This exhibition of violence affrighted
+her all the more by reason of the contrast; for up to this he had been
+an uxorious husband. Lady Mardykes was in hysterics, and thoroughly
+frightened, and remained in her room for two or three days. Sir Bale
+went up to London about business, and was not home for more than a week.
+This was the first little squall that disturbed the serenity of their
+sky.
+
+This point, therefore, was settled; but soon there came other things to
+sadden Lady Mardykes. There occurred a little incident, soon after Sir
+Bale's return from London, which recalled the topic on which they had so
+nearly quarrelled.
+
+Sir Bale had a dressing-room, remote from the bedrooms, in which he sat
+and read and sometimes smoked. One night, after the house was all quiet,
+the Baronet being still up, the bell of this dressing-room rang long and
+furiously. It was such a peal as a person in extreme terror might ring.
+Lady Mardykes, with her maid in her room, heard it; and in great alarm
+she ran in her dressing-gown down the gallery to Sir Bale's room.
+Mallard the butler had already arrived, and was striving to force the
+door, which was secured. It gave way just as she reached it, and she
+rushed through.
+
+Sir Bale was standing with the bell-rope in his hand, in the extremest
+agitation, looking like a ghost; and Philip Feltram was sitting in his
+chair, with a dark smile fixed upon him. For a minute she thought he had
+attempted to assassinate his master. She could not otherwise account for
+the scene.
+
+There had been nothing of the kind, however; as her husband assured her
+again and again, as she lay sobbing on his breast, with her arms about
+his neck.
+
+"To her dying hour," she afterwards said to her cousin, "she never could
+forget the dreadful look in Feltram's face."
+
+No explanation of that scene did she ever obtain from Sir Bale, nor any
+clue to the cause of the agony that was so powerfully expressed in his
+countenance. Thus much only she learned from him, that Feltram had
+sought that interview for the purpose of announcing his departure, which
+was to take place within the year.
+
+"You are not sorry to hear that. But if you knew all, you might. Let the
+curse fly where it may, it will come back to roost. So, darling, let us
+discuss him no more. Your wish is granted, _dis iratis_."
+
+Some crisis, during this interview, seemed to have occurred in the
+relations between Sir Bale and Feltram. Henceforward they seldom
+exchanged a word; and when they did speak, it was coldly and shortly,
+like men who were nearly strangers.
+
+One day in the courtyard, Sir Bale seeing Feltram leaning upon the
+parapet that overlooks the lake, approached him, and said in a low tone,
+
+"I've been thinking if we--that is, I--do owe that money to old Trebeck,
+it is high time I should pay it. I was ill, and had lost my head at the
+time; but it turned out luckily, and it ought to be paid. I don't like
+the idea of a bond turning up, and a lot of interest."
+
+"The old fellow meant it for a present. He is richer than you are; he
+wished to give the family a lift. He has destroyed the bond, I believe,
+and in no case will he take payment."
+
+"No fellow has a right to force his money on another," answered Sir
+Bale. "I never asked him. Besides, as you know, I was not really myself,
+and the whole thing seems to me quite different from what you say it
+was; and, so far as my brain is concerned, it was all a phantasmagoria;
+but, you say, it was he."
+
+"Every man is accountable for what he intends and for what he _thinks_
+he does," said Feltram cynically.
+
+"Well, I'm accountable for dealing with that wicked old dicer I
+_thought_ I saw--isn't that it? But I must pay old Trebeck all the same,
+since the money was his. Can you manage a meeting?"
+
+"Look down here. Old Trebeck has just landed; he will sleep to-night at
+the George and Dragon, to meet his cattle in the morning at Golden
+Friars fair. You can speak to him yourself."
+
+So saying Feltram glided away, leaving Sir Bale the task of opening the
+matter to the wealthy farmer of Cloostedd Fells.
+
+A broad night of steps leads down from the courtyard to the level of the
+jetty at the lake: and Sir Bale descended, and accosted the venerable
+farmer, who was bluff, honest, and as frank as a man can be who speaks a
+_patois_ which hardly a living man but himself can understand.
+
+Sir Bale asked him to come to the Hall and take luncheon; but Trebeck
+was in haste. Cattle had arrived which he wanted to look at, and a pony
+awaited him on the road, hard by, to Golden Friars; and the old fellow
+must mount and away.
+
+Then Sir Bale, laying his hand upon his arm in a manner that was at once
+lofty and affectionate, told in his ears the subject on which he wished
+to be understood.
+
+The old farmer looked hard at him, and shook his head and laughed in a
+way that would have been insupportable in a house, and told him, "I hev
+narra bond o' thoine, mon."
+
+"I know how that is; so does Philip Feltram."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I must replace the money."
+
+The old man laughed again, and in his outlandish dialect told him to
+wait till he asked him. Sir Bale pressed it, but the old fellow put it
+off with outlandish banter; and as the Baronet grew testy, the farmer
+only waxed more and more hilarious, and at last, mounting his shaggy
+pony, rode off, still laughing, at a canter to Golden Friars; and when
+he reached Golden Friars, and got into the hall of the George and
+Dragon, he asked Richard Turnbull with a chuckle if he ever knew a man
+refuse an offer of money, or a man want to pay who did not owe; and
+inquired whether the Squire down at Mardykes Hall mightn't be a bit
+"wrang in t' garrets." All this, however, other people said, was
+intended merely to conceal the fact that he really had, through sheer
+loyalty, lent the money, or rather bestowed it, thinking the old family
+in jeopardy, and meaning a gift, was determined to hear no more about
+it. I can't say; I only know people held, some by one interpretation,
+some by another.
+
+As the caterpillar sickens and changes its hue when it is about to
+undergo its transformation, so an odd change took place in Feltram. He
+grew even more silent and morose; he seemed always in an agitation and a
+secret rage. He used to walk through the woodlands on the slopes of the
+fells above Mardykes, muttering to himself, picking up the rotten sticks
+with which the ground was strewn, breaking them in his hands, and
+hurling them from him, and stamping on the earth as he paced up and
+down.
+
+One night a thunder-storm came on, the wind blowing gently up from
+Golden Friars. It was a night black as pitch, illuminated only by the
+intermittent glare of the lightning. At the foot of the stairs Sir Bale
+met Feltram, whom he had not seen for some days. He had his cloak and
+hat on.
+
+"I am going to Cloostedd to-night," he said, "and if all is as I expect,
+I sha'n't return. We remember all, you and I." And he nodded and walked
+down the passage.
+
+Sir Bale knew that a crisis had happened in his own life. He felt faint
+and ill, and returned to the room where he had been sitting. Throughout
+that melancholy night he did not go to his bed.
+
+In the morning he learned that Marlin, who had been out late, saw
+Feltram get the boat off, and sail towards the other side. The night was
+so dark that he could only see him start; but the wind was light and
+coming up the lake, so that without a tack he could easily make the
+other side. Feltram did not return. The boat was found fast to the ring
+at Cloostedd landing-place.
+
+Lady Mardykes was relieved, and for a time was happier than ever. It was
+different with Sir Bale; and afterwards her sky grew dark also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+A Lady in Black
+
+Shortly after this, there arrived at the George and Dragon a stranger.
+He was a man somewhat past forty, embrowned by distant travel, and, his
+years considered, wonderfully good-looking. He had good eyes; his
+dark-brown hair had no sprinkling of gray in it; and his kindly smile
+showed very white and even teeth. He made inquiries about neighbours,
+especially respecting Mardykes Hall; and the answers seemed to interest
+him profoundly. He inquired after Philip Feltram, and shed tears when he
+heard that he was no longer at Mardykes Hall, and that Trebeck or other
+friends could give him no tidings of him.
+
+And then he asked Richard Turnbull to show him to a quiet room; and so,
+taking the honest fellow by the hand, he said,
+
+"Mr. Turnbull, don't you know me?"
+
+"No, sir," said the host of the George and Dragon, after a puzzled
+stare, "I can't say I do, sir."
+
+The stranger smiled a little sadly, and shook his head: and with a
+gentle laugh, still holding his hand in a very friendly way, he said, "I
+should have known you anywhere, Mr. Turnbull--anywhere on earth or
+water. Had you turned up on the Himalayas, or in a junk on the Canton
+river, or as a dervish in the mosque of St. Sophia, I should have
+recognised my old friend, and asked what news from Golden Friars. But of
+course I'm changed. You were a little my senior; and one advantage among
+many you have over your juniors is that you don't change as we do. I
+have played many a game of hand-ball in the inn-yard of the George, Mr.
+Turnbull. You often wagered a pot of ale on my play; you used to say I'd
+make the best player of fives, and the best singer of a song, within ten
+miles round the meer. You used to have me behind the bar when I was a
+boy, with more of an appetite than I have now. I was then at Mardykes
+Hall, and used to go back in old Marlin's boat. Is old Marlin still
+alive?"
+
+"Ay, that--he--is," said Turnbull slowly, as he eyed the stranger again
+carefully. "I don't know who you can be, sir, unless you are--the
+boy--William Feltram. La! he was seven or eight years younger than
+Philip. But, lawk!--Well--By Jen, and _be_ you Willie Feltram? But no,
+you can't!"
+
+"Ay, Mr. Turnbull, that very boy--Willie Feltram--even he, and no other;
+and now you'll shake hands with me, not so formally, but like an old
+friend."
+
+"Ay, that I will," said honest Richard Turnbull, with a great smile, and
+a hearty grasp of his guest's hand; and they both laughed together, and
+the younger man's eyes, for he was an affectionate fool, filled up with
+tears.
+
+"And I want you to tell me this," said William, after they had talked a
+little quietly, "now that there is no one to interrupt us, what has
+become of my brother Philip? I heard from a friend an account of his
+health that has caused me unspeakable anxiety."
+
+"His health was not bad; no, he was a hardy lad, and liked a walk over
+the fells, or a pull on the lake; but he was a bit daft, every one said,
+and a changed man; and, in troth, they say the air o' Mardykes don't
+agree with every one, no more than him. But that's a tale that's neither
+here nor there."
+
+"Yes," said William, "that was what they told me--his mind affected. God
+help and guard us! I have been unhappy ever since; and if I only knew it
+was well with poor Philip, I think I should be too happy. And where is
+Philip now?"
+
+"He crossed the lake one night, having took leave of Sir Bale. They
+thought he was going to old Trebeck's up the Fells. He likes the
+Feltrams, and likes the folk at Mardykes Hall--though those two families
+was not always o'er kind to one another. But Trebeck seed nowt o' him,
+nor no one else; and what has gone wi' him no one can tell."
+
+"_I_ heard that also," said William with a deep sigh. "But _I_ hoped it
+had been cleared up by now, and something happier been known of the poor
+fellow by this time. I'd give a great deal to know--I don't know what I
+_would_ not give to know--I'm so unhappy about him. And now, my good old
+friend, tell your people to get me a chaise, for I must go to Mardykes
+Hall; and, first, let me have a room to dress in."
+
+At Mardykes Hall a pale and pretty lady was looking out, alone, from the
+stone-shafted drawing-room window across the courtyard and the
+balustrade, on which stood many a great stone cup with flowers, whose
+leaves were half shed and gone with the winds--emblem of her hopes. The
+solemn melancholy of the towering fells, the ripple of the lonely lake,
+deepened her sadness.
+
+The unwonted sound of carriage-wheels awoke her from her reverie.
+
+Before the chaise reached the steps, a hand from its window had seized
+the handle, the door was thrown open, and William Feltram jumped out.
+
+She was in the hall, she knew not how; and, with a wild scream and a
+sob, she threw herself into his arms.
+
+Here at last was an end of the long waiting, the dejection which had
+reached almost the point of despair. And like two rescued from
+shipwreck, they clung together in an agony of happiness.
+
+William had come back with no very splendid fortune. It was enough, and
+only enough, to enable them to marry. Prudent people would have thought
+it, very likely, too little. But he was now home in England, with health
+unimpaired by his long sojourn in the East, and with intelligence and
+energies improved by the discipline of his arduous struggle with
+fortune. He reckoned, therefore, upon one way or other adding something
+to their income; and he knew that a few hundreds a year would make them
+happier than hundreds of thousand could other people.
+
+It was five years since they had parted in France, where a journey of
+importance to the Indian firm, whose right hand he was, had brought him.
+
+The refined tastes that are supposed to accompany gentle blood, his love
+of art, his talent for music and drawing, had accidentally attracted the
+attention of the little travelling-party which old Lady Harbottle
+chaperoned. Miss Janet, now Lady Mardykes, learning that his name was
+Feltram, made inquiry through a common friend, and learned what
+interested her still more about him. It ended in an acquaintance, which
+his manly and gentle nature and his entertaining qualities soon improved
+into an intimacy.
+
+Feltram had chosen to work his own way, being proud, and also prosperous
+enough to prevent his pride, in this respect, from being placed under
+too severe a pressure of temptation. He heard not from but of his
+brother, through a friend in London, and more lately from Gertrude,
+whose account of him was sad and even alarming.
+
+When Lady Mardykes came in, her delight knew no bounds. She had already
+formed a plan for their future, and was not to be put off--William
+Feltram was to take the great grazing farm that belonged to the Mardykes
+estate; or, if he preferred it, to farm it for her, sharing the profits.
+She wanted something to interest her, and this was just the thing. It
+was hardly half-a-mile away, up the lake, and there was such a
+comfortable house and garden, and she and Gertrude could be as much
+together as ever almost; and, in fact, Gertrude and her husband could be
+nearly always at Mardykes Hall.
+
+So eager and entreating was she, that there was no escape. The plan was
+adopted immediately on their marriage, and no happier neighbours for a
+time were ever known.
+
+But was Lady Mardykes content? was she even exempt from the heartache
+which each mortal thinks he has all to himself? The longing of her life
+was for children; and again and again had her hopes been disappointed.
+
+One tiny pretty little baby indeed was born, and lived for two years,
+and then died; and none had come to supply its place and break the
+childless silence in the great old nursery. That was her sorrow; a
+greater one than men can understand.
+
+Another source of grief was this: that Sir Bale Mardykes conceived a
+dislike to William Feltram that was unaccountable. At first suppressed,
+it betrayed itself negatively only; but with time it increased; and in
+the end the Baronet made little secret of his wish to get rid of him.
+Many and ingenious were the annoyances he contrived; and at last he told
+his wife plainly that he wished William Feltram to find some other abode
+for himself.
+
+Lady Mardykes pleaded earnestly, and even with tears; for if Gertrude
+were to leave the neighbourhood, she well knew how utterly solitary her
+own life would become.
+
+Sir Bale at last vouchsafed some little light as to his motives. There
+was an old story, he told her, that his estate would go to a Feltram. He
+had an instinctive distrust of that family. It was a feeling not given
+him for nothing; it might be the means of defeating their plotting and
+strategy. Old Trebeck, he fancied, had a finger in it. Philip Feltram
+had told him that Mardykes was to pass away to a Feltram. Well, they
+might conspire; but he would take what care he could that the estate
+should not be stolen from his family. He did not want his wife stript of
+her jointure, or his children, if he had any, left without bread.
+
+All this sounded very like madness; but the idea was propounded by
+Philip Feltram. His own jealousy was at bottom founded on superstition
+which he would not avow and could hardly define. He bitterly blamed
+himself for having permitted William Feltram to place himself where he
+was.
+
+In the midst of these annoyances William Feltram was seriously thinking
+of throwing up the farm, and seeking similar occupation somewhere else.
+
+One day, walking alone in the thick wood that skirts the lake near his
+farm, he was discussing this problem with himself; and every now and
+then he repeated his question, "Shall I throw it up, and give him the
+lease back if he likes?" On a sudden he heard a voice near him say:
+
+"Hold it, you fool!--hold hard, you fool!--hold it, you fool!"
+
+The situation being lonely, he was utterly puzzled to account for the
+interruption, until on a sudden a huge parrot, green, crimson, and
+yellow, plunged from among the boughs over his head to the ground, and
+partly flying, and partly hopping and tumbling along, got lamely, but
+swiftly, out of sight among the thick underwood; and he could neither
+start it nor hear it any more. The interruption reminded him of that
+which befel Robinson Crusoe. It was more singular, however; for he owned
+no such bird; and its strangeness impressed the omen all the more.
+
+He related it when he got home to his wife; and as people when living a
+solitary life, and also suffering, are prone to superstition, she did
+not laugh at the adventure, as in a healthier state of spirits, I
+suppose, she would.
+
+They continued, however, to discuss the question together; and all the
+more industriously as a farm of the same kind, only some fifteen miles
+away, was now offered to all bidders, under another landlord. Gertrude,
+who felt Sir Bale's unkindness all the more that she was a distant
+cousin of his, as it had proved on comparing notes, was very strong in
+favour of the change, and had been urging it with true feminine
+ingenuity and persistence upon her husband. A very singular dream rather
+damped her ardour, however, and it appeared thus:
+
+She had gone to her bed full of this subject; and she thought, although
+she could not remember having done so, had fallen asleep. She was still
+thinking, as she had been all the day, about leaving the farm. It seemed
+to her that she was quite awake, and a candle burning all the time in
+the room, awaiting the return of her husband, who was away at the fair
+near Haworth; she saw the interior of the room distinctly. It was a
+sultry night, and a little bit of the window was raised. A very slight
+sound in that direction attracted her attention; and to her surprise she
+saw a jay hop upon the window-sill, and into the room.
+
+Up sat Gertrude, surprised and a little startled at the visit of so
+large a bird, without presence of mind for the moment even to frighten
+it away, and staring at it, as they say, with all her eyes. A sofa stood
+at the foot of the bed; and under this the bird swiftly hopped. She
+extended her hand now to take the bell-rope at the left side of the bed,
+and in doing so displaced the curtains, which were open only at the
+foot. She was amazed there to see a lady dressed entirely in black, and
+with the old-fashioned hood over her head. She was young and pretty, and
+looked kindly at her, but with now and then a slight contraction of lips
+and eyebrows that indicates pain. This little twitching was momentary,
+and recurred, it seemed, about once or twice in a minute.
+
+How it was that she was not frightened on seeing this lady, standing
+like an old friend at her bedside, she could not afterwards understand.
+Some influence besides the kindness of her look prevented any sensation
+of terror at the time. With a very white hand the young lady in black
+held a white handkerchief pressed to her bosom at the top of her bodice.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Gertrude.
+
+"I am a kinswoman, although you don't know me; and I have come to tell
+you that you must not leave Faxwell" (the name of the place) "or Janet.
+If you go, I will go with you; and I can make you fear me."
+
+Her voice was very distinct, but also very faint, with something
+undulatory in it, that seemed to enter Gertrude's head rather than her
+ear.
+
+Saying this she smiled horribly, and, lifting her handkerchief,
+disclosed for a moment a great wound in her breast, deep in which
+Gertrude saw darkly the head of a snake writhing.
+
+Hereupon she uttered a wild scream of terror, and, diving under the
+bed-clothes, remained more dead than alive there, until her maid,
+alarmed by her cry, came in, and having searched the room, and shut the
+window at her desire, did all in her power to comfort her.
+
+If this was a nightmare and embodied only by a form of expression which
+in some states belongs to the imagination, a leading idea in the
+controversy in which her mind had long been employed, it had at least
+the effect of deciding her against leaving Faxwell. And so that point
+was settled; and unpleasant relations continued between the tenants of
+the farm and the master of Mardykes Hall.
+
+To Lady Mardykes all this was very painful, although Sir Bale did not
+insist upon making a separation between his wife and her cousin. But to
+Mardykes Hall that cousin came no more. Even Lady Mardykes thought it
+better to see her at Faxwell than to risk a meeting in the temper in
+which Sir Bale then was. And thus several years passed.
+
+No tidings of Philip Feltram were heard; and, in fact, none ever reached
+that part of the world; and if it had not been highly improbable that he
+could have drowned himself in the lake without his body sooner or later
+having risen to the surface, it would have been concluded that he had
+either accidentally or by design made away with himself in its waters.
+
+Over Mardykes Hall there was a gloom--no sound of children's voices was
+heard there, and even the hope of that merry advent had died out.
+
+This disappointment had no doubt helped to fix in Sir Bale's mind the
+idea of the insecurity of his property, and the morbid fancy that
+William Feltram and old Trebeck were conspiring to seize it; than which,
+I need hardly say, no imagination more insane could have fixed itself in
+his mind.
+
+In other things, however, Sir Bale was shrewd and sharp, a clear and
+rapid man of business, and although this was a strange whim, it was not
+so unnatural in a man who was by nature so prone to suspicion as Sir
+Bale Mardykes.
+
+During the years, now seven, that had elapsed since the marriage of Sir
+Bale and Miss Janet Feltram, there had happened but one event, except
+the death of their only child, to place them in mourning. That was the
+decease of Sir William Walsingham, the husband of Lady Mardykes' sister.
+She now lived in a handsome old dower-house at Islington, and being
+wealthy, made now and then an excursion to Mardykes Hall, in which she
+was sometimes accompanied by her sister Lady Haworth. Sir Oliver being a
+Parliament-man was much in London and deep in politics and intrigue, and
+subject, as convivial rogues are, to occasional hard hits from gout.
+
+But change and separation had made no alteration in these ladies' mutual
+affections, and no three sisters were ever more attached.
+
+Was Lady Mardykes happy with her lord? A woman so gentle and loving as
+she, is a happy wife with any husband who is not an absolute brute.
+There must have been, I suppose, some good about Sir Bale. His wife was
+certainly deeply attached to him. She admired his wisdom, and feared his
+inflexible will, and altogether made of him a domestic idol. To acquire
+this enviable position, I suspect there must be something not
+essentially disagreeable about a man. At all events, what her neighbours
+good-naturedly termed her infatuation continued, and indeed rather
+improved by time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+An Old Portrait
+
+Sir Bale--whom some remembered a gay and convivial man, not to say a
+profligate one--had grown to be a very gloomy man indeed. There was
+something weighing upon his mind; and I daresay some of the good gossips
+of Golden Friars, had there been any materials for such a case, would
+have believed that Sir Bale had murdered Philip Feltram, and was now the
+victim of the worm and fire of remorse.
+
+The gloom of the master of the house made his very servants gloomy, and
+the house itself looked sombre, as if it had been startled with strange
+and dismal sights.
+
+Lady Mardykes was something of an artist. She had lighted lately, in an
+out-of-the-way room, upon a dozen or more old portraits. Several of
+these were full-lengths; and she was--with the help of her maid, both in
+long aprons, amid sponges and basins, soft handkerchiefs and
+varnish-pots and brushes--busy in removing the dust and smoke-stains,
+and in laying-on the varnish, which brought out the colouring, and made
+the transparent shadows yield up their long-buried treasures of finished
+detail.
+
+Against the wall stood a full-length portrait as Sir Bale entered the
+room; having for a wonder, a word to say to his wife.
+
+"O," said the pretty lady, turning to him in her apron, and with her
+brush in her hand, "we are in such in pickle, Munnings and I have been
+cleaning these old pictures. Mrs. Julaper says they are the pictures
+that came from Cloostedd Hall long ago. They were buried in dust in the
+dark room in the clock-tower. Here is such a characteristic one. It has
+a long powdered wig--George the First or Second, I don't know which--and
+such a combination of colours, and such a face. It seems starting out of
+the canvas, and all but speaks. Do look; that is, I mean, Bale, if you
+can spare time."
+
+Sir Bale abstractedly drew near, and looked over his wife's shoulder on
+the full-length portrait that stood before him; and as he did so a
+strange expression for a moment passed over his face.
+
+The picture represented a man of swarthy countenance, with signs of the
+bottle glowing through the dark skin; small fierce pig eyes, a rather
+flat pendulous nose, and a grim forbidding mouth, with a large wart a
+little above it. On the head hung one of those full-bottomed powdered
+wigs that look like a cloud of cotton-wadding; a lace cravat was about
+his neck; he wore short black-velvet breeches with stockings rolled over
+them, a bottle-green coat of cut velvet and a crimson waistcoat with
+long flaps; coat and waistcoat both heavily laced with gold. He wore a
+sword, and leaned upon a crutch-handled cane, and his figure and aspect
+indicated a swollen and gouty state. He could not be far from sixty.
+There was uncommon force in this fierce and forbidding-looking portrait.
+Lady Mardykes said, "What wonderful dresses they wore! How like a fine
+magic-lantern figure he looks! What gorgeous colouring! it looks like
+the plumage of a mackaw; and what a claw his hand is! and that huge
+broken beak of a nose! Isn't he like a wicked old mackaw?"
+
+"Where did you find that?" asked Sir Bale.
+
+Surprised at his tone, she looked round, and was still more surprised at
+his looks.
+
+"I told you, dear Bale, I found them in the clock-tower. I hope I did
+right; it was not wrong bringing them here? I ought to have asked. Are
+you vexed, Bale?"
+
+"Vexed! not I. I only wish it was in the fire. I must have seen that
+picture when I was a child. I hate to look at it. I raved about it once,
+when I was ill. I don't know who it is; I don't remember when I saw it.
+I wish you'd tell them to burn it."
+
+"It is one of the Feltrams," she answered. "'Sir Hugh Feltram' is on the
+frame at the foot; and old Mrs. Julaper says he was the father of the
+unhappy lady who was said to have been drowned near Snakes Island."
+
+"Well, suppose he is; there's nothing interesting in that. It is a
+disgusting picture. I connect it with my illness; and I think it is the
+kind of thing that would make any one half mad, if they only looked at
+it often enough. Tell them to burn it; and come away, come to the next
+room; I can't say what I want here."
+
+Sir Bale seemed to grow more and more agitated the longer he remained in
+the room. He seemed to her both frightened and furious; and taking her a
+little roughly by the wrist, he led her through the door.
+
+When they were in another apartment alone, he again asked the affrighted
+lady who had told her that picture was there, and who told her to clean
+it.
+
+She had only the truth to plead. It was, from beginning to end, the
+merest accident.
+
+"If I thought, Janet, that you were taking counsel of others, talking me
+over, and trying clever experiments--" he stopped short with his eyes
+fixed on hers with black suspicion.
+
+His wife's answer was one pleading look, and to burst into tears.
+
+Sir Bale let-go her wrist, which he had held up to this; and placing his
+hand gently on her shoulder, he said,
+
+"You must not cry, Janet; I have given you no excuse for tears. I only
+wished an answer to a very harmless question; and I am sure you would
+tell me, if by any chance you have lately seen Philip Feltram; he is
+capable of arranging all that. No one knows him as I do. There, you must
+not cry any more; but tell me truly, has he turned up? is he at
+Faxwell?"
+
+She denied all this with perfect truth; and after a hesitation of some
+time, the matter ended. And as soon as she and he were more themselves,
+he had something quite different to tell her.
+
+"Sit down, Janet; sit down, and forget that vile picture and all I have
+been saying. What I came to tell you, I think you will like; I am sure
+it will please you."
+
+And with this little preface he placed his arm about her neck, and
+kissed her tenderly. She certainly was pleased; and when his little
+speech was over, she, smiling, with her tears still wet upon her cheeks,
+put her arms round her husband's neck, and in turn kissed him with the
+ardour of gratitude, kissed him affectionately; again and again thanking
+him all the time.
+
+It was no great matter, but from Sir Bale Mardykes it was something
+quite unusual.
+
+Was it a sudden whim? What was it? Something had prompted Sir Bale,
+early in that dark shrewd month of December, to tell his wife that he
+wished to call together some of his county acquaintances, and to fill
+his house for a week or so, as near Christmas as she could get them to
+come. He wished her sisters--Lady Haworth (with her husband) and the
+Dowager Lady Walsingham--to be invited for an early day, before the
+coming of the other guests, so that she might enjoy their society for a
+little time quietly to herself before the less intimate guests should
+assemble.
+
+Glad was Lady Mardykes to hear the resolve of her husband, and prompt to
+obey. She wrote to her sisters to beg them to arrange to come, together,
+by the tenth or twelfth of the month, which they accordingly arranged to
+do. Sir Oliver, it was true, could not be of the party. A minister of
+state was drinking the waters at Bath; and Sir Oliver thought it would
+do him no harm to sip a little also, and his fashionable doctor politely
+agreed, and "ordered" to those therapeutic springs the knight of the
+shire, who was "consumedly vexed" to lose the Christmas with that jolly
+dog, Bale, down at Mardykes Hall. But a fellow must have a stomach for
+his Christmas pudding, and politics takes it out of a poor gentleman
+deucedly; and health's the first thing, egad!
+
+So Sir Oliver went down to Bath, and I don't know that he tippled much
+of the waters, but he did drink the burgundy of that haunt of the
+ailing; and he had the honour of making a fourth not unfrequently in the
+secretary of state's whist-parties.
+
+It was about the 8th of December when, in Lady Walsingham's carriage,
+intending to post all the way, that lady, still young, and Lady Haworth,
+with all the servants that were usual in such expeditions in those days,
+started from the great Dower House at Islington in high spirits.
+
+Lady Haworth had not been very well--low and nervous; but the clear
+frosty sun, and the pleasant nature of the excursion, raised her spirits
+to the point of enjoyment; and expecting nothing but happiness and
+gaiety--for, after all, Sir Bale was but one of a large party, and even
+he could make an effort and be agreeable as well as hospitable on
+occasion--they set out on their northward expedition. The journey, which
+is a long one, they had resolved to break into a four days' progress;
+and the inns had been written to, bespeaking a comfortable reception.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Through the Wall
+
+On the third night they put-up at the comfortable old inn called the
+Three Nuns. With an effort they might easily have pushed on to Mardykes
+Hall that night, for the distance is not more than five-and-thirty
+miles. But, considering her sister's health, Lady Walsingham in planning
+their route had resolved against anything like a forced march.
+
+Here the ladies took possession of the best sitting-room; and,
+notwithstanding the fatigue of the journey, Lady Haworth sat up with her
+sister till near ten o'clock, chatting gaily about a thousand things.
+
+Of the three sisters, Lady Walsingham was the eldest. She had been in
+the habit of taking the command at home; and now, for advice and
+decision, her younger sisters, less prompt and courageous than she, were
+wont, whenever in her neighbourhood, to throw upon her all the cares and
+agitations of determining what was best to be done in small things and
+great. It is only fair to say, in addition, that this submission was not
+by any means exacted; it was the deference of early habit and feebler
+will, for she was neither officious nor imperious.
+
+It was now time that Lady Haworth, a good deal more fatigued than her
+sister, should take leave of her for the night.
+
+Accordingly they kissed and bid each other good-night; and Lady
+Walsingham, not yet disposed to sleep, sat for some time longer in the
+comfortable room where they had taken tea, amusing the time with the
+book that had, when conversation flagged, beguiled the weariness of the
+journey. Her sister had been in her room nearly an hour, when she became
+herself a little sleepy. She had lighted her candle, and was going to
+ring for her maid, when, to her surprise, the door opened, and her
+sister Lady Haworth entered in a dressing-gown, looking frightened.
+
+"My darling Mary!" exclaimed Lady Walsingham, "what is the matter? Are
+you well?"
+
+"Yes, darling," she answered, "quite well; that is, I don't know what is
+the matter--I'm frightened." She paused, listening, with her eyes turned
+towards the wall. "O, darling Maud, I am so frightened! I don't know
+what it can be."
+
+"You must not be agitated, darling; there's nothing. You have been
+asleep, and I suppose you have had a dream. Were you asleep?"
+
+Lady Haworth had caught her sister fast by the arm with both hands, and
+was looking wildly in her face.
+
+"Have _you_ heard nothing?" she asked, again looking towards the wall of
+the room, as if she expected to hear a voice through it.
+
+"Nonsense, darling; you are dreaming still. Nothing; there has been
+nothing to hear. I have been awake ever since; if there had been
+anything to hear, I could not have missed it. Come, sit down. Sip a
+little of this water; you are nervous, and over-tired; and tell me
+plainly, like a good little soul, what is the matter; for nothing has
+happened here; and you ought to know that the Three Nuns is the quietest
+house in England; and I'm no witch, and if you won't tell me what's the
+matter, I can't divine it."
+
+"Yes, of course," said Mary, sitting down, and glancing round her
+wildly. "I don't hear it now; _you_ don't?"
+
+"Do, my dear Mary, tell me what you mean," said Lady Walsingham kindly
+but firmly.
+
+Lady Haworth was holding the still untasted glass of water in her hand.
+
+"Yes, I'll tell you; I have been so frightened! You are right; I had a
+dream, but I can scarcely remember anything of it, except the very end,
+when I wakened. But it was not the dream; only it was connected with
+what terrified me so. I was so tired when I went to bed, I thought I
+should have slept soundly; and indeed I fell asleep immediately; and I
+must have slept quietly for a good while. How long is it since I left
+you?"
+
+"More than an hour."
+
+"Yes, I must have slept a good while; for I don't think I have been ten
+minutes awake. How my dream began I don't know. I remember only that
+gradually it came to this: I was standing in a recess in a panelled
+gallery; it was lofty, and, I thought, belonged to a handsome but
+old-fashioned house. I was looking straight towards the head of a wide
+staircase, with a great oak banister. At the top of the stairs, as near
+to me, about, as that window there, was a thick short column of oak, on
+top of which was a candlestick. There was no other light but from that
+one candle; and there was a lady standing beside it, looking down the
+stairs, with her back turned towards me; and from her gestures I should
+have thought speaking to people on a lower lobby, but whom from my place
+I could not see. I soon perceived that this lady was in great agony of
+mind; for she beat her breast and wrung her hands every now and then,
+and wagged her head slightly from side to side, like a person in great
+distraction. But one word she said I could not hear. Nor when she struck
+her hand on the banister, or stamped, as she seemed to do in her pain,
+upon the floor, could I hear any sound. I found myself somehow waiting
+upon this lady, and was watching her with awe and sympathy. But who she
+was I knew not, until turning towards me I plainly saw Janet's face,
+pale and covered with tears, and with such a look of agony as--O God!--I
+can never forget."
+
+"Pshaw! Mary darling, what is it but a dream! I have had a thousand more
+startling; it is only that you are so nervous just now."
+
+"But that is not all--nothing; what followed is so dreadful; for either
+there is something very horrible going on at Mardykes, or else I am
+losing my reason," said Lady Haworth in increasing agitation. "I wakened
+instantly in great alarm, but I suppose no more than I have felt a
+hundred times on awakening from a frightful dream. I sat up in my bed; I
+was thinking of ringing for Winnefred, my heart was beating so, but
+feeling better soon I changed my mind. All this time I heard a faint
+sound of a voice, as if coming through a thick wall. It came from the
+wall at the left side of my bed, and I fancied was that of some woman
+lamenting in a room separated from me by that thick partition. I could
+only perceive that it was a sound of crying mingled with ejaculations of
+misery, or fear, or entreaty. I listened with a painful curiosity,
+wondering who it could be, and what could have happened in the
+neighbouring rooms of the house; and as I looked and listened, I could
+distinguish my own name, but at first nothing more. That, of course,
+might have been an accident; and I knew there were many Marys in the
+world besides myself. But it made me more curious; and a strange thing
+struck me, for I was now looking at that very wall through which the
+sounds were coming. I saw that there was a window in it. Thinking that
+the rest of the wall might nevertheless be covered by another room, I
+drew the curtain of it and looked out. But there is no such thing. It is
+the outer wall the entire way along. And it is equally impossible of the
+other wall, for it is to the front of the house, and has two windows in
+it; and the wall that the head of my bed stands against has the gallery
+outside it all the way; for I remarked that as I came to you."
+
+"Tut, tut, Mary darling, nothing on earth is so deceptive as sound; this
+and fancy account for everything."
+
+"But hear me out; I have not told you all. I began to hear the voice
+more clearly, and at last quite distinctly. It was Janet's, and she was
+conjuring you by name, as well as me, to come to her to Mardykes,
+without delay, in her extremity; yes, _you_, just as vehemently as me.
+It was Janet's voice. It still seemed separated by the wall, but I heard
+every syllable now; and I never heard voice or words of such anguish.
+She was imploring of us to come on, without a moment's delay, to
+Mardykes; and crying that, if we were not with her, she should go mad."
+
+"Well, darling," said Lady Walsingham, "you see I'm included in this
+invitation as well as you, and should hate to disappoint Janet just as
+much; and I do assure you, in the morning you will laugh over this fancy
+with me; or rather, she will laugh over it with us, when we get to
+Mardykes. What you do want is rest, and a little sal-volatile."
+
+So saying she rang the bell for Lady Haworth's maid. Having comforted
+her sister, and made her take the nervous specific she recommended, she
+went with her to her room; and taking possession of the arm-chair by the
+fire, she told her that she would keep her company until she was asleep,
+and remain long enough to be sure that the sleep was not likely to be
+interrupted. Lady Haworth had not been ten minutes in her bed, when she
+raised herself with a start to her elbow, listening with parted lips and
+wild eyes, her trembling fingers behind her ears. With an exclamation of
+horror, she cried,
+
+"There it is again, upbraiding us! I can't stay longer."
+
+She sprang from the bed, and rang the bell violently.
+
+"Maud," she cried in an ecstasy of horror, "nothing shall keep me here,
+whether you go or not. I will set out the moment the horses are put to.
+If you refuse to come, Maud, mind the responsibility is yours--listen!"
+and with white face and starting eyes she pointed to the wall. "Have you
+ears; don't you hear?"
+
+The sight of a person in extremity of terror so mysterious, might have
+unnerved a ruder system than Lady Walsingham's. She was pale as she
+replied; for under certain circumstances those terrors which deal with
+the supernatural are more contagious than any others. Lady Walsingham
+still, in terms, held to her opinion; but although she tried to smile,
+her face showed that the panic had touched her.
+
+"Well, dear Mary," she said, "as you will have it so, I see no good in
+resisting you longer. Here, it is plain, your nerves will not suffer you
+to rest. Let us go then, in heaven's name; and when you get to Mardykes
+Hall you will be relieved."
+
+All this time Lady Haworth was getting on her things, with the careless
+hurry of a person about to fly for her life; and Lady Walsingham issued
+her orders for horses, and the general preparations for resuming the
+journey.
+
+It was now between ten and eleven; but the servant who rode armed with
+them, according to the not unnecessary usage of the times, thought that
+with a little judicious bribing of postboys they might easily reach
+Mardykes Hall before three o'clock in the morning.
+
+When the party set forward again, Lady Haworth was comparatively
+tranquil. She no longer heard the unearthly mimickry of her sister's
+voice; there remained only the fear and suspense which that illusion or
+visitation had produced.
+
+Her sister, Lady Walsingham, after a brief effort to induce something
+like conversation, became silent. A thin sheet of snow had covered the
+darkened landscape, and some light flakes were still dropping. Lady
+Walsingham struck her repeater often in the dark, and inquired the
+distances frequently. She was anxious to get over the ground, though by
+no means fatigued. Something of the anxiety that lay heavy at her
+sister's heart had touched her own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Perplexed
+
+The roads even then were good, and very good horses the posting-houses
+turned out; so that by dint of extra pay the rapid rate of travelling
+undertaken by the servant was fully accomplished in the first two or
+three stages.
+
+While Lady Walsingham was continually striking her repeater in her ear,
+and as they neared their destination, growing in spite of herself more
+anxious, her sister's uneasiness showed itself in a less reserved way;
+for, cold as it was, with snowflakes actually dropping, Lady Haworth's
+head was perpetually out at the window, and when she drew it up, sitting
+again in her place, she would audibly express her alarms, and apply to
+her sister for consolation and confidence in her suspense.
+
+Under its thin carpet of snow, the pretty village of Golden Friars
+looked strangely to their eyes. It had long been fast asleep, and both
+ladies were excited as they drew up at the steps of the George and
+Dragon, and with bell and knocker roused the slumbering household.
+
+What tidings awaited them here? In a very few minutes the door was
+opened, and the porter staggered down, after a word with the driver, to
+the carriage-window, not half awake.
+
+"Is Lady Mardykes well?" demanded Lady Walsingham.
+
+"Is Sir Bale well?"
+
+"Are all the people at Mardykes Hall quite well?"
+
+With clasped hands Lady Haworth listened to the successive answers to
+these questions which her sister hastily put. The answers were all
+satisfactory. With a great sigh and a little laugh, Lady Walsingham
+placed her hand affectionately on that of her sister; who, saying, "God
+be thanked!" began to weep.
+
+"When had you last news from Mardykes?" asked Lady Walsingham.
+
+"A servant was down here about four o'clock."
+
+"O! no one since?" said she in a disappointed tone.
+
+No one had been from the great house since, but all were well then.
+
+"They are early people, you know, dear; and it is dark at four, and that
+is as late as they could well have heard, and nothing could have
+happened since--very unlikely. We have come very fast; it is only a few
+minutes past two, darling."
+
+But each felt the chill and load of their returning anxiety.
+
+While the people at the George were rapidly getting a team of horses to,
+Lady Walsingham contrived a moment for an order from the other window to
+her servant, who knew Golden Friars perfectly, to knock-up the people at
+Doctor Torvey's, and to inquire whether all were well at Mardykes Hall.
+
+There he learned that a messenger had come for Doctor Torvey at ten
+o'clock, and that the Doctor had not returned since. There was no news,
+however, of any one's being ill; and the Doctor himself did not know
+what he was wanted about. While Lady Haworth was talking to her maid
+from the window next the steps, Lady Walsingham was, unobserved,
+receiving this information at the other.
+
+It made her very uncomfortable.
+
+In a few minutes more, however, with a team of fresh horses, they were
+again rapidly passing the distance between them and Mardykes Hall.
+
+About two miles on, their drivers pulled-up, and they heard a voice
+talking with them from the roadside. A servant from the Hall had been
+sent with a note for Lady Walsingham, and had been ordered, if
+necessary, to ride the whole way to the Three Nuns to deliver it. The
+note was already in Lady Walsingham's hand; her sister sat beside her,
+and with the corner of the open note in her fingers, she read it
+breathlessly at the same time by the light of a carriage-lamp which the
+man held to the window. It said:
+
+
+My dearest love--my darling sister--dear sisters both!--in God's name,
+lose not a moment. I am so overpowered and _terrified_. I cannot
+explain; I can only implore of you to come with all the haste you can
+make. Waste no time, darlings. I hardly understand what I write. Only
+this, dear sisters; I feel that my reason will desert me, unless you
+come soon. You will not fail me now. Your poor distracted
+
+JANET
+
+The sisters exchanged a pale glance, and Lady Haworth grasped her
+sister's hand.
+
+"Where is the messenger?" asked Lady Walsingham.
+
+A mounted servant came to the window.
+
+"Is any one ill at home?" she asked.
+
+"No, all were well--my lady, and Sir Bale--no one sick."
+
+"But the Doctor was sent for; what was that for?"
+
+"I can't say, my lady."
+
+"You are quite certain that no one--think--_no_ one is ill?"
+
+"There is no one ill at the Hall, my lady, that I have heard of."
+
+"Is Lady Mardykes, my sister, still up?"
+
+"Yes, my lady; and her maid is with her."
+
+"And Sir Bale, are you certain he is quite well?"
+
+"Sir Bale is quite well, my lady; he has been busy settling papers
+to-night, and was as well as usual."
+
+"That will do, thanks," said the perplexed lady; and to her own servant
+she added, "On to Mardykes Hall with all the speed they can make. I'll
+pay them well, tell them."
+
+And in another minute they were gliding along the road at a pace which
+the muffled beating of the horses' hoofs on the thin sheet of snow that
+covered the road showed to have broken out of the conventional trot, and
+to resemble something more like a gallop.
+
+And now they were under the huge trees, that looked black as
+hearse-plumes in contrast with the snow. The cold gleam of the lake in
+the moon which had begun to shine out now met their gaze; and the
+familiar outline of Snakes Island, its solemn timber bleak and leafless,
+standing in a group, seemed to watch Mardykes Hall with a dismal
+observation across the water. Through the gate and between the huge
+files of trees the carriage seemed to fly; and at last the steaming
+horses stood panting, nodding and snorting, before the steps in the
+courtyard.
+
+There was a light in an upper window, and a faint light in the hall, the
+door of which was opened; and an old servant came down and ushered the
+ladies into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+The Hour
+
+Lightly they stepped over the snow that lay upon the broad steps, and
+entering the door saw the dim figure of their sister, already in the
+large and faintly-lighted hall. One candle in the hand of her scared
+maid, and one burning on the table, leaving the distant parts of that
+great apartment in total darkness, touched the figures with the odd
+sharp lights in which Schalken delights; and a streak of chilly
+moonlight, through the open door, fell upon the floor, and was stretched
+like a white sheet at her feet. Lady Mardykes, with an exclamation of
+agitated relief, threw her arms, in turn, round the necks of her
+sisters, and hugging them, kissed them again and again, murmuring her
+thanks, calling them her "blessed sisters," and praising God for his
+mercy in having sent them to her in time, and altogether in a rapture of
+agitation and gratitude.
+
+Taking them each by a hand, she led them into a large room, on whose
+panels they could see the faint twinkle of the tall gilded frames, and
+the darker indication of the old portraits, in which that interesting
+house abounds. The moonbeams, entering obliquely through the Tudor
+stone-shafts of the window and thrown upon the floor, reflected an
+imperfect light; and the candle which the maid who followed her mistress
+held in her hand shone dimly from the sideboard, where she placed it.
+Lady Mardykes told her that she need not wait.
+
+"They don't know; they know only that we are in some great confusion;
+but--God have mercy on me!--nothing of the reality. Sit down, darlings;
+you are tired."
+
+She sat down between them on a sofa, holding a hand of each. They sat
+opposite the window, through which appeared the magnificent view
+commanded from the front of the house: in the foreground the solemn
+trees of Snakes Island, one great branch stretching upward, bare and
+moveless, from the side, like an arm raised to heaven in wonder or in
+menace towards the house; the lake, in part swept by the icy splendour
+of the moon, trembling with a dazzling glimmer, and farther off lost in
+blackness; the Fells rising from a base of gloom, into ribs and peaks
+white with snow, and looking against the pale sky, thin and transparent
+as a haze. Right across to the storied woods of Cloostedd, and the old
+domains of the Feltrams, this view extended.
+
+Thus alone, their mufflers still on, their hands clasped in hers, they
+breathlessly listened to her strange tale.
+
+Connectedly told it amounted to this: Sir Bale seemed to have been
+relieved of some great anxiety about the time when, ten days before, he
+had told her to invite her friends to Mardykes Hall. This morning he had
+gone out for a walk with Trevor, his under-steward, to talk over some
+plans about thinning the woods at this side; and also to discuss
+practically a proposal, lately made by a wealthy merchant, to take a
+very long lease, on advantageous terms to Sir Bale as he thought, of the
+old park and chase of Cloostedd, with the intention of building there,
+and making it once more a handsome residence.
+
+In the improved state of his spirits, Sir Bale had taken a shrewd
+interest in this negotiation; and was actually persuaded to cross the
+lake that morning with his adviser, and to walk over the grounds with
+him.
+
+Sir Bale had seemed unusually well, and talked with great animation. He
+was more like a young man who had just attained his majority, and for
+the first time grasped his estates, than the grim elderly Baronet who
+had been moping about Mardykes, and as much afraid as a cat of the
+water, for so many years.
+
+As they were returning toward the boat, at the roots of that same
+scathed elm whose barkless bough had seemed, in his former visit to this
+old wood, to beckon him from a distance, like a skeleton arm, to enter
+the forest, he and his companion on a sudden missed an old map of the
+grounds which they had been consulting.
+
+"We must have left it in the corner tower of Cloostedd House, which
+commands that view of the grounds, you remember; it would not do to lose
+it. It is the most accurate thing we have. I'll sit down here and rest a
+little till you come back."
+
+The man was absent little more than twenty minutes. When he returned, he
+found that Sir Bale had changed his position, and was now walking to and
+fro, around and about, in what, at a distance, he fancied was mere
+impatience, on the open space a couple of hundred paces nearer to the
+turn in the valley towards the boat. It was not impatience. He was
+agitated. He looked pale, and he took his companion's arm--a thing he
+had never thought of doing before--and said, "Let us away quickly. I've
+something to tell at home,--and I forgot it."
+
+Not another word did Sir Bale exchange with his companion. He sat in the
+stern of the boat, gloomy as a man about to glide under traitor's-gate.
+He entered his house in the same sombre and agitated state. He entered
+his library, and sat for a long time as if stunned.
+
+At last he seemed to have made-up his mind to something; and applied
+himself quietly and diligently to arranging papers, and docketing some
+and burning others. Dinner-time arrived. He sent to tell Lady Mardykes
+that he should not join her at dinner, but would see her afterwards.
+
+"It was between eight and nine," she continued, "I forget the exact
+time, when he came to the tower drawing-room where I was. I did not hear
+his approach. There is a stone stair, with a thick carpet on it. He told
+me he wished to speak to me there. It is an out-of-the-way place--a
+small old room with very thick walls, and there is a double door, the
+inner one of oak--I suppose he wished to guard against being overheard.
+
+"There was a look in his face that frightened me; I saw he had something
+dreadful to tell. He looked like a man on whom a lot had fallen to put
+some one to death," said Lady Mardykes. "O, my poor Bale! my husband, my
+husband! he knew what it would be to me."
+
+Here she broke into the wildest weeping, and it was some time before she
+resumed.
+
+"He seemed very kind and very calm," she said at last; "he said but
+little; and, I think, these were his words: 'I find, Janet, I have made
+a great miscalculation--I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have
+been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and my
+time has come.'
+
+"I don't know what I said. I would not have so much minded--for I could
+not have believed, if I had not seen him--but there was that in his look
+and tone which no one could doubt.
+
+"'I shall die before to-morrow morning,' he said. 'You must command
+yourself, Janet; it can't be altered now.'
+
+"'O, Bale,' I cried nearly distracted, 'you would not kill yourself!'
+
+"'Kill myself! poor child! no, indeed,' he said; 'it is simply that I
+shall die. No violent death--nothing but the common subsidence of
+life--I have made up my mind; what happens to everybody can't be so very
+bad; and millions of worse men than I die every year. You must not
+follow me to my room, darling; I shall see you by and by.'
+
+"His language was collected and even cold; but his face looked as if it
+was cut in stone; you never saw, in a dream, a face like it."
+
+Lady Walsingham here said, "I am certain he is ill; he's in a fever. You
+must not distract and torture yourself about his predictions. You sent
+for Doctor Torvey; what did he say?"
+
+"I could not tell him all."
+
+"O, no; I don't mean that; they'd only say he was mad, and we little
+better for minding what he says. But did the Doctor see him? and what
+did he say of his health?"
+
+"Yes; he says there is nothing wrong--no fever--nothing whatever. Poor
+Bale has been so kind; he saw him to please me," she sobbed again
+wildly. "I wrote to implore of him. It was my last hope, strange as it
+seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of
+that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness
+about all he says and does; and his directions are all so clear, and his
+mind so perfectly collected, it is quite impossible."
+
+And poor Lady Mardykes again burst into a frantic agony of tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Sir Bale in the Gallery
+
+"Now, Janet darling, you are yourself low and nervous, and you treat
+this fancy of Bale's as seriously as he does himself. The truth is, he
+is a hypochondriac, as the doctors say; and you will find that I am
+right; he will be quite well in the morning, and I daresay a little
+ashamed of himself for having frightened his poor little wife as he has.
+I will sit up with you. But our poor Mary is not, you know, very strong;
+and she ought to lie down and rest a little. Suppose you give me a cup
+of tea in the drawing-room. I will run up to my room and get these
+things off, and meet you in the drawing-room; or, if you like it better,
+you can sit with me in my own room; and for goodness' sake let us have
+candles enough and a bright fire; and I promise you, if you will only
+exert your own good sense, you shall be a great deal more cheerful in a
+very little time."
+
+Lady Walsingham's address was kind and cheery, and her air confident.
+For a moment a ray of hope returned, and her sister Janet acknowledged
+at least the possibility of her theory. But if confidence is contagious,
+so also is panic; and Lady Walsingham experienced a sinking of the heart
+which she dared not confess to her sister, and vainly strove to combat.
+
+Lady Walsingham went up with her sister Mary, and having seen her in her
+room, and spoken again to her in the same cheery tone in which she had
+lectured her sister Lady Mardykes, she went on; and having taken
+possession of her own room, and put off her cloaks and shawls, she was
+going downstairs again, when she heard Sir Bale's voice, as he
+approached along the gallery, issuing orders to a servant, as it seemed,
+exactly in his usual tone.
+
+She turned, with a strange throb at her heart, and met him.
+
+A little sterner, a little paler than usual he looked; she could
+perceive no other change. He took her hand kindly and held it, as with
+dilated eyes he looked with a dark inquiry for a moment in her face. He
+signed to the servant to go on, and said, "I'm glad you have come, Maud.
+You have heard what is to happen; and I don't know how Janet could have
+borne it without your support. You did right to come; and you'll stay
+with her for a day or two, and take her away from this place as soon as
+you can."
+
+She looked at him with the embarrassment of fear. He was speaking to her
+with the calmness of a leave-taking in the pressroom--the serenity that
+overlies the greatest awe and agony of which human nature is capable.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Bale," she began, hardly knowing what she said,
+and she stopped short.
+
+"You are come, it turns out, on a sad mission," he resumed; "you find
+all about to change. Poor Janet! it is a blow to her. I shall not live
+to see to-morrow's sun."
+
+"Come," she said, startled, "you must not talk so. No, Bale, you have no
+right to speak so; you can have no reason to justify it. It is cruel and
+wicked to trifle with your wife's feelings. If you are under a delusion,
+you must make an effort and shake it off, or, at least, cease to talk of
+it. You are not well; I know by your looks you are ill; but I am very
+certain we shall see you much better by tomorrow, and still better the
+day following."
+
+"No, I'm not ill, sister. Feel that pulse, if you doubt me; there is no
+fever in it. I never was more perfectly in health; and yet I know that
+before the clock, that has just struck three, shall have struck five, I,
+who am talking to you, shall be dead."
+
+Lady Walsingham was frightened, and her fear irritated her.
+
+"I have told you what I think and believe," she said vehemently. "I
+think it wrong and cowardly of you to torture my poor sister with your
+whimsical predictions. Look into your own mind, and you will see you
+have absolutely no reason to support what you say. How _can_ you inflict
+all this agony upon a poor creature foolish enough to love you as she
+does, and weak enough to believe in your idle dreams?"
+
+"Stay, sister; it is not a matter to be debated so. If to-morrow I can
+hear you, it will be time enough to upbraid me. Pray return now to your
+sister; she needs all you can do for her. She is much to be pitied; her
+sufferings afflict me. I shall see you and her again before my death. It
+would have been more cruel to leave her unprepared. Do all in your power
+to nerve and tranquillise her. What is past cannot now be helped."
+
+He paused, looking hard at her, as if he had half made up his mind to
+say something more. But if there was a question of the kind, it was
+determined in favour of silence.
+
+He dropped her hand, turned quickly, and left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Dr. Torvey's Opinion
+
+When Lady Walsingham reached the head of the stairs, she met her maid,
+and from her learned that her sister, Lady Mardykes, was downstairs in
+the same room. On approaching, she heard her sister Mary's voice talking
+with her, and found them together. Mary, finding that she could not
+sleep, had put on her clothes again, and come down to keep her sister
+company. The room looked more comfortable now. There were candles
+lighted, and a good fire burnt in the grate; tea-things stood on a
+little table near the fire, and the two sisters were talking, Lady
+Mardykes appearing more collected, and only they two in the room.
+
+"Have you seen him, Maud?" cried Lady Mardykes, rising and hastily
+approaching her the moment she entered.
+
+"Yes, dear; and talked with him, and----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And I think very much as I did before. I think he is nervous, he says
+he is not ill; but he is nervous and whimsical, and as men always are
+when they happen to be out of sorts, very positive; and of course the
+only thing that can quite undeceive him is the lapse of the time he has
+fixed for his prediction, as it is sure to pass without any tragic
+result of any sort. We shall then all see alike the nature of his
+delusion."
+
+"O, Maud, if I were only sure you thought so! if I were sure you really
+had hopes! Tell me, Maud, for God's sake, what you really think."
+
+Lady Walsingham was a little disconcerted by the unexpected directness
+of her appeal.
+
+"Come, darling, you must not be foolish," she said; "we can only talk of
+impressions, and we are imposed upon by the solemnity of his manner, and
+the fact that he evidently believes in his own delusion; every one does
+believe in his own delusion--there is nothing strange in that."
+
+"O, Maud, I see you are not convinced; you are only trying to comfort
+me. You have no hope--none, none, none!" and she covered her face with
+her hands, and wept again convulsively.
+
+Lady Walsingham was silent for a moment, and then with an effort said,
+as she placed her hand on her sister's arm, "You see, dear Janet, there
+is no use in my saying the same thing over and over again; an hour or
+two will show who is right. Sit down again, and be like yourself. My
+maid told me that you had sent to the parlour for Doctor Torvey; he must
+not find you so. What would he think? Unless you mean to tell him of
+Bale's strange fancy; and a pretty story that would be to set afloat in
+Golden Friars. I think I hear him coming."
+
+So, in effect, he was. Doctor Torvey--with the florid gravity of a man
+who, having just swallowed a bottle of port, besides some glasses of
+sherry, is admitted to the presence of ladies whom he respects--entered
+the room, made what he called his "leg and his compliments," and awaited
+the ladies' commands.
+
+"Sit down, Doctor Torvey," said Lady Walsingham, who in the incapacity
+of her sister undertook the doing of the honours. "My sister, Lady
+Mardykes, has got it into her head somehow that Sir Bale is ill. I have
+been speaking to him; he certainly does not look very well, but he says
+he is quite well. Do you think him well?--that is, we know you don't
+think there is anything of importance amiss--but she wishes to know
+whether you think him _perfectly_ well."
+
+The Doctor cleared his voice and delivered his lecture, a little thickly
+at some words, upon Sir Bale's case; the result of which was that it was
+no case at all; and that if he would only live something more of a
+country gentleman's life, he would be as well as any man could
+desire--as well as any man, gentle or simple, in the country.
+
+"The utmost I should think of doing for him would be, perhaps, a little
+quinine, nothing mo'--shurely--he is really and toory a very shoun'
+shtay of health."
+
+Lady Walsingham looked encouragingly at her sister and nodded.
+
+"I've been shen' for, La'y Walsh--Walse--Walsing--_ham_; old Jack
+Amerald--he likshe his glass o' port," he said roguishly, "and shuvversh
+accord'n'ly," he continued, with a compassionating paddle of his right
+hand; "one of thoshe aw--odd feels in his stomach; and as I have pretty
+well done all I can man-n'ge down here, I must be off, ye shee. Wind up
+from Golden Friars, and a little flutter ovv zhnow, thazh all;" and with
+some remarks about the extreme cold of the weather, and the severity of
+their night journey, and many respectful and polite parting speeches,
+the Doctor took his leave; and they soon heard the wheels of his gig and
+the tread of his horse, faint and muffled from the snow in the
+court-yard, and the Doctor, who had connected that melancholy and
+agitated household with the outer circle of humanity, was gone.
+
+There was very little snow falling, half-a-dozen flakes now and again,
+and their flight across the window showed, as the Doctor had in a manner
+boasted, that the wind was in his face as he returned to Golden Friars.
+Even these desultory snow-flakes ceased, at times, altogether; and
+returning, as they say, "by fits and starts," left for long intervals
+the landscape, under the brilliant light of the moon, in its wide white
+shroud. The curtain of the great window had not been drawn. It seemed to
+Lady Walsingham that the moonbeams had grown more dazzling, that Snakes
+Island was nearer and more distinct, and the outstretched arm of the old
+tree looked bigger and angrier, like the uplifted arm of an assassin,
+who draws silently nearer as the catastrophe approaches.
+
+Cold, dazzling, almost repulsive in this intense moonlight and white
+sheeting, the familiar landscape looked in the eyes of Lady Walsingham.
+The sisters gradually grew more and more silent, an unearthly suspense
+overhung them all, and Lady Mardykes rose every now and then and
+listened at the open door for step or voice in vain. They all were
+overpowered by the intenser horror that seemed gathering around them.
+And thus an hour or more passed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Hush!
+
+Pale and silent those three beautiful sisters sat. The horrible quietude
+of a suspense that had grown all but insupportable oppressed the guests
+of Lady Mardykes, and something like the numbness of despair had reduced
+her to silence, the dreadful counterfeit of peace.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes on a sudden softly entered the room. Reflected from
+the floor near the window, the white moonlight somehow gave to his fixed
+features the character of a smile. With a warning gesture, as he came
+in, he placed his finger to his lips, as if to enjoin silence; and then,
+having successively pressed the hands of his two sisters-in-law, he
+stooped over his almost fainting wife, and twice pressed her cold
+forehead with his lips; and so, without a word, he went softly from the
+room.
+
+Some seconds elapsed before Lady Walsingham, recovering her presence of
+mind, with one of the candlesticks from the table in her hand, opened
+the door and followed.
+
+She saw Sir Bale mount the last stair of the broad flight visible from
+the hall, and candle in hand turn the corner of the massive banister,
+and as the light thrown from his candle showed, he continued, without
+hurry, to ascend the second flight.
+
+With the irrepressible curiosity of horror she continued to follow him
+at a distance.
+
+She saw him enter his own private room, and close the door.
+
+Continuing to follow she placed herself noiselessly at the door of the
+apartment, and in breathless silence, with a throbbing heart, listened
+for what should pass.
+
+She distinctly heard Sir Bale pace the floor up and down for some time,
+and then, after a pause, a sound as if some one had thrown himself
+heavily on the bed. A silence followed, during which her sisters, who
+had followed more timidly, joined her. She warned them with a look and
+gesture to be silent.
+
+Lady Haworth stood a little behind, her white lips moving, and her hands
+clasped in a silent agony of prayer. Lady Mardykes leaned against the
+massive oak door-case.
+
+With her hand raised to her ear, and her lips parted, Lady Walsingham
+listened for some seconds--for a minute, two minutes, three. At last,
+losing heart, she seized the handle in her panic, and turned it sharply.
+The door was locked on the inside, but some one close to it said from
+within, "Hush, hush!"
+
+Much alarmed now, the same lady knocked violently at the door. No answer
+was returned.
+
+She knocked again more violently, and shook the door with all her
+fragile force. It was something of horror in her countenance as she did
+so, that, no doubt, terrified Lady Mardykes, who with a loud and long
+scream sank in a swoon upon the floor.
+
+The servants, alarmed by these sounds, were speedily in the gallery.
+Lady Mardykes was carried to her room, and laid upon her bed; her
+sister, Lady Haworth, accompanying her. In the meantime the door was
+forced. Sir Bale Mardykes was found stretched upon his bed.
+
+Those who have once seen it, will not mistake the aspect of death. Here,
+in Sir Bale Mardykes' room, in his bed, in his clothes, is a stranger,
+grim and awful; in a few days to be insupportable, and to pass alone
+into the prison-house, and to be seen no more.
+
+Where is Sir Bale Mardykes now, whose roof-tree and whose place at board
+and bed will know him no more? Here lies a chap-fallen, fish-eyed image,
+chilling already into clay, and stiffening in every joint.
+
+There is a marble monument in the pretty church of Golden Friars. It
+stands at the left side of what antiquarians call "the high altar." Two
+pillars at each end support an arch with several armorial bearings on as
+many shields sculptured above. Beneath, on a marble flooring raised some
+four feet, with a cornice round, lies Sir Bale Mardykes, of Mardykes
+Hall, ninth Baronet of that ancient family, chiseled in marble with
+knee-breeches and buckled-shoes, and _ailes de pigeon_, and
+single-breasted coat and long waist-coat, ruffles and sword, such as
+gentlemen wore about the year 1770, and bearing a strong resemblance to
+the features of the second Charles. On the broad marble which forms the
+background is inscribed an epitaph, which has perpetuated to our times
+the estimate formed by his "inconsolable widow," the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes, of the virtues and accomplishments of her deceased lord.
+
+Lady Walsingham would have qualified two or three of the more
+highly-coloured hyperboles, at which the Golden Friars of those days
+sniffed and tittered. They don't signify now; there is no contemporary
+left to laugh or whisper. And if there be not much that is true in the
+letter of that inscription, it at least perpetuates something that _is_
+true--that wonderful glorificaion of partisanship, the affection of an
+idolising wife.
+
+Lady Mardykes, a few days after the funeral, left Mardykes Hall for
+ever. She lived a great deal with her sister, Lady Walsingham; and died,
+as a line cut at the foot of Sir Bale Mardykes' epitaph records, in the
+year 1790; her remains being laid beside those of her beloved husband in
+Golden Friars.
+
+The estates had come to Sir Bale Mardykes free of entail. He had been
+pottering over a will, but it was never completed, nor even quite
+planned; and after much doubt and scrutiny, it was at last ascertained
+that, in default of a will and of issue, a clause in the
+marriage-settlement gave the entire estates to the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes.
+
+By her will she bequeathed the estates to "her cousin, also a kinsman of
+the late Sir Bale Mardykes her husband," William Feltram, on condition
+of his assuming the name and arms of Mardykes, the arms of Feltram being
+quartered in the shield.
+
+Thus was oddly fulfilled the prediction which Philip Feltram had
+repeated, that the estates of Mardykes were to pass into the hands of a
+Feltram.
+
+About the year 1795 the baronetage was revived, and William Feltram
+enjoyed the title for fifteen years, as Sir William Mardykes.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11750 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11750 ***</div>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3, by
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Andrea Ball,<br>
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES,<br>
+VOLUME 3</h1>
+
+<h2>The Haunted Baronet (1871)</h2>
+
+<h2>by<br>
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<center>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I: <i>The George and Dragon</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II: <i>The Drowned Woman</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III: <i>Philip Feltram</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV: <i>The Baronet Appears</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V: <i>Mrs. Julaper's Room</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI: <i>The Intruder</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII: <i>The Bank Note</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII: <i>Feltram's Plan</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX: <i>The Crazy Parson</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X: <i>Adventure in Tom Marlin's Boat</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI: <i>Sir Bale's Dream</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII: <i>Marcella Bligh and Judith Wale Keep Watch</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII: <i>The Mist on the Mountain</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV: <i>A New Philip Feltram</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV: <i>The Purse of Gold</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI: <i>The Message from Cloostedd</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII: <i>On the Course--Beeswing, Falcon, and Lightning</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII: <i>On the Lake, at Last</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX: <i>Mystagogus</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX: <i>The Haunted Forest</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI: <i>Rindermere</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII: <i>Sir Bale is Frightened</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII: <i>A Lady in Black</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV: <i>An Old Portrait</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV: <i>Through the Wall</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI: <i>Perplexed</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII: <i>The Hour</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII: <i>Sir Bale in the Gallery</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX: <i>Dr. Torvey's Opinion</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX: <i>Hush!</i></b></a>
+ </center>
+
+ <p>&nbsp;</p>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;">
+ <h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+ <center>
+  <a href="#IMAGE_1"><b>"I sid something white come out o' t' water, by the
+gunwale, like a hand."</b></a><br><br>
+  <a href="#IMAGE_2"><b>It was the figure of a slight tall man, with his arm
+extended, as if pointing to a remote object.</b></a>
+ </center>
+
+ <p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<h2>The Haunted Baronet</h2>
+<br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_I"></a><h4>CHAPTER I</h4>
+
+<i><b>The George and Dragon</b></i>
+
+<p>The pretty little town of Golden Friars&mdash;standing by the margin of the
+lake, hemmed round by an amphitheatre of purple mountain, rich in tint
+and furrowed by ravines, high in air, when the tall gables and narrow
+windows of its ancient graystone houses, and the tower of the old
+church, from which every evening the curfew still rings, show like
+silver in the moonbeams, and the black elms that stand round throw
+moveless shadows upon the short level grass&mdash;is one of the most singular
+and beautiful sights I have ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>There it rises, 'as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand,' looking so
+light and filmy, that you could scarcely believe it more than a picture
+reflected on the thin mist of night.</p>
+
+<p>On such a still summer night the moon shone splendidly upon the front of
+the George and Dragon, the comfortable graystone inn of Golden Friars,
+with the grandest specimen of the old inn-sign, perhaps, left in
+England. It looks right across the lake; the road that skirts its margin
+running by the steps of the hall-door, opposite to which, at the other
+side of the road, between two great posts, and framed in a fanciful
+wrought-iron border splendid with gilding, swings the famous sign of St.
+George and the Dragon, gorgeous with colour and gold.</p>
+
+<p>In the great room of the George and Dragon, three or four of the old
+<i>habitu&eacute;s</i> of that cozy lounge were refreshing a little after the
+fatigues of the day.</p>
+
+<p>This is a comfortable chamber, with an oak wainscot; and whenever in
+summer months the air is sharp enough, as on the present occasion, a
+fire helped to light it up; which fire, being chiefly wood, made a
+pleasant broad flicker on panel and ceiling, and yet did not make the
+room too hot.</p>
+
+<p>On one side sat Doctor Torvey, the doctor of Golden Friars, who knew the
+weak point of every man in the town, and what medicine agreed with each
+inhabitant&mdash;a fat gentleman, with a jolly laugh and an appetite for all
+sorts of news, big and little, and who liked a pipe, and made a tumbler
+of punch at about this hour, with a bit of lemon-peel in it. Beside him
+sat William Peers, a thin old gentleman, who had lived for more than
+thirty years in India, and was quiet and benevolent, and the last man in
+Golden Friars who wore a pigtail. Old Jack Amerald, an ex-captain of the
+navy, with his short stout leg on a chair, and its wooden companion
+beside it, sipped his grog, and bawled in the old-fashioned navy way,
+and called his friends his 'hearties.' In the middle, opposite the
+hearth, sat deaf Tom Hollar, always placid, and smoked his pipe, looking
+serenely at the fire. And the landlord of the George and Dragon every
+now and then strutted in, and sat down in the high-backed wooden
+arm-chair, according to the old-fashioned republican ways of the place,
+and took his share in the talk gravely, and was heartily welcome.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And so Sir Bale is coming home at last,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Tell us any
+more you heard since.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing,&quot; answered Richard Turnbull, the host of the George. &quot;Nothing
+to speak of; only 'tis certain sure, and so best; the old house won't
+look so dowly now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twyne says the estate owes a good capful o' money by this time, hey?&quot;
+said the Doctor, lowering his voice and winking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Weel, they do say he's been nout at dow. I don't mind saying so to
+<i>you</i>, mind, sir, where all's friends together; but he'll get that right
+in time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More like to save here than where he is,&quot; said the Doctor with another
+grave nod.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He does very wisely,&quot; said Mr. Peers, having blown out a thin stream of
+smoke, &quot;and creditably, to pull-up in time. He's coming here to save a
+little, and perhaps he'll marry; and it is the more creditable, if, as
+they say, he dislikes the place, and would prefer staying where he is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And having spoken thus gently, Mr. Peers resumed his pipe cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, he don't like the place; that is, I'm told he <i>didn't</i>,&quot; said the
+innkeeper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He <i>hates</i> it,&quot; said the Doctor with another dark nod.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And no wonder, if all's true I've heard,&quot; cried old Jack Amerald.
+&quot;Didn't he drown a woman and her child in the lake?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hollo! my dear boy, don't let them hear you say that; you're all in the
+clouds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jen!&quot; exclaimed the landlord after an alarmed silence, with his
+mouth and eyes open, and his pipe in his hand, &quot;why, sir, I pay rent for
+the house up there. I'm thankful&mdash;dear knows, I <i>am</i> thankful&mdash;we're all
+to ourselves!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Jack Amerald put his foot on the floor, leaving his wooden leg in its
+horizontal position, and looked round a little curiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, if it wasn't him, it was some one else. I'm sure it happened up
+at Mardykes. I took the bearings on the water myself from Glads Scaur to
+Mardykes Jetty, and from the George and Dragon sign down here&mdash;down to
+the white house under Forrick Fells. I could fix a buoy over the very
+spot. Some one here told me the bearings, I'd take my oath, where the
+body was seen; and yet no boat could ever come up with it; and that was
+queer, you know, so I clapt it down in my log.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, sir, there <i>was</i> some flummery like that, Captain,&quot; said Turnbull;
+&quot;for folk will be gabbin'. But 'twas his grandsire was talked o', not
+him; and 'twould play the hangment wi' me doun here, if 'twas thought
+there was stories like that passin' in the George and Dragon.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, his grandfather; 'twas all one to him, I take it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There never was no proof, Captain, no more than smoke; and the family
+up at Mardykes wouldn't allow the king to talk o' them like that, sir;
+for though they be lang deod that had most right to be angered in the
+matter, there's none o' the name but would be half daft to think 'twas
+still believed, and he full out as mich as any. Not that I need care
+more than another, though they do say he's a bit frowsy and
+short-waisted; for he can't shouther me out o' the George while I pay my
+rent, till nine hundred and ninety-nine year be rin oot; and a man, be
+he ne'er sa het, has time to cool before then. But there's no good
+quarrellin' wi' teathy folk; and it may lie in his way to do the George
+mony an ill turn, and mony a gude one; an' it's only fair to say it
+happened a long way before he was born, and there's no good in vexin'
+him; and I lay ye a pound, Captain, the Doctor hods wi' me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor, whose business was also sensitive, nodded; and then he said,
+&quot;But for all that, the story's old, Dick Turnbull&mdash;older than you or I,
+my jolly good friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And best forgotten,&quot; interposed the host of the George.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, best forgotten; but that it's not like to be,&quot; said the Doctor,
+plucking up courage. &quot;Here's our friend the Captain has heard it; and
+the mistake he has made shows there's one thing worse than its being
+quite remembered, and that is, its being <i>half</i> remembered. We can't
+stop people talking; and a story like that will see us all off the
+hooks, and be in folks' mouths, still, as strong as ever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay; and now I think on it, 'twas Dick Harman that has the boat down
+there&mdash;an old tar like myself&mdash;that told me that yarn. I was trying for
+pike, and he pulled me over the place, and that's how I came to hear it.
+I say, Tom, my hearty, serve us out another glass of brandy, will you?&quot;
+shouted the Captain's voice as the waiter crossed the room; and that
+florid and grizzled naval hero clapped his leg again on the chair by its
+wooden companion, which he was wont to call his jury-mast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I do believe it will be spoke of longer than we are like to
+hear,&quot; said the host, &quot;and I don't much matter the story, if it baint
+told o' the wrong man.&quot; Here he touched his tumbler with the spoon,
+indicating by that little ring that Tom, who had returned with the
+Captain's grog, was to replenish it with punch. &quot;And Sir Bale is like to
+be a friend to this house. I don't see no reason why he shouldn't. The
+George and Dragon has bin in our family ever since the reign of King
+Charles the Second. It was William Turnbull in that time, which they
+called it the Restoration, he taking the lease from Sir Tony Mardykes
+that was then. They was but knights then. They was made baronets first
+in the reign of King George the Second; you may see it in the list of
+baronets and the nobility. The lease was made to William Turnbull, which
+came from London; and he built the stables, which they was out o'
+repair, as you may read to this day in the lease; and the house has
+never had but one sign since&mdash;the George and Dragon, it is pretty well
+known in England&mdash;and one name to its master. It has been owned by a
+Turnbull from that day to this, and they have not been counted bad men.&quot;
+A murmur of applause testified the assent of his guests. &quot;They has been
+steady churchgoin' folk, and brewed good drink, and maintained the best
+o' characters, hereaways and farther off too, though 'tis I, Richard
+Turnbull, that says it; and while they pay their rent, no man has power
+to put them out; for their title's as good to the George and Dragon, and
+the two fields, and the croft, and the grazing o' their kye on the
+green, as Sir Bale Mardykes to the Hall up there and estate. So 'tis
+nout to me, except in the way o' friendliness, what the family may think
+o' me; only the George and they has always been kind and friendly, and I
+don't want to break the old custom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well said, Dick!&quot; exclaimed Doctor Torvey; &quot;I own to your conclusion;
+but there ain't a soul here but ourselves&mdash;and we're all friends, and
+you are your own master&mdash;and, hang it, you'll tell us that story about
+the drowned woman, as you heard it from your father long ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, do, and keep us to our liquor, my hearty!&quot; cried the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Peers looked his entreaty; and deaf Mr. Hollar, having no interest
+in the petition, was at least a safe witness, and, with his pipe in his
+lips, a cozy piece of furniture.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Turnbull had his punch beside him; he looked over his shoulder.
+The door was closed, the fire was cheery, and the punch was fragrant,
+and all friendly faces about him. So said he:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen, as you're pleased to wish it, I don't see no great harm in
+it; and at any rate, 'twill prevent mistakes. It is more than ninety
+years since. My father was but a boy then; and many a time I have heard
+him tell it in this very room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And looking into his glass he mused, and stirred his punch slowly.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_II"></a><h4>CHAPTER II</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Drowned Woman</b></i>
+
+<p>&quot;It ain't much of a homminy,&quot; said the host of the George. &quot;I'll not
+keep you long over it, gentlemen. There was a handsome young lady, Miss
+Mary Feltram o' Cloostedd by name. She was the last o' that family; and
+had gone very poor. There's but the walls o' the house left now; grass
+growing in the hall, and ivy over the gables; there's no one livin' has
+ever hard tell o' smoke out o' they chimblies. It stands on t'other side
+o' the lake, on the level wi' a deal o' a'ad trees behint and aside it
+at the gap o' the clough, under the pike o' Maiden Fells. Ye may see it
+wi' a spyin'-glass from the boatbield at Mardykes Hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been there fifty times,&quot; said the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well there was dealin's betwixt the two families; and there's good and
+bad in every family; but the Mardykes, in them days, was a wild lot. And
+when old Feltram o' Cloostedd died, and the young lady his daughter was
+left a ward o' Sir Jasper Mardykes&mdash;an ill day for her, poor
+lass!--twenty year older than her he was, an' more; and nothin' about
+him, they say, to make anyone like or love him, ill-faur'd and little
+and dow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dow&mdash;that's gloomy,&quot; Doctor Torvey instructed the Captain aside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But they do say, they has an old blud-stean ring in the family that
+has a charm in't; and happen how it might, the poor lass fell in love
+wi' him. Some said they was married. Some said it hang'd i' the
+bell-ropes, and never had the priest's blessing; but anyhow, married or
+no, there was talk enough amang the folk, and out o' doors she would na
+budge. And there was two wee barns; and she prayed him hard to confess
+the marriage, poor thing! But t'was a bootlese bene, and he would not
+allow they should bear his name, but their mother's; he was a hard man,
+and hed the bit in his teeth, and went his ain gait. And having tired of
+her, he took in his head to marry a lady of the Barnets, and it behoved
+him to be shut o' her and her children; and so she nor them was seen no
+more at Mardykes Hall. And the eldest, a boy, was left in care of my
+grandfather's father here in the George.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That queer Philip Feltram that's travelling with Sir Bale so long is a
+descendant of his?&quot; said the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Grandson,&quot; observed Mr. Peers, removing his pipe for a moment; &quot;and is
+the last of that stock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, no one could tell where she had gone to. Some said to distant
+parts, some said to the madhouse, some one thing, some another; but
+neither she nor the barn was ever seen or spoke to by the folk at
+Mardykes in life again. There was one Mr. Wigram that lived in them
+times down at Moultry, and had sarved, like the Captain here, in the
+king's navy in his day; and early of a morning down he comes to the town
+for a boat, sayin' he was looking towards Snakes Island through his
+spyin'-glass, and he seen a woman about a hundred and fifty yards
+outside of it; the Captain here has heard the bearings right enough.
+From her hips upwards she was stark and straight out o' the water, and a
+baby in her arms. Well, no one else could see it, nor he neither, when
+they went down to the boat. But next morning he saw the same thing, and
+the boatman saw it too; and they rowed for it, both pulling might and
+main; but after a mile or so they could see it no more, and gave over.
+The next that saw it was the vicar, I forget his name now&mdash;but he was up
+the lake to a funeral at Mortlock Church; and coming back with a bit of
+a sail up, just passin' Snakes Island, what should they hear on a sudden
+but a wowl like a death-cry, shrill and bleak, as made the very blood
+hoot in their veins; and looking along the water not a hundred yards
+away, saw the same grizzled sight in the moonlight; so they turned the
+tiller, and came near enough to see her face&mdash;blea it was, and drenched
+wi' water&mdash;and she was above the lake to her middle, stiff as a post,
+holdin' the weeny barn out to them, and flyrin' [smiling scornfully] on
+them as they drew nigh her. They were half-frighted, not knowing what to
+make of it; but passing as close as the boatman could bring her side,
+the vicar stretched over the gunwale to catch her, and she bent forward,
+pushing the dead bab forward; and as she did, on a sudden she gave a
+yelloch that scared them, and they saw her no more. 'Twas no livin'
+woman, for she couldn't rise that height above the water, as they well
+knew when they came to think; and knew it was a dobby they saw; and ye
+may be sure they didn't spare prayer and blessin', and went on their
+course straight before the wind; for neither would a-took the worth o'
+all the Mardykes to look sich a freetin' i' the face again. 'Twas seen
+another time by market-folk crossin' fra Gyllenstan in the self-same
+place; and Snakes Island got a bad neam, and none cared to go nar it
+after nightfall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know anything of that Feltram that has been with him abroad?&quot;
+asked the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They say he's no good at anything&mdash;a harmless mafflin; he was a long
+gaumless gawky when he went awa,&quot; said Richard Turnbull. &quot;The Feltrams
+and the Mardykes was sib, ye know; and that made what passed in the
+misfortune o' that young lady spoken of all the harder; and this young
+man ye speak of is a grandson o' the lad that was put here in care o' my
+grandfather.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Great</i>-grandson. His father was grandson,&quot; said Mr. Peers; &quot;he held a
+commission in the army and died in the West Indies. This Philip Feltram
+is the last o' that line&mdash;illegitimate, you know, it is held&mdash;and the
+little that remained of the Feltram property went nearly fourscore years
+ago to the Mardykes, and this Philip is maintained by Sir Bale; it is
+pleasant, notwithstanding all the stories one hears, gentlemen, that the
+only thing we know of him for certain should be so creditable to his
+kindness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To be sure,&quot; acquiesced Mr. Turnbull.</p>
+
+<p>While they talked the horn sounded, and the mail-coach drew up at the
+door of the George and Dragon to set down a passenger and his luggage.</p>
+
+<p>Dick Turnbull rose and went out to the hall with careful bustle, and
+Doctor Torvey followed as far as the door, which commanded a view of it,
+and saw several trunks cased in canvas pitched into the hall, and by
+careful Tom and a boy lifted one on top of the other, behind the corner
+of the banister. It would have been below the dignity of his cloth to go
+out and read the labels on these, or the Doctor would have done
+otherwise, so great was his curiosity.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_III"></a><h4>CHAPTER III</h4>
+
+<i><b>Philip Feltram</b></i>
+
+<p>The new guest was now in the hall of the George, and Doctor Torvey could
+hear him talking with Mr. Turnbull. Being himself one of the dignitaries
+of Golden Friars, the Doctor, having regard to first impressions, did
+not care to be seen in his post of observation; and closing the door
+gently, returned to his chair by the fire, and in an under-tone informed
+his cronies that there was a new arrival in the George, and he could not
+hear, but would not wonder if he were taking a private room; and he
+seemed to have trunks enough to build a church with.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't be too sure we haven't Sir Bale on board,&quot; said Amerald, who
+would have followed his crony the Doctor to the door&mdash;for never was
+retired naval hero of a village more curious than he&mdash;were it not that
+his wooden leg made a distinct pounding on the floor that was inimical,
+as experience had taught him, to mystery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That can't be,&quot; answered the Doctor; &quot;Charley Twyne knows everything
+about it, and has a letter every second day; and there's no chance of
+Sir Bale before the tenth; this is a tourist, you'll find. I don't know
+what the d---l keeps Turnbull; he knows well enough we are all naturally
+willing to hear who it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he won't trouble us here, I bet ye;&quot; and catching deaf Mr.
+Hollar's eye, the Captain nodded, and pointed to the little table beside
+him, and made a gesture imitative of the rattling of a dice-box; at
+which that quiet old gentleman also nodded sunnily; and up got the
+Captain and conveyed the backgammon-box to the table, near Hollar's
+elbow, and the two worthies were soon sinc-ducing and catre-acing, with
+the pleasant clatter that accompanies that ancient game. Hollar had
+thrown sizes and made his double point, and the honest Captain, who
+could stand many things better than Hollar's throwing such throws so
+early in the evening, cursed his opponent's luck and sneered at his
+play, and called the company to witness, with a distinctness which a
+stranger to smiling Hollar's deafness would have thought hardly civil;
+and just at this moment the door opened, and Richard Turnbull showed his
+new guest into the room, and ushered him to a vacant seat near the other
+corner of the table before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger advanced slowly and shyly, with something a little
+deprecatory in his air, to which a lathy figure, a slight stoop, and a
+very gentle and even heartbroken look in his pale long face, gave a more
+marked character of shrinking and timidity.</p>
+
+<p>He thanked the landlord aside, as it were, and took his seat with a
+furtive glance round, as if he had no right to come in and intrude upon
+the happiness of these honest gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the Captain scanning him from under his shaggy grey eyebrows
+while he was pretending to look only at his game; and the Doctor was
+able to recount to Mrs. Torvey when he went home every article of the
+stranger's dress.</p>
+
+<p>It was odd and melancholy as his peaked face.</p>
+
+<p>He had come into the room with a short black cloak on, and a rather tall
+foreign felt hat, and a pair of shiny leather gaiters or leggings on his
+thin legs; and altogether presented a general resemblance to the
+conventional figure of Guy Fawkes.</p>
+
+<p>Not one of the company assembled knew the appearance of the Baronet. The
+Doctor and old Mr. Peers remembered something of his looks; and
+certainly they had no likeness, but the reverse, to those presented by
+the new-comer. The Baronet, as now described by people who had chanced
+to see him, was a dark man, not above the middle size, and with a
+certain decision in his air and talk; whereas this person was tall,
+pale, and in air and manner feeble. So this broken trader in the world's
+commerce, with whom all seemed to have gone wrong, could not possibly be
+he.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, in one of his stealthy glances, the Doctor's eye encountered
+that of the stranger, who was by this time drinking his tea&mdash;a thin and
+feminine liquor little used in that room.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger did not seem put out; and the Doctor, interpreting his look
+as a permission to converse, cleared his voice, and said urbanely,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have had a little frost by night, down here, sir, and a little fire
+is no great harm&mdash;it is rather pleasant, don't you think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The stranger bowed acquiescence with a transient wintry smile, and
+looked gratefully on the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This place is a good deal admired, sir, and people come a good way to
+see it; you have been here perhaps before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many years ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here was another pause.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Places change imperceptibly&mdash;in detail, at least&mdash;a good deal,&quot; said
+the Doctor, making an effort to keep up a conversation that plainly
+would not go on of itself; &quot;and people too; population shifts&mdash;there's
+an old fellow, sir, they call <i>Death</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And an old fellow they call the <i>Doctor</i>, that helps him,&quot; threw in the
+Captain humorously, allowing his attention to get entangled in the
+conversation, and treating them to one of his tempestuous ha-ha-ha's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are expecting the return of a gentleman who would be a very leading
+member of our little society down here,&quot; said the Doctor, not noticing
+the Captain's joke. &quot;I mean Sir Bale Mardykes. Mardykes Hall is a pretty
+object from the water, sir, and a very fine old place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The melancholy stranger bowed slightly, but rather in courtesy to the
+relator, it seemed, than that the Doctor's lore interested him much.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And on the opposite side of the lake,&quot; continued Doctor Torvey, &quot;there
+is a building that contrasts very well with it&mdash;the old house of the
+Feltrams&mdash;quite a ruin now, at the mouth of the glen&mdash;Cloostedd House, a
+very picturesque object.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly opposite,&quot; said the stranger dreamily, but whether in the tone
+of acquiescence or interrogatory, the Doctor could not be quite sure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was one of our great families down here that has disappeared. It
+has dwindled down to nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Duce ace,&quot; remarked Mr. Hollar, who was attending to his game.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;While others have mounted more suddenly and amazingly still,&quot; observed
+gentle Mr. Peers, who was great upon county genealogies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sizes!&quot; thundered the Captain, thumping the table with an oath of
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And Snakes Island is a very pretty object; they say there used to be
+snakes there,&quot; said the Doctor, enlightening the visitor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! that's a mistake,&quot; said the dejected guest, making his first
+original observation. &quot;It should be spelt <i>Snaiks</i>. In the old papers it
+is called Sen-aiks Island from the seven oaks that grew in a clump
+there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey? that's very curious, egad! I daresay,&quot; said the Doctor, set right
+thus by the stranger, and eyeing him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very true, sir,&quot; observed Mr. Peers; &quot;three of those oaks, though, two
+of them little better than stumps, are there still; and Clewson of
+Heckleston has an old document&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here, unhappily, the landlord entered the room in a fuss, and walking up
+to the stranger, said, &quot;The chaise is at the door, Mr. Feltram, and the
+trunks up, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Feltram rose quietly and took out his purse, and said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose I had better pay at the bar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you like best, sir,&quot; said Richard Turnbull.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Feltram bowed all round to the gentlemen, who smiled, ducked or
+waved their hands; and the Doctor fussily followed him to the hall-door,
+and welcomed him back to Golden Friars&mdash;there was real kindness in this
+welcome&mdash;and proffered his broad brown hand, which Mr. Feltram took; and
+then he plunged into his chaise, and the door being shut, away he
+glided, chaise, horses, and driver, like shadows, by the margin of the
+moonlighted lake, towards Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>And after a few minutes' stand upon the steps, looking along the shadowy
+track of the chaise, they returned to the glow of the room, in which a
+pleasant perfume of punch still prevailed; and beside Mr. Philip
+Feltram's deserted tea-things, the host of the George enlightened his
+guests by communicating freely the little he had picked up. The
+principal fact he had to tell was, that Sir Bale adhered strictly to his
+original plan, and was to arrive on the tenth. A few days would bring
+them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its
+interest. But in the meantime, all Golden Friars was anxious to see what
+Sir Bale Mardykes was like.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a><h4>CHAPTER IV</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Baronet Appears</b></i>
+
+<p>As the candles burn blue and the air smells of brimstone at the approach
+of the Evil One, so, in the quiet and healthy air of Golden Friars, a
+depressing and agitating influence announced the coming of the
+long-absent Baronet.</p>
+
+<p>From abroad, no good whatever had been at any time heard of him, and a
+great deal that was, in the ears of simple folk living in that
+unsophisticated part of the world, vaguely awful.</p>
+
+<p>Stories that travel so far, however, lose something of their authority,
+as well as definiteness, on the way; there was always room for charity
+to suggest a mistake or exaggeration; and if good men turned up their
+hands and eyes after a new story, and ladies of experience, who knew
+mankind, held their heads high and looked grim and mysterious at mention
+of his name, nevertheless an interval of silence softened matters a
+little, and the sulphureous perfume dissipated itself in time.</p>
+
+<p>Now that Sir Bale Mardykes had arrived at the Hall, there were hurried
+consultations held in many households. And though he was tried and
+sentenced by drum-head over some austere hearths, as a rule the law of
+gravitation prevailed, and the greater house drew the lesser about it,
+and county people within the visiting radius paid their respects at the
+Hall.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Martin Bedel, the then vicar of Golden Friars, a stout
+short man, with a mulberry-coloured face and small gray eyes, and
+taciturn habits, called and entered the drawing-room at Mardykes Hall,
+with his fat and garrulous wife on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing-room has a great projecting Tudor window looking out on the
+lake, with its magnificent background of furrowed and purple mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was not there, and Mrs. Bedel examined the pictures, and
+ornaments, and the books, making such remarks as she saw fit; and then
+she looked out of the window, and admired the prospect. She wished to
+stand well with the Baronet, and was in a mood to praise everything.</p>
+
+<p>You may suppose she was curious to see him, having heard for years such
+strange tales of his doings.</p>
+
+<p>She expected the hero of a brilliant and wicked romance; and listened
+for the step of the truant Lovelace who was to fulfil her idea of manly
+beauty and fascination.</p>
+
+<p>She sustained a slight shock when he did appear.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes was, as she might easily have remembered, a
+middle-aged man&mdash;and he looked it. He was not even an imposing-looking
+man for his time of life: he was of about the middle height, slightly
+made, and dark featured. She had expected something of the gaiety and
+animation of Versailles, and an evident cultivation of the art of
+pleasing. What she did see was a remarkable gravity, not to say gloom,
+of countenance&mdash;the only feature of which that struck her being a pair
+of large dark-gray eyes, that were cold and earnest. His manners had the
+ease of perfect confidence; and his talk and air were those of a person
+who might have known how to please, if it were worth the trouble, but
+who did not care twopence whether he pleased or not.</p>
+
+<p>He made them each a bow, courtly enough, but there was no smile&mdash;not
+even an affectation of cordiality. Sir Bale, however, was chatty, and
+did not seem to care much what he said, or what people thought of him;
+and there was a suspicion of sarcasm in what he said that the rustic
+literality of good Mrs. Bedel did not always detect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I believe I have not a clergyman but <i>you</i>, sir, within any reasonable
+distance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Golden Friars <i>is</i> the nearest,&quot; said Mrs. Bedel, answering, as was her
+pleasure on all practicable occasions, for her husband. &quot;And southwards,
+the nearest is Wyllarden&mdash;and by a bird's flight that is thirteen miles
+and a half, and by the road more than nineteen&mdash;twenty, I may say, by
+the road. Ha, ha, ha! it is a long way to look for a clergyman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty miles of road to carry you thirteen miles across, hey? The
+road-makers lead you a pretty dance here; those gentlemen know how to
+make money, and like to show people the scenery from a variety of
+points. No one likes a straight road but the man who pays for it, or
+who, when he travels, is brute enough to wish to get to his journey's
+end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is so true, Sir Bale; one never cares if one is not in a hurry.
+That's what Martin thinks&mdash;don't we, Martin?&mdash;And then, you know, coming
+home is the time you <i>are</i> in a hurry&mdash;when you are thinking of your cup
+of tea and the children; and <i>then</i>, you know, you have the fall of the
+ground all in your favour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's well to have anything in your favour in this place. And so there
+are children?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A good many,&quot; said Mrs. Bedel, with a proud and mysterious smile, and a
+nod; &quot;you wouldn't guess how many.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I; I only wonder you did not bring them all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's very good-natured of you, Sir Bale, but all could not come at
+<i>one</i> bout; there are&mdash;tell him, Martin&mdash;ha, ha, ha! there are eleven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must be very cheerful down at the vicarage,&quot; said Sir Bale
+graciously; and turning to the vicar he added, &quot;But how unequally
+blessings are divided! You have eleven, and I not one&mdash;that I'm aware
+of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then, in that direction straight before you, you have the lake, and
+then the fells; and five miles from the foot of the mountain at the
+other side, before you reach Fottrell&mdash;and that is twenty-five miles by
+the road&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear me! how far apart they are set! My gardener told me this morning
+that asparagus grows very thinly in this part of the world. How thinly
+clergymen grow also down here&mdash;in one sense,&quot; he added politely, for the
+vicar was stout.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We were looking out of the window&mdash;we amused ourselves that way before
+you came&mdash;and your view is certainly the very best anywhere round this
+side; your view of the lake and the fells&mdash;what mountains they are, Sir
+Bale!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Pon my soul, they are! I wish I could blow them asunder with a charge
+of duck-shot, and I shouldn't be stifled by them long. But I suppose, as
+we can't get rid of them, the next best thing is to admire them. We are
+pretty well married to them, and there is no use in quarrelling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know you don't think so, Sir Bale, ha, ha, ha! You wouldn't take a
+good deal and spoil Mardykes Hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can't get a mouthful or air, or see the sun of a morning, for those
+frightful mountains,&quot; he said with a peevish frown at them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, the lake at all events&mdash;that you <i>must</i> admire, Sir Bale?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No ma'am, I don't admire the lake. I'd drain the lake if I could&mdash;I
+hate the lake. There's nothing so gloomy as a lake pent up among barren
+mountains. I can't conceive what possessed my people to build our house
+down here, at the edge of a lake; unless it was the fish, and precious
+fish it is&mdash;pike! I don't know how people digest it&mdash;<i>I</i> can't. I'd as
+soon think of eating a watchman's pike.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought that having travelled so much abroad, you would have acquired
+a great liking for that kind of scenery, Sir Bale; there is a great deal
+of it on the Continent, ain't there?&quot; said Mrs. Bedel. &quot;And the
+boating.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Boating, my dear Mrs. Bedel, is the dullest of all things; don't you
+think so? Because a boat looks very pretty from the shore, we fancy the
+shore must look very pretty from a boat; and when we try it, we find we
+have only got down into a pit and can see nothing rightly. For my part I
+hate boating, and I hate the water; and I'd rather have my house, like
+Haworth, at the edge of a moss, with good wholesome peat to look at, and
+an open horizon&mdash;savage and stupid and bleak as all that is&mdash;than be
+suffocated among impassable mountains, or upset in a black lake and
+drowned like a kitten. O, there's luncheon in the next room; won't you
+take some?&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_V"></a><h4>CHAPTER V</h4>
+
+<i><b>Mrs. Julaper's Room</b></i>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes being now established in his ancestral house, people
+had time to form conclusions respecting him. It must be allowed he was
+not popular. There was, perhaps, in his conduct something of the caprice
+of contempt. At all events his temper and conduct were uncertain, and
+his moods sometimes violent and insulting.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to but one person was his conduct uniform, and that was
+Philip Feltram. He was a sort of aide-de-camp near Sir Bale's person,
+and chargeable with all the commissions and offices which could not be
+suitably intrusted to a mere servant. But in many respects he was
+treated worse than any servant of the Baronet's. Sir Bale swore at him,
+and cursed him; laid the blame of everything that went wrong in house,
+stable, or field upon his shoulders; railed at him, and used him, as
+people said, worse than a dog.</p>
+
+<p>Why did Feltram endure this contumelious life? What could he do but
+endure it? was the answer. What was the power that induced strong
+soldiers to put off their jackets and shirts, and present their hands to
+be tied up, and tortured for hours, it might be, under the scourge, with
+an air of ready volition? The moral coercion of despair; the result of
+an unconscious calculation of chances which satisfies them that it is
+ultimately better to do all that, bad as it is, than try the
+alternative. These unconscious calculations are going on every day with
+each of us, and the results embody themselves in our lives; and no one
+knows that there has been a process and a balance struck, and that what
+they see, and very likely blame, is by the fiat of an invisible but
+quite irresistible power.</p>
+
+<p>A man of spirit would rather break stones on the highway than eat that
+bitter bread, was the burden of every man's song on Feltram's bondage.
+But he was not so sure that even the stone-breaker's employment was open
+to him, or that he could break stones well enough to retain it on a fair
+trial. And he had other ideas of providing for himself, and a different
+alternative in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Good-natured Mrs. Julaper, the old housekeeper at Mardykes Hall, was
+kind to Feltram, as to all others who lay in her way and were in
+affliction.</p>
+
+<p>She was one of those good women whom Nature provides to receive the
+burden of other people's secrets, as the reeds did long ago, only that
+no chance wind could steal them away, and send them singing into strange
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>You may still see her snuggery in Mardykes Hall, though the
+housekeeper's room is now in a different part of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper's room was in the oldest quarter of that old house. It was
+wainscoted, in black panels, up to the ceiling, which was stuccoed over
+in the fanciful diagrams of James the First's time. Several dingy
+portraits, banished from time to time from other statelier rooms, found
+a temporary abode in this quiet spot, where they had come finally to
+settle and drop out of remembrance. There is a lady in white satin and a
+ruff; a gentleman whose legs have faded out of view, with a peaked
+beard, and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a black periwig lost
+in the dark background, and with a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out
+of the darkness strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable
+across it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes, who crossed the Border
+and joined Dundee, and was shot through the temple at Killiecrankie and
+whom more prudent and whiggish scions of the Mardykes family removed
+forthwith from his place in the Hall, and found a retirement here, from
+which he has not since emerged.</p>
+
+<p>At the far end of this snug room is a second door, on opening which you
+find yourself looking down upon the great kitchen, with a little balcony
+before you, from which the housekeeper used to issue her commands to the
+cook, and exercise a sovereign supervision.</p>
+
+<p>There is a shelf on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible, her <i>Whole Duty of
+Man</i>, and her <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>; and, in a file beside them, her
+books of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes,
+cookery-books, and some too on surgery and medicine, as practised by the
+Ladies Bountiful of the Elizabethan age, for which an antiquarian would
+nowadays give an eye or a hand.</p>
+
+<p>Gentle half-foolish Philip Feltram would tell the story of his wrongs,
+and weep and wish he was dead; and kind Mrs. Julaper, who remembered him
+a child, would comfort him with cold pie and cherry-brandy, or a cup of
+coffee, or some little dainty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, ma'am, I'm tired of my life. What's the good of living, if a poor
+devil is never let alone, and called worse names than a dog? Would not
+it be better, Mrs. Julaper, to be dead? Wouldn't it be better, ma'am? I
+think so; I think it night and day. I'm always thinking the same thing.
+I don't care, I'll just tell him what I think, and have it off my mind.
+I'll tell him I can't live and bear it longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There now, don't you be frettin'; but just sip this, and remember
+you're not to judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean it, not he.
+They all had a rough side to their tongue now and again; but no one
+minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the
+tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard
+words break no bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea&mdash;ye like a cup o'
+tea&mdash;and we'll take a cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see
+how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines on the lake this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was patting him gently on the shoulder, as she stood slim and stiff
+in her dark silk by his chair, and her rosy little face smiled down on
+him. She was, for an old woman, wonderfully pretty still. What a
+delicate skin she must have had! The wrinkles were etched upon it with
+so fine a needle, you scarcely could see them a little way off; and as
+she smiled her cheeks looked fresh and smooth as two ruddy little
+apples.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look out, I say,&quot; and she nodded towards the window, deep set in the
+thick wall. &quot;See how bright and soft everything looks in that pleasant
+light; <i>that's</i> better, child, than the finest picture man's hand ever
+painted yet, and God gives it us for nothing; and how pretty Snakes
+Island glows up in that light!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The dejected man, hardly raising his head, followed with his eyes the
+glance of the old woman, and looked mournfully through the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That island troubles me, Mrs. Julaper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything troubles you, my poor goose-cap. I'll pull your lug for ye,
+child, if ye be so dowly;&quot; and with a mimic pluck the good-natured old
+housekeeper pinched his ear and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll go to the still-room now, where the water's boiling, and I'll make
+a cup of tea; and if I find ye so dow when I come back, I'll throw it
+all out o' the window, mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a beautiful picture that Feltram saw in its deep frame of
+old masonry. The near part of the lake was flushed all over with the low
+western light; the more distant waters lay dark in the shadow of the
+mountains; and against this shadow of purple the rocks on Snakes Island,
+illuminated by the setting sun, started into sharp clear yellow.</p>
+
+<p>But this beautiful view had no charm&mdash;at least, none powerful enough to
+master the latent horror associated with its prettiest feature&mdash;for the
+weak and dismal man who was looking at it; and being now alone, he rose
+and leant on the window, and looked out, and then with a kind of shudder
+clutching his hands together, and walking distractedly about the room.</p>
+
+<p>Without his perceiving, while his back was turned, the housekeeper came
+back; and seeing him walking in this distracted way, she thought to
+herself, as he leant again upon the window:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it <i>is</i> a burning shame to worrit any poor soul into that state.
+Sir Bale was always down on someone or something, man or beast; there
+always was something he hated, and could never let alone. It was not
+pretty; it was his nature. Happen, poor fellow, he could not help it;
+but so it was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A maid came in and set the tea-things down; and Mrs. Julaper drew her
+sad guest over by the arm, and made him sit down, and she said: &quot;What
+has a man to do, frettin' in that way? By Jen, I'm ashamed o' ye, Master
+Philip! Ye like three lumps o' sugar, I think, and&mdash;look cheerful, ye
+must!--a good deal o' cream?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're so kind, Mrs. Julaper, you're so cheery. I feel quite
+comfortable after awhile when I'm with you; I feel quite happy,&quot; and he
+began to cry.</p>
+
+<p>She understood him very well by this time and took no notice, but went
+on chatting gaily, and made his tea as he liked it; and he dried his
+tears hastily, thinking she had not observed.</p>
+
+<p>So the clouds began to clear. This innocent fellow liked nothing better
+than a cup of tea and a chat with gentle and cheery old Mrs. Julaper,
+and a talk in which the shadowy old times which he remembered as a child
+emerged into sunlight and lived again.</p>
+
+<p>When he began to feel better, drawn into the kindly old times by the
+tinkle of that harmless old woman's tongue, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sometimes think I would not so much mind&mdash;I should not care so
+much&mdash;if my spirits were not so depressed, and I so agitated. I suppose
+I am not quite well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, tell me what's wrong, child, and it's odd but I have a recipe on
+the shelf there that will do you good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not a matter of that sort I mean; though I'd rather have you than
+any doctor, if I needed medicine, to prescribe for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper smiled in spite of herself, well pleased; for her skill in
+pharmacy was a point on which the good lady prided herself, and was open
+to flattery, which, without intending it, the simple fellow
+administered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'm well enough; I can't say I ever was better. It is only, ma'am,
+that I have such dreams&mdash;you have no idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are dreams and dreams, my dear: there's some signifies no more
+than the babble of the lake down there on the pebbles, and there's
+others that has a meaning; there's dreams that is but vanity, and
+there's dreams that is good, and dreams that is bad. Lady
+Mardykes&mdash;heavens be her bed this day! that's his grandmother I
+mean&mdash;was very sharp for reading dreams. Take another cup of tea. Dear
+me! what a noise the crows keep aboon our heads, going home! and how
+high they wing it!--that's a sure sign of fine weather. An' what do you
+dream about? Tell me your dream, and I may show you it's a good one,
+after all. For many a dream is ugly to see and ugly to tell, and a good
+dream, with a happy meaning, for all that.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a><h4>CHAPTER VI</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Intruder</b></i>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Mrs. Julaper, dreams I've dreamed like other people, old and
+young; but this, ma'am, has taken a fast hold of me,&quot; said Mr. Feltram
+dejectedly, leaning back in his chair and looking down with his hands in
+his pockets. &quot;I think, Mrs. Julaper, it is getting into me. I think it's
+like possession.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Possession, child! what do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think there is something trying to influence me. Perhaps it is the
+way fellows go mad; but it won't let me alone. I've seen it three times,
+think of that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, dear, and what <i>have</i> ye seen?&quot; she asked, with an uneasy
+cheerfulness, smiling, with eyes fixed steadily upon him; for the idea
+of a madman&mdash;even gentle Philip in that state&mdash;was not quieting.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you remember the picture, full-length, that had no frame&mdash;the lady
+in the white-satin saque&mdash;she was beautiful, <i>funeste</i>,&quot; he added,
+talking more to himself; and then more distinctly to Mrs. Julaper
+again&mdash;&mdash;&quot;in the white-satin saque; and with the little mob cap and blue
+ribbons to it, and a bouquet in her fingers; that was&mdash;that&mdash;you know
+who she was?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was your great-grandmother, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Julaper, lowering
+her eyes. &quot;It was a dreadful pity it was spoiled. The boys in the pantry
+had it for a year there on the table for a tray, to wash the glasses on
+and the like. It was a shame; that was the prettiest picture in the
+house, with the gentlest, rosiest face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It ain't so gentle or rosy now, I can tell you,&quot; said Philip. &quot;As fixed
+as marble; with thin lips, and a curve at the nostril. Do you remember
+the woman that was found dead in the clough, when I was a boy, that the
+gipsies murdered, it was thought,&mdash;a cruel-looking woman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Agoy! Master Philip, dear! ye would not name that terrible-looking
+creature with the pretty, fresh, kindly face!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Faces change, you see; no matter what she's like; it's her talk that
+frightens me. She wants to make use of me; and, you see, it is like
+getting a share in my mind, and a voice in my thoughts, and a command
+over me gradually; and it is just one idea, as straight as a line of
+light across the lake&mdash;see what she's come to. O Lord, help me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, don't you be talkin' like that. It is just a little bit
+dowly and troubled, because the master says a wry word now and then; and
+so ye let your spirits go down, don't ye see, and all sorts o' fancies
+comes into your head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's no fancy in my head,&quot; he said with a quick look of suspicion;
+&quot;only you asked me what I dreamed. I don't care if all the world knew. I
+dreamed I went down a flight of steps under the lake, and got a message.
+There are no steps near Snakes Island, we all know that,&quot; and he laughed
+chillily. &quot;I'm out of spirits, as you say; and&mdash;and&mdash;O dear! I
+wish&mdash;Mrs. Julaper&mdash;I wish I was in my coffin, and quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now that's very wrong of you, Master Philip; you should think of all
+the blessings you have, and not be makin' mountains o' molehills; and
+those little bits o' temper Sir Bale shows, why, no one minds 'em&mdash;that
+is, to take 'em to heart like you do, don't ye see?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I daresay; I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you are right. I'm unreasonable
+often, I know,&quot; said gentle Philip Feltram. &quot;I daresay I make too much
+of it; I'll try. I'm his secretary, and I know I'm not so bright as he
+is, and it is natural he should sometimes be a little impatient; I ought
+to be more reasonable, I'm sure. It is all that thing that has been
+disturbing me&mdash;I mean fretting, and, I think, I'm not quite well;
+and&mdash;and letting myself think too much of vexations. It's my own fault,
+I'm sure, Mrs. Julaper; and I know I'm to blame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's quite right, that's spoken like a wise lad; only I don't say
+you're to blame, nor no one; for folk can't help frettin' sometimes, no
+more than they can help a headache&mdash;none but a mafflin would say
+that&mdash;and I'll not deny but he has dowly ways when the fit's on him, and
+he frumps us all round, if such be his humour. But who is there hasn't
+his faults? We must bear and forbear, and take what we get and be
+cheerful. So chirp up, my lad; Philip, didn't I often ring the a'd rhyme
+in your ear long ago?</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&quot;Be always as merry as ever you can,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For no one delights in a sorrowful man. </span><br>
+
+<p>&quot;So don't ye be gettin' up off your chair like that, and tramping about
+the room wi' your hands in your pockets, looking out o' this window, and
+staring out o' that, and sighing and crying, and looking so
+black-ox-trodden, 'twould break a body's heart to see you. Ye must be
+cheery; and happen you're hungry, and don't know it. I'll tell the cook
+to grill a hot bit for ye.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I'm not hungry, Mrs. Julaper. How kind you are! dear me, Mrs.
+Julaper, I'm not worthy of it; I don't deserve half your kindness. I'd
+have been heartbroken long ago, but for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I'll make a sup of something hot for you; you'll take a
+rummer-glass of punch&mdash;you must.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I like the tea better; I do, indeed, Mrs. Julaper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tea is no drink for a man when his heart's down. It should be something
+with a leg in it, lad; something hot that will warm your courage for ye,
+and set your blood a-dancing, and make ye talk brave and merry; and will
+you have a bit of a broil first? No? Well then, you'll have a drop o'
+punch?&mdash;ye sha'n't say no.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so, all resistance overpowered, the consolation of Philip Feltram
+proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>A gentler spirit than poor Feltram, a more good-natured soul than the
+old housekeeper, were nowhere among the children of earth.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram, who was reserved enough elsewhere, used to come into her
+room and cry, and take her by both hands piteously, standing before her
+and looking down in her face, while tears ran deviously down his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you ever know such a case? was there ever a fellow like <i>me</i>? did
+you ever <i>know</i> such a thing? You know what I am, Mrs. Julaper, and who
+I am. They call me Feltram; but Sir Bale knows as well as I that my true
+name is not that. I'm Philip Mardykes; and another fellow would make a
+row about it, and claim his name and his rights, as she is always
+croaking in my ear I ought. But you know that is not reasonable. My
+grandmother was married; she was the true Lady Mardykes; <i>think</i> what it
+was to see a woman like that turned out of doors, and her children
+robbed of their name. O, ma'am, you <i>can't</i> think it; unless you were
+me, you couldn't&mdash;you couldn't&mdash;you couldn't!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, come, Master Philip, don't you be taking on so; and ye mustn't be
+talking like that, d'ye mind? You know he wouldn't stand that; and it's
+an old story now, and there's naught can be proved concerning it; and
+what I think is this&mdash;I wouldn't wonder the poor lady was beguiled. But
+anyhow she surely thought she was his lawful wife; and though the law
+may hev found a flaw somewhere&mdash;and I take it 'twas so&mdash;yet sure I am
+she was an honourable lady. But where's the use of stirring that old
+sorrow? or how can ye prove aught? and the dead hold their peace, you
+know; dead mice, they say, feels no cold; and dead folks are past
+fooling. So don't you talk like that; for stone walls have ears, and ye
+might say that ye couldn't <i>un</i>say; and death's day is doom's day. So
+leave all in the keeping of God; and, above all, never lift hand when ye
+can't strike.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lift my hand! O, Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that; you little know
+me; I did not mean that; I never dreamed of hurting Sir Bale. Good
+heavens! Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that! It all comes of my poor
+impatient temper, and complaining as I do, and my misery; but O, Mrs.
+Julaper, you could not think I ever meant to trouble him by law, or any
+other annoyance! I'd like to see a stain removed from my family, and my
+name restored; but to touch his property, O, no!--O, no! that never
+entered my mind, by heaven! that never entered my mind, Mrs. Julaper.
+I'm not cruel; I'm not rapacious; I don't care for money; don't you know
+that, Mrs. Julaper? O, surely you won't think me capable of attacking
+the man whose bread I have eaten so long! I never dreamed of it; I
+should hate myself. Tell me you don't believe it; O, Mrs. Julaper, say
+you don't!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the gentle feeble creature burst into tears and good Mrs. Julaper
+comforted him with kind words; and he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, ma'am; thank you. God knows I would not hurt Bale, nor give
+him one uneasy hour. It is only this: that I'm&mdash;I'm so miserable; and
+I'm only casting in my mind where to turn to, and what to do. So little
+a thing would be enough, and then I shall leave Mardykes. I'll go; not
+in any anger, Mrs. Julaper&mdash;don't think that; but I can't stay, I must
+be gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, there's nothing yet, Master Philip, to fret you like that.
+You should not be talking so wild-like. Master Bale has his sharp word
+and his short temper now and again; but I'm sure he likes you. If he
+didn't, he'd a-said so to me long ago. I'm sure he likes you well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hollo! I say, who's there? Where the devil's Mr. Feltram?&quot; called the
+voice of the baronet, at a fierce pitch, along the passage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;La! Mr. Feltram, it's him! Ye'd better run to him,&quot; whispered Mrs.
+Julaper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;D&mdash;n me! does nobody hear? Mrs. Julaper! Hollo! ho! house, there! ho!
+D&mdash;n me, will nobody answer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And Sir Bale began to slap the wainscot fast and furiously with his
+walking-cane with a clatter like a harlequin's lath in a pantomime.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper, a little paler than usual, opened her door, and stood
+with the handle in her hand, making a little curtsey, enframed in the
+door-case; and Sir Bale, being in a fume, when he saw her, ceased
+whacking the panels of the corridor, and stamped on the floor, crying,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Upon my soul, ma'am, I'm glad to see you! Perhaps you can tell me where
+Feltram is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is in my room, Sir Bale. Shall I tell him you want him, please?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind; thanks,&quot; said the Baronet. &quot;I've a tongue in my head;&quot;
+marching down the passage to the housekeeper's room, with his cane
+clutched hard, glaring savagely, and with his teeth fast set, like a
+fellow advancing to beat a vicious horse that has chafed his temper.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a><h4>CHAPTER VII</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Bank Note</b></i>
+
+<p>Sir Bale brushed by the housekeeper as he strode into her sanctuary, and
+there found Philip Feltram awaiting him dejectedly, but with no signs of
+agitation.</p>
+
+<p>If one were to judge by the appearance the master of Mardykes presented,
+very grave surmises as to impending violence would have suggested
+themselves; but though he clutched his cane so hard that it quivered in
+his grasp, he had no notion of committing the outrage of a blow. The
+Baronet was unusually angry notwithstanding, and stopping short about
+three steps away, addressed Feltram with a pale face and gleaming eyes.
+It was quite plain that there was something very exciting upon his mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been looking for you, Mr. Feltram; I want a word or two, if you
+have done your&mdash;your&mdash;whatever it is.&quot; He whisked the point of his stick
+towards the modest tea-tray. &quot;I should like five minutes in the
+library.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet was all this time eyeing Feltram with a hard suspicious
+gaze, as if he expected to read in his face the shrinkings and
+trepidations of guilt; and then turning suddenly on his heel he led the
+way to his library&mdash;a good long march, with a good many turnings. He
+walked very fast, and was not long in getting there. And as Sir Bale
+reached the hearth, on which was smouldering a great log of wood, and
+turned about suddenly, facing the door, Philip Feltram entered.</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet looked oddly and stern&mdash;so oddly, it seemed to Feltram, that
+he could not take his eyes off him, and returned his grim and somewhat
+embarrassed gaze with a stare of alarm and speculation.</p>
+
+<p>And so doing, his step was shortened, and grew slow and slower, and came
+quite to a stop before he had got far from the door&mdash;a wide stretch of
+that wide floor still intervening between him and Sir Bale, who stood
+upon the hearthrug, with his heels together and his back to the fire,
+cane in hand, like a drill-sergeant, facing him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shut that door, please; that will do; come nearer now. I don't want to
+bawl what I have to say. Now listen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet cleared his voice and paused, with his eyes upon Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is only two or three days ago,&quot; said he, &quot;that you said you wished
+you had a hundred pounds. Am I right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; I think so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Think</i>? you know it, sir, devilish well. You said that you wished to
+get away. I have nothing particular to say against that, more especially
+now. Do you understand what I say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Understand, Sir Bale? I do, sir&mdash;quite.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I daresay quite&quot; he repeated with an angry sneer. &quot;Here, sir, is an odd
+coincidence: you want a hundred pounds, and you can't earn it, and you
+can't borrow it&mdash;there's another way, it seems&mdash;but I have got it&mdash;a
+Bank-of-England note of &pound;100&mdash;locked up in that desk;&quot; and he poked the
+end of his cane against the brass lock of it viciously. &quot;There it is,
+and there are the papers you work at; and there are two keys&mdash;I've got
+one and you have the other&mdash;and devil another key in or out of the house
+has any one living. Well, do you begin to see? Don't mind. I don't want
+any d----d lying about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram was indeed beginning to see that he was suspected of something
+very bad, but exactly what, he was not yet sure; and being a man of that
+unhappy temperament which shrinks from suspicion, as others do from
+detection, he looked very much put out indeed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha! I think we do begin to see,&quot; said Sir Bale savagely. &quot;It's a
+bore, I know, troubling a fellow with a story that he knows before; but
+I'll make mine short. When I take my key, intending to send the note to
+pay the crown and quit-rents that you know&mdash;you&mdash;you&mdash;no matter&mdash;you
+know well enough must be paid, I open it so&mdash;and so&mdash;and look <i>there</i>,
+where I left it, for my note; and the note's gone&mdash;you understand, the
+note's <i>gone</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here was a pause, during which, under the Baronet's hard insulting eye,
+poor Feltram winced, and cleared his voice, and essayed to speak, but
+said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's gone, and we know where. Now, Mr. Feltram, <i>I</i> did not steal that
+note, and no one but you and I have access to this desk. You wish to go
+away, and I have no objection to that&mdash;but d&mdash;n me if you take away that
+note with you; and you may as well produce it now and here, as hereafter
+in a worse place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, my good heaven!&quot; exclaimed poor Feltram at last. &quot;I'm very ill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you are, of course. It takes a stiff emetic to get all that money
+off a fellow's stomach; and it's like parting with a tooth to give up a
+bank-note. Of course you're ill, but that's no sign of innocence, and
+I'm no fool. You had better give the thing up quietly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May my Maker strike me&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So He will, you d----d rascal, if there's justice in heaven, unless you
+produce the money. I don't want to hang you. I'm willing to let you off
+if you'll let me, but I'm cursed if I let my note off along with you;
+and unless you give it up forthwith, I'll get a warrant and have you
+searched, pockets, bag, and baggage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lord! am I awake?&quot; exclaimed Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wide awake, and so am I,&quot; replied Sir Bale. &quot;You don't happen to have
+got it about you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God forbid, sir! O, Sir&mdash;O, Sir Bale&mdash;why, Bale, <i>Bale</i>, it's
+impossible! You <i>can't</i> believe it. When did I ever wrong you? You know
+me since I was not higher than the table, and&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop your snivelling, sir, and give up the note. You know devilish well
+I can't spare it; and I won't spare you if you put me to it. I've said
+my say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale signed towards the door; and like a somnambulist, with dilated
+gaze and pale as death, Philip Feltram, at his wit's end, went out of
+the room. It was not till he had again reached the housekeeper's door
+that he recollected in what direction he was going. His shut hand was
+pressed with all his force to his heart, and the first breath he was
+conscious of was a deep wild sob or two that quivered from his heart as
+he looked from the lobby-window upon a landscape which he did not see.</p>
+
+<p>All he had ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire
+paroxysm. Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real
+capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain
+intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and
+consequence, in his torture.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale, in the meantime, had walked out a little more excited than he
+would have allowed. He was still convinced that Feltram had stolen the
+note, but not quite so certain as he had been. There were things in his
+manner that confirmed, and others that perplexed, Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet stood upon the margin of the lake, almost under the evening
+shadow of the house, looking towards Snakes Island. There were two
+things about Mardykes he specially disliked.</p>
+
+<p>One was Philip Feltram, who, right or wrong, he fancied knew more than
+was pleasant of his past life.</p>
+
+<p>The other was the lake. It was a beautiful piece of water, his eye,
+educated at least in the excellences of landscape-painting,
+acknowledged. But although he could pull a good oar, and liked other
+lakes, to this particular sheet of water there lurked within him an
+insurmountable antipathy. It was engendered by a variety of
+associations.</p>
+
+<p>There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout
+and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.
+His boding was made-up of omens, dreams, and such stuff as he most
+affected to despise, and there fluttered at his heart a presentiment and
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>His foot was on the gunwale of the boat, that was chained to its ring at
+the margin; but he would not have crossed that water in it for any
+reason that man could urge.</p>
+
+<p>What was the mischief that sooner or later was to befall him from that
+lake, he could not define; but that some fatal danger lurked there, was
+the one idea concerning it that had possession of his fancy.</p>
+
+<p>He was now looking along its still waters, towards the copse and rocks
+of Snakes Island, thinking of Philip Feltram; and the yellow level
+sunbeams touched his dark features, that bore a saturnine resemblance to
+those of Charles II, and marked sharply their firm grim lines, and left
+his deep-set eyes in shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Who has the happy gift to seize the present, as a child does, and live
+in it? Who is not often looking far off for his happiness, as Sidney
+Smith says, like a man looking for his hat when it is upon his head? Sir
+Bale was brooding over his double hatred, of Feltram and of the lake. It
+would have been better had he struck down the raven that croaked upon
+his shoulder, and listened to the harmless birds that were whistling
+all round among the branches in the golden sunset.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER VIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>Feltram's Plan</b></i>
+
+<p>This horror of the beautiful lake, which other people thought so lovely,
+was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a distinct
+creation of downright superstition.</p>
+
+<p>The nursery tales which had scared him in his childhood were founded on
+the tragedy of Snakes Island, and haunted him with an unavowed
+persistence still. Strange dreams untold had visited him, and a German
+conjuror, who had made some strangely successful vaticinations, had told
+him that his worst enemy would come up to him from a lake. He had heard
+very nearly the same thing from a fortune-teller in France; and once at
+Lucerne, when he was waiting alone in his room for the hour at which he
+had appointed to go upon the lake, all being quiet, there came to the
+window, which was open, a sunburnt, lean, wicked face. Its ragged owner
+leaned his arm on the window-frame, and with his head in the room, said
+in his patois, &quot;Ho! waiting are you? You'll have enough of the lake one
+day. Don't you mind watching; they'll send when you're wanted;&quot; and
+twisting his yellow face into a malicious distortion, he went on.</p>
+
+<p>This thing had occurred so suddenly, and chimed-in so oddly with his
+thoughts, which were at that moment at distant Mardykes and the haunted
+lake, that it disconcerted him. He laughed, he looked out of the window.
+He would have given that fellow money to tell him why he said that. But
+there was no good in looking for the scamp; he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>A memory not preoccupied with that lake and its omens, and a
+presentiment about himself, would not have noted such things. But <i>his</i>
+mind they touched indelibly; and he was ashamed of his childish slavery,
+but could not help it.</p>
+
+<p>The foundation of all this had been laid in the nursery, in the winter's
+tales told by its fireside, and which seized upon his fancy and his
+fears with a strange congeniality.</p>
+
+<p>There is a large bedroom at Mardykes Hall, which tradition assigns to
+the lady who had perished tragically in the lake. Mrs. Julaper was sure
+of it; for her aunt, who died a very old woman twenty years before,
+remembered the time of the lady's death, and when she grew to woman's
+estate had opportunity in abundance; for the old people who surrounded
+her could remember forty years farther back, and tell everything
+connected with the old house in beautiful Miss Feltram's time.</p>
+
+<p>This large old-fashioned room, commanding a view of Snakes Island, the
+fells, and the lake&mdash;somewhat vast and gloomy, and furnished in a
+stately old fashion&mdash;was said to be haunted, especially when the wind
+blew from the direction of Golden Friars, the point from which it blew
+on the night of her death in the lake; or when the sky was overcast, and
+thunder rolled among the lofty fells, and lightning gleamed on the wide
+sheet of water.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a night like this that a lady visitor, who long after that
+event occupied, in entire ignorance of its supernatural character, that
+large room; and being herself a lady of a picturesque turn, and loving
+the grander melodrama of Nature, bid her maid leave the shutters open,
+and watched the splendid effects from her bed, until, the storm being
+still distant, she fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was travelling slowly across the lake, and it was the deep-mouthed
+clangour of its near approach that startled her, at dead of night, from
+her slumber, to witness the same phenomena in the tremendous loudness
+and brilliancy of their near approach.</p>
+
+<p>At this magnificent spectacle she was looking with the awful ecstasy of
+an observer in whom the sense of danger is subordinated to that of the
+sublime, when she saw suddenly at the window a woman, whose long hair
+and dress seemed drenched with water. She was gazing in with a look of
+terror, and was shaking the sash of the window with vehemence. Having
+stood there for a few seconds, and before the lady, who beheld all this
+from her bed, could make up her mind what to do, the storm-beaten
+figure, wringing her hands, seemed to throw herself backward, and was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>Possessed with the idea that she had seen some poor woman overtaken in
+the storm, who, failing to procure admission there, had gone round to
+some of the many doors of the mansion, and obtained an entry there, she
+again fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the morning, when she went to her window to look out
+upon the now tranquil scene, that she discovered what, being a stranger
+to the house, she had quite forgotten, that this room was at a great
+height&mdash;some thirty feet&mdash;from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Another story was that of good old Mr. Randal Rymer, who was often a
+visitor at the house in the late Lady Mardykes' day. In his youth he had
+been a campaigner; and now that he was a preacher he maintained his
+hardy habits, and always slept, summer and winter, with a bit of his
+window up. Being in that room in his bed, and after a short sleep lying
+awake, the moon shining softly through the window, there passed by that
+aperture into the room a figure dressed, it seemed to him, in gray that
+was nearly white. It passed straight to the hearth, where was an
+expiring wood fire; and cowering over it with outstretched hands, it
+appeared to be gathering what little heat was to be had. Mr. Rymer,
+amazed and awestruck, made a movement in his bed; and the figure looked
+round, with large eyes that in the moonlight looked like melting snow,
+and stretching its long arms up the chimney, they and the figure itself
+seemed to blend with the smoke, and so pass up and away.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale, I have said, did not like Feltram. His father, Sir William,
+had left a letter creating a trust, it was said, in favour of Philip
+Feltram. The document had been found with the will, addressed to Sir
+Bale in the form of a letter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is mine,&quot; said the Baronet, when it dropped out of the will; and
+he slipped it into his pocket, and no one ever saw it after.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Charles Twyne, the attorney of Golden Friars, whenever he got
+drunk, which was pretty often, used to tell his friends with a grave
+wink that he knew a thing or two about that letter. It gave Philip
+Feltram two hundred a-year, charged on Harfax. It was only a direction.
+It made Sir Bale a trustee, however; and having made away with the
+&quot;letter,&quot; the Baronet had been robbing Philip Feltram ever since.</p>
+
+<p>Old Twyne was cautious, even in his cups, in his choice of an audience,
+and was a little enigmatical in his revelations. For he was afraid of
+Sir Bale, though he hated him for employing a lawyer who lived seven
+miles away, and was a rival. So people were not quite sure whether Mr.
+Twyne was telling lies or truth, and the principal fact that
+corroborated his story was Sir Bale's manifest hatred of his secretary.
+In fact, Sir Bale's retaining him in his house, detesting him as he
+seemed to do, was not easily to be accounted for, except on the
+principle of a tacit compromise&mdash;a miserable compensation for having
+robbed him of his rights.</p>
+
+<p>The battle about the bank-note proceeded. Sir Bale certainly had doubts,
+and vacillated; for moral evidence made powerfully in favour of poor
+Feltram, though the evidence of circumstance made as powerfully against
+him. But Sir Bale admitted suspicion easily, and in weighing
+probabilities would count a virtue very lightly against temptation and
+opportunity; and whatever his doubts might sometimes be, he resisted and
+quenched them, and never let that ungrateful scoundrel Philip Feltram so
+much as suspect their existence.</p>
+
+<p>For two days Sir Bale had not spoken to Feltram. He passed by on stair
+and passage, carrying his head high, and with a thundrous countenance,
+rolling conclusions and revenges in his soul.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Feltram all this time existed in one long agony. He would have left
+Mardykes, were it not that he looked vaguely to some just power&mdash;to
+chance itself&mdash;against this hideous imputation. To go with this
+indictment ringing in his ears, would amount to a confession and flight.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper consoled him with might and main. She was a sympathetic and
+trusting spirit, and knew poor Philip Feltram, in her simplicity, better
+than the shrewdest profligate on earth could have known him. She cried
+with him in his misery. She was fired with indignation by these
+suspicions, and still more at what followed.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale showed no signs of relenting. It might have been that he was
+rather glad of so unexceptionable an opportunity of getting rid of
+Feltram, who, people thought, knew something which it galled the
+Baronet's pride that he should know.</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet had another shorter and sterner interview with Feltram in
+his study. The result was, that unless he restored the missing note
+before ten o'clock next morning, he should leave Mardykes.</p>
+
+<p>To leave Mardykes was no more than Philip Feltram, feeble as he was of
+will, had already resolved. But what was to become of him? He did not
+very much care, if he could find any calling, however humble, that would
+just give him bread.</p>
+
+<p>There was an old fellow and his wife (an ancient dame,) who lived at the
+other side of the lake, on the old territories of the Feltrams, and who,
+from some tradition of loyalty, perhaps, were fond of poor Philip
+Feltram. They lived somewhat high up on the fells&mdash;about as high as
+trees would grow&mdash;and those which were clumped about their rude dwelling
+were nearly the last you passed in your ascent of the mountain. These
+people had a multitude of sheep and goats, and lived in their airy
+solitude a pastoral and simple life, and were childless. Philip Feltram
+was hardy and active, having passed his early days among that arduous
+scenery. Cold and rain did not trouble him; and these people being
+wealthy in their way, and loving him, would be glad to find him
+employment of that desultory pastoral kind which would best suit him.</p>
+
+<p>This vague idea was the only thing resembling a plan in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>When Philip Feltram came to Mrs. Julaper's room, and told her that he
+had made up his mind to leave the house forthwith&mdash;to cross the lake to
+the Cloostedd side in Tom Marlin's boat, and then to make his way up the
+hill alone to Trebeck's lonely farmstead, Mrs. Julaper was overwhelmed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ye'll do no such thing to-night, anyhow. You're not to go like that.
+Ye'll come into the small room here, where he can't follow; and we'll
+sit down and talk it over a bit, and ye'll find 'twill all come
+straight; and this will be no night, anyhow, for such a march. Why,
+man,'twould take an hour and more to cross the lake, and then a long
+uphill walk before ye could reach Trebeck's place; and if the night
+should fall while you were still on the mountain, ye might lose your
+life among the rocks. It can't be 'tis come to that yet; and the call
+was in the air, I'm told, all yesterday, and distant thunder to-day,
+travelling this way over Blarwyn Fells; and 'twill be a night no one
+will be out, much less on the mountain side.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a><h4>CHAPTER IX</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Crazy Parson</b></i>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper had grown weather-wise, living for so long among this noble
+and solitary scenery, where people must observe Nature or else
+nothing&mdash;where signs of coming storm or change are almost local, and
+record themselves on particular cliffs and mountain-peaks, or in the
+mists, or in mirrored tints of the familiar lake, and are easily learned
+or remembered. At all events, her presage proved too true.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had set an hour and more. It was dark; and an awful
+thunder-storm, whose march, like the distant reverberations of an
+invading army, had been faintly heard beyond the barriers of Blarwyn
+Fells throughout the afternoon, was near them now, and had burst in
+deep-mouthed battle among the ravines at the other side, and over the
+broad lake, that glared like a sheet of burnished steel under its
+flashes of dazzling blue. Wild and fitful blasts sweeping down the
+hollows and cloughs of the fells of Golden Friars agitated the lake, and
+bent the trees low, and whirled away their sere leaves in melancholy
+drift in their tremendous gusts. And from the window, looking on a scene
+enveloped in more than the darkness of the night, you saw in the
+pulsations of the lightning, before &quot;the speedy gleams the darkness
+swallowed,&quot; the tossing trees and the flying foam and eddies on the
+lake.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the hurlyburly, a loud and long knocking came at the
+hall-door of Mardykes. How long it had lasted before a chance lull made
+it audible I do not know.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing picturesquely poor, any more than there were evidences
+of wealth, anywhere in Sir Bale Mardykes' household. He had no lack of
+servants, but they were of an inexpensive and homely sort; and the
+hall-door being opened by the son of an old tenant on the estate&mdash;the
+tempest beating on the other side of the house, and comparative shelter
+under the gables at the front&mdash;he saw standing before him, in the
+agitated air, a thin old man, who muttering, it might be, a benediction,
+stepped into the hall, and displayed long silver tresses, just as the
+storm had blown them, ascetic and eager features, and a pair of large
+light eyes that wandered wildly. He was dressed in threadbare black; a
+pair of long leather gaiters, buckled high above his knee, protecting
+his thin shanks through moss and pool; and the singularity of his
+appearance was heightened by a wide-leafed felt hat, over which he had
+tied his handkerchief, so as to bring the leaf of it over his ears, and
+to secure it from being whirled from his head by the storm.</p>
+
+<p>This odd and storm-beaten figure&mdash;tall, and a little stooping, as well
+as thin&mdash;was not unknown to the servant, who saluted him with something
+of fear as well as of respect as he bid him reverently welcome, and
+asked him to come in and sit by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get you to your master, and tell him I have a message to him from one
+he has not seen for two-and-forty years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the old man, with his harsh old voice, thus spoke, he unknotted his
+handkerchief and bet the rain-drops from his hat upon his knee.</p>
+
+<p>The servant knocked at the library-door, where he found Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what's the matter?&quot; cried Sir Bale sharply, from his chair before
+the fire, with angry eyes looking over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here's 't sir cumman, Sir Bale,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; or &quot;the Sir,&quot; is still used as the clergyman's title in the
+Northumbrian counties.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Hugh Creswell, if you please, Sir Bale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho!--mad Creswell?&mdash;O, the crazy parson. Well, tell Mrs. Julaper to
+let him have some supper&mdash;and&mdash;and to let him have a bed in some
+suitable place. That's what he wants. These mad fellows know what they
+are about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Sir Bale Mardykes, that is not what he wants,&quot; said the loud wild
+voice of the daft sir over the servant's shoulder. &quot;Often has Mardykes
+Hall given me share of its cheer and its shelter and the warmth of its
+fire; and I bless the house that has been an inn to the wayfarer of the
+Lord. But to-night I go up the lake to Pindar's Bield, three miles on;
+and there I rest and refresh&mdash;not here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And why not <i>here</i>, Mr. Creswell?&quot; asked the Baronet; for about this
+crazy old man, who preached in the fields, and appeared and disappeared
+so suddenly in the orbit of his wide and unknown perambulations of those
+northern and border counties, there was that sort of superstitious
+feeling which attaches to the mysterious and the good&mdash;an idea that it
+was lucky to harbour and dangerous to offend him. No one knew whence he
+came or whither he went. Once in a year, perhaps, he might appear at a
+lonely farmstead door among the fells, salute the house, enter, and be
+gone in the morning. His life was austere; his piety enthusiastic,
+severe, and tinged with the craze which inspired among the rustic
+population a sort of awe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll not sleep at Mardykes to-night; neither will I eat, nor drink, nor
+sit me down&mdash;no, nor so much as stretch my hands to the fire. As the man
+of God came out of Judah to king Jeroboam, so come I to you, sent by a
+vision, to bear a warning; and as he said, 'If thou wilt give me half
+thy house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor
+drink water in this place,' so also say I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do as you please,&quot; said Sir Bale, a little sulkily. &quot;Say your say; and
+you are welcome to stay or go, if go you will on so mad a night as
+this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave us,&quot; said Creswell, beckoning the servant back with his thin
+hands; &quot;what I have to say is to your master.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The servant went, in obedience to a gesture from Sir Bale, and shut the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>The old man drew nearer to the Baronet, and lowering his loud stern
+voice a little, and interrupting his discourse from time to time, to
+allow the near thunder-peals to subside, he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Answer me, Sir Bale&mdash;what is this that has chanced between you and
+Philip Feltram?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet, under the influence of that blunt and peremptory demand,
+told him shortly and sternly enough.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And of all these facts you are sure, else ye would not blast your early
+companion and kinsman with the name of thief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I <i>am</i> sure,&quot; said Sir Bale grimly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unlock that cabinet,&quot; said the old man with the long white locks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've no objection,&quot; said Sir Bale; and he did unlock an old oak cabinet
+that stood, carved in high relief with strange figures and gothic
+grotesques, against the wall, opposite the fireplace. On opening it
+there were displayed a system of little drawers and pigeon-holes such as
+we see in more modern escritoires.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Open that drawer with the red mark of a seal upon it,&quot; continued Hugh
+Creswell, pointing to it with his lank finger.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale did so; and to his momentary amazement, and even consternation,
+there lay the missing note, which now, with one of those sudden caprices
+of memory which depend on the laws of suggestion and association, he
+remembered having placed there with his own hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is it,&quot; said old Creswell with a pallid smile, and fixing his wild
+eyes on the Baronet. The smile subsided into a frown, and said he: &quot;Last
+night I slept near Haworth Moss; and your father came to me in a dream,
+and said: 'My son Bale accuses Philip of having stolen a bank-note from
+his desk. He forgets that he himself placed it in his cabinet. Come with
+me.' I was, in the spirit, in this room; and he led me to this cabinet,
+which he opened; and in that drawer he showed me that note. 'Go,' said
+he, 'and tell him to ask Philip Feltram's pardon, else he will but go in
+weakness to return in power;' and he said that which it is not lawful to
+repeat. My message is told. Now a word from myself,&quot; he added sternly.
+&quot;The dead, through my lips, has spoken, and under God's thunder and
+lightning his words have found ye. Why so uppish wi' Philip Feltram? See
+how ye threaped, and yet were wrong. He's no tazzle&mdash;he's no taggelt.
+Ask his pardon. Ye must change, or he will no taggelt. Go, in weakness,
+come in power: mark ye the words. 'Twill make a peal that will be heard
+in toon and desert, in the swirls o' the mountain, through pikes and
+valleys, and mak' a waaly man o' thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man with these words, uttered in the broad northern dialect of
+his common speech, strode from the room and shut the door. In another
+minute he was forth into the storm, pursuing what remained of his long
+march to Pindar's Bield.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Upon my soul!&quot; said Sir Bale, recovering from his sort of stun which
+the sudden and strange visit had left, &quot;that's a cool old fellow! Come
+to rate me and teach me my own business in my own house!&quot; and he rapped
+out a fierce oath. &quot;Change his mind or no, here he sha'n't stay
+to-night&mdash;not an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was in the lobby in a moment, and thundered to his servants:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, put that fool out of the door&mdash;put him out by the shoulder, and
+never let him put his foot inside it more!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the old man's yea was yea, and his nay nay. He had quite meant what
+he said; and, as I related, was beyond the reach of the indignity of
+extrusion.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale on his return shut his door as violently as if it were in the
+face of the old prophet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask Feltram's pardon, by Jove! For what? Why, any jury on earth would
+have hanged him on half the evidence; and I, like a fool, was going to
+let him off with his liberty and my hundred pound-note! Ask his pardon
+indeed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Still there were misgivings in his mind; a consciousness that he did owe
+explanation and apology to Feltram, and an insurmountable reluctance to
+undertake either. The old dislike&mdash;a contempt mingled with fear&mdash;not any
+fear of his malevolence, a fear only of his carelessness and folly; for,
+as I have said, Feltram knew many things, it was believed, of the
+Baronet's Continental and Asiatic life, and had even gently remonstrated
+with him upon the dangers into which he was running. A simple fellow
+like Philip Feltram is a dangerous depository of a secret. This Baronet
+was proud, too; and the mere possession of his secrets by Feltram was an
+involuntary insult, which Sir Bale could not forgive. He wished him far
+away; and except for the recovery of his bank-note, which he could ill
+spare, he was sorry that this suspicion was cleared up.</p>
+
+<p>The thunder and storm were unabated; it seemed indeed that they were
+growing wilder and more awful.</p>
+
+<p>He opened the window-shutter and looked out upon that sublimest of
+scenes; and so intense and magnificent were its phenomena, that Sir
+Bale, for a while, was absorbed in this contemplation.</p>
+
+<p>When he turned about, the sight of his &pound;100 note, still between his
+finger and thumb, made him smile grimly.</p>
+
+<p>The more he thought of it, the clearer it was that he could not leave
+matters exactly as they were. Well, what should he do? He would send for
+Mrs. Julaper, and tell her vaguely that he had changed his mind about
+Feltram, and that he might continue to stay at Mardykes Hall as usual.
+That would suffice. She could speak to Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>He sent for her; and soon, in the lulls of the great uproar without, he
+could hear the jingle of Mrs. Julaper's keys and her light tread upon
+the lobby.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Julaper,&quot; said the Baronet, in his dry careless way, &quot;Feltram may
+remain; your eloquence has prevailed. What have you been crying about?&quot;
+he asked, observing that his housekeeper's usually cheerful face was, in
+her own phrase, 'all cried.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is too late, sir; he's gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when did he go?&quot; asked Sir Bale, a little put out. &quot;He chose an odd
+evening, didn't he? So like him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He went about half an hour ago; and I'm very sorry, sir; it's a sore
+sight to see the poor lad going from the place he was reared in, and a
+hard thing, sir; and on such a night, above all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one asked him to go to-night. Where is he gone to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, I'm sure; he left my room, sir, when I was upstairs; and
+Janet saw him pass the window not ten minutes after Mr. Creswell left
+the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, there's no good, Mrs. Julaper, in thinking more about it;
+he has settled the matter his own way; and as he so ordains it&mdash;amen,
+say I. Goodnight.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_X"></a><h4>CHAPTER X</h4>
+
+<i><b>Adventure in Tom Marlin's Boat</b></i>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram was liked very well&mdash;a gentle, kindly, and very timid
+creature, and, before he became so heart-broken, a fellow who liked a
+joke or a pleasant story, and could laugh heartily. Where will Sir Bale
+find so unresisting and respectful a butt and retainer? and whom will he
+bully now?</p>
+
+<p>Something like remorse was worrying Sir Bale's heart a little; and the
+more he thought on the strange visit of Hugh Creswell that night, with
+its unexplained menace, the more uneasy he became.</p>
+
+<p>The storm continued; and even to him there seemed something exaggerated
+and inhuman in the severity of his expulsion on such a night. It was his
+own doing, it was true; but would people believe that? and would he have
+thought of leaving Mardykes at all if it had not been for his kinsman's
+severity? Nay, was it not certain that if Sir Bale had done as Hugh
+Creswell had urged him, and sent for Feltram forthwith, and told him how
+all had been cleared up, and been a little friendly with him, he would
+have found him still in the house?&mdash;for he had not yet gone for ten
+minutes after Creswell's departure, and thus, all that was to follow
+might have been averted. But it was too late now, and Sir Bale would let
+the affair take its own course.</p>
+
+<p>Below him, outside the window at which he stood ruminating, he heard
+voices mingling with the storm. He could with tolerable certainty
+perceive, looking into the obscurity, that there were three men passing
+close under it, carrying some very heavy burden among them.</p>
+
+<p>He did not know what these three black figures in the obscurity were
+about. He saw them pass round the corner of the building toward the
+front, and in the lulls of the storm could hear their gruff voices
+talking.</p>
+
+<p>We have all experienced what a presentiment is, and we all know with
+what an intuition the faculty of observation is sometimes heightened. It
+was such an apprehension as sometimes gives its peculiar horror to a
+dream&mdash;a sort of knowledge that what those people were about was in a
+dreadful way connected with his own fate.</p>
+
+<p>He watched for a time, thinking that they might return; but they did
+not. He was in a state of uncomfortable suspense.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If they want me, they won't have much trouble in finding me, nor any
+scruple, egad, in plaguing me; they never have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale returned to his letters, a score of which he was that night
+getting off his conscience&mdash;an arrear which would not have troubled him
+had he not ceased, for two or three days, altogether to employ Philip
+Feltram, who had been accustomed to take all that sort of drudgery off
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>All the time he was writing now he had a feeling that the shadows he had
+seen pass under his window were machinating some trouble for him, and an
+uneasy suspense made him lift his eyes now and then to the door,
+fancying sounds and footsteps; and after a resultless wait he would say
+to himself, &quot;If any one is coming, why the devil don't he come?&quot; and
+then he would apply himself again to his letters.</p>
+
+<p>But on a sudden he heard good Mrs. Julaper's step trotting along the
+lobby, and the tiny ringing of her keys.</p>
+
+<p>Here was news coming; and the Baronet stood up looking at the door, on
+which presently came a hurried rapping; and before he had answered, in
+the midst of a long thunder-clap that suddenly broke, rattling over the
+house, the good woman opened the door in great agitation, and cried with
+a tremulous uplifting of her hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, Sir Bale! O, la, sir! here's poor dear Philip Feltram come home
+dead!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale stared at her sternly for some seconds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gome, now, do be distinct,&quot; said Sir Bale; &quot;what has happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He's lying on the sofer in the old still-room. You never saw&mdash;my
+God!--O, sir&mdash;what is life?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;D&mdash;n it, can't you cry by-and-by, and tell me what's the matter now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A bit o' fire there, as luck would have it; but what is hot or cold
+now? La, sir, they're all doin' what they can; he's drowned, sir, and
+Tom Warren is on the gallop down to Golden Friars for Doctor Torvey.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Is</i> he drowned, or is it only a ducking? Come, bring me to the place.
+Dead men don't usually want a fire, or consult doctors. I'll see for
+myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So Sir Bale Mardykes, pale and grim, accompanied by the light-footed
+Mrs. Julaper, strode along the passages, and was led by her into the old
+still-room, which had ceased to be used for its original purpose. All
+the servants in the house were now collected there, and three men also
+who lived by the margin of the lake; one of them thoroughly drenched,
+with rivulets of water still trickling from his sleeves, water along the
+wrinkles and pockets of his waistcoat and from the feet of his trousers,
+and pumping and oozing from his shoes, and streaming from his hair down
+the channels of his cheeks like a continuous rain of tears.</p>
+
+<p>The people drew back a little as Sir Bale entered with a quick step and
+a sharp pallid frown on his face. There was a silence as he stooped over
+Philip Feltram, who lay on a low bed next the wall, dimly lighted by two
+or three candles here and there about the room.</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand, for a moment, on his cold wet breast.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale knew what should be done in order to give a man in such a case
+his last chance for life. Everybody was speedily put in motion. Philip's
+drenched clothes were removed, hot blankets enveloped him, warming-pans
+and hot bricks lent their aid; he was placed at the prescribed angle, so
+that the water flowed freely from his mouth. The old expedient for
+inducing artificial breathing was employed, and a lusty pair of bellows
+did duty for his lungs.</p>
+
+<p>But these helps to life, and suggestions to nature, availed not. Forlorn
+and peaceful lay the features of poor Philip Feltram; cold and dull to
+the touch; no breath through the blue lips; no sight in the fish-like
+eyes; pulseless and cold in the midst of all the hot bricks and
+warming-pans about him.</p>
+
+<p>At length, everything having been tried, Sir Bale, who had been
+directing, placed his hand within the clothes, and laid it silently on
+Philip's shoulder and over his heart; and after a little wait, he shook
+his head, and looking down on his sunken face, he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am afraid he's gone. Yes, he's gone, poor fellow! And bear you this
+in mind, all of you; Mrs. Julaper there can tell you more about it. She
+knows that it was certainly in no compliance with my wish that he left
+the house to-night: it was his own obstinate perversity, and perhaps&mdash;I
+forgive him for it&mdash;a wish in his unreasonable resentment to throw some
+blame upon this house, as having refused him shelter on such a night;
+than which imputation nothing can be more utterly false. Mrs. Julaper
+there knows how welcome he was to stay the night; but he would not; he
+had made up his mind, it seems, without telling any person. Had he told
+you, Mrs. Julaper?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; sobbed Mrs. Julaper from the centre of a pocket-handkerchief
+in which her face was buried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a human being: an angry whim of his own. Poor Feltram! and here's
+the result,&quot; said the Baronet. &quot;We have done our best&mdash;done everything.
+I don't think the doctor, when he comes, will say that anything has been
+omitted; but all won't do. Does any one here know how it happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Two men knew very well&mdash;the man who had been ducked, and his companion,
+a younger man, who was also in the still-room, and had lent a hand in
+carrying Feltram up to the house.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Marlin had a queer old stone tenement by the edge of the lake just
+under Mardykes Hall. Some people said it was the stump of an old tower
+that had once belonged to Mardykes Castle, of which in the modern
+building scarcely a relic was discoverable.</p>
+
+<p>This Tom Marlin had an ancient right of fishing in the lake, where he
+caught pike enough for all Golden Friars; and keeping a couple of boats,
+he made money beside by ferrying passengers over now and then. This
+fellow, with a furrowed face and shaggy eyebrows, bald at top, but with
+long grizzled locks falling upon his shoulders, said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He wer wi' me this mornin', sayin' he'd want t' boat to cross the lake
+in, but he didn't say what hour; and when it came on to thunder and blow
+like this, ye guess I did not look to see him to-night. Well, my wife
+was just lightin' a pig-tail&mdash;tho' light enough and to spare there was
+in the lift already&mdash;when who should come clatterin' at the latch-pin in
+the blow o' thunder and wind but Philip, poor lad, himself; and an ill
+hour for him it was. He's been some time in ill fettle, though he was
+never frowsy, not he, but always kind and dooce, and canty once, like
+anither; and he asked me to tak the boat across the lake at once to the
+Clough o' Cloostedd at t'other side. The woman took the pet and wodn't
+hear o't; and, 'Dall me, if I go to-night,' quoth I. But he would not be
+put off so, not he; and dingdrive he went to it, cryin' and putrein'
+ye'd a-said, poor fellow, he was wrang i' his garrets a'most. So at long
+last I bethought me, there's nout o' a sea to the north o' Snakes
+Island, so I'll pull him by that side&mdash;for the storm is blowin' right up
+by Golden Friars, ye mind&mdash;and when we get near the point, thinks I,
+he'll see wi' his een how the lake is, and gie it up. For I liked him,
+poor lad; and seein' he'd set his heart on't, I wouldn't vex nor frump
+him wi' a no. So down we three&mdash;myself, and Bill there, and Philip
+Feltram&mdash;come to the boat; and we pulled out, keeping Snakes Island
+atwixt us and the wind. 'Twas smooth water wi' us, for 'twas a scug
+there, but white enough was all beyont the point; and passing the
+finger-stone, not forty fathom from the shore o' the island, Bill and me
+pullin' and he sittin' in the stern, poor lad, up he rises, a bit
+rabblin' to himself, wi' his hands lifted so.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Look a-head!' says I, thinkin' something wos comin' atort us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But 'twasn't that. The boat was quiet, for while we looked, oo'er our
+shouthers, oo'er her bows, we didn't pull, so she lay still; and lookin'
+back again on Philip, he was rabblin' on all the same.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It's nobbut a prass wi' himsel&quot;, poor lad,' thinks I.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that wasn't it neither; for I sid something white come out o' t'
+water, by the gunwale, like a hand. By Jen! and he leans oo'er and tuk
+it; and he sagged like, and so it drew him in, under the mere, before I
+cud du nout. There was nout to thraa tu him, and no time; down he went,
+and I followed; and thrice I dived before I found him, and brought him
+up by the hair at last; and there he is, poor lad! and all one if he lay
+at the bottom o' t' mere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As Tom Marlin ended his narrative&mdash;often interrupted by the noise of the
+tempest without, and the peals of thunder that echoed awfully above,
+like the chorus of a melancholy ballad&mdash;the sudden clang of the
+hall-door bell, and a more faintly-heard knocking, announced a new
+arrival.</p>
+
+<a name="IMAGE_1"></a>
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/image1.jpg" width="346" height="240"
+alt="&quot;I sid something white come out o' t' water,
+by the gunwale, like a hand.&quot;"></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a><h4>CHAPTER XI</h4>
+
+<i><b>Sir Bale's Dream</b></i>
+
+<p>It was Doctor Torvey who entered the old still-room now, buttoned-up to
+the chin in his greatcoat, and with a muffler of many colours wrapped
+partly over that feature.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well!--hey? So poor Feltram's had an accident?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor was addressing Sir Bale, and getting to the bedside as he
+pulled off his gloves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see you've been keeping him warm&mdash;that's right; and a considerable
+flow of water from his mouth; turn him a little that way. Hey? O, ho!&quot;
+said the Doctor, as he placed his hand upon Philip, and gently stirred
+his limbs. &quot;It's more than an hour since this happened. I'm afraid
+there's very little to be done now;&quot; and in a lower tone, with his hand
+on poor Philip Feltram's arm, and so down to his fingers, he said in Sir
+Bale Mardykes' ear, with a shake of his head,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here, you see, poor fellow, here's the cadaveric stiffness; it's very
+melancholy, but it's all over, he's gone; there's no good trying any
+more. Come here, Mrs. Julaper. Did you ever see any one dead? Look at
+his eyes, look at his mouth. You ought to have known that, with half an
+eye. And you know,&quot; he added again confidentially in Sir Bale's ear,
+&quot;trying any more <i>now</i> is all my eye.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then after a few more words with the Baronet, and having heard his
+narrative, he said from time to time, &quot;Quite right; nothing could be
+better; capital practice, sir,&quot; and so forth. And at the close of all
+this, amid the sobs of kind Mrs. Julaper and the general whimpering of
+the humbler handmaids, the Doctor standing by the bed, with his knuckles
+on the coverlet, and a glance now and then on the dead face beside him,
+said&mdash;by way of 'quieting men's minds,' as the old tract-writers used to
+say&mdash;a few words to the following effect:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything has been done here that the most experienced physician could
+have wished. Everything has been done in the best way. I don't know
+anything that has not been done, in fact. If I had been here myself, I
+don't know&mdash;hot bricks&mdash;salt isn't a bad thing. I don't know, I say,
+that anything of any consequence has been omitted.&quot; And looking at the
+body, &quot;You see,&quot; and he drew the fingers a little this way and that,
+letting them return, as they stiffly did, to their former attitude, &quot;you
+may be sure that the poor gentleman was quite dead by the time he
+arrived here. So, since he was laid there, nothing has been lost by
+delay. And, Sir Bale, if you have any directions to send to Golden
+Friars, sir, I shall be most happy to undertake your message.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing, thanks; it is a melancholy ending, poor fellow! You must come
+to the study with me, Doctor Torvey, and talk a little bit more;
+and&mdash;very sad, doctor&mdash;and you must have a glass of sherry, or some
+port&mdash;the port used not to be bad here; I don't take it&mdash;but very
+melancholy it is&mdash;bring some port and sherry; and, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+be good enough to see that everything that should be done here is looked
+to; and let Marlin and the men have supper and something to drink. You
+have been too long in your wet clothes, Marlin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So, with gracious words all round, he led the Doctor to the library
+where he had been sitting, and was affable and hospitable, and told him
+his own version of all that had passed between him and Philip Feltram,
+and presented himself in an amiable point of view, and pleased the
+Doctor with his port and flatteries&mdash;for he could not afford to lose
+anyone's good word just now; and the Doctor was a bit of a gossip, and
+in most houses in that region, in one character or another, every three
+months in the year.</p>
+
+<p>So in due time the Doctor drove back to Golden Friars, with a high
+opinion of Sir Bale, and higher still of his port, and highest of all of
+himself: in the best possible humour with the world, not minding the
+storm that blew in his face, and which he defied in good-humoured
+mock-heroics spoken in somewhat thick accents, and regarding the thunder
+and lightning as a lively gala of fireworks; and if there had been a
+chance of finding his cronies still in the George and Dragon, he would
+have been among them forthwith, to relate the tragedy of the night, and
+tell what a good fellow, after all, Sir Bale was; and what a fool, at
+best, poor Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>But the George was quiet for that night. The thunder rolled over
+voiceless chambers; and the lights had been put out within the windows,
+on whose multitudinous small panes the lightning glared. So the Doctor
+went home to Mrs. Torvey, whom he charmed into good-humoured curiosity
+by the tale of wonder he had to relate.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale's qualms were symptomatic of something a little less sublime
+and more selfish than conscience. He was not sorry that Philip Feltram
+was out of the way. His lips might begin to babble inconveniently at any
+time, and why should not his mouth be stopped? and what stopper so
+effectual as that plug of clay which fate had introduced? But he did not
+want to be charged with the odium of the catastrophe. Every man cares
+something for the opinion of his fellows. And seeing that Feltram had
+been well liked, and that his death had excited a vehement
+commiseration, Sir Bale did not wish it to be said that he had made the
+house too hot to hold him, and had so driven him to extremity.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale's first agitation had subsided. It was now late, he had written
+many letters, and he was tired. It was not wonderful, then, that having
+turned his lounging-chair to the fire, he should have fallen asleep in
+it, as at last he did.</p>
+
+<p>The storm was passing gradually away by this time. The thunder was now
+echoing among the distant glens and gorges of Daulness Fells, and the
+angry roar and gusts of the tempest were subsiding into the melancholy
+soughing and piping that soothe like a lullaby.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale therefore had his unpremeditated sleep very comfortably, except
+that his head was hanging a little uneasily; which, perhaps, helped him
+to this dream.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of those dreams in which the continuity of the waking state
+that immediately preceded it seems unbroken; for he thought that he was
+sitting in the chair which he occupied, and in the room where he
+actually was. It seemed to him that he got up, took a candle in his
+hand, and went through the passages to the old still-room where Philip
+Feltram lay. The house seemed perfectly still. He could hear the chirp
+of the crickets faintly from the distant kitchen, and the tick of the
+clock sounded loud and hollow along the passage. In the old still-room,
+as he opened the door, was no light, except what was admitted from the
+candle he carried. He found the body of poor Philip Feltram just as he
+had left it&mdash;his gentle face, saddened by the touch of death, was turned
+upwards, with white lips: with traces of suffering fixed in its
+outlines, such as caused Sir Bale, standing by the bed, to draw the
+coverlet over the dead man's features, which seemed silently to upbraid
+him. &quot;Gone in weakness!&quot; said Sir Bale, repeating the words of the &quot;daft
+sir,&quot; Hugh Creswell; as he did so, a voice whispered near him, with a
+great sigh, &quot;Come in power!&quot; He looked round, in his dream, but there
+was no one; the light seemed to fail, and a horror slowly overcame him,
+especially as he thought he saw the figure under the coverlet stealthily
+beginning to move. Backing towards the door, for he could not take his
+eyes off it, he saw something like a huge black ape creep out at the
+foot of the bed; and springing at him, it griped him by the throat, so
+that he could not breathe; and a thousand voices were instantly round
+him, holloaing, cursing, laughing in his ears; and in this direful
+plight he waked.</p>
+
+<p>Was it the ring of those voices still in his ears, or a real shriek, and
+another, and a long peal, shriek after shriek, swelling madly through
+the distant passages, that held him still, freezing in the horror of his
+dream?</p>
+
+<p>I will tell you what this noise was.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XII</h4>
+
+<i><b>Marcella Bligh and Judith Wale Keep Watch</b></i>
+
+<p>After his bottle of port with Sir Bale, the Doctor had gone down again
+to the room where poor Philip Feltram lay.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper had dried her eyes, and was busy by this time; and two old
+women were making all their arrangements for a night-watch by the body,
+which they had washed, and, as their phrase goes, 'laid out' in the
+humble bed where it had lain while there was still a hope that a spark
+sufficient to rekindle the fire of life might remain. These old women
+had points of resemblance: they were lean, sallow, and wonderfully
+wrinkled, and looked each malign and ugly enough for a witch.</p>
+
+<p>Marcella Bligh's thin hooked nose was now like the beak of a bird of
+prey over the face of the drowned man, upon whose eyelids she was
+placing penny-pieces, to keep them from opening; and her one eye was
+fixed on her work, its sightless companion showing white in its socket,
+with an ugly leer.</p>
+
+<p>Judith Wale was lifting the pail of hot water with which they had just
+washed the body. She had long lean arms, a hunched back, a great sharp
+chin sunk on her hollow breast, and small eyes restless as a ferret's;
+and she clattered about in great bowls of shoes, old and clouted, that
+were made for a foot as big as two of hers.</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor knew these two old women, who were often employed in such
+dismal offices.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How does Mrs. Bligh? See me with half an eye? Hey&mdash;that's rhyme, isn't
+it?&mdash;And, Judy lass&mdash;why, I thought you lived nearer the town&mdash;here
+making poor Mr. Feltram's last toilet. You have helped to dress many a
+poor fellow for his last journey. Not a bad notion of drill either&mdash;they
+stand at attention stiff and straight enough in the sentry-box. Your
+recruits do you credit, Mrs. Wale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor stood at the foot of the bed to inspect, breathing forth a
+vapour of very fine old port, his hands in his pockets, speaking with a
+lazy thickness, and looking so comfortable and facetious, that Mrs.
+Julaper would have liked to turn him out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>But the Doctor was not unkind, only extremely comfortable. He was a
+good-natured fellow, and had thought and care for the living, but not a
+great deal of sentiment for the dead, whom he had looked in the face too
+often to be much disturbed by the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll have to keep that bandage on. You should be sharp; you should
+know all about it, girl, by this time, and not let those muscles
+stiffen. I need not tell you the mouth shuts as easily as this
+snuff-box, if you only take it in time.&mdash;I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+send to Jos Fringer for the poor fellow's outfit. Fringer is a very
+proper man&mdash;there ain't a properer und-aker in England. I always
+re-mmend Fringer&mdash;in Church-street in Golden Friars. You know Fringer, I
+daresay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say, sir, I'm sure. That will be as Sir Bale may please to
+direct,&quot; answered Mrs. Julaper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've got him very straight&mdash;straighter than I thought you could; but
+the large joints were not so stiff. A very little longer wait, and you'd
+hardly have got him into his coffin. He'll want a vr-r-ry long one, poor
+lad. Short cake is life, ma'am. Sad thing this. They'll open their eyes,
+I promise you, down in the town. 'Twill be cool enough, I'd shay, affre
+all th-thunr-thunnle, you know. I think I'll take a nip, Mrs. Jool-fr,
+if you wouldn't mine makin' me out a thimmle-ful
+bran-band-bran-rand-andy, eh, Mishs Joolfr?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the Doctor took a chair by the fire; and Mrs. Julaper, with a
+dubious conscience and dry hospitality, procured the brandy-flask and
+wine-glass, and helped the physician in a thin hesitating stream, which
+left him ample opportunity to cry &quot;Hold&mdash;enough!&quot; had he been so minded.
+But that able physician had no confidence, it would seem, in any dose
+under a bumper, which he sipped with commendation, and then fell asleep
+with the firelight on his face&mdash;to tender-hearted Mrs. Julaper's
+disgust&mdash;and snored with a sensual disregard of the solemnity of his
+situation; until with a profound nod, or rather dive, toward the fire,
+he awoke, got up and shook his ears with a kind of start, and standing
+with his back to the fire, asked for his muffler and horse; and so took
+his leave also of the weird sisters, who were still pottering about the
+body, with croak and whisper, and nod and ogle. He took his leave also
+of good Mrs. Julaper, who was completing arrangements with teapot and
+kettle, spiced elderberry wine, and other comforts, to support them
+through their proposed vigil. And finally, in a sort of way, he took his
+leave of the body, with a long business-like stare, from the foot of the
+bed, with his short hands stuffed into his pockets. And so, to Mrs.
+Julaper's relief, this unseemly doctor, speaking thickly, departed.</p>
+
+<p>And now, the Doctor being gone, and all things prepared for the 'wake'
+to be observed by withered Mrs. Bligh of the one eye, and yellow Mrs.
+Wale of the crooked back, the house grew gradually still. The thunder
+had by this time died into the solid boom of distant battle, and the
+fury of the gale had subsided to the long sobbing wail that is charged
+with so eerie a melancholy. Within all was stirless, and the two old
+women, each a 'Mrs.' by courtesy, who had not much to thank Nature or
+the world for, sad and cynical, and in a sort outcasts told off by
+fortune to these sad and grizzly services, sat themselves down by the
+fire, each perhaps feeling unusually at home in the other's society; and
+in this soured and forlorn comfort, trimming their fire, quickening the
+song of the kettle to a boil, and waxing polite and chatty; each
+treating the other with that deprecatory and formal courtesy which
+invites a return in kind, and both growing strangely happy in this
+little world of their own, in the unusual and momentary sense of an
+importance and consideration which were delightful.</p>
+
+<p>The old still-room of Mardykes Hall is an oblong room wainscoted. From
+the door you look its full length to the wide stone-shafted Tudor window
+at the other end. At your left is the ponderous mantelpiece, supported
+by two spiral stone pillars; and close to the door at the right was the
+bed in which the two crones had just stretched poor Philip Feltram, who
+lay as still as an uncoloured wax-work, with a heavy penny-piece on each
+eye, and a bandage under his jaw, making his mouth look stern. And the
+two old ladies over their tea by the fire conversed agreeably, compared
+their rheumatisms and other ailments wordily, and talked of old times,
+and early recollections, and of sick-beds they had attended, and corpses
+that &quot;you would not know, so pined and windered&quot; were they; and others
+so fresh and canny, you'd say the dead had never looked so bonny in
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Then they began to talk of people who grew tall in their coffins, of
+others who had been buried alive, and of others who walked after death.
+Stories as true as holy writ.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were you ever down by Hawarth, Mrs. Bligh&mdash;hard by Dalworth Moss?&quot;
+asked crook-backed Mrs. Wale, holding her spoon suspended over her cup.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Neea whaar sooa far south, Mrs. Wale, ma'am; but ma father was off
+times down thar cuttin' peat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, then ye'll not a kenned farmer Dykes that lived by the Lin-tree
+Scaur. 'Tweer I that laid him out, poor aad fellow, and a dow man he
+was when aught went cross wi' him; and he cursed and sweared, twad gar
+ye dodder to hear him. They said he was a hard man wi' some folk; but he
+kep a good house, and liked to see plenty, and many a time when I was
+swaimous about my food, he'd clap t' meat on ma plate, and mak' me eat
+ma fill. Na, na&mdash;there was good as well as bad in farmer Dykes. It was a
+year after he deed, and Tom Ettles was walking home, down by the Birken
+Stoop one night, and not a soul nigh, when he sees a big ball, as high
+as his knee, whirlin' and spangin' away before him on the road. What it
+wer he could not think; but he never consayted there was a freet or a bo
+thereaway; so he kep near it, watching every spang and turn it took,
+till it ran into the gripe by the roadside. There was a gravel pit just
+there, and Tom Ettles wished to take another gliff at it before he went
+on. But when he keeked into the pit, what should he see but a man
+attoppa a horse that could not get up or on: and says he, 'I think ye be
+at a dead-lift there, gaffer.' And wi' the word, up looks the man, and
+who sud it be but farmer Dykes himsel; and Tom Ettles saw him plain
+eneugh, and kenned the horse too for Black Captain, the farmer's aad
+beast, that broke his leg and was shot two years and more before the
+farmer died. 'Ay,' says farmer Dykes, lookin' very bad;
+'forsett-and-backsett, ye'll tak me oot, Tom Ettles, and clap ye doun
+behint me quick, or I'll claw ho'd o' thee.' Tom felt his hair risin'
+stiff on his heed, and his tongue so fast to the roof o' his mouth he
+could scarce get oot a word; but says he, 'If Black Jack can't do it o'
+noo, he'll ne'er do't and carry double.' 'I ken my ain business best,'
+says Dykes. 'If ye gar me gie ye a look, 'twill gie ye the creepin's
+while ye live; so git ye doun, Tom;' and with that the dobby lifts its
+neaf, and Tom saw there was a red light round horse and man, like the
+glow of a peat fire. And says Tom, 'In the name o' God, ye'll let me
+pass;' and with the word the gooast draws itsel' doun, all a-creaked,
+like a man wi' a sudden pain; and Tom Ettles took to his heels more deed
+than alive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had approached their heads, and the story had sunk to that
+mysterious murmur that thrills the listener, when in the brief silence
+that followed they heard a low odd laugh near the door.</p>
+
+<p>In that direction each lady looked aghast, and saw Feltram sitting
+straight up in the bed, with the white bandage in his hand, and as it
+seemed, for one foot was below the coverlet, near the floor, about to
+glide forth.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bligh, uttering a hideous shriek, clutched Mrs. Wale, and Mrs.
+Wale, with a scream as dreadful, gripped Mrs. Bligh; and quite
+forgetting their somewhat formal politeness, they reeled and tugged,
+wrestling towards the window, each struggling to place her companion
+between her and the 'dobby,' and both uniting in a direful peal of
+yells.</p>
+
+<p>This was the uproar which had startled Sir Bale from his dream, and was
+now startling the servants from theirs.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Mist on the Mountain</b></i>
+
+<p>Doctor Torvey was sent for early next morning, and came full of wonder,
+learning and scepticism. Seeing is believing, however; and there was
+Philip Feltram living, and soon to be, in all bodily functions, just as
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Upon my soul, Sir Bale, I couldn't have believed it, if I had not seen
+it with my eyes,&quot; said the Doctor impressively, while sipping a glass of
+sherry in the 'breakfast parlour,' as the great panelled and pictured
+room next the dining-room was called. &quot;I don't think there is any
+similar case on record&mdash;no pulse, no more than the poker; no
+respiration, by Jove, no more than the chimney-piece; as cold as a lead
+image in the garden there. Well, you'll say all that might possibly be
+fallacious; but what will you say to the cadaveric stiffness? Old Judy
+Wale can tell you; and my friend Marcella&mdash;Monocula would be nearer the
+mark&mdash;Mrs. Bligh, she knows all those common, and I may say up to this,
+infallible, signs of death, as well as I do. There is no mystery about
+them; they'll depose to the literality of the symptoms. You heard how
+they gave tongue. Upon my honour, I'll send the whole case up to my old
+chief, Sir Hervey Hansard, to London. You'll hear what a noise it will
+make among the profession. There never was&mdash;and it ain't too much to
+say there never <i>will</i> be&mdash;another case like it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>During this lecture, and a great deal more, Sir Bale leaned back in his
+chair, with his legs extended, his heels on the ground, and his arms
+folded, looking sourly up in the face of a tall lady in white satin, in
+a ruff, and with a bird on her hand, who smiled down superciliously from
+her frame on the Baronet. Sir Bale seemed a little bit high and dry with
+the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You physicians are unquestionably,&quot; he said, &quot;a very learned
+profession.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor bowed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But there's just one thing you know nothing about&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eh? What's that?&quot; inquired Doctor Torvey.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Medicine,&quot; answered Sir Bale. &quot;I was aware you never knew what was the
+matter with a sick man; but I didn't know, till now, that you couldn't
+tell when he was dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha!--well&mdash;ha, ha!--<i>yes</i>&mdash;well, you see, you&mdash;ha, ha!--you
+certainly have me there. But it's a case without a parallel&mdash;it is, upon
+my honour. You'll find it will not only be talked about, but written
+about; and, whatever papers appear upon it, will come to me; and I'll
+take care, Sir Bale, you shall have an opportunity of reading them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of which I shan't avail myself,&quot; answered Sir Bale. &quot;Take another glass
+of sherry, Doctor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor made his acknowledgments and filled his glass, and looked
+through the wine between him and the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha!--see there, your port, Sir Bale, gives a fellow such
+habits&mdash;looking for the beeswing, by Jove. It isn't easy, in one sense
+at least, to get your port out of a fellow's head when once he has
+tasted it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But if the honest Doctor meant a hint for a glass of that admirable bin,
+it fell pointless; and Sir Bale had no notion of making another libation
+of that precious fluid in honour of Doctor Torvey.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I take it for granted,&quot; said Sir Bale, &quot;that Feltram will do very
+well; and, should anything go wrong, I can send for you&mdash;unless he
+should die again; and in that case I think I shall take my own opinion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So he and the Doctor parted.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale, although he did not consult the Doctor on his own case, was
+not particularly well. &quot;That lonely place, those frightful mountains,
+and that damp black lake&quot;&mdash;which features in the landscape he cursed all
+round&mdash;&quot;are enough to give any man blue devils; and when a fellow's
+spirits go, he's all gone. That's why I'm dyspeptic&mdash;that and those
+d----d debts&mdash;and the post, with its flight of croaking and screeching
+letters from London. I wish there was no post here. I wish it was like
+Sir Amyrald's time, when they shot the York mercer that came to dun him,
+and no one ever took anyone to task about it; and now they can pelt you
+at any distance they please through the post; and fellows lose their
+spirits and their appetite and any sort of miserable comfort that is
+possible in this odious abyss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Was there gout in Sir Bale's case, or 'vapours'? I know not what the
+faculty would have called it; but Sir Bale's mode of treatment was
+simply to work off the attack by long and laborious walking.</p>
+
+<p>This evening his walk was upon the Fells of Golden Friars&mdash;long after
+the landscape below was in the eclipse of twilight, the broad bare sides
+and angles of these gigantic uplands were still lighted by the misty
+western sun.</p>
+
+<p>There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the
+silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the
+level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and
+colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a
+strange fear and elation&mdash;an ascent above the reach of life's vexations
+or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgiving.
+The filmy disc of the moon had risen in the east, and was already
+faintly silvering the shadowy scenery below, while yet Sir Bale stood in
+the mellow light of the western sun, which still touched also the
+summits of the opposite peaks of Morvyn Fells.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes did not, as a stranger might, in prudence, hasten his
+descent from the heights at which he stood while yet a gleam of daylight
+remained to him. For he was, from his boyhood, familiar with those
+solitary regions; and, beside this, the thin circle of the moon, hung in
+the eastern sky, would brighten as the sunlight sank, and hang like a
+lamp above his steps.</p>
+
+<p>There was in the bronzed and resolute face of the Baronet, lighted now
+in the parting beams of sunset, a resemblance to that of Charles the
+Second&mdash;not our &quot;merry&quot; ideal, but the more energetic and saturnine face
+which the portraits have preserved to us.</p>
+
+<p>He stood with folded arms on the side of the slope, admiring, in spite
+of his prejudice, the unusual effects of a view so strangely
+lighted&mdash;the sunset tints on the opposite peaks, lost in the misty
+twilight, now deepening lower down into a darker shade, through which
+the outlines of the stone gables and tower of Golden Friars and the
+light of fire or candle in their windows were dimly visible.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood and looked, his more distant sunset went down, and sudden
+twilight was upon him, and he began to remember the beautiful Homeric
+picture of a landscape coming out, rock and headland, in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>There had hung upon the higher summits, at his right, a heavy fold of
+white cloud, which on a sudden broke, and, like the smoke of artillery,
+came rolling down the slopes toward him. Its principal volume, however,
+unfolded itself in a mighty flood down the side of the mountain towards
+the lake; and that which spread towards and soon enveloped the ground on
+which he stood was by no means so dense a fog. A thick mist enough it
+was; but still, to a distance of twenty or thirty yards, he could
+discern the outline of a rock or scaur, but not beyond it.</p>
+
+<p>There are few sensations more intimidating than that of being thus
+enveloped on a lonely mountain-side, which, like this one, here and
+there breaks into precipice.</p>
+
+<p>There is another sensation, too, which affects the imagination.
+Overtaken thus on the solitary expanse, there comes a new chill and
+tremour as this treacherous medium surrounds us, through which
+unperceived those shapes which fancy conjures up might approach so near
+and bar our path.</p>
+
+<p>From the risk of being reduced to an actual standstill he knew he was
+exempt. The point from which the wind blew, light as it was, assured him
+of that. Still the mist was thick enough seriously to embarrass him. It
+had overtaken him as he was looking down upon the lake; and he now
+looked to his left, to try whether in that direction it was too thick to
+permit a view of the nearest landmarks. Through this white film he saw a
+figure standing only about five-and-twenty steps away, looking down, as
+it seemed, in precisely the same direction as he, quite motionless, and
+standing like a shadow projected upon the smoky vapour. It was the
+figure of a slight tall man, with his arm extended, as if pointing to a
+remote object, which no mortal eye certainly could discern through the
+mist. Sir Bale gazed at this figure, doubtful whether he were in a
+waking dream, unable to conjecture whence it had come; and as he looked,
+it moved, and was almost instantly out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>He descended the mountain cautiously. The mist was now thinner, and
+through the haze he was beginning to see objects more distinctly, and,
+without danger, to proceed at a quicker pace. He had still a long walk
+by the uplands towards Mardykes Hall before he descended to the level of
+the lake.</p>
+
+<p>The mist was still quite thick enough to circumscribe his view and to
+hide the general features of the landscape; and well was it, perhaps,
+for Sir Bale that his boyhood had familiarised him with the landmarks on
+the mountain-side.</p>
+
+<p>He had made nearly four miles on his solitary homeward way, when,
+passing under a ledge of rock which bears the name of the Cat's Skaitch,
+he saw the same figure in the short cloak standing within some thirty or
+forty yards of him&mdash;the thin curtain of mist, through which the
+moonlight touched it, giving to it an airy and unsubstantial character.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale came to a standstill. The man in the short cloak nodded and
+drew back, and was concealed by the angle of the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was now irritated, as men are after a start, and shouting to
+the stranger to halt, he 'slapped' after him, as the northern phrase
+goes, at his best pace. But again he was gone, and nowhere could he see
+him, the mist favouring his evasion.</p>
+
+<p>Looking down the fells that overhang Mardykes Hall, the mountain-side
+dips gradually into a glen, which, as it descends, becomes precipitous
+and wooded. A footpath through this ravine conducts the wayfarer to the
+level ground that borders the lake; and by this dark pass Sir Bale
+Mardykes strode, in comparatively clear air, along the rocky path
+dappled with moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>As he emerged upon the lower ground he again encountered the same
+figure. It approached. It was Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><h4>CHAPTER XIV</h4>
+
+<i><b>A New Philip Feltram</b></i>
+
+<p>The Baronet had not seen Feltram since his strange escape from death.
+His last interview with him had been stern and threatening; Sir Bale
+dealing with appearances in the spirit of an incensed judge, Philip
+Feltram lamenting in the submission of a helpless despair.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram was full in the moonlight now, standing erect, and smiling
+cynically on the Baronet.</p>
+
+<p>There was that in the bearing and countenance of Feltram that
+disconcerted him more than the surprise of the sudden meeting.</p>
+
+<p>He had determined to meet Feltram in a friendly way, whenever that not
+very comfortable interview became inevitable. But he was confused by the
+suddenness of Feltram's appearance; and the tone, cold and stern, in
+which he had last spoken to him came first, and he spoke in it after a
+brief silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I fancied, Mr. Feltram, you were in your bed; I little expected to find
+you here. I think the Doctor gave very particular directions, and said
+that you were to remain perfectly quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I know more than the Doctor,&quot; replied Feltram, still smiling
+unpleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think, sir, you would have been better in your bed,&quot; said Sir Bale
+loftily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, come, come, come!&quot; exclaimed Philip Feltram contemptuously.</p>
+
+<a name="IMAGE_2"></a>
+<p><img src="images/image2.jpg" width="250" height="413" align="left"
+alt="It was the figure of a slight tall man,
+with his arm extended,
+as if pointing to a remote object."></p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems to me,&quot; said Sir Bale, a good deal astonished, &quot;you rather
+forget yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Easier to forget oneself, Sir Bale, than to forgive others, at times,&quot;
+replied Philip Feltram in his unparalleled mood.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the way fools knock themselves up,&quot; continued Sir Bale. &quot;You've
+been walking ever so far&mdash;away to the Fells of Golden Friars. It was you
+whom I saw there. What d----d folly! What brought you there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To observe you,&quot; he replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And have you walked the whole way there and back again? How did you get
+there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pooh! how did I come&mdash;how did you come&mdash;how did the fog come? From the
+lake, I suppose. We all come up, and then down.&quot; So spoke Philip
+Feltram, with serene insolence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are pleased to talk nonsense,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I like it&mdash;with a <i>meaning</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked at him, not knowing whether to believe his eyes and
+ears. He did not know what to make of him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had intended speaking to you in a conciliatory way; you seem to wish
+to make that impossible&quot;&mdash;Philip Feltram's face wore its repulsive
+smile;&mdash;&quot;and in fact I don't know what to make of you, unless you are
+ill; and ill you well may be. You can't have walked much less than
+twelve miles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wonderful effort for me!&quot; said Feltram with the same sneer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rather surprising for a man so nearly drowned,&quot; answered Sir Bale
+Mardykes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A dip: you don't like the lake, sir; but I do. And so it is: as Antaeus
+touched the earth, so I the water, and rise refreshed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think you'd better get in and refresh there. I meant to tell you that
+all the unpleasantness about that bank-note is over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. It has been recovered by Mr. Creswell, who came here last night.
+I've got it, and you're not to blame,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But some one <i>is</i> to blame,&quot; observed Mr. Feltram, smiling still.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, <i>you</i> are not, and that ends it,&quot; said the Baronet peremptorily.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>&quot;Ends it? Really, how good! how very good!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked at him, for there was something ambiguous and even
+derisive in the tone of Feltram's voice.</p>
+
+<p>But before he could quite make up his mind, Feltram spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything is settled about you and me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is nothing to prevent your staying at Mardykes now,&quot; said Sir
+Bale graciously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall be with you for two years, and then I go on my travels,&quot;
+answered Feltram, with a saturnine and somewhat wild look around him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is he going mad?&quot; thought the Baronet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But before I go, I'm to put you in a way of paying off your mortgages.
+That is my business here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked at him sharply. But now there was not the unpleasant
+smile, but the darkened look of a man in secret pain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You shall know it all by and by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And without more ceremony, and with a darkening face, Philip Feltram
+made his way under the boughs of the thick oaks that grew there, leaving
+on Sir Bale's mind an impression that he had been watching some one at a
+distance, and had gone in consequence of a signal.</p>
+
+<p>In a few seconds he followed in the same direction, halloaing after
+Feltram; for he did not like the idea of his wandering about the country
+by moonlight, or possibly losing his life among the precipices, and
+bringing a new discredit upon his house. But no answer came; nor could
+he in that thick copse gain sight of him again.</p>
+
+<p>When Sir Bale reached Mardykes Hall he summoned Mrs. Julaper, and had a
+long talk with her. But she could not say that there appeared anything
+amiss with Philip Feltram; only he seemed more reserved, and as if he
+was brooding over something he did not intend to tell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, you know, Sir Bale, what happened might well make a thoughtful man
+of him. If he's ever to think of Death, it should be after looking him
+so hard in the face; and I'm not ashamed to say, I'm glad to see he has
+grace to take the lesson, and I hope his experiences may be sanctified
+to him, poor fellow! Amen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good song, and very well sung,&quot; said Sir Bale; &quot;but it doesn't
+seem to me that he has been improved, Mrs. Julaper. He seems, on the
+contrary, in a queer temper and anything but a heavenly frame of mind;
+and I thought I'd ask you, because if he is ill&mdash;I mean feverish&mdash;it
+might account for his eccentricities, as well as make it necessary to
+send after him, and bring him home, and put him to bed. But I suppose it
+is as you say,&mdash;his adventure has upset him a little, and he'll sober in
+a day or two, and return to his old ways.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But this did not happen. A change, more comprehensive than at first
+appeared, had taken place, and a singular alteration was gradually
+established.</p>
+
+<p>He grew thin, his eyes hollow, his face gradually forbidding.</p>
+
+<p>His ways and temper were changed: he was a new man with Sir Bale; and
+the Baronet after a time, people said, began to grow afraid of him. And
+certainly Feltram had acquired an extraordinary influence over the
+Baronet, who a little while ago had regarded and treated him with so
+much contempt.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a><h4>CHAPTER XV</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Purse of Gold</b></i>
+
+<p>The Baronet was very slightly known in his county. He had led a reserved
+and inhospitable life. He was pressed upon by heavy debts; and being a
+proud man, held aloof from society and its doings. He wished people to
+understand that he was nursing his estate; but somehow the estate did
+not thrive at nurse. In the country other people's business is admirably
+well known; and the lord of Mardykes was conscious, perhaps, that his
+neighbours knew as well he did, that the utmost he could do was to pay
+the interest charged upon it, and to live in a frugal way enough.</p>
+
+<p>The lake measures some four or five miles across, from the little jetty
+under the walls of Mardykes Hall to Cloostedd.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram, changed and morose, loved a solitary row upon the lake;
+and sometimes, with no one to aid him in its management, would take the
+little sailboat and pass the whole day upon those lonely waters.</p>
+
+<p>Frequently he crossed to Cloostedd; and mooring the boat under the
+solemn trees that stand reflected in that dark mirror, he would
+disembark and wander among the lonely woodlands, as people thought,
+cherishing in those ancestral scenes the memory of ineffaceable
+injuries, and the wrath and revenge that seemed of late to darken his
+countenance, and to hold him always in a moody silence.</p>
+
+<p>One autumnal evening Sir Bale Mardykes was sourly ruminating after his
+solitary meal. A very red sun was pouring its last low beams through the
+valley at the western extremity of the lake, across its elsewhere sombre
+waters, and touching with a sudden and blood-red tint the sail of the
+skiff in which Feltram was returning from his lonely cruise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here comes my domestic water-fiend,&quot; sneered Sir Bale, as he lay back
+in his cumbrous arm-chair. &quot;Cheerful place, pleasant people, delicious
+fate! The place alone has been enough to set that fool out of his little
+senses, d&mdash;n him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale averted his eyes, and another subject not pleasanter entered
+his mind. He was thinking of the races that were coming off next week at
+Heckleston Downs, and what sums of money might be made there, and how
+hard it was that he should be excluded by fortune from that brilliant
+lottery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, Mrs. Julaper, is that you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper, who was still at the door, curtsied, and said, &quot;I came,
+Sir Bale, to see whether you'd please to like a jug of mulled claret,
+sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I, my dear. I'll take a mug of beer and my pipe; that homely solace
+better befits a ruined gentleman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;H'm, sir; you're not that, Sir Bale; you're no worse than half the
+lords and great men that are going. I would not hear another say that of
+you, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's very kind of you, Mrs. Julaper; but you won't call <i>me</i> out for
+backbiting myself, especially as it is true, d----d true, Mrs. Julaper!
+Look ye; there never was a Mardykes here before but he could lay his
+hundred or his thousand pounds on the winner of the Heckleston Cup; and
+what could I bet? Little more than that mug of beer I spoke of. It was
+my great-grandfather who opened the course on the Downs of Heckleston,
+and now <i>I</i> can't show there! Well, what must I do? Grin and bear it,
+that's all. If you please, Mrs. Julaper, I will have that jug of claret
+you offered. I want spice and hot wine to keep me alive; but I'll smoke
+my pipe first, and in an hour's time it will do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Julaper was gone, he lighted his pipe, and drew near the
+window, through which he looked upon the now fading sky and the twilight
+landscape.</p>
+
+<p>He smoked his pipe out, and by that time it had grown nearly dark. He
+was still looking out upon the faint outlines of the view, and thinking
+angrily what a little bit of luck at the races would do for many a man
+who probably did not want it half so much as he. Vague and sombre as his
+thoughts were, they had, like the darkening landscape outside, shape
+enough to define their general character. Bitter and impious they
+were&mdash;as those of egotistic men naturally are in suffering. And after
+brooding, and muttering by fits and starts, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How many tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds will change hands at
+Heckleston next week; and not a shilling in all the change and shuffle
+will stick to me! How many a fellow would sell himself, like Dr.
+Faustus, just for the knowledge of the name of the winner! But he's no
+fool, and does not buy his own.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Something caught his eye; something moving on the wall. The fire was
+lighted, and cast a flickering and gigantic shadow upward; the figure of
+a man standing behind Sir Bale Mardykes, on whose shoulder he placed a
+lean hand. Sir Bale turned suddenly about, and saw Philip Feltram. He
+was looking dark and stern, and did not remove his hand from his
+shoulder as he peered into the Baronet's face with his deep-set mad
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, Philip, upon my soul!&quot; exclaimed Sir Bale, surprised. &quot;How time
+flies! It seems only this minute since I saw the boat a mile and a half
+away from the shore. Well&mdash;yes; there has been time; it is dark now. Ha,
+ha! I assure you, you startled me. Won't you take something? Do. Shall I
+touch the bell?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have been troubled about those mortgages. I told you I should pay
+them off, I thought.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here there was a pause, and Sir Bale looked hard in Feltram's face. If
+he had been in his ordinary spirits, or perhaps in some of his haunts
+less solitary than Mardykes, he would have laughed; but here he had
+grown unlike himself, gloomy and credulous, and was, in fact, a nervous
+man.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale smiled, and shook his head dismally.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very kind of you, Feltram; the idea shows a kindly disposition. I
+know you would do me a kindness if you could.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As Sir Bale, each looking in the other's eyes, repeated in this sentence
+the words &quot;kind,&quot; &quot;kindly,&quot; &quot;kindness,&quot; a smile lighted Feltram's face
+with at each word an intenser light; and Sir Bale grew sombre in its
+glare; and when he had done speaking, Feltram's face also on a sudden
+darkened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have found a fortune-teller in Cloostedd Wood. Look here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he drew from his pocket a leathern purse, which he placed on the
+table in his hand; and Sir Bale heard the pleasant clink of coin in it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A fortune-teller! You don't mean to say she gave you that?&quot; said Sir
+Bale.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram smiled again, and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It <i>was</i> the custom to give the fortuneteller a trifle. It is a great
+improvement making <i>her</i> fee you,&quot; observed Sir Bale, with an approach
+to his old manner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He put that in my hand with a message,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He? O, then it was a male fortune-teller!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gipsies go in gangs, men and women. <i>He</i> might lend, though <i>she</i> told
+fortunes,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's the first time I ever heard of gipsies lending money;&quot; and he eyed
+the purse with a whimsical smile.</p>
+
+<p>With his lean fingers still holding it, Feltram sat down at the table.
+His face contracted as if in cunning thought, and his chin sank upon his
+breast as he leaned back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think,&quot; continued Sir Bale, &quot;ever since they were spoiled, the
+Egyptians have been a little shy of lending, and leave that branch of
+business to the Hebrews.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What would you give to know, now, the winner at Heckleston races?&quot; said
+Feltram suddenly, raising his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; that would be worth something,&quot; answered Sir Bale, looking at him
+with more interest than the incredulity he affected would quite warrant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And this money I have power to lend you, to make your game.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you mean that really?&quot; said Sir Bale, with a new energy in tone,
+manner, and features.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's heavy; there are some guineas there,&quot; said Feltram with a dark
+smile, raising the purse in his hand a little, and letting it drop upon
+the table with a clang.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is <i>something</i> there, at all events,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram took the purse by the bottom, and poured out on the table a
+handsome pile of guineas.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And do you mean to say you got all that from a gipsy in Cloostedd
+Wood?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A friend, who is&mdash;<i>myself</i>,&quot; answered Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yourself! Then it is yours&mdash;<i>you</i> lend it?&quot; said the Baronet, amazed;
+for there was no getting over the heap of guineas, and the wonder was
+pretty equal whence they had come.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Myself, and not myself,&quot; said Feltram oracularly; &quot;as like as voice and
+echo, man and shadow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Had Feltram in some of his solitary wanderings and potterings lighted
+upon hidden treasure? There was a story of two Feltrams of Cloostedd,
+brothers, who had joined the king's army and fought at Marston Moor,
+having buried in Cloostedd Wood a great deal of gold and plate and
+jewels. They had, it was said, intrusted one tried servant with the
+secret; and that servant remained at home. But by a perverse fatality
+the three witnesses had perished within a month: the two brothers at
+Marston Moor; and the confidant, of fever, at Cloostedd. From that day
+forth treasure-seekers had from time to time explored the woods of
+Cloostedd; and many a tree of mark was dug beside, and the earth
+beneath many a stone and scar and other landmark in that solitary forest
+was opened by night, until hope gradually died out, and the tradition
+had long ceased to prompt to action, and had become a story and nothing
+more.</p>
+
+<p>The image of the nursery-tale had now recurred to Sir Bale after so long
+a reach of years; and the only imaginable way, in his mind, of
+accounting for penniless Philip Feltram having all that gold in his
+possession was that, in some of his lonely wanderings, chance had led
+him to the undiscovered hoard of the two Feltrams who had died in the
+great civil wars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps those gipsies you speak of found the money where you found
+them; and in that case, as Cloostedd Forest, and all that is in it is my
+property, their sending it to me is more like my servant's handing me my
+hat and stick when I'm going out, than making me a present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will not be wise to rely upon the law, Sir Bale, and to refuse the
+help that comes unasked. But if you like your mortgages as they are,
+keep them; and if you like my terms as they are, take them; and when you
+have made up your mind, let me know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram dropped the heavy purse into his capacious coat-pocket,
+and walked, muttering, out of the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><h4>CHAPTER XVI</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Message from Cloostedd</b></i>
+
+<p>&quot;Come back, Feltram; come back, Philip!&quot; cried Sir Bale hastily. &quot;Let us
+talk, can't we? Come and talk this odd business over a little; you must
+have mistaken what I meant; I should like to hear all about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All is not much, sir,&quot; said Philip Feltram, entering the room again,
+the door of which he had half closed after him. &quot;In the forest of
+Cloostedd I met to-day some people, one of whom can foretell events, and
+told me the names of the winners of the first three races at Heckleston,
+and gave me this purse, with leave to lend you so much money as you care
+to stake upon the races. I take no security; you shan't be troubled; and
+you'll never see the lender, unless you seek him out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, those are not bad terms,&quot; said Sir Bale, smiling wistfully at
+the purse, which Feltram had again placed upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not bad,&quot; repeated Feltram, in the harsh low tone in which he now
+habitually spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll tell me what the prophet said about the winners; I should like
+to hear their names.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The names I shall tell you if you walk out with me,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not here?&quot; asked Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My memory does not serve me here so well. Some people, in some places,
+though they be silent, obstruct thought. Come, let us speak,&quot; said
+Philip Feltram, leading the way.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale, with a shrug, followed him.</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was dark. Feltram was walking slowly towards the margin
+of the lake; and Sir Bale, more curious as the delay increased, followed
+him, and smiled faintly as he looked after his tall, gaunt figure, as
+if, even in the dark, expressing a ridicule which he did not honestly
+feel, and the expression of which, even if there had been light, there
+was no one near enough to see.</p>
+
+<p>When he reached the edge of the lake, Feltram stooped, and Sir Bale
+thought that his attitude was that of one who whispers to and caresses a
+reclining person. What he fancied was a dark figure lying horizontally
+in the shallow water, near the edge, turned out to be, as he drew near,
+no more than a shadow on the elsewhere lighter water; and with his
+change of position it had shifted and was gone, and Philip Feltram was
+but dabbling his hand this way and that in the water, and muttering
+faintly to himself. He rose as the Baronet drew near, and standing
+upright, said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I like to listen to the ripple of the water among the grass and
+pebbles; the tongue and lips of the lake are lapping and whispering all
+along. It is the merest poetry; but you are so romantic, you excuse me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was an angry curve in Feltram's eyebrows, and a cynical smile, and
+something in the tone which to the satirical Baronet was almost
+insulting. But even had he been less curious, I don't think he would
+have betrayed his mortification; for an odd and unavowed influence which
+he hated was gradually establishing in Feltram an ascendency which
+sometimes vexed and sometimes cowed him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not to tell,&quot; said Feltram, drawing near him in the dusk. &quot;The
+secret is yours when you promise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course I promise,&quot; said Sir Bale. &quot;If I believed it, you don't think
+I could be such an ass as to tell it; and if I didn't believe it, I'd
+hardly take the trouble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram stooped, and dipping the hollow of his hand in the water, he
+raised it full, and said he, &quot;Hold out your hand&mdash;the hollow of your
+hand&mdash;like this. I divide the water for a sign&mdash;share to me and share to
+you.&quot; And he turned his hand, so as to pour half the water into the
+hollow palm of Sir Bale, who was smiling, with some uneasiness mixed in
+his mockery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, you promise to keep all secrets respecting the teller and the
+finder, be that who it may?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I promise,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now do as I do,&quot; said Feltram. And he shed the water on the ground, and
+with his wet fingers touched his forehead and his breast; and then he
+joined his hand with Sir Bale's, and said, &quot;Now you are my safe man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale laughed. &quot;That's the game they call 'grand mufti,'&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly; and means nothing,&quot; said Feltram, &quot;except that some day it
+will serve you to remember by. And now the names. Don't speak;
+listen&mdash;you may break the thought else. The winner of the first is
+<i>Beeswing</i>; of the second, <i>Falcon</i>; and of the third, <i>Lightning</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He had stood for some seconds in silence before he spoke; his eyes were
+closed; he seemed to bring up thought and speech with difficulty, and
+spoke faintly and drowsily, both his hands a little raised, and the
+fingers extended, with the groping air of a man who moves in the dark.
+In this odd way, slowly, faintly, with many a sigh and scarcely audible
+groan, he gradually delivered his message and was silent. He stood, it
+seemed, scarcely half awake, muttering indistinctly and sighing to
+himself. You would have said that he was exhausted and suffering, like a
+man at his last hour resigning himself to death.</p>
+
+<p>At length he opened his eyes, looked round a little wildly and
+languidly, and with another great sigh sat down on a large rock that
+lies by the margin of the lake, and sighed heavily again and again. You
+might have fancied that he was a second time recovering from drowning.</p>
+
+<p>Then he got up, and looked drowsily round again, and sighed like a man
+worn out with fatigue, and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale did not care to speak until he seemed a little more likely to
+obtain an answer. When that time came, he said, &quot;I wish, for the sake of
+my believing, that your list was a little less incredible. Not one of
+the horses you name is the least likely; not one of them has a chance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better for you; you'll get what odds you please. You had
+better seize your luck; on Tuesday Beeswing runs,&quot; said Feltram. &quot;When
+you want money for the purpose, I'm your banker&mdash;here is your bank.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He touched his breast, where he had placed the purse, and then he turned
+and walked swiftly away.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked after him till he disappeared in the dark. He fluctuated
+among many surmises about Feltram. Was he insane, or was he practising
+an imposture? or was he fool enough to believe the predictions of some
+real gipsies? and had he borrowed this money, which in Sir Bale's eyes
+seemed the greatest miracle in the matter, from those thriving shepherd
+mountaineers, the old Trebecks, who, he believed, were attached to him?
+Feltram had, he thought, borrowed it as if for himself; and having, as
+Sir Bale in his egotism supposed, &quot;a sneaking regard&quot; for him, had meant
+the loan for his patron, and conceived the idea of his using his
+revelations for the purpose of making his fortune. So, seeing no risk,
+and the temptation being strong, Sir Bale resolved to avail himself of
+the purse, and use his own judgment as to what horse to back.</p>
+
+<p>About eleven o'clock Feltram, unannounced, walked, with his hat still
+on, into Sir Bale's library, and sat down at the opposite side of his
+table, looking gloomily into the Baronet's face for a time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall you want the purse?&quot; he asked at last.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly; I always want a purse,&quot; said Sir Bale energetically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The condition is, that you shall back each of the three horses I have
+named. But you may back them for much or little, as you like, only the
+sum must not be less than five pounds in each hundred which this purse
+contains. That is the condition, and if you violate it, you will make
+some powerful people very angry, and you will feel it. Do you agree?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course; five pounds in the hundred&mdash;certainly; and how many hundreds
+are there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, a fellow with luck may win something with three hundred pounds,
+but it ain't very much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite enough, if you use it aright.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Three hundred pounds,&quot; repeated the Baronet, as he emptied the purse,
+which Feltram had just placed in his hand, upon the table; and
+contemplating them with grave interest, he began telling them off in
+little heaps of five-and-twenty each. He might have thanked Feltram, but
+he was thinking more of the guineas than of the grizzly donor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay,&quot; said he, after a second counting, &quot;I think there <i>are</i> exactly
+three hundred. Well, so you say I must apply three times five&mdash;fifteen
+of these. It is an awful pity backing those queer horses you have named;
+but if I must make the sacrifice, I must, I suppose?&quot; he added, with a
+hesitating inquiry in the tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you don't, you'll rue it,&quot; said Feltram coldly, and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Penny in pocket's a merry companion,&quot; says the old English proverb, and
+Sir Bale felt in better spirits and temper than he had for many a day as
+he replaced the guineas in the purse.</p>
+
+<p>It was long since he had visited either the race-course or any other
+place of amusement. Now he might face his kind without fear that his
+pride should be mortified, and dabble in the fascinating agitations of
+the turf once more.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who knows how this little venture may turn out?&quot; he thought. &quot;It is
+time the luck should turn. My last summer in Germany, my last winter in
+Paris&mdash;d&mdash;n me, I'm owed something. It's time I should win a bit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had suffered the indolence of a solitary and discontented life
+imperceptibly to steal upon him. It would not do to appear for the first
+time on Heckleston Lea with any of those signs of negligence which, in
+his case, might easily be taken for poverty. All his appointments,
+therefore, were carefully looked after; and on the Monday following, he,
+followed by his groom, rode away for the Saracen's Head at Heckleston,
+where he was to put up, for the races that were to begin on the day
+following, and presented as handsome an appearance as a peer in those
+days need have cared to show.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XVII</h4>
+
+<i><b>On the Course&mdash;Beeswing, Falcon, and Lightning</b></i>
+
+<p>As he rode towards Golden Friars, through which his route lay, in the
+early morning light, in which the mists of night were clearing, he
+looked back towards Mardykes with a hope of speedy deliverance from that
+hated imprisonment, and of a return to the continental life in which he
+took delight. He saw the summits and angles of the old building touched
+with the cheerful beams, and the grand old trees, and at the opposite
+side the fells dark, with their backs towards the east; and down the
+side of the wooded and precipitous clough of Feltram, the light, with a
+pleasant contrast against the beetling purple of the fells, was breaking
+in the faint distance. On the lake he saw the white speck that indicated
+the sail of Philip Feltram's boat, now midway between Mardykes and the
+wooded shores of Cloostedd.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Going on the same errand,&quot; thought Sir Bale, &quot;I should not wonder. I
+wish him the same luck. Yes, he's going to Cloostedd Forest. I hope he
+may meet his gipsies there&mdash;the Trebecks, or whoever they are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And as a momentary sense of degradation in being thus beholden to such
+people smote him, &quot;Well,&quot; thought he, &quot;who knows? Many a fellow will
+make a handsome sum of a poorer purse than this at Heckleston. It will
+be a light matter paying them then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Through Golden Friars he rode. Some of the spectators who did not like
+him, wondered audibly at the gallant show, hoped it was paid for, and
+conjectured that he had ridden out in search of a wife. On the whole,
+however, the appearance of their Baronet in a smarter style than usual
+was popular, and accepted as a change to the advantage of the town.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he was on the race-course of Heckleston, renewing old
+acquaintance and making himself as agreeable as he could&mdash;an object,
+among some people, of curiosity and even interest. Leaving the
+carriage-sides, the hoods and bonnets, Sir Bale was soon among the
+betting men, deep in more serious business.</p>
+
+<p>How did he make his book? He did not break his word. He backed Beeswing,
+Falcon, and Lightning. But it must be owned not for a shilling more than
+the five guineas each, to which he stood pledged. The odds were
+forty-five to one against Beeswing, sixty to one against Lightning, and
+fifty to one against Falcon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A pretty lot to choose!&quot; exclaimed Sir Bale, with vexation. &quot;As if I
+had money so often, that I should throw it away!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet was testy thinking over all this, and looked on Feltram's
+message as an impertinence and the money as his own.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now see how Sir Bale Mardykes' pocket fared.</p>
+
+<p>Sulkily enough at the close of the week he turned his back on Heckleston
+racecourse, and took the road to Golden Friars.</p>
+
+<p>He was in a rage with his luck, and by no means satisfied with himself;
+and yet he had won something. The result of the racing had been curious.
+In the three principal races the favourites had been beaten: one by an
+accident, another on a technical point, and the third by fair running.
+And what horses had won? The names were precisely those which the
+&quot;fortune-teller&quot; had predicted.</p>
+
+<p>Well, then, how was Sir Bale in pocket as he rode up to his ancestral
+house of Mardykes, where a few thousand pounds would have been very
+welcome? He had won exactly 775 guineas; and had he staked a hundred
+instead of five on each of the names communicated by Feltram, he would
+have won 15,500 guineas.</p>
+
+<p>He dismounted before his hall-door, therefore, with the discontent of a
+man who had lost nearly 15,000 pounds. Feltram was upon the steps, and
+laughed dryly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you laugh at?&quot; asked Sir Bale tartly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've won, haven't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I've won; I've won a trifle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the horses I named?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, yes; it so turned out, by the merest accident.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram laughed again dryly, and turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale entered Mardykes Hall, and was surly. He was in a much worse
+mood than before he had ridden to Heckleston. But after a week or so
+ruminating upon the occurrence, he wondered that Feltram spoke no more
+of it. It was undoubtedly wonderful. There had been no hint of repayment
+yet, and he had made some hundreds by the loan; and, contrary to all
+likelihood, the three horses named by the unknown soothsayer had won.
+Who was this gipsy? It would be worth bringing the soothsayer to
+Mardykes, and giving his people a camp on the warren, and all the
+poultry they could catch, and a pig or a sheep every now and then. Why,
+that seer was worth the philosopher's stone, and could make Sir Bale's
+fortune in a season. Some one else would be sure to pick him up if he
+did not.</p>
+
+<p>So, tired of waiting for Feltram to begin, he opened the subject one day
+himself. He had not seen him for two or three days; and in the wood of
+Mardykes he saw his lank figure standing among the thick trees, upon a
+little knoll, leaning on a staff which he sometimes carried with him in
+his excursions up the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Feltram!&quot; shouted Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram turned and beckoned. Sir Bale muttered, but obeyed the signal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I brought you here, because you can from this point with unusual
+clearness today see the opening of the Clough of Feltram at the other
+side, and the clump of trees, where you will find the way to reach the
+person about whom you are always thinking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who said I am always thinking about him?&quot; said the Baronet angrily; for
+he felt like a man detected in a weakness, and resented it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>I</i> say it, because I <i>know</i> it; and <i>you</i> know it also. See that clump
+of trees standing solitary in the hollow? Among them, to the left,
+grows an ancient oak. Cut in its bark are two enormous letters H&mdash;F; so
+large and bold, that the rugged furrows of the oak bark fail to obscure
+them, although they are ancient and spread by time. Standing against the
+trunk of this great tree, with your back to these letters, you are
+looking up the Glen or Clough of Feltram, that opens northward, where
+stands Cloostedd Forest spreading far and thick. Now, how do you find
+our fortune-teller?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is exactly what I wish to know,&quot; answered Sir Bale; &quot;because,
+although I can't, of course, believe that he's a witch, yet he has
+either made the most marvellous fluke I've heard of, or else he has got
+extraordinary sources of information; or perhaps he acts partly on
+chance, partly on facts. Be it which you please, I say he's a marvellous
+fellow; and I should like to see him, and have a talk with him; and
+perhaps he could arrange with me. I should be very glad to make an
+arrangement with him to give me the benefit of his advice about any
+matter of the same kind again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think he's willing to see you; but he's a fellow with a queer fancy
+and a pig-head. He'll not come here; you must go to him; and approach
+him his own way too, or you may fail to find him. On these terms he
+invites you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He knows his value, and means to make his own terms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, there's nothing unfair in that; and I don't see that I should
+dispute it. How is one to find him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stand, as I told you, with your back to those letters cut in the oak.
+Right before you lies an old Druidic altar-stone. Cast your eye over its
+surface, and on some part of it you are sure to see a black stain about
+the size of a man's head. Standing, as I suppose you, against the oak,
+that stain, which changes its place from day to day, will give you the
+line you must follow through the forest in order to light upon him. Take
+carefully from it such trees or objects as will guide you; and when the
+forest thickens, do the best you can to keep to the same line. You are
+sure to find him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll come, Feltram. I should lose myself in that wilderness, and
+probably fail to discover him,&quot; said Sir Bale; &quot;and I really wish to see
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When two people wish to meet, it is hard if they don't. I can go with
+you a bit of the way; I can walk a little through the forest by your
+side, until I see the small flower that grows peeping here and there,
+that always springs where those people walk; and when I begin to see
+that sign, I must leave you. And, first, I'll take you across the lake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jove, you'll do no such thing!&quot; said Sir Bale hastily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that is the way he chooses to be approached,&quot; said Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have a sort of feeling about that lake; it's the one childish spot
+that is left in my imagination. The nursery is to blame for it&mdash;old
+stories and warnings; and I can't think of that. I should feel I had
+invoked an evil omen if I did. I know it is all nonsense; but we are
+queer creatures, Feltram. I must only ride there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, it is five-and-twenty miles round the lake to that; and after all
+were done, he would not see you. He knows what he's worth, and he'll
+have his own way,&quot; answered Feltram. &quot;The sun will soon set. See that
+withered branch, near Snakes Island, that looks like fingers rising from
+the water? When its points grow tipped with red, the sun has but three
+minutes to live.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is a wonder which I can't see; it is too far away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, the lake has many signs; but it needs sight to see them,&quot; said
+Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So it does,&quot; said the Baronet; &quot;more than most men have got. I'll ride
+round, I say; and I make my visit, for this time, my own way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll not find him, then; and he wants his money. It would be a pity
+to vex him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was to you he lent the money,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you are the proper person to find him out and pay him,&quot; urged Sir
+Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps so; but he invites you; and if you don't go, he may be
+offended, and you may hear no more from him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll try. When can you go? There are races to come off next week, for
+once and away, at Langton. I should not mind trying my luck there. What
+do you say?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can go there and pay him, and ask the same question&mdash;what horses, I
+mean, are to win. All the county are to be there; and plenty of money
+will change hands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll try,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When will you go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-morrow,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have an odd idea, Feltram, that you are really going to pay off those
+cursed mortgages.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand with at least a gesture of kindness on the thin arm of
+Feltram, who coldly answered,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So have I;&quot; and walked down the side of the little knoll and away,
+without another word or look.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XVIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>On the Lake, at Last</b></i>
+
+<p>Next day Philip Feltram crossed the lake; and Sir Bale, seeing the boat
+on the water, guessed its destination, and watched its progress with no
+little interest, until he saw it moored and its sail drop at the rude
+pier that affords a landing at the Clough of Feltram. He was now
+satisfied that Philip had actually gone to seek out the 'cunning man,'
+and gather hints for the next race.</p>
+
+<p>When that evening Feltram returned, and, later still, entered Sir Bale's
+library, the master of Mardykes was gladder to see his face and more
+interested about his news than he would have cared to confess.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram did not affect unconsciousness of that anxiety, but, with
+great directness, proceeded to satisfy it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was in Cloostedd Forest to-day, nearly all day&mdash;and found the old
+gentleman in a wax. He did not ask me to drink, nor show me any
+kindness. He was huffed because you would not take the trouble to cross
+the lake to speak to him yourself. He took the money you sent him and
+counted it over, and dropped it into his pocket; and he called you hard
+names enough and to spare; but I brought him round, and at last he did
+talk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what did he say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He said that the estate of Mardykes would belong to a Feltram.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He might have said something more likely,&quot; said Sir Bale sourly. &quot;Did
+he say anything more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. He said the winner at Langton Lea would be Silver Bell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Any other name?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Silver Bell? Well, that's not so odd as the last. Silver Bell stands
+high in the list. He has a good many backers&mdash;long odds in his favour
+against most of the field. I should not mind backing Silver Bell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The fact is, that he had no idea of backing any other horse from the
+moment he heard the soothsayer's prediction. He made up his mind to no
+half measures this time. He would go in to win something handsome.</p>
+
+<p>He was in great force and full of confidence on the race-course. He had
+no fears for the result. He bet heavily. There was a good margin still
+untouched of the Mardykes estate; and Sir Bale was a good old name in
+the county. He found a ready market for his offers, and had soon
+staked&mdash;such is the growing frenzy of that excitement&mdash;about twenty
+thousand pounds on his favourite, and stood to win seven.</p>
+
+<p>He did not win, however. He lost his twenty thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Mardykes estate was in imminent danger. Sir Bale returned,
+having distributed I O Us and promissory notes in all directions about
+him&mdash;quite at his wit's end.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram was standing&mdash;as on the occasion of his former happier
+return&mdash;on the steps of Mardykes Hall, in the evening sun, throwing
+eastward a long shadow that was lost in the lake. He received him, as
+before, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was too much broken to resent this laugh as furiously as he
+might, had he been a degree less desperate.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Feltram savagely, and dismounted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Last time you would not trust him, and this time he would not trust
+you. He's huffed, and played you false.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was not he. I should have backed that d----d horse in any case,&quot;
+said Sir Bale, grinding his teeth. &quot;What a witch you have discovered!
+One thing is true, perhaps. If there was a Feltram rich enough, he might
+have the estate now; but there ain't. They are all beggars. So much for
+your conjurer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He may make amends to you, if you make amends to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He! Why, what can that wretched impostor do? D&mdash;n me, I'm past helping
+now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you talk so,&quot; said Feltram. &quot;Be civil. You must please the old
+gentleman. He'll make it up. He's placable when it suits him. Why not go
+to him his own way? I hear you are nearly ruined. You must go and make
+it up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Make it up! With whom? With a fellow who can't make even a guess at
+what's coming? Why should I trouble my head about him more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No man, young or old, likes to be frumped. Why did you cross his fancy?
+He won't see you unless you go to him as he chooses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If he waits for that, he may wait till doomsday. I don't choose to go
+on that water&mdash;and cross it I won't,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>But when his distracting reminders began to pour in upon him, and the
+idea of dismembering what remained of his property came home to him, his
+resolution faltered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, Feltram, what difference can it possibly make to him if I choose
+to ride round to Cloostedd Forest instead of crossing the lake in a
+boat?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram smiled darkly, and answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't tell. Can you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course I can't&mdash;I say I can't; besides, what audacity of a fellow
+like that presuming to prescribe to me! Utterly ludicrous! And he can't
+predict&mdash;do you really think or believe, Feltram, that he can?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know he can. I know he misled you on purpose. He likes to punish
+those who don't respect his will; and there is a reason in it, often
+quite clear&mdash;not ill-natured. Now you see he compels you to seek him
+out, and when you do, I think he'll help you through your trouble. He
+said he would.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you have seen him since?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yesterday. He has put a pressure on you; but he means to help you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If he means to help me, let him remember I want a banker more than a
+seer. Let him give me a lift, as he did before. He must lend me money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He'll not stick at that. When he takes up a man, he carries him
+through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The races of Byermere&mdash;I might retrieve at them. But they don't come
+off for a month nearly; and what is a man like me to do in the
+meantime?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every man should know his own business best. I'm not like you,&quot; said
+Feltram grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Now Sir Bale's trouble increased, for some people were pressing.
+Something like panic supervened; for it happened that land was bringing
+just then a bad price, and more must be sold in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All I can tell them is, I am selling land. It can't be done in an hour.
+I'm selling enough to pay them all twice over. Gentlemen used to be able
+to wait till a man sold his acres for payment. D&mdash;n them! do they want
+my body, that they can't let me alone for five minutes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The end of it was, that before a week Sir Bale told Feltram that he
+would go by boat, since that fellow insisted on it; and he did not very
+much care if he were drowned.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful autumnal day. Everything was bright in that mellowed
+sun, and the deep blue of the lake was tremulous with golden ripples;
+and crag and peak and scattered wood, faint in the distance, came out
+with a filmy distinctness on the fells in that pleasant light.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had been ill, and sent down the night before for Doctor Torvey.
+He was away with a patient. Now, in the morning, he had arrived
+inopportunely. He met Sir Bale as he issued from the house, and had a
+word with him in the court, for he would not turn back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said the Doctor, after his brief inspection, &quot;you ought to be
+in your bed; that's all I can say. You are perfectly mad to think of
+knocking about like this. Your pulse is at a hundred and ten; and, if
+you go across the lake and walk about Cloostedd, you'll be raving before
+you come back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale told him, apologetically, as if his life were more to his
+doctor than to himself, that he would take care not to fatigue himself,
+and that the air would do him good, and that in any case he could not
+avoid going; and so they parted.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale took his seat beside Feltram in the boat, the sail was spread,
+and, bending to the light breeze that blew from Golden Friars, she
+glided from the jetty under Mardykes Hall, and the eventful voyage had
+begun.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><h4>CHAPTER XIX</h4>
+
+<i><b>Mystagogus</b></i>
+
+<p>The sail was loosed, the boat touched the stone step, and Feltram sprang
+out and made her fast to the old iron ring. The Baronet followed. So! he
+had ventured upon that water without being drowned. He looked round him
+as if in a dream. He had not been there since his childhood. There were
+no regrets, no sentiment, no remorse; only an odd return of the
+associations and fresh feelings of boyhood, and a long reach of time
+suddenly annihilated.</p>
+
+<p>The little hollow in which he stood; the three hawthorn trees at his
+right; every crease and undulation of the sward, every angle and crack
+in the lichen-covered rock at his feet, recurred with a sharp and
+instantaneous recognition to his memory.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many a time your brother and I fished for hours together from that bank
+there, just where the bramble grows. That bramble has not grown an inch
+ever since, not a leaf altered; we used to pick blackberries off it,
+with our rods stuck in the bank&mdash;it was later in the year than now&mdash;till
+we stript it quite bare after a day or two. The steward used to come
+over&mdash;they were marking timber for cutting and we used to stay here
+while they rambled through the wood, with an axe marking the trees that
+were to come down. I wonder whether the big old boat is still anywhere.
+I suppose she was broken up, or left to rot; I have not seen her since
+we came home. It was in the wood that lies at the right&mdash;the other wood
+is called the forest; they say in old times it was eight miles long,
+northward up the shore of the lake, and full of deer; with a forester,
+and a reeve, and a verderer, and all that. Your brother was older than
+you; he went to India, or the Colonies; is he living still?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I care not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's good-natured, at all events; but do you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I; and what matter? If he's living, I warrant he has his share of
+the curse, the sweat of his brow and his bitter crust; and if he is
+dead, he's dust or worse, he's rotten, and smells accordingly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked at him; for this was the brother over whom, only a year
+or two ago, Philip used to cry tears of pathetic longing. Feltram looked
+darkly in his face, and sneered with a cold laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose you mean to jest?&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I; it is the truth. It is what you'd say, if you were honest. If
+he's alive, let him keep where he is; and if he's dead, I'll have none
+of him, body or soul. Do you hear that sound?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like the wind moaning in the forest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I feel no wind. There's hardly a leaf stirring.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think so,&quot; said Feltram. &quot;Come along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he began striding up the gentle slope of the glen, with many a rock
+peeping through its sward, and tufted ferns and furze, giving a wild and
+neglected character to the scene; the background of which, where the
+glen loses itself in a distant turn, is formed by its craggy and wooded
+side.</p>
+
+<p>Up they marched, side by side, in silence, towards that irregular clump
+of trees, to which Feltram had pointed from the Mardykes side.</p>
+
+<p>As they approached, it showed more scattered, and two or three of the
+trees were of grander dimensions than in the distance they had appeared;
+and as they walked, the broad valley of Cloostedd Forest opened grandly
+on their left, studding the sides of the valley with solitary trees or
+groups, which thickened as it descended to the broad level, in parts
+nearly three miles wide, on which stands the noble forest of Cloostedd,
+now majestically reposing in the stirless air, gilded and flushed with
+the melancholy tints of autumn.</p>
+
+<p>I am now going to relate wonderful things; but they rest on the report,
+strangely consistent, it is true, of Sir Bale Mardykes. That all his
+senses, however, were sick and feverish, and his brain not quite to be
+relied on at that moment, is a fact of which sceptics have a right to
+make all they please and can.</p>
+
+<p>Startled at their approach, a bird like a huge mackaw bounced from the
+boughs of the trees, and sped away, every now and then upon the ground,
+toward the shelter of the forest, fluttering and hopping close by the
+side of the little brook which, emerging from the forest, winds into the
+glen, and beside the course of which Sir Bale and Philip Feltram had
+ascended from the margin of the lake.</p>
+
+<p>It fluttered on, as if one of its wings were hurt, and kept hopping and
+bobbing and flying along the grass at its swiftest, screaming all the
+time discordantly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That must be old Mrs. Amerald's bird, that got away a week ago,&quot; said
+Sir Bale, stopping and looking after it. &quot;Was not it a mackaw?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said Feltram; &quot;that was a gray parrot; but there are stranger
+birds in Cloostedd Forest, for my ancestors collected all that would
+live in our climate, and were at pains to find them the food and shelter
+they were accustomed to until they grew hardy&mdash;that is how it happens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jove, that's a secret worth knowing,&quot; said Sir Bale. &quot;That would
+make quite a feature. What a fat brute that bird was! and green and
+dusky-crimson and yellow; but its head is white&mdash;age, I suspect; and
+what a broken beak&mdash;hideous bird! splendid plumage; something between a
+mackaw and a vulture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale spoke jocularly, but with the interest of a bird-fancier; a
+taste which, when young, he had indulged; and for the moment forgot his
+cares and the object of his unwonted excursion.</p>
+
+<p>A moment after, a lank slim bird, perfectly white, started from the same
+boughs, and winged its way to the forest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A kite, I think; but its body is a little too long, isn't it?&quot; said Sir
+Bale again, stopping and looking after its flight also.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A foreign kite, I daresay?&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>All this time there was hopping near them a jay, with the tameness of a
+bird accustomed to these solitudes. It peered over its slender wing
+curiously at the visitors; pecking here and nodding there; and thus
+hopping, it made a circle round them more than once. Then it fluttered
+up, and perched on a bough of the old oak, from the deep labyrinth of
+whose branches the other birds had emerged; and from thence it flew down
+and lighted on the broad druidic stone, that stood like a cyclopean
+table on its sunken stone props, before the snakelike roots of the oak.</p>
+
+<p>Across this it hopped conceitedly, as over a stage on which it figured
+becomingly; and after a momentary hesitation, with a little spring, it
+rose and winged its way in the same direction which the other birds had
+taken, and was quickly lost in thick forest to the left.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here,&quot; said Feltram, &quot;this is the tree.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I remember it well! A gigantic trunk; and, yes, those marks; but I
+never before read them as letters. Yes, H.F., so they are&mdash;very odd I
+should not have remarked them. They are so large, and so strangely
+drawn-out in some places, and filled-in in others, and distorted, and
+the moss has grown about them; I don't wonder I took them for natural
+cracks and chasms in the bark,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very like,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had remarked, ever since they had begun their walk from the
+shore, that Feltram seemed to undergo a gloomy change. Sharper, grimmer,
+wilder grew his features, and shadow after shadow darkened his face
+wickedly.</p>
+
+<p>The solitude and grandeur of the forest, and the repulsive gloom of his
+companion's countenance and demeanour, communicated a tone of anxiety to
+Sir Bale; and they stood still, side by side, in total silence for a
+time, looking toward the forest glades; between themselves and which, on
+the level sward of the valley, stood many a noble tree and fantastic
+group of forked birch and thorn, in the irregular formations into which
+Nature had thrown them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now you stand between the letters. Cast your eyes on the stone,&quot; said
+Feltram suddenly, and his low stern tones almost startled the Baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Looking round, he perceived that he had so placed himself that his point
+of vision was exactly from between the two great letters, now
+half-obliterated, which he had been scrutinizing just as he turned about
+to look toward the forest of Cloostedd.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, so I am,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>There was within him an excitement and misgiving, akin to the sensation
+of a man going into battle, and which corresponded with the pale and
+sombre frown which Feltram wore, and the manifest change which had come
+over him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look on the stone steadily for a time, and tell me if you see a black
+mark, about the size of your hand, anywhere upon its surface,&quot; said
+Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale affected no airs of scepticism now; his imagination was
+stirred, and a sense of some unknown reality at the bottom of that which
+he had affected to treat before as illusion, inspired a strange interest
+in the experiment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you see it?&quot; asked Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was watching patiently, but he had observed nothing of the
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>Sharper, darker, more eager grew the face of Philip Feltram, as his eyes
+traversed the surface of that huge horizontal block.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now?&quot; asked Feltram again.</p>
+
+<p>No, he had seen nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram was growing manifestly uneasy, angry almost; he walked away a
+little, and back again, and then two or three times round the tree, with
+his hands shut, and treading the ground like a man trying to warm his
+feet, and so impatiently he returned, and looked again on the stone.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was still looking, and very soon said, drawing his brows
+together and looking hard,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha!--yes&mdash;hush. There it is, by Jove!--wait&mdash;yes&mdash;there; it is growing
+quite plain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed not as if a shadow fell upon the stone, but rather as if the
+stone became semi-transparent, and just under its surface was something
+dark&mdash;a hand, he thought it&mdash;and darker and darker it grew, as if coming
+up toward the surface, and after some little wavering, it fixed itself
+movelessly, pointing, as he thought, toward the forest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It looks like a hand,&quot; said he. &quot;By Jove, it is a hand&mdash;pointing
+towards the forest with a finger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't mind the finger; look only on that black blurred mark, and from
+the point where you stand, taking that point for your direction, look to
+the forest. Take some tree or other landmark for an object, enter the
+forest there, and pursue the same line, as well as you can, until you
+find little flowers with leaves like wood-sorrel, and with tall stems
+and a red blossom, not larger than a drop, such as you have not seen
+before, growing among the trees, and follow wherever they seem to grow
+thickest, and there you will find him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All the time that Feltram was making this little address, Sir Bale was
+endeavouring to fix his route by such indications as Feltram described;
+and when he had succeeded in quite establishing the form of a peculiar
+tree&mdash;a melancholy ash, one huge limb of which had been blasted by
+lightning, and its partly stricken arm stood high and barkless,
+stretching its white fingers, as it were, in invitation into the forest,
+and signing the way for him&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have it now,&quot; said he. &quot;Come Feltram, you'll come a bit of the way
+with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram made no answer, but slowly shook his head, and turned and walked
+away, leaving Sir Bale to undertake his adventure alone.</p>
+
+<p>The strange sound they had heard from the midst of the forest, like the
+rumble of a storm or the far-off trembling of a furnace, had quite
+ceased. Not a bird was hopping on the grass, or visible on bough or in
+the sky. Not a living creature was in sight&mdash;never was stillness more
+complete, or silence more oppressive.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been ridiculous to give way to the old reluctance which
+struggled within him. Feltram had strode down the slope, and was
+concealed by a screen of bushes from his view. So alone, and full of an
+interest quite new to him, he set out in quest of his adventures.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a><h4>CHAPTER XX</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Haunted Forest</b></i>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes walked in a straight line, by bush and scaur, over the
+undulating ground, to the blighted ash-tree; and as he approached it,
+its withered bough stretched more gigantically into the air, and the
+forest seemed to open where it pointed.</p>
+
+<p>He passed it by, and in a few minutes had lost sight of it again, and
+was striding onward under the shadow of the forest, which already
+enclosed him. He was directing his march with all the care he could, in
+exactly that line which, according to Feltram's rule, had been laid down
+for him. Now and then, having, as soldiers say, taken an object, and
+fixed it well in his memory, he would pause and look about him.</p>
+
+<p>As a boy he had never entered the wood so far; for he was under a
+prohibition, lest he should lose himself in its intricacies, and be
+benighted there. He had often heard that it was haunted ground, and that
+too would, when a boy, have deterred him. It was on this account that
+the scene was so new to him, and that he cared so often to stop and look
+about him. Here and there a vista opened, exhibiting the same utter
+desertion, and opening farther perspectives through the tall stems of
+the trees faintly visible in the solemn shadow. No flowers could he see,
+but once or twice a wood anemone, and now and then a tiny grove of
+wood-sorrel.</p>
+
+<p>Huge oak-trees now began to mingle and show themselves more and more
+frequently among the other timber; and gradually the forest became a
+great oak wood unintruded upon by any less noble tree. Vast trunks
+curving outwards to the roots, and expanding again at the branches,
+stood like enormous columns, striking out their groining boughs, with
+the dark vaulting of a crypt.</p>
+
+<p>As he walked under the shadow of these noble trees, suddenly his eye
+was struck by a strange little flower, nodding quite alone by the
+knotted root of one of those huge oaks.</p>
+
+<p>He stooped and picked it up, and as he plucked it, with a harsh scream
+just over his head, a large bird with heavy beating wings broke away
+from the midst of the branches. He could not see it, but he fancied the
+scream was like that of the huge mackaw whose ill-poised flight he had
+watched. This conjecture was but founded on the odd cry he had heard.</p>
+
+<p>The flower was a curious one&mdash;a stem fine as a hair supported a little
+bell, that looked like a drop of blood, and never ceased trembling. He
+walked on, holding this in his fingers; and soon he saw another of the
+same odd type, then another at a shorter distance, then one a little to
+the right and another to the left, and farther on a little group, and at
+last the dark slope was all over trembling with these little bells,
+thicker and thicker as he descended a gentle declivity to the bank of
+the little brook, which flowing through the forest loses itself in the
+lake. The low murmur of this forest stream was almost the first sound,
+except the shriek of the bird that startled him a little time ago, which
+had disturbed the profound silence of the wood since he entered it.
+Mingling with the faint sound of the brook, he now heard a harsh human
+voice calling words at intervals, the purport of which he could not yet
+catch; and walking on, he saw seated upon the grass, a strange figure,
+corpulent, with a great hanging nose, the whole face glowing like
+copper. He was dressed in a bottle-green cut-velvet coat, of the style
+of Queen Anne's reign, with a dusky crimson waistcoat, both overlaid
+with broad and tarnished gold lace, and his silk stockings on thick
+swollen legs, with great buckled shoes, straddling on the grass, were
+rolled up over his knees to his short breeches. This ill-favoured old
+fellow, with a powdered wig that came down to his shoulders, had a
+dice-box in each hand, and was apparently playing his left against his
+right, and calling the throws with a hoarse cawing voice.</p>
+
+<p>Raising his black piggish eyes, he roared to Sir Bale, by name, to come
+and sit down, raising one of his dice-boxes, and then indicating a place
+on the grass opposite to him.</p>
+
+<p>Now Sir Bale instantly guessed that this was the man, gipsy, warlock,
+call him what he might, of whom he had come in search. With a strange
+feeling of curiosity, disgust, and awe, he drew near. He was resolved to
+do whatever this old man required of him, and to keep him, this time, in
+good humour.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale did as he bid him, and sat down; and taking the box he
+presented, they began throwing turn about, with three dice, the
+copper-faced old man teaching him the value of the throws, as he
+proceeded, with many a curse and oath; and when he did not like a throw,
+grinning with a look of such real fury, that the master of Mardykes
+almost expected him to whip out his sword and prick him through as he
+sat before him.</p>
+
+<p>After some time spent at this play, in which guineas passed now this
+way, now that, chucked across the intervening patch of grass, or rather
+moss, that served them for a green cloth, the old man roared over his
+shoulder,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Drink;&quot; and picking up a longstemmed conical glass which Sir Bale had
+not observed before, he handed it over to the Baronet; and taking
+another in his fingers, he held it up, while a very tall slim old man,
+dressed in a white livery, with powdered hair and cadaverous face, which
+seemed to run out nearly all into a long thin hooked nose, advanced with
+a flask in each hand. Looking at the unwieldly old man, with his heavy
+nose, powdered head, and all the bottle-green, crimson, and gold about
+him, and the long slim serving man, with sharp beak, and white from head
+to heel, standing by him, Sir Bale was forcibly reminded of the great
+old macaw and the long and slender kite, whose colours they, after their
+fashion, reproduced, with something, also indescribable, of the air and
+character of the birds. Not standing on ceremony, the old fellow held up
+his own glass first, which the white lackey filled from the flask, and
+then he filled Sir Bale's glass.</p>
+
+<p>It was a large glass, and might have held about half a pint; and the
+liquor with which the servant filled it was something of the colour of
+an opal, and circles of purple and gold seemed to be spreading
+continually outward from the centre, and running inward from the rim,
+and crossing one another, so as to form a beautiful rippling net-work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I drink to your better luck next time,&quot; said the old man, lifting his
+glass high, and winking with one eye, and leering knowingly with the
+other; &quot;and you know what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale put the liquor to his lips. Wine? Whatever it was, never had he
+tasted so delicious a flavour. He drained it to the bottom, and placing
+it on the grass beside him, and looking again at the old dicer, who was
+also setting down his glass, he saw, for the first time, the graceful
+figure of a young woman seated on the grass. She was dressed in deep
+mourning, had a black hood carelessly over her head, and, strangely,
+wore a black mask, such as are used at masquerades. So much of her
+throat and chin as he could see were beautifully white; and there was a
+prettiness in her air and figure which made him think what a beautiful
+creature she in all likelihood was. She was reclining slightly against
+the burly man in bottle-green and gold, and her arm was round his neck,
+and her slender white hand showed itself over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho! my little Geaiette,&quot; cried the old fellow hoarsely; &quot;it will be
+time that you and I should get home.&mdash;So, Bale Mardykes, I have nothing
+to object to you this time; you've crossed the lake, and you've played
+with me and won and lost, and drank your glass like a jolly companion,
+and now we know one another; and an acquaintance is made that will last.
+I'll let you go, and you'll come when I call for you. And now you'll
+want to know what horse will win next month at Rindermere
+races.&mdash;Whisper me, lass, and I'll tell him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So her lips, under the black curtain, crept close to his ear, and she
+whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, so it will;&quot; roared the old man, gnashing his teeth; &quot;it will be
+Rainbow, and now make your best speed out of the forest, or I'll set my
+black dogs after you, ho, ho, ho! and they may chance to pull you down.
+Away!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He cried this last order with a glare so black, and so savage a shake of
+his huge fist, that Sir Bale, merely making his general bow to the
+group, clapped his hat on his head, and hastily began his retreat; but
+the same discordant voice yelled after him:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll want that, you fool; pick it up.&quot; And there came hurtling after
+and beside him a great leather bag, stained, and stuffed with a heavy
+burden, and bounding by him it stopped with a little wheel that brought
+it exactly before his feet.</p>
+
+<p>He picked it up, and found it heavy.</p>
+
+<p>Turning about to make his acknowledgments, he saw the two persons in
+full retreat; the profane old scoundrel in the bottle-green limping and
+stumbling, yet bowling along at a wonderful rate, with many a jerk and
+reel, and the slender lady in black gliding away by his side into the
+inner depths of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>So Sir Bale, with a strange chill, and again in utter solitude, pursued
+his retreat, with his burden, at a swifter pace, and after an hour or
+so, had recovered the point where he had entered the forest, and passing
+by the druidic stone and the mighty oak, saw down the glen at his right,
+standing by the edge of the lake, Philip Feltram, close to the bow of
+the boat.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXI</h4>
+
+<i><b>Rindermere</b></i>
+
+<p>Feltram looked grim and agitated when Sir Bale came up to him, as he
+stood on the flat-stone by which the boat was moored.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You found him?&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The lady in black was there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you played with him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is that in your hand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A bag of something, I fancy money; it is heavy; he threw it after me.
+We shall see just now; let us get away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He gave you some of his wine to drink?&quot; said Feltram, looking darkly in
+his face; but there was a laugh in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; of course I drank it; my object was to please him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To be sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The faint wind that carried them across the lake had quite subsided by
+the time they had reached the side where they now were.</p>
+
+<p>There was now not wind enough to fill the sail, and it was already
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me an oar; we can pull her over in little more than an hour,&quot; said
+Sir Bale; &quot;only let us get away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He got into the boat, sat down, and placed the leather bag with its
+heavy freightage at his feet, and took an oar. Feltram loosed the rope
+and shoved the boat off; and taking his seat also, they began to pull
+together, without another word, until, in about ten minutes, they had
+got a considerable way off the Cloostedd shore.</p>
+
+<p>The leather bag was too clumsy a burden to conceal; besides, Feltram
+knew all about the transaction, and Sir Bale had no need to make a
+secret. The bag was old and soiled, and tied about the &quot;neck&quot; with a
+long leather thong, and it seemed to have been sealed with red wax,
+fragments of which were still sticking to it.</p>
+
+<p>He got it open, and found it full of guineas.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Halt!&quot; cried Sir Bale, delighted, for he had half apprehended a trick
+upon his hopes; &quot;gold it is, and a lot of it, by Jove!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram did not seem to take the slightest interest in the matter.
+Sulkily and drowsily he was leaning with his elbow on his knee, and it
+seemed thinking of something far away. Sir Bale could not wait to count
+them any longer. He reckoned them on the bench, and found two thousand.</p>
+
+<p>It took some time; and when he had got them back into the leather bag,
+and tied them up again, Feltram, with a sudden start, said sharply,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, take your oar&mdash;unless you like the lake by night; and see, a wind
+will soon be up from Golden Friars!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He cast a wild look towards Mardykes Hall and Snakes Island, and
+applying himself to his oar, told Sir Bale to take his also; and nothing
+loath, the Baronet did so.</p>
+
+<p>It was slow work, for the boat was not built for speed; and by the time
+they had got about midway, the sun went down, and twilight and the
+melancholy flush of the sunset tints were upon the lake and fells.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho! here comes the breeze&mdash;up from Golden Friars,&quot; said Feltram; &quot;we
+shall have enough to fill the sails now. If you don't fear spirits and
+Snakes Island, it is all the better for us it should blow from that
+point. If it blew from Mardykes now, it would be a stiff pull for you
+and me to get this tub home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Talking as if to himself, and laughing low, he adjusted the sail and
+took the tiller, and so, yielding to the rising breeze, the boat glided
+slowly toward still distant Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>The moon came out, and the shore grew misty, and the towering fells rose
+like sheeted giants; and leaning on the gunwale of the boat, Sir Bale,
+with the rush and gurgle of the water on the boat's side sounding
+faintly in his ear, thought of his day's adventure, which seemed to him
+like a dream&mdash;incredible but for the heavy bag that lay between his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed Snakes Island, a little mist, like a fragment of a fog,
+seemed to drift with them, and Sir Bale fancied that whenever it came
+near the boat's side she made a dip, as if strained toward the water;
+and Feltram always put out his hand, as if waving it from him, and the
+mist seemed to obey the gesture; but returned again and again, and the
+same thing always happened.</p>
+
+<p>It was three weeks after, that Sir Bale, sitting up in his bed, very
+pale and wan, with his silk night-cap nodding on one side, and his thin
+hand extended on the coverlet, where the doctor had been feeling his
+pulse, in his darkened room, related all the wonders of this day to
+Doctor Torvey. The doctor had attended him through a fever which
+followed immediately upon his visit to Cloostedd.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, my dear sir, by Jupiter, can you really believe all that delirium
+to be sober fact?&quot; said the doctor, sitting by the bedside, and actually
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't help believing it, because I can't distinguish in any way
+between all that and everything else that actually happened, and which I
+must believe. And, except that this is more wonderful, I can find no
+reason to reject it, that does not as well apply to all the rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, come, my dear sir, this will never do&mdash;nothing is more common.
+These illusions accompanying fever frequently antedate the attack, and
+the man is actually raving before he knows he is ill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what do you make of that bag of gold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some one has lent it. You had better ask all about it of Feltram when
+you can see him; for in speaking to me he seemed to know all about it,
+and certainly did not seem to think the matter at all out of the
+commonplace. It is just like that fisherman's story, about the hand that
+drew Feltram into the water on the night that he was nearly drowned.
+Every one can see what that was. Why of course it was simply the
+reflection of his own hand in the water, in that vivid lightning. When
+you have been out a little and have gained strength you will shake off
+these dreams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should not wonder,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be supposed that Sir Bale reported all that was in his
+memory respecting his strange vision, if such it was, at Cloostedd. He
+made a selection of the incidents, and threw over the whole adventure an
+entirely accidental character, and described the money which the old man
+had thrown to him as amounting to a purse of five guineas, and mentioned
+nothing of the passages which bore on the coming race.</p>
+
+<p>Good Doctor Torvey, therefore, reported only that Sir Bale's delirium
+had left two or three illusions sticking in his memory.</p>
+
+<p>But if they were illusions, they survived the event of his recovery, and
+remained impressed on his memory with the sharpness of very recent and
+accurately observed fact.</p>
+
+<p>He was resolved on going to the races of Rindermere, where, having in
+his possession so weighty a guarantee as the leather purse, he was
+determined to stake it all boldly on Rainbow&mdash;against which horse he was
+glad to hear there were very heavy odds.</p>
+
+<p>The race came off. One horse was scratched, another bolted, the rider of
+a third turned out to have lost a buckle and three half-pence and so was
+an ounce and a half under weight, a fourth knocked down the post near
+Rinderness churchyard, and was held to have done it with his left
+instead of his right knee, and so had run at the wrong side. The result
+was that Rainbow came in first, and I should be afraid to say how much
+Sir Bale won. It was a sum that paid off a heavy debt, and left his
+affairs in a much more manageable state.</p>
+
+<p>From this time Sir Bale prospered. He visited Cloostedd no more; but
+Feltram often crossed to that lonely shore as heretofore, and it is
+believed conveyed to him messages which guided his betting. One thing is
+certain, his luck never deserted him. His debts disappeared; and his
+love of continental life seemed to have departed. He became content with
+Mardykes Hall, laid out money on it, and although he never again cared
+to cross the lake, he seemed to like the scenery.</p>
+
+<p>In some respects, however, he lived exactly the same odd and unpopular
+life. He saw no one at Mardykes Hall. He practised a very strict
+reserve. The neighbours laughed at and disliked him, and he was voted,
+whenever any accidental contact arose, a very disagreeable man; and he
+had a shrewd and ready sarcasm that made them afraid of him, and himself
+more disliked.</p>
+
+<p>Odd rumours prevailed about his household. It was said that his old
+relations with Philip Feltram had become reversed; and that he was as
+meek as a mouse, and Feltram the bully now. It was also said that Mrs.
+Julaper had one Sunday evening when she drank tea at the Vicar's, told
+his good lady very mysteriously, and with many charges of secrecy, that
+Sir Bale was none the better of his late-found wealth; that he had a
+load upon his spirits, that he was afraid of Feltram, and so was every
+one else, more or less, in the house; that he was either mad or worse;
+and that it was an eerie dwelling, and strange company, and she should
+be glad herself of a change.</p>
+
+<p>Good Mrs. Bedel told her friend Mrs. Torvey; and all Golden Friars heard
+all this, and a good deal more, in an incredibly short time.</p>
+
+<p>All kinds of rumours now prevailed in Golden Friars, connecting Sir
+Bale's successes on the turf with some mysterious doings in Cloostedd
+Forest. Philip Feltram laughed when he heard these stories&mdash;especially
+when he heard the story that a supernatural personage had lent the
+Baronet a purse full of money.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You should not talk to Doctor Torvey so, sir,&quot; said he grimly; &quot;he's
+the greatest tattler in the town. It was old Farmer Trebeck, who could
+buy and sell us all down here, who lent that money. Partly from
+good-will, but not without acknowledgment. He has my hand for the first,
+not worth much, and yours to a bond for the two thousand guineas you
+brought home with you. It seems strange you should not remember that
+venerable and kind old farmer whom you talked with so long that day. His
+grandson, who expects to stand well in his will, being a trainer in
+Lord Varney's stables, has sometimes a tip to give, and he is the source
+of your information.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jove, I must be a bit mad, then, that's all,&quot; said Sir Bale, with a
+smile and a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram moped about the house, and did precisely what he pleased.
+The change which had taken place in him became more and more pronounced.
+Dark and stern he always looked, and often malignant. He was like a man
+possessed of one evil thought which never left him.</p>
+
+<p>There was, besides, the good old Gothic superstition of a bargain or
+sale of the Baronet's soul to the arch-fiend. This was, of course, very
+cautiously whispered in a place where he had influence. It was only a
+coarser and directer version of a suspicion, that in a more credulous
+generation penetrated a level of society quite exempt from such follies
+in our day.</p>
+
+<p>One evening at dusk, Sir Bale, sitting after his dinner in his window,
+saw the tall figure of Feltram, like a dark streak, standing movelessly
+by the lake. An unpleasant feeling moved him, and then an impatience. He
+got up, and having primed himself with two glasses of brandy, walked
+down to the edge of the lake, and placed himself beside Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Looking down from the window,&quot; said he, nerved with his Dutch courage,
+&quot;and seeing you standing like a post, do you know what I began to think
+of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram looked at him, but answered nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I began to think of taking a wife&mdash;<i>marrying</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram nodded. The announcement had not produced the least effect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why the devil will you make me so uncomfortable! Can't you be like
+yourself&mdash;what you <i>were</i>, I mean? I won't go on living here alone with
+you. I'll take a wife, I tell you. I'll choose a good church-going
+woman, that will have every man, woman, and child in the house on their
+marrow-bones twice a day, morning and evening, and three times on
+Sundays. How will you like that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you will be married,&quot; said Feltram, with a quiet decision which
+chilled Sir Bale, for he had by no means made up his mind to that
+desperate step.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram slowly walked away, and that conversation ended.</p>
+
+<p>Now an odd thing happened about this time. There was a family of
+Feltram&mdash;county genealogists could show how related to the vanished
+family of Cloostedd&mdash;living at that time on their estate not far from
+Carlisle. Three co-heiresses now represented it. They were great
+beauties&mdash;the belles of their county in their day.</p>
+
+<p>One was married to Sir Oliver Haworth of Haworth, a great family in
+those times. He was a knight of the shire, and had refused a baronetage,
+and, it was said, had his eye on a peerage. The other sister was married
+to Sir William Walsingham, a wealthy baronet; and the third and
+youngest, Miss Janet, was still unmarried, and at home at Cloudesly
+Hall, where her aunt, Lady Harbottle, lived with her, and made a
+dignified chaperon.</p>
+
+<p>Now it so fell out that Sir Bale, having business at Carlisle, and
+knowing old Lady Harbottle, paid his respects at Cloudesly Hall; and
+being no less than five-and-forty years of age, was for the first time
+in his life, seriously in love.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Janet was extremely pretty&mdash;a fair beauty with brilliant red lips
+and large blue eyes, and ever so many pretty dimples when she talked and
+smiled. It was odd, but not perhaps against the course of nature, that a
+man, though so old as he, and quite <i>blas&eacute;</i>, should fall at last under
+that fascination.</p>
+
+<p>But what are we to say of the strange infatuation of the young lady? No
+one could tell why she liked him. It was a craze. Her family were
+against it, her intimates, her old nurse&mdash;all would not do; and the
+oddest thing was, that he seemed to take no pains to please her. The end
+of this strange courtship was that he married her; and she came home to
+Mardykes Hall, determined to please everybody, and to be the happiest
+woman in England.</p>
+
+<p>With her came a female cousin, a good deal her senior, past
+thirty&mdash;Gertrude Mainyard, pale and sad, but very gentle, and with all
+the prettiness that can belong to her years.</p>
+
+<p>This young lady has a romance. Her hero is far away in India; and she,
+content to await his uncertain return with means to accomplish the hope
+of their lives, in that frail chance has long embarked all the purpose
+and love of her life.</p>
+
+<p>When Lady Mardykes came home, a new leaf was, as the phrase is, turned
+over. The neighbours and all the country people were willing to give the
+Hall a new trial. There was visiting and returning of visits; and young
+Lady Mardykes was liked and admired. It could not indeed have been
+otherwise. But here the improvement in the relations of Mardykes Hall
+with other homes ceased. On one excuse or another Sir Bale postponed or
+evaded the hospitalities which establish intimacies. Some people said he
+was jealous of his young and beautiful wife. But for the most part his
+reserve was set down to the old inhospitable cause, some ungenial
+defect in his character; and in a little time the tramp of horses and
+roll of carriage-wheels were seldom heard up or down the broad avenue of
+Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale liked this seclusion; and his wife, &quot;so infatuated with her
+idolatry of that graceless old man,&quot; as surrounding young ladies said,
+that she was well content to forego the society of the county people for
+a less interrupted enjoyment of that of her husband. &quot;What she could see
+in him&quot; to interest or amuse her so, that for his sake she was willing
+to be &quot;buried alive in that lonely place,&quot; the same critics were
+perpetually wondering.</p>
+
+<p>A year and more passed thus; for the young wife, happily&mdash;<i>very</i> happily
+indeed, had it not been for one topic on which she and her husband could
+not agree. This was Philip Feltram; and an odd quarrel it was.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXII</h4>
+
+<i><b>Sir Bale is Frightened</b></i>
+
+<p>To Feltram she had conceived, at first sight, a horror. It was not a
+mere antipathy; fear mingled largely in it. Although she did not see him
+often, this restless dread grew upon her so, that she urged his
+dismissal upon Sir Bale, offering to provide, herself, for him a
+handsome annuity, charged on that part of her property which, by her
+marriage settlement, had remained in her power. There was a time when
+Sir Bale was only too anxious to get rid of him. But that was changed
+now. Nothing could now induce the Baronet to part with him. He at first
+evaded and resisted quietly. But, urged with a perseverance to which he
+was unused, he at last broke into fury that appalled her, and swore that
+if he was worried more upon the subject, he would leave her and the
+country, and see neither again. This exhibition of violence affrighted
+her all the more by reason of the contrast; for up to this he had been
+an uxorious husband. Lady Mardykes was in hysterics, and thoroughly
+frightened, and remained in her room for two or three days. Sir Bale
+went up to London about business, and was not home for more than a week.
+This was the first little squall that disturbed the serenity of their
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>This point, therefore, was settled; but soon there came other things to
+sadden Lady Mardykes. There occurred a little incident, soon after Sir
+Bale's return from London, which recalled the topic on which they had so
+nearly quarrelled.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had a dressing-room, remote from the bedrooms, in which he sat
+and read and sometimes smoked. One night, after the house was all quiet,
+the Baronet being still up, the bell of this dressing-room rang long and
+furiously. It was such a peal as a person in extreme terror might ring.
+Lady Mardykes, with her maid in her room, heard it; and in great alarm
+she ran in her dressing-gown down the gallery to Sir Bale's room.
+Mallard the butler had already arrived, and was striving to force the
+door, which was secured. It gave way just as she reached it, and she
+rushed through.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was standing with the bell-rope in his hand, in the extremest
+agitation, looking like a ghost; and Philip Feltram was sitting in his
+chair, with a dark smile fixed upon him. For a minute she thought he had
+attempted to assassinate his master. She could not otherwise account for
+the scene.</p>
+
+<p>There had been nothing of the kind, however; as her husband assured her
+again and again, as she lay sobbing on his breast, with her arms about
+his neck.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To her dying hour,&quot; she afterwards said to her cousin, &quot;she never could
+forget the dreadful look in Feltram's face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>No explanation of that scene did she ever obtain from Sir Bale, nor any
+clue to the cause of the agony that was so powerfully expressed in his
+countenance. Thus much only she learned from him, that Feltram had
+sought that interview for the purpose of announcing his departure, which
+was to take place within the year.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not sorry to hear that. But if you knew all, you might. Let the
+curse fly where it may, it will come back to roost. So, darling, let us
+discuss him no more. Your wish is granted, <i>dis iratis</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Some crisis, during this interview, seemed to have occurred in the
+relations between Sir Bale and Feltram. Henceforward they seldom
+exchanged a word; and when they did speak, it was coldly and shortly,
+like men who were nearly strangers.</p>
+
+<p>One day in the courtyard, Sir Bale seeing Feltram leaning upon the
+parapet that overlooks the lake, approached him, and said in a low tone,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been thinking if we&mdash;that is, I&mdash;do owe that money to old Trebeck,
+it is high time I should pay it. I was ill, and had lost my head at the
+time; but it turned out luckily, and it ought to be paid. I don't like
+the idea of a bond turning up, and a lot of interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The old fellow meant it for a present. He is richer than you are; he
+wished to give the family a lift. He has destroyed the bond, I believe,
+and in no case will he take payment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fellow has a right to force his money on another,&quot; answered Sir
+Bale. &quot;I never asked him. Besides, as you know, I was not really myself,
+and the whole thing seems to me quite different from what you say it
+was; and, so far as my brain is concerned, it was all a phantasmagoria;
+but, you say, it was he.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every man is accountable for what he intends and for what he <i>thinks</i>
+he does,&quot; said Feltram cynically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I'm accountable for dealing with that wicked old dicer I
+<i>thought</i> I saw&mdash;isn't that it? But I must pay old Trebeck all the same,
+since the money was his. Can you manage a meeting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look down here. Old Trebeck has just landed; he will sleep to-night at
+the George and Dragon, to meet his cattle in the morning at Golden
+Friars fair. You can speak to him yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying Feltram glided away, leaving Sir Bale the task of opening the
+matter to the wealthy farmer of Cloostedd Fells.</p>
+
+<p>A broad night of steps leads down from the courtyard to the level of the
+jetty at the lake: and Sir Bale descended, and accosted the venerable
+farmer, who was bluff, honest, and as frank as a man can be who speaks a
+<i>patois</i> which hardly a living man but himself can understand.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale asked him to come to the Hall and take luncheon; but Trebeck
+was in haste. Cattle had arrived which he wanted to look at, and a pony
+awaited him on the road, hard by, to Golden Friars; and the old fellow
+must mount and away.</p>
+
+<p>Then Sir Bale, laying his hand upon his arm in a manner that was at once
+lofty and affectionate, told in his ears the subject on which he wished
+to be understood.</p>
+
+<p>The old farmer looked hard at him, and shook his head and laughed in a
+way that would have been insupportable in a house, and told him, &quot;I hev
+narra bond o' thoine, mon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know how that is; so does Philip Feltram.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I must replace the money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man laughed again, and in his outlandish dialect told him to
+wait till he asked him. Sir Bale pressed it, but the old fellow put it
+off with outlandish banter; and as the Baronet grew testy, the farmer
+only waxed more and more hilarious, and at last, mounting his shaggy
+pony, rode off, still laughing, at a canter to Golden Friars; and when
+he reached Golden Friars, and got into the hall of the George and
+Dragon, he asked Richard Turnbull with a chuckle if he ever knew a man
+refuse an offer of money, or a man want to pay who did not owe; and
+inquired whether the Squire down at Mardykes Hall mightn't be a bit
+&quot;wrang in t' garrets.&quot; All this, however, other people said, was
+intended merely to conceal the fact that he really had, through sheer
+loyalty, lent the money, or rather bestowed it, thinking the old family
+in jeopardy, and meaning a gift, was determined to hear no more about
+it. I can't say; I only know people held, some by one interpretation,
+some by another.</p>
+
+<p>As the caterpillar sickens and changes its hue when it is about to
+undergo its transformation, so an odd change took place in Feltram. He
+grew even more silent and morose; he seemed always in an agitation and a
+secret rage. He used to walk through the woodlands on the slopes of the
+fells above Mardykes, muttering to himself, picking up the rotten sticks
+with which the ground was strewn, breaking them in his hands, and
+hurling them from him, and stamping on the earth as he paced up and
+down.</p>
+
+<p>One night a thunder-storm came on, the wind blowing gently up from
+Golden Friars. It was a night black as pitch, illuminated only by the
+intermittent glare of the lightning. At the foot of the stairs Sir Bale
+met Feltram, whom he had not seen for some days. He had his cloak and
+hat on.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to Cloostedd to-night,&quot; he said, &quot;and if all is as I expect,
+I sha'n't return. We remember all, you and I.&quot; And he nodded and walked
+down the passage.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale knew that a crisis had happened in his own life. He felt faint
+and ill, and returned to the room where he had been sitting. Throughout
+that melancholy night he did not go to his bed.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he learned that Marlin, who had been out late, saw
+Feltram get the boat off, and sail towards the other side. The night was
+so dark that he could only see him start; but the wind was light and
+coming up the lake, so that without a tack he could easily make the
+other side. Feltram did not return. The boat was found fast to the ring
+at Cloostedd landing-place.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mardykes was relieved, and for a time was happier than ever. It was
+different with Sir Bale; and afterwards her sky grew dark also.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>A Lady in Black</b></i>
+
+<p>Shortly after this, there arrived at the George and Dragon a stranger.
+He was a man somewhat past forty, embrowned by distant travel, and, his
+years considered, wonderfully good-looking. He had good eyes; his
+dark-brown hair had no sprinkling of gray in it; and his kindly smile
+showed very white and even teeth. He made inquiries about neighbours,
+especially respecting Mardykes Hall; and the answers seemed to interest
+him profoundly. He inquired after Philip Feltram, and shed tears when he
+heard that he was no longer at Mardykes Hall, and that Trebeck or other
+friends could give him no tidings of him.</p>
+
+<p>And then he asked Richard Turnbull to show him to a quiet room; and so,
+taking the honest fellow by the hand, he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Turnbull, don't you know me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; said the host of the George and Dragon, after a puzzled
+stare, &quot;I can't say I do, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The stranger smiled a little sadly, and shook his head: and with a
+gentle laugh, still holding his hand in a very friendly way, he said, &quot;I
+should have known you anywhere, Mr. Turnbull&mdash;anywhere on earth or
+water. Had you turned up on the Himalayas, or in a junk on the Canton
+river, or as a dervish in the mosque of St. Sophia, I should have
+recognised my old friend, and asked what news from Golden Friars. But of
+course I'm changed. You were a little my senior; and one advantage among
+many you have over your juniors is that you don't change as we do. I
+have played many a game of hand-ball in the inn-yard of the George, Mr.
+Turnbull. You often wagered a pot of ale on my play; you used to say I'd
+make the best player of fives, and the best singer of a song, within ten
+miles round the meer. You used to have me behind the bar when I was a
+boy, with more of an appetite than I have now. I was then at Mardykes
+Hall, and used to go back in old Marlin's boat. Is old Marlin still
+alive?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, that&mdash;he&mdash;is,&quot; said Turnbull slowly, as he eyed the stranger again
+carefully. &quot;I don't know who you can be, sir, unless you are&mdash;the
+boy&mdash;William Feltram. La! he was seven or eight years younger than
+Philip. But, lawk!--Well&mdash;By Jen, and <i>be</i> you Willie Feltram? But no,
+you can't!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, Mr. Turnbull, that very boy&mdash;Willie Feltram&mdash;even he, and no other;
+and now you'll shake hands with me, not so formally, but like an old
+friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, that I will,&quot; said honest Richard Turnbull, with a great smile, and
+a hearty grasp of his guest's hand; and they both laughed together, and
+the younger man's eyes, for he was an affectionate fool, filled up with
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I want you to tell me this,&quot; said William, after they had talked a
+little quietly, &quot;now that there is no one to interrupt us, what has
+become of my brother Philip? I heard from a friend an account of his
+health that has caused me unspeakable anxiety.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;His health was not bad; no, he was a hardy lad, and liked a walk over
+the fells, or a pull on the lake; but he was a bit daft, every one said,
+and a changed man; and, in troth, they say the air o' Mardykes don't
+agree with every one, no more than him. But that's a tale that's neither
+here nor there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said William, &quot;that was what they told me&mdash;his mind affected. God
+help and guard us! I have been unhappy ever since; and if I only knew it
+was well with poor Philip, I think I should be too happy. And where is
+Philip now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He crossed the lake one night, having took leave of Sir Bale. They
+thought he was going to old Trebeck's up the Fells. He likes the
+Feltrams, and likes the folk at Mardykes Hall&mdash;though those two families
+was not always o'er kind to one another. But Trebeck seed nowt o' him,
+nor no one else; and what has gone wi' him no one can tell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>I</i> heard that also,&quot; said William with a deep sigh. &quot;But <i>I</i> hoped it
+had been cleared up by now, and something happier been known of the poor
+fellow by this time. I'd give a great deal to know&mdash;I don't know what I
+<i>would</i> not give to know&mdash;I'm so unhappy about him. And now, my good old
+friend, tell your people to get me a chaise, for I must go to Mardykes
+Hall; and, first, let me have a room to dress in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At Mardykes Hall a pale and pretty lady was looking out, alone, from the
+stone-shafted drawing-room window across the courtyard and the
+balustrade, on which stood many a great stone cup with flowers, whose
+leaves were half shed and gone with the winds&mdash;emblem of her hopes. The
+solemn melancholy of the towering fells, the ripple of the lonely lake,
+deepened her sadness.</p>
+
+<p>The unwonted sound of carriage-wheels awoke her from her reverie.</p>
+
+<p>Before the chaise reached the steps, a hand from its window had seized
+the handle, the door was thrown open, and William Feltram jumped out.</p>
+
+<p>She was in the hall, she knew not how; and, with a wild scream and a
+sob, she threw herself into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Here at last was an end of the long waiting, the dejection which had
+reached almost the point of despair. And like two rescued from
+shipwreck, they clung together in an agony of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>William had come back with no very splendid fortune. It was enough, and
+only enough, to enable them to marry. Prudent people would have thought
+it, very likely, too little. But he was now home in England, with health
+unimpaired by his long sojourn in the East, and with intelligence and
+energies improved by the discipline of his arduous struggle with
+fortune. He reckoned, therefore, upon one way or other adding something
+to their income; and he knew that a few hundreds a year would make them
+happier than hundreds of thousand could other people.</p>
+
+<p>It was five years since they had parted in France, where a journey of
+importance to the Indian firm, whose right hand he was, had brought him.</p>
+
+<p>The refined tastes that are supposed to accompany gentle blood, his love
+of art, his talent for music and drawing, had accidentally attracted the
+attention of the little travelling-party which old Lady Harbottle
+chaperoned. Miss Janet, now Lady Mardykes, learning that his name was
+Feltram, made inquiry through a common friend, and learned what
+interested her still more about him. It ended in an acquaintance, which
+his manly and gentle nature and his entertaining qualities soon improved
+into an intimacy.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram had chosen to work his own way, being proud, and also prosperous
+enough to prevent his pride, in this respect, from being placed under
+too severe a pressure of temptation. He heard not from but of his
+brother, through a friend in London, and more lately from Gertrude,
+whose account of him was sad and even alarming.</p>
+
+<p>When Lady Mardykes came in, her delight knew no bounds. She had already
+formed a plan for their future, and was not to be put off&mdash;William
+Feltram was to take the great grazing farm that belonged to the Mardykes
+estate; or, if he preferred it, to farm it for her, sharing the profits.
+She wanted something to interest her, and this was just the thing. It
+was hardly half-a-mile away, up the lake, and there was such a
+comfortable house and garden, and she and Gertrude could be as much
+together as ever almost; and, in fact, Gertrude and her husband could be
+nearly always at Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>So eager and entreating was she, that there was no escape. The plan was
+adopted immediately on their marriage, and no happier neighbours for a
+time were ever known.</p>
+
+<p>But was Lady Mardykes content? was she even exempt from the heartache
+which each mortal thinks he has all to himself? The longing of her life
+was for children; and again and again had her hopes been disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>One tiny pretty little baby indeed was born, and lived for two years,
+and then died; and none had come to supply its place and break the
+childless silence in the great old nursery. That was her sorrow; a
+greater one than men can understand.</p>
+
+<p>Another source of grief was this: that Sir Bale Mardykes conceived a
+dislike to William Feltram that was unaccountable. At first suppressed,
+it betrayed itself negatively only; but with time it increased; and in
+the end the Baronet made little secret of his wish to get rid of him.
+Many and ingenious were the annoyances he contrived; and at last he told
+his wife plainly that he wished William Feltram to find some other abode
+for himself.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mardykes pleaded earnestly, and even with tears; for if Gertrude
+were to leave the neighbourhood, she well knew how utterly solitary her
+own life would become.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale at last vouchsafed some little light as to his motives. There
+was an old story, he told her, that his estate would go to a Feltram. He
+had an instinctive distrust of that family. It was a feeling not given
+him for nothing; it might be the means of defeating their plotting and
+strategy. Old Trebeck, he fancied, had a finger in it. Philip Feltram
+had told him that Mardykes was to pass away to a Feltram. Well, they
+might conspire; but he would take what care he could that the estate
+should not be stolen from his family. He did not want his wife stript of
+her jointure, or his children, if he had any, left without bread.</p>
+
+<p>All this sounded very like madness; but the idea was propounded by
+Philip Feltram. His own jealousy was at bottom founded on superstition
+which he would not avow and could hardly define. He bitterly blamed
+himself for having permitted William Feltram to place himself where he
+was.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these annoyances William Feltram was seriously thinking
+of throwing up the farm, and seeking similar occupation somewhere else.</p>
+
+<p>One day, walking alone in the thick wood that skirts the lake near his
+farm, he was discussing this problem with himself; and every now and
+then he repeated his question, &quot;Shall I throw it up, and give him the
+lease back if he likes?&quot; On a sudden he heard a voice near him say:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hold it, you fool!--hold hard, you fool!--hold it, you fool!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The situation being lonely, he was utterly puzzled to account for the
+interruption, until on a sudden a huge parrot, green, crimson, and
+yellow, plunged from among the boughs over his head to the ground, and
+partly flying, and partly hopping and tumbling along, got lamely, but
+swiftly, out of sight among the thick underwood; and he could neither
+start it nor hear it any more. The interruption reminded him of that
+which befel Robinson Crusoe. It was more singular, however; for he
+owned no such bird; and its strangeness impressed the omen all the more.</p>
+
+<p>He related it when he got home to his wife; and as people when living a
+solitary life, and also suffering, are prone to superstition, she did
+not laugh at the adventure, as in a healthier state of spirits, I
+suppose, she would.</p>
+
+<p>They continued, however, to discuss the question together; and all the
+more industriously as a farm of the same kind, only some fifteen miles
+away, was now offered to all bidders, under another landlord. Gertrude,
+who felt Sir Bale's unkindness all the more that she was a distant
+cousin of his, as it had proved on comparing notes, was very strong in
+favour of the change, and had been urging it with true feminine
+ingenuity and persistence upon her husband. A very singular dream rather
+damped her ardour, however, and it appeared thus:</p>
+
+<p>She had gone to her bed full of this subject; and she thought, although
+she could not remember having done so, had fallen asleep. She was still
+thinking, as she had been all the day, about leaving the farm. It seemed
+to her that she was quite awake, and a candle burning all the time in
+the room, awaiting the return of her husband, who was away at the fair
+near Haworth; she saw the interior of the room distinctly. It was a
+sultry night, and a little bit of the window was raised. A very slight
+sound in that direction attracted her attention; and to her surprise she
+saw a jay hop upon the window-sill, and into the room.</p>
+
+<p>Up sat Gertrude, surprised and a little startled at the visit of so
+large a bird, without presence of mind for the moment even to frighten
+it away, and staring at it, as they say, with all her eyes. A sofa stood
+at the foot of the bed; and under this the bird swiftly hopped. She
+extended her hand now to take the bell-rope at the left side of the bed,
+and in doing so displaced the curtains, which were open only at the
+foot. She was amazed there to see a lady dressed entirely in black, and
+with the old-fashioned hood over her head. She was young and pretty, and
+looked kindly at her, but with now and then a slight contraction of lips
+and eyebrows that indicates pain. This little twitching was momentary,
+and recurred, it seemed, about once or twice in a minute.</p>
+
+<p>How it was that she was not frightened on seeing this lady, standing
+like an old friend at her bedside, she could not afterwards understand.
+Some influence besides the kindness of her look prevented any sensation
+of terror at the time. With a very white hand the young lady in black
+held a white handkerchief pressed to her bosom at the top of her bodice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who are you?&quot; asked Gertrude.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am a kinswoman, although you don't know me; and I have come to tell
+you that you must not leave Faxwell&quot; (the name of the place) &quot;or Janet.
+If you go, I will go with you; and I can make you fear me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was very distinct, but also very faint, with something
+undulatory in it, that seemed to enter Gertrude's head rather than her
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>Saying this she smiled horribly, and, lifting her handkerchief,
+disclosed for a moment a great wound in her breast, deep in which
+Gertrude saw darkly the head of a snake writhing.</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon she uttered a wild scream of terror, and, diving under the
+bed-clothes, remained more dead than alive there, until her maid,
+alarmed by her cry, came in, and having searched the room, and shut the
+window at her desire, did all in her power to comfort her.</p>
+
+<p>If this was a nightmare and embodied only by a form of expression which
+in some states belongs to the imagination, a leading idea in the
+controversy in which her mind had long been employed, it had at least
+the effect of deciding her against leaving Faxwell. And so that point
+was settled; and unpleasant relations continued between the tenants of
+the farm and the master of Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>To Lady Mardykes all this was very painful, although Sir Bale did not
+insist upon making a separation between his wife and her cousin. But to
+Mardykes Hall that cousin came no more. Even Lady Mardykes thought it
+better to see her at Faxwell than to risk a meeting in the temper in
+which Sir Bale then was. And thus several years passed.</p>
+
+<p>No tidings of Philip Feltram were heard; and, in fact, none ever reached
+that part of the world; and if it had not been highly improbable that he
+could have drowned himself in the lake without his body sooner or later
+having risen to the surface, it would have been concluded that he had
+either accidentally or by design made away with himself in its waters.</p>
+
+<p>Over Mardykes Hall there was a gloom&mdash;no sound of children's voices was
+heard there, and even the hope of that merry advent had died out.</p>
+
+<p>This disappointment had no doubt helped to fix in Sir Bale's mind the
+idea of the insecurity of his property, and the morbid fancy that
+William Feltram and old Trebeck were conspiring to seize it; than which,
+I need hardly say, no imagination more insane could have fixed itself in
+his mind.</p>
+
+<p>In other things, however, Sir Bale was shrewd and sharp, a clear and
+rapid man of business, and although this was a strange whim, it was not
+so unnatural in a man who was by nature so prone to suspicion as Sir
+Bale Mardykes.</p>
+
+<p>During the years, now seven, that had elapsed since the marriage of Sir
+Bale and Miss Janet Feltram, there had happened but one event, except
+the death of their only child, to place them in mourning. That was the
+decease of Sir William Walsingham, the husband of Lady Mardykes' sister.
+She now lived in a handsome old dower-house at Islington, and being
+wealthy, made now and then an excursion to Mardykes Hall, in which she
+was sometimes accompanied by her sister Lady Haworth. Sir Oliver being a
+Parliament-man was much in London and deep in politics and intrigue, and
+subject, as convivial rogues are, to occasional hard hits from gout.</p>
+
+<p>But change and separation had made no alteration in these ladies' mutual
+affections, and no three sisters were ever more attached.</p>
+
+<p>Was Lady Mardykes happy with her lord? A woman so gentle and loving as
+she, is a happy wife with any husband who is not an absolute brute.
+There must have been, I suppose, some good about Sir Bale. His wife was
+certainly deeply attached to him. She admired his wisdom, and feared his
+inflexible will, and altogether made of him a domestic idol. To acquire
+this enviable position, I suspect there must be something not
+essentially disagreeable about a man. At all events, what her neighbours
+good-naturedly termed her infatuation continued, and indeed rather
+improved by time.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXIV</h4>
+
+<i><b>An Old Portrait</b></i>
+
+<p>Sir Bale&mdash;whom some remembered a gay and convivial man, not to say a
+profligate one&mdash;had grown to be a very gloomy man indeed. There was
+something weighing upon his mind; and I daresay some of the good gossips
+of Golden Friars, had there been any materials for such a case, would
+have believed that Sir Bale had murdered Philip Feltram, and was now the
+victim of the worm and fire of remorse.</p>
+
+<p>The gloom of the master of the house made his very servants gloomy, and
+the house itself looked sombre, as if it had been startled with strange
+and dismal sights.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mardykes was something of an artist. She had lighted lately, in an
+out-of-the-way room, upon a dozen or more old portraits. Several of
+these were full-lengths; and she was&mdash;with the help of her maid, both in
+long aprons, amid sponges and basins, soft handkerchiefs and
+varnish-pots and brushes&mdash;busy in removing the dust and smoke-stains,
+and in laying-on the varnish, which brought out the colouring, and made
+the transparent shadows yield up their long-buried treasures of finished
+detail.</p>
+
+<p>Against the wall stood a full-length portrait as Sir Bale entered the
+room; having for a wonder, a word to say to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O,&quot; said the pretty lady, turning to him in her apron, and with her
+brush in her hand, &quot;we are in such in pickle, Munnings and I have been
+cleaning these old pictures. Mrs. Julaper says they are the pictures
+that came from Cloostedd Hall long ago. They were buried in dust in the
+dark room in the clock-tower. Here is such a characteristic one. It has
+a long powdered wig&mdash;George the First or Second, I don't know which&mdash;and
+such a combination of colours, and such a face. It seems starting out of
+the canvas, and all but speaks. Do look; that is, I mean, Bale, if you
+can spare time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale abstractedly drew near, and looked over his wife's shoulder on
+the full-length portrait that stood before him; and as he did so a
+strange expression for a moment passed over his face.</p>
+
+<p>The picture represented a man of swarthy countenance, with signs of the
+bottle glowing through the dark skin; small fierce pig eyes, a rather
+flat pendulous nose, and a grim forbidding mouth, with a large wart a
+little above it. On the head hung one of those full-bottomed powdered
+wigs that look like a cloud of cotton-wadding; a lace cravat was about
+his neck; he wore short black-velvet breeches with stockings rolled over
+them, a bottle-green coat of cut velvet and a crimson waistcoat with
+long flaps; coat and waistcoat both heavily laced with gold. He wore a
+sword, and leaned upon a crutch-handled cane, and his figure and aspect
+indicated a swollen and gouty state. He could not be far from sixty.
+There was uncommon force in this fierce and forbidding-looking portrait.
+Lady Mardykes said, &quot;What wonderful dresses they wore! How like a fine
+magic-lantern figure he looks! What gorgeous colouring! it looks like
+the plumage of a mackaw; and what a claw his hand is! and that huge
+broken beak of a nose! Isn't he like a wicked old mackaw?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where did you find that?&quot; asked Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>Surprised at his tone, she looked round, and was still more surprised
+at his looks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told you, dear Bale, I found them in the clock-tower. I hope I did
+right; it was not wrong bringing them here? I ought to have asked. Are
+you vexed, Bale?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vexed! not I. I only wish it was in the fire. I must have seen that
+picture when I was a child. I hate to look at it. I raved about it once,
+when I was ill. I don't know who it is; I don't remember when I saw it.
+I wish you'd tell them to burn it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is one of the Feltrams,&quot; she answered. &quot;'Sir Hugh Feltram' is on the
+frame at the foot; and old Mrs. Julaper says he was the father of the
+unhappy lady who was said to have been drowned near Snakes Island.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, suppose he is; there's nothing interesting in that. It is a
+disgusting picture. I connect it with my illness; and I think it is the
+kind of thing that would make any one half mad, if they only looked at
+it often enough. Tell them to burn it; and come away, come to the next
+room; I can't say what I want here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale seemed to grow more and more agitated the longer he remained in
+the room. He seemed to her both frightened and furious; and taking her a
+little roughly by the wrist, he led her through the door.</p>
+
+<p>When they were in another apartment alone, he again asked the affrighted
+lady who had told her that picture was there, and who told her to clean
+it.</p>
+
+<p>She had only the truth to plead. It was, from beginning to end, the
+merest accident.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I thought, Janet, that you were taking counsel of others, talking me
+over, and trying clever experiments&mdash;&quot; he stopped short with his eyes
+fixed on hers with black suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>His wife's answer was one pleading look, and to burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale let-go her wrist, which he had held up to this; and placing his
+hand gently on her shoulder, he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not cry, Janet; I have given you no excuse for tears. I only
+wished an answer to a very harmless question; and I am sure you would
+tell me, if by any chance you have lately seen Philip Feltram; he is
+capable of arranging all that. No one knows him as I do. There, you must
+not cry any more; but tell me truly, has he turned up? is he at
+Faxwell?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She denied all this with perfect truth; and after a hesitation of some
+time, the matter ended. And as soon as she and he were more themselves,
+he had something quite different to tell her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sit down, Janet; sit down, and forget that vile picture and all I have
+been saying. What I came to tell you, I think you will like; I am sure
+it will please you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And with this little preface he placed his arm about her neck, and
+kissed her tenderly. She certainly was pleased; and when his little
+speech was over, she, smiling, with her tears still wet upon her cheeks,
+put her arms round her husband's neck, and in turn kissed him with the
+ardour of gratitude, kissed him affectionately; again and again thanking
+him all the time.</p>
+
+<p>It was no great matter, but from Sir Bale Mardykes it was something
+quite unusual.</p>
+
+<p>Was it a sudden whim? What was it? Something had prompted Sir Bale,
+early in that dark shrewd month of December, to tell his wife that he
+wished to call together some of his county acquaintances, and to fill
+his house for a week or so, as near Christmas as she could get them to
+come. He wished her sisters&mdash;Lady Haworth (with her husband) and the
+Dowager Lady Walsingham&mdash;to be invited for an early day, before the
+coming of the other guests, so that she might enjoy their society for a
+little time quietly to herself before the less intimate guests should
+assemble.</p>
+
+<p>Glad was Lady Mardykes to hear the resolve of her husband, and prompt to
+obey. She wrote to her sisters to beg them to arrange to come, together,
+by the tenth or twelfth of the month, which they accordingly arranged to
+do. Sir Oliver, it was true, could not be of the party. A minister of
+state was drinking the waters at Bath; and Sir Oliver thought it would
+do him no harm to sip a little also, and his fashionable doctor politely
+agreed, and &quot;ordered&quot; to those therapeutic springs the knight of the
+shire, who was &quot;consumedly vexed&quot; to lose the Christmas with that jolly
+dog, Bale, down at Mardykes Hall. But a fellow must have a stomach for
+his Christmas pudding, and politics takes it out of a poor gentleman
+deucedly; and health's the first thing, egad!</p>
+
+<p>So Sir Oliver went down to Bath, and I don't know that he tippled much
+of the waters, but he did drink the burgundy of that haunt of the
+ailing; and he had the honour of making a fourth not unfrequently in the
+secretary of state's whist-parties.</p>
+
+<p>It was about the 8th of December when, in Lady Walsingham's carriage,
+intending to post all the way, that lady, still young, and Lady Haworth,
+with all the servants that were usual in such expeditions in those days,
+started from the great Dower House at Islington in high spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Haworth had not been very well&mdash;low and nervous; but the clear
+frosty sun, and the pleasant nature of the excursion, raised her spirits
+to the point of enjoyment; and expecting nothing but happiness and
+gaiety&mdash;for, after all, Sir Bale was but one of a large party, and even
+he could make an effort and be agreeable as well as hospitable on
+occasion&mdash;they set out on their northward expedition. The journey, which
+is a long one, they had resolved to break into a four days' progress;
+and the inns had been written to, bespeaking a comfortable reception.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXV"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXV</h4>
+
+<i><b>Through the Wall</b></i>
+
+<p>On the third night they put-up at the comfortable old inn called the
+Three Nuns. With an effort they might easily have pushed on to Mardykes
+Hall that night, for the distance is not more than five-and-thirty
+miles. But, considering her sister's health, Lady Walsingham in planning
+their route had resolved against anything like a forced march.</p>
+
+<p>Here the ladies took possession of the best sitting-room; and,
+notwithstanding the fatigue of the journey, Lady Haworth sat up with her
+sister till near ten o'clock, chatting gaily about a thousand things.</p>
+
+<p>Of the three sisters, Lady Walsingham was the eldest. She had been in
+the habit of taking the command at home; and now, for advice and
+decision, her younger sisters, less prompt and courageous than she, were
+wont, whenever in her neighbourhood, to throw upon her all the cares and
+agitations of determining what was best to be done in small things and
+great. It is only fair to say, in addition, that this submission was not
+by any means exacted; it was the deference of early habit and feebler
+will, for she was neither officious nor imperious.</p>
+
+<p>It was now time that Lady Haworth, a good deal more fatigued than her
+sister, should take leave of her for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly they kissed and bid each other good-night; and Lady
+Walsingham, not yet disposed to sleep, sat for some time longer in the
+comfortable room where they had taken tea, amusing the time with the
+book that had, when conversation flagged, beguiled the weariness of the
+journey. Her sister had been in her room nearly an hour, when she became
+herself a little sleepy. She had lighted her candle, and was going to
+ring for her maid, when, to her surprise, the door opened, and her
+sister Lady Haworth entered in a dressing-gown, looking frightened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My darling Mary!&quot; exclaimed Lady Walsingham, &quot;what is the matter? Are
+you well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, darling,&quot; she answered, &quot;quite well; that is, I don't know what is
+the matter&mdash;I'm frightened.&quot; She paused, listening, with her eyes turned
+towards the wall. &quot;O, darling Maud, I am so frightened! I don't know
+what it can be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not be agitated, darling; there's nothing. You have been
+asleep, and I suppose you have had a dream. Were you asleep?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Haworth had caught her sister fast by the arm with both hands, and
+was looking wildly in her face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have <i>you</i> heard nothing?&quot; she asked, again looking towards the wall of
+the room, as if she expected to hear a voice through it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nonsense, darling; you are dreaming still. Nothing; there has been
+nothing to hear. I have been awake ever since; if there had been
+anything to hear, I could not have missed it. Come, sit down. Sip a
+little of this water; you are nervous, and over-tired; and tell me
+plainly, like a good little soul, what is the matter; for nothing has
+happened here; and you ought to know that the Three Nuns is the quietest
+house in England; and I'm no witch, and if you won't tell me what's the
+matter, I can't divine it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, of course,&quot; said Mary, sitting down, and glancing round her
+wildly. &quot;I don't hear it now; <i>you</i> don't?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do, my dear Mary, tell me what you mean,&quot; said Lady Walsingham kindly
+but firmly.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Haworth was holding the still untasted glass of water in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I'll tell you; I have been so frightened! You are right; I had a
+dream, but I can scarcely remember anything of it, except the very end,
+when I wakened. But it was not the dream; only it was connected with
+what terrified me so. I was so tired when I went to bed, I thought I
+should have slept soundly; and indeed I fell asleep immediately; and I
+must have slept quietly for a good while. How long is it since I left
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More than an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I must have slept a good while; for I don't think I have been ten
+minutes awake. How my dream began I don't know. I remember only that
+gradually it came to this: I was standing in a recess in a panelled
+gallery; it was lofty, and, I thought, belonged to a handsome but
+old-fashioned house. I was looking straight towards the head of a wide
+staircase, with a great oak banister. At the top of the stairs, as near
+to me, about, as that window there, was a thick short column of oak, on
+top of which was a candlestick. There was no other light but from that
+one candle; and there was a lady standing beside it, looking down the
+stairs, with her back turned towards me; and from her gestures I should
+have thought speaking to people on a lower lobby, but whom from my place
+I could not see. I soon perceived that this lady was in great agony of
+mind; for she beat her breast and wrung her hands every now and then,
+and wagged her head slightly from side to side, like a person in great
+distraction. But one word she said I could not hear. Nor when she struck
+her hand on the banister, or stamped, as she seemed to do in her pain,
+upon the floor, could I hear any sound. I found myself somehow waiting
+upon this lady, and was watching her with awe and sympathy. But who she
+was I knew not, until turning towards me I plainly saw Janet's face,
+pale and covered with tears, and with such a look of agony as&mdash;O God!--I
+can never forget.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pshaw! Mary darling, what is it but a dream! I have had a thousand more
+startling; it is only that you are so nervous just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that is not all&mdash;nothing; what followed is so dreadful; for either
+there is something very horrible going on at Mardykes, or else I am
+losing my reason,&quot; said Lady Haworth in increasing agitation. &quot;I wakened
+instantly in great alarm, but I suppose no more than I have felt a
+hundred times on awakening from a frightful dream. I sat up in my bed; I
+was thinking of ringing for Winnefred, my heart was beating so, but
+feeling better soon I changed my mind. All this time I heard a faint
+sound of a voice, as if coming through a thick wall. It came from the
+wall at the left side of my bed, and I fancied was that of some woman
+lamenting in a room separated from me by that thick partition. I could
+only perceive that it was a sound of crying mingled with ejaculations of
+misery, or fear, or entreaty. I listened with a painful curiosity,
+wondering who it could be, and what could have happened in the
+neighbouring rooms of the house; and as I looked and listened, I could
+distinguish my own name, but at first nothing more. That, of course,
+might have been an accident; and I knew there were many Marys in the
+world besides myself. But it made me more curious; and a strange thing
+struck me, for I was now looking at that very wall through which the
+sounds were coming. I saw that there was a window in it. Thinking that
+the rest of the wall might nevertheless be covered by another room, I
+drew the curtain of it and looked out. But there is no such thing. It is
+the outer wall the entire way along. And it is equally impossible of
+the other wall, for it is to the front of the house, and has two windows
+in it; and the wall that the head of my bed stands against has the
+gallery outside it all the way; for I remarked that as I came to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tut, tut, Mary darling, nothing on earth is so deceptive as sound; this
+and fancy account for everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But hear me out; I have not told you all. I began to hear the voice
+more clearly, and at last quite distinctly. It was Janet's, and she was
+conjuring you by name, as well as me, to come to her to Mardykes,
+without delay, in her extremity; yes, <i>you</i>, just as vehemently as me.
+It was Janet's voice. It still seemed separated by the wall, but I heard
+every syllable now; and I never heard voice or words of such anguish.
+She was imploring of us to come on, without a moment's delay, to
+Mardykes; and crying that, if we were not with her, she should go mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, darling,&quot; said Lady Walsingham, &quot;you see I'm included in this
+invitation as well as you, and should hate to disappoint Janet just as
+much; and I do assure you, in the morning you will laugh over this fancy
+with me; or rather, she will laugh over it with us, when we get to
+Mardykes. What you do want is rest, and a little sal-volatile.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying she rang the bell for Lady Haworth's maid. Having comforted
+her sister, and made her take the nervous specific she recommended, she
+went with her to her room; and taking possession of the arm-chair by the
+fire, she told her that she would keep her company until she was asleep,
+and remain long enough to be sure that the sleep was not likely to be
+interrupted. Lady Haworth had not been ten minutes in her bed, when she
+raised herself with a start to her elbow, listening with parted lips and
+wild eyes, her trembling fingers behind her ears. With an exclamation of
+horror, she cried,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There it is again, upbraiding us! I can't stay longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sprang from the bed, and rang the bell violently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Maud,&quot; she cried in an ecstasy of horror, &quot;nothing shall keep me here,
+whether you go or not. I will set out the moment the horses are put to.
+If you refuse to come, Maud, mind the responsibility is yours&mdash;listen!&quot;
+and with white face and starting eyes she pointed to the wall. &quot;Have you
+ears; don't you hear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sight of a person in extremity of terror so mysterious, might have
+unnerved a ruder system than Lady Walsingham's. She was pale as she
+replied; for under certain circumstances those terrors which deal with
+the supernatural are more contagious than any others. Lady Walsingham
+still, in terms, held to her opinion; but although she tried to smile,
+her face showed that the panic had touched her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, dear Mary,&quot; she said, &quot;as you will have it so, I see no good in
+resisting you longer. Here, it is plain, your nerves will not suffer you
+to rest. Let us go then, in heaven's name; and when you get to Mardykes
+Hall you will be relieved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All this time Lady Haworth was getting on her things, with the careless
+hurry of a person about to fly for her life; and Lady Walsingham issued
+her orders for horses, and the general preparations for resuming the
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>It was now between ten and eleven; but the servant who rode armed with
+them, according to the not unnecessary usage of the times, thought that
+with a little judicious bribing of postboys they might easily reach
+Mardykes Hall before three o'clock in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>When the party set forward again, Lady Haworth was comparatively
+tranquil. She no longer heard the unearthly mimickry of her sister's
+voice; there remained only the fear and suspense which that illusion or
+visitation had produced.</p>
+
+<p>Her sister, Lady Walsingham, after a brief effort to induce something
+like conversation, became silent. A thin sheet of snow had covered the
+darkened landscape, and some light flakes were still dropping. Lady
+Walsingham struck her repeater often in the dark, and inquired the
+distances frequently. She was anxious to get over the ground, though by
+no means fatigued. Something of the anxiety that lay heavy at her
+sister's heart had touched her own.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXVI</h4>
+
+<i><b>Perplexed</b></i>
+
+<p>The roads even then were good, and very good horses the posting-houses
+turned out; so that by dint of extra pay the rapid rate of travelling
+undertaken by the servant was fully accomplished in the first two or
+three stages.</p>
+
+<p>While Lady Walsingham was continually striking her repeater in her ear,
+and as they neared their destination, growing in spite of herself more
+anxious, her sister's uneasiness showed itself in a less reserved way;
+for, cold as it was, with snowflakes actually dropping, Lady Haworth's
+head was perpetually out at the window, and when she drew it up, sitting
+again in her place, she would audibly express her alarms, and apply to
+her sister for consolation and confidence in her suspense.</p>
+
+<p>Under its thin carpet of snow, the pretty village of Golden Friars
+looked strangely to their eyes. It had long been fast asleep, and both
+ladies were excited as they drew up at the steps of the George and
+Dragon, and with bell and knocker roused the slumbering household.</p>
+
+<p>What tidings awaited them here? In a very few minutes the door was
+opened, and the porter staggered down, after a word with the driver, to
+the carriage-window, not half awake.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Lady Mardykes well?&quot; demanded Lady Walsingham.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Sir Bale well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are all the people at Mardykes Hall quite well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With clasped hands Lady Haworth listened to the successive answers to
+these questions which her sister hastily put. The answers were all
+satisfactory. With a great sigh and a little laugh, Lady Walsingham
+placed her hand affectionately on that of her sister; who, saying, &quot;God
+be thanked!&quot; began to weep.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When had you last news from Mardykes?&quot; asked Lady Walsingham.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A servant was down here about four o'clock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O! no one since?&quot; said she in a disappointed tone.</p>
+
+<p>No one had been from the great house since, but all were well then.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are early people, you know, dear; and it is dark at four, and that
+is as late as they could well have heard, and nothing could have
+happened since&mdash;very unlikely. We have come very fast; it is only a few
+minutes past two, darling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But each felt the chill and load of their returning anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>While the people at the George were rapidly getting a team of horses to,
+Lady Walsingham contrived a moment for an order from the other window to
+her servant, who knew Golden Friars perfectly, to knock-up the people at
+Doctor Torvey's, and to inquire whether all were well at Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>There he learned that a messenger had come for Doctor Torvey at ten
+o'clock, and that the Doctor had not returned since. There was no news,
+however, of any one's being ill; and the Doctor himself did not know
+what he was wanted about. While Lady Haworth was talking to her maid
+from the window next the steps, Lady Walsingham was, unobserved,
+receiving this information at the other.</p>
+
+<p>It made her very uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes more, however, with a team of fresh horses, they were
+again rapidly passing the distance between them and Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>About two miles on, their drivers pulled-up, and they heard a voice
+talking with them from the roadside. A servant from the Hall had been
+sent with a note for Lady Walsingham, and had been ordered, if
+necessary, to ride the whole way to the Three Nuns to deliver it. The
+note was already in Lady Walsingham's hand; her sister sat beside her,
+and with the corner of the open note in her fingers, she read it
+breathlessly at the same time by the light of a carriage-lamp which the
+man held to the window. It said:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>My dearest love&mdash;my darling sister&mdash;dear sisters both!--in God's name,
+lose not a moment. I am so overpowered and <i>terrified</i>. I cannot
+explain; I can only implore of you to come with all the haste you can
+make. Waste no time, darlings. I hardly understand what I write. Only
+this, dear sisters; I feel that my reason will desert me, unless you
+come soon. You will not fail me now. Your poor distracted</p>
+
+<p>JANET</p>
+
+<p>The sisters exchanged a pale glance, and Lady Haworth grasped her
+sister's hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where is the messenger?&quot; asked Lady Walsingham.</p>
+
+<p>A mounted servant came to the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is any one ill at home?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, all were well&mdash;my lady, and Sir Bale&mdash;no one sick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the Doctor was sent for; what was that for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say, my lady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are quite certain that no one&mdash;think&mdash;<i>no</i> one is ill?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no one ill at the Hall, my lady, that I have heard of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Lady Mardykes, my sister, still up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, my lady; and her maid is with her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And Sir Bale, are you certain he is quite well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Bale is quite well, my lady; he has been busy settling papers
+to-night, and was as well as usual.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will do, thanks,&quot; said the perplexed lady; and to her own servant
+she added, &quot;On to Mardykes Hall with all the speed they can make. I'll
+pay them well, tell them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And in another minute they were gliding along the road at a pace which
+the muffled beating of the horses' hoofs on the thin sheet of snow that
+covered the road showed to have broken out of the conventional trot,
+and to resemble something more like a gallop.</p>
+
+<p>And now they were under the huge trees, that looked black as
+hearse-plumes in contrast with the snow. The cold gleam of the lake in
+the moon which had begun to shine out now met their gaze; and the
+familiar outline of Snakes Island, its solemn timber bleak and leafless,
+standing in a group, seemed to watch Mardykes Hall with a dismal
+observation across the water. Through the gate and between the huge
+files of trees the carriage seemed to fly; and at last the steaming
+horses stood panting, nodding and snorting, before the steps in the
+courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>There was a light in an upper window, and a faint light in the hall, the
+door of which was opened; and an old servant came down and ushered the
+ladies into the house.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXVII</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Hour</b></i>
+
+<p>Lightly they stepped over the snow that lay upon the broad steps, and
+entering the door saw the dim figure of their sister, already in the
+large and faintly-lighted hall. One candle in the hand of her scared
+maid, and one burning on the table, leaving the distant parts of that
+great apartment in total darkness, touched the figures with the odd
+sharp lights in which Schalken delights; and a streak of chilly
+moonlight, through the open door, fell upon the floor, and was stretched
+like a white sheet at her feet. Lady Mardykes, with an exclamation of
+agitated relief, threw her arms, in turn, round the necks of her
+sisters, and hugging them, kissed them again and again, murmuring her
+thanks, calling them her &quot;blessed sisters,&quot; and praising God for his
+mercy in having sent them to her in time, and altogether in a rapture of
+agitation and gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>Taking them each by a hand, she led them into a large room, on whose
+panels they could see the faint twinkle of the tall gilded frames, and
+the darker indication of the old portraits, in which that interesting
+house abounds. The moonbeams, entering obliquely through the Tudor
+stone-shafts of the window and thrown upon the floor, reflected an
+imperfect light; and the candle which the maid who followed her mistress
+held in her hand shone dimly from the sideboard, where she placed it.
+Lady Mardykes told her that she need not wait.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They don't know; they know only that we are in some great confusion;
+but&mdash;God have mercy on me!--nothing of the reality. Sit down, darlings;
+you are tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sat down between them on a sofa, holding a hand of each. They sat
+opposite the window, through which appeared the magnificent view
+commanded from the front of the house: in the foreground the solemn
+trees of Snakes Island, one great branch stretching upward, bare and
+moveless, from the side, like an arm raised to heaven in wonder or in
+menace towards the house; the lake, in part swept by the icy splendour
+of the moon, trembling with a dazzling glimmer, and farther off lost in
+blackness; the Fells rising from a base of gloom, into ribs and peaks
+white with snow, and looking against the pale sky, thin and transparent
+as a haze. Right across to the storied woods of Cloostedd, and the old
+domains of the Feltrams, this view extended.</p>
+
+<p>Thus alone, their mufflers still on, their hands clasped in hers, they
+breathlessly listened to her strange tale.</p>
+
+<p>Connectedly told it amounted to this: Sir Bale seemed to have been
+relieved of some great anxiety about the time when, ten days before, he
+had told her to invite her friends to Mardykes Hall. This morning he had
+gone out for a walk with Trevor, his under-steward, to talk over some
+plans about thinning the woods at this side; and also to discuss
+practically a proposal, lately made by a wealthy merchant, to take a
+very long lease, on advantageous terms to Sir Bale as he thought, of the
+old park and chase of Cloostedd, with the intention of building there,
+and making it once more a handsome residence.</p>
+
+<p>In the improved state of his spirits, Sir Bale had taken a shrewd
+interest in this negotiation; and was actually persuaded to cross the
+lake that morning with his adviser, and to walk over the grounds with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had seemed unusually well, and talked with great animation. He
+was more like a young man who had just attained his majority, and for
+the first time grasped his estates, than the grim elderly Baronet who
+had been moping about Mardykes, and as much afraid as a cat of the
+water, for so many years.</p>
+
+<p>As they were returning toward the boat, at the roots of that same
+scathed elm whose barkless bough had seemed, in his former visit to this
+old wood, to beckon him from a distance, like a skeleton arm, to enter
+the forest, he and his companion on a sudden missed an old map of the
+grounds which they had been consulting.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must have left it in the corner tower of Cloostedd House, which
+commands that view of the grounds, you remember; it would not do to lose
+it. It is the most accurate thing we have. I'll sit down here and rest a
+little till you come back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man was absent little more than twenty minutes. When he returned, he
+found that Sir Bale had changed his position, and was now walking to and
+fro, around and about, in what, at a distance, he fancied was mere
+impatience, on the open space a couple of hundred paces nearer to the
+turn in the valley towards the boat. It was not impatience. He was
+agitated. He looked pale, and he took his companion's arm&mdash;a thing he
+had never thought of doing before&mdash;and said, &quot;Let us away quickly. I've
+something to tell at home,&mdash;and I forgot it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Not another word did Sir Bale exchange with his companion. He sat in the
+stern of the boat, gloomy as a man about to glide under traitor's-gate.
+He entered his house in the same sombre and agitated state. He entered
+his library, and sat for a long time as if stunned.</p>
+
+<p>At last he seemed to have made-up his mind to something; and applied
+himself quietly and diligently to arranging papers, and docketing some
+and burning others. Dinner-time arrived. He sent to tell Lady Mardykes
+that he should not join her at dinner, but would see her afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was between eight and nine,&quot; she continued, &quot;I forget the exact
+time, when he came to the tower drawing-room where I was. I did not hear
+his approach. There is a stone stair, with a thick carpet on it. He told
+me he wished to speak to me there. It is an out-of-the-way place&mdash;a
+small old room with very thick walls, and there is a double door, the
+inner one of oak&mdash;I suppose he wished to guard against being overheard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There was a look in his face that frightened me; I saw he had something
+dreadful to tell. He looked like a man on whom a lot had fallen to put
+some one to death,&quot; said Lady Mardykes. &quot;O, my poor Bale! my husband, my
+husband! he knew what it would be to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here she broke into the wildest weeping, and it was some time before she
+resumed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He seemed very kind and very calm,&quot; she said at last; &quot;he said but
+little; and, I think, these were his words: 'I find, Janet, I have made
+a great miscalculation&mdash;I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have
+been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and my
+time has come.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know what I said. I would not have so much minded&mdash;for I could
+not have believed, if I had not seen him&mdash;but there was that in his look
+and tone which no one could doubt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I shall die before to-morrow morning,' he said. 'You must command
+yourself, Janet; it can't be altered now.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'O, Bale,' I cried nearly distracted, 'you would not kill yourself!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Kill myself! poor child! no, indeed,' he said; 'it is simply that I
+shall die. No violent death&mdash;nothing but the common subsidence of
+life&mdash;I have made up my mind; what happens to everybody can't be so very
+bad; and millions of worse men than I die every year. You must not
+follow me to my room, darling; I shall see you by and by.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;His language was collected and even cold; but his face looked as if it
+was cut in stone; you never saw, in a dream, a face like it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham here said, &quot;I am certain he is ill; he's in a fever. You
+must not distract and torture yourself about his predictions. You sent
+for Doctor Torvey; what did he say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could not tell him all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, no; I don't mean that; they'd only say he was mad, and we little
+better for minding what he says. But did the Doctor see him? and what
+did he say of his health?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; he says there is nothing wrong&mdash;no fever&mdash;nothing whatever. Poor
+Bale has been so kind; he saw him to please me,&quot; she sobbed again
+wildly. &quot;I wrote to implore of him. It was my last hope, strange as it
+seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of
+that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness
+about all he says and does; and his directions are all so clear, and his
+mind so perfectly collected, it is quite impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And poor Lady Mardykes again burst into a frantic agony of tears.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXVIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>Sir Bale in the Gallery</b></i>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Janet darling, you are yourself low and nervous, and you treat
+this fancy of Bale's as seriously as he does himself. The truth is, he
+is a hypochondriac, as the doctors say; and you will find that I am
+right; he will be quite well in the morning, and I daresay a little
+ashamed of himself for having frightened his poor little wife as he has.
+I will sit up with you. But our poor Mary is not, you know, very strong;
+and she ought to lie down and rest a little. Suppose you give me a cup
+of tea in the drawing-room. I will run up to my room and get these
+things off, and meet you in the drawing-room; or, if you like it better,
+you can sit with me in my own room; and for goodness' sake let us have
+candles enough and a bright fire; and I promise you, if you will only
+exert your own good sense, you shall be a great deal more cheerful in a
+very little time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham's address was kind and cheery, and her air confident.
+For a moment a ray of hope returned, and her sister Janet acknowledged
+at least the possibility of her theory. But if confidence is contagious,
+so also is panic; and Lady Walsingham experienced a sinking of the heart
+which she dared not confess to her sister, and vainly strove to combat.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham went up with her sister Mary, and having seen her in her
+room, and spoken again to her in the same cheery tone in which she had
+lectured her sister Lady Mardykes, she went on; and having taken
+possession of her own room, and put off her cloaks and shawls, she was
+going downstairs again, when she heard Sir Bale's voice, as he
+approached along the gallery, issuing orders to a servant, as it seemed,
+exactly in his usual tone.</p>
+
+<p>She turned, with a strange throb at her heart, and met him.</p>
+
+<p>A little sterner, a little paler than usual he looked; she could
+perceive no other change. He took her hand kindly and held it, as with
+dilated eyes he looked with a dark inquiry for a moment in her face. He
+signed to the servant to go on, and said, &quot;I'm glad you have come, Maud.
+You have heard what is to happen; and I don't know how Janet could have
+borne it without your support. You did right to come; and you'll stay
+with her for a day or two, and take her away from this place as soon as
+you can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with the embarrassment of fear. He was speaking to her
+with the calmness of a leave-taking in the pressroom&mdash;the serenity that
+overlies the greatest awe and agony of which human nature is capable.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad to see you, Bale,&quot; she began, hardly knowing what she said,
+and she stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are come, it turns out, on a sad mission,&quot; he resumed; &quot;you find
+all about to change. Poor Janet! it is a blow to her. I shall not live
+to see to-morrow's sun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; she said, startled, &quot;you must not talk so. No, Bale, you have
+no right to speak so; you can have no reason to justify it. It is cruel
+and wicked to trifle with your wife's feelings. If you are under a
+delusion, you must make an effort and shake it off, or, at least, cease
+to talk of it. You are not well; I know by your looks you are ill; but I
+am very certain we shall see you much better by tomorrow, and still
+better the day following.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'm not ill, sister. Feel that pulse, if you doubt me; there is no
+fever in it. I never was more perfectly in health; and yet I know that
+before the clock, that has just struck three, shall have struck five, I,
+who am talking to you, shall be dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham was frightened, and her fear irritated her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have told you what I think and believe,&quot; she said vehemently. &quot;I
+think it wrong and cowardly of you to torture my poor sister with your
+whimsical predictions. Look into your own mind, and you will see you
+have absolutely no reason to support what you say. How <i>can</i> you inflict
+all this agony upon a poor creature foolish enough to love you as she
+does, and weak enough to believe in your idle dreams?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stay, sister; it is not a matter to be debated so. If to-morrow I can
+hear you, it will be time enough to upbraid me. Pray return now to your
+sister; she needs all you can do for her. She is much to be pitied; her
+sufferings afflict me. I shall see you and her again before my death. It
+would have been more cruel to leave her unprepared. Do all in your power
+to nerve and tranquillise her. What is past cannot now be helped.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused, looking hard at her, as if he had half made up his mind to
+say something more. But if there was a question of the kind, it was
+determined in favour of silence.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped her hand, turned quickly, and left her.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXIX</h4>
+
+<i><b>Dr. Torvey's Opinion</b></i>
+
+<p>When Lady Walsingham reached the head of the stairs, she met her maid,
+and from her learned that her sister, Lady Mardykes, was downstairs in
+the same room. On approaching, she heard her sister Mary's voice talking
+with her, and found them together. Mary, finding that she could not
+sleep, had put on her clothes again, and come down to keep her sister
+company. The room looked more comfortable now. There were candles
+lighted, and a good fire burnt in the grate; tea-things stood on a
+little table near the fire, and the two sisters were talking, Lady
+Mardykes appearing more collected, and only they two in the room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you seen him, Maud?&quot; cried Lady Mardykes, rising and hastily
+approaching her the moment she entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, dear; and talked with him, and&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I think very much as I did before. I think he is nervous, he says
+he is not ill; but he is nervous and whimsical, and as men always are
+when they happen to be out of sorts, very positive; and of course the
+only thing that can quite undeceive him is the lapse of the time he has
+fixed for his prediction, as it is sure to pass without any tragic
+result of any sort. We shall then all see alike the nature of his
+delusion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, Maud, if I were only sure you thought so! if I were sure you really
+had hopes! Tell me, Maud, for God's sake, what you really think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham was a little disconcerted by the unexpected directness
+of her appeal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, darling, you must not be foolish,&quot; she said; &quot;we can only talk of
+impressions, and we are imposed upon by the solemnity of his manner, and
+the fact that he evidently believes in his own delusion; every one does
+believe in his own delusion&mdash;there is nothing strange in that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, Maud, I see you are not convinced; you are only trying to comfort
+me. You have no hope&mdash;none, none, none!&quot; and she covered her face with
+her hands, and wept again convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham was silent for a moment, and then with an effort said,
+as she placed her hand on her sister's arm, &quot;You see, dear Janet, there
+is no use in my saying the same thing over and over again; an hour or
+two will show who is right. Sit down again, and be like yourself. My
+maid told me that you had sent to the parlour for Doctor Torvey; he must
+not find you so. What would he think? Unless you mean to tell him of
+Bale's strange fancy; and a pretty story that would be to set afloat in
+Golden Friars. I think I hear him coming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So, in effect, he was. Doctor Torvey&mdash;with the florid gravity of a man
+who, having just swallowed a bottle of port, besides some glasses of
+sherry, is admitted to the presence of ladies whom he respects&mdash;entered
+the room, made what he called his &quot;leg and his compliments,&quot; and awaited
+the ladies' commands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sit down, Doctor Torvey,&quot; said Lady Walsingham, who in the incapacity
+of her sister undertook the doing of the honours. &quot;My sister, Lady
+Mardykes, has got it into her head somehow that Sir Bale is ill. I have
+been speaking to him; he certainly does not look very well, but he says
+he is quite well. Do you think him well?&mdash;that is, we know you don't
+think there is anything of importance amiss&mdash;but she wishes to know
+whether you think him <i>perfectly</i> well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor cleared his voice and delivered his lecture, a little thickly
+at some words, upon Sir Bale's case; the result of which was that it was
+no case at all; and that if he would only live something more of a
+country gentleman's life, he would be as well as any man could
+desire&mdash;as well as any man, gentle or simple, in the country.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The utmost I should think of doing for him would be, perhaps, a little
+quinine, nothing mo'&mdash;shurely&mdash;he is really and toory a very shoun'
+shtay of health.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham looked encouragingly at her sister and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been shen' for, La'y Walsh&mdash;Walse&mdash;Walsing&mdash;<i>ham</i>; old Jack
+Amerald&mdash;he likshe his glass o' port,&quot; he said roguishly, &quot;and shuvversh
+accord'n'ly,&quot; he continued, with a compassionating paddle of his right
+hand; &quot;one of thoshe aw&mdash;odd feels in his stomach; and as I have pretty
+well done all I can man-n'ge down here, I must be off, ye shee. Wind up
+from Golden Friars, and a little flutter ovv zhnow, thazh all;&quot; and with
+some remarks about the extreme cold of the weather, and the severity of
+their night journey, and many respectful and polite parting speeches,
+the Doctor took his leave; and they soon heard the wheels of his gig and
+the tread of his horse, faint and muffled from the snow in the
+court-yard, and the Doctor, who had connected that melancholy and
+agitated household with the outer circle of humanity, was gone.</p>
+
+<p>There was very little snow falling, half-a-dozen flakes now and again,
+and their flight across the window showed, as the Doctor had in a manner
+boasted, that the wind was in his face as he returned to Golden Friars.
+Even these desultory snow-flakes ceased, at times, altogether; and
+returning, as they say, &quot;by fits and starts,&quot; left for long intervals
+the landscape, under the brilliant light of the moon, in its wide white
+shroud. The curtain of the great window had not been drawn. It seemed
+to Lady Walsingham that the moonbeams had grown more dazzling, that
+Snakes Island was nearer and more distinct, and the outstretched arm of
+the old tree looked bigger and angrier, like the uplifted arm of an
+assassin, who draws silently nearer as the catastrophe approaches.</p>
+
+<p>Cold, dazzling, almost repulsive in this intense moonlight and white
+sheeting, the familiar landscape looked in the eyes of Lady Walsingham.
+The sisters gradually grew more and more silent, an unearthly suspense
+overhung them all, and Lady Mardykes rose every now and then and
+listened at the open door for step or voice in vain. They all were
+overpowered by the intenser horror that seemed gathering around them.
+And thus an hour or more passed.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXX"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXX</h4>
+
+<i><b>Hush!</b></i>
+
+<p>Pale and silent those three beautiful sisters sat. The horrible quietude
+of a suspense that had grown all but insupportable oppressed the guests
+of Lady Mardykes, and something like the numbness of despair had reduced
+her to silence, the dreadful counterfeit of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes on a sudden softly entered the room. Reflected from
+the floor near the window, the white moonlight somehow gave to his fixed
+features the character of a smile. With a warning gesture, as he came
+in, he placed his finger to his lips, as if to enjoin silence; and then,
+having successively pressed the hands of his two sisters-in-law, he
+stooped over his almost fainting wife, and twice pressed her cold
+forehead with his lips; and so, without a word, he went softly from the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Some seconds elapsed before Lady Walsingham, recovering her presence of
+mind, with one of the candlesticks from the table in her hand, opened
+the door and followed.</p>
+
+<p>She saw Sir Bale mount the last stair of the broad flight visible from
+the hall, and candle in hand turn the corner of the massive banister,
+and as the light thrown from his candle showed, he continued, without
+hurry, to ascend the second flight.</p>
+
+<p>With the irrepressible curiosity of horror she continued to follow him
+at a distance.</p>
+
+<p>She saw him enter his own private room, and close the door.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing to follow she placed herself noiselessly at the door of the
+apartment, and in breathless silence, with a throbbing heart, listened
+for what should pass.</p>
+
+<p>She distinctly heard Sir Bale pace the floor up and down for some time,
+and then, after a pause, a sound as if some one had thrown himself
+heavily on the bed. A silence followed, during which her sisters, who
+had followed more timidly, joined her. She warned them with a look and
+gesture to be silent.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Haworth stood a little behind, her white lips moving, and her hands
+clasped in a silent agony of prayer. Lady Mardykes leaned against the
+massive oak door-case.</p>
+
+<p>With her hand raised to her ear, and her lips parted, Lady Walsingham
+listened for some seconds&mdash;for a minute, two minutes, three. At last,
+losing heart, she seized the handle in her panic, and turned it sharply.
+The door was locked on the inside, but some one close to it said from
+within, &quot;Hush, hush!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Much alarmed now, the same lady knocked violently at the door. No answer
+was returned.</p>
+
+<p>She knocked again more violently, and shook the door with all her
+fragile force. It was something of horror in her countenance as she did
+so, that, no doubt, terrified Lady Mardykes, who with a loud and long
+scream sank in a swoon upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The servants, alarmed by these sounds, were speedily in the gallery.
+Lady Mardykes was carried to her room, and laid upon her bed; her
+sister, Lady Haworth, accompanying her. In the meantime the door was
+forced. Sir Bale Mardykes was found stretched upon his bed.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have once seen it, will not mistake the aspect of death. Here,
+in Sir Bale Mardykes' room, in his bed, in his clothes, is a stranger,
+grim and awful; in a few days to be insupportable, and to pass alone
+into the prison-house, and to be seen no more.</p>
+
+<p>Where is Sir Bale Mardykes now, whose roof-tree and whose place at board
+and bed will know him no more? Here lies a chap-fallen, fish-eyed image,
+chilling already into clay, and stiffening in every joint.</p>
+
+<p>There is a marble monument in the pretty church of Golden Friars. It
+stands at the left side of what antiquarians call &quot;the high altar.&quot; Two
+pillars at each end support an arch with several armorial bearings on as
+many shields sculptured above. Beneath, on a marble flooring raised some
+four feet, with a cornice round, lies Sir Bale Mardykes, of Mardykes
+Hall, ninth Baronet of that ancient family, chiseled in marble with
+knee-breeches and buckled-shoes, and <i>ailes de pigeon</i>, and
+single-breasted coat and long waist-coat, ruffles and sword, such as
+gentlemen wore about the year 1770, and bearing a strong resemblance to
+the features of the second Charles. On the broad marble which forms the
+background is inscribed an epitaph, which has perpetuated to our times
+the estimate formed by his &quot;inconsolable widow,&quot; the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes, of the virtues and accomplishments of her deceased lord.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham would have qualified two or three of the more
+highly-coloured hyperboles, at which the Golden Friars of those days
+sniffed and tittered. They don't signify now; there is no contemporary
+left to laugh or whisper. And if there be not much that is true in the
+letter of that inscription, it at least perpetuates something that <i>is</i>
+true&mdash;that wonderful glorificaion of partisanship, the affection of an
+idolising wife.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mardykes, a few days after the funeral, left Mardykes Hall for
+ever. She lived a great deal with her sister, Lady Walsingham; and died,
+as a line cut at the foot of Sir Bale Mardykes' epitaph records, in the
+year 1790; her remains being laid beside those of her beloved husband in
+Golden Friars.</p>
+
+<p>The estates had come to Sir Bale Mardykes free of entail. He had been
+pottering over a will, but it was never completed, nor even quite
+planned; and after much doubt and scrutiny, it was at last ascertained
+that, in default of a will and of issue, a clause in the
+marriage-settlement gave the entire estates to the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes.</p>
+
+<p>By her will she bequeathed the estates to &quot;her cousin, also a kinsman of
+the late Sir Bale Mardykes her husband,&quot; William Feltram, on condition
+of his assuming the name and arms of Mardykes, the arms of Feltram being
+quartered in the shield.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was oddly fulfilled the prediction which Philip Feltram had
+repeated, that the estates of Mardykes were to pass into the hands of a
+Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 1795 the baronetage was revived, and William Feltram
+enjoyed the title for fifteen years, as Sir William Mardykes.</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11750 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #11750 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11750)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3, by
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3
+
+Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+Release Date: March 28, 2004  [eBook #11750]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES,
+VOLUME 3***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Andrea Ball, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES, VOLUME 3
+
+The Haunted Baronet (1871)
+
+by
+
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Haunted Baronet
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The George and Dragon
+
+The pretty little town of Golden Friars--standing by the margin of the
+lake, hemmed round by an amphitheatre of purple mountain, rich in tint
+and furrowed by ravines, high in air, when the tall gables and narrow
+windows of its ancient graystone houses, and the tower of the old
+church, from which every evening the curfew still rings, show like
+silver in the moonbeams, and the black elms that stand round throw
+moveless shadows upon the short level grass--is one of the most singular
+and beautiful sights I have ever seen.
+
+There it rises, 'as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand,' looking so
+light and filmy, that you could scarcely believe it more than a picture
+reflected on the thin mist of night.
+
+On such a still summer night the moon shone splendidly upon the front of
+the George and Dragon, the comfortable graystone inn of Golden Friars,
+with the grandest specimen of the old inn-sign, perhaps, left in
+England. It looks right across the lake; the road that skirts its margin
+running by the steps of the hall-door, opposite to which, at the other
+side of the road, between two great posts, and framed in a fanciful
+wrought-iron border splendid with gilding, swings the famous sign of St.
+George and the Dragon, gorgeous with colour and gold.
+
+In the great room of the George and Dragon, three or four of the old
+_habitués_ of that cozy lounge were refreshing a little after the
+fatigues of the day.
+
+This is a comfortable chamber, with an oak wainscot; and whenever in
+summer months the air is sharp enough, as on the present occasion, a
+fire helped to light it up; which fire, being chiefly wood, made a
+pleasant broad flicker on panel and ceiling, and yet did not make the
+room too hot.
+
+On one side sat Doctor Torvey, the doctor of Golden Friars, who knew the
+weak point of every man in the town, and what medicine agreed with each
+inhabitant--a fat gentleman, with a jolly laugh and an appetite for all
+sorts of news, big and little, and who liked a pipe, and made a tumbler
+of punch at about this hour, with a bit of lemon-peel in it. Beside him
+sat William Peers, a thin old gentleman, who had lived for more than
+thirty years in India, and was quiet and benevolent, and the last man in
+Golden Friars who wore a pigtail. Old Jack Amerald, an ex-captain of the
+navy, with his short stout leg on a chair, and its wooden companion
+beside it, sipped his grog, and bawled in the old-fashioned navy way,
+and called his friends his 'hearties.' In the middle, opposite the
+hearth, sat deaf Tom Hollar, always placid, and smoked his pipe, looking
+serenely at the fire. And the landlord of the George and Dragon every
+now and then strutted in, and sat down in the high-backed wooden
+arm-chair, according to the old-fashioned republican ways of the place,
+and took his share in the talk gravely, and was heartily welcome.
+
+"And so Sir Bale is coming home at last," said the Doctor. "Tell us any
+more you heard since."
+
+"Nothing," answered Richard Turnbull, the host of the George. "Nothing
+to speak of; only 'tis certain sure, and so best; the old house won't
+look so dowly now."
+
+"Twyne says the estate owes a good capful o' money by this time, hey?"
+said the Doctor, lowering his voice and winking.
+
+"Weel, they do say he's been nout at dow. I don't mind saying so to
+_you_, mind, sir, where all's friends together; but he'll get that right
+in time."
+
+"More like to save here than where he is," said the Doctor with another
+grave nod.
+
+"He does very wisely," said Mr. Peers, having blown out a thin stream of
+smoke, "and creditably, to pull-up in time. He's coming here to save a
+little, and perhaps he'll marry; and it is the more creditable, if, as
+they say, he dislikes the place, and would prefer staying where he is."
+
+And having spoken thus gently, Mr. Peers resumed his pipe cheerfully.
+
+"No, he don't like the place; that is, I'm told he _didn't_," said the
+innkeeper.
+
+"He _hates_ it," said the Doctor with another dark nod.
+
+"And no wonder, if all's true I've heard," cried old Jack Amerald.
+"Didn't he drown a woman and her child in the lake?"
+
+"Hollo! my dear boy, don't let them hear you say that; you're all in the
+clouds."
+
+"By Jen!" exclaimed the landlord after an alarmed silence, with his
+mouth and eyes open, and his pipe in his hand, "why, sir, I pay rent for
+the house up there. I'm thankful--dear knows, I _am_ thankful--we're all
+to ourselves!"
+
+Jack Amerald put his foot on the floor, leaving his wooden leg in its
+horizontal position, and looked round a little curiously.
+
+"Well, if it wasn't him, it was some one else. I'm sure it happened up
+at Mardykes. I took the bearings on the water myself from Glads Scaur to
+Mardykes Jetty, and from the George and Dragon sign down here--down to
+the white house under Forrick Fells. I could fix a buoy over the very
+spot. Some one here told me the bearings, I'd take my oath, where the
+body was seen; and yet no boat could ever come up with it; and that was
+queer, you know, so I clapt it down in my log."
+
+"Ay, sir, there _was_ some flummery like that, Captain," said Turnbull;
+"for folk will be gabbin'. But 'twas his grandsire was talked o', not
+him; and 'twould play the hangment wi' me doun here, if 'twas thought
+there was stories like that passin' in the George and Dragon.'
+
+"Well, his grandfather; 'twas all one to him, I take it."
+
+"There never was no proof, Captain, no more than smoke; and the family
+up at Mardykes wouldn't allow the king to talk o' them like that, sir;
+for though they be lang deod that had most right to be angered in the
+matter, there's none o' the name but would be half daft to think 'twas
+still believed, and he full out as mich as any. Not that I need care
+more than another, though they do say he's a bit frowsy and
+short-waisted; for he can't shouther me out o' the George while I pay my
+rent, till nine hundred and ninety-nine year be rin oot; and a man, be
+he ne'er sa het, has time to cool before then. But there's no good
+quarrellin' wi' teathy folk; and it may lie in his way to do the George
+mony an ill turn, and mony a gude one; an' it's only fair to say it
+happened a long way before he was born, and there's no good in vexin'
+him; and I lay ye a pound, Captain, the Doctor hods wi' me."
+
+The Doctor, whose business was also sensitive, nodded; and then he said,
+"But for all that, the story's old, Dick Turnbull--older than you or I,
+my jolly good friend."
+
+"And best forgotten," interposed the host of the George.
+
+"Ay, best forgotten; but that it's not like to be," said the Doctor,
+plucking up courage. "Here's our friend the Captain has heard it; and
+the mistake he has made shows there's one thing worse than its being
+quite remembered, and that is, its being _half_ remembered. We can't
+stop people talking; and a story like that will see us all off the
+hooks, and be in folks' mouths, still, as strong as ever."
+
+"Ay; and now I think on it, 'twas Dick Harman that has the boat down
+there--an old tar like myself--that told me that yarn. I was trying for
+pike, and he pulled me over the place, and that's how I came to hear it.
+I say, Tom, my hearty, serve us out another glass of brandy, will you?"
+shouted the Captain's voice as the waiter crossed the room; and that
+florid and grizzled naval hero clapped his leg again on the chair by its
+wooden companion, which he was wont to call his jury-mast.
+
+"Well, I do believe it will be spoke of longer than we are like to
+hear," said the host, "and I don't much matter the story, if it baint
+told o' the wrong man." Here he touched his tumbler with the spoon,
+indicating by that little ring that Tom, who had returned with the
+Captain's grog, was to replenish it with punch. "And Sir Bale is like to
+be a friend to this house. I don't see no reason why he shouldn't. The
+George and Dragon has bin in our family ever since the reign of King
+Charles the Second. It was William Turnbull in that time, which they
+called it the Restoration, he taking the lease from Sir Tony Mardykes
+that was then. They was but knights then. They was made baronets first
+in the reign of King George the Second; you may see it in the list of
+baronets and the nobility. The lease was made to William Turnbull, which
+came from London; and he built the stables, which they was out o'
+repair, as you may read to this day in the lease; and the house has
+never had but one sign since--the George and Dragon, it is pretty well
+known in England--and one name to its master. It has been owned by a
+Turnbull from that day to this, and they have not been counted bad men."
+A murmur of applause testified the assent of his guests. "They has been
+steady churchgoin' folk, and brewed good drink, and maintained the best
+o' characters, hereaways and farther off too, though 'tis I, Richard
+Turnbull, that says it; and while they pay their rent, no man has power
+to put them out; for their title's as good to the George and Dragon, and
+the two fields, and the croft, and the grazing o' their kye on the
+green, as Sir Bale Mardykes to the Hall up there and estate. So 'tis
+nout to me, except in the way o' friendliness, what the family may think
+o' me; only the George and they has always been kind and friendly, and I
+don't want to break the old custom."
+
+"Well said, Dick!" exclaimed Doctor Torvey; "I own to your conclusion;
+but there ain't a soul here but ourselves--and we're all friends, and
+you are your own master--and, hang it, you'll tell us that story about
+the drowned woman, as you heard it from your father long ago."
+
+"Ay, do, and keep us to our liquor, my hearty!" cried the Captain.
+
+Mr. Peers looked his entreaty; and deaf Mr. Hollar, having no interest
+in the petition, was at least a safe witness, and, with his pipe in his
+lips, a cozy piece of furniture.
+
+Richard Turnbull had his punch beside him; he looked over his shoulder.
+The door was closed, the fire was cheery, and the punch was fragrant,
+and all friendly faces about him. So said he:
+
+"Gentlemen, as you're pleased to wish it, I don't see no great harm in
+it; and at any rate, 'twill prevent mistakes. It is more than ninety
+years since. My father was but a boy then; and many a time I have heard
+him tell it in this very room."
+
+And looking into his glass he mused, and stirred his punch slowly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The Drowned Woman
+
+"It ain't much of a homminy," said the host of the George. "I'll not
+keep you long over it, gentlemen. There was a handsome young lady, Miss
+Mary Feltram o' Cloostedd by name. She was the last o' that family; and
+had gone very poor. There's but the walls o' the house left now; grass
+growing in the hall, and ivy over the gables; there's no one livin' has
+ever hard tell o' smoke out o' they chimblies. It stands on t'other side
+o' the lake, on the level wi' a deal o' a'ad trees behint and aside it
+at the gap o' the clough, under the pike o' Maiden Fells. Ye may see it
+wi' a spyin'-glass from the boatbield at Mardykes Hall."
+
+"I've been there fifty times," said the Doctor.
+
+"Well there was dealin's betwixt the two families; and there's good and
+bad in every family; but the Mardykes, in them days, was a wild lot. And
+when old Feltram o' Cloostedd died, and the young lady his daughter was
+left a ward o' Sir Jasper Mardykes--an ill day for her, poor
+lass!--twenty year older than her he was, an' more; and nothin' about
+him, they say, to make anyone like or love him, ill-faur'd and little
+and dow."
+
+"Dow--that's gloomy," Doctor Torvey instructed the Captain aside.
+
+"But they do say, they has an old blud-stean ring in the family that
+has a charm in't; and happen how it might, the poor lass fell in love
+wi' him. Some said they was married. Some said it hang'd i' the
+bell-ropes, and never had the priest's blessing; but anyhow, married or
+no, there was talk enough amang the folk, and out o' doors she would na
+budge. And there was two wee barns; and she prayed him hard to confess
+the marriage, poor thing! But t'was a bootlese bene, and he would not
+allow they should bear his name, but their mother's; he was a hard man,
+and hed the bit in his teeth, and went his ain gait. And having tired of
+her, he took in his head to marry a lady of the Barnets, and it behoved
+him to be shut o' her and her children; and so she nor them was seen no
+more at Mardykes Hall. And the eldest, a boy, was left in care of my
+grandfather's father here in the George."
+
+"That queer Philip Feltram that's travelling with Sir Bale so long is a
+descendant of his?" said the Doctor.
+
+"Grandson," observed Mr. Peers, removing his pipe for a moment; "and is
+the last of that stock."
+
+"Well, no one could tell where she had gone to. Some said to distant
+parts, some said to the madhouse, some one thing, some another; but
+neither she nor the barn was ever seen or spoke to by the folk at
+Mardykes in life again. There was one Mr. Wigram that lived in them
+times down at Moultry, and had sarved, like the Captain here, in the
+king's navy in his day; and early of a morning down he comes to the town
+for a boat, sayin' he was looking towards Snakes Island through his
+spyin'-glass, and he seen a woman about a hundred and fifty yards
+outside of it; the Captain here has heard the bearings right enough.
+From her hips upwards she was stark and straight out o' the water, and a
+baby in her arms. Well, no one else could see it, nor he neither, when
+they went down to the boat. But next morning he saw the same thing, and
+the boatman saw it too; and they rowed for it, both pulling might and
+main; but after a mile or so they could see it no more, and gave over.
+The next that saw it was the vicar, I forget his name now--but he was up
+the lake to a funeral at Mortlock Church; and coming back with a bit of
+a sail up, just passin' Snakes Island, what should they hear on a sudden
+but a wowl like a death-cry, shrill and bleak, as made the very blood
+hoot in their veins; and looking along the water not a hundred yards
+away, saw the same grizzled sight in the moonlight; so they turned the
+tiller, and came near enough to see her face--blea it was, and drenched
+wi' water--and she was above the lake to her middle, stiff as a post,
+holdin' the weeny barn out to them, and flyrin' [smiling scornfully] on
+them as they drew nigh her. They were half-frighted, not knowing what to
+make of it; but passing as close as the boatman could bring her side,
+the vicar stretched over the gunwale to catch her, and she bent forward,
+pushing the dead bab forward; and as she did, on a sudden she gave a
+yelloch that scared them, and they saw her no more. 'Twas no livin'
+woman, for she couldn't rise that height above the water, as they well
+knew when they came to think; and knew it was a dobby they saw; and ye
+may be sure they didn't spare prayer and blessin', and went on their
+course straight before the wind; for neither would a-took the worth o'
+all the Mardykes to look sich a freetin' i' the face again. 'Twas seen
+another time by market-folk crossin' fra Gyllenstan in the self-same
+place; and Snakes Island got a bad neam, and none cared to go nar it
+after nightfall."
+
+"Do you know anything of that Feltram that has been with him abroad?"
+asked the Doctor.
+
+"They say he's no good at anything--a harmless mafflin; he was a long
+gaumless gawky when he went awa," said Richard Turnbull. "The Feltrams
+and the Mardykes was sib, ye know; and that made what passed in the
+misfortune o' that young lady spoken of all the harder; and this young
+man ye speak of is a grandson o' the lad that was put here in care o' my
+grandfather."
+
+"_Great_-grandson. His father was grandson," said Mr. Peers; "he held a
+commission in the army and died in the West Indies. This Philip Feltram
+is the last o' that line--illegitimate, you know, it is held--and the
+little that remained of the Feltram property went nearly fourscore years
+ago to the Mardykes, and this Philip is maintained by Sir Bale; it is
+pleasant, notwithstanding all the stories one hears, gentlemen, that the
+only thing we know of him for certain should be so creditable to his
+kindness."
+
+"To be sure," acquiesced Mr. Turnbull.
+
+While they talked the horn sounded, and the mail-coach drew up at the
+door of the George and Dragon to set down a passenger and his luggage.
+
+Dick Turnbull rose and went out to the hall with careful bustle, and
+Doctor Torvey followed as far as the door, which commanded a view of it,
+and saw several trunks cased in canvas pitched into the hall, and by
+careful Tom and a boy lifted one on top of the other, behind the corner
+of the banister. It would have been below the dignity of his cloth to go
+out and read the labels on these, or the Doctor would have done
+otherwise, so great was his curiosity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Philip Feltram
+
+The new guest was now in the hall of the George, and Doctor Torvey could
+hear him talking with Mr. Turnbull. Being himself one of the dignitaries
+of Golden Friars, the Doctor, having regard to first impressions, did
+not care to be seen in his post of observation; and closing the door
+gently, returned to his chair by the fire, and in an under-tone informed
+his cronies that there was a new arrival in the George, and he could not
+hear, but would not wonder if he were taking a private room; and he
+seemed to have trunks enough to build a church with.
+
+"Don't be too sure we haven't Sir Bale on board," said Amerald, who
+would have followed his crony the Doctor to the door--for never was
+retired naval hero of a village more curious than he--were it not that
+his wooden leg made a distinct pounding on the floor that was inimical,
+as experience had taught him, to mystery.
+
+"That can't be," answered the Doctor; "Charley Twyne knows everything
+about it, and has a letter every second day; and there's no chance of
+Sir Bale before the tenth; this is a tourist, you'll find. I don't know
+what the d---l keeps Turnbull; he knows well enough we are all naturally
+willing to hear who it is."
+
+"Well, he won't trouble us here, I bet ye;" and catching deaf Mr.
+Hollar's eye, the Captain nodded, and pointed to the little table beside
+him, and made a gesture imitative of the rattling of a dice-box; at
+which that quiet old gentleman also nodded sunnily; and up got the
+Captain and conveyed the backgammon-box to the table, near Hollar's
+elbow, and the two worthies were soon sinc-ducing and catre-acing, with
+the pleasant clatter that accompanies that ancient game. Hollar had
+thrown sizes and made his double point, and the honest Captain, who
+could stand many things better than Hollar's throwing such throws so
+early in the evening, cursed his opponent's luck and sneered at his
+play, and called the company to witness, with a distinctness which a
+stranger to smiling Hollar's deafness would have thought hardly civil;
+and just at this moment the door opened, and Richard Turnbull showed his
+new guest into the room, and ushered him to a vacant seat near the other
+corner of the table before the fire.
+
+The stranger advanced slowly and shyly, with something a little
+deprecatory in his air, to which a lathy figure, a slight stoop, and a
+very gentle and even heartbroken look in his pale long face, gave a more
+marked character of shrinking and timidity.
+
+He thanked the landlord aside, as it were, and took his seat with a
+furtive glance round, as if he had no right to come in and intrude upon
+the happiness of these honest gentlemen.
+
+He saw the Captain scanning him from under his shaggy grey eyebrows
+while he was pretending to look only at his game; and the Doctor was
+able to recount to Mrs. Torvey when he went home every article of the
+stranger's dress.
+
+It was odd and melancholy as his peaked face.
+
+He had come into the room with a short black cloak on, and a rather tall
+foreign felt hat, and a pair of shiny leather gaiters or leggings on his
+thin legs; and altogether presented a general resemblance to the
+conventional figure of Guy Fawkes.
+
+Not one of the company assembled knew the appearance of the Baronet. The
+Doctor and old Mr. Peers remembered something of his looks; and
+certainly they had no likeness, but the reverse, to those presented by
+the new-comer. The Baronet, as now described by people who had chanced
+to see him, was a dark man, not above the middle size, and with a
+certain decision in his air and talk; whereas this person was tall,
+pale, and in air and manner feeble. So this broken trader in the world's
+commerce, with whom all seemed to have gone wrong, could not possibly be
+he.
+
+Presently, in one of his stealthy glances, the Doctor's eye encountered
+that of the stranger, who was by this time drinking his tea--a thin and
+feminine liquor little used in that room.
+
+The stranger did not seem put out; and the Doctor, interpreting his look
+as a permission to converse, cleared his voice, and said urbanely,
+
+"We have had a little frost by night, down here, sir, and a little fire
+is no great harm--it is rather pleasant, don't you think?"
+
+The stranger bowed acquiescence with a transient wintry smile, and
+looked gratefully on the fire.
+
+"This place is a good deal admired, sir, and people come a good way to
+see it; you have been here perhaps before?"
+
+"Many years ago."
+
+Here was another pause.
+
+"Places change imperceptibly--in detail, at least--a good deal," said
+the Doctor, making an effort to keep up a conversation that plainly
+would not go on of itself; "and people too; population shifts--there's
+an old fellow, sir, they call _Death_."
+
+"And an old fellow they call the _Doctor_, that helps him," threw in the
+Captain humorously, allowing his attention to get entangled in the
+conversation, and treating them to one of his tempestuous ha-ha-ha's.
+
+"We are expecting the return of a gentleman who would be a very leading
+member of our little society down here," said the Doctor, not noticing
+the Captain's joke. "I mean Sir Bale Mardykes. Mardykes Hall is a pretty
+object from the water, sir, and a very fine old place."
+
+The melancholy stranger bowed slightly, but rather in courtesy to the
+relator, it seemed, than that the Doctor's lore interested him much.
+
+"And on the opposite side of the lake," continued Doctor Torvey, "there
+is a building that contrasts very well with it--the old house of the
+Feltrams--quite a ruin now, at the mouth of the glen--Cloostedd House, a
+very picturesque object."
+
+"Exactly opposite," said the stranger dreamily, but whether in the tone
+of acquiescence or interrogatory, the Doctor could not be quite sure.
+
+"That was one of our great families down here that has disappeared. It
+has dwindled down to nothing."
+
+"Duce ace," remarked Mr. Hollar, who was attending to his game.
+
+"While others have mounted more suddenly and amazingly still," observed
+gentle Mr. Peers, who was great upon county genealogies.
+
+"Sizes!" thundered the Captain, thumping the table with an oath of
+disgust.
+
+"And Snakes Island is a very pretty object; they say there used to be
+snakes there," said the Doctor, enlightening the visitor.
+
+"Ah! that's a mistake," said the dejected guest, making his first
+original observation. "It should be spelt _Snaiks_. In the old papers it
+is called Sen-aiks Island from the seven oaks that grew in a clump
+there."
+
+"Hey? that's very curious, egad! I daresay," said the Doctor, set right
+thus by the stranger, and eyeing him curiously.
+
+"Very true, sir," observed Mr. Peers; "three of those oaks, though, two
+of them little better than stumps, are there still; and Clewson of
+Heckleston has an old document----"
+
+Here, unhappily, the landlord entered the room in a fuss, and walking up
+to the stranger, said, "The chaise is at the door, Mr. Feltram, and the
+trunks up, sir."
+
+Mr. Feltram rose quietly and took out his purse, and said,
+
+"I suppose I had better pay at the bar?"
+
+"As you like best, sir," said Richard Turnbull.
+
+Mr. Feltram bowed all round to the gentlemen, who smiled, ducked or
+waved their hands; and the Doctor fussily followed him to the hall-door,
+and welcomed him back to Golden Friars--there was real kindness in this
+welcome--and proffered his broad brown hand, which Mr. Feltram took; and
+then he plunged into his chaise, and the door being shut, away he
+glided, chaise, horses, and driver, like shadows, by the margin of the
+moonlighted lake, towards Mardykes Hall.
+
+And after a few minutes' stand upon the steps, looking along the shadowy
+track of the chaise, they returned to the glow of the room, in which a
+pleasant perfume of punch still prevailed; and beside Mr. Philip
+Feltram's deserted tea-things, the host of the George enlightened his
+guests by communicating freely the little he had picked up. The
+principal fact he had to tell was, that Sir Bale adhered strictly to his
+original plan, and was to arrive on the tenth. A few days would bring
+them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its
+interest. But in the meantime, all Golden Friars was anxious to see what
+Sir Bale Mardykes was like.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The Baronet Appears
+
+As the candles burn blue and the air smells of brimstone at the approach
+of the Evil One, so, in the quiet and healthy air of Golden Friars, a
+depressing and agitating influence announced the coming of the
+long-absent Baronet.
+
+From abroad, no good whatever had been at any time heard of him, and a
+great deal that was, in the ears of simple folk living in that
+unsophisticated part of the world, vaguely awful.
+
+Stories that travel so far, however, lose something of their authority,
+as well as definiteness, on the way; there was always room for charity
+to suggest a mistake or exaggeration; and if good men turned up their
+hands and eyes after a new story, and ladies of experience, who knew
+mankind, held their heads high and looked grim and mysterious at mention
+of his name, nevertheless an interval of silence softened matters a
+little, and the sulphureous perfume dissipated itself in time.
+
+Now that Sir Bale Mardykes had arrived at the Hall, there were hurried
+consultations held in many households. And though he was tried and
+sentenced by drum-head over some austere hearths, as a rule the law of
+gravitation prevailed, and the greater house drew the lesser about it,
+and county people within the visiting radius paid their respects at the
+Hall.
+
+The Reverend Martin Bedel, the then vicar of Golden Friars, a stout
+short man, with a mulberry-coloured face and small gray eyes, and
+taciturn habits, called and entered the drawing-room at Mardykes Hall,
+with his fat and garrulous wife on his arm.
+
+The drawing-room has a great projecting Tudor window looking out on the
+lake, with its magnificent background of furrowed and purple mountains.
+
+Sir Bale was not there, and Mrs. Bedel examined the pictures, and
+ornaments, and the books, making such remarks as she saw fit; and then
+she looked out of the window, and admired the prospect. She wished to
+stand well with the Baronet, and was in a mood to praise everything.
+
+You may suppose she was curious to see him, having heard for years such
+strange tales of his doings.
+
+She expected the hero of a brilliant and wicked romance; and listened
+for the step of the truant Lovelace who was to fulfil her idea of manly
+beauty and fascination.
+
+She sustained a slight shock when he did appear.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes was, as she might easily have remembered, a
+middle-aged man--and he looked it. He was not even an imposing-looking
+man for his time of life: he was of about the middle height, slightly
+made, and dark featured. She had expected something of the gaiety and
+animation of Versailles, and an evident cultivation of the art of
+pleasing. What she did see was a remarkable gravity, not to say gloom,
+of countenance--the only feature of which that struck her being a pair
+of large dark-gray eyes, that were cold and earnest. His manners had the
+ease of perfect confidence; and his talk and air were those of a person
+who might have known how to please, if it were worth the trouble, but
+who did not care twopence whether he pleased or not.
+
+He made them each a bow, courtly enough, but there was no smile--not
+even an affectation of cordiality. Sir Bale, however, was chatty, and
+did not seem to care much what he said, or what people thought of him;
+and there was a suspicion of sarcasm in what he said that the rustic
+literality of good Mrs. Bedel did not always detect.
+
+"I believe I have not a clergyman but _you_, sir, within any reasonable
+distance?"
+
+"Golden Friars _is_ the nearest," said Mrs. Bedel, answering, as was her
+pleasure on all practicable occasions, for her husband. "And southwards,
+the nearest is Wyllarden--and by a bird's flight that is thirteen miles
+and a half, and by the road more than nineteen--twenty, I may say, by
+the road. Ha, ha, ha! it is a long way to look for a clergyman."
+
+"Twenty miles of road to carry you thirteen miles across, hey? The
+road-makers lead you a pretty dance here; those gentlemen know how to
+make money, and like to show people the scenery from a variety of
+points. No one likes a straight road but the man who pays for it, or
+who, when he travels, is brute enough to wish to get to his journey's
+end."
+
+"That is so true, Sir Bale; one never cares if one is not in a hurry.
+That's what Martin thinks--don't we, Martin?--And then, you know, coming
+home is the time you _are_ in a hurry--when you are thinking of your cup
+of tea and the children; and _then_, you know, you have the fall of the
+ground all in your favour."
+
+"It's well to have anything in your favour in this place. And so there
+are children?"
+
+"A good many," said Mrs. Bedel, with a proud and mysterious smile, and a
+nod; "you wouldn't guess how many."
+
+"Not I; I only wonder you did not bring them all."
+
+"That's very good-natured of you, Sir Bale, but all could not come at
+_one_ bout; there are--tell him, Martin--ha, ha, ha! there are eleven."
+
+"It must be very cheerful down at the vicarage," said Sir Bale
+graciously; and turning to the vicar he added, "But how unequally
+blessings are divided! You have eleven, and I not one--that I'm aware
+of."
+
+"And then, in that direction straight before you, you have the lake, and
+then the fells; and five miles from the foot of the mountain at the
+other side, before you reach Fottrell--and that is twenty-five miles by
+the road----"
+
+"Dear me! how far apart they are set! My gardener told me this morning
+that asparagus grows very thinly in this part of the world. How thinly
+clergymen grow also down here--in one sense," he added politely, for the
+vicar was stout.
+
+"We were looking out of the window--we amused ourselves that way before
+you came--and your view is certainly the very best anywhere round this
+side; your view of the lake and the fells--what mountains they are, Sir
+Bale!"
+
+"'Pon my soul, they are! I wish I could blow them asunder with a charge
+of duck-shot, and I shouldn't be stifled by them long. But I suppose, as
+we can't get rid of them, the next best thing is to admire them. We are
+pretty well married to them, and there is no use in quarrelling."
+
+"I know you don't think so, Sir Bale, ha, ha, ha! You wouldn't take a
+good deal and spoil Mardykes Hall."
+
+"You can't get a mouthful or air, or see the sun of a morning, for those
+frightful mountains," he said with a peevish frown at them.
+
+"Well, the lake at all events--that you _must_ admire, Sir Bale?"
+
+"No ma'am, I don't admire the lake. I'd drain the lake if I could--I
+hate the lake. There's nothing so gloomy as a lake pent up among barren
+mountains. I can't conceive what possessed my people to build our house
+down here, at the edge of a lake; unless it was the fish, and precious
+fish it is--pike! I don't know how people digest it--_I_ can't. I'd as
+soon think of eating a watchman's pike."
+
+"I thought that having travelled so much abroad, you would have acquired
+a great liking for that kind of scenery, Sir Bale; there is a great deal
+of it on the Continent, ain't there?" said Mrs. Bedel. "And the
+boating."
+
+"Boating, my dear Mrs. Bedel, is the dullest of all things; don't you
+think so? Because a boat looks very pretty from the shore, we fancy the
+shore must look very pretty from a boat; and when we try it, we find we
+have only got down into a pit and can see nothing rightly. For my part I
+hate boating, and I hate the water; and I'd rather have my house, like
+Haworth, at the edge of a moss, with good wholesome peat to look at, and
+an open horizon--savage and stupid and bleak as all that is--than be
+suffocated among impassable mountains, or upset in a black lake and
+drowned like a kitten. O, there's luncheon in the next room; won't you
+take some?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Mrs. Julaper's Room
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes being now established in his ancestral house, people
+had time to form conclusions respecting him. It must be allowed he was
+not popular. There was, perhaps, in his conduct something of the caprice
+of contempt. At all events his temper and conduct were uncertain, and
+his moods sometimes violent and insulting.
+
+With respect to but one person was his conduct uniform, and that was
+Philip Feltram. He was a sort of aide-de-camp near Sir Bale's person,
+and chargeable with all the commissions and offices which could not be
+suitably intrusted to a mere servant. But in many respects he was
+treated worse than any servant of the Baronet's. Sir Bale swore at him,
+and cursed him; laid the blame of everything that went wrong in house,
+stable, or field upon his shoulders; railed at him, and used him, as
+people said, worse than a dog.
+
+Why did Feltram endure this contumelious life? What could he do but
+endure it? was the answer. What was the power that induced strong
+soldiers to put off their jackets and shirts, and present their hands to
+be tied up, and tortured for hours, it might be, under the scourge, with
+an air of ready volition? The moral coercion of despair; the result of
+an unconscious calculation of chances which satisfies them that it is
+ultimately better to do all that, bad as it is, than try the
+alternative. These unconscious calculations are going on every day with
+each of us, and the results embody themselves in our lives; and no one
+knows that there has been a process and a balance struck, and that what
+they see, and very likely blame, is by the fiat of an invisible but
+quite irresistible power.
+
+A man of spirit would rather break stones on the highway than eat that
+bitter bread, was the burden of every man's song on Feltram's bondage.
+But he was not so sure that even the stone-breaker's employment was open
+to him, or that he could break stones well enough to retain it on a fair
+trial. And he had other ideas of providing for himself, and a different
+alternative in his mind.
+
+Good-natured Mrs. Julaper, the old housekeeper at Mardykes Hall, was
+kind to Feltram, as to all others who lay in her way and were in
+affliction.
+
+She was one of those good women whom Nature provides to receive the
+burden of other people's secrets, as the reeds did long ago, only that
+no chance wind could steal them away, and send them singing into strange
+ears.
+
+You may still see her snuggery in Mardykes Hall, though the
+housekeeper's room is now in a different part of the house.
+
+Mrs. Julaper's room was in the oldest quarter of that old house. It was
+wainscoted, in black panels, up to the ceiling, which was stuccoed over
+in the fanciful diagrams of James the First's time. Several dingy
+portraits, banished from time to time from other statelier rooms, found
+a temporary abode in this quiet spot, where they had come finally to
+settle and drop out of remembrance. There is a lady in white satin and a
+ruff; a gentleman whose legs have faded out of view, with a peaked
+beard, and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a black periwig lost
+in the dark background, and with a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out
+of the darkness strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable
+across it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes, who crossed the Border
+and joined Dundee, and was shot through the temple at Killiecrankie and
+whom more prudent and whiggish scions of the Mardykes family removed
+forthwith from his place in the Hall, and found a retirement here, from
+which he has not since emerged.
+
+At the far end of this snug room is a second door, on opening which you
+find yourself looking down upon the great kitchen, with a little balcony
+before you, from which the housekeeper used to issue her commands to the
+cook, and exercise a sovereign supervision.
+
+There is a shelf on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible, her _Whole Duty of
+Man_, and her _Pilgrim's Progress_; and, in a file beside them, her
+books of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes,
+cookery-books, and some too on surgery and medicine, as practised by the
+Ladies Bountiful of the Elizabethan age, for which an antiquarian would
+nowadays give an eye or a hand.
+
+Gentle half-foolish Philip Feltram would tell the story of his wrongs,
+and weep and wish he was dead; and kind Mrs. Julaper, who remembered him
+a child, would comfort him with cold pie and cherry-brandy, or a cup of
+coffee, or some little dainty.
+
+"O, ma'am, I'm tired of my life. What's the good of living, if a poor
+devil is never let alone, and called worse names than a dog? Would not
+it be better, Mrs. Julaper, to be dead? Wouldn't it be better, ma'am? I
+think so; I think it night and day. I'm always thinking the same thing.
+I don't care, I'll just tell him what I think, and have it off my mind.
+I'll tell him I can't live and bear it longer."
+
+"There now, don't you be frettin'; but just sip this, and remember
+you're not to judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean it, not he.
+They all had a rough side to their tongue now and again; but no one
+minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the
+tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard
+words break no bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea--ye like a cup o'
+tea--and we'll take a cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see
+how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines on the lake this evening."
+
+She was patting him gently on the shoulder, as she stood slim and stiff
+in her dark silk by his chair, and her rosy little face smiled down on
+him. She was, for an old woman, wonderfully pretty still. What a
+delicate skin she must have had! The wrinkles were etched upon it with
+so fine a needle, you scarcely could see them a little way off; and as
+she smiled her cheeks looked fresh and smooth as two ruddy little
+apples.
+
+"Look out, I say," and she nodded towards the window, deep set in the
+thick wall. "See how bright and soft everything looks in that pleasant
+light; _that's_ better, child, than the finest picture man's hand ever
+painted yet, and God gives it us for nothing; and how pretty Snakes
+Island glows up in that light!"
+
+The dejected man, hardly raising his head, followed with his eyes the
+glance of the old woman, and looked mournfully through the window.
+
+"That island troubles me, Mrs. Julaper."
+
+"Everything troubles you, my poor goose-cap. I'll pull your lug for ye,
+child, if ye be so dowly;" and with a mimic pluck the good-natured old
+housekeeper pinched his ear and laughed.
+
+"I'll go to the still-room now, where the water's boiling, and I'll make
+a cup of tea; and if I find ye so dow when I come back, I'll throw it
+all out o' the window, mind."
+
+It was indeed a beautiful picture that Feltram saw in its deep frame of
+old masonry. The near part of the lake was flushed all over with the low
+western light; the more distant waters lay dark in the shadow of the
+mountains; and against this shadow of purple the rocks on Snakes Island,
+illuminated by the setting sun, started into sharp clear yellow.
+
+But this beautiful view had no charm--at least, none powerful enough to
+master the latent horror associated with its prettiest feature--for the
+weak and dismal man who was looking at it; and being now alone, he rose
+and leant on the window, and looked out, and then with a kind of shudder
+clutching his hands together, and walking distractedly about the room.
+
+Without his perceiving, while his back was turned, the housekeeper came
+back; and seeing him walking in this distracted way, she thought to
+herself, as he leant again upon the window:
+
+"Well, it _is_ a burning shame to worrit any poor soul into that state.
+Sir Bale was always down on someone or something, man or beast; there
+always was something he hated, and could never let alone. It was not
+pretty; it was his nature. Happen, poor fellow, he could not help it;
+but so it was."
+
+A maid came in and set the tea-things down; and Mrs. Julaper drew her
+sad guest over by the arm, and made him sit down, and she said: "What
+has a man to do, frettin' in that way? By Jen, I'm ashamed o' ye, Master
+Philip! Ye like three lumps o' sugar, I think, and--look cheerful, ye
+must!--a good deal o' cream?"
+
+"You're so kind, Mrs. Julaper, you're so cheery. I feel quite
+comfortable after awhile when I'm with you; I feel quite happy," and he
+began to cry.
+
+She understood him very well by this time and took no notice, but went
+on chatting gaily, and made his tea as he liked it; and he dried his
+tears hastily, thinking she had not observed.
+
+So the clouds began to clear. This innocent fellow liked nothing better
+than a cup of tea and a chat with gentle and cheery old Mrs. Julaper,
+and a talk in which the shadowy old times which he remembered as a child
+emerged into sunlight and lived again.
+
+When he began to feel better, drawn into the kindly old times by the
+tinkle of that harmless old woman's tongue, he said:
+
+"I sometimes think I would not so much mind--I should not care so
+much--if my spirits were not so depressed, and I so agitated. I suppose
+I am not quite well."
+
+"Well, tell me what's wrong, child, and it's odd but I have a recipe on
+the shelf there that will do you good."
+
+"It is not a matter of that sort I mean; though I'd rather have you than
+any doctor, if I needed medicine, to prescribe for me."
+
+Mrs. Julaper smiled in spite of herself, well pleased; for her skill in
+pharmacy was a point on which the good lady prided herself, and was open
+to flattery, which, without intending it, the simple fellow
+administered.
+
+"No, I'm well enough; I can't say I ever was better. It is only, ma'am,
+that I have such dreams--you have no idea."
+
+"There are dreams and dreams, my dear: there's some signifies no more
+than the babble of the lake down there on the pebbles, and there's
+others that has a meaning; there's dreams that is but vanity, and
+there's dreams that is good, and dreams that is bad. Lady
+Mardykes--heavens be her bed this day! that's his grandmother I
+mean--was very sharp for reading dreams. Take another cup of tea. Dear
+me! what a noise the crows keep aboon our heads, going home! and how
+high they wing it!--that's a sure sign of fine weather. An' what do you
+dream about? Tell me your dream, and I may show you it's a good one,
+after all. For many a dream is ugly to see and ugly to tell, and a good
+dream, with a happy meaning, for all that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The Intruder
+
+"Well, Mrs. Julaper, dreams I've dreamed like other people, old and
+young; but this, ma'am, has taken a fast hold of me," said Mr. Feltram
+dejectedly, leaning back in his chair and looking down with his hands in
+his pockets. "I think, Mrs. Julaper, it is getting into me. I think it's
+like possession."
+
+"Possession, child! what do you mean?"
+
+"I think there is something trying to influence me. Perhaps it is the
+way fellows go mad; but it won't let me alone. I've seen it three times,
+think of that!"
+
+"Well, dear, and what _have_ ye seen?" she asked, with an uneasy
+cheerfulness, smiling, with eyes fixed steadily upon him; for the idea
+of a madman--even gentle Philip in that state--was not quieting.
+
+"Do you remember the picture, full-length, that had no frame--the lady
+in the white-satin saque--she was beautiful, _funeste_," he added,
+talking more to himself; and then more distinctly to Mrs. Julaper
+again----"in the white-satin saque; and with the little mob cap and blue
+ribbons to it, and a bouquet in her fingers; that was--that--you know
+who she was?"
+
+"That was your great-grandmother, my dear," said Mrs. Julaper, lowering
+her eyes. "It was a dreadful pity it was spoiled. The boys in the pantry
+had it for a year there on the table for a tray, to wash the glasses on
+and the like. It was a shame; that was the prettiest picture in the
+house, with the gentlest, rosiest face."
+
+"It ain't so gentle or rosy now, I can tell you," said Philip. "As fixed
+as marble; with thin lips, and a curve at the nostril. Do you remember
+the woman that was found dead in the clough, when I was a boy, that the
+gipsies murdered, it was thought,--a cruel-looking woman?"
+
+"Agoy! Master Philip, dear! ye would not name that terrible-looking
+creature with the pretty, fresh, kindly face!"
+
+"Faces change, you see; no matter what she's like; it's her talk that
+frightens me. She wants to make use of me; and, you see, it is like
+getting a share in my mind, and a voice in my thoughts, and a command
+over me gradually; and it is just one idea, as straight as a line of
+light across the lake--see what she's come to. O Lord, help me!"
+
+"Well, now, don't you be talkin' like that. It is just a little bit
+dowly and troubled, because the master says a wry word now and then; and
+so ye let your spirits go down, don't ye see, and all sorts o' fancies
+comes into your head."
+
+"There's no fancy in my head," he said with a quick look of suspicion;
+"only you asked me what I dreamed. I don't care if all the world knew. I
+dreamed I went down a flight of steps under the lake, and got a message.
+There are no steps near Snakes Island, we all know that," and he laughed
+chillily. "I'm out of spirits, as you say; and--and--O dear! I
+wish--Mrs. Julaper--I wish I was in my coffin, and quiet."
+
+"Now that's very wrong of you, Master Philip; you should think of all
+the blessings you have, and not be makin' mountains o' molehills; and
+those little bits o' temper Sir Bale shows, why, no one minds 'em--that
+is, to take 'em to heart like you do, don't ye see?"
+
+"I daresay; I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you are right. I'm unreasonable
+often, I know," said gentle Philip Feltram. "I daresay I make too much
+of it; I'll try. I'm his secretary, and I know I'm not so bright as he
+is, and it is natural he should sometimes be a little impatient; I ought
+to be more reasonable, I'm sure. It is all that thing that has been
+disturbing me--I mean fretting, and, I think, I'm not quite well;
+and--and letting myself think too much of vexations. It's my own fault,
+I'm sure, Mrs. Julaper; and I know I'm to blame."
+
+"That's quite right, that's spoken like a wise lad; only I don't say
+you're to blame, nor no one; for folk can't help frettin' sometimes, no
+more than they can help a headache--none but a mafflin would say
+that--and I'll not deny but he has dowly ways when the fit's on him, and
+he frumps us all round, if such be his humour. But who is there hasn't
+his faults? We must bear and forbear, and take what we get and be
+cheerful. So chirp up, my lad; Philip, didn't I often ring the a'd rhyme
+in your ear long ago?
+
+  "Be always as merry as ever you can,
+  For no one delights in a sorrowful man.
+
+"So don't ye be gettin' up off your chair like that, and tramping about
+the room wi' your hands in your pockets, looking out o' this window, and
+staring out o' that, and sighing and crying, and looking so
+black-ox-trodden, 'twould break a body's heart to see you. Ye must be
+cheery; and happen you're hungry, and don't know it. I'll tell the cook
+to grill a hot bit for ye."
+
+"But I'm not hungry, Mrs. Julaper. How kind you are! dear me, Mrs.
+Julaper, I'm not worthy of it; I don't deserve half your kindness. I'd
+have been heartbroken long ago, but for you."
+
+"And I'll make a sup of something hot for you; you'll take a
+rummer-glass of punch--you must."
+
+"But I like the tea better; I do, indeed, Mrs. Julaper."
+
+"Tea is no drink for a man when his heart's down. It should be something
+with a leg in it, lad; something hot that will warm your courage for ye,
+and set your blood a-dancing, and make ye talk brave and merry; and will
+you have a bit of a broil first? No? Well then, you'll have a drop o'
+punch?--ye sha'n't say no."
+
+And so, all resistance overpowered, the consolation of Philip Feltram
+proceeded.
+
+A gentler spirit than poor Feltram, a more good-natured soul than the
+old housekeeper, were nowhere among the children of earth.
+
+Philip Feltram, who was reserved enough elsewhere, used to come into her
+room and cry, and take her by both hands piteously, standing before her
+and looking down in her face, while tears ran deviously down his cheeks.
+
+"Did you ever know such a case? was there ever a fellow like _me_? did
+you ever _know_ such a thing? You know what I am, Mrs. Julaper, and who
+I am. They call me Feltram; but Sir Bale knows as well as I that my true
+name is not that. I'm Philip Mardykes; and another fellow would make a
+row about it, and claim his name and his rights, as she is always
+croaking in my ear I ought. But you know that is not reasonable. My
+grandmother was married; she was the true Lady Mardykes; _think_ what it
+was to see a woman like that turned out of doors, and her children
+robbed of their name. O, ma'am, you _can't_ think it; unless you were
+me, you couldn't--you couldn't--you couldn't!"
+
+"Come, come, Master Philip, don't you be taking on so; and ye mustn't be
+talking like that, d'ye mind? You know he wouldn't stand that; and it's
+an old story now, and there's naught can be proved concerning it; and
+what I think is this--I wouldn't wonder the poor lady was beguiled. But
+anyhow she surely thought she was his lawful wife; and though the law
+may hev found a flaw somewhere--and I take it 'twas so--yet sure I am
+she was an honourable lady. But where's the use of stirring that old
+sorrow? or how can ye prove aught? and the dead hold their peace, you
+know; dead mice, they say, feels no cold; and dead folks are past
+fooling. So don't you talk like that; for stone walls have ears, and ye
+might say that ye couldn't _un_say; and death's day is doom's day. So
+leave all in the keeping of God; and, above all, never lift hand when ye
+can't strike."
+
+"Lift my hand! O, Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that; you little know
+me; I did not mean that; I never dreamed of hurting Sir Bale. Good
+heavens! Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that! It all comes of my poor
+impatient temper, and complaining as I do, and my misery; but O, Mrs.
+Julaper, you could not think I ever meant to trouble him by law, or any
+other annoyance! I'd like to see a stain removed from my family, and my
+name restored; but to touch his property, O, no!--O, no! that never
+entered my mind, by heaven! that never entered my mind, Mrs. Julaper.
+I'm not cruel; I'm not rapacious; I don't care for money; don't you know
+that, Mrs. Julaper? O, surely you won't think me capable of attacking
+the man whose bread I have eaten so long! I never dreamed of it; I
+should hate myself. Tell me you don't believe it; O, Mrs. Julaper, say
+you don't!"
+
+And the gentle feeble creature burst into tears and good Mrs. Julaper
+comforted him with kind words; and he said,
+
+"Thank you, ma'am; thank you. God knows I would not hurt Bale, nor give
+him one uneasy hour. It is only this: that I'm--I'm so miserable; and
+I'm only casting in my mind where to turn to, and what to do. So little
+a thing would be enough, and then I shall leave Mardykes. I'll go; not
+in any anger, Mrs. Julaper--don't think that; but I can't stay, I must
+be gone."
+
+"Well, now, there's nothing yet, Master Philip, to fret you like that.
+You should not be talking so wild-like. Master Bale has his sharp word
+and his short temper now and again; but I'm sure he likes you. If he
+didn't, he'd a-said so to me long ago. I'm sure he likes you well."
+
+"Hollo! I say, who's there? Where the devil's Mr. Feltram?" called the
+voice of the baronet, at a fierce pitch, along the passage.
+
+"La! Mr. Feltram, it's him! Ye'd better run to him," whispered Mrs.
+Julaper.
+
+"D--n me! does nobody hear? Mrs. Julaper! Hollo! ho! house, there! ho!
+D--n me, will nobody answer?"
+
+And Sir Bale began to slap the wainscot fast and furiously with his
+walking-cane with a clatter like a harlequin's lath in a pantomime.
+
+Mrs. Julaper, a little paler than usual, opened her door, and stood with
+the handle in her hand, making a little curtsey, enframed in the
+door-case; and Sir Bale, being in a fume, when he saw her, ceased
+whacking the panels of the corridor, and stamped on the floor, crying,
+
+"Upon my soul, ma'am, I'm glad to see you! Perhaps you can tell me where
+Feltram is?"
+
+"He is in my room, Sir Bale. Shall I tell him you want him, please?"
+
+"Never mind; thanks," said the Baronet. "I've a tongue in my head;"
+marching down the passage to the housekeeper's room, with his cane
+clutched hard, glaring savagely, and with his teeth fast set, like a
+fellow advancing to beat a vicious horse that has chafed his temper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The Bank Note
+
+Sir Bale brushed by the housekeeper as he strode into her sanctuary, and
+there found Philip Feltram awaiting him dejectedly, but with no signs of
+agitation.
+
+If one were to judge by the appearance the master of Mardykes presented,
+very grave surmises as to impending violence would have suggested
+themselves; but though he clutched his cane so hard that it quivered in
+his grasp, he had no notion of committing the outrage of a blow. The
+Baronet was unusually angry notwithstanding, and stopping short about
+three steps away, addressed Feltram with a pale face and gleaming eyes.
+It was quite plain that there was something very exciting upon his mind.
+
+"I've been looking for you, Mr. Feltram; I want a word or two, if you
+have done your--your--whatever it is." He whisked the point of his stick
+towards the modest tea-tray. "I should like five minutes in the
+library."
+
+The Baronet was all this time eyeing Feltram with a hard suspicious
+gaze, as if he expected to read in his face the shrinkings and
+trepidations of guilt; and then turning suddenly on his heel he led the
+way to his library--a good long march, with a good many turnings. He
+walked very fast, and was not long in getting there. And as Sir Bale
+reached the hearth, on which was smouldering a great log of wood, and
+turned about suddenly, facing the door, Philip Feltram entered.
+
+The Baronet looked oddly and stern--so oddly, it seemed to Feltram, that
+he could not take his eyes off him, and returned his grim and somewhat
+embarrassed gaze with a stare of alarm and speculation.
+
+And so doing, his step was shortened, and grew slow and slower, and came
+quite to a stop before he had got far from the door--a wide stretch of
+that wide floor still intervening between him and Sir Bale, who stood
+upon the hearthrug, with his heels together and his back to the fire,
+cane in hand, like a drill-sergeant, facing him.
+
+"Shut that door, please; that will do; come nearer now. I don't want to
+bawl what I have to say. Now listen."
+
+The Baronet cleared his voice and paused, with his eyes upon Feltram.
+
+"It is only two or three days ago," said he, "that you said you wished
+you had a hundred pounds. Am I right?"
+
+"Yes; I think so."
+
+"_Think_? you know it, sir, devilish well. You said that you wished to
+get away. I have nothing particular to say against that, more especially
+now. Do you understand what I say?"
+
+"Understand, Sir Bale? I do, sir--quite."
+
+"I daresay quite" he repeated with an angry sneer. "Here, sir, is an odd
+coincidence: you want a hundred pounds, and you can't earn it, and you
+can't borrow it--there's another way, it seems--but I have got it--a
+Bank-of-England note of £100--locked up in that desk;" and he poked the
+end of his cane against the brass lock of it viciously. "There it is,
+and there are the papers you work at; and there are two keys--I've got
+one and you have the other--and devil another key in or out of the house
+has any one living. Well, do you begin to see? Don't mind. I don't want
+any d----d lying about it."
+
+Feltram was indeed beginning to see that he was suspected of something
+very bad, but exactly what, he was not yet sure; and being a man of that
+unhappy temperament which shrinks from suspicion, as others do from
+detection, he looked very much put out indeed.
+
+"Ha, ha! I think we do begin to see," said Sir Bale savagely. "It's a
+bore, I know, troubling a fellow with a story that he knows before; but
+I'll make mine short. When I take my key, intending to send the note to
+pay the crown and quit-rents that you know--you--you--no matter--you
+know well enough must be paid, I open it so--and so--and look _there_,
+where I left it, for my note; and the note's gone--you understand, the
+note's _gone_!"
+
+Here was a pause, during which, under the Baronet's hard insulting eye,
+poor Feltram winced, and cleared his voice, and essayed to speak, but
+said nothing.
+
+"It's gone, and we know where. Now, Mr. Feltram, _I_ did not steal that
+note, and no one but you and I have access to this desk. You wish to go
+away, and I have no objection to that--but d--n me if you take away that
+note with you; and you may as well produce it now and here, as hereafter
+in a worse place."
+
+"O, my good heaven!" exclaimed poor Feltram at last. "I'm very ill."
+
+"So you are, of course. It takes a stiff emetic to get all that money
+off a fellow's stomach; and it's like parting with a tooth to give up a
+bank-note. Of course you're ill, but that's no sign of innocence, and
+I'm no fool. You had better give the thing up quietly."
+
+"May my Maker strike me----"
+
+"So He will, you d----d rascal, if there's justice in heaven, unless you
+produce the money. I don't want to hang you. I'm willing to let you off
+if you'll let me, but I'm cursed if I let my note off along with you;
+and unless you give it up forthwith, I'll get a warrant and have you
+searched, pockets, bag, and baggage."
+
+"Lord! am I awake?" exclaimed Philip Feltram.
+
+"Wide awake, and so am I," replied Sir Bale. "You don't happen to have
+got it about you?"
+
+"God forbid, sir! O, Sir--O, Sir Bale--why, Bale, _Bale_, it's
+impossible! You _can't_ believe it. When did I ever wrong you? You know
+me since I was not higher than the table, and--and----"
+
+He burst into tears.
+
+"Stop your snivelling, sir, and give up the note. You know devilish well
+I can't spare it; and I won't spare you if you put me to it. I've said
+my say."
+
+Sir Bale signed towards the door; and like a somnambulist, with dilated
+gaze and pale as death, Philip Feltram, at his wit's end, went out of
+the room. It was not till he had again reached the housekeeper's door
+that he recollected in what direction he was going. His shut hand was
+pressed with all his force to his heart, and the first breath he was
+conscious of was a deep wild sob or two that quivered from his heart as
+he looked from the lobby-window upon a landscape which he did not see.
+
+All he had ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire
+paroxysm. Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real
+capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain
+intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and
+consequence, in his torture.
+
+Sir Bale, in the meantime, had walked out a little more excited than he
+would have allowed. He was still convinced that Feltram had stolen the
+note, but not quite so certain as he had been. There were things in his
+manner that confirmed, and others that perplexed, Sir Bale.
+
+The Baronet stood upon the margin of the lake, almost under the evening
+shadow of the house, looking towards Snakes Island. There were two
+things about Mardykes he specially disliked.
+
+One was Philip Feltram, who, right or wrong, he fancied knew more than
+was pleasant of his past life.
+
+The other was the lake. It was a beautiful piece of water, his eye,
+educated at least in the excellences of landscape-painting,
+acknowledged. But although he could pull a good oar, and liked other
+lakes, to this particular sheet of water there lurked within him an
+insurmountable antipathy. It was engendered by a variety of
+associations.
+
+There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout
+and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.
+His boding was made-up of omens, dreams, and such stuff as he most
+affected to despise, and there fluttered at his heart a presentiment and
+disgust.
+
+His foot was on the gunwale of the boat, that was chained to its ring at
+the margin; but he would not have crossed that water in it for any
+reason that man could urge.
+
+What was the mischief that sooner or later was to befall him from that
+lake, he could not define; but that some fatal danger lurked there, was
+the one idea concerning it that had possession of his fancy.
+
+He was now looking along its still waters, towards the copse and rocks
+of Snakes Island, thinking of Philip Feltram; and the yellow level
+sunbeams touched his dark features, that bore a saturnine resemblance to
+those of Charles II, and marked sharply their firm grim lines, and left
+his deep-set eyes in shadow.
+
+Who has the happy gift to seize the present, as a child does, and live
+in it? Who is not often looking far off for his happiness, as Sidney
+Smith says, like a man looking for his hat when it is upon his head? Sir
+Bale was brooding over his double hatred, of Feltram and of the lake. It
+would have been better had he struck down the raven that croaked upon
+his shoulder, and listened to the harmless birds that were whistling all
+round among the branches in the golden sunset.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Feltram's Plan
+
+This horror of the beautiful lake, which other people thought so lovely,
+was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a distinct
+creation of downright superstition.
+
+The nursery tales which had scared him in his childhood were founded on
+the tragedy of Snakes Island, and haunted him with an unavowed
+persistence still. Strange dreams untold had visited him, and a German
+conjuror, who had made some strangely successful vaticinations, had told
+him that his worst enemy would come up to him from a lake. He had heard
+very nearly the same thing from a fortune-teller in France; and once at
+Lucerne, when he was waiting alone in his room for the hour at which he
+had appointed to go upon the lake, all being quiet, there came to the
+window, which was open, a sunburnt, lean, wicked face. Its ragged owner
+leaned his arm on the window-frame, and with his head in the room, said
+in his patois, "Ho! waiting are you? You'll have enough of the lake one
+day. Don't you mind watching; they'll send when you're wanted;" and
+twisting his yellow face into a malicious distortion, he went on.
+
+This thing had occurred so suddenly, and chimed-in so oddly with his
+thoughts, which were at that moment at distant Mardykes and the haunted
+lake, that it disconcerted him. He laughed, he looked out of the window.
+He would have given that fellow money to tell him why he said that. But
+there was no good in looking for the scamp; he was gone.
+
+A memory not preoccupied with that lake and its omens, and a
+presentiment about himself, would not have noted such things. But _his_
+mind they touched indelibly; and he was ashamed of his childish slavery,
+but could not help it.
+
+The foundation of all this had been laid in the nursery, in the winter's
+tales told by its fireside, and which seized upon his fancy and his
+fears with a strange congeniality.
+
+There is a large bedroom at Mardykes Hall, which tradition assigns to
+the lady who had perished tragically in the lake. Mrs. Julaper was sure
+of it; for her aunt, who died a very old woman twenty years before,
+remembered the time of the lady's death, and when she grew to woman's
+estate had opportunity in abundance; for the old people who surrounded
+her could remember forty years farther back, and tell everything
+connected with the old house in beautiful Miss Feltram's time.
+
+This large old-fashioned room, commanding a view of Snakes Island, the
+fells, and the lake--somewhat vast and gloomy, and furnished in a
+stately old fashion--was said to be haunted, especially when the wind
+blew from the direction of Golden Friars, the point from which it blew
+on the night of her death in the lake; or when the sky was overcast, and
+thunder rolled among the lofty fells, and lightning gleamed on the wide
+sheet of water.
+
+It was on a night like this that a lady visitor, who long after that
+event occupied, in entire ignorance of its supernatural character, that
+large room; and being herself a lady of a picturesque turn, and loving
+the grander melodrama of Nature, bid her maid leave the shutters open,
+and watched the splendid effects from her bed, until, the storm being
+still distant, she fell asleep.
+
+It was travelling slowly across the lake, and it was the deep-mouthed
+clangour of its near approach that startled her, at dead of night, from
+her slumber, to witness the same phenomena in the tremendous loudness
+and brilliancy of their near approach.
+
+At this magnificent spectacle she was looking with the awful ecstasy of
+an observer in whom the sense of danger is subordinated to that of the
+sublime, when she saw suddenly at the window a woman, whose long hair
+and dress seemed drenched with water. She was gazing in with a look of
+terror, and was shaking the sash of the window with vehemence. Having
+stood there for a few seconds, and before the lady, who beheld all this
+from her bed, could make up her mind what to do, the storm-beaten
+figure, wringing her hands, seemed to throw herself backward, and was
+gone.
+
+Possessed with the idea that she had seen some poor woman overtaken in
+the storm, who, failing to procure admission there, had gone round to
+some of the many doors of the mansion, and obtained an entry there, she
+again fell asleep.
+
+It was not till the morning, when she went to her window to look out
+upon the now tranquil scene, that she discovered what, being a stranger
+to the house, she had quite forgotten, that this room was at a great
+height--some thirty feet--from the ground.
+
+Another story was that of good old Mr. Randal Rymer, who was often a
+visitor at the house in the late Lady Mardykes' day. In his youth he had
+been a campaigner; and now that he was a preacher he maintained his
+hardy habits, and always slept, summer and winter, with a bit of his
+window up. Being in that room in his bed, and after a short sleep lying
+awake, the moon shining softly through the window, there passed by that
+aperture into the room a figure dressed, it seemed to him, in gray that
+was nearly white. It passed straight to the hearth, where was an
+expiring wood fire; and cowering over it with outstretched hands, it
+appeared to be gathering what little heat was to be had. Mr. Rymer,
+amazed and awestruck, made a movement in his bed; and the figure looked
+round, with large eyes that in the moonlight looked like melting snow,
+and stretching its long arms up the chimney, they and the figure itself
+seemed to blend with the smoke, and so pass up and away.
+
+Sir Bale, I have said, did not like Feltram. His father, Sir William,
+had left a letter creating a trust, it was said, in favour of Philip
+Feltram. The document had been found with the will, addressed to Sir
+Bale in the form of a letter.
+
+"That is mine," said the Baronet, when it dropped out of the will; and
+he slipped it into his pocket, and no one ever saw it after.
+
+But Mr. Charles Twyne, the attorney of Golden Friars, whenever he got
+drunk, which was pretty often, used to tell his friends with a grave
+wink that he knew a thing or two about that letter. It gave Philip
+Feltram two hundred a-year, charged on Harfax. It was only a direction.
+It made Sir Bale a trustee, however; and having made away with the
+"letter," the Baronet had been robbing Philip Feltram ever since.
+
+Old Twyne was cautious, even in his cups, in his choice of an audience,
+and was a little enigmatical in his revelations. For he was afraid of
+Sir Bale, though he hated him for employing a lawyer who lived seven
+miles away, and was a rival. So people were not quite sure whether Mr.
+Twyne was telling lies or truth, and the principal fact that
+corroborated his story was Sir Bale's manifest hatred of his secretary.
+In fact, Sir Bale's retaining him in his house, detesting him as he
+seemed to do, was not easily to be accounted for, except on the
+principle of a tacit compromise--a miserable compensation for having
+robbed him of his rights.
+
+The battle about the bank-note proceeded. Sir Bale certainly had doubts,
+and vacillated; for moral evidence made powerfully in favour of poor
+Feltram, though the evidence of circumstance made as powerfully against
+him. But Sir Bale admitted suspicion easily, and in weighing
+probabilities would count a virtue very lightly against temptation and
+opportunity; and whatever his doubts might sometimes be, he resisted and
+quenched them, and never let that ungrateful scoundrel Philip Feltram so
+much as suspect their existence.
+
+For two days Sir Bale had not spoken to Feltram. He passed by on stair
+and passage, carrying his head high, and with a thundrous countenance,
+rolling conclusions and revenges in his soul.
+
+Poor Feltram all this time existed in one long agony. He would have left
+Mardykes, were it not that he looked vaguely to some just power--to
+chance itself--against this hideous imputation. To go with this
+indictment ringing in his ears, would amount to a confession and flight.
+
+Mrs. Julaper consoled him with might and main. She was a sympathetic and
+trusting spirit, and knew poor Philip Feltram, in her simplicity, better
+than the shrewdest profligate on earth could have known him. She cried
+with him in his misery. She was fired with indignation by these
+suspicions, and still more at what followed.
+
+Sir Bale showed no signs of relenting. It might have been that he was
+rather glad of so unexceptionable an opportunity of getting rid of
+Feltram, who, people thought, knew something which it galled the
+Baronet's pride that he should know.
+
+The Baronet had another shorter and sterner interview with Feltram in
+his study. The result was, that unless he restored the missing note
+before ten o'clock next morning, he should leave Mardykes.
+
+To leave Mardykes was no more than Philip Feltram, feeble as he was of
+will, had already resolved. But what was to become of him? He did not
+very much care, if he could find any calling, however humble, that would
+just give him bread.
+
+There was an old fellow and his wife (an ancient dame,) who lived at the
+other side of the lake, on the old territories of the Feltrams, and who,
+from some tradition of loyalty, perhaps, were fond of poor Philip
+Feltram. They lived somewhat high up on the fells--about as high as
+trees would grow--and those which were clumped about their rude dwelling
+were nearly the last you passed in your ascent of the mountain. These
+people had a multitude of sheep and goats, and lived in their airy
+solitude a pastoral and simple life, and were childless. Philip Feltram
+was hardy and active, having passed his early days among that arduous
+scenery. Cold and rain did not trouble him; and these people being
+wealthy in their way, and loving him, would be glad to find him
+employment of that desultory pastoral kind which would best suit him.
+
+This vague idea was the only thing resembling a plan in his mind.
+
+When Philip Feltram came to Mrs. Julaper's room, and told her that he
+had made up his mind to leave the house forthwith--to cross the lake to
+the Cloostedd side in Tom Marlin's boat, and then to make his way up the
+hill alone to Trebeck's lonely farmstead, Mrs. Julaper was overwhelmed.
+
+"Ye'll do no such thing to-night, anyhow. You're not to go like that.
+Ye'll come into the small room here, where he can't follow; and we'll
+sit down and talk it over a bit, and ye'll find 'twill all come
+straight; and this will be no night, anyhow, for such a march. Why,
+man,'twould take an hour and more to cross the lake, and then a long
+uphill walk before ye could reach Trebeck's place; and if the night
+should fall while you were still on the mountain, ye might lose your
+life among the rocks. It can't be 'tis come to that yet; and the call
+was in the air, I'm told, all yesterday, and distant thunder to-day,
+travelling this way over Blarwyn Fells; and 'twill be a night no one
+will be out, much less on the mountain side."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The Crazy Parson
+
+Mrs. Julaper had grown weather-wise, living for so long among this noble
+and solitary scenery, where people must observe Nature or else
+nothing--where signs of coming storm or change are almost local, and
+record themselves on particular cliffs and mountain-peaks, or in the
+mists, or in mirrored tints of the familiar lake, and are easily learned
+or remembered. At all events, her presage proved too true.
+
+The sun had set an hour and more. It was dark; and an awful
+thunder-storm, whose march, like the distant reverberations of an
+invading army, had been faintly heard beyond the barriers of Blarwyn
+Fells throughout the afternoon, was near them now, and had burst in
+deep-mouthed battle among the ravines at the other side, and over the
+broad lake, that glared like a sheet of burnished steel under its
+flashes of dazzling blue. Wild and fitful blasts sweeping down the
+hollows and cloughs of the fells of Golden Friars agitated the lake, and
+bent the trees low, and whirled away their sere leaves in melancholy
+drift in their tremendous gusts. And from the window, looking on a scene
+enveloped in more than the darkness of the night, you saw in the
+pulsations of the lightning, before "the speedy gleams the darkness
+swallowed," the tossing trees and the flying foam and eddies on the
+lake.
+
+In the midst of the hurlyburly, a loud and long knocking came at the
+hall-door of Mardykes. How long it had lasted before a chance lull made
+it audible I do not know.
+
+There was nothing picturesquely poor, any more than there were evidences
+of wealth, anywhere in Sir Bale Mardykes' household. He had no lack of
+servants, but they were of an inexpensive and homely sort; and the
+hall-door being opened by the son of an old tenant on the estate--the
+tempest beating on the other side of the house, and comparative shelter
+under the gables at the front--he saw standing before him, in the
+agitated air, a thin old man, who muttering, it might be, a benediction,
+stepped into the hall, and displayed long silver tresses, just as the
+storm had blown them, ascetic and eager features, and a pair of large
+light eyes that wandered wildly. He was dressed in threadbare black; a
+pair of long leather gaiters, buckled high above his knee, protecting
+his thin shanks through moss and pool; and the singularity of his
+appearance was heightened by a wide-leafed felt hat, over which he had
+tied his handkerchief, so as to bring the leaf of it over his ears, and
+to secure it from being whirled from his head by the storm.
+
+This odd and storm-beaten figure--tall, and a little stooping, as well
+as thin--was not unknown to the servant, who saluted him with something
+of fear as well as of respect as he bid him reverently welcome, and
+asked him to come in and sit by the fire.
+
+"Get you to your master, and tell him I have a message to him from one
+he has not seen for two-and-forty years."
+
+As the old man, with his harsh old voice, thus spoke, he unknotted his
+handkerchief and bet the rain-drops from his hat upon his knee.
+
+The servant knocked at the library-door, where he found Sir Bale.
+
+"Well, what's the matter?" cried Sir Bale sharply, from his chair before
+the fire, with angry eyes looking over his shoulder.
+
+"Here's 't sir cumman, Sir Bale," he answered.
+
+"Sir," or "the Sir," is still used as the clergyman's title in the
+Northumbrian counties.
+
+"What sir?"
+
+"Sir Hugh Creswell, if you please, Sir Bale."
+
+"Ho!--mad Creswell?--O, the crazy parson. Well, tell Mrs. Julaper to let
+him have some supper--and--and to let him have a bed in some suitable
+place. That's what he wants. These mad fellows know what they are
+about."
+
+"No, Sir Bale Mardykes, that is not what he wants," said the loud wild
+voice of the daft sir over the servant's shoulder. "Often has Mardykes
+Hall given me share of its cheer and its shelter and the warmth of its
+fire; and I bless the house that has been an inn to the wayfarer of the
+Lord. But to-night I go up the lake to Pindar's Bield, three miles on;
+and there I rest and refresh--not here."
+
+"And why not _here_, Mr. Creswell?" asked the Baronet; for about this
+crazy old man, who preached in the fields, and appeared and disappeared
+so suddenly in the orbit of his wide and unknown perambulations of those
+northern and border counties, there was that sort of superstitious
+feeling which attaches to the mysterious and the good--an idea that it
+was lucky to harbour and dangerous to offend him. No one knew whence he
+came or whither he went. Once in a year, perhaps, he might appear at a
+lonely farmstead door among the fells, salute the house, enter, and be
+gone in the morning. His life was austere; his piety enthusiastic,
+severe, and tinged with the craze which inspired among the rustic
+population a sort of awe.
+
+"I'll not sleep at Mardykes to-night; neither will I eat, nor drink, nor
+sit me down--no, nor so much as stretch my hands to the fire. As the man
+of God came out of Judah to king Jeroboam, so come I to you, sent by a
+vision, to bear a warning; and as he said, 'If thou wilt give me half
+thy house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor
+drink water in this place,' so also say I."
+
+"Do as you please," said Sir Bale, a little sulkily. "Say your say; and
+you are welcome to stay or go, if go you will on so mad a night as
+this."
+
+"Leave us," said Creswell, beckoning the servant back with his thin
+hands; "what I have to say is to your master."
+
+The servant went, in obedience to a gesture from Sir Bale, and shut the
+door.
+
+The old man drew nearer to the Baronet, and lowering his loud stern
+voice a little, and interrupting his discourse from time to time, to
+allow the near thunder-peals to subside, he said,
+
+"Answer me, Sir Bale--what is this that has chanced between you and
+Philip Feltram?"
+
+The Baronet, under the influence of that blunt and peremptory demand,
+told him shortly and sternly enough.
+
+"And of all these facts you are sure, else ye would not blast your early
+companion and kinsman with the name of thief?"
+
+"I _am_ sure," said Sir Bale grimly.
+
+"Unlock that cabinet," said the old man with the long white locks.
+
+"I've no objection," said Sir Bale; and he did unlock an old oak cabinet
+that stood, carved in high relief with strange figures and gothic
+grotesques, against the wall, opposite the fireplace. On opening it
+there were displayed a system of little drawers and pigeon-holes such as
+we see in more modern escritoires.
+
+"Open that drawer with the red mark of a seal upon it," continued Hugh
+Creswell, pointing to it with his lank finger.
+
+Sir Bale did so; and to his momentary amazement, and even consternation,
+there lay the missing note, which now, with one of those sudden caprices
+of memory which depend on the laws of suggestion and association, he
+remembered having placed there with his own hand.
+
+"That is it," said old Creswell with a pallid smile, and fixing his wild
+eyes on the Baronet. The smile subsided into a frown, and said he: "Last
+night I slept near Haworth Moss; and your father came to me in a dream,
+and said: 'My son Bale accuses Philip of having stolen a bank-note from
+his desk. He forgets that he himself placed it in his cabinet. Come with
+me.' I was, in the spirit, in this room; and he led me to this cabinet,
+which he opened; and in that drawer he showed me that note. 'Go,' said
+he, 'and tell him to ask Philip Feltram's pardon, else he will but go in
+weakness to return in power;' and he said that which it is not lawful to
+repeat. My message is told. Now a word from myself," he added sternly.
+"The dead, through my lips, has spoken, and under God's thunder and
+lightning his words have found ye. Why so uppish wi' Philip Feltram? See
+how ye threaped, and yet were wrong. He's no tazzle--he's no taggelt.
+Ask his pardon. Ye must change, or he will no taggelt. Go, in weakness,
+come in power: mark ye the words. 'Twill make a peal that will be heard
+in toon and desert, in the swirls o' the mountain, through pikes and
+valleys, and mak' a waaly man o' thee."
+
+The old man with these words, uttered in the broad northern dialect of
+his common speech, strode from the room and shut the door. In another
+minute he was forth into the storm, pursuing what remained of his long
+march to Pindar's Bield.
+
+"Upon my soul!" said Sir Bale, recovering from his sort of stun which
+the sudden and strange visit had left, "that's a cool old fellow! Come
+to rate me and teach me my own business in my own house!" and he rapped
+out a fierce oath. "Change his mind or no, here he sha'n't stay
+to-night--not an hour."
+
+Sir Bale was in the lobby in a moment, and thundered to his servants:
+
+"I say, put that fool out of the door--put him out by the shoulder, and
+never let him put his foot inside it more!"
+
+But the old man's yea was yea, and his nay nay. He had quite meant what
+he said; and, as I related, was beyond the reach of the indignity of
+extrusion.
+
+Sir Bale on his return shut his door as violently as if it were in the
+face of the old prophet.
+
+"Ask Feltram's pardon, by Jove! For what? Why, any jury on earth would
+have hanged him on half the evidence; and I, like a fool, was going to
+let him off with his liberty and my hundred pound-note! Ask his pardon
+indeed!"
+
+Still there were misgivings in his mind; a consciousness that he did owe
+explanation and apology to Feltram, and an insurmountable reluctance to
+undertake either. The old dislike--a contempt mingled with fear--not any
+fear of his malevolence, a fear only of his carelessness and folly; for,
+as I have said, Feltram knew many things, it was believed, of the
+Baronet's Continental and Asiatic life, and had even gently remonstrated
+with him upon the dangers into which he was running. A simple fellow
+like Philip Feltram is a dangerous depository of a secret. This Baronet
+was proud, too; and the mere possession of his secrets by Feltram was an
+involuntary insult, which Sir Bale could not forgive. He wished him far
+away; and except for the recovery of his bank-note, which he could ill
+spare, he was sorry that this suspicion was cleared up.
+
+The thunder and storm were unabated; it seemed indeed that they were
+growing wilder and more awful.
+
+He opened the window-shutter and looked out upon that sublimest of
+scenes; and so intense and magnificent were its phenomena, that Sir
+Bale, for a while, was absorbed in this contemplation.
+
+When he turned about, the sight of his £100 note, still between his
+finger and thumb, made him smile grimly.
+
+The more he thought of it, the clearer it was that he could not leave
+matters exactly as they were. Well, what should he do? He would send for
+Mrs. Julaper, and tell her vaguely that he had changed his mind about
+Feltram, and that he might continue to stay at Mardykes Hall as usual.
+That would suffice. She could speak to Feltram.
+
+He sent for her; and soon, in the lulls of the great uproar without, he
+could hear the jingle of Mrs. Julaper's keys and her light tread upon
+the lobby.
+
+"Mrs. Julaper," said the Baronet, in his dry careless way, "Feltram may
+remain; your eloquence has prevailed. What have you been crying about?"
+he asked, observing that his housekeeper's usually cheerful face was, in
+her own phrase, 'all cried.'
+
+"It is too late, sir; he's gone."
+
+"And when did he go?" asked Sir Bale, a little put out. "He chose an odd
+evening, didn't he? So like him!"
+
+"He went about half an hour ago; and I'm very sorry, sir; it's a sore
+sight to see the poor lad going from the place he was reared in, and a
+hard thing, sir; and on such a night, above all."
+
+"No one asked him to go to-night. Where is he gone to?"
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure; he left my room, sir, when I was upstairs; and
+Janet saw him pass the window not ten minutes after Mr. Creswell left
+the house."
+
+"Well, then, there's no good, Mrs. Julaper, in thinking more about it;
+he has settled the matter his own way; and as he so ordains it--amen,
+say I. Goodnight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Adventure in Tom Marlin's Boat
+
+Philip Feltram was liked very well--a gentle, kindly, and very timid
+creature, and, before he became so heart-broken, a fellow who liked a
+joke or a pleasant story, and could laugh heartily. Where will Sir Bale
+find so unresisting and respectful a butt and retainer? and whom will he
+bully now?
+
+Something like remorse was worrying Sir Bale's heart a little; and the
+more he thought on the strange visit of Hugh Creswell that night, with
+its unexplained menace, the more uneasy he became.
+
+The storm continued; and even to him there seemed something exaggerated
+and inhuman in the severity of his expulsion on such a night. It was his
+own doing, it was true; but would people believe that? and would he have
+thought of leaving Mardykes at all if it had not been for his kinsman's
+severity? Nay, was it not certain that if Sir Bale had done as Hugh
+Creswell had urged him, and sent for Feltram forthwith, and told him how
+all had been cleared up, and been a little friendly with him, he would
+have found him still in the house?--for he had not yet gone for ten
+minutes after Creswell's departure, and thus, all that was to follow
+might have been averted. But it was too late now, and Sir Bale would let
+the affair take its own course.
+
+Below him, outside the window at which he stood ruminating, he heard
+voices mingling with the storm. He could with tolerable certainty
+perceive, looking into the obscurity, that there were three men passing
+close under it, carrying some very heavy burden among them.
+
+He did not know what these three black figures in the obscurity were
+about. He saw them pass round the corner of the building toward the
+front, and in the lulls of the storm could hear their gruff voices
+talking.
+
+We have all experienced what a presentiment is, and we all know with
+what an intuition the faculty of observation is sometimes heightened. It
+was such an apprehension as sometimes gives its peculiar horror to a
+dream--a sort of knowledge that what those people were about was in a
+dreadful way connected with his own fate.
+
+He watched for a time, thinking that they might return; but they did
+not. He was in a state of uncomfortable suspense.
+
+"If they want me, they won't have much trouble in finding me, nor any
+scruple, egad, in plaguing me; they never have."
+
+Sir Bale returned to his letters, a score of which he was that night
+getting off his conscience--an arrear which would not have troubled him
+had he not ceased, for two or three days, altogether to employ Philip
+Feltram, who had been accustomed to take all that sort of drudgery off
+his hands.
+
+All the time he was writing now he had a feeling that the shadows he had
+seen pass under his window were machinating some trouble for him, and an
+uneasy suspense made him lift his eyes now and then to the door,
+fancying sounds and footsteps; and after a resultless wait he would say
+to himself, "If any one is coming, why the devil don't he come?" and
+then he would apply himself again to his letters.
+
+But on a sudden he heard good Mrs. Julaper's step trotting along the
+lobby, and the tiny ringing of her keys.
+
+Here was news coming; and the Baronet stood up looking at the door, on
+which presently came a hurried rapping; and before he had answered, in
+the midst of a long thunder-clap that suddenly broke, rattling over the
+house, the good woman opened the door in great agitation, and cried with
+a tremulous uplifting of her hands.
+
+"O, Sir Bale! O, la, sir! here's poor dear Philip Feltram come home
+dead!"
+
+Sir Bale stared at her sternly for some seconds.
+
+"Gome, now, do be distinct," said Sir Bale; "what has happened?"
+
+"He's lying on the sofer in the old still-room. You never saw--my
+God!--O, sir--what is life?"
+
+"D--n it, can't you cry by-and-by, and tell me what's the matter now?"
+
+"A bit o' fire there, as luck would have it; but what is hot or cold
+now? La, sir, they're all doin' what they can; he's drowned, sir, and
+Tom Warren is on the gallop down to Golden Friars for Doctor Torvey."
+
+"_Is_ he drowned, or is it only a ducking? Come, bring me to the place.
+Dead men don't usually want a fire, or consult doctors. I'll see for
+myself."
+
+So Sir Bale Mardykes, pale and grim, accompanied by the light-footed
+Mrs. Julaper, strode along the passages, and was led by her into the old
+still-room, which had ceased to be used for its original purpose. All
+the servants in the house were now collected there, and three men also
+who lived by the margin of the lake; one of them thoroughly drenched,
+with rivulets of water still trickling from his sleeves, water along the
+wrinkles and pockets of his waistcoat and from the feet of his trousers,
+and pumping and oozing from his shoes, and streaming from his hair down
+the channels of his cheeks like a continuous rain of tears.
+
+The people drew back a little as Sir Bale entered with a quick step and
+a sharp pallid frown on his face. There was a silence as he stooped over
+Philip Feltram, who lay on a low bed next the wall, dimly lighted by two
+or three candles here and there about the room.
+
+He laid his hand, for a moment, on his cold wet breast.
+
+Sir Bale knew what should be done in order to give a man in such a case
+his last chance for life. Everybody was speedily put in motion. Philip's
+drenched clothes were removed, hot blankets enveloped him, warming-pans
+and hot bricks lent their aid; he was placed at the prescribed angle, so
+that the water flowed freely from his mouth. The old expedient for
+inducing artificial breathing was employed, and a lusty pair of bellows
+did duty for his lungs.
+
+But these helps to life, and suggestions to nature, availed not. Forlorn
+and peaceful lay the features of poor Philip Feltram; cold and dull to
+the touch; no breath through the blue lips; no sight in the fish-like
+eyes; pulseless and cold in the midst of all the hot bricks and
+warming-pans about him.
+
+At length, everything having been tried, Sir Bale, who had been
+directing, placed his hand within the clothes, and laid it silently on
+Philip's shoulder and over his heart; and after a little wait, he shook
+his head, and looking down on his sunken face, he said,
+
+"I am afraid he's gone. Yes, he's gone, poor fellow! And bear you this
+in mind, all of you; Mrs. Julaper there can tell you more about it. She
+knows that it was certainly in no compliance with my wish that he left
+the house to-night: it was his own obstinate perversity, and perhaps--I
+forgive him for it--a wish in his unreasonable resentment to throw some
+blame upon this house, as having refused him shelter on such a night;
+than which imputation nothing can be more utterly false. Mrs. Julaper
+there knows how welcome he was to stay the night; but he would not; he
+had made up his mind, it seems, without telling any person. Had he told
+you, Mrs. Julaper?"
+
+"No, sir," sobbed Mrs. Julaper from the centre of a pocket-handkerchief
+in which her face was buried.
+
+"Not a human being: an angry whim of his own. Poor Feltram! and here's
+the result," said the Baronet. "We have done our best--done everything.
+I don't think the doctor, when he comes, will say that anything has been
+omitted; but all won't do. Does any one here know how it happened?"
+
+Two men knew very well--the man who had been ducked, and his companion,
+a younger man, who was also in the still-room, and had lent a hand in
+carrying Feltram up to the house.
+
+Tom Marlin had a queer old stone tenement by the edge of the lake just
+under Mardykes Hall. Some people said it was the stump of an old tower
+that had once belonged to Mardykes Castle, of which in the modern
+building scarcely a relic was discoverable.
+
+This Tom Marlin had an ancient right of fishing in the lake, where he
+caught pike enough for all Golden Friars; and keeping a couple of boats,
+he made money beside by ferrying passengers over now and then. This
+fellow, with a furrowed face and shaggy eyebrows, bald at top, but with
+long grizzled locks falling upon his shoulders, said,
+
+"He wer wi' me this mornin', sayin' he'd want t' boat to cross the lake
+in, but he didn't say what hour; and when it came on to thunder and blow
+like this, ye guess I did not look to see him to-night. Well, my wife
+was just lightin' a pig-tail--tho' light enough and to spare there was
+in the lift already--when who should come clatterin' at the latch-pin in
+the blow o' thunder and wind but Philip, poor lad, himself; and an ill
+hour for him it was. He's been some time in ill fettle, though he was
+never frowsy, not he, but always kind and dooce, and canty once, like
+anither; and he asked me to tak the boat across the lake at once to the
+Clough o' Cloostedd at t'other side. The woman took the pet and wodn't
+hear o't; and, 'Dall me, if I go to-night,' quoth I. But he would not be
+put off so, not he; and dingdrive he went to it, cryin' and putrein'
+ye'd a-said, poor fellow, he was wrang i' his garrets a'most. So at long
+last I bethought me, there's nout o' a sea to the north o' Snakes
+Island, so I'll pull him by that side--for the storm is blowin' right up
+by Golden Friars, ye mind--and when we get near the point, thinks I,
+he'll see wi' his een how the lake is, and gie it up. For I liked him,
+poor lad; and seein' he'd set his heart on't, I wouldn't vex nor frump
+him wi' a no. So down we three--myself, and Bill there, and Philip
+Feltram--come to the boat; and we pulled out, keeping Snakes Island
+atwixt us and the wind. 'Twas smooth water wi' us, for 'twas a scug
+there, but white enough was all beyont the point; and passing the
+finger-stone, not forty fathom from the shore o' the island, Bill and me
+pullin' and he sittin' in the stern, poor lad, up he rises, a bit
+rabblin' to himself, wi' his hands lifted so.
+
+"'Look a-head!' says I, thinkin' something wos comin' atort us.
+
+"But 'twasn't that. The boat was quiet, for while we looked, oo'er our
+shouthers, oo'er her bows, we didn't pull, so she lay still; and lookin'
+back again on Philip, he was rabblin' on all the same.
+
+"'It's nobbut a prass wi' himsel", poor lad,' thinks I.
+
+"But that wasn't it neither; for I sid something white come out o' t'
+water, by the gunwale, like a hand. By Jen! and he leans oo'er and tuk
+it; and he sagged like, and so it drew him in, under the mere, before I
+cud du nout. There was nout to thraa tu him, and no time; down he went,
+and I followed; and thrice I dived before I found him, and brought him
+up by the hair at last; and there he is, poor lad! and all one if he lay
+at the bottom o' t' mere."
+
+As Tom Marlin ended his narrative--often interrupted by the noise of the
+tempest without, and the peals of thunder that echoed awfully above,
+like the chorus of a melancholy ballad--the sudden clang of the
+hall-door bell, and a more faintly-heard knocking, announced a new
+arrival.
+
+[Illustration: "I sid something white come out o' t' water, by the
+gunwale, like a hand."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Sir Bale's Dream
+
+It was Doctor Torvey who entered the old still-room now, buttoned-up to
+the chin in his greatcoat, and with a muffler of many colours wrapped
+partly over that feature.
+
+"Well!--hey? So poor Feltram's had an accident?"
+
+The Doctor was addressing Sir Bale, and getting to the bedside as he
+pulled off his gloves.
+
+"I see you've been keeping him warm--that's right; and a considerable
+flow of water from his mouth; turn him a little that way. Hey? O, ho!"
+said the Doctor, as he placed his hand upon Philip, and gently stirred
+his limbs. "It's more than an hour since this happened. I'm afraid
+there's very little to be done now;" and in a lower tone, with his hand
+on poor Philip Feltram's arm, and so down to his fingers, he said in Sir
+Bale Mardykes' ear, with a shake of his head,
+
+"Here, you see, poor fellow, here's the cadaveric stiffness; it's very
+melancholy, but it's all over, he's gone; there's no good trying any
+more. Come here, Mrs. Julaper. Did you ever see any one dead? Look at
+his eyes, look at his mouth. You ought to have known that, with half an
+eye. And you know," he added again confidentially in Sir Bale's ear,
+"trying any more _now_ is all my eye."
+
+Then after a few more words with the Baronet, and having heard his
+narrative, he said from time to time, "Quite right; nothing could be
+better; capital practice, sir," and so forth. And at the close of all
+this, amid the sobs of kind Mrs. Julaper and the general whimpering of
+the humbler handmaids, the Doctor standing by the bed, with his knuckles
+on the coverlet, and a glance now and then on the dead face beside him,
+said--by way of 'quieting men's minds,' as the old tract-writers used to
+say--a few words to the following effect:
+
+"Everything has been done here that the most experienced physician could
+have wished. Everything has been done in the best way. I don't know
+anything that has not been done, in fact. If I had been here myself, I
+don't know--hot bricks--salt isn't a bad thing. I don't know, I say,
+that anything of any consequence has been omitted." And looking at the
+body, "You see," and he drew the fingers a little this way and that,
+letting them return, as they stiffly did, to their former attitude, "you
+may be sure that the poor gentleman was quite dead by the time he
+arrived here. So, since he was laid there, nothing has been lost by
+delay. And, Sir Bale, if you have any directions to send to Golden
+Friars, sir, I shall be most happy to undertake your message."
+
+"Nothing, thanks; it is a melancholy ending, poor fellow! You must come
+to the study with me, Doctor Torvey, and talk a little bit more;
+and--very sad, doctor--and you must have a glass of sherry, or some
+port--the port used not to be bad here; I don't take it--but very
+melancholy it is--bring some port and sherry; and, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+be good enough to see that everything that should be done here is looked
+to; and let Marlin and the men have supper and something to drink. You
+have been too long in your wet clothes, Marlin."
+
+So, with gracious words all round, he led the Doctor to the library
+where he had been sitting, and was affable and hospitable, and told him
+his own version of all that had passed between him and Philip Feltram,
+and presented himself in an amiable point of view, and pleased the
+Doctor with his port and flatteries--for he could not afford to lose
+anyone's good word just now; and the Doctor was a bit of a gossip, and
+in most houses in that region, in one character or another, every three
+months in the year.
+
+So in due time the Doctor drove back to Golden Friars, with a high
+opinion of Sir Bale, and higher still of his port, and highest of all of
+himself: in the best possible humour with the world, not minding the
+storm that blew in his face, and which he defied in good-humoured
+mock-heroics spoken in somewhat thick accents, and regarding the thunder
+and lightning as a lively gala of fireworks; and if there had been a
+chance of finding his cronies still in the George and Dragon, he would
+have been among them forthwith, to relate the tragedy of the night, and
+tell what a good fellow, after all, Sir Bale was; and what a fool, at
+best, poor Philip Feltram.
+
+But the George was quiet for that night. The thunder rolled over
+voiceless chambers; and the lights had been put out within the windows,
+on whose multitudinous small panes the lightning glared. So the Doctor
+went home to Mrs. Torvey, whom he charmed into good-humoured curiosity
+by the tale of wonder he had to relate.
+
+Sir Bale's qualms were symptomatic of something a little less sublime
+and more selfish than conscience. He was not sorry that Philip Feltram
+was out of the way. His lips might begin to babble inconveniently at any
+time, and why should not his mouth be stopped? and what stopper so
+effectual as that plug of clay which fate had introduced? But he did not
+want to be charged with the odium of the catastrophe. Every man cares
+something for the opinion of his fellows. And seeing that Feltram had
+been well liked, and that his death had excited a vehement
+commiseration, Sir Bale did not wish it to be said that he had made the
+house too hot to hold him, and had so driven him to extremity.
+
+Sir Bale's first agitation had subsided. It was now late, he had written
+many letters, and he was tired. It was not wonderful, then, that having
+turned his lounging-chair to the fire, he should have fallen asleep in
+it, as at last he did.
+
+The storm was passing gradually away by this time. The thunder was now
+echoing among the distant glens and gorges of Daulness Fells, and the
+angry roar and gusts of the tempest were subsiding into the melancholy
+soughing and piping that soothe like a lullaby.
+
+Sir Bale therefore had his unpremeditated sleep very comfortably, except
+that his head was hanging a little uneasily; which, perhaps, helped him
+to this dream.
+
+It was one of those dreams in which the continuity of the waking state
+that immediately preceded it seems unbroken; for he thought that he was
+sitting in the chair which he occupied, and in the room where he
+actually was. It seemed to him that he got up, took a candle in his
+hand, and went through the passages to the old still-room where Philip
+Feltram lay. The house seemed perfectly still. He could hear the chirp
+of the crickets faintly from the distant kitchen, and the tick of the
+clock sounded loud and hollow along the passage. In the old still-room,
+as he opened the door, was no light, except what was admitted from the
+candle he carried. He found the body of poor Philip Feltram just as he
+had left it--his gentle face, saddened by the touch of death, was turned
+upwards, with white lips: with traces of suffering fixed in its
+outlines, such as caused Sir Bale, standing by the bed, to draw the
+coverlet over the dead man's features, which seemed silently to upbraid
+him. "Gone in weakness!" said Sir Bale, repeating the words of the "daft
+sir," Hugh Creswell; as he did so, a voice whispered near him, with a
+great sigh, "Come in power!" He looked round, in his dream, but there
+was no one; the light seemed to fail, and a horror slowly overcame him,
+especially as he thought he saw the figure under the coverlet stealthily
+beginning to move. Backing towards the door, for he could not take his
+eyes off it, he saw something like a huge black ape creep out at the
+foot of the bed; and springing at him, it griped him by the throat, so
+that he could not breathe; and a thousand voices were instantly round
+him, holloaing, cursing, laughing in his ears; and in this direful
+plight he waked.
+
+Was it the ring of those voices still in his ears, or a real shriek, and
+another, and a long peal, shriek after shriek, swelling madly through
+the distant passages, that held him still, freezing in the horror of his
+dream?
+
+I will tell you what this noise was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Marcella Bligh and Judith Wale Keep Watch
+
+After his bottle of port with Sir Bale, the Doctor had gone down again
+to the room where poor Philip Feltram lay.
+
+Mrs. Julaper had dried her eyes, and was busy by this time; and two old
+women were making all their arrangements for a night-watch by the body,
+which they had washed, and, as their phrase goes, 'laid out' in the
+humble bed where it had lain while there was still a hope that a spark
+sufficient to rekindle the fire of life might remain. These old women
+had points of resemblance: they were lean, sallow, and wonderfully
+wrinkled, and looked each malign and ugly enough for a witch.
+
+Marcella Bligh's thin hooked nose was now like the beak of a bird of
+prey over the face of the drowned man, upon whose eyelids she was
+placing penny-pieces, to keep them from opening; and her one eye was
+fixed on her work, its sightless companion showing white in its socket,
+with an ugly leer.
+
+Judith Wale was lifting the pail of hot water with which they had just
+washed the body. She had long lean arms, a hunched back, a great sharp
+chin sunk on her hollow breast, and small eyes restless as a ferret's;
+and she clattered about in great bowls of shoes, old and clouted, that
+were made for a foot as big as two of hers.
+
+The Doctor knew these two old women, who were often employed in such
+dismal offices.
+
+"How does Mrs. Bligh? See me with half an eye? Hey--that's rhyme, isn't
+it?--And, Judy lass--why, I thought you lived nearer the town--here
+making poor Mr. Feltram's last toilet. You have helped to dress many a
+poor fellow for his last journey. Not a bad notion of drill either--they
+stand at attention stiff and straight enough in the sentry-box. Your
+recruits do you credit, Mrs. Wale."
+
+The Doctor stood at the foot of the bed to inspect, breathing forth a
+vapour of very fine old port, his hands in his pockets, speaking with a
+lazy thickness, and looking so comfortable and facetious, that Mrs.
+Julaper would have liked to turn him out of the room.
+
+But the Doctor was not unkind, only extremely comfortable. He was a
+good-natured fellow, and had thought and care for the living, but not a
+great deal of sentiment for the dead, whom he had looked in the face too
+often to be much disturbed by the spectacle.
+
+"You'll have to keep that bandage on. You should be sharp; you should
+know all about it, girl, by this time, and not let those muscles
+stiffen. I need not tell you the mouth shuts as easily as this
+snuff-box, if you only take it in time.--I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+send to Jos Fringer for the poor fellow's outfit. Fringer is a very
+proper man--there ain't a properer und-aker in England. I always
+re-mmend Fringer--in Church-street in Golden Friars. You know Fringer, I
+daresay."
+
+"I can't say, sir, I'm sure. That will be as Sir Bale may please to
+direct," answered Mrs. Julaper.
+
+"You've got him very straight--straighter than I thought you could; but
+the large joints were not so stiff. A very little longer wait, and you'd
+hardly have got him into his coffin. He'll want a vr-r-ry long one, poor
+lad. Short cake is life, ma'am. Sad thing this. They'll open their eyes,
+I promise you, down in the town. 'Twill be cool enough, I'd shay, affre
+all th-thunr-thunnle, you know. I think I'll take a nip, Mrs. Jool-fr,
+if you wouldn't mine makin' me out a thimmle-ful bran-band-bran-rand-andy,
+eh, Mishs Joolfr?"
+
+And the Doctor took a chair by the fire; and Mrs. Julaper, with a
+dubious conscience and dry hospitality, procured the brandy-flask and
+wine-glass, and helped the physician in a thin hesitating stream, which
+left him ample opportunity to cry "Hold--enough!" had he been so minded.
+But that able physician had no confidence, it would seem, in any dose
+under a bumper, which he sipped with commendation, and then fell asleep
+with the firelight on his face--to tender-hearted Mrs. Julaper's
+disgust--and snored with a sensual disregard of the solemnity of his
+situation; until with a profound nod, or rather dive, toward the fire,
+he awoke, got up and shook his ears with a kind of start, and standing
+with his back to the fire, asked for his muffler and horse; and so took
+his leave also of the weird sisters, who were still pottering about the
+body, with croak and whisper, and nod and ogle. He took his leave also
+of good Mrs. Julaper, who was completing arrangements with teapot and
+kettle, spiced elderberry wine, and other comforts, to support them
+through their proposed vigil. And finally, in a sort of way, he took his
+leave of the body, with a long business-like stare, from the foot of the
+bed, with his short hands stuffed into his pockets. And so, to Mrs.
+Julaper's relief, this unseemly doctor, speaking thickly, departed.
+
+And now, the Doctor being gone, and all things prepared for the 'wake'
+to be observed by withered Mrs. Bligh of the one eye, and yellow Mrs.
+Wale of the crooked back, the house grew gradually still. The thunder
+had by this time died into the solid boom of distant battle, and the
+fury of the gale had subsided to the long sobbing wail that is charged
+with so eerie a melancholy. Within all was stirless, and the two old
+women, each a 'Mrs.' by courtesy, who had not much to thank Nature or
+the world for, sad and cynical, and in a sort outcasts told off by
+fortune to these sad and grizzly services, sat themselves down by the
+fire, each perhaps feeling unusually at home in the other's society; and
+in this soured and forlorn comfort, trimming their fire, quickening the
+song of the kettle to a boil, and waxing polite and chatty; each
+treating the other with that deprecatory and formal courtesy which
+invites a return in kind, and both growing strangely happy in this
+little world of their own, in the unusual and momentary sense of an
+importance and consideration which were delightful.
+
+The old still-room of Mardykes Hall is an oblong room wainscoted. From
+the door you look its full length to the wide stone-shafted Tudor window
+at the other end. At your left is the ponderous mantelpiece, supported
+by two spiral stone pillars; and close to the door at the right was the
+bed in which the two crones had just stretched poor Philip Feltram, who
+lay as still as an uncoloured wax-work, with a heavy penny-piece on each
+eye, and a bandage under his jaw, making his mouth look stern. And the
+two old ladies over their tea by the fire conversed agreeably, compared
+their rheumatisms and other ailments wordily, and talked of old times,
+and early recollections, and of sick-beds they had attended, and corpses
+that "you would not know, so pined and windered" were they; and others
+so fresh and canny, you'd say the dead had never looked so bonny in
+life.
+
+Then they began to talk of people who grew tall in their coffins, of
+others who had been buried alive, and of others who walked after death.
+Stories as true as holy writ.
+
+"Were you ever down by Hawarth, Mrs. Bligh--hard by Dalworth Moss?"
+asked crook-backed Mrs. Wale, holding her spoon suspended over her cup.
+
+"Neea whaar sooa far south, Mrs. Wale, ma'am; but ma father was off
+times down thar cuttin' peat."
+
+"Ah, then ye'll not a kenned farmer Dykes that lived by the Lin-tree
+Scaur. 'Tweer I that laid him out, poor aad fellow, and a dow man he was
+when aught went cross wi' him; and he cursed and sweared, twad gar ye
+dodder to hear him. They said he was a hard man wi' some folk; but he
+kep a good house, and liked to see plenty, and many a time when I was
+swaimous about my food, he'd clap t' meat on ma plate, and mak' me eat
+ma fill. Na, na--there was good as well as bad in farmer Dykes. It was a
+year after he deed, and Tom Ettles was walking home, down by the Birken
+Stoop one night, and not a soul nigh, when he sees a big ball, as high
+as his knee, whirlin' and spangin' away before him on the road. What it
+wer he could not think; but he never consayted there was a freet or a bo
+thereaway; so he kep near it, watching every spang and turn it took,
+till it ran into the gripe by the roadside. There was a gravel pit just
+there, and Tom Ettles wished to take another gliff at it before he went
+on. But when he keeked into the pit, what should he see but a man
+attoppa a horse that could not get up or on: and says he, 'I think ye be
+at a dead-lift there, gaffer.' And wi' the word, up looks the man, and
+who sud it be but farmer Dykes himsel; and Tom Ettles saw him plain
+eneugh, and kenned the horse too for Black Captain, the farmer's aad
+beast, that broke his leg and was shot two years and more before the
+farmer died. 'Ay,' says farmer Dykes, lookin' very bad;
+'forsett-and-backsett, ye'll tak me oot, Tom Ettles, and clap ye doun
+behint me quick, or I'll claw ho'd o' thee.' Tom felt his hair risin'
+stiff on his heed, and his tongue so fast to the roof o' his mouth he
+could scarce get oot a word; but says he, 'If Black Jack can't do it o'
+noo, he'll ne'er do't and carry double.' 'I ken my ain business best,'
+says Dykes. 'If ye gar me gie ye a look, 'twill gie ye the creepin's
+while ye live; so git ye doun, Tom;' and with that the dobby lifts its
+neaf, and Tom saw there was a red light round horse and man, like the
+glow of a peat fire. And says Tom, 'In the name o' God, ye'll let me
+pass;' and with the word the gooast draws itsel' doun, all a-creaked,
+like a man wi' a sudden pain; and Tom Ettles took to his heels more deed
+than alive."
+
+They had approached their heads, and the story had sunk to that
+mysterious murmur that thrills the listener, when in the brief silence
+that followed they heard a low odd laugh near the door.
+
+In that direction each lady looked aghast, and saw Feltram sitting
+straight up in the bed, with the white bandage in his hand, and as it
+seemed, for one foot was below the coverlet, near the floor, about to
+glide forth.
+
+Mrs. Bligh, uttering a hideous shriek, clutched Mrs. Wale, and Mrs.
+Wale, with a scream as dreadful, gripped Mrs. Bligh; and quite
+forgetting their somewhat formal politeness, they reeled and tugged,
+wrestling towards the window, each struggling to place her companion
+between her and the 'dobby,' and both uniting in a direful peal of
+yells.
+
+This was the uproar which had startled Sir Bale from his dream, and was
+now startling the servants from theirs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The Mist on the Mountain
+
+Doctor Torvey was sent for early next morning, and came full of wonder,
+learning and scepticism. Seeing is believing, however; and there was
+Philip Feltram living, and soon to be, in all bodily functions, just as
+usual.
+
+"Upon my soul, Sir Bale, I couldn't have believed it, if I had not seen
+it with my eyes," said the Doctor impressively, while sipping a glass of
+sherry in the 'breakfast parlour,' as the great panelled and pictured
+room next the dining-room was called. "I don't think there is any
+similar case on record--no pulse, no more than the poker; no
+respiration, by Jove, no more than the chimney-piece; as cold as a lead
+image in the garden there. Well, you'll say all that might possibly be
+fallacious; but what will you say to the cadaveric stiffness? Old Judy
+Wale can tell you; and my friend Marcella--Monocula would be nearer the
+mark--Mrs. Bligh, she knows all those common, and I may say up to this,
+infallible, signs of death, as well as I do. There is no mystery about
+them; they'll depose to the literality of the symptoms. You heard how
+they gave tongue. Upon my honour, I'll send the whole case up to my old
+chief, Sir Hervey Hansard, to London. You'll hear what a noise it will
+make among the profession. There never was--and it ain't too much to
+say there never _will_ be--another case like it."
+
+During this lecture, and a great deal more, Sir Bale leaned back in his
+chair, with his legs extended, his heels on the ground, and his arms
+folded, looking sourly up in the face of a tall lady in white satin, in
+a ruff, and with a bird on her hand, who smiled down superciliously from
+her frame on the Baronet. Sir Bale seemed a little bit high and dry with
+the Doctor.
+
+"You physicians are unquestionably," he said, "a very learned
+profession."
+
+The Doctor bowed.
+
+"But there's just one thing you know nothing about----"
+
+"Eh? What's that?" inquired Doctor Torvey.
+
+"Medicine," answered Sir Bale. "I was aware you never knew what was the
+matter with a sick man; but I didn't know, till now, that you couldn't
+tell when he was dead."
+
+"Ha, ha!--well--ha, ha!--_yes_--well, you see, you--ha, ha!--you
+certainly have me there. But it's a case without a parallel--it is, upon
+my honour. You'll find it will not only be talked about, but written
+about; and, whatever papers appear upon it, will come to me; and I'll
+take care, Sir Bale, you shall have an opportunity of reading them."
+
+"Of which I shan't avail myself," answered Sir Bale. "Take another glass
+of sherry, Doctor."
+
+The Doctor made his acknowledgments and filled his glass, and looked
+through the wine between him and the window.
+
+"Ha, ha!--see there, your port, Sir Bale, gives a fellow such
+habits--looking for the beeswing, by Jove. It isn't easy, in one sense
+at least, to get your port out of a fellow's head when once he has
+tasted it."
+
+But if the honest Doctor meant a hint for a glass of that admirable bin,
+it fell pointless; and Sir Bale had no notion of making another libation
+of that precious fluid in honour of Doctor Torvey.
+
+"And I take it for granted," said Sir Bale, "that Feltram will do very
+well; and, should anything go wrong, I can send for you--unless he
+should die again; and in that case I think I shall take my own opinion."
+
+So he and the Doctor parted.
+
+Sir Bale, although he did not consult the Doctor on his own case, was
+not particularly well. "That lonely place, those frightful mountains,
+and that damp black lake"--which features in the landscape he cursed all
+round--"are enough to give any man blue devils; and when a fellow's
+spirits go, he's all gone. That's why I'm dyspeptic--that and those
+d----d debts--and the post, with its flight of croaking and screeching
+letters from London. I wish there was no post here. I wish it was like
+Sir Amyrald's time, when they shot the York mercer that came to dun him,
+and no one ever took anyone to task about it; and now they can pelt you
+at any distance they please through the post; and fellows lose their
+spirits and their appetite and any sort of miserable comfort that is
+possible in this odious abyss."
+
+Was there gout in Sir Bale's case, or 'vapours'? I know not what the
+faculty would have called it; but Sir Bale's mode of treatment was
+simply to work off the attack by long and laborious walking.
+
+This evening his walk was upon the Fells of Golden Friars--long after
+the landscape below was in the eclipse of twilight, the broad bare sides
+and angles of these gigantic uplands were still lighted by the misty
+western sun.
+
+There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the
+silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the
+level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and
+colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a
+strange fear and elation--an ascent above the reach of life's vexations
+or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgiving.
+The filmy disc of the moon had risen in the east, and was already
+faintly silvering the shadowy scenery below, while yet Sir Bale stood in
+the mellow light of the western sun, which still touched also the
+summits of the opposite peaks of Morvyn Fells.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes did not, as a stranger might, in prudence, hasten his
+descent from the heights at which he stood while yet a gleam of daylight
+remained to him. For he was, from his boyhood, familiar with those
+solitary regions; and, beside this, the thin circle of the moon, hung in
+the eastern sky, would brighten as the sunlight sank, and hang like a
+lamp above his steps.
+
+There was in the bronzed and resolute face of the Baronet, lighted now
+in the parting beams of sunset, a resemblance to that of Charles the
+Second--not our "merry" ideal, but the more energetic and saturnine face
+which the portraits have preserved to us.
+
+He stood with folded arms on the side of the slope, admiring, in spite
+of his prejudice, the unusual effects of a view so strangely
+lighted--the sunset tints on the opposite peaks, lost in the misty
+twilight, now deepening lower down into a darker shade, through which
+the outlines of the stone gables and tower of Golden Friars and the
+light of fire or candle in their windows were dimly visible.
+
+As he stood and looked, his more distant sunset went down, and sudden
+twilight was upon him, and he began to remember the beautiful Homeric
+picture of a landscape coming out, rock and headland, in the moonlight.
+
+There had hung upon the higher summits, at his right, a heavy fold of
+white cloud, which on a sudden broke, and, like the smoke of artillery,
+came rolling down the slopes toward him. Its principal volume, however,
+unfolded itself in a mighty flood down the side of the mountain towards
+the lake; and that which spread towards and soon enveloped the ground on
+which he stood was by no means so dense a fog. A thick mist enough it
+was; but still, to a distance of twenty or thirty yards, he could
+discern the outline of a rock or scaur, but not beyond it.
+
+There are few sensations more intimidating than that of being thus
+enveloped on a lonely mountain-side, which, like this one, here and
+there breaks into precipice.
+
+There is another sensation, too, which affects the imagination.
+Overtaken thus on the solitary expanse, there comes a new chill and
+tremour as this treacherous medium surrounds us, through which
+unperceived those shapes which fancy conjures up might approach so near
+and bar our path.
+
+From the risk of being reduced to an actual standstill he knew he was
+exempt. The point from which the wind blew, light as it was, assured him
+of that. Still the mist was thick enough seriously to embarrass him. It
+had overtaken him as he was looking down upon the lake; and he now
+looked to his left, to try whether in that direction it was too thick to
+permit a view of the nearest landmarks. Through this white film he saw a
+figure standing only about five-and-twenty steps away, looking down, as
+it seemed, in precisely the same direction as he, quite motionless, and
+standing like a shadow projected upon the smoky vapour. It was the
+figure of a slight tall man, with his arm extended, as if pointing to a
+remote object, which no mortal eye certainly could discern through the
+mist. Sir Bale gazed at this figure, doubtful whether he were in a
+waking dream, unable to conjecture whence it had come; and as he looked,
+it moved, and was almost instantly out of sight.
+
+He descended the mountain cautiously. The mist was now thinner, and
+through the haze he was beginning to see objects more distinctly, and,
+without danger, to proceed at a quicker pace. He had still a long walk
+by the uplands towards Mardykes Hall before he descended to the level of
+the lake.
+
+The mist was still quite thick enough to circumscribe his view and to
+hide the general features of the landscape; and well was it, perhaps,
+for Sir Bale that his boyhood had familiarised him with the landmarks on
+the mountain-side.
+
+He had made nearly four miles on his solitary homeward way, when,
+passing under a ledge of rock which bears the name of the Cat's Skaitch,
+he saw the same figure in the short cloak standing within some thirty or
+forty yards of him--the thin curtain of mist, through which the
+moonlight touched it, giving to it an airy and unsubstantial character.
+
+Sir Bale came to a standstill. The man in the short cloak nodded and
+drew back, and was concealed by the angle of the rock.
+
+Sir Bale was now irritated, as men are after a start, and shouting to
+the stranger to halt, he 'slapped' after him, as the northern phrase
+goes, at his best pace. But again he was gone, and nowhere could he see
+him, the mist favouring his evasion.
+
+Looking down the fells that overhang Mardykes Hall, the mountain-side
+dips gradually into a glen, which, as it descends, becomes precipitous
+and wooded. A footpath through this ravine conducts the wayfarer to the
+level ground that borders the lake; and by this dark pass Sir Bale
+Mardykes strode, in comparatively clear air, along the rocky path
+dappled with moonlight.
+
+As he emerged upon the lower ground he again encountered the same
+figure. It approached. It was Philip Feltram.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+A New Philip Feltram
+
+The Baronet had not seen Feltram since his strange escape from death.
+His last interview with him had been stern and threatening; Sir Bale
+dealing with appearances in the spirit of an incensed judge, Philip
+Feltram lamenting in the submission of a helpless despair.
+
+Feltram was full in the moonlight now, standing erect, and smiling
+cynically on the Baronet.
+
+There was that in the bearing and countenance of Feltram that
+disconcerted him more than the surprise of the sudden meeting.
+
+He had determined to meet Feltram in a friendly way, whenever that not
+very comfortable interview became inevitable. But he was confused by the
+suddenness of Feltram's appearance; and the tone, cold and stern, in
+which he had last spoken to him came first, and he spoke in it after a
+brief silence.
+
+"I fancied, Mr. Feltram, you were in your bed; I little expected to find
+you here. I think the Doctor gave very particular directions, and said
+that you were to remain perfectly quiet."
+
+"But I know more than the Doctor," replied Feltram, still smiling
+unpleasantly.
+
+"I think, sir, you would have been better in your bed," said Sir Bale
+loftily.
+
+"Come, come, come, come!" exclaimed Philip Feltram contemptuously.
+
+[Illustration: It was the figure of a slight tall man, with his arm
+extended, as if pointing to a remote object.]
+
+"It seems to me," said Sir Bale, a good deal astonished, "you rather
+forget yourself."
+
+"Easier to forget oneself, Sir Bale, than to forgive others, at times,"
+replied Philip Feltram in his unparalleled mood.
+
+"That's the way fools knock themselves up," continued Sir Bale. "You've
+been walking ever so far--away to the Fells of Golden Friars. It was you
+whom I saw there. What d----d folly! What brought you there?"
+
+"To observe you," he replied.
+
+"And have you walked the whole way there and back again? How did you get
+there?"
+
+"Pooh! how did I come--how did you come--how did the fog come? From the
+lake, I suppose. We all come up, and then down." So spoke Philip
+Feltram, with serene insolence.
+
+"You are pleased to talk nonsense," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Because I like it--with a _meaning_."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him, not knowing whether to believe his eyes and
+ears. He did not know what to make of him.
+
+"I had intended speaking to you in a conciliatory way; you seem to wish
+to make that impossible"--Philip Feltram's face wore its repulsive
+smile;--"and in fact I don't know what to make of you, unless you are
+ill; and ill you well may be. You can't have walked much less than
+twelve miles."
+
+"Wonderful effort for me!" said Feltram with the same sneer.
+
+"Rather surprising for a man so nearly drowned," answered Sir Bale
+Mardykes.
+
+"A dip: you don't like the lake, sir; but I do. And so it is: as Antaeus
+touched the earth, so I the water, and rise refreshed."
+
+"I think you'd better get in and refresh there. I meant to tell you that
+all the unpleasantness about that bank-note is over."
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"Yes. It has been recovered by Mr. Creswell, who came here last night.
+I've got it, and you're not to blame," said Sir Bale.
+
+"But some one _is_ to blame," observed Mr. Feltram, smiling still.
+
+"Well, _you_ are not, and that ends it," said the Baronet peremptorily.
+
+
+"Ends it? Really, how good! how very good!"
+
+Sir Bale looked at him, for there was something ambiguous and even
+derisive in the tone of Feltram's voice.
+
+But before he could quite make up his mind, Feltram spoke again.
+
+"Everything is settled about you and me?"
+
+"There is nothing to prevent your staying at Mardykes now," said Sir
+Bale graciously.
+
+"I shall be with you for two years, and then I go on my travels,"
+answered Feltram, with a saturnine and somewhat wild look around him.
+
+"Is he going mad?" thought the Baronet.
+
+"But before I go, I'm to put you in a way of paying off your mortgages.
+That is my business here."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him sharply. But now there was not the unpleasant
+smile, but the darkened look of a man in secret pain.
+
+"You shall know it all by and by."
+
+And without more ceremony, and with a darkening face, Philip Feltram
+made his way under the boughs of the thick oaks that grew there, leaving
+on Sir Bale's mind an impression that he had been watching some one at a
+distance, and had gone in consequence of a signal.
+
+In a few seconds he followed in the same direction, halloaing after
+Feltram; for he did not like the idea of his wandering about the country
+by moonlight, or possibly losing his life among the precipices, and
+bringing a new discredit upon his house. But no answer came; nor could
+he in that thick copse gain sight of him again.
+
+When Sir Bale reached Mardykes Hall he summoned Mrs. Julaper, and had a
+long talk with her. But she could not say that there appeared anything
+amiss with Philip Feltram; only he seemed more reserved, and as if he
+was brooding over something he did not intend to tell.
+
+"But, you know, Sir Bale, what happened might well make a thoughtful man
+of him. If he's ever to think of Death, it should be after looking him
+so hard in the face; and I'm not ashamed to say, I'm glad to see he has
+grace to take the lesson, and I hope his experiences may be sanctified
+to him, poor fellow! Amen."
+
+"Very good song, and very well sung," said Sir Bale; "but it doesn't
+seem to me that he has been improved, Mrs. Julaper. He seems, on the
+contrary, in a queer temper and anything but a heavenly frame of mind;
+and I thought I'd ask you, because if he is ill--I mean feverish--it
+might account for his eccentricities, as well as make it necessary to
+send after him, and bring him home, and put him to bed. But I suppose it
+is as you say,--his adventure has upset him a little, and he'll sober in
+a day or two, and return to his old ways."
+
+But this did not happen. A change, more comprehensive than at first
+appeared, had taken place, and a singular alteration was gradually
+established.
+
+He grew thin, his eyes hollow, his face gradually forbidding.
+
+His ways and temper were changed: he was a new man with Sir Bale; and
+the Baronet after a time, people said, began to grow afraid of him. And
+certainly Feltram had acquired an extraordinary influence over the
+Baronet, who a little while ago had regarded and treated him with so
+much contempt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The Purse of Gold
+
+The Baronet was very slightly known in his county. He had led a reserved
+and inhospitable life. He was pressed upon by heavy debts; and being a
+proud man, held aloof from society and its doings. He wished people to
+understand that he was nursing his estate; but somehow the estate did
+not thrive at nurse. In the country other people's business is admirably
+well known; and the lord of Mardykes was conscious, perhaps, that his
+neighbours knew as well he did, that the utmost he could do was to pay
+the interest charged upon it, and to live in a frugal way enough.
+
+The lake measures some four or five miles across, from the little jetty
+under the walls of Mardykes Hall to Cloostedd.
+
+Philip Feltram, changed and morose, loved a solitary row upon the lake;
+and sometimes, with no one to aid him in its management, would take the
+little sailboat and pass the whole day upon those lonely waters.
+
+Frequently he crossed to Cloostedd; and mooring the boat under the
+solemn trees that stand reflected in that dark mirror, he would
+disembark and wander among the lonely woodlands, as people thought,
+cherishing in those ancestral scenes the memory of ineffaceable
+injuries, and the wrath and revenge that seemed of late to darken his
+countenance, and to hold him always in a moody silence.
+
+One autumnal evening Sir Bale Mardykes was sourly ruminating after his
+solitary meal. A very red sun was pouring its last low beams through the
+valley at the western extremity of the lake, across its elsewhere sombre
+waters, and touching with a sudden and blood-red tint the sail of the
+skiff in which Feltram was returning from his lonely cruise.
+
+"Here comes my domestic water-fiend," sneered Sir Bale, as he lay back
+in his cumbrous arm-chair. "Cheerful place, pleasant people, delicious
+fate! The place alone has been enough to set that fool out of his little
+senses, d--n him!"
+
+Sir Bale averted his eyes, and another subject not pleasanter entered
+his mind. He was thinking of the races that were coming off next week at
+Heckleston Downs, and what sums of money might be made there, and how
+hard it was that he should be excluded by fortune from that brilliant
+lottery.
+
+"Ah, Mrs. Julaper, is that you?"
+
+Mrs. Julaper, who was still at the door, curtsied, and said, "I came,
+Sir Bale, to see whether you'd please to like a jug of mulled claret,
+sir."
+
+"Not I, my dear. I'll take a mug of beer and my pipe; that homely solace
+better befits a ruined gentleman."
+
+"H'm, sir; you're not that, Sir Bale; you're no worse than half the
+lords and great men that are going. I would not hear another say that of
+you, sir."
+
+"That's very kind of you, Mrs. Julaper; but you won't call _me_ out for
+backbiting myself, especially as it is true, d----d true, Mrs. Julaper!
+Look ye; there never was a Mardykes here before but he could lay his
+hundred or his thousand pounds on the winner of the Heckleston Cup; and
+what could I bet? Little more than that mug of beer I spoke of. It was
+my great-grandfather who opened the course on the Downs of Heckleston,
+and now _I_ can't show there! Well, what must I do? Grin and bear it,
+that's all. If you please, Mrs. Julaper, I will have that jug of claret
+you offered. I want spice and hot wine to keep me alive; but I'll smoke
+my pipe first, and in an hour's time it will do."
+
+When Mrs. Julaper was gone, he lighted his pipe, and drew near the
+window, through which he looked upon the now fading sky and the twilight
+landscape.
+
+He smoked his pipe out, and by that time it had grown nearly dark. He
+was still looking out upon the faint outlines of the view, and thinking
+angrily what a little bit of luck at the races would do for many a man
+who probably did not want it half so much as he. Vague and sombre as his
+thoughts were, they had, like the darkening landscape outside, shape
+enough to define their general character. Bitter and impious they
+were--as those of egotistic men naturally are in suffering. And after
+brooding, and muttering by fits and starts, he said:
+
+"How many tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds will change hands at
+Heckleston next week; and not a shilling in all the change and shuffle
+will stick to me! How many a fellow would sell himself, like Dr.
+Faustus, just for the knowledge of the name of the winner! But he's no
+fool, and does not buy his own."
+
+Something caught his eye; something moving on the wall. The fire was
+lighted, and cast a flickering and gigantic shadow upward; the figure of
+a man standing behind Sir Bale Mardykes, on whose shoulder he placed a
+lean hand. Sir Bale turned suddenly about, and saw Philip Feltram. He
+was looking dark and stern, and did not remove his hand from his
+shoulder as he peered into the Baronet's face with his deep-set mad
+eyes.
+
+"Ha, Philip, upon my soul!" exclaimed Sir Bale, surprised. "How time
+flies! It seems only this minute since I saw the boat a mile and a half
+away from the shore. Well--yes; there has been time; it is dark now. Ha,
+ha! I assure you, you startled me. Won't you take something? Do. Shall I
+touch the bell?"
+
+"You have been troubled about those mortgages. I told you I should pay
+them off, I thought."
+
+Here there was a pause, and Sir Bale looked hard in Feltram's face. If
+he had been in his ordinary spirits, or perhaps in some of his haunts
+less solitary than Mardykes, he would have laughed; but here he had
+grown unlike himself, gloomy and credulous, and was, in fact, a nervous
+man.
+
+Sir Bale smiled, and shook his head dismally.
+
+"It is very kind of you, Feltram; the idea shows a kindly disposition. I
+know you would do me a kindness if you could."
+
+As Sir Bale, each looking in the other's eyes, repeated in this sentence
+the words "kind," "kindly," "kindness," a smile lighted Feltram's face
+with at each word an intenser light; and Sir Bale grew sombre in its
+glare; and when he had done speaking, Feltram's face also on a sudden
+darkened.
+
+"I have found a fortune-teller in Cloostedd Wood. Look here."
+
+And he drew from his pocket a leathern purse, which he placed on the
+table in his hand; and Sir Bale heard the pleasant clink of coin in it.
+
+"A fortune-teller! You don't mean to say she gave you that?" said Sir
+Bale.
+
+Feltram smiled again, and nodded.
+
+"It _was_ the custom to give the fortuneteller a trifle. It is a great
+improvement making _her_ fee you," observed Sir Bale, with an approach
+to his old manner.
+
+"He put that in my hand with a message," said Feltram.
+
+"He? O, then it was a male fortune-teller!"
+
+"Gipsies go in gangs, men and women. _He_ might lend, though _she_ told
+fortunes," said Feltram.
+
+"It's the first time I ever heard of gipsies lending money;" and he eyed
+the purse with a whimsical smile.
+
+With his lean fingers still holding it, Feltram sat down at the table.
+His face contracted as if in cunning thought, and his chin sank upon his
+breast as he leaned back.
+
+"I think," continued Sir Bale, "ever since they were spoiled, the
+Egyptians have been a little shy of lending, and leave that branch of
+business to the Hebrews."
+
+"What would you give to know, now, the winner at Heckleston races?" said
+Feltram suddenly, raising his eyes.
+
+"Yes; that would be worth something," answered Sir Bale, looking at him
+with more interest than the incredulity he affected would quite warrant.
+
+"And this money I have power to lend you, to make your game."
+
+"Do you mean that really?" said Sir Bale, with a new energy in tone,
+manner, and features.
+
+"That's heavy; there are some guineas there," said Feltram with a dark
+smile, raising the purse in his hand a little, and letting it drop upon
+the table with a clang.
+
+"There is _something_ there, at all events," said Sir Bale.
+
+Feltram took the purse by the bottom, and poured out on the table a
+handsome pile of guineas.
+
+"And do you mean to say you got all that from a gipsy in Cloostedd
+Wood?"
+
+"A friend, who is--_myself_," answered Philip Feltram.
+
+"Yourself! Then it is yours--_you_ lend it?" said the Baronet, amazed;
+for there was no getting over the heap of guineas, and the wonder was
+pretty equal whence they had come.
+
+"Myself, and not myself," said Feltram oracularly; "as like as voice and
+echo, man and shadow."
+
+Had Feltram in some of his solitary wanderings and potterings lighted
+upon hidden treasure? There was a story of two Feltrams of Cloostedd,
+brothers, who had joined the king's army and fought at Marston Moor,
+having buried in Cloostedd Wood a great deal of gold and plate and
+jewels. They had, it was said, intrusted one tried servant with the
+secret; and that servant remained at home. But by a perverse fatality
+the three witnesses had perished within a month: the two brothers at
+Marston Moor; and the confidant, of fever, at Cloostedd. From that day
+forth treasure-seekers had from time to time explored the woods of
+Cloostedd; and many a tree of mark was dug beside, and the earth beneath
+many a stone and scar and other landmark in that solitary forest was
+opened by night, until hope gradually died out, and the tradition had
+long ceased to prompt to action, and had become a story and nothing
+more.
+
+The image of the nursery-tale had now recurred to Sir Bale after so long
+a reach of years; and the only imaginable way, in his mind, of
+accounting for penniless Philip Feltram having all that gold in his
+possession was that, in some of his lonely wanderings, chance had led
+him to the undiscovered hoard of the two Feltrams who had died in the
+great civil wars.
+
+"Perhaps those gipsies you speak of found the money where you found
+them; and in that case, as Cloostedd Forest, and all that is in it is my
+property, their sending it to me is more like my servant's handing me my
+hat and stick when I'm going out, than making me a present."
+
+"You will not be wise to rely upon the law, Sir Bale, and to refuse the
+help that comes unasked. But if you like your mortgages as they are,
+keep them; and if you like my terms as they are, take them; and when you
+have made up your mind, let me know."
+
+Philip Feltram dropped the heavy purse into his capacious coat-pocket,
+and walked, muttering, out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The Message from Cloostedd
+
+"Come back, Feltram; come back, Philip!" cried Sir Bale hastily. "Let us
+talk, can't we? Come and talk this odd business over a little; you must
+have mistaken what I meant; I should like to hear all about it."
+
+"All is not much, sir," said Philip Feltram, entering the room again,
+the door of which he had half closed after him. "In the forest of
+Cloostedd I met to-day some people, one of whom can foretell events, and
+told me the names of the winners of the first three races at Heckleston,
+and gave me this purse, with leave to lend you so much money as you care
+to stake upon the races. I take no security; you shan't be troubled; and
+you'll never see the lender, unless you seek him out."
+
+"Well, those are not bad terms," said Sir Bale, smiling wistfully at the
+purse, which Feltram had again placed upon the table.
+
+"No, not bad," repeated Feltram, in the harsh low tone in which he now
+habitually spoke.
+
+"You'll tell me what the prophet said about the winners; I should like
+to hear their names."
+
+"The names I shall tell you if you walk out with me," said Feltram.
+
+"Why not here?" asked Sir Bale.
+
+"My memory does not serve me here so well. Some people, in some places,
+though they be silent, obstruct thought. Come, let us speak," said
+Philip Feltram, leading the way.
+
+Sir Bale, with a shrug, followed him.
+
+By this time it was dark. Feltram was walking slowly towards the margin
+of the lake; and Sir Bale, more curious as the delay increased, followed
+him, and smiled faintly as he looked after his tall, gaunt figure, as
+if, even in the dark, expressing a ridicule which he did not honestly
+feel, and the expression of which, even if there had been light, there
+was no one near enough to see.
+
+When he reached the edge of the lake, Feltram stooped, and Sir Bale
+thought that his attitude was that of one who whispers to and caresses a
+reclining person. What he fancied was a dark figure lying horizontally
+in the shallow water, near the edge, turned out to be, as he drew near,
+no more than a shadow on the elsewhere lighter water; and with his
+change of position it had shifted and was gone, and Philip Feltram was
+but dabbling his hand this way and that in the water, and muttering
+faintly to himself. He rose as the Baronet drew near, and standing
+upright, said,
+
+"I like to listen to the ripple of the water among the grass and
+pebbles; the tongue and lips of the lake are lapping and whispering all
+along. It is the merest poetry; but you are so romantic, you excuse me."
+
+There was an angry curve in Feltram's eyebrows, and a cynical smile, and
+something in the tone which to the satirical Baronet was almost
+insulting. But even had he been less curious, I don't think he would
+have betrayed his mortification; for an odd and unavowed influence which
+he hated was gradually establishing in Feltram an ascendency which
+sometimes vexed and sometimes cowed him.
+
+"You are not to tell," said Feltram, drawing near him in the dusk. "The
+secret is yours when you promise."
+
+"Of course I promise," said Sir Bale. "If I believed it, you don't think
+I could be such an ass as to tell it; and if I didn't believe it, I'd
+hardly take the trouble."
+
+Feltram stooped, and dipping the hollow of his hand in the water, he
+raised it full, and said he, "Hold out your hand--the hollow of your
+hand--like this. I divide the water for a sign--share to me and share to
+you." And he turned his hand, so as to pour half the water into the
+hollow palm of Sir Bale, who was smiling, with some uneasiness mixed in
+his mockery.
+
+"Now, you promise to keep all secrets respecting the teller and the
+finder, be that who it may?"
+
+"Yes, I promise," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Now do as I do," said Feltram. And he shed the water on the ground, and
+with his wet fingers touched his forehead and his breast; and then he
+joined his hand with Sir Bale's, and said, "Now you are my safe man."
+
+Sir Bale laughed. "That's the game they call 'grand mufti,'" said he.
+
+"Exactly; and means nothing," said Feltram, "except that some day it
+will serve you to remember by. And now the names. Don't speak;
+listen--you may break the thought else. The winner of the first is
+_Beeswing_; of the second, _Falcon_; and of the third, _Lightning_."
+
+He had stood for some seconds in silence before he spoke; his eyes were
+closed; he seemed to bring up thought and speech with difficulty, and
+spoke faintly and drowsily, both his hands a little raised, and the
+fingers extended, with the groping air of a man who moves in the dark.
+In this odd way, slowly, faintly, with many a sigh and scarcely audible
+groan, he gradually delivered his message and was silent. He stood, it
+seemed, scarcely half awake, muttering indistinctly and sighing to
+himself. You would have said that he was exhausted and suffering, like a
+man at his last hour resigning himself to death.
+
+At length he opened his eyes, looked round a little wildly and
+languidly, and with another great sigh sat down on a large rock that
+lies by the margin of the lake, and sighed heavily again and again. You
+might have fancied that he was a second time recovering from drowning.
+
+Then he got up, and looked drowsily round again, and sighed like a man
+worn out with fatigue, and was silent.
+
+Sir Bale did not care to speak until he seemed a little more likely to
+obtain an answer. When that time came, he said, "I wish, for the sake of
+my believing, that your list was a little less incredible. Not one of
+the horses you name is the least likely; not one of them has a chance."
+
+"So much the better for you; you'll get what odds you please. You had
+better seize your luck; on Tuesday Beeswing runs," said Feltram. "When
+you want money for the purpose, I'm your banker--here is your bank."
+
+He touched his breast, where he had placed the purse, and then he turned
+and walked swiftly away.
+
+Sir Bale looked after him till he disappeared in the dark. He fluctuated
+among many surmises about Feltram. Was he insane, or was he practising
+an imposture? or was he fool enough to believe the predictions of some
+real gipsies? and had he borrowed this money, which in Sir Bale's eyes
+seemed the greatest miracle in the matter, from those thriving shepherd
+mountaineers, the old Trebecks, who, he believed, were attached to him?
+Feltram had, he thought, borrowed it as if for himself; and having, as
+Sir Bale in his egotism supposed, "a sneaking regard" for him, had meant
+the loan for his patron, and conceived the idea of his using his
+revelations for the purpose of making his fortune. So, seeing no risk,
+and the temptation being strong, Sir Bale resolved to avail himself of
+the purse, and use his own judgment as to what horse to back.
+
+About eleven o'clock Feltram, unannounced, walked, with his hat still
+on, into Sir Bale's library, and sat down at the opposite side of his
+table, looking gloomily into the Baronet's face for a time.
+
+"Shall you want the purse?" he asked at last.
+
+"Certainly; I always want a purse," said Sir Bale energetically.
+
+"The condition is, that you shall back each of the three horses I have
+named. But you may back them for much or little, as you like, only the
+sum must not be less than five pounds in each hundred which this purse
+contains. That is the condition, and if you violate it, you will make
+some powerful people very angry, and you will feel it. Do you agree?"
+
+"Of course; five pounds in the hundred--certainly; and how many hundreds
+are there?"
+
+"Three."
+
+"Well, a fellow with luck may win something with three hundred pounds,
+but it ain't very much."
+
+"Quite enough, if you use it aright."
+
+"Three hundred pounds," repeated the Baronet, as he emptied the purse,
+which Feltram had just placed in his hand, upon the table; and
+contemplating them with grave interest, he began telling them off in
+little heaps of five-and-twenty each. He might have thanked Feltram, but
+he was thinking more of the guineas than of the grizzly donor.
+
+"Ay," said he, after a second counting, "I think there _are_ exactly
+three hundred. Well, so you say I must apply three times five--fifteen
+of these. It is an awful pity backing those queer horses you have named;
+but if I must make the sacrifice, I must, I suppose?" he added, with a
+hesitating inquiry in the tone.
+
+"If you don't, you'll rue it," said Feltram coldly, and walked away.
+
+"Penny in pocket's a merry companion," says the old English proverb, and
+Sir Bale felt in better spirits and temper than he had for many a day as
+he replaced the guineas in the purse.
+
+It was long since he had visited either the race-course or any other
+place of amusement. Now he might face his kind without fear that his
+pride should be mortified, and dabble in the fascinating agitations of
+the turf once more.
+
+"Who knows how this little venture may turn out?" he thought. "It is
+time the luck should turn. My last summer in Germany, my last winter in
+Paris--d--n me, I'm owed something. It's time I should win a bit."
+
+Sir Bale had suffered the indolence of a solitary and discontented life
+imperceptibly to steal upon him. It would not do to appear for the first
+time on Heckleston Lea with any of those signs of negligence which, in
+his case, might easily be taken for poverty. All his appointments,
+therefore, were carefully looked after; and on the Monday following, he,
+followed by his groom, rode away for the Saracen's Head at Heckleston,
+where he was to put up, for the races that were to begin on the day
+following, and presented as handsome an appearance as a peer in those
+days need have cared to show.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+On the Course--Beeswing, Falcon, and Lightning
+
+As he rode towards Golden Friars, through which his route lay, in the
+early morning light, in which the mists of night were clearing, he
+looked back towards Mardykes with a hope of speedy deliverance from that
+hated imprisonment, and of a return to the continental life in which he
+took delight. He saw the summits and angles of the old building touched
+with the cheerful beams, and the grand old trees, and at the opposite
+side the fells dark, with their backs towards the east; and down the
+side of the wooded and precipitous clough of Feltram, the light, with a
+pleasant contrast against the beetling purple of the fells, was breaking
+in the faint distance. On the lake he saw the white speck that indicated
+the sail of Philip Feltram's boat, now midway between Mardykes and the
+wooded shores of Cloostedd.
+
+"Going on the same errand," thought Sir Bale, "I should not wonder. I
+wish him the same luck. Yes, he's going to Cloostedd Forest. I hope he
+may meet his gipsies there--the Trebecks, or whoever they are."
+
+And as a momentary sense of degradation in being thus beholden to such
+people smote him, "Well," thought he, "who knows? Many a fellow will
+make a handsome sum of a poorer purse than this at Heckleston. It will
+be a light matter paying them then."
+
+Through Golden Friars he rode. Some of the spectators who did not like
+him, wondered audibly at the gallant show, hoped it was paid for, and
+conjectured that he had ridden out in search of a wife. On the whole,
+however, the appearance of their Baronet in a smarter style than usual
+was popular, and accepted as a change to the advantage of the town.
+
+Next morning he was on the race-course of Heckleston, renewing old
+acquaintance and making himself as agreeable as he could--an object,
+among some people, of curiosity and even interest. Leaving the
+carriage-sides, the hoods and bonnets, Sir Bale was soon among the
+betting men, deep in more serious business.
+
+How did he make his book? He did not break his word. He backed Beeswing,
+Falcon, and Lightning. But it must be owned not for a shilling more than
+the five guineas each, to which he stood pledged. The odds were
+forty-five to one against Beeswing, sixty to one against Lightning, and
+fifty to one against Falcon.
+
+"A pretty lot to choose!" exclaimed Sir Bale, with vexation. "As if I
+had money so often, that I should throw it away!"
+
+The Baronet was testy thinking over all this, and looked on Feltram's
+message as an impertinence and the money as his own.
+
+Let us now see how Sir Bale Mardykes' pocket fared.
+
+Sulkily enough at the close of the week he turned his back on Heckleston
+racecourse, and took the road to Golden Friars.
+
+He was in a rage with his luck, and by no means satisfied with himself;
+and yet he had won something. The result of the racing had been curious.
+In the three principal races the favourites had been beaten: one by an
+accident, another on a technical point, and the third by fair running.
+And what horses had won? The names were precisely those which the
+"fortune-teller" had predicted.
+
+Well, then, how was Sir Bale in pocket as he rode up to his ancestral
+house of Mardykes, where a few thousand pounds would have been very
+welcome? He had won exactly 775 guineas; and had he staked a hundred
+instead of five on each of the names communicated by Feltram, he would
+have won 15,500 guineas.
+
+He dismounted before his hall-door, therefore, with the discontent of a
+man who had lost nearly 15,000 pounds. Feltram was upon the steps, and
+laughed dryly.
+
+"What do you laugh at?" asked Sir Bale tartly.
+
+"You've won, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, I've won; I've won a trifle."
+
+"On the horses I named?"
+
+"Well, yes; it so turned out, by the merest accident."
+
+Feltram laughed again dryly, and turned away.
+
+Sir Bale entered Mardykes Hall, and was surly. He was in a much worse
+mood than before he had ridden to Heckleston. But after a week or so
+ruminating upon the occurrence, he wondered that Feltram spoke no more
+of it. It was undoubtedly wonderful. There had been no hint of repayment
+yet, and he had made some hundreds by the loan; and, contrary to all
+likelihood, the three horses named by the unknown soothsayer had won.
+Who was this gipsy? It would be worth bringing the soothsayer to
+Mardykes, and giving his people a camp on the warren, and all the
+poultry they could catch, and a pig or a sheep every now and then. Why,
+that seer was worth the philosopher's stone, and could make Sir Bale's
+fortune in a season. Some one else would be sure to pick him up if he
+did not.
+
+So, tired of waiting for Feltram to begin, he opened the subject one day
+himself. He had not seen him for two or three days; and in the wood of
+Mardykes he saw his lank figure standing among the thick trees, upon a
+little knoll, leaning on a staff which he sometimes carried with him in
+his excursions up the mountains.
+
+"Feltram!" shouted Sir Bale.
+
+Feltram turned and beckoned. Sir Bale muttered, but obeyed the signal.
+
+"I brought you here, because you can from this point with unusual
+clearness today see the opening of the Clough of Feltram at the other
+side, and the clump of trees, where you will find the way to reach the
+person about whom you are always thinking."
+
+"Who said I am always thinking about him?" said the Baronet angrily; for
+he felt like a man detected in a weakness, and resented it.
+
+"_I_ say it, because I _know_ it; and _you_ know it also. See that clump
+of trees standing solitary in the hollow? Among them, to the left, grows
+an ancient oak. Cut in its bark are two enormous letters H--F; so large
+and bold, that the rugged furrows of the oak bark fail to obscure them,
+although they are ancient and spread by time. Standing against the trunk
+of this great tree, with your back to these letters, you are looking up
+the Glen or Clough of Feltram, that opens northward, where stands
+Cloostedd Forest spreading far and thick. Now, how do you find our
+fortune-teller?"
+
+"That is exactly what I wish to know," answered Sir Bale; "because,
+although I can't, of course, believe that he's a witch, yet he has
+either made the most marvellous fluke I've heard of, or else he has got
+extraordinary sources of information; or perhaps he acts partly on
+chance, partly on facts. Be it which you please, I say he's a marvellous
+fellow; and I should like to see him, and have a talk with him; and
+perhaps he could arrange with me. I should be very glad to make an
+arrangement with him to give me the benefit of his advice about any
+matter of the same kind again."
+
+"I think he's willing to see you; but he's a fellow with a queer fancy
+and a pig-head. He'll not come here; you must go to him; and approach
+him his own way too, or you may fail to find him. On these terms he
+invites you."
+
+Sir Bale laughed.
+
+"He knows his value, and means to make his own terms."
+
+"Well, there's nothing unfair in that; and I don't see that I should
+dispute it. How is one to find him?"
+
+"Stand, as I told you, with your back to those letters cut in the oak.
+Right before you lies an old Druidic altar-stone. Cast your eye over its
+surface, and on some part of it you are sure to see a black stain about
+the size of a man's head. Standing, as I suppose you, against the oak,
+that stain, which changes its place from day to day, will give you the
+line you must follow through the forest in order to light upon him. Take
+carefully from it such trees or objects as will guide you; and when the
+forest thickens, do the best you can to keep to the same line. You are
+sure to find him."
+
+"You'll come, Feltram. I should lose myself in that wilderness, and
+probably fail to discover him," said Sir Bale; "and I really wish to see
+him."
+
+"When two people wish to meet, it is hard if they don't. I can go with
+you a bit of the way; I can walk a little through the forest by your
+side, until I see the small flower that grows peeping here and there,
+that always springs where those people walk; and when I begin to see
+that sign, I must leave you. And, first, I'll take you across the lake."
+
+"By Jove, you'll do no such thing!" said Sir Bale hastily.
+
+"But that is the way he chooses to be approached," said Philip Feltram.
+
+"I have a sort of feeling about that lake; it's the one childish spot
+that is left in my imagination. The nursery is to blame for it--old
+stories and warnings; and I can't think of that. I should feel I had
+invoked an evil omen if I did. I know it is all nonsense; but we are
+queer creatures, Feltram. I must only ride there."
+
+"Why, it is five-and-twenty miles round the lake to that; and after all
+were done, he would not see you. He knows what he's worth, and he'll
+have his own way," answered Feltram. "The sun will soon set. See that
+withered branch, near Snakes Island, that looks like fingers rising from
+the water? When its points grow tipped with red, the sun has but three
+minutes to live."
+
+"That is a wonder which I can't see; it is too far away."
+
+"Yes, the lake has many signs; but it needs sight to see them," said
+Feltram.
+
+"So it does," said the Baronet; "more than most men have got. I'll ride
+round, I say; and I make my visit, for this time, my own way."
+
+"You'll not find him, then; and he wants his money. It would be a pity
+to vex him."
+
+"It was to you he lent the money," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, you are the proper person to find him out and pay him," urged Sir
+Bale.
+
+"Perhaps so; but he invites you; and if you don't go, he may be
+offended, and you may hear no more from him."
+
+"We'll try. When can you go? There are races to come off next week, for
+once and away, at Langton. I should not mind trying my luck there. What
+do you say?
+
+"You can go there and pay him, and ask the same question--what horses, I
+mean, are to win. All the county are to be there; and plenty of money
+will change hands."
+
+"I'll try," said Feltram.
+
+"When will you go?"
+
+"To-morrow," he answered.
+
+"I have an odd idea, Feltram, that you are really going to pay off those
+cursed mortgages."
+
+He laid his hand with at least a gesture of kindness on the thin arm of
+Feltram, who coldly answered,
+
+"So have I;" and walked down the side of the little knoll and away,
+without another word or look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+On the Lake, at Last
+
+Next day Philip Feltram crossed the lake; and Sir Bale, seeing the boat
+on the water, guessed its destination, and watched its progress with no
+little interest, until he saw it moored and its sail drop at the rude
+pier that affords a landing at the Clough of Feltram. He was now
+satisfied that Philip had actually gone to seek out the 'cunning man,'
+and gather hints for the next race.
+
+When that evening Feltram returned, and, later still, entered Sir Bale's
+library, the master of Mardykes was gladder to see his face and more
+interested about his news than he would have cared to confess.
+
+Philip Feltram did not affect unconsciousness of that anxiety, but, with
+great directness, proceeded to satisfy it.
+
+"I was in Cloostedd Forest to-day, nearly all day--and found the old
+gentleman in a wax. He did not ask me to drink, nor show me any
+kindness. He was huffed because you would not take the trouble to cross
+the lake to speak to him yourself. He took the money you sent him and
+counted it over, and dropped it into his pocket; and he called you hard
+names enough and to spare; but I brought him round, and at last he did
+talk."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"He said that the estate of Mardykes would belong to a Feltram."
+
+"He might have said something more likely," said Sir Bale sourly. "Did
+he say anything more?"
+
+"Yes. He said the winner at Langton Lea would be Silver Bell."
+
+"Any other name?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Silver Bell? Well, that's not so odd as the last. Silver Bell stands
+high in the list. He has a good many backers--long odds in his favour
+against most of the field. I should not mind backing Silver Bell."
+
+The fact is, that he had no idea of backing any other horse from the
+moment he heard the soothsayer's prediction. He made up his mind to no
+half measures this time. He would go in to win something handsome.
+
+He was in great force and full of confidence on the race-course. He had
+no fears for the result. He bet heavily. There was a good margin still
+untouched of the Mardykes estate; and Sir Bale was a good old name in
+the county. He found a ready market for his offers, and had soon
+staked--such is the growing frenzy of that excitement--about twenty
+thousand pounds on his favourite, and stood to win seven.
+
+He did not win, however. He lost his twenty thousand pounds.
+
+And now the Mardykes estate was in imminent danger. Sir Bale returned,
+having distributed I O Us and promissory notes in all directions about
+him--quite at his wit's end.
+
+Feltram was standing--as on the occasion of his former happier
+return--on the steps of Mardykes Hall, in the evening sun, throwing
+eastward a long shadow that was lost in the lake. He received him, as
+before, with a laugh.
+
+Sir Bale was too much broken to resent this laugh as furiously as he
+might, had he been a degree less desperate.
+
+He looked at Feltram savagely, and dismounted.
+
+"Last time you would not trust him, and this time he would not trust
+you. He's huffed, and played you false."
+
+"It was not he. I should have backed that d----d horse in any case,"
+said Sir Bale, grinding his teeth. "What a witch you have discovered!
+One thing is true, perhaps. If there was a Feltram rich enough, he might
+have the estate now; but there ain't. They are all beggars. So much for
+your conjurer."
+
+"He may make amends to you, if you make amends to him."
+
+"He! Why, what can that wretched impostor do? D--n me, I'm past helping
+now."
+
+"Don't you talk so," said Feltram. "Be civil. You must please the old
+gentleman. He'll make it up. He's placable when it suits him. Why not go
+to him his own way? I hear you are nearly ruined. You must go and make
+it up."
+
+"Make it up! With whom? With a fellow who can't make even a guess at
+what's coming? Why should I trouble my head about him more?"
+
+"No man, young or old, likes to be frumped. Why did you cross his fancy?
+He won't see you unless you go to him as he chooses."
+
+"If he waits for that, he may wait till doomsday. I don't choose to go
+on that water--and cross it I won't," said Sir Bale.
+
+But when his distracting reminders began to pour in upon him, and the
+idea of dismembering what remained of his property came home to him, his
+resolution faltered.
+
+"I say, Feltram, what difference can it possibly make to him if I choose
+to ride round to Cloostedd Forest instead of crossing the lake in a
+boat?"
+
+Feltram smiled darkly, and answered.
+
+"I can't tell. Can you?"
+
+"Of course I can't--I say I can't; besides, what audacity of a fellow
+like that presuming to prescribe to me! Utterly ludicrous! And he can't
+predict--do you really think or believe, Feltram, that he can?"
+
+"I know he can. I know he misled you on purpose. He likes to punish
+those who don't respect his will; and there is a reason in it, often
+quite clear--not ill-natured. Now you see he compels you to seek him
+out, and when you do, I think he'll help you through your trouble. He
+said he would."
+
+"Then you have seen him since?"
+
+"Yesterday. He has put a pressure on you; but he means to help you."
+
+"If he means to help me, let him remember I want a banker more than a
+seer. Let him give me a lift, as he did before. He must lend me money."
+
+"He'll not stick at that. When he takes up a man, he carries him
+through."
+
+"The races of Byermere--I might retrieve at them. But they don't come
+off for a month nearly; and what is a man like me to do in the
+meantime?"
+
+"Every man should know his own business best. I'm not like you," said
+Feltram grimly.
+
+Now Sir Bale's trouble increased, for some people were pressing.
+Something like panic supervened; for it happened that land was bringing
+just then a bad price, and more must be sold in consequence.
+
+"All I can tell them is, I am selling land. It can't be done in an hour.
+I'm selling enough to pay them all twice over. Gentlemen used to be able
+to wait till a man sold his acres for payment. D--n them! do they want
+my body, that they can't let me alone for five minutes?"
+
+The end of it was, that before a week Sir Bale told Feltram that he
+would go by boat, since that fellow insisted on it; and he did not very
+much care if he were drowned.
+
+It was a beautiful autumnal day. Everything was bright in that mellowed
+sun, and the deep blue of the lake was tremulous with golden ripples;
+and crag and peak and scattered wood, faint in the distance, came out
+with a filmy distinctness on the fells in that pleasant light.
+
+Sir Bale had been ill, and sent down the night before for Doctor Torvey.
+He was away with a patient. Now, in the morning, he had arrived
+inopportunely. He met Sir Bale as he issued from the house, and had a
+word with him in the court, for he would not turn back.
+
+"Well," said the Doctor, after his brief inspection, "you ought to be in
+your bed; that's all I can say. You are perfectly mad to think of
+knocking about like this. Your pulse is at a hundred and ten; and, if
+you go across the lake and walk about Cloostedd, you'll be raving before
+you come back."
+
+Sir Bale told him, apologetically, as if his life were more to his
+doctor than to himself, that he would take care not to fatigue himself,
+and that the air would do him good, and that in any case he could not
+avoid going; and so they parted.
+
+Sir Bale took his seat beside Feltram in the boat, the sail was spread,
+and, bending to the light breeze that blew from Golden Friars, she
+glided from the jetty under Mardykes Hall, and the eventful voyage had
+begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Mystagogus
+
+The sail was loosed, the boat touched the stone step, and Feltram sprang
+out and made her fast to the old iron ring. The Baronet followed. So! he
+had ventured upon that water without being drowned. He looked round him
+as if in a dream. He had not been there since his childhood. There were
+no regrets, no sentiment, no remorse; only an odd return of the
+associations and fresh feelings of boyhood, and a long reach of time
+suddenly annihilated.
+
+The little hollow in which he stood; the three hawthorn trees at his
+right; every crease and undulation of the sward, every angle and crack
+in the lichen-covered rock at his feet, recurred with a sharp and
+instantaneous recognition to his memory.
+
+"Many a time your brother and I fished for hours together from that bank
+there, just where the bramble grows. That bramble has not grown an inch
+ever since, not a leaf altered; we used to pick blackberries off it,
+with our rods stuck in the bank--it was later in the year than now--till
+we stript it quite bare after a day or two. The steward used to come
+over--they were marking timber for cutting and we used to stay here
+while they rambled through the wood, with an axe marking the trees that
+were to come down. I wonder whether the big old boat is still anywhere.
+I suppose she was broken up, or left to rot; I have not seen her since
+we came home. It was in the wood that lies at the right--the other wood
+is called the forest; they say in old times it was eight miles long,
+northward up the shore of the lake, and full of deer; with a forester,
+and a reeve, and a verderer, and all that. Your brother was older than
+you; he went to India, or the Colonies; is he living still?"
+
+"I care not."
+
+"That's good-natured, at all events; but do you know?"
+
+"Not I; and what matter? If he's living, I warrant he has his share of
+the curse, the sweat of his brow and his bitter crust; and if he is
+dead, he's dust or worse, he's rotten, and smells accordingly."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him; for this was the brother over whom, only a year
+or two ago, Philip used to cry tears of pathetic longing. Feltram looked
+darkly in his face, and sneered with a cold laugh.
+
+"I suppose you mean to jest?" said Sir Bale.
+
+"Not I; it is the truth. It is what you'd say, if you were honest. If
+he's alive, let him keep where he is; and if he's dead, I'll have none
+of him, body or soul. Do you hear that sound?"
+
+"Like the wind moaning in the forest?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I feel no wind. There's hardly a leaf stirring."
+
+"I think so," said Feltram. "Come along."
+
+And he began striding up the gentle slope of the glen, with many a rock
+peeping through its sward, and tufted ferns and furze, giving a wild and
+neglected character to the scene; the background of which, where the
+glen loses itself in a distant turn, is formed by its craggy and wooded
+side.
+
+Up they marched, side by side, in silence, towards that irregular clump
+of trees, to which Feltram had pointed from the Mardykes side.
+
+As they approached, it showed more scattered, and two or three of the
+trees were of grander dimensions than in the distance they had appeared;
+and as they walked, the broad valley of Cloostedd Forest opened grandly
+on their left, studding the sides of the valley with solitary trees or
+groups, which thickened as it descended to the broad level, in parts
+nearly three miles wide, on which stands the noble forest of Cloostedd,
+now majestically reposing in the stirless air, gilded and flushed with
+the melancholy tints of autumn.
+
+I am now going to relate wonderful things; but they rest on the report,
+strangely consistent, it is true, of Sir Bale Mardykes. That all his
+senses, however, were sick and feverish, and his brain not quite to be
+relied on at that moment, is a fact of which sceptics have a right to
+make all they please and can.
+
+Startled at their approach, a bird like a huge mackaw bounced from the
+boughs of the trees, and sped away, every now and then upon the ground,
+toward the shelter of the forest, fluttering and hopping close by the
+side of the little brook which, emerging from the forest, winds into the
+glen, and beside the course of which Sir Bale and Philip Feltram had
+ascended from the margin of the lake.
+
+It fluttered on, as if one of its wings were hurt, and kept hopping and
+bobbing and flying along the grass at its swiftest, screaming all the
+time discordantly.
+
+"That must be old Mrs. Amerald's bird, that got away a week ago," said
+Sir Bale, stopping and looking after it. "Was not it a mackaw?"
+
+"No," said Feltram; "that was a gray parrot; but there are stranger
+birds in Cloostedd Forest, for my ancestors collected all that would
+live in our climate, and were at pains to find them the food and shelter
+they were accustomed to until they grew hardy--that is how it happens."
+
+"By Jove, that's a secret worth knowing," said Sir Bale. "That would
+make quite a feature. What a fat brute that bird was! and green and
+dusky-crimson and yellow; but its head is white--age, I suspect; and
+what a broken beak--hideous bird! splendid plumage; something between a
+mackaw and a vulture."
+
+Sir Bale spoke jocularly, but with the interest of a bird-fancier; a
+taste which, when young, he had indulged; and for the moment forgot his
+cares and the object of his unwonted excursion.
+
+A moment after, a lank slim bird, perfectly white, started from the same
+boughs, and winged its way to the forest.
+
+"A kite, I think; but its body is a little too long, isn't it?" said Sir
+Bale again, stopping and looking after its flight also.
+
+"A foreign kite, I daresay?" said Feltram.
+
+All this time there was hopping near them a jay, with the tameness of a
+bird accustomed to these solitudes. It peered over its slender wing
+curiously at the visitors; pecking here and nodding there; and thus
+hopping, it made a circle round them more than once. Then it fluttered
+up, and perched on a bough of the old oak, from the deep labyrinth of
+whose branches the other birds had emerged; and from thence it flew down
+and lighted on the broad druidic stone, that stood like a cyclopean
+table on its sunken stone props, before the snakelike roots of the oak.
+
+Across this it hopped conceitedly, as over a stage on which it figured
+becomingly; and after a momentary hesitation, with a little spring, it
+rose and winged its way in the same direction which the other birds had
+taken, and was quickly lost in thick forest to the left.
+
+"Here," said Feltram, "this is the tree."
+
+"I remember it well! A gigantic trunk; and, yes, those marks; but I
+never before read them as letters. Yes, H.F., so they are--very odd I
+should not have remarked them. They are so large, and so strangely
+drawn-out in some places, and filled-in in others, and distorted, and
+the moss has grown about them; I don't wonder I took them for natural
+cracks and chasms in the bark," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Very like," said Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale had remarked, ever since they had begun their walk from the
+shore, that Feltram seemed to undergo a gloomy change. Sharper, grimmer,
+wilder grew his features, and shadow after shadow darkened his face
+wickedly.
+
+The solitude and grandeur of the forest, and the repulsive gloom of his
+companion's countenance and demeanour, communicated a tone of anxiety to
+Sir Bale; and they stood still, side by side, in total silence for a
+time, looking toward the forest glades; between themselves and which, on
+the level sward of the valley, stood many a noble tree and fantastic
+group of forked birch and thorn, in the irregular formations into which
+Nature had thrown them.
+
+"Now you stand between the letters. Cast your eyes on the stone," said
+Feltram suddenly, and his low stern tones almost startled the Baronet.
+
+Looking round, he perceived that he had so placed himself that his point
+of vision was exactly from between the two great letters, now
+half-obliterated, which he had been scrutinizing just as he turned about
+to look toward the forest of Cloostedd.
+
+"Yes, so I am," said Sir Bale.
+
+There was within him an excitement and misgiving, akin to the sensation
+of a man going into battle, and which corresponded with the pale and
+sombre frown which Feltram wore, and the manifest change which had come
+over him.
+
+"Look on the stone steadily for a time, and tell me if you see a black
+mark, about the size of your hand, anywhere upon its surface," said
+Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale affected no airs of scepticism now; his imagination was
+stirred, and a sense of some unknown reality at the bottom of that which
+he had affected to treat before as illusion, inspired a strange interest
+in the experiment.
+
+"Do you see it?" asked Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale was watching patiently, but he had observed nothing of the
+kind.
+
+Sharper, darker, more eager grew the face of Philip Feltram, as his eyes
+traversed the surface of that huge horizontal block.
+
+"Now?" asked Feltram again.
+
+No, he had seen nothing.
+
+Feltram was growing manifestly uneasy, angry almost; he walked away a
+little, and back again, and then two or three times round the tree, with
+his hands shut, and treading the ground like a man trying to warm his
+feet, and so impatiently he returned, and looked again on the stone.
+
+Sir Bale was still looking, and very soon said, drawing his brows
+together and looking hard,
+
+"Ha!--yes--hush. There it is, by Jove!--wait--yes--there; it is growing
+quite plain."
+
+It seemed not as if a shadow fell upon the stone, but rather as if the
+stone became semi-transparent, and just under its surface was something
+dark--a hand, he thought it--and darker and darker it grew, as if coming
+up toward the surface, and after some little wavering, it fixed itself
+movelessly, pointing, as he thought, toward the forest.
+
+"It looks like a hand," said he. "By Jove, it is a hand--pointing
+towards the forest with a finger."
+
+"Don't mind the finger; look only on that black blurred mark, and from
+the point where you stand, taking that point for your direction, look to
+the forest. Take some tree or other landmark for an object, enter the
+forest there, and pursue the same line, as well as you can, until you
+find little flowers with leaves like wood-sorrel, and with tall stems
+and a red blossom, not larger than a drop, such as you have not seen
+before, growing among the trees, and follow wherever they seem to grow
+thickest, and there you will find him."
+
+All the time that Feltram was making this little address, Sir Bale was
+endeavouring to fix his route by such indications as Feltram described;
+and when he had succeeded in quite establishing the form of a peculiar
+tree--a melancholy ash, one huge limb of which had been blasted by
+lightning, and its partly stricken arm stood high and barkless,
+stretching its white fingers, as it were, in invitation into the forest,
+and signing the way for him----
+
+"I have it now," said he. "Come Feltram, you'll come a bit of the way
+with me."
+
+Feltram made no answer, but slowly shook his head, and turned and walked
+away, leaving Sir Bale to undertake his adventure alone.
+
+The strange sound they had heard from the midst of the forest, like the
+rumble of a storm or the far-off trembling of a furnace, had quite
+ceased. Not a bird was hopping on the grass, or visible on bough or in
+the sky. Not a living creature was in sight--never was stillness more
+complete, or silence more oppressive.
+
+It would have been ridiculous to give way to the old reluctance which
+struggled within him. Feltram had strode down the slope, and was
+concealed by a screen of bushes from his view. So alone, and full of an
+interest quite new to him, he set out in quest of his adventures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+The Haunted Forest
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes walked in a straight line, by bush and scaur, over the
+undulating ground, to the blighted ash-tree; and as he approached it,
+its withered bough stretched more gigantically into the air, and the
+forest seemed to open where it pointed.
+
+He passed it by, and in a few minutes had lost sight of it again, and
+was striding onward under the shadow of the forest, which already
+enclosed him. He was directing his march with all the care he could, in
+exactly that line which, according to Feltram's rule, had been laid down
+for him. Now and then, having, as soldiers say, taken an object, and
+fixed it well in his memory, he would pause and look about him.
+
+As a boy he had never entered the wood so far; for he was under a
+prohibition, lest he should lose himself in its intricacies, and be
+benighted there. He had often heard that it was haunted ground, and that
+too would, when a boy, have deterred him. It was on this account that
+the scene was so new to him, and that he cared so often to stop and look
+about him. Here and there a vista opened, exhibiting the same utter
+desertion, and opening farther perspectives through the tall stems of
+the trees faintly visible in the solemn shadow. No flowers could he see,
+but once or twice a wood anemone, and now and then a tiny grove of
+wood-sorrel.
+
+Huge oak-trees now began to mingle and show themselves more and more
+frequently among the other timber; and gradually the forest became a
+great oak wood unintruded upon by any less noble tree. Vast trunks
+curving outwards to the roots, and expanding again at the branches,
+stood like enormous columns, striking out their groining boughs, with
+the dark vaulting of a crypt.
+
+As he walked under the shadow of these noble trees, suddenly his eye was
+struck by a strange little flower, nodding quite alone by the knotted
+root of one of those huge oaks.
+
+He stooped and picked it up, and as he plucked it, with a harsh scream
+just over his head, a large bird with heavy beating wings broke away
+from the midst of the branches. He could not see it, but he fancied the
+scream was like that of the huge mackaw whose ill-poised flight he had
+watched. This conjecture was but founded on the odd cry he had heard.
+
+The flower was a curious one--a stem fine as a hair supported a little
+bell, that looked like a drop of blood, and never ceased trembling. He
+walked on, holding this in his fingers; and soon he saw another of the
+same odd type, then another at a shorter distance, then one a little to
+the right and another to the left, and farther on a little group, and at
+last the dark slope was all over trembling with these little bells,
+thicker and thicker as he descended a gentle declivity to the bank of
+the little brook, which flowing through the forest loses itself in the
+lake. The low murmur of this forest stream was almost the first sound,
+except the shriek of the bird that startled him a little time ago, which
+had disturbed the profound silence of the wood since he entered it.
+Mingling with the faint sound of the brook, he now heard a harsh human
+voice calling words at intervals, the purport of which he could not yet
+catch; and walking on, he saw seated upon the grass, a strange figure,
+corpulent, with a great hanging nose, the whole face glowing like
+copper. He was dressed in a bottle-green cut-velvet coat, of the style
+of Queen Anne's reign, with a dusky crimson waistcoat, both overlaid
+with broad and tarnished gold lace, and his silk stockings on thick
+swollen legs, with great buckled shoes, straddling on the grass, were
+rolled up over his knees to his short breeches. This ill-favoured old
+fellow, with a powdered wig that came down to his shoulders, had a
+dice-box in each hand, and was apparently playing his left against his
+right, and calling the throws with a hoarse cawing voice.
+
+Raising his black piggish eyes, he roared to Sir Bale, by name, to come
+and sit down, raising one of his dice-boxes, and then indicating a place
+on the grass opposite to him.
+
+Now Sir Bale instantly guessed that this was the man, gipsy, warlock,
+call him what he might, of whom he had come in search. With a strange
+feeling of curiosity, disgust, and awe, he drew near. He was resolved to
+do whatever this old man required of him, and to keep him, this time, in
+good humour.
+
+Sir Bale did as he bid him, and sat down; and taking the box he
+presented, they began throwing turn about, with three dice, the
+copper-faced old man teaching him the value of the throws, as he
+proceeded, with many a curse and oath; and when he did not like a throw,
+grinning with a look of such real fury, that the master of Mardykes
+almost expected him to whip out his sword and prick him through as he
+sat before him.
+
+After some time spent at this play, in which guineas passed now this
+way, now that, chucked across the intervening patch of grass, or rather
+moss, that served them for a green cloth, the old man roared over his
+shoulder,
+
+"Drink;" and picking up a longstemmed conical glass which Sir Bale had
+not observed before, he handed it over to the Baronet; and taking
+another in his fingers, he held it up, while a very tall slim old man,
+dressed in a white livery, with powdered hair and cadaverous face, which
+seemed to run out nearly all into a long thin hooked nose, advanced with
+a flask in each hand. Looking at the unwieldly old man, with his heavy
+nose, powdered head, and all the bottle-green, crimson, and gold about
+him, and the long slim serving man, with sharp beak, and white from head
+to heel, standing by him, Sir Bale was forcibly reminded of the great
+old macaw and the long and slender kite, whose colours they, after their
+fashion, reproduced, with something, also indescribable, of the air and
+character of the birds. Not standing on ceremony, the old fellow held up
+his own glass first, which the white lackey filled from the flask, and
+then he filled Sir Bale's glass.
+
+It was a large glass, and might have held about half a pint; and the
+liquor with which the servant filled it was something of the colour of
+an opal, and circles of purple and gold seemed to be spreading
+continually outward from the centre, and running inward from the rim,
+and crossing one another, so as to form a beautiful rippling net-work.
+
+"I drink to your better luck next time," said the old man, lifting his
+glass high, and winking with one eye, and leering knowingly with the
+other; "and you know what I mean."
+
+Sir Bale put the liquor to his lips. Wine? Whatever it was, never had he
+tasted so delicious a flavour. He drained it to the bottom, and placing
+it on the grass beside him, and looking again at the old dicer, who was
+also setting down his glass, he saw, for the first time, the graceful
+figure of a young woman seated on the grass. She was dressed in deep
+mourning, had a black hood carelessly over her head, and, strangely,
+wore a black mask, such as are used at masquerades. So much of her
+throat and chin as he could see were beautifully white; and there was a
+prettiness in her air and figure which made him think what a beautiful
+creature she in all likelihood was. She was reclining slightly against
+the burly man in bottle-green and gold, and her arm was round his neck,
+and her slender white hand showed itself over his shoulder.
+
+"Ho! my little Geaiette," cried the old fellow hoarsely; "it will be
+time that you and I should get home.--So, Bale Mardykes, I have nothing
+to object to you this time; you've crossed the lake, and you've played
+with me and won and lost, and drank your glass like a jolly companion,
+and now we know one another; and an acquaintance is made that will last.
+I'll let you go, and you'll come when I call for you. And now you'll
+want to know what horse will win next month at Rindermere
+races.--Whisper me, lass, and I'll tell him."
+
+So her lips, under the black curtain, crept close to his ear, and she
+whispered.
+
+"Ay, so it will;" roared the old man, gnashing his teeth; "it will be
+Rainbow, and now make your best speed out of the forest, or I'll set my
+black dogs after you, ho, ho, ho! and they may chance to pull you down.
+Away!"
+
+He cried this last order with a glare so black, and so savage a shake of
+his huge fist, that Sir Bale, merely making his general bow to the
+group, clapped his hat on his head, and hastily began his retreat; but
+the same discordant voice yelled after him:
+
+"You'll want that, you fool; pick it up." And there came hurtling after
+and beside him a great leather bag, stained, and stuffed with a heavy
+burden, and bounding by him it stopped with a little wheel that brought
+it exactly before his feet.
+
+He picked it up, and found it heavy.
+
+Turning about to make his acknowledgments, he saw the two persons in
+full retreat; the profane old scoundrel in the bottle-green limping and
+stumbling, yet bowling along at a wonderful rate, with many a jerk and
+reel, and the slender lady in black gliding away by his side into the
+inner depths of the forest.
+
+So Sir Bale, with a strange chill, and again in utter solitude, pursued
+his retreat, with his burden, at a swifter pace, and after an hour or
+so, had recovered the point where he had entered the forest, and passing
+by the druidic stone and the mighty oak, saw down the glen at his right,
+standing by the edge of the lake, Philip Feltram, close to the bow of
+the boat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Rindermere
+
+Feltram looked grim and agitated when Sir Bale came up to him, as he
+stood on the flat-stone by which the boat was moored.
+
+"You found him?" said he.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The lady in black was there?"
+
+"She was."
+
+"And you played with him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what is that in your hand?"
+
+"A bag of something, I fancy money; it is heavy; he threw it after me.
+We shall see just now; let us get away."
+
+"He gave you some of his wine to drink?" said Feltram, looking darkly in
+his face; but there was a laugh in his eyes.
+
+"Yes; of course I drank it; my object was to please him."
+
+"To be sure."
+
+The faint wind that carried them across the lake had quite subsided by
+the time they had reached the side where they now were.
+
+There was now not wind enough to fill the sail, and it was already
+evening.
+
+"Give me an oar; we can pull her over in little more than an hour," said
+Sir Bale; "only let us get away."
+
+He got into the boat, sat down, and placed the leather bag with its
+heavy freightage at his feet, and took an oar. Feltram loosed the rope
+and shoved the boat off; and taking his seat also, they began to pull
+together, without another word, until, in about ten minutes, they had
+got a considerable way off the Cloostedd shore.
+
+The leather bag was too clumsy a burden to conceal; besides, Feltram
+knew all about the transaction, and Sir Bale had no need to make a
+secret. The bag was old and soiled, and tied about the "neck" with a
+long leather thong, and it seemed to have been sealed with red wax,
+fragments of which were still sticking to it.
+
+He got it open, and found it full of guineas.
+
+"Halt!" cried Sir Bale, delighted, for he had half apprehended a trick
+upon his hopes; "gold it is, and a lot of it, by Jove!"
+
+Feltram did not seem to take the slightest interest in the matter.
+Sulkily and drowsily he was leaning with his elbow on his knee, and it
+seemed thinking of something far away. Sir Bale could not wait to count
+them any longer. He reckoned them on the bench, and found two thousand.
+
+It took some time; and when he had got them back into the leather bag,
+and tied them up again, Feltram, with a sudden start, said sharply,
+
+"Come, take your oar--unless you like the lake by night; and see, a wind
+will soon be up from Golden Friars!"
+
+He cast a wild look towards Mardykes Hall and Snakes Island, and
+applying himself to his oar, told Sir Bale to take his also; and nothing
+loath, the Baronet did so.
+
+It was slow work, for the boat was not built for speed; and by the time
+they had got about midway, the sun went down, and twilight and the
+melancholy flush of the sunset tints were upon the lake and fells.
+
+"Ho! here comes the breeze--up from Golden Friars," said Feltram; "we
+shall have enough to fill the sails now. If you don't fear spirits and
+Snakes Island, it is all the better for us it should blow from that
+point. If it blew from Mardykes now, it would be a stiff pull for you
+and me to get this tub home."
+
+Talking as if to himself, and laughing low, he adjusted the sail and
+took the tiller, and so, yielding to the rising breeze, the boat glided
+slowly toward still distant Mardykes Hall.
+
+The moon came out, and the shore grew misty, and the towering fells rose
+like sheeted giants; and leaning on the gunwale of the boat, Sir Bale,
+with the rush and gurgle of the water on the boat's side sounding
+faintly in his ear, thought of his day's adventure, which seemed to him
+like a dream--incredible but for the heavy bag that lay between his
+feet.
+
+As they passed Snakes Island, a little mist, like a fragment of a fog,
+seemed to drift with them, and Sir Bale fancied that whenever it came
+near the boat's side she made a dip, as if strained toward the water;
+and Feltram always put out his hand, as if waving it from him, and the
+mist seemed to obey the gesture; but returned again and again, and the
+same thing always happened.
+
+It was three weeks after, that Sir Bale, sitting up in his bed, very
+pale and wan, with his silk night-cap nodding on one side, and his thin
+hand extended on the coverlet, where the doctor had been feeling his
+pulse, in his darkened room, related all the wonders of this day to
+Doctor Torvey. The doctor had attended him through a fever which
+followed immediately upon his visit to Cloostedd.
+
+"And, my dear sir, by Jupiter, can you really believe all that delirium
+to be sober fact?" said the doctor, sitting by the bedside, and actually
+laughing.
+
+"I can't help believing it, because I can't distinguish in any way
+between all that and everything else that actually happened, and which I
+must believe. And, except that this is more wonderful, I can find no
+reason to reject it, that does not as well apply to all the rest."
+
+"Come, come, my dear sir, this will never do--nothing is more common.
+These illusions accompanying fever frequently antedate the attack, and
+the man is actually raving before he knows he is ill."
+
+"But what do you make of that bag of gold?"
+
+"Some one has lent it. You had better ask all about it of Feltram when
+you can see him; for in speaking to me he seemed to know all about it,
+and certainly did not seem to think the matter at all out of the
+commonplace. It is just like that fisherman's story, about the hand that
+drew Feltram into the water on the night that he was nearly drowned.
+Every one can see what that was. Why of course it was simply the
+reflection of his own hand in the water, in that vivid lightning. When
+you have been out a little and have gained strength you will shake off
+these dreams."
+
+"I should not wonder," said Sir Bale.
+
+It is not to be supposed that Sir Bale reported all that was in his
+memory respecting his strange vision, if such it was, at Cloostedd. He
+made a selection of the incidents, and threw over the whole adventure an
+entirely accidental character, and described the money which the old man
+had thrown to him as amounting to a purse of five guineas, and mentioned
+nothing of the passages which bore on the coming race.
+
+Good Doctor Torvey, therefore, reported only that Sir Bale's delirium
+had left two or three illusions sticking in his memory.
+
+But if they were illusions, they survived the event of his recovery, and
+remained impressed on his memory with the sharpness of very recent and
+accurately observed fact.
+
+He was resolved on going to the races of Rindermere, where, having in
+his possession so weighty a guarantee as the leather purse, he was
+determined to stake it all boldly on Rainbow--against which horse he was
+glad to hear there were very heavy odds.
+
+The race came off. One horse was scratched, another bolted, the rider of
+a third turned out to have lost a buckle and three half-pence and so was
+an ounce and a half under weight, a fourth knocked down the post near
+Rinderness churchyard, and was held to have done it with his left
+instead of his right knee, and so had run at the wrong side. The result
+was that Rainbow came in first, and I should be afraid to say how much
+Sir Bale won. It was a sum that paid off a heavy debt, and left his
+affairs in a much more manageable state.
+
+From this time Sir Bale prospered. He visited Cloostedd no more; but
+Feltram often crossed to that lonely shore as heretofore, and it is
+believed conveyed to him messages which guided his betting. One thing is
+certain, his luck never deserted him. His debts disappeared; and his
+love of continental life seemed to have departed. He became content with
+Mardykes Hall, laid out money on it, and although he never again cared
+to cross the lake, he seemed to like the scenery.
+
+In some respects, however, he lived exactly the same odd and unpopular
+life. He saw no one at Mardykes Hall. He practised a very strict
+reserve. The neighbours laughed at and disliked him, and he was voted,
+whenever any accidental contact arose, a very disagreeable man; and he
+had a shrewd and ready sarcasm that made them afraid of him, and himself
+more disliked.
+
+Odd rumours prevailed about his household. It was said that his old
+relations with Philip Feltram had become reversed; and that he was as
+meek as a mouse, and Feltram the bully now. It was also said that Mrs.
+Julaper had one Sunday evening when she drank tea at the Vicar's, told
+his good lady very mysteriously, and with many charges of secrecy, that
+Sir Bale was none the better of his late-found wealth; that he had a
+load upon his spirits, that he was afraid of Feltram, and so was every
+one else, more or less, in the house; that he was either mad or worse;
+and that it was an eerie dwelling, and strange company, and she should
+be glad herself of a change.
+
+Good Mrs. Bedel told her friend Mrs. Torvey; and all Golden Friars heard
+all this, and a good deal more, in an incredibly short time.
+
+All kinds of rumours now prevailed in Golden Friars, connecting Sir
+Bale's successes on the turf with some mysterious doings in Cloostedd
+Forest. Philip Feltram laughed when he heard these stories--especially
+when he heard the story that a supernatural personage had lent the
+Baronet a purse full of money.
+
+"You should not talk to Doctor Torvey so, sir," said he grimly; "he's
+the greatest tattler in the town. It was old Farmer Trebeck, who could
+buy and sell us all down here, who lent that money. Partly from
+good-will, but not without acknowledgment. He has my hand for the first,
+not worth much, and yours to a bond for the two thousand guineas you
+brought home with you. It seems strange you should not remember that
+venerable and kind old farmer whom you talked with so long that day. His
+grandson, who expects to stand well in his will, being a trainer in Lord
+Varney's stables, has sometimes a tip to give, and he is the source of
+your information."
+
+"By Jove, I must be a bit mad, then, that's all," said Sir Bale, with a
+smile and a shrug.
+
+Philip Feltram moped about the house, and did precisely what he pleased.
+The change which had taken place in him became more and more pronounced.
+Dark and stern he always looked, and often malignant. He was like a man
+possessed of one evil thought which never left him.
+
+There was, besides, the good old Gothic superstition of a bargain or
+sale of the Baronet's soul to the arch-fiend. This was, of course, very
+cautiously whispered in a place where he had influence. It was only a
+coarser and directer version of a suspicion, that in a more credulous
+generation penetrated a level of society quite exempt from such follies
+in our day.
+
+One evening at dusk, Sir Bale, sitting after his dinner in his window,
+saw the tall figure of Feltram, like a dark streak, standing movelessly
+by the lake. An unpleasant feeling moved him, and then an impatience. He
+got up, and having primed himself with two glasses of brandy, walked
+down to the edge of the lake, and placed himself beside Feltram.
+
+"Looking down from the window," said he, nerved with his Dutch courage,
+"and seeing you standing like a post, do you know what I began to think
+of?"
+
+Feltram looked at him, but answered nothing.
+
+"I began to think of taking a wife--_marrying_."
+
+Feltram nodded. The announcement had not produced the least effect.
+
+"Why the devil will you make me so uncomfortable! Can't you be like
+yourself--what you _were_, I mean? I won't go on living here alone with
+you. I'll take a wife, I tell you. I'll choose a good church-going
+woman, that will have every man, woman, and child in the house on their
+marrow-bones twice a day, morning and evening, and three times on
+Sundays. How will you like that?"
+
+"Yes, you will be married," said Feltram, with a quiet decision which
+chilled Sir Bale, for he had by no means made up his mind to that
+desperate step.
+
+Feltram slowly walked away, and that conversation ended.
+
+Now an odd thing happened about this time. There was a family of
+Feltram--county genealogists could show how related to the vanished
+family of Cloostedd--living at that time on their estate not far from
+Carlisle. Three co-heiresses now represented it. They were great
+beauties--the belles of their county in their day.
+
+One was married to Sir Oliver Haworth of Haworth, a great family in
+those times. He was a knight of the shire, and had refused a baronetage,
+and, it was said, had his eye on a peerage. The other sister was married
+to Sir William Walsingham, a wealthy baronet; and the third and
+youngest, Miss Janet, was still unmarried, and at home at Cloudesly
+Hall, where her aunt, Lady Harbottle, lived with her, and made a
+dignified chaperon.
+
+Now it so fell out that Sir Bale, having business at Carlisle, and
+knowing old Lady Harbottle, paid his respects at Cloudesly Hall; and
+being no less than five-and-forty years of age, was for the first time
+in his life, seriously in love.
+
+Miss Janet was extremely pretty--a fair beauty with brilliant red lips
+and large blue eyes, and ever so many pretty dimples when she talked and
+smiled. It was odd, but not perhaps against the course of nature, that a
+man, though so old as he, and quite _blasé_, should fall at last under
+that fascination.
+
+But what are we to say of the strange infatuation of the young lady? No
+one could tell why she liked him. It was a craze. Her family were
+against it, her intimates, her old nurse--all would not do; and the
+oddest thing was, that he seemed to take no pains to please her. The end
+of this strange courtship was that he married her; and she came home to
+Mardykes Hall, determined to please everybody, and to be the happiest
+woman in England.
+
+With her came a female cousin, a good deal her senior, past
+thirty--Gertrude Mainyard, pale and sad, but very gentle, and with all
+the prettiness that can belong to her years.
+
+This young lady has a romance. Her hero is far away in India; and she,
+content to await his uncertain return with means to accomplish the hope
+of their lives, in that frail chance has long embarked all the purpose
+and love of her life.
+
+When Lady Mardykes came home, a new leaf was, as the phrase is, turned
+over. The neighbours and all the country people were willing to give the
+Hall a new trial. There was visiting and returning of visits; and young
+Lady Mardykes was liked and admired. It could not indeed have been
+otherwise. But here the improvement in the relations of Mardykes Hall
+with other homes ceased. On one excuse or another Sir Bale postponed or
+evaded the hospitalities which establish intimacies. Some people said he
+was jealous of his young and beautiful wife. But for the most part his
+reserve was set down to the old inhospitable cause, some ungenial defect
+in his character; and in a little time the tramp of horses and roll of
+carriage-wheels were seldom heard up or down the broad avenue of
+Mardykes Hall.
+
+Sir Bale liked this seclusion; and his wife, "so infatuated with her
+idolatry of that graceless old man," as surrounding young ladies said,
+that she was well content to forego the society of the county people for
+a less interrupted enjoyment of that of her husband. "What she could see
+in him" to interest or amuse her so, that for his sake she was willing
+to be "buried alive in that lonely place," the same critics were
+perpetually wondering.
+
+A year and more passed thus; for the young wife, happily--_very_ happily
+indeed, had it not been for one topic on which she and her husband could
+not agree. This was Philip Feltram; and an odd quarrel it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Sir Bale is Frightened
+
+To Feltram she had conceived, at first sight, a horror. It was not a
+mere antipathy; fear mingled largely in it. Although she did not see him
+often, this restless dread grew upon her so, that she urged his
+dismissal upon Sir Bale, offering to provide, herself, for him a
+handsome annuity, charged on that part of her property which, by her
+marriage settlement, had remained in her power. There was a time when
+Sir Bale was only too anxious to get rid of him. But that was changed
+now. Nothing could now induce the Baronet to part with him. He at first
+evaded and resisted quietly. But, urged with a perseverance to which he
+was unused, he at last broke into fury that appalled her, and swore that
+if he was worried more upon the subject, he would leave her and the
+country, and see neither again. This exhibition of violence affrighted
+her all the more by reason of the contrast; for up to this he had been
+an uxorious husband. Lady Mardykes was in hysterics, and thoroughly
+frightened, and remained in her room for two or three days. Sir Bale
+went up to London about business, and was not home for more than a week.
+This was the first little squall that disturbed the serenity of their
+sky.
+
+This point, therefore, was settled; but soon there came other things to
+sadden Lady Mardykes. There occurred a little incident, soon after Sir
+Bale's return from London, which recalled the topic on which they had so
+nearly quarrelled.
+
+Sir Bale had a dressing-room, remote from the bedrooms, in which he sat
+and read and sometimes smoked. One night, after the house was all quiet,
+the Baronet being still up, the bell of this dressing-room rang long and
+furiously. It was such a peal as a person in extreme terror might ring.
+Lady Mardykes, with her maid in her room, heard it; and in great alarm
+she ran in her dressing-gown down the gallery to Sir Bale's room.
+Mallard the butler had already arrived, and was striving to force the
+door, which was secured. It gave way just as she reached it, and she
+rushed through.
+
+Sir Bale was standing with the bell-rope in his hand, in the extremest
+agitation, looking like a ghost; and Philip Feltram was sitting in his
+chair, with a dark smile fixed upon him. For a minute she thought he had
+attempted to assassinate his master. She could not otherwise account for
+the scene.
+
+There had been nothing of the kind, however; as her husband assured her
+again and again, as she lay sobbing on his breast, with her arms about
+his neck.
+
+"To her dying hour," she afterwards said to her cousin, "she never could
+forget the dreadful look in Feltram's face."
+
+No explanation of that scene did she ever obtain from Sir Bale, nor any
+clue to the cause of the agony that was so powerfully expressed in his
+countenance. Thus much only she learned from him, that Feltram had
+sought that interview for the purpose of announcing his departure, which
+was to take place within the year.
+
+"You are not sorry to hear that. But if you knew all, you might. Let the
+curse fly where it may, it will come back to roost. So, darling, let us
+discuss him no more. Your wish is granted, _dis iratis_."
+
+Some crisis, during this interview, seemed to have occurred in the
+relations between Sir Bale and Feltram. Henceforward they seldom
+exchanged a word; and when they did speak, it was coldly and shortly,
+like men who were nearly strangers.
+
+One day in the courtyard, Sir Bale seeing Feltram leaning upon the
+parapet that overlooks the lake, approached him, and said in a low tone,
+
+"I've been thinking if we--that is, I--do owe that money to old Trebeck,
+it is high time I should pay it. I was ill, and had lost my head at the
+time; but it turned out luckily, and it ought to be paid. I don't like
+the idea of a bond turning up, and a lot of interest."
+
+"The old fellow meant it for a present. He is richer than you are; he
+wished to give the family a lift. He has destroyed the bond, I believe,
+and in no case will he take payment."
+
+"No fellow has a right to force his money on another," answered Sir
+Bale. "I never asked him. Besides, as you know, I was not really myself,
+and the whole thing seems to me quite different from what you say it
+was; and, so far as my brain is concerned, it was all a phantasmagoria;
+but, you say, it was he."
+
+"Every man is accountable for what he intends and for what he _thinks_
+he does," said Feltram cynically.
+
+"Well, I'm accountable for dealing with that wicked old dicer I
+_thought_ I saw--isn't that it? But I must pay old Trebeck all the same,
+since the money was his. Can you manage a meeting?"
+
+"Look down here. Old Trebeck has just landed; he will sleep to-night at
+the George and Dragon, to meet his cattle in the morning at Golden
+Friars fair. You can speak to him yourself."
+
+So saying Feltram glided away, leaving Sir Bale the task of opening the
+matter to the wealthy farmer of Cloostedd Fells.
+
+A broad night of steps leads down from the courtyard to the level of the
+jetty at the lake: and Sir Bale descended, and accosted the venerable
+farmer, who was bluff, honest, and as frank as a man can be who speaks a
+_patois_ which hardly a living man but himself can understand.
+
+Sir Bale asked him to come to the Hall and take luncheon; but Trebeck
+was in haste. Cattle had arrived which he wanted to look at, and a pony
+awaited him on the road, hard by, to Golden Friars; and the old fellow
+must mount and away.
+
+Then Sir Bale, laying his hand upon his arm in a manner that was at once
+lofty and affectionate, told in his ears the subject on which he wished
+to be understood.
+
+The old farmer looked hard at him, and shook his head and laughed in a
+way that would have been insupportable in a house, and told him, "I hev
+narra bond o' thoine, mon."
+
+"I know how that is; so does Philip Feltram."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I must replace the money."
+
+The old man laughed again, and in his outlandish dialect told him to
+wait till he asked him. Sir Bale pressed it, but the old fellow put it
+off with outlandish banter; and as the Baronet grew testy, the farmer
+only waxed more and more hilarious, and at last, mounting his shaggy
+pony, rode off, still laughing, at a canter to Golden Friars; and when
+he reached Golden Friars, and got into the hall of the George and
+Dragon, he asked Richard Turnbull with a chuckle if he ever knew a man
+refuse an offer of money, or a man want to pay who did not owe; and
+inquired whether the Squire down at Mardykes Hall mightn't be a bit
+"wrang in t' garrets." All this, however, other people said, was
+intended merely to conceal the fact that he really had, through sheer
+loyalty, lent the money, or rather bestowed it, thinking the old family
+in jeopardy, and meaning a gift, was determined to hear no more about
+it. I can't say; I only know people held, some by one interpretation,
+some by another.
+
+As the caterpillar sickens and changes its hue when it is about to
+undergo its transformation, so an odd change took place in Feltram. He
+grew even more silent and morose; he seemed always in an agitation and a
+secret rage. He used to walk through the woodlands on the slopes of the
+fells above Mardykes, muttering to himself, picking up the rotten sticks
+with which the ground was strewn, breaking them in his hands, and
+hurling them from him, and stamping on the earth as he paced up and
+down.
+
+One night a thunder-storm came on, the wind blowing gently up from
+Golden Friars. It was a night black as pitch, illuminated only by the
+intermittent glare of the lightning. At the foot of the stairs Sir Bale
+met Feltram, whom he had not seen for some days. He had his cloak and
+hat on.
+
+"I am going to Cloostedd to-night," he said, "and if all is as I expect,
+I sha'n't return. We remember all, you and I." And he nodded and walked
+down the passage.
+
+Sir Bale knew that a crisis had happened in his own life. He felt faint
+and ill, and returned to the room where he had been sitting. Throughout
+that melancholy night he did not go to his bed.
+
+In the morning he learned that Marlin, who had been out late, saw
+Feltram get the boat off, and sail towards the other side. The night was
+so dark that he could only see him start; but the wind was light and
+coming up the lake, so that without a tack he could easily make the
+other side. Feltram did not return. The boat was found fast to the ring
+at Cloostedd landing-place.
+
+Lady Mardykes was relieved, and for a time was happier than ever. It was
+different with Sir Bale; and afterwards her sky grew dark also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+A Lady in Black
+
+Shortly after this, there arrived at the George and Dragon a stranger.
+He was a man somewhat past forty, embrowned by distant travel, and, his
+years considered, wonderfully good-looking. He had good eyes; his
+dark-brown hair had no sprinkling of gray in it; and his kindly smile
+showed very white and even teeth. He made inquiries about neighbours,
+especially respecting Mardykes Hall; and the answers seemed to interest
+him profoundly. He inquired after Philip Feltram, and shed tears when he
+heard that he was no longer at Mardykes Hall, and that Trebeck or other
+friends could give him no tidings of him.
+
+And then he asked Richard Turnbull to show him to a quiet room; and so,
+taking the honest fellow by the hand, he said,
+
+"Mr. Turnbull, don't you know me?"
+
+"No, sir," said the host of the George and Dragon, after a puzzled
+stare, "I can't say I do, sir."
+
+The stranger smiled a little sadly, and shook his head: and with a
+gentle laugh, still holding his hand in a very friendly way, he said, "I
+should have known you anywhere, Mr. Turnbull--anywhere on earth or
+water. Had you turned up on the Himalayas, or in a junk on the Canton
+river, or as a dervish in the mosque of St. Sophia, I should have
+recognised my old friend, and asked what news from Golden Friars. But of
+course I'm changed. You were a little my senior; and one advantage among
+many you have over your juniors is that you don't change as we do. I
+have played many a game of hand-ball in the inn-yard of the George, Mr.
+Turnbull. You often wagered a pot of ale on my play; you used to say I'd
+make the best player of fives, and the best singer of a song, within ten
+miles round the meer. You used to have me behind the bar when I was a
+boy, with more of an appetite than I have now. I was then at Mardykes
+Hall, and used to go back in old Marlin's boat. Is old Marlin still
+alive?"
+
+"Ay, that--he--is," said Turnbull slowly, as he eyed the stranger again
+carefully. "I don't know who you can be, sir, unless you are--the
+boy--William Feltram. La! he was seven or eight years younger than
+Philip. But, lawk!--Well--By Jen, and _be_ you Willie Feltram? But no,
+you can't!"
+
+"Ay, Mr. Turnbull, that very boy--Willie Feltram--even he, and no other;
+and now you'll shake hands with me, not so formally, but like an old
+friend."
+
+"Ay, that I will," said honest Richard Turnbull, with a great smile, and
+a hearty grasp of his guest's hand; and they both laughed together, and
+the younger man's eyes, for he was an affectionate fool, filled up with
+tears.
+
+"And I want you to tell me this," said William, after they had talked a
+little quietly, "now that there is no one to interrupt us, what has
+become of my brother Philip? I heard from a friend an account of his
+health that has caused me unspeakable anxiety."
+
+"His health was not bad; no, he was a hardy lad, and liked a walk over
+the fells, or a pull on the lake; but he was a bit daft, every one said,
+and a changed man; and, in troth, they say the air o' Mardykes don't
+agree with every one, no more than him. But that's a tale that's neither
+here nor there."
+
+"Yes," said William, "that was what they told me--his mind affected. God
+help and guard us! I have been unhappy ever since; and if I only knew it
+was well with poor Philip, I think I should be too happy. And where is
+Philip now?"
+
+"He crossed the lake one night, having took leave of Sir Bale. They
+thought he was going to old Trebeck's up the Fells. He likes the
+Feltrams, and likes the folk at Mardykes Hall--though those two families
+was not always o'er kind to one another. But Trebeck seed nowt o' him,
+nor no one else; and what has gone wi' him no one can tell."
+
+"_I_ heard that also," said William with a deep sigh. "But _I_ hoped it
+had been cleared up by now, and something happier been known of the poor
+fellow by this time. I'd give a great deal to know--I don't know what I
+_would_ not give to know--I'm so unhappy about him. And now, my good old
+friend, tell your people to get me a chaise, for I must go to Mardykes
+Hall; and, first, let me have a room to dress in."
+
+At Mardykes Hall a pale and pretty lady was looking out, alone, from the
+stone-shafted drawing-room window across the courtyard and the
+balustrade, on which stood many a great stone cup with flowers, whose
+leaves were half shed and gone with the winds--emblem of her hopes. The
+solemn melancholy of the towering fells, the ripple of the lonely lake,
+deepened her sadness.
+
+The unwonted sound of carriage-wheels awoke her from her reverie.
+
+Before the chaise reached the steps, a hand from its window had seized
+the handle, the door was thrown open, and William Feltram jumped out.
+
+She was in the hall, she knew not how; and, with a wild scream and a
+sob, she threw herself into his arms.
+
+Here at last was an end of the long waiting, the dejection which had
+reached almost the point of despair. And like two rescued from
+shipwreck, they clung together in an agony of happiness.
+
+William had come back with no very splendid fortune. It was enough, and
+only enough, to enable them to marry. Prudent people would have thought
+it, very likely, too little. But he was now home in England, with health
+unimpaired by his long sojourn in the East, and with intelligence and
+energies improved by the discipline of his arduous struggle with
+fortune. He reckoned, therefore, upon one way or other adding something
+to their income; and he knew that a few hundreds a year would make them
+happier than hundreds of thousand could other people.
+
+It was five years since they had parted in France, where a journey of
+importance to the Indian firm, whose right hand he was, had brought him.
+
+The refined tastes that are supposed to accompany gentle blood, his love
+of art, his talent for music and drawing, had accidentally attracted the
+attention of the little travelling-party which old Lady Harbottle
+chaperoned. Miss Janet, now Lady Mardykes, learning that his name was
+Feltram, made inquiry through a common friend, and learned what
+interested her still more about him. It ended in an acquaintance, which
+his manly and gentle nature and his entertaining qualities soon improved
+into an intimacy.
+
+Feltram had chosen to work his own way, being proud, and also prosperous
+enough to prevent his pride, in this respect, from being placed under
+too severe a pressure of temptation. He heard not from but of his
+brother, through a friend in London, and more lately from Gertrude,
+whose account of him was sad and even alarming.
+
+When Lady Mardykes came in, her delight knew no bounds. She had already
+formed a plan for their future, and was not to be put off--William
+Feltram was to take the great grazing farm that belonged to the Mardykes
+estate; or, if he preferred it, to farm it for her, sharing the profits.
+She wanted something to interest her, and this was just the thing. It
+was hardly half-a-mile away, up the lake, and there was such a
+comfortable house and garden, and she and Gertrude could be as much
+together as ever almost; and, in fact, Gertrude and her husband could be
+nearly always at Mardykes Hall.
+
+So eager and entreating was she, that there was no escape. The plan was
+adopted immediately on their marriage, and no happier neighbours for a
+time were ever known.
+
+But was Lady Mardykes content? was she even exempt from the heartache
+which each mortal thinks he has all to himself? The longing of her life
+was for children; and again and again had her hopes been disappointed.
+
+One tiny pretty little baby indeed was born, and lived for two years,
+and then died; and none had come to supply its place and break the
+childless silence in the great old nursery. That was her sorrow; a
+greater one than men can understand.
+
+Another source of grief was this: that Sir Bale Mardykes conceived a
+dislike to William Feltram that was unaccountable. At first suppressed,
+it betrayed itself negatively only; but with time it increased; and in
+the end the Baronet made little secret of his wish to get rid of him.
+Many and ingenious were the annoyances he contrived; and at last he told
+his wife plainly that he wished William Feltram to find some other abode
+for himself.
+
+Lady Mardykes pleaded earnestly, and even with tears; for if Gertrude
+were to leave the neighbourhood, she well knew how utterly solitary her
+own life would become.
+
+Sir Bale at last vouchsafed some little light as to his motives. There
+was an old story, he told her, that his estate would go to a Feltram. He
+had an instinctive distrust of that family. It was a feeling not given
+him for nothing; it might be the means of defeating their plotting and
+strategy. Old Trebeck, he fancied, had a finger in it. Philip Feltram
+had told him that Mardykes was to pass away to a Feltram. Well, they
+might conspire; but he would take what care he could that the estate
+should not be stolen from his family. He did not want his wife stript of
+her jointure, or his children, if he had any, left without bread.
+
+All this sounded very like madness; but the idea was propounded by
+Philip Feltram. His own jealousy was at bottom founded on superstition
+which he would not avow and could hardly define. He bitterly blamed
+himself for having permitted William Feltram to place himself where he
+was.
+
+In the midst of these annoyances William Feltram was seriously thinking
+of throwing up the farm, and seeking similar occupation somewhere else.
+
+One day, walking alone in the thick wood that skirts the lake near his
+farm, he was discussing this problem with himself; and every now and
+then he repeated his question, "Shall I throw it up, and give him the
+lease back if he likes?" On a sudden he heard a voice near him say:
+
+"Hold it, you fool!--hold hard, you fool!--hold it, you fool!"
+
+The situation being lonely, he was utterly puzzled to account for the
+interruption, until on a sudden a huge parrot, green, crimson, and
+yellow, plunged from among the boughs over his head to the ground, and
+partly flying, and partly hopping and tumbling along, got lamely, but
+swiftly, out of sight among the thick underwood; and he could neither
+start it nor hear it any more. The interruption reminded him of that
+which befel Robinson Crusoe. It was more singular, however; for he owned
+no such bird; and its strangeness impressed the omen all the more.
+
+He related it when he got home to his wife; and as people when living a
+solitary life, and also suffering, are prone to superstition, she did
+not laugh at the adventure, as in a healthier state of spirits, I
+suppose, she would.
+
+They continued, however, to discuss the question together; and all the
+more industriously as a farm of the same kind, only some fifteen miles
+away, was now offered to all bidders, under another landlord. Gertrude,
+who felt Sir Bale's unkindness all the more that she was a distant
+cousin of his, as it had proved on comparing notes, was very strong in
+favour of the change, and had been urging it with true feminine
+ingenuity and persistence upon her husband. A very singular dream rather
+damped her ardour, however, and it appeared thus:
+
+She had gone to her bed full of this subject; and she thought, although
+she could not remember having done so, had fallen asleep. She was still
+thinking, as she had been all the day, about leaving the farm. It seemed
+to her that she was quite awake, and a candle burning all the time in
+the room, awaiting the return of her husband, who was away at the fair
+near Haworth; she saw the interior of the room distinctly. It was a
+sultry night, and a little bit of the window was raised. A very slight
+sound in that direction attracted her attention; and to her surprise she
+saw a jay hop upon the window-sill, and into the room.
+
+Up sat Gertrude, surprised and a little startled at the visit of so
+large a bird, without presence of mind for the moment even to frighten
+it away, and staring at it, as they say, with all her eyes. A sofa stood
+at the foot of the bed; and under this the bird swiftly hopped. She
+extended her hand now to take the bell-rope at the left side of the bed,
+and in doing so displaced the curtains, which were open only at the
+foot. She was amazed there to see a lady dressed entirely in black, and
+with the old-fashioned hood over her head. She was young and pretty, and
+looked kindly at her, but with now and then a slight contraction of lips
+and eyebrows that indicates pain. This little twitching was momentary,
+and recurred, it seemed, about once or twice in a minute.
+
+How it was that she was not frightened on seeing this lady, standing
+like an old friend at her bedside, she could not afterwards understand.
+Some influence besides the kindness of her look prevented any sensation
+of terror at the time. With a very white hand the young lady in black
+held a white handkerchief pressed to her bosom at the top of her bodice.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Gertrude.
+
+"I am a kinswoman, although you don't know me; and I have come to tell
+you that you must not leave Faxwell" (the name of the place) "or Janet.
+If you go, I will go with you; and I can make you fear me."
+
+Her voice was very distinct, but also very faint, with something
+undulatory in it, that seemed to enter Gertrude's head rather than her
+ear.
+
+Saying this she smiled horribly, and, lifting her handkerchief,
+disclosed for a moment a great wound in her breast, deep in which
+Gertrude saw darkly the head of a snake writhing.
+
+Hereupon she uttered a wild scream of terror, and, diving under the
+bed-clothes, remained more dead than alive there, until her maid,
+alarmed by her cry, came in, and having searched the room, and shut the
+window at her desire, did all in her power to comfort her.
+
+If this was a nightmare and embodied only by a form of expression which
+in some states belongs to the imagination, a leading idea in the
+controversy in which her mind had long been employed, it had at least
+the effect of deciding her against leaving Faxwell. And so that point
+was settled; and unpleasant relations continued between the tenants of
+the farm and the master of Mardykes Hall.
+
+To Lady Mardykes all this was very painful, although Sir Bale did not
+insist upon making a separation between his wife and her cousin. But to
+Mardykes Hall that cousin came no more. Even Lady Mardykes thought it
+better to see her at Faxwell than to risk a meeting in the temper in
+which Sir Bale then was. And thus several years passed.
+
+No tidings of Philip Feltram were heard; and, in fact, none ever reached
+that part of the world; and if it had not been highly improbable that he
+could have drowned himself in the lake without his body sooner or later
+having risen to the surface, it would have been concluded that he had
+either accidentally or by design made away with himself in its waters.
+
+Over Mardykes Hall there was a gloom--no sound of children's voices was
+heard there, and even the hope of that merry advent had died out.
+
+This disappointment had no doubt helped to fix in Sir Bale's mind the
+idea of the insecurity of his property, and the morbid fancy that
+William Feltram and old Trebeck were conspiring to seize it; than which,
+I need hardly say, no imagination more insane could have fixed itself in
+his mind.
+
+In other things, however, Sir Bale was shrewd and sharp, a clear and
+rapid man of business, and although this was a strange whim, it was not
+so unnatural in a man who was by nature so prone to suspicion as Sir
+Bale Mardykes.
+
+During the years, now seven, that had elapsed since the marriage of Sir
+Bale and Miss Janet Feltram, there had happened but one event, except
+the death of their only child, to place them in mourning. That was the
+decease of Sir William Walsingham, the husband of Lady Mardykes' sister.
+She now lived in a handsome old dower-house at Islington, and being
+wealthy, made now and then an excursion to Mardykes Hall, in which she
+was sometimes accompanied by her sister Lady Haworth. Sir Oliver being a
+Parliament-man was much in London and deep in politics and intrigue, and
+subject, as convivial rogues are, to occasional hard hits from gout.
+
+But change and separation had made no alteration in these ladies' mutual
+affections, and no three sisters were ever more attached.
+
+Was Lady Mardykes happy with her lord? A woman so gentle and loving as
+she, is a happy wife with any husband who is not an absolute brute.
+There must have been, I suppose, some good about Sir Bale. His wife was
+certainly deeply attached to him. She admired his wisdom, and feared his
+inflexible will, and altogether made of him a domestic idol. To acquire
+this enviable position, I suspect there must be something not
+essentially disagreeable about a man. At all events, what her neighbours
+good-naturedly termed her infatuation continued, and indeed rather
+improved by time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+An Old Portrait
+
+Sir Bale--whom some remembered a gay and convivial man, not to say a
+profligate one--had grown to be a very gloomy man indeed. There was
+something weighing upon his mind; and I daresay some of the good gossips
+of Golden Friars, had there been any materials for such a case, would
+have believed that Sir Bale had murdered Philip Feltram, and was now the
+victim of the worm and fire of remorse.
+
+The gloom of the master of the house made his very servants gloomy, and
+the house itself looked sombre, as if it had been startled with strange
+and dismal sights.
+
+Lady Mardykes was something of an artist. She had lighted lately, in an
+out-of-the-way room, upon a dozen or more old portraits. Several of
+these were full-lengths; and she was--with the help of her maid, both in
+long aprons, amid sponges and basins, soft handkerchiefs and
+varnish-pots and brushes--busy in removing the dust and smoke-stains,
+and in laying-on the varnish, which brought out the colouring, and made
+the transparent shadows yield up their long-buried treasures of finished
+detail.
+
+Against the wall stood a full-length portrait as Sir Bale entered the
+room; having for a wonder, a word to say to his wife.
+
+"O," said the pretty lady, turning to him in her apron, and with her
+brush in her hand, "we are in such in pickle, Munnings and I have been
+cleaning these old pictures. Mrs. Julaper says they are the pictures
+that came from Cloostedd Hall long ago. They were buried in dust in the
+dark room in the clock-tower. Here is such a characteristic one. It has
+a long powdered wig--George the First or Second, I don't know which--and
+such a combination of colours, and such a face. It seems starting out of
+the canvas, and all but speaks. Do look; that is, I mean, Bale, if you
+can spare time."
+
+Sir Bale abstractedly drew near, and looked over his wife's shoulder on
+the full-length portrait that stood before him; and as he did so a
+strange expression for a moment passed over his face.
+
+The picture represented a man of swarthy countenance, with signs of the
+bottle glowing through the dark skin; small fierce pig eyes, a rather
+flat pendulous nose, and a grim forbidding mouth, with a large wart a
+little above it. On the head hung one of those full-bottomed powdered
+wigs that look like a cloud of cotton-wadding; a lace cravat was about
+his neck; he wore short black-velvet breeches with stockings rolled over
+them, a bottle-green coat of cut velvet and a crimson waistcoat with
+long flaps; coat and waistcoat both heavily laced with gold. He wore a
+sword, and leaned upon a crutch-handled cane, and his figure and aspect
+indicated a swollen and gouty state. He could not be far from sixty.
+There was uncommon force in this fierce and forbidding-looking portrait.
+Lady Mardykes said, "What wonderful dresses they wore! How like a fine
+magic-lantern figure he looks! What gorgeous colouring! it looks like
+the plumage of a mackaw; and what a claw his hand is! and that huge
+broken beak of a nose! Isn't he like a wicked old mackaw?"
+
+"Where did you find that?" asked Sir Bale.
+
+Surprised at his tone, she looked round, and was still more surprised at
+his looks.
+
+"I told you, dear Bale, I found them in the clock-tower. I hope I did
+right; it was not wrong bringing them here? I ought to have asked. Are
+you vexed, Bale?"
+
+"Vexed! not I. I only wish it was in the fire. I must have seen that
+picture when I was a child. I hate to look at it. I raved about it once,
+when I was ill. I don't know who it is; I don't remember when I saw it.
+I wish you'd tell them to burn it."
+
+"It is one of the Feltrams," she answered. "'Sir Hugh Feltram' is on the
+frame at the foot; and old Mrs. Julaper says he was the father of the
+unhappy lady who was said to have been drowned near Snakes Island."
+
+"Well, suppose he is; there's nothing interesting in that. It is a
+disgusting picture. I connect it with my illness; and I think it is the
+kind of thing that would make any one half mad, if they only looked at
+it often enough. Tell them to burn it; and come away, come to the next
+room; I can't say what I want here."
+
+Sir Bale seemed to grow more and more agitated the longer he remained in
+the room. He seemed to her both frightened and furious; and taking her a
+little roughly by the wrist, he led her through the door.
+
+When they were in another apartment alone, he again asked the affrighted
+lady who had told her that picture was there, and who told her to clean
+it.
+
+She had only the truth to plead. It was, from beginning to end, the
+merest accident.
+
+"If I thought, Janet, that you were taking counsel of others, talking me
+over, and trying clever experiments--" he stopped short with his eyes
+fixed on hers with black suspicion.
+
+His wife's answer was one pleading look, and to burst into tears.
+
+Sir Bale let-go her wrist, which he had held up to this; and placing his
+hand gently on her shoulder, he said,
+
+"You must not cry, Janet; I have given you no excuse for tears. I only
+wished an answer to a very harmless question; and I am sure you would
+tell me, if by any chance you have lately seen Philip Feltram; he is
+capable of arranging all that. No one knows him as I do. There, you must
+not cry any more; but tell me truly, has he turned up? is he at
+Faxwell?"
+
+She denied all this with perfect truth; and after a hesitation of some
+time, the matter ended. And as soon as she and he were more themselves,
+he had something quite different to tell her.
+
+"Sit down, Janet; sit down, and forget that vile picture and all I have
+been saying. What I came to tell you, I think you will like; I am sure
+it will please you."
+
+And with this little preface he placed his arm about her neck, and
+kissed her tenderly. She certainly was pleased; and when his little
+speech was over, she, smiling, with her tears still wet upon her cheeks,
+put her arms round her husband's neck, and in turn kissed him with the
+ardour of gratitude, kissed him affectionately; again and again thanking
+him all the time.
+
+It was no great matter, but from Sir Bale Mardykes it was something
+quite unusual.
+
+Was it a sudden whim? What was it? Something had prompted Sir Bale,
+early in that dark shrewd month of December, to tell his wife that he
+wished to call together some of his county acquaintances, and to fill
+his house for a week or so, as near Christmas as she could get them to
+come. He wished her sisters--Lady Haworth (with her husband) and the
+Dowager Lady Walsingham--to be invited for an early day, before the
+coming of the other guests, so that she might enjoy their society for a
+little time quietly to herself before the less intimate guests should
+assemble.
+
+Glad was Lady Mardykes to hear the resolve of her husband, and prompt to
+obey. She wrote to her sisters to beg them to arrange to come, together,
+by the tenth or twelfth of the month, which they accordingly arranged to
+do. Sir Oliver, it was true, could not be of the party. A minister of
+state was drinking the waters at Bath; and Sir Oliver thought it would
+do him no harm to sip a little also, and his fashionable doctor politely
+agreed, and "ordered" to those therapeutic springs the knight of the
+shire, who was "consumedly vexed" to lose the Christmas with that jolly
+dog, Bale, down at Mardykes Hall. But a fellow must have a stomach for
+his Christmas pudding, and politics takes it out of a poor gentleman
+deucedly; and health's the first thing, egad!
+
+So Sir Oliver went down to Bath, and I don't know that he tippled much
+of the waters, but he did drink the burgundy of that haunt of the
+ailing; and he had the honour of making a fourth not unfrequently in the
+secretary of state's whist-parties.
+
+It was about the 8th of December when, in Lady Walsingham's carriage,
+intending to post all the way, that lady, still young, and Lady Haworth,
+with all the servants that were usual in such expeditions in those days,
+started from the great Dower House at Islington in high spirits.
+
+Lady Haworth had not been very well--low and nervous; but the clear
+frosty sun, and the pleasant nature of the excursion, raised her spirits
+to the point of enjoyment; and expecting nothing but happiness and
+gaiety--for, after all, Sir Bale was but one of a large party, and even
+he could make an effort and be agreeable as well as hospitable on
+occasion--they set out on their northward expedition. The journey, which
+is a long one, they had resolved to break into a four days' progress;
+and the inns had been written to, bespeaking a comfortable reception.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Through the Wall
+
+On the third night they put-up at the comfortable old inn called the
+Three Nuns. With an effort they might easily have pushed on to Mardykes
+Hall that night, for the distance is not more than five-and-thirty
+miles. But, considering her sister's health, Lady Walsingham in planning
+their route had resolved against anything like a forced march.
+
+Here the ladies took possession of the best sitting-room; and,
+notwithstanding the fatigue of the journey, Lady Haworth sat up with her
+sister till near ten o'clock, chatting gaily about a thousand things.
+
+Of the three sisters, Lady Walsingham was the eldest. She had been in
+the habit of taking the command at home; and now, for advice and
+decision, her younger sisters, less prompt and courageous than she, were
+wont, whenever in her neighbourhood, to throw upon her all the cares and
+agitations of determining what was best to be done in small things and
+great. It is only fair to say, in addition, that this submission was not
+by any means exacted; it was the deference of early habit and feebler
+will, for she was neither officious nor imperious.
+
+It was now time that Lady Haworth, a good deal more fatigued than her
+sister, should take leave of her for the night.
+
+Accordingly they kissed and bid each other good-night; and Lady
+Walsingham, not yet disposed to sleep, sat for some time longer in the
+comfortable room where they had taken tea, amusing the time with the
+book that had, when conversation flagged, beguiled the weariness of the
+journey. Her sister had been in her room nearly an hour, when she became
+herself a little sleepy. She had lighted her candle, and was going to
+ring for her maid, when, to her surprise, the door opened, and her
+sister Lady Haworth entered in a dressing-gown, looking frightened.
+
+"My darling Mary!" exclaimed Lady Walsingham, "what is the matter? Are
+you well?"
+
+"Yes, darling," she answered, "quite well; that is, I don't know what is
+the matter--I'm frightened." She paused, listening, with her eyes turned
+towards the wall. "O, darling Maud, I am so frightened! I don't know
+what it can be."
+
+"You must not be agitated, darling; there's nothing. You have been
+asleep, and I suppose you have had a dream. Were you asleep?"
+
+Lady Haworth had caught her sister fast by the arm with both hands, and
+was looking wildly in her face.
+
+"Have _you_ heard nothing?" she asked, again looking towards the wall of
+the room, as if she expected to hear a voice through it.
+
+"Nonsense, darling; you are dreaming still. Nothing; there has been
+nothing to hear. I have been awake ever since; if there had been
+anything to hear, I could not have missed it. Come, sit down. Sip a
+little of this water; you are nervous, and over-tired; and tell me
+plainly, like a good little soul, what is the matter; for nothing has
+happened here; and you ought to know that the Three Nuns is the quietest
+house in England; and I'm no witch, and if you won't tell me what's the
+matter, I can't divine it."
+
+"Yes, of course," said Mary, sitting down, and glancing round her
+wildly. "I don't hear it now; _you_ don't?"
+
+"Do, my dear Mary, tell me what you mean," said Lady Walsingham kindly
+but firmly.
+
+Lady Haworth was holding the still untasted glass of water in her hand.
+
+"Yes, I'll tell you; I have been so frightened! You are right; I had a
+dream, but I can scarcely remember anything of it, except the very end,
+when I wakened. But it was not the dream; only it was connected with
+what terrified me so. I was so tired when I went to bed, I thought I
+should have slept soundly; and indeed I fell asleep immediately; and I
+must have slept quietly for a good while. How long is it since I left
+you?"
+
+"More than an hour."
+
+"Yes, I must have slept a good while; for I don't think I have been ten
+minutes awake. How my dream began I don't know. I remember only that
+gradually it came to this: I was standing in a recess in a panelled
+gallery; it was lofty, and, I thought, belonged to a handsome but
+old-fashioned house. I was looking straight towards the head of a wide
+staircase, with a great oak banister. At the top of the stairs, as near
+to me, about, as that window there, was a thick short column of oak, on
+top of which was a candlestick. There was no other light but from that
+one candle; and there was a lady standing beside it, looking down the
+stairs, with her back turned towards me; and from her gestures I should
+have thought speaking to people on a lower lobby, but whom from my place
+I could not see. I soon perceived that this lady was in great agony of
+mind; for she beat her breast and wrung her hands every now and then,
+and wagged her head slightly from side to side, like a person in great
+distraction. But one word she said I could not hear. Nor when she struck
+her hand on the banister, or stamped, as she seemed to do in her pain,
+upon the floor, could I hear any sound. I found myself somehow waiting
+upon this lady, and was watching her with awe and sympathy. But who she
+was I knew not, until turning towards me I plainly saw Janet's face,
+pale and covered with tears, and with such a look of agony as--O God!--I
+can never forget."
+
+"Pshaw! Mary darling, what is it but a dream! I have had a thousand more
+startling; it is only that you are so nervous just now."
+
+"But that is not all--nothing; what followed is so dreadful; for either
+there is something very horrible going on at Mardykes, or else I am
+losing my reason," said Lady Haworth in increasing agitation. "I wakened
+instantly in great alarm, but I suppose no more than I have felt a
+hundred times on awakening from a frightful dream. I sat up in my bed; I
+was thinking of ringing for Winnefred, my heart was beating so, but
+feeling better soon I changed my mind. All this time I heard a faint
+sound of a voice, as if coming through a thick wall. It came from the
+wall at the left side of my bed, and I fancied was that of some woman
+lamenting in a room separated from me by that thick partition. I could
+only perceive that it was a sound of crying mingled with ejaculations of
+misery, or fear, or entreaty. I listened with a painful curiosity,
+wondering who it could be, and what could have happened in the
+neighbouring rooms of the house; and as I looked and listened, I could
+distinguish my own name, but at first nothing more. That, of course,
+might have been an accident; and I knew there were many Marys in the
+world besides myself. But it made me more curious; and a strange thing
+struck me, for I was now looking at that very wall through which the
+sounds were coming. I saw that there was a window in it. Thinking that
+the rest of the wall might nevertheless be covered by another room, I
+drew the curtain of it and looked out. But there is no such thing. It is
+the outer wall the entire way along. And it is equally impossible of the
+other wall, for it is to the front of the house, and has two windows in
+it; and the wall that the head of my bed stands against has the gallery
+outside it all the way; for I remarked that as I came to you."
+
+"Tut, tut, Mary darling, nothing on earth is so deceptive as sound; this
+and fancy account for everything."
+
+"But hear me out; I have not told you all. I began to hear the voice
+more clearly, and at last quite distinctly. It was Janet's, and she was
+conjuring you by name, as well as me, to come to her to Mardykes,
+without delay, in her extremity; yes, _you_, just as vehemently as me.
+It was Janet's voice. It still seemed separated by the wall, but I heard
+every syllable now; and I never heard voice or words of such anguish.
+She was imploring of us to come on, without a moment's delay, to
+Mardykes; and crying that, if we were not with her, she should go mad."
+
+"Well, darling," said Lady Walsingham, "you see I'm included in this
+invitation as well as you, and should hate to disappoint Janet just as
+much; and I do assure you, in the morning you will laugh over this fancy
+with me; or rather, she will laugh over it with us, when we get to
+Mardykes. What you do want is rest, and a little sal-volatile."
+
+So saying she rang the bell for Lady Haworth's maid. Having comforted
+her sister, and made her take the nervous specific she recommended, she
+went with her to her room; and taking possession of the arm-chair by the
+fire, she told her that she would keep her company until she was asleep,
+and remain long enough to be sure that the sleep was not likely to be
+interrupted. Lady Haworth had not been ten minutes in her bed, when she
+raised herself with a start to her elbow, listening with parted lips and
+wild eyes, her trembling fingers behind her ears. With an exclamation of
+horror, she cried,
+
+"There it is again, upbraiding us! I can't stay longer."
+
+She sprang from the bed, and rang the bell violently.
+
+"Maud," she cried in an ecstasy of horror, "nothing shall keep me here,
+whether you go or not. I will set out the moment the horses are put to.
+If you refuse to come, Maud, mind the responsibility is yours--listen!"
+and with white face and starting eyes she pointed to the wall. "Have you
+ears; don't you hear?"
+
+The sight of a person in extremity of terror so mysterious, might have
+unnerved a ruder system than Lady Walsingham's. She was pale as she
+replied; for under certain circumstances those terrors which deal with
+the supernatural are more contagious than any others. Lady Walsingham
+still, in terms, held to her opinion; but although she tried to smile,
+her face showed that the panic had touched her.
+
+"Well, dear Mary," she said, "as you will have it so, I see no good in
+resisting you longer. Here, it is plain, your nerves will not suffer you
+to rest. Let us go then, in heaven's name; and when you get to Mardykes
+Hall you will be relieved."
+
+All this time Lady Haworth was getting on her things, with the careless
+hurry of a person about to fly for her life; and Lady Walsingham issued
+her orders for horses, and the general preparations for resuming the
+journey.
+
+It was now between ten and eleven; but the servant who rode armed with
+them, according to the not unnecessary usage of the times, thought that
+with a little judicious bribing of postboys they might easily reach
+Mardykes Hall before three o'clock in the morning.
+
+When the party set forward again, Lady Haworth was comparatively
+tranquil. She no longer heard the unearthly mimickry of her sister's
+voice; there remained only the fear and suspense which that illusion or
+visitation had produced.
+
+Her sister, Lady Walsingham, after a brief effort to induce something
+like conversation, became silent. A thin sheet of snow had covered the
+darkened landscape, and some light flakes were still dropping. Lady
+Walsingham struck her repeater often in the dark, and inquired the
+distances frequently. She was anxious to get over the ground, though by
+no means fatigued. Something of the anxiety that lay heavy at her
+sister's heart had touched her own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Perplexed
+
+The roads even then were good, and very good horses the posting-houses
+turned out; so that by dint of extra pay the rapid rate of travelling
+undertaken by the servant was fully accomplished in the first two or
+three stages.
+
+While Lady Walsingham was continually striking her repeater in her ear,
+and as they neared their destination, growing in spite of herself more
+anxious, her sister's uneasiness showed itself in a less reserved way;
+for, cold as it was, with snowflakes actually dropping, Lady Haworth's
+head was perpetually out at the window, and when she drew it up, sitting
+again in her place, she would audibly express her alarms, and apply to
+her sister for consolation and confidence in her suspense.
+
+Under its thin carpet of snow, the pretty village of Golden Friars
+looked strangely to their eyes. It had long been fast asleep, and both
+ladies were excited as they drew up at the steps of the George and
+Dragon, and with bell and knocker roused the slumbering household.
+
+What tidings awaited them here? In a very few minutes the door was
+opened, and the porter staggered down, after a word with the driver, to
+the carriage-window, not half awake.
+
+"Is Lady Mardykes well?" demanded Lady Walsingham.
+
+"Is Sir Bale well?"
+
+"Are all the people at Mardykes Hall quite well?"
+
+With clasped hands Lady Haworth listened to the successive answers to
+these questions which her sister hastily put. The answers were all
+satisfactory. With a great sigh and a little laugh, Lady Walsingham
+placed her hand affectionately on that of her sister; who, saying, "God
+be thanked!" began to weep.
+
+"When had you last news from Mardykes?" asked Lady Walsingham.
+
+"A servant was down here about four o'clock."
+
+"O! no one since?" said she in a disappointed tone.
+
+No one had been from the great house since, but all were well then.
+
+"They are early people, you know, dear; and it is dark at four, and that
+is as late as they could well have heard, and nothing could have
+happened since--very unlikely. We have come very fast; it is only a few
+minutes past two, darling."
+
+But each felt the chill and load of their returning anxiety.
+
+While the people at the George were rapidly getting a team of horses to,
+Lady Walsingham contrived a moment for an order from the other window to
+her servant, who knew Golden Friars perfectly, to knock-up the people at
+Doctor Torvey's, and to inquire whether all were well at Mardykes Hall.
+
+There he learned that a messenger had come for Doctor Torvey at ten
+o'clock, and that the Doctor had not returned since. There was no news,
+however, of any one's being ill; and the Doctor himself did not know
+what he was wanted about. While Lady Haworth was talking to her maid
+from the window next the steps, Lady Walsingham was, unobserved,
+receiving this information at the other.
+
+It made her very uncomfortable.
+
+In a few minutes more, however, with a team of fresh horses, they were
+again rapidly passing the distance between them and Mardykes Hall.
+
+About two miles on, their drivers pulled-up, and they heard a voice
+talking with them from the roadside. A servant from the Hall had been
+sent with a note for Lady Walsingham, and had been ordered, if
+necessary, to ride the whole way to the Three Nuns to deliver it. The
+note was already in Lady Walsingham's hand; her sister sat beside her,
+and with the corner of the open note in her fingers, she read it
+breathlessly at the same time by the light of a carriage-lamp which the
+man held to the window. It said:
+
+
+My dearest love--my darling sister--dear sisters both!--in God's name,
+lose not a moment. I am so overpowered and _terrified_. I cannot
+explain; I can only implore of you to come with all the haste you can
+make. Waste no time, darlings. I hardly understand what I write. Only
+this, dear sisters; I feel that my reason will desert me, unless you
+come soon. You will not fail me now. Your poor distracted
+
+JANET
+
+The sisters exchanged a pale glance, and Lady Haworth grasped her
+sister's hand.
+
+"Where is the messenger?" asked Lady Walsingham.
+
+A mounted servant came to the window.
+
+"Is any one ill at home?" she asked.
+
+"No, all were well--my lady, and Sir Bale--no one sick."
+
+"But the Doctor was sent for; what was that for?"
+
+"I can't say, my lady."
+
+"You are quite certain that no one--think--_no_ one is ill?"
+
+"There is no one ill at the Hall, my lady, that I have heard of."
+
+"Is Lady Mardykes, my sister, still up?"
+
+"Yes, my lady; and her maid is with her."
+
+"And Sir Bale, are you certain he is quite well?"
+
+"Sir Bale is quite well, my lady; he has been busy settling papers
+to-night, and was as well as usual."
+
+"That will do, thanks," said the perplexed lady; and to her own servant
+she added, "On to Mardykes Hall with all the speed they can make. I'll
+pay them well, tell them."
+
+And in another minute they were gliding along the road at a pace which
+the muffled beating of the horses' hoofs on the thin sheet of snow that
+covered the road showed to have broken out of the conventional trot, and
+to resemble something more like a gallop.
+
+And now they were under the huge trees, that looked black as
+hearse-plumes in contrast with the snow. The cold gleam of the lake in
+the moon which had begun to shine out now met their gaze; and the
+familiar outline of Snakes Island, its solemn timber bleak and leafless,
+standing in a group, seemed to watch Mardykes Hall with a dismal
+observation across the water. Through the gate and between the huge
+files of trees the carriage seemed to fly; and at last the steaming
+horses stood panting, nodding and snorting, before the steps in the
+courtyard.
+
+There was a light in an upper window, and a faint light in the hall, the
+door of which was opened; and an old servant came down and ushered the
+ladies into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+The Hour
+
+Lightly they stepped over the snow that lay upon the broad steps, and
+entering the door saw the dim figure of their sister, already in the
+large and faintly-lighted hall. One candle in the hand of her scared
+maid, and one burning on the table, leaving the distant parts of that
+great apartment in total darkness, touched the figures with the odd
+sharp lights in which Schalken delights; and a streak of chilly
+moonlight, through the open door, fell upon the floor, and was stretched
+like a white sheet at her feet. Lady Mardykes, with an exclamation of
+agitated relief, threw her arms, in turn, round the necks of her
+sisters, and hugging them, kissed them again and again, murmuring her
+thanks, calling them her "blessed sisters," and praising God for his
+mercy in having sent them to her in time, and altogether in a rapture of
+agitation and gratitude.
+
+Taking them each by a hand, she led them into a large room, on whose
+panels they could see the faint twinkle of the tall gilded frames, and
+the darker indication of the old portraits, in which that interesting
+house abounds. The moonbeams, entering obliquely through the Tudor
+stone-shafts of the window and thrown upon the floor, reflected an
+imperfect light; and the candle which the maid who followed her mistress
+held in her hand shone dimly from the sideboard, where she placed it.
+Lady Mardykes told her that she need not wait.
+
+"They don't know; they know only that we are in some great confusion;
+but--God have mercy on me!--nothing of the reality. Sit down, darlings;
+you are tired."
+
+She sat down between them on a sofa, holding a hand of each. They sat
+opposite the window, through which appeared the magnificent view
+commanded from the front of the house: in the foreground the solemn
+trees of Snakes Island, one great branch stretching upward, bare and
+moveless, from the side, like an arm raised to heaven in wonder or in
+menace towards the house; the lake, in part swept by the icy splendour
+of the moon, trembling with a dazzling glimmer, and farther off lost in
+blackness; the Fells rising from a base of gloom, into ribs and peaks
+white with snow, and looking against the pale sky, thin and transparent
+as a haze. Right across to the storied woods of Cloostedd, and the old
+domains of the Feltrams, this view extended.
+
+Thus alone, their mufflers still on, their hands clasped in hers, they
+breathlessly listened to her strange tale.
+
+Connectedly told it amounted to this: Sir Bale seemed to have been
+relieved of some great anxiety about the time when, ten days before, he
+had told her to invite her friends to Mardykes Hall. This morning he had
+gone out for a walk with Trevor, his under-steward, to talk over some
+plans about thinning the woods at this side; and also to discuss
+practically a proposal, lately made by a wealthy merchant, to take a
+very long lease, on advantageous terms to Sir Bale as he thought, of the
+old park and chase of Cloostedd, with the intention of building there,
+and making it once more a handsome residence.
+
+In the improved state of his spirits, Sir Bale had taken a shrewd
+interest in this negotiation; and was actually persuaded to cross the
+lake that morning with his adviser, and to walk over the grounds with
+him.
+
+Sir Bale had seemed unusually well, and talked with great animation. He
+was more like a young man who had just attained his majority, and for
+the first time grasped his estates, than the grim elderly Baronet who
+had been moping about Mardykes, and as much afraid as a cat of the
+water, for so many years.
+
+As they were returning toward the boat, at the roots of that same
+scathed elm whose barkless bough had seemed, in his former visit to this
+old wood, to beckon him from a distance, like a skeleton arm, to enter
+the forest, he and his companion on a sudden missed an old map of the
+grounds which they had been consulting.
+
+"We must have left it in the corner tower of Cloostedd House, which
+commands that view of the grounds, you remember; it would not do to lose
+it. It is the most accurate thing we have. I'll sit down here and rest a
+little till you come back."
+
+The man was absent little more than twenty minutes. When he returned, he
+found that Sir Bale had changed his position, and was now walking to and
+fro, around and about, in what, at a distance, he fancied was mere
+impatience, on the open space a couple of hundred paces nearer to the
+turn in the valley towards the boat. It was not impatience. He was
+agitated. He looked pale, and he took his companion's arm--a thing he
+had never thought of doing before--and said, "Let us away quickly. I've
+something to tell at home,--and I forgot it."
+
+Not another word did Sir Bale exchange with his companion. He sat in the
+stern of the boat, gloomy as a man about to glide under traitor's-gate.
+He entered his house in the same sombre and agitated state. He entered
+his library, and sat for a long time as if stunned.
+
+At last he seemed to have made-up his mind to something; and applied
+himself quietly and diligently to arranging papers, and docketing some
+and burning others. Dinner-time arrived. He sent to tell Lady Mardykes
+that he should not join her at dinner, but would see her afterwards.
+
+"It was between eight and nine," she continued, "I forget the exact
+time, when he came to the tower drawing-room where I was. I did not hear
+his approach. There is a stone stair, with a thick carpet on it. He told
+me he wished to speak to me there. It is an out-of-the-way place--a
+small old room with very thick walls, and there is a double door, the
+inner one of oak--I suppose he wished to guard against being overheard.
+
+"There was a look in his face that frightened me; I saw he had something
+dreadful to tell. He looked like a man on whom a lot had fallen to put
+some one to death," said Lady Mardykes. "O, my poor Bale! my husband, my
+husband! he knew what it would be to me."
+
+Here she broke into the wildest weeping, and it was some time before she
+resumed.
+
+"He seemed very kind and very calm," she said at last; "he said but
+little; and, I think, these were his words: 'I find, Janet, I have made
+a great miscalculation--I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have
+been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and my
+time has come.'
+
+"I don't know what I said. I would not have so much minded--for I could
+not have believed, if I had not seen him--but there was that in his look
+and tone which no one could doubt.
+
+"'I shall die before to-morrow morning,' he said. 'You must command
+yourself, Janet; it can't be altered now.'
+
+"'O, Bale,' I cried nearly distracted, 'you would not kill yourself!'
+
+"'Kill myself! poor child! no, indeed,' he said; 'it is simply that I
+shall die. No violent death--nothing but the common subsidence of
+life--I have made up my mind; what happens to everybody can't be so very
+bad; and millions of worse men than I die every year. You must not
+follow me to my room, darling; I shall see you by and by.'
+
+"His language was collected and even cold; but his face looked as if it
+was cut in stone; you never saw, in a dream, a face like it."
+
+Lady Walsingham here said, "I am certain he is ill; he's in a fever. You
+must not distract and torture yourself about his predictions. You sent
+for Doctor Torvey; what did he say?"
+
+"I could not tell him all."
+
+"O, no; I don't mean that; they'd only say he was mad, and we little
+better for minding what he says. But did the Doctor see him? and what
+did he say of his health?"
+
+"Yes; he says there is nothing wrong--no fever--nothing whatever. Poor
+Bale has been so kind; he saw him to please me," she sobbed again
+wildly. "I wrote to implore of him. It was my last hope, strange as it
+seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of
+that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness
+about all he says and does; and his directions are all so clear, and his
+mind so perfectly collected, it is quite impossible."
+
+And poor Lady Mardykes again burst into a frantic agony of tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Sir Bale in the Gallery
+
+"Now, Janet darling, you are yourself low and nervous, and you treat
+this fancy of Bale's as seriously as he does himself. The truth is, he
+is a hypochondriac, as the doctors say; and you will find that I am
+right; he will be quite well in the morning, and I daresay a little
+ashamed of himself for having frightened his poor little wife as he has.
+I will sit up with you. But our poor Mary is not, you know, very strong;
+and she ought to lie down and rest a little. Suppose you give me a cup
+of tea in the drawing-room. I will run up to my room and get these
+things off, and meet you in the drawing-room; or, if you like it better,
+you can sit with me in my own room; and for goodness' sake let us have
+candles enough and a bright fire; and I promise you, if you will only
+exert your own good sense, you shall be a great deal more cheerful in a
+very little time."
+
+Lady Walsingham's address was kind and cheery, and her air confident.
+For a moment a ray of hope returned, and her sister Janet acknowledged
+at least the possibility of her theory. But if confidence is contagious,
+so also is panic; and Lady Walsingham experienced a sinking of the heart
+which she dared not confess to her sister, and vainly strove to combat.
+
+Lady Walsingham went up with her sister Mary, and having seen her in her
+room, and spoken again to her in the same cheery tone in which she had
+lectured her sister Lady Mardykes, she went on; and having taken
+possession of her own room, and put off her cloaks and shawls, she was
+going downstairs again, when she heard Sir Bale's voice, as he
+approached along the gallery, issuing orders to a servant, as it seemed,
+exactly in his usual tone.
+
+She turned, with a strange throb at her heart, and met him.
+
+A little sterner, a little paler than usual he looked; she could
+perceive no other change. He took her hand kindly and held it, as with
+dilated eyes he looked with a dark inquiry for a moment in her face. He
+signed to the servant to go on, and said, "I'm glad you have come, Maud.
+You have heard what is to happen; and I don't know how Janet could have
+borne it without your support. You did right to come; and you'll stay
+with her for a day or two, and take her away from this place as soon as
+you can."
+
+She looked at him with the embarrassment of fear. He was speaking to her
+with the calmness of a leave-taking in the pressroom--the serenity that
+overlies the greatest awe and agony of which human nature is capable.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Bale," she began, hardly knowing what she said,
+and she stopped short.
+
+"You are come, it turns out, on a sad mission," he resumed; "you find
+all about to change. Poor Janet! it is a blow to her. I shall not live
+to see to-morrow's sun."
+
+"Come," she said, startled, "you must not talk so. No, Bale, you have no
+right to speak so; you can have no reason to justify it. It is cruel and
+wicked to trifle with your wife's feelings. If you are under a delusion,
+you must make an effort and shake it off, or, at least, cease to talk of
+it. You are not well; I know by your looks you are ill; but I am very
+certain we shall see you much better by tomorrow, and still better the
+day following."
+
+"No, I'm not ill, sister. Feel that pulse, if you doubt me; there is no
+fever in it. I never was more perfectly in health; and yet I know that
+before the clock, that has just struck three, shall have struck five, I,
+who am talking to you, shall be dead."
+
+Lady Walsingham was frightened, and her fear irritated her.
+
+"I have told you what I think and believe," she said vehemently. "I
+think it wrong and cowardly of you to torture my poor sister with your
+whimsical predictions. Look into your own mind, and you will see you
+have absolutely no reason to support what you say. How _can_ you inflict
+all this agony upon a poor creature foolish enough to love you as she
+does, and weak enough to believe in your idle dreams?"
+
+"Stay, sister; it is not a matter to be debated so. If to-morrow I can
+hear you, it will be time enough to upbraid me. Pray return now to your
+sister; she needs all you can do for her. She is much to be pitied; her
+sufferings afflict me. I shall see you and her again before my death. It
+would have been more cruel to leave her unprepared. Do all in your power
+to nerve and tranquillise her. What is past cannot now be helped."
+
+He paused, looking hard at her, as if he had half made up his mind to
+say something more. But if there was a question of the kind, it was
+determined in favour of silence.
+
+He dropped her hand, turned quickly, and left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Dr. Torvey's Opinion
+
+When Lady Walsingham reached the head of the stairs, she met her maid,
+and from her learned that her sister, Lady Mardykes, was downstairs in
+the same room. On approaching, she heard her sister Mary's voice talking
+with her, and found them together. Mary, finding that she could not
+sleep, had put on her clothes again, and come down to keep her sister
+company. The room looked more comfortable now. There were candles
+lighted, and a good fire burnt in the grate; tea-things stood on a
+little table near the fire, and the two sisters were talking, Lady
+Mardykes appearing more collected, and only they two in the room.
+
+"Have you seen him, Maud?" cried Lady Mardykes, rising and hastily
+approaching her the moment she entered.
+
+"Yes, dear; and talked with him, and----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And I think very much as I did before. I think he is nervous, he says
+he is not ill; but he is nervous and whimsical, and as men always are
+when they happen to be out of sorts, very positive; and of course the
+only thing that can quite undeceive him is the lapse of the time he has
+fixed for his prediction, as it is sure to pass without any tragic
+result of any sort. We shall then all see alike the nature of his
+delusion."
+
+"O, Maud, if I were only sure you thought so! if I were sure you really
+had hopes! Tell me, Maud, for God's sake, what you really think."
+
+Lady Walsingham was a little disconcerted by the unexpected directness
+of her appeal.
+
+"Come, darling, you must not be foolish," she said; "we can only talk of
+impressions, and we are imposed upon by the solemnity of his manner, and
+the fact that he evidently believes in his own delusion; every one does
+believe in his own delusion--there is nothing strange in that."
+
+"O, Maud, I see you are not convinced; you are only trying to comfort
+me. You have no hope--none, none, none!" and she covered her face with
+her hands, and wept again convulsively.
+
+Lady Walsingham was silent for a moment, and then with an effort said,
+as she placed her hand on her sister's arm, "You see, dear Janet, there
+is no use in my saying the same thing over and over again; an hour or
+two will show who is right. Sit down again, and be like yourself. My
+maid told me that you had sent to the parlour for Doctor Torvey; he must
+not find you so. What would he think? Unless you mean to tell him of
+Bale's strange fancy; and a pretty story that would be to set afloat in
+Golden Friars. I think I hear him coming."
+
+So, in effect, he was. Doctor Torvey--with the florid gravity of a man
+who, having just swallowed a bottle of port, besides some glasses of
+sherry, is admitted to the presence of ladies whom he respects--entered
+the room, made what he called his "leg and his compliments," and awaited
+the ladies' commands.
+
+"Sit down, Doctor Torvey," said Lady Walsingham, who in the incapacity
+of her sister undertook the doing of the honours. "My sister, Lady
+Mardykes, has got it into her head somehow that Sir Bale is ill. I have
+been speaking to him; he certainly does not look very well, but he says
+he is quite well. Do you think him well?--that is, we know you don't
+think there is anything of importance amiss--but she wishes to know
+whether you think him _perfectly_ well."
+
+The Doctor cleared his voice and delivered his lecture, a little thickly
+at some words, upon Sir Bale's case; the result of which was that it was
+no case at all; and that if he would only live something more of a
+country gentleman's life, he would be as well as any man could
+desire--as well as any man, gentle or simple, in the country.
+
+"The utmost I should think of doing for him would be, perhaps, a little
+quinine, nothing mo'--shurely--he is really and toory a very shoun'
+shtay of health."
+
+Lady Walsingham looked encouragingly at her sister and nodded.
+
+"I've been shen' for, La'y Walsh--Walse--Walsing--_ham_; old Jack
+Amerald--he likshe his glass o' port," he said roguishly, "and shuvversh
+accord'n'ly," he continued, with a compassionating paddle of his right
+hand; "one of thoshe aw--odd feels in his stomach; and as I have pretty
+well done all I can man-n'ge down here, I must be off, ye shee. Wind up
+from Golden Friars, and a little flutter ovv zhnow, thazh all;" and with
+some remarks about the extreme cold of the weather, and the severity of
+their night journey, and many respectful and polite parting speeches,
+the Doctor took his leave; and they soon heard the wheels of his gig and
+the tread of his horse, faint and muffled from the snow in the
+court-yard, and the Doctor, who had connected that melancholy and
+agitated household with the outer circle of humanity, was gone.
+
+There was very little snow falling, half-a-dozen flakes now and again,
+and their flight across the window showed, as the Doctor had in a manner
+boasted, that the wind was in his face as he returned to Golden Friars.
+Even these desultory snow-flakes ceased, at times, altogether; and
+returning, as they say, "by fits and starts," left for long intervals
+the landscape, under the brilliant light of the moon, in its wide white
+shroud. The curtain of the great window had not been drawn. It seemed to
+Lady Walsingham that the moonbeams had grown more dazzling, that Snakes
+Island was nearer and more distinct, and the outstretched arm of the old
+tree looked bigger and angrier, like the uplifted arm of an assassin,
+who draws silently nearer as the catastrophe approaches.
+
+Cold, dazzling, almost repulsive in this intense moonlight and white
+sheeting, the familiar landscape looked in the eyes of Lady Walsingham.
+The sisters gradually grew more and more silent, an unearthly suspense
+overhung them all, and Lady Mardykes rose every now and then and
+listened at the open door for step or voice in vain. They all were
+overpowered by the intenser horror that seemed gathering around them.
+And thus an hour or more passed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Hush!
+
+Pale and silent those three beautiful sisters sat. The horrible quietude
+of a suspense that had grown all but insupportable oppressed the guests
+of Lady Mardykes, and something like the numbness of despair had reduced
+her to silence, the dreadful counterfeit of peace.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes on a sudden softly entered the room. Reflected from
+the floor near the window, the white moonlight somehow gave to his fixed
+features the character of a smile. With a warning gesture, as he came
+in, he placed his finger to his lips, as if to enjoin silence; and then,
+having successively pressed the hands of his two sisters-in-law, he
+stooped over his almost fainting wife, and twice pressed her cold
+forehead with his lips; and so, without a word, he went softly from the
+room.
+
+Some seconds elapsed before Lady Walsingham, recovering her presence of
+mind, with one of the candlesticks from the table in her hand, opened
+the door and followed.
+
+She saw Sir Bale mount the last stair of the broad flight visible from
+the hall, and candle in hand turn the corner of the massive banister,
+and as the light thrown from his candle showed, he continued, without
+hurry, to ascend the second flight.
+
+With the irrepressible curiosity of horror she continued to follow him
+at a distance.
+
+She saw him enter his own private room, and close the door.
+
+Continuing to follow she placed herself noiselessly at the door of the
+apartment, and in breathless silence, with a throbbing heart, listened
+for what should pass.
+
+She distinctly heard Sir Bale pace the floor up and down for some time,
+and then, after a pause, a sound as if some one had thrown himself
+heavily on the bed. A silence followed, during which her sisters, who
+had followed more timidly, joined her. She warned them with a look and
+gesture to be silent.
+
+Lady Haworth stood a little behind, her white lips moving, and her hands
+clasped in a silent agony of prayer. Lady Mardykes leaned against the
+massive oak door-case.
+
+With her hand raised to her ear, and her lips parted, Lady Walsingham
+listened for some seconds--for a minute, two minutes, three. At last,
+losing heart, she seized the handle in her panic, and turned it sharply.
+The door was locked on the inside, but some one close to it said from
+within, "Hush, hush!"
+
+Much alarmed now, the same lady knocked violently at the door. No answer
+was returned.
+
+She knocked again more violently, and shook the door with all her
+fragile force. It was something of horror in her countenance as she did
+so, that, no doubt, terrified Lady Mardykes, who with a loud and long
+scream sank in a swoon upon the floor.
+
+The servants, alarmed by these sounds, were speedily in the gallery.
+Lady Mardykes was carried to her room, and laid upon her bed; her
+sister, Lady Haworth, accompanying her. In the meantime the door was
+forced. Sir Bale Mardykes was found stretched upon his bed.
+
+Those who have once seen it, will not mistake the aspect of death. Here,
+in Sir Bale Mardykes' room, in his bed, in his clothes, is a stranger,
+grim and awful; in a few days to be insupportable, and to pass alone
+into the prison-house, and to be seen no more.
+
+Where is Sir Bale Mardykes now, whose roof-tree and whose place at board
+and bed will know him no more? Here lies a chap-fallen, fish-eyed image,
+chilling already into clay, and stiffening in every joint.
+
+There is a marble monument in the pretty church of Golden Friars. It
+stands at the left side of what antiquarians call "the high altar." Two
+pillars at each end support an arch with several armorial bearings on as
+many shields sculptured above. Beneath, on a marble flooring raised some
+four feet, with a cornice round, lies Sir Bale Mardykes, of Mardykes
+Hall, ninth Baronet of that ancient family, chiseled in marble with
+knee-breeches and buckled-shoes, and _ailes de pigeon_, and
+single-breasted coat and long waist-coat, ruffles and sword, such as
+gentlemen wore about the year 1770, and bearing a strong resemblance to
+the features of the second Charles. On the broad marble which forms the
+background is inscribed an epitaph, which has perpetuated to our times
+the estimate formed by his "inconsolable widow," the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes, of the virtues and accomplishments of her deceased lord.
+
+Lady Walsingham would have qualified two or three of the more
+highly-coloured hyperboles, at which the Golden Friars of those days
+sniffed and tittered. They don't signify now; there is no contemporary
+left to laugh or whisper. And if there be not much that is true in the
+letter of that inscription, it at least perpetuates something that _is_
+true--that wonderful glorificaion of partisanship, the affection of an
+idolising wife.
+
+Lady Mardykes, a few days after the funeral, left Mardykes Hall for
+ever. She lived a great deal with her sister, Lady Walsingham; and died,
+as a line cut at the foot of Sir Bale Mardykes' epitaph records, in the
+year 1790; her remains being laid beside those of her beloved husband in
+Golden Friars.
+
+The estates had come to Sir Bale Mardykes free of entail. He had been
+pottering over a will, but it was never completed, nor even quite
+planned; and after much doubt and scrutiny, it was at last ascertained
+that, in default of a will and of issue, a clause in the
+marriage-settlement gave the entire estates to the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes.
+
+By her will she bequeathed the estates to "her cousin, also a kinsman of
+the late Sir Bale Mardykes her husband," William Feltram, on condition
+of his assuming the name and arms of Mardykes, the arms of Feltram being
+quartered in the shield.
+
+Thus was oddly fulfilled the prediction which Philip Feltram had
+repeated, that the estates of Mardykes were to pass into the hands of a
+Feltram.
+
+About the year 1795 the baronetage was revived, and William Feltram
+enjoyed the title for fifteen years, as Sir William Mardykes.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES,
+VOLUME 3***
+
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3, by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3, by
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3</p>
+<p>Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</p>
+<p>Release Date: March 28, 2004  [eBook #11750]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: iso-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES, VOLUME 3***</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Andrea Ball,<br>
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES,<br>
+VOLUME 3</h1>
+
+<h2>The Haunted Baronet (1871)</h2>
+
+<h2>by<br>
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<center>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I: <i>The George and Dragon</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II: <i>The Drowned Woman</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III: <i>Philip Feltram</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV: <i>The Baronet Appears</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V: <i>Mrs. Julaper's Room</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI: <i>The Intruder</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII: <i>The Bank Note</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII: <i>Feltram's Plan</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX: <i>The Crazy Parson</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X: <i>Adventure in Tom Marlin's Boat</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI: <i>Sir Bale's Dream</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII: <i>Marcella Bligh and Judith Wale Keep Watch</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII: <i>The Mist on the Mountain</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV: <i>A New Philip Feltram</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV: <i>The Purse of Gold</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI: <i>The Message from Cloostedd</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII: <i>On the Course--Beeswing, Falcon, and Lightning</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII: <i>On the Lake, at Last</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX: <i>Mystagogus</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX: <i>The Haunted Forest</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI: <i>Rindermere</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII: <i>Sir Bale is Frightened</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII: <i>A Lady in Black</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV: <i>An Old Portrait</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV: <i>Through the Wall</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI: <i>Perplexed</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII: <i>The Hour</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII: <i>Sir Bale in the Gallery</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX: <i>Dr. Torvey's Opinion</i></b></a><br><br>
+ <a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX: <i>Hush!</i></b></a>
+ </center>
+
+ <p>&nbsp;</p>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;">
+ <h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+ <center>
+  <a href="#IMAGE_1"><b>"I sid something white come out o' t' water, by the
+gunwale, like a hand."</b></a><br><br>
+  <a href="#IMAGE_2"><b>It was the figure of a slight tall man, with his arm
+extended, as if pointing to a remote object.</b></a>
+ </center>
+
+ <p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<h2>The Haunted Baronet</h2>
+<br>
+<a name="CHAPTER_I"></a><h4>CHAPTER I</h4>
+
+<i><b>The George and Dragon</b></i>
+
+<p>The pretty little town of Golden Friars&mdash;standing by the margin of the
+lake, hemmed round by an amphitheatre of purple mountain, rich in tint
+and furrowed by ravines, high in air, when the tall gables and narrow
+windows of its ancient graystone houses, and the tower of the old
+church, from which every evening the curfew still rings, show like
+silver in the moonbeams, and the black elms that stand round throw
+moveless shadows upon the short level grass&mdash;is one of the most singular
+and beautiful sights I have ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>There it rises, 'as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand,' looking so
+light and filmy, that you could scarcely believe it more than a picture
+reflected on the thin mist of night.</p>
+
+<p>On such a still summer night the moon shone splendidly upon the front of
+the George and Dragon, the comfortable graystone inn of Golden Friars,
+with the grandest specimen of the old inn-sign, perhaps, left in
+England. It looks right across the lake; the road that skirts its margin
+running by the steps of the hall-door, opposite to which, at the other
+side of the road, between two great posts, and framed in a fanciful
+wrought-iron border splendid with gilding, swings the famous sign of St.
+George and the Dragon, gorgeous with colour and gold.</p>
+
+<p>In the great room of the George and Dragon, three or four of the old
+<i>habitu&eacute;s</i> of that cozy lounge were refreshing a little after the
+fatigues of the day.</p>
+
+<p>This is a comfortable chamber, with an oak wainscot; and whenever in
+summer months the air is sharp enough, as on the present occasion, a
+fire helped to light it up; which fire, being chiefly wood, made a
+pleasant broad flicker on panel and ceiling, and yet did not make the
+room too hot.</p>
+
+<p>On one side sat Doctor Torvey, the doctor of Golden Friars, who knew the
+weak point of every man in the town, and what medicine agreed with each
+inhabitant&mdash;a fat gentleman, with a jolly laugh and an appetite for all
+sorts of news, big and little, and who liked a pipe, and made a tumbler
+of punch at about this hour, with a bit of lemon-peel in it. Beside him
+sat William Peers, a thin old gentleman, who had lived for more than
+thirty years in India, and was quiet and benevolent, and the last man in
+Golden Friars who wore a pigtail. Old Jack Amerald, an ex-captain of the
+navy, with his short stout leg on a chair, and its wooden companion
+beside it, sipped his grog, and bawled in the old-fashioned navy way,
+and called his friends his 'hearties.' In the middle, opposite the
+hearth, sat deaf Tom Hollar, always placid, and smoked his pipe, looking
+serenely at the fire. And the landlord of the George and Dragon every
+now and then strutted in, and sat down in the high-backed wooden
+arm-chair, according to the old-fashioned republican ways of the place,
+and took his share in the talk gravely, and was heartily welcome.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And so Sir Bale is coming home at last,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot;Tell us any
+more you heard since.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing,&quot; answered Richard Turnbull, the host of the George. &quot;Nothing
+to speak of; only 'tis certain sure, and so best; the old house won't
+look so dowly now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twyne says the estate owes a good capful o' money by this time, hey?&quot;
+said the Doctor, lowering his voice and winking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Weel, they do say he's been nout at dow. I don't mind saying so to
+<i>you</i>, mind, sir, where all's friends together; but he'll get that right
+in time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More like to save here than where he is,&quot; said the Doctor with another
+grave nod.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He does very wisely,&quot; said Mr. Peers, having blown out a thin stream of
+smoke, &quot;and creditably, to pull-up in time. He's coming here to save a
+little, and perhaps he'll marry; and it is the more creditable, if, as
+they say, he dislikes the place, and would prefer staying where he is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And having spoken thus gently, Mr. Peers resumed his pipe cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, he don't like the place; that is, I'm told he <i>didn't</i>,&quot; said the
+innkeeper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He <i>hates</i> it,&quot; said the Doctor with another dark nod.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And no wonder, if all's true I've heard,&quot; cried old Jack Amerald.
+&quot;Didn't he drown a woman and her child in the lake?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hollo! my dear boy, don't let them hear you say that; you're all in the
+clouds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jen!&quot; exclaimed the landlord after an alarmed silence, with his
+mouth and eyes open, and his pipe in his hand, &quot;why, sir, I pay rent for
+the house up there. I'm thankful&mdash;dear knows, I <i>am</i> thankful&mdash;we're all
+to ourselves!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Jack Amerald put his foot on the floor, leaving his wooden leg in its
+horizontal position, and looked round a little curiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, if it wasn't him, it was some one else. I'm sure it happened up
+at Mardykes. I took the bearings on the water myself from Glads Scaur to
+Mardykes Jetty, and from the George and Dragon sign down here&mdash;down to
+the white house under Forrick Fells. I could fix a buoy over the very
+spot. Some one here told me the bearings, I'd take my oath, where the
+body was seen; and yet no boat could ever come up with it; and that was
+queer, you know, so I clapt it down in my log.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, sir, there <i>was</i> some flummery like that, Captain,&quot; said Turnbull;
+&quot;for folk will be gabbin'. But 'twas his grandsire was talked o', not
+him; and 'twould play the hangment wi' me doun here, if 'twas thought
+there was stories like that passin' in the George and Dragon.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, his grandfather; 'twas all one to him, I take it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There never was no proof, Captain, no more than smoke; and the family
+up at Mardykes wouldn't allow the king to talk o' them like that, sir;
+for though they be lang deod that had most right to be angered in the
+matter, there's none o' the name but would be half daft to think 'twas
+still believed, and he full out as mich as any. Not that I need care
+more than another, though they do say he's a bit frowsy and
+short-waisted; for he can't shouther me out o' the George while I pay my
+rent, till nine hundred and ninety-nine year be rin oot; and a man, be
+he ne'er sa het, has time to cool before then. But there's no good
+quarrellin' wi' teathy folk; and it may lie in his way to do the George
+mony an ill turn, and mony a gude one; an' it's only fair to say it
+happened a long way before he was born, and there's no good in vexin'
+him; and I lay ye a pound, Captain, the Doctor hods wi' me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor, whose business was also sensitive, nodded; and then he said,
+&quot;But for all that, the story's old, Dick Turnbull&mdash;older than you or I,
+my jolly good friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And best forgotten,&quot; interposed the host of the George.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, best forgotten; but that it's not like to be,&quot; said the Doctor,
+plucking up courage. &quot;Here's our friend the Captain has heard it; and
+the mistake he has made shows there's one thing worse than its being
+quite remembered, and that is, its being <i>half</i> remembered. We can't
+stop people talking; and a story like that will see us all off the
+hooks, and be in folks' mouths, still, as strong as ever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay; and now I think on it, 'twas Dick Harman that has the boat down
+there&mdash;an old tar like myself&mdash;that told me that yarn. I was trying for
+pike, and he pulled me over the place, and that's how I came to hear it.
+I say, Tom, my hearty, serve us out another glass of brandy, will you?&quot;
+shouted the Captain's voice as the waiter crossed the room; and that
+florid and grizzled naval hero clapped his leg again on the chair by its
+wooden companion, which he was wont to call his jury-mast.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I do believe it will be spoke of longer than we are like to
+hear,&quot; said the host, &quot;and I don't much matter the story, if it baint
+told o' the wrong man.&quot; Here he touched his tumbler with the spoon,
+indicating by that little ring that Tom, who had returned with the
+Captain's grog, was to replenish it with punch. &quot;And Sir Bale is like to
+be a friend to this house. I don't see no reason why he shouldn't. The
+George and Dragon has bin in our family ever since the reign of King
+Charles the Second. It was William Turnbull in that time, which they
+called it the Restoration, he taking the lease from Sir Tony Mardykes
+that was then. They was but knights then. They was made baronets first
+in the reign of King George the Second; you may see it in the list of
+baronets and the nobility. The lease was made to William Turnbull, which
+came from London; and he built the stables, which they was out o'
+repair, as you may read to this day in the lease; and the house has
+never had but one sign since&mdash;the George and Dragon, it is pretty well
+known in England&mdash;and one name to its master. It has been owned by a
+Turnbull from that day to this, and they have not been counted bad men.&quot;
+A murmur of applause testified the assent of his guests. &quot;They has been
+steady churchgoin' folk, and brewed good drink, and maintained the best
+o' characters, hereaways and farther off too, though 'tis I, Richard
+Turnbull, that says it; and while they pay their rent, no man has power
+to put them out; for their title's as good to the George and Dragon, and
+the two fields, and the croft, and the grazing o' their kye on the
+green, as Sir Bale Mardykes to the Hall up there and estate. So 'tis
+nout to me, except in the way o' friendliness, what the family may think
+o' me; only the George and they has always been kind and friendly, and I
+don't want to break the old custom.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well said, Dick!&quot; exclaimed Doctor Torvey; &quot;I own to your conclusion;
+but there ain't a soul here but ourselves&mdash;and we're all friends, and
+you are your own master&mdash;and, hang it, you'll tell us that story about
+the drowned woman, as you heard it from your father long ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, do, and keep us to our liquor, my hearty!&quot; cried the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Peers looked his entreaty; and deaf Mr. Hollar, having no interest
+in the petition, was at least a safe witness, and, with his pipe in his
+lips, a cozy piece of furniture.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Turnbull had his punch beside him; he looked over his shoulder.
+The door was closed, the fire was cheery, and the punch was fragrant,
+and all friendly faces about him. So said he:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gentlemen, as you're pleased to wish it, I don't see no great harm in
+it; and at any rate, 'twill prevent mistakes. It is more than ninety
+years since. My father was but a boy then; and many a time I have heard
+him tell it in this very room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And looking into his glass he mused, and stirred his punch slowly.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_II"></a><h4>CHAPTER II</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Drowned Woman</b></i>
+
+<p>&quot;It ain't much of a homminy,&quot; said the host of the George. &quot;I'll not
+keep you long over it, gentlemen. There was a handsome young lady, Miss
+Mary Feltram o' Cloostedd by name. She was the last o' that family; and
+had gone very poor. There's but the walls o' the house left now; grass
+growing in the hall, and ivy over the gables; there's no one livin' has
+ever hard tell o' smoke out o' they chimblies. It stands on t'other side
+o' the lake, on the level wi' a deal o' a'ad trees behint and aside it
+at the gap o' the clough, under the pike o' Maiden Fells. Ye may see it
+wi' a spyin'-glass from the boatbield at Mardykes Hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been there fifty times,&quot; said the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well there was dealin's betwixt the two families; and there's good and
+bad in every family; but the Mardykes, in them days, was a wild lot. And
+when old Feltram o' Cloostedd died, and the young lady his daughter was
+left a ward o' Sir Jasper Mardykes&mdash;an ill day for her, poor
+lass!--twenty year older than her he was, an' more; and nothin' about
+him, they say, to make anyone like or love him, ill-faur'd and little
+and dow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dow&mdash;that's gloomy,&quot; Doctor Torvey instructed the Captain aside.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But they do say, they has an old blud-stean ring in the family that
+has a charm in't; and happen how it might, the poor lass fell in love
+wi' him. Some said they was married. Some said it hang'd i' the
+bell-ropes, and never had the priest's blessing; but anyhow, married or
+no, there was talk enough amang the folk, and out o' doors she would na
+budge. And there was two wee barns; and she prayed him hard to confess
+the marriage, poor thing! But t'was a bootlese bene, and he would not
+allow they should bear his name, but their mother's; he was a hard man,
+and hed the bit in his teeth, and went his ain gait. And having tired of
+her, he took in his head to marry a lady of the Barnets, and it behoved
+him to be shut o' her and her children; and so she nor them was seen no
+more at Mardykes Hall. And the eldest, a boy, was left in care of my
+grandfather's father here in the George.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That queer Philip Feltram that's travelling with Sir Bale so long is a
+descendant of his?&quot; said the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Grandson,&quot; observed Mr. Peers, removing his pipe for a moment; &quot;and is
+the last of that stock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, no one could tell where she had gone to. Some said to distant
+parts, some said to the madhouse, some one thing, some another; but
+neither she nor the barn was ever seen or spoke to by the folk at
+Mardykes in life again. There was one Mr. Wigram that lived in them
+times down at Moultry, and had sarved, like the Captain here, in the
+king's navy in his day; and early of a morning down he comes to the town
+for a boat, sayin' he was looking towards Snakes Island through his
+spyin'-glass, and he seen a woman about a hundred and fifty yards
+outside of it; the Captain here has heard the bearings right enough.
+From her hips upwards she was stark and straight out o' the water, and a
+baby in her arms. Well, no one else could see it, nor he neither, when
+they went down to the boat. But next morning he saw the same thing, and
+the boatman saw it too; and they rowed for it, both pulling might and
+main; but after a mile or so they could see it no more, and gave over.
+The next that saw it was the vicar, I forget his name now&mdash;but he was up
+the lake to a funeral at Mortlock Church; and coming back with a bit of
+a sail up, just passin' Snakes Island, what should they hear on a sudden
+but a wowl like a death-cry, shrill and bleak, as made the very blood
+hoot in their veins; and looking along the water not a hundred yards
+away, saw the same grizzled sight in the moonlight; so they turned the
+tiller, and came near enough to see her face&mdash;blea it was, and drenched
+wi' water&mdash;and she was above the lake to her middle, stiff as a post,
+holdin' the weeny barn out to them, and flyrin' [smiling scornfully] on
+them as they drew nigh her. They were half-frighted, not knowing what to
+make of it; but passing as close as the boatman could bring her side,
+the vicar stretched over the gunwale to catch her, and she bent forward,
+pushing the dead bab forward; and as she did, on a sudden she gave a
+yelloch that scared them, and they saw her no more. 'Twas no livin'
+woman, for she couldn't rise that height above the water, as they well
+knew when they came to think; and knew it was a dobby they saw; and ye
+may be sure they didn't spare prayer and blessin', and went on their
+course straight before the wind; for neither would a-took the worth o'
+all the Mardykes to look sich a freetin' i' the face again. 'Twas seen
+another time by market-folk crossin' fra Gyllenstan in the self-same
+place; and Snakes Island got a bad neam, and none cared to go nar it
+after nightfall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know anything of that Feltram that has been with him abroad?&quot;
+asked the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They say he's no good at anything&mdash;a harmless mafflin; he was a long
+gaumless gawky when he went awa,&quot; said Richard Turnbull. &quot;The Feltrams
+and the Mardykes was sib, ye know; and that made what passed in the
+misfortune o' that young lady spoken of all the harder; and this young
+man ye speak of is a grandson o' the lad that was put here in care o' my
+grandfather.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Great</i>-grandson. His father was grandson,&quot; said Mr. Peers; &quot;he held a
+commission in the army and died in the West Indies. This Philip Feltram
+is the last o' that line&mdash;illegitimate, you know, it is held&mdash;and the
+little that remained of the Feltram property went nearly fourscore years
+ago to the Mardykes, and this Philip is maintained by Sir Bale; it is
+pleasant, notwithstanding all the stories one hears, gentlemen, that the
+only thing we know of him for certain should be so creditable to his
+kindness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To be sure,&quot; acquiesced Mr. Turnbull.</p>
+
+<p>While they talked the horn sounded, and the mail-coach drew up at the
+door of the George and Dragon to set down a passenger and his luggage.</p>
+
+<p>Dick Turnbull rose and went out to the hall with careful bustle, and
+Doctor Torvey followed as far as the door, which commanded a view of it,
+and saw several trunks cased in canvas pitched into the hall, and by
+careful Tom and a boy lifted one on top of the other, behind the corner
+of the banister. It would have been below the dignity of his cloth to go
+out and read the labels on these, or the Doctor would have done
+otherwise, so great was his curiosity.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_III"></a><h4>CHAPTER III</h4>
+
+<i><b>Philip Feltram</b></i>
+
+<p>The new guest was now in the hall of the George, and Doctor Torvey could
+hear him talking with Mr. Turnbull. Being himself one of the dignitaries
+of Golden Friars, the Doctor, having regard to first impressions, did
+not care to be seen in his post of observation; and closing the door
+gently, returned to his chair by the fire, and in an under-tone informed
+his cronies that there was a new arrival in the George, and he could not
+hear, but would not wonder if he were taking a private room; and he
+seemed to have trunks enough to build a church with.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't be too sure we haven't Sir Bale on board,&quot; said Amerald, who
+would have followed his crony the Doctor to the door&mdash;for never was
+retired naval hero of a village more curious than he&mdash;were it not that
+his wooden leg made a distinct pounding on the floor that was inimical,
+as experience had taught him, to mystery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That can't be,&quot; answered the Doctor; &quot;Charley Twyne knows everything
+about it, and has a letter every second day; and there's no chance of
+Sir Bale before the tenth; this is a tourist, you'll find. I don't know
+what the d---l keeps Turnbull; he knows well enough we are all naturally
+willing to hear who it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, he won't trouble us here, I bet ye;&quot; and catching deaf Mr.
+Hollar's eye, the Captain nodded, and pointed to the little table beside
+him, and made a gesture imitative of the rattling of a dice-box; at
+which that quiet old gentleman also nodded sunnily; and up got the
+Captain and conveyed the backgammon-box to the table, near Hollar's
+elbow, and the two worthies were soon sinc-ducing and catre-acing, with
+the pleasant clatter that accompanies that ancient game. Hollar had
+thrown sizes and made his double point, and the honest Captain, who
+could stand many things better than Hollar's throwing such throws so
+early in the evening, cursed his opponent's luck and sneered at his
+play, and called the company to witness, with a distinctness which a
+stranger to smiling Hollar's deafness would have thought hardly civil;
+and just at this moment the door opened, and Richard Turnbull showed his
+new guest into the room, and ushered him to a vacant seat near the other
+corner of the table before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger advanced slowly and shyly, with something a little
+deprecatory in his air, to which a lathy figure, a slight stoop, and a
+very gentle and even heartbroken look in his pale long face, gave a more
+marked character of shrinking and timidity.</p>
+
+<p>He thanked the landlord aside, as it were, and took his seat with a
+furtive glance round, as if he had no right to come in and intrude upon
+the happiness of these honest gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the Captain scanning him from under his shaggy grey eyebrows
+while he was pretending to look only at his game; and the Doctor was
+able to recount to Mrs. Torvey when he went home every article of the
+stranger's dress.</p>
+
+<p>It was odd and melancholy as his peaked face.</p>
+
+<p>He had come into the room with a short black cloak on, and a rather tall
+foreign felt hat, and a pair of shiny leather gaiters or leggings on his
+thin legs; and altogether presented a general resemblance to the
+conventional figure of Guy Fawkes.</p>
+
+<p>Not one of the company assembled knew the appearance of the Baronet. The
+Doctor and old Mr. Peers remembered something of his looks; and
+certainly they had no likeness, but the reverse, to those presented by
+the new-comer. The Baronet, as now described by people who had chanced
+to see him, was a dark man, not above the middle size, and with a
+certain decision in his air and talk; whereas this person was tall,
+pale, and in air and manner feeble. So this broken trader in the world's
+commerce, with whom all seemed to have gone wrong, could not possibly be
+he.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, in one of his stealthy glances, the Doctor's eye encountered
+that of the stranger, who was by this time drinking his tea&mdash;a thin and
+feminine liquor little used in that room.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger did not seem put out; and the Doctor, interpreting his look
+as a permission to converse, cleared his voice, and said urbanely,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have had a little frost by night, down here, sir, and a little fire
+is no great harm&mdash;it is rather pleasant, don't you think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The stranger bowed acquiescence with a transient wintry smile, and
+looked gratefully on the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This place is a good deal admired, sir, and people come a good way to
+see it; you have been here perhaps before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many years ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here was another pause.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Places change imperceptibly&mdash;in detail, at least&mdash;a good deal,&quot; said
+the Doctor, making an effort to keep up a conversation that plainly
+would not go on of itself; &quot;and people too; population shifts&mdash;there's
+an old fellow, sir, they call <i>Death</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And an old fellow they call the <i>Doctor</i>, that helps him,&quot; threw in the
+Captain humorously, allowing his attention to get entangled in the
+conversation, and treating them to one of his tempestuous ha-ha-ha's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are expecting the return of a gentleman who would be a very leading
+member of our little society down here,&quot; said the Doctor, not noticing
+the Captain's joke. &quot;I mean Sir Bale Mardykes. Mardykes Hall is a pretty
+object from the water, sir, and a very fine old place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The melancholy stranger bowed slightly, but rather in courtesy to the
+relator, it seemed, than that the Doctor's lore interested him much.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And on the opposite side of the lake,&quot; continued Doctor Torvey, &quot;there
+is a building that contrasts very well with it&mdash;the old house of the
+Feltrams&mdash;quite a ruin now, at the mouth of the glen&mdash;Cloostedd House, a
+very picturesque object.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly opposite,&quot; said the stranger dreamily, but whether in the tone
+of acquiescence or interrogatory, the Doctor could not be quite sure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was one of our great families down here that has disappeared. It
+has dwindled down to nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Duce ace,&quot; remarked Mr. Hollar, who was attending to his game.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;While others have mounted more suddenly and amazingly still,&quot; observed
+gentle Mr. Peers, who was great upon county genealogies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sizes!&quot; thundered the Captain, thumping the table with an oath of
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And Snakes Island is a very pretty object; they say there used to be
+snakes there,&quot; said the Doctor, enlightening the visitor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! that's a mistake,&quot; said the dejected guest, making his first
+original observation. &quot;It should be spelt <i>Snaiks</i>. In the old papers it
+is called Sen-aiks Island from the seven oaks that grew in a clump
+there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hey? that's very curious, egad! I daresay,&quot; said the Doctor, set right
+thus by the stranger, and eyeing him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very true, sir,&quot; observed Mr. Peers; &quot;three of those oaks, though, two
+of them little better than stumps, are there still; and Clewson of
+Heckleston has an old document&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here, unhappily, the landlord entered the room in a fuss, and walking up
+to the stranger, said, &quot;The chaise is at the door, Mr. Feltram, and the
+trunks up, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Feltram rose quietly and took out his purse, and said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose I had better pay at the bar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As you like best, sir,&quot; said Richard Turnbull.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Feltram bowed all round to the gentlemen, who smiled, ducked or
+waved their hands; and the Doctor fussily followed him to the hall-door,
+and welcomed him back to Golden Friars&mdash;there was real kindness in this
+welcome&mdash;and proffered his broad brown hand, which Mr. Feltram took; and
+then he plunged into his chaise, and the door being shut, away he
+glided, chaise, horses, and driver, like shadows, by the margin of the
+moonlighted lake, towards Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>And after a few minutes' stand upon the steps, looking along the shadowy
+track of the chaise, they returned to the glow of the room, in which a
+pleasant perfume of punch still prevailed; and beside Mr. Philip
+Feltram's deserted tea-things, the host of the George enlightened his
+guests by communicating freely the little he had picked up. The
+principal fact he had to tell was, that Sir Bale adhered strictly to his
+original plan, and was to arrive on the tenth. A few days would bring
+them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its
+interest. But in the meantime, all Golden Friars was anxious to see what
+Sir Bale Mardykes was like.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a><h4>CHAPTER IV</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Baronet Appears</b></i>
+
+<p>As the candles burn blue and the air smells of brimstone at the approach
+of the Evil One, so, in the quiet and healthy air of Golden Friars, a
+depressing and agitating influence announced the coming of the
+long-absent Baronet.</p>
+
+<p>From abroad, no good whatever had been at any time heard of him, and a
+great deal that was, in the ears of simple folk living in that
+unsophisticated part of the world, vaguely awful.</p>
+
+<p>Stories that travel so far, however, lose something of their authority,
+as well as definiteness, on the way; there was always room for charity
+to suggest a mistake or exaggeration; and if good men turned up their
+hands and eyes after a new story, and ladies of experience, who knew
+mankind, held their heads high and looked grim and mysterious at mention
+of his name, nevertheless an interval of silence softened matters a
+little, and the sulphureous perfume dissipated itself in time.</p>
+
+<p>Now that Sir Bale Mardykes had arrived at the Hall, there were hurried
+consultations held in many households. And though he was tried and
+sentenced by drum-head over some austere hearths, as a rule the law of
+gravitation prevailed, and the greater house drew the lesser about it,
+and county people within the visiting radius paid their respects at the
+Hall.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Martin Bedel, the then vicar of Golden Friars, a stout
+short man, with a mulberry-coloured face and small gray eyes, and
+taciturn habits, called and entered the drawing-room at Mardykes Hall,
+with his fat and garrulous wife on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing-room has a great projecting Tudor window looking out on the
+lake, with its magnificent background of furrowed and purple mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was not there, and Mrs. Bedel examined the pictures, and
+ornaments, and the books, making such remarks as she saw fit; and then
+she looked out of the window, and admired the prospect. She wished to
+stand well with the Baronet, and was in a mood to praise everything.</p>
+
+<p>You may suppose she was curious to see him, having heard for years such
+strange tales of his doings.</p>
+
+<p>She expected the hero of a brilliant and wicked romance; and listened
+for the step of the truant Lovelace who was to fulfil her idea of manly
+beauty and fascination.</p>
+
+<p>She sustained a slight shock when he did appear.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes was, as she might easily have remembered, a
+middle-aged man&mdash;and he looked it. He was not even an imposing-looking
+man for his time of life: he was of about the middle height, slightly
+made, and dark featured. She had expected something of the gaiety and
+animation of Versailles, and an evident cultivation of the art of
+pleasing. What she did see was a remarkable gravity, not to say gloom,
+of countenance&mdash;the only feature of which that struck her being a pair
+of large dark-gray eyes, that were cold and earnest. His manners had the
+ease of perfect confidence; and his talk and air were those of a person
+who might have known how to please, if it were worth the trouble, but
+who did not care twopence whether he pleased or not.</p>
+
+<p>He made them each a bow, courtly enough, but there was no smile&mdash;not
+even an affectation of cordiality. Sir Bale, however, was chatty, and
+did not seem to care much what he said, or what people thought of him;
+and there was a suspicion of sarcasm in what he said that the rustic
+literality of good Mrs. Bedel did not always detect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I believe I have not a clergyman but <i>you</i>, sir, within any reasonable
+distance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Golden Friars <i>is</i> the nearest,&quot; said Mrs. Bedel, answering, as was her
+pleasure on all practicable occasions, for her husband. &quot;And southwards,
+the nearest is Wyllarden&mdash;and by a bird's flight that is thirteen miles
+and a half, and by the road more than nineteen&mdash;twenty, I may say, by
+the road. Ha, ha, ha! it is a long way to look for a clergyman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty miles of road to carry you thirteen miles across, hey? The
+road-makers lead you a pretty dance here; those gentlemen know how to
+make money, and like to show people the scenery from a variety of
+points. No one likes a straight road but the man who pays for it, or
+who, when he travels, is brute enough to wish to get to his journey's
+end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is so true, Sir Bale; one never cares if one is not in a hurry.
+That's what Martin thinks&mdash;don't we, Martin?&mdash;And then, you know, coming
+home is the time you <i>are</i> in a hurry&mdash;when you are thinking of your cup
+of tea and the children; and <i>then</i>, you know, you have the fall of the
+ground all in your favour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's well to have anything in your favour in this place. And so there
+are children?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A good many,&quot; said Mrs. Bedel, with a proud and mysterious smile, and a
+nod; &quot;you wouldn't guess how many.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I; I only wonder you did not bring them all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's very good-natured of you, Sir Bale, but all could not come at
+<i>one</i> bout; there are&mdash;tell him, Martin&mdash;ha, ha, ha! there are eleven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must be very cheerful down at the vicarage,&quot; said Sir Bale
+graciously; and turning to the vicar he added, &quot;But how unequally
+blessings are divided! You have eleven, and I not one&mdash;that I'm aware
+of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then, in that direction straight before you, you have the lake, and
+then the fells; and five miles from the foot of the mountain at the
+other side, before you reach Fottrell&mdash;and that is twenty-five miles by
+the road&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear me! how far apart they are set! My gardener told me this morning
+that asparagus grows very thinly in this part of the world. How thinly
+clergymen grow also down here&mdash;in one sense,&quot; he added politely, for the
+vicar was stout.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We were looking out of the window&mdash;we amused ourselves that way before
+you came&mdash;and your view is certainly the very best anywhere round this
+side; your view of the lake and the fells&mdash;what mountains they are, Sir
+Bale!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Pon my soul, they are! I wish I could blow them asunder with a charge
+of duck-shot, and I shouldn't be stifled by them long. But I suppose, as
+we can't get rid of them, the next best thing is to admire them. We are
+pretty well married to them, and there is no use in quarrelling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know you don't think so, Sir Bale, ha, ha, ha! You wouldn't take a
+good deal and spoil Mardykes Hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can't get a mouthful or air, or see the sun of a morning, for those
+frightful mountains,&quot; he said with a peevish frown at them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, the lake at all events&mdash;that you <i>must</i> admire, Sir Bale?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No ma'am, I don't admire the lake. I'd drain the lake if I could&mdash;I
+hate the lake. There's nothing so gloomy as a lake pent up among barren
+mountains. I can't conceive what possessed my people to build our house
+down here, at the edge of a lake; unless it was the fish, and precious
+fish it is&mdash;pike! I don't know how people digest it&mdash;<i>I</i> can't. I'd as
+soon think of eating a watchman's pike.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought that having travelled so much abroad, you would have acquired
+a great liking for that kind of scenery, Sir Bale; there is a great deal
+of it on the Continent, ain't there?&quot; said Mrs. Bedel. &quot;And the
+boating.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Boating, my dear Mrs. Bedel, is the dullest of all things; don't you
+think so? Because a boat looks very pretty from the shore, we fancy the
+shore must look very pretty from a boat; and when we try it, we find we
+have only got down into a pit and can see nothing rightly. For my part I
+hate boating, and I hate the water; and I'd rather have my house, like
+Haworth, at the edge of a moss, with good wholesome peat to look at, and
+an open horizon&mdash;savage and stupid and bleak as all that is&mdash;than be
+suffocated among impassable mountains, or upset in a black lake and
+drowned like a kitten. O, there's luncheon in the next room; won't you
+take some?&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_V"></a><h4>CHAPTER V</h4>
+
+<i><b>Mrs. Julaper's Room</b></i>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes being now established in his ancestral house, people
+had time to form conclusions respecting him. It must be allowed he was
+not popular. There was, perhaps, in his conduct something of the caprice
+of contempt. At all events his temper and conduct were uncertain, and
+his moods sometimes violent and insulting.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to but one person was his conduct uniform, and that was
+Philip Feltram. He was a sort of aide-de-camp near Sir Bale's person,
+and chargeable with all the commissions and offices which could not be
+suitably intrusted to a mere servant. But in many respects he was
+treated worse than any servant of the Baronet's. Sir Bale swore at him,
+and cursed him; laid the blame of everything that went wrong in house,
+stable, or field upon his shoulders; railed at him, and used him, as
+people said, worse than a dog.</p>
+
+<p>Why did Feltram endure this contumelious life? What could he do but
+endure it? was the answer. What was the power that induced strong
+soldiers to put off their jackets and shirts, and present their hands to
+be tied up, and tortured for hours, it might be, under the scourge, with
+an air of ready volition? The moral coercion of despair; the result of
+an unconscious calculation of chances which satisfies them that it is
+ultimately better to do all that, bad as it is, than try the
+alternative. These unconscious calculations are going on every day with
+each of us, and the results embody themselves in our lives; and no one
+knows that there has been a process and a balance struck, and that what
+they see, and very likely blame, is by the fiat of an invisible but
+quite irresistible power.</p>
+
+<p>A man of spirit would rather break stones on the highway than eat that
+bitter bread, was the burden of every man's song on Feltram's bondage.
+But he was not so sure that even the stone-breaker's employment was open
+to him, or that he could break stones well enough to retain it on a fair
+trial. And he had other ideas of providing for himself, and a different
+alternative in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Good-natured Mrs. Julaper, the old housekeeper at Mardykes Hall, was
+kind to Feltram, as to all others who lay in her way and were in
+affliction.</p>
+
+<p>She was one of those good women whom Nature provides to receive the
+burden of other people's secrets, as the reeds did long ago, only that
+no chance wind could steal them away, and send them singing into strange
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>You may still see her snuggery in Mardykes Hall, though the
+housekeeper's room is now in a different part of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper's room was in the oldest quarter of that old house. It was
+wainscoted, in black panels, up to the ceiling, which was stuccoed over
+in the fanciful diagrams of James the First's time. Several dingy
+portraits, banished from time to time from other statelier rooms, found
+a temporary abode in this quiet spot, where they had come finally to
+settle and drop out of remembrance. There is a lady in white satin and a
+ruff; a gentleman whose legs have faded out of view, with a peaked
+beard, and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a black periwig lost
+in the dark background, and with a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out
+of the darkness strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable
+across it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes, who crossed the Border
+and joined Dundee, and was shot through the temple at Killiecrankie and
+whom more prudent and whiggish scions of the Mardykes family removed
+forthwith from his place in the Hall, and found a retirement here, from
+which he has not since emerged.</p>
+
+<p>At the far end of this snug room is a second door, on opening which you
+find yourself looking down upon the great kitchen, with a little balcony
+before you, from which the housekeeper used to issue her commands to the
+cook, and exercise a sovereign supervision.</p>
+
+<p>There is a shelf on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible, her <i>Whole Duty of
+Man</i>, and her <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>; and, in a file beside them, her
+books of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes,
+cookery-books, and some too on surgery and medicine, as practised by the
+Ladies Bountiful of the Elizabethan age, for which an antiquarian would
+nowadays give an eye or a hand.</p>
+
+<p>Gentle half-foolish Philip Feltram would tell the story of his wrongs,
+and weep and wish he was dead; and kind Mrs. Julaper, who remembered him
+a child, would comfort him with cold pie and cherry-brandy, or a cup of
+coffee, or some little dainty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, ma'am, I'm tired of my life. What's the good of living, if a poor
+devil is never let alone, and called worse names than a dog? Would not
+it be better, Mrs. Julaper, to be dead? Wouldn't it be better, ma'am? I
+think so; I think it night and day. I'm always thinking the same thing.
+I don't care, I'll just tell him what I think, and have it off my mind.
+I'll tell him I can't live and bear it longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There now, don't you be frettin'; but just sip this, and remember
+you're not to judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean it, not he.
+They all had a rough side to their tongue now and again; but no one
+minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the
+tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard
+words break no bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea&mdash;ye like a cup o'
+tea&mdash;and we'll take a cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see
+how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines on the lake this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was patting him gently on the shoulder, as she stood slim and stiff
+in her dark silk by his chair, and her rosy little face smiled down on
+him. She was, for an old woman, wonderfully pretty still. What a
+delicate skin she must have had! The wrinkles were etched upon it with
+so fine a needle, you scarcely could see them a little way off; and as
+she smiled her cheeks looked fresh and smooth as two ruddy little
+apples.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look out, I say,&quot; and she nodded towards the window, deep set in the
+thick wall. &quot;See how bright and soft everything looks in that pleasant
+light; <i>that's</i> better, child, than the finest picture man's hand ever
+painted yet, and God gives it us for nothing; and how pretty Snakes
+Island glows up in that light!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The dejected man, hardly raising his head, followed with his eyes the
+glance of the old woman, and looked mournfully through the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That island troubles me, Mrs. Julaper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything troubles you, my poor goose-cap. I'll pull your lug for ye,
+child, if ye be so dowly;&quot; and with a mimic pluck the good-natured old
+housekeeper pinched his ear and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll go to the still-room now, where the water's boiling, and I'll make
+a cup of tea; and if I find ye so dow when I come back, I'll throw it
+all out o' the window, mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a beautiful picture that Feltram saw in its deep frame of
+old masonry. The near part of the lake was flushed all over with the low
+western light; the more distant waters lay dark in the shadow of the
+mountains; and against this shadow of purple the rocks on Snakes Island,
+illuminated by the setting sun, started into sharp clear yellow.</p>
+
+<p>But this beautiful view had no charm&mdash;at least, none powerful enough to
+master the latent horror associated with its prettiest feature&mdash;for the
+weak and dismal man who was looking at it; and being now alone, he rose
+and leant on the window, and looked out, and then with a kind of shudder
+clutching his hands together, and walking distractedly about the room.</p>
+
+<p>Without his perceiving, while his back was turned, the housekeeper came
+back; and seeing him walking in this distracted way, she thought to
+herself, as he leant again upon the window:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it <i>is</i> a burning shame to worrit any poor soul into that state.
+Sir Bale was always down on someone or something, man or beast; there
+always was something he hated, and could never let alone. It was not
+pretty; it was his nature. Happen, poor fellow, he could not help it;
+but so it was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A maid came in and set the tea-things down; and Mrs. Julaper drew her
+sad guest over by the arm, and made him sit down, and she said: &quot;What
+has a man to do, frettin' in that way? By Jen, I'm ashamed o' ye, Master
+Philip! Ye like three lumps o' sugar, I think, and&mdash;look cheerful, ye
+must!--a good deal o' cream?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're so kind, Mrs. Julaper, you're so cheery. I feel quite
+comfortable after awhile when I'm with you; I feel quite happy,&quot; and he
+began to cry.</p>
+
+<p>She understood him very well by this time and took no notice, but went
+on chatting gaily, and made his tea as he liked it; and he dried his
+tears hastily, thinking she had not observed.</p>
+
+<p>So the clouds began to clear. This innocent fellow liked nothing better
+than a cup of tea and a chat with gentle and cheery old Mrs. Julaper,
+and a talk in which the shadowy old times which he remembered as a child
+emerged into sunlight and lived again.</p>
+
+<p>When he began to feel better, drawn into the kindly old times by the
+tinkle of that harmless old woman's tongue, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sometimes think I would not so much mind&mdash;I should not care so
+much&mdash;if my spirits were not so depressed, and I so agitated. I suppose
+I am not quite well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, tell me what's wrong, child, and it's odd but I have a recipe on
+the shelf there that will do you good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is not a matter of that sort I mean; though I'd rather have you than
+any doctor, if I needed medicine, to prescribe for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper smiled in spite of herself, well pleased; for her skill in
+pharmacy was a point on which the good lady prided herself, and was open
+to flattery, which, without intending it, the simple fellow
+administered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'm well enough; I can't say I ever was better. It is only, ma'am,
+that I have such dreams&mdash;you have no idea.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are dreams and dreams, my dear: there's some signifies no more
+than the babble of the lake down there on the pebbles, and there's
+others that has a meaning; there's dreams that is but vanity, and
+there's dreams that is good, and dreams that is bad. Lady
+Mardykes&mdash;heavens be her bed this day! that's his grandmother I
+mean&mdash;was very sharp for reading dreams. Take another cup of tea. Dear
+me! what a noise the crows keep aboon our heads, going home! and how
+high they wing it!--that's a sure sign of fine weather. An' what do you
+dream about? Tell me your dream, and I may show you it's a good one,
+after all. For many a dream is ugly to see and ugly to tell, and a good
+dream, with a happy meaning, for all that.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a><h4>CHAPTER VI</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Intruder</b></i>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Mrs. Julaper, dreams I've dreamed like other people, old and
+young; but this, ma'am, has taken a fast hold of me,&quot; said Mr. Feltram
+dejectedly, leaning back in his chair and looking down with his hands in
+his pockets. &quot;I think, Mrs. Julaper, it is getting into me. I think it's
+like possession.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Possession, child! what do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think there is something trying to influence me. Perhaps it is the
+way fellows go mad; but it won't let me alone. I've seen it three times,
+think of that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, dear, and what <i>have</i> ye seen?&quot; she asked, with an uneasy
+cheerfulness, smiling, with eyes fixed steadily upon him; for the idea
+of a madman&mdash;even gentle Philip in that state&mdash;was not quieting.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you remember the picture, full-length, that had no frame&mdash;the lady
+in the white-satin saque&mdash;she was beautiful, <i>funeste</i>,&quot; he added,
+talking more to himself; and then more distinctly to Mrs. Julaper
+again&mdash;&mdash;&quot;in the white-satin saque; and with the little mob cap and blue
+ribbons to it, and a bouquet in her fingers; that was&mdash;that&mdash;you know
+who she was?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was your great-grandmother, my dear,&quot; said Mrs. Julaper, lowering
+her eyes. &quot;It was a dreadful pity it was spoiled. The boys in the pantry
+had it for a year there on the table for a tray, to wash the glasses on
+and the like. It was a shame; that was the prettiest picture in the
+house, with the gentlest, rosiest face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It ain't so gentle or rosy now, I can tell you,&quot; said Philip. &quot;As fixed
+as marble; with thin lips, and a curve at the nostril. Do you remember
+the woman that was found dead in the clough, when I was a boy, that the
+gipsies murdered, it was thought,&mdash;a cruel-looking woman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Agoy! Master Philip, dear! ye would not name that terrible-looking
+creature with the pretty, fresh, kindly face!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Faces change, you see; no matter what she's like; it's her talk that
+frightens me. She wants to make use of me; and, you see, it is like
+getting a share in my mind, and a voice in my thoughts, and a command
+over me gradually; and it is just one idea, as straight as a line of
+light across the lake&mdash;see what she's come to. O Lord, help me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, don't you be talkin' like that. It is just a little bit
+dowly and troubled, because the master says a wry word now and then; and
+so ye let your spirits go down, don't ye see, and all sorts o' fancies
+comes into your head.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's no fancy in my head,&quot; he said with a quick look of suspicion;
+&quot;only you asked me what I dreamed. I don't care if all the world knew. I
+dreamed I went down a flight of steps under the lake, and got a message.
+There are no steps near Snakes Island, we all know that,&quot; and he laughed
+chillily. &quot;I'm out of spirits, as you say; and&mdash;and&mdash;O dear! I
+wish&mdash;Mrs. Julaper&mdash;I wish I was in my coffin, and quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now that's very wrong of you, Master Philip; you should think of all
+the blessings you have, and not be makin' mountains o' molehills; and
+those little bits o' temper Sir Bale shows, why, no one minds 'em&mdash;that
+is, to take 'em to heart like you do, don't ye see?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I daresay; I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you are right. I'm unreasonable
+often, I know,&quot; said gentle Philip Feltram. &quot;I daresay I make too much
+of it; I'll try. I'm his secretary, and I know I'm not so bright as he
+is, and it is natural he should sometimes be a little impatient; I ought
+to be more reasonable, I'm sure. It is all that thing that has been
+disturbing me&mdash;I mean fretting, and, I think, I'm not quite well;
+and&mdash;and letting myself think too much of vexations. It's my own fault,
+I'm sure, Mrs. Julaper; and I know I'm to blame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's quite right, that's spoken like a wise lad; only I don't say
+you're to blame, nor no one; for folk can't help frettin' sometimes, no
+more than they can help a headache&mdash;none but a mafflin would say
+that&mdash;and I'll not deny but he has dowly ways when the fit's on him, and
+he frumps us all round, if such be his humour. But who is there hasn't
+his faults? We must bear and forbear, and take what we get and be
+cheerful. So chirp up, my lad; Philip, didn't I often ring the a'd rhyme
+in your ear long ago?</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&quot;Be always as merry as ever you can,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For no one delights in a sorrowful man. </span><br>
+
+<p>&quot;So don't ye be gettin' up off your chair like that, and tramping about
+the room wi' your hands in your pockets, looking out o' this window, and
+staring out o' that, and sighing and crying, and looking so
+black-ox-trodden, 'twould break a body's heart to see you. Ye must be
+cheery; and happen you're hungry, and don't know it. I'll tell the cook
+to grill a hot bit for ye.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I'm not hungry, Mrs. Julaper. How kind you are! dear me, Mrs.
+Julaper, I'm not worthy of it; I don't deserve half your kindness. I'd
+have been heartbroken long ago, but for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I'll make a sup of something hot for you; you'll take a
+rummer-glass of punch&mdash;you must.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I like the tea better; I do, indeed, Mrs. Julaper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tea is no drink for a man when his heart's down. It should be something
+with a leg in it, lad; something hot that will warm your courage for ye,
+and set your blood a-dancing, and make ye talk brave and merry; and will
+you have a bit of a broil first? No? Well then, you'll have a drop o'
+punch?&mdash;ye sha'n't say no.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so, all resistance overpowered, the consolation of Philip Feltram
+proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>A gentler spirit than poor Feltram, a more good-natured soul than the
+old housekeeper, were nowhere among the children of earth.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram, who was reserved enough elsewhere, used to come into her
+room and cry, and take her by both hands piteously, standing before her
+and looking down in her face, while tears ran deviously down his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you ever know such a case? was there ever a fellow like <i>me</i>? did
+you ever <i>know</i> such a thing? You know what I am, Mrs. Julaper, and who
+I am. They call me Feltram; but Sir Bale knows as well as I that my true
+name is not that. I'm Philip Mardykes; and another fellow would make a
+row about it, and claim his name and his rights, as she is always
+croaking in my ear I ought. But you know that is not reasonable. My
+grandmother was married; she was the true Lady Mardykes; <i>think</i> what it
+was to see a woman like that turned out of doors, and her children
+robbed of their name. O, ma'am, you <i>can't</i> think it; unless you were
+me, you couldn't&mdash;you couldn't&mdash;you couldn't!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, come, Master Philip, don't you be taking on so; and ye mustn't be
+talking like that, d'ye mind? You know he wouldn't stand that; and it's
+an old story now, and there's naught can be proved concerning it; and
+what I think is this&mdash;I wouldn't wonder the poor lady was beguiled. But
+anyhow she surely thought she was his lawful wife; and though the law
+may hev found a flaw somewhere&mdash;and I take it 'twas so&mdash;yet sure I am
+she was an honourable lady. But where's the use of stirring that old
+sorrow? or how can ye prove aught? and the dead hold their peace, you
+know; dead mice, they say, feels no cold; and dead folks are past
+fooling. So don't you talk like that; for stone walls have ears, and ye
+might say that ye couldn't <i>un</i>say; and death's day is doom's day. So
+leave all in the keeping of God; and, above all, never lift hand when ye
+can't strike.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lift my hand! O, Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that; you little know
+me; I did not mean that; I never dreamed of hurting Sir Bale. Good
+heavens! Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that! It all comes of my poor
+impatient temper, and complaining as I do, and my misery; but O, Mrs.
+Julaper, you could not think I ever meant to trouble him by law, or any
+other annoyance! I'd like to see a stain removed from my family, and my
+name restored; but to touch his property, O, no!--O, no! that never
+entered my mind, by heaven! that never entered my mind, Mrs. Julaper.
+I'm not cruel; I'm not rapacious; I don't care for money; don't you know
+that, Mrs. Julaper? O, surely you won't think me capable of attacking
+the man whose bread I have eaten so long! I never dreamed of it; I
+should hate myself. Tell me you don't believe it; O, Mrs. Julaper, say
+you don't!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the gentle feeble creature burst into tears and good Mrs. Julaper
+comforted him with kind words; and he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, ma'am; thank you. God knows I would not hurt Bale, nor give
+him one uneasy hour. It is only this: that I'm&mdash;I'm so miserable; and
+I'm only casting in my mind where to turn to, and what to do. So little
+a thing would be enough, and then I shall leave Mardykes. I'll go; not
+in any anger, Mrs. Julaper&mdash;don't think that; but I can't stay, I must
+be gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, now, there's nothing yet, Master Philip, to fret you like that.
+You should not be talking so wild-like. Master Bale has his sharp word
+and his short temper now and again; but I'm sure he likes you. If he
+didn't, he'd a-said so to me long ago. I'm sure he likes you well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hollo! I say, who's there? Where the devil's Mr. Feltram?&quot; called the
+voice of the baronet, at a fierce pitch, along the passage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;La! Mr. Feltram, it's him! Ye'd better run to him,&quot; whispered Mrs.
+Julaper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;D&mdash;n me! does nobody hear? Mrs. Julaper! Hollo! ho! house, there! ho!
+D&mdash;n me, will nobody answer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And Sir Bale began to slap the wainscot fast and furiously with his
+walking-cane with a clatter like a harlequin's lath in a pantomime.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper, a little paler than usual, opened her door, and stood
+with the handle in her hand, making a little curtsey, enframed in the
+door-case; and Sir Bale, being in a fume, when he saw her, ceased
+whacking the panels of the corridor, and stamped on the floor, crying,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Upon my soul, ma'am, I'm glad to see you! Perhaps you can tell me where
+Feltram is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is in my room, Sir Bale. Shall I tell him you want him, please?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never mind; thanks,&quot; said the Baronet. &quot;I've a tongue in my head;&quot;
+marching down the passage to the housekeeper's room, with his cane
+clutched hard, glaring savagely, and with his teeth fast set, like a
+fellow advancing to beat a vicious horse that has chafed his temper.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a><h4>CHAPTER VII</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Bank Note</b></i>
+
+<p>Sir Bale brushed by the housekeeper as he strode into her sanctuary, and
+there found Philip Feltram awaiting him dejectedly, but with no signs of
+agitation.</p>
+
+<p>If one were to judge by the appearance the master of Mardykes presented,
+very grave surmises as to impending violence would have suggested
+themselves; but though he clutched his cane so hard that it quivered in
+his grasp, he had no notion of committing the outrage of a blow. The
+Baronet was unusually angry notwithstanding, and stopping short about
+three steps away, addressed Feltram with a pale face and gleaming eyes.
+It was quite plain that there was something very exciting upon his mind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been looking for you, Mr. Feltram; I want a word or two, if you
+have done your&mdash;your&mdash;whatever it is.&quot; He whisked the point of his stick
+towards the modest tea-tray. &quot;I should like five minutes in the
+library.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet was all this time eyeing Feltram with a hard suspicious
+gaze, as if he expected to read in his face the shrinkings and
+trepidations of guilt; and then turning suddenly on his heel he led the
+way to his library&mdash;a good long march, with a good many turnings. He
+walked very fast, and was not long in getting there. And as Sir Bale
+reached the hearth, on which was smouldering a great log of wood, and
+turned about suddenly, facing the door, Philip Feltram entered.</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet looked oddly and stern&mdash;so oddly, it seemed to Feltram, that
+he could not take his eyes off him, and returned his grim and somewhat
+embarrassed gaze with a stare of alarm and speculation.</p>
+
+<p>And so doing, his step was shortened, and grew slow and slower, and came
+quite to a stop before he had got far from the door&mdash;a wide stretch of
+that wide floor still intervening between him and Sir Bale, who stood
+upon the hearthrug, with his heels together and his back to the fire,
+cane in hand, like a drill-sergeant, facing him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shut that door, please; that will do; come nearer now. I don't want to
+bawl what I have to say. Now listen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet cleared his voice and paused, with his eyes upon Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is only two or three days ago,&quot; said he, &quot;that you said you wished
+you had a hundred pounds. Am I right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; I think so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Think</i>? you know it, sir, devilish well. You said that you wished to
+get away. I have nothing particular to say against that, more especially
+now. Do you understand what I say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Understand, Sir Bale? I do, sir&mdash;quite.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I daresay quite&quot; he repeated with an angry sneer. &quot;Here, sir, is an odd
+coincidence: you want a hundred pounds, and you can't earn it, and you
+can't borrow it&mdash;there's another way, it seems&mdash;but I have got it&mdash;a
+Bank-of-England note of &pound;100&mdash;locked up in that desk;&quot; and he poked the
+end of his cane against the brass lock of it viciously. &quot;There it is,
+and there are the papers you work at; and there are two keys&mdash;I've got
+one and you have the other&mdash;and devil another key in or out of the house
+has any one living. Well, do you begin to see? Don't mind. I don't want
+any d----d lying about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram was indeed beginning to see that he was suspected of something
+very bad, but exactly what, he was not yet sure; and being a man of that
+unhappy temperament which shrinks from suspicion, as others do from
+detection, he looked very much put out indeed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha! I think we do begin to see,&quot; said Sir Bale savagely. &quot;It's a
+bore, I know, troubling a fellow with a story that he knows before; but
+I'll make mine short. When I take my key, intending to send the note to
+pay the crown and quit-rents that you know&mdash;you&mdash;you&mdash;no matter&mdash;you
+know well enough must be paid, I open it so&mdash;and so&mdash;and look <i>there</i>,
+where I left it, for my note; and the note's gone&mdash;you understand, the
+note's <i>gone</i>!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here was a pause, during which, under the Baronet's hard insulting eye,
+poor Feltram winced, and cleared his voice, and essayed to speak, but
+said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's gone, and we know where. Now, Mr. Feltram, <i>I</i> did not steal that
+note, and no one but you and I have access to this desk. You wish to go
+away, and I have no objection to that&mdash;but d&mdash;n me if you take away that
+note with you; and you may as well produce it now and here, as hereafter
+in a worse place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, my good heaven!&quot; exclaimed poor Feltram at last. &quot;I'm very ill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you are, of course. It takes a stiff emetic to get all that money
+off a fellow's stomach; and it's like parting with a tooth to give up a
+bank-note. Of course you're ill, but that's no sign of innocence, and
+I'm no fool. You had better give the thing up quietly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May my Maker strike me&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So He will, you d----d rascal, if there's justice in heaven, unless you
+produce the money. I don't want to hang you. I'm willing to let you off
+if you'll let me, but I'm cursed if I let my note off along with you;
+and unless you give it up forthwith, I'll get a warrant and have you
+searched, pockets, bag, and baggage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lord! am I awake?&quot; exclaimed Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wide awake, and so am I,&quot; replied Sir Bale. &quot;You don't happen to have
+got it about you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God forbid, sir! O, Sir&mdash;O, Sir Bale&mdash;why, Bale, <i>Bale</i>, it's
+impossible! You <i>can't</i> believe it. When did I ever wrong you? You know
+me since I was not higher than the table, and&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stop your snivelling, sir, and give up the note. You know devilish well
+I can't spare it; and I won't spare you if you put me to it. I've said
+my say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale signed towards the door; and like a somnambulist, with dilated
+gaze and pale as death, Philip Feltram, at his wit's end, went out of
+the room. It was not till he had again reached the housekeeper's door
+that he recollected in what direction he was going. His shut hand was
+pressed with all his force to his heart, and the first breath he was
+conscious of was a deep wild sob or two that quivered from his heart as
+he looked from the lobby-window upon a landscape which he did not see.</p>
+
+<p>All he had ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire
+paroxysm. Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real
+capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain
+intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and
+consequence, in his torture.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale, in the meantime, had walked out a little more excited than he
+would have allowed. He was still convinced that Feltram had stolen the
+note, but not quite so certain as he had been. There were things in his
+manner that confirmed, and others that perplexed, Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet stood upon the margin of the lake, almost under the evening
+shadow of the house, looking towards Snakes Island. There were two
+things about Mardykes he specially disliked.</p>
+
+<p>One was Philip Feltram, who, right or wrong, he fancied knew more than
+was pleasant of his past life.</p>
+
+<p>The other was the lake. It was a beautiful piece of water, his eye,
+educated at least in the excellences of landscape-painting,
+acknowledged. But although he could pull a good oar, and liked other
+lakes, to this particular sheet of water there lurked within him an
+insurmountable antipathy. It was engendered by a variety of
+associations.</p>
+
+<p>There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout
+and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.
+His boding was made-up of omens, dreams, and such stuff as he most
+affected to despise, and there fluttered at his heart a presentiment and
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>His foot was on the gunwale of the boat, that was chained to its ring at
+the margin; but he would not have crossed that water in it for any
+reason that man could urge.</p>
+
+<p>What was the mischief that sooner or later was to befall him from that
+lake, he could not define; but that some fatal danger lurked there, was
+the one idea concerning it that had possession of his fancy.</p>
+
+<p>He was now looking along its still waters, towards the copse and rocks
+of Snakes Island, thinking of Philip Feltram; and the yellow level
+sunbeams touched his dark features, that bore a saturnine resemblance to
+those of Charles II, and marked sharply their firm grim lines, and left
+his deep-set eyes in shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Who has the happy gift to seize the present, as a child does, and live
+in it? Who is not often looking far off for his happiness, as Sidney
+Smith says, like a man looking for his hat when it is upon his head? Sir
+Bale was brooding over his double hatred, of Feltram and of the lake. It
+would have been better had he struck down the raven that croaked upon
+his shoulder, and listened to the harmless birds that were whistling
+all round among the branches in the golden sunset.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER VIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>Feltram's Plan</b></i>
+
+<p>This horror of the beautiful lake, which other people thought so lovely,
+was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a distinct
+creation of downright superstition.</p>
+
+<p>The nursery tales which had scared him in his childhood were founded on
+the tragedy of Snakes Island, and haunted him with an unavowed
+persistence still. Strange dreams untold had visited him, and a German
+conjuror, who had made some strangely successful vaticinations, had told
+him that his worst enemy would come up to him from a lake. He had heard
+very nearly the same thing from a fortune-teller in France; and once at
+Lucerne, when he was waiting alone in his room for the hour at which he
+had appointed to go upon the lake, all being quiet, there came to the
+window, which was open, a sunburnt, lean, wicked face. Its ragged owner
+leaned his arm on the window-frame, and with his head in the room, said
+in his patois, &quot;Ho! waiting are you? You'll have enough of the lake one
+day. Don't you mind watching; they'll send when you're wanted;&quot; and
+twisting his yellow face into a malicious distortion, he went on.</p>
+
+<p>This thing had occurred so suddenly, and chimed-in so oddly with his
+thoughts, which were at that moment at distant Mardykes and the haunted
+lake, that it disconcerted him. He laughed, he looked out of the window.
+He would have given that fellow money to tell him why he said that. But
+there was no good in looking for the scamp; he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>A memory not preoccupied with that lake and its omens, and a
+presentiment about himself, would not have noted such things. But <i>his</i>
+mind they touched indelibly; and he was ashamed of his childish slavery,
+but could not help it.</p>
+
+<p>The foundation of all this had been laid in the nursery, in the winter's
+tales told by its fireside, and which seized upon his fancy and his
+fears with a strange congeniality.</p>
+
+<p>There is a large bedroom at Mardykes Hall, which tradition assigns to
+the lady who had perished tragically in the lake. Mrs. Julaper was sure
+of it; for her aunt, who died a very old woman twenty years before,
+remembered the time of the lady's death, and when she grew to woman's
+estate had opportunity in abundance; for the old people who surrounded
+her could remember forty years farther back, and tell everything
+connected with the old house in beautiful Miss Feltram's time.</p>
+
+<p>This large old-fashioned room, commanding a view of Snakes Island, the
+fells, and the lake&mdash;somewhat vast and gloomy, and furnished in a
+stately old fashion&mdash;was said to be haunted, especially when the wind
+blew from the direction of Golden Friars, the point from which it blew
+on the night of her death in the lake; or when the sky was overcast, and
+thunder rolled among the lofty fells, and lightning gleamed on the wide
+sheet of water.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a night like this that a lady visitor, who long after that
+event occupied, in entire ignorance of its supernatural character, that
+large room; and being herself a lady of a picturesque turn, and loving
+the grander melodrama of Nature, bid her maid leave the shutters open,
+and watched the splendid effects from her bed, until, the storm being
+still distant, she fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was travelling slowly across the lake, and it was the deep-mouthed
+clangour of its near approach that startled her, at dead of night, from
+her slumber, to witness the same phenomena in the tremendous loudness
+and brilliancy of their near approach.</p>
+
+<p>At this magnificent spectacle she was looking with the awful ecstasy of
+an observer in whom the sense of danger is subordinated to that of the
+sublime, when she saw suddenly at the window a woman, whose long hair
+and dress seemed drenched with water. She was gazing in with a look of
+terror, and was shaking the sash of the window with vehemence. Having
+stood there for a few seconds, and before the lady, who beheld all this
+from her bed, could make up her mind what to do, the storm-beaten
+figure, wringing her hands, seemed to throw herself backward, and was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>Possessed with the idea that she had seen some poor woman overtaken in
+the storm, who, failing to procure admission there, had gone round to
+some of the many doors of the mansion, and obtained an entry there, she
+again fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the morning, when she went to her window to look out
+upon the now tranquil scene, that she discovered what, being a stranger
+to the house, she had quite forgotten, that this room was at a great
+height&mdash;some thirty feet&mdash;from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Another story was that of good old Mr. Randal Rymer, who was often a
+visitor at the house in the late Lady Mardykes' day. In his youth he had
+been a campaigner; and now that he was a preacher he maintained his
+hardy habits, and always slept, summer and winter, with a bit of his
+window up. Being in that room in his bed, and after a short sleep lying
+awake, the moon shining softly through the window, there passed by that
+aperture into the room a figure dressed, it seemed to him, in gray that
+was nearly white. It passed straight to the hearth, where was an
+expiring wood fire; and cowering over it with outstretched hands, it
+appeared to be gathering what little heat was to be had. Mr. Rymer,
+amazed and awestruck, made a movement in his bed; and the figure looked
+round, with large eyes that in the moonlight looked like melting snow,
+and stretching its long arms up the chimney, they and the figure itself
+seemed to blend with the smoke, and so pass up and away.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale, I have said, did not like Feltram. His father, Sir William,
+had left a letter creating a trust, it was said, in favour of Philip
+Feltram. The document had been found with the will, addressed to Sir
+Bale in the form of a letter.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is mine,&quot; said the Baronet, when it dropped out of the will; and
+he slipped it into his pocket, and no one ever saw it after.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Charles Twyne, the attorney of Golden Friars, whenever he got
+drunk, which was pretty often, used to tell his friends with a grave
+wink that he knew a thing or two about that letter. It gave Philip
+Feltram two hundred a-year, charged on Harfax. It was only a direction.
+It made Sir Bale a trustee, however; and having made away with the
+&quot;letter,&quot; the Baronet had been robbing Philip Feltram ever since.</p>
+
+<p>Old Twyne was cautious, even in his cups, in his choice of an audience,
+and was a little enigmatical in his revelations. For he was afraid of
+Sir Bale, though he hated him for employing a lawyer who lived seven
+miles away, and was a rival. So people were not quite sure whether Mr.
+Twyne was telling lies or truth, and the principal fact that
+corroborated his story was Sir Bale's manifest hatred of his secretary.
+In fact, Sir Bale's retaining him in his house, detesting him as he
+seemed to do, was not easily to be accounted for, except on the
+principle of a tacit compromise&mdash;a miserable compensation for having
+robbed him of his rights.</p>
+
+<p>The battle about the bank-note proceeded. Sir Bale certainly had doubts,
+and vacillated; for moral evidence made powerfully in favour of poor
+Feltram, though the evidence of circumstance made as powerfully against
+him. But Sir Bale admitted suspicion easily, and in weighing
+probabilities would count a virtue very lightly against temptation and
+opportunity; and whatever his doubts might sometimes be, he resisted and
+quenched them, and never let that ungrateful scoundrel Philip Feltram so
+much as suspect their existence.</p>
+
+<p>For two days Sir Bale had not spoken to Feltram. He passed by on stair
+and passage, carrying his head high, and with a thundrous countenance,
+rolling conclusions and revenges in his soul.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Feltram all this time existed in one long agony. He would have left
+Mardykes, were it not that he looked vaguely to some just power&mdash;to
+chance itself&mdash;against this hideous imputation. To go with this
+indictment ringing in his ears, would amount to a confession and flight.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper consoled him with might and main. She was a sympathetic and
+trusting spirit, and knew poor Philip Feltram, in her simplicity, better
+than the shrewdest profligate on earth could have known him. She cried
+with him in his misery. She was fired with indignation by these
+suspicions, and still more at what followed.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale showed no signs of relenting. It might have been that he was
+rather glad of so unexceptionable an opportunity of getting rid of
+Feltram, who, people thought, knew something which it galled the
+Baronet's pride that he should know.</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet had another shorter and sterner interview with Feltram in
+his study. The result was, that unless he restored the missing note
+before ten o'clock next morning, he should leave Mardykes.</p>
+
+<p>To leave Mardykes was no more than Philip Feltram, feeble as he was of
+will, had already resolved. But what was to become of him? He did not
+very much care, if he could find any calling, however humble, that would
+just give him bread.</p>
+
+<p>There was an old fellow and his wife (an ancient dame,) who lived at the
+other side of the lake, on the old territories of the Feltrams, and who,
+from some tradition of loyalty, perhaps, were fond of poor Philip
+Feltram. They lived somewhat high up on the fells&mdash;about as high as
+trees would grow&mdash;and those which were clumped about their rude dwelling
+were nearly the last you passed in your ascent of the mountain. These
+people had a multitude of sheep and goats, and lived in their airy
+solitude a pastoral and simple life, and were childless. Philip Feltram
+was hardy and active, having passed his early days among that arduous
+scenery. Cold and rain did not trouble him; and these people being
+wealthy in their way, and loving him, would be glad to find him
+employment of that desultory pastoral kind which would best suit him.</p>
+
+<p>This vague idea was the only thing resembling a plan in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>When Philip Feltram came to Mrs. Julaper's room, and told her that he
+had made up his mind to leave the house forthwith&mdash;to cross the lake to
+the Cloostedd side in Tom Marlin's boat, and then to make his way up the
+hill alone to Trebeck's lonely farmstead, Mrs. Julaper was overwhelmed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ye'll do no such thing to-night, anyhow. You're not to go like that.
+Ye'll come into the small room here, where he can't follow; and we'll
+sit down and talk it over a bit, and ye'll find 'twill all come
+straight; and this will be no night, anyhow, for such a march. Why,
+man,'twould take an hour and more to cross the lake, and then a long
+uphill walk before ye could reach Trebeck's place; and if the night
+should fall while you were still on the mountain, ye might lose your
+life among the rocks. It can't be 'tis come to that yet; and the call
+was in the air, I'm told, all yesterday, and distant thunder to-day,
+travelling this way over Blarwyn Fells; and 'twill be a night no one
+will be out, much less on the mountain side.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a><h4>CHAPTER IX</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Crazy Parson</b></i>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper had grown weather-wise, living for so long among this noble
+and solitary scenery, where people must observe Nature or else
+nothing&mdash;where signs of coming storm or change are almost local, and
+record themselves on particular cliffs and mountain-peaks, or in the
+mists, or in mirrored tints of the familiar lake, and are easily learned
+or remembered. At all events, her presage proved too true.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had set an hour and more. It was dark; and an awful
+thunder-storm, whose march, like the distant reverberations of an
+invading army, had been faintly heard beyond the barriers of Blarwyn
+Fells throughout the afternoon, was near them now, and had burst in
+deep-mouthed battle among the ravines at the other side, and over the
+broad lake, that glared like a sheet of burnished steel under its
+flashes of dazzling blue. Wild and fitful blasts sweeping down the
+hollows and cloughs of the fells of Golden Friars agitated the lake, and
+bent the trees low, and whirled away their sere leaves in melancholy
+drift in their tremendous gusts. And from the window, looking on a scene
+enveloped in more than the darkness of the night, you saw in the
+pulsations of the lightning, before &quot;the speedy gleams the darkness
+swallowed,&quot; the tossing trees and the flying foam and eddies on the
+lake.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the hurlyburly, a loud and long knocking came at the
+hall-door of Mardykes. How long it had lasted before a chance lull made
+it audible I do not know.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing picturesquely poor, any more than there were evidences
+of wealth, anywhere in Sir Bale Mardykes' household. He had no lack of
+servants, but they were of an inexpensive and homely sort; and the
+hall-door being opened by the son of an old tenant on the estate&mdash;the
+tempest beating on the other side of the house, and comparative shelter
+under the gables at the front&mdash;he saw standing before him, in the
+agitated air, a thin old man, who muttering, it might be, a benediction,
+stepped into the hall, and displayed long silver tresses, just as the
+storm had blown them, ascetic and eager features, and a pair of large
+light eyes that wandered wildly. He was dressed in threadbare black; a
+pair of long leather gaiters, buckled high above his knee, protecting
+his thin shanks through moss and pool; and the singularity of his
+appearance was heightened by a wide-leafed felt hat, over which he had
+tied his handkerchief, so as to bring the leaf of it over his ears, and
+to secure it from being whirled from his head by the storm.</p>
+
+<p>This odd and storm-beaten figure&mdash;tall, and a little stooping, as well
+as thin&mdash;was not unknown to the servant, who saluted him with something
+of fear as well as of respect as he bid him reverently welcome, and
+asked him to come in and sit by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Get you to your master, and tell him I have a message to him from one
+he has not seen for two-and-forty years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the old man, with his harsh old voice, thus spoke, he unknotted his
+handkerchief and bet the rain-drops from his hat upon his knee.</p>
+
+<p>The servant knocked at the library-door, where he found Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, what's the matter?&quot; cried Sir Bale sharply, from his chair before
+the fire, with angry eyes looking over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here's 't sir cumman, Sir Bale,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir,&quot; or &quot;the Sir,&quot; is still used as the clergyman's title in the
+Northumbrian counties.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Hugh Creswell, if you please, Sir Bale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho!--mad Creswell?&mdash;O, the crazy parson. Well, tell Mrs. Julaper to
+let him have some supper&mdash;and&mdash;and to let him have a bed in some
+suitable place. That's what he wants. These mad fellows know what they
+are about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Sir Bale Mardykes, that is not what he wants,&quot; said the loud wild
+voice of the daft sir over the servant's shoulder. &quot;Often has Mardykes
+Hall given me share of its cheer and its shelter and the warmth of its
+fire; and I bless the house that has been an inn to the wayfarer of the
+Lord. But to-night I go up the lake to Pindar's Bield, three miles on;
+and there I rest and refresh&mdash;not here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And why not <i>here</i>, Mr. Creswell?&quot; asked the Baronet; for about this
+crazy old man, who preached in the fields, and appeared and disappeared
+so suddenly in the orbit of his wide and unknown perambulations of those
+northern and border counties, there was that sort of superstitious
+feeling which attaches to the mysterious and the good&mdash;an idea that it
+was lucky to harbour and dangerous to offend him. No one knew whence he
+came or whither he went. Once in a year, perhaps, he might appear at a
+lonely farmstead door among the fells, salute the house, enter, and be
+gone in the morning. His life was austere; his piety enthusiastic,
+severe, and tinged with the craze which inspired among the rustic
+population a sort of awe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll not sleep at Mardykes to-night; neither will I eat, nor drink, nor
+sit me down&mdash;no, nor so much as stretch my hands to the fire. As the man
+of God came out of Judah to king Jeroboam, so come I to you, sent by a
+vision, to bear a warning; and as he said, 'If thou wilt give me half
+thy house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor
+drink water in this place,' so also say I.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do as you please,&quot; said Sir Bale, a little sulkily. &quot;Say your say; and
+you are welcome to stay or go, if go you will on so mad a night as
+this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Leave us,&quot; said Creswell, beckoning the servant back with his thin
+hands; &quot;what I have to say is to your master.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The servant went, in obedience to a gesture from Sir Bale, and shut the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>The old man drew nearer to the Baronet, and lowering his loud stern
+voice a little, and interrupting his discourse from time to time, to
+allow the near thunder-peals to subside, he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Answer me, Sir Bale&mdash;what is this that has chanced between you and
+Philip Feltram?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet, under the influence of that blunt and peremptory demand,
+told him shortly and sternly enough.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And of all these facts you are sure, else ye would not blast your early
+companion and kinsman with the name of thief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I <i>am</i> sure,&quot; said Sir Bale grimly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unlock that cabinet,&quot; said the old man with the long white locks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've no objection,&quot; said Sir Bale; and he did unlock an old oak cabinet
+that stood, carved in high relief with strange figures and gothic
+grotesques, against the wall, opposite the fireplace. On opening it
+there were displayed a system of little drawers and pigeon-holes such as
+we see in more modern escritoires.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Open that drawer with the red mark of a seal upon it,&quot; continued Hugh
+Creswell, pointing to it with his lank finger.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale did so; and to his momentary amazement, and even consternation,
+there lay the missing note, which now, with one of those sudden caprices
+of memory which depend on the laws of suggestion and association, he
+remembered having placed there with his own hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is it,&quot; said old Creswell with a pallid smile, and fixing his wild
+eyes on the Baronet. The smile subsided into a frown, and said he: &quot;Last
+night I slept near Haworth Moss; and your father came to me in a dream,
+and said: 'My son Bale accuses Philip of having stolen a bank-note from
+his desk. He forgets that he himself placed it in his cabinet. Come with
+me.' I was, in the spirit, in this room; and he led me to this cabinet,
+which he opened; and in that drawer he showed me that note. 'Go,' said
+he, 'and tell him to ask Philip Feltram's pardon, else he will but go in
+weakness to return in power;' and he said that which it is not lawful to
+repeat. My message is told. Now a word from myself,&quot; he added sternly.
+&quot;The dead, through my lips, has spoken, and under God's thunder and
+lightning his words have found ye. Why so uppish wi' Philip Feltram? See
+how ye threaped, and yet were wrong. He's no tazzle&mdash;he's no taggelt.
+Ask his pardon. Ye must change, or he will no taggelt. Go, in weakness,
+come in power: mark ye the words. 'Twill make a peal that will be heard
+in toon and desert, in the swirls o' the mountain, through pikes and
+valleys, and mak' a waaly man o' thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man with these words, uttered in the broad northern dialect of
+his common speech, strode from the room and shut the door. In another
+minute he was forth into the storm, pursuing what remained of his long
+march to Pindar's Bield.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Upon my soul!&quot; said Sir Bale, recovering from his sort of stun which
+the sudden and strange visit had left, &quot;that's a cool old fellow! Come
+to rate me and teach me my own business in my own house!&quot; and he rapped
+out a fierce oath. &quot;Change his mind or no, here he sha'n't stay
+to-night&mdash;not an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was in the lobby in a moment, and thundered to his servants:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, put that fool out of the door&mdash;put him out by the shoulder, and
+never let him put his foot inside it more!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the old man's yea was yea, and his nay nay. He had quite meant what
+he said; and, as I related, was beyond the reach of the indignity of
+extrusion.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale on his return shut his door as violently as if it were in the
+face of the old prophet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask Feltram's pardon, by Jove! For what? Why, any jury on earth would
+have hanged him on half the evidence; and I, like a fool, was going to
+let him off with his liberty and my hundred pound-note! Ask his pardon
+indeed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Still there were misgivings in his mind; a consciousness that he did owe
+explanation and apology to Feltram, and an insurmountable reluctance to
+undertake either. The old dislike&mdash;a contempt mingled with fear&mdash;not any
+fear of his malevolence, a fear only of his carelessness and folly; for,
+as I have said, Feltram knew many things, it was believed, of the
+Baronet's Continental and Asiatic life, and had even gently remonstrated
+with him upon the dangers into which he was running. A simple fellow
+like Philip Feltram is a dangerous depository of a secret. This Baronet
+was proud, too; and the mere possession of his secrets by Feltram was an
+involuntary insult, which Sir Bale could not forgive. He wished him far
+away; and except for the recovery of his bank-note, which he could ill
+spare, he was sorry that this suspicion was cleared up.</p>
+
+<p>The thunder and storm were unabated; it seemed indeed that they were
+growing wilder and more awful.</p>
+
+<p>He opened the window-shutter and looked out upon that sublimest of
+scenes; and so intense and magnificent were its phenomena, that Sir
+Bale, for a while, was absorbed in this contemplation.</p>
+
+<p>When he turned about, the sight of his &pound;100 note, still between his
+finger and thumb, made him smile grimly.</p>
+
+<p>The more he thought of it, the clearer it was that he could not leave
+matters exactly as they were. Well, what should he do? He would send for
+Mrs. Julaper, and tell her vaguely that he had changed his mind about
+Feltram, and that he might continue to stay at Mardykes Hall as usual.
+That would suffice. She could speak to Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>He sent for her; and soon, in the lulls of the great uproar without, he
+could hear the jingle of Mrs. Julaper's keys and her light tread upon
+the lobby.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Julaper,&quot; said the Baronet, in his dry careless way, &quot;Feltram may
+remain; your eloquence has prevailed. What have you been crying about?&quot;
+he asked, observing that his housekeeper's usually cheerful face was, in
+her own phrase, 'all cried.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is too late, sir; he's gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when did he go?&quot; asked Sir Bale, a little put out. &quot;He chose an odd
+evening, didn't he? So like him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He went about half an hour ago; and I'm very sorry, sir; it's a sore
+sight to see the poor lad going from the place he was reared in, and a
+hard thing, sir; and on such a night, above all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one asked him to go to-night. Where is he gone to?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, I'm sure; he left my room, sir, when I was upstairs; and
+Janet saw him pass the window not ten minutes after Mr. Creswell left
+the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, then, there's no good, Mrs. Julaper, in thinking more about it;
+he has settled the matter his own way; and as he so ordains it&mdash;amen,
+say I. Goodnight.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_X"></a><h4>CHAPTER X</h4>
+
+<i><b>Adventure in Tom Marlin's Boat</b></i>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram was liked very well&mdash;a gentle, kindly, and very timid
+creature, and, before he became so heart-broken, a fellow who liked a
+joke or a pleasant story, and could laugh heartily. Where will Sir Bale
+find so unresisting and respectful a butt and retainer? and whom will he
+bully now?</p>
+
+<p>Something like remorse was worrying Sir Bale's heart a little; and the
+more he thought on the strange visit of Hugh Creswell that night, with
+its unexplained menace, the more uneasy he became.</p>
+
+<p>The storm continued; and even to him there seemed something exaggerated
+and inhuman in the severity of his expulsion on such a night. It was his
+own doing, it was true; but would people believe that? and would he have
+thought of leaving Mardykes at all if it had not been for his kinsman's
+severity? Nay, was it not certain that if Sir Bale had done as Hugh
+Creswell had urged him, and sent for Feltram forthwith, and told him how
+all had been cleared up, and been a little friendly with him, he would
+have found him still in the house?&mdash;for he had not yet gone for ten
+minutes after Creswell's departure, and thus, all that was to follow
+might have been averted. But it was too late now, and Sir Bale would let
+the affair take its own course.</p>
+
+<p>Below him, outside the window at which he stood ruminating, he heard
+voices mingling with the storm. He could with tolerable certainty
+perceive, looking into the obscurity, that there were three men passing
+close under it, carrying some very heavy burden among them.</p>
+
+<p>He did not know what these three black figures in the obscurity were
+about. He saw them pass round the corner of the building toward the
+front, and in the lulls of the storm could hear their gruff voices
+talking.</p>
+
+<p>We have all experienced what a presentiment is, and we all know with
+what an intuition the faculty of observation is sometimes heightened. It
+was such an apprehension as sometimes gives its peculiar horror to a
+dream&mdash;a sort of knowledge that what those people were about was in a
+dreadful way connected with his own fate.</p>
+
+<p>He watched for a time, thinking that they might return; but they did
+not. He was in a state of uncomfortable suspense.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If they want me, they won't have much trouble in finding me, nor any
+scruple, egad, in plaguing me; they never have.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale returned to his letters, a score of which he was that night
+getting off his conscience&mdash;an arrear which would not have troubled him
+had he not ceased, for two or three days, altogether to employ Philip
+Feltram, who had been accustomed to take all that sort of drudgery off
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>All the time he was writing now he had a feeling that the shadows he had
+seen pass under his window were machinating some trouble for him, and an
+uneasy suspense made him lift his eyes now and then to the door,
+fancying sounds and footsteps; and after a resultless wait he would say
+to himself, &quot;If any one is coming, why the devil don't he come?&quot; and
+then he would apply himself again to his letters.</p>
+
+<p>But on a sudden he heard good Mrs. Julaper's step trotting along the
+lobby, and the tiny ringing of her keys.</p>
+
+<p>Here was news coming; and the Baronet stood up looking at the door, on
+which presently came a hurried rapping; and before he had answered, in
+the midst of a long thunder-clap that suddenly broke, rattling over the
+house, the good woman opened the door in great agitation, and cried with
+a tremulous uplifting of her hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, Sir Bale! O, la, sir! here's poor dear Philip Feltram come home
+dead!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale stared at her sternly for some seconds.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gome, now, do be distinct,&quot; said Sir Bale; &quot;what has happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He's lying on the sofer in the old still-room. You never saw&mdash;my
+God!--O, sir&mdash;what is life?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;D&mdash;n it, can't you cry by-and-by, and tell me what's the matter now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A bit o' fire there, as luck would have it; but what is hot or cold
+now? La, sir, they're all doin' what they can; he's drowned, sir, and
+Tom Warren is on the gallop down to Golden Friars for Doctor Torvey.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Is</i> he drowned, or is it only a ducking? Come, bring me to the place.
+Dead men don't usually want a fire, or consult doctors. I'll see for
+myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So Sir Bale Mardykes, pale and grim, accompanied by the light-footed
+Mrs. Julaper, strode along the passages, and was led by her into the old
+still-room, which had ceased to be used for its original purpose. All
+the servants in the house were now collected there, and three men also
+who lived by the margin of the lake; one of them thoroughly drenched,
+with rivulets of water still trickling from his sleeves, water along the
+wrinkles and pockets of his waistcoat and from the feet of his trousers,
+and pumping and oozing from his shoes, and streaming from his hair down
+the channels of his cheeks like a continuous rain of tears.</p>
+
+<p>The people drew back a little as Sir Bale entered with a quick step and
+a sharp pallid frown on his face. There was a silence as he stooped over
+Philip Feltram, who lay on a low bed next the wall, dimly lighted by two
+or three candles here and there about the room.</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand, for a moment, on his cold wet breast.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale knew what should be done in order to give a man in such a case
+his last chance for life. Everybody was speedily put in motion. Philip's
+drenched clothes were removed, hot blankets enveloped him, warming-pans
+and hot bricks lent their aid; he was placed at the prescribed angle, so
+that the water flowed freely from his mouth. The old expedient for
+inducing artificial breathing was employed, and a lusty pair of bellows
+did duty for his lungs.</p>
+
+<p>But these helps to life, and suggestions to nature, availed not. Forlorn
+and peaceful lay the features of poor Philip Feltram; cold and dull to
+the touch; no breath through the blue lips; no sight in the fish-like
+eyes; pulseless and cold in the midst of all the hot bricks and
+warming-pans about him.</p>
+
+<p>At length, everything having been tried, Sir Bale, who had been
+directing, placed his hand within the clothes, and laid it silently on
+Philip's shoulder and over his heart; and after a little wait, he shook
+his head, and looking down on his sunken face, he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am afraid he's gone. Yes, he's gone, poor fellow! And bear you this
+in mind, all of you; Mrs. Julaper there can tell you more about it. She
+knows that it was certainly in no compliance with my wish that he left
+the house to-night: it was his own obstinate perversity, and perhaps&mdash;I
+forgive him for it&mdash;a wish in his unreasonable resentment to throw some
+blame upon this house, as having refused him shelter on such a night;
+than which imputation nothing can be more utterly false. Mrs. Julaper
+there knows how welcome he was to stay the night; but he would not; he
+had made up his mind, it seems, without telling any person. Had he told
+you, Mrs. Julaper?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; sobbed Mrs. Julaper from the centre of a pocket-handkerchief
+in which her face was buried.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a human being: an angry whim of his own. Poor Feltram! and here's
+the result,&quot; said the Baronet. &quot;We have done our best&mdash;done everything.
+I don't think the doctor, when he comes, will say that anything has been
+omitted; but all won't do. Does any one here know how it happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Two men knew very well&mdash;the man who had been ducked, and his companion,
+a younger man, who was also in the still-room, and had lent a hand in
+carrying Feltram up to the house.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Marlin had a queer old stone tenement by the edge of the lake just
+under Mardykes Hall. Some people said it was the stump of an old tower
+that had once belonged to Mardykes Castle, of which in the modern
+building scarcely a relic was discoverable.</p>
+
+<p>This Tom Marlin had an ancient right of fishing in the lake, where he
+caught pike enough for all Golden Friars; and keeping a couple of boats,
+he made money beside by ferrying passengers over now and then. This
+fellow, with a furrowed face and shaggy eyebrows, bald at top, but with
+long grizzled locks falling upon his shoulders, said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He wer wi' me this mornin', sayin' he'd want t' boat to cross the lake
+in, but he didn't say what hour; and when it came on to thunder and blow
+like this, ye guess I did not look to see him to-night. Well, my wife
+was just lightin' a pig-tail&mdash;tho' light enough and to spare there was
+in the lift already&mdash;when who should come clatterin' at the latch-pin in
+the blow o' thunder and wind but Philip, poor lad, himself; and an ill
+hour for him it was. He's been some time in ill fettle, though he was
+never frowsy, not he, but always kind and dooce, and canty once, like
+anither; and he asked me to tak the boat across the lake at once to the
+Clough o' Cloostedd at t'other side. The woman took the pet and wodn't
+hear o't; and, 'Dall me, if I go to-night,' quoth I. But he would not be
+put off so, not he; and dingdrive he went to it, cryin' and putrein'
+ye'd a-said, poor fellow, he was wrang i' his garrets a'most. So at long
+last I bethought me, there's nout o' a sea to the north o' Snakes
+Island, so I'll pull him by that side&mdash;for the storm is blowin' right up
+by Golden Friars, ye mind&mdash;and when we get near the point, thinks I,
+he'll see wi' his een how the lake is, and gie it up. For I liked him,
+poor lad; and seein' he'd set his heart on't, I wouldn't vex nor frump
+him wi' a no. So down we three&mdash;myself, and Bill there, and Philip
+Feltram&mdash;come to the boat; and we pulled out, keeping Snakes Island
+atwixt us and the wind. 'Twas smooth water wi' us, for 'twas a scug
+there, but white enough was all beyont the point; and passing the
+finger-stone, not forty fathom from the shore o' the island, Bill and me
+pullin' and he sittin' in the stern, poor lad, up he rises, a bit
+rabblin' to himself, wi' his hands lifted so.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Look a-head!' says I, thinkin' something wos comin' atort us.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But 'twasn't that. The boat was quiet, for while we looked, oo'er our
+shouthers, oo'er her bows, we didn't pull, so she lay still; and lookin'
+back again on Philip, he was rabblin' on all the same.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It's nobbut a prass wi' himsel&quot;, poor lad,' thinks I.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that wasn't it neither; for I sid something white come out o' t'
+water, by the gunwale, like a hand. By Jen! and he leans oo'er and tuk
+it; and he sagged like, and so it drew him in, under the mere, before I
+cud du nout. There was nout to thraa tu him, and no time; down he went,
+and I followed; and thrice I dived before I found him, and brought him
+up by the hair at last; and there he is, poor lad! and all one if he lay
+at the bottom o' t' mere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As Tom Marlin ended his narrative&mdash;often interrupted by the noise of the
+tempest without, and the peals of thunder that echoed awfully above,
+like the chorus of a melancholy ballad&mdash;the sudden clang of the
+hall-door bell, and a more faintly-heard knocking, announced a new
+arrival.</p>
+
+<a name="IMAGE_1"></a>
+<p class="ctr"><img src="images/image1.jpg" width="346" height="240"
+alt="&quot;I sid something white come out o' t' water,
+by the gunwale, like a hand.&quot;"></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a><h4>CHAPTER XI</h4>
+
+<i><b>Sir Bale's Dream</b></i>
+
+<p>It was Doctor Torvey who entered the old still-room now, buttoned-up to
+the chin in his greatcoat, and with a muffler of many colours wrapped
+partly over that feature.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well!--hey? So poor Feltram's had an accident?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor was addressing Sir Bale, and getting to the bedside as he
+pulled off his gloves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see you've been keeping him warm&mdash;that's right; and a considerable
+flow of water from his mouth; turn him a little that way. Hey? O, ho!&quot;
+said the Doctor, as he placed his hand upon Philip, and gently stirred
+his limbs. &quot;It's more than an hour since this happened. I'm afraid
+there's very little to be done now;&quot; and in a lower tone, with his hand
+on poor Philip Feltram's arm, and so down to his fingers, he said in Sir
+Bale Mardykes' ear, with a shake of his head,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here, you see, poor fellow, here's the cadaveric stiffness; it's very
+melancholy, but it's all over, he's gone; there's no good trying any
+more. Come here, Mrs. Julaper. Did you ever see any one dead? Look at
+his eyes, look at his mouth. You ought to have known that, with half an
+eye. And you know,&quot; he added again confidentially in Sir Bale's ear,
+&quot;trying any more <i>now</i> is all my eye.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then after a few more words with the Baronet, and having heard his
+narrative, he said from time to time, &quot;Quite right; nothing could be
+better; capital practice, sir,&quot; and so forth. And at the close of all
+this, amid the sobs of kind Mrs. Julaper and the general whimpering of
+the humbler handmaids, the Doctor standing by the bed, with his knuckles
+on the coverlet, and a glance now and then on the dead face beside him,
+said&mdash;by way of 'quieting men's minds,' as the old tract-writers used to
+say&mdash;a few words to the following effect:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything has been done here that the most experienced physician could
+have wished. Everything has been done in the best way. I don't know
+anything that has not been done, in fact. If I had been here myself, I
+don't know&mdash;hot bricks&mdash;salt isn't a bad thing. I don't know, I say,
+that anything of any consequence has been omitted.&quot; And looking at the
+body, &quot;You see,&quot; and he drew the fingers a little this way and that,
+letting them return, as they stiffly did, to their former attitude, &quot;you
+may be sure that the poor gentleman was quite dead by the time he
+arrived here. So, since he was laid there, nothing has been lost by
+delay. And, Sir Bale, if you have any directions to send to Golden
+Friars, sir, I shall be most happy to undertake your message.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing, thanks; it is a melancholy ending, poor fellow! You must come
+to the study with me, Doctor Torvey, and talk a little bit more;
+and&mdash;very sad, doctor&mdash;and you must have a glass of sherry, or some
+port&mdash;the port used not to be bad here; I don't take it&mdash;but very
+melancholy it is&mdash;bring some port and sherry; and, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+be good enough to see that everything that should be done here is looked
+to; and let Marlin and the men have supper and something to drink. You
+have been too long in your wet clothes, Marlin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So, with gracious words all round, he led the Doctor to the library
+where he had been sitting, and was affable and hospitable, and told him
+his own version of all that had passed between him and Philip Feltram,
+and presented himself in an amiable point of view, and pleased the
+Doctor with his port and flatteries&mdash;for he could not afford to lose
+anyone's good word just now; and the Doctor was a bit of a gossip, and
+in most houses in that region, in one character or another, every three
+months in the year.</p>
+
+<p>So in due time the Doctor drove back to Golden Friars, with a high
+opinion of Sir Bale, and higher still of his port, and highest of all of
+himself: in the best possible humour with the world, not minding the
+storm that blew in his face, and which he defied in good-humoured
+mock-heroics spoken in somewhat thick accents, and regarding the thunder
+and lightning as a lively gala of fireworks; and if there had been a
+chance of finding his cronies still in the George and Dragon, he would
+have been among them forthwith, to relate the tragedy of the night, and
+tell what a good fellow, after all, Sir Bale was; and what a fool, at
+best, poor Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>But the George was quiet for that night. The thunder rolled over
+voiceless chambers; and the lights had been put out within the windows,
+on whose multitudinous small panes the lightning glared. So the Doctor
+went home to Mrs. Torvey, whom he charmed into good-humoured curiosity
+by the tale of wonder he had to relate.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale's qualms were symptomatic of something a little less sublime
+and more selfish than conscience. He was not sorry that Philip Feltram
+was out of the way. His lips might begin to babble inconveniently at any
+time, and why should not his mouth be stopped? and what stopper so
+effectual as that plug of clay which fate had introduced? But he did not
+want to be charged with the odium of the catastrophe. Every man cares
+something for the opinion of his fellows. And seeing that Feltram had
+been well liked, and that his death had excited a vehement
+commiseration, Sir Bale did not wish it to be said that he had made the
+house too hot to hold him, and had so driven him to extremity.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale's first agitation had subsided. It was now late, he had written
+many letters, and he was tired. It was not wonderful, then, that having
+turned his lounging-chair to the fire, he should have fallen asleep in
+it, as at last he did.</p>
+
+<p>The storm was passing gradually away by this time. The thunder was now
+echoing among the distant glens and gorges of Daulness Fells, and the
+angry roar and gusts of the tempest were subsiding into the melancholy
+soughing and piping that soothe like a lullaby.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale therefore had his unpremeditated sleep very comfortably, except
+that his head was hanging a little uneasily; which, perhaps, helped him
+to this dream.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of those dreams in which the continuity of the waking state
+that immediately preceded it seems unbroken; for he thought that he was
+sitting in the chair which he occupied, and in the room where he
+actually was. It seemed to him that he got up, took a candle in his
+hand, and went through the passages to the old still-room where Philip
+Feltram lay. The house seemed perfectly still. He could hear the chirp
+of the crickets faintly from the distant kitchen, and the tick of the
+clock sounded loud and hollow along the passage. In the old still-room,
+as he opened the door, was no light, except what was admitted from the
+candle he carried. He found the body of poor Philip Feltram just as he
+had left it&mdash;his gentle face, saddened by the touch of death, was turned
+upwards, with white lips: with traces of suffering fixed in its
+outlines, such as caused Sir Bale, standing by the bed, to draw the
+coverlet over the dead man's features, which seemed silently to upbraid
+him. &quot;Gone in weakness!&quot; said Sir Bale, repeating the words of the &quot;daft
+sir,&quot; Hugh Creswell; as he did so, a voice whispered near him, with a
+great sigh, &quot;Come in power!&quot; He looked round, in his dream, but there
+was no one; the light seemed to fail, and a horror slowly overcame him,
+especially as he thought he saw the figure under the coverlet stealthily
+beginning to move. Backing towards the door, for he could not take his
+eyes off it, he saw something like a huge black ape creep out at the
+foot of the bed; and springing at him, it griped him by the throat, so
+that he could not breathe; and a thousand voices were instantly round
+him, holloaing, cursing, laughing in his ears; and in this direful
+plight he waked.</p>
+
+<p>Was it the ring of those voices still in his ears, or a real shriek, and
+another, and a long peal, shriek after shriek, swelling madly through
+the distant passages, that held him still, freezing in the horror of his
+dream?</p>
+
+<p>I will tell you what this noise was.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XII</h4>
+
+<i><b>Marcella Bligh and Judith Wale Keep Watch</b></i>
+
+<p>After his bottle of port with Sir Bale, the Doctor had gone down again
+to the room where poor Philip Feltram lay.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper had dried her eyes, and was busy by this time; and two old
+women were making all their arrangements for a night-watch by the body,
+which they had washed, and, as their phrase goes, 'laid out' in the
+humble bed where it had lain while there was still a hope that a spark
+sufficient to rekindle the fire of life might remain. These old women
+had points of resemblance: they were lean, sallow, and wonderfully
+wrinkled, and looked each malign and ugly enough for a witch.</p>
+
+<p>Marcella Bligh's thin hooked nose was now like the beak of a bird of
+prey over the face of the drowned man, upon whose eyelids she was
+placing penny-pieces, to keep them from opening; and her one eye was
+fixed on her work, its sightless companion showing white in its socket,
+with an ugly leer.</p>
+
+<p>Judith Wale was lifting the pail of hot water with which they had just
+washed the body. She had long lean arms, a hunched back, a great sharp
+chin sunk on her hollow breast, and small eyes restless as a ferret's;
+and she clattered about in great bowls of shoes, old and clouted, that
+were made for a foot as big as two of hers.</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor knew these two old women, who were often employed in such
+dismal offices.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How does Mrs. Bligh? See me with half an eye? Hey&mdash;that's rhyme, isn't
+it?&mdash;And, Judy lass&mdash;why, I thought you lived nearer the town&mdash;here
+making poor Mr. Feltram's last toilet. You have helped to dress many a
+poor fellow for his last journey. Not a bad notion of drill either&mdash;they
+stand at attention stiff and straight enough in the sentry-box. Your
+recruits do you credit, Mrs. Wale.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor stood at the foot of the bed to inspect, breathing forth a
+vapour of very fine old port, his hands in his pockets, speaking with a
+lazy thickness, and looking so comfortable and facetious, that Mrs.
+Julaper would have liked to turn him out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>But the Doctor was not unkind, only extremely comfortable. He was a
+good-natured fellow, and had thought and care for the living, but not a
+great deal of sentiment for the dead, whom he had looked in the face too
+often to be much disturbed by the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll have to keep that bandage on. You should be sharp; you should
+know all about it, girl, by this time, and not let those muscles
+stiffen. I need not tell you the mouth shuts as easily as this
+snuff-box, if you only take it in time.&mdash;I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+send to Jos Fringer for the poor fellow's outfit. Fringer is a very
+proper man&mdash;there ain't a properer und-aker in England. I always
+re-mmend Fringer&mdash;in Church-street in Golden Friars. You know Fringer, I
+daresay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say, sir, I'm sure. That will be as Sir Bale may please to
+direct,&quot; answered Mrs. Julaper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've got him very straight&mdash;straighter than I thought you could; but
+the large joints were not so stiff. A very little longer wait, and you'd
+hardly have got him into his coffin. He'll want a vr-r-ry long one, poor
+lad. Short cake is life, ma'am. Sad thing this. They'll open their eyes,
+I promise you, down in the town. 'Twill be cool enough, I'd shay, affre
+all th-thunr-thunnle, you know. I think I'll take a nip, Mrs. Jool-fr,
+if you wouldn't mine makin' me out a thimmle-ful
+bran-band-bran-rand-andy, eh, Mishs Joolfr?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And the Doctor took a chair by the fire; and Mrs. Julaper, with a
+dubious conscience and dry hospitality, procured the brandy-flask and
+wine-glass, and helped the physician in a thin hesitating stream, which
+left him ample opportunity to cry &quot;Hold&mdash;enough!&quot; had he been so minded.
+But that able physician had no confidence, it would seem, in any dose
+under a bumper, which he sipped with commendation, and then fell asleep
+with the firelight on his face&mdash;to tender-hearted Mrs. Julaper's
+disgust&mdash;and snored with a sensual disregard of the solemnity of his
+situation; until with a profound nod, or rather dive, toward the fire,
+he awoke, got up and shook his ears with a kind of start, and standing
+with his back to the fire, asked for his muffler and horse; and so took
+his leave also of the weird sisters, who were still pottering about the
+body, with croak and whisper, and nod and ogle. He took his leave also
+of good Mrs. Julaper, who was completing arrangements with teapot and
+kettle, spiced elderberry wine, and other comforts, to support them
+through their proposed vigil. And finally, in a sort of way, he took his
+leave of the body, with a long business-like stare, from the foot of the
+bed, with his short hands stuffed into his pockets. And so, to Mrs.
+Julaper's relief, this unseemly doctor, speaking thickly, departed.</p>
+
+<p>And now, the Doctor being gone, and all things prepared for the 'wake'
+to be observed by withered Mrs. Bligh of the one eye, and yellow Mrs.
+Wale of the crooked back, the house grew gradually still. The thunder
+had by this time died into the solid boom of distant battle, and the
+fury of the gale had subsided to the long sobbing wail that is charged
+with so eerie a melancholy. Within all was stirless, and the two old
+women, each a 'Mrs.' by courtesy, who had not much to thank Nature or
+the world for, sad and cynical, and in a sort outcasts told off by
+fortune to these sad and grizzly services, sat themselves down by the
+fire, each perhaps feeling unusually at home in the other's society; and
+in this soured and forlorn comfort, trimming their fire, quickening the
+song of the kettle to a boil, and waxing polite and chatty; each
+treating the other with that deprecatory and formal courtesy which
+invites a return in kind, and both growing strangely happy in this
+little world of their own, in the unusual and momentary sense of an
+importance and consideration which were delightful.</p>
+
+<p>The old still-room of Mardykes Hall is an oblong room wainscoted. From
+the door you look its full length to the wide stone-shafted Tudor window
+at the other end. At your left is the ponderous mantelpiece, supported
+by two spiral stone pillars; and close to the door at the right was the
+bed in which the two crones had just stretched poor Philip Feltram, who
+lay as still as an uncoloured wax-work, with a heavy penny-piece on each
+eye, and a bandage under his jaw, making his mouth look stern. And the
+two old ladies over their tea by the fire conversed agreeably, compared
+their rheumatisms and other ailments wordily, and talked of old times,
+and early recollections, and of sick-beds they had attended, and corpses
+that &quot;you would not know, so pined and windered&quot; were they; and others
+so fresh and canny, you'd say the dead had never looked so bonny in
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Then they began to talk of people who grew tall in their coffins, of
+others who had been buried alive, and of others who walked after death.
+Stories as true as holy writ.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Were you ever down by Hawarth, Mrs. Bligh&mdash;hard by Dalworth Moss?&quot;
+asked crook-backed Mrs. Wale, holding her spoon suspended over her cup.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Neea whaar sooa far south, Mrs. Wale, ma'am; but ma father was off
+times down thar cuttin' peat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, then ye'll not a kenned farmer Dykes that lived by the Lin-tree
+Scaur. 'Tweer I that laid him out, poor aad fellow, and a dow man he
+was when aught went cross wi' him; and he cursed and sweared, twad gar
+ye dodder to hear him. They said he was a hard man wi' some folk; but he
+kep a good house, and liked to see plenty, and many a time when I was
+swaimous about my food, he'd clap t' meat on ma plate, and mak' me eat
+ma fill. Na, na&mdash;there was good as well as bad in farmer Dykes. It was a
+year after he deed, and Tom Ettles was walking home, down by the Birken
+Stoop one night, and not a soul nigh, when he sees a big ball, as high
+as his knee, whirlin' and spangin' away before him on the road. What it
+wer he could not think; but he never consayted there was a freet or a bo
+thereaway; so he kep near it, watching every spang and turn it took,
+till it ran into the gripe by the roadside. There was a gravel pit just
+there, and Tom Ettles wished to take another gliff at it before he went
+on. But when he keeked into the pit, what should he see but a man
+attoppa a horse that could not get up or on: and says he, 'I think ye be
+at a dead-lift there, gaffer.' And wi' the word, up looks the man, and
+who sud it be but farmer Dykes himsel; and Tom Ettles saw him plain
+eneugh, and kenned the horse too for Black Captain, the farmer's aad
+beast, that broke his leg and was shot two years and more before the
+farmer died. 'Ay,' says farmer Dykes, lookin' very bad;
+'forsett-and-backsett, ye'll tak me oot, Tom Ettles, and clap ye doun
+behint me quick, or I'll claw ho'd o' thee.' Tom felt his hair risin'
+stiff on his heed, and his tongue so fast to the roof o' his mouth he
+could scarce get oot a word; but says he, 'If Black Jack can't do it o'
+noo, he'll ne'er do't and carry double.' 'I ken my ain business best,'
+says Dykes. 'If ye gar me gie ye a look, 'twill gie ye the creepin's
+while ye live; so git ye doun, Tom;' and with that the dobby lifts its
+neaf, and Tom saw there was a red light round horse and man, like the
+glow of a peat fire. And says Tom, 'In the name o' God, ye'll let me
+pass;' and with the word the gooast draws itsel' doun, all a-creaked,
+like a man wi' a sudden pain; and Tom Ettles took to his heels more deed
+than alive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had approached their heads, and the story had sunk to that
+mysterious murmur that thrills the listener, when in the brief silence
+that followed they heard a low odd laugh near the door.</p>
+
+<p>In that direction each lady looked aghast, and saw Feltram sitting
+straight up in the bed, with the white bandage in his hand, and as it
+seemed, for one foot was below the coverlet, near the floor, about to
+glide forth.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Bligh, uttering a hideous shriek, clutched Mrs. Wale, and Mrs.
+Wale, with a scream as dreadful, gripped Mrs. Bligh; and quite
+forgetting their somewhat formal politeness, they reeled and tugged,
+wrestling towards the window, each struggling to place her companion
+between her and the 'dobby,' and both uniting in a direful peal of
+yells.</p>
+
+<p>This was the uproar which had startled Sir Bale from his dream, and was
+now startling the servants from theirs.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Mist on the Mountain</b></i>
+
+<p>Doctor Torvey was sent for early next morning, and came full of wonder,
+learning and scepticism. Seeing is believing, however; and there was
+Philip Feltram living, and soon to be, in all bodily functions, just as
+usual.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Upon my soul, Sir Bale, I couldn't have believed it, if I had not seen
+it with my eyes,&quot; said the Doctor impressively, while sipping a glass of
+sherry in the 'breakfast parlour,' as the great panelled and pictured
+room next the dining-room was called. &quot;I don't think there is any
+similar case on record&mdash;no pulse, no more than the poker; no
+respiration, by Jove, no more than the chimney-piece; as cold as a lead
+image in the garden there. Well, you'll say all that might possibly be
+fallacious; but what will you say to the cadaveric stiffness? Old Judy
+Wale can tell you; and my friend Marcella&mdash;Monocula would be nearer the
+mark&mdash;Mrs. Bligh, she knows all those common, and I may say up to this,
+infallible, signs of death, as well as I do. There is no mystery about
+them; they'll depose to the literality of the symptoms. You heard how
+they gave tongue. Upon my honour, I'll send the whole case up to my old
+chief, Sir Hervey Hansard, to London. You'll hear what a noise it will
+make among the profession. There never was&mdash;and it ain't too much to
+say there never <i>will</i> be&mdash;another case like it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>During this lecture, and a great deal more, Sir Bale leaned back in his
+chair, with his legs extended, his heels on the ground, and his arms
+folded, looking sourly up in the face of a tall lady in white satin, in
+a ruff, and with a bird on her hand, who smiled down superciliously from
+her frame on the Baronet. Sir Bale seemed a little bit high and dry with
+the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You physicians are unquestionably,&quot; he said, &quot;a very learned
+profession.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor bowed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But there's just one thing you know nothing about&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eh? What's that?&quot; inquired Doctor Torvey.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Medicine,&quot; answered Sir Bale. &quot;I was aware you never knew what was the
+matter with a sick man; but I didn't know, till now, that you couldn't
+tell when he was dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha!--well&mdash;ha, ha!--<i>yes</i>&mdash;well, you see, you&mdash;ha, ha!--you
+certainly have me there. But it's a case without a parallel&mdash;it is, upon
+my honour. You'll find it will not only be talked about, but written
+about; and, whatever papers appear upon it, will come to me; and I'll
+take care, Sir Bale, you shall have an opportunity of reading them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of which I shan't avail myself,&quot; answered Sir Bale. &quot;Take another glass
+of sherry, Doctor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor made his acknowledgments and filled his glass, and looked
+through the wine between him and the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, ha!--see there, your port, Sir Bale, gives a fellow such
+habits&mdash;looking for the beeswing, by Jove. It isn't easy, in one sense
+at least, to get your port out of a fellow's head when once he has
+tasted it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But if the honest Doctor meant a hint for a glass of that admirable bin,
+it fell pointless; and Sir Bale had no notion of making another libation
+of that precious fluid in honour of Doctor Torvey.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I take it for granted,&quot; said Sir Bale, &quot;that Feltram will do very
+well; and, should anything go wrong, I can send for you&mdash;unless he
+should die again; and in that case I think I shall take my own opinion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So he and the Doctor parted.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale, although he did not consult the Doctor on his own case, was
+not particularly well. &quot;That lonely place, those frightful mountains,
+and that damp black lake&quot;&mdash;which features in the landscape he cursed all
+round&mdash;&quot;are enough to give any man blue devils; and when a fellow's
+spirits go, he's all gone. That's why I'm dyspeptic&mdash;that and those
+d----d debts&mdash;and the post, with its flight of croaking and screeching
+letters from London. I wish there was no post here. I wish it was like
+Sir Amyrald's time, when they shot the York mercer that came to dun him,
+and no one ever took anyone to task about it; and now they can pelt you
+at any distance they please through the post; and fellows lose their
+spirits and their appetite and any sort of miserable comfort that is
+possible in this odious abyss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Was there gout in Sir Bale's case, or 'vapours'? I know not what the
+faculty would have called it; but Sir Bale's mode of treatment was
+simply to work off the attack by long and laborious walking.</p>
+
+<p>This evening his walk was upon the Fells of Golden Friars&mdash;long after
+the landscape below was in the eclipse of twilight, the broad bare sides
+and angles of these gigantic uplands were still lighted by the misty
+western sun.</p>
+
+<p>There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the
+silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the
+level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and
+colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a
+strange fear and elation&mdash;an ascent above the reach of life's vexations
+or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgiving.
+The filmy disc of the moon had risen in the east, and was already
+faintly silvering the shadowy scenery below, while yet Sir Bale stood in
+the mellow light of the western sun, which still touched also the
+summits of the opposite peaks of Morvyn Fells.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes did not, as a stranger might, in prudence, hasten his
+descent from the heights at which he stood while yet a gleam of daylight
+remained to him. For he was, from his boyhood, familiar with those
+solitary regions; and, beside this, the thin circle of the moon, hung in
+the eastern sky, would brighten as the sunlight sank, and hang like a
+lamp above his steps.</p>
+
+<p>There was in the bronzed and resolute face of the Baronet, lighted now
+in the parting beams of sunset, a resemblance to that of Charles the
+Second&mdash;not our &quot;merry&quot; ideal, but the more energetic and saturnine face
+which the portraits have preserved to us.</p>
+
+<p>He stood with folded arms on the side of the slope, admiring, in spite
+of his prejudice, the unusual effects of a view so strangely
+lighted&mdash;the sunset tints on the opposite peaks, lost in the misty
+twilight, now deepening lower down into a darker shade, through which
+the outlines of the stone gables and tower of Golden Friars and the
+light of fire or candle in their windows were dimly visible.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood and looked, his more distant sunset went down, and sudden
+twilight was upon him, and he began to remember the beautiful Homeric
+picture of a landscape coming out, rock and headland, in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>There had hung upon the higher summits, at his right, a heavy fold of
+white cloud, which on a sudden broke, and, like the smoke of artillery,
+came rolling down the slopes toward him. Its principal volume, however,
+unfolded itself in a mighty flood down the side of the mountain towards
+the lake; and that which spread towards and soon enveloped the ground on
+which he stood was by no means so dense a fog. A thick mist enough it
+was; but still, to a distance of twenty or thirty yards, he could
+discern the outline of a rock or scaur, but not beyond it.</p>
+
+<p>There are few sensations more intimidating than that of being thus
+enveloped on a lonely mountain-side, which, like this one, here and
+there breaks into precipice.</p>
+
+<p>There is another sensation, too, which affects the imagination.
+Overtaken thus on the solitary expanse, there comes a new chill and
+tremour as this treacherous medium surrounds us, through which
+unperceived those shapes which fancy conjures up might approach so near
+and bar our path.</p>
+
+<p>From the risk of being reduced to an actual standstill he knew he was
+exempt. The point from which the wind blew, light as it was, assured him
+of that. Still the mist was thick enough seriously to embarrass him. It
+had overtaken him as he was looking down upon the lake; and he now
+looked to his left, to try whether in that direction it was too thick to
+permit a view of the nearest landmarks. Through this white film he saw a
+figure standing only about five-and-twenty steps away, looking down, as
+it seemed, in precisely the same direction as he, quite motionless, and
+standing like a shadow projected upon the smoky vapour. It was the
+figure of a slight tall man, with his arm extended, as if pointing to a
+remote object, which no mortal eye certainly could discern through the
+mist. Sir Bale gazed at this figure, doubtful whether he were in a
+waking dream, unable to conjecture whence it had come; and as he looked,
+it moved, and was almost instantly out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>He descended the mountain cautiously. The mist was now thinner, and
+through the haze he was beginning to see objects more distinctly, and,
+without danger, to proceed at a quicker pace. He had still a long walk
+by the uplands towards Mardykes Hall before he descended to the level of
+the lake.</p>
+
+<p>The mist was still quite thick enough to circumscribe his view and to
+hide the general features of the landscape; and well was it, perhaps,
+for Sir Bale that his boyhood had familiarised him with the landmarks on
+the mountain-side.</p>
+
+<p>He had made nearly four miles on his solitary homeward way, when,
+passing under a ledge of rock which bears the name of the Cat's Skaitch,
+he saw the same figure in the short cloak standing within some thirty or
+forty yards of him&mdash;the thin curtain of mist, through which the
+moonlight touched it, giving to it an airy and unsubstantial character.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale came to a standstill. The man in the short cloak nodded and
+drew back, and was concealed by the angle of the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was now irritated, as men are after a start, and shouting to
+the stranger to halt, he 'slapped' after him, as the northern phrase
+goes, at his best pace. But again he was gone, and nowhere could he see
+him, the mist favouring his evasion.</p>
+
+<p>Looking down the fells that overhang Mardykes Hall, the mountain-side
+dips gradually into a glen, which, as it descends, becomes precipitous
+and wooded. A footpath through this ravine conducts the wayfarer to the
+level ground that borders the lake; and by this dark pass Sir Bale
+Mardykes strode, in comparatively clear air, along the rocky path
+dappled with moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>As he emerged upon the lower ground he again encountered the same
+figure. It approached. It was Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><h4>CHAPTER XIV</h4>
+
+<i><b>A New Philip Feltram</b></i>
+
+<p>The Baronet had not seen Feltram since his strange escape from death.
+His last interview with him had been stern and threatening; Sir Bale
+dealing with appearances in the spirit of an incensed judge, Philip
+Feltram lamenting in the submission of a helpless despair.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram was full in the moonlight now, standing erect, and smiling
+cynically on the Baronet.</p>
+
+<p>There was that in the bearing and countenance of Feltram that
+disconcerted him more than the surprise of the sudden meeting.</p>
+
+<p>He had determined to meet Feltram in a friendly way, whenever that not
+very comfortable interview became inevitable. But he was confused by the
+suddenness of Feltram's appearance; and the tone, cold and stern, in
+which he had last spoken to him came first, and he spoke in it after a
+brief silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I fancied, Mr. Feltram, you were in your bed; I little expected to find
+you here. I think the Doctor gave very particular directions, and said
+that you were to remain perfectly quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I know more than the Doctor,&quot; replied Feltram, still smiling
+unpleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think, sir, you would have been better in your bed,&quot; said Sir Bale
+loftily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, come, come, come!&quot; exclaimed Philip Feltram contemptuously.</p>
+
+<a name="IMAGE_2"></a>
+<p><img src="images/image2.jpg" width="250" height="413" align="left"
+alt="It was the figure of a slight tall man,
+with his arm extended,
+as if pointing to a remote object."></p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems to me,&quot; said Sir Bale, a good deal astonished, &quot;you rather
+forget yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Easier to forget oneself, Sir Bale, than to forgive others, at times,&quot;
+replied Philip Feltram in his unparalleled mood.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's the way fools knock themselves up,&quot; continued Sir Bale. &quot;You've
+been walking ever so far&mdash;away to the Fells of Golden Friars. It was you
+whom I saw there. What d----d folly! What brought you there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To observe you,&quot; he replied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And have you walked the whole way there and back again? How did you get
+there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pooh! how did I come&mdash;how did you come&mdash;how did the fog come? From the
+lake, I suppose. We all come up, and then down.&quot; So spoke Philip
+Feltram, with serene insolence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are pleased to talk nonsense,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I like it&mdash;with a <i>meaning</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked at him, not knowing whether to believe his eyes and
+ears. He did not know what to make of him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I had intended speaking to you in a conciliatory way; you seem to wish
+to make that impossible&quot;&mdash;Philip Feltram's face wore its repulsive
+smile;&mdash;&quot;and in fact I don't know what to make of you, unless you are
+ill; and ill you well may be. You can't have walked much less than
+twelve miles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wonderful effort for me!&quot; said Feltram with the same sneer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Rather surprising for a man so nearly drowned,&quot; answered Sir Bale
+Mardykes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A dip: you don't like the lake, sir; but I do. And so it is: as Antaeus
+touched the earth, so I the water, and rise refreshed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think you'd better get in and refresh there. I meant to tell you that
+all the unpleasantness about that bank-note is over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. It has been recovered by Mr. Creswell, who came here last night.
+I've got it, and you're not to blame,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But some one <i>is</i> to blame,&quot; observed Mr. Feltram, smiling still.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, <i>you</i> are not, and that ends it,&quot; said the Baronet peremptorily.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>&quot;Ends it? Really, how good! how very good!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked at him, for there was something ambiguous and even
+derisive in the tone of Feltram's voice.</p>
+
+<p>But before he could quite make up his mind, Feltram spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything is settled about you and me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is nothing to prevent your staying at Mardykes now,&quot; said Sir
+Bale graciously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall be with you for two years, and then I go on my travels,&quot;
+answered Feltram, with a saturnine and somewhat wild look around him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is he going mad?&quot; thought the Baronet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But before I go, I'm to put you in a way of paying off your mortgages.
+That is my business here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked at him sharply. But now there was not the unpleasant
+smile, but the darkened look of a man in secret pain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You shall know it all by and by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And without more ceremony, and with a darkening face, Philip Feltram
+made his way under the boughs of the thick oaks that grew there, leaving
+on Sir Bale's mind an impression that he had been watching some one at a
+distance, and had gone in consequence of a signal.</p>
+
+<p>In a few seconds he followed in the same direction, halloaing after
+Feltram; for he did not like the idea of his wandering about the country
+by moonlight, or possibly losing his life among the precipices, and
+bringing a new discredit upon his house. But no answer came; nor could
+he in that thick copse gain sight of him again.</p>
+
+<p>When Sir Bale reached Mardykes Hall he summoned Mrs. Julaper, and had a
+long talk with her. But she could not say that there appeared anything
+amiss with Philip Feltram; only he seemed more reserved, and as if he
+was brooding over something he did not intend to tell.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, you know, Sir Bale, what happened might well make a thoughtful man
+of him. If he's ever to think of Death, it should be after looking him
+so hard in the face; and I'm not ashamed to say, I'm glad to see he has
+grace to take the lesson, and I hope his experiences may be sanctified
+to him, poor fellow! Amen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very good song, and very well sung,&quot; said Sir Bale; &quot;but it doesn't
+seem to me that he has been improved, Mrs. Julaper. He seems, on the
+contrary, in a queer temper and anything but a heavenly frame of mind;
+and I thought I'd ask you, because if he is ill&mdash;I mean feverish&mdash;it
+might account for his eccentricities, as well as make it necessary to
+send after him, and bring him home, and put him to bed. But I suppose it
+is as you say,&mdash;his adventure has upset him a little, and he'll sober in
+a day or two, and return to his old ways.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But this did not happen. A change, more comprehensive than at first
+appeared, had taken place, and a singular alteration was gradually
+established.</p>
+
+<p>He grew thin, his eyes hollow, his face gradually forbidding.</p>
+
+<p>His ways and temper were changed: he was a new man with Sir Bale; and
+the Baronet after a time, people said, began to grow afraid of him. And
+certainly Feltram had acquired an extraordinary influence over the
+Baronet, who a little while ago had regarded and treated him with so
+much contempt.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a><h4>CHAPTER XV</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Purse of Gold</b></i>
+
+<p>The Baronet was very slightly known in his county. He had led a reserved
+and inhospitable life. He was pressed upon by heavy debts; and being a
+proud man, held aloof from society and its doings. He wished people to
+understand that he was nursing his estate; but somehow the estate did
+not thrive at nurse. In the country other people's business is admirably
+well known; and the lord of Mardykes was conscious, perhaps, that his
+neighbours knew as well he did, that the utmost he could do was to pay
+the interest charged upon it, and to live in a frugal way enough.</p>
+
+<p>The lake measures some four or five miles across, from the little jetty
+under the walls of Mardykes Hall to Cloostedd.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram, changed and morose, loved a solitary row upon the lake;
+and sometimes, with no one to aid him in its management, would take the
+little sailboat and pass the whole day upon those lonely waters.</p>
+
+<p>Frequently he crossed to Cloostedd; and mooring the boat under the
+solemn trees that stand reflected in that dark mirror, he would
+disembark and wander among the lonely woodlands, as people thought,
+cherishing in those ancestral scenes the memory of ineffaceable
+injuries, and the wrath and revenge that seemed of late to darken his
+countenance, and to hold him always in a moody silence.</p>
+
+<p>One autumnal evening Sir Bale Mardykes was sourly ruminating after his
+solitary meal. A very red sun was pouring its last low beams through the
+valley at the western extremity of the lake, across its elsewhere sombre
+waters, and touching with a sudden and blood-red tint the sail of the
+skiff in which Feltram was returning from his lonely cruise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here comes my domestic water-fiend,&quot; sneered Sir Bale, as he lay back
+in his cumbrous arm-chair. &quot;Cheerful place, pleasant people, delicious
+fate! The place alone has been enough to set that fool out of his little
+senses, d&mdash;n him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale averted his eyes, and another subject not pleasanter entered
+his mind. He was thinking of the races that were coming off next week at
+Heckleston Downs, and what sums of money might be made there, and how
+hard it was that he should be excluded by fortune from that brilliant
+lottery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, Mrs. Julaper, is that you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Julaper, who was still at the door, curtsied, and said, &quot;I came,
+Sir Bale, to see whether you'd please to like a jug of mulled claret,
+sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I, my dear. I'll take a mug of beer and my pipe; that homely solace
+better befits a ruined gentleman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;H'm, sir; you're not that, Sir Bale; you're no worse than half the
+lords and great men that are going. I would not hear another say that of
+you, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's very kind of you, Mrs. Julaper; but you won't call <i>me</i> out for
+backbiting myself, especially as it is true, d----d true, Mrs. Julaper!
+Look ye; there never was a Mardykes here before but he could lay his
+hundred or his thousand pounds on the winner of the Heckleston Cup; and
+what could I bet? Little more than that mug of beer I spoke of. It was
+my great-grandfather who opened the course on the Downs of Heckleston,
+and now <i>I</i> can't show there! Well, what must I do? Grin and bear it,
+that's all. If you please, Mrs. Julaper, I will have that jug of claret
+you offered. I want spice and hot wine to keep me alive; but I'll smoke
+my pipe first, and in an hour's time it will do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Julaper was gone, he lighted his pipe, and drew near the
+window, through which he looked upon the now fading sky and the twilight
+landscape.</p>
+
+<p>He smoked his pipe out, and by that time it had grown nearly dark. He
+was still looking out upon the faint outlines of the view, and thinking
+angrily what a little bit of luck at the races would do for many a man
+who probably did not want it half so much as he. Vague and sombre as his
+thoughts were, they had, like the darkening landscape outside, shape
+enough to define their general character. Bitter and impious they
+were&mdash;as those of egotistic men naturally are in suffering. And after
+brooding, and muttering by fits and starts, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How many tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds will change hands at
+Heckleston next week; and not a shilling in all the change and shuffle
+will stick to me! How many a fellow would sell himself, like Dr.
+Faustus, just for the knowledge of the name of the winner! But he's no
+fool, and does not buy his own.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Something caught his eye; something moving on the wall. The fire was
+lighted, and cast a flickering and gigantic shadow upward; the figure of
+a man standing behind Sir Bale Mardykes, on whose shoulder he placed a
+lean hand. Sir Bale turned suddenly about, and saw Philip Feltram. He
+was looking dark and stern, and did not remove his hand from his
+shoulder as he peered into the Baronet's face with his deep-set mad
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha, Philip, upon my soul!&quot; exclaimed Sir Bale, surprised. &quot;How time
+flies! It seems only this minute since I saw the boat a mile and a half
+away from the shore. Well&mdash;yes; there has been time; it is dark now. Ha,
+ha! I assure you, you startled me. Won't you take something? Do. Shall I
+touch the bell?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have been troubled about those mortgages. I told you I should pay
+them off, I thought.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here there was a pause, and Sir Bale looked hard in Feltram's face. If
+he had been in his ordinary spirits, or perhaps in some of his haunts
+less solitary than Mardykes, he would have laughed; but here he had
+grown unlike himself, gloomy and credulous, and was, in fact, a nervous
+man.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale smiled, and shook his head dismally.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very kind of you, Feltram; the idea shows a kindly disposition. I
+know you would do me a kindness if you could.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As Sir Bale, each looking in the other's eyes, repeated in this sentence
+the words &quot;kind,&quot; &quot;kindly,&quot; &quot;kindness,&quot; a smile lighted Feltram's face
+with at each word an intenser light; and Sir Bale grew sombre in its
+glare; and when he had done speaking, Feltram's face also on a sudden
+darkened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have found a fortune-teller in Cloostedd Wood. Look here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he drew from his pocket a leathern purse, which he placed on the
+table in his hand; and Sir Bale heard the pleasant clink of coin in it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A fortune-teller! You don't mean to say she gave you that?&quot; said Sir
+Bale.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram smiled again, and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It <i>was</i> the custom to give the fortuneteller a trifle. It is a great
+improvement making <i>her</i> fee you,&quot; observed Sir Bale, with an approach
+to his old manner.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He put that in my hand with a message,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He? O, then it was a male fortune-teller!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gipsies go in gangs, men and women. <i>He</i> might lend, though <i>she</i> told
+fortunes,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's the first time I ever heard of gipsies lending money;&quot; and he eyed
+the purse with a whimsical smile.</p>
+
+<p>With his lean fingers still holding it, Feltram sat down at the table.
+His face contracted as if in cunning thought, and his chin sank upon his
+breast as he leaned back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think,&quot; continued Sir Bale, &quot;ever since they were spoiled, the
+Egyptians have been a little shy of lending, and leave that branch of
+business to the Hebrews.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What would you give to know, now, the winner at Heckleston races?&quot; said
+Feltram suddenly, raising his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; that would be worth something,&quot; answered Sir Bale, looking at him
+with more interest than the incredulity he affected would quite warrant.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And this money I have power to lend you, to make your game.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you mean that really?&quot; said Sir Bale, with a new energy in tone,
+manner, and features.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's heavy; there are some guineas there,&quot; said Feltram with a dark
+smile, raising the purse in his hand a little, and letting it drop upon
+the table with a clang.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is <i>something</i> there, at all events,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram took the purse by the bottom, and poured out on the table a
+handsome pile of guineas.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And do you mean to say you got all that from a gipsy in Cloostedd
+Wood?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A friend, who is&mdash;<i>myself</i>,&quot; answered Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yourself! Then it is yours&mdash;<i>you</i> lend it?&quot; said the Baronet, amazed;
+for there was no getting over the heap of guineas, and the wonder was
+pretty equal whence they had come.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Myself, and not myself,&quot; said Feltram oracularly; &quot;as like as voice and
+echo, man and shadow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Had Feltram in some of his solitary wanderings and potterings lighted
+upon hidden treasure? There was a story of two Feltrams of Cloostedd,
+brothers, who had joined the king's army and fought at Marston Moor,
+having buried in Cloostedd Wood a great deal of gold and plate and
+jewels. They had, it was said, intrusted one tried servant with the
+secret; and that servant remained at home. But by a perverse fatality
+the three witnesses had perished within a month: the two brothers at
+Marston Moor; and the confidant, of fever, at Cloostedd. From that day
+forth treasure-seekers had from time to time explored the woods of
+Cloostedd; and many a tree of mark was dug beside, and the earth
+beneath many a stone and scar and other landmark in that solitary forest
+was opened by night, until hope gradually died out, and the tradition
+had long ceased to prompt to action, and had become a story and nothing
+more.</p>
+
+<p>The image of the nursery-tale had now recurred to Sir Bale after so long
+a reach of years; and the only imaginable way, in his mind, of
+accounting for penniless Philip Feltram having all that gold in his
+possession was that, in some of his lonely wanderings, chance had led
+him to the undiscovered hoard of the two Feltrams who had died in the
+great civil wars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps those gipsies you speak of found the money where you found
+them; and in that case, as Cloostedd Forest, and all that is in it is my
+property, their sending it to me is more like my servant's handing me my
+hat and stick when I'm going out, than making me a present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will not be wise to rely upon the law, Sir Bale, and to refuse the
+help that comes unasked. But if you like your mortgages as they are,
+keep them; and if you like my terms as they are, take them; and when you
+have made up your mind, let me know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram dropped the heavy purse into his capacious coat-pocket,
+and walked, muttering, out of the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><h4>CHAPTER XVI</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Message from Cloostedd</b></i>
+
+<p>&quot;Come back, Feltram; come back, Philip!&quot; cried Sir Bale hastily. &quot;Let us
+talk, can't we? Come and talk this odd business over a little; you must
+have mistaken what I meant; I should like to hear all about it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All is not much, sir,&quot; said Philip Feltram, entering the room again,
+the door of which he had half closed after him. &quot;In the forest of
+Cloostedd I met to-day some people, one of whom can foretell events, and
+told me the names of the winners of the first three races at Heckleston,
+and gave me this purse, with leave to lend you so much money as you care
+to stake upon the races. I take no security; you shan't be troubled; and
+you'll never see the lender, unless you seek him out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, those are not bad terms,&quot; said Sir Bale, smiling wistfully at
+the purse, which Feltram had again placed upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not bad,&quot; repeated Feltram, in the harsh low tone in which he now
+habitually spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll tell me what the prophet said about the winners; I should like
+to hear their names.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The names I shall tell you if you walk out with me,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not here?&quot; asked Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My memory does not serve me here so well. Some people, in some places,
+though they be silent, obstruct thought. Come, let us speak,&quot; said
+Philip Feltram, leading the way.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale, with a shrug, followed him.</p>
+
+<p>By this time it was dark. Feltram was walking slowly towards the margin
+of the lake; and Sir Bale, more curious as the delay increased, followed
+him, and smiled faintly as he looked after his tall, gaunt figure, as
+if, even in the dark, expressing a ridicule which he did not honestly
+feel, and the expression of which, even if there had been light, there
+was no one near enough to see.</p>
+
+<p>When he reached the edge of the lake, Feltram stooped, and Sir Bale
+thought that his attitude was that of one who whispers to and caresses a
+reclining person. What he fancied was a dark figure lying horizontally
+in the shallow water, near the edge, turned out to be, as he drew near,
+no more than a shadow on the elsewhere lighter water; and with his
+change of position it had shifted and was gone, and Philip Feltram was
+but dabbling his hand this way and that in the water, and muttering
+faintly to himself. He rose as the Baronet drew near, and standing
+upright, said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I like to listen to the ripple of the water among the grass and
+pebbles; the tongue and lips of the lake are lapping and whispering all
+along. It is the merest poetry; but you are so romantic, you excuse me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was an angry curve in Feltram's eyebrows, and a cynical smile, and
+something in the tone which to the satirical Baronet was almost
+insulting. But even had he been less curious, I don't think he would
+have betrayed his mortification; for an odd and unavowed influence which
+he hated was gradually establishing in Feltram an ascendency which
+sometimes vexed and sometimes cowed him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not to tell,&quot; said Feltram, drawing near him in the dusk. &quot;The
+secret is yours when you promise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course I promise,&quot; said Sir Bale. &quot;If I believed it, you don't think
+I could be such an ass as to tell it; and if I didn't believe it, I'd
+hardly take the trouble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram stooped, and dipping the hollow of his hand in the water, he
+raised it full, and said he, &quot;Hold out your hand&mdash;the hollow of your
+hand&mdash;like this. I divide the water for a sign&mdash;share to me and share to
+you.&quot; And he turned his hand, so as to pour half the water into the
+hollow palm of Sir Bale, who was smiling, with some uneasiness mixed in
+his mockery.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, you promise to keep all secrets respecting the teller and the
+finder, be that who it may?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I promise,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now do as I do,&quot; said Feltram. And he shed the water on the ground, and
+with his wet fingers touched his forehead and his breast; and then he
+joined his hand with Sir Bale's, and said, &quot;Now you are my safe man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale laughed. &quot;That's the game they call 'grand mufti,'&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Exactly; and means nothing,&quot; said Feltram, &quot;except that some day it
+will serve you to remember by. And now the names. Don't speak;
+listen&mdash;you may break the thought else. The winner of the first is
+<i>Beeswing</i>; of the second, <i>Falcon</i>; and of the third, <i>Lightning</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He had stood for some seconds in silence before he spoke; his eyes were
+closed; he seemed to bring up thought and speech with difficulty, and
+spoke faintly and drowsily, both his hands a little raised, and the
+fingers extended, with the groping air of a man who moves in the dark.
+In this odd way, slowly, faintly, with many a sigh and scarcely audible
+groan, he gradually delivered his message and was silent. He stood, it
+seemed, scarcely half awake, muttering indistinctly and sighing to
+himself. You would have said that he was exhausted and suffering, like a
+man at his last hour resigning himself to death.</p>
+
+<p>At length he opened his eyes, looked round a little wildly and
+languidly, and with another great sigh sat down on a large rock that
+lies by the margin of the lake, and sighed heavily again and again. You
+might have fancied that he was a second time recovering from drowning.</p>
+
+<p>Then he got up, and looked drowsily round again, and sighed like a man
+worn out with fatigue, and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale did not care to speak until he seemed a little more likely to
+obtain an answer. When that time came, he said, &quot;I wish, for the sake of
+my believing, that your list was a little less incredible. Not one of
+the horses you name is the least likely; not one of them has a chance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So much the better for you; you'll get what odds you please. You had
+better seize your luck; on Tuesday Beeswing runs,&quot; said Feltram. &quot;When
+you want money for the purpose, I'm your banker&mdash;here is your bank.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He touched his breast, where he had placed the purse, and then he turned
+and walked swiftly away.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked after him till he disappeared in the dark. He fluctuated
+among many surmises about Feltram. Was he insane, or was he practising
+an imposture? or was he fool enough to believe the predictions of some
+real gipsies? and had he borrowed this money, which in Sir Bale's eyes
+seemed the greatest miracle in the matter, from those thriving shepherd
+mountaineers, the old Trebecks, who, he believed, were attached to him?
+Feltram had, he thought, borrowed it as if for himself; and having, as
+Sir Bale in his egotism supposed, &quot;a sneaking regard&quot; for him, had meant
+the loan for his patron, and conceived the idea of his using his
+revelations for the purpose of making his fortune. So, seeing no risk,
+and the temptation being strong, Sir Bale resolved to avail himself of
+the purse, and use his own judgment as to what horse to back.</p>
+
+<p>About eleven o'clock Feltram, unannounced, walked, with his hat still
+on, into Sir Bale's library, and sat down at the opposite side of his
+table, looking gloomily into the Baronet's face for a time.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall you want the purse?&quot; he asked at last.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly; I always want a purse,&quot; said Sir Bale energetically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The condition is, that you shall back each of the three horses I have
+named. But you may back them for much or little, as you like, only the
+sum must not be less than five pounds in each hundred which this purse
+contains. That is the condition, and if you violate it, you will make
+some powerful people very angry, and you will feel it. Do you agree?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course; five pounds in the hundred&mdash;certainly; and how many hundreds
+are there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, a fellow with luck may win something with three hundred pounds,
+but it ain't very much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite enough, if you use it aright.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Three hundred pounds,&quot; repeated the Baronet, as he emptied the purse,
+which Feltram had just placed in his hand, upon the table; and
+contemplating them with grave interest, he began telling them off in
+little heaps of five-and-twenty each. He might have thanked Feltram, but
+he was thinking more of the guineas than of the grizzly donor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay,&quot; said he, after a second counting, &quot;I think there <i>are</i> exactly
+three hundred. Well, so you say I must apply three times five&mdash;fifteen
+of these. It is an awful pity backing those queer horses you have named;
+but if I must make the sacrifice, I must, I suppose?&quot; he added, with a
+hesitating inquiry in the tone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you don't, you'll rue it,&quot; said Feltram coldly, and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Penny in pocket's a merry companion,&quot; says the old English proverb, and
+Sir Bale felt in better spirits and temper than he had for many a day as
+he replaced the guineas in the purse.</p>
+
+<p>It was long since he had visited either the race-course or any other
+place of amusement. Now he might face his kind without fear that his
+pride should be mortified, and dabble in the fascinating agitations of
+the turf once more.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who knows how this little venture may turn out?&quot; he thought. &quot;It is
+time the luck should turn. My last summer in Germany, my last winter in
+Paris&mdash;d&mdash;n me, I'm owed something. It's time I should win a bit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had suffered the indolence of a solitary and discontented life
+imperceptibly to steal upon him. It would not do to appear for the first
+time on Heckleston Lea with any of those signs of negligence which, in
+his case, might easily be taken for poverty. All his appointments,
+therefore, were carefully looked after; and on the Monday following, he,
+followed by his groom, rode away for the Saracen's Head at Heckleston,
+where he was to put up, for the races that were to begin on the day
+following, and presented as handsome an appearance as a peer in those
+days need have cared to show.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XVII</h4>
+
+<i><b>On the Course&mdash;Beeswing, Falcon, and Lightning</b></i>
+
+<p>As he rode towards Golden Friars, through which his route lay, in the
+early morning light, in which the mists of night were clearing, he
+looked back towards Mardykes with a hope of speedy deliverance from that
+hated imprisonment, and of a return to the continental life in which he
+took delight. He saw the summits and angles of the old building touched
+with the cheerful beams, and the grand old trees, and at the opposite
+side the fells dark, with their backs towards the east; and down the
+side of the wooded and precipitous clough of Feltram, the light, with a
+pleasant contrast against the beetling purple of the fells, was breaking
+in the faint distance. On the lake he saw the white speck that indicated
+the sail of Philip Feltram's boat, now midway between Mardykes and the
+wooded shores of Cloostedd.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Going on the same errand,&quot; thought Sir Bale, &quot;I should not wonder. I
+wish him the same luck. Yes, he's going to Cloostedd Forest. I hope he
+may meet his gipsies there&mdash;the Trebecks, or whoever they are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And as a momentary sense of degradation in being thus beholden to such
+people smote him, &quot;Well,&quot; thought he, &quot;who knows? Many a fellow will
+make a handsome sum of a poorer purse than this at Heckleston. It will
+be a light matter paying them then.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Through Golden Friars he rode. Some of the spectators who did not like
+him, wondered audibly at the gallant show, hoped it was paid for, and
+conjectured that he had ridden out in search of a wife. On the whole,
+however, the appearance of their Baronet in a smarter style than usual
+was popular, and accepted as a change to the advantage of the town.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he was on the race-course of Heckleston, renewing old
+acquaintance and making himself as agreeable as he could&mdash;an object,
+among some people, of curiosity and even interest. Leaving the
+carriage-sides, the hoods and bonnets, Sir Bale was soon among the
+betting men, deep in more serious business.</p>
+
+<p>How did he make his book? He did not break his word. He backed Beeswing,
+Falcon, and Lightning. But it must be owned not for a shilling more than
+the five guineas each, to which he stood pledged. The odds were
+forty-five to one against Beeswing, sixty to one against Lightning, and
+fifty to one against Falcon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A pretty lot to choose!&quot; exclaimed Sir Bale, with vexation. &quot;As if I
+had money so often, that I should throw it away!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Baronet was testy thinking over all this, and looked on Feltram's
+message as an impertinence and the money as his own.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now see how Sir Bale Mardykes' pocket fared.</p>
+
+<p>Sulkily enough at the close of the week he turned his back on Heckleston
+racecourse, and took the road to Golden Friars.</p>
+
+<p>He was in a rage with his luck, and by no means satisfied with himself;
+and yet he had won something. The result of the racing had been curious.
+In the three principal races the favourites had been beaten: one by an
+accident, another on a technical point, and the third by fair running.
+And what horses had won? The names were precisely those which the
+&quot;fortune-teller&quot; had predicted.</p>
+
+<p>Well, then, how was Sir Bale in pocket as he rode up to his ancestral
+house of Mardykes, where a few thousand pounds would have been very
+welcome? He had won exactly 775 guineas; and had he staked a hundred
+instead of five on each of the names communicated by Feltram, he would
+have won 15,500 guineas.</p>
+
+<p>He dismounted before his hall-door, therefore, with the discontent of a
+man who had lost nearly 15,000 pounds. Feltram was upon the steps, and
+laughed dryly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you laugh at?&quot; asked Sir Bale tartly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've won, haven't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I've won; I've won a trifle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the horses I named?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, yes; it so turned out, by the merest accident.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram laughed again dryly, and turned away.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale entered Mardykes Hall, and was surly. He was in a much worse
+mood than before he had ridden to Heckleston. But after a week or so
+ruminating upon the occurrence, he wondered that Feltram spoke no more
+of it. It was undoubtedly wonderful. There had been no hint of repayment
+yet, and he had made some hundreds by the loan; and, contrary to all
+likelihood, the three horses named by the unknown soothsayer had won.
+Who was this gipsy? It would be worth bringing the soothsayer to
+Mardykes, and giving his people a camp on the warren, and all the
+poultry they could catch, and a pig or a sheep every now and then. Why,
+that seer was worth the philosopher's stone, and could make Sir Bale's
+fortune in a season. Some one else would be sure to pick him up if he
+did not.</p>
+
+<p>So, tired of waiting for Feltram to begin, he opened the subject one day
+himself. He had not seen him for two or three days; and in the wood of
+Mardykes he saw his lank figure standing among the thick trees, upon a
+little knoll, leaning on a staff which he sometimes carried with him in
+his excursions up the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Feltram!&quot; shouted Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram turned and beckoned. Sir Bale muttered, but obeyed the signal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I brought you here, because you can from this point with unusual
+clearness today see the opening of the Clough of Feltram at the other
+side, and the clump of trees, where you will find the way to reach the
+person about whom you are always thinking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who said I am always thinking about him?&quot; said the Baronet angrily; for
+he felt like a man detected in a weakness, and resented it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>I</i> say it, because I <i>know</i> it; and <i>you</i> know it also. See that clump
+of trees standing solitary in the hollow? Among them, to the left,
+grows an ancient oak. Cut in its bark are two enormous letters H&mdash;F; so
+large and bold, that the rugged furrows of the oak bark fail to obscure
+them, although they are ancient and spread by time. Standing against the
+trunk of this great tree, with your back to these letters, you are
+looking up the Glen or Clough of Feltram, that opens northward, where
+stands Cloostedd Forest spreading far and thick. Now, how do you find
+our fortune-teller?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is exactly what I wish to know,&quot; answered Sir Bale; &quot;because,
+although I can't, of course, believe that he's a witch, yet he has
+either made the most marvellous fluke I've heard of, or else he has got
+extraordinary sources of information; or perhaps he acts partly on
+chance, partly on facts. Be it which you please, I say he's a marvellous
+fellow; and I should like to see him, and have a talk with him; and
+perhaps he could arrange with me. I should be very glad to make an
+arrangement with him to give me the benefit of his advice about any
+matter of the same kind again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think he's willing to see you; but he's a fellow with a queer fancy
+and a pig-head. He'll not come here; you must go to him; and approach
+him his own way too, or you may fail to find him. On these terms he
+invites you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He knows his value, and means to make his own terms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, there's nothing unfair in that; and I don't see that I should
+dispute it. How is one to find him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stand, as I told you, with your back to those letters cut in the oak.
+Right before you lies an old Druidic altar-stone. Cast your eye over its
+surface, and on some part of it you are sure to see a black stain about
+the size of a man's head. Standing, as I suppose you, against the oak,
+that stain, which changes its place from day to day, will give you the
+line you must follow through the forest in order to light upon him. Take
+carefully from it such trees or objects as will guide you; and when the
+forest thickens, do the best you can to keep to the same line. You are
+sure to find him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll come, Feltram. I should lose myself in that wilderness, and
+probably fail to discover him,&quot; said Sir Bale; &quot;and I really wish to see
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When two people wish to meet, it is hard if they don't. I can go with
+you a bit of the way; I can walk a little through the forest by your
+side, until I see the small flower that grows peeping here and there,
+that always springs where those people walk; and when I begin to see
+that sign, I must leave you. And, first, I'll take you across the lake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jove, you'll do no such thing!&quot; said Sir Bale hastily.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that is the way he chooses to be approached,&quot; said Philip Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have a sort of feeling about that lake; it's the one childish spot
+that is left in my imagination. The nursery is to blame for it&mdash;old
+stories and warnings; and I can't think of that. I should feel I had
+invoked an evil omen if I did. I know it is all nonsense; but we are
+queer creatures, Feltram. I must only ride there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, it is five-and-twenty miles round the lake to that; and after all
+were done, he would not see you. He knows what he's worth, and he'll
+have his own way,&quot; answered Feltram. &quot;The sun will soon set. See that
+withered branch, near Snakes Island, that looks like fingers rising from
+the water? When its points grow tipped with red, the sun has but three
+minutes to live.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is a wonder which I can't see; it is too far away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, the lake has many signs; but it needs sight to see them,&quot; said
+Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So it does,&quot; said the Baronet; &quot;more than most men have got. I'll ride
+round, I say; and I make my visit, for this time, my own way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll not find him, then; and he wants his money. It would be a pity
+to vex him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was to you he lent the money,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you are the proper person to find him out and pay him,&quot; urged Sir
+Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps so; but he invites you; and if you don't go, he may be
+offended, and you may hear no more from him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll try. When can you go? There are races to come off next week, for
+once and away, at Langton. I should not mind trying my luck there. What
+do you say?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can go there and pay him, and ask the same question&mdash;what horses, I
+mean, are to win. All the county are to be there; and plenty of money
+will change hands.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll try,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When will you go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-morrow,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have an odd idea, Feltram, that you are really going to pay off those
+cursed mortgages.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He laid his hand with at least a gesture of kindness on the thin arm of
+Feltram, who coldly answered,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So have I;&quot; and walked down the side of the little knoll and away,
+without another word or look.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XVIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>On the Lake, at Last</b></i>
+
+<p>Next day Philip Feltram crossed the lake; and Sir Bale, seeing the boat
+on the water, guessed its destination, and watched its progress with no
+little interest, until he saw it moored and its sail drop at the rude
+pier that affords a landing at the Clough of Feltram. He was now
+satisfied that Philip had actually gone to seek out the 'cunning man,'
+and gather hints for the next race.</p>
+
+<p>When that evening Feltram returned, and, later still, entered Sir Bale's
+library, the master of Mardykes was gladder to see his face and more
+interested about his news than he would have cared to confess.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram did not affect unconsciousness of that anxiety, but, with
+great directness, proceeded to satisfy it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was in Cloostedd Forest to-day, nearly all day&mdash;and found the old
+gentleman in a wax. He did not ask me to drink, nor show me any
+kindness. He was huffed because you would not take the trouble to cross
+the lake to speak to him yourself. He took the money you sent him and
+counted it over, and dropped it into his pocket; and he called you hard
+names enough and to spare; but I brought him round, and at last he did
+talk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what did he say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He said that the estate of Mardykes would belong to a Feltram.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He might have said something more likely,&quot; said Sir Bale sourly. &quot;Did
+he say anything more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. He said the winner at Langton Lea would be Silver Bell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Any other name?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Silver Bell? Well, that's not so odd as the last. Silver Bell stands
+high in the list. He has a good many backers&mdash;long odds in his favour
+against most of the field. I should not mind backing Silver Bell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The fact is, that he had no idea of backing any other horse from the
+moment he heard the soothsayer's prediction. He made up his mind to no
+half measures this time. He would go in to win something handsome.</p>
+
+<p>He was in great force and full of confidence on the race-course. He had
+no fears for the result. He bet heavily. There was a good margin still
+untouched of the Mardykes estate; and Sir Bale was a good old name in
+the county. He found a ready market for his offers, and had soon
+staked&mdash;such is the growing frenzy of that excitement&mdash;about twenty
+thousand pounds on his favourite, and stood to win seven.</p>
+
+<p>He did not win, however. He lost his twenty thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Mardykes estate was in imminent danger. Sir Bale returned,
+having distributed I O Us and promissory notes in all directions about
+him&mdash;quite at his wit's end.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram was standing&mdash;as on the occasion of his former happier
+return&mdash;on the steps of Mardykes Hall, in the evening sun, throwing
+eastward a long shadow that was lost in the lake. He received him, as
+before, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was too much broken to resent this laugh as furiously as he
+might, had he been a degree less desperate.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Feltram savagely, and dismounted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Last time you would not trust him, and this time he would not trust
+you. He's huffed, and played you false.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was not he. I should have backed that d----d horse in any case,&quot;
+said Sir Bale, grinding his teeth. &quot;What a witch you have discovered!
+One thing is true, perhaps. If there was a Feltram rich enough, he might
+have the estate now; but there ain't. They are all beggars. So much for
+your conjurer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He may make amends to you, if you make amends to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He! Why, what can that wretched impostor do? D&mdash;n me, I'm past helping
+now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you talk so,&quot; said Feltram. &quot;Be civil. You must please the old
+gentleman. He'll make it up. He's placable when it suits him. Why not go
+to him his own way? I hear you are nearly ruined. You must go and make
+it up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Make it up! With whom? With a fellow who can't make even a guess at
+what's coming? Why should I trouble my head about him more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No man, young or old, likes to be frumped. Why did you cross his fancy?
+He won't see you unless you go to him as he chooses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If he waits for that, he may wait till doomsday. I don't choose to go
+on that water&mdash;and cross it I won't,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>But when his distracting reminders began to pour in upon him, and the
+idea of dismembering what remained of his property came home to him, his
+resolution faltered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say, Feltram, what difference can it possibly make to him if I choose
+to ride round to Cloostedd Forest instead of crossing the lake in a
+boat?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram smiled darkly, and answered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't tell. Can you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course I can't&mdash;I say I can't; besides, what audacity of a fellow
+like that presuming to prescribe to me! Utterly ludicrous! And he can't
+predict&mdash;do you really think or believe, Feltram, that he can?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know he can. I know he misled you on purpose. He likes to punish
+those who don't respect his will; and there is a reason in it, often
+quite clear&mdash;not ill-natured. Now you see he compels you to seek him
+out, and when you do, I think he'll help you through your trouble. He
+said he would.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you have seen him since?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yesterday. He has put a pressure on you; but he means to help you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If he means to help me, let him remember I want a banker more than a
+seer. Let him give me a lift, as he did before. He must lend me money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He'll not stick at that. When he takes up a man, he carries him
+through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The races of Byermere&mdash;I might retrieve at them. But they don't come
+off for a month nearly; and what is a man like me to do in the
+meantime?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every man should know his own business best. I'm not like you,&quot; said
+Feltram grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Now Sir Bale's trouble increased, for some people were pressing.
+Something like panic supervened; for it happened that land was bringing
+just then a bad price, and more must be sold in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All I can tell them is, I am selling land. It can't be done in an hour.
+I'm selling enough to pay them all twice over. Gentlemen used to be able
+to wait till a man sold his acres for payment. D&mdash;n them! do they want
+my body, that they can't let me alone for five minutes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The end of it was, that before a week Sir Bale told Feltram that he
+would go by boat, since that fellow insisted on it; and he did not very
+much care if he were drowned.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful autumnal day. Everything was bright in that mellowed
+sun, and the deep blue of the lake was tremulous with golden ripples;
+and crag and peak and scattered wood, faint in the distance, came out
+with a filmy distinctness on the fells in that pleasant light.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had been ill, and sent down the night before for Doctor Torvey.
+He was away with a patient. Now, in the morning, he had arrived
+inopportunely. He met Sir Bale as he issued from the house, and had a
+word with him in the court, for he would not turn back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; said the Doctor, after his brief inspection, &quot;you ought to be
+in your bed; that's all I can say. You are perfectly mad to think of
+knocking about like this. Your pulse is at a hundred and ten; and, if
+you go across the lake and walk about Cloostedd, you'll be raving before
+you come back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale told him, apologetically, as if his life were more to his
+doctor than to himself, that he would take care not to fatigue himself,
+and that the air would do him good, and that in any case he could not
+avoid going; and so they parted.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale took his seat beside Feltram in the boat, the sail was spread,
+and, bending to the light breeze that blew from Golden Friars, she
+glided from the jetty under Mardykes Hall, and the eventful voyage had
+begun.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><h4>CHAPTER XIX</h4>
+
+<i><b>Mystagogus</b></i>
+
+<p>The sail was loosed, the boat touched the stone step, and Feltram sprang
+out and made her fast to the old iron ring. The Baronet followed. So! he
+had ventured upon that water without being drowned. He looked round him
+as if in a dream. He had not been there since his childhood. There were
+no regrets, no sentiment, no remorse; only an odd return of the
+associations and fresh feelings of boyhood, and a long reach of time
+suddenly annihilated.</p>
+
+<p>The little hollow in which he stood; the three hawthorn trees at his
+right; every crease and undulation of the sward, every angle and crack
+in the lichen-covered rock at his feet, recurred with a sharp and
+instantaneous recognition to his memory.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Many a time your brother and I fished for hours together from that bank
+there, just where the bramble grows. That bramble has not grown an inch
+ever since, not a leaf altered; we used to pick blackberries off it,
+with our rods stuck in the bank&mdash;it was later in the year than now&mdash;till
+we stript it quite bare after a day or two. The steward used to come
+over&mdash;they were marking timber for cutting and we used to stay here
+while they rambled through the wood, with an axe marking the trees that
+were to come down. I wonder whether the big old boat is still anywhere.
+I suppose she was broken up, or left to rot; I have not seen her since
+we came home. It was in the wood that lies at the right&mdash;the other wood
+is called the forest; they say in old times it was eight miles long,
+northward up the shore of the lake, and full of deer; with a forester,
+and a reeve, and a verderer, and all that. Your brother was older than
+you; he went to India, or the Colonies; is he living still?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I care not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's good-natured, at all events; but do you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I; and what matter? If he's living, I warrant he has his share of
+the curse, the sweat of his brow and his bitter crust; and if he is
+dead, he's dust or worse, he's rotten, and smells accordingly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale looked at him; for this was the brother over whom, only a year
+or two ago, Philip used to cry tears of pathetic longing. Feltram looked
+darkly in his face, and sneered with a cold laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose you mean to jest?&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not I; it is the truth. It is what you'd say, if you were honest. If
+he's alive, let him keep where he is; and if he's dead, I'll have none
+of him, body or soul. Do you hear that sound?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like the wind moaning in the forest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I feel no wind. There's hardly a leaf stirring.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think so,&quot; said Feltram. &quot;Come along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he began striding up the gentle slope of the glen, with many a rock
+peeping through its sward, and tufted ferns and furze, giving a wild and
+neglected character to the scene; the background of which, where the
+glen loses itself in a distant turn, is formed by its craggy and wooded
+side.</p>
+
+<p>Up they marched, side by side, in silence, towards that irregular clump
+of trees, to which Feltram had pointed from the Mardykes side.</p>
+
+<p>As they approached, it showed more scattered, and two or three of the
+trees were of grander dimensions than in the distance they had appeared;
+and as they walked, the broad valley of Cloostedd Forest opened grandly
+on their left, studding the sides of the valley with solitary trees or
+groups, which thickened as it descended to the broad level, in parts
+nearly three miles wide, on which stands the noble forest of Cloostedd,
+now majestically reposing in the stirless air, gilded and flushed with
+the melancholy tints of autumn.</p>
+
+<p>I am now going to relate wonderful things; but they rest on the report,
+strangely consistent, it is true, of Sir Bale Mardykes. That all his
+senses, however, were sick and feverish, and his brain not quite to be
+relied on at that moment, is a fact of which sceptics have a right to
+make all they please and can.</p>
+
+<p>Startled at their approach, a bird like a huge mackaw bounced from the
+boughs of the trees, and sped away, every now and then upon the ground,
+toward the shelter of the forest, fluttering and hopping close by the
+side of the little brook which, emerging from the forest, winds into the
+glen, and beside the course of which Sir Bale and Philip Feltram had
+ascended from the margin of the lake.</p>
+
+<p>It fluttered on, as if one of its wings were hurt, and kept hopping and
+bobbing and flying along the grass at its swiftest, screaming all the
+time discordantly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That must be old Mrs. Amerald's bird, that got away a week ago,&quot; said
+Sir Bale, stopping and looking after it. &quot;Was not it a mackaw?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; said Feltram; &quot;that was a gray parrot; but there are stranger
+birds in Cloostedd Forest, for my ancestors collected all that would
+live in our climate, and were at pains to find them the food and shelter
+they were accustomed to until they grew hardy&mdash;that is how it happens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jove, that's a secret worth knowing,&quot; said Sir Bale. &quot;That would
+make quite a feature. What a fat brute that bird was! and green and
+dusky-crimson and yellow; but its head is white&mdash;age, I suspect; and
+what a broken beak&mdash;hideous bird! splendid plumage; something between a
+mackaw and a vulture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale spoke jocularly, but with the interest of a bird-fancier; a
+taste which, when young, he had indulged; and for the moment forgot his
+cares and the object of his unwonted excursion.</p>
+
+<p>A moment after, a lank slim bird, perfectly white, started from the same
+boughs, and winged its way to the forest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A kite, I think; but its body is a little too long, isn't it?&quot; said Sir
+Bale again, stopping and looking after its flight also.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A foreign kite, I daresay?&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>All this time there was hopping near them a jay, with the tameness of a
+bird accustomed to these solitudes. It peered over its slender wing
+curiously at the visitors; pecking here and nodding there; and thus
+hopping, it made a circle round them more than once. Then it fluttered
+up, and perched on a bough of the old oak, from the deep labyrinth of
+whose branches the other birds had emerged; and from thence it flew down
+and lighted on the broad druidic stone, that stood like a cyclopean
+table on its sunken stone props, before the snakelike roots of the oak.</p>
+
+<p>Across this it hopped conceitedly, as over a stage on which it figured
+becomingly; and after a momentary hesitation, with a little spring, it
+rose and winged its way in the same direction which the other birds had
+taken, and was quickly lost in thick forest to the left.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here,&quot; said Feltram, &quot;this is the tree.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I remember it well! A gigantic trunk; and, yes, those marks; but I
+never before read them as letters. Yes, H.F., so they are&mdash;very odd I
+should not have remarked them. They are so large, and so strangely
+drawn-out in some places, and filled-in in others, and distorted, and
+the moss has grown about them; I don't wonder I took them for natural
+cracks and chasms in the bark,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very like,&quot; said Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had remarked, ever since they had begun their walk from the
+shore, that Feltram seemed to undergo a gloomy change. Sharper, grimmer,
+wilder grew his features, and shadow after shadow darkened his face
+wickedly.</p>
+
+<p>The solitude and grandeur of the forest, and the repulsive gloom of his
+companion's countenance and demeanour, communicated a tone of anxiety to
+Sir Bale; and they stood still, side by side, in total silence for a
+time, looking toward the forest glades; between themselves and which, on
+the level sward of the valley, stood many a noble tree and fantastic
+group of forked birch and thorn, in the irregular formations into which
+Nature had thrown them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now you stand between the letters. Cast your eyes on the stone,&quot; said
+Feltram suddenly, and his low stern tones almost startled the Baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Looking round, he perceived that he had so placed himself that his point
+of vision was exactly from between the two great letters, now
+half-obliterated, which he had been scrutinizing just as he turned about
+to look toward the forest of Cloostedd.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, so I am,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>There was within him an excitement and misgiving, akin to the sensation
+of a man going into battle, and which corresponded with the pale and
+sombre frown which Feltram wore, and the manifest change which had come
+over him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look on the stone steadily for a time, and tell me if you see a black
+mark, about the size of your hand, anywhere upon its surface,&quot; said
+Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale affected no airs of scepticism now; his imagination was
+stirred, and a sense of some unknown reality at the bottom of that which
+he had affected to treat before as illusion, inspired a strange interest
+in the experiment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you see it?&quot; asked Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was watching patiently, but he had observed nothing of the
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>Sharper, darker, more eager grew the face of Philip Feltram, as his eyes
+traversed the surface of that huge horizontal block.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now?&quot; asked Feltram again.</p>
+
+<p>No, he had seen nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram was growing manifestly uneasy, angry almost; he walked away a
+little, and back again, and then two or three times round the tree, with
+his hands shut, and treading the ground like a man trying to warm his
+feet, and so impatiently he returned, and looked again on the stone.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was still looking, and very soon said, drawing his brows
+together and looking hard,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ha!--yes&mdash;hush. There it is, by Jove!--wait&mdash;yes&mdash;there; it is growing
+quite plain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed not as if a shadow fell upon the stone, but rather as if the
+stone became semi-transparent, and just under its surface was something
+dark&mdash;a hand, he thought it&mdash;and darker and darker it grew, as if coming
+up toward the surface, and after some little wavering, it fixed itself
+movelessly, pointing, as he thought, toward the forest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It looks like a hand,&quot; said he. &quot;By Jove, it is a hand&mdash;pointing
+towards the forest with a finger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't mind the finger; look only on that black blurred mark, and from
+the point where you stand, taking that point for your direction, look to
+the forest. Take some tree or other landmark for an object, enter the
+forest there, and pursue the same line, as well as you can, until you
+find little flowers with leaves like wood-sorrel, and with tall stems
+and a red blossom, not larger than a drop, such as you have not seen
+before, growing among the trees, and follow wherever they seem to grow
+thickest, and there you will find him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All the time that Feltram was making this little address, Sir Bale was
+endeavouring to fix his route by such indications as Feltram described;
+and when he had succeeded in quite establishing the form of a peculiar
+tree&mdash;a melancholy ash, one huge limb of which had been blasted by
+lightning, and its partly stricken arm stood high and barkless,
+stretching its white fingers, as it were, in invitation into the forest,
+and signing the way for him&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have it now,&quot; said he. &quot;Come Feltram, you'll come a bit of the way
+with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram made no answer, but slowly shook his head, and turned and walked
+away, leaving Sir Bale to undertake his adventure alone.</p>
+
+<p>The strange sound they had heard from the midst of the forest, like the
+rumble of a storm or the far-off trembling of a furnace, had quite
+ceased. Not a bird was hopping on the grass, or visible on bough or in
+the sky. Not a living creature was in sight&mdash;never was stillness more
+complete, or silence more oppressive.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been ridiculous to give way to the old reluctance which
+struggled within him. Feltram had strode down the slope, and was
+concealed by a screen of bushes from his view. So alone, and full of an
+interest quite new to him, he set out in quest of his adventures.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a><h4>CHAPTER XX</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Haunted Forest</b></i>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes walked in a straight line, by bush and scaur, over the
+undulating ground, to the blighted ash-tree; and as he approached it,
+its withered bough stretched more gigantically into the air, and the
+forest seemed to open where it pointed.</p>
+
+<p>He passed it by, and in a few minutes had lost sight of it again, and
+was striding onward under the shadow of the forest, which already
+enclosed him. He was directing his march with all the care he could, in
+exactly that line which, according to Feltram's rule, had been laid down
+for him. Now and then, having, as soldiers say, taken an object, and
+fixed it well in his memory, he would pause and look about him.</p>
+
+<p>As a boy he had never entered the wood so far; for he was under a
+prohibition, lest he should lose himself in its intricacies, and be
+benighted there. He had often heard that it was haunted ground, and that
+too would, when a boy, have deterred him. It was on this account that
+the scene was so new to him, and that he cared so often to stop and look
+about him. Here and there a vista opened, exhibiting the same utter
+desertion, and opening farther perspectives through the tall stems of
+the trees faintly visible in the solemn shadow. No flowers could he see,
+but once or twice a wood anemone, and now and then a tiny grove of
+wood-sorrel.</p>
+
+<p>Huge oak-trees now began to mingle and show themselves more and more
+frequently among the other timber; and gradually the forest became a
+great oak wood unintruded upon by any less noble tree. Vast trunks
+curving outwards to the roots, and expanding again at the branches,
+stood like enormous columns, striking out their groining boughs, with
+the dark vaulting of a crypt.</p>
+
+<p>As he walked under the shadow of these noble trees, suddenly his eye
+was struck by a strange little flower, nodding quite alone by the
+knotted root of one of those huge oaks.</p>
+
+<p>He stooped and picked it up, and as he plucked it, with a harsh scream
+just over his head, a large bird with heavy beating wings broke away
+from the midst of the branches. He could not see it, but he fancied the
+scream was like that of the huge mackaw whose ill-poised flight he had
+watched. This conjecture was but founded on the odd cry he had heard.</p>
+
+<p>The flower was a curious one&mdash;a stem fine as a hair supported a little
+bell, that looked like a drop of blood, and never ceased trembling. He
+walked on, holding this in his fingers; and soon he saw another of the
+same odd type, then another at a shorter distance, then one a little to
+the right and another to the left, and farther on a little group, and at
+last the dark slope was all over trembling with these little bells,
+thicker and thicker as he descended a gentle declivity to the bank of
+the little brook, which flowing through the forest loses itself in the
+lake. The low murmur of this forest stream was almost the first sound,
+except the shriek of the bird that startled him a little time ago, which
+had disturbed the profound silence of the wood since he entered it.
+Mingling with the faint sound of the brook, he now heard a harsh human
+voice calling words at intervals, the purport of which he could not yet
+catch; and walking on, he saw seated upon the grass, a strange figure,
+corpulent, with a great hanging nose, the whole face glowing like
+copper. He was dressed in a bottle-green cut-velvet coat, of the style
+of Queen Anne's reign, with a dusky crimson waistcoat, both overlaid
+with broad and tarnished gold lace, and his silk stockings on thick
+swollen legs, with great buckled shoes, straddling on the grass, were
+rolled up over his knees to his short breeches. This ill-favoured old
+fellow, with a powdered wig that came down to his shoulders, had a
+dice-box in each hand, and was apparently playing his left against his
+right, and calling the throws with a hoarse cawing voice.</p>
+
+<p>Raising his black piggish eyes, he roared to Sir Bale, by name, to come
+and sit down, raising one of his dice-boxes, and then indicating a place
+on the grass opposite to him.</p>
+
+<p>Now Sir Bale instantly guessed that this was the man, gipsy, warlock,
+call him what he might, of whom he had come in search. With a strange
+feeling of curiosity, disgust, and awe, he drew near. He was resolved to
+do whatever this old man required of him, and to keep him, this time, in
+good humour.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale did as he bid him, and sat down; and taking the box he
+presented, they began throwing turn about, with three dice, the
+copper-faced old man teaching him the value of the throws, as he
+proceeded, with many a curse and oath; and when he did not like a throw,
+grinning with a look of such real fury, that the master of Mardykes
+almost expected him to whip out his sword and prick him through as he
+sat before him.</p>
+
+<p>After some time spent at this play, in which guineas passed now this
+way, now that, chucked across the intervening patch of grass, or rather
+moss, that served them for a green cloth, the old man roared over his
+shoulder,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Drink;&quot; and picking up a longstemmed conical glass which Sir Bale had
+not observed before, he handed it over to the Baronet; and taking
+another in his fingers, he held it up, while a very tall slim old man,
+dressed in a white livery, with powdered hair and cadaverous face, which
+seemed to run out nearly all into a long thin hooked nose, advanced with
+a flask in each hand. Looking at the unwieldly old man, with his heavy
+nose, powdered head, and all the bottle-green, crimson, and gold about
+him, and the long slim serving man, with sharp beak, and white from head
+to heel, standing by him, Sir Bale was forcibly reminded of the great
+old macaw and the long and slender kite, whose colours they, after their
+fashion, reproduced, with something, also indescribable, of the air and
+character of the birds. Not standing on ceremony, the old fellow held up
+his own glass first, which the white lackey filled from the flask, and
+then he filled Sir Bale's glass.</p>
+
+<p>It was a large glass, and might have held about half a pint; and the
+liquor with which the servant filled it was something of the colour of
+an opal, and circles of purple and gold seemed to be spreading
+continually outward from the centre, and running inward from the rim,
+and crossing one another, so as to form a beautiful rippling net-work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I drink to your better luck next time,&quot; said the old man, lifting his
+glass high, and winking with one eye, and leering knowingly with the
+other; &quot;and you know what I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale put the liquor to his lips. Wine? Whatever it was, never had he
+tasted so delicious a flavour. He drained it to the bottom, and placing
+it on the grass beside him, and looking again at the old dicer, who was
+also setting down his glass, he saw, for the first time, the graceful
+figure of a young woman seated on the grass. She was dressed in deep
+mourning, had a black hood carelessly over her head, and, strangely,
+wore a black mask, such as are used at masquerades. So much of her
+throat and chin as he could see were beautifully white; and there was a
+prettiness in her air and figure which made him think what a beautiful
+creature she in all likelihood was. She was reclining slightly against
+the burly man in bottle-green and gold, and her arm was round his neck,
+and her slender white hand showed itself over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho! my little Geaiette,&quot; cried the old fellow hoarsely; &quot;it will be
+time that you and I should get home.&mdash;So, Bale Mardykes, I have nothing
+to object to you this time; you've crossed the lake, and you've played
+with me and won and lost, and drank your glass like a jolly companion,
+and now we know one another; and an acquaintance is made that will last.
+I'll let you go, and you'll come when I call for you. And now you'll
+want to know what horse will win next month at Rindermere
+races.&mdash;Whisper me, lass, and I'll tell him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So her lips, under the black curtain, crept close to his ear, and she
+whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, so it will;&quot; roared the old man, gnashing his teeth; &quot;it will be
+Rainbow, and now make your best speed out of the forest, or I'll set my
+black dogs after you, ho, ho, ho! and they may chance to pull you down.
+Away!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He cried this last order with a glare so black, and so savage a shake of
+his huge fist, that Sir Bale, merely making his general bow to the
+group, clapped his hat on his head, and hastily began his retreat; but
+the same discordant voice yelled after him:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll want that, you fool; pick it up.&quot; And there came hurtling after
+and beside him a great leather bag, stained, and stuffed with a heavy
+burden, and bounding by him it stopped with a little wheel that brought
+it exactly before his feet.</p>
+
+<p>He picked it up, and found it heavy.</p>
+
+<p>Turning about to make his acknowledgments, he saw the two persons in
+full retreat; the profane old scoundrel in the bottle-green limping and
+stumbling, yet bowling along at a wonderful rate, with many a jerk and
+reel, and the slender lady in black gliding away by his side into the
+inner depths of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>So Sir Bale, with a strange chill, and again in utter solitude, pursued
+his retreat, with his burden, at a swifter pace, and after an hour or
+so, had recovered the point where he had entered the forest, and passing
+by the druidic stone and the mighty oak, saw down the glen at his right,
+standing by the edge of the lake, Philip Feltram, close to the bow of
+the boat.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXI"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXI</h4>
+
+<i><b>Rindermere</b></i>
+
+<p>Feltram looked grim and agitated when Sir Bale came up to him, as he
+stood on the flat-stone by which the boat was moored.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You found him?&quot; said he.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The lady in black was there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you played with him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is that in your hand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A bag of something, I fancy money; it is heavy; he threw it after me.
+We shall see just now; let us get away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He gave you some of his wine to drink?&quot; said Feltram, looking darkly in
+his face; but there was a laugh in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; of course I drank it; my object was to please him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To be sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The faint wind that carried them across the lake had quite subsided by
+the time they had reached the side where they now were.</p>
+
+<p>There was now not wind enough to fill the sail, and it was already
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me an oar; we can pull her over in little more than an hour,&quot; said
+Sir Bale; &quot;only let us get away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He got into the boat, sat down, and placed the leather bag with its
+heavy freightage at his feet, and took an oar. Feltram loosed the rope
+and shoved the boat off; and taking his seat also, they began to pull
+together, without another word, until, in about ten minutes, they had
+got a considerable way off the Cloostedd shore.</p>
+
+<p>The leather bag was too clumsy a burden to conceal; besides, Feltram
+knew all about the transaction, and Sir Bale had no need to make a
+secret. The bag was old and soiled, and tied about the &quot;neck&quot; with a
+long leather thong, and it seemed to have been sealed with red wax,
+fragments of which were still sticking to it.</p>
+
+<p>He got it open, and found it full of guineas.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Halt!&quot; cried Sir Bale, delighted, for he had half apprehended a trick
+upon his hopes; &quot;gold it is, and a lot of it, by Jove!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram did not seem to take the slightest interest in the matter.
+Sulkily and drowsily he was leaning with his elbow on his knee, and it
+seemed thinking of something far away. Sir Bale could not wait to count
+them any longer. He reckoned them on the bench, and found two thousand.</p>
+
+<p>It took some time; and when he had got them back into the leather bag,
+and tied them up again, Feltram, with a sudden start, said sharply,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, take your oar&mdash;unless you like the lake by night; and see, a wind
+will soon be up from Golden Friars!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He cast a wild look towards Mardykes Hall and Snakes Island, and
+applying himself to his oar, told Sir Bale to take his also; and nothing
+loath, the Baronet did so.</p>
+
+<p>It was slow work, for the boat was not built for speed; and by the time
+they had got about midway, the sun went down, and twilight and the
+melancholy flush of the sunset tints were upon the lake and fells.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ho! here comes the breeze&mdash;up from Golden Friars,&quot; said Feltram; &quot;we
+shall have enough to fill the sails now. If you don't fear spirits and
+Snakes Island, it is all the better for us it should blow from that
+point. If it blew from Mardykes now, it would be a stiff pull for you
+and me to get this tub home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Talking as if to himself, and laughing low, he adjusted the sail and
+took the tiller, and so, yielding to the rising breeze, the boat glided
+slowly toward still distant Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>The moon came out, and the shore grew misty, and the towering fells rose
+like sheeted giants; and leaning on the gunwale of the boat, Sir Bale,
+with the rush and gurgle of the water on the boat's side sounding
+faintly in his ear, thought of his day's adventure, which seemed to him
+like a dream&mdash;incredible but for the heavy bag that lay between his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed Snakes Island, a little mist, like a fragment of a fog,
+seemed to drift with them, and Sir Bale fancied that whenever it came
+near the boat's side she made a dip, as if strained toward the water;
+and Feltram always put out his hand, as if waving it from him, and the
+mist seemed to obey the gesture; but returned again and again, and the
+same thing always happened.</p>
+
+<p>It was three weeks after, that Sir Bale, sitting up in his bed, very
+pale and wan, with his silk night-cap nodding on one side, and his thin
+hand extended on the coverlet, where the doctor had been feeling his
+pulse, in his darkened room, related all the wonders of this day to
+Doctor Torvey. The doctor had attended him through a fever which
+followed immediately upon his visit to Cloostedd.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And, my dear sir, by Jupiter, can you really believe all that delirium
+to be sober fact?&quot; said the doctor, sitting by the bedside, and actually
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't help believing it, because I can't distinguish in any way
+between all that and everything else that actually happened, and which I
+must believe. And, except that this is more wonderful, I can find no
+reason to reject it, that does not as well apply to all the rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, come, my dear sir, this will never do&mdash;nothing is more common.
+These illusions accompanying fever frequently antedate the attack, and
+the man is actually raving before he knows he is ill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what do you make of that bag of gold?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some one has lent it. You had better ask all about it of Feltram when
+you can see him; for in speaking to me he seemed to know all about it,
+and certainly did not seem to think the matter at all out of the
+commonplace. It is just like that fisherman's story, about the hand that
+drew Feltram into the water on the night that he was nearly drowned.
+Every one can see what that was. Why of course it was simply the
+reflection of his own hand in the water, in that vivid lightning. When
+you have been out a little and have gained strength you will shake off
+these dreams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should not wonder,&quot; said Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be supposed that Sir Bale reported all that was in his
+memory respecting his strange vision, if such it was, at Cloostedd. He
+made a selection of the incidents, and threw over the whole adventure an
+entirely accidental character, and described the money which the old man
+had thrown to him as amounting to a purse of five guineas, and mentioned
+nothing of the passages which bore on the coming race.</p>
+
+<p>Good Doctor Torvey, therefore, reported only that Sir Bale's delirium
+had left two or three illusions sticking in his memory.</p>
+
+<p>But if they were illusions, they survived the event of his recovery, and
+remained impressed on his memory with the sharpness of very recent and
+accurately observed fact.</p>
+
+<p>He was resolved on going to the races of Rindermere, where, having in
+his possession so weighty a guarantee as the leather purse, he was
+determined to stake it all boldly on Rainbow&mdash;against which horse he was
+glad to hear there were very heavy odds.</p>
+
+<p>The race came off. One horse was scratched, another bolted, the rider of
+a third turned out to have lost a buckle and three half-pence and so was
+an ounce and a half under weight, a fourth knocked down the post near
+Rinderness churchyard, and was held to have done it with his left
+instead of his right knee, and so had run at the wrong side. The result
+was that Rainbow came in first, and I should be afraid to say how much
+Sir Bale won. It was a sum that paid off a heavy debt, and left his
+affairs in a much more manageable state.</p>
+
+<p>From this time Sir Bale prospered. He visited Cloostedd no more; but
+Feltram often crossed to that lonely shore as heretofore, and it is
+believed conveyed to him messages which guided his betting. One thing is
+certain, his luck never deserted him. His debts disappeared; and his
+love of continental life seemed to have departed. He became content with
+Mardykes Hall, laid out money on it, and although he never again cared
+to cross the lake, he seemed to like the scenery.</p>
+
+<p>In some respects, however, he lived exactly the same odd and unpopular
+life. He saw no one at Mardykes Hall. He practised a very strict
+reserve. The neighbours laughed at and disliked him, and he was voted,
+whenever any accidental contact arose, a very disagreeable man; and he
+had a shrewd and ready sarcasm that made them afraid of him, and himself
+more disliked.</p>
+
+<p>Odd rumours prevailed about his household. It was said that his old
+relations with Philip Feltram had become reversed; and that he was as
+meek as a mouse, and Feltram the bully now. It was also said that Mrs.
+Julaper had one Sunday evening when she drank tea at the Vicar's, told
+his good lady very mysteriously, and with many charges of secrecy, that
+Sir Bale was none the better of his late-found wealth; that he had a
+load upon his spirits, that he was afraid of Feltram, and so was every
+one else, more or less, in the house; that he was either mad or worse;
+and that it was an eerie dwelling, and strange company, and she should
+be glad herself of a change.</p>
+
+<p>Good Mrs. Bedel told her friend Mrs. Torvey; and all Golden Friars heard
+all this, and a good deal more, in an incredibly short time.</p>
+
+<p>All kinds of rumours now prevailed in Golden Friars, connecting Sir
+Bale's successes on the turf with some mysterious doings in Cloostedd
+Forest. Philip Feltram laughed when he heard these stories&mdash;especially
+when he heard the story that a supernatural personage had lent the
+Baronet a purse full of money.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You should not talk to Doctor Torvey so, sir,&quot; said he grimly; &quot;he's
+the greatest tattler in the town. It was old Farmer Trebeck, who could
+buy and sell us all down here, who lent that money. Partly from
+good-will, but not without acknowledgment. He has my hand for the first,
+not worth much, and yours to a bond for the two thousand guineas you
+brought home with you. It seems strange you should not remember that
+venerable and kind old farmer whom you talked with so long that day. His
+grandson, who expects to stand well in his will, being a trainer in
+Lord Varney's stables, has sometimes a tip to give, and he is the source
+of your information.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By Jove, I must be a bit mad, then, that's all,&quot; said Sir Bale, with a
+smile and a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Feltram moped about the house, and did precisely what he pleased.
+The change which had taken place in him became more and more pronounced.
+Dark and stern he always looked, and often malignant. He was like a man
+possessed of one evil thought which never left him.</p>
+
+<p>There was, besides, the good old Gothic superstition of a bargain or
+sale of the Baronet's soul to the arch-fiend. This was, of course, very
+cautiously whispered in a place where he had influence. It was only a
+coarser and directer version of a suspicion, that in a more credulous
+generation penetrated a level of society quite exempt from such follies
+in our day.</p>
+
+<p>One evening at dusk, Sir Bale, sitting after his dinner in his window,
+saw the tall figure of Feltram, like a dark streak, standing movelessly
+by the lake. An unpleasant feeling moved him, and then an impatience. He
+got up, and having primed himself with two glasses of brandy, walked
+down to the edge of the lake, and placed himself beside Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Looking down from the window,&quot; said he, nerved with his Dutch courage,
+&quot;and seeing you standing like a post, do you know what I began to think
+of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram looked at him, but answered nothing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I began to think of taking a wife&mdash;<i>marrying</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Feltram nodded. The announcement had not produced the least effect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why the devil will you make me so uncomfortable! Can't you be like
+yourself&mdash;what you <i>were</i>, I mean? I won't go on living here alone with
+you. I'll take a wife, I tell you. I'll choose a good church-going
+woman, that will have every man, woman, and child in the house on their
+marrow-bones twice a day, morning and evening, and three times on
+Sundays. How will you like that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you will be married,&quot; said Feltram, with a quiet decision which
+chilled Sir Bale, for he had by no means made up his mind to that
+desperate step.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram slowly walked away, and that conversation ended.</p>
+
+<p>Now an odd thing happened about this time. There was a family of
+Feltram&mdash;county genealogists could show how related to the vanished
+family of Cloostedd&mdash;living at that time on their estate not far from
+Carlisle. Three co-heiresses now represented it. They were great
+beauties&mdash;the belles of their county in their day.</p>
+
+<p>One was married to Sir Oliver Haworth of Haworth, a great family in
+those times. He was a knight of the shire, and had refused a baronetage,
+and, it was said, had his eye on a peerage. The other sister was married
+to Sir William Walsingham, a wealthy baronet; and the third and
+youngest, Miss Janet, was still unmarried, and at home at Cloudesly
+Hall, where her aunt, Lady Harbottle, lived with her, and made a
+dignified chaperon.</p>
+
+<p>Now it so fell out that Sir Bale, having business at Carlisle, and
+knowing old Lady Harbottle, paid his respects at Cloudesly Hall; and
+being no less than five-and-forty years of age, was for the first time
+in his life, seriously in love.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Janet was extremely pretty&mdash;a fair beauty with brilliant red lips
+and large blue eyes, and ever so many pretty dimples when she talked and
+smiled. It was odd, but not perhaps against the course of nature, that a
+man, though so old as he, and quite <i>blas&eacute;</i>, should fall at last under
+that fascination.</p>
+
+<p>But what are we to say of the strange infatuation of the young lady? No
+one could tell why she liked him. It was a craze. Her family were
+against it, her intimates, her old nurse&mdash;all would not do; and the
+oddest thing was, that he seemed to take no pains to please her. The end
+of this strange courtship was that he married her; and she came home to
+Mardykes Hall, determined to please everybody, and to be the happiest
+woman in England.</p>
+
+<p>With her came a female cousin, a good deal her senior, past
+thirty&mdash;Gertrude Mainyard, pale and sad, but very gentle, and with all
+the prettiness that can belong to her years.</p>
+
+<p>This young lady has a romance. Her hero is far away in India; and she,
+content to await his uncertain return with means to accomplish the hope
+of their lives, in that frail chance has long embarked all the purpose
+and love of her life.</p>
+
+<p>When Lady Mardykes came home, a new leaf was, as the phrase is, turned
+over. The neighbours and all the country people were willing to give the
+Hall a new trial. There was visiting and returning of visits; and young
+Lady Mardykes was liked and admired. It could not indeed have been
+otherwise. But here the improvement in the relations of Mardykes Hall
+with other homes ceased. On one excuse or another Sir Bale postponed or
+evaded the hospitalities which establish intimacies. Some people said he
+was jealous of his young and beautiful wife. But for the most part his
+reserve was set down to the old inhospitable cause, some ungenial
+defect in his character; and in a little time the tramp of horses and
+roll of carriage-wheels were seldom heard up or down the broad avenue of
+Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale liked this seclusion; and his wife, &quot;so infatuated with her
+idolatry of that graceless old man,&quot; as surrounding young ladies said,
+that she was well content to forego the society of the county people for
+a less interrupted enjoyment of that of her husband. &quot;What she could see
+in him&quot; to interest or amuse her so, that for his sake she was willing
+to be &quot;buried alive in that lonely place,&quot; the same critics were
+perpetually wondering.</p>
+
+<p>A year and more passed thus; for the young wife, happily&mdash;<i>very</i> happily
+indeed, had it not been for one topic on which she and her husband could
+not agree. This was Philip Feltram; and an odd quarrel it was.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXII</h4>
+
+<i><b>Sir Bale is Frightened</b></i>
+
+<p>To Feltram she had conceived, at first sight, a horror. It was not a
+mere antipathy; fear mingled largely in it. Although she did not see him
+often, this restless dread grew upon her so, that she urged his
+dismissal upon Sir Bale, offering to provide, herself, for him a
+handsome annuity, charged on that part of her property which, by her
+marriage settlement, had remained in her power. There was a time when
+Sir Bale was only too anxious to get rid of him. But that was changed
+now. Nothing could now induce the Baronet to part with him. He at first
+evaded and resisted quietly. But, urged with a perseverance to which he
+was unused, he at last broke into fury that appalled her, and swore that
+if he was worried more upon the subject, he would leave her and the
+country, and see neither again. This exhibition of violence affrighted
+her all the more by reason of the contrast; for up to this he had been
+an uxorious husband. Lady Mardykes was in hysterics, and thoroughly
+frightened, and remained in her room for two or three days. Sir Bale
+went up to London about business, and was not home for more than a week.
+This was the first little squall that disturbed the serenity of their
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>This point, therefore, was settled; but soon there came other things to
+sadden Lady Mardykes. There occurred a little incident, soon after Sir
+Bale's return from London, which recalled the topic on which they had so
+nearly quarrelled.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had a dressing-room, remote from the bedrooms, in which he sat
+and read and sometimes smoked. One night, after the house was all quiet,
+the Baronet being still up, the bell of this dressing-room rang long and
+furiously. It was such a peal as a person in extreme terror might ring.
+Lady Mardykes, with her maid in her room, heard it; and in great alarm
+she ran in her dressing-gown down the gallery to Sir Bale's room.
+Mallard the butler had already arrived, and was striving to force the
+door, which was secured. It gave way just as she reached it, and she
+rushed through.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale was standing with the bell-rope in his hand, in the extremest
+agitation, looking like a ghost; and Philip Feltram was sitting in his
+chair, with a dark smile fixed upon him. For a minute she thought he had
+attempted to assassinate his master. She could not otherwise account for
+the scene.</p>
+
+<p>There had been nothing of the kind, however; as her husband assured her
+again and again, as she lay sobbing on his breast, with her arms about
+his neck.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To her dying hour,&quot; she afterwards said to her cousin, &quot;she never could
+forget the dreadful look in Feltram's face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>No explanation of that scene did she ever obtain from Sir Bale, nor any
+clue to the cause of the agony that was so powerfully expressed in his
+countenance. Thus much only she learned from him, that Feltram had
+sought that interview for the purpose of announcing his departure, which
+was to take place within the year.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not sorry to hear that. But if you knew all, you might. Let the
+curse fly where it may, it will come back to roost. So, darling, let us
+discuss him no more. Your wish is granted, <i>dis iratis</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Some crisis, during this interview, seemed to have occurred in the
+relations between Sir Bale and Feltram. Henceforward they seldom
+exchanged a word; and when they did speak, it was coldly and shortly,
+like men who were nearly strangers.</p>
+
+<p>One day in the courtyard, Sir Bale seeing Feltram leaning upon the
+parapet that overlooks the lake, approached him, and said in a low tone,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been thinking if we&mdash;that is, I&mdash;do owe that money to old Trebeck,
+it is high time I should pay it. I was ill, and had lost my head at the
+time; but it turned out luckily, and it ought to be paid. I don't like
+the idea of a bond turning up, and a lot of interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The old fellow meant it for a present. He is richer than you are; he
+wished to give the family a lift. He has destroyed the bond, I believe,
+and in no case will he take payment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No fellow has a right to force his money on another,&quot; answered Sir
+Bale. &quot;I never asked him. Besides, as you know, I was not really myself,
+and the whole thing seems to me quite different from what you say it
+was; and, so far as my brain is concerned, it was all a phantasmagoria;
+but, you say, it was he.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every man is accountable for what he intends and for what he <i>thinks</i>
+he does,&quot; said Feltram cynically.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I'm accountable for dealing with that wicked old dicer I
+<i>thought</i> I saw&mdash;isn't that it? But I must pay old Trebeck all the same,
+since the money was his. Can you manage a meeting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look down here. Old Trebeck has just landed; he will sleep to-night at
+the George and Dragon, to meet his cattle in the morning at Golden
+Friars fair. You can speak to him yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying Feltram glided away, leaving Sir Bale the task of opening the
+matter to the wealthy farmer of Cloostedd Fells.</p>
+
+<p>A broad night of steps leads down from the courtyard to the level of the
+jetty at the lake: and Sir Bale descended, and accosted the venerable
+farmer, who was bluff, honest, and as frank as a man can be who speaks a
+<i>patois</i> which hardly a living man but himself can understand.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale asked him to come to the Hall and take luncheon; but Trebeck
+was in haste. Cattle had arrived which he wanted to look at, and a pony
+awaited him on the road, hard by, to Golden Friars; and the old fellow
+must mount and away.</p>
+
+<p>Then Sir Bale, laying his hand upon his arm in a manner that was at once
+lofty and affectionate, told in his ears the subject on which he wished
+to be understood.</p>
+
+<p>The old farmer looked hard at him, and shook his head and laughed in a
+way that would have been insupportable in a house, and told him, &quot;I hev
+narra bond o' thoine, mon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know how that is; so does Philip Feltram.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I must replace the money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The old man laughed again, and in his outlandish dialect told him to
+wait till he asked him. Sir Bale pressed it, but the old fellow put it
+off with outlandish banter; and as the Baronet grew testy, the farmer
+only waxed more and more hilarious, and at last, mounting his shaggy
+pony, rode off, still laughing, at a canter to Golden Friars; and when
+he reached Golden Friars, and got into the hall of the George and
+Dragon, he asked Richard Turnbull with a chuckle if he ever knew a man
+refuse an offer of money, or a man want to pay who did not owe; and
+inquired whether the Squire down at Mardykes Hall mightn't be a bit
+&quot;wrang in t' garrets.&quot; All this, however, other people said, was
+intended merely to conceal the fact that he really had, through sheer
+loyalty, lent the money, or rather bestowed it, thinking the old family
+in jeopardy, and meaning a gift, was determined to hear no more about
+it. I can't say; I only know people held, some by one interpretation,
+some by another.</p>
+
+<p>As the caterpillar sickens and changes its hue when it is about to
+undergo its transformation, so an odd change took place in Feltram. He
+grew even more silent and morose; he seemed always in an agitation and a
+secret rage. He used to walk through the woodlands on the slopes of the
+fells above Mardykes, muttering to himself, picking up the rotten sticks
+with which the ground was strewn, breaking them in his hands, and
+hurling them from him, and stamping on the earth as he paced up and
+down.</p>
+
+<p>One night a thunder-storm came on, the wind blowing gently up from
+Golden Friars. It was a night black as pitch, illuminated only by the
+intermittent glare of the lightning. At the foot of the stairs Sir Bale
+met Feltram, whom he had not seen for some days. He had his cloak and
+hat on.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am going to Cloostedd to-night,&quot; he said, &quot;and if all is as I expect,
+I sha'n't return. We remember all, you and I.&quot; And he nodded and walked
+down the passage.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale knew that a crisis had happened in his own life. He felt faint
+and ill, and returned to the room where he had been sitting. Throughout
+that melancholy night he did not go to his bed.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he learned that Marlin, who had been out late, saw
+Feltram get the boat off, and sail towards the other side. The night was
+so dark that he could only see him start; but the wind was light and
+coming up the lake, so that without a tack he could easily make the
+other side. Feltram did not return. The boat was found fast to the ring
+at Cloostedd landing-place.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mardykes was relieved, and for a time was happier than ever. It was
+different with Sir Bale; and afterwards her sky grew dark also.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>A Lady in Black</b></i>
+
+<p>Shortly after this, there arrived at the George and Dragon a stranger.
+He was a man somewhat past forty, embrowned by distant travel, and, his
+years considered, wonderfully good-looking. He had good eyes; his
+dark-brown hair had no sprinkling of gray in it; and his kindly smile
+showed very white and even teeth. He made inquiries about neighbours,
+especially respecting Mardykes Hall; and the answers seemed to interest
+him profoundly. He inquired after Philip Feltram, and shed tears when he
+heard that he was no longer at Mardykes Hall, and that Trebeck or other
+friends could give him no tidings of him.</p>
+
+<p>And then he asked Richard Turnbull to show him to a quiet room; and so,
+taking the honest fellow by the hand, he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Turnbull, don't you know me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, sir,&quot; said the host of the George and Dragon, after a puzzled
+stare, &quot;I can't say I do, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The stranger smiled a little sadly, and shook his head: and with a
+gentle laugh, still holding his hand in a very friendly way, he said, &quot;I
+should have known you anywhere, Mr. Turnbull&mdash;anywhere on earth or
+water. Had you turned up on the Himalayas, or in a junk on the Canton
+river, or as a dervish in the mosque of St. Sophia, I should have
+recognised my old friend, and asked what news from Golden Friars. But of
+course I'm changed. You were a little my senior; and one advantage among
+many you have over your juniors is that you don't change as we do. I
+have played many a game of hand-ball in the inn-yard of the George, Mr.
+Turnbull. You often wagered a pot of ale on my play; you used to say I'd
+make the best player of fives, and the best singer of a song, within ten
+miles round the meer. You used to have me behind the bar when I was a
+boy, with more of an appetite than I have now. I was then at Mardykes
+Hall, and used to go back in old Marlin's boat. Is old Marlin still
+alive?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, that&mdash;he&mdash;is,&quot; said Turnbull slowly, as he eyed the stranger again
+carefully. &quot;I don't know who you can be, sir, unless you are&mdash;the
+boy&mdash;William Feltram. La! he was seven or eight years younger than
+Philip. But, lawk!--Well&mdash;By Jen, and <i>be</i> you Willie Feltram? But no,
+you can't!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, Mr. Turnbull, that very boy&mdash;Willie Feltram&mdash;even he, and no other;
+and now you'll shake hands with me, not so formally, but like an old
+friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ay, that I will,&quot; said honest Richard Turnbull, with a great smile, and
+a hearty grasp of his guest's hand; and they both laughed together, and
+the younger man's eyes, for he was an affectionate fool, filled up with
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I want you to tell me this,&quot; said William, after they had talked a
+little quietly, &quot;now that there is no one to interrupt us, what has
+become of my brother Philip? I heard from a friend an account of his
+health that has caused me unspeakable anxiety.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;His health was not bad; no, he was a hardy lad, and liked a walk over
+the fells, or a pull on the lake; but he was a bit daft, every one said,
+and a changed man; and, in troth, they say the air o' Mardykes don't
+agree with every one, no more than him. But that's a tale that's neither
+here nor there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; said William, &quot;that was what they told me&mdash;his mind affected. God
+help and guard us! I have been unhappy ever since; and if I only knew it
+was well with poor Philip, I think I should be too happy. And where is
+Philip now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He crossed the lake one night, having took leave of Sir Bale. They
+thought he was going to old Trebeck's up the Fells. He likes the
+Feltrams, and likes the folk at Mardykes Hall&mdash;though those two families
+was not always o'er kind to one another. But Trebeck seed nowt o' him,
+nor no one else; and what has gone wi' him no one can tell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>I</i> heard that also,&quot; said William with a deep sigh. &quot;But <i>I</i> hoped it
+had been cleared up by now, and something happier been known of the poor
+fellow by this time. I'd give a great deal to know&mdash;I don't know what I
+<i>would</i> not give to know&mdash;I'm so unhappy about him. And now, my good old
+friend, tell your people to get me a chaise, for I must go to Mardykes
+Hall; and, first, let me have a room to dress in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At Mardykes Hall a pale and pretty lady was looking out, alone, from the
+stone-shafted drawing-room window across the courtyard and the
+balustrade, on which stood many a great stone cup with flowers, whose
+leaves were half shed and gone with the winds&mdash;emblem of her hopes. The
+solemn melancholy of the towering fells, the ripple of the lonely lake,
+deepened her sadness.</p>
+
+<p>The unwonted sound of carriage-wheels awoke her from her reverie.</p>
+
+<p>Before the chaise reached the steps, a hand from its window had seized
+the handle, the door was thrown open, and William Feltram jumped out.</p>
+
+<p>She was in the hall, she knew not how; and, with a wild scream and a
+sob, she threw herself into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Here at last was an end of the long waiting, the dejection which had
+reached almost the point of despair. And like two rescued from
+shipwreck, they clung together in an agony of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>William had come back with no very splendid fortune. It was enough, and
+only enough, to enable them to marry. Prudent people would have thought
+it, very likely, too little. But he was now home in England, with health
+unimpaired by his long sojourn in the East, and with intelligence and
+energies improved by the discipline of his arduous struggle with
+fortune. He reckoned, therefore, upon one way or other adding something
+to their income; and he knew that a few hundreds a year would make them
+happier than hundreds of thousand could other people.</p>
+
+<p>It was five years since they had parted in France, where a journey of
+importance to the Indian firm, whose right hand he was, had brought him.</p>
+
+<p>The refined tastes that are supposed to accompany gentle blood, his love
+of art, his talent for music and drawing, had accidentally attracted the
+attention of the little travelling-party which old Lady Harbottle
+chaperoned. Miss Janet, now Lady Mardykes, learning that his name was
+Feltram, made inquiry through a common friend, and learned what
+interested her still more about him. It ended in an acquaintance, which
+his manly and gentle nature and his entertaining qualities soon improved
+into an intimacy.</p>
+
+<p>Feltram had chosen to work his own way, being proud, and also prosperous
+enough to prevent his pride, in this respect, from being placed under
+too severe a pressure of temptation. He heard not from but of his
+brother, through a friend in London, and more lately from Gertrude,
+whose account of him was sad and even alarming.</p>
+
+<p>When Lady Mardykes came in, her delight knew no bounds. She had already
+formed a plan for their future, and was not to be put off&mdash;William
+Feltram was to take the great grazing farm that belonged to the Mardykes
+estate; or, if he preferred it, to farm it for her, sharing the profits.
+She wanted something to interest her, and this was just the thing. It
+was hardly half-a-mile away, up the lake, and there was such a
+comfortable house and garden, and she and Gertrude could be as much
+together as ever almost; and, in fact, Gertrude and her husband could be
+nearly always at Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>So eager and entreating was she, that there was no escape. The plan was
+adopted immediately on their marriage, and no happier neighbours for a
+time were ever known.</p>
+
+<p>But was Lady Mardykes content? was she even exempt from the heartache
+which each mortal thinks he has all to himself? The longing of her life
+was for children; and again and again had her hopes been disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>One tiny pretty little baby indeed was born, and lived for two years,
+and then died; and none had come to supply its place and break the
+childless silence in the great old nursery. That was her sorrow; a
+greater one than men can understand.</p>
+
+<p>Another source of grief was this: that Sir Bale Mardykes conceived a
+dislike to William Feltram that was unaccountable. At first suppressed,
+it betrayed itself negatively only; but with time it increased; and in
+the end the Baronet made little secret of his wish to get rid of him.
+Many and ingenious were the annoyances he contrived; and at last he told
+his wife plainly that he wished William Feltram to find some other abode
+for himself.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mardykes pleaded earnestly, and even with tears; for if Gertrude
+were to leave the neighbourhood, she well knew how utterly solitary her
+own life would become.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale at last vouchsafed some little light as to his motives. There
+was an old story, he told her, that his estate would go to a Feltram. He
+had an instinctive distrust of that family. It was a feeling not given
+him for nothing; it might be the means of defeating their plotting and
+strategy. Old Trebeck, he fancied, had a finger in it. Philip Feltram
+had told him that Mardykes was to pass away to a Feltram. Well, they
+might conspire; but he would take what care he could that the estate
+should not be stolen from his family. He did not want his wife stript of
+her jointure, or his children, if he had any, left without bread.</p>
+
+<p>All this sounded very like madness; but the idea was propounded by
+Philip Feltram. His own jealousy was at bottom founded on superstition
+which he would not avow and could hardly define. He bitterly blamed
+himself for having permitted William Feltram to place himself where he
+was.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these annoyances William Feltram was seriously thinking
+of throwing up the farm, and seeking similar occupation somewhere else.</p>
+
+<p>One day, walking alone in the thick wood that skirts the lake near his
+farm, he was discussing this problem with himself; and every now and
+then he repeated his question, &quot;Shall I throw it up, and give him the
+lease back if he likes?&quot; On a sudden he heard a voice near him say:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hold it, you fool!--hold hard, you fool!--hold it, you fool!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The situation being lonely, he was utterly puzzled to account for the
+interruption, until on a sudden a huge parrot, green, crimson, and
+yellow, plunged from among the boughs over his head to the ground, and
+partly flying, and partly hopping and tumbling along, got lamely, but
+swiftly, out of sight among the thick underwood; and he could neither
+start it nor hear it any more. The interruption reminded him of that
+which befel Robinson Crusoe. It was more singular, however; for he
+owned no such bird; and its strangeness impressed the omen all the more.</p>
+
+<p>He related it when he got home to his wife; and as people when living a
+solitary life, and also suffering, are prone to superstition, she did
+not laugh at the adventure, as in a healthier state of spirits, I
+suppose, she would.</p>
+
+<p>They continued, however, to discuss the question together; and all the
+more industriously as a farm of the same kind, only some fifteen miles
+away, was now offered to all bidders, under another landlord. Gertrude,
+who felt Sir Bale's unkindness all the more that she was a distant
+cousin of his, as it had proved on comparing notes, was very strong in
+favour of the change, and had been urging it with true feminine
+ingenuity and persistence upon her husband. A very singular dream rather
+damped her ardour, however, and it appeared thus:</p>
+
+<p>She had gone to her bed full of this subject; and she thought, although
+she could not remember having done so, had fallen asleep. She was still
+thinking, as she had been all the day, about leaving the farm. It seemed
+to her that she was quite awake, and a candle burning all the time in
+the room, awaiting the return of her husband, who was away at the fair
+near Haworth; she saw the interior of the room distinctly. It was a
+sultry night, and a little bit of the window was raised. A very slight
+sound in that direction attracted her attention; and to her surprise she
+saw a jay hop upon the window-sill, and into the room.</p>
+
+<p>Up sat Gertrude, surprised and a little startled at the visit of so
+large a bird, without presence of mind for the moment even to frighten
+it away, and staring at it, as they say, with all her eyes. A sofa stood
+at the foot of the bed; and under this the bird swiftly hopped. She
+extended her hand now to take the bell-rope at the left side of the bed,
+and in doing so displaced the curtains, which were open only at the
+foot. She was amazed there to see a lady dressed entirely in black, and
+with the old-fashioned hood over her head. She was young and pretty, and
+looked kindly at her, but with now and then a slight contraction of lips
+and eyebrows that indicates pain. This little twitching was momentary,
+and recurred, it seemed, about once or twice in a minute.</p>
+
+<p>How it was that she was not frightened on seeing this lady, standing
+like an old friend at her bedside, she could not afterwards understand.
+Some influence besides the kindness of her look prevented any sensation
+of terror at the time. With a very white hand the young lady in black
+held a white handkerchief pressed to her bosom at the top of her bodice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who are you?&quot; asked Gertrude.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am a kinswoman, although you don't know me; and I have come to tell
+you that you must not leave Faxwell&quot; (the name of the place) &quot;or Janet.
+If you go, I will go with you; and I can make you fear me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was very distinct, but also very faint, with something
+undulatory in it, that seemed to enter Gertrude's head rather than her
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>Saying this she smiled horribly, and, lifting her handkerchief,
+disclosed for a moment a great wound in her breast, deep in which
+Gertrude saw darkly the head of a snake writhing.</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon she uttered a wild scream of terror, and, diving under the
+bed-clothes, remained more dead than alive there, until her maid,
+alarmed by her cry, came in, and having searched the room, and shut the
+window at her desire, did all in her power to comfort her.</p>
+
+<p>If this was a nightmare and embodied only by a form of expression which
+in some states belongs to the imagination, a leading idea in the
+controversy in which her mind had long been employed, it had at least
+the effect of deciding her against leaving Faxwell. And so that point
+was settled; and unpleasant relations continued between the tenants of
+the farm and the master of Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>To Lady Mardykes all this was very painful, although Sir Bale did not
+insist upon making a separation between his wife and her cousin. But to
+Mardykes Hall that cousin came no more. Even Lady Mardykes thought it
+better to see her at Faxwell than to risk a meeting in the temper in
+which Sir Bale then was. And thus several years passed.</p>
+
+<p>No tidings of Philip Feltram were heard; and, in fact, none ever reached
+that part of the world; and if it had not been highly improbable that he
+could have drowned himself in the lake without his body sooner or later
+having risen to the surface, it would have been concluded that he had
+either accidentally or by design made away with himself in its waters.</p>
+
+<p>Over Mardykes Hall there was a gloom&mdash;no sound of children's voices was
+heard there, and even the hope of that merry advent had died out.</p>
+
+<p>This disappointment had no doubt helped to fix in Sir Bale's mind the
+idea of the insecurity of his property, and the morbid fancy that
+William Feltram and old Trebeck were conspiring to seize it; than which,
+I need hardly say, no imagination more insane could have fixed itself in
+his mind.</p>
+
+<p>In other things, however, Sir Bale was shrewd and sharp, a clear and
+rapid man of business, and although this was a strange whim, it was not
+so unnatural in a man who was by nature so prone to suspicion as Sir
+Bale Mardykes.</p>
+
+<p>During the years, now seven, that had elapsed since the marriage of Sir
+Bale and Miss Janet Feltram, there had happened but one event, except
+the death of their only child, to place them in mourning. That was the
+decease of Sir William Walsingham, the husband of Lady Mardykes' sister.
+She now lived in a handsome old dower-house at Islington, and being
+wealthy, made now and then an excursion to Mardykes Hall, in which she
+was sometimes accompanied by her sister Lady Haworth. Sir Oliver being a
+Parliament-man was much in London and deep in politics and intrigue, and
+subject, as convivial rogues are, to occasional hard hits from gout.</p>
+
+<p>But change and separation had made no alteration in these ladies' mutual
+affections, and no three sisters were ever more attached.</p>
+
+<p>Was Lady Mardykes happy with her lord? A woman so gentle and loving as
+she, is a happy wife with any husband who is not an absolute brute.
+There must have been, I suppose, some good about Sir Bale. His wife was
+certainly deeply attached to him. She admired his wisdom, and feared his
+inflexible will, and altogether made of him a domestic idol. To acquire
+this enviable position, I suspect there must be something not
+essentially disagreeable about a man. At all events, what her neighbours
+good-naturedly termed her infatuation continued, and indeed rather
+improved by time.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXIV</h4>
+
+<i><b>An Old Portrait</b></i>
+
+<p>Sir Bale&mdash;whom some remembered a gay and convivial man, not to say a
+profligate one&mdash;had grown to be a very gloomy man indeed. There was
+something weighing upon his mind; and I daresay some of the good gossips
+of Golden Friars, had there been any materials for such a case, would
+have believed that Sir Bale had murdered Philip Feltram, and was now the
+victim of the worm and fire of remorse.</p>
+
+<p>The gloom of the master of the house made his very servants gloomy, and
+the house itself looked sombre, as if it had been startled with strange
+and dismal sights.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mardykes was something of an artist. She had lighted lately, in an
+out-of-the-way room, upon a dozen or more old portraits. Several of
+these were full-lengths; and she was&mdash;with the help of her maid, both in
+long aprons, amid sponges and basins, soft handkerchiefs and
+varnish-pots and brushes&mdash;busy in removing the dust and smoke-stains,
+and in laying-on the varnish, which brought out the colouring, and made
+the transparent shadows yield up their long-buried treasures of finished
+detail.</p>
+
+<p>Against the wall stood a full-length portrait as Sir Bale entered the
+room; having for a wonder, a word to say to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O,&quot; said the pretty lady, turning to him in her apron, and with her
+brush in her hand, &quot;we are in such in pickle, Munnings and I have been
+cleaning these old pictures. Mrs. Julaper says they are the pictures
+that came from Cloostedd Hall long ago. They were buried in dust in the
+dark room in the clock-tower. Here is such a characteristic one. It has
+a long powdered wig&mdash;George the First or Second, I don't know which&mdash;and
+such a combination of colours, and such a face. It seems starting out of
+the canvas, and all but speaks. Do look; that is, I mean, Bale, if you
+can spare time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale abstractedly drew near, and looked over his wife's shoulder on
+the full-length portrait that stood before him; and as he did so a
+strange expression for a moment passed over his face.</p>
+
+<p>The picture represented a man of swarthy countenance, with signs of the
+bottle glowing through the dark skin; small fierce pig eyes, a rather
+flat pendulous nose, and a grim forbidding mouth, with a large wart a
+little above it. On the head hung one of those full-bottomed powdered
+wigs that look like a cloud of cotton-wadding; a lace cravat was about
+his neck; he wore short black-velvet breeches with stockings rolled over
+them, a bottle-green coat of cut velvet and a crimson waistcoat with
+long flaps; coat and waistcoat both heavily laced with gold. He wore a
+sword, and leaned upon a crutch-handled cane, and his figure and aspect
+indicated a swollen and gouty state. He could not be far from sixty.
+There was uncommon force in this fierce and forbidding-looking portrait.
+Lady Mardykes said, &quot;What wonderful dresses they wore! How like a fine
+magic-lantern figure he looks! What gorgeous colouring! it looks like
+the plumage of a mackaw; and what a claw his hand is! and that huge
+broken beak of a nose! Isn't he like a wicked old mackaw?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where did you find that?&quot; asked Sir Bale.</p>
+
+<p>Surprised at his tone, she looked round, and was still more surprised
+at his looks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told you, dear Bale, I found them in the clock-tower. I hope I did
+right; it was not wrong bringing them here? I ought to have asked. Are
+you vexed, Bale?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Vexed! not I. I only wish it was in the fire. I must have seen that
+picture when I was a child. I hate to look at it. I raved about it once,
+when I was ill. I don't know who it is; I don't remember when I saw it.
+I wish you'd tell them to burn it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is one of the Feltrams,&quot; she answered. &quot;'Sir Hugh Feltram' is on the
+frame at the foot; and old Mrs. Julaper says he was the father of the
+unhappy lady who was said to have been drowned near Snakes Island.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, suppose he is; there's nothing interesting in that. It is a
+disgusting picture. I connect it with my illness; and I think it is the
+kind of thing that would make any one half mad, if they only looked at
+it often enough. Tell them to burn it; and come away, come to the next
+room; I can't say what I want here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale seemed to grow more and more agitated the longer he remained in
+the room. He seemed to her both frightened and furious; and taking her a
+little roughly by the wrist, he led her through the door.</p>
+
+<p>When they were in another apartment alone, he again asked the affrighted
+lady who had told her that picture was there, and who told her to clean
+it.</p>
+
+<p>She had only the truth to plead. It was, from beginning to end, the
+merest accident.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I thought, Janet, that you were taking counsel of others, talking me
+over, and trying clever experiments&mdash;&quot; he stopped short with his eyes
+fixed on hers with black suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>His wife's answer was one pleading look, and to burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale let-go her wrist, which he had held up to this; and placing his
+hand gently on her shoulder, he said,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not cry, Janet; I have given you no excuse for tears. I only
+wished an answer to a very harmless question; and I am sure you would
+tell me, if by any chance you have lately seen Philip Feltram; he is
+capable of arranging all that. No one knows him as I do. There, you must
+not cry any more; but tell me truly, has he turned up? is he at
+Faxwell?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She denied all this with perfect truth; and after a hesitation of some
+time, the matter ended. And as soon as she and he were more themselves,
+he had something quite different to tell her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sit down, Janet; sit down, and forget that vile picture and all I have
+been saying. What I came to tell you, I think you will like; I am sure
+it will please you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And with this little preface he placed his arm about her neck, and
+kissed her tenderly. She certainly was pleased; and when his little
+speech was over, she, smiling, with her tears still wet upon her cheeks,
+put her arms round her husband's neck, and in turn kissed him with the
+ardour of gratitude, kissed him affectionately; again and again thanking
+him all the time.</p>
+
+<p>It was no great matter, but from Sir Bale Mardykes it was something
+quite unusual.</p>
+
+<p>Was it a sudden whim? What was it? Something had prompted Sir Bale,
+early in that dark shrewd month of December, to tell his wife that he
+wished to call together some of his county acquaintances, and to fill
+his house for a week or so, as near Christmas as she could get them to
+come. He wished her sisters&mdash;Lady Haworth (with her husband) and the
+Dowager Lady Walsingham&mdash;to be invited for an early day, before the
+coming of the other guests, so that she might enjoy their society for a
+little time quietly to herself before the less intimate guests should
+assemble.</p>
+
+<p>Glad was Lady Mardykes to hear the resolve of her husband, and prompt to
+obey. She wrote to her sisters to beg them to arrange to come, together,
+by the tenth or twelfth of the month, which they accordingly arranged to
+do. Sir Oliver, it was true, could not be of the party. A minister of
+state was drinking the waters at Bath; and Sir Oliver thought it would
+do him no harm to sip a little also, and his fashionable doctor politely
+agreed, and &quot;ordered&quot; to those therapeutic springs the knight of the
+shire, who was &quot;consumedly vexed&quot; to lose the Christmas with that jolly
+dog, Bale, down at Mardykes Hall. But a fellow must have a stomach for
+his Christmas pudding, and politics takes it out of a poor gentleman
+deucedly; and health's the first thing, egad!</p>
+
+<p>So Sir Oliver went down to Bath, and I don't know that he tippled much
+of the waters, but he did drink the burgundy of that haunt of the
+ailing; and he had the honour of making a fourth not unfrequently in the
+secretary of state's whist-parties.</p>
+
+<p>It was about the 8th of December when, in Lady Walsingham's carriage,
+intending to post all the way, that lady, still young, and Lady Haworth,
+with all the servants that were usual in such expeditions in those days,
+started from the great Dower House at Islington in high spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Haworth had not been very well&mdash;low and nervous; but the clear
+frosty sun, and the pleasant nature of the excursion, raised her spirits
+to the point of enjoyment; and expecting nothing but happiness and
+gaiety&mdash;for, after all, Sir Bale was but one of a large party, and even
+he could make an effort and be agreeable as well as hospitable on
+occasion&mdash;they set out on their northward expedition. The journey, which
+is a long one, they had resolved to break into a four days' progress;
+and the inns had been written to, bespeaking a comfortable reception.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXV"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXV</h4>
+
+<i><b>Through the Wall</b></i>
+
+<p>On the third night they put-up at the comfortable old inn called the
+Three Nuns. With an effort they might easily have pushed on to Mardykes
+Hall that night, for the distance is not more than five-and-thirty
+miles. But, considering her sister's health, Lady Walsingham in planning
+their route had resolved against anything like a forced march.</p>
+
+<p>Here the ladies took possession of the best sitting-room; and,
+notwithstanding the fatigue of the journey, Lady Haworth sat up with her
+sister till near ten o'clock, chatting gaily about a thousand things.</p>
+
+<p>Of the three sisters, Lady Walsingham was the eldest. She had been in
+the habit of taking the command at home; and now, for advice and
+decision, her younger sisters, less prompt and courageous than she, were
+wont, whenever in her neighbourhood, to throw upon her all the cares and
+agitations of determining what was best to be done in small things and
+great. It is only fair to say, in addition, that this submission was not
+by any means exacted; it was the deference of early habit and feebler
+will, for she was neither officious nor imperious.</p>
+
+<p>It was now time that Lady Haworth, a good deal more fatigued than her
+sister, should take leave of her for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly they kissed and bid each other good-night; and Lady
+Walsingham, not yet disposed to sleep, sat for some time longer in the
+comfortable room where they had taken tea, amusing the time with the
+book that had, when conversation flagged, beguiled the weariness of the
+journey. Her sister had been in her room nearly an hour, when she became
+herself a little sleepy. She had lighted her candle, and was going to
+ring for her maid, when, to her surprise, the door opened, and her
+sister Lady Haworth entered in a dressing-gown, looking frightened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My darling Mary!&quot; exclaimed Lady Walsingham, &quot;what is the matter? Are
+you well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, darling,&quot; she answered, &quot;quite well; that is, I don't know what is
+the matter&mdash;I'm frightened.&quot; She paused, listening, with her eyes turned
+towards the wall. &quot;O, darling Maud, I am so frightened! I don't know
+what it can be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not be agitated, darling; there's nothing. You have been
+asleep, and I suppose you have had a dream. Were you asleep?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Haworth had caught her sister fast by the arm with both hands, and
+was looking wildly in her face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have <i>you</i> heard nothing?&quot; she asked, again looking towards the wall of
+the room, as if she expected to hear a voice through it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nonsense, darling; you are dreaming still. Nothing; there has been
+nothing to hear. I have been awake ever since; if there had been
+anything to hear, I could not have missed it. Come, sit down. Sip a
+little of this water; you are nervous, and over-tired; and tell me
+plainly, like a good little soul, what is the matter; for nothing has
+happened here; and you ought to know that the Three Nuns is the quietest
+house in England; and I'm no witch, and if you won't tell me what's the
+matter, I can't divine it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, of course,&quot; said Mary, sitting down, and glancing round her
+wildly. &quot;I don't hear it now; <i>you</i> don't?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do, my dear Mary, tell me what you mean,&quot; said Lady Walsingham kindly
+but firmly.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Haworth was holding the still untasted glass of water in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I'll tell you; I have been so frightened! You are right; I had a
+dream, but I can scarcely remember anything of it, except the very end,
+when I wakened. But it was not the dream; only it was connected with
+what terrified me so. I was so tired when I went to bed, I thought I
+should have slept soundly; and indeed I fell asleep immediately; and I
+must have slept quietly for a good while. How long is it since I left
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;More than an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I must have slept a good while; for I don't think I have been ten
+minutes awake. How my dream began I don't know. I remember only that
+gradually it came to this: I was standing in a recess in a panelled
+gallery; it was lofty, and, I thought, belonged to a handsome but
+old-fashioned house. I was looking straight towards the head of a wide
+staircase, with a great oak banister. At the top of the stairs, as near
+to me, about, as that window there, was a thick short column of oak, on
+top of which was a candlestick. There was no other light but from that
+one candle; and there was a lady standing beside it, looking down the
+stairs, with her back turned towards me; and from her gestures I should
+have thought speaking to people on a lower lobby, but whom from my place
+I could not see. I soon perceived that this lady was in great agony of
+mind; for she beat her breast and wrung her hands every now and then,
+and wagged her head slightly from side to side, like a person in great
+distraction. But one word she said I could not hear. Nor when she struck
+her hand on the banister, or stamped, as she seemed to do in her pain,
+upon the floor, could I hear any sound. I found myself somehow waiting
+upon this lady, and was watching her with awe and sympathy. But who she
+was I knew not, until turning towards me I plainly saw Janet's face,
+pale and covered with tears, and with such a look of agony as&mdash;O God!--I
+can never forget.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pshaw! Mary darling, what is it but a dream! I have had a thousand more
+startling; it is only that you are so nervous just now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that is not all&mdash;nothing; what followed is so dreadful; for either
+there is something very horrible going on at Mardykes, or else I am
+losing my reason,&quot; said Lady Haworth in increasing agitation. &quot;I wakened
+instantly in great alarm, but I suppose no more than I have felt a
+hundred times on awakening from a frightful dream. I sat up in my bed; I
+was thinking of ringing for Winnefred, my heart was beating so, but
+feeling better soon I changed my mind. All this time I heard a faint
+sound of a voice, as if coming through a thick wall. It came from the
+wall at the left side of my bed, and I fancied was that of some woman
+lamenting in a room separated from me by that thick partition. I could
+only perceive that it was a sound of crying mingled with ejaculations of
+misery, or fear, or entreaty. I listened with a painful curiosity,
+wondering who it could be, and what could have happened in the
+neighbouring rooms of the house; and as I looked and listened, I could
+distinguish my own name, but at first nothing more. That, of course,
+might have been an accident; and I knew there were many Marys in the
+world besides myself. But it made me more curious; and a strange thing
+struck me, for I was now looking at that very wall through which the
+sounds were coming. I saw that there was a window in it. Thinking that
+the rest of the wall might nevertheless be covered by another room, I
+drew the curtain of it and looked out. But there is no such thing. It is
+the outer wall the entire way along. And it is equally impossible of
+the other wall, for it is to the front of the house, and has two windows
+in it; and the wall that the head of my bed stands against has the
+gallery outside it all the way; for I remarked that as I came to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tut, tut, Mary darling, nothing on earth is so deceptive as sound; this
+and fancy account for everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But hear me out; I have not told you all. I began to hear the voice
+more clearly, and at last quite distinctly. It was Janet's, and she was
+conjuring you by name, as well as me, to come to her to Mardykes,
+without delay, in her extremity; yes, <i>you</i>, just as vehemently as me.
+It was Janet's voice. It still seemed separated by the wall, but I heard
+every syllable now; and I never heard voice or words of such anguish.
+She was imploring of us to come on, without a moment's delay, to
+Mardykes; and crying that, if we were not with her, she should go mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, darling,&quot; said Lady Walsingham, &quot;you see I'm included in this
+invitation as well as you, and should hate to disappoint Janet just as
+much; and I do assure you, in the morning you will laugh over this fancy
+with me; or rather, she will laugh over it with us, when we get to
+Mardykes. What you do want is rest, and a little sal-volatile.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So saying she rang the bell for Lady Haworth's maid. Having comforted
+her sister, and made her take the nervous specific she recommended, she
+went with her to her room; and taking possession of the arm-chair by the
+fire, she told her that she would keep her company until she was asleep,
+and remain long enough to be sure that the sleep was not likely to be
+interrupted. Lady Haworth had not been ten minutes in her bed, when she
+raised herself with a start to her elbow, listening with parted lips and
+wild eyes, her trembling fingers behind her ears. With an exclamation of
+horror, she cried,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There it is again, upbraiding us! I can't stay longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sprang from the bed, and rang the bell violently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Maud,&quot; she cried in an ecstasy of horror, &quot;nothing shall keep me here,
+whether you go or not. I will set out the moment the horses are put to.
+If you refuse to come, Maud, mind the responsibility is yours&mdash;listen!&quot;
+and with white face and starting eyes she pointed to the wall. &quot;Have you
+ears; don't you hear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sight of a person in extremity of terror so mysterious, might have
+unnerved a ruder system than Lady Walsingham's. She was pale as she
+replied; for under certain circumstances those terrors which deal with
+the supernatural are more contagious than any others. Lady Walsingham
+still, in terms, held to her opinion; but although she tried to smile,
+her face showed that the panic had touched her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, dear Mary,&quot; she said, &quot;as you will have it so, I see no good in
+resisting you longer. Here, it is plain, your nerves will not suffer you
+to rest. Let us go then, in heaven's name; and when you get to Mardykes
+Hall you will be relieved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>All this time Lady Haworth was getting on her things, with the careless
+hurry of a person about to fly for her life; and Lady Walsingham issued
+her orders for horses, and the general preparations for resuming the
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>It was now between ten and eleven; but the servant who rode armed with
+them, according to the not unnecessary usage of the times, thought that
+with a little judicious bribing of postboys they might easily reach
+Mardykes Hall before three o'clock in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>When the party set forward again, Lady Haworth was comparatively
+tranquil. She no longer heard the unearthly mimickry of her sister's
+voice; there remained only the fear and suspense which that illusion or
+visitation had produced.</p>
+
+<p>Her sister, Lady Walsingham, after a brief effort to induce something
+like conversation, became silent. A thin sheet of snow had covered the
+darkened landscape, and some light flakes were still dropping. Lady
+Walsingham struck her repeater often in the dark, and inquired the
+distances frequently. She was anxious to get over the ground, though by
+no means fatigued. Something of the anxiety that lay heavy at her
+sister's heart had touched her own.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXVI</h4>
+
+<i><b>Perplexed</b></i>
+
+<p>The roads even then were good, and very good horses the posting-houses
+turned out; so that by dint of extra pay the rapid rate of travelling
+undertaken by the servant was fully accomplished in the first two or
+three stages.</p>
+
+<p>While Lady Walsingham was continually striking her repeater in her ear,
+and as they neared their destination, growing in spite of herself more
+anxious, her sister's uneasiness showed itself in a less reserved way;
+for, cold as it was, with snowflakes actually dropping, Lady Haworth's
+head was perpetually out at the window, and when she drew it up, sitting
+again in her place, she would audibly express her alarms, and apply to
+her sister for consolation and confidence in her suspense.</p>
+
+<p>Under its thin carpet of snow, the pretty village of Golden Friars
+looked strangely to their eyes. It had long been fast asleep, and both
+ladies were excited as they drew up at the steps of the George and
+Dragon, and with bell and knocker roused the slumbering household.</p>
+
+<p>What tidings awaited them here? In a very few minutes the door was
+opened, and the porter staggered down, after a word with the driver, to
+the carriage-window, not half awake.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Lady Mardykes well?&quot; demanded Lady Walsingham.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Sir Bale well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are all the people at Mardykes Hall quite well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With clasped hands Lady Haworth listened to the successive answers to
+these questions which her sister hastily put. The answers were all
+satisfactory. With a great sigh and a little laugh, Lady Walsingham
+placed her hand affectionately on that of her sister; who, saying, &quot;God
+be thanked!&quot; began to weep.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When had you last news from Mardykes?&quot; asked Lady Walsingham.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A servant was down here about four o'clock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O! no one since?&quot; said she in a disappointed tone.</p>
+
+<p>No one had been from the great house since, but all were well then.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are early people, you know, dear; and it is dark at four, and that
+is as late as they could well have heard, and nothing could have
+happened since&mdash;very unlikely. We have come very fast; it is only a few
+minutes past two, darling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But each felt the chill and load of their returning anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>While the people at the George were rapidly getting a team of horses to,
+Lady Walsingham contrived a moment for an order from the other window to
+her servant, who knew Golden Friars perfectly, to knock-up the people at
+Doctor Torvey's, and to inquire whether all were well at Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>There he learned that a messenger had come for Doctor Torvey at ten
+o'clock, and that the Doctor had not returned since. There was no news,
+however, of any one's being ill; and the Doctor himself did not know
+what he was wanted about. While Lady Haworth was talking to her maid
+from the window next the steps, Lady Walsingham was, unobserved,
+receiving this information at the other.</p>
+
+<p>It made her very uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes more, however, with a team of fresh horses, they were
+again rapidly passing the distance between them and Mardykes Hall.</p>
+
+<p>About two miles on, their drivers pulled-up, and they heard a voice
+talking with them from the roadside. A servant from the Hall had been
+sent with a note for Lady Walsingham, and had been ordered, if
+necessary, to ride the whole way to the Three Nuns to deliver it. The
+note was already in Lady Walsingham's hand; her sister sat beside her,
+and with the corner of the open note in her fingers, she read it
+breathlessly at the same time by the light of a carriage-lamp which the
+man held to the window. It said:</p>
+<br>
+
+<p>My dearest love&mdash;my darling sister&mdash;dear sisters both!--in God's name,
+lose not a moment. I am so overpowered and <i>terrified</i>. I cannot
+explain; I can only implore of you to come with all the haste you can
+make. Waste no time, darlings. I hardly understand what I write. Only
+this, dear sisters; I feel that my reason will desert me, unless you
+come soon. You will not fail me now. Your poor distracted</p>
+
+<p>JANET</p>
+
+<p>The sisters exchanged a pale glance, and Lady Haworth grasped her
+sister's hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where is the messenger?&quot; asked Lady Walsingham.</p>
+
+<p>A mounted servant came to the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is any one ill at home?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, all were well&mdash;my lady, and Sir Bale&mdash;no one sick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the Doctor was sent for; what was that for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say, my lady.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are quite certain that no one&mdash;think&mdash;<i>no</i> one is ill?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no one ill at the Hall, my lady, that I have heard of.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Lady Mardykes, my sister, still up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, my lady; and her maid is with her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And Sir Bale, are you certain he is quite well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Bale is quite well, my lady; he has been busy settling papers
+to-night, and was as well as usual.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That will do, thanks,&quot; said the perplexed lady; and to her own servant
+she added, &quot;On to Mardykes Hall with all the speed they can make. I'll
+pay them well, tell them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And in another minute they were gliding along the road at a pace which
+the muffled beating of the horses' hoofs on the thin sheet of snow that
+covered the road showed to have broken out of the conventional trot,
+and to resemble something more like a gallop.</p>
+
+<p>And now they were under the huge trees, that looked black as
+hearse-plumes in contrast with the snow. The cold gleam of the lake in
+the moon which had begun to shine out now met their gaze; and the
+familiar outline of Snakes Island, its solemn timber bleak and leafless,
+standing in a group, seemed to watch Mardykes Hall with a dismal
+observation across the water. Through the gate and between the huge
+files of trees the carriage seemed to fly; and at last the steaming
+horses stood panting, nodding and snorting, before the steps in the
+courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>There was a light in an upper window, and a faint light in the hall, the
+door of which was opened; and an old servant came down and ushered the
+ladies into the house.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXVII</h4>
+
+<i><b>The Hour</b></i>
+
+<p>Lightly they stepped over the snow that lay upon the broad steps, and
+entering the door saw the dim figure of their sister, already in the
+large and faintly-lighted hall. One candle in the hand of her scared
+maid, and one burning on the table, leaving the distant parts of that
+great apartment in total darkness, touched the figures with the odd
+sharp lights in which Schalken delights; and a streak of chilly
+moonlight, through the open door, fell upon the floor, and was stretched
+like a white sheet at her feet. Lady Mardykes, with an exclamation of
+agitated relief, threw her arms, in turn, round the necks of her
+sisters, and hugging them, kissed them again and again, murmuring her
+thanks, calling them her &quot;blessed sisters,&quot; and praising God for his
+mercy in having sent them to her in time, and altogether in a rapture of
+agitation and gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>Taking them each by a hand, she led them into a large room, on whose
+panels they could see the faint twinkle of the tall gilded frames, and
+the darker indication of the old portraits, in which that interesting
+house abounds. The moonbeams, entering obliquely through the Tudor
+stone-shafts of the window and thrown upon the floor, reflected an
+imperfect light; and the candle which the maid who followed her mistress
+held in her hand shone dimly from the sideboard, where she placed it.
+Lady Mardykes told her that she need not wait.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They don't know; they know only that we are in some great confusion;
+but&mdash;God have mercy on me!--nothing of the reality. Sit down, darlings;
+you are tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sat down between them on a sofa, holding a hand of each. They sat
+opposite the window, through which appeared the magnificent view
+commanded from the front of the house: in the foreground the solemn
+trees of Snakes Island, one great branch stretching upward, bare and
+moveless, from the side, like an arm raised to heaven in wonder or in
+menace towards the house; the lake, in part swept by the icy splendour
+of the moon, trembling with a dazzling glimmer, and farther off lost in
+blackness; the Fells rising from a base of gloom, into ribs and peaks
+white with snow, and looking against the pale sky, thin and transparent
+as a haze. Right across to the storied woods of Cloostedd, and the old
+domains of the Feltrams, this view extended.</p>
+
+<p>Thus alone, their mufflers still on, their hands clasped in hers, they
+breathlessly listened to her strange tale.</p>
+
+<p>Connectedly told it amounted to this: Sir Bale seemed to have been
+relieved of some great anxiety about the time when, ten days before, he
+had told her to invite her friends to Mardykes Hall. This morning he had
+gone out for a walk with Trevor, his under-steward, to talk over some
+plans about thinning the woods at this side; and also to discuss
+practically a proposal, lately made by a wealthy merchant, to take a
+very long lease, on advantageous terms to Sir Bale as he thought, of the
+old park and chase of Cloostedd, with the intention of building there,
+and making it once more a handsome residence.</p>
+
+<p>In the improved state of his spirits, Sir Bale had taken a shrewd
+interest in this negotiation; and was actually persuaded to cross the
+lake that morning with his adviser, and to walk over the grounds with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale had seemed unusually well, and talked with great animation. He
+was more like a young man who had just attained his majority, and for
+the first time grasped his estates, than the grim elderly Baronet who
+had been moping about Mardykes, and as much afraid as a cat of the
+water, for so many years.</p>
+
+<p>As they were returning toward the boat, at the roots of that same
+scathed elm whose barkless bough had seemed, in his former visit to this
+old wood, to beckon him from a distance, like a skeleton arm, to enter
+the forest, he and his companion on a sudden missed an old map of the
+grounds which they had been consulting.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We must have left it in the corner tower of Cloostedd House, which
+commands that view of the grounds, you remember; it would not do to lose
+it. It is the most accurate thing we have. I'll sit down here and rest a
+little till you come back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The man was absent little more than twenty minutes. When he returned, he
+found that Sir Bale had changed his position, and was now walking to and
+fro, around and about, in what, at a distance, he fancied was mere
+impatience, on the open space a couple of hundred paces nearer to the
+turn in the valley towards the boat. It was not impatience. He was
+agitated. He looked pale, and he took his companion's arm&mdash;a thing he
+had never thought of doing before&mdash;and said, &quot;Let us away quickly. I've
+something to tell at home,&mdash;and I forgot it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Not another word did Sir Bale exchange with his companion. He sat in the
+stern of the boat, gloomy as a man about to glide under traitor's-gate.
+He entered his house in the same sombre and agitated state. He entered
+his library, and sat for a long time as if stunned.</p>
+
+<p>At last he seemed to have made-up his mind to something; and applied
+himself quietly and diligently to arranging papers, and docketing some
+and burning others. Dinner-time arrived. He sent to tell Lady Mardykes
+that he should not join her at dinner, but would see her afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was between eight and nine,&quot; she continued, &quot;I forget the exact
+time, when he came to the tower drawing-room where I was. I did not hear
+his approach. There is a stone stair, with a thick carpet on it. He told
+me he wished to speak to me there. It is an out-of-the-way place&mdash;a
+small old room with very thick walls, and there is a double door, the
+inner one of oak&mdash;I suppose he wished to guard against being overheard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There was a look in his face that frightened me; I saw he had something
+dreadful to tell. He looked like a man on whom a lot had fallen to put
+some one to death,&quot; said Lady Mardykes. &quot;O, my poor Bale! my husband, my
+husband! he knew what it would be to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Here she broke into the wildest weeping, and it was some time before she
+resumed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He seemed very kind and very calm,&quot; she said at last; &quot;he said but
+little; and, I think, these were his words: 'I find, Janet, I have made
+a great miscalculation&mdash;I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have
+been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and my
+time has come.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know what I said. I would not have so much minded&mdash;for I could
+not have believed, if I had not seen him&mdash;but there was that in his look
+and tone which no one could doubt.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I shall die before to-morrow morning,' he said. 'You must command
+yourself, Janet; it can't be altered now.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'O, Bale,' I cried nearly distracted, 'you would not kill yourself!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Kill myself! poor child! no, indeed,' he said; 'it is simply that I
+shall die. No violent death&mdash;nothing but the common subsidence of
+life&mdash;I have made up my mind; what happens to everybody can't be so very
+bad; and millions of worse men than I die every year. You must not
+follow me to my room, darling; I shall see you by and by.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;His language was collected and even cold; but his face looked as if it
+was cut in stone; you never saw, in a dream, a face like it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham here said, &quot;I am certain he is ill; he's in a fever. You
+must not distract and torture yourself about his predictions. You sent
+for Doctor Torvey; what did he say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could not tell him all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, no; I don't mean that; they'd only say he was mad, and we little
+better for minding what he says. But did the Doctor see him? and what
+did he say of his health?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; he says there is nothing wrong&mdash;no fever&mdash;nothing whatever. Poor
+Bale has been so kind; he saw him to please me,&quot; she sobbed again
+wildly. &quot;I wrote to implore of him. It was my last hope, strange as it
+seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of
+that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness
+about all he says and does; and his directions are all so clear, and his
+mind so perfectly collected, it is quite impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And poor Lady Mardykes again burst into a frantic agony of tears.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXVIII</h4>
+
+<i><b>Sir Bale in the Gallery</b></i>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Janet darling, you are yourself low and nervous, and you treat
+this fancy of Bale's as seriously as he does himself. The truth is, he
+is a hypochondriac, as the doctors say; and you will find that I am
+right; he will be quite well in the morning, and I daresay a little
+ashamed of himself for having frightened his poor little wife as he has.
+I will sit up with you. But our poor Mary is not, you know, very strong;
+and she ought to lie down and rest a little. Suppose you give me a cup
+of tea in the drawing-room. I will run up to my room and get these
+things off, and meet you in the drawing-room; or, if you like it better,
+you can sit with me in my own room; and for goodness' sake let us have
+candles enough and a bright fire; and I promise you, if you will only
+exert your own good sense, you shall be a great deal more cheerful in a
+very little time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham's address was kind and cheery, and her air confident.
+For a moment a ray of hope returned, and her sister Janet acknowledged
+at least the possibility of her theory. But if confidence is contagious,
+so also is panic; and Lady Walsingham experienced a sinking of the heart
+which she dared not confess to her sister, and vainly strove to combat.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham went up with her sister Mary, and having seen her in her
+room, and spoken again to her in the same cheery tone in which she had
+lectured her sister Lady Mardykes, she went on; and having taken
+possession of her own room, and put off her cloaks and shawls, she was
+going downstairs again, when she heard Sir Bale's voice, as he
+approached along the gallery, issuing orders to a servant, as it seemed,
+exactly in his usual tone.</p>
+
+<p>She turned, with a strange throb at her heart, and met him.</p>
+
+<p>A little sterner, a little paler than usual he looked; she could
+perceive no other change. He took her hand kindly and held it, as with
+dilated eyes he looked with a dark inquiry for a moment in her face. He
+signed to the servant to go on, and said, &quot;I'm glad you have come, Maud.
+You have heard what is to happen; and I don't know how Janet could have
+borne it without your support. You did right to come; and you'll stay
+with her for a day or two, and take her away from this place as soon as
+you can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with the embarrassment of fear. He was speaking to her
+with the calmness of a leave-taking in the pressroom&mdash;the serenity that
+overlies the greatest awe and agony of which human nature is capable.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad to see you, Bale,&quot; she began, hardly knowing what she said,
+and she stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are come, it turns out, on a sad mission,&quot; he resumed; &quot;you find
+all about to change. Poor Janet! it is a blow to her. I shall not live
+to see to-morrow's sun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come,&quot; she said, startled, &quot;you must not talk so. No, Bale, you have
+no right to speak so; you can have no reason to justify it. It is cruel
+and wicked to trifle with your wife's feelings. If you are under a
+delusion, you must make an effort and shake it off, or, at least, cease
+to talk of it. You are not well; I know by your looks you are ill; but I
+am very certain we shall see you much better by tomorrow, and still
+better the day following.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'm not ill, sister. Feel that pulse, if you doubt me; there is no
+fever in it. I never was more perfectly in health; and yet I know that
+before the clock, that has just struck three, shall have struck five, I,
+who am talking to you, shall be dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham was frightened, and her fear irritated her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have told you what I think and believe,&quot; she said vehemently. &quot;I
+think it wrong and cowardly of you to torture my poor sister with your
+whimsical predictions. Look into your own mind, and you will see you
+have absolutely no reason to support what you say. How <i>can</i> you inflict
+all this agony upon a poor creature foolish enough to love you as she
+does, and weak enough to believe in your idle dreams?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Stay, sister; it is not a matter to be debated so. If to-morrow I can
+hear you, it will be time enough to upbraid me. Pray return now to your
+sister; she needs all you can do for her. She is much to be pitied; her
+sufferings afflict me. I shall see you and her again before my death. It
+would have been more cruel to leave her unprepared. Do all in your power
+to nerve and tranquillise her. What is past cannot now be helped.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He paused, looking hard at her, as if he had half made up his mind to
+say something more. But if there was a question of the kind, it was
+determined in favour of silence.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped her hand, turned quickly, and left her.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXIX</h4>
+
+<i><b>Dr. Torvey's Opinion</b></i>
+
+<p>When Lady Walsingham reached the head of the stairs, she met her maid,
+and from her learned that her sister, Lady Mardykes, was downstairs in
+the same room. On approaching, she heard her sister Mary's voice talking
+with her, and found them together. Mary, finding that she could not
+sleep, had put on her clothes again, and come down to keep her sister
+company. The room looked more comfortable now. There were candles
+lighted, and a good fire burnt in the grate; tea-things stood on a
+little table near the fire, and the two sisters were talking, Lady
+Mardykes appearing more collected, and only they two in the room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you seen him, Maud?&quot; cried Lady Mardykes, rising and hastily
+approaching her the moment she entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, dear; and talked with him, and&mdash;&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I think very much as I did before. I think he is nervous, he says
+he is not ill; but he is nervous and whimsical, and as men always are
+when they happen to be out of sorts, very positive; and of course the
+only thing that can quite undeceive him is the lapse of the time he has
+fixed for his prediction, as it is sure to pass without any tragic
+result of any sort. We shall then all see alike the nature of his
+delusion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, Maud, if I were only sure you thought so! if I were sure you really
+had hopes! Tell me, Maud, for God's sake, what you really think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham was a little disconcerted by the unexpected directness
+of her appeal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, darling, you must not be foolish,&quot; she said; &quot;we can only talk of
+impressions, and we are imposed upon by the solemnity of his manner, and
+the fact that he evidently believes in his own delusion; every one does
+believe in his own delusion&mdash;there is nothing strange in that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O, Maud, I see you are not convinced; you are only trying to comfort
+me. You have no hope&mdash;none, none, none!&quot; and she covered her face with
+her hands, and wept again convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham was silent for a moment, and then with an effort said,
+as she placed her hand on her sister's arm, &quot;You see, dear Janet, there
+is no use in my saying the same thing over and over again; an hour or
+two will show who is right. Sit down again, and be like yourself. My
+maid told me that you had sent to the parlour for Doctor Torvey; he must
+not find you so. What would he think? Unless you mean to tell him of
+Bale's strange fancy; and a pretty story that would be to set afloat in
+Golden Friars. I think I hear him coming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So, in effect, he was. Doctor Torvey&mdash;with the florid gravity of a man
+who, having just swallowed a bottle of port, besides some glasses of
+sherry, is admitted to the presence of ladies whom he respects&mdash;entered
+the room, made what he called his &quot;leg and his compliments,&quot; and awaited
+the ladies' commands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sit down, Doctor Torvey,&quot; said Lady Walsingham, who in the incapacity
+of her sister undertook the doing of the honours. &quot;My sister, Lady
+Mardykes, has got it into her head somehow that Sir Bale is ill. I have
+been speaking to him; he certainly does not look very well, but he says
+he is quite well. Do you think him well?&mdash;that is, we know you don't
+think there is anything of importance amiss&mdash;but she wishes to know
+whether you think him <i>perfectly</i> well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor cleared his voice and delivered his lecture, a little thickly
+at some words, upon Sir Bale's case; the result of which was that it was
+no case at all; and that if he would only live something more of a
+country gentleman's life, he would be as well as any man could
+desire&mdash;as well as any man, gentle or simple, in the country.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The utmost I should think of doing for him would be, perhaps, a little
+quinine, nothing mo'&mdash;shurely&mdash;he is really and toory a very shoun'
+shtay of health.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham looked encouragingly at her sister and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've been shen' for, La'y Walsh&mdash;Walse&mdash;Walsing&mdash;<i>ham</i>; old Jack
+Amerald&mdash;he likshe his glass o' port,&quot; he said roguishly, &quot;and shuvversh
+accord'n'ly,&quot; he continued, with a compassionating paddle of his right
+hand; &quot;one of thoshe aw&mdash;odd feels in his stomach; and as I have pretty
+well done all I can man-n'ge down here, I must be off, ye shee. Wind up
+from Golden Friars, and a little flutter ovv zhnow, thazh all;&quot; and with
+some remarks about the extreme cold of the weather, and the severity of
+their night journey, and many respectful and polite parting speeches,
+the Doctor took his leave; and they soon heard the wheels of his gig and
+the tread of his horse, faint and muffled from the snow in the
+court-yard, and the Doctor, who had connected that melancholy and
+agitated household with the outer circle of humanity, was gone.</p>
+
+<p>There was very little snow falling, half-a-dozen flakes now and again,
+and their flight across the window showed, as the Doctor had in a manner
+boasted, that the wind was in his face as he returned to Golden Friars.
+Even these desultory snow-flakes ceased, at times, altogether; and
+returning, as they say, &quot;by fits and starts,&quot; left for long intervals
+the landscape, under the brilliant light of the moon, in its wide white
+shroud. The curtain of the great window had not been drawn. It seemed
+to Lady Walsingham that the moonbeams had grown more dazzling, that
+Snakes Island was nearer and more distinct, and the outstretched arm of
+the old tree looked bigger and angrier, like the uplifted arm of an
+assassin, who draws silently nearer as the catastrophe approaches.</p>
+
+<p>Cold, dazzling, almost repulsive in this intense moonlight and white
+sheeting, the familiar landscape looked in the eyes of Lady Walsingham.
+The sisters gradually grew more and more silent, an unearthly suspense
+overhung them all, and Lady Mardykes rose every now and then and
+listened at the open door for step or voice in vain. They all were
+overpowered by the intenser horror that seemed gathering around them.
+And thus an hour or more passed.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CHAPTER_XXX"></a><h4>CHAPTER XXX</h4>
+
+<i><b>Hush!</b></i>
+
+<p>Pale and silent those three beautiful sisters sat. The horrible quietude
+of a suspense that had grown all but insupportable oppressed the guests
+of Lady Mardykes, and something like the numbness of despair had reduced
+her to silence, the dreadful counterfeit of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Bale Mardykes on a sudden softly entered the room. Reflected from
+the floor near the window, the white moonlight somehow gave to his fixed
+features the character of a smile. With a warning gesture, as he came
+in, he placed his finger to his lips, as if to enjoin silence; and then,
+having successively pressed the hands of his two sisters-in-law, he
+stooped over his almost fainting wife, and twice pressed her cold
+forehead with his lips; and so, without a word, he went softly from the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Some seconds elapsed before Lady Walsingham, recovering her presence of
+mind, with one of the candlesticks from the table in her hand, opened
+the door and followed.</p>
+
+<p>She saw Sir Bale mount the last stair of the broad flight visible from
+the hall, and candle in hand turn the corner of the massive banister,
+and as the light thrown from his candle showed, he continued, without
+hurry, to ascend the second flight.</p>
+
+<p>With the irrepressible curiosity of horror she continued to follow him
+at a distance.</p>
+
+<p>She saw him enter his own private room, and close the door.</p>
+
+<p>Continuing to follow she placed herself noiselessly at the door of the
+apartment, and in breathless silence, with a throbbing heart, listened
+for what should pass.</p>
+
+<p>She distinctly heard Sir Bale pace the floor up and down for some time,
+and then, after a pause, a sound as if some one had thrown himself
+heavily on the bed. A silence followed, during which her sisters, who
+had followed more timidly, joined her. She warned them with a look and
+gesture to be silent.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Haworth stood a little behind, her white lips moving, and her hands
+clasped in a silent agony of prayer. Lady Mardykes leaned against the
+massive oak door-case.</p>
+
+<p>With her hand raised to her ear, and her lips parted, Lady Walsingham
+listened for some seconds&mdash;for a minute, two minutes, three. At last,
+losing heart, she seized the handle in her panic, and turned it sharply.
+The door was locked on the inside, but some one close to it said from
+within, &quot;Hush, hush!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Much alarmed now, the same lady knocked violently at the door. No answer
+was returned.</p>
+
+<p>She knocked again more violently, and shook the door with all her
+fragile force. It was something of horror in her countenance as she did
+so, that, no doubt, terrified Lady Mardykes, who with a loud and long
+scream sank in a swoon upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The servants, alarmed by these sounds, were speedily in the gallery.
+Lady Mardykes was carried to her room, and laid upon her bed; her
+sister, Lady Haworth, accompanying her. In the meantime the door was
+forced. Sir Bale Mardykes was found stretched upon his bed.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have once seen it, will not mistake the aspect of death. Here,
+in Sir Bale Mardykes' room, in his bed, in his clothes, is a stranger,
+grim and awful; in a few days to be insupportable, and to pass alone
+into the prison-house, and to be seen no more.</p>
+
+<p>Where is Sir Bale Mardykes now, whose roof-tree and whose place at board
+and bed will know him no more? Here lies a chap-fallen, fish-eyed image,
+chilling already into clay, and stiffening in every joint.</p>
+
+<p>There is a marble monument in the pretty church of Golden Friars. It
+stands at the left side of what antiquarians call &quot;the high altar.&quot; Two
+pillars at each end support an arch with several armorial bearings on as
+many shields sculptured above. Beneath, on a marble flooring raised some
+four feet, with a cornice round, lies Sir Bale Mardykes, of Mardykes
+Hall, ninth Baronet of that ancient family, chiseled in marble with
+knee-breeches and buckled-shoes, and <i>ailes de pigeon</i>, and
+single-breasted coat and long waist-coat, ruffles and sword, such as
+gentlemen wore about the year 1770, and bearing a strong resemblance to
+the features of the second Charles. On the broad marble which forms the
+background is inscribed an epitaph, which has perpetuated to our times
+the estimate formed by his &quot;inconsolable widow,&quot; the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes, of the virtues and accomplishments of her deceased lord.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Walsingham would have qualified two or three of the more
+highly-coloured hyperboles, at which the Golden Friars of those days
+sniffed and tittered. They don't signify now; there is no contemporary
+left to laugh or whisper. And if there be not much that is true in the
+letter of that inscription, it at least perpetuates something that <i>is</i>
+true&mdash;that wonderful glorificaion of partisanship, the affection of an
+idolising wife.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mardykes, a few days after the funeral, left Mardykes Hall for
+ever. She lived a great deal with her sister, Lady Walsingham; and died,
+as a line cut at the foot of Sir Bale Mardykes' epitaph records, in the
+year 1790; her remains being laid beside those of her beloved husband in
+Golden Friars.</p>
+
+<p>The estates had come to Sir Bale Mardykes free of entail. He had been
+pottering over a will, but it was never completed, nor even quite
+planned; and after much doubt and scrutiny, it was at last ascertained
+that, in default of a will and of issue, a clause in the
+marriage-settlement gave the entire estates to the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes.</p>
+
+<p>By her will she bequeathed the estates to &quot;her cousin, also a kinsman of
+the late Sir Bale Mardykes her husband,&quot; William Feltram, on condition
+of his assuming the name and arms of Mardykes, the arms of Feltram being
+quartered in the shield.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was oddly fulfilled the prediction which Philip Feltram had
+repeated, that the estates of Mardykes were to pass into the hands of a
+Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 1795 the baronetage was revived, and William Feltram
+enjoyed the title for fifteen years, as Sir William Mardykes.</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES, VOLUME 3***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3, by
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3
+
+Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+Release Date: March 28, 2004  [eBook #11750]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES,
+VOLUME 3***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Andrea Ball, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES, VOLUME 3
+
+The Haunted Baronet (1871)
+
+by
+
+Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Haunted Baronet
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The George and Dragon
+
+The pretty little town of Golden Friars--standing by the margin of the
+lake, hemmed round by an amphitheatre of purple mountain, rich in tint
+and furrowed by ravines, high in air, when the tall gables and narrow
+windows of its ancient graystone houses, and the tower of the old
+church, from which every evening the curfew still rings, show like
+silver in the moonbeams, and the black elms that stand round throw
+moveless shadows upon the short level grass--is one of the most singular
+and beautiful sights I have ever seen.
+
+There it rises, 'as from the stroke of the enchanter's wand,' looking so
+light and filmy, that you could scarcely believe it more than a picture
+reflected on the thin mist of night.
+
+On such a still summer night the moon shone splendidly upon the front of
+the George and Dragon, the comfortable graystone inn of Golden Friars,
+with the grandest specimen of the old inn-sign, perhaps, left in
+England. It looks right across the lake; the road that skirts its margin
+running by the steps of the hall-door, opposite to which, at the other
+side of the road, between two great posts, and framed in a fanciful
+wrought-iron border splendid with gilding, swings the famous sign of St.
+George and the Dragon, gorgeous with colour and gold.
+
+In the great room of the George and Dragon, three or four of the old
+_habitues_ of that cozy lounge were refreshing a little after the
+fatigues of the day.
+
+This is a comfortable chamber, with an oak wainscot; and whenever in
+summer months the air is sharp enough, as on the present occasion, a
+fire helped to light it up; which fire, being chiefly wood, made a
+pleasant broad flicker on panel and ceiling, and yet did not make the
+room too hot.
+
+On one side sat Doctor Torvey, the doctor of Golden Friars, who knew the
+weak point of every man in the town, and what medicine agreed with each
+inhabitant--a fat gentleman, with a jolly laugh and an appetite for all
+sorts of news, big and little, and who liked a pipe, and made a tumbler
+of punch at about this hour, with a bit of lemon-peel in it. Beside him
+sat William Peers, a thin old gentleman, who had lived for more than
+thirty years in India, and was quiet and benevolent, and the last man in
+Golden Friars who wore a pigtail. Old Jack Amerald, an ex-captain of the
+navy, with his short stout leg on a chair, and its wooden companion
+beside it, sipped his grog, and bawled in the old-fashioned navy way,
+and called his friends his 'hearties.' In the middle, opposite the
+hearth, sat deaf Tom Hollar, always placid, and smoked his pipe, looking
+serenely at the fire. And the landlord of the George and Dragon every
+now and then strutted in, and sat down in the high-backed wooden
+arm-chair, according to the old-fashioned republican ways of the place,
+and took his share in the talk gravely, and was heartily welcome.
+
+"And so Sir Bale is coming home at last," said the Doctor. "Tell us any
+more you heard since."
+
+"Nothing," answered Richard Turnbull, the host of the George. "Nothing
+to speak of; only 'tis certain sure, and so best; the old house won't
+look so dowly now."
+
+"Twyne says the estate owes a good capful o' money by this time, hey?"
+said the Doctor, lowering his voice and winking.
+
+"Weel, they do say he's been nout at dow. I don't mind saying so to
+_you_, mind, sir, where all's friends together; but he'll get that right
+in time."
+
+"More like to save here than where he is," said the Doctor with another
+grave nod.
+
+"He does very wisely," said Mr. Peers, having blown out a thin stream of
+smoke, "and creditably, to pull-up in time. He's coming here to save a
+little, and perhaps he'll marry; and it is the more creditable, if, as
+they say, he dislikes the place, and would prefer staying where he is."
+
+And having spoken thus gently, Mr. Peers resumed his pipe cheerfully.
+
+"No, he don't like the place; that is, I'm told he _didn't_," said the
+innkeeper.
+
+"He _hates_ it," said the Doctor with another dark nod.
+
+"And no wonder, if all's true I've heard," cried old Jack Amerald.
+"Didn't he drown a woman and her child in the lake?"
+
+"Hollo! my dear boy, don't let them hear you say that; you're all in the
+clouds."
+
+"By Jen!" exclaimed the landlord after an alarmed silence, with his
+mouth and eyes open, and his pipe in his hand, "why, sir, I pay rent for
+the house up there. I'm thankful--dear knows, I _am_ thankful--we're all
+to ourselves!"
+
+Jack Amerald put his foot on the floor, leaving his wooden leg in its
+horizontal position, and looked round a little curiously.
+
+"Well, if it wasn't him, it was some one else. I'm sure it happened up
+at Mardykes. I took the bearings on the water myself from Glads Scaur to
+Mardykes Jetty, and from the George and Dragon sign down here--down to
+the white house under Forrick Fells. I could fix a buoy over the very
+spot. Some one here told me the bearings, I'd take my oath, where the
+body was seen; and yet no boat could ever come up with it; and that was
+queer, you know, so I clapt it down in my log."
+
+"Ay, sir, there _was_ some flummery like that, Captain," said Turnbull;
+"for folk will be gabbin'. But 'twas his grandsire was talked o', not
+him; and 'twould play the hangment wi' me doun here, if 'twas thought
+there was stories like that passin' in the George and Dragon.'
+
+"Well, his grandfather; 'twas all one to him, I take it."
+
+"There never was no proof, Captain, no more than smoke; and the family
+up at Mardykes wouldn't allow the king to talk o' them like that, sir;
+for though they be lang deod that had most right to be angered in the
+matter, there's none o' the name but would be half daft to think 'twas
+still believed, and he full out as mich as any. Not that I need care
+more than another, though they do say he's a bit frowsy and
+short-waisted; for he can't shouther me out o' the George while I pay my
+rent, till nine hundred and ninety-nine year be rin oot; and a man, be
+he ne'er sa het, has time to cool before then. But there's no good
+quarrellin' wi' teathy folk; and it may lie in his way to do the George
+mony an ill turn, and mony a gude one; an' it's only fair to say it
+happened a long way before he was born, and there's no good in vexin'
+him; and I lay ye a pound, Captain, the Doctor hods wi' me."
+
+The Doctor, whose business was also sensitive, nodded; and then he said,
+"But for all that, the story's old, Dick Turnbull--older than you or I,
+my jolly good friend."
+
+"And best forgotten," interposed the host of the George.
+
+"Ay, best forgotten; but that it's not like to be," said the Doctor,
+plucking up courage. "Here's our friend the Captain has heard it; and
+the mistake he has made shows there's one thing worse than its being
+quite remembered, and that is, its being _half_ remembered. We can't
+stop people talking; and a story like that will see us all off the
+hooks, and be in folks' mouths, still, as strong as ever."
+
+"Ay; and now I think on it, 'twas Dick Harman that has the boat down
+there--an old tar like myself--that told me that yarn. I was trying for
+pike, and he pulled me over the place, and that's how I came to hear it.
+I say, Tom, my hearty, serve us out another glass of brandy, will you?"
+shouted the Captain's voice as the waiter crossed the room; and that
+florid and grizzled naval hero clapped his leg again on the chair by its
+wooden companion, which he was wont to call his jury-mast.
+
+"Well, I do believe it will be spoke of longer than we are like to
+hear," said the host, "and I don't much matter the story, if it baint
+told o' the wrong man." Here he touched his tumbler with the spoon,
+indicating by that little ring that Tom, who had returned with the
+Captain's grog, was to replenish it with punch. "And Sir Bale is like to
+be a friend to this house. I don't see no reason why he shouldn't. The
+George and Dragon has bin in our family ever since the reign of King
+Charles the Second. It was William Turnbull in that time, which they
+called it the Restoration, he taking the lease from Sir Tony Mardykes
+that was then. They was but knights then. They was made baronets first
+in the reign of King George the Second; you may see it in the list of
+baronets and the nobility. The lease was made to William Turnbull, which
+came from London; and he built the stables, which they was out o'
+repair, as you may read to this day in the lease; and the house has
+never had but one sign since--the George and Dragon, it is pretty well
+known in England--and one name to its master. It has been owned by a
+Turnbull from that day to this, and they have not been counted bad men."
+A murmur of applause testified the assent of his guests. "They has been
+steady churchgoin' folk, and brewed good drink, and maintained the best
+o' characters, hereaways and farther off too, though 'tis I, Richard
+Turnbull, that says it; and while they pay their rent, no man has power
+to put them out; for their title's as good to the George and Dragon, and
+the two fields, and the croft, and the grazing o' their kye on the
+green, as Sir Bale Mardykes to the Hall up there and estate. So 'tis
+nout to me, except in the way o' friendliness, what the family may think
+o' me; only the George and they has always been kind and friendly, and I
+don't want to break the old custom."
+
+"Well said, Dick!" exclaimed Doctor Torvey; "I own to your conclusion;
+but there ain't a soul here but ourselves--and we're all friends, and
+you are your own master--and, hang it, you'll tell us that story about
+the drowned woman, as you heard it from your father long ago."
+
+"Ay, do, and keep us to our liquor, my hearty!" cried the Captain.
+
+Mr. Peers looked his entreaty; and deaf Mr. Hollar, having no interest
+in the petition, was at least a safe witness, and, with his pipe in his
+lips, a cozy piece of furniture.
+
+Richard Turnbull had his punch beside him; he looked over his shoulder.
+The door was closed, the fire was cheery, and the punch was fragrant,
+and all friendly faces about him. So said he:
+
+"Gentlemen, as you're pleased to wish it, I don't see no great harm in
+it; and at any rate, 'twill prevent mistakes. It is more than ninety
+years since. My father was but a boy then; and many a time I have heard
+him tell it in this very room."
+
+And looking into his glass he mused, and stirred his punch slowly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The Drowned Woman
+
+"It ain't much of a homminy," said the host of the George. "I'll not
+keep you long over it, gentlemen. There was a handsome young lady, Miss
+Mary Feltram o' Cloostedd by name. She was the last o' that family; and
+had gone very poor. There's but the walls o' the house left now; grass
+growing in the hall, and ivy over the gables; there's no one livin' has
+ever hard tell o' smoke out o' they chimblies. It stands on t'other side
+o' the lake, on the level wi' a deal o' a'ad trees behint and aside it
+at the gap o' the clough, under the pike o' Maiden Fells. Ye may see it
+wi' a spyin'-glass from the boatbield at Mardykes Hall."
+
+"I've been there fifty times," said the Doctor.
+
+"Well there was dealin's betwixt the two families; and there's good and
+bad in every family; but the Mardykes, in them days, was a wild lot. And
+when old Feltram o' Cloostedd died, and the young lady his daughter was
+left a ward o' Sir Jasper Mardykes--an ill day for her, poor
+lass!--twenty year older than her he was, an' more; and nothin' about
+him, they say, to make anyone like or love him, ill-faur'd and little
+and dow."
+
+"Dow--that's gloomy," Doctor Torvey instructed the Captain aside.
+
+"But they do say, they has an old blud-stean ring in the family that
+has a charm in't; and happen how it might, the poor lass fell in love
+wi' him. Some said they was married. Some said it hang'd i' the
+bell-ropes, and never had the priest's blessing; but anyhow, married or
+no, there was talk enough amang the folk, and out o' doors she would na
+budge. And there was two wee barns; and she prayed him hard to confess
+the marriage, poor thing! But t'was a bootlese bene, and he would not
+allow they should bear his name, but their mother's; he was a hard man,
+and hed the bit in his teeth, and went his ain gait. And having tired of
+her, he took in his head to marry a lady of the Barnets, and it behoved
+him to be shut o' her and her children; and so she nor them was seen no
+more at Mardykes Hall. And the eldest, a boy, was left in care of my
+grandfather's father here in the George."
+
+"That queer Philip Feltram that's travelling with Sir Bale so long is a
+descendant of his?" said the Doctor.
+
+"Grandson," observed Mr. Peers, removing his pipe for a moment; "and is
+the last of that stock."
+
+"Well, no one could tell where she had gone to. Some said to distant
+parts, some said to the madhouse, some one thing, some another; but
+neither she nor the barn was ever seen or spoke to by the folk at
+Mardykes in life again. There was one Mr. Wigram that lived in them
+times down at Moultry, and had sarved, like the Captain here, in the
+king's navy in his day; and early of a morning down he comes to the town
+for a boat, sayin' he was looking towards Snakes Island through his
+spyin'-glass, and he seen a woman about a hundred and fifty yards
+outside of it; the Captain here has heard the bearings right enough.
+From her hips upwards she was stark and straight out o' the water, and a
+baby in her arms. Well, no one else could see it, nor he neither, when
+they went down to the boat. But next morning he saw the same thing, and
+the boatman saw it too; and they rowed for it, both pulling might and
+main; but after a mile or so they could see it no more, and gave over.
+The next that saw it was the vicar, I forget his name now--but he was up
+the lake to a funeral at Mortlock Church; and coming back with a bit of
+a sail up, just passin' Snakes Island, what should they hear on a sudden
+but a wowl like a death-cry, shrill and bleak, as made the very blood
+hoot in their veins; and looking along the water not a hundred yards
+away, saw the same grizzled sight in the moonlight; so they turned the
+tiller, and came near enough to see her face--blea it was, and drenched
+wi' water--and she was above the lake to her middle, stiff as a post,
+holdin' the weeny barn out to them, and flyrin' [smiling scornfully] on
+them as they drew nigh her. They were half-frighted, not knowing what to
+make of it; but passing as close as the boatman could bring her side,
+the vicar stretched over the gunwale to catch her, and she bent forward,
+pushing the dead bab forward; and as she did, on a sudden she gave a
+yelloch that scared them, and they saw her no more. 'Twas no livin'
+woman, for she couldn't rise that height above the water, as they well
+knew when they came to think; and knew it was a dobby they saw; and ye
+may be sure they didn't spare prayer and blessin', and went on their
+course straight before the wind; for neither would a-took the worth o'
+all the Mardykes to look sich a freetin' i' the face again. 'Twas seen
+another time by market-folk crossin' fra Gyllenstan in the self-same
+place; and Snakes Island got a bad neam, and none cared to go nar it
+after nightfall."
+
+"Do you know anything of that Feltram that has been with him abroad?"
+asked the Doctor.
+
+"They say he's no good at anything--a harmless mafflin; he was a long
+gaumless gawky when he went awa," said Richard Turnbull. "The Feltrams
+and the Mardykes was sib, ye know; and that made what passed in the
+misfortune o' that young lady spoken of all the harder; and this young
+man ye speak of is a grandson o' the lad that was put here in care o' my
+grandfather."
+
+"_Great_-grandson. His father was grandson," said Mr. Peers; "he held a
+commission in the army and died in the West Indies. This Philip Feltram
+is the last o' that line--illegitimate, you know, it is held--and the
+little that remained of the Feltram property went nearly fourscore years
+ago to the Mardykes, and this Philip is maintained by Sir Bale; it is
+pleasant, notwithstanding all the stories one hears, gentlemen, that the
+only thing we know of him for certain should be so creditable to his
+kindness."
+
+"To be sure," acquiesced Mr. Turnbull.
+
+While they talked the horn sounded, and the mail-coach drew up at the
+door of the George and Dragon to set down a passenger and his luggage.
+
+Dick Turnbull rose and went out to the hall with careful bustle, and
+Doctor Torvey followed as far as the door, which commanded a view of it,
+and saw several trunks cased in canvas pitched into the hall, and by
+careful Tom and a boy lifted one on top of the other, behind the corner
+of the banister. It would have been below the dignity of his cloth to go
+out and read the labels on these, or the Doctor would have done
+otherwise, so great was his curiosity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Philip Feltram
+
+The new guest was now in the hall of the George, and Doctor Torvey could
+hear him talking with Mr. Turnbull. Being himself one of the dignitaries
+of Golden Friars, the Doctor, having regard to first impressions, did
+not care to be seen in his post of observation; and closing the door
+gently, returned to his chair by the fire, and in an under-tone informed
+his cronies that there was a new arrival in the George, and he could not
+hear, but would not wonder if he were taking a private room; and he
+seemed to have trunks enough to build a church with.
+
+"Don't be too sure we haven't Sir Bale on board," said Amerald, who
+would have followed his crony the Doctor to the door--for never was
+retired naval hero of a village more curious than he--were it not that
+his wooden leg made a distinct pounding on the floor that was inimical,
+as experience had taught him, to mystery.
+
+"That can't be," answered the Doctor; "Charley Twyne knows everything
+about it, and has a letter every second day; and there's no chance of
+Sir Bale before the tenth; this is a tourist, you'll find. I don't know
+what the d---l keeps Turnbull; he knows well enough we are all naturally
+willing to hear who it is."
+
+"Well, he won't trouble us here, I bet ye;" and catching deaf Mr.
+Hollar's eye, the Captain nodded, and pointed to the little table beside
+him, and made a gesture imitative of the rattling of a dice-box; at
+which that quiet old gentleman also nodded sunnily; and up got the
+Captain and conveyed the backgammon-box to the table, near Hollar's
+elbow, and the two worthies were soon sinc-ducing and catre-acing, with
+the pleasant clatter that accompanies that ancient game. Hollar had
+thrown sizes and made his double point, and the honest Captain, who
+could stand many things better than Hollar's throwing such throws so
+early in the evening, cursed his opponent's luck and sneered at his
+play, and called the company to witness, with a distinctness which a
+stranger to smiling Hollar's deafness would have thought hardly civil;
+and just at this moment the door opened, and Richard Turnbull showed his
+new guest into the room, and ushered him to a vacant seat near the other
+corner of the table before the fire.
+
+The stranger advanced slowly and shyly, with something a little
+deprecatory in his air, to which a lathy figure, a slight stoop, and a
+very gentle and even heartbroken look in his pale long face, gave a more
+marked character of shrinking and timidity.
+
+He thanked the landlord aside, as it were, and took his seat with a
+furtive glance round, as if he had no right to come in and intrude upon
+the happiness of these honest gentlemen.
+
+He saw the Captain scanning him from under his shaggy grey eyebrows
+while he was pretending to look only at his game; and the Doctor was
+able to recount to Mrs. Torvey when he went home every article of the
+stranger's dress.
+
+It was odd and melancholy as his peaked face.
+
+He had come into the room with a short black cloak on, and a rather tall
+foreign felt hat, and a pair of shiny leather gaiters or leggings on his
+thin legs; and altogether presented a general resemblance to the
+conventional figure of Guy Fawkes.
+
+Not one of the company assembled knew the appearance of the Baronet. The
+Doctor and old Mr. Peers remembered something of his looks; and
+certainly they had no likeness, but the reverse, to those presented by
+the new-comer. The Baronet, as now described by people who had chanced
+to see him, was a dark man, not above the middle size, and with a
+certain decision in his air and talk; whereas this person was tall,
+pale, and in air and manner feeble. So this broken trader in the world's
+commerce, with whom all seemed to have gone wrong, could not possibly be
+he.
+
+Presently, in one of his stealthy glances, the Doctor's eye encountered
+that of the stranger, who was by this time drinking his tea--a thin and
+feminine liquor little used in that room.
+
+The stranger did not seem put out; and the Doctor, interpreting his look
+as a permission to converse, cleared his voice, and said urbanely,
+
+"We have had a little frost by night, down here, sir, and a little fire
+is no great harm--it is rather pleasant, don't you think?"
+
+The stranger bowed acquiescence with a transient wintry smile, and
+looked gratefully on the fire.
+
+"This place is a good deal admired, sir, and people come a good way to
+see it; you have been here perhaps before?"
+
+"Many years ago."
+
+Here was another pause.
+
+"Places change imperceptibly--in detail, at least--a good deal," said
+the Doctor, making an effort to keep up a conversation that plainly
+would not go on of itself; "and people too; population shifts--there's
+an old fellow, sir, they call _Death_."
+
+"And an old fellow they call the _Doctor_, that helps him," threw in the
+Captain humorously, allowing his attention to get entangled in the
+conversation, and treating them to one of his tempestuous ha-ha-ha's.
+
+"We are expecting the return of a gentleman who would be a very leading
+member of our little society down here," said the Doctor, not noticing
+the Captain's joke. "I mean Sir Bale Mardykes. Mardykes Hall is a pretty
+object from the water, sir, and a very fine old place."
+
+The melancholy stranger bowed slightly, but rather in courtesy to the
+relator, it seemed, than that the Doctor's lore interested him much.
+
+"And on the opposite side of the lake," continued Doctor Torvey, "there
+is a building that contrasts very well with it--the old house of the
+Feltrams--quite a ruin now, at the mouth of the glen--Cloostedd House, a
+very picturesque object."
+
+"Exactly opposite," said the stranger dreamily, but whether in the tone
+of acquiescence or interrogatory, the Doctor could not be quite sure.
+
+"That was one of our great families down here that has disappeared. It
+has dwindled down to nothing."
+
+"Duce ace," remarked Mr. Hollar, who was attending to his game.
+
+"While others have mounted more suddenly and amazingly still," observed
+gentle Mr. Peers, who was great upon county genealogies.
+
+"Sizes!" thundered the Captain, thumping the table with an oath of
+disgust.
+
+"And Snakes Island is a very pretty object; they say there used to be
+snakes there," said the Doctor, enlightening the visitor.
+
+"Ah! that's a mistake," said the dejected guest, making his first
+original observation. "It should be spelt _Snaiks_. In the old papers it
+is called Sen-aiks Island from the seven oaks that grew in a clump
+there."
+
+"Hey? that's very curious, egad! I daresay," said the Doctor, set right
+thus by the stranger, and eyeing him curiously.
+
+"Very true, sir," observed Mr. Peers; "three of those oaks, though, two
+of them little better than stumps, are there still; and Clewson of
+Heckleston has an old document----"
+
+Here, unhappily, the landlord entered the room in a fuss, and walking up
+to the stranger, said, "The chaise is at the door, Mr. Feltram, and the
+trunks up, sir."
+
+Mr. Feltram rose quietly and took out his purse, and said,
+
+"I suppose I had better pay at the bar?"
+
+"As you like best, sir," said Richard Turnbull.
+
+Mr. Feltram bowed all round to the gentlemen, who smiled, ducked or
+waved their hands; and the Doctor fussily followed him to the hall-door,
+and welcomed him back to Golden Friars--there was real kindness in this
+welcome--and proffered his broad brown hand, which Mr. Feltram took; and
+then he plunged into his chaise, and the door being shut, away he
+glided, chaise, horses, and driver, like shadows, by the margin of the
+moonlighted lake, towards Mardykes Hall.
+
+And after a few minutes' stand upon the steps, looking along the shadowy
+track of the chaise, they returned to the glow of the room, in which a
+pleasant perfume of punch still prevailed; and beside Mr. Philip
+Feltram's deserted tea-things, the host of the George enlightened his
+guests by communicating freely the little he had picked up. The
+principal fact he had to tell was, that Sir Bale adhered strictly to his
+original plan, and was to arrive on the tenth. A few days would bring
+them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its
+interest. But in the meantime, all Golden Friars was anxious to see what
+Sir Bale Mardykes was like.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The Baronet Appears
+
+As the candles burn blue and the air smells of brimstone at the approach
+of the Evil One, so, in the quiet and healthy air of Golden Friars, a
+depressing and agitating influence announced the coming of the
+long-absent Baronet.
+
+From abroad, no good whatever had been at any time heard of him, and a
+great deal that was, in the ears of simple folk living in that
+unsophisticated part of the world, vaguely awful.
+
+Stories that travel so far, however, lose something of their authority,
+as well as definiteness, on the way; there was always room for charity
+to suggest a mistake or exaggeration; and if good men turned up their
+hands and eyes after a new story, and ladies of experience, who knew
+mankind, held their heads high and looked grim and mysterious at mention
+of his name, nevertheless an interval of silence softened matters a
+little, and the sulphureous perfume dissipated itself in time.
+
+Now that Sir Bale Mardykes had arrived at the Hall, there were hurried
+consultations held in many households. And though he was tried and
+sentenced by drum-head over some austere hearths, as a rule the law of
+gravitation prevailed, and the greater house drew the lesser about it,
+and county people within the visiting radius paid their respects at the
+Hall.
+
+The Reverend Martin Bedel, the then vicar of Golden Friars, a stout
+short man, with a mulberry-coloured face and small gray eyes, and
+taciturn habits, called and entered the drawing-room at Mardykes Hall,
+with his fat and garrulous wife on his arm.
+
+The drawing-room has a great projecting Tudor window looking out on the
+lake, with its magnificent background of furrowed and purple mountains.
+
+Sir Bale was not there, and Mrs. Bedel examined the pictures, and
+ornaments, and the books, making such remarks as she saw fit; and then
+she looked out of the window, and admired the prospect. She wished to
+stand well with the Baronet, and was in a mood to praise everything.
+
+You may suppose she was curious to see him, having heard for years such
+strange tales of his doings.
+
+She expected the hero of a brilliant and wicked romance; and listened
+for the step of the truant Lovelace who was to fulfil her idea of manly
+beauty and fascination.
+
+She sustained a slight shock when he did appear.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes was, as she might easily have remembered, a
+middle-aged man--and he looked it. He was not even an imposing-looking
+man for his time of life: he was of about the middle height, slightly
+made, and dark featured. She had expected something of the gaiety and
+animation of Versailles, and an evident cultivation of the art of
+pleasing. What she did see was a remarkable gravity, not to say gloom,
+of countenance--the only feature of which that struck her being a pair
+of large dark-gray eyes, that were cold and earnest. His manners had the
+ease of perfect confidence; and his talk and air were those of a person
+who might have known how to please, if it were worth the trouble, but
+who did not care twopence whether he pleased or not.
+
+He made them each a bow, courtly enough, but there was no smile--not
+even an affectation of cordiality. Sir Bale, however, was chatty, and
+did not seem to care much what he said, or what people thought of him;
+and there was a suspicion of sarcasm in what he said that the rustic
+literality of good Mrs. Bedel did not always detect.
+
+"I believe I have not a clergyman but _you_, sir, within any reasonable
+distance?"
+
+"Golden Friars _is_ the nearest," said Mrs. Bedel, answering, as was her
+pleasure on all practicable occasions, for her husband. "And southwards,
+the nearest is Wyllarden--and by a bird's flight that is thirteen miles
+and a half, and by the road more than nineteen--twenty, I may say, by
+the road. Ha, ha, ha! it is a long way to look for a clergyman."
+
+"Twenty miles of road to carry you thirteen miles across, hey? The
+road-makers lead you a pretty dance here; those gentlemen know how to
+make money, and like to show people the scenery from a variety of
+points. No one likes a straight road but the man who pays for it, or
+who, when he travels, is brute enough to wish to get to his journey's
+end."
+
+"That is so true, Sir Bale; one never cares if one is not in a hurry.
+That's what Martin thinks--don't we, Martin?--And then, you know, coming
+home is the time you _are_ in a hurry--when you are thinking of your cup
+of tea and the children; and _then_, you know, you have the fall of the
+ground all in your favour."
+
+"It's well to have anything in your favour in this place. And so there
+are children?"
+
+"A good many," said Mrs. Bedel, with a proud and mysterious smile, and a
+nod; "you wouldn't guess how many."
+
+"Not I; I only wonder you did not bring them all."
+
+"That's very good-natured of you, Sir Bale, but all could not come at
+_one_ bout; there are--tell him, Martin--ha, ha, ha! there are eleven."
+
+"It must be very cheerful down at the vicarage," said Sir Bale
+graciously; and turning to the vicar he added, "But how unequally
+blessings are divided! You have eleven, and I not one--that I'm aware
+of."
+
+"And then, in that direction straight before you, you have the lake, and
+then the fells; and five miles from the foot of the mountain at the
+other side, before you reach Fottrell--and that is twenty-five miles by
+the road----"
+
+"Dear me! how far apart they are set! My gardener told me this morning
+that asparagus grows very thinly in this part of the world. How thinly
+clergymen grow also down here--in one sense," he added politely, for the
+vicar was stout.
+
+"We were looking out of the window--we amused ourselves that way before
+you came--and your view is certainly the very best anywhere round this
+side; your view of the lake and the fells--what mountains they are, Sir
+Bale!"
+
+"'Pon my soul, they are! I wish I could blow them asunder with a charge
+of duck-shot, and I shouldn't be stifled by them long. But I suppose, as
+we can't get rid of them, the next best thing is to admire them. We are
+pretty well married to them, and there is no use in quarrelling."
+
+"I know you don't think so, Sir Bale, ha, ha, ha! You wouldn't take a
+good deal and spoil Mardykes Hall."
+
+"You can't get a mouthful or air, or see the sun of a morning, for those
+frightful mountains," he said with a peevish frown at them.
+
+"Well, the lake at all events--that you _must_ admire, Sir Bale?"
+
+"No ma'am, I don't admire the lake. I'd drain the lake if I could--I
+hate the lake. There's nothing so gloomy as a lake pent up among barren
+mountains. I can't conceive what possessed my people to build our house
+down here, at the edge of a lake; unless it was the fish, and precious
+fish it is--pike! I don't know how people digest it--_I_ can't. I'd as
+soon think of eating a watchman's pike."
+
+"I thought that having travelled so much abroad, you would have acquired
+a great liking for that kind of scenery, Sir Bale; there is a great deal
+of it on the Continent, ain't there?" said Mrs. Bedel. "And the
+boating."
+
+"Boating, my dear Mrs. Bedel, is the dullest of all things; don't you
+think so? Because a boat looks very pretty from the shore, we fancy the
+shore must look very pretty from a boat; and when we try it, we find we
+have only got down into a pit and can see nothing rightly. For my part I
+hate boating, and I hate the water; and I'd rather have my house, like
+Haworth, at the edge of a moss, with good wholesome peat to look at, and
+an open horizon--savage and stupid and bleak as all that is--than be
+suffocated among impassable mountains, or upset in a black lake and
+drowned like a kitten. O, there's luncheon in the next room; won't you
+take some?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Mrs. Julaper's Room
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes being now established in his ancestral house, people
+had time to form conclusions respecting him. It must be allowed he was
+not popular. There was, perhaps, in his conduct something of the caprice
+of contempt. At all events his temper and conduct were uncertain, and
+his moods sometimes violent and insulting.
+
+With respect to but one person was his conduct uniform, and that was
+Philip Feltram. He was a sort of aide-de-camp near Sir Bale's person,
+and chargeable with all the commissions and offices which could not be
+suitably intrusted to a mere servant. But in many respects he was
+treated worse than any servant of the Baronet's. Sir Bale swore at him,
+and cursed him; laid the blame of everything that went wrong in house,
+stable, or field upon his shoulders; railed at him, and used him, as
+people said, worse than a dog.
+
+Why did Feltram endure this contumelious life? What could he do but
+endure it? was the answer. What was the power that induced strong
+soldiers to put off their jackets and shirts, and present their hands to
+be tied up, and tortured for hours, it might be, under the scourge, with
+an air of ready volition? The moral coercion of despair; the result of
+an unconscious calculation of chances which satisfies them that it is
+ultimately better to do all that, bad as it is, than try the
+alternative. These unconscious calculations are going on every day with
+each of us, and the results embody themselves in our lives; and no one
+knows that there has been a process and a balance struck, and that what
+they see, and very likely blame, is by the fiat of an invisible but
+quite irresistible power.
+
+A man of spirit would rather break stones on the highway than eat that
+bitter bread, was the burden of every man's song on Feltram's bondage.
+But he was not so sure that even the stone-breaker's employment was open
+to him, or that he could break stones well enough to retain it on a fair
+trial. And he had other ideas of providing for himself, and a different
+alternative in his mind.
+
+Good-natured Mrs. Julaper, the old housekeeper at Mardykes Hall, was
+kind to Feltram, as to all others who lay in her way and were in
+affliction.
+
+She was one of those good women whom Nature provides to receive the
+burden of other people's secrets, as the reeds did long ago, only that
+no chance wind could steal them away, and send them singing into strange
+ears.
+
+You may still see her snuggery in Mardykes Hall, though the
+housekeeper's room is now in a different part of the house.
+
+Mrs. Julaper's room was in the oldest quarter of that old house. It was
+wainscoted, in black panels, up to the ceiling, which was stuccoed over
+in the fanciful diagrams of James the First's time. Several dingy
+portraits, banished from time to time from other statelier rooms, found
+a temporary abode in this quiet spot, where they had come finally to
+settle and drop out of remembrance. There is a lady in white satin and a
+ruff; a gentleman whose legs have faded out of view, with a peaked
+beard, and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a black periwig lost
+in the dark background, and with a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out
+of the darkness strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable
+across it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes, who crossed the Border
+and joined Dundee, and was shot through the temple at Killiecrankie and
+whom more prudent and whiggish scions of the Mardykes family removed
+forthwith from his place in the Hall, and found a retirement here, from
+which he has not since emerged.
+
+At the far end of this snug room is a second door, on opening which you
+find yourself looking down upon the great kitchen, with a little balcony
+before you, from which the housekeeper used to issue her commands to the
+cook, and exercise a sovereign supervision.
+
+There is a shelf on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible, her _Whole Duty of
+Man_, and her _Pilgrim's Progress_; and, in a file beside them, her
+books of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes,
+cookery-books, and some too on surgery and medicine, as practised by the
+Ladies Bountiful of the Elizabethan age, for which an antiquarian would
+nowadays give an eye or a hand.
+
+Gentle half-foolish Philip Feltram would tell the story of his wrongs,
+and weep and wish he was dead; and kind Mrs. Julaper, who remembered him
+a child, would comfort him with cold pie and cherry-brandy, or a cup of
+coffee, or some little dainty.
+
+"O, ma'am, I'm tired of my life. What's the good of living, if a poor
+devil is never let alone, and called worse names than a dog? Would not
+it be better, Mrs. Julaper, to be dead? Wouldn't it be better, ma'am? I
+think so; I think it night and day. I'm always thinking the same thing.
+I don't care, I'll just tell him what I think, and have it off my mind.
+I'll tell him I can't live and bear it longer."
+
+"There now, don't you be frettin'; but just sip this, and remember
+you're not to judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean it, not he.
+They all had a rough side to their tongue now and again; but no one
+minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the
+tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard
+words break no bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea--ye like a cup o'
+tea--and we'll take a cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see
+how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines on the lake this evening."
+
+She was patting him gently on the shoulder, as she stood slim and stiff
+in her dark silk by his chair, and her rosy little face smiled down on
+him. She was, for an old woman, wonderfully pretty still. What a
+delicate skin she must have had! The wrinkles were etched upon it with
+so fine a needle, you scarcely could see them a little way off; and as
+she smiled her cheeks looked fresh and smooth as two ruddy little
+apples.
+
+"Look out, I say," and she nodded towards the window, deep set in the
+thick wall. "See how bright and soft everything looks in that pleasant
+light; _that's_ better, child, than the finest picture man's hand ever
+painted yet, and God gives it us for nothing; and how pretty Snakes
+Island glows up in that light!"
+
+The dejected man, hardly raising his head, followed with his eyes the
+glance of the old woman, and looked mournfully through the window.
+
+"That island troubles me, Mrs. Julaper."
+
+"Everything troubles you, my poor goose-cap. I'll pull your lug for ye,
+child, if ye be so dowly;" and with a mimic pluck the good-natured old
+housekeeper pinched his ear and laughed.
+
+"I'll go to the still-room now, where the water's boiling, and I'll make
+a cup of tea; and if I find ye so dow when I come back, I'll throw it
+all out o' the window, mind."
+
+It was indeed a beautiful picture that Feltram saw in its deep frame of
+old masonry. The near part of the lake was flushed all over with the low
+western light; the more distant waters lay dark in the shadow of the
+mountains; and against this shadow of purple the rocks on Snakes Island,
+illuminated by the setting sun, started into sharp clear yellow.
+
+But this beautiful view had no charm--at least, none powerful enough to
+master the latent horror associated with its prettiest feature--for the
+weak and dismal man who was looking at it; and being now alone, he rose
+and leant on the window, and looked out, and then with a kind of shudder
+clutching his hands together, and walking distractedly about the room.
+
+Without his perceiving, while his back was turned, the housekeeper came
+back; and seeing him walking in this distracted way, she thought to
+herself, as he leant again upon the window:
+
+"Well, it _is_ a burning shame to worrit any poor soul into that state.
+Sir Bale was always down on someone or something, man or beast; there
+always was something he hated, and could never let alone. It was not
+pretty; it was his nature. Happen, poor fellow, he could not help it;
+but so it was."
+
+A maid came in and set the tea-things down; and Mrs. Julaper drew her
+sad guest over by the arm, and made him sit down, and she said: "What
+has a man to do, frettin' in that way? By Jen, I'm ashamed o' ye, Master
+Philip! Ye like three lumps o' sugar, I think, and--look cheerful, ye
+must!--a good deal o' cream?"
+
+"You're so kind, Mrs. Julaper, you're so cheery. I feel quite
+comfortable after awhile when I'm with you; I feel quite happy," and he
+began to cry.
+
+She understood him very well by this time and took no notice, but went
+on chatting gaily, and made his tea as he liked it; and he dried his
+tears hastily, thinking she had not observed.
+
+So the clouds began to clear. This innocent fellow liked nothing better
+than a cup of tea and a chat with gentle and cheery old Mrs. Julaper,
+and a talk in which the shadowy old times which he remembered as a child
+emerged into sunlight and lived again.
+
+When he began to feel better, drawn into the kindly old times by the
+tinkle of that harmless old woman's tongue, he said:
+
+"I sometimes think I would not so much mind--I should not care so
+much--if my spirits were not so depressed, and I so agitated. I suppose
+I am not quite well."
+
+"Well, tell me what's wrong, child, and it's odd but I have a recipe on
+the shelf there that will do you good."
+
+"It is not a matter of that sort I mean; though I'd rather have you than
+any doctor, if I needed medicine, to prescribe for me."
+
+Mrs. Julaper smiled in spite of herself, well pleased; for her skill in
+pharmacy was a point on which the good lady prided herself, and was open
+to flattery, which, without intending it, the simple fellow
+administered.
+
+"No, I'm well enough; I can't say I ever was better. It is only, ma'am,
+that I have such dreams--you have no idea."
+
+"There are dreams and dreams, my dear: there's some signifies no more
+than the babble of the lake down there on the pebbles, and there's
+others that has a meaning; there's dreams that is but vanity, and
+there's dreams that is good, and dreams that is bad. Lady
+Mardykes--heavens be her bed this day! that's his grandmother I
+mean--was very sharp for reading dreams. Take another cup of tea. Dear
+me! what a noise the crows keep aboon our heads, going home! and how
+high they wing it!--that's a sure sign of fine weather. An' what do you
+dream about? Tell me your dream, and I may show you it's a good one,
+after all. For many a dream is ugly to see and ugly to tell, and a good
+dream, with a happy meaning, for all that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The Intruder
+
+"Well, Mrs. Julaper, dreams I've dreamed like other people, old and
+young; but this, ma'am, has taken a fast hold of me," said Mr. Feltram
+dejectedly, leaning back in his chair and looking down with his hands in
+his pockets. "I think, Mrs. Julaper, it is getting into me. I think it's
+like possession."
+
+"Possession, child! what do you mean?"
+
+"I think there is something trying to influence me. Perhaps it is the
+way fellows go mad; but it won't let me alone. I've seen it three times,
+think of that!"
+
+"Well, dear, and what _have_ ye seen?" she asked, with an uneasy
+cheerfulness, smiling, with eyes fixed steadily upon him; for the idea
+of a madman--even gentle Philip in that state--was not quieting.
+
+"Do you remember the picture, full-length, that had no frame--the lady
+in the white-satin saque--she was beautiful, _funeste_," he added,
+talking more to himself; and then more distinctly to Mrs. Julaper
+again----"in the white-satin saque; and with the little mob cap and blue
+ribbons to it, and a bouquet in her fingers; that was--that--you know
+who she was?"
+
+"That was your great-grandmother, my dear," said Mrs. Julaper, lowering
+her eyes. "It was a dreadful pity it was spoiled. The boys in the pantry
+had it for a year there on the table for a tray, to wash the glasses on
+and the like. It was a shame; that was the prettiest picture in the
+house, with the gentlest, rosiest face."
+
+"It ain't so gentle or rosy now, I can tell you," said Philip. "As fixed
+as marble; with thin lips, and a curve at the nostril. Do you remember
+the woman that was found dead in the clough, when I was a boy, that the
+gipsies murdered, it was thought,--a cruel-looking woman?"
+
+"Agoy! Master Philip, dear! ye would not name that terrible-looking
+creature with the pretty, fresh, kindly face!"
+
+"Faces change, you see; no matter what she's like; it's her talk that
+frightens me. She wants to make use of me; and, you see, it is like
+getting a share in my mind, and a voice in my thoughts, and a command
+over me gradually; and it is just one idea, as straight as a line of
+light across the lake--see what she's come to. O Lord, help me!"
+
+"Well, now, don't you be talkin' like that. It is just a little bit
+dowly and troubled, because the master says a wry word now and then; and
+so ye let your spirits go down, don't ye see, and all sorts o' fancies
+comes into your head."
+
+"There's no fancy in my head," he said with a quick look of suspicion;
+"only you asked me what I dreamed. I don't care if all the world knew. I
+dreamed I went down a flight of steps under the lake, and got a message.
+There are no steps near Snakes Island, we all know that," and he laughed
+chillily. "I'm out of spirits, as you say; and--and--O dear! I
+wish--Mrs. Julaper--I wish I was in my coffin, and quiet."
+
+"Now that's very wrong of you, Master Philip; you should think of all
+the blessings you have, and not be makin' mountains o' molehills; and
+those little bits o' temper Sir Bale shows, why, no one minds 'em--that
+is, to take 'em to heart like you do, don't ye see?"
+
+"I daresay; I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you are right. I'm unreasonable
+often, I know," said gentle Philip Feltram. "I daresay I make too much
+of it; I'll try. I'm his secretary, and I know I'm not so bright as he
+is, and it is natural he should sometimes be a little impatient; I ought
+to be more reasonable, I'm sure. It is all that thing that has been
+disturbing me--I mean fretting, and, I think, I'm not quite well;
+and--and letting myself think too much of vexations. It's my own fault,
+I'm sure, Mrs. Julaper; and I know I'm to blame."
+
+"That's quite right, that's spoken like a wise lad; only I don't say
+you're to blame, nor no one; for folk can't help frettin' sometimes, no
+more than they can help a headache--none but a mafflin would say
+that--and I'll not deny but he has dowly ways when the fit's on him, and
+he frumps us all round, if such be his humour. But who is there hasn't
+his faults? We must bear and forbear, and take what we get and be
+cheerful. So chirp up, my lad; Philip, didn't I often ring the a'd rhyme
+in your ear long ago?
+
+  "Be always as merry as ever you can,
+  For no one delights in a sorrowful man.
+
+"So don't ye be gettin' up off your chair like that, and tramping about
+the room wi' your hands in your pockets, looking out o' this window, and
+staring out o' that, and sighing and crying, and looking so
+black-ox-trodden, 'twould break a body's heart to see you. Ye must be
+cheery; and happen you're hungry, and don't know it. I'll tell the cook
+to grill a hot bit for ye."
+
+"But I'm not hungry, Mrs. Julaper. How kind you are! dear me, Mrs.
+Julaper, I'm not worthy of it; I don't deserve half your kindness. I'd
+have been heartbroken long ago, but for you."
+
+"And I'll make a sup of something hot for you; you'll take a
+rummer-glass of punch--you must."
+
+"But I like the tea better; I do, indeed, Mrs. Julaper."
+
+"Tea is no drink for a man when his heart's down. It should be something
+with a leg in it, lad; something hot that will warm your courage for ye,
+and set your blood a-dancing, and make ye talk brave and merry; and will
+you have a bit of a broil first? No? Well then, you'll have a drop o'
+punch?--ye sha'n't say no."
+
+And so, all resistance overpowered, the consolation of Philip Feltram
+proceeded.
+
+A gentler spirit than poor Feltram, a more good-natured soul than the
+old housekeeper, were nowhere among the children of earth.
+
+Philip Feltram, who was reserved enough elsewhere, used to come into her
+room and cry, and take her by both hands piteously, standing before her
+and looking down in her face, while tears ran deviously down his cheeks.
+
+"Did you ever know such a case? was there ever a fellow like _me_? did
+you ever _know_ such a thing? You know what I am, Mrs. Julaper, and who
+I am. They call me Feltram; but Sir Bale knows as well as I that my true
+name is not that. I'm Philip Mardykes; and another fellow would make a
+row about it, and claim his name and his rights, as she is always
+croaking in my ear I ought. But you know that is not reasonable. My
+grandmother was married; she was the true Lady Mardykes; _think_ what it
+was to see a woman like that turned out of doors, and her children
+robbed of their name. O, ma'am, you _can't_ think it; unless you were
+me, you couldn't--you couldn't--you couldn't!"
+
+"Come, come, Master Philip, don't you be taking on so; and ye mustn't be
+talking like that, d'ye mind? You know he wouldn't stand that; and it's
+an old story now, and there's naught can be proved concerning it; and
+what I think is this--I wouldn't wonder the poor lady was beguiled. But
+anyhow she surely thought she was his lawful wife; and though the law
+may hev found a flaw somewhere--and I take it 'twas so--yet sure I am
+she was an honourable lady. But where's the use of stirring that old
+sorrow? or how can ye prove aught? and the dead hold their peace, you
+know; dead mice, they say, feels no cold; and dead folks are past
+fooling. So don't you talk like that; for stone walls have ears, and ye
+might say that ye couldn't _un_say; and death's day is doom's day. So
+leave all in the keeping of God; and, above all, never lift hand when ye
+can't strike."
+
+"Lift my hand! O, Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that; you little know
+me; I did not mean that; I never dreamed of hurting Sir Bale. Good
+heavens! Mrs. Julaper, you couldn't think that! It all comes of my poor
+impatient temper, and complaining as I do, and my misery; but O, Mrs.
+Julaper, you could not think I ever meant to trouble him by law, or any
+other annoyance! I'd like to see a stain removed from my family, and my
+name restored; but to touch his property, O, no!--O, no! that never
+entered my mind, by heaven! that never entered my mind, Mrs. Julaper.
+I'm not cruel; I'm not rapacious; I don't care for money; don't you know
+that, Mrs. Julaper? O, surely you won't think me capable of attacking
+the man whose bread I have eaten so long! I never dreamed of it; I
+should hate myself. Tell me you don't believe it; O, Mrs. Julaper, say
+you don't!"
+
+And the gentle feeble creature burst into tears and good Mrs. Julaper
+comforted him with kind words; and he said,
+
+"Thank you, ma'am; thank you. God knows I would not hurt Bale, nor give
+him one uneasy hour. It is only this: that I'm--I'm so miserable; and
+I'm only casting in my mind where to turn to, and what to do. So little
+a thing would be enough, and then I shall leave Mardykes. I'll go; not
+in any anger, Mrs. Julaper--don't think that; but I can't stay, I must
+be gone."
+
+"Well, now, there's nothing yet, Master Philip, to fret you like that.
+You should not be talking so wild-like. Master Bale has his sharp word
+and his short temper now and again; but I'm sure he likes you. If he
+didn't, he'd a-said so to me long ago. I'm sure he likes you well."
+
+"Hollo! I say, who's there? Where the devil's Mr. Feltram?" called the
+voice of the baronet, at a fierce pitch, along the passage.
+
+"La! Mr. Feltram, it's him! Ye'd better run to him," whispered Mrs.
+Julaper.
+
+"D--n me! does nobody hear? Mrs. Julaper! Hollo! ho! house, there! ho!
+D--n me, will nobody answer?"
+
+And Sir Bale began to slap the wainscot fast and furiously with his
+walking-cane with a clatter like a harlequin's lath in a pantomime.
+
+Mrs. Julaper, a little paler than usual, opened her door, and stood with
+the handle in her hand, making a little curtsey, enframed in the
+door-case; and Sir Bale, being in a fume, when he saw her, ceased
+whacking the panels of the corridor, and stamped on the floor, crying,
+
+"Upon my soul, ma'am, I'm glad to see you! Perhaps you can tell me where
+Feltram is?"
+
+"He is in my room, Sir Bale. Shall I tell him you want him, please?"
+
+"Never mind; thanks," said the Baronet. "I've a tongue in my head;"
+marching down the passage to the housekeeper's room, with his cane
+clutched hard, glaring savagely, and with his teeth fast set, like a
+fellow advancing to beat a vicious horse that has chafed his temper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The Bank Note
+
+Sir Bale brushed by the housekeeper as he strode into her sanctuary, and
+there found Philip Feltram awaiting him dejectedly, but with no signs of
+agitation.
+
+If one were to judge by the appearance the master of Mardykes presented,
+very grave surmises as to impending violence would have suggested
+themselves; but though he clutched his cane so hard that it quivered in
+his grasp, he had no notion of committing the outrage of a blow. The
+Baronet was unusually angry notwithstanding, and stopping short about
+three steps away, addressed Feltram with a pale face and gleaming eyes.
+It was quite plain that there was something very exciting upon his mind.
+
+"I've been looking for you, Mr. Feltram; I want a word or two, if you
+have done your--your--whatever it is." He whisked the point of his stick
+towards the modest tea-tray. "I should like five minutes in the
+library."
+
+The Baronet was all this time eyeing Feltram with a hard suspicious
+gaze, as if he expected to read in his face the shrinkings and
+trepidations of guilt; and then turning suddenly on his heel he led the
+way to his library--a good long march, with a good many turnings. He
+walked very fast, and was not long in getting there. And as Sir Bale
+reached the hearth, on which was smouldering a great log of wood, and
+turned about suddenly, facing the door, Philip Feltram entered.
+
+The Baronet looked oddly and stern--so oddly, it seemed to Feltram, that
+he could not take his eyes off him, and returned his grim and somewhat
+embarrassed gaze with a stare of alarm and speculation.
+
+And so doing, his step was shortened, and grew slow and slower, and came
+quite to a stop before he had got far from the door--a wide stretch of
+that wide floor still intervening between him and Sir Bale, who stood
+upon the hearthrug, with his heels together and his back to the fire,
+cane in hand, like a drill-sergeant, facing him.
+
+"Shut that door, please; that will do; come nearer now. I don't want to
+bawl what I have to say. Now listen."
+
+The Baronet cleared his voice and paused, with his eyes upon Feltram.
+
+"It is only two or three days ago," said he, "that you said you wished
+you had a hundred pounds. Am I right?"
+
+"Yes; I think so."
+
+"_Think_? you know it, sir, devilish well. You said that you wished to
+get away. I have nothing particular to say against that, more especially
+now. Do you understand what I say?"
+
+"Understand, Sir Bale? I do, sir--quite."
+
+"I daresay quite" he repeated with an angry sneer. "Here, sir, is an odd
+coincidence: you want a hundred pounds, and you can't earn it, and you
+can't borrow it--there's another way, it seems--but I have got it--a
+Bank-of-England note of L100--locked up in that desk;" and he poked the
+end of his cane against the brass lock of it viciously. "There it is,
+and there are the papers you work at; and there are two keys--I've got
+one and you have the other--and devil another key in or out of the house
+has any one living. Well, do you begin to see? Don't mind. I don't want
+any d----d lying about it."
+
+Feltram was indeed beginning to see that he was suspected of something
+very bad, but exactly what, he was not yet sure; and being a man of that
+unhappy temperament which shrinks from suspicion, as others do from
+detection, he looked very much put out indeed.
+
+"Ha, ha! I think we do begin to see," said Sir Bale savagely. "It's a
+bore, I know, troubling a fellow with a story that he knows before; but
+I'll make mine short. When I take my key, intending to send the note to
+pay the crown and quit-rents that you know--you--you--no matter--you
+know well enough must be paid, I open it so--and so--and look _there_,
+where I left it, for my note; and the note's gone--you understand, the
+note's _gone_!"
+
+Here was a pause, during which, under the Baronet's hard insulting eye,
+poor Feltram winced, and cleared his voice, and essayed to speak, but
+said nothing.
+
+"It's gone, and we know where. Now, Mr. Feltram, _I_ did not steal that
+note, and no one but you and I have access to this desk. You wish to go
+away, and I have no objection to that--but d--n me if you take away that
+note with you; and you may as well produce it now and here, as hereafter
+in a worse place."
+
+"O, my good heaven!" exclaimed poor Feltram at last. "I'm very ill."
+
+"So you are, of course. It takes a stiff emetic to get all that money
+off a fellow's stomach; and it's like parting with a tooth to give up a
+bank-note. Of course you're ill, but that's no sign of innocence, and
+I'm no fool. You had better give the thing up quietly."
+
+"May my Maker strike me----"
+
+"So He will, you d----d rascal, if there's justice in heaven, unless you
+produce the money. I don't want to hang you. I'm willing to let you off
+if you'll let me, but I'm cursed if I let my note off along with you;
+and unless you give it up forthwith, I'll get a warrant and have you
+searched, pockets, bag, and baggage."
+
+"Lord! am I awake?" exclaimed Philip Feltram.
+
+"Wide awake, and so am I," replied Sir Bale. "You don't happen to have
+got it about you?"
+
+"God forbid, sir! O, Sir--O, Sir Bale--why, Bale, _Bale_, it's
+impossible! You _can't_ believe it. When did I ever wrong you? You know
+me since I was not higher than the table, and--and----"
+
+He burst into tears.
+
+"Stop your snivelling, sir, and give up the note. You know devilish well
+I can't spare it; and I won't spare you if you put me to it. I've said
+my say."
+
+Sir Bale signed towards the door; and like a somnambulist, with dilated
+gaze and pale as death, Philip Feltram, at his wit's end, went out of
+the room. It was not till he had again reached the housekeeper's door
+that he recollected in what direction he was going. His shut hand was
+pressed with all his force to his heart, and the first breath he was
+conscious of was a deep wild sob or two that quivered from his heart as
+he looked from the lobby-window upon a landscape which he did not see.
+
+All he had ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire
+paroxysm. Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real
+capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain
+intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and
+consequence, in his torture.
+
+Sir Bale, in the meantime, had walked out a little more excited than he
+would have allowed. He was still convinced that Feltram had stolen the
+note, but not quite so certain as he had been. There were things in his
+manner that confirmed, and others that perplexed, Sir Bale.
+
+The Baronet stood upon the margin of the lake, almost under the evening
+shadow of the house, looking towards Snakes Island. There were two
+things about Mardykes he specially disliked.
+
+One was Philip Feltram, who, right or wrong, he fancied knew more than
+was pleasant of his past life.
+
+The other was the lake. It was a beautiful piece of water, his eye,
+educated at least in the excellences of landscape-painting,
+acknowledged. But although he could pull a good oar, and liked other
+lakes, to this particular sheet of water there lurked within him an
+insurmountable antipathy. It was engendered by a variety of
+associations.
+
+There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout
+and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.
+His boding was made-up of omens, dreams, and such stuff as he most
+affected to despise, and there fluttered at his heart a presentiment and
+disgust.
+
+His foot was on the gunwale of the boat, that was chained to its ring at
+the margin; but he would not have crossed that water in it for any
+reason that man could urge.
+
+What was the mischief that sooner or later was to befall him from that
+lake, he could not define; but that some fatal danger lurked there, was
+the one idea concerning it that had possession of his fancy.
+
+He was now looking along its still waters, towards the copse and rocks
+of Snakes Island, thinking of Philip Feltram; and the yellow level
+sunbeams touched his dark features, that bore a saturnine resemblance to
+those of Charles II, and marked sharply their firm grim lines, and left
+his deep-set eyes in shadow.
+
+Who has the happy gift to seize the present, as a child does, and live
+in it? Who is not often looking far off for his happiness, as Sidney
+Smith says, like a man looking for his hat when it is upon his head? Sir
+Bale was brooding over his double hatred, of Feltram and of the lake. It
+would have been better had he struck down the raven that croaked upon
+his shoulder, and listened to the harmless birds that were whistling all
+round among the branches in the golden sunset.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Feltram's Plan
+
+This horror of the beautiful lake, which other people thought so lovely,
+was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a distinct
+creation of downright superstition.
+
+The nursery tales which had scared him in his childhood were founded on
+the tragedy of Snakes Island, and haunted him with an unavowed
+persistence still. Strange dreams untold had visited him, and a German
+conjuror, who had made some strangely successful vaticinations, had told
+him that his worst enemy would come up to him from a lake. He had heard
+very nearly the same thing from a fortune-teller in France; and once at
+Lucerne, when he was waiting alone in his room for the hour at which he
+had appointed to go upon the lake, all being quiet, there came to the
+window, which was open, a sunburnt, lean, wicked face. Its ragged owner
+leaned his arm on the window-frame, and with his head in the room, said
+in his patois, "Ho! waiting are you? You'll have enough of the lake one
+day. Don't you mind watching; they'll send when you're wanted;" and
+twisting his yellow face into a malicious distortion, he went on.
+
+This thing had occurred so suddenly, and chimed-in so oddly with his
+thoughts, which were at that moment at distant Mardykes and the haunted
+lake, that it disconcerted him. He laughed, he looked out of the window.
+He would have given that fellow money to tell him why he said that. But
+there was no good in looking for the scamp; he was gone.
+
+A memory not preoccupied with that lake and its omens, and a
+presentiment about himself, would not have noted such things. But _his_
+mind they touched indelibly; and he was ashamed of his childish slavery,
+but could not help it.
+
+The foundation of all this had been laid in the nursery, in the winter's
+tales told by its fireside, and which seized upon his fancy and his
+fears with a strange congeniality.
+
+There is a large bedroom at Mardykes Hall, which tradition assigns to
+the lady who had perished tragically in the lake. Mrs. Julaper was sure
+of it; for her aunt, who died a very old woman twenty years before,
+remembered the time of the lady's death, and when she grew to woman's
+estate had opportunity in abundance; for the old people who surrounded
+her could remember forty years farther back, and tell everything
+connected with the old house in beautiful Miss Feltram's time.
+
+This large old-fashioned room, commanding a view of Snakes Island, the
+fells, and the lake--somewhat vast and gloomy, and furnished in a
+stately old fashion--was said to be haunted, especially when the wind
+blew from the direction of Golden Friars, the point from which it blew
+on the night of her death in the lake; or when the sky was overcast, and
+thunder rolled among the lofty fells, and lightning gleamed on the wide
+sheet of water.
+
+It was on a night like this that a lady visitor, who long after that
+event occupied, in entire ignorance of its supernatural character, that
+large room; and being herself a lady of a picturesque turn, and loving
+the grander melodrama of Nature, bid her maid leave the shutters open,
+and watched the splendid effects from her bed, until, the storm being
+still distant, she fell asleep.
+
+It was travelling slowly across the lake, and it was the deep-mouthed
+clangour of its near approach that startled her, at dead of night, from
+her slumber, to witness the same phenomena in the tremendous loudness
+and brilliancy of their near approach.
+
+At this magnificent spectacle she was looking with the awful ecstasy of
+an observer in whom the sense of danger is subordinated to that of the
+sublime, when she saw suddenly at the window a woman, whose long hair
+and dress seemed drenched with water. She was gazing in with a look of
+terror, and was shaking the sash of the window with vehemence. Having
+stood there for a few seconds, and before the lady, who beheld all this
+from her bed, could make up her mind what to do, the storm-beaten
+figure, wringing her hands, seemed to throw herself backward, and was
+gone.
+
+Possessed with the idea that she had seen some poor woman overtaken in
+the storm, who, failing to procure admission there, had gone round to
+some of the many doors of the mansion, and obtained an entry there, she
+again fell asleep.
+
+It was not till the morning, when she went to her window to look out
+upon the now tranquil scene, that she discovered what, being a stranger
+to the house, she had quite forgotten, that this room was at a great
+height--some thirty feet--from the ground.
+
+Another story was that of good old Mr. Randal Rymer, who was often a
+visitor at the house in the late Lady Mardykes' day. In his youth he had
+been a campaigner; and now that he was a preacher he maintained his
+hardy habits, and always slept, summer and winter, with a bit of his
+window up. Being in that room in his bed, and after a short sleep lying
+awake, the moon shining softly through the window, there passed by that
+aperture into the room a figure dressed, it seemed to him, in gray that
+was nearly white. It passed straight to the hearth, where was an
+expiring wood fire; and cowering over it with outstretched hands, it
+appeared to be gathering what little heat was to be had. Mr. Rymer,
+amazed and awestruck, made a movement in his bed; and the figure looked
+round, with large eyes that in the moonlight looked like melting snow,
+and stretching its long arms up the chimney, they and the figure itself
+seemed to blend with the smoke, and so pass up and away.
+
+Sir Bale, I have said, did not like Feltram. His father, Sir William,
+had left a letter creating a trust, it was said, in favour of Philip
+Feltram. The document had been found with the will, addressed to Sir
+Bale in the form of a letter.
+
+"That is mine," said the Baronet, when it dropped out of the will; and
+he slipped it into his pocket, and no one ever saw it after.
+
+But Mr. Charles Twyne, the attorney of Golden Friars, whenever he got
+drunk, which was pretty often, used to tell his friends with a grave
+wink that he knew a thing or two about that letter. It gave Philip
+Feltram two hundred a-year, charged on Harfax. It was only a direction.
+It made Sir Bale a trustee, however; and having made away with the
+"letter," the Baronet had been robbing Philip Feltram ever since.
+
+Old Twyne was cautious, even in his cups, in his choice of an audience,
+and was a little enigmatical in his revelations. For he was afraid of
+Sir Bale, though he hated him for employing a lawyer who lived seven
+miles away, and was a rival. So people were not quite sure whether Mr.
+Twyne was telling lies or truth, and the principal fact that
+corroborated his story was Sir Bale's manifest hatred of his secretary.
+In fact, Sir Bale's retaining him in his house, detesting him as he
+seemed to do, was not easily to be accounted for, except on the
+principle of a tacit compromise--a miserable compensation for having
+robbed him of his rights.
+
+The battle about the bank-note proceeded. Sir Bale certainly had doubts,
+and vacillated; for moral evidence made powerfully in favour of poor
+Feltram, though the evidence of circumstance made as powerfully against
+him. But Sir Bale admitted suspicion easily, and in weighing
+probabilities would count a virtue very lightly against temptation and
+opportunity; and whatever his doubts might sometimes be, he resisted and
+quenched them, and never let that ungrateful scoundrel Philip Feltram so
+much as suspect their existence.
+
+For two days Sir Bale had not spoken to Feltram. He passed by on stair
+and passage, carrying his head high, and with a thundrous countenance,
+rolling conclusions and revenges in his soul.
+
+Poor Feltram all this time existed in one long agony. He would have left
+Mardykes, were it not that he looked vaguely to some just power--to
+chance itself--against this hideous imputation. To go with this
+indictment ringing in his ears, would amount to a confession and flight.
+
+Mrs. Julaper consoled him with might and main. She was a sympathetic and
+trusting spirit, and knew poor Philip Feltram, in her simplicity, better
+than the shrewdest profligate on earth could have known him. She cried
+with him in his misery. She was fired with indignation by these
+suspicions, and still more at what followed.
+
+Sir Bale showed no signs of relenting. It might have been that he was
+rather glad of so unexceptionable an opportunity of getting rid of
+Feltram, who, people thought, knew something which it galled the
+Baronet's pride that he should know.
+
+The Baronet had another shorter and sterner interview with Feltram in
+his study. The result was, that unless he restored the missing note
+before ten o'clock next morning, he should leave Mardykes.
+
+To leave Mardykes was no more than Philip Feltram, feeble as he was of
+will, had already resolved. But what was to become of him? He did not
+very much care, if he could find any calling, however humble, that would
+just give him bread.
+
+There was an old fellow and his wife (an ancient dame,) who lived at the
+other side of the lake, on the old territories of the Feltrams, and who,
+from some tradition of loyalty, perhaps, were fond of poor Philip
+Feltram. They lived somewhat high up on the fells--about as high as
+trees would grow--and those which were clumped about their rude dwelling
+were nearly the last you passed in your ascent of the mountain. These
+people had a multitude of sheep and goats, and lived in their airy
+solitude a pastoral and simple life, and were childless. Philip Feltram
+was hardy and active, having passed his early days among that arduous
+scenery. Cold and rain did not trouble him; and these people being
+wealthy in their way, and loving him, would be glad to find him
+employment of that desultory pastoral kind which would best suit him.
+
+This vague idea was the only thing resembling a plan in his mind.
+
+When Philip Feltram came to Mrs. Julaper's room, and told her that he
+had made up his mind to leave the house forthwith--to cross the lake to
+the Cloostedd side in Tom Marlin's boat, and then to make his way up the
+hill alone to Trebeck's lonely farmstead, Mrs. Julaper was overwhelmed.
+
+"Ye'll do no such thing to-night, anyhow. You're not to go like that.
+Ye'll come into the small room here, where he can't follow; and we'll
+sit down and talk it over a bit, and ye'll find 'twill all come
+straight; and this will be no night, anyhow, for such a march. Why,
+man,'twould take an hour and more to cross the lake, and then a long
+uphill walk before ye could reach Trebeck's place; and if the night
+should fall while you were still on the mountain, ye might lose your
+life among the rocks. It can't be 'tis come to that yet; and the call
+was in the air, I'm told, all yesterday, and distant thunder to-day,
+travelling this way over Blarwyn Fells; and 'twill be a night no one
+will be out, much less on the mountain side."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The Crazy Parson
+
+Mrs. Julaper had grown weather-wise, living for so long among this noble
+and solitary scenery, where people must observe Nature or else
+nothing--where signs of coming storm or change are almost local, and
+record themselves on particular cliffs and mountain-peaks, or in the
+mists, or in mirrored tints of the familiar lake, and are easily learned
+or remembered. At all events, her presage proved too true.
+
+The sun had set an hour and more. It was dark; and an awful
+thunder-storm, whose march, like the distant reverberations of an
+invading army, had been faintly heard beyond the barriers of Blarwyn
+Fells throughout the afternoon, was near them now, and had burst in
+deep-mouthed battle among the ravines at the other side, and over the
+broad lake, that glared like a sheet of burnished steel under its
+flashes of dazzling blue. Wild and fitful blasts sweeping down the
+hollows and cloughs of the fells of Golden Friars agitated the lake, and
+bent the trees low, and whirled away their sere leaves in melancholy
+drift in their tremendous gusts. And from the window, looking on a scene
+enveloped in more than the darkness of the night, you saw in the
+pulsations of the lightning, before "the speedy gleams the darkness
+swallowed," the tossing trees and the flying foam and eddies on the
+lake.
+
+In the midst of the hurlyburly, a loud and long knocking came at the
+hall-door of Mardykes. How long it had lasted before a chance lull made
+it audible I do not know.
+
+There was nothing picturesquely poor, any more than there were evidences
+of wealth, anywhere in Sir Bale Mardykes' household. He had no lack of
+servants, but they were of an inexpensive and homely sort; and the
+hall-door being opened by the son of an old tenant on the estate--the
+tempest beating on the other side of the house, and comparative shelter
+under the gables at the front--he saw standing before him, in the
+agitated air, a thin old man, who muttering, it might be, a benediction,
+stepped into the hall, and displayed long silver tresses, just as the
+storm had blown them, ascetic and eager features, and a pair of large
+light eyes that wandered wildly. He was dressed in threadbare black; a
+pair of long leather gaiters, buckled high above his knee, protecting
+his thin shanks through moss and pool; and the singularity of his
+appearance was heightened by a wide-leafed felt hat, over which he had
+tied his handkerchief, so as to bring the leaf of it over his ears, and
+to secure it from being whirled from his head by the storm.
+
+This odd and storm-beaten figure--tall, and a little stooping, as well
+as thin--was not unknown to the servant, who saluted him with something
+of fear as well as of respect as he bid him reverently welcome, and
+asked him to come in and sit by the fire.
+
+"Get you to your master, and tell him I have a message to him from one
+he has not seen for two-and-forty years."
+
+As the old man, with his harsh old voice, thus spoke, he unknotted his
+handkerchief and bet the rain-drops from his hat upon his knee.
+
+The servant knocked at the library-door, where he found Sir Bale.
+
+"Well, what's the matter?" cried Sir Bale sharply, from his chair before
+the fire, with angry eyes looking over his shoulder.
+
+"Here's 't sir cumman, Sir Bale," he answered.
+
+"Sir," or "the Sir," is still used as the clergyman's title in the
+Northumbrian counties.
+
+"What sir?"
+
+"Sir Hugh Creswell, if you please, Sir Bale."
+
+"Ho!--mad Creswell?--O, the crazy parson. Well, tell Mrs. Julaper to let
+him have some supper--and--and to let him have a bed in some suitable
+place. That's what he wants. These mad fellows know what they are
+about."
+
+"No, Sir Bale Mardykes, that is not what he wants," said the loud wild
+voice of the daft sir over the servant's shoulder. "Often has Mardykes
+Hall given me share of its cheer and its shelter and the warmth of its
+fire; and I bless the house that has been an inn to the wayfarer of the
+Lord. But to-night I go up the lake to Pindar's Bield, three miles on;
+and there I rest and refresh--not here."
+
+"And why not _here_, Mr. Creswell?" asked the Baronet; for about this
+crazy old man, who preached in the fields, and appeared and disappeared
+so suddenly in the orbit of his wide and unknown perambulations of those
+northern and border counties, there was that sort of superstitious
+feeling which attaches to the mysterious and the good--an idea that it
+was lucky to harbour and dangerous to offend him. No one knew whence he
+came or whither he went. Once in a year, perhaps, he might appear at a
+lonely farmstead door among the fells, salute the house, enter, and be
+gone in the morning. His life was austere; his piety enthusiastic,
+severe, and tinged with the craze which inspired among the rustic
+population a sort of awe.
+
+"I'll not sleep at Mardykes to-night; neither will I eat, nor drink, nor
+sit me down--no, nor so much as stretch my hands to the fire. As the man
+of God came out of Judah to king Jeroboam, so come I to you, sent by a
+vision, to bear a warning; and as he said, 'If thou wilt give me half
+thy house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor
+drink water in this place,' so also say I."
+
+"Do as you please," said Sir Bale, a little sulkily. "Say your say; and
+you are welcome to stay or go, if go you will on so mad a night as
+this."
+
+"Leave us," said Creswell, beckoning the servant back with his thin
+hands; "what I have to say is to your master."
+
+The servant went, in obedience to a gesture from Sir Bale, and shut the
+door.
+
+The old man drew nearer to the Baronet, and lowering his loud stern
+voice a little, and interrupting his discourse from time to time, to
+allow the near thunder-peals to subside, he said,
+
+"Answer me, Sir Bale--what is this that has chanced between you and
+Philip Feltram?"
+
+The Baronet, under the influence of that blunt and peremptory demand,
+told him shortly and sternly enough.
+
+"And of all these facts you are sure, else ye would not blast your early
+companion and kinsman with the name of thief?"
+
+"I _am_ sure," said Sir Bale grimly.
+
+"Unlock that cabinet," said the old man with the long white locks.
+
+"I've no objection," said Sir Bale; and he did unlock an old oak cabinet
+that stood, carved in high relief with strange figures and gothic
+grotesques, against the wall, opposite the fireplace. On opening it
+there were displayed a system of little drawers and pigeon-holes such as
+we see in more modern escritoires.
+
+"Open that drawer with the red mark of a seal upon it," continued Hugh
+Creswell, pointing to it with his lank finger.
+
+Sir Bale did so; and to his momentary amazement, and even consternation,
+there lay the missing note, which now, with one of those sudden caprices
+of memory which depend on the laws of suggestion and association, he
+remembered having placed there with his own hand.
+
+"That is it," said old Creswell with a pallid smile, and fixing his wild
+eyes on the Baronet. The smile subsided into a frown, and said he: "Last
+night I slept near Haworth Moss; and your father came to me in a dream,
+and said: 'My son Bale accuses Philip of having stolen a bank-note from
+his desk. He forgets that he himself placed it in his cabinet. Come with
+me.' I was, in the spirit, in this room; and he led me to this cabinet,
+which he opened; and in that drawer he showed me that note. 'Go,' said
+he, 'and tell him to ask Philip Feltram's pardon, else he will but go in
+weakness to return in power;' and he said that which it is not lawful to
+repeat. My message is told. Now a word from myself," he added sternly.
+"The dead, through my lips, has spoken, and under God's thunder and
+lightning his words have found ye. Why so uppish wi' Philip Feltram? See
+how ye threaped, and yet were wrong. He's no tazzle--he's no taggelt.
+Ask his pardon. Ye must change, or he will no taggelt. Go, in weakness,
+come in power: mark ye the words. 'Twill make a peal that will be heard
+in toon and desert, in the swirls o' the mountain, through pikes and
+valleys, and mak' a waaly man o' thee."
+
+The old man with these words, uttered in the broad northern dialect of
+his common speech, strode from the room and shut the door. In another
+minute he was forth into the storm, pursuing what remained of his long
+march to Pindar's Bield.
+
+"Upon my soul!" said Sir Bale, recovering from his sort of stun which
+the sudden and strange visit had left, "that's a cool old fellow! Come
+to rate me and teach me my own business in my own house!" and he rapped
+out a fierce oath. "Change his mind or no, here he sha'n't stay
+to-night--not an hour."
+
+Sir Bale was in the lobby in a moment, and thundered to his servants:
+
+"I say, put that fool out of the door--put him out by the shoulder, and
+never let him put his foot inside it more!"
+
+But the old man's yea was yea, and his nay nay. He had quite meant what
+he said; and, as I related, was beyond the reach of the indignity of
+extrusion.
+
+Sir Bale on his return shut his door as violently as if it were in the
+face of the old prophet.
+
+"Ask Feltram's pardon, by Jove! For what? Why, any jury on earth would
+have hanged him on half the evidence; and I, like a fool, was going to
+let him off with his liberty and my hundred pound-note! Ask his pardon
+indeed!"
+
+Still there were misgivings in his mind; a consciousness that he did owe
+explanation and apology to Feltram, and an insurmountable reluctance to
+undertake either. The old dislike--a contempt mingled with fear--not any
+fear of his malevolence, a fear only of his carelessness and folly; for,
+as I have said, Feltram knew many things, it was believed, of the
+Baronet's Continental and Asiatic life, and had even gently remonstrated
+with him upon the dangers into which he was running. A simple fellow
+like Philip Feltram is a dangerous depository of a secret. This Baronet
+was proud, too; and the mere possession of his secrets by Feltram was an
+involuntary insult, which Sir Bale could not forgive. He wished him far
+away; and except for the recovery of his bank-note, which he could ill
+spare, he was sorry that this suspicion was cleared up.
+
+The thunder and storm were unabated; it seemed indeed that they were
+growing wilder and more awful.
+
+He opened the window-shutter and looked out upon that sublimest of
+scenes; and so intense and magnificent were its phenomena, that Sir
+Bale, for a while, was absorbed in this contemplation.
+
+When he turned about, the sight of his L100 note, still between his
+finger and thumb, made him smile grimly.
+
+The more he thought of it, the clearer it was that he could not leave
+matters exactly as they were. Well, what should he do? He would send for
+Mrs. Julaper, and tell her vaguely that he had changed his mind about
+Feltram, and that he might continue to stay at Mardykes Hall as usual.
+That would suffice. She could speak to Feltram.
+
+He sent for her; and soon, in the lulls of the great uproar without, he
+could hear the jingle of Mrs. Julaper's keys and her light tread upon
+the lobby.
+
+"Mrs. Julaper," said the Baronet, in his dry careless way, "Feltram may
+remain; your eloquence has prevailed. What have you been crying about?"
+he asked, observing that his housekeeper's usually cheerful face was, in
+her own phrase, 'all cried.'
+
+"It is too late, sir; he's gone."
+
+"And when did he go?" asked Sir Bale, a little put out. "He chose an odd
+evening, didn't he? So like him!"
+
+"He went about half an hour ago; and I'm very sorry, sir; it's a sore
+sight to see the poor lad going from the place he was reared in, and a
+hard thing, sir; and on such a night, above all."
+
+"No one asked him to go to-night. Where is he gone to?"
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure; he left my room, sir, when I was upstairs; and
+Janet saw him pass the window not ten minutes after Mr. Creswell left
+the house."
+
+"Well, then, there's no good, Mrs. Julaper, in thinking more about it;
+he has settled the matter his own way; and as he so ordains it--amen,
+say I. Goodnight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Adventure in Tom Marlin's Boat
+
+Philip Feltram was liked very well--a gentle, kindly, and very timid
+creature, and, before he became so heart-broken, a fellow who liked a
+joke or a pleasant story, and could laugh heartily. Where will Sir Bale
+find so unresisting and respectful a butt and retainer? and whom will he
+bully now?
+
+Something like remorse was worrying Sir Bale's heart a little; and the
+more he thought on the strange visit of Hugh Creswell that night, with
+its unexplained menace, the more uneasy he became.
+
+The storm continued; and even to him there seemed something exaggerated
+and inhuman in the severity of his expulsion on such a night. It was his
+own doing, it was true; but would people believe that? and would he have
+thought of leaving Mardykes at all if it had not been for his kinsman's
+severity? Nay, was it not certain that if Sir Bale had done as Hugh
+Creswell had urged him, and sent for Feltram forthwith, and told him how
+all had been cleared up, and been a little friendly with him, he would
+have found him still in the house?--for he had not yet gone for ten
+minutes after Creswell's departure, and thus, all that was to follow
+might have been averted. But it was too late now, and Sir Bale would let
+the affair take its own course.
+
+Below him, outside the window at which he stood ruminating, he heard
+voices mingling with the storm. He could with tolerable certainty
+perceive, looking into the obscurity, that there were three men passing
+close under it, carrying some very heavy burden among them.
+
+He did not know what these three black figures in the obscurity were
+about. He saw them pass round the corner of the building toward the
+front, and in the lulls of the storm could hear their gruff voices
+talking.
+
+We have all experienced what a presentiment is, and we all know with
+what an intuition the faculty of observation is sometimes heightened. It
+was such an apprehension as sometimes gives its peculiar horror to a
+dream--a sort of knowledge that what those people were about was in a
+dreadful way connected with his own fate.
+
+He watched for a time, thinking that they might return; but they did
+not. He was in a state of uncomfortable suspense.
+
+"If they want me, they won't have much trouble in finding me, nor any
+scruple, egad, in plaguing me; they never have."
+
+Sir Bale returned to his letters, a score of which he was that night
+getting off his conscience--an arrear which would not have troubled him
+had he not ceased, for two or three days, altogether to employ Philip
+Feltram, who had been accustomed to take all that sort of drudgery off
+his hands.
+
+All the time he was writing now he had a feeling that the shadows he had
+seen pass under his window were machinating some trouble for him, and an
+uneasy suspense made him lift his eyes now and then to the door,
+fancying sounds and footsteps; and after a resultless wait he would say
+to himself, "If any one is coming, why the devil don't he come?" and
+then he would apply himself again to his letters.
+
+But on a sudden he heard good Mrs. Julaper's step trotting along the
+lobby, and the tiny ringing of her keys.
+
+Here was news coming; and the Baronet stood up looking at the door, on
+which presently came a hurried rapping; and before he had answered, in
+the midst of a long thunder-clap that suddenly broke, rattling over the
+house, the good woman opened the door in great agitation, and cried with
+a tremulous uplifting of her hands.
+
+"O, Sir Bale! O, la, sir! here's poor dear Philip Feltram come home
+dead!"
+
+Sir Bale stared at her sternly for some seconds.
+
+"Gome, now, do be distinct," said Sir Bale; "what has happened?"
+
+"He's lying on the sofer in the old still-room. You never saw--my
+God!--O, sir--what is life?"
+
+"D--n it, can't you cry by-and-by, and tell me what's the matter now?"
+
+"A bit o' fire there, as luck would have it; but what is hot or cold
+now? La, sir, they're all doin' what they can; he's drowned, sir, and
+Tom Warren is on the gallop down to Golden Friars for Doctor Torvey."
+
+"_Is_ he drowned, or is it only a ducking? Come, bring me to the place.
+Dead men don't usually want a fire, or consult doctors. I'll see for
+myself."
+
+So Sir Bale Mardykes, pale and grim, accompanied by the light-footed
+Mrs. Julaper, strode along the passages, and was led by her into the old
+still-room, which had ceased to be used for its original purpose. All
+the servants in the house were now collected there, and three men also
+who lived by the margin of the lake; one of them thoroughly drenched,
+with rivulets of water still trickling from his sleeves, water along the
+wrinkles and pockets of his waistcoat and from the feet of his trousers,
+and pumping and oozing from his shoes, and streaming from his hair down
+the channels of his cheeks like a continuous rain of tears.
+
+The people drew back a little as Sir Bale entered with a quick step and
+a sharp pallid frown on his face. There was a silence as he stooped over
+Philip Feltram, who lay on a low bed next the wall, dimly lighted by two
+or three candles here and there about the room.
+
+He laid his hand, for a moment, on his cold wet breast.
+
+Sir Bale knew what should be done in order to give a man in such a case
+his last chance for life. Everybody was speedily put in motion. Philip's
+drenched clothes were removed, hot blankets enveloped him, warming-pans
+and hot bricks lent their aid; he was placed at the prescribed angle, so
+that the water flowed freely from his mouth. The old expedient for
+inducing artificial breathing was employed, and a lusty pair of bellows
+did duty for his lungs.
+
+But these helps to life, and suggestions to nature, availed not. Forlorn
+and peaceful lay the features of poor Philip Feltram; cold and dull to
+the touch; no breath through the blue lips; no sight in the fish-like
+eyes; pulseless and cold in the midst of all the hot bricks and
+warming-pans about him.
+
+At length, everything having been tried, Sir Bale, who had been
+directing, placed his hand within the clothes, and laid it silently on
+Philip's shoulder and over his heart; and after a little wait, he shook
+his head, and looking down on his sunken face, he said,
+
+"I am afraid he's gone. Yes, he's gone, poor fellow! And bear you this
+in mind, all of you; Mrs. Julaper there can tell you more about it. She
+knows that it was certainly in no compliance with my wish that he left
+the house to-night: it was his own obstinate perversity, and perhaps--I
+forgive him for it--a wish in his unreasonable resentment to throw some
+blame upon this house, as having refused him shelter on such a night;
+than which imputation nothing can be more utterly false. Mrs. Julaper
+there knows how welcome he was to stay the night; but he would not; he
+had made up his mind, it seems, without telling any person. Had he told
+you, Mrs. Julaper?"
+
+"No, sir," sobbed Mrs. Julaper from the centre of a pocket-handkerchief
+in which her face was buried.
+
+"Not a human being: an angry whim of his own. Poor Feltram! and here's
+the result," said the Baronet. "We have done our best--done everything.
+I don't think the doctor, when he comes, will say that anything has been
+omitted; but all won't do. Does any one here know how it happened?"
+
+Two men knew very well--the man who had been ducked, and his companion,
+a younger man, who was also in the still-room, and had lent a hand in
+carrying Feltram up to the house.
+
+Tom Marlin had a queer old stone tenement by the edge of the lake just
+under Mardykes Hall. Some people said it was the stump of an old tower
+that had once belonged to Mardykes Castle, of which in the modern
+building scarcely a relic was discoverable.
+
+This Tom Marlin had an ancient right of fishing in the lake, where he
+caught pike enough for all Golden Friars; and keeping a couple of boats,
+he made money beside by ferrying passengers over now and then. This
+fellow, with a furrowed face and shaggy eyebrows, bald at top, but with
+long grizzled locks falling upon his shoulders, said,
+
+"He wer wi' me this mornin', sayin' he'd want t' boat to cross the lake
+in, but he didn't say what hour; and when it came on to thunder and blow
+like this, ye guess I did not look to see him to-night. Well, my wife
+was just lightin' a pig-tail--tho' light enough and to spare there was
+in the lift already--when who should come clatterin' at the latch-pin in
+the blow o' thunder and wind but Philip, poor lad, himself; and an ill
+hour for him it was. He's been some time in ill fettle, though he was
+never frowsy, not he, but always kind and dooce, and canty once, like
+anither; and he asked me to tak the boat across the lake at once to the
+Clough o' Cloostedd at t'other side. The woman took the pet and wodn't
+hear o't; and, 'Dall me, if I go to-night,' quoth I. But he would not be
+put off so, not he; and dingdrive he went to it, cryin' and putrein'
+ye'd a-said, poor fellow, he was wrang i' his garrets a'most. So at long
+last I bethought me, there's nout o' a sea to the north o' Snakes
+Island, so I'll pull him by that side--for the storm is blowin' right up
+by Golden Friars, ye mind--and when we get near the point, thinks I,
+he'll see wi' his een how the lake is, and gie it up. For I liked him,
+poor lad; and seein' he'd set his heart on't, I wouldn't vex nor frump
+him wi' a no. So down we three--myself, and Bill there, and Philip
+Feltram--come to the boat; and we pulled out, keeping Snakes Island
+atwixt us and the wind. 'Twas smooth water wi' us, for 'twas a scug
+there, but white enough was all beyont the point; and passing the
+finger-stone, not forty fathom from the shore o' the island, Bill and me
+pullin' and he sittin' in the stern, poor lad, up he rises, a bit
+rabblin' to himself, wi' his hands lifted so.
+
+"'Look a-head!' says I, thinkin' something wos comin' atort us.
+
+"But 'twasn't that. The boat was quiet, for while we looked, oo'er our
+shouthers, oo'er her bows, we didn't pull, so she lay still; and lookin'
+back again on Philip, he was rabblin' on all the same.
+
+"'It's nobbut a prass wi' himsel", poor lad,' thinks I.
+
+"But that wasn't it neither; for I sid something white come out o' t'
+water, by the gunwale, like a hand. By Jen! and he leans oo'er and tuk
+it; and he sagged like, and so it drew him in, under the mere, before I
+cud du nout. There was nout to thraa tu him, and no time; down he went,
+and I followed; and thrice I dived before I found him, and brought him
+up by the hair at last; and there he is, poor lad! and all one if he lay
+at the bottom o' t' mere."
+
+As Tom Marlin ended his narrative--often interrupted by the noise of the
+tempest without, and the peals of thunder that echoed awfully above,
+like the chorus of a melancholy ballad--the sudden clang of the
+hall-door bell, and a more faintly-heard knocking, announced a new
+arrival.
+
+[Illustration: "I sid something white come out o' t' water, by the
+gunwale, like a hand."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Sir Bale's Dream
+
+It was Doctor Torvey who entered the old still-room now, buttoned-up to
+the chin in his greatcoat, and with a muffler of many colours wrapped
+partly over that feature.
+
+"Well!--hey? So poor Feltram's had an accident?"
+
+The Doctor was addressing Sir Bale, and getting to the bedside as he
+pulled off his gloves.
+
+"I see you've been keeping him warm--that's right; and a considerable
+flow of water from his mouth; turn him a little that way. Hey? O, ho!"
+said the Doctor, as he placed his hand upon Philip, and gently stirred
+his limbs. "It's more than an hour since this happened. I'm afraid
+there's very little to be done now;" and in a lower tone, with his hand
+on poor Philip Feltram's arm, and so down to his fingers, he said in Sir
+Bale Mardykes' ear, with a shake of his head,
+
+"Here, you see, poor fellow, here's the cadaveric stiffness; it's very
+melancholy, but it's all over, he's gone; there's no good trying any
+more. Come here, Mrs. Julaper. Did you ever see any one dead? Look at
+his eyes, look at his mouth. You ought to have known that, with half an
+eye. And you know," he added again confidentially in Sir Bale's ear,
+"trying any more _now_ is all my eye."
+
+Then after a few more words with the Baronet, and having heard his
+narrative, he said from time to time, "Quite right; nothing could be
+better; capital practice, sir," and so forth. And at the close of all
+this, amid the sobs of kind Mrs. Julaper and the general whimpering of
+the humbler handmaids, the Doctor standing by the bed, with his knuckles
+on the coverlet, and a glance now and then on the dead face beside him,
+said--by way of 'quieting men's minds,' as the old tract-writers used to
+say--a few words to the following effect:
+
+"Everything has been done here that the most experienced physician could
+have wished. Everything has been done in the best way. I don't know
+anything that has not been done, in fact. If I had been here myself, I
+don't know--hot bricks--salt isn't a bad thing. I don't know, I say,
+that anything of any consequence has been omitted." And looking at the
+body, "You see," and he drew the fingers a little this way and that,
+letting them return, as they stiffly did, to their former attitude, "you
+may be sure that the poor gentleman was quite dead by the time he
+arrived here. So, since he was laid there, nothing has been lost by
+delay. And, Sir Bale, if you have any directions to send to Golden
+Friars, sir, I shall be most happy to undertake your message."
+
+"Nothing, thanks; it is a melancholy ending, poor fellow! You must come
+to the study with me, Doctor Torvey, and talk a little bit more;
+and--very sad, doctor--and you must have a glass of sherry, or some
+port--the port used not to be bad here; I don't take it--but very
+melancholy it is--bring some port and sherry; and, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+be good enough to see that everything that should be done here is looked
+to; and let Marlin and the men have supper and something to drink. You
+have been too long in your wet clothes, Marlin."
+
+So, with gracious words all round, he led the Doctor to the library
+where he had been sitting, and was affable and hospitable, and told him
+his own version of all that had passed between him and Philip Feltram,
+and presented himself in an amiable point of view, and pleased the
+Doctor with his port and flatteries--for he could not afford to lose
+anyone's good word just now; and the Doctor was a bit of a gossip, and
+in most houses in that region, in one character or another, every three
+months in the year.
+
+So in due time the Doctor drove back to Golden Friars, with a high
+opinion of Sir Bale, and higher still of his port, and highest of all of
+himself: in the best possible humour with the world, not minding the
+storm that blew in his face, and which he defied in good-humoured
+mock-heroics spoken in somewhat thick accents, and regarding the thunder
+and lightning as a lively gala of fireworks; and if there had been a
+chance of finding his cronies still in the George and Dragon, he would
+have been among them forthwith, to relate the tragedy of the night, and
+tell what a good fellow, after all, Sir Bale was; and what a fool, at
+best, poor Philip Feltram.
+
+But the George was quiet for that night. The thunder rolled over
+voiceless chambers; and the lights had been put out within the windows,
+on whose multitudinous small panes the lightning glared. So the Doctor
+went home to Mrs. Torvey, whom he charmed into good-humoured curiosity
+by the tale of wonder he had to relate.
+
+Sir Bale's qualms were symptomatic of something a little less sublime
+and more selfish than conscience. He was not sorry that Philip Feltram
+was out of the way. His lips might begin to babble inconveniently at any
+time, and why should not his mouth be stopped? and what stopper so
+effectual as that plug of clay which fate had introduced? But he did not
+want to be charged with the odium of the catastrophe. Every man cares
+something for the opinion of his fellows. And seeing that Feltram had
+been well liked, and that his death had excited a vehement
+commiseration, Sir Bale did not wish it to be said that he had made the
+house too hot to hold him, and had so driven him to extremity.
+
+Sir Bale's first agitation had subsided. It was now late, he had written
+many letters, and he was tired. It was not wonderful, then, that having
+turned his lounging-chair to the fire, he should have fallen asleep in
+it, as at last he did.
+
+The storm was passing gradually away by this time. The thunder was now
+echoing among the distant glens and gorges of Daulness Fells, and the
+angry roar and gusts of the tempest were subsiding into the melancholy
+soughing and piping that soothe like a lullaby.
+
+Sir Bale therefore had his unpremeditated sleep very comfortably, except
+that his head was hanging a little uneasily; which, perhaps, helped him
+to this dream.
+
+It was one of those dreams in which the continuity of the waking state
+that immediately preceded it seems unbroken; for he thought that he was
+sitting in the chair which he occupied, and in the room where he
+actually was. It seemed to him that he got up, took a candle in his
+hand, and went through the passages to the old still-room where Philip
+Feltram lay. The house seemed perfectly still. He could hear the chirp
+of the crickets faintly from the distant kitchen, and the tick of the
+clock sounded loud and hollow along the passage. In the old still-room,
+as he opened the door, was no light, except what was admitted from the
+candle he carried. He found the body of poor Philip Feltram just as he
+had left it--his gentle face, saddened by the touch of death, was turned
+upwards, with white lips: with traces of suffering fixed in its
+outlines, such as caused Sir Bale, standing by the bed, to draw the
+coverlet over the dead man's features, which seemed silently to upbraid
+him. "Gone in weakness!" said Sir Bale, repeating the words of the "daft
+sir," Hugh Creswell; as he did so, a voice whispered near him, with a
+great sigh, "Come in power!" He looked round, in his dream, but there
+was no one; the light seemed to fail, and a horror slowly overcame him,
+especially as he thought he saw the figure under the coverlet stealthily
+beginning to move. Backing towards the door, for he could not take his
+eyes off it, he saw something like a huge black ape creep out at the
+foot of the bed; and springing at him, it griped him by the throat, so
+that he could not breathe; and a thousand voices were instantly round
+him, holloaing, cursing, laughing in his ears; and in this direful
+plight he waked.
+
+Was it the ring of those voices still in his ears, or a real shriek, and
+another, and a long peal, shriek after shriek, swelling madly through
+the distant passages, that held him still, freezing in the horror of his
+dream?
+
+I will tell you what this noise was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Marcella Bligh and Judith Wale Keep Watch
+
+After his bottle of port with Sir Bale, the Doctor had gone down again
+to the room where poor Philip Feltram lay.
+
+Mrs. Julaper had dried her eyes, and was busy by this time; and two old
+women were making all their arrangements for a night-watch by the body,
+which they had washed, and, as their phrase goes, 'laid out' in the
+humble bed where it had lain while there was still a hope that a spark
+sufficient to rekindle the fire of life might remain. These old women
+had points of resemblance: they were lean, sallow, and wonderfully
+wrinkled, and looked each malign and ugly enough for a witch.
+
+Marcella Bligh's thin hooked nose was now like the beak of a bird of
+prey over the face of the drowned man, upon whose eyelids she was
+placing penny-pieces, to keep them from opening; and her one eye was
+fixed on her work, its sightless companion showing white in its socket,
+with an ugly leer.
+
+Judith Wale was lifting the pail of hot water with which they had just
+washed the body. She had long lean arms, a hunched back, a great sharp
+chin sunk on her hollow breast, and small eyes restless as a ferret's;
+and she clattered about in great bowls of shoes, old and clouted, that
+were made for a foot as big as two of hers.
+
+The Doctor knew these two old women, who were often employed in such
+dismal offices.
+
+"How does Mrs. Bligh? See me with half an eye? Hey--that's rhyme, isn't
+it?--And, Judy lass--why, I thought you lived nearer the town--here
+making poor Mr. Feltram's last toilet. You have helped to dress many a
+poor fellow for his last journey. Not a bad notion of drill either--they
+stand at attention stiff and straight enough in the sentry-box. Your
+recruits do you credit, Mrs. Wale."
+
+The Doctor stood at the foot of the bed to inspect, breathing forth a
+vapour of very fine old port, his hands in his pockets, speaking with a
+lazy thickness, and looking so comfortable and facetious, that Mrs.
+Julaper would have liked to turn him out of the room.
+
+But the Doctor was not unkind, only extremely comfortable. He was a
+good-natured fellow, and had thought and care for the living, but not a
+great deal of sentiment for the dead, whom he had looked in the face too
+often to be much disturbed by the spectacle.
+
+"You'll have to keep that bandage on. You should be sharp; you should
+know all about it, girl, by this time, and not let those muscles
+stiffen. I need not tell you the mouth shuts as easily as this
+snuff-box, if you only take it in time.--I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you'll
+send to Jos Fringer for the poor fellow's outfit. Fringer is a very
+proper man--there ain't a properer und-aker in England. I always
+re-mmend Fringer--in Church-street in Golden Friars. You know Fringer, I
+daresay."
+
+"I can't say, sir, I'm sure. That will be as Sir Bale may please to
+direct," answered Mrs. Julaper.
+
+"You've got him very straight--straighter than I thought you could; but
+the large joints were not so stiff. A very little longer wait, and you'd
+hardly have got him into his coffin. He'll want a vr-r-ry long one, poor
+lad. Short cake is life, ma'am. Sad thing this. They'll open their eyes,
+I promise you, down in the town. 'Twill be cool enough, I'd shay, affre
+all th-thunr-thunnle, you know. I think I'll take a nip, Mrs. Jool-fr,
+if you wouldn't mine makin' me out a thimmle-ful bran-band-bran-rand-andy,
+eh, Mishs Joolfr?"
+
+And the Doctor took a chair by the fire; and Mrs. Julaper, with a
+dubious conscience and dry hospitality, procured the brandy-flask and
+wine-glass, and helped the physician in a thin hesitating stream, which
+left him ample opportunity to cry "Hold--enough!" had he been so minded.
+But that able physician had no confidence, it would seem, in any dose
+under a bumper, which he sipped with commendation, and then fell asleep
+with the firelight on his face--to tender-hearted Mrs. Julaper's
+disgust--and snored with a sensual disregard of the solemnity of his
+situation; until with a profound nod, or rather dive, toward the fire,
+he awoke, got up and shook his ears with a kind of start, and standing
+with his back to the fire, asked for his muffler and horse; and so took
+his leave also of the weird sisters, who were still pottering about the
+body, with croak and whisper, and nod and ogle. He took his leave also
+of good Mrs. Julaper, who was completing arrangements with teapot and
+kettle, spiced elderberry wine, and other comforts, to support them
+through their proposed vigil. And finally, in a sort of way, he took his
+leave of the body, with a long business-like stare, from the foot of the
+bed, with his short hands stuffed into his pockets. And so, to Mrs.
+Julaper's relief, this unseemly doctor, speaking thickly, departed.
+
+And now, the Doctor being gone, and all things prepared for the 'wake'
+to be observed by withered Mrs. Bligh of the one eye, and yellow Mrs.
+Wale of the crooked back, the house grew gradually still. The thunder
+had by this time died into the solid boom of distant battle, and the
+fury of the gale had subsided to the long sobbing wail that is charged
+with so eerie a melancholy. Within all was stirless, and the two old
+women, each a 'Mrs.' by courtesy, who had not much to thank Nature or
+the world for, sad and cynical, and in a sort outcasts told off by
+fortune to these sad and grizzly services, sat themselves down by the
+fire, each perhaps feeling unusually at home in the other's society; and
+in this soured and forlorn comfort, trimming their fire, quickening the
+song of the kettle to a boil, and waxing polite and chatty; each
+treating the other with that deprecatory and formal courtesy which
+invites a return in kind, and both growing strangely happy in this
+little world of their own, in the unusual and momentary sense of an
+importance and consideration which were delightful.
+
+The old still-room of Mardykes Hall is an oblong room wainscoted. From
+the door you look its full length to the wide stone-shafted Tudor window
+at the other end. At your left is the ponderous mantelpiece, supported
+by two spiral stone pillars; and close to the door at the right was the
+bed in which the two crones had just stretched poor Philip Feltram, who
+lay as still as an uncoloured wax-work, with a heavy penny-piece on each
+eye, and a bandage under his jaw, making his mouth look stern. And the
+two old ladies over their tea by the fire conversed agreeably, compared
+their rheumatisms and other ailments wordily, and talked of old times,
+and early recollections, and of sick-beds they had attended, and corpses
+that "you would not know, so pined and windered" were they; and others
+so fresh and canny, you'd say the dead had never looked so bonny in
+life.
+
+Then they began to talk of people who grew tall in their coffins, of
+others who had been buried alive, and of others who walked after death.
+Stories as true as holy writ.
+
+"Were you ever down by Hawarth, Mrs. Bligh--hard by Dalworth Moss?"
+asked crook-backed Mrs. Wale, holding her spoon suspended over her cup.
+
+"Neea whaar sooa far south, Mrs. Wale, ma'am; but ma father was off
+times down thar cuttin' peat."
+
+"Ah, then ye'll not a kenned farmer Dykes that lived by the Lin-tree
+Scaur. 'Tweer I that laid him out, poor aad fellow, and a dow man he was
+when aught went cross wi' him; and he cursed and sweared, twad gar ye
+dodder to hear him. They said he was a hard man wi' some folk; but he
+kep a good house, and liked to see plenty, and many a time when I was
+swaimous about my food, he'd clap t' meat on ma plate, and mak' me eat
+ma fill. Na, na--there was good as well as bad in farmer Dykes. It was a
+year after he deed, and Tom Ettles was walking home, down by the Birken
+Stoop one night, and not a soul nigh, when he sees a big ball, as high
+as his knee, whirlin' and spangin' away before him on the road. What it
+wer he could not think; but he never consayted there was a freet or a bo
+thereaway; so he kep near it, watching every spang and turn it took,
+till it ran into the gripe by the roadside. There was a gravel pit just
+there, and Tom Ettles wished to take another gliff at it before he went
+on. But when he keeked into the pit, what should he see but a man
+attoppa a horse that could not get up or on: and says he, 'I think ye be
+at a dead-lift there, gaffer.' And wi' the word, up looks the man, and
+who sud it be but farmer Dykes himsel; and Tom Ettles saw him plain
+eneugh, and kenned the horse too for Black Captain, the farmer's aad
+beast, that broke his leg and was shot two years and more before the
+farmer died. 'Ay,' says farmer Dykes, lookin' very bad;
+'forsett-and-backsett, ye'll tak me oot, Tom Ettles, and clap ye doun
+behint me quick, or I'll claw ho'd o' thee.' Tom felt his hair risin'
+stiff on his heed, and his tongue so fast to the roof o' his mouth he
+could scarce get oot a word; but says he, 'If Black Jack can't do it o'
+noo, he'll ne'er do't and carry double.' 'I ken my ain business best,'
+says Dykes. 'If ye gar me gie ye a look, 'twill gie ye the creepin's
+while ye live; so git ye doun, Tom;' and with that the dobby lifts its
+neaf, and Tom saw there was a red light round horse and man, like the
+glow of a peat fire. And says Tom, 'In the name o' God, ye'll let me
+pass;' and with the word the gooast draws itsel' doun, all a-creaked,
+like a man wi' a sudden pain; and Tom Ettles took to his heels more deed
+than alive."
+
+They had approached their heads, and the story had sunk to that
+mysterious murmur that thrills the listener, when in the brief silence
+that followed they heard a low odd laugh near the door.
+
+In that direction each lady looked aghast, and saw Feltram sitting
+straight up in the bed, with the white bandage in his hand, and as it
+seemed, for one foot was below the coverlet, near the floor, about to
+glide forth.
+
+Mrs. Bligh, uttering a hideous shriek, clutched Mrs. Wale, and Mrs.
+Wale, with a scream as dreadful, gripped Mrs. Bligh; and quite
+forgetting their somewhat formal politeness, they reeled and tugged,
+wrestling towards the window, each struggling to place her companion
+between her and the 'dobby,' and both uniting in a direful peal of
+yells.
+
+This was the uproar which had startled Sir Bale from his dream, and was
+now startling the servants from theirs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The Mist on the Mountain
+
+Doctor Torvey was sent for early next morning, and came full of wonder,
+learning and scepticism. Seeing is believing, however; and there was
+Philip Feltram living, and soon to be, in all bodily functions, just as
+usual.
+
+"Upon my soul, Sir Bale, I couldn't have believed it, if I had not seen
+it with my eyes," said the Doctor impressively, while sipping a glass of
+sherry in the 'breakfast parlour,' as the great panelled and pictured
+room next the dining-room was called. "I don't think there is any
+similar case on record--no pulse, no more than the poker; no
+respiration, by Jove, no more than the chimney-piece; as cold as a lead
+image in the garden there. Well, you'll say all that might possibly be
+fallacious; but what will you say to the cadaveric stiffness? Old Judy
+Wale can tell you; and my friend Marcella--Monocula would be nearer the
+mark--Mrs. Bligh, she knows all those common, and I may say up to this,
+infallible, signs of death, as well as I do. There is no mystery about
+them; they'll depose to the literality of the symptoms. You heard how
+they gave tongue. Upon my honour, I'll send the whole case up to my old
+chief, Sir Hervey Hansard, to London. You'll hear what a noise it will
+make among the profession. There never was--and it ain't too much to
+say there never _will_ be--another case like it."
+
+During this lecture, and a great deal more, Sir Bale leaned back in his
+chair, with his legs extended, his heels on the ground, and his arms
+folded, looking sourly up in the face of a tall lady in white satin, in
+a ruff, and with a bird on her hand, who smiled down superciliously from
+her frame on the Baronet. Sir Bale seemed a little bit high and dry with
+the Doctor.
+
+"You physicians are unquestionably," he said, "a very learned
+profession."
+
+The Doctor bowed.
+
+"But there's just one thing you know nothing about----"
+
+"Eh? What's that?" inquired Doctor Torvey.
+
+"Medicine," answered Sir Bale. "I was aware you never knew what was the
+matter with a sick man; but I didn't know, till now, that you couldn't
+tell when he was dead."
+
+"Ha, ha!--well--ha, ha!--_yes_--well, you see, you--ha, ha!--you
+certainly have me there. But it's a case without a parallel--it is, upon
+my honour. You'll find it will not only be talked about, but written
+about; and, whatever papers appear upon it, will come to me; and I'll
+take care, Sir Bale, you shall have an opportunity of reading them."
+
+"Of which I shan't avail myself," answered Sir Bale. "Take another glass
+of sherry, Doctor."
+
+The Doctor made his acknowledgments and filled his glass, and looked
+through the wine between him and the window.
+
+"Ha, ha!--see there, your port, Sir Bale, gives a fellow such
+habits--looking for the beeswing, by Jove. It isn't easy, in one sense
+at least, to get your port out of a fellow's head when once he has
+tasted it."
+
+But if the honest Doctor meant a hint for a glass of that admirable bin,
+it fell pointless; and Sir Bale had no notion of making another libation
+of that precious fluid in honour of Doctor Torvey.
+
+"And I take it for granted," said Sir Bale, "that Feltram will do very
+well; and, should anything go wrong, I can send for you--unless he
+should die again; and in that case I think I shall take my own opinion."
+
+So he and the Doctor parted.
+
+Sir Bale, although he did not consult the Doctor on his own case, was
+not particularly well. "That lonely place, those frightful mountains,
+and that damp black lake"--which features in the landscape he cursed all
+round--"are enough to give any man blue devils; and when a fellow's
+spirits go, he's all gone. That's why I'm dyspeptic--that and those
+d----d debts--and the post, with its flight of croaking and screeching
+letters from London. I wish there was no post here. I wish it was like
+Sir Amyrald's time, when they shot the York mercer that came to dun him,
+and no one ever took anyone to task about it; and now they can pelt you
+at any distance they please through the post; and fellows lose their
+spirits and their appetite and any sort of miserable comfort that is
+possible in this odious abyss."
+
+Was there gout in Sir Bale's case, or 'vapours'? I know not what the
+faculty would have called it; but Sir Bale's mode of treatment was
+simply to work off the attack by long and laborious walking.
+
+This evening his walk was upon the Fells of Golden Friars--long after
+the landscape below was in the eclipse of twilight, the broad bare sides
+and angles of these gigantic uplands were still lighted by the misty
+western sun.
+
+There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the
+silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the
+level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and
+colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a
+strange fear and elation--an ascent above the reach of life's vexations
+or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgiving.
+The filmy disc of the moon had risen in the east, and was already
+faintly silvering the shadowy scenery below, while yet Sir Bale stood in
+the mellow light of the western sun, which still touched also the
+summits of the opposite peaks of Morvyn Fells.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes did not, as a stranger might, in prudence, hasten his
+descent from the heights at which he stood while yet a gleam of daylight
+remained to him. For he was, from his boyhood, familiar with those
+solitary regions; and, beside this, the thin circle of the moon, hung in
+the eastern sky, would brighten as the sunlight sank, and hang like a
+lamp above his steps.
+
+There was in the bronzed and resolute face of the Baronet, lighted now
+in the parting beams of sunset, a resemblance to that of Charles the
+Second--not our "merry" ideal, but the more energetic and saturnine face
+which the portraits have preserved to us.
+
+He stood with folded arms on the side of the slope, admiring, in spite
+of his prejudice, the unusual effects of a view so strangely
+lighted--the sunset tints on the opposite peaks, lost in the misty
+twilight, now deepening lower down into a darker shade, through which
+the outlines of the stone gables and tower of Golden Friars and the
+light of fire or candle in their windows were dimly visible.
+
+As he stood and looked, his more distant sunset went down, and sudden
+twilight was upon him, and he began to remember the beautiful Homeric
+picture of a landscape coming out, rock and headland, in the moonlight.
+
+There had hung upon the higher summits, at his right, a heavy fold of
+white cloud, which on a sudden broke, and, like the smoke of artillery,
+came rolling down the slopes toward him. Its principal volume, however,
+unfolded itself in a mighty flood down the side of the mountain towards
+the lake; and that which spread towards and soon enveloped the ground on
+which he stood was by no means so dense a fog. A thick mist enough it
+was; but still, to a distance of twenty or thirty yards, he could
+discern the outline of a rock or scaur, but not beyond it.
+
+There are few sensations more intimidating than that of being thus
+enveloped on a lonely mountain-side, which, like this one, here and
+there breaks into precipice.
+
+There is another sensation, too, which affects the imagination.
+Overtaken thus on the solitary expanse, there comes a new chill and
+tremour as this treacherous medium surrounds us, through which
+unperceived those shapes which fancy conjures up might approach so near
+and bar our path.
+
+From the risk of being reduced to an actual standstill he knew he was
+exempt. The point from which the wind blew, light as it was, assured him
+of that. Still the mist was thick enough seriously to embarrass him. It
+had overtaken him as he was looking down upon the lake; and he now
+looked to his left, to try whether in that direction it was too thick to
+permit a view of the nearest landmarks. Through this white film he saw a
+figure standing only about five-and-twenty steps away, looking down, as
+it seemed, in precisely the same direction as he, quite motionless, and
+standing like a shadow projected upon the smoky vapour. It was the
+figure of a slight tall man, with his arm extended, as if pointing to a
+remote object, which no mortal eye certainly could discern through the
+mist. Sir Bale gazed at this figure, doubtful whether he were in a
+waking dream, unable to conjecture whence it had come; and as he looked,
+it moved, and was almost instantly out of sight.
+
+He descended the mountain cautiously. The mist was now thinner, and
+through the haze he was beginning to see objects more distinctly, and,
+without danger, to proceed at a quicker pace. He had still a long walk
+by the uplands towards Mardykes Hall before he descended to the level of
+the lake.
+
+The mist was still quite thick enough to circumscribe his view and to
+hide the general features of the landscape; and well was it, perhaps,
+for Sir Bale that his boyhood had familiarised him with the landmarks on
+the mountain-side.
+
+He had made nearly four miles on his solitary homeward way, when,
+passing under a ledge of rock which bears the name of the Cat's Skaitch,
+he saw the same figure in the short cloak standing within some thirty or
+forty yards of him--the thin curtain of mist, through which the
+moonlight touched it, giving to it an airy and unsubstantial character.
+
+Sir Bale came to a standstill. The man in the short cloak nodded and
+drew back, and was concealed by the angle of the rock.
+
+Sir Bale was now irritated, as men are after a start, and shouting to
+the stranger to halt, he 'slapped' after him, as the northern phrase
+goes, at his best pace. But again he was gone, and nowhere could he see
+him, the mist favouring his evasion.
+
+Looking down the fells that overhang Mardykes Hall, the mountain-side
+dips gradually into a glen, which, as it descends, becomes precipitous
+and wooded. A footpath through this ravine conducts the wayfarer to the
+level ground that borders the lake; and by this dark pass Sir Bale
+Mardykes strode, in comparatively clear air, along the rocky path
+dappled with moonlight.
+
+As he emerged upon the lower ground he again encountered the same
+figure. It approached. It was Philip Feltram.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+A New Philip Feltram
+
+The Baronet had not seen Feltram since his strange escape from death.
+His last interview with him had been stern and threatening; Sir Bale
+dealing with appearances in the spirit of an incensed judge, Philip
+Feltram lamenting in the submission of a helpless despair.
+
+Feltram was full in the moonlight now, standing erect, and smiling
+cynically on the Baronet.
+
+There was that in the bearing and countenance of Feltram that
+disconcerted him more than the surprise of the sudden meeting.
+
+He had determined to meet Feltram in a friendly way, whenever that not
+very comfortable interview became inevitable. But he was confused by the
+suddenness of Feltram's appearance; and the tone, cold and stern, in
+which he had last spoken to him came first, and he spoke in it after a
+brief silence.
+
+"I fancied, Mr. Feltram, you were in your bed; I little expected to find
+you here. I think the Doctor gave very particular directions, and said
+that you were to remain perfectly quiet."
+
+"But I know more than the Doctor," replied Feltram, still smiling
+unpleasantly.
+
+"I think, sir, you would have been better in your bed," said Sir Bale
+loftily.
+
+"Come, come, come, come!" exclaimed Philip Feltram contemptuously.
+
+[Illustration: It was the figure of a slight tall man, with his arm
+extended, as if pointing to a remote object.]
+
+"It seems to me," said Sir Bale, a good deal astonished, "you rather
+forget yourself."
+
+"Easier to forget oneself, Sir Bale, than to forgive others, at times,"
+replied Philip Feltram in his unparalleled mood.
+
+"That's the way fools knock themselves up," continued Sir Bale. "You've
+been walking ever so far--away to the Fells of Golden Friars. It was you
+whom I saw there. What d----d folly! What brought you there?"
+
+"To observe you," he replied.
+
+"And have you walked the whole way there and back again? How did you get
+there?"
+
+"Pooh! how did I come--how did you come--how did the fog come? From the
+lake, I suppose. We all come up, and then down." So spoke Philip
+Feltram, with serene insolence.
+
+"You are pleased to talk nonsense," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Because I like it--with a _meaning_."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him, not knowing whether to believe his eyes and
+ears. He did not know what to make of him.
+
+"I had intended speaking to you in a conciliatory way; you seem to wish
+to make that impossible"--Philip Feltram's face wore its repulsive
+smile;--"and in fact I don't know what to make of you, unless you are
+ill; and ill you well may be. You can't have walked much less than
+twelve miles."
+
+"Wonderful effort for me!" said Feltram with the same sneer.
+
+"Rather surprising for a man so nearly drowned," answered Sir Bale
+Mardykes.
+
+"A dip: you don't like the lake, sir; but I do. And so it is: as Antaeus
+touched the earth, so I the water, and rise refreshed."
+
+"I think you'd better get in and refresh there. I meant to tell you that
+all the unpleasantness about that bank-note is over."
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"Yes. It has been recovered by Mr. Creswell, who came here last night.
+I've got it, and you're not to blame," said Sir Bale.
+
+"But some one _is_ to blame," observed Mr. Feltram, smiling still.
+
+"Well, _you_ are not, and that ends it," said the Baronet peremptorily.
+
+
+"Ends it? Really, how good! how very good!"
+
+Sir Bale looked at him, for there was something ambiguous and even
+derisive in the tone of Feltram's voice.
+
+But before he could quite make up his mind, Feltram spoke again.
+
+"Everything is settled about you and me?"
+
+"There is nothing to prevent your staying at Mardykes now," said Sir
+Bale graciously.
+
+"I shall be with you for two years, and then I go on my travels,"
+answered Feltram, with a saturnine and somewhat wild look around him.
+
+"Is he going mad?" thought the Baronet.
+
+"But before I go, I'm to put you in a way of paying off your mortgages.
+That is my business here."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him sharply. But now there was not the unpleasant
+smile, but the darkened look of a man in secret pain.
+
+"You shall know it all by and by."
+
+And without more ceremony, and with a darkening face, Philip Feltram
+made his way under the boughs of the thick oaks that grew there, leaving
+on Sir Bale's mind an impression that he had been watching some one at a
+distance, and had gone in consequence of a signal.
+
+In a few seconds he followed in the same direction, halloaing after
+Feltram; for he did not like the idea of his wandering about the country
+by moonlight, or possibly losing his life among the precipices, and
+bringing a new discredit upon his house. But no answer came; nor could
+he in that thick copse gain sight of him again.
+
+When Sir Bale reached Mardykes Hall he summoned Mrs. Julaper, and had a
+long talk with her. But she could not say that there appeared anything
+amiss with Philip Feltram; only he seemed more reserved, and as if he
+was brooding over something he did not intend to tell.
+
+"But, you know, Sir Bale, what happened might well make a thoughtful man
+of him. If he's ever to think of Death, it should be after looking him
+so hard in the face; and I'm not ashamed to say, I'm glad to see he has
+grace to take the lesson, and I hope his experiences may be sanctified
+to him, poor fellow! Amen."
+
+"Very good song, and very well sung," said Sir Bale; "but it doesn't
+seem to me that he has been improved, Mrs. Julaper. He seems, on the
+contrary, in a queer temper and anything but a heavenly frame of mind;
+and I thought I'd ask you, because if he is ill--I mean feverish--it
+might account for his eccentricities, as well as make it necessary to
+send after him, and bring him home, and put him to bed. But I suppose it
+is as you say,--his adventure has upset him a little, and he'll sober in
+a day or two, and return to his old ways."
+
+But this did not happen. A change, more comprehensive than at first
+appeared, had taken place, and a singular alteration was gradually
+established.
+
+He grew thin, his eyes hollow, his face gradually forbidding.
+
+His ways and temper were changed: he was a new man with Sir Bale; and
+the Baronet after a time, people said, began to grow afraid of him. And
+certainly Feltram had acquired an extraordinary influence over the
+Baronet, who a little while ago had regarded and treated him with so
+much contempt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The Purse of Gold
+
+The Baronet was very slightly known in his county. He had led a reserved
+and inhospitable life. He was pressed upon by heavy debts; and being a
+proud man, held aloof from society and its doings. He wished people to
+understand that he was nursing his estate; but somehow the estate did
+not thrive at nurse. In the country other people's business is admirably
+well known; and the lord of Mardykes was conscious, perhaps, that his
+neighbours knew as well he did, that the utmost he could do was to pay
+the interest charged upon it, and to live in a frugal way enough.
+
+The lake measures some four or five miles across, from the little jetty
+under the walls of Mardykes Hall to Cloostedd.
+
+Philip Feltram, changed and morose, loved a solitary row upon the lake;
+and sometimes, with no one to aid him in its management, would take the
+little sailboat and pass the whole day upon those lonely waters.
+
+Frequently he crossed to Cloostedd; and mooring the boat under the
+solemn trees that stand reflected in that dark mirror, he would
+disembark and wander among the lonely woodlands, as people thought,
+cherishing in those ancestral scenes the memory of ineffaceable
+injuries, and the wrath and revenge that seemed of late to darken his
+countenance, and to hold him always in a moody silence.
+
+One autumnal evening Sir Bale Mardykes was sourly ruminating after his
+solitary meal. A very red sun was pouring its last low beams through the
+valley at the western extremity of the lake, across its elsewhere sombre
+waters, and touching with a sudden and blood-red tint the sail of the
+skiff in which Feltram was returning from his lonely cruise.
+
+"Here comes my domestic water-fiend," sneered Sir Bale, as he lay back
+in his cumbrous arm-chair. "Cheerful place, pleasant people, delicious
+fate! The place alone has been enough to set that fool out of his little
+senses, d--n him!"
+
+Sir Bale averted his eyes, and another subject not pleasanter entered
+his mind. He was thinking of the races that were coming off next week at
+Heckleston Downs, and what sums of money might be made there, and how
+hard it was that he should be excluded by fortune from that brilliant
+lottery.
+
+"Ah, Mrs. Julaper, is that you?"
+
+Mrs. Julaper, who was still at the door, curtsied, and said, "I came,
+Sir Bale, to see whether you'd please to like a jug of mulled claret,
+sir."
+
+"Not I, my dear. I'll take a mug of beer and my pipe; that homely solace
+better befits a ruined gentleman."
+
+"H'm, sir; you're not that, Sir Bale; you're no worse than half the
+lords and great men that are going. I would not hear another say that of
+you, sir."
+
+"That's very kind of you, Mrs. Julaper; but you won't call _me_ out for
+backbiting myself, especially as it is true, d----d true, Mrs. Julaper!
+Look ye; there never was a Mardykes here before but he could lay his
+hundred or his thousand pounds on the winner of the Heckleston Cup; and
+what could I bet? Little more than that mug of beer I spoke of. It was
+my great-grandfather who opened the course on the Downs of Heckleston,
+and now _I_ can't show there! Well, what must I do? Grin and bear it,
+that's all. If you please, Mrs. Julaper, I will have that jug of claret
+you offered. I want spice and hot wine to keep me alive; but I'll smoke
+my pipe first, and in an hour's time it will do."
+
+When Mrs. Julaper was gone, he lighted his pipe, and drew near the
+window, through which he looked upon the now fading sky and the twilight
+landscape.
+
+He smoked his pipe out, and by that time it had grown nearly dark. He
+was still looking out upon the faint outlines of the view, and thinking
+angrily what a little bit of luck at the races would do for many a man
+who probably did not want it half so much as he. Vague and sombre as his
+thoughts were, they had, like the darkening landscape outside, shape
+enough to define their general character. Bitter and impious they
+were--as those of egotistic men naturally are in suffering. And after
+brooding, and muttering by fits and starts, he said:
+
+"How many tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds will change hands at
+Heckleston next week; and not a shilling in all the change and shuffle
+will stick to me! How many a fellow would sell himself, like Dr.
+Faustus, just for the knowledge of the name of the winner! But he's no
+fool, and does not buy his own."
+
+Something caught his eye; something moving on the wall. The fire was
+lighted, and cast a flickering and gigantic shadow upward; the figure of
+a man standing behind Sir Bale Mardykes, on whose shoulder he placed a
+lean hand. Sir Bale turned suddenly about, and saw Philip Feltram. He
+was looking dark and stern, and did not remove his hand from his
+shoulder as he peered into the Baronet's face with his deep-set mad
+eyes.
+
+"Ha, Philip, upon my soul!" exclaimed Sir Bale, surprised. "How time
+flies! It seems only this minute since I saw the boat a mile and a half
+away from the shore. Well--yes; there has been time; it is dark now. Ha,
+ha! I assure you, you startled me. Won't you take something? Do. Shall I
+touch the bell?"
+
+"You have been troubled about those mortgages. I told you I should pay
+them off, I thought."
+
+Here there was a pause, and Sir Bale looked hard in Feltram's face. If
+he had been in his ordinary spirits, or perhaps in some of his haunts
+less solitary than Mardykes, he would have laughed; but here he had
+grown unlike himself, gloomy and credulous, and was, in fact, a nervous
+man.
+
+Sir Bale smiled, and shook his head dismally.
+
+"It is very kind of you, Feltram; the idea shows a kindly disposition. I
+know you would do me a kindness if you could."
+
+As Sir Bale, each looking in the other's eyes, repeated in this sentence
+the words "kind," "kindly," "kindness," a smile lighted Feltram's face
+with at each word an intenser light; and Sir Bale grew sombre in its
+glare; and when he had done speaking, Feltram's face also on a sudden
+darkened.
+
+"I have found a fortune-teller in Cloostedd Wood. Look here."
+
+And he drew from his pocket a leathern purse, which he placed on the
+table in his hand; and Sir Bale heard the pleasant clink of coin in it.
+
+"A fortune-teller! You don't mean to say she gave you that?" said Sir
+Bale.
+
+Feltram smiled again, and nodded.
+
+"It _was_ the custom to give the fortuneteller a trifle. It is a great
+improvement making _her_ fee you," observed Sir Bale, with an approach
+to his old manner.
+
+"He put that in my hand with a message," said Feltram.
+
+"He? O, then it was a male fortune-teller!"
+
+"Gipsies go in gangs, men and women. _He_ might lend, though _she_ told
+fortunes," said Feltram.
+
+"It's the first time I ever heard of gipsies lending money;" and he eyed
+the purse with a whimsical smile.
+
+With his lean fingers still holding it, Feltram sat down at the table.
+His face contracted as if in cunning thought, and his chin sank upon his
+breast as he leaned back.
+
+"I think," continued Sir Bale, "ever since they were spoiled, the
+Egyptians have been a little shy of lending, and leave that branch of
+business to the Hebrews."
+
+"What would you give to know, now, the winner at Heckleston races?" said
+Feltram suddenly, raising his eyes.
+
+"Yes; that would be worth something," answered Sir Bale, looking at him
+with more interest than the incredulity he affected would quite warrant.
+
+"And this money I have power to lend you, to make your game."
+
+"Do you mean that really?" said Sir Bale, with a new energy in tone,
+manner, and features.
+
+"That's heavy; there are some guineas there," said Feltram with a dark
+smile, raising the purse in his hand a little, and letting it drop upon
+the table with a clang.
+
+"There is _something_ there, at all events," said Sir Bale.
+
+Feltram took the purse by the bottom, and poured out on the table a
+handsome pile of guineas.
+
+"And do you mean to say you got all that from a gipsy in Cloostedd
+Wood?"
+
+"A friend, who is--_myself_," answered Philip Feltram.
+
+"Yourself! Then it is yours--_you_ lend it?" said the Baronet, amazed;
+for there was no getting over the heap of guineas, and the wonder was
+pretty equal whence they had come.
+
+"Myself, and not myself," said Feltram oracularly; "as like as voice and
+echo, man and shadow."
+
+Had Feltram in some of his solitary wanderings and potterings lighted
+upon hidden treasure? There was a story of two Feltrams of Cloostedd,
+brothers, who had joined the king's army and fought at Marston Moor,
+having buried in Cloostedd Wood a great deal of gold and plate and
+jewels. They had, it was said, intrusted one tried servant with the
+secret; and that servant remained at home. But by a perverse fatality
+the three witnesses had perished within a month: the two brothers at
+Marston Moor; and the confidant, of fever, at Cloostedd. From that day
+forth treasure-seekers had from time to time explored the woods of
+Cloostedd; and many a tree of mark was dug beside, and the earth beneath
+many a stone and scar and other landmark in that solitary forest was
+opened by night, until hope gradually died out, and the tradition had
+long ceased to prompt to action, and had become a story and nothing
+more.
+
+The image of the nursery-tale had now recurred to Sir Bale after so long
+a reach of years; and the only imaginable way, in his mind, of
+accounting for penniless Philip Feltram having all that gold in his
+possession was that, in some of his lonely wanderings, chance had led
+him to the undiscovered hoard of the two Feltrams who had died in the
+great civil wars.
+
+"Perhaps those gipsies you speak of found the money where you found
+them; and in that case, as Cloostedd Forest, and all that is in it is my
+property, their sending it to me is more like my servant's handing me my
+hat and stick when I'm going out, than making me a present."
+
+"You will not be wise to rely upon the law, Sir Bale, and to refuse the
+help that comes unasked. But if you like your mortgages as they are,
+keep them; and if you like my terms as they are, take them; and when you
+have made up your mind, let me know."
+
+Philip Feltram dropped the heavy purse into his capacious coat-pocket,
+and walked, muttering, out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The Message from Cloostedd
+
+"Come back, Feltram; come back, Philip!" cried Sir Bale hastily. "Let us
+talk, can't we? Come and talk this odd business over a little; you must
+have mistaken what I meant; I should like to hear all about it."
+
+"All is not much, sir," said Philip Feltram, entering the room again,
+the door of which he had half closed after him. "In the forest of
+Cloostedd I met to-day some people, one of whom can foretell events, and
+told me the names of the winners of the first three races at Heckleston,
+and gave me this purse, with leave to lend you so much money as you care
+to stake upon the races. I take no security; you shan't be troubled; and
+you'll never see the lender, unless you seek him out."
+
+"Well, those are not bad terms," said Sir Bale, smiling wistfully at the
+purse, which Feltram had again placed upon the table.
+
+"No, not bad," repeated Feltram, in the harsh low tone in which he now
+habitually spoke.
+
+"You'll tell me what the prophet said about the winners; I should like
+to hear their names."
+
+"The names I shall tell you if you walk out with me," said Feltram.
+
+"Why not here?" asked Sir Bale.
+
+"My memory does not serve me here so well. Some people, in some places,
+though they be silent, obstruct thought. Come, let us speak," said
+Philip Feltram, leading the way.
+
+Sir Bale, with a shrug, followed him.
+
+By this time it was dark. Feltram was walking slowly towards the margin
+of the lake; and Sir Bale, more curious as the delay increased, followed
+him, and smiled faintly as he looked after his tall, gaunt figure, as
+if, even in the dark, expressing a ridicule which he did not honestly
+feel, and the expression of which, even if there had been light, there
+was no one near enough to see.
+
+When he reached the edge of the lake, Feltram stooped, and Sir Bale
+thought that his attitude was that of one who whispers to and caresses a
+reclining person. What he fancied was a dark figure lying horizontally
+in the shallow water, near the edge, turned out to be, as he drew near,
+no more than a shadow on the elsewhere lighter water; and with his
+change of position it had shifted and was gone, and Philip Feltram was
+but dabbling his hand this way and that in the water, and muttering
+faintly to himself. He rose as the Baronet drew near, and standing
+upright, said,
+
+"I like to listen to the ripple of the water among the grass and
+pebbles; the tongue and lips of the lake are lapping and whispering all
+along. It is the merest poetry; but you are so romantic, you excuse me."
+
+There was an angry curve in Feltram's eyebrows, and a cynical smile, and
+something in the tone which to the satirical Baronet was almost
+insulting. But even had he been less curious, I don't think he would
+have betrayed his mortification; for an odd and unavowed influence which
+he hated was gradually establishing in Feltram an ascendency which
+sometimes vexed and sometimes cowed him.
+
+"You are not to tell," said Feltram, drawing near him in the dusk. "The
+secret is yours when you promise."
+
+"Of course I promise," said Sir Bale. "If I believed it, you don't think
+I could be such an ass as to tell it; and if I didn't believe it, I'd
+hardly take the trouble."
+
+Feltram stooped, and dipping the hollow of his hand in the water, he
+raised it full, and said he, "Hold out your hand--the hollow of your
+hand--like this. I divide the water for a sign--share to me and share to
+you." And he turned his hand, so as to pour half the water into the
+hollow palm of Sir Bale, who was smiling, with some uneasiness mixed in
+his mockery.
+
+"Now, you promise to keep all secrets respecting the teller and the
+finder, be that who it may?"
+
+"Yes, I promise," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Now do as I do," said Feltram. And he shed the water on the ground, and
+with his wet fingers touched his forehead and his breast; and then he
+joined his hand with Sir Bale's, and said, "Now you are my safe man."
+
+Sir Bale laughed. "That's the game they call 'grand mufti,'" said he.
+
+"Exactly; and means nothing," said Feltram, "except that some day it
+will serve you to remember by. And now the names. Don't speak;
+listen--you may break the thought else. The winner of the first is
+_Beeswing_; of the second, _Falcon_; and of the third, _Lightning_."
+
+He had stood for some seconds in silence before he spoke; his eyes were
+closed; he seemed to bring up thought and speech with difficulty, and
+spoke faintly and drowsily, both his hands a little raised, and the
+fingers extended, with the groping air of a man who moves in the dark.
+In this odd way, slowly, faintly, with many a sigh and scarcely audible
+groan, he gradually delivered his message and was silent. He stood, it
+seemed, scarcely half awake, muttering indistinctly and sighing to
+himself. You would have said that he was exhausted and suffering, like a
+man at his last hour resigning himself to death.
+
+At length he opened his eyes, looked round a little wildly and
+languidly, and with another great sigh sat down on a large rock that
+lies by the margin of the lake, and sighed heavily again and again. You
+might have fancied that he was a second time recovering from drowning.
+
+Then he got up, and looked drowsily round again, and sighed like a man
+worn out with fatigue, and was silent.
+
+Sir Bale did not care to speak until he seemed a little more likely to
+obtain an answer. When that time came, he said, "I wish, for the sake of
+my believing, that your list was a little less incredible. Not one of
+the horses you name is the least likely; not one of them has a chance."
+
+"So much the better for you; you'll get what odds you please. You had
+better seize your luck; on Tuesday Beeswing runs," said Feltram. "When
+you want money for the purpose, I'm your banker--here is your bank."
+
+He touched his breast, where he had placed the purse, and then he turned
+and walked swiftly away.
+
+Sir Bale looked after him till he disappeared in the dark. He fluctuated
+among many surmises about Feltram. Was he insane, or was he practising
+an imposture? or was he fool enough to believe the predictions of some
+real gipsies? and had he borrowed this money, which in Sir Bale's eyes
+seemed the greatest miracle in the matter, from those thriving shepherd
+mountaineers, the old Trebecks, who, he believed, were attached to him?
+Feltram had, he thought, borrowed it as if for himself; and having, as
+Sir Bale in his egotism supposed, "a sneaking regard" for him, had meant
+the loan for his patron, and conceived the idea of his using his
+revelations for the purpose of making his fortune. So, seeing no risk,
+and the temptation being strong, Sir Bale resolved to avail himself of
+the purse, and use his own judgment as to what horse to back.
+
+About eleven o'clock Feltram, unannounced, walked, with his hat still
+on, into Sir Bale's library, and sat down at the opposite side of his
+table, looking gloomily into the Baronet's face for a time.
+
+"Shall you want the purse?" he asked at last.
+
+"Certainly; I always want a purse," said Sir Bale energetically.
+
+"The condition is, that you shall back each of the three horses I have
+named. But you may back them for much or little, as you like, only the
+sum must not be less than five pounds in each hundred which this purse
+contains. That is the condition, and if you violate it, you will make
+some powerful people very angry, and you will feel it. Do you agree?"
+
+"Of course; five pounds in the hundred--certainly; and how many hundreds
+are there?"
+
+"Three."
+
+"Well, a fellow with luck may win something with three hundred pounds,
+but it ain't very much."
+
+"Quite enough, if you use it aright."
+
+"Three hundred pounds," repeated the Baronet, as he emptied the purse,
+which Feltram had just placed in his hand, upon the table; and
+contemplating them with grave interest, he began telling them off in
+little heaps of five-and-twenty each. He might have thanked Feltram, but
+he was thinking more of the guineas than of the grizzly donor.
+
+"Ay," said he, after a second counting, "I think there _are_ exactly
+three hundred. Well, so you say I must apply three times five--fifteen
+of these. It is an awful pity backing those queer horses you have named;
+but if I must make the sacrifice, I must, I suppose?" he added, with a
+hesitating inquiry in the tone.
+
+"If you don't, you'll rue it," said Feltram coldly, and walked away.
+
+"Penny in pocket's a merry companion," says the old English proverb, and
+Sir Bale felt in better spirits and temper than he had for many a day as
+he replaced the guineas in the purse.
+
+It was long since he had visited either the race-course or any other
+place of amusement. Now he might face his kind without fear that his
+pride should be mortified, and dabble in the fascinating agitations of
+the turf once more.
+
+"Who knows how this little venture may turn out?" he thought. "It is
+time the luck should turn. My last summer in Germany, my last winter in
+Paris--d--n me, I'm owed something. It's time I should win a bit."
+
+Sir Bale had suffered the indolence of a solitary and discontented life
+imperceptibly to steal upon him. It would not do to appear for the first
+time on Heckleston Lea with any of those signs of negligence which, in
+his case, might easily be taken for poverty. All his appointments,
+therefore, were carefully looked after; and on the Monday following, he,
+followed by his groom, rode away for the Saracen's Head at Heckleston,
+where he was to put up, for the races that were to begin on the day
+following, and presented as handsome an appearance as a peer in those
+days need have cared to show.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+On the Course--Beeswing, Falcon, and Lightning
+
+As he rode towards Golden Friars, through which his route lay, in the
+early morning light, in which the mists of night were clearing, he
+looked back towards Mardykes with a hope of speedy deliverance from that
+hated imprisonment, and of a return to the continental life in which he
+took delight. He saw the summits and angles of the old building touched
+with the cheerful beams, and the grand old trees, and at the opposite
+side the fells dark, with their backs towards the east; and down the
+side of the wooded and precipitous clough of Feltram, the light, with a
+pleasant contrast against the beetling purple of the fells, was breaking
+in the faint distance. On the lake he saw the white speck that indicated
+the sail of Philip Feltram's boat, now midway between Mardykes and the
+wooded shores of Cloostedd.
+
+"Going on the same errand," thought Sir Bale, "I should not wonder. I
+wish him the same luck. Yes, he's going to Cloostedd Forest. I hope he
+may meet his gipsies there--the Trebecks, or whoever they are."
+
+And as a momentary sense of degradation in being thus beholden to such
+people smote him, "Well," thought he, "who knows? Many a fellow will
+make a handsome sum of a poorer purse than this at Heckleston. It will
+be a light matter paying them then."
+
+Through Golden Friars he rode. Some of the spectators who did not like
+him, wondered audibly at the gallant show, hoped it was paid for, and
+conjectured that he had ridden out in search of a wife. On the whole,
+however, the appearance of their Baronet in a smarter style than usual
+was popular, and accepted as a change to the advantage of the town.
+
+Next morning he was on the race-course of Heckleston, renewing old
+acquaintance and making himself as agreeable as he could--an object,
+among some people, of curiosity and even interest. Leaving the
+carriage-sides, the hoods and bonnets, Sir Bale was soon among the
+betting men, deep in more serious business.
+
+How did he make his book? He did not break his word. He backed Beeswing,
+Falcon, and Lightning. But it must be owned not for a shilling more than
+the five guineas each, to which he stood pledged. The odds were
+forty-five to one against Beeswing, sixty to one against Lightning, and
+fifty to one against Falcon.
+
+"A pretty lot to choose!" exclaimed Sir Bale, with vexation. "As if I
+had money so often, that I should throw it away!"
+
+The Baronet was testy thinking over all this, and looked on Feltram's
+message as an impertinence and the money as his own.
+
+Let us now see how Sir Bale Mardykes' pocket fared.
+
+Sulkily enough at the close of the week he turned his back on Heckleston
+racecourse, and took the road to Golden Friars.
+
+He was in a rage with his luck, and by no means satisfied with himself;
+and yet he had won something. The result of the racing had been curious.
+In the three principal races the favourites had been beaten: one by an
+accident, another on a technical point, and the third by fair running.
+And what horses had won? The names were precisely those which the
+"fortune-teller" had predicted.
+
+Well, then, how was Sir Bale in pocket as he rode up to his ancestral
+house of Mardykes, where a few thousand pounds would have been very
+welcome? He had won exactly 775 guineas; and had he staked a hundred
+instead of five on each of the names communicated by Feltram, he would
+have won 15,500 guineas.
+
+He dismounted before his hall-door, therefore, with the discontent of a
+man who had lost nearly 15,000 pounds. Feltram was upon the steps, and
+laughed dryly.
+
+"What do you laugh at?" asked Sir Bale tartly.
+
+"You've won, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, I've won; I've won a trifle."
+
+"On the horses I named?"
+
+"Well, yes; it so turned out, by the merest accident."
+
+Feltram laughed again dryly, and turned away.
+
+Sir Bale entered Mardykes Hall, and was surly. He was in a much worse
+mood than before he had ridden to Heckleston. But after a week or so
+ruminating upon the occurrence, he wondered that Feltram spoke no more
+of it. It was undoubtedly wonderful. There had been no hint of repayment
+yet, and he had made some hundreds by the loan; and, contrary to all
+likelihood, the three horses named by the unknown soothsayer had won.
+Who was this gipsy? It would be worth bringing the soothsayer to
+Mardykes, and giving his people a camp on the warren, and all the
+poultry they could catch, and a pig or a sheep every now and then. Why,
+that seer was worth the philosopher's stone, and could make Sir Bale's
+fortune in a season. Some one else would be sure to pick him up if he
+did not.
+
+So, tired of waiting for Feltram to begin, he opened the subject one day
+himself. He had not seen him for two or three days; and in the wood of
+Mardykes he saw his lank figure standing among the thick trees, upon a
+little knoll, leaning on a staff which he sometimes carried with him in
+his excursions up the mountains.
+
+"Feltram!" shouted Sir Bale.
+
+Feltram turned and beckoned. Sir Bale muttered, but obeyed the signal.
+
+"I brought you here, because you can from this point with unusual
+clearness today see the opening of the Clough of Feltram at the other
+side, and the clump of trees, where you will find the way to reach the
+person about whom you are always thinking."
+
+"Who said I am always thinking about him?" said the Baronet angrily; for
+he felt like a man detected in a weakness, and resented it.
+
+"_I_ say it, because I _know_ it; and _you_ know it also. See that clump
+of trees standing solitary in the hollow? Among them, to the left, grows
+an ancient oak. Cut in its bark are two enormous letters H--F; so large
+and bold, that the rugged furrows of the oak bark fail to obscure them,
+although they are ancient and spread by time. Standing against the trunk
+of this great tree, with your back to these letters, you are looking up
+the Glen or Clough of Feltram, that opens northward, where stands
+Cloostedd Forest spreading far and thick. Now, how do you find our
+fortune-teller?"
+
+"That is exactly what I wish to know," answered Sir Bale; "because,
+although I can't, of course, believe that he's a witch, yet he has
+either made the most marvellous fluke I've heard of, or else he has got
+extraordinary sources of information; or perhaps he acts partly on
+chance, partly on facts. Be it which you please, I say he's a marvellous
+fellow; and I should like to see him, and have a talk with him; and
+perhaps he could arrange with me. I should be very glad to make an
+arrangement with him to give me the benefit of his advice about any
+matter of the same kind again."
+
+"I think he's willing to see you; but he's a fellow with a queer fancy
+and a pig-head. He'll not come here; you must go to him; and approach
+him his own way too, or you may fail to find him. On these terms he
+invites you."
+
+Sir Bale laughed.
+
+"He knows his value, and means to make his own terms."
+
+"Well, there's nothing unfair in that; and I don't see that I should
+dispute it. How is one to find him?"
+
+"Stand, as I told you, with your back to those letters cut in the oak.
+Right before you lies an old Druidic altar-stone. Cast your eye over its
+surface, and on some part of it you are sure to see a black stain about
+the size of a man's head. Standing, as I suppose you, against the oak,
+that stain, which changes its place from day to day, will give you the
+line you must follow through the forest in order to light upon him. Take
+carefully from it such trees or objects as will guide you; and when the
+forest thickens, do the best you can to keep to the same line. You are
+sure to find him."
+
+"You'll come, Feltram. I should lose myself in that wilderness, and
+probably fail to discover him," said Sir Bale; "and I really wish to see
+him."
+
+"When two people wish to meet, it is hard if they don't. I can go with
+you a bit of the way; I can walk a little through the forest by your
+side, until I see the small flower that grows peeping here and there,
+that always springs where those people walk; and when I begin to see
+that sign, I must leave you. And, first, I'll take you across the lake."
+
+"By Jove, you'll do no such thing!" said Sir Bale hastily.
+
+"But that is the way he chooses to be approached," said Philip Feltram.
+
+"I have a sort of feeling about that lake; it's the one childish spot
+that is left in my imagination. The nursery is to blame for it--old
+stories and warnings; and I can't think of that. I should feel I had
+invoked an evil omen if I did. I know it is all nonsense; but we are
+queer creatures, Feltram. I must only ride there."
+
+"Why, it is five-and-twenty miles round the lake to that; and after all
+were done, he would not see you. He knows what he's worth, and he'll
+have his own way," answered Feltram. "The sun will soon set. See that
+withered branch, near Snakes Island, that looks like fingers rising from
+the water? When its points grow tipped with red, the sun has but three
+minutes to live."
+
+"That is a wonder which I can't see; it is too far away."
+
+"Yes, the lake has many signs; but it needs sight to see them," said
+Feltram.
+
+"So it does," said the Baronet; "more than most men have got. I'll ride
+round, I say; and I make my visit, for this time, my own way."
+
+"You'll not find him, then; and he wants his money. It would be a pity
+to vex him."
+
+"It was to you he lent the money," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, you are the proper person to find him out and pay him," urged Sir
+Bale.
+
+"Perhaps so; but he invites you; and if you don't go, he may be
+offended, and you may hear no more from him."
+
+"We'll try. When can you go? There are races to come off next week, for
+once and away, at Langton. I should not mind trying my luck there. What
+do you say?
+
+"You can go there and pay him, and ask the same question--what horses, I
+mean, are to win. All the county are to be there; and plenty of money
+will change hands."
+
+"I'll try," said Feltram.
+
+"When will you go?"
+
+"To-morrow," he answered.
+
+"I have an odd idea, Feltram, that you are really going to pay off those
+cursed mortgages."
+
+He laid his hand with at least a gesture of kindness on the thin arm of
+Feltram, who coldly answered,
+
+"So have I;" and walked down the side of the little knoll and away,
+without another word or look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+On the Lake, at Last
+
+Next day Philip Feltram crossed the lake; and Sir Bale, seeing the boat
+on the water, guessed its destination, and watched its progress with no
+little interest, until he saw it moored and its sail drop at the rude
+pier that affords a landing at the Clough of Feltram. He was now
+satisfied that Philip had actually gone to seek out the 'cunning man,'
+and gather hints for the next race.
+
+When that evening Feltram returned, and, later still, entered Sir Bale's
+library, the master of Mardykes was gladder to see his face and more
+interested about his news than he would have cared to confess.
+
+Philip Feltram did not affect unconsciousness of that anxiety, but, with
+great directness, proceeded to satisfy it.
+
+"I was in Cloostedd Forest to-day, nearly all day--and found the old
+gentleman in a wax. He did not ask me to drink, nor show me any
+kindness. He was huffed because you would not take the trouble to cross
+the lake to speak to him yourself. He took the money you sent him and
+counted it over, and dropped it into his pocket; and he called you hard
+names enough and to spare; but I brought him round, and at last he did
+talk."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"He said that the estate of Mardykes would belong to a Feltram."
+
+"He might have said something more likely," said Sir Bale sourly. "Did
+he say anything more?"
+
+"Yes. He said the winner at Langton Lea would be Silver Bell."
+
+"Any other name?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Silver Bell? Well, that's not so odd as the last. Silver Bell stands
+high in the list. He has a good many backers--long odds in his favour
+against most of the field. I should not mind backing Silver Bell."
+
+The fact is, that he had no idea of backing any other horse from the
+moment he heard the soothsayer's prediction. He made up his mind to no
+half measures this time. He would go in to win something handsome.
+
+He was in great force and full of confidence on the race-course. He had
+no fears for the result. He bet heavily. There was a good margin still
+untouched of the Mardykes estate; and Sir Bale was a good old name in
+the county. He found a ready market for his offers, and had soon
+staked--such is the growing frenzy of that excitement--about twenty
+thousand pounds on his favourite, and stood to win seven.
+
+He did not win, however. He lost his twenty thousand pounds.
+
+And now the Mardykes estate was in imminent danger. Sir Bale returned,
+having distributed I O Us and promissory notes in all directions about
+him--quite at his wit's end.
+
+Feltram was standing--as on the occasion of his former happier
+return--on the steps of Mardykes Hall, in the evening sun, throwing
+eastward a long shadow that was lost in the lake. He received him, as
+before, with a laugh.
+
+Sir Bale was too much broken to resent this laugh as furiously as he
+might, had he been a degree less desperate.
+
+He looked at Feltram savagely, and dismounted.
+
+"Last time you would not trust him, and this time he would not trust
+you. He's huffed, and played you false."
+
+"It was not he. I should have backed that d----d horse in any case,"
+said Sir Bale, grinding his teeth. "What a witch you have discovered!
+One thing is true, perhaps. If there was a Feltram rich enough, he might
+have the estate now; but there ain't. They are all beggars. So much for
+your conjurer."
+
+"He may make amends to you, if you make amends to him."
+
+"He! Why, what can that wretched impostor do? D--n me, I'm past helping
+now."
+
+"Don't you talk so," said Feltram. "Be civil. You must please the old
+gentleman. He'll make it up. He's placable when it suits him. Why not go
+to him his own way? I hear you are nearly ruined. You must go and make
+it up."
+
+"Make it up! With whom? With a fellow who can't make even a guess at
+what's coming? Why should I trouble my head about him more?"
+
+"No man, young or old, likes to be frumped. Why did you cross his fancy?
+He won't see you unless you go to him as he chooses."
+
+"If he waits for that, he may wait till doomsday. I don't choose to go
+on that water--and cross it I won't," said Sir Bale.
+
+But when his distracting reminders began to pour in upon him, and the
+idea of dismembering what remained of his property came home to him, his
+resolution faltered.
+
+"I say, Feltram, what difference can it possibly make to him if I choose
+to ride round to Cloostedd Forest instead of crossing the lake in a
+boat?"
+
+Feltram smiled darkly, and answered.
+
+"I can't tell. Can you?"
+
+"Of course I can't--I say I can't; besides, what audacity of a fellow
+like that presuming to prescribe to me! Utterly ludicrous! And he can't
+predict--do you really think or believe, Feltram, that he can?"
+
+"I know he can. I know he misled you on purpose. He likes to punish
+those who don't respect his will; and there is a reason in it, often
+quite clear--not ill-natured. Now you see he compels you to seek him
+out, and when you do, I think he'll help you through your trouble. He
+said he would."
+
+"Then you have seen him since?"
+
+"Yesterday. He has put a pressure on you; but he means to help you."
+
+"If he means to help me, let him remember I want a banker more than a
+seer. Let him give me a lift, as he did before. He must lend me money."
+
+"He'll not stick at that. When he takes up a man, he carries him
+through."
+
+"The races of Byermere--I might retrieve at them. But they don't come
+off for a month nearly; and what is a man like me to do in the
+meantime?"
+
+"Every man should know his own business best. I'm not like you," said
+Feltram grimly.
+
+Now Sir Bale's trouble increased, for some people were pressing.
+Something like panic supervened; for it happened that land was bringing
+just then a bad price, and more must be sold in consequence.
+
+"All I can tell them is, I am selling land. It can't be done in an hour.
+I'm selling enough to pay them all twice over. Gentlemen used to be able
+to wait till a man sold his acres for payment. D--n them! do they want
+my body, that they can't let me alone for five minutes?"
+
+The end of it was, that before a week Sir Bale told Feltram that he
+would go by boat, since that fellow insisted on it; and he did not very
+much care if he were drowned.
+
+It was a beautiful autumnal day. Everything was bright in that mellowed
+sun, and the deep blue of the lake was tremulous with golden ripples;
+and crag and peak and scattered wood, faint in the distance, came out
+with a filmy distinctness on the fells in that pleasant light.
+
+Sir Bale had been ill, and sent down the night before for Doctor Torvey.
+He was away with a patient. Now, in the morning, he had arrived
+inopportunely. He met Sir Bale as he issued from the house, and had a
+word with him in the court, for he would not turn back.
+
+"Well," said the Doctor, after his brief inspection, "you ought to be in
+your bed; that's all I can say. You are perfectly mad to think of
+knocking about like this. Your pulse is at a hundred and ten; and, if
+you go across the lake and walk about Cloostedd, you'll be raving before
+you come back."
+
+Sir Bale told him, apologetically, as if his life were more to his
+doctor than to himself, that he would take care not to fatigue himself,
+and that the air would do him good, and that in any case he could not
+avoid going; and so they parted.
+
+Sir Bale took his seat beside Feltram in the boat, the sail was spread,
+and, bending to the light breeze that blew from Golden Friars, she
+glided from the jetty under Mardykes Hall, and the eventful voyage had
+begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Mystagogus
+
+The sail was loosed, the boat touched the stone step, and Feltram sprang
+out and made her fast to the old iron ring. The Baronet followed. So! he
+had ventured upon that water without being drowned. He looked round him
+as if in a dream. He had not been there since his childhood. There were
+no regrets, no sentiment, no remorse; only an odd return of the
+associations and fresh feelings of boyhood, and a long reach of time
+suddenly annihilated.
+
+The little hollow in which he stood; the three hawthorn trees at his
+right; every crease and undulation of the sward, every angle and crack
+in the lichen-covered rock at his feet, recurred with a sharp and
+instantaneous recognition to his memory.
+
+"Many a time your brother and I fished for hours together from that bank
+there, just where the bramble grows. That bramble has not grown an inch
+ever since, not a leaf altered; we used to pick blackberries off it,
+with our rods stuck in the bank--it was later in the year than now--till
+we stript it quite bare after a day or two. The steward used to come
+over--they were marking timber for cutting and we used to stay here
+while they rambled through the wood, with an axe marking the trees that
+were to come down. I wonder whether the big old boat is still anywhere.
+I suppose she was broken up, or left to rot; I have not seen her since
+we came home. It was in the wood that lies at the right--the other wood
+is called the forest; they say in old times it was eight miles long,
+northward up the shore of the lake, and full of deer; with a forester,
+and a reeve, and a verderer, and all that. Your brother was older than
+you; he went to India, or the Colonies; is he living still?"
+
+"I care not."
+
+"That's good-natured, at all events; but do you know?"
+
+"Not I; and what matter? If he's living, I warrant he has his share of
+the curse, the sweat of his brow and his bitter crust; and if he is
+dead, he's dust or worse, he's rotten, and smells accordingly."
+
+Sir Bale looked at him; for this was the brother over whom, only a year
+or two ago, Philip used to cry tears of pathetic longing. Feltram looked
+darkly in his face, and sneered with a cold laugh.
+
+"I suppose you mean to jest?" said Sir Bale.
+
+"Not I; it is the truth. It is what you'd say, if you were honest. If
+he's alive, let him keep where he is; and if he's dead, I'll have none
+of him, body or soul. Do you hear that sound?"
+
+"Like the wind moaning in the forest?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I feel no wind. There's hardly a leaf stirring."
+
+"I think so," said Feltram. "Come along."
+
+And he began striding up the gentle slope of the glen, with many a rock
+peeping through its sward, and tufted ferns and furze, giving a wild and
+neglected character to the scene; the background of which, where the
+glen loses itself in a distant turn, is formed by its craggy and wooded
+side.
+
+Up they marched, side by side, in silence, towards that irregular clump
+of trees, to which Feltram had pointed from the Mardykes side.
+
+As they approached, it showed more scattered, and two or three of the
+trees were of grander dimensions than in the distance they had appeared;
+and as they walked, the broad valley of Cloostedd Forest opened grandly
+on their left, studding the sides of the valley with solitary trees or
+groups, which thickened as it descended to the broad level, in parts
+nearly three miles wide, on which stands the noble forest of Cloostedd,
+now majestically reposing in the stirless air, gilded and flushed with
+the melancholy tints of autumn.
+
+I am now going to relate wonderful things; but they rest on the report,
+strangely consistent, it is true, of Sir Bale Mardykes. That all his
+senses, however, were sick and feverish, and his brain not quite to be
+relied on at that moment, is a fact of which sceptics have a right to
+make all they please and can.
+
+Startled at their approach, a bird like a huge mackaw bounced from the
+boughs of the trees, and sped away, every now and then upon the ground,
+toward the shelter of the forest, fluttering and hopping close by the
+side of the little brook which, emerging from the forest, winds into the
+glen, and beside the course of which Sir Bale and Philip Feltram had
+ascended from the margin of the lake.
+
+It fluttered on, as if one of its wings were hurt, and kept hopping and
+bobbing and flying along the grass at its swiftest, screaming all the
+time discordantly.
+
+"That must be old Mrs. Amerald's bird, that got away a week ago," said
+Sir Bale, stopping and looking after it. "Was not it a mackaw?"
+
+"No," said Feltram; "that was a gray parrot; but there are stranger
+birds in Cloostedd Forest, for my ancestors collected all that would
+live in our climate, and were at pains to find them the food and shelter
+they were accustomed to until they grew hardy--that is how it happens."
+
+"By Jove, that's a secret worth knowing," said Sir Bale. "That would
+make quite a feature. What a fat brute that bird was! and green and
+dusky-crimson and yellow; but its head is white--age, I suspect; and
+what a broken beak--hideous bird! splendid plumage; something between a
+mackaw and a vulture."
+
+Sir Bale spoke jocularly, but with the interest of a bird-fancier; a
+taste which, when young, he had indulged; and for the moment forgot his
+cares and the object of his unwonted excursion.
+
+A moment after, a lank slim bird, perfectly white, started from the same
+boughs, and winged its way to the forest.
+
+"A kite, I think; but its body is a little too long, isn't it?" said Sir
+Bale again, stopping and looking after its flight also.
+
+"A foreign kite, I daresay?" said Feltram.
+
+All this time there was hopping near them a jay, with the tameness of a
+bird accustomed to these solitudes. It peered over its slender wing
+curiously at the visitors; pecking here and nodding there; and thus
+hopping, it made a circle round them more than once. Then it fluttered
+up, and perched on a bough of the old oak, from the deep labyrinth of
+whose branches the other birds had emerged; and from thence it flew down
+and lighted on the broad druidic stone, that stood like a cyclopean
+table on its sunken stone props, before the snakelike roots of the oak.
+
+Across this it hopped conceitedly, as over a stage on which it figured
+becomingly; and after a momentary hesitation, with a little spring, it
+rose and winged its way in the same direction which the other birds had
+taken, and was quickly lost in thick forest to the left.
+
+"Here," said Feltram, "this is the tree."
+
+"I remember it well! A gigantic trunk; and, yes, those marks; but I
+never before read them as letters. Yes, H.F., so they are--very odd I
+should not have remarked them. They are so large, and so strangely
+drawn-out in some places, and filled-in in others, and distorted, and
+the moss has grown about them; I don't wonder I took them for natural
+cracks and chasms in the bark," said Sir Bale.
+
+"Very like," said Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale had remarked, ever since they had begun their walk from the
+shore, that Feltram seemed to undergo a gloomy change. Sharper, grimmer,
+wilder grew his features, and shadow after shadow darkened his face
+wickedly.
+
+The solitude and grandeur of the forest, and the repulsive gloom of his
+companion's countenance and demeanour, communicated a tone of anxiety to
+Sir Bale; and they stood still, side by side, in total silence for a
+time, looking toward the forest glades; between themselves and which, on
+the level sward of the valley, stood many a noble tree and fantastic
+group of forked birch and thorn, in the irregular formations into which
+Nature had thrown them.
+
+"Now you stand between the letters. Cast your eyes on the stone," said
+Feltram suddenly, and his low stern tones almost startled the Baronet.
+
+Looking round, he perceived that he had so placed himself that his point
+of vision was exactly from between the two great letters, now
+half-obliterated, which he had been scrutinizing just as he turned about
+to look toward the forest of Cloostedd.
+
+"Yes, so I am," said Sir Bale.
+
+There was within him an excitement and misgiving, akin to the sensation
+of a man going into battle, and which corresponded with the pale and
+sombre frown which Feltram wore, and the manifest change which had come
+over him.
+
+"Look on the stone steadily for a time, and tell me if you see a black
+mark, about the size of your hand, anywhere upon its surface," said
+Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale affected no airs of scepticism now; his imagination was
+stirred, and a sense of some unknown reality at the bottom of that which
+he had affected to treat before as illusion, inspired a strange interest
+in the experiment.
+
+"Do you see it?" asked Feltram.
+
+Sir Bale was watching patiently, but he had observed nothing of the
+kind.
+
+Sharper, darker, more eager grew the face of Philip Feltram, as his eyes
+traversed the surface of that huge horizontal block.
+
+"Now?" asked Feltram again.
+
+No, he had seen nothing.
+
+Feltram was growing manifestly uneasy, angry almost; he walked away a
+little, and back again, and then two or three times round the tree, with
+his hands shut, and treading the ground like a man trying to warm his
+feet, and so impatiently he returned, and looked again on the stone.
+
+Sir Bale was still looking, and very soon said, drawing his brows
+together and looking hard,
+
+"Ha!--yes--hush. There it is, by Jove!--wait--yes--there; it is growing
+quite plain."
+
+It seemed not as if a shadow fell upon the stone, but rather as if the
+stone became semi-transparent, and just under its surface was something
+dark--a hand, he thought it--and darker and darker it grew, as if coming
+up toward the surface, and after some little wavering, it fixed itself
+movelessly, pointing, as he thought, toward the forest.
+
+"It looks like a hand," said he. "By Jove, it is a hand--pointing
+towards the forest with a finger."
+
+"Don't mind the finger; look only on that black blurred mark, and from
+the point where you stand, taking that point for your direction, look to
+the forest. Take some tree or other landmark for an object, enter the
+forest there, and pursue the same line, as well as you can, until you
+find little flowers with leaves like wood-sorrel, and with tall stems
+and a red blossom, not larger than a drop, such as you have not seen
+before, growing among the trees, and follow wherever they seem to grow
+thickest, and there you will find him."
+
+All the time that Feltram was making this little address, Sir Bale was
+endeavouring to fix his route by such indications as Feltram described;
+and when he had succeeded in quite establishing the form of a peculiar
+tree--a melancholy ash, one huge limb of which had been blasted by
+lightning, and its partly stricken arm stood high and barkless,
+stretching its white fingers, as it were, in invitation into the forest,
+and signing the way for him----
+
+"I have it now," said he. "Come Feltram, you'll come a bit of the way
+with me."
+
+Feltram made no answer, but slowly shook his head, and turned and walked
+away, leaving Sir Bale to undertake his adventure alone.
+
+The strange sound they had heard from the midst of the forest, like the
+rumble of a storm or the far-off trembling of a furnace, had quite
+ceased. Not a bird was hopping on the grass, or visible on bough or in
+the sky. Not a living creature was in sight--never was stillness more
+complete, or silence more oppressive.
+
+It would have been ridiculous to give way to the old reluctance which
+struggled within him. Feltram had strode down the slope, and was
+concealed by a screen of bushes from his view. So alone, and full of an
+interest quite new to him, he set out in quest of his adventures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+The Haunted Forest
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes walked in a straight line, by bush and scaur, over the
+undulating ground, to the blighted ash-tree; and as he approached it,
+its withered bough stretched more gigantically into the air, and the
+forest seemed to open where it pointed.
+
+He passed it by, and in a few minutes had lost sight of it again, and
+was striding onward under the shadow of the forest, which already
+enclosed him. He was directing his march with all the care he could, in
+exactly that line which, according to Feltram's rule, had been laid down
+for him. Now and then, having, as soldiers say, taken an object, and
+fixed it well in his memory, he would pause and look about him.
+
+As a boy he had never entered the wood so far; for he was under a
+prohibition, lest he should lose himself in its intricacies, and be
+benighted there. He had often heard that it was haunted ground, and that
+too would, when a boy, have deterred him. It was on this account that
+the scene was so new to him, and that he cared so often to stop and look
+about him. Here and there a vista opened, exhibiting the same utter
+desertion, and opening farther perspectives through the tall stems of
+the trees faintly visible in the solemn shadow. No flowers could he see,
+but once or twice a wood anemone, and now and then a tiny grove of
+wood-sorrel.
+
+Huge oak-trees now began to mingle and show themselves more and more
+frequently among the other timber; and gradually the forest became a
+great oak wood unintruded upon by any less noble tree. Vast trunks
+curving outwards to the roots, and expanding again at the branches,
+stood like enormous columns, striking out their groining boughs, with
+the dark vaulting of a crypt.
+
+As he walked under the shadow of these noble trees, suddenly his eye was
+struck by a strange little flower, nodding quite alone by the knotted
+root of one of those huge oaks.
+
+He stooped and picked it up, and as he plucked it, with a harsh scream
+just over his head, a large bird with heavy beating wings broke away
+from the midst of the branches. He could not see it, but he fancied the
+scream was like that of the huge mackaw whose ill-poised flight he had
+watched. This conjecture was but founded on the odd cry he had heard.
+
+The flower was a curious one--a stem fine as a hair supported a little
+bell, that looked like a drop of blood, and never ceased trembling. He
+walked on, holding this in his fingers; and soon he saw another of the
+same odd type, then another at a shorter distance, then one a little to
+the right and another to the left, and farther on a little group, and at
+last the dark slope was all over trembling with these little bells,
+thicker and thicker as he descended a gentle declivity to the bank of
+the little brook, which flowing through the forest loses itself in the
+lake. The low murmur of this forest stream was almost the first sound,
+except the shriek of the bird that startled him a little time ago, which
+had disturbed the profound silence of the wood since he entered it.
+Mingling with the faint sound of the brook, he now heard a harsh human
+voice calling words at intervals, the purport of which he could not yet
+catch; and walking on, he saw seated upon the grass, a strange figure,
+corpulent, with a great hanging nose, the whole face glowing like
+copper. He was dressed in a bottle-green cut-velvet coat, of the style
+of Queen Anne's reign, with a dusky crimson waistcoat, both overlaid
+with broad and tarnished gold lace, and his silk stockings on thick
+swollen legs, with great buckled shoes, straddling on the grass, were
+rolled up over his knees to his short breeches. This ill-favoured old
+fellow, with a powdered wig that came down to his shoulders, had a
+dice-box in each hand, and was apparently playing his left against his
+right, and calling the throws with a hoarse cawing voice.
+
+Raising his black piggish eyes, he roared to Sir Bale, by name, to come
+and sit down, raising one of his dice-boxes, and then indicating a place
+on the grass opposite to him.
+
+Now Sir Bale instantly guessed that this was the man, gipsy, warlock,
+call him what he might, of whom he had come in search. With a strange
+feeling of curiosity, disgust, and awe, he drew near. He was resolved to
+do whatever this old man required of him, and to keep him, this time, in
+good humour.
+
+Sir Bale did as he bid him, and sat down; and taking the box he
+presented, they began throwing turn about, with three dice, the
+copper-faced old man teaching him the value of the throws, as he
+proceeded, with many a curse and oath; and when he did not like a throw,
+grinning with a look of such real fury, that the master of Mardykes
+almost expected him to whip out his sword and prick him through as he
+sat before him.
+
+After some time spent at this play, in which guineas passed now this
+way, now that, chucked across the intervening patch of grass, or rather
+moss, that served them for a green cloth, the old man roared over his
+shoulder,
+
+"Drink;" and picking up a longstemmed conical glass which Sir Bale had
+not observed before, he handed it over to the Baronet; and taking
+another in his fingers, he held it up, while a very tall slim old man,
+dressed in a white livery, with powdered hair and cadaverous face, which
+seemed to run out nearly all into a long thin hooked nose, advanced with
+a flask in each hand. Looking at the unwieldly old man, with his heavy
+nose, powdered head, and all the bottle-green, crimson, and gold about
+him, and the long slim serving man, with sharp beak, and white from head
+to heel, standing by him, Sir Bale was forcibly reminded of the great
+old macaw and the long and slender kite, whose colours they, after their
+fashion, reproduced, with something, also indescribable, of the air and
+character of the birds. Not standing on ceremony, the old fellow held up
+his own glass first, which the white lackey filled from the flask, and
+then he filled Sir Bale's glass.
+
+It was a large glass, and might have held about half a pint; and the
+liquor with which the servant filled it was something of the colour of
+an opal, and circles of purple and gold seemed to be spreading
+continually outward from the centre, and running inward from the rim,
+and crossing one another, so as to form a beautiful rippling net-work.
+
+"I drink to your better luck next time," said the old man, lifting his
+glass high, and winking with one eye, and leering knowingly with the
+other; "and you know what I mean."
+
+Sir Bale put the liquor to his lips. Wine? Whatever it was, never had he
+tasted so delicious a flavour. He drained it to the bottom, and placing
+it on the grass beside him, and looking again at the old dicer, who was
+also setting down his glass, he saw, for the first time, the graceful
+figure of a young woman seated on the grass. She was dressed in deep
+mourning, had a black hood carelessly over her head, and, strangely,
+wore a black mask, such as are used at masquerades. So much of her
+throat and chin as he could see were beautifully white; and there was a
+prettiness in her air and figure which made him think what a beautiful
+creature she in all likelihood was. She was reclining slightly against
+the burly man in bottle-green and gold, and her arm was round his neck,
+and her slender white hand showed itself over his shoulder.
+
+"Ho! my little Geaiette," cried the old fellow hoarsely; "it will be
+time that you and I should get home.--So, Bale Mardykes, I have nothing
+to object to you this time; you've crossed the lake, and you've played
+with me and won and lost, and drank your glass like a jolly companion,
+and now we know one another; and an acquaintance is made that will last.
+I'll let you go, and you'll come when I call for you. And now you'll
+want to know what horse will win next month at Rindermere
+races.--Whisper me, lass, and I'll tell him."
+
+So her lips, under the black curtain, crept close to his ear, and she
+whispered.
+
+"Ay, so it will;" roared the old man, gnashing his teeth; "it will be
+Rainbow, and now make your best speed out of the forest, or I'll set my
+black dogs after you, ho, ho, ho! and they may chance to pull you down.
+Away!"
+
+He cried this last order with a glare so black, and so savage a shake of
+his huge fist, that Sir Bale, merely making his general bow to the
+group, clapped his hat on his head, and hastily began his retreat; but
+the same discordant voice yelled after him:
+
+"You'll want that, you fool; pick it up." And there came hurtling after
+and beside him a great leather bag, stained, and stuffed with a heavy
+burden, and bounding by him it stopped with a little wheel that brought
+it exactly before his feet.
+
+He picked it up, and found it heavy.
+
+Turning about to make his acknowledgments, he saw the two persons in
+full retreat; the profane old scoundrel in the bottle-green limping and
+stumbling, yet bowling along at a wonderful rate, with many a jerk and
+reel, and the slender lady in black gliding away by his side into the
+inner depths of the forest.
+
+So Sir Bale, with a strange chill, and again in utter solitude, pursued
+his retreat, with his burden, at a swifter pace, and after an hour or
+so, had recovered the point where he had entered the forest, and passing
+by the druidic stone and the mighty oak, saw down the glen at his right,
+standing by the edge of the lake, Philip Feltram, close to the bow of
+the boat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Rindermere
+
+Feltram looked grim and agitated when Sir Bale came up to him, as he
+stood on the flat-stone by which the boat was moored.
+
+"You found him?" said he.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The lady in black was there?"
+
+"She was."
+
+"And you played with him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what is that in your hand?"
+
+"A bag of something, I fancy money; it is heavy; he threw it after me.
+We shall see just now; let us get away."
+
+"He gave you some of his wine to drink?" said Feltram, looking darkly in
+his face; but there was a laugh in his eyes.
+
+"Yes; of course I drank it; my object was to please him."
+
+"To be sure."
+
+The faint wind that carried them across the lake had quite subsided by
+the time they had reached the side where they now were.
+
+There was now not wind enough to fill the sail, and it was already
+evening.
+
+"Give me an oar; we can pull her over in little more than an hour," said
+Sir Bale; "only let us get away."
+
+He got into the boat, sat down, and placed the leather bag with its
+heavy freightage at his feet, and took an oar. Feltram loosed the rope
+and shoved the boat off; and taking his seat also, they began to pull
+together, without another word, until, in about ten minutes, they had
+got a considerable way off the Cloostedd shore.
+
+The leather bag was too clumsy a burden to conceal; besides, Feltram
+knew all about the transaction, and Sir Bale had no need to make a
+secret. The bag was old and soiled, and tied about the "neck" with a
+long leather thong, and it seemed to have been sealed with red wax,
+fragments of which were still sticking to it.
+
+He got it open, and found it full of guineas.
+
+"Halt!" cried Sir Bale, delighted, for he had half apprehended a trick
+upon his hopes; "gold it is, and a lot of it, by Jove!"
+
+Feltram did not seem to take the slightest interest in the matter.
+Sulkily and drowsily he was leaning with his elbow on his knee, and it
+seemed thinking of something far away. Sir Bale could not wait to count
+them any longer. He reckoned them on the bench, and found two thousand.
+
+It took some time; and when he had got them back into the leather bag,
+and tied them up again, Feltram, with a sudden start, said sharply,
+
+"Come, take your oar--unless you like the lake by night; and see, a wind
+will soon be up from Golden Friars!"
+
+He cast a wild look towards Mardykes Hall and Snakes Island, and
+applying himself to his oar, told Sir Bale to take his also; and nothing
+loath, the Baronet did so.
+
+It was slow work, for the boat was not built for speed; and by the time
+they had got about midway, the sun went down, and twilight and the
+melancholy flush of the sunset tints were upon the lake and fells.
+
+"Ho! here comes the breeze--up from Golden Friars," said Feltram; "we
+shall have enough to fill the sails now. If you don't fear spirits and
+Snakes Island, it is all the better for us it should blow from that
+point. If it blew from Mardykes now, it would be a stiff pull for you
+and me to get this tub home."
+
+Talking as if to himself, and laughing low, he adjusted the sail and
+took the tiller, and so, yielding to the rising breeze, the boat glided
+slowly toward still distant Mardykes Hall.
+
+The moon came out, and the shore grew misty, and the towering fells rose
+like sheeted giants; and leaning on the gunwale of the boat, Sir Bale,
+with the rush and gurgle of the water on the boat's side sounding
+faintly in his ear, thought of his day's adventure, which seemed to him
+like a dream--incredible but for the heavy bag that lay between his
+feet.
+
+As they passed Snakes Island, a little mist, like a fragment of a fog,
+seemed to drift with them, and Sir Bale fancied that whenever it came
+near the boat's side she made a dip, as if strained toward the water;
+and Feltram always put out his hand, as if waving it from him, and the
+mist seemed to obey the gesture; but returned again and again, and the
+same thing always happened.
+
+It was three weeks after, that Sir Bale, sitting up in his bed, very
+pale and wan, with his silk night-cap nodding on one side, and his thin
+hand extended on the coverlet, where the doctor had been feeling his
+pulse, in his darkened room, related all the wonders of this day to
+Doctor Torvey. The doctor had attended him through a fever which
+followed immediately upon his visit to Cloostedd.
+
+"And, my dear sir, by Jupiter, can you really believe all that delirium
+to be sober fact?" said the doctor, sitting by the bedside, and actually
+laughing.
+
+"I can't help believing it, because I can't distinguish in any way
+between all that and everything else that actually happened, and which I
+must believe. And, except that this is more wonderful, I can find no
+reason to reject it, that does not as well apply to all the rest."
+
+"Come, come, my dear sir, this will never do--nothing is more common.
+These illusions accompanying fever frequently antedate the attack, and
+the man is actually raving before he knows he is ill."
+
+"But what do you make of that bag of gold?"
+
+"Some one has lent it. You had better ask all about it of Feltram when
+you can see him; for in speaking to me he seemed to know all about it,
+and certainly did not seem to think the matter at all out of the
+commonplace. It is just like that fisherman's story, about the hand that
+drew Feltram into the water on the night that he was nearly drowned.
+Every one can see what that was. Why of course it was simply the
+reflection of his own hand in the water, in that vivid lightning. When
+you have been out a little and have gained strength you will shake off
+these dreams."
+
+"I should not wonder," said Sir Bale.
+
+It is not to be supposed that Sir Bale reported all that was in his
+memory respecting his strange vision, if such it was, at Cloostedd. He
+made a selection of the incidents, and threw over the whole adventure an
+entirely accidental character, and described the money which the old man
+had thrown to him as amounting to a purse of five guineas, and mentioned
+nothing of the passages which bore on the coming race.
+
+Good Doctor Torvey, therefore, reported only that Sir Bale's delirium
+had left two or three illusions sticking in his memory.
+
+But if they were illusions, they survived the event of his recovery, and
+remained impressed on his memory with the sharpness of very recent and
+accurately observed fact.
+
+He was resolved on going to the races of Rindermere, where, having in
+his possession so weighty a guarantee as the leather purse, he was
+determined to stake it all boldly on Rainbow--against which horse he was
+glad to hear there were very heavy odds.
+
+The race came off. One horse was scratched, another bolted, the rider of
+a third turned out to have lost a buckle and three half-pence and so was
+an ounce and a half under weight, a fourth knocked down the post near
+Rinderness churchyard, and was held to have done it with his left
+instead of his right knee, and so had run at the wrong side. The result
+was that Rainbow came in first, and I should be afraid to say how much
+Sir Bale won. It was a sum that paid off a heavy debt, and left his
+affairs in a much more manageable state.
+
+From this time Sir Bale prospered. He visited Cloostedd no more; but
+Feltram often crossed to that lonely shore as heretofore, and it is
+believed conveyed to him messages which guided his betting. One thing is
+certain, his luck never deserted him. His debts disappeared; and his
+love of continental life seemed to have departed. He became content with
+Mardykes Hall, laid out money on it, and although he never again cared
+to cross the lake, he seemed to like the scenery.
+
+In some respects, however, he lived exactly the same odd and unpopular
+life. He saw no one at Mardykes Hall. He practised a very strict
+reserve. The neighbours laughed at and disliked him, and he was voted,
+whenever any accidental contact arose, a very disagreeable man; and he
+had a shrewd and ready sarcasm that made them afraid of him, and himself
+more disliked.
+
+Odd rumours prevailed about his household. It was said that his old
+relations with Philip Feltram had become reversed; and that he was as
+meek as a mouse, and Feltram the bully now. It was also said that Mrs.
+Julaper had one Sunday evening when she drank tea at the Vicar's, told
+his good lady very mysteriously, and with many charges of secrecy, that
+Sir Bale was none the better of his late-found wealth; that he had a
+load upon his spirits, that he was afraid of Feltram, and so was every
+one else, more or less, in the house; that he was either mad or worse;
+and that it was an eerie dwelling, and strange company, and she should
+be glad herself of a change.
+
+Good Mrs. Bedel told her friend Mrs. Torvey; and all Golden Friars heard
+all this, and a good deal more, in an incredibly short time.
+
+All kinds of rumours now prevailed in Golden Friars, connecting Sir
+Bale's successes on the turf with some mysterious doings in Cloostedd
+Forest. Philip Feltram laughed when he heard these stories--especially
+when he heard the story that a supernatural personage had lent the
+Baronet a purse full of money.
+
+"You should not talk to Doctor Torvey so, sir," said he grimly; "he's
+the greatest tattler in the town. It was old Farmer Trebeck, who could
+buy and sell us all down here, who lent that money. Partly from
+good-will, but not without acknowledgment. He has my hand for the first,
+not worth much, and yours to a bond for the two thousand guineas you
+brought home with you. It seems strange you should not remember that
+venerable and kind old farmer whom you talked with so long that day. His
+grandson, who expects to stand well in his will, being a trainer in Lord
+Varney's stables, has sometimes a tip to give, and he is the source of
+your information."
+
+"By Jove, I must be a bit mad, then, that's all," said Sir Bale, with a
+smile and a shrug.
+
+Philip Feltram moped about the house, and did precisely what he pleased.
+The change which had taken place in him became more and more pronounced.
+Dark and stern he always looked, and often malignant. He was like a man
+possessed of one evil thought which never left him.
+
+There was, besides, the good old Gothic superstition of a bargain or
+sale of the Baronet's soul to the arch-fiend. This was, of course, very
+cautiously whispered in a place where he had influence. It was only a
+coarser and directer version of a suspicion, that in a more credulous
+generation penetrated a level of society quite exempt from such follies
+in our day.
+
+One evening at dusk, Sir Bale, sitting after his dinner in his window,
+saw the tall figure of Feltram, like a dark streak, standing movelessly
+by the lake. An unpleasant feeling moved him, and then an impatience. He
+got up, and having primed himself with two glasses of brandy, walked
+down to the edge of the lake, and placed himself beside Feltram.
+
+"Looking down from the window," said he, nerved with his Dutch courage,
+"and seeing you standing like a post, do you know what I began to think
+of?"
+
+Feltram looked at him, but answered nothing.
+
+"I began to think of taking a wife--_marrying_."
+
+Feltram nodded. The announcement had not produced the least effect.
+
+"Why the devil will you make me so uncomfortable! Can't you be like
+yourself--what you _were_, I mean? I won't go on living here alone with
+you. I'll take a wife, I tell you. I'll choose a good church-going
+woman, that will have every man, woman, and child in the house on their
+marrow-bones twice a day, morning and evening, and three times on
+Sundays. How will you like that?"
+
+"Yes, you will be married," said Feltram, with a quiet decision which
+chilled Sir Bale, for he had by no means made up his mind to that
+desperate step.
+
+Feltram slowly walked away, and that conversation ended.
+
+Now an odd thing happened about this time. There was a family of
+Feltram--county genealogists could show how related to the vanished
+family of Cloostedd--living at that time on their estate not far from
+Carlisle. Three co-heiresses now represented it. They were great
+beauties--the belles of their county in their day.
+
+One was married to Sir Oliver Haworth of Haworth, a great family in
+those times. He was a knight of the shire, and had refused a baronetage,
+and, it was said, had his eye on a peerage. The other sister was married
+to Sir William Walsingham, a wealthy baronet; and the third and
+youngest, Miss Janet, was still unmarried, and at home at Cloudesly
+Hall, where her aunt, Lady Harbottle, lived with her, and made a
+dignified chaperon.
+
+Now it so fell out that Sir Bale, having business at Carlisle, and
+knowing old Lady Harbottle, paid his respects at Cloudesly Hall; and
+being no less than five-and-forty years of age, was for the first time
+in his life, seriously in love.
+
+Miss Janet was extremely pretty--a fair beauty with brilliant red lips
+and large blue eyes, and ever so many pretty dimples when she talked and
+smiled. It was odd, but not perhaps against the course of nature, that a
+man, though so old as he, and quite _blase_, should fall at last under
+that fascination.
+
+But what are we to say of the strange infatuation of the young lady? No
+one could tell why she liked him. It was a craze. Her family were
+against it, her intimates, her old nurse--all would not do; and the
+oddest thing was, that he seemed to take no pains to please her. The end
+of this strange courtship was that he married her; and she came home to
+Mardykes Hall, determined to please everybody, and to be the happiest
+woman in England.
+
+With her came a female cousin, a good deal her senior, past
+thirty--Gertrude Mainyard, pale and sad, but very gentle, and with all
+the prettiness that can belong to her years.
+
+This young lady has a romance. Her hero is far away in India; and she,
+content to await his uncertain return with means to accomplish the hope
+of their lives, in that frail chance has long embarked all the purpose
+and love of her life.
+
+When Lady Mardykes came home, a new leaf was, as the phrase is, turned
+over. The neighbours and all the country people were willing to give the
+Hall a new trial. There was visiting and returning of visits; and young
+Lady Mardykes was liked and admired. It could not indeed have been
+otherwise. But here the improvement in the relations of Mardykes Hall
+with other homes ceased. On one excuse or another Sir Bale postponed or
+evaded the hospitalities which establish intimacies. Some people said he
+was jealous of his young and beautiful wife. But for the most part his
+reserve was set down to the old inhospitable cause, some ungenial defect
+in his character; and in a little time the tramp of horses and roll of
+carriage-wheels were seldom heard up or down the broad avenue of
+Mardykes Hall.
+
+Sir Bale liked this seclusion; and his wife, "so infatuated with her
+idolatry of that graceless old man," as surrounding young ladies said,
+that she was well content to forego the society of the county people for
+a less interrupted enjoyment of that of her husband. "What she could see
+in him" to interest or amuse her so, that for his sake she was willing
+to be "buried alive in that lonely place," the same critics were
+perpetually wondering.
+
+A year and more passed thus; for the young wife, happily--_very_ happily
+indeed, had it not been for one topic on which she and her husband could
+not agree. This was Philip Feltram; and an odd quarrel it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Sir Bale is Frightened
+
+To Feltram she had conceived, at first sight, a horror. It was not a
+mere antipathy; fear mingled largely in it. Although she did not see him
+often, this restless dread grew upon her so, that she urged his
+dismissal upon Sir Bale, offering to provide, herself, for him a
+handsome annuity, charged on that part of her property which, by her
+marriage settlement, had remained in her power. There was a time when
+Sir Bale was only too anxious to get rid of him. But that was changed
+now. Nothing could now induce the Baronet to part with him. He at first
+evaded and resisted quietly. But, urged with a perseverance to which he
+was unused, he at last broke into fury that appalled her, and swore that
+if he was worried more upon the subject, he would leave her and the
+country, and see neither again. This exhibition of violence affrighted
+her all the more by reason of the contrast; for up to this he had been
+an uxorious husband. Lady Mardykes was in hysterics, and thoroughly
+frightened, and remained in her room for two or three days. Sir Bale
+went up to London about business, and was not home for more than a week.
+This was the first little squall that disturbed the serenity of their
+sky.
+
+This point, therefore, was settled; but soon there came other things to
+sadden Lady Mardykes. There occurred a little incident, soon after Sir
+Bale's return from London, which recalled the topic on which they had so
+nearly quarrelled.
+
+Sir Bale had a dressing-room, remote from the bedrooms, in which he sat
+and read and sometimes smoked. One night, after the house was all quiet,
+the Baronet being still up, the bell of this dressing-room rang long and
+furiously. It was such a peal as a person in extreme terror might ring.
+Lady Mardykes, with her maid in her room, heard it; and in great alarm
+she ran in her dressing-gown down the gallery to Sir Bale's room.
+Mallard the butler had already arrived, and was striving to force the
+door, which was secured. It gave way just as she reached it, and she
+rushed through.
+
+Sir Bale was standing with the bell-rope in his hand, in the extremest
+agitation, looking like a ghost; and Philip Feltram was sitting in his
+chair, with a dark smile fixed upon him. For a minute she thought he had
+attempted to assassinate his master. She could not otherwise account for
+the scene.
+
+There had been nothing of the kind, however; as her husband assured her
+again and again, as she lay sobbing on his breast, with her arms about
+his neck.
+
+"To her dying hour," she afterwards said to her cousin, "she never could
+forget the dreadful look in Feltram's face."
+
+No explanation of that scene did she ever obtain from Sir Bale, nor any
+clue to the cause of the agony that was so powerfully expressed in his
+countenance. Thus much only she learned from him, that Feltram had
+sought that interview for the purpose of announcing his departure, which
+was to take place within the year.
+
+"You are not sorry to hear that. But if you knew all, you might. Let the
+curse fly where it may, it will come back to roost. So, darling, let us
+discuss him no more. Your wish is granted, _dis iratis_."
+
+Some crisis, during this interview, seemed to have occurred in the
+relations between Sir Bale and Feltram. Henceforward they seldom
+exchanged a word; and when they did speak, it was coldly and shortly,
+like men who were nearly strangers.
+
+One day in the courtyard, Sir Bale seeing Feltram leaning upon the
+parapet that overlooks the lake, approached him, and said in a low tone,
+
+"I've been thinking if we--that is, I--do owe that money to old Trebeck,
+it is high time I should pay it. I was ill, and had lost my head at the
+time; but it turned out luckily, and it ought to be paid. I don't like
+the idea of a bond turning up, and a lot of interest."
+
+"The old fellow meant it for a present. He is richer than you are; he
+wished to give the family a lift. He has destroyed the bond, I believe,
+and in no case will he take payment."
+
+"No fellow has a right to force his money on another," answered Sir
+Bale. "I never asked him. Besides, as you know, I was not really myself,
+and the whole thing seems to me quite different from what you say it
+was; and, so far as my brain is concerned, it was all a phantasmagoria;
+but, you say, it was he."
+
+"Every man is accountable for what he intends and for what he _thinks_
+he does," said Feltram cynically.
+
+"Well, I'm accountable for dealing with that wicked old dicer I
+_thought_ I saw--isn't that it? But I must pay old Trebeck all the same,
+since the money was his. Can you manage a meeting?"
+
+"Look down here. Old Trebeck has just landed; he will sleep to-night at
+the George and Dragon, to meet his cattle in the morning at Golden
+Friars fair. You can speak to him yourself."
+
+So saying Feltram glided away, leaving Sir Bale the task of opening the
+matter to the wealthy farmer of Cloostedd Fells.
+
+A broad night of steps leads down from the courtyard to the level of the
+jetty at the lake: and Sir Bale descended, and accosted the venerable
+farmer, who was bluff, honest, and as frank as a man can be who speaks a
+_patois_ which hardly a living man but himself can understand.
+
+Sir Bale asked him to come to the Hall and take luncheon; but Trebeck
+was in haste. Cattle had arrived which he wanted to look at, and a pony
+awaited him on the road, hard by, to Golden Friars; and the old fellow
+must mount and away.
+
+Then Sir Bale, laying his hand upon his arm in a manner that was at once
+lofty and affectionate, told in his ears the subject on which he wished
+to be understood.
+
+The old farmer looked hard at him, and shook his head and laughed in a
+way that would have been insupportable in a house, and told him, "I hev
+narra bond o' thoine, mon."
+
+"I know how that is; so does Philip Feltram."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I must replace the money."
+
+The old man laughed again, and in his outlandish dialect told him to
+wait till he asked him. Sir Bale pressed it, but the old fellow put it
+off with outlandish banter; and as the Baronet grew testy, the farmer
+only waxed more and more hilarious, and at last, mounting his shaggy
+pony, rode off, still laughing, at a canter to Golden Friars; and when
+he reached Golden Friars, and got into the hall of the George and
+Dragon, he asked Richard Turnbull with a chuckle if he ever knew a man
+refuse an offer of money, or a man want to pay who did not owe; and
+inquired whether the Squire down at Mardykes Hall mightn't be a bit
+"wrang in t' garrets." All this, however, other people said, was
+intended merely to conceal the fact that he really had, through sheer
+loyalty, lent the money, or rather bestowed it, thinking the old family
+in jeopardy, and meaning a gift, was determined to hear no more about
+it. I can't say; I only know people held, some by one interpretation,
+some by another.
+
+As the caterpillar sickens and changes its hue when it is about to
+undergo its transformation, so an odd change took place in Feltram. He
+grew even more silent and morose; he seemed always in an agitation and a
+secret rage. He used to walk through the woodlands on the slopes of the
+fells above Mardykes, muttering to himself, picking up the rotten sticks
+with which the ground was strewn, breaking them in his hands, and
+hurling them from him, and stamping on the earth as he paced up and
+down.
+
+One night a thunder-storm came on, the wind blowing gently up from
+Golden Friars. It was a night black as pitch, illuminated only by the
+intermittent glare of the lightning. At the foot of the stairs Sir Bale
+met Feltram, whom he had not seen for some days. He had his cloak and
+hat on.
+
+"I am going to Cloostedd to-night," he said, "and if all is as I expect,
+I sha'n't return. We remember all, you and I." And he nodded and walked
+down the passage.
+
+Sir Bale knew that a crisis had happened in his own life. He felt faint
+and ill, and returned to the room where he had been sitting. Throughout
+that melancholy night he did not go to his bed.
+
+In the morning he learned that Marlin, who had been out late, saw
+Feltram get the boat off, and sail towards the other side. The night was
+so dark that he could only see him start; but the wind was light and
+coming up the lake, so that without a tack he could easily make the
+other side. Feltram did not return. The boat was found fast to the ring
+at Cloostedd landing-place.
+
+Lady Mardykes was relieved, and for a time was happier than ever. It was
+different with Sir Bale; and afterwards her sky grew dark also.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+A Lady in Black
+
+Shortly after this, there arrived at the George and Dragon a stranger.
+He was a man somewhat past forty, embrowned by distant travel, and, his
+years considered, wonderfully good-looking. He had good eyes; his
+dark-brown hair had no sprinkling of gray in it; and his kindly smile
+showed very white and even teeth. He made inquiries about neighbours,
+especially respecting Mardykes Hall; and the answers seemed to interest
+him profoundly. He inquired after Philip Feltram, and shed tears when he
+heard that he was no longer at Mardykes Hall, and that Trebeck or other
+friends could give him no tidings of him.
+
+And then he asked Richard Turnbull to show him to a quiet room; and so,
+taking the honest fellow by the hand, he said,
+
+"Mr. Turnbull, don't you know me?"
+
+"No, sir," said the host of the George and Dragon, after a puzzled
+stare, "I can't say I do, sir."
+
+The stranger smiled a little sadly, and shook his head: and with a
+gentle laugh, still holding his hand in a very friendly way, he said, "I
+should have known you anywhere, Mr. Turnbull--anywhere on earth or
+water. Had you turned up on the Himalayas, or in a junk on the Canton
+river, or as a dervish in the mosque of St. Sophia, I should have
+recognised my old friend, and asked what news from Golden Friars. But of
+course I'm changed. You were a little my senior; and one advantage among
+many you have over your juniors is that you don't change as we do. I
+have played many a game of hand-ball in the inn-yard of the George, Mr.
+Turnbull. You often wagered a pot of ale on my play; you used to say I'd
+make the best player of fives, and the best singer of a song, within ten
+miles round the meer. You used to have me behind the bar when I was a
+boy, with more of an appetite than I have now. I was then at Mardykes
+Hall, and used to go back in old Marlin's boat. Is old Marlin still
+alive?"
+
+"Ay, that--he--is," said Turnbull slowly, as he eyed the stranger again
+carefully. "I don't know who you can be, sir, unless you are--the
+boy--William Feltram. La! he was seven or eight years younger than
+Philip. But, lawk!--Well--By Jen, and _be_ you Willie Feltram? But no,
+you can't!"
+
+"Ay, Mr. Turnbull, that very boy--Willie Feltram--even he, and no other;
+and now you'll shake hands with me, not so formally, but like an old
+friend."
+
+"Ay, that I will," said honest Richard Turnbull, with a great smile, and
+a hearty grasp of his guest's hand; and they both laughed together, and
+the younger man's eyes, for he was an affectionate fool, filled up with
+tears.
+
+"And I want you to tell me this," said William, after they had talked a
+little quietly, "now that there is no one to interrupt us, what has
+become of my brother Philip? I heard from a friend an account of his
+health that has caused me unspeakable anxiety."
+
+"His health was not bad; no, he was a hardy lad, and liked a walk over
+the fells, or a pull on the lake; but he was a bit daft, every one said,
+and a changed man; and, in troth, they say the air o' Mardykes don't
+agree with every one, no more than him. But that's a tale that's neither
+here nor there."
+
+"Yes," said William, "that was what they told me--his mind affected. God
+help and guard us! I have been unhappy ever since; and if I only knew it
+was well with poor Philip, I think I should be too happy. And where is
+Philip now?"
+
+"He crossed the lake one night, having took leave of Sir Bale. They
+thought he was going to old Trebeck's up the Fells. He likes the
+Feltrams, and likes the folk at Mardykes Hall--though those two families
+was not always o'er kind to one another. But Trebeck seed nowt o' him,
+nor no one else; and what has gone wi' him no one can tell."
+
+"_I_ heard that also," said William with a deep sigh. "But _I_ hoped it
+had been cleared up by now, and something happier been known of the poor
+fellow by this time. I'd give a great deal to know--I don't know what I
+_would_ not give to know--I'm so unhappy about him. And now, my good old
+friend, tell your people to get me a chaise, for I must go to Mardykes
+Hall; and, first, let me have a room to dress in."
+
+At Mardykes Hall a pale and pretty lady was looking out, alone, from the
+stone-shafted drawing-room window across the courtyard and the
+balustrade, on which stood many a great stone cup with flowers, whose
+leaves were half shed and gone with the winds--emblem of her hopes. The
+solemn melancholy of the towering fells, the ripple of the lonely lake,
+deepened her sadness.
+
+The unwonted sound of carriage-wheels awoke her from her reverie.
+
+Before the chaise reached the steps, a hand from its window had seized
+the handle, the door was thrown open, and William Feltram jumped out.
+
+She was in the hall, she knew not how; and, with a wild scream and a
+sob, she threw herself into his arms.
+
+Here at last was an end of the long waiting, the dejection which had
+reached almost the point of despair. And like two rescued from
+shipwreck, they clung together in an agony of happiness.
+
+William had come back with no very splendid fortune. It was enough, and
+only enough, to enable them to marry. Prudent people would have thought
+it, very likely, too little. But he was now home in England, with health
+unimpaired by his long sojourn in the East, and with intelligence and
+energies improved by the discipline of his arduous struggle with
+fortune. He reckoned, therefore, upon one way or other adding something
+to their income; and he knew that a few hundreds a year would make them
+happier than hundreds of thousand could other people.
+
+It was five years since they had parted in France, where a journey of
+importance to the Indian firm, whose right hand he was, had brought him.
+
+The refined tastes that are supposed to accompany gentle blood, his love
+of art, his talent for music and drawing, had accidentally attracted the
+attention of the little travelling-party which old Lady Harbottle
+chaperoned. Miss Janet, now Lady Mardykes, learning that his name was
+Feltram, made inquiry through a common friend, and learned what
+interested her still more about him. It ended in an acquaintance, which
+his manly and gentle nature and his entertaining qualities soon improved
+into an intimacy.
+
+Feltram had chosen to work his own way, being proud, and also prosperous
+enough to prevent his pride, in this respect, from being placed under
+too severe a pressure of temptation. He heard not from but of his
+brother, through a friend in London, and more lately from Gertrude,
+whose account of him was sad and even alarming.
+
+When Lady Mardykes came in, her delight knew no bounds. She had already
+formed a plan for their future, and was not to be put off--William
+Feltram was to take the great grazing farm that belonged to the Mardykes
+estate; or, if he preferred it, to farm it for her, sharing the profits.
+She wanted something to interest her, and this was just the thing. It
+was hardly half-a-mile away, up the lake, and there was such a
+comfortable house and garden, and she and Gertrude could be as much
+together as ever almost; and, in fact, Gertrude and her husband could be
+nearly always at Mardykes Hall.
+
+So eager and entreating was she, that there was no escape. The plan was
+adopted immediately on their marriage, and no happier neighbours for a
+time were ever known.
+
+But was Lady Mardykes content? was she even exempt from the heartache
+which each mortal thinks he has all to himself? The longing of her life
+was for children; and again and again had her hopes been disappointed.
+
+One tiny pretty little baby indeed was born, and lived for two years,
+and then died; and none had come to supply its place and break the
+childless silence in the great old nursery. That was her sorrow; a
+greater one than men can understand.
+
+Another source of grief was this: that Sir Bale Mardykes conceived a
+dislike to William Feltram that was unaccountable. At first suppressed,
+it betrayed itself negatively only; but with time it increased; and in
+the end the Baronet made little secret of his wish to get rid of him.
+Many and ingenious were the annoyances he contrived; and at last he told
+his wife plainly that he wished William Feltram to find some other abode
+for himself.
+
+Lady Mardykes pleaded earnestly, and even with tears; for if Gertrude
+were to leave the neighbourhood, she well knew how utterly solitary her
+own life would become.
+
+Sir Bale at last vouchsafed some little light as to his motives. There
+was an old story, he told her, that his estate would go to a Feltram. He
+had an instinctive distrust of that family. It was a feeling not given
+him for nothing; it might be the means of defeating their plotting and
+strategy. Old Trebeck, he fancied, had a finger in it. Philip Feltram
+had told him that Mardykes was to pass away to a Feltram. Well, they
+might conspire; but he would take what care he could that the estate
+should not be stolen from his family. He did not want his wife stript of
+her jointure, or his children, if he had any, left without bread.
+
+All this sounded very like madness; but the idea was propounded by
+Philip Feltram. His own jealousy was at bottom founded on superstition
+which he would not avow and could hardly define. He bitterly blamed
+himself for having permitted William Feltram to place himself where he
+was.
+
+In the midst of these annoyances William Feltram was seriously thinking
+of throwing up the farm, and seeking similar occupation somewhere else.
+
+One day, walking alone in the thick wood that skirts the lake near his
+farm, he was discussing this problem with himself; and every now and
+then he repeated his question, "Shall I throw it up, and give him the
+lease back if he likes?" On a sudden he heard a voice near him say:
+
+"Hold it, you fool!--hold hard, you fool!--hold it, you fool!"
+
+The situation being lonely, he was utterly puzzled to account for the
+interruption, until on a sudden a huge parrot, green, crimson, and
+yellow, plunged from among the boughs over his head to the ground, and
+partly flying, and partly hopping and tumbling along, got lamely, but
+swiftly, out of sight among the thick underwood; and he could neither
+start it nor hear it any more. The interruption reminded him of that
+which befel Robinson Crusoe. It was more singular, however; for he owned
+no such bird; and its strangeness impressed the omen all the more.
+
+He related it when he got home to his wife; and as people when living a
+solitary life, and also suffering, are prone to superstition, she did
+not laugh at the adventure, as in a healthier state of spirits, I
+suppose, she would.
+
+They continued, however, to discuss the question together; and all the
+more industriously as a farm of the same kind, only some fifteen miles
+away, was now offered to all bidders, under another landlord. Gertrude,
+who felt Sir Bale's unkindness all the more that she was a distant
+cousin of his, as it had proved on comparing notes, was very strong in
+favour of the change, and had been urging it with true feminine
+ingenuity and persistence upon her husband. A very singular dream rather
+damped her ardour, however, and it appeared thus:
+
+She had gone to her bed full of this subject; and she thought, although
+she could not remember having done so, had fallen asleep. She was still
+thinking, as she had been all the day, about leaving the farm. It seemed
+to her that she was quite awake, and a candle burning all the time in
+the room, awaiting the return of her husband, who was away at the fair
+near Haworth; she saw the interior of the room distinctly. It was a
+sultry night, and a little bit of the window was raised. A very slight
+sound in that direction attracted her attention; and to her surprise she
+saw a jay hop upon the window-sill, and into the room.
+
+Up sat Gertrude, surprised and a little startled at the visit of so
+large a bird, without presence of mind for the moment even to frighten
+it away, and staring at it, as they say, with all her eyes. A sofa stood
+at the foot of the bed; and under this the bird swiftly hopped. She
+extended her hand now to take the bell-rope at the left side of the bed,
+and in doing so displaced the curtains, which were open only at the
+foot. She was amazed there to see a lady dressed entirely in black, and
+with the old-fashioned hood over her head. She was young and pretty, and
+looked kindly at her, but with now and then a slight contraction of lips
+and eyebrows that indicates pain. This little twitching was momentary,
+and recurred, it seemed, about once or twice in a minute.
+
+How it was that she was not frightened on seeing this lady, standing
+like an old friend at her bedside, she could not afterwards understand.
+Some influence besides the kindness of her look prevented any sensation
+of terror at the time. With a very white hand the young lady in black
+held a white handkerchief pressed to her bosom at the top of her bodice.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Gertrude.
+
+"I am a kinswoman, although you don't know me; and I have come to tell
+you that you must not leave Faxwell" (the name of the place) "or Janet.
+If you go, I will go with you; and I can make you fear me."
+
+Her voice was very distinct, but also very faint, with something
+undulatory in it, that seemed to enter Gertrude's head rather than her
+ear.
+
+Saying this she smiled horribly, and, lifting her handkerchief,
+disclosed for a moment a great wound in her breast, deep in which
+Gertrude saw darkly the head of a snake writhing.
+
+Hereupon she uttered a wild scream of terror, and, diving under the
+bed-clothes, remained more dead than alive there, until her maid,
+alarmed by her cry, came in, and having searched the room, and shut the
+window at her desire, did all in her power to comfort her.
+
+If this was a nightmare and embodied only by a form of expression which
+in some states belongs to the imagination, a leading idea in the
+controversy in which her mind had long been employed, it had at least
+the effect of deciding her against leaving Faxwell. And so that point
+was settled; and unpleasant relations continued between the tenants of
+the farm and the master of Mardykes Hall.
+
+To Lady Mardykes all this was very painful, although Sir Bale did not
+insist upon making a separation between his wife and her cousin. But to
+Mardykes Hall that cousin came no more. Even Lady Mardykes thought it
+better to see her at Faxwell than to risk a meeting in the temper in
+which Sir Bale then was. And thus several years passed.
+
+No tidings of Philip Feltram were heard; and, in fact, none ever reached
+that part of the world; and if it had not been highly improbable that he
+could have drowned himself in the lake without his body sooner or later
+having risen to the surface, it would have been concluded that he had
+either accidentally or by design made away with himself in its waters.
+
+Over Mardykes Hall there was a gloom--no sound of children's voices was
+heard there, and even the hope of that merry advent had died out.
+
+This disappointment had no doubt helped to fix in Sir Bale's mind the
+idea of the insecurity of his property, and the morbid fancy that
+William Feltram and old Trebeck were conspiring to seize it; than which,
+I need hardly say, no imagination more insane could have fixed itself in
+his mind.
+
+In other things, however, Sir Bale was shrewd and sharp, a clear and
+rapid man of business, and although this was a strange whim, it was not
+so unnatural in a man who was by nature so prone to suspicion as Sir
+Bale Mardykes.
+
+During the years, now seven, that had elapsed since the marriage of Sir
+Bale and Miss Janet Feltram, there had happened but one event, except
+the death of their only child, to place them in mourning. That was the
+decease of Sir William Walsingham, the husband of Lady Mardykes' sister.
+She now lived in a handsome old dower-house at Islington, and being
+wealthy, made now and then an excursion to Mardykes Hall, in which she
+was sometimes accompanied by her sister Lady Haworth. Sir Oliver being a
+Parliament-man was much in London and deep in politics and intrigue, and
+subject, as convivial rogues are, to occasional hard hits from gout.
+
+But change and separation had made no alteration in these ladies' mutual
+affections, and no three sisters were ever more attached.
+
+Was Lady Mardykes happy with her lord? A woman so gentle and loving as
+she, is a happy wife with any husband who is not an absolute brute.
+There must have been, I suppose, some good about Sir Bale. His wife was
+certainly deeply attached to him. She admired his wisdom, and feared his
+inflexible will, and altogether made of him a domestic idol. To acquire
+this enviable position, I suspect there must be something not
+essentially disagreeable about a man. At all events, what her neighbours
+good-naturedly termed her infatuation continued, and indeed rather
+improved by time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+An Old Portrait
+
+Sir Bale--whom some remembered a gay and convivial man, not to say a
+profligate one--had grown to be a very gloomy man indeed. There was
+something weighing upon his mind; and I daresay some of the good gossips
+of Golden Friars, had there been any materials for such a case, would
+have believed that Sir Bale had murdered Philip Feltram, and was now the
+victim of the worm and fire of remorse.
+
+The gloom of the master of the house made his very servants gloomy, and
+the house itself looked sombre, as if it had been startled with strange
+and dismal sights.
+
+Lady Mardykes was something of an artist. She had lighted lately, in an
+out-of-the-way room, upon a dozen or more old portraits. Several of
+these were full-lengths; and she was--with the help of her maid, both in
+long aprons, amid sponges and basins, soft handkerchiefs and
+varnish-pots and brushes--busy in removing the dust and smoke-stains,
+and in laying-on the varnish, which brought out the colouring, and made
+the transparent shadows yield up their long-buried treasures of finished
+detail.
+
+Against the wall stood a full-length portrait as Sir Bale entered the
+room; having for a wonder, a word to say to his wife.
+
+"O," said the pretty lady, turning to him in her apron, and with her
+brush in her hand, "we are in such in pickle, Munnings and I have been
+cleaning these old pictures. Mrs. Julaper says they are the pictures
+that came from Cloostedd Hall long ago. They were buried in dust in the
+dark room in the clock-tower. Here is such a characteristic one. It has
+a long powdered wig--George the First or Second, I don't know which--and
+such a combination of colours, and such a face. It seems starting out of
+the canvas, and all but speaks. Do look; that is, I mean, Bale, if you
+can spare time."
+
+Sir Bale abstractedly drew near, and looked over his wife's shoulder on
+the full-length portrait that stood before him; and as he did so a
+strange expression for a moment passed over his face.
+
+The picture represented a man of swarthy countenance, with signs of the
+bottle glowing through the dark skin; small fierce pig eyes, a rather
+flat pendulous nose, and a grim forbidding mouth, with a large wart a
+little above it. On the head hung one of those full-bottomed powdered
+wigs that look like a cloud of cotton-wadding; a lace cravat was about
+his neck; he wore short black-velvet breeches with stockings rolled over
+them, a bottle-green coat of cut velvet and a crimson waistcoat with
+long flaps; coat and waistcoat both heavily laced with gold. He wore a
+sword, and leaned upon a crutch-handled cane, and his figure and aspect
+indicated a swollen and gouty state. He could not be far from sixty.
+There was uncommon force in this fierce and forbidding-looking portrait.
+Lady Mardykes said, "What wonderful dresses they wore! How like a fine
+magic-lantern figure he looks! What gorgeous colouring! it looks like
+the plumage of a mackaw; and what a claw his hand is! and that huge
+broken beak of a nose! Isn't he like a wicked old mackaw?"
+
+"Where did you find that?" asked Sir Bale.
+
+Surprised at his tone, she looked round, and was still more surprised at
+his looks.
+
+"I told you, dear Bale, I found them in the clock-tower. I hope I did
+right; it was not wrong bringing them here? I ought to have asked. Are
+you vexed, Bale?"
+
+"Vexed! not I. I only wish it was in the fire. I must have seen that
+picture when I was a child. I hate to look at it. I raved about it once,
+when I was ill. I don't know who it is; I don't remember when I saw it.
+I wish you'd tell them to burn it."
+
+"It is one of the Feltrams," she answered. "'Sir Hugh Feltram' is on the
+frame at the foot; and old Mrs. Julaper says he was the father of the
+unhappy lady who was said to have been drowned near Snakes Island."
+
+"Well, suppose he is; there's nothing interesting in that. It is a
+disgusting picture. I connect it with my illness; and I think it is the
+kind of thing that would make any one half mad, if they only looked at
+it often enough. Tell them to burn it; and come away, come to the next
+room; I can't say what I want here."
+
+Sir Bale seemed to grow more and more agitated the longer he remained in
+the room. He seemed to her both frightened and furious; and taking her a
+little roughly by the wrist, he led her through the door.
+
+When they were in another apartment alone, he again asked the affrighted
+lady who had told her that picture was there, and who told her to clean
+it.
+
+She had only the truth to plead. It was, from beginning to end, the
+merest accident.
+
+"If I thought, Janet, that you were taking counsel of others, talking me
+over, and trying clever experiments--" he stopped short with his eyes
+fixed on hers with black suspicion.
+
+His wife's answer was one pleading look, and to burst into tears.
+
+Sir Bale let-go her wrist, which he had held up to this; and placing his
+hand gently on her shoulder, he said,
+
+"You must not cry, Janet; I have given you no excuse for tears. I only
+wished an answer to a very harmless question; and I am sure you would
+tell me, if by any chance you have lately seen Philip Feltram; he is
+capable of arranging all that. No one knows him as I do. There, you must
+not cry any more; but tell me truly, has he turned up? is he at
+Faxwell?"
+
+She denied all this with perfect truth; and after a hesitation of some
+time, the matter ended. And as soon as she and he were more themselves,
+he had something quite different to tell her.
+
+"Sit down, Janet; sit down, and forget that vile picture and all I have
+been saying. What I came to tell you, I think you will like; I am sure
+it will please you."
+
+And with this little preface he placed his arm about her neck, and
+kissed her tenderly. She certainly was pleased; and when his little
+speech was over, she, smiling, with her tears still wet upon her cheeks,
+put her arms round her husband's neck, and in turn kissed him with the
+ardour of gratitude, kissed him affectionately; again and again thanking
+him all the time.
+
+It was no great matter, but from Sir Bale Mardykes it was something
+quite unusual.
+
+Was it a sudden whim? What was it? Something had prompted Sir Bale,
+early in that dark shrewd month of December, to tell his wife that he
+wished to call together some of his county acquaintances, and to fill
+his house for a week or so, as near Christmas as she could get them to
+come. He wished her sisters--Lady Haworth (with her husband) and the
+Dowager Lady Walsingham--to be invited for an early day, before the
+coming of the other guests, so that she might enjoy their society for a
+little time quietly to herself before the less intimate guests should
+assemble.
+
+Glad was Lady Mardykes to hear the resolve of her husband, and prompt to
+obey. She wrote to her sisters to beg them to arrange to come, together,
+by the tenth or twelfth of the month, which they accordingly arranged to
+do. Sir Oliver, it was true, could not be of the party. A minister of
+state was drinking the waters at Bath; and Sir Oliver thought it would
+do him no harm to sip a little also, and his fashionable doctor politely
+agreed, and "ordered" to those therapeutic springs the knight of the
+shire, who was "consumedly vexed" to lose the Christmas with that jolly
+dog, Bale, down at Mardykes Hall. But a fellow must have a stomach for
+his Christmas pudding, and politics takes it out of a poor gentleman
+deucedly; and health's the first thing, egad!
+
+So Sir Oliver went down to Bath, and I don't know that he tippled much
+of the waters, but he did drink the burgundy of that haunt of the
+ailing; and he had the honour of making a fourth not unfrequently in the
+secretary of state's whist-parties.
+
+It was about the 8th of December when, in Lady Walsingham's carriage,
+intending to post all the way, that lady, still young, and Lady Haworth,
+with all the servants that were usual in such expeditions in those days,
+started from the great Dower House at Islington in high spirits.
+
+Lady Haworth had not been very well--low and nervous; but the clear
+frosty sun, and the pleasant nature of the excursion, raised her spirits
+to the point of enjoyment; and expecting nothing but happiness and
+gaiety--for, after all, Sir Bale was but one of a large party, and even
+he could make an effort and be agreeable as well as hospitable on
+occasion--they set out on their northward expedition. The journey, which
+is a long one, they had resolved to break into a four days' progress;
+and the inns had been written to, bespeaking a comfortable reception.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Through the Wall
+
+On the third night they put-up at the comfortable old inn called the
+Three Nuns. With an effort they might easily have pushed on to Mardykes
+Hall that night, for the distance is not more than five-and-thirty
+miles. But, considering her sister's health, Lady Walsingham in planning
+their route had resolved against anything like a forced march.
+
+Here the ladies took possession of the best sitting-room; and,
+notwithstanding the fatigue of the journey, Lady Haworth sat up with her
+sister till near ten o'clock, chatting gaily about a thousand things.
+
+Of the three sisters, Lady Walsingham was the eldest. She had been in
+the habit of taking the command at home; and now, for advice and
+decision, her younger sisters, less prompt and courageous than she, were
+wont, whenever in her neighbourhood, to throw upon her all the cares and
+agitations of determining what was best to be done in small things and
+great. It is only fair to say, in addition, that this submission was not
+by any means exacted; it was the deference of early habit and feebler
+will, for she was neither officious nor imperious.
+
+It was now time that Lady Haworth, a good deal more fatigued than her
+sister, should take leave of her for the night.
+
+Accordingly they kissed and bid each other good-night; and Lady
+Walsingham, not yet disposed to sleep, sat for some time longer in the
+comfortable room where they had taken tea, amusing the time with the
+book that had, when conversation flagged, beguiled the weariness of the
+journey. Her sister had been in her room nearly an hour, when she became
+herself a little sleepy. She had lighted her candle, and was going to
+ring for her maid, when, to her surprise, the door opened, and her
+sister Lady Haworth entered in a dressing-gown, looking frightened.
+
+"My darling Mary!" exclaimed Lady Walsingham, "what is the matter? Are
+you well?"
+
+"Yes, darling," she answered, "quite well; that is, I don't know what is
+the matter--I'm frightened." She paused, listening, with her eyes turned
+towards the wall. "O, darling Maud, I am so frightened! I don't know
+what it can be."
+
+"You must not be agitated, darling; there's nothing. You have been
+asleep, and I suppose you have had a dream. Were you asleep?"
+
+Lady Haworth had caught her sister fast by the arm with both hands, and
+was looking wildly in her face.
+
+"Have _you_ heard nothing?" she asked, again looking towards the wall of
+the room, as if she expected to hear a voice through it.
+
+"Nonsense, darling; you are dreaming still. Nothing; there has been
+nothing to hear. I have been awake ever since; if there had been
+anything to hear, I could not have missed it. Come, sit down. Sip a
+little of this water; you are nervous, and over-tired; and tell me
+plainly, like a good little soul, what is the matter; for nothing has
+happened here; and you ought to know that the Three Nuns is the quietest
+house in England; and I'm no witch, and if you won't tell me what's the
+matter, I can't divine it."
+
+"Yes, of course," said Mary, sitting down, and glancing round her
+wildly. "I don't hear it now; _you_ don't?"
+
+"Do, my dear Mary, tell me what you mean," said Lady Walsingham kindly
+but firmly.
+
+Lady Haworth was holding the still untasted glass of water in her hand.
+
+"Yes, I'll tell you; I have been so frightened! You are right; I had a
+dream, but I can scarcely remember anything of it, except the very end,
+when I wakened. But it was not the dream; only it was connected with
+what terrified me so. I was so tired when I went to bed, I thought I
+should have slept soundly; and indeed I fell asleep immediately; and I
+must have slept quietly for a good while. How long is it since I left
+you?"
+
+"More than an hour."
+
+"Yes, I must have slept a good while; for I don't think I have been ten
+minutes awake. How my dream began I don't know. I remember only that
+gradually it came to this: I was standing in a recess in a panelled
+gallery; it was lofty, and, I thought, belonged to a handsome but
+old-fashioned house. I was looking straight towards the head of a wide
+staircase, with a great oak banister. At the top of the stairs, as near
+to me, about, as that window there, was a thick short column of oak, on
+top of which was a candlestick. There was no other light but from that
+one candle; and there was a lady standing beside it, looking down the
+stairs, with her back turned towards me; and from her gestures I should
+have thought speaking to people on a lower lobby, but whom from my place
+I could not see. I soon perceived that this lady was in great agony of
+mind; for she beat her breast and wrung her hands every now and then,
+and wagged her head slightly from side to side, like a person in great
+distraction. But one word she said I could not hear. Nor when she struck
+her hand on the banister, or stamped, as she seemed to do in her pain,
+upon the floor, could I hear any sound. I found myself somehow waiting
+upon this lady, and was watching her with awe and sympathy. But who she
+was I knew not, until turning towards me I plainly saw Janet's face,
+pale and covered with tears, and with such a look of agony as--O God!--I
+can never forget."
+
+"Pshaw! Mary darling, what is it but a dream! I have had a thousand more
+startling; it is only that you are so nervous just now."
+
+"But that is not all--nothing; what followed is so dreadful; for either
+there is something very horrible going on at Mardykes, or else I am
+losing my reason," said Lady Haworth in increasing agitation. "I wakened
+instantly in great alarm, but I suppose no more than I have felt a
+hundred times on awakening from a frightful dream. I sat up in my bed; I
+was thinking of ringing for Winnefred, my heart was beating so, but
+feeling better soon I changed my mind. All this time I heard a faint
+sound of a voice, as if coming through a thick wall. It came from the
+wall at the left side of my bed, and I fancied was that of some woman
+lamenting in a room separated from me by that thick partition. I could
+only perceive that it was a sound of crying mingled with ejaculations of
+misery, or fear, or entreaty. I listened with a painful curiosity,
+wondering who it could be, and what could have happened in the
+neighbouring rooms of the house; and as I looked and listened, I could
+distinguish my own name, but at first nothing more. That, of course,
+might have been an accident; and I knew there were many Marys in the
+world besides myself. But it made me more curious; and a strange thing
+struck me, for I was now looking at that very wall through which the
+sounds were coming. I saw that there was a window in it. Thinking that
+the rest of the wall might nevertheless be covered by another room, I
+drew the curtain of it and looked out. But there is no such thing. It is
+the outer wall the entire way along. And it is equally impossible of the
+other wall, for it is to the front of the house, and has two windows in
+it; and the wall that the head of my bed stands against has the gallery
+outside it all the way; for I remarked that as I came to you."
+
+"Tut, tut, Mary darling, nothing on earth is so deceptive as sound; this
+and fancy account for everything."
+
+"But hear me out; I have not told you all. I began to hear the voice
+more clearly, and at last quite distinctly. It was Janet's, and she was
+conjuring you by name, as well as me, to come to her to Mardykes,
+without delay, in her extremity; yes, _you_, just as vehemently as me.
+It was Janet's voice. It still seemed separated by the wall, but I heard
+every syllable now; and I never heard voice or words of such anguish.
+She was imploring of us to come on, without a moment's delay, to
+Mardykes; and crying that, if we were not with her, she should go mad."
+
+"Well, darling," said Lady Walsingham, "you see I'm included in this
+invitation as well as you, and should hate to disappoint Janet just as
+much; and I do assure you, in the morning you will laugh over this fancy
+with me; or rather, she will laugh over it with us, when we get to
+Mardykes. What you do want is rest, and a little sal-volatile."
+
+So saying she rang the bell for Lady Haworth's maid. Having comforted
+her sister, and made her take the nervous specific she recommended, she
+went with her to her room; and taking possession of the arm-chair by the
+fire, she told her that she would keep her company until she was asleep,
+and remain long enough to be sure that the sleep was not likely to be
+interrupted. Lady Haworth had not been ten minutes in her bed, when she
+raised herself with a start to her elbow, listening with parted lips and
+wild eyes, her trembling fingers behind her ears. With an exclamation of
+horror, she cried,
+
+"There it is again, upbraiding us! I can't stay longer."
+
+She sprang from the bed, and rang the bell violently.
+
+"Maud," she cried in an ecstasy of horror, "nothing shall keep me here,
+whether you go or not. I will set out the moment the horses are put to.
+If you refuse to come, Maud, mind the responsibility is yours--listen!"
+and with white face and starting eyes she pointed to the wall. "Have you
+ears; don't you hear?"
+
+The sight of a person in extremity of terror so mysterious, might have
+unnerved a ruder system than Lady Walsingham's. She was pale as she
+replied; for under certain circumstances those terrors which deal with
+the supernatural are more contagious than any others. Lady Walsingham
+still, in terms, held to her opinion; but although she tried to smile,
+her face showed that the panic had touched her.
+
+"Well, dear Mary," she said, "as you will have it so, I see no good in
+resisting you longer. Here, it is plain, your nerves will not suffer you
+to rest. Let us go then, in heaven's name; and when you get to Mardykes
+Hall you will be relieved."
+
+All this time Lady Haworth was getting on her things, with the careless
+hurry of a person about to fly for her life; and Lady Walsingham issued
+her orders for horses, and the general preparations for resuming the
+journey.
+
+It was now between ten and eleven; but the servant who rode armed with
+them, according to the not unnecessary usage of the times, thought that
+with a little judicious bribing of postboys they might easily reach
+Mardykes Hall before three o'clock in the morning.
+
+When the party set forward again, Lady Haworth was comparatively
+tranquil. She no longer heard the unearthly mimickry of her sister's
+voice; there remained only the fear and suspense which that illusion or
+visitation had produced.
+
+Her sister, Lady Walsingham, after a brief effort to induce something
+like conversation, became silent. A thin sheet of snow had covered the
+darkened landscape, and some light flakes were still dropping. Lady
+Walsingham struck her repeater often in the dark, and inquired the
+distances frequently. She was anxious to get over the ground, though by
+no means fatigued. Something of the anxiety that lay heavy at her
+sister's heart had touched her own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Perplexed
+
+The roads even then were good, and very good horses the posting-houses
+turned out; so that by dint of extra pay the rapid rate of travelling
+undertaken by the servant was fully accomplished in the first two or
+three stages.
+
+While Lady Walsingham was continually striking her repeater in her ear,
+and as they neared their destination, growing in spite of herself more
+anxious, her sister's uneasiness showed itself in a less reserved way;
+for, cold as it was, with snowflakes actually dropping, Lady Haworth's
+head was perpetually out at the window, and when she drew it up, sitting
+again in her place, she would audibly express her alarms, and apply to
+her sister for consolation and confidence in her suspense.
+
+Under its thin carpet of snow, the pretty village of Golden Friars
+looked strangely to their eyes. It had long been fast asleep, and both
+ladies were excited as they drew up at the steps of the George and
+Dragon, and with bell and knocker roused the slumbering household.
+
+What tidings awaited them here? In a very few minutes the door was
+opened, and the porter staggered down, after a word with the driver, to
+the carriage-window, not half awake.
+
+"Is Lady Mardykes well?" demanded Lady Walsingham.
+
+"Is Sir Bale well?"
+
+"Are all the people at Mardykes Hall quite well?"
+
+With clasped hands Lady Haworth listened to the successive answers to
+these questions which her sister hastily put. The answers were all
+satisfactory. With a great sigh and a little laugh, Lady Walsingham
+placed her hand affectionately on that of her sister; who, saying, "God
+be thanked!" began to weep.
+
+"When had you last news from Mardykes?" asked Lady Walsingham.
+
+"A servant was down here about four o'clock."
+
+"O! no one since?" said she in a disappointed tone.
+
+No one had been from the great house since, but all were well then.
+
+"They are early people, you know, dear; and it is dark at four, and that
+is as late as they could well have heard, and nothing could have
+happened since--very unlikely. We have come very fast; it is only a few
+minutes past two, darling."
+
+But each felt the chill and load of their returning anxiety.
+
+While the people at the George were rapidly getting a team of horses to,
+Lady Walsingham contrived a moment for an order from the other window to
+her servant, who knew Golden Friars perfectly, to knock-up the people at
+Doctor Torvey's, and to inquire whether all were well at Mardykes Hall.
+
+There he learned that a messenger had come for Doctor Torvey at ten
+o'clock, and that the Doctor had not returned since. There was no news,
+however, of any one's being ill; and the Doctor himself did not know
+what he was wanted about. While Lady Haworth was talking to her maid
+from the window next the steps, Lady Walsingham was, unobserved,
+receiving this information at the other.
+
+It made her very uncomfortable.
+
+In a few minutes more, however, with a team of fresh horses, they were
+again rapidly passing the distance between them and Mardykes Hall.
+
+About two miles on, their drivers pulled-up, and they heard a voice
+talking with them from the roadside. A servant from the Hall had been
+sent with a note for Lady Walsingham, and had been ordered, if
+necessary, to ride the whole way to the Three Nuns to deliver it. The
+note was already in Lady Walsingham's hand; her sister sat beside her,
+and with the corner of the open note in her fingers, she read it
+breathlessly at the same time by the light of a carriage-lamp which the
+man held to the window. It said:
+
+
+My dearest love--my darling sister--dear sisters both!--in God's name,
+lose not a moment. I am so overpowered and _terrified_. I cannot
+explain; I can only implore of you to come with all the haste you can
+make. Waste no time, darlings. I hardly understand what I write. Only
+this, dear sisters; I feel that my reason will desert me, unless you
+come soon. You will not fail me now. Your poor distracted
+
+JANET
+
+The sisters exchanged a pale glance, and Lady Haworth grasped her
+sister's hand.
+
+"Where is the messenger?" asked Lady Walsingham.
+
+A mounted servant came to the window.
+
+"Is any one ill at home?" she asked.
+
+"No, all were well--my lady, and Sir Bale--no one sick."
+
+"But the Doctor was sent for; what was that for?"
+
+"I can't say, my lady."
+
+"You are quite certain that no one--think--_no_ one is ill?"
+
+"There is no one ill at the Hall, my lady, that I have heard of."
+
+"Is Lady Mardykes, my sister, still up?"
+
+"Yes, my lady; and her maid is with her."
+
+"And Sir Bale, are you certain he is quite well?"
+
+"Sir Bale is quite well, my lady; he has been busy settling papers
+to-night, and was as well as usual."
+
+"That will do, thanks," said the perplexed lady; and to her own servant
+she added, "On to Mardykes Hall with all the speed they can make. I'll
+pay them well, tell them."
+
+And in another minute they were gliding along the road at a pace which
+the muffled beating of the horses' hoofs on the thin sheet of snow that
+covered the road showed to have broken out of the conventional trot, and
+to resemble something more like a gallop.
+
+And now they were under the huge trees, that looked black as
+hearse-plumes in contrast with the snow. The cold gleam of the lake in
+the moon which had begun to shine out now met their gaze; and the
+familiar outline of Snakes Island, its solemn timber bleak and leafless,
+standing in a group, seemed to watch Mardykes Hall with a dismal
+observation across the water. Through the gate and between the huge
+files of trees the carriage seemed to fly; and at last the steaming
+horses stood panting, nodding and snorting, before the steps in the
+courtyard.
+
+There was a light in an upper window, and a faint light in the hall, the
+door of which was opened; and an old servant came down and ushered the
+ladies into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+The Hour
+
+Lightly they stepped over the snow that lay upon the broad steps, and
+entering the door saw the dim figure of their sister, already in the
+large and faintly-lighted hall. One candle in the hand of her scared
+maid, and one burning on the table, leaving the distant parts of that
+great apartment in total darkness, touched the figures with the odd
+sharp lights in which Schalken delights; and a streak of chilly
+moonlight, through the open door, fell upon the floor, and was stretched
+like a white sheet at her feet. Lady Mardykes, with an exclamation of
+agitated relief, threw her arms, in turn, round the necks of her
+sisters, and hugging them, kissed them again and again, murmuring her
+thanks, calling them her "blessed sisters," and praising God for his
+mercy in having sent them to her in time, and altogether in a rapture of
+agitation and gratitude.
+
+Taking them each by a hand, she led them into a large room, on whose
+panels they could see the faint twinkle of the tall gilded frames, and
+the darker indication of the old portraits, in which that interesting
+house abounds. The moonbeams, entering obliquely through the Tudor
+stone-shafts of the window and thrown upon the floor, reflected an
+imperfect light; and the candle which the maid who followed her mistress
+held in her hand shone dimly from the sideboard, where she placed it.
+Lady Mardykes told her that she need not wait.
+
+"They don't know; they know only that we are in some great confusion;
+but--God have mercy on me!--nothing of the reality. Sit down, darlings;
+you are tired."
+
+She sat down between them on a sofa, holding a hand of each. They sat
+opposite the window, through which appeared the magnificent view
+commanded from the front of the house: in the foreground the solemn
+trees of Snakes Island, one great branch stretching upward, bare and
+moveless, from the side, like an arm raised to heaven in wonder or in
+menace towards the house; the lake, in part swept by the icy splendour
+of the moon, trembling with a dazzling glimmer, and farther off lost in
+blackness; the Fells rising from a base of gloom, into ribs and peaks
+white with snow, and looking against the pale sky, thin and transparent
+as a haze. Right across to the storied woods of Cloostedd, and the old
+domains of the Feltrams, this view extended.
+
+Thus alone, their mufflers still on, their hands clasped in hers, they
+breathlessly listened to her strange tale.
+
+Connectedly told it amounted to this: Sir Bale seemed to have been
+relieved of some great anxiety about the time when, ten days before, he
+had told her to invite her friends to Mardykes Hall. This morning he had
+gone out for a walk with Trevor, his under-steward, to talk over some
+plans about thinning the woods at this side; and also to discuss
+practically a proposal, lately made by a wealthy merchant, to take a
+very long lease, on advantageous terms to Sir Bale as he thought, of the
+old park and chase of Cloostedd, with the intention of building there,
+and making it once more a handsome residence.
+
+In the improved state of his spirits, Sir Bale had taken a shrewd
+interest in this negotiation; and was actually persuaded to cross the
+lake that morning with his adviser, and to walk over the grounds with
+him.
+
+Sir Bale had seemed unusually well, and talked with great animation. He
+was more like a young man who had just attained his majority, and for
+the first time grasped his estates, than the grim elderly Baronet who
+had been moping about Mardykes, and as much afraid as a cat of the
+water, for so many years.
+
+As they were returning toward the boat, at the roots of that same
+scathed elm whose barkless bough had seemed, in his former visit to this
+old wood, to beckon him from a distance, like a skeleton arm, to enter
+the forest, he and his companion on a sudden missed an old map of the
+grounds which they had been consulting.
+
+"We must have left it in the corner tower of Cloostedd House, which
+commands that view of the grounds, you remember; it would not do to lose
+it. It is the most accurate thing we have. I'll sit down here and rest a
+little till you come back."
+
+The man was absent little more than twenty minutes. When he returned, he
+found that Sir Bale had changed his position, and was now walking to and
+fro, around and about, in what, at a distance, he fancied was mere
+impatience, on the open space a couple of hundred paces nearer to the
+turn in the valley towards the boat. It was not impatience. He was
+agitated. He looked pale, and he took his companion's arm--a thing he
+had never thought of doing before--and said, "Let us away quickly. I've
+something to tell at home,--and I forgot it."
+
+Not another word did Sir Bale exchange with his companion. He sat in the
+stern of the boat, gloomy as a man about to glide under traitor's-gate.
+He entered his house in the same sombre and agitated state. He entered
+his library, and sat for a long time as if stunned.
+
+At last he seemed to have made-up his mind to something; and applied
+himself quietly and diligently to arranging papers, and docketing some
+and burning others. Dinner-time arrived. He sent to tell Lady Mardykes
+that he should not join her at dinner, but would see her afterwards.
+
+"It was between eight and nine," she continued, "I forget the exact
+time, when he came to the tower drawing-room where I was. I did not hear
+his approach. There is a stone stair, with a thick carpet on it. He told
+me he wished to speak to me there. It is an out-of-the-way place--a
+small old room with very thick walls, and there is a double door, the
+inner one of oak--I suppose he wished to guard against being overheard.
+
+"There was a look in his face that frightened me; I saw he had something
+dreadful to tell. He looked like a man on whom a lot had fallen to put
+some one to death," said Lady Mardykes. "O, my poor Bale! my husband, my
+husband! he knew what it would be to me."
+
+Here she broke into the wildest weeping, and it was some time before she
+resumed.
+
+"He seemed very kind and very calm," she said at last; "he said but
+little; and, I think, these were his words: 'I find, Janet, I have made
+a great miscalculation--I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have
+been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and my
+time has come.'
+
+"I don't know what I said. I would not have so much minded--for I could
+not have believed, if I had not seen him--but there was that in his look
+and tone which no one could doubt.
+
+"'I shall die before to-morrow morning,' he said. 'You must command
+yourself, Janet; it can't be altered now.'
+
+"'O, Bale,' I cried nearly distracted, 'you would not kill yourself!'
+
+"'Kill myself! poor child! no, indeed,' he said; 'it is simply that I
+shall die. No violent death--nothing but the common subsidence of
+life--I have made up my mind; what happens to everybody can't be so very
+bad; and millions of worse men than I die every year. You must not
+follow me to my room, darling; I shall see you by and by.'
+
+"His language was collected and even cold; but his face looked as if it
+was cut in stone; you never saw, in a dream, a face like it."
+
+Lady Walsingham here said, "I am certain he is ill; he's in a fever. You
+must not distract and torture yourself about his predictions. You sent
+for Doctor Torvey; what did he say?"
+
+"I could not tell him all."
+
+"O, no; I don't mean that; they'd only say he was mad, and we little
+better for minding what he says. But did the Doctor see him? and what
+did he say of his health?"
+
+"Yes; he says there is nothing wrong--no fever--nothing whatever. Poor
+Bale has been so kind; he saw him to please me," she sobbed again
+wildly. "I wrote to implore of him. It was my last hope, strange as it
+seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of
+that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness
+about all he says and does; and his directions are all so clear, and his
+mind so perfectly collected, it is quite impossible."
+
+And poor Lady Mardykes again burst into a frantic agony of tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Sir Bale in the Gallery
+
+"Now, Janet darling, you are yourself low and nervous, and you treat
+this fancy of Bale's as seriously as he does himself. The truth is, he
+is a hypochondriac, as the doctors say; and you will find that I am
+right; he will be quite well in the morning, and I daresay a little
+ashamed of himself for having frightened his poor little wife as he has.
+I will sit up with you. But our poor Mary is not, you know, very strong;
+and she ought to lie down and rest a little. Suppose you give me a cup
+of tea in the drawing-room. I will run up to my room and get these
+things off, and meet you in the drawing-room; or, if you like it better,
+you can sit with me in my own room; and for goodness' sake let us have
+candles enough and a bright fire; and I promise you, if you will only
+exert your own good sense, you shall be a great deal more cheerful in a
+very little time."
+
+Lady Walsingham's address was kind and cheery, and her air confident.
+For a moment a ray of hope returned, and her sister Janet acknowledged
+at least the possibility of her theory. But if confidence is contagious,
+so also is panic; and Lady Walsingham experienced a sinking of the heart
+which she dared not confess to her sister, and vainly strove to combat.
+
+Lady Walsingham went up with her sister Mary, and having seen her in her
+room, and spoken again to her in the same cheery tone in which she had
+lectured her sister Lady Mardykes, she went on; and having taken
+possession of her own room, and put off her cloaks and shawls, she was
+going downstairs again, when she heard Sir Bale's voice, as he
+approached along the gallery, issuing orders to a servant, as it seemed,
+exactly in his usual tone.
+
+She turned, with a strange throb at her heart, and met him.
+
+A little sterner, a little paler than usual he looked; she could
+perceive no other change. He took her hand kindly and held it, as with
+dilated eyes he looked with a dark inquiry for a moment in her face. He
+signed to the servant to go on, and said, "I'm glad you have come, Maud.
+You have heard what is to happen; and I don't know how Janet could have
+borne it without your support. You did right to come; and you'll stay
+with her for a day or two, and take her away from this place as soon as
+you can."
+
+She looked at him with the embarrassment of fear. He was speaking to her
+with the calmness of a leave-taking in the pressroom--the serenity that
+overlies the greatest awe and agony of which human nature is capable.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Bale," she began, hardly knowing what she said,
+and she stopped short.
+
+"You are come, it turns out, on a sad mission," he resumed; "you find
+all about to change. Poor Janet! it is a blow to her. I shall not live
+to see to-morrow's sun."
+
+"Come," she said, startled, "you must not talk so. No, Bale, you have no
+right to speak so; you can have no reason to justify it. It is cruel and
+wicked to trifle with your wife's feelings. If you are under a delusion,
+you must make an effort and shake it off, or, at least, cease to talk of
+it. You are not well; I know by your looks you are ill; but I am very
+certain we shall see you much better by tomorrow, and still better the
+day following."
+
+"No, I'm not ill, sister. Feel that pulse, if you doubt me; there is no
+fever in it. I never was more perfectly in health; and yet I know that
+before the clock, that has just struck three, shall have struck five, I,
+who am talking to you, shall be dead."
+
+Lady Walsingham was frightened, and her fear irritated her.
+
+"I have told you what I think and believe," she said vehemently. "I
+think it wrong and cowardly of you to torture my poor sister with your
+whimsical predictions. Look into your own mind, and you will see you
+have absolutely no reason to support what you say. How _can_ you inflict
+all this agony upon a poor creature foolish enough to love you as she
+does, and weak enough to believe in your idle dreams?"
+
+"Stay, sister; it is not a matter to be debated so. If to-morrow I can
+hear you, it will be time enough to upbraid me. Pray return now to your
+sister; she needs all you can do for her. She is much to be pitied; her
+sufferings afflict me. I shall see you and her again before my death. It
+would have been more cruel to leave her unprepared. Do all in your power
+to nerve and tranquillise her. What is past cannot now be helped."
+
+He paused, looking hard at her, as if he had half made up his mind to
+say something more. But if there was a question of the kind, it was
+determined in favour of silence.
+
+He dropped her hand, turned quickly, and left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Dr. Torvey's Opinion
+
+When Lady Walsingham reached the head of the stairs, she met her maid,
+and from her learned that her sister, Lady Mardykes, was downstairs in
+the same room. On approaching, she heard her sister Mary's voice talking
+with her, and found them together. Mary, finding that she could not
+sleep, had put on her clothes again, and come down to keep her sister
+company. The room looked more comfortable now. There were candles
+lighted, and a good fire burnt in the grate; tea-things stood on a
+little table near the fire, and the two sisters were talking, Lady
+Mardykes appearing more collected, and only they two in the room.
+
+"Have you seen him, Maud?" cried Lady Mardykes, rising and hastily
+approaching her the moment she entered.
+
+"Yes, dear; and talked with him, and----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And I think very much as I did before. I think he is nervous, he says
+he is not ill; but he is nervous and whimsical, and as men always are
+when they happen to be out of sorts, very positive; and of course the
+only thing that can quite undeceive him is the lapse of the time he has
+fixed for his prediction, as it is sure to pass without any tragic
+result of any sort. We shall then all see alike the nature of his
+delusion."
+
+"O, Maud, if I were only sure you thought so! if I were sure you really
+had hopes! Tell me, Maud, for God's sake, what you really think."
+
+Lady Walsingham was a little disconcerted by the unexpected directness
+of her appeal.
+
+"Come, darling, you must not be foolish," she said; "we can only talk of
+impressions, and we are imposed upon by the solemnity of his manner, and
+the fact that he evidently believes in his own delusion; every one does
+believe in his own delusion--there is nothing strange in that."
+
+"O, Maud, I see you are not convinced; you are only trying to comfort
+me. You have no hope--none, none, none!" and she covered her face with
+her hands, and wept again convulsively.
+
+Lady Walsingham was silent for a moment, and then with an effort said,
+as she placed her hand on her sister's arm, "You see, dear Janet, there
+is no use in my saying the same thing over and over again; an hour or
+two will show who is right. Sit down again, and be like yourself. My
+maid told me that you had sent to the parlour for Doctor Torvey; he must
+not find you so. What would he think? Unless you mean to tell him of
+Bale's strange fancy; and a pretty story that would be to set afloat in
+Golden Friars. I think I hear him coming."
+
+So, in effect, he was. Doctor Torvey--with the florid gravity of a man
+who, having just swallowed a bottle of port, besides some glasses of
+sherry, is admitted to the presence of ladies whom he respects--entered
+the room, made what he called his "leg and his compliments," and awaited
+the ladies' commands.
+
+"Sit down, Doctor Torvey," said Lady Walsingham, who in the incapacity
+of her sister undertook the doing of the honours. "My sister, Lady
+Mardykes, has got it into her head somehow that Sir Bale is ill. I have
+been speaking to him; he certainly does not look very well, but he says
+he is quite well. Do you think him well?--that is, we know you don't
+think there is anything of importance amiss--but she wishes to know
+whether you think him _perfectly_ well."
+
+The Doctor cleared his voice and delivered his lecture, a little thickly
+at some words, upon Sir Bale's case; the result of which was that it was
+no case at all; and that if he would only live something more of a
+country gentleman's life, he would be as well as any man could
+desire--as well as any man, gentle or simple, in the country.
+
+"The utmost I should think of doing for him would be, perhaps, a little
+quinine, nothing mo'--shurely--he is really and toory a very shoun'
+shtay of health."
+
+Lady Walsingham looked encouragingly at her sister and nodded.
+
+"I've been shen' for, La'y Walsh--Walse--Walsing--_ham_; old Jack
+Amerald--he likshe his glass o' port," he said roguishly, "and shuvversh
+accord'n'ly," he continued, with a compassionating paddle of his right
+hand; "one of thoshe aw--odd feels in his stomach; and as I have pretty
+well done all I can man-n'ge down here, I must be off, ye shee. Wind up
+from Golden Friars, and a little flutter ovv zhnow, thazh all;" and with
+some remarks about the extreme cold of the weather, and the severity of
+their night journey, and many respectful and polite parting speeches,
+the Doctor took his leave; and they soon heard the wheels of his gig and
+the tread of his horse, faint and muffled from the snow in the
+court-yard, and the Doctor, who had connected that melancholy and
+agitated household with the outer circle of humanity, was gone.
+
+There was very little snow falling, half-a-dozen flakes now and again,
+and their flight across the window showed, as the Doctor had in a manner
+boasted, that the wind was in his face as he returned to Golden Friars.
+Even these desultory snow-flakes ceased, at times, altogether; and
+returning, as they say, "by fits and starts," left for long intervals
+the landscape, under the brilliant light of the moon, in its wide white
+shroud. The curtain of the great window had not been drawn. It seemed to
+Lady Walsingham that the moonbeams had grown more dazzling, that Snakes
+Island was nearer and more distinct, and the outstretched arm of the old
+tree looked bigger and angrier, like the uplifted arm of an assassin,
+who draws silently nearer as the catastrophe approaches.
+
+Cold, dazzling, almost repulsive in this intense moonlight and white
+sheeting, the familiar landscape looked in the eyes of Lady Walsingham.
+The sisters gradually grew more and more silent, an unearthly suspense
+overhung them all, and Lady Mardykes rose every now and then and
+listened at the open door for step or voice in vain. They all were
+overpowered by the intenser horror that seemed gathering around them.
+And thus an hour or more passed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Hush!
+
+Pale and silent those three beautiful sisters sat. The horrible quietude
+of a suspense that had grown all but insupportable oppressed the guests
+of Lady Mardykes, and something like the numbness of despair had reduced
+her to silence, the dreadful counterfeit of peace.
+
+Sir Bale Mardykes on a sudden softly entered the room. Reflected from
+the floor near the window, the white moonlight somehow gave to his fixed
+features the character of a smile. With a warning gesture, as he came
+in, he placed his finger to his lips, as if to enjoin silence; and then,
+having successively pressed the hands of his two sisters-in-law, he
+stooped over his almost fainting wife, and twice pressed her cold
+forehead with his lips; and so, without a word, he went softly from the
+room.
+
+Some seconds elapsed before Lady Walsingham, recovering her presence of
+mind, with one of the candlesticks from the table in her hand, opened
+the door and followed.
+
+She saw Sir Bale mount the last stair of the broad flight visible from
+the hall, and candle in hand turn the corner of the massive banister,
+and as the light thrown from his candle showed, he continued, without
+hurry, to ascend the second flight.
+
+With the irrepressible curiosity of horror she continued to follow him
+at a distance.
+
+She saw him enter his own private room, and close the door.
+
+Continuing to follow she placed herself noiselessly at the door of the
+apartment, and in breathless silence, with a throbbing heart, listened
+for what should pass.
+
+She distinctly heard Sir Bale pace the floor up and down for some time,
+and then, after a pause, a sound as if some one had thrown himself
+heavily on the bed. A silence followed, during which her sisters, who
+had followed more timidly, joined her. She warned them with a look and
+gesture to be silent.
+
+Lady Haworth stood a little behind, her white lips moving, and her hands
+clasped in a silent agony of prayer. Lady Mardykes leaned against the
+massive oak door-case.
+
+With her hand raised to her ear, and her lips parted, Lady Walsingham
+listened for some seconds--for a minute, two minutes, three. At last,
+losing heart, she seized the handle in her panic, and turned it sharply.
+The door was locked on the inside, but some one close to it said from
+within, "Hush, hush!"
+
+Much alarmed now, the same lady knocked violently at the door. No answer
+was returned.
+
+She knocked again more violently, and shook the door with all her
+fragile force. It was something of horror in her countenance as she did
+so, that, no doubt, terrified Lady Mardykes, who with a loud and long
+scream sank in a swoon upon the floor.
+
+The servants, alarmed by these sounds, were speedily in the gallery.
+Lady Mardykes was carried to her room, and laid upon her bed; her
+sister, Lady Haworth, accompanying her. In the meantime the door was
+forced. Sir Bale Mardykes was found stretched upon his bed.
+
+Those who have once seen it, will not mistake the aspect of death. Here,
+in Sir Bale Mardykes' room, in his bed, in his clothes, is a stranger,
+grim and awful; in a few days to be insupportable, and to pass alone
+into the prison-house, and to be seen no more.
+
+Where is Sir Bale Mardykes now, whose roof-tree and whose place at board
+and bed will know him no more? Here lies a chap-fallen, fish-eyed image,
+chilling already into clay, and stiffening in every joint.
+
+There is a marble monument in the pretty church of Golden Friars. It
+stands at the left side of what antiquarians call "the high altar." Two
+pillars at each end support an arch with several armorial bearings on as
+many shields sculptured above. Beneath, on a marble flooring raised some
+four feet, with a cornice round, lies Sir Bale Mardykes, of Mardykes
+Hall, ninth Baronet of that ancient family, chiseled in marble with
+knee-breeches and buckled-shoes, and _ailes de pigeon_, and
+single-breasted coat and long waist-coat, ruffles and sword, such as
+gentlemen wore about the year 1770, and bearing a strong resemblance to
+the features of the second Charles. On the broad marble which forms the
+background is inscribed an epitaph, which has perpetuated to our times
+the estimate formed by his "inconsolable widow," the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes, of the virtues and accomplishments of her deceased lord.
+
+Lady Walsingham would have qualified two or three of the more
+highly-coloured hyperboles, at which the Golden Friars of those days
+sniffed and tittered. They don't signify now; there is no contemporary
+left to laugh or whisper. And if there be not much that is true in the
+letter of that inscription, it at least perpetuates something that _is_
+true--that wonderful glorificaion of partisanship, the affection of an
+idolising wife.
+
+Lady Mardykes, a few days after the funeral, left Mardykes Hall for
+ever. She lived a great deal with her sister, Lady Walsingham; and died,
+as a line cut at the foot of Sir Bale Mardykes' epitaph records, in the
+year 1790; her remains being laid beside those of her beloved husband in
+Golden Friars.
+
+The estates had come to Sir Bale Mardykes free of entail. He had been
+pottering over a will, but it was never completed, nor even quite
+planned; and after much doubt and scrutiny, it was at last ascertained
+that, in default of a will and of issue, a clause in the
+marriage-settlement gave the entire estates to the Dowager Lady
+Mardykes.
+
+By her will she bequeathed the estates to "her cousin, also a kinsman of
+the late Sir Bale Mardykes her husband," William Feltram, on condition
+of his assuming the name and arms of Mardykes, the arms of Feltram being
+quartered in the shield.
+
+Thus was oddly fulfilled the prediction which Philip Feltram had
+repeated, that the estates of Mardykes were to pass into the hands of a
+Feltram.
+
+About the year 1795 the baronetage was revived, and William Feltram
+enjoyed the title for fifteen years, as Sir William Mardykes.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK J. S. LE FANU'S GHOSTLY TALES,
+VOLUME 3***
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