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diff --git a/old/prclr10.txt b/old/prclr10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e6345b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/prclr10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2493 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext The Poor Clare, by Elizabeth Gaskell + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1896 "Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales" Macmillan and Co. edition. +Proofing was by Audrey Emmitt and Eugenia Corbo. + + + + + +THE POOR CLARE + +by Elizabeth Gaskell + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + +December 12th, 1747.--My life has been strangely bound up with +extraordinary incidents, some of which occurred before I had any +connection with the principal actors in them, or indeed, before I +even knew of their existence. I suppose, most old men are, like me, +more given to looking back upon their own career with a kind of fond +interest and affectionate remembrance, than to watching the events-- +though these may have far more interest for the multitude-- +immediately passing before their eyes. If this should be the case +with the generality of old people, how much more so with me! . . . If +I am to enter upon that strange story connected with poor Lucy, I +must begin a long way back. I myself only came to the knowledge of +her family history after I knew her; but, to make the tale clear to +any one else, I must arrange events in the order in which they +occurred--not that in which I became acquainted with them. + +There is a great old hall in the north-east of Lancashire, in a part +they called the Trough of Bolland, adjoining that other district +named Craven. Starkey Manor-house is rather like a number of rooms +clustered round a gray, massive, old keep than a regularly-built +hall. Indeed, I suppose that the house only consisted of a great +tower in the centre, in the days when the Scots made their raids +terrible as far south as this; and that after the Stuarts came in, +and there was a little more security of property in those parts, the +Starkeys of that time added the lower building, which runs, two +stories high, all round the base of the keep. There has been a grand +garden laid out in my days, on the southern slope near the house; but +when I first knew the place, the kitchen-garden at the farm was the +only piece of cultivated ground belonging to it. The deer used to +come within sight of the drawing-room windows, and might have browsed +quite close up to the house if they had not been too wild and shy. +Starkey Manor-house itself stood on a projection or peninsula of high +land, jutting out from the abrupt hills that form the sides of the +Trough of Bolland. These hills were rocky and bleak enough towards +their summit; lower down they were clothed with tangled copsewood and +green depths of fern, out of which a gray giant of an ancient forest- +tree would tower here and there, throwing up its ghastly white +branches, as if in imprecation, to the sky. These trees, they told +me, were the remnants of that forest which existed in the days of the +Heptarchy, and were even then noted as landmarks. No wonder that +their upper and more exposed branches were leafless, and that the +dead bark had peeled away, from sapless old age. + +Not far from the house there were a few cottages, apparently, of the +same date as the keep; probably built for some retainers of the +family, who sought shelter--they and their families and their small +flocks and herds--at the hands of their feudal lord. Some of them +had pretty much fallen to decay. They were built in a strange +fashion. Strong beams had been sunk firm in the ground at the +requisite distance, and their other ends had been fastened together, +two and two, so as to form the shape of one of those rounded waggon- +headed gipsy-tents, only very much larger. The spaces between were +filled with mud, stones, osiers, rubbish, mortar--anything to keep +out the weather. The fires were made in the centre of these rude +dwellings, a hole in the roof forming the only chimney. No Highland +hut or Irish cabin could be of rougher construction. + +The owner of this property, at the beginning of the present century, +was a Mr. Patrick Byrne Starkey. His family had kept to the old +faith, and were stanch Roman Catholics, esteeming it even a sin to +marry any one of Protestant descent, however willing he or she might +have been to embrace the Romish religion. Mr. Patrick Starkey's +father had been a follower of James the Second; and, during the +disastrous Irish campaign of that monarch he had fallen in love with +an Irish beauty, a Miss Byrne, as zealous for her religion and for +the Stuarts as himself. He had returned to Ireland after his escape +to France, and married her, bearing her back to the court at St. +Germains. But some licence on the part of the disorderly gentlemen +who surrounded King James in his exile, had insulted his beautiful +wife, and disgusted him; so he removed from St. Germains to Antwerp, +whence, in a few years' time, he quietly returned to Starkey Manor- +house--some of his Lancashire neighbours having lent their good +offices to reconcile him to the powers that were. He was as firm a +Catholic as ever, and as stanch an advocate for the Stuarts and the +divine rights of kings; but his religion almost amounted to +asceticism, and the conduct of these with whom he had been brought in +such close contact at St. Germains would little bear the inspection +of a stern moralist. So he gave his allegiance where he could not +give his esteem, and learned to respect sincerely the upright and +moral character of one whom he yet regarded as an usurper. King +William's government had little need to fear such a one. So he +returned, as I have said, with a sobered heart and impoverished +fortunes, to his ancestral house, which had fallen sadly to ruin +while the owner had been a courtier, a soldier, and an exile. The +roads into the Trough of Bolland were little more than cart-ruts; +indeed, the way up to the house lay along a ploughed field before you +came to the deer-park. Madam, as the country-folk used to call Mrs. +Starkey, rode on a pillion behind her husband, holding on to him with +a light hand by his leather riding-belt. Little master (he that was +afterwards Squire Patrick Byrne Starkey) was held on to his pony by a +serving-man. A woman past middle age walked, with a firm and strong +step, by the cart that held much of the baggage; and high up on the +mails and boxes, sat a girl of dazzling beauty, perched lightly on +the topmost trunk, and swaying herself fearlessly to and fro, as the +cart rocked and shook in the heavy roads of late autumn. The girl +wore the Antwerp faille, or black Spanish mantle over her head, and +altogether her appearance was such that the old cottager, who +described the possession to me many years after, said that all the +country-folk took her for a foreigner. Some dogs, and the boy who +held them in charge, made up the company. They rode silently along, +looking with grave, serious eyes at the people, who came out of the +scattered cottages to bow or curtsy to the real Squire, "come back at +last," and gazed after the little procession with gaping wonder, not +deadened by the sound of the foreign language in which the few +necessary words that passed among them were spoken. One lad, called +from his staring by the Squire to come and help about the cart, +accompanied them to the Manor-house. He said that when the lady had +descended from her pillion, the middle-aged woman whom I have +described as walking while the others rode, stepped quickly forward, +and taking Madam Starkey (who was of a slight and delicate figure) in +her arms, she lifted her over the threshold, and set her down in her +husband's house, at the same time uttering a passionate and +outlandish blessing. The Squire stood by, smiling gravely at first; +but when the words of blessing were pronounced, he took off his fine +feathered hat, and bent his head. The girl with the black mantle +stepped onward into the shadow of the dark hall, and kissed the +lady's hand; and that was all the lad could tell to the group that +gathered round him on his return, eager to hear everything, and to +know how much the Squire had given him for his services. + +From all I could gather, the Manor-house, at the time of the Squire's +return, was in the most dilapidated state. The stout gray walls +remained firm and entire; but the inner chambers had been used for +all kinds of purposes. The great withdrawing-room had been a barn; +the state tapestry-chamber had held wool, and so on. But, by-and-by, +they were cleared out; and if the Squire had no money to spend on new +furniture, he and his wife had the knack of making the best of the +old. He was no despicable joiner; she had a kind of grace in +whatever she did, and imparted an air of elegant picturesqueness to +whatever she touched. Besides, they had brought many rare things +from the Continent; perhaps I should rather say, things that were +rare in that part of England--carvings, and crosses, and beautiful +pictures. And then, again, wood was plentiful in the Trough of +Bolland, and great log-fires danced and glittered in all the dark, +old rooms, and gave a look of home and comfort to everything. + +Why do I tell you all this? I have little to do with the Squire and +Madame Starkey; and yet I dwell upon them, as if I were unwilling to +come to the real people with whom my life was so strangely mixed up. +Madam had been nursed in Ireland by the very woman who lifted her in +her arms, and welcomed her to her husband's home in Lancashire. +Excepting for the short period of her own married life, Bridget +Fitzgerald had never left her nursling. Her marriage--to one above +her in rank--had been unhappy. Her husband had died, and left her in +even greater poverty than that in which she was when he had first met +with her. She had one child, the beautiful daughter who came riding +on the waggon-load of furniture that was brought to the Manor-house. +Madame Starkey had taken her again into her service when she became a +widow. She and her daughter had followed "the mistress" in all her +fortunes; they had lived at St. Germains and at Antwerp, and were now +come to her home in Lancashire. As soon as Bridget had arrived +there, the Squire gave her a cottage of her own, and took more pains +in furnishing it for her than he did in anything else out of his own +house. It was only nominally her residence. She was constantly up +at the great house; indeed, it was but a short cut across the woods +from her own home to the home of her nursling. Her daughter Mary, in +like manner, moved from one house to the other at her own will. +Madam loved both mother and child dearly. They had great influence +over her, and, through her, over her husband. Whatever Bridget or +Mary willed was sure to come to pass. They were not disliked; for, +though wild and passionate, they were also generous by nature. But +the other servants were afraid of them, as being in secret the ruling +spirits of the household. The Squire had lost his interest in all +secular things; Madam was gentle, affectionate, and yielding. Both +husband and wife were tenderly attached to each other and to their +boy; but they grew more and more to shun the trouble of decision on +any point; and hence it was that Bridget could exert such despotic +power. But if everyone else yielded to her "magic of a superior +mind," her daughter not unfrequently rebelled. She and her mother +were too much alike to agree. There were wild quarrels between them, +and wilder reconciliations. There were times when, in the heat of +passion, they could have stabbed each other. At all other times they +both--Bridget especially--would have willingly laid down their lives +for one another. Bridget's love for her child lay very deep--deeper +than that daughter ever knew; or I should think she would never have +wearied of home as she did, and prayed her mistress to obtain for her +some situation--as waiting maid--beyond the seas, in that more +cheerful continental life, among the scenes of which so many of her +happiest years had been spent. She thought, as youth thinks, that +life would last for ever, and that two or three years were but a +small portion of it to pass away from her mother, whose only child +she was. Bridget thought differently, but was too proud ever to show +what she felt. If her child wished to leave her, why--she should go. +But people said Bridget became ten years older in the course of two +months at this time. She took it that Mary wanted to leave her. The +truth was, that Mary wanted for a time to leave the place, and to +seek some change, and would thankfully have taken her mother with +her. Indeed when Madam Starkey had gotten her a situation with some +grand lady abroad, and the time drew near for her to go, it was Mary +who clung to her mother with passionate embrace, and, with floods of +tears, declared that she would never leave her; and it was Bridget, +who at last loosened her arms, and, grave and tearless herself, bade +her keep her word, and go forth into the wide world. Sobbing aloud, +and looking back continually, Mary went away. Bridget was still as +death, scarcely drawing her breath, or closing her stony eyes; till +at last she turned back into her cottage, and heaved a ponderous old +settle against the door. There she sat, motionless, over the gray +ashes of her extinguished fire, deaf to Madam's sweet voice, as she +begged leave to enter and comfort her nurse. Deaf, stony, and +motionless, she sat for more than twenty hours; till, for the third +time, Madam came across the snowy path from the great house, carrying +with her a young spaniel, which had been Mary's pet up at the hall; +and which had not ceased all night long to seek for its absent +mistress, and to whine and moan after her. With tears Madam told +this story, through the closed door--tears excited by the terrible +look of anguish, so steady, so immovable--so the same to-day as it +was yesterday--on her nurse's face. The little creature in her arms +began to utter its piteous cry, as it shivered with the cold. +Bridget stirred; she moved--she listened. Again that long whine; she +thought it was for her daughter; and what she had denied to her +nursling and mistress she granted to the dumb creature that Mary had +cherished. She opened the door, and took the dog from Madam's arms. +Then Madam came in, and kissed and comforted the old woman, who took +but little notice of her or anything. And sending up Master Patrick +to the hall for fire and food, the sweet young lady never left her +nurse all that night. Next day, the Squire himself came down, +carrying a beautiful foreign picture--Our Lady of the Holy Heart, the +Papists call it. It is a picture of the Virgin, her heart pierced +with arrows, each arrow representing one of her great woes. That +picture hung in Bridget's cottage when I first saw her; I have that +picture now. + +Years went on. Mary was still abroad. Bridget was still and stern, +instead of active and passionate. The little dog, Mignon, was indeed +her darling. I have heard that she talked to it continually; +although, to most people, she was so silent. The Squire and Madam +treated her with the greatest consideration, and well they might; for +to them she was as devoted and faithful as ever. Mary wrote pretty +often, and seemed satisfied with her life. But at length the letters +ceased--I hardly know whether before or after a great and terrible +sorrow came upon the house of the Starkeys. The Squire sickened of a +putrid fever; and Madam caught it in nursing him, and died. You may +be sure, Bridget let no other woman tend her but herself; and in the +very arms that had received her at her birth, that sweet young woman +laid her head down, and gave up her breath. The Squire recovered, in +a fashion. He was never strong--he had never the heart to smile +again. He fasted and prayed more than ever; and people did say that +he tried to cut off the entail, and leave all the property away to +found a monastery abroad, of which he prayed that some day little +Squire Patrick might be the reverend father. But he could not do +this, for the strictness of the entail and the laws against the +Papists. So he could only appoint gentlemen of his own faith as +guardians to his son, with many charges about the lad's soul, and a +few about the land, and the way it was to be held while he was a +minor. Of course, Bridget was not forgotten. He sent for her as he +lay on his death-bed, and asked her if she would rather have a sum +down, or have a small annuity settled upon her. She said at once she +would have a sum down; for she thought of her daughter, and how she +could bequeath the money to her, whereas an annuity would have died +with her. So the Squire left her her cottage for life, and a fair +sum of money. And then he died, with as ready and willing a heart +as, I suppose, ever any gentleman took out of this world with him. +The young Squire was carried off by his guardians, and Bridget was +left alone. + +I have said that she had not heard from Mary for some time. In her +last letter, she had told of travelling about with her mistress, who +was the English wife of some great foreign officer, and had spoken of +her chances of making a good marriage, without naming the gentleman's +name, keeping it rather back as a pleasant surprise to her mother; +his station and fortune being, as I had afterwards reason to know, +far superior to anything she had a right to expect. Then came a long +silence; and Madam was dead, and the Squire was dead; and Bridget's +heart was gnawed by anxiety, and she knew not whom to ask for news of +her child. She could not write, and the Squire had managed her +communication with her daughter. She walked off to Hurst; and got a +good priest there--one whom she had known at Antwerp--to write for +her. But no answer came. It was like crying into the' awful +stillness of night. + +One day, Bridget was missed by those neighbours who had been +accustomed to mark her goings-out and comings-in. She had never been +sociable with any of them; but the sight of her had become a part of +their daily lives, and slow wonder arose in their minds, as morning +after morning came, and her house-door remained closed, her window +dead from any glitter, or light of fire within. At length, some one +tried the door; it was locked. Two or three laid their heads +together, before daring to look in through the blank unshuttered +window. But, at last, they summoned up courage; and then saw that +Bridget's absence from their little world was not the result of +accident or death, but of premeditation. Such small articles of +furniture as could be secured from the effects of time and damp by +being packed up, were stowed away in boxes. The picture of the +Madonna was taken down, and gone. In a word, Bridget had stolen away +from her home, and left no trace whither she was departed. I knew +afterwards, that she and her little dog had wandered off on the long +search for her lost daughter. She was too illiterate to have faith +in letters, even had she had the means of writing and sending many. +But she had faith in her own strong love, and believed that her +passionate instinct would guide her to her child. Besides, foreign +travel was no new thing to her, and she could speak enough of French +to explain the object of her journey, and had, moreover, the +advantage of being, from her faith, a welcome object of charitable +hospitality at many a distant convent. But the country people round +Starkey Manor-house knew nothing of all this. They wondered what had +become of her, in a torpid, lazy fashion, and then left off thinking +of her altogether. Several years passed. Both Manor-house and +cottage were deserted. The young Squire lived far away under the +direction of his guardians. There were inroads of wool and corn into +the sitting-rooms of the Hall; and there was some low talk, from time +to time, among the hinds and country people whether it would not be +as well to break into old Bridget's cottage, and save such of her +goods as were left from the moth and rust which must be making sad +havoc. But this idea was always quenched by the recollection of her +strong character and passionate anger; and tales of her masterful +spirit, and vehement force of will, were whispered about, till the +very thought of offending her, by touching any article of hers, +became invested with a kind of horror: it was believed that, dead or +alive, she would not fail to avenge it. + +Suddenly she came home; with as little noise or note of preparation +as she had departed. One day some one noticed a thin, blue curl of +smoke ascending from her chimney. Her door stood open to the noonday +sun; and, ere many hours had elapsed, some one had seen an old +travel-and-sorrow-stained woman dipping her pitcher in the well; and +said, that the dark, solemn eyes that looked up at him were more like +Bridget Fitzgerald's than any one else's in this world; and yet, if +it were she, she looked as if she had been scorched in the flames of +hell, so brown, and scared, and fierce a creature did she seem. By- +and-by many saw her; and those who met her eye once cared not to be +caught looking at her again. She had got into the habit of +perpetually talking to herself; nay, more, answering herself, and +varying her tones according to the side she took at the moment. It +was no wonder that those who dared to listen outside her door at +night believed that she held converse with some spirit; in short, she +was unconsciously earning for herself the dreadful reputation of a +witch. + +Her little dog, which had wandered half over the Continent with her, +was her only companion; a dumb remembrancer of happier days. Once he +was ill; and she carried him more than three miles, to ask about his +management from one who had been groom to the last Squire, and had +then been noted for his skill in all diseases of animals. Whatever +this man did, the dog recovered; and they who heard her thanks, +intermingled with blessings (that were rather promises of good +fortune than prayers), looked grave at his good luck when, next year, +his ewes twinned, and his meadow-grass was heavy and thick. + +Now it so happened that, about the year seventeen hundred and eleven, +one of the guardians of the young squire, a certain Sir Philip +Tempest, bethought him of the good shooting there must be on his +ward's property; and in consequence he brought down four or five +gentlemen, of his friends, to stay for a week or two at the Hall. +From all accounts, they roystered and spent pretty freely. I never +heard any of their names but one, and that was Squire Gisborne's. He +was hardly a middle-aged man then; he had been much abroad, and +there, I believe, he had known Sir Philip Tempest, and done him some +service. He was a daring and dissolute fellow in those days: +careless and fearless, and one who would rather be in a quarrel than +out of it. He had his fits of ill-temper besides, when he would +spare neither man nor beast. Otherwise, those who knew him well, +used to say he had a good heart, when he was neither drunk, nor +angry, nor in any way vexed. He had altered much when I came to know +him. + +One day, the gentlemen had all been out shooting, and with but little +success, I believe; anyhow, Mr. Gisborne had none, and was in a black +humour accordingly. He was coming home, having his gun loaded, +sportsman-like, when little Mignon crossed his path, just as he +turned out of the wood by Bridget's cottage. Partly for wantonness, +partly to vent his spleen upon some living creature. Mr. Gisborne +took his gun, and fired--he had better have never fired gun again, +than aimed that unlucky shot, he hit Mignon, and at the creature's +sudden cry, Bridget came out, and saw at a glance what had been done. +She took Mignon up in her arms, and looked hard at the wound; the +poor dog looked at her with his glazing eyes, and tried to wag his +tail and lick her hand, all covered with blood. Mr. Gisborne spoke +in a kind of sullen penitence: + +"You should have kept the dog out of my way--a little poaching +varmint." + +At this very moment, Mignon stretched out his legs, and stiffened in +her arms--her lost Mary's dog, who had wandered and sorrowed with her +for years. She walked right into Mr. Gisborne's path, and fixed his +unwilling, sullen look, with her dark and terrible eye. + +"Those never throve that did me harm," said she. "I'm alone in the +world, and helpless; the more do the saints in heaven hear my +prayers. Hear me, ye blessed ones! hear me while I ask for sorrow on +this bad, cruel man. He has killed the only creature that loved me-- +the dumb beast that I loved. Bring down heavy sorrow on his head for +it, O ye saints! He thought that I was helpless, because he saw me +lonely and poor; but are not the armies of heaven for the like of +me?" + +"Come, come," said he, half remorseful, but not one whit afraid. +"Here's a crown to buy thee another dog. Take it, and leave off +cursing! I care none for thy threats." + +"Don't you?" said she, coming a step closer, and changing her +imprecatory cry for a whisper which made the gamekeeper's lad, +following Mr. Gisborne, creep all over. "You shall live to see the +creature you love best, and who alone loves you--ay, a human +creature, but as innocent and fond as my poor, dead darling--you +shall see this creature, for whom death would be too happy, become a +terror and a loathing to all, for this blood's sake. Hear me, O holy +saints, who never fail them that have no other help!" + +She threw up her right hand, filled with poor Mignon's life-drops; +they spirted, one or two of them, on his shooting-dress,--an ominous +sight to the follower. But the master only laughed a little, forced, +scornful laugh, and went on to the Hall. Before he got there, +however, he took out a gold piece, and bade the boy carry it to the +old woman on his return to the village. The lad was "afeared," as he +told me in after years; he came to the cottage, and hovered about, +not daring to enter. He peeped through the window at last; and by +the flickering wood-flame, he saw Bridget kneeling before the picture +of Our Lady of the Holy Heart, with dead Mignon lying between her and +the Madonna. She was praying wildly, as her outstretched arms +betokened. The lad shrunk away in redoubled terror; and contented +himself with slipping the gold piece under the ill-fitting door. The +next day it was thrown out upon the midden; and there it lay, no one +daring to touch it. + +Meanwhile Mr. Gisborne, half curious, half uneasy, thought to lessen +his uncomfortable feelings by asking Sir Philip who Bridget was? He +could only describe her--he did not know her name. Sir Philip was +equally at a loss. But an old servant of the Starkeys, who had +resumed his livery at the Hall on this occasion--a scoundrel whom +Bridget had saved from dismissal more than once during her palmy +days--said:- + +"It will be the old witch, that his worship means. She needs a +ducking, if ever a woman did, does that Bridget Fitzgerald." + +"Fitzgerald!" said both the gentlemen at once. But Sir Philip was +the first to continue:- + +"I must have no talk of ducking her, Dickon. Why, she must be the +very woman poor Starkey bade me have a care of; but when I came here +last she was gone, no one knew where. I'll go and see her to-morrow. +But mind you, sirrah, if any harm comes to her, or any more talk of +her being a witch--I've a pack of hounds at home, who can follow the +scent of a lying knave as well as ever they followed a dog-fox; so +take care how you talk about ducking a faithful old servant of your +dead master's." + +"Had she ever a daughter?" asked Mr. Gisborne, after a while. + +"I don't know--yes! I've a notion she had; a kind of waiting woman +to Madam Starkey." + +"Please your worship," said humbled Dickon, "Mistress Bridget had a +daughter--one Mistress Mary--who went abroad, and has never been +heard on since; and folk do say that has crazed her mother." + +Mr. Gisborne shaded his eyes with his hand. + +"I could wish she had not cursed me," he muttered. "She may have +power--no one else could." After a while, he said aloud, no one +understanding rightly what he meant, "Tush! it is impossible!"--and +called for claret; and he and the other gentlemen set-to to a +drinking-bout. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + +I now come to the time in which I myself was mixed up with the people +that I have been writing about. And to make you understand how I +became connected with them, I must give you some little account of +myself. My father was the younger son of a Devonshire gentleman of +moderate property; my eldest uncle succeeded to the estate of his +forefathers, my second became an eminent attorney in London, and my +father took orders. Like most poor clergymen, he had a large family; +and I have no doubt was glad enough when my London uncle, who was a +bachelor, offered to take charge of me, and bring me up to be his +successor in business. + +In this way I came to live in London, in my uncle's house, not far +from Gray's Inn, and to be treated and esteemed as his son, and to +labour with him in his office. I was very fond of the old gentleman. +He was the confidential agent of many country squires, and had +attained to his present position as much by knowledge of human nature +as by knowledge of law; though he was learned enough in the latter. +He used to say his business was law, his pleasure heraldry. From his +intimate acquaintance with family history, and all the tragic courses +of life therein involved, to hear him talk, at leisure times, about +any coat of arms that came across his path was as good as a play or a +romance. Many cases of disputed property, dependent on a love of +genealogy, were brought to him, as to a great authority on such +points. If the lawyer who came to consult him was young, he would +take no fee, only give him a long lecture on the importance of +attending to heraldry; if the lawyer was of mature age and good +standing, he would mulct him pretty well, and abuse him to me +afterwards as negligent of one great branch of the profession. His +house was in a stately new street called Ormond Street, and in it he +had a handsome library; but all the books treated of things that were +past; none of them planned or looked forward into the future. I +worked away--partly for the sake of my family at home, partly because +my uncle had really taught me to enjoy the kind of practice in which +he himself took such delight. I suspect I worked too hard; at any +rate, in seventeen hundred and eighteen I was far from well, and my +good uncle was disturbed by my ill looks. + +One day, he rang the bell twice into the clerk's room at the dingy +office in Grey's Inn Lane. It was the summons for me, and I went +into his private room just as a gentleman--whom I knew well enough by +sight as an Irish lawyer of more reputation than he deserved--was +leaving. + +My uncle was slowly rubbing his hands together and considering. I +was there two or three minutes before he spoke. Then he told me that +I must pack up my portmanteau that very afternoon, and start that +night by post-horse for West Chester. I should get there, if all +went well, at the end of five days' time, and must then wait for a +packet to cross over to Dublin; from thence I must proceed to a +certain town named Kildoon, and in that neighbourhood I was to +remain, making certain inquiries as to the existence of any +descendants of the younger branch of a family to whom some valuable +estates had descended in the female line. The Irish lawyer whom I +had seen was weary of the case, and would willingly have given up the +property, without further ado, to a man who appeared to claim them; +but on laying his tables and trees before my uncle, the latter had +foreseen so many possible prior claimants, that the lawyer had begged +him to undertake the management of the whole business. In his youth, +my uncle would have liked nothing better than going over to Ireland +himself, and ferreting out every scrap of paper or parchment, and +every word of tradition respecting the family. As it was, old and +gouty, he deputed me. + +Accordingly, I went to Kildoon. I suspect I had something of my +uncle's delight in following up a genealogical scent, for I very soon +found out, when on the spot, that Mr. Rooney, the Irish lawyer, would +have got both himself and the first claimant into a terrible scrape, +if he had pronounced his opinion that the estates ought to be given +up to him. There were three poor Irish fellows, each nearer of kin +to the last possessor; but, a generation before, there was a still +nearer relation, who had never been accounted for, nor his existence +ever discovered by the lawyers, I venture to think, till I routed him +out from the memory of some of the old dependants of the family. +What had become of him? I travelled backwards and forwards; I +crossed over to France, and came back again with a slight clue, which +ended in my discovering that, wild and dissipated himself, he had +left one child, a son, of yet worse character than his father; that +this same Hugh Fitzgerald had married a very beautiful serving-woman +of the Byrnes--a person below him in hereditary rank, but above him +in character; that he had died soon after his marriage, leaving one +child, whether a boy or a girl I could not learn, and that the mother +had returned to live in the family of the Byrnes. Now, the chief of +this latter family was serving in the Duke of Berwick's regiment, and +it was long before I could hear from him; it was more than a year +before I got a short, haughty letter--I fancy he had a soldier's +contempt for a civilian, an Irishman's hatred for an Englishman, an +exiled Jacobite's jealousy of one who prospered and lived tranquilly +under the government he looked upon as an usurpation. "Bridget +Fitzgerald," he said, "had been faithful to the fortunes of his +sister--had followed her abroad, and to England when Mrs. Starkey had +thought fit to return. Both his sister and her husband were dead, he +knew nothing of Bridget Fitzgerald at the present time: probably Sir +Philip Tempest, his nephew's guardian, might be able to give me some +information." I have not given the little contemptuous terms; the +way in which faithful service was meant to imply more than it said-- +all that has nothing to do with my story. Sir Philip, when applied +to, told me that he paid an annuity regularly to an old woman named +Fitzgerald, living at Coldholme (the village near Starkey Manor- +house). Whether she had any descendants he could not say. + +One bleak March evening, I came in sight of the places described at +the beginning of my story. I could hardly understand the rude +dialect in which the direction to old Bridget's house was given. + +"Yo' see yon furleets," all run together, gave me no idea that I was +to guide myself by the distant lights that shone in the windows of +the Hall, occupied for the time by a farmer who held the post of +steward, while the Squire, now four or five and twenty, was making +the grand tour. However, at last, I reached Bridget's cottage--a +low, moss-grown place: the palings that had once surrounded it were +broken and gone; and the underwood of the forest came up to the +walls, and must have darkened the windows. It was about seven +o'clock--not late to my London notions--but, after knocking for some +time at the door and receiving no reply, I was driven to conjecture +that the occupant of the house was gone to bed. So I betook myself +to the nearest church I had seen, three miles back on the road I had +come, sure that close to that I should find an inn of some kind; and +early the next morning I set off back to Coldholme, by a field-path +which my host assured me I should find a shorter cut than the road I +had taken the night before. It was a cold, sharp morning; my feet +left prints in the sprinkling of hoar-frost that covered the ground; +nevertheless, I saw an old woman, whom I instinctively suspected to +be the object of my search, in a sheltered covert on one side of my +path. I lingered and watched her. She must have been considerably +above the middle size in her prime, for when she raised herself from +the stooping position in which I first saw her, there was something +fine and commanding in the erectness of her figure. She drooped +again in a minute or two, and seemed looking for something on the +ground, as, with bent head, she turned off from the spot where I +gazed upon her, and was lost to my sight. I fancy I missed my way, +and made a round in spite of the landlord's directions; for by the +time I had reached Bridget's cottage she was there, with no semblance +of hurried walk or discomposure of any kind. The door was slightly +ajar. I knocked, and the majestic figure stood before me, silently +awaiting the explanation of my errand. Her teeth were all gone, so +the nose and chin were brought near together; the gray eyebrows were +straight, and almost hung over her deep, cavernous eyes, and the +thick white hair lay in silvery masses over the low, wide, wrinkled +forehead. For a moment, I stood uncertain how to shape my answer to +the solemn questioning of her silence. + +"Your name is Bridget Fitzgerald, I believe?" + +She bowed her head in assent. + +"I have something to say to you. May I come in? I am unwilling to +keep you standing." + +"You cannot tire me," she said, and at first she seemed inclined to +deny me the shelter of her roof. But the next moment--she had +searched the very soul in me with her eyes during that instant--she +led me in, and dropped the shadowing hood of her gray, draping cloak, +which had previously hid part of the character of her countenance. +The cottage was rude and bare enough. But before the picture of the +Virgin, of which I have made mention, there stood a little cup filled +with fresh primroses. While she paid her reverence to the Madonna, I +understood why she had been out seeking through the clumps of green +in the sheltered copse. Then she turned round, and bade me be +seated. The expression of her face, which all this time I was +studying, was not bad, as the stories of my last night's landlord had +led me to expect; it was a wild, stern, fierce, indomitable +countenance, seamed and scarred by agonies of solitary weeping; but +it was neither cunning nor malignant. + +"My name is Bridget Fitzgerald," said she, by way of opening our +conversation. + +"And your husband was Hugh Fitzgerald, of Knock Mahon, near Kildoon, +in Ireland?" + +A faint light came into the dark gloom of her eyes. + +"He was." + +"May I ask if you had any children by him?" + +The light in her eyes grew quick and red. She tried to speak, I +could see; but something rose in her throat, and choked her, and +until she could speak calmly, she would fain not speak at all before +a stranger. In a minute or so she said--"I had a daughter--one Mary +Fitzgerald,"--then her strong nature mastered her strong will, and +she cried out, with a trembling wailing cry: "Oh, man! what of her?- +-what of her?" + +She rose from her seat, and came and clutched at my arm, and looked +in my eyes. There she read, as I suppose, my utter ignorance of what +had become of her child; for she went blindly back to her chair, and +sat rocking herself and softly moaning, as if I were not there; I not +daring to speak to the lone and awful woman. After a little pause, +she knelt down before the picture of Our Lady of the Holy Heart, and +spoke to her by all the fanciful and poetic names of the Litany. + +"O Rose of Sharon! O Tower of David! O Star of the Sea! have ye no +comfort for my sore heart? Am I for ever to hope? Grant me at least +despair!"--and so on she went, heedless of my presence. Her prayers +grew wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the +borders of madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily, I spoke as +if to stop her. + +"Have you any reason to think that your daughter is dead? + +She rose from her knees, and came and stood before me. + +"Mary Fitzgerald is dead," said she. "I shall never see her again in +the flesh. No tongue ever told me; but I know she is dead. I have +yearned so to see her, and my heart's will is fearful and strong: it +would have drawn her to me before now, if she had been a wanderer on +the other side of the world. I wonder often it has not drawn her out +of the grave to come and stand before me, and hear me tell her how I +loved her. For, sir, we parted unfriends." + +I knew nothing but the dry particulars needed for my lawyer's quest, +but I could not help feeling for the desolate woman; and she must +have read the unusual sympathy with her wistful eyes. + +"Yes, sir, we did. She never knew how I loved her; and we parted +unfriends; and I fear me that I wished her voyage might not turn out +well, only meaning,--O, blessed Virgin! you know I only meant that +she should come home to her mother's arms as to the happiest place on +earth; but my wishes are terrible--their power goes beyond my +thought--and there is no hope for me, if my words brought Mary harm." + +"But," I said, "you do not know that she is dead. Even now, you +hoped she might be alive. Listen to me," and I told her the tale I +have already told you, giving it all in the driest manner, for I +wanted to recall the clear sense that I felt almost sure she had +possessed in her younger days, and by keeping up her attention to +details, restrain the vague wildness of her grief. + +She listened with deep attention, putting from time to time such +questions as convinced me I had to do with no common intelligence, +however dimmed and shorn by solitude and mysterious sorrow. Then she +took up her tale; and in few brief words, told me of her wanderings +abroad in vain search after her daughter; sometimes in the wake of +armies, sometimes in camp, sometimes in city. The lady, whose +waiting-woman Mary had gone to be, had died soon after the date of +her last letter home; her husband, the foreign officer, had been +serving in Hungary, whither Bridget had followed him, but too late to +find him. Vague rumours reached her that Mary had made a great +marriage: and this sting of doubt was added,--whether the mother +might not be close to her child under her new name, and even hearing +of her every day; and yet never recognizing the lost one under the +appellation she then bore. At length the thought took possession of +her, that it was possible that all this time Mary might be at home at +Coldholme, in the Trough of Bolland, in Lancashire, in England; and +home came Bridget, in that vain hope, to her desolate hearth, and +empty cottage. Here she had thought it safest to remain; if Mary was +in life, it was here she would seek for her mother. + +I noted down one or two particulars out of Bridget's narrative that I +thought might be of use to me: for I was stimulated to further +search in a strange and extraordinary manner. It seemed as if it +were impressed upon me, that I must take up the quest where Bridget +had laid it down; and this for no reason that had previously +influenced me (such as my uncle's anxiety on the subject, my own +reputation as a lawyer, and so on), but from some strange power which +had taken possession of my will only that very morning, and which +forced it in the direction it chose. + +"I will go," said I. "I will spare nothing in the search. Trust to +me. I will learn all that can be learnt. You shall know all that +money, or pains, or wit can discover. It is true she may be long +dead: but she may have left a child." + +"A child!" she cried, as if for the first time this idea had struck +her mind. "Hear him, Blessed Virgin! he says she may have left a +child. And you have never told me, though I have prayed so for a +sign, waking or sleeping!" + +"Nay," said I, "I know nothing but what you tell me. You say you +heard of her marriage." + +But she caught nothing of what I said. She was praying to the Virgin +in a kind of ecstasy, which seemed to render her unconscious of my +very presence. + +From Coldholme I went to Sir Philip Tempest's. The wife of the +foreign officer had been a cousin of his father's, and from him I +thought I might gain some particulars as to the existence of the +Count de la Tour d'Auvergne, and where I could find him; for I knew +questions de vive voix aid the flagging recollection, and I was +determined to lose no chance for want of trouble. But Sir Philip had +gone abroad, and it would be some time before I could receive an +answer. So I followed my uncle's advice, to whom I had mentioned how +wearied I felt, both in body and mind, by my will-o'-the-wisp search. +He immediately told me to go to Harrogate, there to await Sir +Philip's reply. I should be near to one of the places connected with +my search, Coldholme; not far from Sir Philip Tempest, in case he +returned, and I wished to ask him any further questions; and, in +conclusion, my uncle bade me try to forget all about my business for +a time. + +This was far easier said than done. I have seen a child on a common +blown along by a high wind, without power of standing still and +resisting the tempestuous force. I was somewhat in the same +predicament as regarded my mental state. Something resistless seemed +to urge my thoughts on, through every possible course by which there +was a chance of attaining to my object. I did not see the sweeping +moors when I walked out: when I held a book in my hand, and read the +words, their sense did not penetrate to my brain. If I slept, I went +on with the same ideas, always flowing in the same direction. This +could not last long without having a bad effect on the body. I had +an illness, which, although I was racked with pain, was a positive +relief to me, as it compelled me to live in the present suffering, +and not in the visionary researches I had been continually making +before. My kind uncle came to nurse me; and after the immediate +danger was over, my life seemed to slip away in delicious languor for +two or three months. I did not ask--so much did I dread falling into +the old channel of thought--whether any reply had been received to my +letter to Sir Philip. I turned my whole imagination right away from +all that subject. My uncle remained with me until nigh midsummer, +and then returned to his business in London; leaving me perfectly +well, although not completely strong. I was to follow him in a +fortnight; when, as he said, "we would look over letters, and talk +about several things." I knew what this little speech alluded to, +and shrank from the train of thought it suggested, which was so +intimately connected with my first feelings of illness. However, I +had a fortnight more to roam on those invigorating Yorkshire moors. + +In those days, there was one large, rambling inn, at Harrogate, close +to the Medicinal Spring; but it was already becoming too small for +the accommodation of the influx of visitors, and many lodged round +about, in the farm-houses of the district. It was so early in the +season, that I had the inn pretty much to myself; and, indeed, felt +rather like a visitor in a private house, so intimate had the +landlord and landlady become with me during my long illness. She +would chide me for being out so late on the moors, or for having been +too long without food, quite in a motherly way; while he consulted me +about vintages and wines, and taught me many a Yorkshire wrinkle +about horses. In my walks I met other strangers from time to time. +Even before my uncle had left me, I had noticed, with half-torpid +curiosity, a young lady of very striking appearance, who went about +always accompanied by an elderly companion,--hardly a gentlewoman, +but with something in her look that prepossessed me in her favour. +The younger lady always put her veil down when any one approached; so +it had been only once or twice, when I had come upon her at a sudden +turn in the path, that I had even had a glimpse at her face. I am +not sure if it was beautiful, though in after-life I grew to think it +so. But it was at this time overshadowed by a sadness that never +varied: a pale, quiet, resigned look of intense suffering, that +irresistibly attracted me,--not with love, but with a sense of +infinite compassion for one so young yet so hopelessly unhappy. The +companion wore something of the same look: quiet melancholy, +hopeless, yet resigned. I asked my landlord who they were. He said +they were called Clarke, and wished to be considered as mother and +daughter; but that, for his part, he did not believe that to be their +right name, or that there was any such relationship between them. +They had been in the neighbourhood of Harrogate for some time, +lodging in a remote farm-house. The people there would tell nothing +about them; saying that they paid handsomely, and never did any harm; +so why should they be speaking of any strange things that might +happen? That, as the landlord shrewdly observed, showed there was +something out of the common way he had heard that the elderly woman +was a cousin of the farmer's where they lodged, and so the regard +existing between relations might help to keep them quiet. + +"What did he think, then, was the reason for their extreme +seclusion?" asked I. + +"Nay, he could not tell,--not he. He had heard that the young lady, +for all as quiet as she seemed, played strange pranks at times." He +shook his head when I asked him for more particulars, and refused to +give them, which made me doubt if he knew any, for he was in general +a talkative and communicative man. In default of other interests, +after my uncle left, I set myself to watch these two people. I +hovered about their walks drawn towards them with a strange +fascination, which was not diminished by their evident annoyance at +so frequently meeting me. One day, I had the sudden good fortune to +be at hand when they were alarmed by the attack of a bull, which, in +those unenclosed grazing districts, was a particularly dangerous +occurrence. I have other and more important things to relate, than +to tell of the accident which gave me an opportunity of rescuing +them, it is enough to say, that this event was the beginning of an +acquaintance, reluctantly acquiesced in by them, but eagerly +prosecuted by me. I can hardly tell when intense curiosity became +merged in love, but in less than ten days after my uncle's departure +I was passionately enamoured of Mistress Lucy, as her attendant +called her; carefully--for this I noted well--avoiding any address +which appeared as if there was an equality of station between them. +I noticed also that Mrs. Clarke, the elderly woman, after her first +reluctance to allow me to pay them any attentions had been overcome, +was cheered by my evident attachment to the young girl; it seemed to +lighten her heavy burden of care, and she evidently favoured my +visits to the farmhouse where they lodged. It was not so with Lucy. +A more attractive person I never saw, in spite of her depression of +manner, and shrinking avoidance of me. I felt sure at once, that +whatever was the source of her grief, it rose from no fault of her +own. It was difficult to draw her into conversation; but when at +times, for a moment or two, I beguiled her into talk, I could see a +rare intelligence in her face, and a grave, trusting look in the +soft, gray eyes that were raised for a minute to mine. I made every +excuse I possibly could for going there. I sought wild flowers for +Lucy's sake; I planned walks for Lucy's sake; I watched the heavens +by night, in hopes that some unusual beauty of sky would justify me +in tempting Mrs. Clarke and Lucy forth upon the moors, to gaze at the +great purple dome above. + +It seemed to me that Lucy was aware of my love; but that, for some +motive which I could not guess, she would fain have repelled me; but +then again I saw, or fancied I saw, that her heart spoke in my +favour, and that there was a struggle going on in her mind, which at +times (I loved so dearly) I could have begged her to spare herself, +even though the happiness of my whole life should have been the +sacrifice; for her complexion grew paler, her aspect of sorrow more +hopeless, her delicate frame yet slighter. During this period I had +written, I should say, to my uncle, to beg to be allowed to prolong +my stay at Harrogate, not giving any reason; but such was his +tenderness towards me, that in a few days I heard from him, giving me +a willing permission, and only charging me to take care of myself, +and not use too much exertion during the hot weather. + +One sultry evening I drew near the farm. The windows of their +parlour were open, and I heard voices when I turned the corner of the +house, as I passed the first window (there were two windows in their +little ground-floor room). I saw Lucy distinctly; but when I had +knocked at their door--the house-door stood always ajar--she was +gone, and I saw only Mrs. Clarke, turning over the work-things lying +on the table, in a nervous and purposeless manner. I felt by +instinct that a conversation of some importance was coming on, in +which I should be expected to say what was my object in paying these +frequent visits. I was glad of the opportunity. My uncle had +several times alluded to the pleasant possibility of my bringing home +a young wife, to cheer and adorn the old house in Ormond Street. He +was rich, and I was to succeed him, and had, as I knew, a fair +reputation for so young a lawyer. So on my side I saw no obstacle. +It was true that Lucy was shrouded in mystery; her name (I was +convinced it was not Clarke), birth, parentage, and previous life +were unknown to me. But I was sure of her goodness and sweet +innocence, and although I knew that there must be something painful +to be told, to account for her mournful sadness, yet I was willing to +bear my share in her grief, whatever it might be. + +Mrs. Clarke began, as if it was a relief to her to plunge into the +subject. + +"We have thought, sir--at least I have thought--that you knew very +little of us, nor we of you, indeed; not enough to warrant the +intimate acquaintance we have fallen into. I beg your pardon, sir," +she went on, nervously; "I am but a plain kind of woman, and I mean +to use no rudeness; but I must say straight out that I--we--think it +would be better for you not to come so often to see us. She is very +unprotected, and--" + +"Why should I not come to see you, dear madam?" asked I, eagerly, +glad of the opportunity of explaining myself. "I come, I own, +because I have learnt to love Mistress Lucy, and wish to teach her to +love me. + +Mistress Clarke shook her head, and sighed. + +"Don't, sir--neither love her, nor, for the sake of all you hold +sacred, teach her to love you! If I am too late, and you love her +already, forget her,--forget these last few weeks. O! I should +never have allowed you to come!" she went on passionately; "but what +am I to do? We are forsaken by all, except the great God, and even +He permits a strange and evil power to afflict us--what am I to do! +Where is it to end?" She wrung her hands in her distress; then she +turned to me: "Go away, sir! go away, before you learn to care any +more for her. I ask it for your own sake--I implore! You have been +good and kind to us, and we shall always recollect you with +gratitude; but go away now, and never come back to cross our fatal +path!" + +"Indeed, madam," said I, "I shall do no such thing. You urge it for +my own sake. I have no fear, so urged--nor wish, except to hear +more--all. I cannot have seen Mistress Lucy in all the intimacy of +this last fortnight, without acknowledging her goodness and +innocence; and without seeing--pardon me, madam--that for some reason +you are two very lonely women, in some mysterious sorrow and +distress. Now, though I am not powerful myself, yet I have friends +who are so wise and kind that they may be said to possess power. +Tell me some particulars. Why are you in grief--what is your secret- +-why are you here? I declare solemnly that nothing you have said has +daunted me in my wish to become Lucy's husband; nor will I shrink +from any difficulty that, as such an aspirant, I may have to +encounter. You say you are friendless--why cast away an honest +friend? I will tell you of people to whom you may write, and who +will answer any questions as to my character and prospects. I do not +shun inquiry." + +She shook her head again. "You had better go away, sir. You know +nothing about us." + +"I know your names," said I, "and I have heard you allude to the part +of the country from which you came, which I happen to know as a wild +and lonely place. There are so few people living in it that, if I +chose to go there, I could easily ascertain all about you; but I +would rather hear it from yourself." You see I wanted to pique her +into telling me something definite. + +"You do not know our true names, sir," said she, hastily. + +"Well, I may have conjectured as much. But tell me, then, I conjure +you. Give me your reasons for distrusting my willingness to stand by +what I have said with regard to Mistress Lucy." + +"Oh, what can I do?" exclaimed she. "If I am turning away a true +friend, as he says?--Stay!" coming to a sudden decision--" I will +tell you something--I cannot tell you all--you would not believe it. +But, perhaps, I can tell you enough to prevent your going on in your +hopeless attachment. I am not Lucy's mother." + +"So I conjectured," I said. "Go on." + +"I do not even know whether she is the legitimate or illegitimate +child of her father. But he is cruelly turned against her; and her +mother is long dead; and for a terrible reason, she has no other +creature to keep constant to her but me. She--only two years ago-- +such a darling and such a pride in her father's house! Why, sir, +there is a mystery that might happen in connection with her any +moment; and then you would go away like all the rest; and, when you +next heard her name, you would loathe her. Others, who have loved +her longer, have done so before now. My poor child! whom neither God +nor man has mercy upon--or, surely, she would die!" + +The good woman was stopped by her crying. I confess, I was a little +stunned by her last words; but only for a moment. At any rate, till +I knew definitely what was this mysterious stain upon one so simple +and pure, as Lucy seemed, I would not desert her, and so I said; and +she made me answer:- + +"If you are daring in your heart to think harm of my child, sir, +after knowing her as you have done, you are no good man yourself; but +I am so foolish and helpless in my great sorrow, that I would fain +hope to find a friend in you. I cannot help trusting that, although +you may no longer feel toward her as a lover, you will have pity upon +us; and perhaps, by your learning you can tell us where to go for +aid." + +"I implore you to tell me what this mystery is," I cried, almost +maddened by this suspense. + +"I cannot," said she, solemnly. "I am under a deep vow of secrecy. +If you are to be told, it must be by her." She left the room, and I +remained to ponder over this strange interview. I mechanically +turned over the few books, and with eyes that saw nothing at the +time, examined the tokens of Lucy's frequent presence in that room. + +When I got home at night, I remembered how all these trifles spoke of +a pure and tender heart and innocent life. Mistress Clarke returned; +she had been crying sadly. + +"Yes," said she, "it is as I feared: she loves you so much that she +is willing to run the fearful risk of telling you all herself--she +acknowledges it is but a poor chance; but your sympathy will be a +balm, if you give it. To-morrow, come here at ten in the morning; +and, as you hope for pity in your hour of agony, repress all show of +fear or repugnance you may feel towards one so grievously afflicted." + +I half smiled. "Have no fear," I said. It seemed too absurd to +imagine my feeling dislike to Lucy. + +"Her father loved her well," said she, gravely, "yet he drove her out +like some monstrous thing." + +Just at this moment came a peal of ringing laughter from the garden. +It was Lucy's voice; it sounded as if she were standing just on one +side of the open casement--and as though she were suddenly stirred to +merriment--merriment verging on boisterousness, by the doings or +sayings of some other person. I can scarcely say why, but the sound +jarred on me inexpressibly. She knew the subject of our +conversation, and must have been at least aware of the state of +agitation her friend was in; she herself usually so gentle and quiet. +I half rose to go to the window, and satisfy my instinctive curiosity +as to what had provoked this burst of, ill-timed laughter; but Mrs. +Clarke threw her whole weight and power upon the hand with which she +pressed and kept me down. + +"For God's sake!" she said, white and trembling all over, "sit still; +be quiet. Oh! be patient. To-morrow you will know all. Leave us, +for we are all sorely afflicted. Do not seek to know more about us." + +Again that laugh--so musical in sound, yet so discordant to my heart. +She held me tight--tighter; without positive violence I could not +have risen. I was sitting with my back to the window, but I felt a +shadow pass between the sun's warmth and me, and a strange shudder +ran through my frame. In a minute or two she released me. + +"Go," repeated she. "Be warned, I ask you once more. I do not think +you can stand this knowledge that you seek. If I had had my own way, +Lucy should never have yielded, and promised to tell you all. Who +knows what may come of it?" + +"I am firm in my wish to know all. I return at ten tomorrow morning, +and then expect to see Mistress Lucy herself." + +I turned away; having my own suspicions, I confess, as to Mistress +Clarke's sanity. + +Conjectures as to the meaning of her hints, and uncomfortable +thoughts connected with that strange laughter, filled my mind. I +could hardly sleep. I rose early; and long before the hour I had +appointed, I was on the path over the common that led to the old +farm-house where they lodged. I suppose that Lucy had passed no +better a night than I; for there she was also, slowly pacing with her +even step, her eyes bent down, her whole look most saintly and pure. +She started when I came close to her, and grew paler as I reminded +her of my appointment, and spoke with something of the impatience of +obstacles that, seeing her once more, had called up afresh in my +mind. All strange and terrible hints, and giddy merriment were +forgotten. My heart gave forth words of fire, and my tongue uttered +them. Her colour went and came, as she listened; but, when I had +ended my passionate speeches, she lifted her soft eyes to me, and +said - + +"But you know that you have something to learn about me yet. I only +want to say this: I shall not think less of you--less well of you, I +mean--if you, too, fall away from me when you know all. Stop!" said +she, as if fearing another burst of mad words. "Listen to me. My +father is a man of great wealth. I never knew my mother; she must +have died when I was very young. When first I remember anything, I +was living in a great, lonely house, with my dear and faithful +Mistress Clarke. My father, even, was not there; he was--he is--a +soldier, and his duties lie aboard. But he came from time to time, +and every time I think he loved me more and more. He brought me +rarities from foreign lands, which prove to me now how much he must +have thought of me during his absences. I can sit down and measure +the depth of his lost love now, by such standards as these. I never +thought whether he loved me or not, then; it was so natural, that it +was like the air I breathed. Yet he was an angry man at times, even +then; but never with me. He was very reckless, too; and, once or +twice, I heard a whisper among the servants that a doom was over him, +and that he knew it, and tried to drown his knowledge in wild +activity, and even sometimes, sir, in wine. So I grew up in this +grand mansion, in that lonely place. Everything around me seemed at +my disposal, and I think every one loved me; I am sure I loved them. +Till about two years ago--I remember it well--my father had come to +England, to us; and he seemed so proud and so pleased with me and all +I had done. And one day his tongue seemed loosened with wine, and he +told me much that I had not known till then,--how dearly he had loved +my mother, yet how his wilful usage had caused her death; and then he +went on to say how he loved me better than any creature on earth, and +how, some day, he hoped to take me to foreign places, for that he +could hardly bear these long absences from his only child. Then he +seemed to change suddenly, and said, in a strange, wild way, that I +was not to believe what he said; that there was many a thing he loved +better--his horse--his dog--I know not what. + +"And 'twas only the next morning that, when I came into his room to +ask his blessing as was my wont, he received me with fierce and angry +words. 'Why had I,' so he asked, 'been delighting myself in such +wanton mischief--dancing over the tender plants in the flower-beds, +all set with the famous Dutch bulbs he had brought from Holland?' I +had never been out of doors that morning, sir, and I could not +conceive what he meant, and so I said; and then he swore at me for a +liar, and said I was of no true blood, for he had seen me doing all +that mischief himself--with his own eyes. What could I say? He +would not listen to me, and even my tears seemed only to irritate +him. That day was the beginning of my great sorrows. Not long +after, he reproached me for my undue familiarity--all unbecoming a +gentlewoman--with his grooms. I had been in the stable-yard, +laughing and talking, he said. Now, sir, I am something of a coward +by nature, and I had always dreaded horses; be-sides that, my +father's servants--those whom he brought with him from foreign parts- +-were wild fellows, whom I had always avoided, and to whom I had +never spoken, except as a lady must needs from time to time speak to +her father's people. Yet my father called me by names of which I +hardly know the meaning, but my heart told me they were such as shame +any modest woman; and from that day he turned quite against me;--nay, +sir, not many weeks after that, he came in with a riding-whip in his +hand; and, accusing me harshly of evil doings, of which I knew no +more than you, sir, he was about to strike me, and I, all in +bewildering tears, was ready to take his stripes as great kindness +compared to his harder words, when suddenly he stopped his arm mid- +way, gasped and staggered, crying out, 'The curse--the curse!' I +looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and +right behind, another wicked, fearful self, so like me that my soul +seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude +of body it belonged. My father saw my double at the same moment, +either in its dreadful reality, whatever that might be, or in the +scarcely less terrible reflection in the mirror; but what came of it +at that moment I cannot say, for I suddenly swooned away; and when I +came to myself I was lying in my bed, and my faithful Clarke sitting +by me. I was in my bed for days; and even while I lay there my +double was seen by all, flitting about the house and gardens, always +about some mischievous or detestable work. What wonder that every +one shrank from me in dread--that my father drove me forth at length, +when the disgrace of which I was the cause was past his patience to +bear. Mistress Clarke came with me; and here we try to live such a +life of piety and prayer as may in time set me free from the curse." + +All the time she had been speaking, I had been weighing her story in +my mind. I had hitherto put cases of witchcraft on one side, as mere +superstitions; and my uncle and I had had many an argument, he +supporting himself by the opinion of his good friend Sir Matthew +Hale. Yet this sounded like the tale of one bewitched; or was it +merely the effect of a life of extreme seclusion telling on the +nerves of a sensitive girl? My scepticism inclined me to the latter +belief, and when she paused I said: + +"I fancy that some physician could have disabused your father of his +belief in visions--" + +Just at that instant, standing as I was opposite to her in the full +and perfect morning light, I saw behind her another figure--a ghastly +resemblance, complete in likeness, so far as form and feature and +minutest touch of dress could go, but with a loathsome demon soul +looking out of the gray eyes, that were in turns mocking and +voluptuous. My heart stood still within me; every hair rose up +erect; my flesh crept with horror. I could not see the grave and +tender Lucy--my eyes were fascinated by the creature beyond. I know +not why, but I put out my hand to clutch it; I grasped nothing but +empty air, and my whole blood curdled to ice. For a moment I could +not see; then my sight came back, and I saw Lucy standing before me, +alone, deathly pale, and, I could have fancied, almost, shrunk in +size. + +"IT has been near me?" she said, as if asking a question. + +The sound seemed taken out of her voice; it was husky as the notes on +an old harpsichord when the strings have ceased to vibrate. She read +her answer in my face, I suppose, for I could not speak. Her look +was one of intense fear, but that died away into an aspect of most +humble patience. At length she seemed to force herself to face +behind and around her: she saw the purple moors, the blue distant +hills, quivering in the sunlight, but nothing else. + +"Will you take me home?" she said, meekly. + +I took her by the hand, and led her silently through the budding +heather--we dared not speak; for we could not tell but that the dread +creature was listening, although unseen,--but that IT might appear +and push us asunder. I never loved her more fondly than now when-- +and that was the unspeakable misery--the idea of her was becoming so +inextricably blended with the shuddering thought of IT. She seemed +to understand what I must be feeling. She let go my hand, which she +had kept clasped until then, when we reached the garden gate, and +went forwards to meet her anxious friend, who was standing by the +window looking for her. I could not enter the house: I needed +silence, society, leisure, change--I knew not what--to shake off the +sensation of that creature's presence. Yet I lingered about the +garden--I hardly know why; I partly suppose, because I feared to +encounter the resemblance again on the solitary common, where it had +vanished, and partly from a feeling of inexpressible compassion for +Lucy. In a few minutes Mistress Clarke came forth and joined me. We +walked some paces in silence. + +"You know all now," said she, solemnly. + +"I saw IT," said I, below my breath. + +"And you shrink from us, now," she said, with a hopelessness which +stirred up all that was brave or good in me. + +"Not a whit," said I. "Human flesh shrinks from encounter with the +powers of darkness: and, for some reason unknown to me, the pure and +holy Lucy is their victim." + +"The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children," she +said. + +"Who is her father?" asked I. "Knowing as much as I do, I may surely +know more--know all. Tell me, I entreat you, madam, all that you can +conjecture respecting this demoniac persecution of one so good." + +"I will; but not now. I must go to Lucy now. Come this afternoon, I +will see you alone; and oh, sir! I will trust that you may yet find +some way to help us in our sore trouble!" + +I was miserably exhausted by the swooning affright which had taken +possession of me. When I reached the inn, I staggered in like one +overcome by wine. I went to my own private room. It was some time +before I saw that the weekly post had come in, and brought me my +letters. There was one from my uncle, one from my home in +Devonshire, and one, re-directed over the first address, sealed with +a great coat of arms, It was from Sir Philip Tempest: my letter of +inquiry respecting Mary Fitzgerald had reached him at Liege, where it +so happened that the Count de la Tour d'Auvergne was quartered at the +very time. He remembered his wife's beautiful attendant; she had had +high words with the deceased countess, respecting her intercourse +with an English gentleman of good standing, who was also in the +foreign service. The countess augured evil of his intentions; while +Mary, proud and vehement, asserted that he would soon marry her, and +resented her mistress's warnings as an insult. The consequence was, +that she had left Madame de la Tour d'Auvergne's service, and, as the +Count believed, had gone to live with the Englishman; whether he had +married her, or not, he could not say. "But," added Sir Philip +Tempest, you may easily hear what particulars you wish to know +respecting Mary Fitzgerald from the Englishman himself, if, as I +suspect, he is no other than my neighbour and former acquaintance, +Mr. Gisborne, of Skipford Hall, in the West Riding. I am led to the +belief that he is no other, by several small particulars, none of +which are in themselves conclusive, but which, taken together, +furnish a mass of presumptive evidence. As far as I could make out +from the Count's foreign pronunciation, Gisborne was the name of the +Englishman: I know that Gisborne of Skipford was abroad and in the +foreign service at that time--he was a likely fellow enough for such +an exploit, and, above all, certain expressions recur to my mind +which he used in reference to old Bridget Fitzgerald, of Coldholme, +whom he once encountered while staying with me at Starkey Manor- +house. I remember that the meeting seemed to have produced some +extraordinary effect upon his mind, as though he had suddenly +discovered some connection which she might have had with his previous +life. I beg you to let me know if I can be of any further service to +you. Your uncle once rendered me a good turn, and I will gladly +repay it, so far as in me lies, to his nephew." + +I was now apparently close on the discovery which I had striven so +many months to attain. But success had lost its zest. I put my +letters down, and seemed to forget them all in thinking of the +morning I had passed that very day. Nothing was real but the unreal +presence, which had come like an evil blast across my bodily eyes, +and burnt itself down upon my brain. Dinner came, and went away +untouched. Early in the afternoon I walked to the farm-house. I +found Mistress Clarke alone, and I was glad and relieved. She was +evidently prepared to tell me all I might wish to hear. + +"You asked me for Mistress Lucy's true name; it is Gisborne," she +began. + +"Not Gisborne of Skipford?" I exclaimed, breathless with +anticipation. + +"The same," said she, quietly, not regarding my manner. "Her father +is a man of note; although, being a Roman Catholic, he cannot take +that rank in this country to which his station entitles him. The +consequence is that he lives much abroad--has been a soldier, I am +told." + +"And Lucy's mother?" I asked. + +She shook her head. "I never knew her," said she. "Lucy was about +three years old when I was engaged to take charge of her. Her mother +was dead." + +"But you know her name?--you can tell if it was Mary Fitzgerald?" + +She looked astonished. "That was her name. But, sir, how came you +to be so well acquainted with it? It was a mystery to the whole +household at Skipford Court. She was some beautiful young woman whom +he lured away from her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard +said he practised some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came to +know it, she was neither to have nor to hold, but rushed off from his +very arms, and threw herself into a rapid stream and was drowned. It +stung him deep with remorse, but I used to think the remembrance of +the mother's cruel death made him love the child yet dearer." + +I told her, as briefly as might be, of my researches after the +descendant and heir of the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and added-- +something of my old lawyer spirit returning into me for the moment-- +that I had no doubt but that we should prove Lucy to be by right +possessed of large estates in Ireland. + +No flush came over her gray face; no light into her eyes. "And what +is all the wealth in the whole world to that poor girl?" she said. +"It will not free her from the ghastly bewitchment which persecutes +her. As for money, what a pitiful thing it is! it cannot touch her." + +"No more can the Evil Creature harm her," I said. "Her holy nature +dwells apart, and cannot be defiled or stained by all the devilish +arts in the whole world." + +"True! but it is a cruel fate to know that all shrink from her, +sooner or later, as from one possessed--accursed." + +"How came it to pass?" I asked. + +"Nay, I know not. Old rumours there are, that were bruited through +the household at Skipford." + +"Tell me," I demanded. + +"They came from servants, who would fain account for every thing. +They say that, many years ago, Mr. Gisborne killed a dog belonging to +an old witch at Coldholme; that she cursed, with a dreadful and +mysterious curse, the creature, whatever it might be, that he should +love best; and that it struck so deeply into his heart that for years +he kept himself aloof from any temptation to love aught. But who +could help loving Lucy?" + +"You never heard the witch's name?" I gasped. + +"Yes--they called her Bridget: they said he would never go near the +spot again for terror of her. Yet he was a brave man!" + +"Listen," said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to arrest her +full attention: "if what I suspect holds true, that man stole +Bridget's only child--the very Mary Fitzgerald who was Lucy's mother; +if so, Bridget cursed him in ignorance of the deeper wrong he had +done her. To this hour she yearns after her lost child, and +questions the saints whether she be living or not. The roots of that +curse lie deeper than she knows: she unwittingly banned him for a +deeper guilt than that of killing a dumb beast. The sins of the +fathers are indeed visited upon the children." + +"But," said Mistress Clarke, eagerly, "she would never let evil rest +on her own grandchild? Surely, sir, if what you say be true, there +are hopes for Lucy. Let us go--go at once, and tell this fearful +woman all that you suspect, and beseech her to take off the spell she +has put upon her innocent grandchild." + +It seemed to me, indeed, that something like this was the best course +we could pursue. But first it was necessary to ascertain more than +what mere rumour or careless hearsay could tell. My thoughts turned +to my uncle--he could advise me wisely--he ought to know all. I +resolved to go to him without delay; but I did not choose to tell +Mistress Clarke of all the visionary plans that flitted through my +mind. I simply declared my intention of proceeding straight to +London on Lucy's affairs. I bade her believe that my interest on the +young lady's behalf was greater than ever, and that my whole time +should be given up to her cause. I saw that Mistress Clarke +distrusted me, because my mind was too full of thoughts for my words +to flow freely. She sighed and shook her head, and said, "Well, it +is all right!" in such a tone that it was an implied reproach. But I +was firm and constant in my heart, and I took confidence from that. + +I rode to London. I rode long days drawn out into the lovely summer +nights: I could not rest. I reached London. I told my uncle all, +though in the stir of the great city the horror had faded away, and I +could hardly imagine that he would believe the account I gave him of +the fearful double of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side. +But my uncle had lived many years, and learnt many things; and, in +the deep secrets of family history that had been confided to him, he +had heard of cases of innocent people bewitched and taken possession +of by evil spirits yet more fearful than Lucy's. For, as he said, to +judge from all I told him, that resemblance had no power over her-- +she was too pure and good to be tainted by its evil, haunting +presence. It had, in all probability, so my uncle conceived, tried +to suggest wicked thoughts and to tempt to wicked actions but she, in +her saintly maidenhood, had passed on undefiled by evil thought or +deed. It could not touch her soul: but true, it set her apart from +all sweet love or common human intercourse. My uncle threw himself +with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixty into the +consideration of the whole case. He undertook the proving Lucy's +descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, and obtain, +firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds of +Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting +the working of the curse, and whether any and what means had been +taken to exorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of +instances where, by prayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had +been driven forth with howling and many cries from the body which it +had come to inhabit; he spoke of those strange New England cases +which had happened not so long before; of Mr. Defoe, who had written +a book, wherein he had named many modes of subduing apparitions, and +sending them back whence they came; and, lastly, he spoke low of +dreadful ways of compelling witches to undo their witchcraft. But I +could not endure to hear of those tortures and burnings. I said that +Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than a malignant witch; +and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; and that, in +putting her to the trial, by water or by fire, we should be +torturing--it might be to the death--the ancestress of her we sought +to redeem. + +My uncle thought awhile, and then said, that in this last matter I +was right--at any rate, it should not be tried, with his consent, +till all other modes of remedy had failed; and he assented to my +proposal that I should go myself and see Bridget, and tell her all. + +In accordance with this, I went down once more to the wayside inn +near Coldholme. It was late at night when I arrived there; and, +while I supped, I inquired of the landlord more particulars as to +Bridget's ways. Solitary and savage had been her life for many +years. Wild and despotic were her words and manner to those few +people who came across her path. The country-folk did her imperious +bidding, because they feared to disobey. If they pleased her, they +prospered; if, on the contrary, they neglected or traversed her +behests, misfortune, small or great, fell on them and theirs. It was +not detestation so much as an indefinable terror that she excited. + +In the morning I went to see her. She was standing on the green +outside her cottage, and received me with the sullen grandeur of a +throneless queen. I read in her face that she recognized me, and +that I was not unwelcome; but she stood silent till I had opened my +errand. + +"I have news of your daughter," said I, resolved to speak straight to +all that I knew she felt of love, and not to spare her. "She is +dead!" + +The stern figure scarcely trembled, but her hand sought the support +of the door-post. + +"I knew that she was dead," said she, deep and low, and then was +silent for an instant. "My tears that should have flowed for her +were burnt up long years ago. Young man, tell me about her." + +"Not yet," said I, having a strange power given me of confronting +one, whom, nevertheless, in my secret soul I dreaded. + +"You had once a little dog," I continued. The words called out in +her more show of emotion than the intelligence of her daughter's +death. She broke in upon my speech:- + +"I had! It was hers--the last thing I had of hers--and it was shot +for wantonness! It died in my arms. The man who killed that dog +rues it to this day. For that dumb beast's blood, his best-beloved +stands accursed." + +Her eyes distended, as if she were in a trance and saw the working of +her curse. Again I spoke:- + +"O, woman!" I said, "that best-beloved, standing accursed before men, +is your dead daughter's child." + +The life, the energy, the passion, came back to the eyes with which +she pierced through me, to see if I spoke truth; then, without +another question or word, she threw herself on the ground with +fearful vehemence, and clutched at the innocent daisies with +convulsed hands. + +"Bone of my bone! flesh of my flesh! have I cursed thee--and art thou +accursed?" + +So she moaned, as she lay prostrate in her great agony. I stood +aghast at my own work. She did not hear my broken sentences; she +asked no more, but the dumb confirmation which my sad looks had given +that one fact, that her curse rested on her own daughter's child. +The fear grew on me lest she should die in her strife of body and +soul; and then might not Lucy remain under the spell as long as she +lived? + +Even at this moment, I saw Lucy coming through the woodland path that +led to Bridget's cottage; Mistress Clarke was with her: I felt at my +heart that it was she, by the balmy peace which the look of her sent +over me, as she slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her +soft quiet eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell +on the woman lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of +tender pity; and she came forward to try and lift her up. Seating +herself on the turf, she took Bridget's head into her lap; and, with +gentle touches, she arranged the dishevelled gray hair streaming +thick and wild from beneath her mutch. + +"God help her!" murmured Lucy. "How she suffers!" + +At her desire we sought for water; but when we returned, Bridget had +recovered her wandering senses, and was kneeling with clasped hands +before Lucy, gazing at that sweet sad face as though her troubled +nature drank in health and peace from every moment's contemplation. +A faint tinge on Lucy's pale cheeks showed me that she was aware of +our return; otherwise it appeared as if she was conscious of her +influence for good over the passionate and troubled woman kneeling +before her, and would not willingly avert her grave and loving eyes +from that wrinkled and careworn countenance. + +Suddenly--in the twinkling of an eye--the creature appeared, there, +behind Lucy; fearfully the same as to outward semblance, but kneeling +exactly as Bridget knelt, and clasping her hands in jesting mimicry +as Bridget clasped hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a +prayer. Mistress Clarke cried out--Bridget arose slowly, her gaze +fixed on the creature beyond: drawing her breath with a hissing +sound, never moving her terrible eyes, that were steady as stone, she +made a dart at the phantom, and caught, as I had done, a mere handful +of empty air. We saw no more of the creature--it vanished as +suddenly as it came, but Bridget looked slowly on, as if watching +some receding form. Lucy sat still, white, trembling, drooping--I +think she would have swooned if I had not been there to uphold her. +While I was attending to her, Bridget passed us, without a word to +any one, and, entering her cottage, she barred herself in, and left +us without. + +All our endeavours were now directed to get Lucy back to the house +where she had tarried the night before. Mistress Clarke told me +that, not hearing from me (some letter must have miscarried), she had +grown impatient and despairing, and had urged Lucy to the enterprise +of coming to seek her grandmother; not telling her, indeed, of the +dread reputation she possessed, or how we suspected her of having so +fearfully blighted that innocent girl; but, at the same time, hoping +much from the mysterious stirring of blood, which Mistress Clarke +trusted in for the removal of the curse. They had come, by a +different route from that which I had taken, to a village inn not far +from Coldholme, only the night before. This was the first interview +between ancestress and descendant. + +All through the sultry noon I wandered along the tangled brush-wood +of the old neglected forest, thinking where to turn for remedy in a +matter so complicated and mysterious. Meeting a countryman, I asked +my way to the nearest clergyman, and went, hoping to obtain some +counsel from him. But he proved to be a coarse and common-minded +man, giving no time or attention to the intricacies of a case, but +dashing out a strong opinion involving immediate action. For +instance, as soon as I named Bridget Fitzgerald, he exclaimed:- + +"The Coldholme witch! the Irish papist! I'd have had her ducked long +since but for that other papist, Sir Philip Tempest. He has had to +threaten honest folk about here over and over again, or they'd have +had her up before the justices for her black doings. And it's the +law of the land that witches should be burnt! Ay, and of Scripture, +too, sir! Yet you see a papist, if he's a rich squire, can overrule +both law and Scripture. I'd carry a faggot myself to rid the country +of her!" + +Such a one could give me no help. I rather drew back what I had +already said; and tried to make the parson forget it, by treating him +to several pots of beer, in the village inn, to which we had +adjourned for our conference at his suggestion. I left him as soon +as I could, and returned to Coldholme, shaping my way past deserted +Starkey Manor-house, and coming upon it by the back. At that side +were the oblong remains of the old moat, the waters of which lay +placid and motionless under the crimson rays of the setting sun; with +the forest-trees lying straight along each side, and their deep-green +foliage mirrored to blackness in the burnished surface of the moat +below--and the broken sun-dial at the end nearest the hall--and the +heron, standing on one leg at the water's edge, lazily looking down +for fish--the lonely and desolate house scarce needed the broken +windows, the weeds on the door-sill, the broken shutter softly +flapping to and fro in the twilight breeze, to fill up the picture of +desertion and decay. I lingered about the place until the growing +darkness warned me on. And then I passed along the path, cut by the +orders of the last lady of Starkey Manor-House, that led me to +Bridget's cottage. I resolved at once to see her; and, in spite of +closed doors--it might be of resolved will--she should see me. So I +knocked at her door, gently, loudly, fiercely. I shook it so +vehemently that a length the old hinges gave way, and with a crash it +fell inwards, leaving me suddenly face to face with Bridget--I, red, +heated, agitated with my so long baffled efforts--she, stiff as any +stone, standing right facing me, her eyes dilated with terror, her +ashen lips trembling, but her body motionless. In her hands she held +her crucifix, as if by that holy symbol she sought to oppose my +entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame relaxed, and she sank back +upon a chair. Some mighty tension had given way. Still her eyes +looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air, made more opaque by +the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed before the +picture of the Virgin. + +"Is she there?" asked Bridget, hoarsely. + +"No! Who? I am alone. You remember me." + +"Yes," replied she, still terror stricken. "But she--that creature-- +has been looking in upon me through that window all day long. I +closed it up with my shawl; and then I saw her feet below the door, +as long as it was light, and I knew she heard my very breathing--nay, +worse, my very prayers; and I could not pray, for her listening +choked the words ere they rose to my lips. Tell me, who is she?-- +what means that double girl I saw this morning? One had a look of my +dead Mary; but the other curdled my blood, and yet it was the same!" + +She had taken hold of my arm, as if to secure herself some human +companionship. She shook all over with the slight, never-ceasing +tremor of intense terror. I told her my tale as I have told it you, +sparing none of the details. + +How Mistress Clarke had informed me that the resemblance had driven +Lucy forth from her father's house--how I had disbelieved, until, +with mine own eyes, I had seen another Lucy standing behind my Lucy, +the same in form and feature, but with the demon-soul looking out of +the eyes. I told her all, I say, believing that she--whose curse was +working so upon the life of her innocent grandchild--was the only +person who could find the remedy and the redemption. When I had +done, she sat silent for many minutes. + +"You love Mary's child?" she asked. + +"I do, in spite of the fearful working of the curse--I love her. Yet +I shrink from her ever since that day on the moor-side. And men must +shrink from one so accompanied; friends and lovers must stand afar +off. Oh, Bridget Fitzgerald! loosen the curse! Set her free!" + +"Where is she?" + +I eagerly caught at the idea that her presence was needed, in order +that, by some strange prayer or exorcism, the spell might be +reversed. + +"I will go and bring her to you," I exclaimed. Bridget tightened her +hold upon my arm. + +"Not so," said she, in a low, hoarse voice. "It would kill me to see +her again as I saw her this morning. And I must live till I have +worked my work. Leave me!" said she, suddenly, and again taking up +the cross. "I defy the demon I have called up. Leave me to wrestle +with it!" + +She stood up, as if in an ecstasy of inspiration, from which all fear +was banished. I lingered--why I can hardly tell--until once more she +bade me begone. As I went along the forest way, I looked back, and +saw her planting the cross in the empty threshold, where the door had +been. + +The next morning Lucy and I went to seek her, to bid her join her +prayers with ours. The cottage stood open and wide to our gaze. No +human being was there: the cross remained on the threshold, but +Bridget was gone. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + +What was to be done next? was the question that I asked myself. As +for Lucy, she would fain have submitted to the doom that lay upon +her. Her gentleness and piety, under the pressure of so horrible a +life, seemed over-passive to me. She never complained. Mrs. Clarke +complained more than ever. As for me, I was more in love with the +real Lucy than ever; but I shrunk from the false similitude with an +intensity proportioned to my love. I found out by instinct that Mrs. +Clarke had occasional temptations to leave Lucy. The good lady's +nerves were shaken, and, from what she said, I could almost have +concluded that the object of the Double was to drive away from Lucy +this last, and almost earliest friend. At times, I could scarcely +bear to own it, but I myself felt inclined to turn recreant; and I +would accuse Lucy of being too patient--too resigned. One after +another, she won the little children of Coldholme. (Mrs. Clarke and +she had resolved to stay there, for was it not as good a place as any +other, to such as they? and did not all our faint hopes rest on +Bridget--never seen or heard of now, but still we trusted to come +back, or give some token?) So, as I say, one after another, the +little children came about my Lucy, won by her soft tones, and her +gentle smiles, and kind actions. Alas! one after another they fell +away, and shrunk from her path with blanching terror; and we too +surely guessed the reason why. It was the last drop. I could bear +it no longer. I resolved no more to linger around the spot, but to +go back to my uncle, and among the learned divines of the city of +London, seek for some power whereby to annul the curse. + +My uncle, meanwhile, had obtained all the requisite testimonials +relating to Lucy's descent and birth, from the Irish lawyers, and +from Mr. Gisborne. The latter gentleman had written from abroad (he +was again serving in the Austrian army), a letter alternately +passionately self-reproachful and stoically repellant. It was +evident that when he thought of Mary--her short life--how he had +wronged her, and of her violent death, he could hardly find words +severe enough for his own conduct; and from this point of view, the +curse that Bridget had laid upon him and his, was regarded by him as +a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which she was moved by a Higher +Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper vengeance than for the +death of the poor dog. But then, again, when he came to speak of his +daughter, the repugnance which the conduct of the demoniac creature +had produced in his mind, was but ill-disguised under a show of +profound indifference as to Lucy's fate. One almost felt as if he +would have been as content to put her out of existence, as he would +have been to destroy some disgusting reptile that had invaded his +chamber or his couch. + +The great Fitzgerald property was Lucy's; and that was all--was +nothing. + +My uncle and I sat in the gloom of a London November evening, in our +house in Ormond Street. I was out of health, and felt as if I were +in an inextricable coil of misery. Lucy and I wrote to each other, +but that was little; and we dared not see each other for dread of the +fearful Third, who had more than once taken her place at our +meetings. My uncle had, on the day I speak of, bidden prayers to be +put up on the ensuing Sabbath in many a church and meeting-house in +London, for one grievously tormented by an evil spirit. He had faith +in prayers--I had none; I was fast losing faith in all things. So we +sat, he trying to interest me in the old talk of other days, I +oppressed by one thought--when our old servant, Anthony, opened the +door, and, without speaking, showed in a very gentlemanly and +prepossessing man, who had something remarkable about his dress, +betraying his profession to be that of the Roman Catholic priesthood. +He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It was to me he bowed. + +"I did not give my name," said he, "because you would hardly have +recognised it; unless, sir, when, in the north, you heard of Father +Bernard, the chaplain at Stoney Hurst?" + +I remembered afterwards that I had heard of him, but at the time I +had utterly forgotten it; so I professed myself a complete stranger +to him; while my ever-hospitable uncle, although hating a papist as +much as it was in his nature to hate anything, placed a chair for the +visitor, and bade Anthony bring glasses, and a fresh jug of claret. + +Father Bernard received this courtesy with the graceful ease and +pleasant acknowledgement which belongs to a man of the world. Then +he turned to scan me with his keen glance. After some alight +conversation, entered into on his part, I am certain, with an +intention of discovering on what terms of confidence I stood with my +uncle, he paused, and said gravely - + +"I am sent here with a message to you, sir, from a woman to whom you +have shown kindness, and who is one of my penitents, in Antwerp--one +Bridget Fitzgerald." + +"Bridget Fitzgerald!" exclaimed I. "In Antwerp? Tell me, sir, all +that you can about her." + +"There is much to be said," he replied. "But may I inquire if this +gentleman--if your uncle is acquainted with the particulars of which +you and I stand informed?" + +"All that I know, he knows," said I, eagerly laying my hand on my +uncle's arm, as he made a motion as if to quit the room. + +"Then I have to speak before two gentlemen who, however they may +differ from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact that +there are evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of +our evil thoughts: and, if their Master gives them power, to bring +them into overt action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin, +which I dare not disbelieve--as some sceptics would have us do--the +sin of witchcraft. Of this deadly sin, you and I are aware, Bridget +Fitzgerald has been guilty. Since you saw her last, many prayers +have been offered in our churches, many masses sung, many penances +undergone, in order that, if God and the holy saints so willed it, +her sin might be blotted out. But it has not been so willed." + +"Explain to me," said I, "who you are, and how you come connected +with Bridget. Why is she at Antwerp? I pray you, sir, tell me more. +If I am impatient, excuse me; I am ill and feverish, and in +consequence bewildered." + +There was something to me inexpressibly soothing in the tone of voice +with which he began to narrate, as it were from the beginning, his +acquaintance with Bridget. + +"I had known Mr. and Mrs. Starkey during their residence abroad, and +so it fell out naturally that, when I came as chaplain to the +Sherburnes at Stoney Hurst, our acquaintance was renewed; and thus I +became the confessor of the whole family, isolated as they were from +the offices of the Church, Sherburne being their nearest neighbour +who professed the true faith. Of course, you are aware that facts +revealed in confession are sealed as in the grave; but I learnt +enough of Bridget's character to be convinced that I had to do with +no common woman; one powerful for good as for evil. I believe that I +was able to give her spiritual assistance from time to time, and that +she looked upon me as a servant of that Holy Church, which has such +wonderful power of moving men's hearts, and relieving them of the +burden of their sins. I have known her cross the moors on the +wildest nights of storm, to confess and be absolved; and then she +would return, calmed and subdued, to her daily work about her +mistress, no one witting where she had been during the hours that +most passed in sleep upon their beds. After her daughter's +departure--after Mary's mysterious disappearance--I had to impose +many a long penance, in order to wash away the sin of impatient +repining that was fast leading her into the deeper guilt of +blasphemy. She set out on that long journey of which you have +possibly heard--that fruitless journey in search of Mary--and during +her absence, my superiors ordered my return to my former duties at +Antwerp, and for many years I heard no more of Bridget. + +"Not many months ago, as I was passing homewards in the evening, +along one of the streets near St. Jacques, leading into the Meer +Straet, I saw a woman sitting crouched up under the shrine of the +Holy Mother of Sorrows. Her hood was drawn over her head, so that +the shadow caused by the light of the lamp above fell deep over her +face; her hands were clasped round her knees. It was evident that +she was some one in hopeless trouble, and as such it was my duty to +stop and speak. I naturally addressed her first in Flemish, +believing her to be one of the lower class of inhabitants. She shook +her head, but did not look up. Then I tried French, and she replied +in that language, but speaking it so indifferently, that I was sure +she was either English or Irish, and consequently spoke to her in my +own native tongue. She recognized my voice; and, starting up, caught +at my robes, dragging me before the blessed shrine, and throwing +herself down, and forcing me, as much by her evident desire as by her +action, to kneel beside her, she exclaimed: + +"'O Holy Virgin! you will never hearken to me again, but hear him; +for you know him of old, that he does your bidding, and strives to +heal broken hearts. Hear him!' + +"She turned to me. + +"'She will hear you, if you will only pray. She never hears ME: she +and all the saints in heaven cannot hear my prayers, for the Evil One +carries them off, as he carried that first away. O, Father Bernard, +pray for me!' + +"I prayed for one in sore distress, of what nature I could not say; +but the Holy Virgin would know. Bridget held me fast, gasping with +eagerness at the sound of my words. When I had ended, I rose, and, +making the sign of the Cross over her, I was going to bless her in +the name of the Holy Church, when she shrank away like some terrified +creature, and said - + +"'I am guilty of deadly sin, and am not shriven.' + +"'Arise, my daughter,' said I, 'and come with me.' And I led the way +into one of the confessionals of St. Jaques. + +"She knelt; I listened. No words came. The evil powers had stricken +her dumb, as I heard afterwards they had many a time before, when she +approached confession. + +"She was too poor to pay for the necessary forms of exorcism; and +hitherto those priests to whom she had addressed herself were either +so ignorant of the meaning of her broken French, or her Irish- +English, or else esteemed her to be one crazed--as, indeed, her wild +and excited manner might easily have led any one to think--that they +had neglected the sole means of loosening her tongue, so that she +might confess her deadly sin, and, after due penance, obtain +absolution. But I knew Bridget of old, and felt that she was a +penitent sent to me. I went through those holy offices appointed by +our Church for the relief of such a case. I was the more bound to do +this, as I found that she had come to Antwerp for the sole purpose of +discovering me, and making confession to me. Of the nature of that +fearful confession I am forbidden to speak. Much of it you know; +possibly all. + +"It now remains for her to free herself from mortal guilt, and to set +others free from the consequences thereof. No prayers, no masses, +will ever do it, although they may strengthen her with that strength +by which alone acts of deepest love and purest self-devotion may be +performed. Her words of passion, and cries for revenge--her unholy +prayers could never reach the ears of the holy saints! Other powers +intercepted them, and wrought so that the curses thrown up to heaven +have fallen on her own flesh and blood; and so, through her very +strength of love, have brused and crushed her heart. Henceforward +her former self must be buried,--yea, buried quick, if need be,--but +never more to make sign, or utter cry on earth! She has become a +Poor Clare, in order that, by perpetual penance and constant service +of others, she may at length so act as to obtain final absolution and +rest for her soul. Until then, the innocent must suffer. It is to +plead for the innocent that I come to you; not in the name of the +witch, Bridget Fitzgerald, but of the penitent and servant of all +men, the Poor Clare, Sister Magdalen." + +"Sir," said I, "I listen to your request with respect; only I may +tell you it is not needed to urge me to do all that I can on behalf +of one, love for whom is part of my very life. If for a time I have +absented myself from her, it is to think and work for her redemption. +I, a member of the English Church--my uncle, a Puritan--pray morning +and night for her by name: the congregations of London, on the next +Sabbath, will pray for one unknown, that she may be set free from the +Powers of Darkness. Moreover, I must tell you, sir, that those evil +ones touch not the great calm of her soul. She lives her own pure +and loving life, unharmed and untainted, though all men fall off from +her. I would I could have her faith!" + +My uncle now spoke. + +"Nephew," said he, "it seems to me that this gentleman, although +professing what I consider an erroneous creed, has touched upon the +right point in exhorting Bridget to acts of love and mercy, whereby +to wipe out her sin of hate and vengeance. Let us strive after our +fashion, by almsgiving and visiting of the needy and fatherless, to +make our prayers acceptable. Meanwhile, I myself will go down into +the north, and take charge of the maiden. I am too old to be daunted +by man or demon. I will bring her to this house as to a home; and +let the Double come if it will! A company of godly divines shall +give it the meeting, and we will try issue." + +The kindly, brave old man! But Father Bernard sat on musing. + +"All hate," said he, "cannot be quenched in her heart; all Christian +forgiveness cannot have entered into her soul, or the demon would +have lost its power. You said, I think, that her grandchild was +still tormented?" + +"Still tormented!" I replied, sadly, thinking of Mistress Clarke's +last letter--He rose to go. We afterwards heard that the occasion of +his coming to London was a secret political mission on behalf of the +Jacobites. Nevertheless, he was a good and a wise man. + +Months and months passed away without any change. Lucy entreated my +uncle to leave her where she was,--dreading, as I learnt, lest if she +came, with her fearful companion, to dwell in the same house with me, +that my love could not stand the repeated shocks to which I should be +doomed. And this she thought from no distrust of the strength of my +affection, but from a kind of pitying sympathy for the terror to the +nerves which she clearly observed that the demoniac visitation caused +in all. + +I was restless and miserable. I devoted myself to good works; but I +performed them from no spirit of love, but solely from the hope of +reward and payment, and so the reward was never granted. At length, +I asked my uncle's leave to travel; and I went forth, a wanderer, +with no distincter end than that of many another wanderer--to get +away from myself. A strange impulse led me to Antwerp, in spite of +the wars and commotions then raging in the Low Countries--or rather, +perhaps, the very craving to become interested in something external, +led me into the thick of the struggle then going on with the +Austrians. The cities of Flanders were all full at that time of +civil disturbances and rebellions, only kept down by force, and the +presence of an Austrian garrison in every place. + +I arrived in Antwerp, and made inquiry for Father Bernard. He was +away in the country for a day or two. Then I asked my way to the +Convent of Poor Clares; but, being healthy and prosperous, I could +only see the dim, pent-up, gray walls, shut closely in by narrow +streets, in the lowest part of the town. My landlord told me, that +had I been stricken by some loathsome disease, or in desperate case +of any kind, the Poor Clares would have taken me, and tended me. He +spoke of them as an order of mercy of the strictest kind, dressing +scantily in the coarsest materials, going barefoot, living on what +the inhabitants of Antwerp chose to bestow, and sharing even those +fragments and crumbs with the poor and helpless that swarmed all +around; receiving no letters or communication with the outer world; +utterly dead to everything but the alleviation of suffering. He +smiled at my inquiring whether I could get speech of one of them; and +told me that they were even forbidden to speak for the purposes of +begging their daily food; while yet they lived, and fed others upon +what was given in charity. + +"But," exclaimed I, "supposing all men forgot them! Would they +quietly lie down and die, without making sign of their extremity?" + +"If such were the rule the Poor Clares would willingly do it; but +their founder appointed a remedy for such extreme cases as you +suggest. They have a bell--'tis but a small one, as I have heard, +and has yet never been rung in the memory man: when the Poor Clares +have been without food for twenty-four hours, they may ring this +bell, and then trust to our good people of Antwerp for rushing to the +rescue of the Poor Clares, who have taken such blessed care of us in +all our straits." + +It seemed to me that such rescue would be late in the day; but I did +not say what I thought. I rather turned the conversation, by asking +my landlord if he knew, or had ever heard, anything of a certain +Sister Magdalen. + +"Yes," said he, rather under his breath, "news will creep out, even +from a convent of Poor Clares. Sister Magdalen is either a great +sinner or a great saint. She does more, as I have heard, than all +the other nuns put together; yet, when last month they would fain +have made her mother-superior, she begged rather that they would +place her below all the rest, and make her the meanest servant of +all." + +"You never saw her?" asked I. + +"Never," he replied. + +I was weary of waiting for Father Bernard, and yet I lingered in +Antwerp. The political state of things became worse than ever, +increased to its height by the scarcity of food consequent on many +deficient harvests. I saw groups of fierce, squalid men, at every +corner of the street, glaring out with wolfish eyes at my sleek skin +and handsome clothes. + +At last Father Bernard returned. We had a long conversation, in +which he told me that, curiously enough, Mr. Gisborne, Lucy's father, +was serving in one of the Austrian regiments, then in garrison at +Antwerp. I asked Father Bernard if he would make us acquainted; +which he consented to do. But, a day or two afterwards, he told me +that, on hearing my name, Mr. Gisborne had declined responding to any +advances on my part, saying he had adjured his country, and hated his +countrymen. + +Probably he recollected my name in connection with that of his +daughter Lucy. Anyhow, it was clear enough that I had no chance of +making his acquaintance. Father Bernard confirmed me in my +suspicions of the hidden fermentation, for some coming evil, working +among the "blouses" of Antwerp, and he would fain have had me depart +from out the city; but I rather craved the excitement of danger, and +stubbornly refused to leave. + +One day, when I was walking with him in the Place Verte, he bowed to +an Austrian officer, who was crossing towards the cathedral. + +"That is Mr. Gisborne," said he, as soon as the gentleman was past. + +I turned to look at the tall, slight figure of the officer. He +carried himself in a stately manner, although he was past middle age, +and from his years might have had some excuse for a slight stoop. As +I looked at the man, he turned round, his eyes met mine, and I saw +his face. Deeply lined, sallow, and scathed was that countenance; +scarred by passion as well as by the fortunes of war. 'Twas but a +moment our eyes met. We each turned round, and went on our separate +way. + +But his whole appearance was not one to be easily forgotten; the +thorough appointment of the dress, and evident thought bestowed on +it, made but an incongruous whole with the dark, gloomy expression of +his countenance. Because he was Lucy's father, I sought +instinctively to meet him everywhere. At last he must have become +aware of my pertinacity, for he gave me a haughty scowl whenever I +passed him. In one of these encounters, however, I chanced to be of +some service to him. He was turning the corner of a street, and came +suddenly on one of the groups of discontented Flemings of whom I have +spoken. Some words were exchanged, when my gentleman out with his +sword, and with a slight but skilful cut drew blood from one of those +who had insulted him, as he fancied, though I was too far off to hear +the words. They would all have fallen upon him had I not rushed +forwards and raised the cry, then well known in Antwerp, of rally, to +the Austrian soldiers who were perpetually patrolling the streets, +and who came in numbers to the rescue. I think that neither Mr. +Gisborne nor the mutinous group of plebeians owed me much gratitude +for my interference. He had planted himself against a wall, in a +skilful attitude of fence, ready with his bright glancing rapier to +do battle with all the heavy, fierce, unarmed men, some six or seven +in number. But when his own soldiers came up, he sheathed his sword; +and, giving some careless word of command, sent them away again, and +continued his saunter all alone down the street, the workmen snarling +in his rear, and more than half-inclined to fall on me for my cry for +rescue. I cared not if they did, my life seemed so dreary a burden +just then; and, perhaps, it was this daring loitering among them that +prevented their attacking me. Instead, they suffered me to fall into +conversation with them; and I heard some of their grievances. Sore +and heavy to be borne were they, and no wonder the sufferers were +savage and desperate. + +The man whom Gisborne had wounded across his face would fain have got +out of me the name of his aggressor, but I refused to tell it. +Another of the group heard his inquiry, and made answer--"I know the +man. He is one Gisborne, aide-de-camp to the General-Commandant. I +know him well." + +He began to tell some story in connection with Gisborne in a low and +muttering voice; and while he was relating a tale, which I saw +excited their evil blood, and which they evidently wished me not to +hear, I sauntered away and back to my lodgings. + +That night Antwerp was in open revolt. The inhabitants rose in +rebellion against their Austrian masters. The Austrians, holding the +gates of the city, remained at first pretty quiet in the citadel; +only, from time to time, the boom of the great cannon swept sullenly +over the town. But if they expected the disturbance to die away, and +spend itself in a few hours' fury, they were mistaken. In a day or +two, the rioters held possession of the principal municipal +buildings. Then the Austrians poured forth in bright flaming array, +calm and smiling, as they marched to the posts assigned, as if the +fierce mob were no more to them then the swarms of buzzing summer +flies. Their practised manoeuvres, their well-aimed shot, told with +terrible effect; but in the place of one slain rioter, three sprang +up of his blood to avenge his loss. But a deadly foe, a ghastly ally +of the Austrians, was at work. Food, scarce and dear for months, was +now hardly to be obtained at any price. Desperate efforts were being +made to bring provisions into the city, for the rioters had friends +without. Close to the city port, nearest to the Scheldt, a great +struggle took place. I was there, helping the rioters, whose cause I +had adopted. We had a savage encounter with the Austrians. Numbers +fell on both sides: I saw them lie bleeding for a moment: then a +volley of smoke obscured them; and when it cleared away, they were +dead--trampled upon or smothered, pressed down and hidden by the +freshly-wounded whom those last guns had brought low. And then a +gray-robed and grey-veiled figure came right across the flashing guns +and stooped over some one, whose life-blood was ebbing away; +sometimes it was to give him drink from cans which they carried slung +at their sides; sometimes I saw the cross held above a dying man, and +rapid prayers were being uttered, unheard by men in that hellish din +and clangour, but listened to by One above. I saw all this as in a +dream: the reality of that stern time was battle and carnage. But I +knew that these gray figures, their bare feet all wet with blood, and +their faces hidden by their veils, were the Poor Clares--sent forth +now because dire agony was abroad and imminent danger at hand. +Therefore, they left their cloistered shelter, and came into that +thick and evil melee. + +Close to me--driven past me by the struggle of many fighters--came +the Antwerp burgess with the scarce-healed scar upon his face; and in +an instant more, he was thrown by the press upon the Austrian officer +Gisborne, and ere either had recovered the shock, the burgess had +recognized his opponent. + +"Ha! the Englishman Gisborne!" he cried, and threw himself upon him +with redoubled fury. He had struck him hard--the Englishman was +down; when out of the smoke came a dark-gray figure, and threw +herself right under the uplifted flashing sword. The burgess's arm +stood arrested. Neither Austrians nor Anversois willingly harmed the +Poor Clares. + +"Leave him to me!" said a low stern voice. "He is mine enemy--mine +for many years." + +Those words were the last I heard. I myself was struck down by a +bullet. I remember nothing more for days. When I came to myself, I +was at the extremity of weakness, and was craving for food to recruit +my strength. My landlord sat watching me. He, too, looked pinched +and shrunken; he had heard of my wounded state, and sought me out. +Yes! the struggle still continued, but the famine was sore: and +some, he had heard, had died for lack of food. The tears stood in +his eyes as he spoke. But soon he shook off his weakness, and his +natural cheerfulness returned. Father Bernard had been to see me--no +one else. (Who should, indeed?) Father Bernard would come back that +afternoon--he had promised. But Father Bernard never came, although +I was up and dressed, and looking eagerly for him. + +My landlord brought me a meal which he had cooked himself: of what +it was composed he would not say, but it was most excellent, and with +every mouthful I seemed to gain strength. The good man sat looking +at my evident enjoyment with a happy smile of sympathy; but, as my +appetite became satisfied, I began to detect a certain wistfulness in +his eyes, as if craving for the food I had so nearly devoured--for, +indeed, at that time I was hardly aware of the extent of the famine. +Suddenly, there was a sound of many rushing feet past our window. My +landlord opened one of the sides of it, the better to learn what was +going on. Then we heard a faint, cracked, tinkling bell, coming +shrill upon the air, clear and distinct from all other sounds. "Holy +Mother!" exclaimed my landlord, "the Poor Clares!" + +He snatched up the fragments of my meal, and crammed them into my +hands, bidding me follow. Down stairs he ran, clutching at more +food, as the women of his house eagerly held it out to him; and in a +moment we were in the street, moving along with the great current, +all tending towards the Convent of the Poor Clares. And still, as if +piercing our ears with its inarticulate cry, came the shrill tinkle +of the bell. In that strange crowd were old men trembling and +sobbing, as they carried their little pittance of food; women with +tears running down their cheeks, who had snatched up what provisions +they had in the vessels in which they stood, so that the burden of +these was in many cases much greater than that which they contained; +children, with flushed faces, grasping tight the morsel of bitten +cake or bread, in their eagerness to carry it safe to the help of the +Poor Clares; strong men--yea, both Anversois and Austrians--pressing +onward with set teeth, and no word spoken; and over all, and through +all, came that sharp tinkle--that cry for help in extremity. + +We met the first torrent of people returning with blanched and +piteous faces: they were issuing out of the convent to make way for +the offerings of others. "Haste, haste!" said they. "A Poor Clare +is dying! A Poor Clare is dead for hunger! God forgive us and our +city!" + +We pressed on. The stream bore us along where it would. We were +carried through refectories, bare and crumbless; into cells over +whose doors the conventual name of the occupant was written. Thus it +was that I, with others, was forced into Sister Magdalen's cell. On +her couch lay Gisborne, pale unto death, but not dead. By his side +was a cup of water, and a small morsel of mouldy bread, which he had +pushed out of his reach, and could not move to obtain. Over against +his bed were these words, copied in the English version "Therefore, +if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." + +Some of us gave him of our food, and left him eating greedily, like +some famished wild animal. For now it was no longer the sharp +tinkle, but that one solemn toll, which in all Christian countries +tells of the passing of the spirit out of earthly life into eternity; +and again a murmur gathered and grew, as of many people speaking with +awed breath, "A Poor Clare is dying! a Poor Clare is dead!" + +Borne along once more by the motion of the crowd, we were carried +into the chapel belonging to the Poor Clares. On a bier before the +high altar, lay a woman--lay Sister Magdalen--lay Bridget Fitzgerald. +By her side stood Father Bernard, in his robes of office, and holding +the crucifix on high while he pronounced the solemn absolution of the +Church, as to one who had newly confessed herself of deadly sin. I +pushed on with passionate force, till I stood close to the dying +woman, as she received extreme unction amid the breathless and awed +hush of the multitude around. Her eyes were glazing, her limbs were +stiffening; but when the rite was over and finished, she raised her +gaunt figure slowly up, and her eyes brightened to a strange +intensity of joy, as, with the gesture of her finger and the trance- +like gleam of her eye, she seemed like one who watched the +disappearance of some loathed and fearful creature. + +"She is freed from the curse!" said she, as she fell back dead. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Poor Clare, by Elizabeth Gaskell + diff --git a/old/prclr10.txt~ b/old/prclr10.txt~ new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e6345b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/prclr10.txt~ @@ -0,0 +1,2493 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext The Poor Clare, by Elizabeth Gaskell + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1896 "Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales" Macmillan and Co. edition. +Proofing was by Audrey Emmitt and Eugenia Corbo. + + + + + +THE POOR CLARE + +by Elizabeth Gaskell + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + +December 12th, 1747.--My life has been strangely bound up with +extraordinary incidents, some of which occurred before I had any +connection with the principal actors in them, or indeed, before I +even knew of their existence. I suppose, most old men are, like me, +more given to looking back upon their own career with a kind of fond +interest and affectionate remembrance, than to watching the events-- +though these may have far more interest for the multitude-- +immediately passing before their eyes. If this should be the case +with the generality of old people, how much more so with me! . . . If +I am to enter upon that strange story connected with poor Lucy, I +must begin a long way back. I myself only came to the knowledge of +her family history after I knew her; but, to make the tale clear to +any one else, I must arrange events in the order in which they +occurred--not that in which I became acquainted with them. + +There is a great old hall in the north-east of Lancashire, in a part +they called the Trough of Bolland, adjoining that other district +named Craven. Starkey Manor-house is rather like a number of rooms +clustered round a gray, massive, old keep than a regularly-built +hall. Indeed, I suppose that the house only consisted of a great +tower in the centre, in the days when the Scots made their raids +terrible as far south as this; and that after the Stuarts came in, +and there was a little more security of property in those parts, the +Starkeys of that time added the lower building, which runs, two +stories high, all round the base of the keep. There has been a grand +garden laid out in my days, on the southern slope near the house; but +when I first knew the place, the kitchen-garden at the farm was the +only piece of cultivated ground belonging to it. The deer used to +come within sight of the drawing-room windows, and might have browsed +quite close up to the house if they had not been too wild and shy. +Starkey Manor-house itself stood on a projection or peninsula of high +land, jutting out from the abrupt hills that form the sides of the +Trough of Bolland. These hills were rocky and bleak enough towards +their summit; lower down they were clothed with tangled copsewood and +green depths of fern, out of which a gray giant of an ancient forest- +tree would tower here and there, throwing up its ghastly white +branches, as if in imprecation, to the sky. These trees, they told +me, were the remnants of that forest which existed in the days of the +Heptarchy, and were even then noted as landmarks. No wonder that +their upper and more exposed branches were leafless, and that the +dead bark had peeled away, from sapless old age. + +Not far from the house there were a few cottages, apparently, of the +same date as the keep; probably built for some retainers of the +family, who sought shelter--they and their families and their small +flocks and herds--at the hands of their feudal lord. Some of them +had pretty much fallen to decay. They were built in a strange +fashion. Strong beams had been sunk firm in the ground at the +requisite distance, and their other ends had been fastened together, +two and two, so as to form the shape of one of those rounded waggon- +headed gipsy-tents, only very much larger. The spaces between were +filled with mud, stones, osiers, rubbish, mortar--anything to keep +out the weather. The fires were made in the centre of these rude +dwellings, a hole in the roof forming the only chimney. No Highland +hut or Irish cabin could be of rougher construction. + +The owner of this property, at the beginning of the present century, +was a Mr. Patrick Byrne Starkey. His family had kept to the old +faith, and were stanch Roman Catholics, esteeming it even a sin to +marry any one of Protestant descent, however willing he or she might +have been to embrace the Romish religion. Mr. Patrick Starkey's +father had been a follower of James the Second; and, during the +disastrous Irish campaign of that monarch he had fallen in love with +an Irish beauty, a Miss Byrne, as zealous for her religion and for +the Stuarts as himself. He had returned to Ireland after his escape +to France, and married her, bearing her back to the court at St. +Germains. But some licence on the part of the disorderly gentlemen +who surrounded King James in his exile, had insulted his beautiful +wife, and disgusted him; so he removed from St. Germains to Antwerp, +whence, in a few years' time, he quietly returned to Starkey Manor- +house--some of his Lancashire neighbours having lent their good +offices to reconcile him to the powers that were. He was as firm a +Catholic as ever, and as stanch an advocate for the Stuarts and the +divine rights of kings; but his religion almost amounted to +asceticism, and the conduct of these with whom he had been brought in +such close contact at St. Germains would little bear the inspection +of a stern moralist. So he gave his allegiance where he could not +give his esteem, and learned to respect sincerely the upright and +moral character of one whom he yet regarded as an usurper. King +William's government had little need to fear such a one. So he +returned, as I have said, with a sobered heart and impoverished +fortunes, to his ancestral house, which had fallen sadly to ruin +while the owner had been a courtier, a soldier, and an exile. The +roads into the Trough of Bolland were little more than cart-ruts; +indeed, the way up to the house lay along a ploughed field before you +came to the deer-park. Madam, as the country-folk used to call Mrs. +Starkey, rode on a pillion behind her husband, holding on to him with +a light hand by his leather riding-belt. Little master (he that was +afterwards Squire Patrick Byrne Starkey) was held on to his pony by a +serving-man. A woman past middle age walked, with a firm and strong +step, by the cart that held much of the baggage; and high up on the +mails and boxes, sat a girl of dazzling beauty, perched lightly on +the topmost trunk, and swaying herself fearlessly to and fro, as the +cart rocked and shook in the heavy roads of late autumn. The girl +wore the Antwerp faille, or black Spanish mantle over her head, and +altogether her appearance was such that the old cottager, who +described the possession to me many years after, said that all the +country-folk took her for a foreigner. Some dogs, and the boy who +held them in charge, made up the company. They rode silently along, +looking with grave, serious eyes at the people, who came out of the +scattered cottages to bow or curtsy to the real Squire, "come back at +last," and gazed after the little procession with gaping wonder, not +deadened by the sound of the foreign language in which the few +necessary words that passed among them were spoken. One lad, called +from his staring by the Squire to come and help about the cart, +accompanied them to the Manor-house. He said that when the lady had +descended from her pillion, the middle-aged woman whom I have +described as walking while the others rode, stepped quickly forward, +and taking Madam Starkey (who was of a slight and delicate figure) in +her arms, she lifted her over the threshold, and set her down in her +husband's house, at the same time uttering a passionate and +outlandish blessing. The Squire stood by, smiling gravely at first; +but when the words of blessing were pronounced, he took off his fine +feathered hat, and bent his head. The girl with the black mantle +stepped onward into the shadow of the dark hall, and kissed the +lady's hand; and that was all the lad could tell to the group that +gathered round him on his return, eager to hear everything, and to +know how much the Squire had given him for his services. + +From all I could gather, the Manor-house, at the time of the Squire's +return, was in the most dilapidated state. The stout gray walls +remained firm and entire; but the inner chambers had been used for +all kinds of purposes. The great withdrawing-room had been a barn; +the state tapestry-chamber had held wool, and so on. But, by-and-by, +they were cleared out; and if the Squire had no money to spend on new +furniture, he and his wife had the knack of making the best of the +old. He was no despicable joiner; she had a kind of grace in +whatever she did, and imparted an air of elegant picturesqueness to +whatever she touched. Besides, they had brought many rare things +from the Continent; perhaps I should rather say, things that were +rare in that part of England--carvings, and crosses, and beautiful +pictures. And then, again, wood was plentiful in the Trough of +Bolland, and great log-fires danced and glittered in all the dark, +old rooms, and gave a look of home and comfort to everything. + +Why do I tell you all this? I have little to do with the Squire and +Madame Starkey; and yet I dwell upon them, as if I were unwilling to +come to the real people with whom my life was so strangely mixed up. +Madam had been nursed in Ireland by the very woman who lifted her in +her arms, and welcomed her to her husband's home in Lancashire. +Excepting for the short period of her own married life, Bridget +Fitzgerald had never left her nursling. Her marriage--to one above +her in rank--had been unhappy. Her husband had died, and left her in +even greater poverty than that in which she was when he had first met +with her. She had one child, the beautiful daughter who came riding +on the waggon-load of furniture that was brought to the Manor-house. +Madame Starkey had taken her again into her service when she became a +widow. She and her daughter had followed "the mistress" in all her +fortunes; they had lived at St. Germains and at Antwerp, and were now +come to her home in Lancashire. As soon as Bridget had arrived +there, the Squire gave her a cottage of her own, and took more pains +in furnishing it for her than he did in anything else out of his own +house. It was only nominally her residence. She was constantly up +at the great house; indeed, it was but a short cut across the woods +from her own home to the home of her nursling. Her daughter Mary, in +like manner, moved from one house to the other at her own will. +Madam loved both mother and child dearly. They had great influence +over her, and, through her, over her husband. Whatever Bridget or +Mary willed was sure to come to pass. They were not disliked; for, +though wild and passionate, they were also generous by nature. But +the other servants were afraid of them, as being in secret the ruling +spirits of the household. The Squire had lost his interest in all +secular things; Madam was gentle, affectionate, and yielding. Both +husband and wife were tenderly attached to each other and to their +boy; but they grew more and more to shun the trouble of decision on +any point; and hence it was that Bridget could exert such despotic +power. But if everyone else yielded to her "magic of a superior +mind," her daughter not unfrequently rebelled. She and her mother +were too much alike to agree. There were wild quarrels between them, +and wilder reconciliations. There were times when, in the heat of +passion, they could have stabbed each other. At all other times they +both--Bridget especially--would have willingly laid down their lives +for one another. Bridget's love for her child lay very deep--deeper +than that daughter ever knew; or I should think she would never have +wearied of home as she did, and prayed her mistress to obtain for her +some situation--as waiting maid--beyond the seas, in that more +cheerful continental life, among the scenes of which so many of her +happiest years had been spent. She thought, as youth thinks, that +life would last for ever, and that two or three years were but a +small portion of it to pass away from her mother, whose only child +she was. Bridget thought differently, but was too proud ever to show +what she felt. If her child wished to leave her, why--she should go. +But people said Bridget became ten years older in the course of two +months at this time. She took it that Mary wanted to leave her. The +truth was, that Mary wanted for a time to leave the place, and to +seek some change, and would thankfully have taken her mother with +her. Indeed when Madam Starkey had gotten her a situation with some +grand lady abroad, and the time drew near for her to go, it was Mary +who clung to her mother with passionate embrace, and, with floods of +tears, declared that she would never leave her; and it was Bridget, +who at last loosened her arms, and, grave and tearless herself, bade +her keep her word, and go forth into the wide world. Sobbing aloud, +and looking back continually, Mary went away. Bridget was still as +death, scarcely drawing her breath, or closing her stony eyes; till +at last she turned back into her cottage, and heaved a ponderous old +settle against the door. There she sat, motionless, over the gray +ashes of her extinguished fire, deaf to Madam's sweet voice, as she +begged leave to enter and comfort her nurse. Deaf, stony, and +motionless, she sat for more than twenty hours; till, for the third +time, Madam came across the snowy path from the great house, carrying +with her a young spaniel, which had been Mary's pet up at the hall; +and which had not ceased all night long to seek for its absent +mistress, and to whine and moan after her. With tears Madam told +this story, through the closed door--tears excited by the terrible +look of anguish, so steady, so immovable--so the same to-day as it +was yesterday--on her nurse's face. The little creature in her arms +began to utter its piteous cry, as it shivered with the cold. +Bridget stirred; she moved--she listened. Again that long whine; she +thought it was for her daughter; and what she had denied to her +nursling and mistress she granted to the dumb creature that Mary had +cherished. She opened the door, and took the dog from Madam's arms. +Then Madam came in, and kissed and comforted the old woman, who took +but little notice of her or anything. And sending up Master Patrick +to the hall for fire and food, the sweet young lady never left her +nurse all that night. Next day, the Squire himself came down, +carrying a beautiful foreign picture--Our Lady of the Holy Heart, the +Papists call it. It is a picture of the Virgin, her heart pierced +with arrows, each arrow representing one of her great woes. That +picture hung in Bridget's cottage when I first saw her; I have that +picture now. + +Years went on. Mary was still abroad. Bridget was still and stern, +instead of active and passionate. The little dog, Mignon, was indeed +her darling. I have heard that she talked to it continually; +although, to most people, she was so silent. The Squire and Madam +treated her with the greatest consideration, and well they might; for +to them she was as devoted and faithful as ever. Mary wrote pretty +often, and seemed satisfied with her life. But at length the letters +ceased--I hardly know whether before or after a great and terrible +sorrow came upon the house of the Starkeys. The Squire sickened of a +putrid fever; and Madam caught it in nursing him, and died. You may +be sure, Bridget let no other woman tend her but herself; and in the +very arms that had received her at her birth, that sweet young woman +laid her head down, and gave up her breath. The Squire recovered, in +a fashion. He was never strong--he had never the heart to smile +again. He fasted and prayed more than ever; and people did say that +he tried to cut off the entail, and leave all the property away to +found a monastery abroad, of which he prayed that some day little +Squire Patrick might be the reverend father. But he could not do +this, for the strictness of the entail and the laws against the +Papists. So he could only appoint gentlemen of his own faith as +guardians to his son, with many charges about the lad's soul, and a +few about the land, and the way it was to be held while he was a +minor. Of course, Bridget was not forgotten. He sent for her as he +lay on his death-bed, and asked her if she would rather have a sum +down, or have a small annuity settled upon her. She said at once she +would have a sum down; for she thought of her daughter, and how she +could bequeath the money to her, whereas an annuity would have died +with her. So the Squire left her her cottage for life, and a fair +sum of money. And then he died, with as ready and willing a heart +as, I suppose, ever any gentleman took out of this world with him. +The young Squire was carried off by his guardians, and Bridget was +left alone. + +I have said that she had not heard from Mary for some time. In her +last letter, she had told of travelling about with her mistress, who +was the English wife of some great foreign officer, and had spoken of +her chances of making a good marriage, without naming the gentleman's +name, keeping it rather back as a pleasant surprise to her mother; +his station and fortune being, as I had afterwards reason to know, +far superior to anything she had a right to expect. Then came a long +silence; and Madam was dead, and the Squire was dead; and Bridget's +heart was gnawed by anxiety, and she knew not whom to ask for news of +her child. She could not write, and the Squire had managed her +communication with her daughter. She walked off to Hurst; and got a +good priest there--one whom she had known at Antwerp--to write for +her. But no answer came. It was like crying into the' awful +stillness of night. + +One day, Bridget was missed by those neighbours who had been +accustomed to mark her goings-out and comings-in. She had never been +sociable with any of them; but the sight of her had become a part of +their daily lives, and slow wonder arose in their minds, as morning +after morning came, and her house-door remained closed, her window +dead from any glitter, or light of fire within. At length, some one +tried the door; it was locked. Two or three laid their heads +together, before daring to look in through the blank unshuttered +window. But, at last, they summoned up courage; and then saw that +Bridget's absence from their little world was not the result of +accident or death, but of premeditation. Such small articles of +furniture as could be secured from the effects of time and damp by +being packed up, were stowed away in boxes. The picture of the +Madonna was taken down, and gone. In a word, Bridget had stolen away +from her home, and left no trace whither she was departed. I knew +afterwards, that she and her little dog had wandered off on the long +search for her lost daughter. She was too illiterate to have faith +in letters, even had she had the means of writing and sending many. +But she had faith in her own strong love, and believed that her +passionate instinct would guide her to her child. Besides, foreign +travel was no new thing to her, and she could speak enough of French +to explain the object of her journey, and had, moreover, the +advantage of being, from her faith, a welcome object of charitable +hospitality at many a distant convent. But the country people round +Starkey Manor-house knew nothing of all this. They wondered what had +become of her, in a torpid, lazy fashion, and then left off thinking +of her altogether. Several years passed. Both Manor-house and +cottage were deserted. The young Squire lived far away under the +direction of his guardians. There were inroads of wool and corn into +the sitting-rooms of the Hall; and there was some low talk, from time +to time, among the hinds and country people whether it would not be +as well to break into old Bridget's cottage, and save such of her +goods as were left from the moth and rust which must be making sad +havoc. But this idea was always quenched by the recollection of her +strong character and passionate anger; and tales of her masterful +spirit, and vehement force of will, were whispered about, till the +very thought of offending her, by touching any article of hers, +became invested with a kind of horror: it was believed that, dead or +alive, she would not fail to avenge it. + +Suddenly she came home; with as little noise or note of preparation +as she had departed. One day some one noticed a thin, blue curl of +smoke ascending from her chimney. Her door stood open to the noonday +sun; and, ere many hours had elapsed, some one had seen an old +travel-and-sorrow-stained woman dipping her pitcher in the well; and +said, that the dark, solemn eyes that looked up at him were more like +Bridget Fitzgerald's than any one else's in this world; and yet, if +it were she, she looked as if she had been scorched in the flames of +hell, so brown, and scared, and fierce a creature did she seem. By- +and-by many saw her; and those who met her eye once cared not to be +caught looking at her again. She had got into the habit of +perpetually talking to herself; nay, more, answering herself, and +varying her tones according to the side she took at the moment. It +was no wonder that those who dared to listen outside her door at +night believed that she held converse with some spirit; in short, she +was unconsciously earning for herself the dreadful reputation of a +witch. + +Her little dog, which had wandered half over the Continent with her, +was her only companion; a dumb remembrancer of happier days. Once he +was ill; and she carried him more than three miles, to ask about his +management from one who had been groom to the last Squire, and had +then been noted for his skill in all diseases of animals. Whatever +this man did, the dog recovered; and they who heard her thanks, +intermingled with blessings (that were rather promises of good +fortune than prayers), looked grave at his good luck when, next year, +his ewes twinned, and his meadow-grass was heavy and thick. + +Now it so happened that, about the year seventeen hundred and eleven, +one of the guardians of the young squire, a certain Sir Philip +Tempest, bethought him of the good shooting there must be on his +ward's property; and in consequence he brought down four or five +gentlemen, of his friends, to stay for a week or two at the Hall. +From all accounts, they roystered and spent pretty freely. I never +heard any of their names but one, and that was Squire Gisborne's. He +was hardly a middle-aged man then; he had been much abroad, and +there, I believe, he had known Sir Philip Tempest, and done him some +service. He was a daring and dissolute fellow in those days: +careless and fearless, and one who would rather be in a quarrel than +out of it. He had his fits of ill-temper besides, when he would +spare neither man nor beast. Otherwise, those who knew him well, +used to say he had a good heart, when he was neither drunk, nor +angry, nor in any way vexed. He had altered much when I came to know +him. + +One day, the gentlemen had all been out shooting, and with but little +success, I believe; anyhow, Mr. Gisborne had none, and was in a black +humour accordingly. He was coming home, having his gun loaded, +sportsman-like, when little Mignon crossed his path, just as he +turned out of the wood by Bridget's cottage. Partly for wantonness, +partly to vent his spleen upon some living creature. Mr. Gisborne +took his gun, and fired--he had better have never fired gun again, +than aimed that unlucky shot, he hit Mignon, and at the creature's +sudden cry, Bridget came out, and saw at a glance what had been done. +She took Mignon up in her arms, and looked hard at the wound; the +poor dog looked at her with his glazing eyes, and tried to wag his +tail and lick her hand, all covered with blood. Mr. Gisborne spoke +in a kind of sullen penitence: + +"You should have kept the dog out of my way--a little poaching +varmint." + +At this very moment, Mignon stretched out his legs, and stiffened in +her arms--her lost Mary's dog, who had wandered and sorrowed with her +for years. She walked right into Mr. Gisborne's path, and fixed his +unwilling, sullen look, with her dark and terrible eye. + +"Those never throve that did me harm," said she. "I'm alone in the +world, and helpless; the more do the saints in heaven hear my +prayers. Hear me, ye blessed ones! hear me while I ask for sorrow on +this bad, cruel man. He has killed the only creature that loved me-- +the dumb beast that I loved. Bring down heavy sorrow on his head for +it, O ye saints! He thought that I was helpless, because he saw me +lonely and poor; but are not the armies of heaven for the like of +me?" + +"Come, come," said he, half remorseful, but not one whit afraid. +"Here's a crown to buy thee another dog. Take it, and leave off +cursing! I care none for thy threats." + +"Don't you?" said she, coming a step closer, and changing her +imprecatory cry for a whisper which made the gamekeeper's lad, +following Mr. Gisborne, creep all over. "You shall live to see the +creature you love best, and who alone loves you--ay, a human +creature, but as innocent and fond as my poor, dead darling--you +shall see this creature, for whom death would be too happy, become a +terror and a loathing to all, for this blood's sake. Hear me, O holy +saints, who never fail them that have no other help!" + +She threw up her right hand, filled with poor Mignon's life-drops; +they spirted, one or two of them, on his shooting-dress,--an ominous +sight to the follower. But the master only laughed a little, forced, +scornful laugh, and went on to the Hall. Before he got there, +however, he took out a gold piece, and bade the boy carry it to the +old woman on his return to the village. The lad was "afeared," as he +told me in after years; he came to the cottage, and hovered about, +not daring to enter. He peeped through the window at last; and by +the flickering wood-flame, he saw Bridget kneeling before the picture +of Our Lady of the Holy Heart, with dead Mignon lying between her and +the Madonna. She was praying wildly, as her outstretched arms +betokened. The lad shrunk away in redoubled terror; and contented +himself with slipping the gold piece under the ill-fitting door. The +next day it was thrown out upon the midden; and there it lay, no one +daring to touch it. + +Meanwhile Mr. Gisborne, half curious, half uneasy, thought to lessen +his uncomfortable feelings by asking Sir Philip who Bridget was? He +could only describe her--he did not know her name. Sir Philip was +equally at a loss. But an old servant of the Starkeys, who had +resumed his livery at the Hall on this occasion--a scoundrel whom +Bridget had saved from dismissal more than once during her palmy +days--said:- + +"It will be the old witch, that his worship means. She needs a +ducking, if ever a woman did, does that Bridget Fitzgerald." + +"Fitzgerald!" said both the gentlemen at once. But Sir Philip was +the first to continue:- + +"I must have no talk of ducking her, Dickon. Why, she must be the +very woman poor Starkey bade me have a care of; but when I came here +last she was gone, no one knew where. I'll go and see her to-morrow. +But mind you, sirrah, if any harm comes to her, or any more talk of +her being a witch--I've a pack of hounds at home, who can follow the +scent of a lying knave as well as ever they followed a dog-fox; so +take care how you talk about ducking a faithful old servant of your +dead master's." + +"Had she ever a daughter?" asked Mr. Gisborne, after a while. + +"I don't know--yes! I've a notion she had; a kind of waiting woman +to Madam Starkey." + +"Please your worship," said humbled Dickon, "Mistress Bridget had a +daughter--one Mistress Mary--who went abroad, and has never been +heard on since; and folk do say that has crazed her mother." + +Mr. Gisborne shaded his eyes with his hand. + +"I could wish she had not cursed me," he muttered. "She may have +power--no one else could." After a while, he said aloud, no one +understanding rightly what he meant, "Tush! it is impossible!"--and +called for claret; and he and the other gentlemen set-to to a +drinking-bout. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + +I now come to the time in which I myself was mixed up with the people +that I have been writing about. And to make you understand how I +became connected with them, I must give you some little account of +myself. My father was the younger son of a Devonshire gentleman of +moderate property; my eldest uncle succeeded to the estate of his +forefathers, my second became an eminent attorney in London, and my +father took orders. Like most poor clergymen, he had a large family; +and I have no doubt was glad enough when my London uncle, who was a +bachelor, offered to take charge of me, and bring me up to be his +successor in business. + +In this way I came to live in London, in my uncle's house, not far +from Gray's Inn, and to be treated and esteemed as his son, and to +labour with him in his office. I was very fond of the old gentleman. +He was the confidential agent of many country squires, and had +attained to his present position as much by knowledge of human nature +as by knowledge of law; though he was learned enough in the latter. +He used to say his business was law, his pleasure heraldry. From his +intimate acquaintance with family history, and all the tragic courses +of life therein involved, to hear him talk, at leisure times, about +any coat of arms that came across his path was as good as a play or a +romance. Many cases of disputed property, dependent on a love of +genealogy, were brought to him, as to a great authority on such +points. If the lawyer who came to consult him was young, he would +take no fee, only give him a long lecture on the importance of +attending to heraldry; if the lawyer was of mature age and good +standing, he would mulct him pretty well, and abuse him to me +afterwards as negligent of one great branch of the profession. His +house was in a stately new street called Ormond Street, and in it he +had a handsome library; but all the books treated of things that were +past; none of them planned or looked forward into the future. I +worked away--partly for the sake of my family at home, partly because +my uncle had really taught me to enjoy the kind of practice in which +he himself took such delight. I suspect I worked too hard; at any +rate, in seventeen hundred and eighteen I was far from well, and my +good uncle was disturbed by my ill looks. + +One day, he rang the bell twice into the clerk's room at the dingy +office in Grey's Inn Lane. It was the summons for me, and I went +into his private room just as a gentleman--whom I knew well enough by +sight as an Irish lawyer of more reputation than he deserved--was +leaving. + +My uncle was slowly rubbing his hands together and considering. I +was there two or three minutes before he spoke. Then he told me that +I must pack up my portmanteau that very afternoon, and start that +night by post-horse for West Chester. I should get there, if all +went well, at the end of five days' time, and must then wait for a +packet to cross over to Dublin; from thence I must proceed to a +certain town named Kildoon, and in that neighbourhood I was to +remain, making certain inquiries as to the existence of any +descendants of the younger branch of a family to whom some valuable +estates had descended in the female line. The Irish lawyer whom I +had seen was weary of the case, and would willingly have given up the +property, without further ado, to a man who appeared to claim them; +but on laying his tables and trees before my uncle, the latter had +foreseen so many possible prior claimants, that the lawyer had begged +him to undertake the management of the whole business. In his youth, +my uncle would have liked nothing better than going over to Ireland +himself, and ferreting out every scrap of paper or parchment, and +every word of tradition respecting the family. As it was, old and +gouty, he deputed me. + +Accordingly, I went to Kildoon. I suspect I had something of my +uncle's delight in following up a genealogical scent, for I very soon +found out, when on the spot, that Mr. Rooney, the Irish lawyer, would +have got both himself and the first claimant into a terrible scrape, +if he had pronounced his opinion that the estates ought to be given +up to him. There were three poor Irish fellows, each nearer of kin +to the last possessor; but, a generation before, there was a still +nearer relation, who had never been accounted for, nor his existence +ever discovered by the lawyers, I venture to think, till I routed him +out from the memory of some of the old dependants of the family. +What had become of him? I travelled backwards and forwards; I +crossed over to France, and came back again with a slight clue, which +ended in my discovering that, wild and dissipated himself, he had +left one child, a son, of yet worse character than his father; that +this same Hugh Fitzgerald had married a very beautiful serving-woman +of the Byrnes--a person below him in hereditary rank, but above him +in character; that he had died soon after his marriage, leaving one +child, whether a boy or a girl I could not learn, and that the mother +had returned to live in the family of the Byrnes. Now, the chief of +this latter family was serving in the Duke of Berwick's regiment, and +it was long before I could hear from him; it was more than a year +before I got a short, haughty letter--I fancy he had a soldier's +contempt for a civilian, an Irishman's hatred for an Englishman, an +exiled Jacobite's jealousy of one who prospered and lived tranquilly +under the government he looked upon as an usurpation. "Bridget +Fitzgerald," he said, "had been faithful to the fortunes of his +sister--had followed her abroad, and to England when Mrs. Starkey had +thought fit to return. Both his sister and her husband were dead, he +knew nothing of Bridget Fitzgerald at the present time: probably Sir +Philip Tempest, his nephew's guardian, might be able to give me some +information." I have not given the little contemptuous terms; the +way in which faithful service was meant to imply more than it said-- +all that has nothing to do with my story. Sir Philip, when applied +to, told me that he paid an annuity regularly to an old woman named +Fitzgerald, living at Coldholme (the village near Starkey Manor- +house). Whether she had any descendants he could not say. + +One bleak March evening, I came in sight of the places described at +the beginning of my story. I could hardly understand the rude +dialect in which the direction to old Bridget's house was given. + +"Yo' see yon furleets," all run together, gave me no idea that I was +to guide myself by the distant lights that shone in the windows of +the Hall, occupied for the time by a farmer who held the post of +steward, while the Squire, now four or five and twenty, was making +the grand tour. However, at last, I reached Bridget's cottage--a +low, moss-grown place: the palings that had once surrounded it were +broken and gone; and the underwood of the forest came up to the +walls, and must have darkened the windows. It was about seven +o'clock--not late to my London notions--but, after knocking for some +time at the door and receiving no reply, I was driven to conjecture +that the occupant of the house was gone to bed. So I betook myself +to the nearest church I had seen, three miles back on the road I had +come, sure that close to that I should find an inn of some kind; and +early the next morning I set off back to Coldholme, by a field-path +which my host assured me I should find a shorter cut than the road I +had taken the night before. It was a cold, sharp morning; my feet +left prints in the sprinkling of hoar-frost that covered the ground; +nevertheless, I saw an old woman, whom I instinctively suspected to +be the object of my search, in a sheltered covert on one side of my +path. I lingered and watched her. She must have been considerably +above the middle size in her prime, for when she raised herself from +the stooping position in which I first saw her, there was something +fine and commanding in the erectness of her figure. She drooped +again in a minute or two, and seemed looking for something on the +ground, as, with bent head, she turned off from the spot where I +gazed upon her, and was lost to my sight. I fancy I missed my way, +and made a round in spite of the landlord's directions; for by the +time I had reached Bridget's cottage she was there, with no semblance +of hurried walk or discomposure of any kind. The door was slightly +ajar. I knocked, and the majestic figure stood before me, silently +awaiting the explanation of my errand. Her teeth were all gone, so +the nose and chin were brought near together; the gray eyebrows were +straight, and almost hung over her deep, cavernous eyes, and the +thick white hair lay in silvery masses over the low, wide, wrinkled +forehead. For a moment, I stood uncertain how to shape my answer to +the solemn questioning of her silence. + +"Your name is Bridget Fitzgerald, I believe?" + +She bowed her head in assent. + +"I have something to say to you. May I come in? I am unwilling to +keep you standing." + +"You cannot tire me," she said, and at first she seemed inclined to +deny me the shelter of her roof. But the next moment--she had +searched the very soul in me with her eyes during that instant--she +led me in, and dropped the shadowing hood of her gray, draping cloak, +which had previously hid part of the character of her countenance. +The cottage was rude and bare enough. But before the picture of the +Virgin, of which I have made mention, there stood a little cup filled +with fresh primroses. While she paid her reverence to the Madonna, I +understood why she had been out seeking through the clumps of green +in the sheltered copse. Then she turned round, and bade me be +seated. The expression of her face, which all this time I was +studying, was not bad, as the stories of my last night's landlord had +led me to expect; it was a wild, stern, fierce, indomitable +countenance, seamed and scarred by agonies of solitary weeping; but +it was neither cunning nor malignant. + +"My name is Bridget Fitzgerald," said she, by way of opening our +conversation. + +"And your husband was Hugh Fitzgerald, of Knock Mahon, near Kildoon, +in Ireland?" + +A faint light came into the dark gloom of her eyes. + +"He was." + +"May I ask if you had any children by him?" + +The light in her eyes grew quick and red. She tried to speak, I +could see; but something rose in her throat, and choked her, and +until she could speak calmly, she would fain not speak at all before +a stranger. In a minute or so she said--"I had a daughter--one Mary +Fitzgerald,"--then her strong nature mastered her strong will, and +she cried out, with a trembling wailing cry: "Oh, man! what of her?- +-what of her?" + +She rose from her seat, and came and clutched at my arm, and looked +in my eyes. There she read, as I suppose, my utter ignorance of what +had become of her child; for she went blindly back to her chair, and +sat rocking herself and softly moaning, as if I were not there; I not +daring to speak to the lone and awful woman. After a little pause, +she knelt down before the picture of Our Lady of the Holy Heart, and +spoke to her by all the fanciful and poetic names of the Litany. + +"O Rose of Sharon! O Tower of David! O Star of the Sea! have ye no +comfort for my sore heart? Am I for ever to hope? Grant me at least +despair!"--and so on she went, heedless of my presence. Her prayers +grew wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the +borders of madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily, I spoke as +if to stop her. + +"Have you any reason to think that your daughter is dead? + +She rose from her knees, and came and stood before me. + +"Mary Fitzgerald is dead," said she. "I shall never see her again in +the flesh. No tongue ever told me; but I know she is dead. I have +yearned so to see her, and my heart's will is fearful and strong: it +would have drawn her to me before now, if she had been a wanderer on +the other side of the world. I wonder often it has not drawn her out +of the grave to come and stand before me, and hear me tell her how I +loved her. For, sir, we parted unfriends." + +I knew nothing but the dry particulars needed for my lawyer's quest, +but I could not help feeling for the desolate woman; and she must +have read the unusual sympathy with her wistful eyes. + +"Yes, sir, we did. She never knew how I loved her; and we parted +unfriends; and I fear me that I wished her voyage might not turn out +well, only meaning,--O, blessed Virgin! you know I only meant that +she should come home to her mother's arms as to the happiest place on +earth; but my wishes are terrible--their power goes beyond my +thought--and there is no hope for me, if my words brought Mary harm." + +"But," I said, "you do not know that she is dead. Even now, you +hoped she might be alive. Listen to me," and I told her the tale I +have already told you, giving it all in the driest manner, for I +wanted to recall the clear sense that I felt almost sure she had +possessed in her younger days, and by keeping up her attention to +details, restrain the vague wildness of her grief. + +She listened with deep attention, putting from time to time such +questions as convinced me I had to do with no common intelligence, +however dimmed and shorn by solitude and mysterious sorrow. Then she +took up her tale; and in few brief words, told me of her wanderings +abroad in vain search after her daughter; sometimes in the wake of +armies, sometimes in camp, sometimes in city. The lady, whose +waiting-woman Mary had gone to be, had died soon after the date of +her last letter home; her husband, the foreign officer, had been +serving in Hungary, whither Bridget had followed him, but too late to +find him. Vague rumours reached her that Mary had made a great +marriage: and this sting of doubt was added,--whether the mother +might not be close to her child under her new name, and even hearing +of her every day; and yet never recognizing the lost one under the +appellation she then bore. At length the thought took possession of +her, that it was possible that all this time Mary might be at home at +Coldholme, in the Trough of Bolland, in Lancashire, in England; and +home came Bridget, in that vain hope, to her desolate hearth, and +empty cottage. Here she had thought it safest to remain; if Mary was +in life, it was here she would seek for her mother. + +I noted down one or two particulars out of Bridget's narrative that I +thought might be of use to me: for I was stimulated to further +search in a strange and extraordinary manner. It seemed as if it +were impressed upon me, that I must take up the quest where Bridget +had laid it down; and this for no reason that had previously +influenced me (such as my uncle's anxiety on the subject, my own +reputation as a lawyer, and so on), but from some strange power which +had taken possession of my will only that very morning, and which +forced it in the direction it chose. + +"I will go," said I. "I will spare nothing in the search. Trust to +me. I will learn all that can be learnt. You shall know all that +money, or pains, or wit can discover. It is true she may be long +dead: but she may have left a child." + +"A child!" she cried, as if for the first time this idea had struck +her mind. "Hear him, Blessed Virgin! he says she may have left a +child. And you have never told me, though I have prayed so for a +sign, waking or sleeping!" + +"Nay," said I, "I know nothing but what you tell me. You say you +heard of her marriage." + +But she caught nothing of what I said. She was praying to the Virgin +in a kind of ecstasy, which seemed to render her unconscious of my +very presence. + +From Coldholme I went to Sir Philip Tempest's. The wife of the +foreign officer had been a cousin of his father's, and from him I +thought I might gain some particulars as to the existence of the +Count de la Tour d'Auvergne, and where I could find him; for I knew +questions de vive voix aid the flagging recollection, and I was +determined to lose no chance for want of trouble. But Sir Philip had +gone abroad, and it would be some time before I could receive an +answer. So I followed my uncle's advice, to whom I had mentioned how +wearied I felt, both in body and mind, by my will-o'-the-wisp search. +He immediately told me to go to Harrogate, there to await Sir +Philip's reply. I should be near to one of the places connected with +my search, Coldholme; not far from Sir Philip Tempest, in case he +returned, and I wished to ask him any further questions; and, in +conclusion, my uncle bade me try to forget all about my business for +a time. + +This was far easier said than done. I have seen a child on a common +blown along by a high wind, without power of standing still and +resisting the tempestuous force. I was somewhat in the same +predicament as regarded my mental state. Something resistless seemed +to urge my thoughts on, through every possible course by which there +was a chance of attaining to my object. I did not see the sweeping +moors when I walked out: when I held a book in my hand, and read the +words, their sense did not penetrate to my brain. If I slept, I went +on with the same ideas, always flowing in the same direction. This +could not last long without having a bad effect on the body. I had +an illness, which, although I was racked with pain, was a positive +relief to me, as it compelled me to live in the present suffering, +and not in the visionary researches I had been continually making +before. My kind uncle came to nurse me; and after the immediate +danger was over, my life seemed to slip away in delicious languor for +two or three months. I did not ask--so much did I dread falling into +the old channel of thought--whether any reply had been received to my +letter to Sir Philip. I turned my whole imagination right away from +all that subject. My uncle remained with me until nigh midsummer, +and then returned to his business in London; leaving me perfectly +well, although not completely strong. I was to follow him in a +fortnight; when, as he said, "we would look over letters, and talk +about several things." I knew what this little speech alluded to, +and shrank from the train of thought it suggested, which was so +intimately connected with my first feelings of illness. However, I +had a fortnight more to roam on those invigorating Yorkshire moors. + +In those days, there was one large, rambling inn, at Harrogate, close +to the Medicinal Spring; but it was already becoming too small for +the accommodation of the influx of visitors, and many lodged round +about, in the farm-houses of the district. It was so early in the +season, that I had the inn pretty much to myself; and, indeed, felt +rather like a visitor in a private house, so intimate had the +landlord and landlady become with me during my long illness. She +would chide me for being out so late on the moors, or for having been +too long without food, quite in a motherly way; while he consulted me +about vintages and wines, and taught me many a Yorkshire wrinkle +about horses. In my walks I met other strangers from time to time. +Even before my uncle had left me, I had noticed, with half-torpid +curiosity, a young lady of very striking appearance, who went about +always accompanied by an elderly companion,--hardly a gentlewoman, +but with something in her look that prepossessed me in her favour. +The younger lady always put her veil down when any one approached; so +it had been only once or twice, when I had come upon her at a sudden +turn in the path, that I had even had a glimpse at her face. I am +not sure if it was beautiful, though in after-life I grew to think it +so. But it was at this time overshadowed by a sadness that never +varied: a pale, quiet, resigned look of intense suffering, that +irresistibly attracted me,--not with love, but with a sense of +infinite compassion for one so young yet so hopelessly unhappy. The +companion wore something of the same look: quiet melancholy, +hopeless, yet resigned. I asked my landlord who they were. He said +they were called Clarke, and wished to be considered as mother and +daughter; but that, for his part, he did not believe that to be their +right name, or that there was any such relationship between them. +They had been in the neighbourhood of Harrogate for some time, +lodging in a remote farm-house. The people there would tell nothing +about them; saying that they paid handsomely, and never did any harm; +so why should they be speaking of any strange things that might +happen? That, as the landlord shrewdly observed, showed there was +something out of the common way he had heard that the elderly woman +was a cousin of the farmer's where they lodged, and so the regard +existing between relations might help to keep them quiet. + +"What did he think, then, was the reason for their extreme +seclusion?" asked I. + +"Nay, he could not tell,--not he. He had heard that the young lady, +for all as quiet as she seemed, played strange pranks at times." He +shook his head when I asked him for more particulars, and refused to +give them, which made me doubt if he knew any, for he was in general +a talkative and communicative man. In default of other interests, +after my uncle left, I set myself to watch these two people. I +hovered about their walks drawn towards them with a strange +fascination, which was not diminished by their evident annoyance at +so frequently meeting me. One day, I had the sudden good fortune to +be at hand when they were alarmed by the attack of a bull, which, in +those unenclosed grazing districts, was a particularly dangerous +occurrence. I have other and more important things to relate, than +to tell of the accident which gave me an opportunity of rescuing +them, it is enough to say, that this event was the beginning of an +acquaintance, reluctantly acquiesced in by them, but eagerly +prosecuted by me. I can hardly tell when intense curiosity became +merged in love, but in less than ten days after my uncle's departure +I was passionately enamoured of Mistress Lucy, as her attendant +called her; carefully--for this I noted well--avoiding any address +which appeared as if there was an equality of station between them. +I noticed also that Mrs. Clarke, the elderly woman, after her first +reluctance to allow me to pay them any attentions had been overcome, +was cheered by my evident attachment to the young girl; it seemed to +lighten her heavy burden of care, and she evidently favoured my +visits to the farmhouse where they lodged. It was not so with Lucy. +A more attractive person I never saw, in spite of her depression of +manner, and shrinking avoidance of me. I felt sure at once, that +whatever was the source of her grief, it rose from no fault of her +own. It was difficult to draw her into conversation; but when at +times, for a moment or two, I beguiled her into talk, I could see a +rare intelligence in her face, and a grave, trusting look in the +soft, gray eyes that were raised for a minute to mine. I made every +excuse I possibly could for going there. I sought wild flowers for +Lucy's sake; I planned walks for Lucy's sake; I watched the heavens +by night, in hopes that some unusual beauty of sky would justify me +in tempting Mrs. Clarke and Lucy forth upon the moors, to gaze at the +great purple dome above. + +It seemed to me that Lucy was aware of my love; but that, for some +motive which I could not guess, she would fain have repelled me; but +then again I saw, or fancied I saw, that her heart spoke in my +favour, and that there was a struggle going on in her mind, which at +times (I loved so dearly) I could have begged her to spare herself, +even though the happiness of my whole life should have been the +sacrifice; for her complexion grew paler, her aspect of sorrow more +hopeless, her delicate frame yet slighter. During this period I had +written, I should say, to my uncle, to beg to be allowed to prolong +my stay at Harrogate, not giving any reason; but such was his +tenderness towards me, that in a few days I heard from him, giving me +a willing permission, and only charging me to take care of myself, +and not use too much exertion during the hot weather. + +One sultry evening I drew near the farm. The windows of their +parlour were open, and I heard voices when I turned the corner of the +house, as I passed the first window (there were two windows in their +little ground-floor room). I saw Lucy distinctly; but when I had +knocked at their door--the house-door stood always ajar--she was +gone, and I saw only Mrs. Clarke, turning over the work-things lying +on the table, in a nervous and purposeless manner. I felt by +instinct that a conversation of some importance was coming on, in +which I should be expected to say what was my object in paying these +frequent visits. I was glad of the opportunity. My uncle had +several times alluded to the pleasant possibility of my bringing home +a young wife, to cheer and adorn the old house in Ormond Street. He +was rich, and I was to succeed him, and had, as I knew, a fair +reputation for so young a lawyer. So on my side I saw no obstacle. +It was true that Lucy was shrouded in mystery; her name (I was +convinced it was not Clarke), birth, parentage, and previous life +were unknown to me. But I was sure of her goodness and sweet +innocence, and although I knew that there must be something painful +to be told, to account for her mournful sadness, yet I was willing to +bear my share in her grief, whatever it might be. + +Mrs. Clarke began, as if it was a relief to her to plunge into the +subject. + +"We have thought, sir--at least I have thought--that you knew very +little of us, nor we of you, indeed; not enough to warrant the +intimate acquaintance we have fallen into. I beg your pardon, sir," +she went on, nervously; "I am but a plain kind of woman, and I mean +to use no rudeness; but I must say straight out that I--we--think it +would be better for you not to come so often to see us. She is very +unprotected, and--" + +"Why should I not come to see you, dear madam?" asked I, eagerly, +glad of the opportunity of explaining myself. "I come, I own, +because I have learnt to love Mistress Lucy, and wish to teach her to +love me. + +Mistress Clarke shook her head, and sighed. + +"Don't, sir--neither love her, nor, for the sake of all you hold +sacred, teach her to love you! If I am too late, and you love her +already, forget her,--forget these last few weeks. O! I should +never have allowed you to come!" she went on passionately; "but what +am I to do? We are forsaken by all, except the great God, and even +He permits a strange and evil power to afflict us--what am I to do! +Where is it to end?" She wrung her hands in her distress; then she +turned to me: "Go away, sir! go away, before you learn to care any +more for her. I ask it for your own sake--I implore! You have been +good and kind to us, and we shall always recollect you with +gratitude; but go away now, and never come back to cross our fatal +path!" + +"Indeed, madam," said I, "I shall do no such thing. You urge it for +my own sake. I have no fear, so urged--nor wish, except to hear +more--all. I cannot have seen Mistress Lucy in all the intimacy of +this last fortnight, without acknowledging her goodness and +innocence; and without seeing--pardon me, madam--that for some reason +you are two very lonely women, in some mysterious sorrow and +distress. Now, though I am not powerful myself, yet I have friends +who are so wise and kind that they may be said to possess power. +Tell me some particulars. Why are you in grief--what is your secret- +-why are you here? I declare solemnly that nothing you have said has +daunted me in my wish to become Lucy's husband; nor will I shrink +from any difficulty that, as such an aspirant, I may have to +encounter. You say you are friendless--why cast away an honest +friend? I will tell you of people to whom you may write, and who +will answer any questions as to my character and prospects. I do not +shun inquiry." + +She shook her head again. "You had better go away, sir. You know +nothing about us." + +"I know your names," said I, "and I have heard you allude to the part +of the country from which you came, which I happen to know as a wild +and lonely place. There are so few people living in it that, if I +chose to go there, I could easily ascertain all about you; but I +would rather hear it from yourself." You see I wanted to pique her +into telling me something definite. + +"You do not know our true names, sir," said she, hastily. + +"Well, I may have conjectured as much. But tell me, then, I conjure +you. Give me your reasons for distrusting my willingness to stand by +what I have said with regard to Mistress Lucy." + +"Oh, what can I do?" exclaimed she. "If I am turning away a true +friend, as he says?--Stay!" coming to a sudden decision--" I will +tell you something--I cannot tell you all--you would not believe it. +But, perhaps, I can tell you enough to prevent your going on in your +hopeless attachment. I am not Lucy's mother." + +"So I conjectured," I said. "Go on." + +"I do not even know whether she is the legitimate or illegitimate +child of her father. But he is cruelly turned against her; and her +mother is long dead; and for a terrible reason, she has no other +creature to keep constant to her but me. She--only two years ago-- +such a darling and such a pride in her father's house! Why, sir, +there is a mystery that might happen in connection with her any +moment; and then you would go away like all the rest; and, when you +next heard her name, you would loathe her. Others, who have loved +her longer, have done so before now. My poor child! whom neither God +nor man has mercy upon--or, surely, she would die!" + +The good woman was stopped by her crying. I confess, I was a little +stunned by her last words; but only for a moment. At any rate, till +I knew definitely what was this mysterious stain upon one so simple +and pure, as Lucy seemed, I would not desert her, and so I said; and +she made me answer:- + +"If you are daring in your heart to think harm of my child, sir, +after knowing her as you have done, you are no good man yourself; but +I am so foolish and helpless in my great sorrow, that I would fain +hope to find a friend in you. I cannot help trusting that, although +you may no longer feel toward her as a lover, you will have pity upon +us; and perhaps, by your learning you can tell us where to go for +aid." + +"I implore you to tell me what this mystery is," I cried, almost +maddened by this suspense. + +"I cannot," said she, solemnly. "I am under a deep vow of secrecy. +If you are to be told, it must be by her." She left the room, and I +remained to ponder over this strange interview. I mechanically +turned over the few books, and with eyes that saw nothing at the +time, examined the tokens of Lucy's frequent presence in that room. + +When I got home at night, I remembered how all these trifles spoke of +a pure and tender heart and innocent life. Mistress Clarke returned; +she had been crying sadly. + +"Yes," said she, "it is as I feared: she loves you so much that she +is willing to run the fearful risk of telling you all herself--she +acknowledges it is but a poor chance; but your sympathy will be a +balm, if you give it. To-morrow, come here at ten in the morning; +and, as you hope for pity in your hour of agony, repress all show of +fear or repugnance you may feel towards one so grievously afflicted." + +I half smiled. "Have no fear," I said. It seemed too absurd to +imagine my feeling dislike to Lucy. + +"Her father loved her well," said she, gravely, "yet he drove her out +like some monstrous thing." + +Just at this moment came a peal of ringing laughter from the garden. +It was Lucy's voice; it sounded as if she were standing just on one +side of the open casement--and as though she were suddenly stirred to +merriment--merriment verging on boisterousness, by the doings or +sayings of some other person. I can scarcely say why, but the sound +jarred on me inexpressibly. She knew the subject of our +conversation, and must have been at least aware of the state of +agitation her friend was in; she herself usually so gentle and quiet. +I half rose to go to the window, and satisfy my instinctive curiosity +as to what had provoked this burst of, ill-timed laughter; but Mrs. +Clarke threw her whole weight and power upon the hand with which she +pressed and kept me down. + +"For God's sake!" she said, white and trembling all over, "sit still; +be quiet. Oh! be patient. To-morrow you will know all. Leave us, +for we are all sorely afflicted. Do not seek to know more about us." + +Again that laugh--so musical in sound, yet so discordant to my heart. +She held me tight--tighter; without positive violence I could not +have risen. I was sitting with my back to the window, but I felt a +shadow pass between the sun's warmth and me, and a strange shudder +ran through my frame. In a minute or two she released me. + +"Go," repeated she. "Be warned, I ask you once more. I do not think +you can stand this knowledge that you seek. If I had had my own way, +Lucy should never have yielded, and promised to tell you all. Who +knows what may come of it?" + +"I am firm in my wish to know all. I return at ten tomorrow morning, +and then expect to see Mistress Lucy herself." + +I turned away; having my own suspicions, I confess, as to Mistress +Clarke's sanity. + +Conjectures as to the meaning of her hints, and uncomfortable +thoughts connected with that strange laughter, filled my mind. I +could hardly sleep. I rose early; and long before the hour I had +appointed, I was on the path over the common that led to the old +farm-house where they lodged. I suppose that Lucy had passed no +better a night than I; for there she was also, slowly pacing with her +even step, her eyes bent down, her whole look most saintly and pure. +She started when I came close to her, and grew paler as I reminded +her of my appointment, and spoke with something of the impatience of +obstacles that, seeing her once more, had called up afresh in my +mind. All strange and terrible hints, and giddy merriment were +forgotten. My heart gave forth words of fire, and my tongue uttered +them. Her colour went and came, as she listened; but, when I had +ended my passionate speeches, she lifted her soft eyes to me, and +said - + +"But you know that you have something to learn about me yet. I only +want to say this: I shall not think less of you--less well of you, I +mean--if you, too, fall away from me when you know all. Stop!" said +she, as if fearing another burst of mad words. "Listen to me. My +father is a man of great wealth. I never knew my mother; she must +have died when I was very young. When first I remember anything, I +was living in a great, lonely house, with my dear and faithful +Mistress Clarke. My father, even, was not there; he was--he is--a +soldier, and his duties lie aboard. But he came from time to time, +and every time I think he loved me more and more. He brought me +rarities from foreign lands, which prove to me now how much he must +have thought of me during his absences. I can sit down and measure +the depth of his lost love now, by such standards as these. I never +thought whether he loved me or not, then; it was so natural, that it +was like the air I breathed. Yet he was an angry man at times, even +then; but never with me. He was very reckless, too; and, once or +twice, I heard a whisper among the servants that a doom was over him, +and that he knew it, and tried to drown his knowledge in wild +activity, and even sometimes, sir, in wine. So I grew up in this +grand mansion, in that lonely place. Everything around me seemed at +my disposal, and I think every one loved me; I am sure I loved them. +Till about two years ago--I remember it well--my father had come to +England, to us; and he seemed so proud and so pleased with me and all +I had done. And one day his tongue seemed loosened with wine, and he +told me much that I had not known till then,--how dearly he had loved +my mother, yet how his wilful usage had caused her death; and then he +went on to say how he loved me better than any creature on earth, and +how, some day, he hoped to take me to foreign places, for that he +could hardly bear these long absences from his only child. Then he +seemed to change suddenly, and said, in a strange, wild way, that I +was not to believe what he said; that there was many a thing he loved +better--his horse--his dog--I know not what. + +"And 'twas only the next morning that, when I came into his room to +ask his blessing as was my wont, he received me with fierce and angry +words. 'Why had I,' so he asked, 'been delighting myself in such +wanton mischief--dancing over the tender plants in the flower-beds, +all set with the famous Dutch bulbs he had brought from Holland?' I +had never been out of doors that morning, sir, and I could not +conceive what he meant, and so I said; and then he swore at me for a +liar, and said I was of no true blood, for he had seen me doing all +that mischief himself--with his own eyes. What could I say? He +would not listen to me, and even my tears seemed only to irritate +him. That day was the beginning of my great sorrows. Not long +after, he reproached me for my undue familiarity--all unbecoming a +gentlewoman--with his grooms. I had been in the stable-yard, +laughing and talking, he said. Now, sir, I am something of a coward +by nature, and I had always dreaded horses; be-sides that, my +father's servants--those whom he brought with him from foreign parts- +-were wild fellows, whom I had always avoided, and to whom I had +never spoken, except as a lady must needs from time to time speak to +her father's people. Yet my father called me by names of which I +hardly know the meaning, but my heart told me they were such as shame +any modest woman; and from that day he turned quite against me;--nay, +sir, not many weeks after that, he came in with a riding-whip in his +hand; and, accusing me harshly of evil doings, of which I knew no +more than you, sir, he was about to strike me, and I, all in +bewildering tears, was ready to take his stripes as great kindness +compared to his harder words, when suddenly he stopped his arm mid- +way, gasped and staggered, crying out, 'The curse--the curse!' I +looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and +right behind, another wicked, fearful self, so like me that my soul +seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude +of body it belonged. My father saw my double at the same moment, +either in its dreadful reality, whatever that might be, or in the +scarcely less terrible reflection in the mirror; but what came of it +at that moment I cannot say, for I suddenly swooned away; and when I +came to myself I was lying in my bed, and my faithful Clarke sitting +by me. I was in my bed for days; and even while I lay there my +double was seen by all, flitting about the house and gardens, always +about some mischievous or detestable work. What wonder that every +one shrank from me in dread--that my father drove me forth at length, +when the disgrace of which I was the cause was past his patience to +bear. Mistress Clarke came with me; and here we try to live such a +life of piety and prayer as may in time set me free from the curse." + +All the time she had been speaking, I had been weighing her story in +my mind. I had hitherto put cases of witchcraft on one side, as mere +superstitions; and my uncle and I had had many an argument, he +supporting himself by the opinion of his good friend Sir Matthew +Hale. Yet this sounded like the tale of one bewitched; or was it +merely the effect of a life of extreme seclusion telling on the +nerves of a sensitive girl? My scepticism inclined me to the latter +belief, and when she paused I said: + +"I fancy that some physician could have disabused your father of his +belief in visions--" + +Just at that instant, standing as I was opposite to her in the full +and perfect morning light, I saw behind her another figure--a ghastly +resemblance, complete in likeness, so far as form and feature and +minutest touch of dress could go, but with a loathsome demon soul +looking out of the gray eyes, that were in turns mocking and +voluptuous. My heart stood still within me; every hair rose up +erect; my flesh crept with horror. I could not see the grave and +tender Lucy--my eyes were fascinated by the creature beyond. I know +not why, but I put out my hand to clutch it; I grasped nothing but +empty air, and my whole blood curdled to ice. For a moment I could +not see; then my sight came back, and I saw Lucy standing before me, +alone, deathly pale, and, I could have fancied, almost, shrunk in +size. + +"IT has been near me?" she said, as if asking a question. + +The sound seemed taken out of her voice; it was husky as the notes on +an old harpsichord when the strings have ceased to vibrate. She read +her answer in my face, I suppose, for I could not speak. Her look +was one of intense fear, but that died away into an aspect of most +humble patience. At length she seemed to force herself to face +behind and around her: she saw the purple moors, the blue distant +hills, quivering in the sunlight, but nothing else. + +"Will you take me home?" she said, meekly. + +I took her by the hand, and led her silently through the budding +heather--we dared not speak; for we could not tell but that the dread +creature was listening, although unseen,--but that IT might appear +and push us asunder. I never loved her more fondly than now when-- +and that was the unspeakable misery--the idea of her was becoming so +inextricably blended with the shuddering thought of IT. She seemed +to understand what I must be feeling. She let go my hand, which she +had kept clasped until then, when we reached the garden gate, and +went forwards to meet her anxious friend, who was standing by the +window looking for her. I could not enter the house: I needed +silence, society, leisure, change--I knew not what--to shake off the +sensation of that creature's presence. Yet I lingered about the +garden--I hardly know why; I partly suppose, because I feared to +encounter the resemblance again on the solitary common, where it had +vanished, and partly from a feeling of inexpressible compassion for +Lucy. In a few minutes Mistress Clarke came forth and joined me. We +walked some paces in silence. + +"You know all now," said she, solemnly. + +"I saw IT," said I, below my breath. + +"And you shrink from us, now," she said, with a hopelessness which +stirred up all that was brave or good in me. + +"Not a whit," said I. "Human flesh shrinks from encounter with the +powers of darkness: and, for some reason unknown to me, the pure and +holy Lucy is their victim." + +"The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children," she +said. + +"Who is her father?" asked I. "Knowing as much as I do, I may surely +know more--know all. Tell me, I entreat you, madam, all that you can +conjecture respecting this demoniac persecution of one so good." + +"I will; but not now. I must go to Lucy now. Come this afternoon, I +will see you alone; and oh, sir! I will trust that you may yet find +some way to help us in our sore trouble!" + +I was miserably exhausted by the swooning affright which had taken +possession of me. When I reached the inn, I staggered in like one +overcome by wine. I went to my own private room. It was some time +before I saw that the weekly post had come in, and brought me my +letters. There was one from my uncle, one from my home in +Devonshire, and one, re-directed over the first address, sealed with +a great coat of arms, It was from Sir Philip Tempest: my letter of +inquiry respecting Mary Fitzgerald had reached him at Liege, where it +so happened that the Count de la Tour d'Auvergne was quartered at the +very time. He remembered his wife's beautiful attendant; she had had +high words with the deceased countess, respecting her intercourse +with an English gentleman of good standing, who was also in the +foreign service. The countess augured evil of his intentions; while +Mary, proud and vehement, asserted that he would soon marry her, and +resented her mistress's warnings as an insult. The consequence was, +that she had left Madame de la Tour d'Auvergne's service, and, as the +Count believed, had gone to live with the Englishman; whether he had +married her, or not, he could not say. "But," added Sir Philip +Tempest, you may easily hear what particulars you wish to know +respecting Mary Fitzgerald from the Englishman himself, if, as I +suspect, he is no other than my neighbour and former acquaintance, +Mr. Gisborne, of Skipford Hall, in the West Riding. I am led to the +belief that he is no other, by several small particulars, none of +which are in themselves conclusive, but which, taken together, +furnish a mass of presumptive evidence. As far as I could make out +from the Count's foreign pronunciation, Gisborne was the name of the +Englishman: I know that Gisborne of Skipford was abroad and in the +foreign service at that time--he was a likely fellow enough for such +an exploit, and, above all, certain expressions recur to my mind +which he used in reference to old Bridget Fitzgerald, of Coldholme, +whom he once encountered while staying with me at Starkey Manor- +house. I remember that the meeting seemed to have produced some +extraordinary effect upon his mind, as though he had suddenly +discovered some connection which she might have had with his previous +life. I beg you to let me know if I can be of any further service to +you. Your uncle once rendered me a good turn, and I will gladly +repay it, so far as in me lies, to his nephew." + +I was now apparently close on the discovery which I had striven so +many months to attain. But success had lost its zest. I put my +letters down, and seemed to forget them all in thinking of the +morning I had passed that very day. Nothing was real but the unreal +presence, which had come like an evil blast across my bodily eyes, +and burnt itself down upon my brain. Dinner came, and went away +untouched. Early in the afternoon I walked to the farm-house. I +found Mistress Clarke alone, and I was glad and relieved. She was +evidently prepared to tell me all I might wish to hear. + +"You asked me for Mistress Lucy's true name; it is Gisborne," she +began. + +"Not Gisborne of Skipford?" I exclaimed, breathless with +anticipation. + +"The same," said she, quietly, not regarding my manner. "Her father +is a man of note; although, being a Roman Catholic, he cannot take +that rank in this country to which his station entitles him. The +consequence is that he lives much abroad--has been a soldier, I am +told." + +"And Lucy's mother?" I asked. + +She shook her head. "I never knew her," said she. "Lucy was about +three years old when I was engaged to take charge of her. Her mother +was dead." + +"But you know her name?--you can tell if it was Mary Fitzgerald?" + +She looked astonished. "That was her name. But, sir, how came you +to be so well acquainted with it? It was a mystery to the whole +household at Skipford Court. She was some beautiful young woman whom +he lured away from her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard +said he practised some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came to +know it, she was neither to have nor to hold, but rushed off from his +very arms, and threw herself into a rapid stream and was drowned. It +stung him deep with remorse, but I used to think the remembrance of +the mother's cruel death made him love the child yet dearer." + +I told her, as briefly as might be, of my researches after the +descendant and heir of the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and added-- +something of my old lawyer spirit returning into me for the moment-- +that I had no doubt but that we should prove Lucy to be by right +possessed of large estates in Ireland. + +No flush came over her gray face; no light into her eyes. "And what +is all the wealth in the whole world to that poor girl?" she said. +"It will not free her from the ghastly bewitchment which persecutes +her. As for money, what a pitiful thing it is! it cannot touch her." + +"No more can the Evil Creature harm her," I said. "Her holy nature +dwells apart, and cannot be defiled or stained by all the devilish +arts in the whole world." + +"True! but it is a cruel fate to know that all shrink from her, +sooner or later, as from one possessed--accursed." + +"How came it to pass?" I asked. + +"Nay, I know not. Old rumours there are, that were bruited through +the household at Skipford." + +"Tell me," I demanded. + +"They came from servants, who would fain account for every thing. +They say that, many years ago, Mr. Gisborne killed a dog belonging to +an old witch at Coldholme; that she cursed, with a dreadful and +mysterious curse, the creature, whatever it might be, that he should +love best; and that it struck so deeply into his heart that for years +he kept himself aloof from any temptation to love aught. But who +could help loving Lucy?" + +"You never heard the witch's name?" I gasped. + +"Yes--they called her Bridget: they said he would never go near the +spot again for terror of her. Yet he was a brave man!" + +"Listen," said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to arrest her +full attention: "if what I suspect holds true, that man stole +Bridget's only child--the very Mary Fitzgerald who was Lucy's mother; +if so, Bridget cursed him in ignorance of the deeper wrong he had +done her. To this hour she yearns after her lost child, and +questions the saints whether she be living or not. The roots of that +curse lie deeper than she knows: she unwittingly banned him for a +deeper guilt than that of killing a dumb beast. The sins of the +fathers are indeed visited upon the children." + +"But," said Mistress Clarke, eagerly, "she would never let evil rest +on her own grandchild? Surely, sir, if what you say be true, there +are hopes for Lucy. Let us go--go at once, and tell this fearful +woman all that you suspect, and beseech her to take off the spell she +has put upon her innocent grandchild." + +It seemed to me, indeed, that something like this was the best course +we could pursue. But first it was necessary to ascertain more than +what mere rumour or careless hearsay could tell. My thoughts turned +to my uncle--he could advise me wisely--he ought to know all. I +resolved to go to him without delay; but I did not choose to tell +Mistress Clarke of all the visionary plans that flitted through my +mind. I simply declared my intention of proceeding straight to +London on Lucy's affairs. I bade her believe that my interest on the +young lady's behalf was greater than ever, and that my whole time +should be given up to her cause. I saw that Mistress Clarke +distrusted me, because my mind was too full of thoughts for my words +to flow freely. She sighed and shook her head, and said, "Well, it +is all right!" in such a tone that it was an implied reproach. But I +was firm and constant in my heart, and I took confidence from that. + +I rode to London. I rode long days drawn out into the lovely summer +nights: I could not rest. I reached London. I told my uncle all, +though in the stir of the great city the horror had faded away, and I +could hardly imagine that he would believe the account I gave him of +the fearful double of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side. +But my uncle had lived many years, and learnt many things; and, in +the deep secrets of family history that had been confided to him, he +had heard of cases of innocent people bewitched and taken possession +of by evil spirits yet more fearful than Lucy's. For, as he said, to +judge from all I told him, that resemblance had no power over her-- +she was too pure and good to be tainted by its evil, haunting +presence. It had, in all probability, so my uncle conceived, tried +to suggest wicked thoughts and to tempt to wicked actions but she, in +her saintly maidenhood, had passed on undefiled by evil thought or +deed. It could not touch her soul: but true, it set her apart from +all sweet love or common human intercourse. My uncle threw himself +with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixty into the +consideration of the whole case. He undertook the proving Lucy's +descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, and obtain, +firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds of +Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting +the working of the curse, and whether any and what means had been +taken to exorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of +instances where, by prayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had +been driven forth with howling and many cries from the body which it +had come to inhabit; he spoke of those strange New England cases +which had happened not so long before; of Mr. Defoe, who had written +a book, wherein he had named many modes of subduing apparitions, and +sending them back whence they came; and, lastly, he spoke low of +dreadful ways of compelling witches to undo their witchcraft. But I +could not endure to hear of those tortures and burnings. I said that +Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than a malignant witch; +and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; and that, in +putting her to the trial, by water or by fire, we should be +torturing--it might be to the death--the ancestress of her we sought +to redeem. + +My uncle thought awhile, and then said, that in this last matter I +was right--at any rate, it should not be tried, with his consent, +till all other modes of remedy had failed; and he assented to my +proposal that I should go myself and see Bridget, and tell her all. + +In accordance with this, I went down once more to the wayside inn +near Coldholme. It was late at night when I arrived there; and, +while I supped, I inquired of the landlord more particulars as to +Bridget's ways. Solitary and savage had been her life for many +years. Wild and despotic were her words and manner to those few +people who came across her path. The country-folk did her imperious +bidding, because they feared to disobey. If they pleased her, they +prospered; if, on the contrary, they neglected or traversed her +behests, misfortune, small or great, fell on them and theirs. It was +not detestation so much as an indefinable terror that she excited. + +In the morning I went to see her. She was standing on the green +outside her cottage, and received me with the sullen grandeur of a +throneless queen. I read in her face that she recognized me, and +that I was not unwelcome; but she stood silent till I had opened my +errand. + +"I have news of your daughter," said I, resolved to speak straight to +all that I knew she felt of love, and not to spare her. "She is +dead!" + +The stern figure scarcely trembled, but her hand sought the support +of the door-post. + +"I knew that she was dead," said she, deep and low, and then was +silent for an instant. "My tears that should have flowed for her +were burnt up long years ago. Young man, tell me about her." + +"Not yet," said I, having a strange power given me of confronting +one, whom, nevertheless, in my secret soul I dreaded. + +"You had once a little dog," I continued. The words called out in +her more show of emotion than the intelligence of her daughter's +death. She broke in upon my speech:- + +"I had! It was hers--the last thing I had of hers--and it was shot +for wantonness! It died in my arms. The man who killed that dog +rues it to this day. For that dumb beast's blood, his best-beloved +stands accursed." + +Her eyes distended, as if she were in a trance and saw the working of +her curse. Again I spoke:- + +"O, woman!" I said, "that best-beloved, standing accursed before men, +is your dead daughter's child." + +The life, the energy, the passion, came back to the eyes with which +she pierced through me, to see if I spoke truth; then, without +another question or word, she threw herself on the ground with +fearful vehemence, and clutched at the innocent daisies with +convulsed hands. + +"Bone of my bone! flesh of my flesh! have I cursed thee--and art thou +accursed?" + +So she moaned, as she lay prostrate in her great agony. I stood +aghast at my own work. She did not hear my broken sentences; she +asked no more, but the dumb confirmation which my sad looks had given +that one fact, that her curse rested on her own daughter's child. +The fear grew on me lest she should die in her strife of body and +soul; and then might not Lucy remain under the spell as long as she +lived? + +Even at this moment, I saw Lucy coming through the woodland path that +led to Bridget's cottage; Mistress Clarke was with her: I felt at my +heart that it was she, by the balmy peace which the look of her sent +over me, as she slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her +soft quiet eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell +on the woman lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of +tender pity; and she came forward to try and lift her up. Seating +herself on the turf, she took Bridget's head into her lap; and, with +gentle touches, she arranged the dishevelled gray hair streaming +thick and wild from beneath her mutch. + +"God help her!" murmured Lucy. "How she suffers!" + +At her desire we sought for water; but when we returned, Bridget had +recovered her wandering senses, and was kneeling with clasped hands +before Lucy, gazing at that sweet sad face as though her troubled +nature drank in health and peace from every moment's contemplation. +A faint tinge on Lucy's pale cheeks showed me that she was aware of +our return; otherwise it appeared as if she was conscious of her +influence for good over the passionate and troubled woman kneeling +before her, and would not willingly avert her grave and loving eyes +from that wrinkled and careworn countenance. + +Suddenly--in the twinkling of an eye--the creature appeared, there, +behind Lucy; fearfully the same as to outward semblance, but kneeling +exactly as Bridget knelt, and clasping her hands in jesting mimicry +as Bridget clasped hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a +prayer. Mistress Clarke cried out--Bridget arose slowly, her gaze +fixed on the creature beyond: drawing her breath with a hissing +sound, never moving her terrible eyes, that were steady as stone, she +made a dart at the phantom, and caught, as I had done, a mere handful +of empty air. We saw no more of the creature--it vanished as +suddenly as it came, but Bridget looked slowly on, as if watching +some receding form. Lucy sat still, white, trembling, drooping--I +think she would have swooned if I had not been there to uphold her. +While I was attending to her, Bridget passed us, without a word to +any one, and, entering her cottage, she barred herself in, and left +us without. + +All our endeavours were now directed to get Lucy back to the house +where she had tarried the night before. Mistress Clarke told me +that, not hearing from me (some letter must have miscarried), she had +grown impatient and despairing, and had urged Lucy to the enterprise +of coming to seek her grandmother; not telling her, indeed, of the +dread reputation she possessed, or how we suspected her of having so +fearfully blighted that innocent girl; but, at the same time, hoping +much from the mysterious stirring of blood, which Mistress Clarke +trusted in for the removal of the curse. They had come, by a +different route from that which I had taken, to a village inn not far +from Coldholme, only the night before. This was the first interview +between ancestress and descendant. + +All through the sultry noon I wandered along the tangled brush-wood +of the old neglected forest, thinking where to turn for remedy in a +matter so complicated and mysterious. Meeting a countryman, I asked +my way to the nearest clergyman, and went, hoping to obtain some +counsel from him. But he proved to be a coarse and common-minded +man, giving no time or attention to the intricacies of a case, but +dashing out a strong opinion involving immediate action. For +instance, as soon as I named Bridget Fitzgerald, he exclaimed:- + +"The Coldholme witch! the Irish papist! I'd have had her ducked long +since but for that other papist, Sir Philip Tempest. He has had to +threaten honest folk about here over and over again, or they'd have +had her up before the justices for her black doings. And it's the +law of the land that witches should be burnt! Ay, and of Scripture, +too, sir! Yet you see a papist, if he's a rich squire, can overrule +both law and Scripture. I'd carry a faggot myself to rid the country +of her!" + +Such a one could give me no help. I rather drew back what I had +already said; and tried to make the parson forget it, by treating him +to several pots of beer, in the village inn, to which we had +adjourned for our conference at his suggestion. I left him as soon +as I could, and returned to Coldholme, shaping my way past deserted +Starkey Manor-house, and coming upon it by the back. At that side +were the oblong remains of the old moat, the waters of which lay +placid and motionless under the crimson rays of the setting sun; with +the forest-trees lying straight along each side, and their deep-green +foliage mirrored to blackness in the burnished surface of the moat +below--and the broken sun-dial at the end nearest the hall--and the +heron, standing on one leg at the water's edge, lazily looking down +for fish--the lonely and desolate house scarce needed the broken +windows, the weeds on the door-sill, the broken shutter softly +flapping to and fro in the twilight breeze, to fill up the picture of +desertion and decay. I lingered about the place until the growing +darkness warned me on. And then I passed along the path, cut by the +orders of the last lady of Starkey Manor-House, that led me to +Bridget's cottage. I resolved at once to see her; and, in spite of +closed doors--it might be of resolved will--she should see me. So I +knocked at her door, gently, loudly, fiercely. I shook it so +vehemently that a length the old hinges gave way, and with a crash it +fell inwards, leaving me suddenly face to face with Bridget--I, red, +heated, agitated with my so long baffled efforts--she, stiff as any +stone, standing right facing me, her eyes dilated with terror, her +ashen lips trembling, but her body motionless. In her hands she held +her crucifix, as if by that holy symbol she sought to oppose my +entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame relaxed, and she sank back +upon a chair. Some mighty tension had given way. Still her eyes +looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air, made more opaque by +the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed before the +picture of the Virgin. + +"Is she there?" asked Bridget, hoarsely. + +"No! Who? I am alone. You remember me." + +"Yes," replied she, still terror stricken. "But she--that creature-- +has been looking in upon me through that window all day long. I +closed it up with my shawl; and then I saw her feet below the door, +as long as it was light, and I knew she heard my very breathing--nay, +worse, my very prayers; and I could not pray, for her listening +choked the words ere they rose to my lips. Tell me, who is she?-- +what means that double girl I saw this morning? One had a look of my +dead Mary; but the other curdled my blood, and yet it was the same!" + +She had taken hold of my arm, as if to secure herself some human +companionship. She shook all over with the slight, never-ceasing +tremor of intense terror. I told her my tale as I have told it you, +sparing none of the details. + +How Mistress Clarke had informed me that the resemblance had driven +Lucy forth from her father's house--how I had disbelieved, until, +with mine own eyes, I had seen another Lucy standing behind my Lucy, +the same in form and feature, but with the demon-soul looking out of +the eyes. I told her all, I say, believing that she--whose curse was +working so upon the life of her innocent grandchild--was the only +person who could find the remedy and the redemption. When I had +done, she sat silent for many minutes. + +"You love Mary's child?" she asked. + +"I do, in spite of the fearful working of the curse--I love her. Yet +I shrink from her ever since that day on the moor-side. And men must +shrink from one so accompanied; friends and lovers must stand afar +off. Oh, Bridget Fitzgerald! loosen the curse! Set her free!" + +"Where is she?" + +I eagerly caught at the idea that her presence was needed, in order +that, by some strange prayer or exorcism, the spell might be +reversed. + +"I will go and bring her to you," I exclaimed. Bridget tightened her +hold upon my arm. + +"Not so," said she, in a low, hoarse voice. "It would kill me to see +her again as I saw her this morning. And I must live till I have +worked my work. Leave me!" said she, suddenly, and again taking up +the cross. "I defy the demon I have called up. Leave me to wrestle +with it!" + +She stood up, as if in an ecstasy of inspiration, from which all fear +was banished. I lingered--why I can hardly tell--until once more she +bade me begone. As I went along the forest way, I looked back, and +saw her planting the cross in the empty threshold, where the door had +been. + +The next morning Lucy and I went to seek her, to bid her join her +prayers with ours. The cottage stood open and wide to our gaze. No +human being was there: the cross remained on the threshold, but +Bridget was gone. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + +What was to be done next? was the question that I asked myself. As +for Lucy, she would fain have submitted to the doom that lay upon +her. Her gentleness and piety, under the pressure of so horrible a +life, seemed over-passive to me. She never complained. Mrs. Clarke +complained more than ever. As for me, I was more in love with the +real Lucy than ever; but I shrunk from the false similitude with an +intensity proportioned to my love. I found out by instinct that Mrs. +Clarke had occasional temptations to leave Lucy. The good lady's +nerves were shaken, and, from what she said, I could almost have +concluded that the object of the Double was to drive away from Lucy +this last, and almost earliest friend. At times, I could scarcely +bear to own it, but I myself felt inclined to turn recreant; and I +would accuse Lucy of being too patient--too resigned. One after +another, she won the little children of Coldholme. (Mrs. Clarke and +she had resolved to stay there, for was it not as good a place as any +other, to such as they? and did not all our faint hopes rest on +Bridget--never seen or heard of now, but still we trusted to come +back, or give some token?) So, as I say, one after another, the +little children came about my Lucy, won by her soft tones, and her +gentle smiles, and kind actions. Alas! one after another they fell +away, and shrunk from her path with blanching terror; and we too +surely guessed the reason why. It was the last drop. I could bear +it no longer. I resolved no more to linger around the spot, but to +go back to my uncle, and among the learned divines of the city of +London, seek for some power whereby to annul the curse. + +My uncle, meanwhile, had obtained all the requisite testimonials +relating to Lucy's descent and birth, from the Irish lawyers, and +from Mr. Gisborne. The latter gentleman had written from abroad (he +was again serving in the Austrian army), a letter alternately +passionately self-reproachful and stoically repellant. It was +evident that when he thought of Mary--her short life--how he had +wronged her, and of her violent death, he could hardly find words +severe enough for his own conduct; and from this point of view, the +curse that Bridget had laid upon him and his, was regarded by him as +a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which she was moved by a Higher +Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper vengeance than for the +death of the poor dog. But then, again, when he came to speak of his +daughter, the repugnance which the conduct of the demoniac creature +had produced in his mind, was but ill-disguised under a show of +profound indifference as to Lucy's fate. One almost felt as if he +would have been as content to put her out of existence, as he would +have been to destroy some disgusting reptile that had invaded his +chamber or his couch. + +The great Fitzgerald property was Lucy's; and that was all--was +nothing. + +My uncle and I sat in the gloom of a London November evening, in our +house in Ormond Street. I was out of health, and felt as if I were +in an inextricable coil of misery. Lucy and I wrote to each other, +but that was little; and we dared not see each other for dread of the +fearful Third, who had more than once taken her place at our +meetings. My uncle had, on the day I speak of, bidden prayers to be +put up on the ensuing Sabbath in many a church and meeting-house in +London, for one grievously tormented by an evil spirit. He had faith +in prayers--I had none; I was fast losing faith in all things. So we +sat, he trying to interest me in the old talk of other days, I +oppressed by one thought--when our old servant, Anthony, opened the +door, and, without speaking, showed in a very gentlemanly and +prepossessing man, who had something remarkable about his dress, +betraying his profession to be that of the Roman Catholic priesthood. +He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It was to me he bowed. + +"I did not give my name," said he, "because you would hardly have +recognised it; unless, sir, when, in the north, you heard of Father +Bernard, the chaplain at Stoney Hurst?" + +I remembered afterwards that I had heard of him, but at the time I +had utterly forgotten it; so I professed myself a complete stranger +to him; while my ever-hospitable uncle, although hating a papist as +much as it was in his nature to hate anything, placed a chair for the +visitor, and bade Anthony bring glasses, and a fresh jug of claret. + +Father Bernard received this courtesy with the graceful ease and +pleasant acknowledgement which belongs to a man of the world. Then +he turned to scan me with his keen glance. After some alight +conversation, entered into on his part, I am certain, with an +intention of discovering on what terms of confidence I stood with my +uncle, he paused, and said gravely - + +"I am sent here with a message to you, sir, from a woman to whom you +have shown kindness, and who is one of my penitents, in Antwerp--one +Bridget Fitzgerald." + +"Bridget Fitzgerald!" exclaimed I. "In Antwerp? Tell me, sir, all +that you can about her." + +"There is much to be said," he replied. "But may I inquire if this +gentleman--if your uncle is acquainted with the particulars of which +you and I stand informed?" + +"All that I know, he knows," said I, eagerly laying my hand on my +uncle's arm, as he made a motion as if to quit the room. + +"Then I have to speak before two gentlemen who, however they may +differ from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact that +there are evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of +our evil thoughts: and, if their Master gives them power, to bring +them into overt action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin, +which I dare not disbelieve--as some sceptics would have us do--the +sin of witchcraft. Of this deadly sin, you and I are aware, Bridget +Fitzgerald has been guilty. Since you saw her last, many prayers +have been offered in our churches, many masses sung, many penances +undergone, in order that, if God and the holy saints so willed it, +her sin might be blotted out. But it has not been so willed." + +"Explain to me," said I, "who you are, and how you come connected +with Bridget. Why is she at Antwerp? I pray you, sir, tell me more. +If I am impatient, excuse me; I am ill and feverish, and in +consequence bewildered." + +There was something to me inexpressibly soothing in the tone of voice +with which he began to narrate, as it were from the beginning, his +acquaintance with Bridget. + +"I had known Mr. and Mrs. Starkey during their residence abroad, and +so it fell out naturally that, when I came as chaplain to the +Sherburnes at Stoney Hurst, our acquaintance was renewed; and thus I +became the confessor of the whole family, isolated as they were from +the offices of the Church, Sherburne being their nearest neighbour +who professed the true faith. Of course, you are aware that facts +revealed in confession are sealed as in the grave; but I learnt +enough of Bridget's character to be convinced that I had to do with +no common woman; one powerful for good as for evil. I believe that I +was able to give her spiritual assistance from time to time, and that +she looked upon me as a servant of that Holy Church, which has such +wonderful power of moving men's hearts, and relieving them of the +burden of their sins. I have known her cross the moors on the +wildest nights of storm, to confess and be absolved; and then she +would return, calmed and subdued, to her daily work about her +mistress, no one witting where she had been during the hours that +most passed in sleep upon their beds. After her daughter's +departure--after Mary's mysterious disappearance--I had to impose +many a long penance, in order to wash away the sin of impatient +repining that was fast leading her into the deeper guilt of +blasphemy. She set out on that long journey of which you have +possibly heard--that fruitless journey in search of Mary--and during +her absence, my superiors ordered my return to my former duties at +Antwerp, and for many years I heard no more of Bridget. + +"Not many months ago, as I was passing homewards in the evening, +along one of the streets near St. Jacques, leading into the Meer +Straet, I saw a woman sitting crouched up under the shrine of the +Holy Mother of Sorrows. Her hood was drawn over her head, so that +the shadow caused by the light of the lamp above fell deep over her +face; her hands were clasped round her knees. It was evident that +she was some one in hopeless trouble, and as such it was my duty to +stop and speak. I naturally addressed her first in Flemish, +believing her to be one of the lower class of inhabitants. She shook +her head, but did not look up. Then I tried French, and she replied +in that language, but speaking it so indifferently, that I was sure +she was either English or Irish, and consequently spoke to her in my +own native tongue. She recognized my voice; and, starting up, caught +at my robes, dragging me before the blessed shrine, and throwing +herself down, and forcing me, as much by her evident desire as by her +action, to kneel beside her, she exclaimed: + +"'O Holy Virgin! you will never hearken to me again, but hear him; +for you know him of old, that he does your bidding, and strives to +heal broken hearts. Hear him!' + +"She turned to me. + +"'She will hear you, if you will only pray. She never hears ME: she +and all the saints in heaven cannot hear my prayers, for the Evil One +carries them off, as he carried that first away. O, Father Bernard, +pray for me!' + +"I prayed for one in sore distress, of what nature I could not say; +but the Holy Virgin would know. Bridget held me fast, gasping with +eagerness at the sound of my words. When I had ended, I rose, and, +making the sign of the Cross over her, I was going to bless her in +the name of the Holy Church, when she shrank away like some terrified +creature, and said - + +"'I am guilty of deadly sin, and am not shriven.' + +"'Arise, my daughter,' said I, 'and come with me.' And I led the way +into one of the confessionals of St. Jaques. + +"She knelt; I listened. No words came. The evil powers had stricken +her dumb, as I heard afterwards they had many a time before, when she +approached confession. + +"She was too poor to pay for the necessary forms of exorcism; and +hitherto those priests to whom she had addressed herself were either +so ignorant of the meaning of her broken French, or her Irish- +English, or else esteemed her to be one crazed--as, indeed, her wild +and excited manner might easily have led any one to think--that they +had neglected the sole means of loosening her tongue, so that she +might confess her deadly sin, and, after due penance, obtain +absolution. But I knew Bridget of old, and felt that she was a +penitent sent to me. I went through those holy offices appointed by +our Church for the relief of such a case. I was the more bound to do +this, as I found that she had come to Antwerp for the sole purpose of +discovering me, and making confession to me. Of the nature of that +fearful confession I am forbidden to speak. Much of it you know; +possibly all. + +"It now remains for her to free herself from mortal guilt, and to set +others free from the consequences thereof. No prayers, no masses, +will ever do it, although they may strengthen her with that strength +by which alone acts of deepest love and purest self-devotion may be +performed. Her words of passion, and cries for revenge--her unholy +prayers could never reach the ears of the holy saints! Other powers +intercepted them, and wrought so that the curses thrown up to heaven +have fallen on her own flesh and blood; and so, through her very +strength of love, have brused and crushed her heart. Henceforward +her former self must be buried,--yea, buried quick, if need be,--but +never more to make sign, or utter cry on earth! She has become a +Poor Clare, in order that, by perpetual penance and constant service +of others, she may at length so act as to obtain final absolution and +rest for her soul. Until then, the innocent must suffer. It is to +plead for the innocent that I come to you; not in the name of the +witch, Bridget Fitzgerald, but of the penitent and servant of all +men, the Poor Clare, Sister Magdalen." + +"Sir," said I, "I listen to your request with respect; only I may +tell you it is not needed to urge me to do all that I can on behalf +of one, love for whom is part of my very life. If for a time I have +absented myself from her, it is to think and work for her redemption. +I, a member of the English Church--my uncle, a Puritan--pray morning +and night for her by name: the congregations of London, on the next +Sabbath, will pray for one unknown, that she may be set free from the +Powers of Darkness. Moreover, I must tell you, sir, that those evil +ones touch not the great calm of her soul. She lives her own pure +and loving life, unharmed and untainted, though all men fall off from +her. I would I could have her faith!" + +My uncle now spoke. + +"Nephew," said he, "it seems to me that this gentleman, although +professing what I consider an erroneous creed, has touched upon the +right point in exhorting Bridget to acts of love and mercy, whereby +to wipe out her sin of hate and vengeance. Let us strive after our +fashion, by almsgiving and visiting of the needy and fatherless, to +make our prayers acceptable. Meanwhile, I myself will go down into +the north, and take charge of the maiden. I am too old to be daunted +by man or demon. I will bring her to this house as to a home; and +let the Double come if it will! A company of godly divines shall +give it the meeting, and we will try issue." + +The kindly, brave old man! But Father Bernard sat on musing. + +"All hate," said he, "cannot be quenched in her heart; all Christian +forgiveness cannot have entered into her soul, or the demon would +have lost its power. You said, I think, that her grandchild was +still tormented?" + +"Still tormented!" I replied, sadly, thinking of Mistress Clarke's +last letter--He rose to go. We afterwards heard that the occasion of +his coming to London was a secret political mission on behalf of the +Jacobites. Nevertheless, he was a good and a wise man. + +Months and months passed away without any change. Lucy entreated my +uncle to leave her where she was,--dreading, as I learnt, lest if she +came, with her fearful companion, to dwell in the same house with me, +that my love could not stand the repeated shocks to which I should be +doomed. And this she thought from no distrust of the strength of my +affection, but from a kind of pitying sympathy for the terror to the +nerves which she clearly observed that the demoniac visitation caused +in all. + +I was restless and miserable. I devoted myself to good works; but I +performed them from no spirit of love, but solely from the hope of +reward and payment, and so the reward was never granted. At length, +I asked my uncle's leave to travel; and I went forth, a wanderer, +with no distincter end than that of many another wanderer--to get +away from myself. A strange impulse led me to Antwerp, in spite of +the wars and commotions then raging in the Low Countries--or rather, +perhaps, the very craving to become interested in something external, +led me into the thick of the struggle then going on with the +Austrians. The cities of Flanders were all full at that time of +civil disturbances and rebellions, only kept down by force, and the +presence of an Austrian garrison in every place. + +I arrived in Antwerp, and made inquiry for Father Bernard. He was +away in the country for a day or two. Then I asked my way to the +Convent of Poor Clares; but, being healthy and prosperous, I could +only see the dim, pent-up, gray walls, shut closely in by narrow +streets, in the lowest part of the town. My landlord told me, that +had I been stricken by some loathsome disease, or in desperate case +of any kind, the Poor Clares would have taken me, and tended me. He +spoke of them as an order of mercy of the strictest kind, dressing +scantily in the coarsest materials, going barefoot, living on what +the inhabitants of Antwerp chose to bestow, and sharing even those +fragments and crumbs with the poor and helpless that swarmed all +around; receiving no letters or communication with the outer world; +utterly dead to everything but the alleviation of suffering. He +smiled at my inquiring whether I could get speech of one of them; and +told me that they were even forbidden to speak for the purposes of +begging their daily food; while yet they lived, and fed others upon +what was given in charity. + +"But," exclaimed I, "supposing all men forgot them! Would they +quietly lie down and die, without making sign of their extremity?" + +"If such were the rule the Poor Clares would willingly do it; but +their founder appointed a remedy for such extreme cases as you +suggest. They have a bell--'tis but a small one, as I have heard, +and has yet never been rung in the memory man: when the Poor Clares +have been without food for twenty-four hours, they may ring this +bell, and then trust to our good people of Antwerp for rushing to the +rescue of the Poor Clares, who have taken such blessed care of us in +all our straits." + +It seemed to me that such rescue would be late in the day; but I did +not say what I thought. I rather turned the conversation, by asking +my landlord if he knew, or had ever heard, anything of a certain +Sister Magdalen. + +"Yes," said he, rather under his breath, "news will creep out, even +from a convent of Poor Clares. Sister Magdalen is either a great +sinner or a great saint. She does more, as I have heard, than all +the other nuns put together; yet, when last month they would fain +have made her mother-superior, she begged rather that they would +place her below all the rest, and make her the meanest servant of +all." + +"You never saw her?" asked I. + +"Never," he replied. + +I was weary of waiting for Father Bernard, and yet I lingered in +Antwerp. The political state of things became worse than ever, +increased to its height by the scarcity of food consequent on many +deficient harvests. I saw groups of fierce, squalid men, at every +corner of the street, glaring out with wolfish eyes at my sleek skin +and handsome clothes. + +At last Father Bernard returned. We had a long conversation, in +which he told me that, curiously enough, Mr. Gisborne, Lucy's father, +was serving in one of the Austrian regiments, then in garrison at +Antwerp. I asked Father Bernard if he would make us acquainted; +which he consented to do. But, a day or two afterwards, he told me +that, on hearing my name, Mr. Gisborne had declined responding to any +advances on my part, saying he had adjured his country, and hated his +countrymen. + +Probably he recollected my name in connection with that of his +daughter Lucy. Anyhow, it was clear enough that I had no chance of +making his acquaintance. Father Bernard confirmed me in my +suspicions of the hidden fermentation, for some coming evil, working +among the "blouses" of Antwerp, and he would fain have had me depart +from out the city; but I rather craved the excitement of danger, and +stubbornly refused to leave. + +One day, when I was walking with him in the Place Verte, he bowed to +an Austrian officer, who was crossing towards the cathedral. + +"That is Mr. Gisborne," said he, as soon as the gentleman was past. + +I turned to look at the tall, slight figure of the officer. He +carried himself in a stately manner, although he was past middle age, +and from his years might have had some excuse for a slight stoop. As +I looked at the man, he turned round, his eyes met mine, and I saw +his face. Deeply lined, sallow, and scathed was that countenance; +scarred by passion as well as by the fortunes of war. 'Twas but a +moment our eyes met. We each turned round, and went on our separate +way. + +But his whole appearance was not one to be easily forgotten; the +thorough appointment of the dress, and evident thought bestowed on +it, made but an incongruous whole with the dark, gloomy expression of +his countenance. Because he was Lucy's father, I sought +instinctively to meet him everywhere. At last he must have become +aware of my pertinacity, for he gave me a haughty scowl whenever I +passed him. In one of these encounters, however, I chanced to be of +some service to him. He was turning the corner of a street, and came +suddenly on one of the groups of discontented Flemings of whom I have +spoken. Some words were exchanged, when my gentleman out with his +sword, and with a slight but skilful cut drew blood from one of those +who had insulted him, as he fancied, though I was too far off to hear +the words. They would all have fallen upon him had I not rushed +forwards and raised the cry, then well known in Antwerp, of rally, to +the Austrian soldiers who were perpetually patrolling the streets, +and who came in numbers to the rescue. I think that neither Mr. +Gisborne nor the mutinous group of plebeians owed me much gratitude +for my interference. He had planted himself against a wall, in a +skilful attitude of fence, ready with his bright glancing rapier to +do battle with all the heavy, fierce, unarmed men, some six or seven +in number. But when his own soldiers came up, he sheathed his sword; +and, giving some careless word of command, sent them away again, and +continued his saunter all alone down the street, the workmen snarling +in his rear, and more than half-inclined to fall on me for my cry for +rescue. I cared not if they did, my life seemed so dreary a burden +just then; and, perhaps, it was this daring loitering among them that +prevented their attacking me. Instead, they suffered me to fall into +conversation with them; and I heard some of their grievances. Sore +and heavy to be borne were they, and no wonder the sufferers were +savage and desperate. + +The man whom Gisborne had wounded across his face would fain have got +out of me the name of his aggressor, but I refused to tell it. +Another of the group heard his inquiry, and made answer--"I know the +man. He is one Gisborne, aide-de-camp to the General-Commandant. I +know him well." + +He began to tell some story in connection with Gisborne in a low and +muttering voice; and while he was relating a tale, which I saw +excited their evil blood, and which they evidently wished me not to +hear, I sauntered away and back to my lodgings. + +That night Antwerp was in open revolt. The inhabitants rose in +rebellion against their Austrian masters. The Austrians, holding the +gates of the city, remained at first pretty quiet in the citadel; +only, from time to time, the boom of the great cannon swept sullenly +over the town. But if they expected the disturbance to die away, and +spend itself in a few hours' fury, they were mistaken. In a day or +two, the rioters held possession of the principal municipal +buildings. Then the Austrians poured forth in bright flaming array, +calm and smiling, as they marched to the posts assigned, as if the +fierce mob were no more to them then the swarms of buzzing summer +flies. Their practised manoeuvres, their well-aimed shot, told with +terrible effect; but in the place of one slain rioter, three sprang +up of his blood to avenge his loss. But a deadly foe, a ghastly ally +of the Austrians, was at work. Food, scarce and dear for months, was +now hardly to be obtained at any price. Desperate efforts were being +made to bring provisions into the city, for the rioters had friends +without. Close to the city port, nearest to the Scheldt, a great +struggle took place. I was there, helping the rioters, whose cause I +had adopted. We had a savage encounter with the Austrians. Numbers +fell on both sides: I saw them lie bleeding for a moment: then a +volley of smoke obscured them; and when it cleared away, they were +dead--trampled upon or smothered, pressed down and hidden by the +freshly-wounded whom those last guns had brought low. And then a +gray-robed and grey-veiled figure came right across the flashing guns +and stooped over some one, whose life-blood was ebbing away; +sometimes it was to give him drink from cans which they carried slung +at their sides; sometimes I saw the cross held above a dying man, and +rapid prayers were being uttered, unheard by men in that hellish din +and clangour, but listened to by One above. I saw all this as in a +dream: the reality of that stern time was battle and carnage. But I +knew that these gray figures, their bare feet all wet with blood, and +their faces hidden by their veils, were the Poor Clares--sent forth +now because dire agony was abroad and imminent danger at hand. +Therefore, they left their cloistered shelter, and came into that +thick and evil melee. + +Close to me--driven past me by the struggle of many fighters--came +the Antwerp burgess with the scarce-healed scar upon his face; and in +an instant more, he was thrown by the press upon the Austrian officer +Gisborne, and ere either had recovered the shock, the burgess had +recognized his opponent. + +"Ha! the Englishman Gisborne!" he cried, and threw himself upon him +with redoubled fury. He had struck him hard--the Englishman was +down; when out of the smoke came a dark-gray figure, and threw +herself right under the uplifted flashing sword. The burgess's arm +stood arrested. Neither Austrians nor Anversois willingly harmed the +Poor Clares. + +"Leave him to me!" said a low stern voice. "He is mine enemy--mine +for many years." + +Those words were the last I heard. I myself was struck down by a +bullet. I remember nothing more for days. When I came to myself, I +was at the extremity of weakness, and was craving for food to recruit +my strength. My landlord sat watching me. He, too, looked pinched +and shrunken; he had heard of my wounded state, and sought me out. +Yes! the struggle still continued, but the famine was sore: and +some, he had heard, had died for lack of food. The tears stood in +his eyes as he spoke. But soon he shook off his weakness, and his +natural cheerfulness returned. Father Bernard had been to see me--no +one else. (Who should, indeed?) Father Bernard would come back that +afternoon--he had promised. But Father Bernard never came, although +I was up and dressed, and looking eagerly for him. + +My landlord brought me a meal which he had cooked himself: of what +it was composed he would not say, but it was most excellent, and with +every mouthful I seemed to gain strength. The good man sat looking +at my evident enjoyment with a happy smile of sympathy; but, as my +appetite became satisfied, I began to detect a certain wistfulness in +his eyes, as if craving for the food I had so nearly devoured--for, +indeed, at that time I was hardly aware of the extent of the famine. +Suddenly, there was a sound of many rushing feet past our window. My +landlord opened one of the sides of it, the better to learn what was +going on. Then we heard a faint, cracked, tinkling bell, coming +shrill upon the air, clear and distinct from all other sounds. "Holy +Mother!" exclaimed my landlord, "the Poor Clares!" + +He snatched up the fragments of my meal, and crammed them into my +hands, bidding me follow. Down stairs he ran, clutching at more +food, as the women of his house eagerly held it out to him; and in a +moment we were in the street, moving along with the great current, +all tending towards the Convent of the Poor Clares. And still, as if +piercing our ears with its inarticulate cry, came the shrill tinkle +of the bell. In that strange crowd were old men trembling and +sobbing, as they carried their little pittance of food; women with +tears running down their cheeks, who had snatched up what provisions +they had in the vessels in which they stood, so that the burden of +these was in many cases much greater than that which they contained; +children, with flushed faces, grasping tight the morsel of bitten +cake or bread, in their eagerness to carry it safe to the help of the +Poor Clares; strong men--yea, both Anversois and Austrians--pressing +onward with set teeth, and no word spoken; and over all, and through +all, came that sharp tinkle--that cry for help in extremity. + +We met the first torrent of people returning with blanched and +piteous faces: they were issuing out of the convent to make way for +the offerings of others. "Haste, haste!" said they. "A Poor Clare +is dying! A Poor Clare is dead for hunger! God forgive us and our +city!" + +We pressed on. The stream bore us along where it would. We were +carried through refectories, bare and crumbless; into cells over +whose doors the conventual name of the occupant was written. Thus it +was that I, with others, was forced into Sister Magdalen's cell. On +her couch lay Gisborne, pale unto death, but not dead. By his side +was a cup of water, and a small morsel of mouldy bread, which he had +pushed out of his reach, and could not move to obtain. Over against +his bed were these words, copied in the English version "Therefore, +if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." + +Some of us gave him of our food, and left him eating greedily, like +some famished wild animal. For now it was no longer the sharp +tinkle, but that one solemn toll, which in all Christian countries +tells of the passing of the spirit out of earthly life into eternity; +and again a murmur gathered and grew, as of many people speaking with +awed breath, "A Poor Clare is dying! a Poor Clare is dead!" + +Borne along once more by the motion of the crowd, we were carried +into the chapel belonging to the Poor Clares. On a bier before the +high altar, lay a woman--lay Sister Magdalen--lay Bridget Fitzgerald. +By her side stood Father Bernard, in his robes of office, and holding +the crucifix on high while he pronounced the solemn absolution of the +Church, as to one who had newly confessed herself of deadly sin. I +pushed on with passionate force, till I stood close to the dying +woman, as she received extreme unction amid the breathless and awed +hush of the multitude around. Her eyes were glazing, her limbs were +stiffening; but when the rite was over and finished, she raised her +gaunt figure slowly up, and her eyes brightened to a strange +intensity of joy, as, with the gesture of her finger and the trance- +like gleam of her eye, she seemed like one who watched the +disappearance of some loathed and fearful creature. + +"She is freed from the curse!" said she, as she fell back dead. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Poor Clare, by Elizabeth Gaskell + diff --git a/old/prclr10.zip b/old/prclr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6876e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/prclr10.zip diff --git a/old/prclr10.zip~ b/old/prclr10.zip~ Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6876e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/prclr10.zip~ |