Volume I Part 57 (1/2)
Restless and oppressed by undefined and terrible apprehensions, he resolved to end his doubts, and, if possible, procure an interview. He expected to obtain some clue to their procedings by a visit to the tower.
It was not far from the close of a bright summer's day when he gained the rude bridge below the waterfall. He shuddered as he looked on the narrow trunk and the ever-tossing gulf beneath. The blackness of darkness was upon his spirit, and he ran as if some demon had pursued him, climbing with almost breathless haste the steep and winding staircase that gave access from the bridge to the ruined fortress above.
From the platform a narrow ledge of rock led to the ditch, now dry, and nearly filled with fragments from the ruins. He pa.s.sed the tottering arch of the portcullis;--long weeds choked up the entrance, waving drearily as the light breeze went over them. Hildebrand heard not the moan of the coming blast. Evening approached, and the thousand shadows haunted him,--grim spectres that crossed his path, crowding upon him with anger and menace. From a ruined doorway he ascended a narrow stair, and had penetrated far into the interior of that part of the castle which, in some measure, remained entire, when, for the first time, he seemed startled into a consciousness of his situation. It was an appalling scene of solitude and decay. The realities, to which he almost instantaneously awoke, might have awed a less guilty spirit than that which inhabited the bosom of Hildebrand Wentworth. A long gallery, supported by huge pillars, terminated in the distance by a long and narrow oriel. On each side, broken but richly-variegated windows threw down a many-tinted light, which, oppressed by the dark and caverned arches, gave a strange and mysterious character to the grotesque reflections hovering on the floor. Narrow streams of light flitted across the dense vapours, visible only in their gleam. Involuntarily did Hildebrand pa.s.s on: impelled as if by some unseen but resistless power, he durst not retrace his footsteps. His tread was slow and fearful, as he traversed the long and dreary vista. Every sense was now in full exercise;--his faculties becoming more acute by the extremity of terror he endured. His ear caught the slightest sound--his eye, the least motion that glimmered across his path. Sometimes a terrific shape seemed to glide past: he brushed the cold and clammy damps from his brow, and it vanished.
Suddenly a door opened at the extremity of the gallery, and a faint light streamed from the crevice. Voices--children's voices--were heard in the chamber. He rushed onward. Rage, frantic and uncontrolled, possessed him, as he beheld the babes, the intended victims of his avarice, in all the bloom of health and innocence, unconscious of danger, bounding through the apartment, together with their nurse and protector, Alice! Goaded by his insatiate tormentor, he drew a poniard from his vest, and rushed on the unoffending objects of his hate. Alice shrieked; she attempted to throw herself between them and their foe, but was too far off to accomplish her purpose. His arm was too sure, and his stroke too sudden. But ere the steel could pierce his victims it was arrested. He looked round, and a female figure, loosely enveloped in a dark cloak, had rescued them from death. It was the same form that had before interposed between them and the fangs of their remorseless enemy.
Loosened by the sudden spring, her garment flew aside. Hildebrand gazed silently, but with a look of horror, too wild and intense to be portrayed. He seemed to recognise the intruder--his lips moved rapidly while he spoke.
”Thee!--whom the waves had swallowed! Have the waters given up their dead?”--he faintly exclaimed, almost gasping for utterance.
”Monster! canst thou look upon this form,” she cried, ”and not wither at the sight? But I have done,” she meekly continued: ”Heaven hath yet a blessing for the innocent;--but thy cup of iniquity is full. Thy doom is at hand. I have trusted Thee, O my Father; and I trust Thee still!”
It was the much injured and persecuted wife of Sir Henry Fairfax who now stood before the abashed miscreant.
”Away!” she cried; ”to Heaven I leave my vengeance and thy crime.
Hence--to thy home! Thine, did I say? Soon, monster, shall thou be chased from thy lair, and the wronged victim regain his right.”
Hildebrand, awed and confounded, retraced his path, brooding over some more cunning stratagem to ensure his prey. He had pa.s.sed the bridge, and, on attempting to remount his steed, his attention was directed to a cloud of dust, and a pale flash of arms in the evening light. Two hors.e.m.e.n drew nigh--their steeds studded with gouts of foam, and in an instant one of them alighted before the traitor. It was Sir Henry Fairfax! ”Have I caught thee?” cried the knight.--”What mischief art thou here a-perpetrating?--Seize that villain!”
In a moment, Hildebrand was denied all chance of escape.
”Thy machinations are defeated--thy villanies revealed, and vengeance demands a hasty recompense.”
Hildebrand prostrated himself on the ground in the most abject humiliation, and besought mercy.
”I will not harm thee, wretch,” exclaimed the gallant knight: ”to a higher power I leave the work of retribution. The ministers of justice await thee at my castle. I came hither first to seek my wife!--Lead the way; thou shalt be witness to our meeting--wife, children, all. Our bliss will to thee be misery that the most refined tortures could not inflict. On--on.”
Hildebrand, with imbecile agony, grasped at the very stones for succour.
He then rushed towards the bridge, and, ere his purpose could be antic.i.p.ated, with one wild yell, precipitated himself into the waters!
A few lines will suffice by way of explanation to this unlooked-for termination of their sufferings.
When Lady Fairfax fled from the castle, in order to elude his search,--for Hildebrand had the audacity to threaten by force to make her his wife,--she threw off her cloak and head-dress, laying them on the river's brink that it might appear as though she had accomplished her own destruction. To the care of the faithful Alice she had committed her children, and likewise the secret of her concealment. Alice was in continual correspondence with her unfortunate mistress; and great was the joy and exultation with which she communicated the arrival of a messenger from her lord, whom she had long mourned as dead.
Providentially, no interview took place between Hildebrand and the stranger on the night of his arrival; and sufficient time intervened to enable Lady Fairfax to make a desperate attempt, in the hope of gaining possession of the papers for which he had been sent. She well knew Hildebrand would not relinquish the possession of credentials that might ensure his lord's return. It was Lady Fairfax who had alarmed him the same night by her appearance in his chamber. She hoped to have found him asleep; but was enabled to get possession of the writings through his timidity and surprise. With these she met the envoy, as he was returning from the castle. Disclosing all the tortuous and daring villany of Hildebrand, she committed the real doc.u.ments to his care, instructing him at the same time to lay before her sovereign the narrative of her wrongs. Soon was the captivity of Sir Henry terminated; and joy, heightened by recollection of the past, and chastened by the severity of their misfortunes, attended them through the remainder of their earthly career.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTH PORT.
_Drawn by G. Pickering. Engraved by Edw^d Finden._]
THE PHANTOM VOICE.
”He heerde a sunde but noughte he zee.
No touche upon his fleshe ther came; Bot a swedderin witide smote heavilee, And heavilee brenn'd the fleckerin' flame.”
_--Old Ballad_.
The following tradition, like some of the preceding legends, has been found, under various modifications and disguises, connected with local scenery, and attaching itself in the mind of the hearer to well-known places and situations with which he may have been familiar.