Volume II Part 3 (1/2)

”Who art thou? I fear me for the tempter!”

”And what boots it, lady? But, listen. These elves be my slaves; and yet I am not immortal. My term is nigh run out, though it may be renewed if, before the last hour be past, a maiden plight her hopes, her happiness to me! Ere that shadow creeps on the fairy pillar thou art irrevocably mine, or his whom thou dreadest.”

Eleanor groaned aloud. She felt a cold hand creeping on her brow. She screamed involuntarily. On a sudden the boughs bent with a loud crash above her head, and a form, rus.h.i.+ng down the height, stood before her.

This unexpected deliverer was Oliver Chadwyck. Alarmed by the cries of a female, as he was returning from the chase, he interposed at the very moment when his mistress was ensnared by the wiles of her seducer.

”Rash fool, thou hast earned thy doom. The blood be on thine own head.

Thou art the sacrifice!”

This was said in a voice of terrible and fiendish malignity. A loud tramp, as of a mighty host, was heard pa.s.sing away, and Oliver now beheld the form of his betrothed.

”Eleanor! Here! In this unholy place!” cried her lover. But the maiden was unable to answer.

”There's blood upon my hand!” said he, holding it up in the now clear and unclouded moonlight. ”Art thou wounded, lady?”

”I know not,” she replied; ”I was alone. Yet I felt as though some living thing were nigh--some unseen form, of terrible and appalling attributes! Was it not a dream?”

”Nay,” said Oliver, pensively; ”methought another was beside thee!”

”I saw him not.”

”How camest thou hither?”

”Let us be gone,” said she, trembling; ”I will tell thee all.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. It throbbed heavily. ”I am now free. The accursed links are broken. I feel as though newly wakened from some horrible dream! Thou hast saved me, Oliver. But if thine own life is the price!”

”Fear not; I defy their devilish subtilty--in their very den too: and thus, and thus, I renounce the devil and all his works!”

He spat thrice upon the ground, to show his loathing and contempt.

”Oh! say not so,” cried Eleanor, looking round in great alarm.

Oliver bore her in his arms from that fearful spot. He accompanied her home; and it was near break of day when, exhausted and alone, she again retired to her chamber. By the way Oliver told her that he had found a mysterious tablet on the edge of the brook the same morning.

He had luckily hidden it in his bosom, and he felt as though a talisman or charm had protected him from the spells in the ”Fairies'

Chapel.”

Springtide was past, and great was the stir and bustle for the approaching nuptials between Oliver Chadwyck and the Lady Eleanor. All the yeomanry, inhabitants of the hamlets of Honorsfield, b.u.t.terworth, and Healey, were invited to the wedding. Dancers and mummers were provided; wrestlers and cudgel-players, with games and pastimes of all sorts, were appointed. The feasts were to be holden for three days, and masks, motions, and other rare devices, were expected to surpa.s.s and eclipse every preceding attempt of the like nature.

Eleanor sat in her lonely bower. It was the night before the bridal.

To-morrow would see her depart in pageantry and pomp--an envied bride!

Yet was her heart heavy, and she could not refrain from weeping.

She sought rest; but sleep was denied. The owl hooted at her window; the bat flapped his leathern wings; the taper burned red and heavily, and its rays were tinged as though with blood; the fire flung out its tiny coffin; the wind sobbed aloud at every cranny, and wailed piteously about the dwelling.

”Would that I might read my destiny,” thought she. Her natural inclination to forbidden practices was too powerful to withstand.