Part 35 (1/2)

It was Grace Carden. She smiled on him and said, ”I am going where I can love you. There the world will not divide us. Follow me: follow; follow!”

Then she melted away; then all melted: and he awoke with a loud cry that echoed through the edifice, now dark and cold as the grave; and a great white owl went whirling, and with his wings made the only air that stirred.

The fire was out, and the place a grave. Yet, cold as it was, the dreamer was bathed in perspiration, so clear had been that unearthly vision, so ghostly was now that flitting owl.

Shuddering all over, he lighted his fire again, and plied his bellows with fury, till the fire glowed brighter than ever; and even then he prayed aloud that he might never see the like again, even in a dream.

He worked like mad, and his hand trembled as he struck. Ere he had thoroughly recovered the shock, a wild cry arose outside.

He started back, awe-struck.

What with the time, the place, and that strange vision, the boundaries of the natural and the supernatural were a little confused in his mind.

”Help, help!” cried a voice; and now the familiar tone of that voice made him utter a loud cry in return.

He searched for the key, and made his way to the door; but, just as he began to insert the key, the voice was at the door outside.

”Oh, save me! A dying girl! Save me!”

The cry was now a moan, and the next moment an inert ma.s.s fell like lead against the door in a vain attempt to knock at it.

The voice was Grace Carden's, and it was Grace Carden's body that fell so inert and powerless against the church-door, within a yard of Henry Little's hand.

CHAPTER XI.

On the twenty-fourth of December Miss Carden and Jael Dence drove to Cairnhope village, and stopped at the farm: but Nathan and his eldest daughter had already gone up to the Hall; so they waited there but a minute or two to light the carriage lamps, and then went on up the hill.

It was pitch dark when they reached the house. Inside, one of Mr. Raby's servants was on the look-out for the sound of wheels, and the visitors had no need to knock or ring; this was a point of honor with the master of the mansion; when he did invite people, the house opened its arms; even as they drove up, open flew the great hall-door, and an enormous fire inside blazed in their faces, and shot its flame beyond them out into the night.

Grace alighted, and was about to enter the house, when Jael stopped her, and said, ”Oh, miss, you will be going in left foot foremost. Pray don't do that: it is so unlucky.”

Grace laughed, but changed her foot, and entered a lofty hall, hung with helmets, pikes, breast-plates, bows, cross-bows, antlers etc., etc.

Opposite her was the ancient chimneypiece and ingle-nook, with no grate but two huge iron dogs, set five feet apart; and on them lay a birch log and root, the size of a man, with a dozen beech billets burning briskly and crackling underneath and aside it. This genial furnace warmed the staircase and pa.s.sages, and cast a fiery glow out on the carriage, and glorified the steep helmets and breast-plates of the dead Rabys on the wall, and the sparkling eyes of the two beautiful women who now stood opposite it in the pride of their youth, and were warmed to the heart by its crackle and glow. ”Oh! what a glorious fire, this bitter night. Why, I never saw such a--”

”It is the yule log, miss. Ay, and you might go all round England, and not find its fellow, I trow. But our Squire he don't go to the chandler's shop for his yule log, but to his own woods, and fells a great tree.”

A housemaid now came forward with bed candles, to show Miss Carden to her room. Grace was going up, as a matter of course, when Jael, busy helping the footman with her boxes, called after her: ”The stocking, miss! the stocking!”

Grace looked down at her feet in surprise.

”There it is, hung up by the door. We must put our presents into it before we go upstairs.”

”Must we? what on earth am I to give?”

”Oh, any thing will do. See, I shall put in this crooked sixpence.”

Grace examined her purse, and complained that all her stupid sixpences were straight.

”Never mind, miss; put in a hairpin, sooner than pa.s.s the stocking o'

Christmas Eve.”

Grace had come prepared to encounter old customs. She offered her shawl-pin: and Jael, who had modestly inserted her own gift, pinned Grace's offering on the outside of the stocking with a flush of pride.