Horror Short Stories

Richard Clifton was one of those wild, yet commanding, spirits, that are great in good or evil, according to the more or less favourable circumstances in which they may happen to be placed. His earliest years had been devoted to the navy, and in this service, by his own unassisted merits, he had risen to the rank of a first lieutenant, when a blow given by him to his superior officer thrust him on the world a pennyless outcast. The same energies, which had before made him the best of seamen, now rendered him the worst of citizens, for power is like the fiend that, once evoked, must have something to employ it, or it falls upon its master.

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There was a blight on his fame and on his hopes, yet still there was one chance for him; he had long been attached to Lucy Ellis, who on her side most truly loved her sailor in spite of all his faults, real or supposed—and the one list was equal to the other, for calumny, like the raven, is fond of preying on the weak and wounded. Had the father of the maiden consented to their union, it is most probable that the life of Richard would still have proved honourable to himself, and useful to his country; but old Ellis was one of those heartless, selfish beings, who love their children only as they minister to their own comfort or gratification; he wished to see his daughter married to a rich man, not as the possession of wealth might make her lot the happier, but because a rich son-in-law added to his own importance.

Such a proposal therefore excited his warmest indignation; it was a cutting-up of all his prospects—of the hopes he had been toiling for many years to realize; she would be a beggar, an outcast; the alliance would be infamy. In all this, however, there was much less regard shewn for his child than for himself; or rather for his own peculiar fancies; and Lucy felt there was.

 

This was the cornerstone of the subsequent evils; the harshness of her father made her more open to the false flatteries of her lover, though, at the same time, she was not altogether ignorant of her own weakness; in the hour of temptation she flung herself on the honour of the man she adored; she owned her inability to resist him, in all the fervour of a real passion, and urged that very passion as a plea for his forbearance. With many this plea had been effectual, but not with men like Richard Clifton, who have no settled rule of conduct, and are either bad or good from the impulse only of the moment. The consequence was the seduction of the too-confiding Lucy; and in a few months afterwards her lover joined a band of smugglers, and was either killed, or drowned, or had fled the country, for each of these reports had its particular abettors.

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 In the meantime the dishonour of Lucy became too gross for longer concealment. On the discovery of her situation, the heartless merchant at once turned her out of doors, as the destroyer of all his dearest expectations, and bade her starve, or live as she could best settle the matter with the world; nor could any after argument of his friends produce the least relaxation in his purpose; he was deaf to all remonstrance, whether on the score of justice or humanity. But the wrath of heaven, which had first smitten the guilty child, was not slow in punishing the relentless parent, who had arrogated to himself the office of vengeance, and executed it with more of passion than of equity.

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In his eagerness to amass a fortune, the merchant overstepped the bounds of prudent speculation. The first great loss stimulated him to a second adventure for its retrieval; and, that miscarrying, in turn brought with it a farther hazard, to fail like those before it, ‘till the proud and wealthy Ellis found himself a destitute bankrupt, pursued and crushed by the vindictive spirit of disappointed creditors, who pleaded his cruelty in excuse for theirs.

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“You shewed no mercy to your own child, how then can you expect it from me, a stranger?” was the answer of one to whom he was deeply indebted, and who had formerly been a fruitless intercessor for poor Lucy. Some, too, were actuated by less disinterested motives, and were glad to shelter their hatred of the father under the show of compassion for the child. But the result was the same to Ellis; he was a ruined man; his ostentatious charities, which had been so much praised in the days of his prosperity, were now viewed in their true light; they had not procured a single friend to assist him in the hour of distress.

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So complete had been the failure, and so rigid his creditors, that a few weeks found the man, whose word had once been good for thousands, possessed of a few pounds only. In this dilemma he quitted his native town, which for the last month he had inhabited from mere pride, and, after a long course of suffering, became the guardian of a lighthouse on one of the wildest parts of the English coast. A very short residence in this sad abode made him a weaker, though not a better, man; he grew, not less selfish, but more timid, more impressed with the actual and near presence of a Creator, and he began to feel that there was not only an after, but a present, vengeance. Nor is this to be wondered at; loneliness brings the mind more immediately in contact with the works of Omnipotence,1 and, from them, with Omnipotence itself. No man of any imagination was ever an Atheist in solitude, and though, in the case of old Ellis, religion was only the worship of fear, still it was better than no faith at all; it taught him a little more lenity to the faults of others.

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Nearly two years had thus passed, when one September’s evening a poor maniac in squalid weeds, and with a face gaunt from long misery, came to his door, begging for a morsel of bread and a cup of water—it was his child!—The recognition was quick and mutual, but with very opposite feelings. Sorrow, and pain, and remorse, suddenly threw a dark cloud over the old man’s face, while the maniac’s eye was lit up with an expression of rage and triumph that was truly fiend-like, as she screamed out, “Ho! ho! ho! have I found you at last? take back your curse, old man; I have borne it long enough, and a sad load and a weary one it has been to me; but take it back; it curdled the milk of my bosom to poison, and my poor babe sucked and died. But take it back, and look that it does not sink you into the depths of hell! Many a time it has lain heavy on me, and I felt myself sinking—sinking—sinking—like one that struggled for life in the flood of waters; but then my sweet babe would come, his cherub-face all bright with glory, just like those clouds where the sun is setting,—and his little hand was stronger than my strength, for it would draw me back again when I was up to my breast in fire. But you have no child to save you; therefore look that your heart be strong; you had best no child—no child, old man, for I deny you—I cast you off; go, leave this earth; it is mine; go! do you hear? you are the only blot upon the face of this bright and beautiful world, and I’ll none of you. Go!—you’ll ask whither? but that’s your concern; there’s a large realm above, and a larger one below, and if they refuse you in the one it will only be a better recommendation to the other.”

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She might still have gone on thus, for old Ellis was too much shocked to interrupt her, but the wild mood had exhausted itself; her eye was caught by the sun, resting with his broad, red disk on the ocean, and her thoughts reverted to the hunger-pains which incessantly gnawed her, though they had been unfelt, or, at least, unnoticed, during the violence of her passion.

 

On a sudden she exclaimed, “I wish the sun would set that we might go to supper.”

 

Roused by this appeal, the old man took her by the hand and would have gently forced her into the lighthouse, but it was all to no purpose; this singular idea had got possession of her, though it is not easy to say from what cause, and she positively refused to move a step till the sun was below the water.

“He has a long way yet to go,” she said; and, taking up a handful of dust, she scattered it slowly in the air towards the West, at the same time muttering, or rather chaunting, “Speed! speed! speed!” ‘till, by degrees, her memory pieced out the words of a familiar song, which she poured forth in the wild manner so peculiar to insanity:—

 

“Speed, sun, speed through the ocean wave, 
Where the mermaid sings in her coral cave,
Where on sands of gold the pearl is white, 
And each glance of thine eye wakes something bright; 
Where thy fairest beams upon diamonds play, 
That shine with a fairer light than they. 

 

 

Speed, sun, speed, for from out the wave 
A voice invites to the mermaid’s cave, 
Where the waters are rolling o’er her head, 
Like the rainbow’s arch o’er the evening spread; 
And each drop, which falls from that brilliant bow, 
Turns to a gem of the same below.”

 

1 All powerful

 

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The sun had sunk below the horizon as the last words died on the maniac’s lips, and, Ellis having lit the beacon, they sat down to their humble supper. Both for a time were silent, the daughter from the caprice of insanity, the father because he was stunned and stupified by her appearance, coupled, as it was, by past recollections. Remorse was busy with him, though it was remorse without repentance; and, if he wished the past recalled, it was more with reference to his own pain than to the sufferings of his daughter. Lucy, however, was in a state that made all these things a matter of indifference to her; and as the evening darkened, her madness took a wilder turn.

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“Do you hear, old man? ho! ho! ho! the Spirit of the Wind is abroad. Do you hear what a coil he keeps up yonder, bawling into the ear of old Ocean and calling on him to wake? Do you see the billows too? how lazily they lift up their heads, as if unwilling to leave their slumber! how they toss and tumble, and roar and groan!—but it’s all to no purpose; you’ll sing a wilder tune yet, my merry boys; and I’ll sing with you, and the curlew shall whistle, and the rain shall patter, and the thunder shall rumble, and we’ll have a brave music to your dancing, such as the foot of king never danced to.”

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The face of the old man darkened at this raving; it was making his misery more intolerable, and, if remorse had brought any transient feeling of pity into his heart, it was quite extinguished when he found that his daughter’s presence would be a constant source of torment to him. He looked at her with a countenance of wrath, but in the next moment something seemed to stifle the expression of his anger before he had time to give it vent, and he resumed his meal in sullen silence.

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The change did not escape Lucy; she fixed her elbows on the table, and, resting her head on her hands, gazed on him for several minutes without moving a muscle, to the sore annoyance of the old man, whose blood was already in a ferment; he swallowed the thin sour beer at long draughts, clutched the handle of his knife more firmly, and tried to force his attention from her. But all to no purpose. Her protracted gaze became, at last, unendurable, and he exclaimed, half rising from his seat, “What in the devil’s name do you stare at me for? Can you find nothing else for your eyes but my face?”

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“I was counting how long you had to live,” said the maniac calmly; “you have only a few hours,—I read it in the lines of your brow— only a few hours, and then I shall be the lady of this castle, and Richard will come home to me and bring our little Lucy with him, and we shall be so happy!—oh, so happy!”

This was too much for the patience of Ellis; he started up from his seat, dashing away his plate with a curse on the poor maniac and the mother who had borne her.

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“Woman! — witch! — devil! — you were brought into this world for no purpose but to be my torturer. But I’ll not bear it many hours longer; either you or I, and I don’t much care which.”

He raised his hand to strike, perhaps to kill, her, when a deep flash of lightning blazed between them, and the old tower rocked in the wind as if it were going to tumble about their ears. So tremendous, indeed, was this burst of the storm that a large mass of overhanging cliff, which the water had been for years undermining, was hurled down with a horrible crash, and the spray of its fall came beating against the highest windows of the lighthouse.

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“Did you see him?” shouted Lucy.

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“See whom?” stammered Ellis, pale and motionless from terror, though without knowing any distinct cause for his apprehension.

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“Did you hear him?” echoed the maniac.

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“Hear whom?” replied the father in a voice that was scarcely audible.

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“So, you neither saw nor heard him?”

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“Whom? whom?” exclaimed Ellis, now almost frantic with the impatience of fear.

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“The Devil—the arch-fiend—the fisherman of souls. He has you, father; he has marked you with his mark, and signed you with his sign. His broad lightning-wings covered you as he spoke upon your head the baptism of hell;—

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One drop of thy blood where the stream is red;

One lock of the hair from thy, purchased head;

One touch of baptizing flame to plough

The mark of your Christ from out your brow;

Ho! ho! how the cold and watery sign

Hisses and dries ‘neath this touch of mine!

While I’m Lord of the flame, be the waters thine.”

 

The hair on Ellis’ head was actually singed by the lightning; his brow, too, was slightly scathed; and, whether it was the electric shock or the mere force of imagination, a single drop of blood did indeed fall from his dilated nostrils. But it is impossible to calculate the power of fancy on such occasions; it is neither to be estimated, nor controuled by reason. The old man was frantic with terror, and dashed out of the lighthouse, as if impelled by some external agency, while the maniac quietly installed herself in a large oak chair before the window, with all the pride of a queen just restored to her lawful throne by the expulsion of its usurper.

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“So, so; the old man is gone,” she exclaimed, “and I am his heir,—his rightful heir; this house is mine, and all that is in it; I am lord of the castle now. But what do you here?”—it was a large Newfoundland dog that had caught her eye as he lay basking before the fire—“what do you here, I say?—your name and calling—quick!—why, how now! can’t you speak?—and with that monstrous tongue too licking your paws!—Sirrah, sirrah, I shall find a way to make you answer.”

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The dog, for a moment, looked her in the face, wagging his tail in token of recognition, but he did not choose to leave his warm place before the fire, and quietly resumed his occupation of licking his paws. Highly incensed at this supposed obstinacy, the maniac started from her seat and hurled a wooden trencher at his head, upon which the animal, setting up a long piteous howl, slunk back into the farthest corner of the room. But even this timely retreat would not have saved him from her wrath, had not her attention been suddenly drawn away by the appearance of a small brig, that was visible in the flashes of lightning, as it tossed and pitched, and struggled with the waters, like some strong swimmer in the agony of drowning.

“He comes!” she cried—“he comes! my own dear Richard!—missed and mourned for many a long weary day, and come at last!”—the poor thing knew not how truly she was speaking—“Blow, blow, my gentle wind —blow him to me,—my bridegroom, my husband. Oh, how slowly his bark moves towards the shore! ‘tis my cruel father holds it back.”

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But in truth the vessel was driving too fast upon the land, in spite of all the seamen’s efforts to keep her off, for they had yet a reef of rocks to weather, which stretched out from the shore, something less than a quarter of a mile, and on which the surf was beating most tremendously. ‘Till these were past, the usual dangers of a lee-shore2 were doubled on them. At this critical juncture the wind veered a point in their favour; the beacon too from the lighthouse marked out to the experienced sailors the extent of their peril, as was evident by their efforts to keep out to sea, and their safety became almost certain.

But this delay was sorely vexatious to the impatient spirit of poor Lucy—“Slow! slow!” she exclaimed, “but ‘tis your fault, father; you were always cruel to your daughter; first you took my Richard from me; then, my child; then my reason, and I have been looking for it over many a weary mile of land, and never yet could find it. Some told me it was buried with my babe—it may be so, for the cold hard stone lay upon her grave, and I had no strength to move it and see what lay beneath. But I’ll be revenged. I’ll quench the fire on your hearth and the light on your tower.”

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No sooner had this frantic notion got possession of her brain than she hastened to put it into execution by cutting the rope that governed the windlass.3 In an instant the lamp came down and was dashed to shivers, leaving the whole coast in utter darkness, and the little brig in imminent peril of shipwreck. At first she was startled at her own act; something like a consciousness of her mischief shot across her brain, but the feeling was only transient, and she resumed her lookout for the vessel, that for a time was invisible to her even in the deepest flashes of the lightning. Still she maintained her watch at the window, her eyes intently fixed on the black waste of waters. They were agitated more furiously than ever, and rolled mountain-like against the cliffs, as if contending with them for the empire of the land. At last she caught a glimpse of the vessel, nailed as it were to a rock, but then again it passed away even before the lightning that had shown it.

 

Still she watched.

 

2 Shoreline on which wind is blowing

3 Winch for moving heavy objects such as a boat from the water or, in this instance, the lighthouse lamp

   

 

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Nearly half an hour had thus elapsed when she was roused from this dreamy state by the sound of voices in the room below. A large crevice in the broken floor allowed her to see old Ellis in high altercation with three wild- looking strangers in the dress of seamen; two she could easily distinguish, but the third, who stood opposite to her father, and who was by far the most violent, was so placed that she could only see his back; he was evidently the leader of the party by his vehemence in the dispute about the beacon, to the absence of which, and not without cause, he attributed the loss of his vessel and her cargo.

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“So, you old scoundrel!” he exclaimed; “after having brought my ship home, in spite of wind and waters, I am to founder in sight of land because you are too lazy a lubber to do your duty! Why were you not aloft in the lighthouse looking after your beacon?”

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“Richard Clifton!” cried the old man, who had by this time recognized his voice.

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“And who told you I was Richard Clifton, you villainous old wrecker? What!—eh!—yes, it is old Ellis! — huzza, my boys; we have him at last; there is but another of his breed, and that’s the Devil. I tell you what, my old one; you had better have sate on a barrel of gunpowder, with a lighted fuse at your tail, than have crossed my path.”

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“Why, what will you do?”

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“Do!—it was you, who set on my creditors to hound me like a pirate; it was you that denied me Lucy; you that drove me to be a villain; and, now that the wind had set fair, and my uncle, the planter, had left me his money, and I was coming home with a wet sail, it was you, you old wrecker, that dowsed the beacon, and—’’

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“I did no such thing,” interrupted Ellis.

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“You lie; you did; you wanted to have the picking of my ship’s bones, but if you get more than enough timber to make your coffin, may I sup brimstone with the Devil till they pipe all hands for the day of judgment.”

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And with this he snatched up an axe and split the old man’s skull without allowing him a pause for answer. So effectual was the blow that the victim instantly rolled at his feet, a lifeless corpse; but the passion of vengeance was over with its gratification; Clifton, though a daring, and, in some sense of the word, a hard-hearted man, was not totally devoid of feeling, and he would willingly have struck off a dozen years from his own life for the power of recalling the last few minutes. He gazed on the work of his own hands with a sensation of horror, that had hitherto been a stranger to him, when a loud scream from the room above, by diverting his attention gave relief to the poignancy of his feelings. The shriek was repeated—every hand was instinctively placed on its cutlass—a third time, and the fall of a heavy body was heard over their heads.

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To catch up a brand from the fire and rush to side of the unfortunate maniac was but the work of an instant, and a very little more time was requisite to show him his own Lucy in the wretched being, that on her recovery to life lay shivering and moaning in hopeless madness. All his efforts to make himself known to her were without avail; she saw in him only the murderer of her father, and, as her mood changed, she either replied to him with curses, or mocked him with idiot malignity, that was even more dreadful than her execrations.

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“I see it now,” said Clifton in the agony of his heart; “I seduced your innocence,—drove you to madness—and now that madness is made the instrument of vengeance; it wrecks my wealth, makes me a murderer, and consigns me to the gallows-the gallows?—messmates, this is no place for me; I must be off before any one stumbles on the job below. But whither?—no matter; I must be off, or I shall be trapped, and I have no mind to die upon a gallows, if it were only for the name of Clifton.”

But it was too late; five minutes before, and escape was not only possible, but without difficulty; now there was not the slightest chance either for cunning or desperation; a party of king’s seamen, who were on the preventive service, had observed the sudden disappearance of the beacon, and, supposing it was by some fault of the keeper, had come to warn him of his imagined negligence.

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On entering the lighthouse, the first thing they saw was the body of the murdered Ellis, as he lay on the floor, bathed in blood, and his head cleft asunder. This naturally led to the seizure of Clifton and his party, when the latter, in their anxiety to escape from any share in the probable consequences, did not hesitate to bear witness against their captain. Such evidence was of course fatal; a very few days sufficed to settle the whole affair, for it had happened a short time only before the assizes,4 so that the trial followed close upon the heels of the murder. Richard Clifton was condemned to death, and ordered for execution on the lighthouse rock.

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It was the night previous to the fatal day—one of those calm, autumnal nights when the leaf drops noiseless from the tree as if it were a shadow. A thin, clear, white fog mantled the earth, through which the moon seemed floating like a spirit, so little had it dimmed her brightness, and, as the prisoner lay in his dungeon, he could see the carpenters at work on his scaffold. He even heard the coarse jokes of the workmen, their tauntings of each other, and their calculations as to the probable pain of hanging, mixed now and then with a word of self-congratulation that they were not, as they expressed it, in the shoes of the prisoner. Not a syllable escaped him.

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“A few more screws in the upright,” said the master carpenter, “or our work may chance to give way, and disappoint the poor fellow.”

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“If it does, I’ll give you leave to hang me,’’ said one of his assistants. “But suppose we try it first on Sim, here; if it bears his fat sides, it will bear any thing.”

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“You had better try it on yourself,” replied the object of this taunt; “your throat was made for a hempen neck-cloth, and as well one day as another.”

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“With all my heart,” said the first speaker, and, dextrously flinging a rope over the top-beam, he sprang up so as to catch a grasp of it as high as possible, and swung himself from the scaffold, with his head turned to one shoulder, and his feet flourishing in air, in imitation of one just executed.

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 The heart of Richard was sick within him at this brutal jest, but, when the first pain of the shock was over, it left behind a kind and gentle effect; the overwrought mind sank into a slumber, and fortunately for him the indolence, or the drowsiness, of the jailor let him remain undisturbed by the usual hourly visitations. His dreams, too, were happier than the waking reality; to his sleep he was no longer in a dungeon, but stood proudly at the helm of his little brig, with every sail set to the wind, and lying gunnel5 to amidst the dark, green waves that splashed half way up her mast.

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There was reason, however, for this perilous speed; Lucy was traversing the shore on her way to church with a bridegroom forced upon her by old Ellis, who, sleeping or waking, seemed to be ever in the way of Richard. The first of the party had already crossed the churchyard stile, while there was still a space of three miles, at least, lying between it and his vessel. Reckless of the consequences, he shouted to his men, “Out with every reef in her mainsail, my lads; sink or swim, ‘tis no matter.”

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This was no sooner said than done, and the mast began to groan and quiver, while the water rose half over the leeward side6 of the deck; but the purpose was answered; with this fresh stimulus the vessel flew like a bird along the waters, and, just as the priest was challenging the bye-standers to produce any impediment to the union, he was at the altar, and almost breathlessly exclaimed — “I do; I, the bride’s husband—mine, by an oath; mine, by this token!” and he lifted up their infant, that now, by another flight of fancy, lay cradled in his arms.

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“Mine! mine!” seemed Lucy to reply.

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“Mine! mine!”‘ echoed a thousand voices from below, when the organ began to send forth its deepest sounds, and the stones to be heaved up from the vaults, and all those who had been buried for centuries arose from their long sleep, not as shrouded skeletons, but as things of life, each in the costume of his own time. It was, in fact, the masquerade of ages; the thin, tight-laced beau of modern ages gave his hand to the furbelowed7 antique, with hoop of monstrous dimensions and a turret of caps on her head; the gauntleted warrior stretched out his arm of brass to the half-clad fair one, who returned his formal courtesy with the slight nod of a modern fashionable; lawyers, priests, soldiers, statesmen, women and children, in grotesque assemblage ranged along each side of the chancel.8 And now the waltz began—at first slow—then quicker—quicker—and the organ, too, increasing its speed—till at last it seemed the jubilee of madness.

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But the vision soon melted away into another shape, more pleasing and less fantastic than this dance of the living dead. The grey aisles of the church were succeeded by the humble mansion of his father, even to the minutest article that lived in his waking memory, and twenty years were struck off from the account of time; he was a boy again, in holiday freedom from school, playing at the feet of his mother, and, by one of the strange incongruities so familiar to dreams, she wore the face and form of Lucy. If a state of sleep can be deemed life, this was with him the happiest moment of life; he hung on her lips, like a young bee on the rose, and the very air, she breathed, seemed a perfume. It was a full and perfect consciousness of bliss, that belongs only to the imagination, and can therefore be tasted by none but the sleeper or the maniac; a glimpse of reason would destroy it; like the figures of the phantasmagoria, it is visible only in the total absence of light.

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Such a condition of mind and body, however, could not, and did not, last long, and with every minute his slumber lost something of its soundness. He began to be half conscious that he was only in a dream, and in this middle state, between sleeping and waking, struggled hard to retain the illusion by giving himself up to it as much as possible. He had even partially succeeded, when a rude voice, in breaking up this slumber, awoke him to a full sense of his misery.

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It was the jailor with the blacksmith, who came to knock off his fetters previous to his appearance on the scaffold. The transition was anguish unutterable. The mind, too, by this short respite from pain had acquired fresh capabilities of sufferance, and by the time he was led out from prison he was in a state of mental agony more severe than the worst inflictions of the hangman. He had seen many suffer the same form of death, but now that he was called upon to endure it in his own person it seemed as a thing beyond all possible calculation—as an event that had never happened till then.

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He gazed on the crowd that were collected to witness his death, as he had often witnessed the death of others, and could hardly believe that he himself was the victim of the present hour; or if his eye by accident glanced on a face of more than usual hardness, he turned away instinctively in horror. It was even a relief to his sufferings to dwell on any countenance that expressed sympathy with his condition; there was a vague idea of safety connected with it, an indefinite feeling of support and friendship; and yet the same man, who yielded to this weakness, would have faced a cannon without shrinking.

He was now within a few yards of the scaffold, when a young woman made her way to him in spite of all opposition, and flung herself, sobbing, on his neck. It was Lucy Ellis. The sheriff’s people would fain have forced her from him, but at the earnest prayer of Richard the clergyman interposed, notwithstanding the irregularity of the proceeding, and obtained for her a momentary respite, which she was not slow to employ.

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“Why is this?” she exclaimed; “I will not have it so. The old man was my father, and, if I forgive the deed, you surely may. What was he to any of you? by God’s light, you make much more ado about the dead man than you ever did about the living one.’’

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“We can delay no longer,” said the sheriff, who little expected such an appeal.

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 “You can’t!” exclaimed Lucy, “and who are you?” Then addressing herself to the clergyman, she added in a tone of peculiar bitterness, “Turn over your book, my bonny9 man, and let them know that they shall do no murder; and what do they call hanging a man on yonder cross-stick till he’s black in the face?—isn’t that murder, think ye?”

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For the first time since his boyhood a tear stood in Richard’s eye, but he did not utter a syllable. Lucy stretched out her hand towards him, like a mother questioning her child.

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“Answer me, Richard, do you believe there is another world?”

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“Most fervently,” ejaculated the prisoner, and it was evident the reply was an involuntary one.

“Then give us both your blessing, reverend sir,” said Lucy, casting herself on her knees before the clergyman.

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The pale cheek of the venerable old man was suffused with a slight glow, and his hand trembled, as be laid it on the suppliant’s head, saying, in a voice scarcely audible from emotion, “May God of his infinite mercy forgive the young man the wrong he has done to thee and thine, and take ye both unto himself in a world where there is neither sin nor suffering.”

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“Amen!” responded Lucy; and the Amen was solemnly echoed back by the whole assemblage.

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She now rose from her knees, kissed her lover tenderly between the eyes, and, exclaiming “Farewell!” dashed him suddenly from the cliff. So unexpected was the action that no hand was quick enough to prevent it, and, before the waters had well closed over his body, she flung herself headlong after him. One cry of the falling suicide—one plash of the broken waters—and all was over!

 

4 Criminal courts that ushered in lengthy trials

5 Same as the more common “gunwale,” which is the upper plank or rail on the side of a boat 

6 Side protected from the wind

7 Ruffled

8 Space around an alter

9 Fine

 

     

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