Cruel As the Grave 22 – Southworth · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
Cruel As the Grave 22The Haunted Chapel
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Literature · Romance
Cruel As the Grave 22
The Haunted Chapel
SouthworthEnglish
"The chapel was a ruin old,
That stood so low, in lonely glen.
The gothic windows high and dark
Were hung with ivy, brier, and yew."
The Haunted Chapel to which Mr. and Mrs. Berners were going was in a dark and lonely gorge on the other side of the mountain across Black River, but near its rise in the Black Torrent. To reach the chapel, they would have to ride three miles up the shore and ford the river, and then pass over the opposite mountain. The road was as difficult and dangerous as it was lonely and unfrequented.
Lyon and Sybil rode on together in silence, bending their heads before the driving mist, and keeping close to the banks of the river until they should reach the fording place.
At length Sybil's anguish broke forth in words.
"Oh! Lyon, is this nightmare? Or is it true that I am so suddenly cast down from my secure place, as to become in one hour a fugitive from my home, a fugitive from justice! Oh! Lyon, speak to me. Break the spell that binds my senses. Wake me up. Wake me up," she wildly exclaimed.
"Dear Sybil, be patient, calm, and firm. This is a terrible calamity. But to meet calamity bravely, is the test of a true high soul. You are compelled to seek safety in flight, to conceal yourself for the present, to avoid a train of unmerited humiliations that even the consciousness of innocence would not enable you to bear. But you have only to be patient, and a few days or weeks must bring the truth to light, and restore you to your home."
"But flight itself looks like guilt; will be taken as additional evidence of guilt," groaned Sybil.
"Not so. Not when it is understood that the overwhelming weight of deceptive circumstantial evidence and deceptive direct testimony had so compromised you as to render flight your only means of salvation. Be brave, my own Sybil. And now, here we are at the ford. Take care of yourself. Let me lead your horse."
"No, no; that would embarrass you, without helping me. Go on before, and I will follow."
Lyon Berners plunged into the stream. Sybil drew up her long skirts and dashed in after him. And they were both soon splashing through the Black River, blacker now than ever with the double darkness of night and mist. A few minutes of brave effort on the part of horses and riders brought them all in safety to the opposite bank, up which they successfully struggled, and found themselves upon firm ground.
"The worst part of the journey is over, dear Sybil. Now I will ride in advance and find the pass, and do you keep close behind me," said Lyon Berners, riding slowly along the foot of the mountain until he came to a dark opening, which he entered, calling Sybil to follow him.
It was one of those fearful passes so frequently to be found in the Allegheny Mountains, and which I have described so often that I may be excused from describing this. They went in, cautiously picking their way through this deeper darkness, and trusting much to the instinct of their mountain-trained steeds to take them safely through. An hour's slow, careful, breathless riding brought them out upon the other side of the mountain.
As they emerged from the dark labyrinth, Lyon Berners pulled up his horse to breathe, and to look about him. Sybil followed his example.
Day was now dawning over the broken and precipitous country.
"Where is that chapel of which you speak? I have heard of it all my life, but I have never seen it; and beyond the fact that it is on this side of the mountain, and not far from the Black Torrent, I know nothing about it," said Sybil.
"It is near the Black Torrent; almost under the bed of the cascade, in fact. And we shall have to turn our horses' heads up stream again to reach it," answered Lyon Berners.
"You know exactly where it is; you have been there, perhaps?" inquired Sybil.
"I have seen it but once in my life. But I can easily find it. It is not a frequented place of resort, dear Sybil. But that makes it all the safer as a place of concealment for you," said Lyon Berners, as he started his horse and rode on.
Sybil followed him closely.
Day was broadening over the mountains, and bringing out a thousand prismatic colors from the autumn foliage of the trees, gemmed now with the rain drops that had fallen during the night.
"It will be quite clear when the sun rises," said Lyon, encouragingly to Sybil, as they went on.
He was right. Sunrise in the mountains is sometimes almost as sudden in its effects as sunrise at sea. The eastern horizon had been ruddy for sometime, but when the sun suddenly came up from behind the mountain, the mist lifted itself, rolled into soft white wreaths and crowned the summits, while all the land below broke out into an effulgence of light, color, and glory.
But people who are flying for life do not pause to enjoy scenery, even of the finest. Lyon and Sybil rode on towards the upper banks of the Black River, hearing at every step the thunder of the Black Torrent, as it leaped from rock to rock in its passionate descent to the valley.
At length they came to a narrow opening in the side of the mountain.
"Here is a path I know," said Mr. Berners, "though its entrance is so concealed by undergrowth as to be almost impossible to discover."
Lyon Berners dismounted, and began to grope for the entrance in a thicket of wild-rose bushes, that were now closely covered with scarlet seed-pods that glowed, and raindrops that sparkled, in the rays of the morning sun.
At length he found the path, and then he returned to his wife, and said:
"We cannot take our horses through the thicket, dear Sybil. You will have to dismount and remain concealed in here until I lead them back across the river, where I will turn them loose. There will be a great advantage gained by that move. Our horses being found on the other side, will mislead our pursuers on a false scent."
While Lyon Berners spoke, he assisted his wife to alight from her saddle, and guided her to the entrance of the thicket.
"This path has not been trodden for a score of years, I can well believe. Just go far enough to be out of sight of any chance spy, and there remain until I return. I shall not be absent over half an hour," said Mr. Berners, as he took leave of Sybil.
She sank wearily down upon a fragment of a rock, and prepared to await his return.
He mounted his own horse, and led hers, and so went his way down the stream to the fording place.
He successfully accomplished the difficult task of taking both horses over the river to the opposite bank, where he turned them loose.
Next with a strong pocket jack-knife he cut a leaping pole from a sapling near, and went still farther up the stream to the rapids, where, by a skilful use of his pole and dexterous leaping from rock to rock, he was enabled to recross the river almost dry-shod.
He rejoined Sybil, whom he found just where he had left her.
She was sitting on a piece of rock, with her head bowed upon her hands.
"Have I been gone long? Were you anxious or lonely, dearest?" he inquired, as he gave her his hand to assist her in rising.
"Oh, no! I take no note of time! But oh! Lyon, when shall I wake?" she exclaimed in wild despair.
"What is it you say, dear Sybil?" he gently asked.
"When shall I wake--wake from this ghastly nightmare, in which I seem to myself to be a fugitive from justice! an exile from my home! a houseless, hunted stranger in the land! It is a nightmare! It can not be real, you know! Oh, that I could wake!"
"Dear Sybil, collect your faculties. Do not let despair drive you to distraction. Be mistress of yourself in this trying situation," said Lyon Berners, gravely.
"But oh, Heaven! the crushing weight and stunning suddenness of this blow! It is like death! like perdition!" exclaimed Sybil, pressing her hands to her head.
Lyon Berners could only gaze on her with infinite compassion, expressed in every lineament of his eloquent countenance.
She observed this, and quickly, with a great effort, from a strong resolution, throwing her hands apart like one who disperses a cloud, and casts off a weight, she said:
"It is over! I will not be nervous or hysterical again. I have brought trouble on you as well as on myself, dear Lyon; but I will show you that I can bear it. I will look this calamity firmly in the face, and come what may, I will not drag you down by sinking under it."
And so saying, she gave him her hand, and arose and followed him as he pushed on before, breaking down or bearing aside the branches that overhung and obstructed the path.
Half an hour of this difficult and tedious travelling brought them down into a deep dark dell, in the midst of which stood the "Haunted Chapel."
It was an old colonial church, a monument of the earliest settlement in the valley. It was now a wild and beautiful ruin, with its surroundings all glowing with color and sparkling with light. In itself it was a small Gothic edifice, built of the dark iron-grey rock dug from the mountain quarries. Its walls, window-frames, and roof were all still standing, and were almost entirely covered by creepers, among which the wild rose vine, now full of scarlet berries, was conspicuous.
A broken stonewall overgrown with brambles enclosed the old church-yard, where a few fallen and mouldering gravestones, half sunk among the dead leaves, still remained.
All around the church, on the bottom of the dell, and up the sides of the steeps, were thickly clustered forest-trees, now glowing refulgent in their gorgeous autumn livery of crimson and gold, scarlet and purple.
A little rill, an offspring of the Black Torrent, tumbled down the side of the mountain behind the church, and ran frolicking irreverently through the old graveyard. The great cascade was out of sight, though very near for its thunder filled the air.
"See," said Sybil, pointing to the little singing rill; "Nature is unsympathetic. She can laugh and frolic over the dead, and, besides, the suffering."
"It would seem, then, that Nature is wiser as well as gladder than we are; since she, who is transitory, rejoices while we, who are immortal, pine," answered Lyon Berners, pleased that any thought should win her from the contemplation of her misfortune.
He then led the way into the old ruined church through the door frames, from which the doors had long been lost. The stone floor, and the stone altar still remained; all else within the building was gone.
Lyon Berners looked all around, up and down the interior, from the arched ceiling to the side-walls with their window spaces and the flagstone floor with its mouldy seams. The wild creeping vines nearly filled the window spaces, and shaded the interior more beautifully than carved shutters, velvet curtains, or even stained glass could have done. The flagstone floor was strewn with fallen leaves that had drifted in. Up and down, in every nook and corner of the roof and windows, last year's empty birds nests perched. And here and there along the walls, the humble "mason's" little clay house stuck.
But there seemed no resting place for the weary travellers, until Sybil, with a serious smile, went up to the altar and sank upon the lowest step, and beckoned Lyon to join her, saying:
"At the foot of the altar, dear Lyon, there was sanctuary in the olden times. We seem to realize the idea now."
"You are cold. Your clothes are all damp. Stop! I must try to raise a fire. But you, in the meantime, must walk briskly up and down, to keep from being chilled to death," answered Lyon Berners very practically, as he proceeded to gather dry leaves and twigs that had drifted into the interior of the old church.
He piled them up in the centre of the floor, just under the break in the roof, and then he went out and gathered sticks and brushwood, and built up a little mound. Lastly he took a box of matches from his pocket and struck a light, and kindled the fire.
The dried leaves and twigs crackled and blazed, and the smoke ascended in a straight column to the hole in the roof through which it escaped.
"Come, dear Sybil, and walk around the fire until your clothes are dry, and then sit down by it. This fire, with its smoke ascending and escaping through that aperture, is just such a fire as our forefathers in the old, old times enjoyed, as the best thing of the kind they knew anything about. Kings had no better," said Lyon Berners, cheerfully.
Sybil approached the fire, but instead of walking around it, she sat down on the flagstones before it. She looked very weary, thoroughly prostrated in body, soul, and spirit.
"What are we waiting for, in this horrible pause?" she inquired at length.
"We are waiting for Pendleton. He is to bring us news, as soon as he can slip away and steal to us without fear of detection," answered Lyon Berners.
"Oh, Heaven! what words have crept into our conversation about ourselves and friends too! 'Steal,' 'fear,' 'detection!' Oh, Lyon!--But there, I will say no more. I will not revert to the horror and degradation of this position again, if I can help it," groaned Sybil.
"My wife, you are very faint. Try to take some nourishment," urged Lyon, as he began to open the small parcel of refreshments thoughtfully provided by Captain Pendleton.
"No, no, I cannot swallow a morsel. My throat is parched and constricted," she answered.
"If I only had a little coffee for you," said Lyon.
"If we only had liberty to go home again," sighed Sybil, "then we should have all things. But there; indeed I will not backslide into weak complaints again," she added, compunctuously.
"Modify your grief, dear Sybil, but do not attempt entirely to suppress it. Nature is not to be so restrained," said Lyon Berners, kindly.
There was silence between them for a little while, during which Sybil still sat down upon the flagstones, with her elbows resting on her knees, and her head bowed upon the palms of her hands; and Lyon stood up near her with an attitude and expression of grave and sad reflection and self-control.
At length Sybil spoke:
"Oh, Lyon! who could have murdered that poor woman, and brought us into such a horrible position?"
"My theory of the tragedy is this, dear Sybil: that some robber, during the confusion of the fancy ball, found an opportunity of entering and concealing himself in Mrs. Blondelle's room; that his first purpose might have been simple robbery, but that, being discovered by Mrs. Blondelle, and being alarmed lest her shrieks should bring the house upon him and occasion his capture, he impulsively sought to stop her cries by death; and then that, hearing your swift approach down the stairs leading into her room, he made his escape through the window."
"But then the windows were all found, as they had been left, fastened," objected Sybil.
"But, dearest, you must remember that these windows, having spring bolts, may be fastened by being pushed to from the outside. It is quite possible for a robber, escaping through them, to close them in this manner to conceal his flight."
"That must have been the case in this instance. Everybody must see now that that was the manner in which the miscreant escaped. Oh, Lyon! I think we were wrong to have left home."
"No, dear Sybil, we were not. Our only hope is in the discovery of the real murderer, and that may be a work of time; meanwhile we wish to be free, even at the price of being called fugitives from justice."
"Lyon, that poor child! If we ever go home again, we must adopt and educate him."
"We will do so, Sybil."
"For, oh! Lyon, although I am entirely innocent of that most heinous crime, and entirely incapable of it, yet, when I remember how my rage burned against that poor woman only an hour before her death, I feel--I feel as if I were half guilty of it! as if--Heaven pardon me!--I might, in some moment of madness, have been wholly guilty of it! Lyon, I shudder at myself!" cried Sybil, growing very pale.
"You should thank Heaven that you have been saved from such mortal sin, dear wife, and also pray Heaven always to save you from your own fierce passions," said Mr. Berners, very gravely.
"I have breathed that thanksgiving and that prayer with every breath I have drawn. And I will continue to do so. But, oh! Lyon, all my passions, all my sufferings grew out of my great love for you."
"I can well believe it, dear wife. And I myself have not been free from blame; though in reality your jealousy was very causeless, Sybil."
"I know that now," said Sybil, sadly.
"And now, dearest, I would like to make 'a clean breast of it,' as the sinners say, and tell you all--the whole 'head and front of my offending' with that poor dead woman," said Mr. Berners, seating himself on the floor beside his wife.
Sybil did not repel his offered confidence, for though her jealousy had died a violent death, she was still very much interested in hearing his confession.
Then Lyon Berners told her everything, up to the very last moment when she had surprised them in the first and last kiss that had ever passed between them.
"But in all, and through all, my heart, dear wife, was loyal in its love to you," he concluded.
"I know that, dearest Lyon--I know that well," replied Sybil.
And with that tenderness towards the faults of the dead, which all magnanimous natures share, she forbore to say, or even to think, how utterly unprincipled had been the course of Rosa Blondelle from the first to the last of their acquaintance with that vain and frivolous coquette.
Sybil was now almost sinking with weariness. Lyon perceived her condition, and said:
"Remain here, dear Sybil, while I go and try to collect some boughs and leaves to make you a couch. The sun must have dried up the moisture by this time."
And he went out and soon returned with his arms full of boughs, which he spread upon the flagstones. Then he took off his own overcoat and covered them with it.
"Now, dear Sybil," he said, "if you will divest yourself of your long riding skirt, you may turn that into a blanket to cover with, and so sleep quite comfortably."
With a grave smile Sybil followed his advice, and then she laid herself down on the rude couch he had spread for her. No sooner had her head touched it, than she sank into that deep sleep of prostration which is more like a swoon than a slumber.
Lyon Berners covered her carefully with the long riding skirt, and stood watching her for some minutes. But she neither spoke nor stirred; indeed, she scarcely breathed.
Then, after still more carefully tucking the covering around her, he left her, and walked out to explore the surroundings of the chapel.
