Come, list, and hark! the bell doth towle For some but new-departed sowle!- HAYWOOD.-Rape of Lucrece. The day had been sultry, The THE night was wild and stormy. with a lurid, metallic-looking sky, hanging like a vast galvanic plate, over the face of nature. As evening drew on, every thing betokened the coming tempest. Unerring indications of its approach were noted by the weatherwise at the hall. swallow was seen to skim the surface of the pool so closely, that he ruffled its placid mirror as he passed; and then, sharply darting round and round, with twittering scream, he winged his rapid flight to his clay-built home, beneath the barn eves. The kine that had herded to the margin of the water, and sought, by splashing, to relieve themselves from the keen persecution of their myriad insect tormentors, wended stallwards, undriven, and deeply lowing. The deer, that at twilight had trooped thither also for refreshment, suddenly "with expanded nostrils, snuffed the air," and bounded off to their coverts, amidst the sheltering fernbrake. The rooks "obstreperous of wing, in crowds combined," cawed in a way that, as plainly as words could have done, bespoke their apprehension; and were seen, some hovering and beating the air with flapping pinion, others shooting upwards in mid space, as if to reconnoitre the weather; while others, again, were croaking to their mates, in loud discordant tone, from the highest branches of the lime trees; all, seemingly, as anxious and as busy as mariners before a gale of wind. At sunset, the hazy vapours, which had obscured the horizon throughout the day, rose up in spiral volumes, like smoke from a burning forest, and, becoming gradually condensed, assumed the form of huge, billowy masses, which, reflecting the sun's light, changed, as the sinking orb declined, from purple to flame colour, and thence to ashy, angry grey. Night rushed onwards, like a sable steed. There was a dead calm. The stillness was undisturbed, save by an intermittent, sighing wind, which, hollow as a murmur from the grave, died as it rose. At once the grey clouds turned to an inky blackness. A single, sharp, intensely vivid flash shot from the bosom of the rack, sheer downwards, and struck the earth with the report like that of a piece of ordnance. In ten minutes it was dunnest night, and a rattling thunder storm. The progress of the storm was watched with infinite apprehension by the crowd of tenantry assembled in the great hall; and loud and frequent were the ejaculations uttered, as each succeeding peal burst over their heads. There was, however, one amongst the assemblage, who seemed to enjoy the uproar. A kindred excitement appeared to blaze in his glances, as he looked upon the storm without. This was Peter Bradley. He stood close by the window, and shaded not his eyes, even before the fiercest flashes. A grin of unnatural exhilaration played upon his features, and he seemed to exult in, and to court, the tempestuous horrors, which affected the most hardy amongst his companions with consternation, and made all shrink trembling into the recesses of the room. Peter's conduct was not unobserved, nor his reputation for unholy dealing forgotten. To some he was almost as much an object of dread as the storm itself. “Didst ever see the like o' that?” said farmer Burtenshaw, (one of the guests, whose round, honest face, good wine had recently empurpled, but fear had now mottled white,) addressing a neighbour;-"Didst ever hear of any man that were a Christian laughing in the very face o' a thunder storm, with the lightnin' fit to put out his eyes, and the rattle above ready to break the drums o' his ears? I always thought Peter Bradley was not exactly what he ought to be, and now I am sure on it.' "For my part, I think, neighbour Burtenshaw," returned the other, "that this great burst of weather's all of his raising, for in all my born days I never see'd such a hurly-burly, and hope never to see the like of it again. I've heard my grandfather tell of folk as could command wind and rain; and, we all know he can do mayhap, Peter have the power "We know, at all events," replied Burtenshaw, "that he lives like no other man; that he spends night after night by himself in that dreary church-yard; that he keeps no living thing, except an old terrier dog, in his crazy cottage; and that he never asks a body into his house from one year's end to another. I've never crossed his threshold these twenty years. But," continued he, mysteriously, "I happened to pass the house one dark, dismal night, and there what do'st think I seed through the window? "What what didst see?" "Peter Bradley sitting with a great book open on his knees; it were a Bible, I think, and he crying like a child." "The tears were falling fast upon the leaves," returned Burtenshaw; "but when I knocked at the door, he hastily shut up the book, and ordered me to be gone, in a surly tone, as if he were ashamed of being caught in the fact." "I thought no tear had ever dropped from his eye," said the other. "Why he laughed when his daughter, Susan, went off at the hall, and when she died, folks said he received hush-money to say nought about it. That were a bad business any how; and now that his grandson, Luke, be taken in the fact of house-breaking, he minds it no more, not he, than if nothing had happened.' "Don't be too sure of that," replied Burtenshaw; "he may be scheming summat all this time. Well, I've known Peter Bradley now these two and fifty years, and, excepting that one night, I never saw any good about him, and never heard of nobody who could tell who he be, or where he do come from." "One thing's certain, at least," replied the other farmer "he were never born at Rookwood. How he came here the Save us! what a crash! this storm be devil only knows. "He be― what he certainly will be," interposed another speaker in a louder tone, and with less of apprehension in his manner than his comrade, probably from his nerves being better fortified with strong liquor. "Dost thou think, Sammul Plant, as how Providence would intrust the like o' him with the command of the elements? No- no, it's rank blasphemy to suppose such a thing, and I've too much of the true catholic and apostate church about me, to stand by and hear that said." 'May be, then, he ness," replied Plant ; only look at him. bowt." 66 gets his power from the Prince of Dark no man else could go on as he does He seems to be watching for the thunder "I wish he may catch it, then," returned the other. "That's an evil wish, Simon Toft, and thou may'st repent it." "Not I," replied Toft; "it would be a good clearance to the neighbourhood, to get rid o' th' old croaking curmudgeon." Whether or not Peter overheard the conversation we pretend not to say, but at that moment a blaze of lightning showed him staring fiercely at the group. "As I live, he's overheard you, Simon," exclaimed Plant, "I wouldn't be in your skin for a trifle." "Nor I," added Burtenshaw. "Let him overhear me," answered Toft; "who cares? he shall hear summat worth listening to. I'm not afraid o' him or his arts, were they as black as Beelzebuth's own; and to show you I'm not, I'll go and have a crack with him on the spot." "Thou'rt a fool for thy pains, if thou dost, friend Toft," returned Plant, "that's all I can say.” "Be advised by me, and stay here," seconded Burtenshaw endeavouring to hold him back. But Toft would not be advised "Kings may be blest, but he was glorious, O'er all the ills of life victorious." Staggering up to Peter, he laid a hard grasp upon his shoulder, and thus forcibly soliciting his attention, burst into a loud horse laugh. But Peter was, or affected to be, too much occupied to look at him. "What dost see, man, that thou starest so? it comes the rain the rain "It comes, thunder all together in his inmost heart - a torrenta deluge ha, ha! Blessed is the corpse the rain rains on. Sir Piers may be drenched through his leaden covering, by such a downfall as that - splash, splash-fire and water and is not that fine?-ha, ha! The heavens will weep for him, though friends shed not a tear. When did a great man's heir feel sympathy for his sire's decease? When did his widow mourn? When doth any man regret his fellow ? Never! He rejoiceth - he maketh glad he cannot help it - it is nature. We all pray for we all delight in each other's destruction. We were created to do so; or why else should we act thus? never wept for any man's death, but I have often laughed. Natural sympathy! out on the phrase. The distant heavens the impenetrable stones shall regret shall bewail your death with more sincerity. Ay, 't is well — rain on —— - splash, splash; it will cool the hell-fever. Down, down-buckets and pails — ha, ha! There was a pause, during which the sexton, almost exhausted by the frenzy in which he had suffered himself to be involved, seemed insensible to all around him. -- the senseless trees you more than man I "I tell you what," said Burtenshaw to Plant, "I have always thought there was more in Peter Bradley nor appears on the outside. He is not what he seems to be, take my word on it. Lord love you! do you think a man such as he pretends to be could talk in that sort of way? about natʼral simpering no such thing." When Peter recovered, his insane merriment broke out afresh, having only acquired fury by the pause. "Look out, look out," cried he; "hark to the thunder. list to the rain. Marked ye that flash marked ye the clockhouse and the bird upon the roof? 't is the rook - the great bird of the house, that hath borne away the soul of the departed. There, there can you not see it? it sits and croaks through storm and rain, and never heeds at all—and wherefore should it heed? See, it flaps its broad, black wings it croaksha, ha! It comes it comes." |