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keep them-and thy young blood shall be spilt on thine own threshold, and thy habitation shall be in hell!" He fell slowly back, when he had done speaking-his lips quivered, and a slight convulsion was visible in the fingers of his right hand. "Father," said Elias, "answer me but one question-how many-God! it will never do to die now, and so many things unsettled! Father, I say." The old man gave a groan-expanded his hands, and sunk down and expired. "Father," continued the son," where's the old cheesemould hid, that's full of coined gold? No, no; he won't answer that. Father, where's the key that hung at your belt, and opened the oaken chest in the dark closet?" and he laid his hand upon a bunch of keys, which hung at the old man's girdle." He heeds not the rattle of his coffer keys-he must be far gone: Father, father," he wrung his hands-"and have ye died without blessing me! I'll answer for't, he'll never speak on this side of time more. There's a pretty piece of business. An he would open his lips again, I would give the widow back a couple of parks to hear but the sound of his tongue."

The young owner of Coldengame stood pondering for a minute's space, at last he shouted, "Mardel-Mardel, ye snail-come here-I have some thing to tell ye, and something to show ye, that will make ye pleased and sad -Mardel, I say." In answer to this rude summons, a very old woman-a. sort of domestic drudge, made her appearance, shaking the husk of flax from her arms, as she came, and murmuring at being taken from her task." Here ye grumbling gammerstang-hold him in the chair, till I search for the keys, and lock up the house, and see what I am to call my own. He has been spending money lately as if it had not come by the sweat of the brow-it was no good symptom of health when he became a spendthrift." "Troth, and that's true," said the old domestic; "I saw him, no farther back than Tuesday, give a quarter of a pound of cheeseparings to a beggar's brat; and a bit of money-it could not be less than a halfpenny-to an old man with a white head, who begged hard and long-he

has been spending hard lately-but he sleeps soundly. Eh! Elias, this is not the repose of sleep, but of death-if ye keep Coldengame till he awake, ye'll be lord long enough. I trow it was not for nought that the bats fluttered, and the daws screeched, when I kindled a fire in our chamber-chimney yesterday. And now I think on't, I saw two ravens sitting on the house-top, when I rose this morning-a sight I never have seen since Crombie the Scotch cow died-I think I cried away all my tears then-for I can hardly find one to drop by my old master's side." And she put her hands before her face, and raised up a kind of low and melancholy cry-but no drops of sorrow came.

Word soon flew over the district that Edward Neyland was dead-mourning made no struggle for mastery with mirth -one would have thought that a millstone had been removed from every bosom. The hinds swore deeper oaths, the maidens sang merrier songs, the dogs barked in chorus, and the very cows seemed to feel an increase of gladness as they tasted the rich pastures. "And so old Coldengame's dead," said one rustic; "if the devil keeps cows, let him make Ned the cowherd-and there will be more wit in heil than I wot of if he fails to nick him out of some of the best calves." "Aye!

dead!" said the second rustic; "dead as a door nail-my dream has had a glorious clearing up. I dreamed I saw old Coldengame dished out like a roasted pig at a bridal dinner, with a sprig of rosemary in his mouth, and the devil dining on him in the shape of a great hooded crow. And speaking of bridals, when will little Will Chessel be married? The parish gives away the bride, and the magistrate recommends the nuptials-and a ripe morsel for the altar she is." "Ripe for the altar !" said a third rustic; "as ripe as old Coldengame was for the grave. They say that after he died there remained a fiend within him that made him move, and his lips to mutter-but it must have been a conscientious fiend, for when old Mardel laid him in his last linen, they say he started half up, and cried. Ruth Rushbrook's landmark! Now d'ye

think a dead man's word will stand law?' "Who the devil doubts it, man ?" said a fourth rustic; "a thing that won't stand in common sense, will stand in law-and precious good law too. I wish I had a dead man's word for a thousand pounds-I would put it into old Fishook's hand-he would make me good money out of it." "But have ye heard," said the fifth rustic, "that old Neddy-nick-the-Devil's to be buried like a man of high degreelike a Bennet or a Mordaunt-a hearse and four horses, no less, to draw him! and ranks of people with torches. Gore! an it will be prime sport to see old Carrion-crow, the cow-feeder, laid in the vaults among our lords and nobles. All's one to the worms-a king or a cowman-and wherefore should I grumble? Are ye going to the foot ball match to-night, twelve on a side, o'er the moonlight lea? Moll Grabbert will be there-and Nan Reamencap will be looking on; and our side will do their best." "Foot-ball!" said the sixth and last rustic; "who would go to foot-ball, and old Coldengame going to be buried! Folk expect he will come to life again-d'ye think he'll leave the world, that he loved so dearly, in this quiet and easy way? And if he were so disposed, d'ye think mother Biblebelt-old Ruth Rushbrook, will let him slip decently under the sod, without giving him her benediction? Have I not both seen and heard her stand at Coldengame's chamber-window at midnight, and shout, A widow's curse! a widow's cry! and a widow's tears! Cursed be he who moveth his neighbour's landmark, and robs the widow and the fatherless!' Every body knows the curse of Ruth Rushbrook-who has not heard the curse she has pronounced on the house of Coldengame? and they say it is fulfilling."

On the day when this conversation happened, an unwonted crowd of people had assembled at Coldengame hall. A hearse, nodding with black horsehair, and streaming with tears, stood in the midst and so naturally were the tears painted, that the young heir, and all his dependants, considered weeping a mere superfluity. Elias was decorous

in his grief-his grief was beyond tears. He drew on his father's boots, and strutted from room to room, looking at every step on this paternal benefaction, which fitted him, as the apothecary remarked, as a mortar fits a pestle. He endowed his person in an ample coat, with sleeves like carronades, and buttons like butter-prints—and threw aside the lappets, to display a scarlet vest, ornamented with tarnished lace, which had descended into the family, in a somewhat oblique way from Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree, witchfinder to good King James, who burned and hanged those only possessed of a rich wardrobe and a familiar spirit. The new-born pride of a miser broke out, as it ever breaks, in fits of extravagance. In every chimney there burned a firein every window there burned a lightthe crows, startled by the unaccustomed glare, rose from their roosting places, and screeched out, according to the interpretation of the crowd, "Fire! fire!"

Hunger and thirst, on that auspicious day, forsook the mansion where they had been born, and fled out of the district. The roasted oxen smoaked— the brown ale flowed-and a little rill, that runs in the neighbourhood, lost its ancient name, and assumed that of Brandy-brook-so much was its current augmented by the liquor which drunkenness spilt.

It was past eleven at night when the hearse began to move, and the torches to stream towards the place of burial. The abundance of meat and drink, and the mirth which got the better of sorrow, gave it more the look of a wedding than a funeral. All the pastoral chiefs of the district were presentthey gazed on the singular extravagance of the scene-wondering in what it was all to end. Many of them afterwards acknowledged that a presentiment of some coming calamity pressed upon them. "I'll tell ye, neighbour," said one;

66 I like none of these grand processions. Why should the living waste their means on the dead? Lay me in white linen-let a kind neighbour or two bear me to the grave-let a short prayer be said over me, and let a cup of good ale go round--for sorrow is ever dry-and that's the way Dick

Dilsey, of Ashbocking, wishes to be buried." "And a wise way it is," said another pastoral proprietor; "the good green sward, say I. Plague on't, if I would like to be laid up like one of death's cut-and-dry morsels for the worms, in a mouldy vault. It may do well enough for the lords, and the nobles, and other folk with carcasses which disease has rendered uneatable. But a man as wholesome as a breeze in May -as fresh as a new-moulded cheese, and as sweet as new-churned buttera ten-foot grave, and a green sod for him-and that's what Hodge Guthram, of Thrandestone, thinks." "Ah! but, man," said John Chokeband, of Latheringham, "ye speak like one of the simple men of Suffolk, who wished to be kings, for the sake of living ever on sweet cream and cheese-parings. Young Coldengame is laying the foundation-stone of a house that is to give knights and nobles to the land. Ye will see him soon in a carriage with three churn staffs and a half cheese for a coat of arms; and his motto will be, 'My father's cat liked his neighbour's cream.' And ye know well, neighbours, this is more than likely. A crescent has been suggested instead of a cheese-the moon is made of green cheese therefore men call her the Suffolk lanthorn; but I have counselled him to stand by the cheese-I am a plain man, and like comprehensible things."

They had now reached the churchyard-a romantic burial-ground, over shaded by lines of lofty elms, underneath the boughs of which flashed a succession of torches. By the same wavering and uncertain light the relics of an ancient gothic church might be seen, and rank after rank of tomb-stones, recording the resting-places of the old worthies of the district. Before them yawned the vault destined to receive the first of the house of Neyland that had ever been buried in lead; the pilasters of the door gave room for two mourners with enormous torches, between which the coffin, richly covered with velvet, was borne down the broad stone stairs. A line of mourners, and a stream of torches, followed; and round the whole, the hinds of the dis10 ATHENEUM VOL, 1. new series.

trict gathered, gazing at the piled-up coffins of their old nobles, and wondering what took old Ned Neyland, the cow-feeder, among them.

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The clergyman, with a voice which to those in the open air sounded as hollow as the proverbial voice from the grave, proceeded with the burial service; and, lifting up a handful of the dust at his feet, was about to cast it on the coffin, completing the symbolical presentation of sepulture-dust to dust. He was startled-and his hand stayed by a human figure, which, shrouded from head to foot, started from among the piled-up coffins, and cried out, "Edward Neyland, I forbid thy body to lie here!" "It is Ruth Rushbrook," whispered a voice or two, scarce audible with shuddering. "Woman," said the clergyman, with a mild beseeching voice, "I desire you to depart, or be silent-let dust be laid to dust-let the body, out of which the spirit has passed, moulder in peace. War not with inanimate clay! Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."" "Hark ye, Sir Priest," said Ruth, "I interpret not what heaven says of a scene like this, but I will tell you what a frail and injured mortal thinks: that whoso lays the dust of the unrepenting sinnerthe robber of the widow and the fatherless-the mover of his neighbour's landmark-whoso lays him, with words of scripture and with prayer, to mingle with the dust of the high-born, the high-souled, and brave-doth a wrong which will bring vengeance down on the living, and fierce judgment on the dead. Lay him among the sordid and the vile-lay him in some dark and sequestered nook, over which an honest man's foot will never tread-and let all men look at his grave as they pass, and point the moral to their children with the infamous name of Neyland."

The clergyman stood with the, dust in his hands looking on the rapt and enthusiastic woman. The young heir of Coldengame was alone unmoved and undaunted. "Get thee gone, foul woman!" he said; "wilt thou tear the morsel from the grave ?"—" Wretch !” said Ruth, "the power is not given thee to harm one hair of my head. Remove thy hands, and give ear one

more

moment. Vengeance for a wrong
which made me and my children beg-
gars has been my earnest cry to heav-
en, morning, noon, and night, for many,
many years. Listen-will you obey
your father's dying words? will you
restore the seven fields to the widow
and the fatherless? Behold ye all, how
hardened he stands, and answers me
not; while one may number seven,
will I give him before I speak in other
words." And she paused and stood,
with her eyes closed and her arms ex-
tended. More than the time she nam-
ed had elapsed-she broke out with a
startling cry, that made the church-
yard echo.
"Elias Neyland-before
man, and before God, I warn you that
the curse which I invoked on Colden-
game is about to be fulfilled. A blow
shall come in the dark, and no one
shall know the hand that dealt it.
Arise!" and she struck the coffin with
her foot; "Arise! let a spirit come
forth, an evil spirit, and smite and de-
stroy--let the name of Neyland live no
on the earth." And gliding
from among the mourners, she disap-
peared in the church-yard. One of the
torch-bearers, at the entrance of the
vault, uttered a cry as she passed him,
more like the bellow of a startled bull
than like the cry of a human creature.
"Why, what the fiend makes thee
afeard, man?" said his companion;
"it's only an old woman, though a
fearful one. What would you have
said had you seen her ghost ?""Ghost,
man!" said the other; "I would rath-
er lay my head all night on Queen
Mary's bloody stone at Framlingham
than have seen such a sight--for if that
was not old mother Biblebelt, I'm the
Christmas flowering thorn of Parham,
and no longer Bill Boxhall." "And
what if it be, lad?" said the other;
"old dame Biblebelt won't bite thee,
man; hang it, ye'll drop the torch."
"Bite me," said the first spokesman;
"how could she bite me? for the old
woman's dead-aye! dead--as dead
as a post, and as stiff as a crutch, and
as cold as a stone. What the deuce
could she be wanting here! I'll hold
thee it can be for no good-I shall find
my brindled cow dead at the stake

or my wife Sue ready for her last linen.

And yet I'm not sure that she's dead either I know she's bed-fast; and old dame Clenche, who makes the gossip caudle, told me that her glass was run."

One by one, the mourners quitted the vault-and two by two, they left the church-yard, and proceeded towards Coldengame hall, which lay a short mile distant. The heir of Coldengame was observed to linger in the vault-he was the last that left it; and as he passed through the church-yard, his face was flushed, his eye restlesshe regarded no one-he associated with no one-but walked slowly homewards. It was on the stroke of twelve. The day had been unusually sultry, the cattle had sought the shaded parts of their pastures-had stood up to their bellies in the brooks, and the sun had gone down without leaving a cloud or a speck behind. But the eye of the experienced swain, as it skimmed along the hill-tops where the land and sky met, or rested on the darkening beams of the departed sun, foresaw an approaching storm, and secured his cattle, and called his children home. The sky to a late hour continued clearyou might have heard the Larke utter a loud murmur-gusts of wind shook the oaks of Framlingham, while the innumerable rooks which found shelter in the groves of the district sought out the most sheltered trees-they seemed to expect the sweep of the tempest from the east.

The mourners, or to use a more suitable word for those who sorrowed not -the guests, had all reached Coldengame, and were gathered round the tables-spice cake and dainties were ready; and the wine bottles stood in clusters, with their corks undrawn. Many a thirsty and expecting lip was there-and many an eye was turned to the door, expecting the heir-but no heir appeared-the church clock was striking twelve. A sudden rush of wind shook the roof, and made the wine-bottles clatter-flash succeeding flash of lightning followed-rain descended on the house like a brook and the two tall oak-trees, which stood before the porch, were cast to the ground. The foot as of one running

was heard-and thick breathings- rit of his father-it's clear that no morthe sound echoed on the pavement-it tal could do the deed so deftly." was heard on the threshold-it ceased, and came no farther. "Some one has caught a fall," cried old John Copindale, of Gilsingame; and he ran to the door; and there lay Elias Neyland over an old carved stone which stood at the porch-his eyes were dilated, his nostrils expanded, his locks standing in stiffened curls-it seemed that death had frozen him up amid a fit of moral horror-no one could look on him and keep from shuddering. They carried him into the chamber-they chafed his temples-they loosed his dress-no wound appeared-but life had utterly left him. At last a small wound is discovered in his left side not straight, like the wound of a sword -nor round, like that of a ball; but forming a waving line, an inch in length, and deeper than it was necessary to go to expel life. Not a drop of blood flowed.

66

"Some one has stabbed him," said John Bloodmore; " and the weapon has been a comical one-but crooked though it was, a straight piece of steel could searce have been more handy." "That's no sword wound," said old Guthram, who had been a soldier in his youth;-"no sword ever wrote its deeds in characters so crooked as that -it is a wound, nevertheless, and a deadly one. Who will heir the broad lands of Coldengame now?" "If it is not a sword wound," said young Lackland, the poacher," it is as little the wound of a ball-powder never gives lead the leisure to make such curious work. I wonder now how it has been done-it's a pretty secret. It's some o'er-sea fashion that's done with little din. I'll warrant, shot and steel will go out of vogue, like Robin Hood's arrows." "Lead and steel!" said Harry Hasleton; "any one may see it's the work of a more ethereal hand than what deals with such weapons. It's the death stroke of some evil spirit. Does it look like the deed of blade or bullet? Look at that face of horrorthese eyes started in terror from their sockets-these hands clenched and convulsed-and that wound which refuses to open and bleed. It's the angry spi

"Aye, aye," said more mourners than one, "no doubt-no doubt--he was of a greedy and a sinful race-heaven has taken him into his own hand, and sent a spirit to smite him on his own threshold." "It is the work of heaven, indeed," said Mr. Horegrove, the cler gyman; "and let the wicked be warned. With what weapon hath God smitten him?-with the weapon of wrath-the sword of fire. It was no evil shape that came-it was the spirit of the tempest-the storm blew, and the fire came, and it smote the clay, and the clay fell. The heathen hath said, what lightning strikes is a thing accursed-I will not say with the heathen, since the lightning strikes the green trees and the barren rocks; but I accept it as a sign of anger and sore displeasure-and all who hear me would do well to humble themselves in secret, and confess their sins to God, and seek for forgiveness."

"Forgiveness!" said an old woman, a domestic of the house of Neyland, who stood at the door of the chamber, and heard imperfectly what the divine said; "would ye forgive the hand that slew the last hope of my master's house? Ye call him griping, and hard-hearted; but had ye nursed him on your knees, as I have done-had ye carried him out of a dead mother's bosom, and dandled him, as these two hands have, in the sunny air-ye would feel as I feel, and pity an old woman's wail. Hold away, and let me look on him-the only one that never had aught but an open hand, and a warm heart to me." And she stooped over the body, and shook her head sorrowfully, and dropt a tear or two.

The story of the death of Elias Neyland flew over the land with something like a supernatural speed; and every mile that it went, some wild and wonderful embellishment was added. In those times the old beliefs of the district were in active force-the minds of men had not been sobered down to doubt all, and believe nothing-the evil spirit of political writing was not then unchained and let loose among the

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