Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people

by Evelyn Everett-Green

And yet it mattered not, for God knew, and He would hear her supplication, and answer it in His own way. Bride did not know whether Eustace had yet learned to pray for himself; but she had been praying so long that there was nothing strange in this long and impassioned prayer for him to-night. How the time passed the girl did not know; nor did she know what it was that prompted her at last to go to the window and draw aside the curtain to look out into the night.

When she did this, however, she became aware that the darkness without was something unwonted, and for a moment she could not understand the cause of this. There was no moon, and the sky was obscured by a wrack of drifting cloud; why should there be anything but black darkness? and yet it was not always so, even on the pitchiest nights. And then a sudden cry broke from her pale lips—

“The lantern-tower is not lighted to-night!”

That was it. That was what she missed—the faint refulgence she was accustomed to see shining from the turret where the great lamp always burned. What had happened? Had the old fisherman neglected to come? or had he been negligent of his charge and suffered the lamp to go out? She felt sure the light must have been burning as usual earlier in the night. It was lighted at five now, and numbers of persons would have noticed had it not been lighted, and news would certainly have quickly reached the castle. No, it must be that the old fisherman had gone to sleep, and had omitted to fill up the lamp, which had burned down and gone out. And ah! suppose some vessel even now was beating down Channel, and anxiously looking out for the beacon! Oh, suppose some vessel was already in peril for want of the guiding light! Suppose that vessel were the one in which Eustace was journeying to them! Ah!—was that the meaning of that cry? Had it indeed been sent as a sign—as a warning?

With a sense of sudden comprehension Bride turned back into the room and hastily took up her lamp. Without waiting to summon any other person—without a moment of needless delay—she made her way along the dark still corridors, where the heavy shadows lay sleeping, but woke and fled away like spectres at her approach; through the blank silence of the great house she stepped, followed silently by the faithful hound, who always slept at her door, till she reached a heavy oaken door, studded with brass nails, and fastened on the inside with heavy bolts and clamps, that led from the castle into that corner turret which had for so many years been given up to the beacon light and its custodian.

Bride used as a child to go frequently into the tower with her mother. Latterly she had been much less often, but she was familiar with the fastenings of the door, and knew her way to the upper chamber where the great lamp burned.

The place was perfectly dark as she entered, and as silent as the grave; but as she ascended the spiral staircase which led to the chamber where the great lamp burned, she was aware of a peculiar moaning sound, she hardly knew whether human or not, and a thrill of horror ran through her, though she did not pause in her rapid ascent.

The hound heard it too, and sped past her with a low whimper of curiosity, bounding upwards and into the room overhead, where he broke into a loud bay.

Bride was keenly excited, too much excited to feel any personal fear; moreover, she knew that if the dog had found any unknown occupant in that upper chamber, he would have flown at him at once and pinned him, and she should be warned by the sounds as to what was going on. Hastily mounting the last flight, she entered the room, which, as she fully expected, was in utter darkness. The sound of inarticulate moaning grew louder as she approached, and the moment her lamp threw its beams within the chamber, she saw the old custodian lying on the floor, gagged, and bound with cruel cords, his head bleeding a little from some cuts upon it, and his face drawn and white.

In a moment she had sprung to his aid. The hound was sniffing round the room with lashing tail and a red light in his eyes, uttering from time to time a deep bay, as though asking to be let out to follow on the track of the evil-doers who had forced a way into the tower to do this deed of darkness.