"'Tis a gloomy place."
"Ay, and many a gloomy day have I spent in it. Sit ye down on that stone, Lord Lester!" she added, laying a peculiar emphasis upon the last two words; "'tis a knight's shield, and should be a fit seat for thee!"
"Is it thus, Elpsy, you use the sculptured armour and the sepultured bones of my ancestors?" he said, in an indignant tone.
"Thy ancestors?" she repeated, scornfully. "Sit thou there, Lord Lester. Dost hear, Lord Lester? Open thine ears, and drink in the title and style well—for 'twill be the last time they will fall upon them."
"Cease your mockery, woman! Say what thou hast to say, and quickly."
"Listen!" she said, seating herself on a scull opposite to him, while a struggle between sympathy and malicious exultation was visible on her features. "Young, and fair, and brave to look upon withal!" she said, muttering to herself, and gazing on him steadfastly and thoughtfully; "a coronet would grace that brow even as if 'twere born to it. Robert Lester, or Robert More, for men call thee both," she said aloud, bending her face towards him, and speaking in an impressive manner, "now listen to the tale I have in store for thee. Fix thine eye upon me that I may see it blench as I go on. Oh! it's a tale for a Christmas eve, I trow!"
She was silent a few seconds, as if sending her thoughts back through the past; then, in a low voice, which rose or fell, was wild or sad, slow or rapid, as her subject moved her, she began:
"Eighteen long years ago there dwelt by the seaside a poor fisherman, honest, hard labouring in his vocation, but contented with his lot, never having known better. He was a widower, but had an only daughter, his sole companion, and the only link that bound him to his kind. This child grew up to be a tall and comely maiden. Her eyes were of the rich brown hue of the ripe chestnut. Her hair, soft as the floss of Florence, was a fair brown; but when the winds that came off the sea would toss it in the sunlight, there played over it a blaze of gold. It never had known confinement, but floated like a sunset cloud about her head."
"What has this to do with thy tale?" demanded Lester, impatiently.
"Listen!" she said, calmly but firmly; her features, as her thoughts seemed to dwell pleasurably on the beauty of the maiden, becoming more humanized, while her voice modulated and harmonized with the words she uttered. "This fair maid grew up, unknowing and unknown; budding and blooming like a lone flower by the seaside. Her laugh was merry as the carol of the glad lark as it soars and sings; her spirits were light as the sparkling foam of the summer's sea; her heart as pure as the moonbeam that slept on the wave. Her happiness was in her father's smile and in his paternal love; and, besides her little cot, and the wide sea which she loved, and the tall cliff that towered above her home, she knew not, until she had entered her eighteenth year, that there was any other world. Alas, for that maiden, that she had not remained in ignorance! Alas, for her, that her heart was not as cold as the moonbeam it resembled in its purity! One black and stormy night, a voice, shouting for aid, reached the ears of the old fisherman and his child, heard above the howlings of wind and roaring of the angry deep.