THE
LEGEND OF THE RED MOSS RAPIDS.
“IS this the spot where the knight of the old legend was killed, Rowell?”
“Yes, dear, he died on these sharp, spear-pointed rocks, and the old folks living around here who remember the particulars as they were handed down through long generations, say that the rocks assumed that shape and the moss for the first time put on that peculiar blood tint after the murder. Imagination, no doubt; still the combination is certainly a very weird one.”
“Suppose you tell me the legend, dear, while we sit on this sloping bank; but, first of all, let me ask, was not the knight who was killed an ancestor of yours?”
“Our family is descended from his brother, Sir Gawain Erfert, whose likeness you saw in the picture gallery.”
“What! that strange, stern-looking knight in mail with his hand resting on the cross handle of his sword?”
“Yes, dear, he was the real founder of our family.”
“And now for the legend, dear,” said the fair Hilda, a beautiful girl of nineteen with large, dark, sympathetic eyes, and a smile whose brightness lit up all the shaded landscape.