"Oh, tell the Duke and Duchess that as they know the gods have made me poetical, that the fit of inspiration was upon me; and now or never! If I were not to obey the impulse my precious verse would perish for ever!"
Adelaide then most sweetly smiling, said: "It boots not what remark may come from the sober dowagers and solemn wig-pated personages at the loo and ombre tables; they will be too much absorbed in their winnings and tricks to think of me. And now I go!"
"Oh stay, I prithee, stay a moment!—just until I tell thee," said Lady Lucy. "For before you go you must be told of what positively and fatally happened in our own family to a kinswoman of mine own, a young lady, upon the Eve of All-Hallows, who——"
"Not for the wide world," said Lady Adelaide, "would I hear another word. If the story, my dear aunt, be amusing or horrific, I pray thee tell it to my young friends, and then I shall have it told me when I return. Now wave thy mystic wand, and like a spirit I vanish.—Prèsto I'm gone!"
Adelaide departed. This young lady was indeed the child of romance, with feelings the most tender and acute; and one who deeply had imbibed the superstitions of the age in which she lived; all of which had chiefly been instilled, even from the very cradle, by the old talkative crone, her quondam nurse; and although possessing a strong understanding, yet still, as the ever constant dropping of water will impress and penetrate the hardest stone, in like manner the tales of superstition unceasingly told, and the numerous attestations of popular faith, did not fail fully to operate on her credulity.
Adelaide alone sallied forth from the ducal towers of Tyrconnel Castle, with deep determination to fulfil the spell of the charmed ball. The moon with pearly radiance shone forth on her fearless enterprise; enthusiastic in this adventure as in every thing which she thought, said, or did, she now boldly advanced to commence the solemn charm; and with firm and unshaken step she proceeded to the accomplishment of her nocturnal visit; while intently she looked around, fully to be assured that no human eye gazed upon the orgies which she was about to perform.
Adelaide then with quickened step approached a lime-kiln. This fabric had been for a lapse of time deserted and disused; its apex was crested with saxifrage, snap-dragon, and foxglove, which told its desolation; and the ivy too, in curling festoons suspended, overhung the passenger, and undulated in the breeze. The autumnal gale in mournful gusts swept, sighing in its course, over hill, and vale, and stream; while the owl hooted her solitary scream as Adelaide reached this deserted pile, now the lonely asylum of the nocturnal bat and wary field-mouse. The kiln had been constructed at the angle of a green knoll, which served as an ascent to it; and by this mount, or hill, Adelaide with facility ascended to the empty crater of the lime-kiln; when duly turning her face to the south she produced an untwisted ball of cotton thread, and firmly holding the end of the cord, or thread, of the ball, she flung the ball, as if a plummet, down the concavity of the kiln; when sounding its depth she ascertained that it had duly reached the bottom, then she undauntedly inquired in a loud and firm tone of voice—"Who holds the ball?" The cotton cord on the instant dropped promptly from her hand, whether by force or fear she knew not; while she thought she heard a voice unknown ascending in hollow tones from the echoing depth beneath, emphatically reply—"I grasp the ball!"
This might have been merely the effect of fear and mental deception, yet still she thought she had heard the awful response. No shape, no form, no figure, met her eye; but the words struck her ear and pierced her heart. Adelaide stood motionless, silent, and pale, as a statue; she had not the power to scream, articulation was totally suspended; and the powers of locomotion too were completely paralized, her imagination became spell-bound, her recollection was fled! At length nature completely overpowered, she fainted; and it was not for some time that she recovered the powers of animation, when all the solemn scene that had so lately occurred appeared to her but as a frightful dream that had passed in review before her deceived imagination while she slumbered in that dreadful swoon.
For some considerable pause of time Adelaide sat motionless upon the sward of the little knoll that adjoined that ominous fabric, where so lately that awful charm, consecrated by the credulity of ages, had been performed.
After much mental exertion Adelaide found upon trial that she had sufficient bodily strength to arise; and now having stood up, she proceeded upon her return to the castle. The moon had retired behind a cloud, when, with a deep sigh, she exclaimed, "Oh, how much I wish that the deed had remained undone, and then my mind would have been at rest! But now I am sadly disquieted, and my heart is sick within me. Oh, it was not well done!"