William Morden, and Emily Clifton, were the only survivors of two noble families. The time of our Legend is six years after their marriage, when their love had been pledged and crowned by the birth of a boy. Sweet was their domestic bliss, but darkness and death are prepared to enter upon the scene. The curse of witchcraft is about to fall upon the holy beings, in all its horrors and pollutions. The Chronicler shudders, as tradition leads him to their tragic fate, and as it gleams upon the hellish causes. The fair creatures have, in many a dream, for many a long night, been cradled by his side, in beauty and love. Their voices have whispered to him, their faces have smiled upon him, in the mysteries of sleep. And yet he must now awake them to feel the breath of unearthly enmity and power, withering their souls, while serpents are even twined around their shroud!
On a calm evening, towards the beginning of summer, Emily was seated in the old hall, expecting the arrival of her husband, who had rode out early that day, to hunt, when he entered, with marks of agitation on his countenance.
“William!” she exclaimed, as she arose to embrace him, “thou art sad. It cannot be for want of success in the chase; you would not dare”—and she gave him a playful blow on the cheek with her little hand—“to appear before your wife so sorrowful, and with no better excuse. But, love, you smile not. William, are you wounded? Have you been thrown from your horse?”
“No, Emily,” was the reply, “I am safe, but my horse, in passing the cave of which you are so much afraid, sunk down, as if exhausted, though a moment before, he seemed capable of the greatest exertion. Thus is it,” he continued, as he yielded to his wife, who forced him down to a seat, whilst she leaned over him, “our cattle have died, though green is the meadow on which they grazed. And now, my favourite steed—aye, the very one, Emily, whose neck arched so proudly beneath your gentle touch, after he had borne me to your abode, where I wooed and won you as my bride, is now, I fear, stiffening in death. My servant shook his head, as I left Ranger to his care.”
“Poor Ranger,” interrupted the lady, “he was a proud animal, and spurned acquaintance with others of his kind. Yet, William, dost thou recollect how closely and fondly he trotted by the side of my white pony, on the evening you brought me to your home, and how the kind animals allowed me to be locked in your embrace, although their bridles hung loose? Nay, more, did they not choose a lonely path, with the moon shining all sweetly upon it, through the hushed forest, as if there ought to be nothing known to us, save each other; and that, orphans as we were, with the voices of gone friends, as silent to us as the night, still, there was hope shedding its rays over our common lot? Now both of them may be lost. Still you could have visited me without your steed, and I should, perhaps, have been less coy after your fatigues, and,” she added, as her fair hands played among the curls which shaded her husband’s brow, “I could have come hither without my palfrey, leaning on your arm, William.”
The sorrowful man could not reject the consolation of his beautiful wife. Though unforeseen calamities had gathered thickly upon him, as if there was some direct cause, separate from the general course of Providence, yet every chain of human affection was unbroken; and though his fold was now almost forsaken, on his hearth still moved the beings whom he loved, and not a household god had been thrown down. His little Edward had entered, and was climbing his knee, and hugging his neck,—and could he refuse to be happy? He had regained a portion of his usual gaiety, when his servant entered.
“Master, Ranger is dead! I took the bridle from off his head, and he could no more shew that he was at liberty. There was a strange shriek after he fell down. He licked my hands, and his tongue was black and swollen.”
“Shriek, dost thou say?” returned his master, “I have heard that horses groan when in pain, but that they shriek, I cannot believe.”