‘Oh, do not let us go yet!’ exclaimed Rose; ‘it is so delightful here.’ As she spoke she took off her hat, and the light evening breeze played at will amongst her sunny tresses. Her face was radiant with happiness, as all unsuspicious of coming woe she sat there; when suddenly a hand was laid on her arm, and a low hoarse voice startled us all with the words: ‘That man by your side is a liar, and a traitor, fair lady!’
It was the woman I had already seen. She had come through the ruin behind us, and managed to approach unseen as we sat with our faces turned in another direction. Had some explosive missile been suddenly thrown into our midst it could not have produced greater consternation than did these words. For a moment we were all speechless from bewilderment. But the next, Rose recovered herself, and the blood rushed in an angry torrent to her face, as shaking off the woman’s hand, she exclaimed indignantly: ‘How dare you? What right have you to say such words?’
‘The right of one who knows him far better than you can—for he is my husband!’
‘It is false!’ broke from Rose’s quivering lips, as she turned appealingly to Mr Hammond; but alas! his pallid face betrayed an agitation which seemed to confirm the woman’s statement.
‘This woman is mad,’ he said, striving hard to maintain his composure.
But Rose heeded not his words. She knew intuitively that the worst was true. Mr Aslatt was at her side in a moment, assuring her, as he tenderly supported her fainting form, that she need not fear, for the woman’s story should not be believed without full proof. But she made no reply; indeed I doubt whether she heard what he said, for Nature kindly came to her relief, and she sank into unconsciousness.
LUNDY ISLAND.
At the mouth of the Bristol Channel, off the pleasant western English shore, fighting as it were with the long white waves of the Atlantic, and with its lighthouse warning the mariner to give it ample range, stands the lonely little island of Lundy, between Devon on the south and the coast of Wales on the north; while from the island’s granite cliffs, looking towards the western horizon, stretches the open Atlantic. It is a very little place; only three and a half miles in length by an average of one half mile in width, and of an extreme altitude of a trifle over five hundred feet. The top is an undulating table-land; the sides slope down green with ferns, and in the blossoming-time bright with flowers, to rocks, on the eastern side of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in height; while to the west the cliffs, rich with orange, yellow, and gray lichens, are tumbled in strange confusion, and present a scene of wild and precipitous grandeur. Of the three thousand acres of which the island consists, about five hundred are under cultivation, and produce turnips and cereal crops, besides grass; the remainder is gorse and heather, which, however, is now also in course of being brought into cultivation. Of farm-produce Lundy also rears poultry, sheep, and cattle.
In 1877, the population consisted of between forty and fifty individuals, consisting of the proprietor and his family and household, a farmer and a dozen farm-labourers, three lighthouse-men, and two signal-station-men; besides which the islet boasts of a doctor and a clergyman—though not of a church. The owner Mr W. H. Hearen purchased the property in 1834, and has since, for the most part, resided on his sea-girt rock.