But Arthur was not to be deceived. Spite of the gathering twilight, he could see the large tears brimming Aunt Caddy's still beautiful eyes; could hear the tremor in her playful tone; could feel, boy as he was, that some chord had been touched that thrilled with saddening memories.
The boy baron almost idolized the fair, gentle aunt who had replaced to him the mother he had never known, and it was with a remorseful sympathy that he flung his arms around her neck, kissed her flushed cheek, and whispered fondly, "Your tiresome little troubadour knows but one, and that is for you alone, dear auntie—Je t'aime, je t'aime; yes, more than any one in the world, dear Aunt Caddy."
He was not prepared for the long, low sob that shook her slight frame as she replied, in trembling accents,
"I believe you, my darling, my own Arthur; the one sunbeam of a cheerless—but never let us talk again as we have done to-night."
So Arthur was silent; but with a strange, precocious wisdom he "pondered these things in his heart."
And the result was that a letter, indited in a clear, boyish hand, sped like a white-winged messenger of peace across the broad Atlantic, bearing the address of Colonel Charles Thornbury, —th Dragoons.
And months after that twilight talk, when the leaves of Hurston Park fell in showers of crimson and gold on the broad avenue, when the last roses breathed their sweet farewells around Arthur's latticed window, and the autumn winds began to sigh through the leafless vines, far away beneath the clear blue sky of another hemisphere a bronzed, bearded man read those frank, boyish words of welcome that bore the proud seal of his ancient race, and, with a tear and a smile, whispered a blessing on "Arthur's boy."
Christmas snow lay white and pure on the fields and groves of Hurston, and Christmas moonlight fell like a benediction on the spotless earth. The old hall stood boldly out with every rugged outline clearly defined against the frosty winter sky. A strange, irregular old pile, with little architectural symmetry; for it had grown with the fortunes of the race that had ruled there for generations, dating its foundation far back in the mist of centuries before England bent to Norman William's sceptre. Tradition pointed to the grove where the mistletoe was culled with many a sacred rite; to the tower where the fair bride waited and watched in vain for her lord, who lay cold and stiff on the lost battle plain of Hastings; to the gate whence issued the stout Baron of Hurston, stern in his demand for right, to the rendezvous at Runnymede. The long, low building stretching into the shadows of the grove was said to have been built by Ethwold the Saxon, when, weary of the toils of war, he retired into the quiet "Hurst," beneath whose leafy shelter his race grew and flourished for generations.
Remnants of fearful tales still were heard around the cottage fires—tales of awful orgies held by the fierce Saxon, and of invocations of Woden and Thor, and rude banquets when the wild chant of the bard and the pledge of Waeshael echoed through the ancient Hurst. It was even whispered that these fierce, unbaptized spirits still lingered around their earthly haunts, watching the fortunes of their race and guarding it from extinction.
But the young Baron of Hurston resting in his dainty sick-chamber, surrounded by all that wealth and affection could bestow, yet feeling with a strange, peaceful resignation that his young life was fast ebbing away, bestowed little thought on the name and fame of the proud ancestors that had ruled Hurston before him.