“Vengeance belongs to God,” replied the old man, “and his bolt has fallen.—This way—this way,” he continued, dragging Tyrrel into the house. “Know,” he said, so soon as he had led or forced him into a chamber, “that Mowbray of St. Ronan's has met Bulmer within this half hour, and has killed him on the spot.”
“Killed?—whom?” answered the bewildered Tyrrel.
“Valentine Bulmer, the titular Earl of Etherington.”
“You bring tidings of death to the house of death,” answered Tyrrel; “and there is nothing in this world left that I should live for!”
CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION.
Here come we to our close—for that which follows
Is but the tale of dull, unvaried misery.
Steep crags and headlong linns may court the pencil,
Like sudden haps, dark plots, and strange adventures;
But who would paint the dull and fog-wrapt moor,
In its long track of sterile desolation?
Old Play.
When Mowbray crossed the brook, as we have already detailed, his mind was in that wayward and uncertain state, which seeks something whereon to vent the self-engendered rage with which it labours, like a volcano before eruption. On a sudden, a shot or two, followed by loud voices and laughter reminded him he had promised, at that hour, and in that sequestered place, to decide a bet respecting pistol-shooting, to which the titular Lord Etherington, Jekyl, and Captain MacTurk, to whom such a pastime was peculiarly congenial, were parties as well as himself. The prospect this recollection afforded him, of vengeance on the man whom he regarded as the author of his sister's wrongs, was, in the present state of his mind, too tempting to be relinquished; and, setting spurs to his horse, he rushed through the copse to the little glade, where he found the other parties, who, despairing of his arrival, had already begun their amusement. A jubilee shout was set up as he approached.