t bottom
would allow, and intending to make his nag fast at his customary tree,
he heard on a sudden a horrid shriek at top of the steep rocks above his
head, and something--a gigantic human form, it seemed--came tumbling and
bounding headlong down through the rocks, and fell with a fearful
impetus just before his horse's hoofs and there lay like a huge
palpitating carcass. The horse was scared, as, indeed, was his rider,
too, and more so when this apparently lifeless thing sprang up to his
legs, and throwing his arms apart to bar their further progress,
advanced his white and gigantic face towards them. Then the horse
started about, with a snort of terror, nearly unseating the priest, and
broke away into a furious and uncontrollable gallop.

I need not recount all the strange and various misadventures which the
honest priest sustained in his endeavours to visit the castle, and its
isolated tenants. They were enough to wear out his resolution, and
frighten him into submission. And so at last these spiritual visits
quite ceased; and fearing to awaken inquiry and suspicion, he thought it
only prudent to abstain from attempting them in the daytime.

So the young ladies of the castle were more alone than ever. Their
father, whose visits were frequently of long duration, had of late
ceased altogether to speak of their contemplated departure for France,
grew angry at any allusion to it, and they feared, had abandoned the
plan altogether.

CHAPTER IV

The Light in the Bell Tower

Shortly after the discontinuance of the priest's visits, old Laurence,
one night, to his surprise, saw light issuing from a window in the Bell
Tower. It was at first only a tremulous red ray, visible only for a few
minutes, which seemed to pass from the room, through whose window it
escaped upon the courtyard of the castle, and so to lose itself. This
tower and casement were in the angle of the building, exactly
confronting that in which the little outlawed family had taken up their
quarters.

The whole family were troubled at the appearance of this dull red ray
from the chamber in the Bell Tower. Nobody knew what to make of it. But
Laurence, who had campaigned in Italy with his old master, the young
ladies' grandfather--"the heavens be his bed this night!"--was resolved
to see it out, and took his great horse-pistols with him, and ascended
to the corridor leading to the tower. But his search was vain.

This light left a sense of great