the deafening
sound as of a peal of thunder. The dale echoed and re-echoed from side
to side, and from height to height. The old mare was affrighted; she
reared, leapt, flung her master away, and galloped off. When they had
recovered from their consternation, the funeral party gave chase, and at
length, down in a hollow place, they thought they saw what they were in
search of. It was a horse with something strapped on its back. When they
came up with it they found it was the _young_ horse, with the coffin of
the younger son. They led it away and buried the body that it had
carried so long, but the old mare they never recovered, and the body of
the mother never found sepulchre.

[Illustration: THE CASTLE ROCK, ST. JOHN'S VALE]

Such was the legend, sufficiently terrible, and even ghastly, which was
the germ of my first novel. Its fascination for me lay in its shadow and
suggestion of the supernatural. I thought it had all the grip of a ghost
story without ever passing out of the world of reality. Imagination
played about the position of that elder son, and ingenuity puzzled
itself for the sequel to his story. What did he think? What did he feel?
What were his superstitions? What became of him? Did he die mad, or was
he a MAN, and did he rise out of all doubt and terror? I cannot say how
many years this ghost of a conception (with various brothers and sisters
of a similar complexion) haunted my mind before I recognised it as the
central incident of a story, the faggot for a fire from which other
incidents might radiate and imaginary characters take life. When I began
to think of it in this practical way I was about six-and-twenty, and was
lodging in a lonely farmhouse in the Vale of St. John.

[Illustration: THIRLMERE]

[Illustration: ROSSETTI WALKING TO AND FRO]

Rossetti was with me, for I had been up to London at his request, and
had brought him down to my retreat. The story of that sojourn among the
mountains I have told elsewhere. It lives in my memory as a very sweet
and sad experience. The poet was a dying man. He spent a few hours of
every day in painful efforts to paint a picture. His nights were long,
for sleep never came to him until the small hours of the morning; his
sight was troublesome, and he could not read with ease; he was in that
condition of ill-health when he could not bear to be alone, and thus he
and I were much together. I was just then looking vaguely to the career
of a public lecturer, and