e tempest, and flung far
away into the dim and distant void, now rushing on the ear in one deep
gush of harmony--the voice of Nature, as if her thousand tongues were
blended in one universal peal of praise and adoration to the great
Power that called her into being. Many a heart quailed with
apprehension, many a bosom was oppressed with doubtful and anxious
forebodings. Robert de Lacy, the last of this illustrious race, fourth
in descent from Ilbert de Lacy, on whom the Conqueror bestowed the great
fee of Pontefract, the owner of twenty-eight manors and lord of the
honour of Clitheroe, was no longer numbered with the living; and here in
the chapel of this lone fortress, before the dim altar, all that
remained of this powerful baron, the clay no longer instinct with
spirit, was soon to be enveloped in the dust, the darkness, and the
degradation of its kindred earth.

Many circumstances rendered this scene more than usually solemn and
affecting. Robert de Lacy had died without issue to inherit these
princely domains, the feudal inheritance of a family whose power had so
wide a grasp, that it was currently said the Lacies might pass from
Clitheroe Castle to their fortress at Pontefract, a journey of some
fifty miles, and rest in a house or hostelrie of their own at every
pause during their progress.

With him ended the male line of this great family. Failing in issue, he
had devised all these vast estates to Awbrey, his uterine sister,
daughter of Robert de Lizours, married to Richard Fitz-Eustace, lord of
Halton and constable of Chester.

Thus ended the last of his race; and the inheritance had passed to a
stranger.

The surrounding worshippers were mostly domestics and retainers of the
family, save Robert de Whalley, the dean of that ancient church,
supposed to have been founded by Augustine or Paulinus in the seventh
century, and then called "The White Church under the Leigh." No tidings
had been heard from the Fitz-Eustace at Halton, and in two days the body
was to be carried forth on its last pilgrimage to Kirkstall Abbey,
founded by Henry de Lacy, father of the deceased, about forty years
prior to this event.

The beginning of February, in the year 1193, when our story commences,
was an epoch memorable for the base and treacherous captivity of Richard
Coeur de Lion by the Duke of Austria; and for the equally base and
treacherous, but short-lived, usurpation of John, the brother of our
illustrious crusader. The