Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

16 RAVENSHOE.
friend Jim, who had attended Densil in the Fleet prison in old
times.'He had some time before this married a beautiful Irish
Catholic waiting-maid of Lady Alicia's, by whom he had a
daughter, now five years old, and a son aged one week. He
walked across the yard to where the women were talking, and
addressed them..
" How is my lady to-night? " said he.
"Holy Mother of God!" said a weeping Irish house-maid,
" she's worse."
"How's the young master?"
"Hearty, a darling; crying his little eyes out, he is, a-bless
him."
"He'll be bigger than Master Cuthbert, I'11 warrant ye," said
a portly cook.
"When was he born?" asked James.
" Nigh on two hours," said the other speaker.
At this conjuncture a groom came running through the passage, putting a note in his hat as he went; he came to the studgroom, and said, hurriedly, "A note for Dr. Marcy, at Lanceston,
sir. What horse am I to take?"
"Trumpeter. How is my lady?"
"Going, as far as I can gather, sir."
James waited until he heard him dash full speed- out of the
yard, and then till he saw him disappear like a speck along the
mountain road far aloft; then he went into the house, and, getting as near to the sick-room as he dared, waited quietly on the
stairs.
It was a house of woe, indeed! Two hours before, one feeble,'
wailing little creature had taken up his burden, and begun his
weary pilgrimage across the unknown desolate land that lay between him and the grave, - for a part of which you and I are to
accompany him; while his mother even now was preparing for
her rest, yet striving for the child's sake to lengthen the last few
weary steps of her journey, that they two might walk, were it
never so short a distance, together.
The room was very still. Faintly the pure scents and sounds
stole into the chamber of death from the blessed summer air without; gently came the murmur of the surf upon the sands; fainter
and still fainter came the breath of the dying mother. The babe
lay beside her, and her arm was round its body. The old vicar
knelt by the bed, and Densil stood with folded arms and bowed
head, watching the face which had grown so dear to him, till the
light should die out from it forever. Only those four in the
chamber of death!
The sighing grew louder, and the eye grew once more animated. She reached out her hand, and, taking one of the vicar's,