Nellie Netterville; or, One of the Transplanted, Chapter III-V [pp. 175-190]

Nellie Netterville.
not. Nevertheless, lady, I am not
ungrateful, and in the long, sleepless
nights of my weary malady I have
wrestled for you in prayer, striving
exceedingly and being much exercised on your account; nor gave I
over until I had received the comfortable assurance that, as the Lord
sent angels to Lot to deliver him out
of Sodom, so he would some day
make of me a shield and a defence,
whereby you might be snatched from
the woes that he is about to rain
down on this land, because' the cry
of its idolatry is waxen great before
his face,' and he hath sworn to destroy it."
"Well, well!" she answered a little
impatiently, "I thank you for your
good-will, at all events; but for the
present we will discourse no further
on this matter. God will one day
judge between us, and by his fiat I
am content to stand or fall, in all
those matters of religion on which, unhappily, we differ. See, I have trimmed the lamp so that it will burn
brightly until morning, and there is
food and wine on this little table. I
will put it close to the bed, so that
when you need nourishment, you will
have but to put forth your hand to
take it. And now I must say goodnight-to-morrow I will be with you
by the early dawn."
Having thus done all that either
charity or hospitality could ask at her
hands, Mrs. Netterville retired from
the room, sooner, probably, than she
would have done if the soldier's last
words had not grated on her ear, and
roused more angry passions than she
wished to yield to in her breast.
"He has a good heart, poor
wretch," she thought, as she took her
way back to the castle; "but strange
and fearful is it to see how pride, in
him, as in all his comrades, usurps
the place of true humility and reli gion."
The sudden sound of a pistol going
off disturbed her in the midst of her
cogitations; and with a pang of indescribable fear and presentiment of
evil at her heart, she stood still. It
seemed to come from the grove of
yew-trees round the church, and was
not repeated. Having ascertained
this fact, she walked rapidly forward
in the direction of the sound, her
mind in a perfect whirl of fear, and
only able to shape itself into the one
thought, pregnant of future evil, that,
either by some of her own people, or
by one of the English soldiers, a murder had been committed. Just as she
entered the grove of yew-trees, she
perceived something like the loose
garb of a woman fluttering down the
path before her, and then suddenly
disappearing behind the tower of the
little church. She did not dare to
call out; but feeling certain that this
person must either have fired the shot
herself, or have seen it fired by some
one else, she quickened her pace in
order to overtake her.'-Twilight was
already deepening among the yewtrees; the path, moreover, was overgrown with weeds and brambles, and
as she ran with her eyes fixed on the
spot where the figure had disappeared, she felt herself suddenly tripped
up by some object lying right before
her, and fell heavily against it. At
the first touch of that unseen something, a sense of terror, such as animals are said to be conscious of in
the presence of their own dead, seized
upon her senses, and all the blood
was curdling in her veins as slowly
and with difficulty she removed herself from its contact. Gradually, as
she recovered from the stunning effects of her fall, and her eyes grew
accustomed to the gloom around her,
the "thing" on the ground shaped
itself into the form of a human being
— but of a human being so still and
motionless, that it seemed probable
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