CHAPTER IX.

FOREBODINGS.

If ever Constance left the villa, she sought the direction of the coast, and when there never wearied of watching the wide expanse of the Bristol Channel with its passing ships and steamers; for the changing ocean was the path by which her loved ones were to return to her; Richard, within a month perhaps, now; but their son Denzil--oh, years must elapse, her heart foreboded and knew, ere she should see him again.

And now as the season advanced, and storms and wrecks among the Scilly Isles and about the Land's End were not unfrequent, her soul became a prey to nervous fears, that were fed and fostered in spite of herself by Derrick's sister, Winny Braddon, a superstitious old Cornish woman, who had been Sybil's nurse.

Winny, a devout believer in dreams, visions, the virtues of miraculous wells and so forth, was wont to declare that when all specifics failed she had been cured of rheumatism by crawling through the famous Men-an-tol, or Holed Stone near Lanyon; and now she shook her grey head ominously when the wind blew a gale and rolled a heavy surf upon the shore, and averred that she could hear the wreck-bells booming under the sea at Boscastle.

So Constance, though naturally free from all idle fancies save that which we may term the affectionate superstition of the heart, could not listen to the croaking of this old woman without vague and growing fear; for though Winny knew nothing of the interest that "Mrs. Devereaux" had in the family of Lamorna, or her connection therewith (Derrick having kept his secret well) those sounds amid the deep at Boscastle were supposed by Cornish tradition to bode evil to the line of Trevelyan.

For it would appear, as Winny Braddon related, that long ago the villagers of Boscastle were very envious of the melodious and musical bells that were rung in the church of Tintagel, to which they were a gift from its superior the Abbot of Fontevrault in Normandy. So De Bottreaux who was lord of the manor, and the site of whose castle is now marked by a green mound only, to gratify those villagers who were his vassals, ordered from London a merry peal for the spire of Boscastle church; and those bells were duly shipped on board a vessel named the _Koithgath_ caravel, for her captain, Launcelot Trevelyan, was a younger son of the family of Lamorna. He had been a wild fellow, of whose future career evil had been predicted by a _Pyrdrak Brâz_ (old Cornish for a great-witch) who dwelt in the Zawn Reeth, a granite cavern at Nans Isal, on the western side of the bay so named--a wild and savage place surrounded by masses of scattered rock.

So Master Launcelot ran off to sea, and served under Drake and Hawkins in many a dark and desperate day's work among the Spaniards in Brazil, Madeira, and the Cape de Verde; and had once been round the Cape of Storms as far as the realms of that mysterious personage then known as Prester John.

Thus in due time, steered by Paul Poindester, a famous pilot from the Scilly Isles, the _Koithgath_, with the bells on board, arrived in the offing and in sight of Boscastle, with all its furzy hollows, above which rose the castle of Bottreaux, with the standard of its owner flying--a great banner, bearing three toads and a griffin.

As the ship drew in shore, the bells of Tintagel church, that towers still on a bleak, exposed, and lofty cliff to the westward of King Arthur's castle, rang out a taunting and a joyous peal that mingled with the booming of the ocean as it rolled on the bluffs below, or far up the sandy bay of Trebarreth Strand.

Then, according to the story, Launcelot Trevelyan swore an exulting oath as he surveyed the stupendous scenery of his native shore, adding,

"I am here again--thank my good ship and her canvas!"

"Nay," said the old pilot Poindester, as he reverently lifted his hat, "rather thank God and St. Michael of Cornwall."

"By Heaven," rejoined Trevelyan, "I thank myself and the fair wind only."

Poindester though fearless, for he was a native of those dangerous Isles where for one who dies a natural death nine are drowned, rebuked this irreverence, on which the wild Trevelyan stormed and blasphemed, and forgetting to heed his compass or steerage, permitted his caravel to be dashed ashore, just as a sudden storm came on, and the waves of the Bristol Channel hurled her on the cliffs of the Black Pit, where every soul on board perished, save old Paul Poindester. From the high gilded poop of his caravel, Launcelot Trevelyan, with a fierce malediction, cast into the sea, before it swallowed him up, the silver whistle and chain, his badge of naval authority, the gift of Sir Francis Drake, lest it should become some wrecker's prey; and as the timbers parted, and the ship went down into the angry sea, the clangour of the bells resounded in her hold; and there to this day they are heard by people loitering on the shore, when storms are nigh--or when aught is about to happen to the family of Lamorna, add the superstitious folks of Cornwall.

"Oh, why did this absurd old woman relate such a boding story to me?" thought Constance, for situated as she was, she had become somewhat of a prey to gloomy and grotesque fancies; hence, often in the night she would dream of wrecks, and seem to hear the sound of alarm-bells in her ear, and starting from bed, would draw up the window-blind and look forth to see if a storm was raving without, forgetting then, even though it were so, all might be calm and peaceful elsewhere.

Then when she saw the autumnal moon in all its unclouded glory flooding her chamber and her white night-dress with silver lustre; that all was calm and still, the diamond-like stars sparkling above the dark willows in the glen, or the darker woodland in the distance; and that no noises came to her listening ear, but perhaps the bark of a house-dog, or such as may be aptly termed the sounds of night and silence, she would go back to her lonely pillow with a prayer on her lips for those who were absent, and for all who were on the sea.

A letter from Richard, made her supremely happy!

He had reached Montreal in safety. The poor old curé of the secluded little chapel of St. Mary--the good Père Latour--was dead, and had been so for some time; hence the reason that her husband's letters had remained unanswered. Even the little acolyte, the other witness of their marriage, had gone to his last home; and now in memory, Constance could recall the thin, spare figure of the old clergyman, with his white hair brushed behind his ears, his peculiar shovel hat, long black soutane, cape and gaiters to the knee--for he had been a man of the old school of French colonial priests.

"His little chapel and vestry, both built of wood, as you will remember, Conny, were burned down three years after our regiment left the city," continued Richard's letter; "and all the Records there perished in the flames; among other things, the volume of the Register in which our marriage was entered. But, most providentially, the successor of Latour in the poor incumbency, found among some of his papers, the signed copy--or rather I should say, the original of our marriage lines or certificate--which we had never received. _It is now in my possession_, and I have folded it inside a will which I prepared on the voyage out--a will, dearest Conny, in which, to make all certain for the future--as there are those at home, whom I doubt--I leave all I have in the world to you for life, and to Denzil and Sybil after you, absolutely. Your poor father and mother are interred not far from the grave of Père Latour, and I have ordered white marble crosses to be erected to the memory of the three. I shall sail for England a fortnight hence, in the steamer _Admiral_, and till then, shall renew in sweet fancy the days of our loverhood, by many a ramble about Montreal; by Hochlega, the picturesque site of the old Indian village, now its eastern suburb; the nine aisles of the great Cathedral; the gardens of the Convent of Notre Dame, and among the mountains close by--in many a shady walk and lane; and Heaven and myself alone can know how I miss you and our dearest Sybil, and how I am longing to return." It was signed "_Lamorna_."

"My dear, dear Richard!" sobbed the wife, while her tears of joy fell fast.

"All the places I mention, you must remember well," he added in a postscript; "and you may imagine how sad it is for me to wander alone where once we were so happy together."

"He was to sail in a fortnight from the date of his letter," thought Constance, with a glow of pleasure in her heart; "he must now be on the sea! and in a fortnight from this, I shall see him again--my dear, dear husband--so kind, so good, so true and thoughtful, even to mark, unasked by me, the last resting-place of poor mamma and papa--and even of the good Père Latour. The latter act, is in itself, a compliment to me."

Then an emotion of terror seized her, as she perused the letter again.

What if the attested copy of those important "lines," their certificate of marriage, _had perished_ in the same fire which consumed the wooden chapel, the vestry, and its registers! What then would have been her fate, and more than all, by sequence, the fate and position of the children she idolised--her proud boy Denzil, and the beautiful Sybil, now budding on the verge of womanhood?

A stigma--a stain--she could never remove, might have been on them, to the end of their lives; and her soul seemed to die within her as she thought of the peril--the narrow escape, they had all made!

She thanked Heaven with fervour in her heart, and again and again, it swelled with gratitude to her husband, and with love for him and confidence in him; with joy, too, that he would so soon hear all this from her own loving lips--for in a few days now, the _Admiral_ would be due in the Thames!