edge of the horizon,
and she sees a noble old castle. Its summit of tower, watchtower and
battlement, glimmers faintly in the moonlight. This is their
destination.

She feels on a sudden all but overpowered by sleep; but although she
nods, she is quite conscious of the continued motion, which has become
even rougher.

She makes an effort, and rouses herself. What has become of the
coach, the castle, the servants? Nothing but the strange forest
remains the same.

She is jolting along on a rude hurdle, seated on rushes, and a tall,
big-boned man, in rags, sits in front, kicking with his heel the
ill-favoured beast that pulls them along, every bone of which sticks
out, and holding the halter which serves for reins. They stop at the
door of a miserable building of loose stone, with a thatch so sunk and
rotten, that the roof-tree and couples protrude in crooked corners,
like the bones of the wretched horse, with enormous head and ears,
that dragged them to the door.

The long gaunt man gets down, his sinister face grimed like his hands.

It was the same grimy giant who had accosted her on the lonely road
near Deadman's Grike. But she feels that she "must go through with it"
now, and she follows him into the house.

Two rushlights were burning in the large and miserable room, and on a
coarse ragged bed lay a woman groaning piteously.

"That's Lady Lairdale," says the gaunt dark man, who then began to
stride up and down the room rolling his head, stamping furiously, and
thumping one hand on the palm of the other, and talking and laughing
in the corners, where there was no one visible to hear or to answer.

Old Mall Carke recognized in the faded half-starved creature who lay
on the bed, as dark now and grimy as the man, and looking as if she
had never in her life washed hands or face, the once blithe and pretty
Laura Lew.

The hideous being who was her mate continued in the same odd
fluctuations of fury, grief, and merriment; and whenever she uttered a
groan, he parodied it with another, as Mother Carke thought, in
saturnine derision.

At length he strode into another room, and banged the door after him.

In due time the poor woman's pains were over, and a daughter was born.

Such an imp! with long pointed ears, flat nose, and enormous restless
eyes and mouth. It instantly began to yell and talk in some unknown
language, at the noise of which the father looked into the room, and
told the _sage femme_ that she sh