view of park, water, and
woodland. High hanging-woods waved in the foreground, and an extensive
sweep of flat champaign country stretched out to meet a line of blue,
hazy hills bounding the distant horizon.

_CHAPTER V_

_SIR REGINALD ROOKWOOD_

A king who changed his wives as easily as a woman changes her dress.
He threw aside the first, cut off the second's head, the third he
disemboweled: as for the fourth, he pardoned her, and simply turned
her out of doors, but to make matters even, cut off the head of
number five.--VICTOR HUGO: _Marie Tudor_.

From the house to its inhabitants the transition is natural. Besides the
connexion between them, there were many points of resemblance; many
family features in common; there was the same melancholy grandeur, the
same character of romance, the same fantastical display. Nor were the
secret passages, peculiar to the one, wanting to the history of the
other. Both had their mysteries. One blot there was in the otherwise
proud escutcheon of the Rookwoods, that dimmed its splendor, and made
pale its pretensions: their sun was eclipsed in blood from its rising to
its meridian; and so it seemed would be its setting. This foul reproach
attached to all the race; none escaped it. Traditional rumors were
handed down from father to son, throughout the county, and, like all
other rumors, had taken to themselves wings, and flown abroad; their
crimes became a by-word. How was it they escaped punishment? How came
they to evade the hand of justice? Proof was ever wanting; justice was
ever baffled. They were a stern and stiff-necked people, of indomitable
pride and resolution, with, for the most part, force of character
sufficient to enable them to breast difficulties and dangers that would
have overwhelmed ordinary individuals. No quality is so advantageous to
its possessor as firmness; and the determined energy of the Rookwoods
bore them harmless through a sea of trouble. Besides, they were
wealthy; lavish even to profusion; and gold will do much, if skilfully
administered. Yet, despite all this, a dark, ominous cloud settled over
their house, and men wondered when the vengeance of Heaven, so long
delayed, would fall and consume it.

Possessed of considerable landed property, once extending over nearly
half the West Riding of Yorkshire, the family increased in power and
importance for an uninterrupted series of years, until the outbreak of
that intestine disc