y the fall, but he was
more frightened than hurt; and though he tried to put a bold face on the
matter, it was plain that his efforts to recover himself were fruitless.
Dr. Titus Tyrconnel and that wild fellow Jack Palmer--who has lately
come to the hall, and of whom you know something--tried to rally him.
But it would not do. He broke up the day's sport, and returned
dejectedly to the hall. Before departing, however, he addressed a word
to me in private, respecting you; and pointed, with a melancholy shake
of the head, to the fatal branch. '_It is my death-warrant_,' said he,
gloomily. And so it proved; two days afterwards his doom was
accomplished."

"And do you place faith in this idle legend?" asked Luke, with affected
indifference, although it was evident, from his manner, that he himself
was not so entirely free from a superstitious feeling of credulity as he
would have it appear.

"Certes," replied the sexton. "I were more difficult to be convinced
than the unbelieving disciple else. Thrice hath it occurred to my own
knowledge, and ever with the same result: first, with Sir Reginald;
secondly, with thy own mother; and lastly, as I have just told thee,
with Sir Piers."

"I thought you said, even now, that this death omen, if such it be, was
always confined to the immediate family of Rookwood, and not to mere
inmates of the mansion."

"To the heads only of that house, be they male or female."

"Then how could it apply to my mother? Was _she_ of that house? Was
_she_ a wife?"

"Who shall say she was _not_?" rejoined the sexton.

"Who shall say she _was_ so?" cried Luke, repeating the words with
indignant emphasis--"who will avouch _that_?"

A smile, cold as a wintry sunbeam, played upon the sexton's rigid lips.

"I will bear this no longer," cried Luke; "anger me not, or look to
yourself. In a word, have you anything to tell me respecting her? if
not, let me begone."

"I have. But I will not be hurried by a boy like you," replied Peter,
doggedly. "Go, if you will, and take the consequences. My lips are
sealed forever, and I have much to say--much that it behoves you to
know."

"Be brief, then. When you sought me out this morning, in my retreat with
the gipsy gang at Davenham Wood, you bade me meet you in the porch of
Rookwood Church at midnight. I was true to my appointment."

"And I will keep my promise," replied the sexton. "Draw closer, that I
may whisper in thine ear. Of every Rookwood who lies a