ath, grew plain to him. Then
he thought of his mother, and crossed himself, and said a little prayer
to the Virgin.

* * * * *

Charron was waiting by the old yew-tree, and Jerry sat trembling, with
his eyes upon the castle, while the black horse, roped to a branch, was
mourning the scarcity of oats and the abundance of gnats.

"Pest and the devil, but the coast is all alive!" cried the Frenchman,
soothing anxiety with solid and liquid comforts. "Something has gone
wrong behind the tail of everything. And there goes that big Stoobar,
blazing with his sordid battery! Arouse thee, old Cheray! The time too
late is over. Those lights thrice accursed will display our little boat,
and John Bull is rushing with a thousand sails. The Commander is mad.
They will have him, and us too. Shall I dance by a rope? It is the only
dancing probable for me in England."

"I have never expected any good to come," the old man answered, without
moving. "The curse of the house is upon the young Squire. I saw it in
his eyes this morning, the same as I saw in his father's eyes, when the
sun was going down the very night he died. I shall never see him more,
sir, nor you either, nor any other man that bides to the right side of
his coffin."

"Bah! what a set you are of funerals, you Englishmen! But if I thought
he was in risk, I would stay to see the end of it."

"Here comes the end of it!" the old man cried, leaping up and catching
at a rugged cord of trunk, with his other hand pointing up the hill.
From the base of the castle a broad blaze rushed, showing window and
battlement, arch and tower, as in a flicker of the Northern lights. Then
up went all the length of fabric, as a wanton child tosses his Noah's
ark. Keep and buttress, tower and arch, mullioned window and battlement,
in a fiery furnace leaped on high, like the outburst of a volcano. Then,
with a roar that rocked the earth, they broke into a storm of ruin,
sweeping the heavens with a flood of fire, and spreading the sea with
a mantle of blood. Following slowly in stately spires, and calmly
swallowing everything, a fountain of dun smoke arose, and solemn silence
filled the night.

"All over now, thank the angels and the saints! My faith, but I made up
my mind to join them," cried Charron, who had fallen, or been felled by
the concussion. "Cheray, art thou still alive? The smoke is in my neck.
I cannot liberate my words, but the lumps must be all co