on the edge of every lurid cloud, he saw it, he saw them; not one but hundreds:  maidens with stony blue eyes, all glaring upon him; he looked upon the earth, a gibbering madman was running by his side, howling and hooting in the wind; now so near as almost to touch him:  now hundreds of yards away, but always the same; behind him with his ghastly mangled head, came the form of his last victim, forward! forward! while the crashing thunder pealed above his head; he shook his impious hand against the sky, and still darted onward, till the horse stopped, snorting on the beach; and there as the great sea, rolled in foaming and turgid, there, he saw it plain in yon glare of livid lightning, on the crest of every curling wave, a dark haired lady lay, glaring at him with eyes that looked like coals of fire; a monster wave came rolling in, and the frightened horse turned, and seizing the bit between his teeth sped homeward, but still he saw them in the clouds behind, before, beckoning to him, calling to him, in the voice of the great wind; on, on, towards the castle gates, he looked up to the battlements; they were there, on every turret’s top, on every pointed arch, from every window, visible to him, as though it had been bright daylight he saw them.  The horse unable to check his momentum dashed against the castle gates, and falling over crushed him in its fall; and there on the very spot where one of his victims had lain in the sleep of death, there lay the mangled and now dying man, mingling his blood with that of the expiring animal.  Day dawned, and when the red sun rose, it shone upon a corpse; the storm had ceased, but the wind had blown the snow from off it, and the laborer who found the body, rushed from the spot in terror at the horrible expression of the dead man’s face.

CHAPTER XI.

Conclusion.

Three years have passed away,—­the young Earl has arrived at age, and is coming to take possession of his domains—­after finishing his education at Oxford; great preparation has been made to welcome him.  Foremost on the occasion is Mrs. Alice Goodfellow, and as their Lord’s reputed aunt for so many years, she is a person of no small importance:—­still single, but beginning to think of settling now, as her glass gives awkward reflections,—­but still balancing the claims of her admirers, though she does give color to the report of shewing a preference for the sturdy blacksmith;—­by her side, smartly dressed, are gamboling about the young Johnsons, while their father, in a respectable suit of black, marshals the somewhat unruly procession of maidens and youths chosen to receive the young Earl.  He is now the steward, (agent is a name he wisely discards,) and a great man, but young girls and boys from sixteen to twenty have a trick of paying no attention to the wisdom of their elders, and he is sorely put to it to maintain order.  Spring has planted her fair feet upon the daisied green, and a huge May-Pole