The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1890-12-20
Select gtOrg.
A CHRISTMAS PEAL.

Tho moon shone bright that Christmas
Eve upon the low cliff on which the old
house stood overlooking a roaring sea-a
sea that seemed to leap and lift in cold
metallic lustre to answer the carlton of
bells that swung their wild, glad music
over it in unison with the swift and pow
erful tones rolling from the organ OF the
ancient church that rose behind the house.
The last building in halfdepopulated
quarter of the town that had not changed (!)
its character within the century, the house
had withstood the storms that beat about
the cliff couple of hundred years and
more, and, with all its roofs and bays and
gables. looked in the weird glitter as if it
were but portion Of the storm-worn rock.
Once. indeed, its traditions said, a great
tide had climbed the rock and washed
about the case of the dwelling, but had re-
treated as if the depths themselves had
called it back-the elements respecting the
rights of the old Beltrans more than they
did those of the cliff on which they built
and which the tide had undermined and
honeycombed in caves countless as the gal
leries of long-worked mine, and whose
lawns it had worn away to the shelf of turf
that almost overhung the breaker.
What a tumultuous sea it was that night,
tumbling in with its black and white fury
as the tide met the blowing wind and threw
off both moonbeams and foam in showers
of dark glory. A cold and glittering
stretch of loneliness swallowed far off in
the depths of dusky horizons scene Of
the long companionship of which, perhaps,
had made the Beltrans the cold, hard,
glittering race they were, with all their
shadows and reserve. They had been a
race in whose way of living there had been
some splendor and lavish use of wealth
that came from unknown sources; a certain
dark beauty and lordly manner, too, they
had carried, but the creatures of pleasure,
feeding the flame of strong passions in
their youth, that fell TO dull ashes in their
age, they had male no other impress on
the generation than that Of name to be
feared. The last of them stood now in the
oriel window looking out at the sea and its
spray fountains young girl and an old
man, He was not an old man, however,
only old before his time, with that same
dull ashes on his brow and on his face and
in his burned-out eye that all his people
had put on before him. But the girl, q
Beltran by all her beauty, her cloud of fine
black hair floating about her face, her eyes
like stars in the midnight violet of heaven
that is neither black nor blue, her features
chiseled out of ivory, her skin-no leaf Of
a blush rose is half so fair, SO bloomy
sweet, and her smile, ah no Beltran evel
were that smile; that was her mother:
smile. the fair wife that came into the
house to live the last two years of hel
young life and die of grief and terror there
And now the child, who had been sen
away, changed from guardian to guardian
and from school to school, to grow up with
out love, had returned after twenty year
to find home that was at once palace
and prison, pOth-eaten, faded, crumb
ling palace, but a fast and sure prison. A
part of it, as one would say, was still
church, for the first old Reltran of all ha(
been bishop, they said, and built his owl
shrine, but since his day wall had bee
raised to separate house and ehaFch, a wal
that shook to the playing of the great OF
gan and sent its vibrations trembling
through the house, sore relic in spirit or i
! matter, of that early day left to the Be
trans now, save when the peal of bells j
the belly rang out chime that called th
, echoes and pulsed their way again throug
every old worm-eaten timber of roof an
walls. But all the churchly sanctity of tn
consecrated ueighborhood could not sal
or save the house of the Beltrans. A hous
that was haunted by strange sounds, strang
5 movements, rustlings, whisperings, maxim
y themselves felt or heard at high noon {
e dead of night Doors open that had bee
left locked, closed that had been left oper
!, reflections in mirrors where, if you turne'
r there was nothing to reflect, moans, or VIII
It seemed moans, stormy voices, cries, an
9 could it be the clank of chains ?-one mu
= , have been without nerves or without ina
ination to make nothing of all that; b.
sometimes she resolved it into the thrillir
Of the great organ in the adjoining churc
where still the gentry of the place beyor
did their worshiping for the sake OF the
!. grandfathers who had worshiped there b
s. fore them. The rudeness of the men Sc
is wants, the insolent fling of the maids, ad
u ed to the stra ngeness of this young girl
,e home, and the father, whom she seldo
:, saw except at the dinner table, was of SUI
rs singular demeanor that she could hard
r. believe him to be a father at all. 81
would have been so proud and glad to 10
and serve a father, and this man, made
= ice and stell, kept her at distance whi
! taught her to suspect some reason far su
!. tier than love for bringing her home to t
!, house of the Beltrans'. She wondered
the great menage and the simple living,
the total absence of neighbors or frien'