Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1903-05-02
RED BERRIES AND WHITE.
A Christmas Tragedy
A Christmas Tragedy.

Reuben had disappeared.
Where are you going?" she cried,
| finding voice at last.
After him." he said, "to see what
devils work he's up TO-"
| A dry sob escaped the girls bosom.
She knew the resolute villainy of this
mans nature, and the cool bravery of
! the others. and she feared any meeting
between them. With painful istless-
ness she made her way to the spot where
the gypsies We're now gathering for the
evening meal, and sat down with the
others.
Meanwhile the equestrian party had
entered the Manor. and soon dinner was
in full progress. But it was cherries
meal. Everyone seemed preoccupied, ex-
cept the Squire, and he, seeing little
chance of lively conversation, soon
withdrew to the study with the avowed
object of looking over some accounts,
but in reality to consume some old port,
and to think out some ideas that had
forced themselves into his mind much
against his will.
| A depression had for some reason
fallen upon him, and his mind had I'M
Willingly reverted to the days of long
ago, when his worshipped wife Wimfred
was alive, and when she used to play
on the great lawn with the little one,
who, shortly before its mothers death,
had been spirited away and had never
| been heard of since.
The night was not one calculated to
soothe the nerves.
Real Christmas weather was setting
in; an east wind had begun to blow
fiercely, and howled round the old house,
/ ,,rf,s 4 airI
sound against the ldov panes.
There are always tlange noises in
these big old houses al night, and what
ever he heard certainly did not reach the
Squire from the inmates. The servants
were down in the basement finishing
their preparations for Christmas; Err
nest and Dick were in the billiard room;
and Gladys had, under the plea of q
headache, retired to her room.
The study was unusually cold. "Some
foolish person has left the window open,
l do believe" said the Squire to himself,
as he rose to close it.
Then he fell back a pace, and grasped
the table for support, for, floating in to
him, came the sound Of mufiied bells,
faint and weird as if the music was
deadened and indis+inct, struggling to
make itself heard through some heavy
obstruction.
Great heavens!" he muttered, what
calamity is coming upon us? l felt that
something was approaching. Who is to
be the victim? Dick or II"
His thoughts naturally flew to Dick,
his favorite nephew-his dead brothers
only son. For Ernest Walton he had no
love, though he was his sisters child.
He behaved to him kindly, and bad re-
membered him in his will, but his heart
would not warm towards him.
Perhaps he loved Dick because there
was something in his face such as might
have been in that of the little son when
he grew to manhood. Anyhow, he was
his favorite and heir, and he trembled
as the thought came to him that it was
he who might be threatened by the
warning of the bells.
Everyone in the country side knew
the weird legend of the Bells of Fern
leigh.
The Manor stood on high stretch of
moorland and forest, on the summit of
some rugged cliffs overlooking the sea,
which broke in monotonous roars now
right up to the bottom of the rocky wall.
Years ago--nnany, many years it was
there had been an Abbey of FernleiGh,
but it had been built perilously near the
edge of the rocks, and one stormy night,
when the bells were ringing for vespers,
the whole of the grey stone building was
swept into the sea,
The legend said that the bells went on
ringing while the abbey went to its
doom, and every soul persisted, including
the good old abbot, who was brother
of the then Lord of Fernleigh. And ever
since, when any misfortune threatened
the house., the hidden bells rang oct a
melancholy peal on three successive
nights. Where they were hidden, no one
was supposed to know-whether in the
sea or beneath the mass of crumbled
masonry, which after the centuries was
mingled with the broken cliff. But
ghostly or not, the bells did ring at
times, and generally some evil had fol-
lowed to the family.
The Squire, recovering his presence of
mind after a time, went to the easement,
and closed it, and while he did SO the
bells rang out louder than before, then
died away in what sounded like a moan
of agony.
He shuddered rs he came back to the
table, ar poured out some more wine,
drinking it with trembling hand.
"Confound my nervous foolishness," he
cried, "but they are certainly the mes
sengers of evil. They rang out when my
boy disappeared and again when my
darling Winifred died. It may be only
condolences, but 1 cannot shake off this
feeling of dread"
And as If 70 emphasize his fear. the
wild east wind dashed with a Shrek
against the panes and moaned down the
corridor, and seemed to shake the very
building,
The Squire passed from the study to
his bedroom pale and overwhelmed by
his fears. If the warning came twice
more, how could he nope to avoid a
catastrophe?
CHAPTER II.
THE CLANG OF THE HIDDEN BELLS.