"Will you not look at the little babe ?" said Margaret, anxious to turn the current of her husband's thoughts.

"Another time, Margaret --not now; but-the child was born before its father declared himself a wretch! and I will look upon it-poor little creature!" he continued, gazing at the babe as Margaret raised it up, "what a strange colour it has!"

"Yes," said Margaret, "and it is so cold! they think it will not live!” "So much the better."

"Oh! don't say so, Stephen," replied Margaret, pressing the infant to her bosom; "I have prayed it might live, and I suppose it was only the fright that makes it so cold and discoloured."

Maybe so," answered Holgrave; "but if your prayers be not heard, and the child dies

It seemed scarcely a human voice which had uttered the last words, so deep and hoarse was the sound, and there seemed more of threat, in the sudden pause, than if he had thundered out the wildest words. Margaret gave an involuntary shudder; and Holgrave, who was not so wrapped up in his own feelings, as to be wholly regardless of those of his wife, moved away from the bed, and sat apart, brooding over the dark thoughts that filled his breast.

On the second day after Holgrave had become a bondman, he was summoned by an order from Calverley to go to labour for his lord. His heart swelled as he sullenly obeyed the mandate, and Margaret trembled as she saw him depart. She looked anxiously for the close of the day; and, when she saw her husband enter with some vegetables and grain that had been apportioned to him for his day's toil, her heart was glad. It was true that the gloom on his brow seemed increased, and that he threw down his load, and sat for several minutes without speaking, but she cared not for his silence, as she saw him return in safety.

The next day he went to his task, and pursued his labour with sullen industry, but no approaches to familiarity would he permit in the companions of his toils. He still regarded himself as a free man; he knew not how distant the day of his release might be; but he resolved, if an opportunity ever did occur, that he should not let it pass.

He disdained the villeins, and he felt that the free men would disdain him. He would not associate with those now, whom, in his day of prosperity, he had sought to befriend, and whose degraded state he had wished to ameliorate; nor would he associate with those who had so lately been his compeers, lest they should seek to befriend him or ameliorate his lot.

One evening, about the eighth day after the birth of his infant, fatigued in body, and troubled in spirit (for Calverley had that day exercised to the full the commanding power with which he was invested), he entered the cottage, and found Margaret weeping over the little babe.

"Oh, Stephen," she said, "how I wished you would return-for our child is dying!"

"Great God!" cried Holgrave, rushing forward to look at the infant, the feelings of the father overcoming every selfish consideration.

"Oh, see!" said Margaret, her voice almost choked with her sobs. "See how pale he looks! Look at his white lips! His breathing becomes faint! Oh, my child, my child!"

Margaret ceased to speak, and her tears dropped fast on the little innocent she was so anxiously watching; presently it gave a faint sigh, and the mother's agonizing shriek told her husband that the breath was its last. Holgrave had beheld in silence the death-pang of his child; and now, when the cry of the mother announced that it had ceased to be, he turned from the bed and rushed to the door without uttering a word.

"Oh, Stephen, do not leave me !" exclaimed Margaret. "Oh! for mercy's sake, leave me not alone with my dead child!"

But Stephen heard her not; indeed, he was a few paces from the door ere she had finished the exclamation.

All without the cottage, as well as within, was darkness and gloom. Perhaps, if the beauty of moonlight had met his view, he might have turned sickening away to the sadness of his own abode; but as it was, the dreariness of the scene accorded with the feelings which seemed bursting his heart, and he rushed on in the darkness, heedless of the path he took. As if led by some instinct, he found himself upon the black ruins of his once happy home. No hand had touched the scattered, half-consumed materials, which had composed the dwelling; the black but substantial beams still lay as they had fallen. Perhaps his was the first foot that pressed the spot since the night it blazed forth, a brilliant beacon, to warn the base-hearted what an injured man might dare. The fire had scathed the tree that had sheltered the cottage, but the seat he had raised beneath it yet remained entire. He sat down on the bench, and raised his eyes to the heavens; the wind came in sudden gusts, drifting the thick clouds across the sky; for a moment a solitary star would beam in the dark concave, and then another cloud would pass on, and the twinkling radiance would be lost. He gazed a few minutes on the clouded sky, and thought on all he had suffered and all he had lost his last fond hope was now snatched away; and he cursed De Boteler, as at once the degrader of the father and destroyer of the child. But a strange feeling arose in his mind as a long hollow-sounding gust swept past him; it came from the ruin beside him from the spot he had made desolate; and, as he looked wistfully round, he felt a sudden throbbing of his heart, and a quickened respiration. In a few minutes his indefinite terror became sufficiently powerful to neutralize every other sensation. He arose - he could not remain another instant; he could scarcely have passed the night there under the influence of his present feelings, had it even been the price of his freedom. He hurried down the path that led from the place where he had stood, and at every step his heart felt relieved; and, as the distance increased, his superstitious fears died away, and gradually gloom and sorrow possessed him as before.

And as he walked on, choosing the most unfrequented paths, a sudden gleam of light startled him, till he recollected that Sudley Castle stood before him; and, without bestowing a thought on the unusual number of tapers that were seen burning in various parts of the building, he pursued his way. But the sound of steps approached, and he stooped to conceal himself in the shade of a thicket, for he was not in a mood to talk, and, besides, he might now be subject to interrogatories as to his wandering about in the dark: he had before been accused as a deer-stealer, and why should he not be suspected now? The steps came from opposite directions; they met just before the bush where Holgrave had crouched; and a voice, that he recognised as a neighbour's, said,

"Holla! who is that? man or maid? - for, by the saints, there is no telling by this light."

"It is I, Phil Wingfield,” replied one of the castle servitors: "my lady was took suddenly ill, and is delivered; and I am going to Winchcombe for a priest to baptize the child."

"My lady was in the right not to make much stir about it: I suppose there's not one in the parish knows any thing of the matter. But what is it, Phil?"

"A bouncing boy, the wenches say. But I wish, Dick, you would come with me-I don't much like to be trudging this dark road by myself."

The man he addressed consented, and their steps were soon lost in the distance.

Holgrave raised himself erect as the men departed. Wild thoughts, such as he had never known before, rushed through his heart. It is dangerous to snatch from any man, even the lowest of the species, that which he values above every other thing. Be the thing what it maybe it grand or mean, base or beautiful, still the soul has clung to it, has treasured it up, has worshipped before it; and none but the bereaved can comprehend the desolation which the bereavement causes. Holgrave's idol was his freedom; it was the thing he had prized above all things else; it was the thing he had been taught to revere, even as the religion he professed. It must, therefore, have had a strong hold upon his feelings; it must have grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength: and this it is necessary to understand before a perfect idea can be formed of the hatred which he now felt towards the man who had wrested from him his treasure. It is true he might have rejected his terms, at the sacrifice of a thing of less value- his life; but there was then love and hope to contend against him the hope of a man and a father. But he had now no longer hope; it had fled with the spirit of his little babe; its last faint breath had dissipated all the illusions of far-off happiness; and he now looked forward to a life of degradation, and a death of dishonour.

"Can it be?" said Holgrave, as he looked before him at the castle, which the tapers revealed - can it be, that the lord of this castle and I are the sons of the same heavenly Father? Can the same God have created us? and is his child to live and grow to manhood, that he may trample on his fellow-men, as his father has trampled on me? Is this to go on from generation to generation, and the sons to become even worse than the fathers? No!" said he, pausing; "I have no child-Margaret must forgive me I have only a worthless life to forfeit." He paused again. "I will attempt it!" he said, vehemently-" he can but hang me; and if I succeed, the noble blood they think so much of may yet Holgrave suffered the sentence to remain unfinished, and he rushed towards the castle.

There was a wicket in the northern gate, the common outlet for the domestics, which, as Holgrave had anticipated, the servitor had not closed after him. He entered, and stood within the court-yard; he heard the sound of voices, and the tread of feet, but no human being was near: he paused an instant to consider, and then, with the swiftness of a deer, he sprung towards the stables, and entered the one appropriated to the select stud of the baron. A lamp was burning, but the men who attended on the horses were now away, quaffing ale to the long life of the heir. The baroness's favourite palfrey was lying in a stall; he stepped across the animal, and, after pressing his hands on various parts of the wall, a concealed door flew open, and a dark aperture was before him. He stooped and passed through, and ascended a long winding flight of steps, till a door impeded his progress; he opened it, and stood in a closet hung round with dresses and mantles, and displaying all the graceful trifles of a lady's wardrobe. There was a door opposite the one at which he had entered, which led into the baroness's chamber, where there were lighted candles, and a blazing fire on the hearth. The floor was thickly strewn with rushes, and he could just perceive the high back of a chair, with the arms of the family wrought in the centre; he paused and listened; he heard the faint cry of a babe, and discovered, by the language of the nurse, that she was feeding it; then there was the hush-a-by, and the rocking motion of the attendant. In a few minutes, the sound of a foot on the rushes, and "the lovely babe would sleep," now announced to Holgrave that the child was deposited with its mother: then he heard the curtains of the bed drawn, and the nurse whisper some one to retire, as her ladyship was inclined to sleep; there was another step across the rushes, and a door was softly closed, and then

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for a few minutes an unbroken silence, which the nurse at length interrupted by muttering something about "whether the good father had come yet." Again there was a tread across the rushes, and the door again was gently closed; and Holgrave, after a moment of intense listening, stepped from the closet, and entered the chamber. In an elevated alcove stood the bed of the baroness; the rich crimson hangings festooned with gold cord, the drapery tastefully fringed with gold, even to the summit, which was surmounted by a splendid coronet. Holgrave, unaccustomed to magnificence, was for a moment awed by the splendid furniture of the apartment but it was only for a moment—and then the native strength of his soul spurned the gaudy trappings; he stepped lightly across the spacious chamber; he unloosed the rich curtains-the heir of De Boteler was reposing in a deep slumber on a downy pillow; beyond him lay the exhausted mother, her eyes closed, and the noble contour of her face presenting the repose of death. For an instant, Holgrave paused: remorse for the deed that he was about to do sent a sudden glow across his care-worn face but had not the baron destroyed his offspring? whispered the tempting spirit. He raised the babe from the pillow without disturbing its slumber he drew the curtains, and he reached the stable in safety, closed the secret door, and arrived at the postern, which was still unfastened, passed through, and gained his own door without impediment.

66

Margaret," said Holgrave, as he entered, put away that babe, whom your tears cannot restore to life. Here is one that will be wept for as much as yours. Do you hear me, Margaret? lay your babe under the coverlid, and take this one and strip it quickly, and clothe it in the dress of your own infant."

"Stephen, what child is this?" her astonishment for a moment overcoming her grief. "The saints preserve us! look at its dress-that mantle is as rich as the high priest's vestment on a festival. Oh! Stephen."

"Silence!" interrupted Holgrave, sternly; "take the babe and strip it, and attend to it as a mother should attend to her own infant; and, mark me, it is your own! your child did not die! As you value my life, remember this."

There was a sternness in his tone that entirely awed Margaret. She continued to weep, but she took the strange infant and did as her husband desired her. The changing of its apparel made the little infant cry, but the change was soon effected, and then Margaret put it to her breast and hushed its cries. While this was doing, Holgrave had taken a spade and commenced digging up the earthen floor. The sight agonized the wretched Margaret, and when the task was finished and he approached the bed to consign the little corpse to its kindred earth, it was long ere even his stern remonstrance could prevail on the mother to relinquish her child. She kissed its white cheek and strained it to her convulsed bosom, and Holgrave had to struggle violently with his own feelings, that he too might not betray a similar emotion. But fortitude overcame the yearnings of a father; he forcibly took the babe from its mother's arms, and laid it in the cavity he had prepared; and then, as the glittering mantle of the stolen child caught his eyes, he took a small iron box, in which Margaret kept the silks and the needles she had formerly used in her embroidery, and scattering the contents upon the ground, he forced in, in their stead, the different articles the little stranger had worn, and fastening down the lid, laid it beside his child; and then, as swiftly as apprehension could urge, filled up the grave, and trod down the earth, to give it the appearance it had worn previous to the interment. A chest was then placed over it, and it seemed to defy the scrutiny of man to detect the deed.

Holgrave's heart might have been wrung at thus interring his own child,

but his face betrayed no such feeling; it wore only the same stern expression it had worn since the day of his bondage, and it was only in Margaret's swollen eyes and heaving breast that a stranger could have surmised that aught of such agonizing interest had occurred. The bondman then threw another fagot upon the hearth, and, in the same stern voice of a master, bidding his wife tend upon the babe as if it were her own, without a kind look or word, he ascended the ladder, and threw himself upon a few dried rushes in the loft above; where he lay brooding in sullen wretchedness over the wild and daring deed he had committed.

His meditations were soon disturbed by a confused distant noise — then men's voices and the tread of feet, and instantly the latch of the door was raised, the slight fastening gave way, and the intruders rushed into the room beneath.

"Are you drawlatches or murderers ?" asked Holgrave in a fierce voice, as he started up and sprung to the ladder, "that you break open a man's house at this hour?"

"If you attempt to come down that ladder, this fellow's glaive will answer you," said Calverley, in a voice and with a look which the torch-light revealed, that told that his threat had meaning. He then cast a hasty glance around the apartment for an instant, his eyes rested on the bed where lay the terror-stricken Margaret, who, at the first sound of his voice had concealed her face in the pillow. His eyes scarcely rested upon the bed ere he turned quickly to the men who attended him, and, in something of a hurried voice, desired them to examine the chest. What dark suspicion crossed his mind can scarcely be conceived, but Holgrave looked with a bitter smile upon the search as the men tore open the chest and scattered the contents in every direction. There was nothing else that required more than a cursory glance except the bed; Calverley did not look again towards it, and the men who were with him did only as they were ordered. At his command three men ascended the ladder, but ere they had advanced midway, Holgrave had grasped the end that rested on the entrance, and, in a voice that caused tremor in the craven heart of the steward, threatened to hurl them to the ground if they advanced another step.

"Do you think, meddling steward, that I have been in the chase again? Do you expect to find another buck?"

"Proceed-heed not this bondman's raving!" Holgrave, conceiving that farther resistance might awaken suspicion, folding his arms across his breast, suffered the men to ascend, and looked on in silence while they carefully examined the loft. But here, after a minute search, was found nothing to repay their trouble. They descended, and Calverley said, "There is nothing here to confirm suspicion; but the son of Edith Holgrave is likely to be suspected when evil is done. We depart," he said to his followers, "but there shall be a watch kept on this fellow."

Holgrave looked contempt, and spoke defiance; but Calverley retired without seeming to heed either his looks or his words.

In the morning he went to his task at the usual hour, not however without again cautioning Margaret respecting the child. Soon after his departure Lucy Hartwell entered, to talk over the strange news she had just heard, and to offer her services to Margaret.

"How are you, Margaret? How is the babe ?"

"The child is better," replied Margaret, "but I am very ill."

"I am sorry to hear that -I hardly thought that the child would live. Here, Margaret, take a little of this broth, it will do you good. Oh, there are such strange doings at the castle! Yesterday evening, my lady was suddenly put to bed of a boy, and the child has been stolen away, nobody can tell how. Roberts, one of the castle guard men, told my father just