The fugitive Countess with her guide traversed with hasty steps the
broken and interrupted path, which had once been an avenue, now totally
darkened by the boughs of spreading trees which met above their head,
and now receiving a doubtful and deceiving light from the beams of the
moon, which penetrated where the axe had made openings in the wood.
Their path was repeatedly interrupted by felled trees, or the large
boughs which had been left on the ground till time served to make them
into fagots and billets. The inconvenience and difficulty attending
these interruptions, the breathless haste of the first part of their
route, the exhausting sensations of hope and fear, so much affected the
Countess's strength, that Janet was forced to propose that they should
pause for a few minutes to recover breath and spirits. Both therefore
stood still beneath the shadow of a huge old gnarled oak-tree, and both
naturally looked back to the mansion which they had left behind them,
whose long, dark front was seen in the gloomy distance, with its huge
stacks of chimneys, turrets, and clock-house, rising above the line
of the roof, and definedly visible against the pure azure blue of the
summer sky. One light only twinkled from the extended and shadowy mass,
and it was placed so low that it rather seemed to glimmer from the
ground in front of the mansion than from one of the windows. The
Countess's terror was awakened. "They follow us!" she said, pointing out
to Janet the light which thus alarmed her.
Less agitated than her mistress, Janet perceived that the gleam was
stationary, and informed the Countess, in a whisper, that the light
proceeded from the solitary cell in which the alchemist pursued his
occult experiments. "He is of those," she added, "who sit up and watch
by night that they may commit iniquity. Evil was the chance which sent
hither a man whose mixed speech of earthly wealth and unearthly or
superhuman knowledge hath in it what does so especially captivate my
poor father. Well spoke the good Master Holdforth--and, methought,
not without meaning that those of our household should find therein a
practical use. 'There be those,' he said, 'and their number is legion,
who will rather, like the wicked Ahab, listen to the dreams of the false
prophet Zedekiah, than to the words of him by whom the Lord has spoken.'
And he further insisted--'Ah, my brethren, there be many Zedekiahs among
you--men that promise you the light of their carnal knowledge, so you
will surrender to them that of your heavenly understanding. What are
they better than the tyrant Naas, who demanded the right eye of those
who were subjected to him?' And further he insisted--"