Cruel As The Grave

"Joe! you have been at your old tricks again. Joe! why can't you let

bar-rooms alone? Joe! where do you expect to go when you die?"

solemnly inquired Sybil, shaking her finger at the delinquent.

"I do 'spect to go straight to de debbil, miss, for sure! Dat's de

reason why I wants to take a drap of comfort in dis worl', 'cause I

nebber shall get none dere. But bress my two eyes, miss, how glad dey is

to look on your putty face again."

"My 'putty' face? I want to know if that's a compliment? But, Joe,

what has Miss Tabby got for supper?"

"Lor bress your putty little mouf, Miss Sybil; it's easier to tell you

what she hasn't got," exclaimed Joe, stretching his eyes. "Why, Miss

Sybil, there an't a man nor a maid about the house, what ha'n't been on

their feet all dis day a getting up of that there supper," he added.

"There! I told you so!" said Sybil, turning to her husband.

"Then let's go on and eat it, my love. We can leave our two servants

here to follow in the wagon with the baggage," said Lyon Berners,

leading his wife and his guest to the carriage, and placing them inside,

with the child and nurse, while he himself mounted to the box beside the

coachman.

"Oh! I am very sorry Mr. Berners has been crowded out," regretfully

exclaimed Rosa Blondelle, looking after him in surprise as he climbed to

his roost.

"Oh, he has not been crowded out! He has gone up there to drive; for the

road is not very safe at night, and our coachman is rather too much

exhilarated to be trusted," answered Sybil, touching very tenderly upon

the weakness of her old servant.

Their road lay along the bank of the river up the valley, between the

two high mountain ridges; but it was so dark that nothing but these

grander features of the landscape could be discerned.

As the carriage rolled slowly and carefully along this rough road, the

music of distant waters fell upon the listening ear, and from the

faintest hum that could hardly be heard, it gradually swelled into a

deafening roar that filled the valley.

"What is that?" fearfully inquired Rosa.

"What is what?" echoed Sybil.

"That horrid noise!"

"Oh! that is the Black Torrent, the head of our Black River," answered

Sybil in a low, pleased tone; for the sound of her native waters,

however dreadful it might be to strange ears, was delightful to hers.

"Oh! more blackness!" shivered Rosa.

"But it is a beautiful cascade! All beautiful things are not necessarily

light, you know."

"No, indeed," answered Rosa, "for the most beautiful woman I have ever

seen in my life is very dark." And she raised and pressed the hand of

her hostess, to give point to her words.