CHAPTER VIII.
BLACK HALL.
Seest thou our home? 'tis where the woods are waving
In their dark richness to the autumn air;
Where yon blue stream its rocky banks are laving,
Leads down the hills a vein of light--'tis there.--HEMANS.
At the close of that second day, they stopped at a hamlet on the summit
of the Blue Ridge, from which they could view five counties. At the
little hotel they were entertained very much in the same manner as at
the inn of Underhill. Again Sybil's unspoken and unsuspected jealousy
was soothed by the caresses of her husband.
In the morning they resumed their journey in the early coach, that took
them across the beautiful valley that lies between the Blue Ridge and
the Allegheny Mountains. And again Lyon Berners' devotion to Rosa
Blondelle deeply distressed Sybil. At nightfall they reached Staunton,
where they slept.
On the morning of the fourth and last day of their journey, they took
the cross-country coach and changed their route, which now led them
towards the wildest, dreariest, and loneliest passes of the Alleghenies.
About mid-day the coach entered the dark defile known as the "Devils'
Descent." And, in fact, it needed all the noon sunshine to light up the
gloom of that fearful pass. Here the delight of the impressible young
foreigner deepened into awe.
"I have never seen anything like this in the old country," she breathed,
in a low, hushed tone.
And again Lyon Berners smiled most kindly and indulgently on her, and
again Sybil Berners sickened at heart. Every time Lyon so smiled on
Rosa, Sybil so sickened. She strove against this feeling, but she could
not overcome it.
As the day declined and the coach went on, wilder, drearier, and
lonelier became the road, until, at nightfall, it entered a pass so
gloomy, so savage, so terrific in its aspect, that the young stranger
involuntarily caught her breath and clung for protection to the arm of
Lyon Berners.
"I have never _dreamed_ of a place like this," she gasped.
"You think," he said indulgently, "that if the other pass was called the
'Devil's Descent,' this should be the 'Gates of Hell.' Yet to us, it is
the 'Gates of Heaven;' since it is the entrance to our Valley Home."
And this affectionate mention of their mutual home almost consoled the
wife for the smile he bestowed on their beautiful guest while speaking.
Then all the women except Sybil held their breath in awe.
It was indeed an awful pass! a road roughly hewn through the bottom of a
deep, narrow, tortuous cleft in the mountains where, at some remote
period, by some tremendous convulsions of nature, the solid rocks had
been rent apart, leaving the ragged edges of the wound hanging at a
dizzy height between heaven and earth! The dark iron-gray precipices
that towered on each side were clothed in every cleft, from base to
summit, with clumps of dark stunted evergreens as sombre as themselves.
So tortuous, besides, was the pass, that the travellers could see but a
few yards before them at any time. There was but one cheering sight in
earth or sky, and that was the young crescent moon straight before them
in the west, and shining down in tender light upon the rudest precipice
of all.
"It does remind one of Dante's descriptions of the 'Entrance into the
Infernal Regions,' does it not?" inquired Lyon Berners.
"All except the little moon! Without that, its gloom would be perfectly
horrible! and it is horrible enough now," answered Rosa with a shudder.
"But I love it! Even its gloom and horror have a weird fascination for
me. It is my abode. I only seem to live my own life in my own Black
Valley," said Sybil, in a low, deep voice that thrilled with emotion.
They were suddenly silenced, for they were at the sharpest, steepest,
most difficult and dangerous turn in that most dangerous pass; and to go
down with any chance of safety required the utmost care and skill on the
part of the coachman, whose anxiety was shared by all within the coach.
Each passenger clung for support to what was nearest at hand, and might
reasonably have expected every instant to be dashed to pieces on the
rocks by the coach pitching over the horses' heads, as it tossed and
tumbled and thundered down the falling road, more like a descending
avalanche than a well-conducted four-wheeled vehicle.
Our travellers only let go their holdings and loosed their tongues again
at the foot of the precipice.
"That was--that was--Oh, there is no word to express what it was. It was
more than terrible! more than awful! And it is just a miracle that we
have escaped with our lives!" gasped Rosa Blondelle, aghast with horror.
"There has never yet been an accident on this road," observed Lyon
Berners, soothingly.
"Then there is a miracle performed every time a vehicle passes down it,"
replied Rosa, with a shudder.
"But look now, there is a very fine scene," said Mr. Berners, pointing
through the window as the coach rolled on. Sybil was already gazing
through the right-hand window, and so Rosa stretched her fair neck to
look from the left-hand one.
Yes, it was a fine scene. The young crescent moon with its tender beam
had gone down; but the great stars were out in all their glory, and by
their shining the travellers saw before them a beautiful little river,
whose rippling surface reflected in fitful glimmers the cheerful lights
of a village on its opposite bank.
"This is the Black River. It rises in those distant mountains, which are
called the Black Rocks, and which shut in our Black Valley. The village
here is called Blackville," explained Lyon Berners.
"What a deal of blackness!" replied Rosa Blondelle.
"If you think so, I must tell you in the first place that we are not
responsible for having named these places; and in the second, that the
names are really appropriate. The stupendous height and dark iron-gray
hue of the rocks that overshadow and darken the valley and the river,
and also the situation of the village at the entrance of the dark
valley, justify these names. And even if they did not, still we are not
so irreverent as to interfere with the arrangements of those who have
gone before us," laughed Lyon Berners.
And as he spoke the stage-coach reached the banks of the river, and drew
up before the little ferry-house. Here the travellers alighted, and had
their baggage taken off. And the coach, waiting only long enough to
change horses and to pick up passengers, all of whom, both man and
beast, had been brought over from the village by the ferry-boat, went on
its way, which lay along the east bank of the river.
Mr. Berners had his luggage and that of his party put upon the
ferry-boat, and then he led the ladies on board. He saw them comfortably
seated, and the nurse and child in a safe place, and then he turned to
the aged ferry-man with hearty good will, and inquired:
"Well, old Charon! all right with you?"
"Yes, sir, thank Heaven!" replied the old man, whose occupation,
combined with his great age and flowing gray locks, yet stalworth form
and unbroken strength, had conferred upon him the name of his infernal
predecessor--the navigator of the River Styx.
"All right in the village, and in the valley?" further inquired Mr.
Berners.
"All right in the willage, sir. And Joe, who has just arrove at the
tavern, do report all right in the walley," was the satisfactory answer
of the ferry-man.
"Oh! then our carriage is waiting for us there?"
"Yes, sir, which it arrove just about twenty minutes ago, punk-too-well
to time!" replied the old man.
The passage across the Black River is very short, and just as the
ferry-man spoke, the boat touched the wharf immediately under the
lighted windows of the hotel, before the doors of which they saw the
Black Hall carriage and horses standing.
Mr. Berners assisted the ladies of his party to land, and proposed that
they should stop at the hotel and take supper before going on to Black
Hall.
"Oh, no! please don't, on any account! I feel sure that Miss Tabby has
laid out all her talent on the supper that is awaiting us at home. And
she would weep with disappointment and mortification if we should stop
to supper here," eagerly objected Sybil.
"Miss Tabby is our housekeeper; the best creature, but the greatest
whimperer in existence. She is, in turn, Sybil's tyrant and Sybil's
slave; for she is both despotic and devoted, and scolds and pets her
alternately and unreasonably as a foolish mother does an only child,"
explained Mr. Berners, turning to Mrs. Blondelle.
"And her lady?" inquired Rosa, with an admiring glance toward Mrs.
Berners.
"Oh! Sybil turns the tables, you may be sure, and indulges or rebukes
her housekeeper as the occasion may demand," laughed Lyon.
"Come here, Joe!" called Mrs. Berners to her coachman, who was seen
coming out of the tap-room.
"Bress my two eyes, Miss Sybil! how glad dey is to see you, and you too,
Marse Lyon!" exclaimed a very black, short, squarely built, good-humored
looking negro coachman, as he came and bowed to his master and mistress.
"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.
Sybil did not like the implied flattery, delicately as it was conveyed.
She drew her hand away; and then, to heal the little hurt she might have
made in doing so, she opened the window and said, pleasantly:
"Look, Mrs. Blondelle! You see the lights of our home now."
Rosa leaned across Sybil to look in the direction indicated, and she saw
scattered lights that seemed to be set in the side of the mountain. She
saw no house, and she said so.
"That is because the house is built of the very same dark iron-gray
rocks that form the mountain; and being immediately at the foot of the
mountain, and closely surrounded with trees, can not at night be
distinguished from the mountain itself."
Here the carriage road curved around an expansion of the river that
might have been taken either for a very small lake, or a very large
pond. And about midway of this curve, or semi-circle, the carriage drew
up.
On the left-hand was dimly seen the lake; on the right-hand the gate
letting into the elm-tree avenue that led straight up to the house.
"That is the Black Pond, and there is Black Hall. More 'blackness,' Mrs.
Blondelle," smiled Sybil, who was so delighted to get home that she
forgot her jealousy.
The carriage waited only until the gates could be opened by the slow old
porter, whom Sybil laughingly greeted as "Cerberus," although the name
given him in baptism was that of the keeper of the keys of heaven, and
not that of the guardian of the entrance to the other place.
"Cerberus," or rather Peter, warmly welcomed his young mistress back,
and widely stretched the gates for her carriage to pass.
As the carriage rolled easily along the avenue, now thickly carpeted
with forest leaves, and as it approached the house, the fine old
building, with its many gable ends and curiously twisted chimneys, its
steep roofs and latticed windows--all monuments of the old colonial
days--came more and more distinctly into view from its background of
mountains. Lights were gleaming from upper and lower and all sorts of
windows, and the whole aspect of the grand old hospitable mansion
proclaimed, "WELCOME."