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Then we heard that she must go to a warm country for two or three years. The news fell upon the household like the tolling of a death-bell. Everybody was sorry. The master arranged for breaking up his establishment and leaving England. We used to hear it talked about in our stable; indeed, nothing else was talked about. John went about his work silent and sad, and Joe scarcely whistled.
The noise of the vineyards came through the lovely haze, still, at times, with the sharp sound of a bell death-bell, perhaps, or only a crazy summons to the vintagers. And amid those broad, willowy reaches of the Rhine at length, from Bingen to Mannheim, where the brown hills wander into airy, blue distance, like a little picture of paradise, he felt that France was at hand.
"The work speeds! Now through the heart of the governor!" Even while he spoke Wallace lost him again from his side; and again, by the shouts of the Southrons, who cried, "No quarter for the rebel!" he learned he must be retaken. That merciless cry was the death-bell of their own doom.
He is so peculiarly circumstanced, so utterly lonely, hearing the tolling of his own death-bell, yet living, wearing the mourning clothes for his own funeral, that he holds the multitude together by a shuddering fascination. The sight is a peculiar one, you must admit, and every peculiarity has its attractions. Your volcano is more attractive than your ordinary mountain.
Then his highness, with a face that fairly scintillated with demoniac delight, stood up and fixed his eyes on the ghastly prisoner, and spoke in a voice that reverberated like the tolling of a death-bell through the room. "My Lord of Gloucester, you have been tried by a council of your fellow-peers, presided over by her royal self, and found guilty of high treason.
Not a sound was heard save the slow and mournful tolling of the death-bell, and at intervals a scream so piercing, so frightful, that those who listened to it turned pale and trembled. Every eye was fixed upon a particular spot, whence clouds of smoke curled in the air, and from which escaped the cries of distress.
He suddenly paused, and a slight convulsion ran through his whole frame. Jane Douglas uttered a piercing scream, and sprang from her knees. Day had broken; and from the prison-tower sounded the dismal, plaintive stroke of the death-bell. "Do you hear, Jane Douglas?" said Surrey. "That bell summons me to death. You it is that has poisoned my last hour. I was happy when I loved you.
Still the death-bell tolled so mournfully, that the sunshine seemed to fade in the air. A whisper, communicated from those who stood nearest the windows, now spread through the church; a hearse, with a train of several coaches, was creeping along the street, conveying some dead man to the churchyard, while the bride awaited a living one at the altar.
It grieves me to say so of the husband of my niece, who has been to me as my own child, but the truth must be spoken. It may be difficult to keep such men out of holy orders, but if ever the benefices of the church come to be freely bestowed upon them, that moment the death-bell of religion is rung in England. My late husband said so.
Stronger it grew, and sadder, and deepened into the tone of a death-bell, knolling dolefully from some ivy-mantled tower and bearing tidings of mortality and woe to the cottage, to the hall and to the solitary wayfarer, that all might weep for the doom appointed in turn to them.
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