Cruel as the grave
other passengers inside, or out. Mr. Berners and his party had the whole
coach to themselves, at least, at starting.
Sybil thought she had never seen her husband in gayer spirits. As the
horses started and the coach rattled along over the stony streets of the
city, Mr. Berners turned smilingly to Mrs. Blondelle, and said:
"I know of few pleasanter things in this pleasant world than a journey
through our native State of Virginia, taken at this delightful season of
the year; and of all routes I know of none affording such a variety of
beautiful and sublime scenery as this we are now starting upon."
"How long will it take you to reach your beautiful home?" sweetly
inquired Rosa Blondelle.
"We might reach it in two days, if we were to travel day and night; but
we shall be four days on the road, as we propose to put up at some
roadside inn or village each night," answered Lyon Berners.
Meanwhile the coach rattled out of the city and into the open country,
where the landscape was fair, well-wooded, well-watered, but not
striking.
"You must not judge the scenery of our State by this flat country around
our seaport," said Mr. Berners to his guest, with the air of a man
making an apology.
"Yet this is very pleasant to look upon," answered Rosa, sincerely.
"Yes, very pleasant, as you say; but you will use stronger language when
you see our vast forests, our high mountains, and deep valleys,"
answered Lyon Berners with a smile.
Sybil did not join in the conversation. She had not spoken since she had
unwillingly taken that corner seat. And worse than all, to her
apprehension, neither her husband nor her guest had noticed her silence.
They were apparently quite absorbed in each other.
Some hours of jolting over bad turnpike roads brought the coach to the
interior of an old forest, where, at a wayside inn, the horses were
changed, and the travellers dined. Here, on resuming their seats in the
coach, they were joined by two other travellers, elderly country
gentlemen, who took the two vacant places inside, and who would have
made themselves very confidential with Mr. Berners on any subject
within their knowledge, from crops to Congress, if he had not been too
engaged with his fair guest to pay them much attention. Sybil continued
silent, except when occasionally her husband would ask her if she was
comfortable, or if he could do anything for her, when she would thank
him and answer that she was quite comfortable; and that he could do
nothing. And as far as bodily ease went, she spoke the truth. For the
rest, Sybil could not then and there ask him to leave off devoting
himself to their guest, and show _her_ more attention.
A few more hours of more jolting over worse turnpike roads brought the
coach to the foot of the Blue Ridge, and to the picturesque village of
Underhill, where our party passed the night. Here, in the village inn,
Sybil Berners, feeling that Rosa Blondelle, as her guest, was entitled
to her courtesy, made an effort to forget the pain in her heart, the
shadow on her mind, and to do the honors of the table with her usual
affability and grace.
After supper, which was pleasantly prolonged, the travellers separated,
and were shown to their several bed-chambers.
And now, after twelve hours, Sybil found herself once more alone with
her husband. He had not perceived her silence and dejection during the
journey, or if he had, he certainly had not ascribed it to the right
cause. He was equally unconscious of having done a wrong, or inflicted a
wound. And now his manner to his wife was as tender, loving, and devoted
as it had ever been since their marriage. His very first words showed
this. On entering the room and closing the door, he suddenly threw his
arms around her, and clasped her to his bosom as a recovered treasure,
exclaiming:
"Now, my darling, we are alone together once more, with no one to divide
us."
"Thank Heaven!" breathed Sybil with all her heart; and her jealousy was
lulled to rest again by the kisses that he pressed on her lips. She said
to herself that all his devotion to Rosa Blondelle in the stage-coach
was but the proper courtesy of a gentleman to a lady guest, who was,
besides, a stranger in the country; and that she, his wife, ought to
admire, rather than to blame him for it--ought to be pleased, rather
than pained by it.
Very early the next morning the travellers arose, in order to take the
earliest coach, which, having left Norfolk at sunset, would reach
Underhill at sunrise.
Poor, ardent, impulsive Sybil! She had passed a very happy night; and
this morning she met her guest with a gush of genuine affection,
embracing and kissing her and her child, making them even more welcome
than she had done before, and feeling that to-day she could not deal too
kindly by Rosa, to atone for having yesterday thought so hardly of her.
Under these pleasant auspices the travellers sat down to an excellent
breakfast.
But the warning horn blew, and they prepared to resume their journey.
On entering the coach, they found the other passengers, three in number,
already on the back seat. But they were gentlemen, who voluntarily and
promptly gave up their seats to the two ladies and their escort. The
coach started.
Their route now lay through some of the wildest passes of the Blue
Ridge. And here the enthusiasm of Rosa Blondelle burst forth. She said
that she had seen grand mountains in Scotland, but nothing--no, nothing
to equal these in grandeur and beauty!
And Lyon Berners smiled to hear her speak so, as one might smile at the
extravagant delight of a child, for as a child this lovely stranger
often seemed to him and to others. And she, with her sweet, blue eyes,
smiled back to him.
And Sybil looked and listened, and felt again that strange wound
deepening in her heart--that strange cloud darkening over her mind.
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