And the work went on merrily, and the people blessed Horace Blondelle.
But during the progress of the work, a discovery was made that changed the whole plan of the proprietor"s life.
In the course of clearing the grounds, the workmen found a spring, whose water was so particularly nasty that they at once suspected it to possess curative qualities of the greatest value, and so reported it to the proprietor.
Horace Blondelle invited the local medical faculty to taste the waters of the spring, and their report was so favorable that he bottled up a gallon of it, and sent it to an eminent chemist of New York, to be a.n.a.lyzed.
In due time the a.n.a.lysis was returned. The water of the spring, it showed, was strongly impregnated with a half dozen, more or less, of the most nauseous minerals known to the pharmaceutists, and therefore were of the highest medicinal virtues.
The recent discovery of this invaluable spring on the home grounds, together with the long known existence of the magnificent cavern, or chain of caverns, in the adjacent mountains, determined Mr. Horace Blondelle to alter his whole scheme--to abandon the role of country gentleman, which a very short experience proved to be too "slow" for his "fast" tastes, and to adopt that of the proprietor of a great watering-place, and summer resort.
And so, instead of rebuilding the family mansion, he built a large hotel on the Dubarry manor, and instead of restoring the chapel, he erected a pavilion over the spring.
This was not only at the time a very popular measure, but it proved in the event a very great success.
That summer and autumn saw other changes in the valley.
First old Mr. Winterose, the overseer of the Black Valley manor, died a calm and Christian death.
Young Robert Munson succeeded him in office.
Next lawyer Sheridan received an appointment from the President as consul at a certain English seaport; and, no doubt with the consent of the proprietors, he transferred the management of the Black Valley manor to old lawyer Closeby of Blackville. And then, with his sister, he went abroad.
Then, on the thirty-first of October of that year, old Mrs. Winterose and her eldest daughter Libby received an order to remove from their cottage and take up their residence with Miss Tabby at Black Hall.
The next spring, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Blondelle removed to the "Dubarry Hotel," at the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," as the place was now christened, and there they commenced preparations for the summer campaign.
Mr. Horace Blondelle, was much too "sharp" not to understand the importance of advertising. He advertised very largely in the newspapers, and he also employed agents to distribute beautiful little ill.u.s.trated books, descriptive of the various attractions of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," the salubrious and delightful climate, the sublime and beautiful scenery, the home comforts of the hotel, and the healing powers of the water.
All these were so successfully set forth that even in this first season the house was so well filled with guests that the proprietor determined that, before another season should roll around, he would build a hundred or so of cottages to accommodate the great accession of visitors he had every reason to expect.
Another brisk season of work blessed the poor people of the place. And by the next summer a hundred and fifty white cottages were here and there on the rocks, in the woods, by the streams, or in the glens around the great hotel; and the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs" grew to look like a thriving village on the mountains.
The profits justified the expenditures; that second summer the place was crowded with visitors; and the lonely and quiet neighborhood of the Black Valley became, for the time, as populous and as noisy as is now Niagara or Newport.
In fact, from the advent of Mr. Horace Blondelle, and the inauguration of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," the whole character of the place was changed.
All summer, from the first of June to the first of September, it would be a scene of fashion, gayety, confusion, and excitement.
But all the winter, from the first of October until the first of June, it is happily true that it would return to its aboriginal solitude and stillness.
Mr. Horace Blondelle was making money very fast indeed.
The life suited him. Many people called him a gambler and a blackleg, and said that he fleeced his guests in more ways than one.
The haughtiest among the old aristocratic families cut him, not because he was a gambler--for, oh dear! it too often happened that their own fathers, brothers, husbands, or sons were gamblers!--but because he kept a hotel and took in money!
Notwithstanding this exclusion from companionship with certain families, Mr. Horace Blondelle led a very gay, happy, and prosperous life.
We see and grieve over this sort of thing very frequently in the course of our lives. We fret that the wicked man should "flourish like a green bay tree," and we forget that the time must come when he will be cut down and cast into the fire.
That time was surely coming for Mr. Horace Blondelle.
Meanwhile he "flourished."
The third season of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," was even more successful than its forerunners had been.
People were possessed with a furor for the nasty waters and flocked by thousands to the neighborhood.
But the autumn of that year was marked by other events of more importance to this story.
First, in the opening of the fall term of the Blackville Academy for young gentlemen, lawyer Closeby came to Black Hall, armed with the authority of Mr. Lyon Berners, and straightway took little Cromartie, now a lad of seven years of age, out of the hands of Miss Tabby, and placed him in those of Dr. and Mrs. Smith, dominie and matron of the academy, for education.
Miss Tabby mourned over the partial loss of her favorite, but was consoled on the very next Hallow Eve, when a beautiful babe was left at her door.
And now that years have pa.s.sed, we approach the time when the great Hallow Eve Mystery was destined to be a mystery no longer.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
THE GUARDIANS OF THE OLD HOUSE.
On every lip a speechless horror hung, On every brow the burden of affliction; The old ancestral spirits knew and felt The house"s malediction.--THOMAS HOOD.
Time does but deepen the gloom that hangs over an old mansion where a heinous crime has been committed, an awful tragedy enacted.
As the years darkened over the old Black Hall, the house fell to be regarded as a place haunted and accursed.
But as there is a certain weird attraction in the horrible, the old Black Hall came to be the greatest object of morbid interest in the neighborhood, greater even than the magnificent caverns, or the miraculous springs.
The crowds of visitors who came down to the "Dubarry White Sulphur"
every summer, after tasting the waters of the spring and exploring the beauties of the caverns, invariably drove down the banks of the Black River to where it broadened into the Black Lake, from whose dark borders arose the sombre wood that shadowed the mountain"s side, and from whose obscure depths loomed up the gloomy structure now known as Black Hall, the deserted home of the haughty Berners, the haunted and accursed mansion.
Here, on the murky borders of the lake, the visitors would draw up their carriages, to sit and gaze upon the fatal edifice, and listen to the story of that awful Hallow Eve, when the fiery-hearted young wife was driven by jealousy to desperation, and her fair young rival was murdered in her chamber.
"And on every Hallow Eve," their informant would continue--"on every Hallow Eve, at midnight deep, the spirit of the murdered guest might be seen flying through the house pursued by the spirit of the vengeful wife."
Visitors never penetrated into the wood that surrounded and nearly concealed the mansion, much less ventured near that mansion itself.
The place was guarded by three old women, they were told, weird as Macbeth"s witches, and who discouraged all approach to their abode.
So solitary and deserted were the house and its inmates, that every path leading through the forest towards its doors was overgrown and obliterated, except one--a little narrow bridle-path leading from the house through the woods, and out upon the Blackville road. This was kept open by the weekly rides of old Joe, who went every Sat.u.r.day to the village to lay in the groceries for the use of the family; by the three old women, who, seated on their safe old horses, went in solemn procession every Sunday to church; by the young Cromartie, who came trotting on his fiery steed once a month to visit his old friends; and by old lawyer Closeby, who came ambling on his sedate cob every quarter-day to inspect the premises and pay the people.
No other pa.s.sengers but these ever disturbed the stillness of the forest path; no other forms than these ever darkened the doors of Black Hall. A gloomy place to live in! gloomy enough for the three quiet old women--too gloomy for the bright young girl who was growing up to womanhood under its shadows.
And never was the place darker, drearier, or more depressing in its aspect than on a certain Hallow Eve, some fifteen years or more after the disappearance of Sybil Berners and the self-expatriation of her devoted friends.