CHAPTER V. TREATS OF THE BLACK GENTLEMAN.
The Demon was quite correct when he stated that he was exceedingly occupied just then. He was so much so, that he quite forgot his little appointment with the knight till within ten minutes of the hour, when, calling one of the minor imps to him, he commissioned him to get the knight to sign the document, impressing on him to be sure not to reveal the secret of the bones till the paper was signed. He added:
“He is such a foolish young fellow, you won’t have much trouble.”
The little imp put on his neatest brimstone suit, and set off on his upward journey. His master ought to have remembered “that there is nobody like oneself at one’s own wedding;” he would have reconnoitred before he entered the knight’s apartment; the imp, au contraire, who had only been 500 years in his employ, at once skipped into the room, and at once found out his mistake. The room was blazing with wax candles, and at the farther end stood the knight, but not alone, for there were Father Eustace, the Abbot, and twenty monks of the Convent of St. Joseph, in all their priestly vestments, with four-and-thirty little choristers all “clad in clean linen stoles,” and all waving their censers to and fro. In front of this ecclesiastical array were at least one hundred gallons of holy water, in golden and silver vessels, while above them were suspended sundry holy relics, above all, the famous reliquary of St. Ursulus, containing a hair of his sacred eyebrow, and a paring of the nail of his sanctified great toe. No wonder the little fiend stood aghast, and though he strove to rush away, felt spell-bound.
“I am very cold,” he shivered, “please let me go.”
“You shall be colder presently, little devil,” said the abbot, “if you don’t immediately tell us where are the baron’s bones.”
“If the knight will sign this document, I will tell you at once,” stammered the imp.
Not a word did the abbot say in reply, but he beckoned to the choristers, who with one accord raised the silver vessels, and showered at least twenty gallons of holy water on the poor little wretch.
“Oh, don’t, don’t, please don’t—it hurts me so, and makes me so cold, and I am not accustomed to be cold. I’ll tell anything, anything,” the little devil gasped forth. “It was reputed that valuable jewels were buried with the baron, so two robbers, inspired by my master, determined to dig up the body; but while they were examining it outside the church, they heard noises, and escaped with the body into the forest, and—and—but I dare not tell, I shall catch it so from him,” said the imp, gaining courage as the effects of the eau bénite began to go off.
“Repeat the dose,” said the abbot, and again at least forty gallons were cast on the miserable little fiend, who, almost beside himself, sobbed forth, “They buried the baron beneath the largest oak in the forest. May I go now?”
“You may,” said the priest, and the poor little fiend gladly vanished, though only, I fear, to get into very hot water below.
The whole of the saintly company repaired forthwith to the forest accompanied by the Lady Amandamine, and there beneath the oak tree lay the skeleton form of the baron, and clenched in his bony right hand was the Pope’s letter. As soon as the body was disinterred another figure was added to the group. It was the Ghost, who could scarce contain his joy at seeing his own bones again.
“Bless you, my children,” croaked he, turning to the young couple. “May you be very happy.”
“Shall we often see you again, sir,” asked his daughter, who, however she might have esteemed her father while living, certainly did not wish to see much more of him under the present circumstances.
“No, my dear,” replied the baron, “I shan’t come on earth again; and though I confess I should have liked to have quaffed at least one goblet to yours and Alphonso’s health, I must give it up; I have now no reason for complaint, and am very well content, and much obliged to you all for the trouble you have had.”
So saying the baron took up his bones, made a very polite bow to the whole company, and disappeared from the scene. And I, the author of this, cannot do better than follow the spectre’s example, as I have finished my story, and have nothing more to say.
ANA.
Our Ducal Houses.—With the exception of those two ducal titles which have been won by a Churchill and a Wellesley respectively, and, to some extent, at least, a few others which owe their existence to King Charles II., the rest of the titles which stand in the highest rank of our nobility are mostly the result of the fusion of two, three, or more fortunes together by the marriage of heiresses. Thus the proud Dukedom of Norfolk has absorbed into itself the castle and broad acres of the Fitzalans, Earls of Arundel, and the Duke of Richmond has added a large Scottish rent-roll to his English estates, through his grandmother, the heiress of the Dukes of Gordon: thus, the noble house of Buckingham (we speak of half a century ago), had grown great in the same way, by the addition of the Temple to the Grenville property, and, subsequently, by absorbing the inheritance of the “princely” Chandos, and that of the old Earls Nugent; the Duke of Buccleuch has united in himself, by a similar process, the wealth of the Queensberries, the Douglases, and the Montagues; and thus, too, the Duke of Sutherland, of more recent times, has incorporated together with the ancient inheritances of the Levesons of Staffordshire and the Gowers of Yorkshire, the entire estates belonging to two Scottish heiresses, who brought as their marriage portions the lordship of nearly the whole of two northern counties, those of Sutherland and Cromarty. Indeed, so vast has been the absorbing process in the latter case, that, as if sated with its wealth, and unable to digest a further supply, the last-named ducal house has thrown off two younger cadet branches, each most amply endowed, in the persons of the Earl of Ellesmere and Earl Granville.
