throne, which he intended to ascend; the title he gave himself being Francis the First, Emperor of Great Britain.
His brother looked appalled, and watched him in silence, as he majestically paced the apartment relating his wrongs, and the necessity he had been under of keeping himself concealed, lest the usurper should assassinate him. He proceeded to read and explain some of the papers with which his desk was crammed, and was working himself into a fearful state of excitement, when the attendant, who had been pompously referred to as his private secretary, interfered.
But the frenzied man was in no humour to be thwarted, and it was not till a struggle had taken place that he suffered himself to be led away.
My cries of alarm and his wife’s entreating—“Oh, don’t hurt him! Oh, pray let him be! He will be calm,”—brought my mother to the spot, and to her the shocked Mr. Henry Edgar appealed for some explanation. She, however, had nothing to tell, and was inclined to give way to lamentations respecting her own safety and the character of her house. If Mrs. Edgar had told her in the first place—
“You would have refused to receive us,” she interposed. “I have not concealed it to injure any one, but to save my unhappy husband. I knew you would take him from me; you will take him from me, Henry, you will condemn him to the horrible sufferings of a mad-house, and he will die! Oh, miserable me! Why have you found us?”
“Say, rather,” cried Mr. Edgar, “why have I not found you earlier! With proper attention his malady might have been checked. Alas, Pauline, you have destroyed him!”
The wretched wife fell on the floor, and remained unconscious for a few hours of the fearful ravings with which Captain Edgar now filled the house, while his bewildered relative alternately endeavoured to soothe him, and to form some plan for his future.
Through the inquiries he directed to the servants, we learned that Mrs. Edgar had long refused to see the unsettled state of her husband’s mind, and that when, after restlessly wandering over the greater part of Europe he had suddenly decided upon visiting England, with the avowed intention of prosecuting his right to the crown, her solicitude induced her to humour his whim, and press upon him the necessity of concealment.
Poor young creature! what mental anguish she had endured! Hoping against hope; trying to hide from all his diseased mind; and to save him from the living death of a lunatic asylum.
But it was in vain. His attendant informed us that from the night when I had been alarmed and the madman had attempted the life of his keeper, who for his own safety had been compelled to disable him, he had gradually but surely sank into greater hallucinations, and Mrs. Edgar herself was, at last, forced to yield to the absolute necessity of restraint.
Captain Edgar was conveyed from our house to the military asylum at , and his wife immediately left us to take up her abode in the vicinity.
Her prediction was soon verified, for her unfortunate husband did not survive his removal many weeks. She called upon us shortly after his death to say farewell. Her youth and beauty had been wrecked in the overwhelming sorrow of this fearful time, but her infant’s arms were round her neck, his little rosy face pressed against her sunken cheek, and she was returning, she said, to her native land, where friends who loved her awaited her coming.
We never heard of her again; and my only remaining souvenir of Mrs. Edgar is a half-worn-out pencil-drawing of baby Frank, with the name “Pauline” beneath.
RATHLIN ISLAND.
CHAPTER II.—CONCLUDED.
There are several fine caves along the north and western shores of the island, where the heavy surf beats almost constantly. The largest of these is Bruce’s Cave, situated a short distance north of the castle. It can be entered only by water, and rises about sixty or seventy feet at the entrance, which forms an irregular arch of dark basalt. A tradition exists that Bruce, on one occasion, when hotly pursued, took refuge in this cave, where he remained concealed for a considerable time, supplied with food by a few faithful followers who knew his place of retreat, and visited him as often as they could with safety. But this story is highly improbable, from the extreme difficulty of obtaining access to the cave, which can only be entered in the calmest weather, the most trifling breeze from the east or north raising a tremendous surf, which breaks into the narrow passage with great fury.
The cormorant and rock-dove inhabit the dark recesses of the cave, and the rocks at the entrance are tenanted by sea-gulls and other birds which frequent the coast. The sides of the cave are encrusted with a dark red substance, which gives it the appearance of polished mahogany, and on reaching the further end, which is about 400 feet from the entrance, the interior, although dark, is dry and spacious, and gives indication of having been at some remote period used as a hiding-place (probably by smugglers), as the remains of a wall across the cave are visible, but no tradition regarding it is known beyond that relating to Bruce, upwards of 500 years ago.
On the southern side of Church Bay, not far from Ushet Point, there are three caves, situated at a short distance from the water’s edge, but considerably above that elevation. In the largest of these, the mouth of which is about thirty or forty feet above the level of the sea, the floor gradually descends towards its extremity, which on being lighted up, presents an extensive and spacious appearance. Dr. Berger notices an interesting geological fact about these caves. “Although excavated in the basaltic rock, and at a point remote from any calcareous formation, they are nevertheless invested with calcareous stalactites depending from the roofs, and by their dropping on the floor, depositing a crust of about an inch in thickness.” Dr. Berger thinks this circumstance worthy of attention, since calcareous matter seems evidently, from the situation of the caverns, to have been derived from that which