Witch of Ravensworth, The by Brewer George

Author:Brewer, George [Brewer, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Fiction, Gothic, Horror, Witchcraft, Witches
ISBN: 9780976604884
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 2033177
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 1808-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXI.

An interval of some years.

Time, which engaged the mind to fresh objects and pursuits, might have acted with like effect on the lady Bertha’s disposition, had not the chaste and gentle deportments of that lady, prevented her from seeking consolation from amusement: her only relief and consolation was derived from her attentions to the child Hugo, and in observing the gradual progress of its understanding. This in some measure obliterated from her recollection the loss of her other infant. Her duty to the baron also, and her studious attentions to his will, kept her constantly engaged. She was never at ease but when employed in her domestic duties; and was never seen to smile, but when it was with satisfaction at having pleased her lord. The lady Bertha, although she saw the proud and tyrannical disposition of the baron, yet was so unsuspicious, and unconscious of any wicked views agitating in his mind, that she considered her own happiness as fixed and permanent, as far as respected his conduct towards her.

Every thing was now at peace at the castle. The witch was almost forgotten, or served only as a gossip’s tale, for the domestics’ fire-side in the hall. The mind of the baron was, however, ill at ease; at times his conscience raised apprehensions and horrors, which disturbed his repose in the midst of that indulgence, and security for wealth and grandeur, which his cruel immolation of the infant Edward had procured. The sight of the injured lady Bertha was often painful to him, and called him to an artful reconciliation with himself, grounded on the consequence that the other child Hugo would inherit the demesnes after his demise. This compromise lulled, at times, his conscience to sleep, and he began to think that there might be hopes even of pardon for him in another world.

The baron de La Braunch, having succeeded in removing the innocent object of his fear and aversion, had idly and falsely thought, that he should enjoy a course of uninterrupted days; he was astonished, therefore, to find that it could not be so: for at times the recollection of the means he had taken, for the security of his wealth, came across his mind, in a way that made him uneasy.

In addition to the restless sting of remorse, the baron felt another sensation disturb his mind: he began privately to dislike the lady Bertha; she sometimes, accidentally and unintentionally, reminded him of the mysterious loss of her little infant Edward; he was angry, too, that the child had not died of some disorder of nature, that he might have been spared the reflection of having been the instrument of its destruction.

Eleven years passed away in a sameness of occurrence at the castle, which, in a good family, would have constituted one of the most striking features of its domestic peace.

Old Doric frequently descanted on the strange and mysterious event of the infant Edward’s loss, and endeavoured to account for it in various different ways;

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