Early in the last century one of the picturesque race of robbers and murderers,practicing the vices of humanity on the borderlands watered by the river Tweed,built a tower of stone on the coast of Northumberland.He lived joyously in the perpetration of atrocities;and he died penitent,under the direction of his priest.Since that event,he has figured in poems and pictures;and has been greatly admired by modern ladies and gentlemen,whom he would have outraged and robbed if he had been lucky enough to meet with them in the good old times.
His son succeeded him,and failed to profit by the paternal example:that is to say,he made the fatal mistake of fighting for other people instead of fighting for himself.
In the rebellion of Forty-Five,this northern squire sided to serious purpose with Prince Charles and the Highlanders.He lost his head;and his children lost their inheritance.In the lapse of years,the confiscated property fell into the hands of strangers;the last of whom (having a taste for the turf)discovered,in course of time,that he was in want of money.Aretired merchant,named Delvin (originally of French extraction),took a liking to the wild situation,and purchased the tower.His wife--already in failing health--had been ordered by the doctors to live a quiet life by the sea.Her husband's death left her a rich and lonely widow;by day and night alike,a prisoner in her room;wasted by disease,and having but two interests which reconciled her to life--writing poetry in the intervals of pain,and paying the debts of a reverend brother who succeeded in the pulpit,and prospered nowhere else.
In the later days of its life,the tower had been greatly improved as a place of residence.The contrast was remarkable between the dreary gray outer walls,and the luxuriously furnished rooms inside,rising by two at a time to the lofty eighth story of the building.Among the scattered populace of the country round,the tower was still known by the odd name given to it in the bygone time--"The Clink."It had been so called (as was supposed)in allusion to the noise made by loose stones,washed backward and forward at certain times of the tide,in hollows of the rock on which the building stood.
On the evening of her arrival at Mrs.Delvin's retreat,Emily retired at an early hour,fatigued by her long journey.Mirabel had an opportunity of speaking with his sister privately in her own room.
