But there were still few in the hamlet itself who would not have cheerfully laid down their lives for their vicar, such love and devotion had he awakened in their rough yet warm and tender hearts; and had any lawless spirit of the country-side ventured an actual attack upon him, but sorry treatment would he have received at their hands. Indeed scarcely less was their love for him than for the Lady Shanno herself, the radiance of whose youthful beauty her many sorrows had but changed into a more chastened and ethereal charm, touching her face and form with lightly-reverent fingers, as though loth to mar a thing so fair. From far and wide the poor thronged to her castle gates, with their tales of woe or pleadings for help and guidance, no longer remembering with any dread that curse which had till but lately held back their trembling feet as with some strong spell from venturing within a stone's-throw of those grim grey walls, but conscious only that within those frowning battlements and mouldering stones dwelt one whose praises were sung throughout the quiet vale, whose very shadow was blessed by old and young, and the sound of her footsteps welcomed like the tread of an angel, and for the sake of whose loving smile and tender word of sympathy the most superstitious believer in the old tales of horror would bravely cross the once-dreaded threshold, and even pass fearlessly along the dim resounding corridors to reach the sanctum from which the meanest among them would not be turned away without a hearing.