“Now, Ronald!” testily exclaimed the elder, “why will you reiterate a request that you know, for your own sake, I must deny? No! You cannot have that four-legged fiend! No! I will not have your neck broken during _my_ lifetime by any concession of mine. No! Once for all, you can not, and you never _can_ have Warlock! You may ride any other horse in the stable—in fact, you may ride any other four-footed creature on the estate, and you know it. But you sha’n’t risk your life on Warlock,” emphatically declared the commodore, bringing down his doubled fist with force upon the table as a finality. “Very well, sir; of course you must be obeyed,” said Ronald with a slight shrug of his handsome shoulders. “I shall not, however, take any of the other horses. If I cannot have Warlock I do not care to take a ride to-day.” “No! I thought you only wished to go to Greyrock for the sake of risking your precious neck on Warlock’s vicious back. But you shall not do it. I shall sell that horse the first chance I get. Now, then, go about your business, Ronald, and send my man here. It is time to dress for dinner. You may go, also, my dear; but don’t go back to my sister-in-law and sit down to sewing, I command you. And, mind, my commands are paramount on this ship! You have been sitting enough to-day for a young one. Go now and take a turn in the fresh air of the grounds. There! Be off with you both. ’SCAT!!” The conscience-stricken young pair hurried from the library by different doors—Ronald going out into the hall, and Em. descending the steps through a French window that opened upon the front yard. That yard so widely different from all the other houseyards she had ever seen in her life; that yard so savage in rocky desolation, so sublime in magnificent prospect. The house, as I said, stood upon a natural plateau about half way up the front of the precipice, directly overhanging the river. The yard extended some thirty feet to the extreme edge of the precipice, which was defended by a stone wall about breast high. There was no gate or outlet from this front wall. The approach to the house, as I told you, was from behind, and the entrance to the yard was at the side. Em. walked to the wall, leaned over it, and looked down the sheer descent of a wooded steep a thousand feet to the river that flowed at its foot. What abysms of darkness and mystery were in the depths of the shadowy foliage so far below! There, in those deep caverns, doubtless, the wildcat made her lair and reared her young; there, among those gray crags, the eagle built her nest and brooded over her eggs. No gentler creatures of the earth or air could surely find their homes among such savage desolation, though Em. as she stood there leaning over the wall and gazing down the dreadful descent.