“The foundation for all this was the testimony of two superstitious woodmen; who, in plying their trade, occasionally ventured into the vicinity, and, besides what has been here told, one of them gave out--as a piece of definite information--that, being one night belated in the neighborhood of the cave, and coming toward home in great terror, he suddenly heard the sound of rapid footsteps, and pausing, he saw Dame Burton come into an open spot not twelve feet from him. Suddenly there appeared a man as black as ebony at her side. Whence he came he could not tell, but his _identity_ was not to be mistaken. “‘Why are you so late?’ asked the dark personage. “‘Mercy, mercy!’ cried the cringing dame, piteously. “But mercy did not seem to be one of his component parts; for, seizing her roughly by the arm, and rushing off with her like lightning through the dense underbrush, he made directly for the cave, leaving nothing but an overpowering smell of brimstone, and a line of blue light, pointing like a guide-board toward the place of rendezvous. “How the man ever got home he could not tell: but it was not at all uncertain that he did get home, and tell the tale here given to a thousand incredulous hearers. “Father Burton died and was laid with his fathers, and Esther and Lisette wept together in their sorrow, and arrayed themselves sadly in mourning weeds. The suspicions of their neighbors never troubled them. The thought that their step-mother could be to utterly depraved would have killed them at once, had it entered their minds. The father had not, however, been long gone to rest when they perceived a change in the mother and son. The mother’s face assumed a crafty and hag-like expression, and the son’s face seemed to have gotten a look of stupid cunning quite foreign to it. Except this, for some time, nothing was to be seen; but soon matters took a more overt and decided turn, Andrew again renewed his odious attentions, but with a confidence which he formerly lacked. He was met with the same coldness as before, to which was added an entreaty--coached in the most conciliatory language, to the effect--that he would desist. But coldness and entreaty were alike vain. He still persisted, and Dame Burton, at last, seconded his suit by commanding Lisette, in unequivocal terms, to marry him. “‘I cannot! I will not!’ said Lisette, with a passionate burst of tears, at the close of an interview in which the matter had been pressed upon her with more than ordinary vehemence and fiendish show of malignity. “‘Cannot? will not?’ muttered the dame, half to herself and half to her auditor, accompanying the same with an impatient gesture, and a laugh hissed through her closed teeth--‘we will see! we will see!’ “‘I beg to hear no more of this,’ continued the persecuted girl, ‘or I shall expect our poor dead father to come in his shroud to defend me from such cruelty.’