A TALE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. BY H. W. HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” ETC. ETC. PART I. In one of those sweet glens, half pastoral half sylvan, which may be found in hundreds channelling the steep sides of the moorland hills, and sending down the tribute of their pure limestone springs to the broad rapid rivers which fertilize no less than they adorn the lovely vales of Western Yorkshire, there may be seen to this day the ruins of an old dwelling-house, situate on a spot so picturesque, so wild, and yet so soft in its romantic features, that they would well repay the traveller for a brief halt, who, but too often, hurries onward in search of more remote yet certainly not greater beauties. The gorge, within the mouth of which the venerable pile is seated, opens into the broader valley from the north-eastern side, enjoying the full light and warmth of the southern sunshine; and, although very narrow at its origin, where its small crystal rivulet springs up from the lonely well-head, fringed by a few low shrubs of birch and alder, expands here, at its mouth, into a pretty amphitheatre or basin of a few acres circuit. A wild and feathery coppice of oak, and birch, and hazel, with here and there a mountain ash, showing its bright red berries through the rich foliage, clothes all the lower part of the surrounding slopes; while, far above, the seamed and shattered faces of the gray, slaty limestone rise up like artificial walls, their summits crowned with the fair purple heather, and every nook and cranny in their sides crowded with odorous wild flowers. Within the circuit of these natural limits, sheltering it from every wind of heaven, except the gentle south, the turf lies smooth and even as if it were a cultured lawn; while a few rare exotic shrubs, now all run out of shape, and bare, and straggling, indicate even yet the time when it was a fair shrubbery, tended by gentle hands, and visited by young and lovely beings, now cold in their untimely sepulchres. The streamlet, which comes gushing down the glen with its clear, copious flow, boiling and murmuring about the large gray boulders which everywhere obstruct its channels, making a thousand mimic cataracts, and wakening ever a wild, mirthful music, sweeps here quite close to the foot of the eastern cliff, the feathery branches of the oakwood dipping their foliage in its eddies, and then, just as it issues forth into the open champaine, wheels round in a half circle, completely fanning the little amphitheatre above, except at one point hard beneath the opposite hill face, where a small winding horse track, engrossing the whole space between the streamlet and the limestone rock, gives access to the lone demesne. A small green hillock, sloping down gently to the southward, fills the embracing arms of the bright brook, around the northern base