But long before bridges were built or were common, there was need to cross the river, either by ford or ferry, and its treachery must have been known in very ancient days, since Swark—whoever he might be, and whether he found a natural ford or made an artificial one—set up on end an unwrought monolith above the height of a man as a guide for wayfarers to find the crossing-place when the waters happened to be “out”; since there the waste and meadow-land lay low for many a broad mile. There was scarcely a speck in the blue vault of heaven when Earl Bellamont and his friends, leaving a cloud of dust behind them, crossed the shrunken, snake-like river that mirrored their gleaming armour in its broken, scale-like wavelets, as if it held their images and would fain clasp them. And so the sun had shone for weeks, “All in a hot and copper sky,” until the earth cried out for rain from its parched and cracking lips. Only near the red, marly banks of the river did the grass and herbage retain its vivid tint of green. As the days went by the air seemed to grow hotter; the cooks in the kitchen, piling fresh logs upon the fire, wished the guests gone and the wedding over. The falconer out on the moor in the glare with William Harpur and other squires, or the anglers by the streams, had scarcely the best of it, though Lady Bellamont wearied of her many cares, and censured the languor of her daughters and her maids. Preparations had not ceased, they had only renewed; and there had been unwonted doles to the villagers of good things that would have spoiled. At length, when even the weaving of tapestry or the twanging of the lute was a toil, there rose a cloud in the north-western sky. The cattle lowed, the leaves turned themselves over to welcome it, the hawks screamed in the mews. That was the morning of the 14th, when the very hush in the air was significant. The cloud spread, darkened, blackened, but in the distance. “There is a storm somewhere over our northern hills!” exclaimed the prior, who had been up on the battlements. “The clouds hang black and low over Dovedale.” “It seemeth such a day as heralded the great storm three years ago,” cried Lady Bellamont, in alarm. “And, ah! what a flash was that!” The younger ladies gathered together in shrinking groups, as if the fears of the matron were infectious. Only Idonea kept at her word, and scorned to show timidity, whatever she might feel, as the mutterings of thunder rumbled over the hall. It was high noon, but the sky was darkening overhead. The horn at the great gates was blown. A messenger in hot haste had come spurring from the ford and up the hill, glad to save himself a drenching, for the great drops were pattering on the leaves and leads like hail.