'Something, Ma'am--a person--I can't exactly tell--above the steps, in the Blackberry path. It would cost my young mistress her life. For Heaven's sake, Ma'am, write, and promise, if you send for her, she shall get the note.' So, Dolly made the promise, and bringing old Tamar with her into the study, penned these odd lines from her dictation, merely adjusting the grammar. 'MISS RADIE, DEAR,--If coming down to-night from Brandon, this is to tell you, it is as much as your life is worth to pass the Blackberry walk above the steps. My old eyes have seen him there, walking back and forward, lying at catch for some one, this night--the great enemy of man; you can suppose in what shape. 'Your dutiful and loving servant, TAMAR.' So, old Tamar, after a little, took her departure; and it needed a great effort to enable her to take the turn up the dark and lonely mill-road, leading to Redman's Farm; so much did she dread the possibility of again encountering the person she had just described. CHAPTER LXX. THE MEETING IN THE LONG POND ALLEY. I suppose there were few waking heads at this hour in all the wide parish of Gylingden, though many a usually idle one was now busy enough about the great political struggle which was to muster its native forces, both in borough and county, and agitate these rural regions with the roar and commotion of civil strife. But generals must sleep like other men; and even Tom Wealdon was snoring in the fairy land of dreams. The night was very still--a sharp night, with a thin moon, like a scimitar, hanging bright in the sky, and a myriad of intense stars blinking in the heavens, above the steep roofs and spiral chimneys of Brandon Hall, and the ancient trees that surrounded it. It was late in the night, as we know. The family, according to their custom, had sought their slumbers early; and the great old house was perfectly still. One pair, at least, of eyes, however, were wide open; one head busy; and one person still in his daily costume. This was Mr. Larcom--the grave _major domo_, the bland and attached butler. He was not busy about his plate, nor balancing the cellar book, nor even perusing his Bible. He was seated in that small room or closet which he had, years ago, appropriated as his private apartment. It is opposite the housekeeper's room--a sequestered, philosophic retreat. He dressed in it, read his newspaper there, and there saw his select acquaintance. His wardrobe stood there. The iron safe in which he kept his keys, filled one of its nooks. He had his two or three shelves of books in the recess; not that he disturbed them much, but they were a grave and gentlemanlike property, and he liked them for their binding, and the impression they produced on his visitors. There was a meditative fragrance of cigars about him, and two or three Havannah stumps under the grate.