Deliver us from Evil Read Online Free

such a terrible night; for that some dread was haunting him could easily be read in his face. He kissed Emily once more, and settled her back on her horse; then he turned to Captain Foxe, and beckoned him aside. He began to whisper in a low, urgent manner; Robert couldn't hear what was said above the screaming of the gale, but as he watched his father, he saw him start, and shake his head, and grow very pale. Sir Henry did not speak for long; Captain Foxe asked him some further questions and then sat, head bowed in silence, frozen in his saddle. He seemed to whisper a prayer; then he turned to Emily and Robert, and beckoned them on. Robert thought that he had never seen his father's face set so angry and grim - unless, perhaps, in the Cathedral that same afternoon.
    Captain Foxe glanced round at him. 'Robert.' He reached out to stroke his son's hair. 'We must always trust in God to fulfil His ways,' he murmured, as though to himself. Then he turned in his saddle again, staring directly at the road ahead. Woodton lay beyond the next ridge. 'You must guard your mother closely tonight,' he said. ' I may have much to do, and she will need you by her side.'
    Robert waited. 'Will you not be with us when Hannah cooks the goose?' he finally dared to ask.
    'There will be no goose.'
    Captain Foxe said nothing more and, as they approached the brow of the ridge, he began to ride faster again. The full horror of what he had said only gradually registered with Robert. No goose? No goose. And to be told so abruptly. It was not his father's usual habit to dispense his decisions in such a brutal manner. What could have happened? He wondered again what news Sir Henry had brought to his father. Robert looked for them both; they had passed into the small wood which lay ahead of them on the Hack. Calling out to Emily to do the same, Robert dug in his spurs. Beneath the bare, dank boughs, they cantered through the mud.
    Following the path which brought them out of the wood, Robert reined in his horse. Ahead of him he could make out the hearth-fires of Woodton, but Captain Foxe and Sir Henry had both turned aside from the path, and were heading towards a gateway in an old, decaying wall. Beyond it, Robert knew, lay Wolverton Hall, where a Cavalier lord had once lived; but he had been killed in the war, and his seat had lain deserted ever since. Robert called out to Emily, and together they followed their fathers down the track; they had thought they would be ordered back, but Captain Foxe seemed scarcely aware of anyone now, and Sir Henry did not even look round, and so the four of them together approached the wall.
    Behind it, entombed beneath snow, lay the old gardens. Emily and Robert had sometimes played in them; but both their fathers had discouraged them and, indeed, the children had observed how little any of the villagers spoke of the place, still less visited it. Robert's father, as Commissioner for the district, might by rights have settled in the Hall, but he had preferred to return to his old home after the war; and everyone, it seemed, was content to see the estate fall into decay. Even Robert and Emily, while exploring the grounds, had never dared to penetrate the house; why, Robert couldn't say; save that they were only young and had been influenced, perhaps, by the whisperings of their elders, although they were neither of them naturally cowards in their play, and delighted, indeed, in exploring deserted ruins, enjoying the pleasure that they found in their fear. But there would be no pleasure felt that night, Robert knew, no pleasure at all - for his fear was damper and colder than the snow, and reached deep into the very marrow of his bones. And Robert remembered what the minister in the Cathedral had said, that the Devil was abroad; and he thought of the Dark Spirit not as he had been taught to do, enthroned amongst Hell flames, but as a god of ice, beneath whose touch all the world must grow chill. He stared before him and