“Now at the end of this valley was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death.”—Pilgrim’s Progress.
“Oh! this is fearful! this is more terrible than all!” muttered Mark, as he regained slowly the consciousness that he had half lost. He attempted to raise himself, but motion was torture. He called out, but no one answered to his cry; he had been crossing the fields by a shorter path than the highroad, and therefore was not in the direct line of any thoroughfare, and might lie there for hours unnoticed. Mark felt as though the Shadow of Death were upon him; his mind was too confused and dizzy for prayer; it seemed to grasp nothing but the consciousness that something horrible had occurred. For long he lay there, half delirious with pain. The Pilgrim was passing through, perhaps, the darkest passage of his life.
How different was the fate of young Lord Fontonore, as, with his tutor seated beside him in his splendid carriage, he rolled along the highroad towards the north!
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“I am so glad that yesterday’s storm is over!” cried he. “There’s nothing like travelling in an open carriage, except when it pours as it did last night. It raises one’s spirits, passing fast through the air, when the horses dash on without touch from the whip; and the air is so fresh, and the sky so blue, and every turn of the wheel brings us nearer to home!”
“Then you are not sorry to return to the castle?”
“Sorry! oh no! I am too fond of it, too proud of it, for that! I shall be glad, too, to see the old faces again; Aunt Matilda, pretty Clemmy, my uncle, and all. I hope that I shall find my pony all right. I shall enjoy a good gallop again! Oh, I shall be delighted to see my own home with the drawbridge, and the moat, and the old yew hedge; and the flag will wave on the tower, I know, on my return, to welcome the little master back! Then we must go to see my tenants, especially old Widow Grove; I am impatient to take her the shell ornament which I have bought for her: and my poor dear old friend who lives at the mill—what a welcome I shall have from him! Oh, my tenants will not be sorry to have me amongst them again! And yet,” rattled on the lively boy, “I have enjoyed myself exceedingly here. How I delighted in our visit to that old ruin; don’t I see it there, just beyond the fields? Now, Mr. Ewart, I have something to remind me of everything but that; just let me stop the coachman,” he continued,
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 drawing the check-string, “and run off for one stone.”
“I think, Charles, that we have a long journey before us; it is hardly desirable to delay.”
“Oh, but I’ll not be two minutes, you’ll see. I’ll be back again, like the lightning!” and, without waiting for the steps to be let down, he sprang lightly out of the carriage.
“Heaven bless the dear boy!” inwardly prayed Mr. Ewart, as he saw the graceful form bounding away. “Heaven bless him, and make him a blessing to many! A noble career seems to be before him, and he has a kind, a noble, a generous heart, which has already, I trust, been given to God. But I fear for him, the dangers of his position; he will have so much to nourish pride; and pride, alas! is his besetting sin. His guardian, and his aunt, rather foster than check it; and London, to which he is to be taken in the winter, will be full of snares to the young peer. But why should I thus take anxious thought? I earnestly strive to impress on his heart the truths of our holy religion. He is willing to listen, and ready to learn; can I doubt that a blessing will rest on my prayerful efforts, or that he who is ever a Father to the orphan, will guard my dear pupil in the hour of temptation?”
The clergyman was suddenly arrested in his meditations by a loud call from Lord Fontonore, who had
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 reached the other end of the field; and looking in that direction, he saw the boy waving his hat, and making impatient and excited gestures as if to entreat him to come to him. Convinced that no trifle thus moved his pupil, Mr. Ewart instantly descended from the carriage, and ordering the man-servant to follow, proceeded rapidly towards the spot.
 
MARK DISCOVERED BY LORD FONTONORE.
“Oh, sir! oh, Mr. Ewart, only look here!” exclaimed Charles, as soon as his tutor came within hearing. “Poor
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 Mark Dowley, only see how they have treated him. He is not dying—oh, I trust that he is not dying!”
“Help me to raise him,” said the minister quietly, though his blood ran cold at the spectacle before him. “Do you not think, Charles, that you could find a little water?” The boy was off almost before the sentence was concluded. “Jones, we must draw off his jacket very gently,—softly, you pain him; we must examine his hurts.”
With a hand gentle as a woman’s, Mr. Ewart removed the garment from the half senseless sufferer, to stanch the blood, and ascertain the amount of his injuries. But he had scarcely laid bare the poor bruised shoulders of the boy, when he started with an expression of such extreme surprise that Jones looked in wonder to see what could be its cause.
“Is it possible!” exclaimed the clergyman,............