"By making rich, made poor;By making happy, miserable;By amending, hurt;" * * *
"By making rich, made poor;By making happy, miserable;By amending, hurt;" * * *
continued to mark his progress—his progress!—his retrograde progress in life.
He had not been settled in his humble abode beyond the first quarter, making discoveries in science of the most astonishing description, when a railroad between Billingsgate and Blackwell drove him from his home. Private interests must always yield to public advantages. The road went right through Mr. Pooledoune's parlour; but then, when completed, how easy it would be to bring, by its ready means, white-bait from the water-side to the city; and how much toil and expense would be saved to the citizens in having their feed without the trouble of journeying so far for it in the heat of sultry summer. The greatest affliction to the individual was not the deterioration which his fortune again experienced in removing, but a calamity which had almost overwhelmed even his steadfast soul. We have said he was on the point of realising the most amazing discoveries in natural science. By a battery of unlimited galvanic power, continually directed to stones abstracted from St. Paul's Cathedral, Waterloo-bridge, and the Monument, he had ascertained that the church was built of the fur of thepulex, the bridge of butterflies' facets, and the Monument of midges' wings. Indeed he had obtained all these creatures entire and lively, in the course of his experiments upon decomposing the St. Paul pebbles, the Waterloo-bridge granite, and the Monumental free-stone; and the only difficulty which remained for solution was, that above a hundred other unknown and undescribed insects, probably of the antediluvian world, had been produced at the same time, and by the same means. It was hard, but the railroad caused the destruction of this theory; and several of the retorts being broken, the revivification interrupted, the reanimated killed, and the whole process served out, Mr. Pooledoune never enjoyed another opportunity for demonstrating these incomparable results. Thousands of years may elapse before any other experimentalist succeed to such an extent; and millions of men and philosophers of intermediate generations will die meanwhile, ignorant of the prodigious injury done to science and to John Pooledoune by the railroad between Billingsgate and Blackwell.
As we descend, we diminish in the eyes of those to whom we were distinguished objects whilst dwelling on the same or a higher elevation:—do we not really become less and less? Pooledoune's pursuits continued to be similar in character, in opinions, in expectations; but, ah! how different in worldly esteem! At the Mechanics' Institutes he was no longer promoted to the front-seats,—at the Society of Arts he was no more invited to deliver his sentiments,—his little contribution of insulated facts was unsought by the Statisticals,—and the British Association was too far off, with its Edinburgh and Dublin festivities, to meet his conveniency. Yet he devoted himself to the confusion of knowledge; and, in order to obtain larger interest on his fading capital, he dabbled in Mexican and Payous, and Greek loans.
Perfecting a fulminating powder to supersede the use of gunpowder, which could not explode except by the touch of a particular preparation, an ounce of it accidentally ignited one day, and blew out his right eye.
John's hair grew prematurely grey with such crosses, and he invented a dye to render it beautifully black. Most of those whom hepersuaded to give it a trial were turned most curiously grizzle, green, or yellow;[105]but, perhaps from using an inordinate quantity, his own scalp was utterly removed, and his scull rendered as bald and shining as a polished pewter plate, whence the meat had been removed, but not the gravy.
He patronised Mechi's razor-strops and Hubert's roseate powder, in consequence of which all the lower features of his face became a mass of purulent offence.
He took to an infallible dentifrice, which preserved the enamel, and whitened without injuring the teeth. It was a noble specific, and did not contradict its advertisement: but all John's teeth fell out; and though the enamel was preserved, and they were white, his gums were exposed, empty, and red. He supplied his loss with a set of china ornaments, which made him grin and nod like a Mandarin, but with which he could not eat like a Christian, nor sleep like a savage.
John got poorer and poorer, shabbier and shabbier, sicklier and sicklier. He had been blown up by gas, burnt down by steam, ruined by railroads, cursed by every improvement on the whole pack of cards. He was crippled in his limbs, deficient of an eye, disfigured in face and person, and, worse than worst of all, his friends knew that he had but little left, and less to hope for. It was not four years since John Pooledoune had begun his career with a sound constitution, and two-and-thirty thousand pounds of ready money,—worth sixty thousand in any other way! Surely he was the "Victim of Improvement."
Nearly at last, when seen in the streets, John would point to his waterproof shoes, and hat the better for being soaked twenty-four hours in a washing-tub; and one noticed that his ugly-looking outer garment was a proof Macintosh, and his patent spectacles set in cases of india-rubber. And even his sorry truckle-bed, to which the late squire of Hurlépoer Hall now nightly sought his obscure and darkling way, was surmounted by a patent tick (it was double tick, for he had it on credit from an old philosophical crony,) filled with hot water,—as had been the brief course of the unfortunate to whom it could afford no rest.
Whether from the Macintosh preservative cloak, the waterproof shoes, the water-filled bed, the india-rubber, or the rubs of the weather, we have not ascertained; but poor John caught a horrid cold, and his cough was sadly aggravated by a contrivance in his chimney for consuming its own smoke. This the chimney resolutely refused; and, like all other quarrels, got so incensed that it would not even carry the smoke up. Cold, asthma, suffocation and starvation, were then the miserable companions of the quondam wealthy John Pooledoune.
In the misery of his heart, the wretched man took to drinking.Thatresource, under any circumstances, must very quickly have brought on the crisis; but true to the last, John resorted to patent British brandy, and his fate was astonishingly accelerated.
One dusky evening, in a state of inebriety, the ragged philosopher walked, or rather staggered out. The cool air breathed upon his fevered brow; he saw the streets illumed with gas, he witnessed thesmoke ascending from steam-engines, and, overcome by his emotions, when a Gravesend steamer, having beautifully run down another a hundred yards below, swept into the Adelaide Wharf he threw himself over London Bridge, and sank in the disturbed bosom of the silver, insulted, and persecuted Thames.
Wearily had his life dragged on for many a day, and yet it was doomed to another drag. Before he had been two minutes in the water, this last-mentioned combination of cards, creepers, and hooks, brought him to the surface, having caught him by his bald pate, and he was carried ashore in a sculler. The nearest surgeon being called in, happened to differ from the Humane Society, and hung him up by the heels while he administered stimulants; but John had imbibed so little of the element, that even this treatment did not kill him. But his look was deadly, and he was so debilitated by the medical treatment, that to be restored was impossible; and the parish authorities ofSaint ——, inspecting his sorry equipments, became alarmed lest he should die where he had no business, and put them to the expense of a funeral. He was asked where he lived, in order that he might also die there; and a cart being procured, under the New Poor Law Act, he was carted towards the dismal abode he had indicated. His road lay along the new street to the new bridge; and, about a hundred yards down, in a dark avenue on his left,hecouldnot, though others might, see the once rich and respected tenement of his father, Roger Pooledoune, hosier and citizen of London.
The night was frosty and bleak: John's clothes were thin and wet. Had he been taken to an old woman instead of a medical theorist, and dried and cherished even by the commonest fire of the parish workhouse, he would have survived his "accident:" but the law was imperative; he must be moved to his own parish, and he was moved into the parish of Eternity,—the parish which holds the rich and the poor, and Heaven only knows how they are provided for. Before the cart reached the "Union," John Pooledoune was a corpse.
On the ensuing day but one, a coroner's inquest sat upon his body, and one or two of the jurors were men who had known him in his prosperity. They could hardly identify the meagre and mutilated remains; but, in tenderness to the officials, who had killed him by doing all for the best, they returned a verdict of "Found Drowned."
Not being conchologists, we shall not attempt to describe the shell in which it was pretended that John Pooledoune was buried. In that shell no muscle of his ever reposed; it held a few of the paving-stones of the adjacent lane, which, if John had been alive to submit to his galvanic battery, would have been demonstrated to be composed of bumble bees' sacchyrometers. About the same hour that the stones were interred with the solemn ritual of the church service by the chaplain, the body also furnished the subject of a lecture by the surgeon of the workhouse to the pupils in an adjoining hospital. The scull in particular was singularly formed, at least it was so declared by the phrenologists, who were allowed to claw it, and who clearly showed that the bumps (caused by the watermen's drags) were organs of philoprogenitiveness, amativeness, and destructiveness.
In due time a perfect skeleton of John Pooledoune was scraped and prepared, and placed in a glass case in the museum of the hospital.
And thus was fulfilled the Gipsy's prophecy. He was "by curing, slain;" he was "never lost on earth, alive or dead," for he was dragged from the river and preserved in the surgeons' hall; he was "found by numbers" of sensible coroner's inquest men! he is yet in his glass case a "bodiless corpse, the victim of improvement, for ever to improve" the students of anatomy. There was
"No hand to close his eyes;No eye to see his grave;No grave to give him rest!"
"No hand to close his eyes;No eye to see his grave;No grave to give him rest!"
He is "dead, resembling Death," yet keeps "his place among the dead and the living." "His end has not been an ending," and every one who inspects the hospital collection may know that "heisandis not!"
In a moral magazine such as Bentley's Miscellany it is naturally expected that a useful and instructive inference should be drawn from every tale; and assuredly ours needs little to point it: "May we all be preserved from the fascinations of Gipsies!"
Superstition is to this day a strong characteristic of the inhabitants of the Alps. A reason for this, is easily found in the various and imposing phenomena of Nature, to which these simple mountaineers are daily and nightly witnesses. A storm, which on the plains would scarcely attract attention, offers at each instant, in these lofty and diversified regions, some new and appalling spectacle. Each clap of thunder finds a thousand echoes, and is reverberated almost to infinity. The lightning's flash plays not only above, but about and underneath the beholder. Here a roaring torrent dashes past him down the precipitous rocks, driving all before it in its impetuous course; there a sudden whirlwind uproots the sturdy monarch of the forest, and bears it aloft, as though it were a feather on the breeze. The heavy cloud, which one moment envelopes the poor shepherd in its vapoury folds, in the next is seen rolling its dense masses over the lower earth, hundreds of fathoms beneath his feet. Nor are the calmer sublimities by which he is at other times surrounded less calculated to speak to his imagination than the loud voice of the bellowing tempest. The plaintive murmuring of the vernal breeze amid the lofty pines; the deep silence of the summer's burning noon; the fantastic changes of the fleecy cloud, whose form is varied by every pinnacle of the mountain; the hollow and mournful moaning of the autumnal gusts as they scatter far and wide the falling leaves; the bright beam of the resplendent moon, across which each jutting crag throws some grotesque shadow; and above all, the mist, which, rising from the plains a mere mass of dull and dank vapour, here first appears to receive life, and takes innumerable shapes and forms, incredible to those who have never witnessed its airy evolutions! These are the ever-varying phantasmata of nature that pass in scenic succession before the eyes of the Alpine peasant, and add fresh fuel to the fire of his superstitious inclinations.
It was in scenes of this inspiring character that Ossian saw his shadowy armies, his warrior ghosts, his visionary maids, and heard the wild music of their aërial harps. And although from the imperfectness of our nature, we are all liable to have "our eyes made the fools of the other senses," yet is it in these cloud-capped regions alone that the illusions are always of a dignified order, and that poetry spreads her veil of enchantment over the dull realities of life.
Such was the nature of my reflections after I had retired to rest upon the night before my intended pilgrimage to Mount Pilate; and, having made them, I slept soundly until the bright beams of a July sun darting in at my latticed window gave me notice of the morning's growth. I arose from my bed of leaves and rushes, and, strolling forth into the open air, tasted the delicious sweetness of the hour. Never do I remember a more enchanting prospect than here met my view. It seemed as if Nature had proclaimed a universal holiday. She was abroad in her gala dress; while Spring and Summer, her vernal and blooming handmaids,—the former lingering as though loth to quit her mistress, the latter rushing to anticipate her call,—appeared on either side of her, and strewed her rosy path with freshness and fragrance. The dews of night, glistening in the first rays of the slanting sun, spangled the green carpet of the earth; and the tall pines, ever the first to greet the morning breeze, gracefully bowed their dark heads to welcome day's return. Far across the intervening lake, the flocks and herds were seen winding slowly up the mountain's side in search of their wholesome pasture; while the simple harmony of their bells, mingling with the wild song or whistle of their urchin conductors, came upon my ear over the still waters in distant snatches, and formed, with the loud melody of the feathered minstrels close around me, a rural concert in happiest unison with the scene. A tap on the shoulder from my venerable conductor aroused me from my reverie. Our preparations were soon made; and with a small wallet destined to contain the necessary provision for such a journey, and each a long staff, pointed at one end and hooked at the other, such as is required for the ascent and descent of the precipitous paths we were to tread, we commenced our march. We proceeded first to Brunnen, where we took water upon the fairest of Switzer's lakes, and before sunset arrived at Lucerne, the town from which it takes its name. The next morning we were again afoot betimes, and, as we jogged along, I obtained the result of my companion's long gleanings in this fruitful land of romance and superstition.
"First," said he, "with regard to the name[106]of this celebrated mountain. Some have thought that it obtained the designation of Mount Pilate from a tradition of its having been formerly peopled by a band of Roman deserters, who sought refuge among its almost inaccessible rocks,—the Latin wordpilahaving been often used to signify a mountain-pass; others, that it is a corruption frompileus, a hat, because its bald summit is often covered by a complete cap of clouds,—and hence the old proverb so often quoted in this country,
"'Quand Pilate a mis son chapeau,Le temps sera serein et beau.'
"'Quand Pilate a mis son chapeau,Le temps sera serein et beau.'
But the explanation drawing most largely upon the liberal credulity of the simple inhabitants of the Underwald, and therefore sure to be the best received, is the following amusing fable:
"Pontius Pilate having been condemned to death for his crimes, to avert the shame of a public execution, committed suicide. His body being found, was by the enraged multitude fastened to an immense weight of stones, and thrown into the Tyber. But the spirit of that noble river, outraged by her waters being made the deposit of so foul a carcase, from that hour rose in foam and torrent to resent the injury; and, interesting great Nature in her behalf, the most frightful storms and whirlwinds, with hail, thunder, and lightning, ravaged the whole country from the Mediterranean shores to the opposite Adriatic; nor did the elemental uproar cease until the terrified inhabitants, by dint of the greatest exertions, dragged the body up again, and in all haste caused it to be conveyed as far as Vienne in Dauphiny, and there anew committed to the deep.[107]But what was the consequence? The Rhone would no more suffer such an insult than had the Tyber; and its blue waters, swelling with the indignity offered them, overflowed their natural banks, and rushed with headlong rapidity, as if to fly the spot of pollution. No bark could live an instant on the tremendous waves, which now so frightfully disguised this hitherto calmly majestic stream; and the Dauphinois, like the Romans, had no remedy for the crying evil, but, as they had done, to rid themselves and their river of such an ill-omened guest. This was at length accomplished: but the noble Rhone, although cleansed of his 'filthy bargain,' could not so easily forget the deep affront; and yearly, at that very season, he has ever since marked his undying resentment by a repetition of the same angry demonstrations. Meantime the offending cause of all this tribulation was secretly transported to Lausanne, and there condemned to a third watery grave. Why a preference so little flattering was given to this beautiful spot, is not known; but certain it is that its inhabitants, being made acquainted with the new arrival, presaged but little good to their 'placid Leman' from so confirmed a disturber of the silent waters, and before his presence could have time to create its usual uproar, and thus prevent or impede such a measure, the body was once more brought to land; and, a council being held, it was then determined that a small and isolated lake,[108]situated near the summit of the Frakmont, should bethe chosen place of interment. Being situated at a good forty leagues from their city, they would at least have little to dread from his future operations; and the bleak and barren nature of the soil surrounding his new residence would, as they hoped, neutralize, if not entirely destroy, his baneful influence.
"There, then, he was finally deposited; but soon this desolate region, as though doubly cursed by his coming, felt the dire effects of his sojourn. The lake itself turned black; and its surrounding shores, infected by the noxious vapours which it now emitted, could no longer yield a wholesome herbage, but became one huge and marshy swamp, where the rankest weeds alone could thrive. The surface of the water was covered with the blanched bodies of its finny inhabitants; the water-fowl that used to haunt its banks no sooner came within its unhealthful precincts than they shared the universal doom, and fell dead upon the earth; the venomous snake lay stiffening in the sun, conquered by a superior poison; and the slimy toad expired in a vain attempt to crawl from an atmosphere too fetid even for his loathsome nature.[109]
"The peasants, from their hamlets in the neighbouring plains, had marked the striking change in the appearance of the mountain's top, which, instead of standing out clear against the blue sky, was almost always enveloped in a shroudy mist, or, if for a short period it could rid itself of that encumbrance, still appeared like a heavy blot upon the surface of the earth, reflecting no single ray of that bright sun which beamed on all around it. Convinced that such a sudden change could proceed but from some supernatural cause, a thousand speculations were hazarded as to what was actually going on at the summit itself; and at length one among them, more hardy than the rest, set out, determined to explore the mystery. His presumption, however, was awfully punished; for although, by dint of an extraordinary courage, he returned to his anxious friends, yet the sights he had seen, the fright he had endured, and the bodily exertions he had used to quicken his descent, were too much for him. It was permitted only that he should relate to the throng crowding around him the pestilent appearances of the once beautiful little lake, and then ague-fits, convulsions, and a raging fever ended the poor wretch's mortal struggles.
"Whether the circumstances of this intrusive visit added fresh fuel to the demon's rage, or whether the moment was now come when, having no longer within his reach any living object on which to vent his diabolical vengeance, he became impatient of his watery incarceration, certain it is that, from the very day of the luckless villager's return, new sounds and sights of horror and desolation startled the whole country around. A hollow rumbling noise, as of distant thunder or a smothered volcano, issued, with scarcely a minute's intermission, during the hours of light, from the mountain's summit; while the deep silence of midnight was suddenly broken by shrieks and yells sohideous and piercing, that, compared with them, the war-whoop of a whole nation of Whyndots or Cherokees would have seemed soft music. Thus were announced to the affrighted listeners the terrific struggles then making by the foul spirit to burst his liquid bonds. At length, one luckless morn, he succeeded in his attempt to breathe again the free air; and his first feat was to celebrate the unholy triumph by a storm that hid the sun's face from the world during eight and forty hours, being the exact number of days of his forced sojourn in the lake.
"It seemed, from his remaining afterwards on this bleak and desolate station, either that his infernal art could not compass his entire removal from the mountain, or that he preferred it to the low grounds on account of the advantage which its elevated situation gave him to direct the tempests, and with greater certainty to launch the fires of destruction upon those particular parts of the country from which he was at the moment pleased to select his victims. Whichever of these was the cause of his stay, he, at any rate, by force, or by choice, did remain there for some hundreds of years; during the whole of which period he continued more or less, and by every means within his fell power, to vent his undying rage upon the hapless peasantry and their little possessions. In the midst of the most terrific of the storms with which it was his custom to visit the valleys below, the phantom himself would sometimes be for a moment visible to one or other of the terror-struck shepherds, and then some dreadful mortality among his flocks and herds was sure to be the lot of the luckless wight by whom the apparition had been seen.
"Once, during a dreadful hurricane that tore up the largest trees by the roots, and scattered ruin and dismay abroad, the grisly fiend was plainly seen perched upon the very highest pinnacle of his rocky dominion, in desperate conflict with a second unearthly being, who, by the violent gesticulations displayed on both sides, could be no other than his once mortal enemy, the renowned King Herod. In short, nothing could exceed either in variety or extent, the mischief caused to the pastoral inhabitants of the two cantons of Lucerne and Underwald by this 'Lord of the Black Mountain,' the name by which their demoniac tormentor was universally known. It gave them, therefore, joy beyond expression when their good genius at last sent them some hope of deliverance from the evil power, in the person of a pious and learned doctor, who, being informed of the devastation, agreed to try conclusions with the imp of Satan. This champion in the good cause was a celebrated brother of the Rosy Cross, who had already taken the highest degrees in the university of Salamanca, and who, having dived deeper than his fellow students into the mysteries of the far-famed Bactrian sage, possessed a reputation that placed him almost on a level with Zoroaster himself. Like a good alchymist, gold was the ultimate object of his philosophical researches; and for a sufficient sum, (to obtain which many a poor peasant was deprived of his last kreutzer,) he undertook to rid the country of what had been so long a scourge to it.
"He set out accordingly for the conflict; but alone and unarmed, having refused all aid or guidance but such as his sacred mission and his hidden knowledge gave him. The combat was long and obstinate, but never for a moment doubtful. Arrived at the mountain's summit,the Rosicrucian took up his station on a commanding point of the rock, and called upon the phantom to appear before him. This simple summons remaining unnoticed, he proceeded to a display of his cabalistic powers, and finally brought the stubborn offender into his presence; but not until the force of his mystic conjurations had torn the huge fragment on which he stood from its solid base, and left it balancing on a mere point, where, indeed, it may to this day be seen, a trembling memento of that awful hour.
"Unable to make head against the superior prowess of his opponent, the malignant spirit sought safety in flight but was pursued by the victorious astrologer, who, coming up with him again on the part of the mountain now called the Hill of Widerfield, renewed the contest with fresh vigour; and so furious were the attack and defence on this spot, and so violent the arts of exorcism to which the reverend champion had recourse, that the grass beneath their feet was burnt up as by the fire of heaven, and has never since recovered from the unnatural blight. Success at length crowned the efforts of the holy father, who, however, was forced to consent to a sort of honourable capitulation on the part of the vanquished. It was therefore finally agreed between them, that the spectre should return to his watery sepulchre, there to remain inactive during three hundred and sixty-four days in every year. On Good Friday alone he was to be permitted to walk abroad, clothed in those magisterial robes which he was wont to wear when living; even then, however, pledging himself not to overstep the limits of the mountain's summit, and never, unless provoked by previous violence or insult, to do harm to aught that had existence.
"This settled, he mounted a coal-black charger, which, as a ratification of their solemn treaty, was presented to him by his conqueror, and which on starting struck his hoof into the neighbouring rock, and left to all eternity its huge print there. Then, with a noise that resembled the hissing of an army of serpents, he plunged into the lake and disappeared; nor has he ever since been known to violate the engagements then incurred by showing himself to the world, save on the anniversary of the day above mentioned, or when irritated beyond his bearing by the language of abuse or some overt act of aggression, such as the throwing of stones or other substances into his prison-lake. The treaty thus broken, he has never failed to exercise the power still left him, and to evince his anger by some terrific storm or inundation, which would shortly after, and generally in the very midst of the brightest and clearest weather, suddenly proclaim his sense of the insult offered him.
"In consequence of these infractions, by the ignorant or the disobedient, of a treaty solemnly entered into, a general order was issued by the competent authorities, interdicting all persons whatsoever, under severe pains and punishments, from making the ascent of this mountain without a special permission to that effect, from the chief magistrate of the district, who at the same time was to appoint proper and trustworthy guides, they being answerable with their lives for the attention of the whole party to certain prescribed rules.[110]The shepherds, too, by whom the lower part of the Pilate was peopled,were obliged every year to appear before a certain tribunal, and to take an oath that they would make no attempt to visit these prohibited regions.[111]
"Things remained nearly in this state until the event of the Reformation; after which both Catholic and Protestant united to remove from the minds of the vulgar, prejudices which ages of ignorant habits had tended to fix on them. Among the rest, in the year 1585, one Muller, the curé of Lucerne, having appointed a day for that purpose, and invited all who were willing so to do to accompany him, set out on an expedition to the summit of Mount Pilate, and was followed thither by some hundreds of his parishioners. Arrived at the so much dreaded lake itself, he proceeded to throw into it, stones, blocks of wood, and missiles of various descriptions, accompanying the action with words the most likely to provoke the wrath of the redoubted fiend; but, to the surprise of the assembled multitude, who had beheld with affright the audacious ceremony, all remained silent,—neither sound nor sight replied to the daring invocation, and the sky was not in consequence overcast by a single cloud. In order to follow up the partial light which he had thus let in upon the darkness of ages, the worthy curé soon afterwards obtained an order from the government of Lucerne, authorizing the draining of the lake itself,—a work which was actually begun in the year 1594, but to which a want of the necessary funds, and other minor causes, put a stop before it could be entirely accomplished."
I have thus repeated at some length the fabulous histories which I that day learned during our long and laborious ascent to the summit of the mountain in question; and I will now only add, that the various scenes therein alluded to, as having been the theatre of the phantom's exploits, were pointed out to me by my companion; nor could I avoid perceiving, by the fondness with which he dwelt rather upon the superstition itself, than such refutation as followed it, that he was himself in no slight degree tinged with the popular belief.
BY JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES.
Ireland has had her heroines. Glorvina, the daughter of Malachi, king of Meath, was the joy and pride of her father, yet at the same time his anxious, never-resting care; for the Dane was in the land. The rovers were led by Turgesius, a voluptuous prince, though advanced in years. Turgesius approached the gate of Malachi with the smile of peace upon his countenance, but with the thoughts of rapine in his heart. He was hospitably received; the banquet was spread for him; and when he was weary with feasting and hilarity, he was conducted to the richest, softest couch.
He had not yet seen Glorvina, but he had heard of her surpassing beauty; and one day he requested of the king that his daughter should sit at the feast. A shade came over the brow of Malachi; but he bowed his head, and it was gone. With a timid, yet stately step, thevirgin entered the hall. Thick and clustering, and reaching far below her tapering waist, hung her auburn hair; her eyes were cast down; her fair skin mantled and faded, as her colour came and went; and she spake not as she sank in modest, graceful obeisance, to the salutation of Turgesius.
The Dane had no appetite for the banquet that day. He seemed to be conscious of nothing but the presence of Glorvina. Alarm and ire were painted in the countenance of the king, but Turgesius noted it not. He never removed his eyes from the royal maid; they wandered incessantly over her features and her form, and followed the movements of her white, roundly-moulded arms, as she accepted or returned the cup or the viands which were proffered for her use. Haughty for the first time was the fair brow of Glorvina: the bold stare of man was a stranger to her. Again and again she offered to retire, but was withheld by the dissuasions of Turgesius, seconded by the admonishing glances of her father. At last, however, in spite of all opposition, she withdrew.
The Dane sat abstracted with a clouded brow; deep sighs came thick and strugglingly from his breast. Malachi tried to rouse his guest, and succeeded at last, with the aid of the cup. Turgesius waxed wildly joyous; he spoke of love, and of the idol before which the passion bows; and he asked for the strain that was in unison with the tone of his soul; the song of desire was awakened at his call; and as it flowed, swelling and sinking with the mood of the fitful theme, the rover's cheek flushed more and more, and his eyes more wildly flamed.
Turgesius did not sleep at the castle that night. He was summoned on a sudden to a distance: oppression had produced reaction. In the place of the slave, the man had started up; and the air all at once was thick with weapons, where for months the glare of brass or of steel had not been seen, except in the hand of the foreigner. Outposts had been driven in; large bands were retracing steps which they had no right to take; the sway of the freebooter was tottering. His presence saved it, and the native again bowed sullenly to resume the yoke.
After the lapse of a few weeks, Turgesius once more drew near the gate of Malachi. Loudly the blast of his herald demanded the customed admission, and with impatience the Dane awaited the reply to his summons. It came; but there was wailing in the voice of welcome, and the visitor felt that he grew cold. The mourner received him in the hall:—Glorvina was no more! Turgesius turned his face away from the house of death, and departed for his own stronghold, where with alternate sports and revels he endeavoured to assuage disappointment and obliterate recollection.
Dusk fell. Silent and gloomy was the aisle of the royal chapel. Before a monument, newly erected, stood a lonely figure gazing upon the name of Glorvina, which was carved upon the stone. The figure was that of a youth, tall, and of matchless symmetry. His arms were folded, his head drooped, he uttered no sound; his soul was with the inmate of the narrow house. He heard not the step of the bard who was approaching, and who presently stood by his side unnoted by him.
Long did the reverend man gaze upon the youth without attempting to accost him. More and more he wondered who it could bewhom sorrow so enchained in abstraction. At length the lips of the figure moved, and a sigh, deep-drawn, ushered forth the name of Glorvina. No stranger to the bard was the voice that fell upon his ear. "Niall!" he exclaimed. The youth started and turned; itwasNiall. He threw himself upon the neck of the bard. The flood of the eyes began to flow: he sobbed forth aloud and incontinently the name of Glorvina!
"Niall," said the bard, as soon as the paroxysm of grief had a little subsided,—"Niall, you are changed in form, your stature has shot up, your shoulders have spread, and your chest has rounded. Your features, too, I can see by this spare light, have received from manhood a stamp which they did not bear before; but your heart, my son, is the same. Niall in his affections has come back what he went. The Saxon has not changed him, nor the Saxon's daughter; her golden hair has waved before his eyes, her skin of pearl has shone upon them, the silver harp of her voice has streamed upon his ear; but his heart hath been still with Glorvina!"
"To what end?" passionately burst forth the youth. "Glorvina is in the tomb!" The tears gushed again; the bard was silent.
"Where is your prophetic Psalter?" resumed Niall; "where is it? Who will give credence to it now? Did you not say that Glorvina was the fair maid of Meath by whom it foretold that the land was to be rescued from the Dane; and that I was that son of my house who should be joined with her in perilous, yet happy wedlock? This did you not say and repeat a thousand times?—Then why do I look upon that tomb?"
"Niall," said the bard, "have faith, though you look upon the tomb of Glorvina!" The youth shook his head.—"Have you yet seen the king?" inquired the bard. Niall replied in the negative. "Come, then, young man, and look upon a father's grief!"
The bard led the way towards the closet of the king. The light of the taper streamed from the half-open door: and as Niall, by the side of the bard, stood in the comparative darkness of the ante-chamber, he stared upon the face of Malachi, bright with a smile at a false move at chess which a person with whom the king was playing had just that moment made. Niall could scarce believe his vision.—"Where is the grief of the father?" whispered he to the bard.
"Note on!" was the old man's reply.
"He laughs!" exclaimed Niall, almost loud enough to be heard by those within.—"Yes," said the bard; "he who wins may laugh. He has got the game."
"And where is his child?" ejaculated Niall with a groan so audible that Malachi heard it and started; but the bard hurried the youth from the room.
Niall and the bard sat alone in the apartment of the latter. Sparingly the youth partook of the repast, which was presently removed. He sat silent, leaning his head upon his hand. At length he lifted his eyes to the face of the bard; it was smiling like the king's, as he played the game of chess. The young man stared; the bard smiled on.
"A strain!" cried the reverend man, and took his harp and tuned it, and tried the chords till every string had its proper tone. "Now!" he exclaimed, ready to begin. The young man watched the waking of the lay, which he expected would be in unison with the mood of hissoul: but, lo! note rapidly followed note in mirthful chase, still quickening to the close; and the countenance of Niall, overcast before with grief, now lowered with anger.
"I list not strain like that!" he exclaimed, starting from his seat.
"You list no other, boy, from me," rejoined the old man; "it is your welcome home."—"My home," ejaculated Niall, "is the tomb where Glorvina sleeps the sleep of death!"
"The Psalter," said the old man solemnly, "is the promise of Destiny, and is sure to be fulfilled."
"Why, then," asked the youth sternly,—"why, then, is Glorvina no longer among the living?—Why in the place of her glowing cheek do I meet the tomb?—the silence of death, instead of her voice?"
The bard made no reply, but leaned over his harp again, and spanned its golden strings. He sang of the chase. The game was a beauteous hind; eager was the hunter, but too swift was her light foot for his wish. She distanced him like the wind, which at one moment brushes the cheek, and the next will be leagues away; and now she was safe, pressing the mossy sward in the region of the mountain and the lake, where the waters mingle and spread one silvery sheet for the fair tall heavens to look into.
Niall sat amazed!—conjecture and doubt seemed to divide his soul. He sprang towards the old man, and, throwing himself at his feet, snatched the hand that still lay upon the strings and caught it to his bosom. Yet he spake not, save by his eyes; in the intense expression of which, inquiry, and entreaty, and deprecation were mingled.
The old man rose and stood silent for a time, looking down benevolently upon Niall, who seemed scarcely to breathe, watching the lips that he felt were about to move.
"Niall," at length said the bard,—"Niall, the strength of the day is the rest of night. Fair upon the eye of the sleeper, awakening him, breaks the light of morning. Then he springs from his couch, and stretches his limbs, and braces them, eager for action; and he asks who will go with him to the field of the feat; or haply betakes him to the road to try his strength alone; and following it through hill and valley, moor and mead, suddenly shows his triumph-shining face to the far friend that looked not for him!"
The bard ceased. Both he and the youth remained motionless for several seconds, intently regarding one another. At last Niall sprang upon his feet, and threw himself upon the neck of the old man, whose arms simultaneously closed around the boy.
"You will sleep to-night, my son," said the bard, withdrawing himself at length from the embrace of Niall. "The dawn shall not come to thy casement before thou shalt hear my summons at thy door. Good-night!" They parted.
By the side of a bright river strayed hand in hand two young females, seemingly rustics. Rain had fallen. The thousand torrents of the mountains were in play; and the general waters, swoln beyond the capacity of their customed channel, ran hurried and ruffled.
"Who would think," remarked the younger of the two,—"who would think that this was the river we saw yesterday?"
"'Tis changed indeed," said her companion; "but the sky that was lowering yesterday, you see, is bright and serene to-day. Did you hear the storm in the night?"
"No: I would I had. It would have saved me from a dream darker than any storm."
"A dream!—Tell it me. I am a reader of dreams."
"You know," began the younger,—"you know I was brought up with the only son of a distant branch of my father's house. I know not how it was, but, from my earliest recollection, my foster-mother, and others as well as she, set me down for his wife; and, strangely enough, I fancied myself so. Yet could it be nothing more than a sister's love that I bore him. Much he used to make of me. His pastime—even his studies—were regulated by my will. Being older than I, he let me play the fool to the very height of my caprice, which cost me many a chiding,—but not from him, though he had to bear the greater portion of the consequences. You know by his father's will he was enjoined to travel the last four years preceding his majority. He set out the very day that I completed my fourteenth year. I wish it had been before. I should have felt the separation less, for indeed it cost me real agony. For months after, they would catch me weeping: they did not know the cause; but 'twas for him! Still I only loved him as a brother—but a dear one,—Oh, Myra! I cannot tell you how dear!—and absence has not abated my feelings, as you may more than guess by my dream last night."
"Look!" interrupted the other; "see you not some one through the interval of the trees descending yonder road that winds round the foot of the nearest mountain?"
"No," replied the former, after she had looked in the direction a moment or two. "But attend to my dream. I thought I was married indeed, and that he was my husband; and that we were sitting at the bridal feast, placed on each side of my father; and there were the viands, and the wine, and the company, and everything as plain as you are that are standing there before me; when, all at once——"
"I see him again!" a second time interrupted the friend. "Look! don't you catch the figure?"—"No."
"Then you'll not catch it at all now, for he has dived into the wood through which the road runs."
"Was it a single person?"—"Yes."
"Then we have nothing to care for; so don't interrupt me in my dream again."
"Go on with it," said the other.
"Well; we were sitting, as I said, at the bridal feast, when, turning to speak to my father, the fiery eyes of one I hope never to see again were glaring on me, and my father was gone; and fierce men, with gleaming weapons waving above their heads, surrounded him to whom I had just pledged my troth, and bore him, in spite of his struggles and my screams, away: leaving me to the mercy of the spoiler, who straight, methought, started up with the intent of dragging me to the couch which had been prepared for another!"
"Do you mark," interrupted the friend, "as you increase in loudness, the echoes waken? I heard the last word repeated as distinctly as you yourself uttered it. But go on. Yet beware these echoes; they may be tell-tales. What followed?"
"Oh, what harrows my soul even now! Thither, where I told you, did he try to force me, struggling with all my might to resist him. I called on my father,—I called on my bridegroom,—I calledon every one I could think of; but no one came to me, and fast we approached the door, on the threshold of which to have died, I thought in my dream, would be bliss to the horror of crossing it, and there at last we stood: but it was shut. Yet soon it moved; and who think you it was that opened it? Niall!—Niall himself! and no resistance did he offer to him that forced me onward,—none, though I called to him by his name, shrieking it louder than I am speaking now, 'Niall!—Niall!' He spoke not,—he moved not; and I was within a foot of the very couch, when I awoke, my face bathed in the dew of terror. 'Niall!—Niall!' did I cry, did I shriek; and Niall was there, and I shrieked in vain—'Niall!—Niall!'——"
"Here!" cried Niall himself, springing from a copse, out of which led a path that made a short cut across an angle of the road, and throwing himself breathless at the feet of Glorvina.
The astonished maid stood motionless, gazing on the young man, who remained kneeling, until her companion, taking her hand, and calling her by her name, aroused her from the trance of astonishment.
"Come," said Myra, "let us return;" and, motioning to the young man to follow them, she led her passive companion back to the lonely retreat whither Malachi had transported his fair child.
Glorvina did not perfectly recover her self-possession till she arrived at the door. Then she stopped, and turning, bent her bright gaze full upon the wondering Niall, who moved not another step.
"Niall—if you are Niall—" said the maid. She paused, and a sigh passed, in spite of them, the lips that would have kept it in: "If you are the Niall," she resumed, "to whom I said farewell four years ago, the day and the hour are not unwelcome that bring back, in health, and strength, and happiness, the playmate of our childhood to the land of his fathers; and we bless God that he has suffered them to shine. But why comes Niall hither? Who taught him to doubt the testimony of the tomb? Who directed his steps to the solitudes of the mountains, the woods, and the lakes? Who cried, "God speed!" when his heel left the home of my father behind it? Was it the master of that home?—was it Malachi, my father?"
A thought that had not occurred to him before, seemed suddenly to cross the mind of Niall. His lips that would have spoken remained motionless, his cheek coloured, his eye fell to the feet of Glorvina; he stood confounded and abashed.
"'Tis well!" cried the stately maid. "The tongue of Niall is yet unacquainted with falsehood, though his feet may be no strangers to the steps of rashness. The repast is spread; enter and partake!" and she paused for a second or two. Niall slowly lifted his eyes till they met those of Glorvina; apprehension and supplication mingled in the gaze of the youth. At length, with a tone that spoke at once compassion and resolve, the word "Depart!" found utterance; and the maid and her companion, stepping aside, left the entrance of their lonely habitation free, as Niall mechanically passed in.
(To be concluded in our next.)
AN IRISH BALLAD,ON THE BIRTH-DAY OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA,
May 24, 1837.BY J. A. WADE.