On an evening in May, 1797, Robert Grierson was strolling down by the
banks of the stream that bound his lands. The weather for weeks had been
mild, and the country was dressed in the tender green that had not yet
drunk too deeply of the sunlight, unlike the leaves of mid-June, that
hang so heavily and so listless in the still air. The stream was not
yet as clear as it would be some weeks later, but it glared brightly
enough as it flashed and swirled when the stones or boulders strove to
stop its way, and even when it ran smooth and deep the rays of the sun,
descending in an almost cloudless sky, coloured its brown surface to a
golden hue.
Like most romantic youths, Robert Grierson loved to converse with
rivers. Their bickerings, their whispers, their mysterious murmurings
and sobbings, their chafing at obstructions, and the soft fretting on
the banks when the way was clear had all become familiar to him, and all
these seemed to glide into his darker musings, "and steal away their
sharpness ere he was aware."
Had anyone interrupted him as he strolled along and asked him what he
was thinking of, he would have found it difficult, if not impossible to
give a satisfactory reply. The thoughts of youth, as the poet tells us,
"are long, long thoughts," which is another way of saying it is given
them to indulge in indefinable longings. But whatever were the musings
of Robert Grierson on this evening he was suddenly brought back to his
surroundings by a scream and a splash.
At the opposite side of the stream and knee-deep up to his fore-legs
in it, was a pony, on which sat a lady, looking scared but gloriously
beautiful in the light of the setting sun.
"Oh, I'll be drowned! I'll be drowned!"
There was no danger whatever. The pony had come down a boreen leading to
the river--to a watering place and knew what he was about. Not so the
lady, whom Grierson saw was a stranger, and who was evidently afraid the
pony would carry her up mid-stream.
Grierson without hesitation plunged in, and waded up to his neck for a
short distance until he swam by the pony's head. Assuring the lady that
there was no danger, he waited until the pony had slaked his thirst, and
then turning his head round led him back to the boreen.
The lady was profuse in her thanks, which Grierson protested were not at
all deserved, but they were, nevertheless, very grateful to him, for
they were uttered in a voice the most musical he had ever heard. It was
soft, almost caressing, and there was, moreover, a flavour of a foreign
accent which seems to claim a special tender consideration for the
speaker when she is a lady, young and beautiful, and a stranger.
With a final graceful wave of her hand, and shooting a Parthian glance
from her dark eyes that went with unerring aim to Grierson's heart, she
urged her pony forward, and rounding a bend of the boreen was quickly
lost to view.
Grierson stood gazing after her, like one whose gaze was fixed on a
vision. It may be that the sun had sunk down behind the hills when she
vanished, as it were, from his sight, but the very air seemed dark, the
river ran in shadows, and his clinging wet clothes helped to free him
from the spell of enchantment under which he had been drawn.
He ought to have hastened home to change his clothing, but he went there
slowly, rehearsing in his mind the little scene in which he had taken
part. Never was face so fair, he whispered to himself; never was voice
so sweet, never were eyes so bewitching. As he thought of them his very
soul seemed striving to escape from him to follow them.
Alas, "for the love that lasts alway!"
Had anyone dared on that morning to whisper to Robert Grierson that
before the sun went down he would have completely forgotten his first
love, and become the bondslave of a woman's eyes, whose name he did not
know, and whom he had never seen, he would have regarded the prophecy
as little better than an insult, or, at least, as a foolish, idle
utterance. And now, as he was turning into his house, he felt that in
meeting so unexpectedly the fair unknown this evening he had met his
fate.
He spent many hours that night thinking of her, and wondering who she
was. He surmised that she was a guest of his neighbour, Mr. ----, who,
as we know, was a prominent member of the United Society, and Grierson
wondered he had heard nothing of her before, but then he remembered that
he had kept himself so much aloof that very little gossip of any kind
reached his ears.
When he thought of the way in which she and he had met he could not
help regretting that he had not the opportunity of rendering her a more
signal service, and he began spinning out romantic scenes in his mind--a
horse tearing madly along straight for a precipice, a shrieking maiden
clinging to his mane, and at the last moment he, Robert Grierson,
managing to seize the reins, stopping the horse, but falling as he did
so, and becoming unconscious, and then when he woke up, feeling sore all
over, not knowing where he was, for he found himself in a dimly lighted
room, and while he was still wondering a fair face bent softly over him,
etc., etc. Other scenes in which the incidents were varied, succeeded,
until he fell asleep.
When he woke the following morning, the fair vision of the previous
evening came before his eyes, and he decided that he would endeavour to
find out who the lady was.
The news came to him unexpectedly. Mr. ---- came over to thank him for
himself and also on behalf of his guest. Grierson very naturally made
light of the business as a thing, so far as he was concerned, not worth
talking about; but Mr. ---- assured him that the young lady was very
grateful, and it would, he said, give him great pleasure if Grierson
would come over to his house that evening to supper. Grierson, after a
little reluctance, which he felt bound to pretend owing to his having
refused so many former invitations from the same quarter, agreed to go,
and that evening found him in the society of Rosette Neilan, who had
lately come back from France, and who was an ardent admirer of that
gallant people, and was full of enthusiasm for the cause of liberty.