AND now Kenelm found himself at the extremity of the town, and on the
banks of the river. Small squalid houses still lined the bank for
some way, till, nearing the bridge, they abruptly ceased, and he
passed through a broad square again into the main street. On the
other side of the street there was a row of villa-like mansions, with
gardens stretching towards the river.
All around in the thoroughfare was silent and deserted. By this time
the passengers had gone home. The scent of night-flowers from the
villa-gardens came sweet on the starlit air. Kenelm paused to inhale
it, and then lifting his eyes, hitherto downcast, as are the eyes of
men in meditative moods, he beheld, on the balcony of the nearest
villa, a group of well-dressed persons. The balcony was unusually
wide and spacious. On it was a small round table, on which were
placed wine and fruits. Three ladies were seated round the table on
wire-work chairs, and on the side nearest to Kenelm, one man. In that
man, now slightly turning his profile, as if to look towards the
river, Kenelm recognized the minstrel. He was still in his
picturesque knickerbocker dress, and his clear-cut features, with the
clustering curls of hair, and Rubens-like hue and shape of beard, had
more than their usual beauty, softened in the light of skies, to which
the moon, just risen, added deeper and fuller radiance. The ladies
were in evening dress, but Kenelm could not distinguish their faces
hidden behind the minstrel. He moved softly across the street, and
took his stand behind a buttress in the low wall of the garden, from
which he could have full view of the balcony, unseen himself. In this
watch he had no other object than that of a vague pleasure. The whole
grouping had in it a kind of scenic romance, and he stopped as one
stops before a picture.
He then saw that of the three ladies one was old; another was a slight
girl of the age of twelve or thirteen; the third appeared to be
somewhere about seven or eight and twenty. She was dressed with more
elegance than the others. On her neck, only partially veiled by a
thin scarf, there was the glitter of jewels; and, as she now turned
her full face towards the moon, Kenelm saw that she was very
handsome,--a striking kind of beauty, calculated to fascinate a poet
or an artist,--not unlike Raphael's Fornarina, dark, with warm tints.
Now there appeared at the open window a stout, burly, middle-aged
gentleman, looking every inch of him a family man, a moneyed man,
sleek and prosperous. He was bald, fresh-coloured, and with light
whiskers.
"Holloa," he said, in an accent very slightly foreign, and with a loud
clear voice, which Kenelm heard distinctly, "is it not time for you to
come in?"
"Don't be so tiresome, Fritz," said the handsome lady, half
petulantly, half playfully, in the way ladies address the tiresome
spouses they lord it over. "Your friend has been sulking the whole
evening, and is only just beginning to be pleasant as the moon rises."
"The moon has a good effect on poets and other mad folks, I dare say,"
said the bald man, with a good-humoured laugh. "But I can't have my
little niece laid up again just as she is on the mend: Annie, come
in."
The girl obeyed reluctantly. The old lady rose too.
"Ah, Mother, you are wise," said the bald man; "and a game at euchre
is safer than poetizing in night air." He wound his arm round the old
lady with a careful fondness, for she moved with some difficulty as if
rather lame. "As for you two sentimentalists and moon-gazers, I give
you ten minutes' time,--not more, mind."
"Tyrant!" said the minstrel.
The balcony now held only two forms,--the minstrel and the handsome
lady. The window was closed, and partially veiled by muslin
draperies, but Kenelm caught glimpses of the room within. He could
see that the room, lit by a lamp on the centre table and candles
elsewhere, was decorated and fitted up with cost and in a taste not
English. He could see, for instance, that the ceiling was painted,
and the walls were not papered, but painted in panels between
arabesque pilasters.
"They are foreigners," thought Kenelm, "though the man does speak
English so well. That accounts for playing euchre of a Sunday
evening, as if there were no harm in it. Euchre is an American game.
The man is called Fritz. Ah! I guess--Germans who have lived a good
deal in America; and the verse-maker said he was at Luscombe on
pecuniary business. Doubtless his host is a merchant, and the
verse-maker in some commercial firm. That accounts for his
concealment of name, and fear of its being known that he was addicted
in his holiday to tastes and habits so opposed to his calling."
While he was thus thinking, the lady had drawn her chair close to the
minstrel, and was speaking to him with evident earnestness, but in
tones too low for Kenelm to hear. Still it seemed to him, by her
manner and by the man's look, as if she were speaking in some sort of
reproach, which he sought to deprecate. Then he spoke, also in a
whisper, and she averted her face for a moment; then she held out her
hand, and the minstrel kissed it. Certainly, thus seen, the two might
well be taken for lovers; and the soft night, the fragrance of the
flowers, silence and solitude, stars and moon light, all girt them as
with an atmosphere of love. Presently the man rose and leaned over
the balcony, propping his cheek on his hand, and gazing on the river.
The lady rose too, and also leaned over the balustrade, her dark hair
almost touching the auburn locks of her companion.
Kenelm sighed. Was it from envy, from pity, from fear? I know not;
but he sighed.
After a brief pause, the lady said, still in low tones, but not too
low this time to escape Kenelm's fine sense of hearing,--
"Tell me those verses again. I must remember every word of them when
you are gone."
The man shook his head gently, and answered, but inaudibly.
"Do," said the lady; "set them to music later; and the next time you
come I will sing them. I have thought of a title for them."
"What?" asked the minstrel.
"Love's quarrel."
The minstrel turned his head, and their eyes met, and, in meeting,
lingered long. Then he moved away, and with face turned from her and
towards the river, gave the melody of his wondrous voice to the
following lines:--
LOVE'S QUARREL.
"Standing by the river, gazing on the river,
See it paved with starbeams,--heaven is at our feet;
Now the wave is troubled, now the rushes quiver;
Vanished is the starlight: it was a deceit.
"Comes a little cloudlet 'twixt ourselves and heaven,
And from all the river fades the silver track;
Put thine arms around me, whisper low, 'Forgiven!'
See how on the river starlight settles back."
When he had finished, still with face turned aside, the lady did not,
indeed, whisper "Forgiven," nor put her arms around him; but, as if by
irresistible impulse, she laid her hand lightly on his shoulder.
The minstrel started.
There came to his ear,--he knew not from whence, from whom,--
"Mischief! mischief! Remember the little child!"
"Hush!" he said, staring round. "Did you not hear a voice?"
"Only yours," said the lady.
"It was our guardian angel's, Amalie. It came in time. We will go
within."