waters of the Whitadder. A small bridge was thrown over the river, and
communicated with a deep wood on the other side, then called the Satyr's
Hall. In this wood, and towards the end of the bridge, was a small
bower, which had been built for the sake of Matilda, and in which she
often sat during the heat of the mid-day sun, listening to the songs of
the birds, or reading some of the old romances and ballads of Scotland,
which she loved with the devotion of the heart. It seemed to be in the
imaginary world of these narratives that she had found the lover who
defied the efforts of so many suitors to obtain a place in her
affections. Her rapt fancy, occupied in the contemplation of some form
which it had painted with all the fond colours of exaggerated beauty,
carried her away from the ordinary thoughts and feelings of life. Yet it
was not all imagination; she did not carry her romance so far as to
uphold that no man of mere flesh and blood, however well put together,
and however well decorated by the smiles of nature (the artificial
ornaments of fashion she valued not), could satisfy the heart that had
enshrined within it those hallowed images of a beautiful creative
imagination. One who knew human nature, and the habits of thinking and
acting of imaginative females, would have discovered, in this love of
the fair inhabitants of her own Elysium, the true reason of her apparent
coldness towards the most beautiful and accomplished men of her time;
but they would have suspected that the form of beauty she thus cherished
had some foundation in nature; and that--though an excited fancy engages
in its service the young female heart, and, having limned for it an
ideal object to contemplate, ceases not till it engages for the image
the most pure, and sometimes the strongest affections of the
heart--there is still a substratum in reality to which all may be
referred. So was it with Matilda Rollo. One day, when sitting in her
bower, she had fallen asleep with a volume of Italian poems in her hand.
She had been busy culling roses--the bower was strewed with them; and
the sun sent his rays past the window and entrance of the retreat, as if
to avoid an interruption of her repose. She was, however, interrupted by
another cause; and, looking up, she saw the face of a man gazing
steadfastly upon her through the window. Alarmed, she started up--the
individual disappeared; but the beauty of his countenance, which
transcended anything she had ever seen on earth, or dreamed of in the
grandest of her rapt imaginations, left an impression on her which she
never forgot. She was supplied with a form of beauty on which her fancy
might luxuriate, and to which she would refer all the descriptions in
her favourite works; nor did she fail in this--for, though she could not
discover who the individual was, and did not see him again, she
cherished the beloved image as a treasure, and, day and night, in her
fanciful musings and in her dreams, she delighted to contemplate the
beauty of her imaginary lover.
One morning Bertha accosted her young mistress in such a manner as to
excite her curiosity.
"The cushat doesna use to coo when the owl flies," said she. "Heard ye,
my young leddy, the sounds last night in the beechwood?"
"The owl is generally busy there at night," replied Matilda. "I went to
sleep early, and never waked till morning, when I heard the wind booming
like a moon-baying spaniel through the forest. It had begun before you
slept; but you know, Bertha, you find often a magic virtue in night
sounds that no one else has the wits to discover."
"A lover's flute has mair virtue in it for young maidens than for auld
witches," replied the other, looking knowingly. "Sir George Douglas has
tried his looks and his speech upon you; his success may, peradventure,
be greater through the means o' music, the lover's charm."
"I understand you not, good Bertha," replied Matilda; "you do not mean
to say that Sir George Douglas was bold enough to serenade me in that
house into which he might have entered, and, by a father's authority,
claimed my attention."
"If it wasna Sir George, ye can maybe tell me wha it was," replied the
old nurse, looking cunningly into the face of Matilda.
"I can tell ye nothing, Bertha, for I heard nothing," said the other.
This conversation, which was interrupted by the entrance of Lady Rollo,
roused the curiosity of Matilda, who, ignorant of the interest felt by
Bertha in the suit of the English lover, did not observe in her words or
manner any wish to acquire information, but only a simple badinage on a
subject of love. She trusted her nurse implicitly as her best friend,
and sought her counsel often in those moments of unhappiness when her
mother interrupted the imaginative course of her life by some effort to
get her affections fixed on a proud baron or a courtly knight. The
consolations of Bertha were ever ready; and her innocent and
unsuspicious friend did not observe, in the nurse's zealous efforts to
confirm her against the marriage-plans of her mother, the anxious
workings of the concealed and paid deputy of a lover also rejected. She
intended to have questioned her father about the sounds in the wood; but
that day did not afford an opportunity for the gratification of her
wish. Left to her own imagination, she concluded that some of her lovers
had presumed to address her after the Spanish form of the evening
serenade; and, while she resolved upon listening on the following
evening, she was determined to take no notice of the importunities of
her impassioned lover.
The evening set in with great beauty. The full moon rose high in the
heavens, in which there was not discernible the thinnest wreath of
vapour to form a resting-place for the eye, as it wandered among the
endless regions of pure illuminated ether. The bright queen, paramount
over all, engrossed the whole hemisphere, reducing the twinkling stars
to the dimensions of small satraps of distant provinces, whose smallness
increased the splendour of her august majesty. The stillness of nature
suggested the idea of a general worship of the presiding genius of the
night. Every wind was stilled, and even the Whitadder seemed to glide
along with a greater smoothness than usual; while its singing, mellow
voice seemed as if it rejoiced in the bright reflection of the gay queen
of the heavens it held in its bosom. It was now about nine o'clock.
Matilda was sitting at the casement of her apartment, overlooking the
stream--her eyes were fixed on the beautiful scene; the towers of
Roseallan threw over a part of the river a shadow, at the farther
extremity of which, and, as it were, at the point of the eastern turret,
the round form of the moon, like a bright silver salver, lay still in
the bosom of the water. A little beyond this striking object stood her
bower in the wood; and so bright was the flood of light that penetrated
every part of the forest, that she saw the door and window of the
romantic retreat so perfectly, that she could have detected the entrance
of the august Oberon, or even Piggwiggan himself, if either of them
could have left their revels on the greensward, in that auspicious
night, to favour her bower with a visit. The scene was so inviting, that
she would have been tempted to wander over the bridge into the wood, if
the information of Bertha had not pointed out to her the danger.
As she continued her gaze on the beautiful scene, her attention was
claimed by the form of a man gliding between the trees in the wood. He
came forward to the edge of the river, and stood in a contemplative
attitude, with his arm resting on the branch of an old beech, and his
head directed in such a way as to suggest the idea that he was looking
towards the casement of Matilda's apartment. On seeing him take this
attitude, she retired back, to prevent her white dress from attracting
his attention. A slight examination satisfied her that he was an
individual below the rank of life in which she moved. He was of great
height and commanding aspect; but his dress was that of the son of a
free farmer of that time, being composed of the rough doublet, bound
with a broad leather belt, and the slouched hat, made of thick plaits
of coarse straw, and ornamented with a black riband tied round the
junction of the rim and the crown. Though worn by the inferior orders,
the dress was a noble one, imparting to the wearer an air of robust
strength, with that easy carelessness and rude grace which forms the
_dignite_ of the freeborn son of the mountain. It was only the general
outline of his appearance and dress which Matilda could thus discover
through the light of the moon; but she saw enough to excite her
attention, and she continued to notice his motions.
The stranger stood in the same attitude of mute contemplation for a
considerable time, his face still directed toward the same part of the
building, in spite of the powerful claims on his eye and attention that
were put forth by the splendid scene around him, with the round figure
of the moon shining in the waters at his feet. At length he took his arm
from the branch of the old beech, and, turning round, slowly directed
his steps towards Matilda's wood-bower, into which he entered, bending
his tall person to enable him to get in at the door--a circumstance that
satisfied Matilda of his great height, as her father--a very tall
man--could enter without that preliminary. All was for a time still and
silent; the gentle rippling of the Whitadder deriving from the absence
of any other sound a distinctness which, in its turn, added to the depth
of the quiet of sleeping nature. A soft sound began to rise in low
strains of sweet music, coming apparently from the bower. It was the
voice of a man, modulated into the tones of the pathetic expression of
heart-felt sentiment; the air was slow, and filled with cadences which
brought down the voice to the lowest note; the words--pronounced in the
low tone of the music, and run together by the fluent character of the
melody which accompanied them--could not be distinguished; but the
effect of the plaintive sounds, co-operating with the silence of night,
and the extraordinary scene of lunar splendour exhibited by earth and
heaven, was felt by Matilda as the nearest approximation she had yet
experienced to the realisation of her imaginative creations. The music
continued for some time, and then ceased at the termination of one of
the deep cadences, prolonged apparently for the purpose of expressing a
finale. The individual came out of the bower, and stood again on the
side of the river--the shadow of his tall figure fell on the ground like
the reflection of the beech on which he leaned; he continued his gaze
for some time in dead silence, and then, turning, disappeared in the
wood.
Matilda was unable, after all the consideration she could bestow on the
subject, to come to any conclusion satisfactory to herself, as to either
the identity of the individual, or the object he had in view. During the
night, the scene, which had been deeply impressed on her mind, was
verified by the power of fancy; and there was a certain romance about it
which recommended it to her heart. In the morning she questioned Bertha,
to whom she confided her every secret.
"I am perplexed, Bertha," she began. "You asked me yesterday if I had
heard any sounds in the Satyr's Hall, and I have that question now to
put to you. The man that sings in my bower must have some other object
in view than gratifying his own ears or those of the night birds with
his plaintive melody. What means it, Bertha? Come, my good friend,
unravel the mystery, and the grateful thanks of your Matilda will reward
you."
"If the throstle hen kens nae the mottled lover that sings to her, what
other bird o' the wood can come to the knowledge?" answered Bertha. "I'm
owre auld a bird to ken noo the notes o' a lover, or to tell a moulted
feather frae the new plume; but, as far as my auld een would carry, your
night freend looked mair curiously at the east tower o' Roseallan than
men generally do at grey wa's in the light o' the moon. He's as tall, at
ony rate, as Sir Thomas, and I thocht there was only ae man o' his
height in the land where he sojourns. But I think I could unmask his
secresy."
Bertha looked, to see the effect of her allusion to her principal; but
she got no encouragement.
"Whoever he may be," answered Matilda, "he is a very different kind of
individual from Sir George Douglas; nor is it Sir Thomas Courtney. The
melody is too sweet for the execution of an English throat. He is a
Scotchman; probably some of my Edinburgh courtly lovers, in the disguise
of a free son of the mountains. I cannot listen to his strains; but you
can safely approach the bower, and may, as you yourself have proffered,
ascertain for me who and what he is."
"My young leddy's wish is Bertha's command," answered the old woman;
"watch me with your hazel eyes, over the white bridge, this night at
nine. If he comes again, he shall not go away unknown."
When the evening came, Matilda was again at her casement. The night was
as beautiful as the preceding one; but there was a thin halo round the
moon that gave her a softer aspect; and the diminished sound of the
mellow ripple of the Whitadder seemed to indicate that there was a
zephyr abroad whose presence could be detected only by that delicate
test. About the hour of nine, she saw the thin figure of old Bertha,
rolled up in a cloak, steal silently from a postern of the east wall,
and creep slowly down to the end of the light, airy bridge, that
spanned, with its pure white arms, the bosom of the river. Stretching
forth her bony hand, she seized the rail, and, having got a firm
footing, walked with slow steps along the planks. Her progress was slow,
nervous, and unsteady. Matilda was solicitous for her safety; for she
had never seen Bertha venture along the bridge at night, and she herself
seldom crossed it after nightfall, even with the aid of a resplendent
moon. Her attention was fixed upon her to the exclusion of all notice
of any proceedings on the other side of the stream. The old woman had
got to the middle of the bridge, and Matilda saw with horror her
supposed faithful friend fall. Starting from her seat, she rushed down,
and in an instant was at the end of the bridge. Seizing the rail, she
hurried along, and found the body of the nurse lying extended on the
planks, apparently senseless, though she had merely experienced an
ordinary fall, the result of a stumble. Bending down, the anxious girl
was proceeding to lift her up, when she was, in an instant, seized by
the arms of a strong man, and hurried away to the further end of the
bridge. Stunned by this sudden seizure, succeeding as it did the anxiety
under which she laboured for her nurse, she was unable even to scream,
and lay in the arms of the person that bore her away, helpless, and
nearly senseless. When she recovered herself so far as to be conscious
of her situation, she found she was in the wood, and heard the sound of
the voices of several men, among whom she thought she observed the
disguised figure of a gentleman. They had wrapped a large cloak round
her, and were in the act of putting her on the back of a jennet that
stood ready saddled and bridled, when the man that held her was struck
to the ground by some one that came behind him. He lay senseless at her
feet; a second one shared his fate in an instant; and a third, after
dealing a treacherous blow on the head of her deliverer, flung himself
on a horse that stood alongside of the jennet, and galloped off at the
top of his speed. Meanwhile, she was again seized by another man, and
soon found herself reclining in her own bower.
"The feet o' the remaining horses," said a voice at her feet, "are
raisin the echoes o' the Satyr's wood. The spoilers have recovered, and
have fled after their master, who is, by this time, by the side o' the
Tweed. Hoo fares Matilda Rollo? Can it be excused by high birth and
beauty that the salvation o' their possessor frae the arms o' an
English reformer cam frae the courage or the good fortune o' ane that
daurna lift his face to ask forgiveness for doin the duty o' a
fellow-creature?"
"Whoever you are," cried Matilda, as she recovered, "you have done
little in saving me, if Bertha Maitland lies drowned in the Whitadder;
and that blood that flows down your face may be the dear price of my
safety." And she started to her feet, as if she were to fly to save her
friend.
"Content yersel, fair leddy," said the individual who still knelt at her
feet; "my wound is sma', and as to your auld nurse, I saw her rise
without a helpin hand, and, like the stunned bird, shake her feathers,
and return to Roseallan wi' a steadier step than when she wiled ye owre
the bridge."
The last words were pronounced with that irresolution which resulted
from a fear of a false impeachment, and were not heard or understood by
Matilda, who, made easy on the subject of her solicitude, now
contemplated the individual who had saved her. The blood flowed
profusely over his face, yet she could perceive that he was the same
person whom she had seen on the previous night; and the estimate she had
then made of his character was realised. But a new source of curiosity
and interest was now opened to her. She recognised in his countenance,
which was formed after the finest model that ever came from the pencil
of Apelles or the chisel of Praxiteles, the original of the image which
she had so often, in that bower, called up to the contemplation of a
fancy excited by the reading of "Amadis" or "Cavalcante." She was
surprised and confused; her mind recurred back to former times; a
floating vision crossed her fancy; she fixed her eyes on the beautiful,
though blood-stained countenance of her protector, and, blushing to the
ears, threw them again on the ground. Her confusion prevented her from
speaking, as well as from rising to return to the castle; and the doubt
which clung to her mind, whether all the extraordinary proceedings of
the last ten minutes were not a dream, added to her irresolution, and
increased her embarrassment. A thought roused her suddenly to a sense of
her position. Bertha would report her danger at the castle, and her
father, with attendants, would instantly be in search of her, and in
pursuit of the fugitives. Starting up, she made confusedly for the
entrance of the bower; but the hem of her garment was held by her
deliverer, who implored for a moment's delay.
"A second time have I been blessed," he ejaculated, as he wiped the
blood from his face. "Three years have passed sin chance led me to look
in at the window o' this wood-bower, where, gracious heaven! I saw the
fair maiden o' Roseallan in the beauty o' a calm sleep. On this
heather-bench, which was strewn wi' roses, her head rested; a book had
fa'en frae her left hand, and her right was spread amang the flowing
curls o' auburn hair that spread owre her neck and bosom. She dreamed,
dootless, o' some happy lover; for, ever and anon, the smile played on
her lips, and a tear struggled frae beneath the closed lids, and
trickled down her cheeks. The vision enchanted me--I gazed, and could
have gazed for ever. Matilda Rollo, you awoke, and saw my face as it
disappeared from the window; but, Heaven have mercy on me! I have never
awoke frae that hour! Wi' the might o' that enchantment, I wrestled as
became a humble admirer o' what fate had put beyond my reach--but it was
in vain, and I sought relief frae the new scenes o' Northumberland,
while my brother tended a widowed mother. Fate has brought me again to
the neighbourhood o' Roseallan; but duty must--ay, shall drive me again
far away."
A sudden recollection glanced on the mind of Matilda; she threw her eyes
upon his countenance, the origin of all her day-dreams, and quickly, and
as if in terror, withdrew them. A slight struggle released her from his
gentle hold; she sprang out of the bower, and, with trembling steps,
sought quickly the bridge, along which she hurried to the castle, where
she sought instantly the chamber of Bertha. She found the old woman on
her knees, at her evening's devotion.
"Ah! my leddy!" ejaculated the nurse, "why did ye leave me to seek my
way back owre the brig, without the helpin hand o' your love and
assistance? I was stunned sair by the fa', but I heard a sound o' voices
as I recovered. I looked for you, and thought ye had returned to your
apartment, whar I intended to have sought ye, after offering up my
prayers to our Leddy for my deliverance."
"Sore stunned you must have been, good Bertha," said Matilda, "when you
did not see my peril. Surely it is impossible. Did you not see your own
Matilda carried off by men? Yet, why do I put that question? Surely it
is sufficient to satisfy me that my dear friend was insensible and
ignorant of my fate, when I see her occupied in prayer, in place of
rousing my father to my rescue."
"Carried awa by men, child!" ejaculated the nurse, "and me ignorant o'
the base treachery! By'r Leddy, I'm petrified! Whar were you carried,
and wha were the ruffians? Kenned ye ony o' them? Doubtless, some o' our
Holyrude knights in disguise. Speak, love, and relieve the beating heart
o' your auld freend."
Matilda took Bertha up to her chamber, and recounted to her, in the
confidence of love and friendship, all that had occurred to her--not
even excepting the interview she had had in the wood-bower with her
unknown but interesting deliverer.
"It was indeed he," she continued, "whose angelic countenance has so
long hovered over me in my hours of retirement and in my dreams. He said
he first saw me sleeping in my bower, and he spoke truth; for you must
recollect, Bertha, of my having informed you, at the time, years ago,
of my terror on awakening and finding a human countenance staring in
upon me through the window. My confusion prevented me from recognising
him; but his countenance had got into my mind by the power of its
beauty, while my memory sometimes let go the connection between the
image which subsequently waxed so vivid, and the occasion by which it
became a part of my thoughts. Oh, long have I cherished it, long assumed
it as the face of the beatified hero of my histories, often limned it in
air by the pregnant pencil of my fancy, dreamed of it, and wept as the
light of day chased away the beloved form, and left me only in its place
the things of ordinary life, the countenances of the knightly wooers of
Holyrood!"
"And wha is he," inquired Bertha, "wha thus shoves his head into
leddies' bowers, and sae timously saves them frae the hands o'
kidnappers?"
"I know not, good Bertha," answered Matilda. "He is humble, and knows as
well as I know that he and I never can be united. Already has duty taken
him hence, and again is he to force himself far from me. I may never see
him more. Would that I had never seen him, or were fated to see him
ever!"
"Deliverer and spoiler are alike unkenned, then," said Bertha. "Hae ye
nae suspicion o' the treacherous caitifs?" she added, looking
searchingly into Matilda's face.
"None," replied the other. "I heard them not; but, Bertha, my best and
truest friend, you must endeavour to learn for me some intelligence of
my deliverer; for, though he cannot ever stand in any other relation to
me, I could wish to know something of one whose image I have treasured
up in my heart, even as a miser does the number that forms the index of
his wealth. The widow loves the grave of her departed husband, and
bedews it with tears, and carries away with her again the image of him
she leaves to the worms: he is to me as the entombed lover: life and
death are not more distant, than the pride of the Rollos and the
humility of the poor; but his name may become as the graven letters of
the monumental stone--I may weep over it."
"Auld age is a puir scout, my Matilda," replied Bertha. "Ance I have
failed in my commission, and a watery grave in the Whitadder had nearly
been my reward. Tak the advice o' eild, and seek neither his name nor
nativity. The duty ye owe to the pride and power o' the braw house o'
Roseallan must ever prevent ye frae being his wedded wife; and, if it is
ordained that ye must forget him, ye will banish him from your mind the
mair easily that ye ken nae mair o' him than ye do o' the bird that
birrs past ye in the wood--that it has a bonny feather in its tail."
"Ah, Bertha, that ignorance will not be to me bliss," said Matilda,
sighing; "but, in the meantime, I must hasten to my mother, and tell her
of the danger I have escaped."