"It is my lady: oh, it is my love!"
_Romeo and Juliet._
The agitation of the morning at Stillyside had subsided as the day
wore, but the mind of Amanda Macdonald (for such was the name of
the younger and fairer denizen of that sequestered abode) remained
pensive and preoccupied; and when at her usual hour she had ascended
to her chamber, instead of retiring to rest, she took up a tale of
the troubadours, and read; nor did she lay down the volume till
the sudden flickering of the candle in the socket and the simultaneous
tolling from the distant belfry of the church of the village of
Saint Laurent warned her that it was midnight. Then, feeling
oppressed, alike with the heaviness of the atmosphere of her room,
and a strange weight at her heart, analogous to the lassitude that
is sometimes felt in the beginning of sickness, she arose, drew
aside the curtains, and throwing open the folding window, stepped
on to the verandah. A clear Canadian night, appearing a new and
chaster version of the day, greeted her. The moon, at night's
meridian, hung high in the fulness of its autumnal splendor, tranquil
in the solitude of the sky, a solitude unbroken, save by a few
small stars that were twinkling in the azure, and a fleet of low,
dappled clouds that were coasting the horizon. Awhile her eyes
dwelt abstractedly on the sight, then, falling, they wandered
listlessly over the broad and shining expanse of landscape before
her; where Nature, unrobed, seemed as in a bath; for in front, the
grass, steeped in descending dews, glittered as a lake. Woods
confined the view in one direction, and the gleamy wave of the
Ottawa, amidst filmy obscurity, bounded it, yet further off, in
another. Unseen but felt, like the unperceived Genius of the
landscape, towered close behind her the sombre-sided mountain; and,
touched by the solemn scene, she advanced, and, leaning upon the
balustrade, heaved a deep sigh; then lapsed into a reverie so
profound, that she failed to hear the tramp of a horse now rapidly
approaching, and to note the change to sudden silence, caused by
its stopping at the postern. But there, transfixed with wonder and
admiration, and looking like a bronze equestrian statue at the
gate, now, mounted, sat gazing the lately flying horseman of the
road, the champion of the morning on those grounds, and contemplated
the figure on the verandah; then, dismounting, tied his steed, and
vaulting over the fence, swiftly approached across the lawn; till,
as if suddenly aware of being on holy ground, he paused, and stood
with reverential aspect and clasped hands, eagerly bending towards
her as if in adoration. Thus engaged, as stands in ecstasy some
newly arrived pilgrim before a shrine, he stood enrapt; whilst she
remained as moveless as a carved angel leaning over a cathedral
aisle, and, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, at length mournfully
exclaimed: "Sad, sad, so sad!--yet why am I so sad? No denser
grows the mystery around my birth; and if knight errants yet live,
rescuing maids, or he is a wandering god, and here is Arcadia, why
should that make me grieve? It is true that he is handsome--and
yet what of that?--most men are handsome in the eyes of maids. But
he appears the paragon of men. Is he indeed not all a man should
be? Where were the blemish, the exception; who shall challenge
nature, saying, in his form, that here she has given too little,
there too much?--Ah, me! I am not happy, yet I should be so."
"Can I have heard aright, or do I dream?" gasped out the stranger.
"A knight, a god;" she continued, yet musing; "oh, he came hither
like a knight of old, or as an angry angel sent to scatter
fiends;--or, rather, like the lightning he arrived, out of the
storm cloud of I know not where. Where is he now? whence was he?
who is he? what? Alas, I know nothing of where, nor who, nor what,
nor whence he is; all that I know is, I am strangely sad; and that
such perfection was not made for me."
"Is this not Stillyside?" enquired the listener, "or do I wander
in some spirit-land; lost, lost;--oh, so luxuriously lost! She,
too, seems lost--lost in a reverie, and all forlorn. I'll speak to
her;--and yet I fear to speak, I fear to breathe, lest the undulating
air should burst this, and prove it to be but a bubble. Yet she
breathes, she spoke, and oh, such words! Words, be at my command;
I will address her, for this is not fancy: could fancy shew a moving
soul of sorrow? See how the passion plays upon that face, as she
thus stands with sad-eyed earnestness, maintaining converse with
the hollow sky. Looked ever aught so fair yet so forlorn? Methinks
there is a tear upon her cheek. Why comes it from the Eden of her
eye? I must speak to her;" and with mixed fear and fervour he
exclaimed: "May Heaven keep you from grave cause of sorrow, lady!
Forgive me, oh, forgive me, lady, or vision, for, by these dazzled
eyes, and, as I fear, by your offended form, I Scarcely can divine
whether you are of earth or air; pardon me if I have appeared here
by night, as unpremeditatedly as I came by day. Bid me begone,
--and yet permit me to remain, for, by my life, and the deep
admiration with which you have inspired me, I cannot leave you till
I learn your grief, and with it, peradventure, my own doom. Whom
did you speak of even now, fair form?"
"Who asks of me that question; who is it that thus listens when I
thought myself alone?" she demanded haughtily, looking downwards
from the verandah. "Sir, just now I spoke, and said--I know not
what. What you have overheard me say I fear was foolish; do not,
then, regard it. I know you now. You are the stranger who, this
morning, drove those violent intruders from these grounds. Ah,
who would have thought you would return by night, and thus, sir,
play the eaves-dropper! Oh, for shame! Nay, you are not the one I
took you for. Sir, it is mean to overlisten; mean, very mean; nay,
it is base, unmanly, to listen to a maid, when she commits her
vagaries to the moon."
"Scourge me, for I deserve it, with your tongue;" rejoined the
stranger--"but, lady, you were not alone, though I were absent;
no; you cannot be alone. Such excellence must draw hither elves
and midnight troops of fairies; by day, by night, each moment must
array around you the good wishes of the world. No, not alone; the
very sky is filled with watchers and the ground covered with
invisible feet, that have come here to do you homage; then why not
I found here to pay you mine? Are you still angry?"
"You have offended me," she answered;--"and yet perhaps I am too
severe with you. I fear I am ungrateful. 'Mean,' did I say? It was
mean in me to say so, and most forgetful of the favor conferred
here by you this morning. No, I vow it was not mean--at least in
_you_. And yet it was mean, it was very mean in you, sir, thus to
overstep the golden mean of manners. Scourge you? Ah, I fear you
well deserve it;--and yet if I could, I would put to scourging that
word, 'mean,' that has just escaped from out of my petulent lips,
as sometimes a froward, disobedient child runs into danger; breaking
away from out of the nurse's arms. But you should not have played
the bold intruder, and joined in these vain vigils;--nay, begone,
or I must, myself, withdraw. I do entreat you, stay no longer; come
some other time,--but go to-night; make no excuse for staying, or
you may yet compel me to be angry with you. Indeed, I fear that I
am too forgiving. Go, I pardon you,--but go at once, or I may yet
repent to have condoned what it, in truth, were hard to justify."
"Heaven pardons heavier sins," observed the stranger.
"Yes, when its pardon is sought for;" was rejoined; "but I pardon
you without your craving it; and, remember, Heaven's pardon is not
granted to us simply for the asking; neither do we receive it
because our hearts are penitent; but for the sake of Him who died
for us upon the cross; hence you are now forgiven by me, not for
your prayers' sake, nor for your regret, but rather because
beforehand, the night's offence has been cancelled by the morning's
favor. For the rest, retire, sir: what you have heard, you have
heard. You have heard my words, yet give no heed to them. If I
to-night have walked forth in my sleep, and dreamed on this
verandah;--why, then, it was but a dream. Let it be thus esteemed,
and so we part. Good night."
"Stay!" exclaimed the stranger, as, smiling with ineffable sweetness,
and deeply curtsying, she drew backwards towards the window: "Stay;
how can those part whom destiny hath joined; how be divided whom
their fates make one? Stay, lady, and let love, young love, plead
his own cause. Oh, I would yet charm you with my tongue, even as
your own detected tongue has just declared that this morning I
charmed you with my deed. Stay. If, in truth, you did admire,
what, at the moment of its execution, I thought nothing of, and
value now only as it has relation to yourself, hear my appeal."
"What does this mean?" she asked, startled at his earnestness: "I
do not know you; go, oh, go; I say again, I do not know you, sir."
"I never knew myself till now," he cried with bitter pathos.
"I say, I do not know you; you do not know _me;_" she reiterated.
"Know me to be irrevocably yours;" rejoined the stranger, "for you
have bound my heart in such fast thraldom, that even yourself could
not deliver it."
"And, perhaps, I would not, if I could,--unless you asked it:" she
answered: "and yet, sir, possibly you jest. Oh, sir, forbear;
begone, nor longer fool here a surprised, lone girl. What is your
purpose? who, and whence, are you? On your honor, answer me truly."
"I am the seigneur Montigny's only son: my purpose and my thoughts
towards you are all honorable:" he replied. And she rejoined: "Oh,
if your intentions are dishonorable, and you have not the spirit,
as you have the aspect, of a gentleman, yet keep this secret, as
you are a man."
"What shall be said to reassure you?" demanded Montigny. "Witness,
Heaven, if I assume to act, or intend anything injurious towards
you. Believe me. I am the heir to a proud seigniory: you are,--I
know not what; enough for me to know, you are the fairest figure
that has yet filled mine eyes, and surely as good as fair. Will
you be mine, as I am yours for ever? Speak, why are you silent?"
"Hist," she said, listening.
"What is the matter?" he enquired.
"Nothing, perhaps nothing:" she continued, whilst her voice
faltered:--"but go, oh, go, and come again to-morrow, or next
week, or when you will. I'll think on what you have said; but go;
I tremble so; stay here no longer; think, should we be observed.
I am ashamed to think of it. I am ashamed to look the moon in the
face, ashamed to look into yours. Oh, sir, what have I done? What
have you said? How have I answered? for I am perplexed. Away, yet
come again; come fifty times; but stay no longer now; begone;--return
though when you choose; do not wait for an invitation.--Listen,
I hear it again; begone, begone; did you not hear something?--it
was nothing, perhaps, but yet begone."
"Never without your love pledge will I leave you," replied Montigny
firmly.
"And would you force me to avow myself?" she asked. "May Heaven
absolve me if I err herein! No, give me leisure to reflect: this
were too sudden. These passion-hurried vows were too much like
those vapors, that, igniting, rush like to unorbed stars across
the night, then, vanished, leave it blacker. Do not tempt me. To
act in haste is to repent at leisure; and quickliest lighted coals
grow soonest cool. Even now I feel my cheek aglow with shame, that
burns its passage to my rooted hair. Away: if you should not forget
me, why, you are as though you were still present; for your thought,
which is your truest self, remains with me. If you should grow
oblivious--why, it is I that shall suffer, and not you."
"Oh, waste of words on what can never be!" Exclaimed Montigny:
"cease to doubt me. Forget you! Love's memories are immortal. Love
writes the lineaments of the beloved in rock, not sand."
"Yet rocks may lose their effigies, the pyramids their inscriptions,
the strong-clamped monument may tumble, and the marble bust, by
time, may let the salient features fall into one indistinguishable
round," she answered doubtingly.
"They may;" rejoined Montigny: "but neither flowing time nor chafing
circumstance can erase affection from the constant mind. Mind is
more obdurate than steel; and love, the tenderest of the train of
passions, is, in its memory, as indestructible as gold;--gold that
resists the all-corroding fire. No; the fire may melt the impress
from the seal, the sun the angles from the stony ice; the jagged
rocks may from encounter with the wind and rain grow smooth; this
hilly globe may grow at length to be as level as is the sea, and
every jutting headland of the shore may crumble and disappear; but
your bright image must to the eventide of life's cogitation, stay,
like a sacred peak whose lofty brow stands ever gilded in the
setting sun. Forget you! little hazard: he whose heart is impressed
with the absent's form, needs wear no miniature upon the breast;
the scholar who knows his task by rote, needs not retain his eye
upon the book."
"Hearts may prove false," she answered solemnly, "and tasks to
treacherous memory committed may be forgotten; but will you forget
these weighty words: will you be constant, oh, will you prove true;
for did I give you all I have, my love, what were there left me
should you throw it away?"
"Injurious and incredulous one," returned Montigny, "save Lucifer,
who ever threw from him heaven?"
"Forgive me," she replied, "it is but a timid girl that speaks.
She did not doubt you, though she sought to prove you. Yet are you
sure you love her? Ask your heart, then render me its reply, as
one might do, who having listened for me to the murmuring shell,
should bring me tidings of the storm-vexed sea. Vow not, but listen."
Montigny seemed for awhile to listen to his heart; then, looking
at her, replied:
"Surer than is assurance itself I am yours. Say that you are mine,
and every further word shall seem only to be redundant and
apochryphal; for when love's lips have made their revelation, what
more is wanting to complete the canon."
"Believe that I have said it," she half whispered; then, starting,
and changing color, "hist, hist," she added, "once more I hear it:
heard _you_ nothing?"
"I nothing heard but you," replied Montigny: "Proceed; for your
voice is sweeter to me than plashing fountain's, or than Saint
Laurent's chimes, or than would be--could we hear it--the fabulous
music of those night-hung spheres, coming harmonious to our listening
ears, borne on the shoulders of the cherub winds. Why are you
silent?"
"Listen," she said, looking still more alarmed.
"I do," he answered.
"Yet heard you nothing?"
"Nothing but ourselves."
"Nothing besides?"
"What further should I hear?" he asked.
"And yet it seemed as if I heard another," she continued. "Are we
watched? speak, tell me," she demanded,--"I hear it again; listen."
Montigny listened a moment, then replied soothingly:
"Dismiss these pale-cheeked panics, for you hear nothing; or if
you do it is but the common voices of the night. It is merely the
hoarse bullfrog croaking in the swamp; and the green grasshopper
a chirrupping in the meadow; for, saving these, all nature with
myself is listening to you. Be reassured: there is nothing, but
what your own excited fancy has conjured: even the wind has ceased
to sigh amongst the leaves; the moon stands still, and her arrested
beam no longer draws the shadow on the dreamy dial. Then, proceed,
my love, for when you speak you fill my ears with heaven, but when
you pause then opens the abyss."
"Yet listen; I hear it again:" she said; "it was not fancy; no."
"What else? what can befall you, love, whilst I am here?" he
murmured.
"Nothing, I hope," she answered, falteringly.
"Then nothing dread."
"I dread to say it, yet I must: Good night."
"Already?" he demanded.
"All too long!" cried an imperious voice; and the advocate stood
before them.
"Amanda, ah, Amanda, Miss Macdonald," he continued, "is it thus you
fool us? Go, bird, into your cage. Nurse, take my lady in." And
Amanda beheld behind her the melancholy Mona, half shrouded in a
cloak covering her night attire.
[Illustration: "Amanda, oh! Amanda, is it thus you fool us?"]
Silently they both of them withdrew, and the stranger was left
alone with the advocate, who, laying his hand detectingly on the
other's shoulder, thus addressed him:
"Claude Montigny, I do not ask of you what brings you here, for I
have something overheard, and in that something, all. Given the
arc, the eye completes the perfect circle; furnished the angle and
the object's distance, and we can tell the dizzy altitude. Mark
me, sir. We climb with risk, but there is greater danger in
descending. Young sir seigneur, you have ascended to a height you
may not safely stoop from. As sportive and adventurous schoolboys
sometimes ascend a scaffolding in the absence of the builders, and
continue to scale from tier to tier, until they pause for breath;
so, I fear, that you this night, in her protector's absence, have
soared in the affections of my ward. Beware, beware: I would not
threaten you--a gentleman neither needs nor brooks a threat--but,
by my life and the strength that yet is left me, woe to the man
that shall fool me in yonder girl! Seek not to trifle with me,
Claude Montigny. Tell me your purpose; inform me how your acquaintance
with my ward began; how it was fostered; how it has been concealed;
and how it thus has ripened into this secret, midnight interview.
Speak; what do you say, sir, in arrest of judgment? Be seated, and
recount to me the story of your love, if you do love my ward--as
you have told her that you do--and to that love be attached a story,
long or brief; or if this passion--which you have propounded most
passionately to her--be of a mere mushroom growth, born of to-night,
sown by the hand of moonlight in a girl's dark eyes; or in her
heart, perhaps, by the fairies that you spoke of, and producing
some form of feeling or forced fruit of fancy; coeval with, and
meant to be as transient, as is the present fungi of these fields.
Sit down by me, and let your tongue a true deliverance make between
yourself, me, and my foster-daughter." And seating himself heavily
on a garden bench, and leaning with both hands clasped over the top
of his gold-headed cane, he looked enquiringly up into the face of
the young man, and added: "Come, plead before me to this charge of
heart-stealing, as touching which you have been taken in the act."
"Sir," then said the stranger with dignity, whilst he slowly seated
himself; "sir, you are justified in thus misdoubting me; for though
a gentleman should, like the wife of Caesar, be above suspicion,
never yet knew chivalry a time but there were recreant knights.
Moreover, I can perceive that circumstances now must shadow, and,
as with refracting influence, distort me, so that I may well stand
here seeming to be deformed, although my soul, if you could see
it, would show wanting no part of honour's fair proportions. Hear
me, then, patiently, for I plead less for my own defence than for
her vindication who has just retired beneath your frown."
And the ingenuous but compromised Montigny sketched the brief
history of his passion, and when he had done, the advocate, looking
into his countenance keenly, but confidingly, rejoined:
"You speak the truth, I know it by your eye, wherein no falsehood
might harbour for a moment; yet, young seigneur, you have entered
on a perilous path; dare you walk in it? It is the way of honor,
and will prove to be the way of safety; but, beshrew me, if I do
not fear that it may prove to you a way of pain. Whatever may be
the ways of wisdom, the ways of honour are not always ways of
pleasantness, nor is the path of duty always one of peace. If you
would wear the rose you must grasp it as it grows amidst the thorns.
And now, farewell--yet, hold. I hold you to your bond. The forfeit
were the forfeit of your word, which you have pledged to me and
mine. Remember, not only have you offered love unto my ward, but
you have been accepted."
"Even so:" exclaimed Montigny; "and may--"
"Call nothing down that might become your harm," said the advocate
admonishingly: "Rain has before now become transformed to hailstones,
and done much damage; and dews descending so benignly, have once,
it is said, in form of rain, swelled to a deluge that has drowned
the world. May the skies be still propitious to you, Claude Montigny.
Although temptation burn as fiercely as dogdays, do not fall beneath
it, for less hurtful were a hundred sunstrokes to the body, than
to the soul is one temptation that hath overcome it. Again farewell."
And he pressed Claude's hand convulsively, then tossed it from him
half disdainfully, and both departed from the grounds.