to the rest of the aged, and the moon threw her sheet of silver over
Kirconnel Lee, and, wrapped up in a night-cloak, slipped out at the
wicker-gate of the west enclosure, to seek, under the shades of the
oaks, Death's Mailing, the appointed trysting-place of the ardent
lovers. Again she was to see her beloved Heir of Kirkpatrick, and at
last she had resolved to break to him the painful position in which she
was placed by the still existing belief of her parents and Blacket
House, that she was to be his wedded wife. On this occasion, she sat
wistfully looking out at her chamber window. Her father and mother had
retired to their couch. Everything was quiet, the wind stilled, and the
mighty oaks whispered not the faintest sigh to disturb the sensitive ear
of night. The moon was already up, and she was on the eve of wrapping
her cloak round her, and creeping forth into the forest shade, when she
observed the long shadow of a man extending many yards upon the shining
grass of the green lee. The figure of the individual she could not see;
for a projection of the building, sufficient to conceal him, but not to
prevent his shadow from being revealed, interrupted her vision. She
hesitated and trembled. If the shadow had moved and disappeared, she
could have accounted for it, by supposing that some of the domestics had
not yet retired to bed; but why should a man stand alone and stationary
at that hour, in that place, in that position? Her fears ran all upon
Blacket House, who was never happy but when in her presence or near her
person; and who had been, on a former occasion, reported by the servants
to have lain and slept under her window for an entire night, and never
left his position till the morning sun exposed the doting lover to the
wondering eyes of the domestics, who had never yet felt a love that kept
them awake for more than a dreamy hour at cockcrow. As she gazed and
hesitated, her hour was passing, and her lover would be among the
grave-stones, waiting for her. Her anxiety grew intense; she feared to
go, but shook at the thoughts of disappointing _him_; never dreaming (so
whispered love) of herself. The figure still stood as stationary as a
grave-stone, while her soul was agitated like the restless spirit that
hovers over it, sighing for the hour of departure to the regions of
ether. She could bear no longer; the projection which concealed him
would conceal her; she plied the furtive steps of love; and crossing,
like a fairy on the moonlit green knowe, the rising lawn, was forth
among the towering oaks in as little time as the shadow of a passing
cloud would have taken to trail its dingy traces over the shining lee.
In a short time she arrived at the churchyard, and saw, through the
interstices of the surrounding trees, the Heir of Kirkpatrick sitting on
a green tumulus, the grave of one who had perhaps loved as they now
loved, waiting for her who was beyond the trysting-hour. In a moment
longer she was in his arms, and the stillness of the dead was invaded by
the stifled sighs, the burning whispers, the rustling pressure of
ardent, impatient lovers. The rising graves, and the mossy tomb-stones,
and the white scattered bones that had escaped the sexton's eye, and
glittered in the moonbeams, were equally neglected and overlooked; and
no fear of fairy, ghost, or gnome, or gowl, entered where Love left no
room but for his own engrossing sacrifices. The simple monument of love
of "Mary of the Le'," that rose by their side, had often brought the
tears to Helen's eyes; but Mary of the Lee was now forgotten. "There is
a time and a place for all things" but love, whose rule is general over
the flowery lee and the green grave, the mid-day hour and the dreary
key-stone of night's black arch.
"What kept ye, sweet Helen, love?" whispered Kirkpatrick in her ear, as
she lay entranced in love's dream on his bosom.
"By that question, good Adam," answered she, according to the mode of
familiar address of her day, "there hangs a secret that oppresses your
Helen, and drinks up all the joys of our affection."
"Speak it forth, my gentle Helen," said Fleming. "What is it? The
secresy of our meeting? I have been meditating a resolution to address
your father, and this will confirm me. He can have no objections to my
suit, save that I am a friend of the Johnstones, and an open warrior;
while your cousin, whom you rejected before you saw me, is a concealed
mosstrooper, and a secret manslayer."
"There, there," muttered Helen, with trembling emotion--"there, Adam,
you have hit the bleeding part of my heart. I did not say to you that I
had rejected Blacket House before I saw you; but you were entitled to
make that supposition, because I told you that I never received his
love; but, alas! Adam, there is a distinction there; and, small as it
may seem, its effects may be great upon the fortunes and happiness of
your Helen. It is true I have never received his love; but it is equally
true that his love, having overgrown the thought of a possibility of
rejection, has overlooked my negative indications, and put down my
silence for consent. Yes, Adam, yes--even now Blacket House thinks I
love him; and, oh! the full responsibility of my apathy rises before me
like a threatening giant; my father and my mother have, I fear, taken
for granted that I am to become the wedded wife of my cousin."
"Helen, this does indeed surprise me," replied Kirkpatrick, thoughtfully
and sorrowfully. "I thought I had a sufficient objection to overcome on
the part of your father, when I had to conquer the prejudices of
clanship, and soothe his fears of my ardent spirit for the foray. But
this changes all, and my difficulties are increased from the height of
Kirconnel Lee to the towering Criffel." And he sat silent for a time,
and mused thoughtfully. "But why, my love," he continued, "have you
allowed this dangerous delusion to rest so long undisturbed, till it has
become a conviction that may only be removed with danger to us all?"
"Ask me not, Adam," replied she, with a full heart, "what I cannot
explain. While the tongue of Blacket House's friendship was changing to
love, I, whose thoughts were otherwise directed, perceived not the
change; and when the truth appeared to me, my love for my father and
mother, against the placid stream of whose life I have ever trembled to
throw the smallest pebble of a daughter's disobedience, prevented me,
day by day, from making the avowal that I could not love their choice.
The difficulty increased with the hour; and, ah! my love for you crowned
it at last with impossibility."
"That should rather have removed the difficulty," answered he. "Explain,
sweet Helen. You are dealing in shadowy parables."
"Think you so, Adam?" said she, sighing. "Ah, then, is man's love
different from woman's? The one can look an obstacle in the face; the
other turns from it with terror, and flees. See you not that, by telling
my parents I could not love my cousin, I would have been conjuring up a
bad angel to cross, with his black wing, the secret but sweet path of
our affection. The very possibility of being separated from you--too
dear, Adam, as you are to this beating heart--made me tremble at the
articulation of that charmed word which contains all my happiness on
earth. You have stolen my heart from my father and mother, my sweet
woods and bowers, my bright moon and Kirtle; and think you what it would
be for me to lose him in whom all is centred!"
"Ah! Helen, Helen, this is unlike the majesty of that mind that roved
the blue fields of the heavens, and searched the hidden springs of the
love that reigns through all created things. That such thoughts should
be allied to that weakness which increases inevitable danger by flying
from it, I could not have supposed to be exemplified by my Maid of
Kirconnel. Yet is that trembling fear not a greater proof of my Helen's
love than an outspoken rejection of twenty rival suitors? It is--I feel
it is; and who will chide a fault of earth that hangs by a virtue of
heaven? Dear, devoted, cherished object of my first passion, what has
the simple heir of Kirkpatrick to give in exchange for the devotion of
such a being?"
And the impassioned youth pressed her closer and closer to his breast,
while he spread over her shoulders the falling cloak, to shield her from
the autumn dews.
They sat for some time silent--the difficulty of their situation being
for a brief period forgotten and lost in the tumult of the rising
feelings of a strong mutual passion.
"But this must not be allowed to continue," again said Kirkpatrick. "It
is _necessary_, Helen, that you do this duty to yourself, to your
cousin, your parents, and to me. Call up the necessary fortitude, my
love. Tell your mother that you cannot love Blacket House. I know the
pain it will produce to you and to them; but, alas! there are many
positions in this world where we can only get to the object of our
desires through painful means. Pain is, indeed, the price of most of our
pleasures; and, when we do not pay that price, we become bankrupt in our
best feelings, and die wretched. When the path is free, I shall come
forward and claim my Helen in the face of the world. Will you, will you,
love?"
And he bent his head, and repeated the question in soft tones beneath
the cloak that covered her head; while she, in muffled accents,
replied--
"I will, I will, Adam, though I should die with the last word of the
declaration."
A heavy groan at this moment fell upon their ear. Adam started hastily
up; and Helen, roused from her love's dream, stood petrified with fear.
They looked around them in every direction; but the proximity of the
place where they had been sitting to the edge of the wood, rendered it
easy for an intruder to overhear their discourse, and to escape among
the trees in an instant. Helen's fears again fell on Blacket House, and
she whimpered to Adam what she had observed previous to her leaving the
house. He conceived them to be well founded; and, as the thought of the
man who could kill his enemies in disguise, and deny the deed, flashed
upon his mind, he felt for his sword, and then smiled at the precipitude
of his defensive precaution. It was necessary, however, that Helen
should now hurry home; and, surmounting the turf-dyke of the
burying-ground, they, with rapid steps, made for Kirconnel House, at a
little distance from which they parted, with a close embrace. Helen
stood for a moment, and looked after her lover; then, wrapping her cloak
about her head, she moved quickly round the edge of the enclosed lawn,
and was on the eve of running forward to the wicket, when Blacket House
stood before her. He looked for a moment sternly at her, spoke not a
word, and then dashed away into the wood. Terrified still more, Helen
hurried away, and got into the house and her own chamber before the full
extent of her danger opened, with all its probable consequences, upon
her mind. Having undressed herself, she retired to her couch, and
meditated on the extraordinary position in which she was now placed. She
had now been discovered by her cousin, who, no doubt, knew well that she
had that night had a secret meeting with Kirkpatrick--a partisan of his
antagonists, the Johnstones. The discovery of a rival had come on him
with the discovery of a delusion under which he had sighed, and dreamed,
and hoped for years. It was probable, nay, certain, then, that the
communication she intended to make to her father and mother, that she
could not love Blacket House, would be received along with the
elucidating commentary, that the lover now despised had discovered her
love intercourse with the heir of Kirkpatrick. She would, therefore, get
no credit for her statement that she never loved her cousin; but would
be set down as a breaker of pledges, and one who traitorously amused
herself with the broken hopes of her unfortunate lovers. Whether she
made the communication or not, it would be made by Blacket House, whose
fear of losing the object of his affections, or his revenge--whichever
of the two moved him--would force him to the immediate disclosure. The
serenity of the domestic peace and happiness of Kirconnel House would be
clouded for the first time, and that by the disobedience of one who had
heretofore been held to contribute, in no small degree, to that which
she was to be the means of destroying, perhaps for ever. The contrast
between the confidence, the hope, and the affection with which she had
been, by her parents, contemplated, and fondly cherished, during all the
bygone part of her life, and the new-discovered treachery into which her
secret love for a stranger would be construed, was a thought she could
scarcely bear. These and a thousand other things passed through her
thoughts with a rapidity which did not lessen the burning pain of their
impress upon her mind; and the repetition of a thousand reflections,
fears, and hopes, produced in the end a confusion that terrified sleep
from her pillow, and consigned her to the powers of anguish for the
remainder of the night and morning.
She rose with a burning cheek and a high-fluttering pulse, produced by
the fever of mind under which she still laboured. She opened the
casement to let in the cool breeze of morning to brace her nerves, and
enable her to stand an interview with her father and mother, who might
already (for Blacket House was at Kirconnel at all hours) be in
possession of the secret of what they conceived to be their once-loved
Helen's disobedience and treachery. Her own communication, which she had
pledged herself to Kirkpatrick to make, was now invested with treble
terrors; and though she knew that her safety and happiness depended upon
an open declaration, she felt herself totally unable to make it.
Trembling and irresolute, she approached the parlour where her father
and mother, along with herself, were in the habit of taking their
morning meal. They were there; and there was another there--it was her
cousin. He looked at her as she entered, with a calm, but mysterious
eye, which fluttered her nerves again, and forced her to stand for a
moment in the middle of the apartment, irresolute whether to go forward
or retreat. She fearfully threw her eye over the faces of her parents.
There was no change there; the ordinary placidity of their wonted
manner, and the kindly love-greeting borne in their mellow voices,
startled her--so strong had been her conviction that all was disclosed.
Her parents were destitute of guile; and an instant's thought satisfied
her that they were still in their ignorance of the secret. But Blacket
House continued his dark gaze in silence; and even this--a decided
alteration in his manner--was unnoticed by the unsuspecting couple, who
threw their fond eyes on their loving daughter as their only remaining
pride and solace. What meant this? The new turn taken by the stream of
her difficulty and danger surprised and confused her; but, calming by
the influence of her parents' kindness, she sat down and went through
the forms of the morning meal, without exhibiting a discomposure that
might attract the notice of these loving beings, who searched her face
only for the indications of health and the beams of her pleasure. Her
comparative composure enabled her to collect her ideas; and she thought
she now discovered a reason for this seeming forbearance or discretion
of Blacket House--a man little formed for these, or any other virtues:
he intended to _sell_ his knowledge at the price of a hand that never
could be his, but by this or some other means of compulsion. The moment
this thought--and, under all the circumstances, it was a reasonable
one--entered her mind, she trembled at the power of the dark-eyed,
silent being who sat there, and gazed upon her in revengeful triumph.
For relief, she turned her eyes to her parents; yet she saw there the
smile that approved his suit, and the confidence that would believe his
declaration. Her own Kirkpatrick was absent; and she dared not meet him
to receive the assistance of his advice, to enable her to support
herself under her trial, or devise a plan suited to the changed
circumstances for her relief. She hurried over her meal, and hastened
again to her apartment, to confirm herself in the opinion she had formed
of Blacket House's intentions. Every thought tended to add to her
conviction that she was correct, and told her that he never would
succeed in his scheme. He would now, for certain, endeavour to see her
alone, and lay before her the danger into which she had plunged herself,
and the bargain by which she would be relieved from it. But she would
defeat him; she would renounce her walks in the woods, desert, for a
time, her bowers, and bid adieu to her silver Kirtle. She would keep her
apartment under a pretence of slight indisposition--far from an
untruth--and, in the meantime, try to devise some mode of relief from
her painful situation.
But the solicitude of her parents interfered, in some degree, with these
plans. They discovered that she was not so ill as to be unable to seek
what might do her service--her former walks and amusements around
Kirconnel Lee; and thus was she obliged to yield to kindness; yet she
contrived to have her parents near her, so as to deprive Blacket House
of an opportunity of communicating to her his imputed plan of enforcing
his suit. As yet, his silence had been continued: her parents were still
in ignorance; and it was only (so she argued) because he had not
hitherto found her alone, that his dreaded communication had not as yet
been made. On the occasion of her first walk, however, she, by some
untoward chance, was left in one of the arbours alone, and the
opportunity (the first that had occurred) was seized by him--Blacket
House was again before her, and all her fears were in a moment roused.
Their eyes met with an intelligence they had never before possessed.
Every passing thought seemed to be mutually read, while a few words of
ordinary import seemed to be only as a preparation to his expected
statement. Helen did not dare to leave him; she feared to rouse his
anger, and yet she wanted courage to reply with ordinary pertinence to
his remarks. His eye was constantly fixed on her, and the few words he
uttered came with difficulty and pain; yet was there not the slightest
allusion to the secret he undoubtedly held locked up in his breast. Was
he not to bring forward his threat of exposing her, as a wrenching
instrument, to force from her a consent that he was satisfied would
never be given voluntarily? There was no indication of any such issue.
What could be the true meaning of this dark-minded man's conduct? Again
he had disappointed her fearful anticipations. He had not told her
parents; he was not to tell herself. What then was he to do? She could
not answer her self-put question; and her surprise when he parted from
her, after a short conversation, conducted with difficulty, with his
secret unapproached, and the mysterious stare of his illegible eye, was
not less than her terror of the anticipated issue when she first
encountered him.
This new extraordinary element in the subject of her meditations and
fears disarranged all her ideas, and sent her thoughts in new channels
for a discovery of what might be the secret plans of her cousin. She
sighed for an interview with her lover; but that, she was satisfied,
would be attended with great danger; and thus reduced to her own
resources, she passed the night following her meeting with Blacket House
in still increasing pain and difficulty. In the morning she was visited
in her own chamber by her mother, who appeared, from the serious aspect
of her countenance, to have something of great importance to
communicate.
"Helen," began the good matron, "though your father and I have seldom
broached the subject of love and marriage in your presence, we have,
with heartfelt satisfaction, observed and understood that the man who
alone has our consent to win your virgin heart is your own choice. Your
wooing has lasted so long, that the very birds in the woods are familiar
with your persons and converse; and surely this is not to last always.
You are twenty years old, my dear Helen, at the next Beltane, the first
of May; and I know that it is Blacket House's wish that your happiness
may be crowned by a union within as short a period as we will agree to
fix. I have broken the matter to you, my love; and as I am well
acquainted with the fluttering of Love's wings when Hymen enters the
bower, I will not urge you to fix a day at present, but leave you to the
pleasant meditations my communication cannot but call forth. I shall
send your breakfast to your bedroom this morning, my love; but I hope we
may walk in the afternoon. Say nothing, Helen. Adieu! adieu!"
And the mother left the room rapidly, as if to avoid noticing the
blushes of the supposed happy damsel. Helen heard the words uttered, as
one may be supposed to feel the syllables of a condemnation falling upon
the heart. It was well that her mother departed so rapidly, for the
agitation the kind parent attributed to joy, was but the prelude to a
faint, which retained her cold and struggling in its relentless arms for
a considerable period. The first indications of consciousness were, if
possible, more terrible than the last thoughts that frightened it away.
For a long period she sat upon the couch where she had heard the
dreadful intelligence, and, passing her hand over her brow, tried to
collect her energies, so as to be able to contemplate the full extent of
her evil. She thought she could now see some connection between the
announcement made by her mother and the extraordinary and mysterious
conduct of Blacket House, though she was satisfied that neither of her
parents possessed any knowledge of her intercourse with Kirkpatrick. The
scheme of the early marriage might originate in the fears of her cousin,
while his secresy was only still maintained till he found that she would
not yield to her parents' authority; when would be the time for using
his threat of disclosure to Helen, to compel her consent. All this
reasoning seemed founded in existing circumstances and appearances; but
so confused were her thoughts, and so painful every effort of her mind
to acquire clearer views, that she felt inclined to renounce reasoning
on a subject that seemed at every turn to defeat all her efforts to come
to the real truth. Her misery was at least certain; for now, while the
absolute necessity of a disclosure of her secret love became more
peremptory and inevitable, the circumstances under which it would be
made were such as would add to the unhappiness of her parents, and to
the apparent deceit and treachery of her own nature, which was,
notwithstanding, incapable of guile.
Meanwhile, the effects of so much mental anguish, acting upon a tender
frame, became soon apparent in her pale countenance and swollen eyes.
She would not leave her apartment; and when her mother again visited
her, she saw a change on her daughter very different from that which
accompanies the character of a bride in prospective. The circumstance
surprised the old lady; but still so satisfied was she that there could
exist no objection to a lover whom she had (as was thought) cherished
for years, that it never occurred to her that the change in her daughter
was attributable to the announcement she had made to her; while Helen
herself, oppressed with the secret which she struggled (as yet in vain)
to divulge, shunned a subject which she found herself unable to treat in
such a way as would insure to her relief from her sorrow. Every effort
was made to get her out into the woods, where her former scenes might
enliven her mind, and bring back her wonted spirits, which, chiming the
musical bells of youth's happy glee, used to charm the age-stricken
hearts of her parents. But these scenes had lost their power over her.
The secrets Blacket House had to divulge still lay like an unholy spirit
upon her heart, killed its energies, and rendered her miserable. She
expected the additional sorrow of his society in these forced walks, and
her grief was mixed with surprise at his absence. He was often at the
house, but he avoided her. She even saw him turn into a by-path, to get
out of the way in which she walked--a circumstance as inexplicable as
any of the prior difficulties with which the whole affair was beset on
every side. She continued her meditations, called up repeated energies
to nerve her for her disclosure, and, with many a sigh, felt them die
away, and the tongue cleave to her mouth, as the unavailing effort shook
her frame.