About a month after, Edward and his cousin found themselves listening
to the eloquent appeals of a well known temperance lecturer. He dwelt
upon the woes and ruins of intemperance, and the responsibility of
every one who did not do all in his power to remedy the evil. At the
close of the lecture the pledge was passed among the audience. When it
came to where they were sitting, Emma took it, and offering Edward her
pencil, whispered, "Let the Knight of the Ringlet perform his vow." He
looked at her inquiringly. She traced her own name beneath those
written there, and bade him do the same. For an instant he hesitated,
and was half offended with her for the stratagem, but good sense and
politeness both forbade a refusal, and he complied.
It was a more delicate task to exert the same influence over the proud
and sensitive George Saville, but at length the opportunity occurred.
One evening, as he mingled with the gay groups that filled the
splendid drawing-rooms of the fashionable Mrs. B----, one of his
acquaintance came up, and filling two glasses with wine that stood on
the marble side-table, offered one to him. As he was raising it to his
lips, a rose-bud fell over his shoulder into the glass, and a voice
near him said, in low, musical tones, "Touch it not, Knight of the
Ringlet, I command you by this token;" and turning, he saw Emma
standing beside him. As she met his gaze, she passed her delicate hand
through the dark curls that shaded her lovely face, and shaking her
finger at him impressively, was lost in the crowd. Saville stood
looking after her with a bewildered air, as if lost in thought, until
the laugh of his companion recalled him to himself. "Excuse me," he
said, putting down the glass. "You saw the spell flung over me, I am
under oath to obey the behests of beauty."
Emma watched him through the evening, but he seemed to avoid her, and
appeared thoughtful and sad. They did not meet again, until at a late
hour; she was stepping into her carriage to return home, when suddenly
he appeared at her side and assisting her into it, entreated, "Fair
queen, permit the humblest of your most loyal subjects the honor of
escorting you to the palace." She assented, and the carriage had no
sooner started than in a voice, trembling with earnestness, he added.
"and permit me to ask if your command this evening was merely an
exercise of power, or did a deeper meaning lie therein?"
"I did mean to warn you," said Emma, gently, "that there was poison in
the glass--slow, perchance, but sure."
"And do you think _me_ in danger, Miss Leslie?"
"I think all in danger who do not adopt the rule of total abstinance;
and, pardon me, if I say that with your excitable temperament, I
imagine you to be in more than ordinary peril."
There was a long pause. When he spoke again his tones were calmer.
"I did not imagine I could ever become a slave to appetite. Often,
while suffering from the fatigue induced by writing, I have taken
brandy, and been revived by it. Sometimes before going to speak in
public I have felt the need of artificial stimulus to invigorate my
shattered nerves. Do you think that improper indulgence?"
"Do you not find," said Emma, "that this lassitude returns more
frequently, and requires more stimulus to overcome it than formerly?"
"It is true," said he, thoughtfully; "yet I often speak with more
fluency when under such excitement than I can possibly do at other
times."
"Once it was not so," said Emma, kindly.
"Very true, but this kind of life wears on my system. I cannot get
though with my public duties without help of this kind."
"Does not this show," replied Emma, that you have already somewhat
impaired those noble powers with which you are endowed. Would it not
be far nobler as well as safer to trust solely to yourself than to
depend on the wild excitement thus induced?"
"It does, indeed; fool that I have been to think myself secure. But,
thank heaven! I am yet master. I _can_ control myself if I choose."
By this time they had arrived at the door of Miss Leslie's mansion.
"Let me detain you one moment," said Saville, as they stood upon the
steps, "to ask you if you have heard others speak of this. Tell me
truly," he added, as she hesitated. "Do the public know that I am not
always master of myself?"
"I have heard it intimated you were injuring yourself in this way,"
replied Emma, in a low voice, doubtful how the intelligence would be
received.
"And you," said the young man, fervently, "you were the kind angel who
interposed to save me from the precipice over which I have well-nigh
fallen. Be assured the warning shall not be in vain. A thousand thanks
for this well-timed caution," he added, more cheerfully, as they
parted, "the Knight of the Ringlet will not forget his vow."
For a few moments the joyous excitement of his spirit continued, as he
thought of the interest in him which her conversation and actions had
that evening evinced. But when the door closed and shut her fairy form
from his sight, a shadow fell over his heart. Other feelings arose and
whispered that after all it was but pity that actuated her.
Love--would she not rather despise his weakness that had need of such
a caution? Then came a sense of wounded pride, an idea that his
confession had humbled him before her, and ere he reached his home he
had become so deeply desponding that he was meditating taking passage
for England, and doing a thousand other desperate things, so that he
never again might see the gentle monitress who, he had persuaded
himself, regarded him with pity that was more akin to disgust than
love.
A letter received the next morning calling him into the country for a
week, prevented his executing his rash designs; but a feeling,
unaccountable even to himself, made him shun the places where he was
accustomed to meet Emma, and made him miserable, till three or four
weeks afterward, merely by accident, he found himself seated opposite
to her at a concert. Was it fancy, or did she look sad and thoughtful;
and why did her eye roam over the crowd, as if seeking some one it
found not. So he thought to himself, till suddenly, in their gazing,
his eyes met hers. Instantly she turned away, and then in a moment
after, gave him an earnest, inquiring glance, full of troubled
thought. At that look the demon which tormented him vanished, and a
flood of inexpressible love filled his soul. He could not go to her,
hemmed in as he was by the audience; but he did not cease looking at
her through the evening. In vain; she gave no second look or sign of
consciousness of his presence.
"She is offended with me," he soliloquized, as he went homeward; "and
no wonder. How like a fool I have acted. I will go to her to-morrow
and tell her all."
In the morning he called, but others had been before him, and the
drawing-room was well supplied with loungers. He staid as long as
decency would permit; but Miss Leslie was not at all cordial in her
manner toward him, and the "dear five hundred friends" kept coming and
going, so that no opportunity offered for the explanation. "I will go
again this evening," said he to himself; and so he did. Emma stood at
the window, beside a stand of magnificent plants, whose blossoms
filled the room with fragrance. The lamps had not been lighted, and
the moonlight fell like a halo of glory around her, as she stood in
sad reverie that cast a pensive shade over her face, usually so
brilliant in its beauty. So absorbed was she, that she did not hear
the door open, and was unconscious of Saville's presence till he was
at her side.
"You received me coldly, fair lady, this morning, so that I came back
to see if you are offended with me," said he, as she turned to receive
him.
"And I, in my turn, ask you the same question, or else why have you
absented yourself so long?"
"I was not offended--ah, no!" said Saville, dropping the tone of
forced gayety in which he had at first spoken, "but can you not
understand why I have thus exiled myself? Did you not know it was that
I feared you might despise me--you from whom more than from any one
else I desired esteem, admiration--_love_." The last word was spoken
in a lower tone, and he looked at her appealingly, as if to ask
forgiveness for having uttered it. For one instant he met the gaze of
Emma's dark blue eyes, and he must have read something there he did
not expect to find, for the expression of his own changed into one so
hopeful and earnest that Emma's sunk beneath its light. And when he
drew Emma into a seat beside him, and in a few rapid words told her
what in fact she knew before, how long and how well he had loved her.
I don't know what she said, for, reader, I came away then.
But I do know that one morning, six months after, some carriages went
from Mr. Leslie's mansion to the church, and came back filled with a
party looking most auspiciously happy, and that some hours after, as
Edward was conducting his Cousin Emma to a traveling carriage, which
stood at the door, he said, "So you and Saville have changed
positions, and _you_ are henceforth to obey. What a tyrant I would be,
were I in his place. Pray does this morning's act cancel former
obligations?"
"The contract is unbroken," said Saville, answering for his bride, and
producing a locket containing _the_ ringlet--"here is the token that
renders the vow perpetual."
A REQUIEM IN THE NORTH.
BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.
Speed swifter, Night!--wild Northern Night,
Whose feet the Artic islands know,
When stiffening breakers, sharp and white,
Gird the complaining shores of snow!
Send all thy winds to sweep the wold
And howl in mountain-passes far,
And hang thy banners, red and cold,
Against the shield of every star!
For what have I to do with morn,
Or Summer's glory in the vales--
With the blithe ring of forest-horn,
Or beckoning gleam of snowy sails?
Art _thou_ not gone, in whose blue eye
The fleeting Summer dawned to me?--
Gone, like the echo of a sigh
Beside the loud, resounding sea!
Oh, brief that time of song and flowers,
Which blessed, through thee, the Northern Land!
I pine amid its leafless bowers,
And on the black and lonely strand.
The forest wails the starry bloom,
Which yet shall pave its shadowy floor,
But down my spirits aisles of gloom
Thy love shall blossom nevermore!
And nevermore shall battled pines
Their solemn triumph sound for me,
Nor morning fringe the mountain-lines,
Nor sunset flush the hoary sea;
But Night and Winter fill the sky,
And load with frost the shivering air,
Till every gust that hurries by
Chimes wilder with my own despair.
The leaden twilight, cold and long,
Is slowly settling o'er the wave;
No wandering blast awakes a song
In naked boughs above thy grave.
The frozen air is still and dark;
The numb earth lies in icy rest;
And all is dead, save this one spark
Of burning grief, within my breast.
Life's darkened orb shall wheel no more
To Love's rejoicing summer back:
My spirit walks a wintry shore,
With not a star to light its track.
Speed swifter, Night! thy gloom and frost
Are free to spoil and ravage here;
This last wild requiem for the lost
I pour in thy unheeding ear!
DEATH.
BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH.
Why mourn the perished glories of the past?
Why wrong with murmurs Death's paternal care?
Sire of immortal Beauty, from his vast
Embrace with Infinite Life, spring all things fair
And good and wonderful: Ye are not cast,
Like wailing orphans, on the desert bare,
To cry and perish. Life comes everywhere
With Mother-love, and strong Death garners fast
His bounty for her board; for all which live
His tireless hands the harvest sow and reap,
He feeds alone those lily breasts which give
New strength to all on Life's white arms that leap;
Fear not, sweet babes, in his thick mantle furled,
Now lulled asleep, to wake in a new splendor-world.
THE CRUISE OF THE RAKER.
A TALE OF THE WAR OF 1812-15.
BY HENRY A. CLARK.
(_Concluded from page 196._)