MURIELLE.
Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!
Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;
Here is her oath for love, her honour's power:
Oh that our fathers would applaud our loves,
To seal our happiness with their consents.
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
An hour passed without Gray finding an opportunity for addressing more
than the merest commonplaces to Murielle, yet his mind, even when
conversing with others, was so full of her image, that the very rustle
of her dress made his heart beat quicker; and he could see her form,
face, and expression as distinctly as he heard her voice in fancy
for ever, when she was absent; and the ribbon she had taken from her
breast, and given him to wear in his bonnet, was a gift more prized
than a royal crown.
Their eyes were eloquent although their tongues were mute, for "their
natures had so gradually blended into each other that, like two tints
of the rainbow, the lines between them would soon become so extinct,
that a separation would be the destruction of both."
But the Countess Margaret had a secret grudge at our captain of the
guard, and it arose from this circumstance.
Prior to her marriage, and almost from her childhood, she had been a
practised coquette, who had won many a brave and noble heart with a
facility which her rank increased--but won only to cast them from her
when tired of them, as she had done her dolls and toys when a girl, or
her jewels, dresses, flowers, and baubles in riper years. They had
served to beguile a day, a week, a month, those human playthings, and
that was all she cared for.
Sir Patrick Gray had proved rebelliously insensible to her beauty of
form, her gaiety, and brilliance of conversation, for he loved little
Murielle, and hence the more gorgeous Margaret had an additional
cause to treasure a pique at him; and having _other_ views regarding
her sister, she now, in revenge, permitted him to fan his love with
hope, ere it would be crushed for ever, by her marriage to one as yet
unnamed. Hence the malicious smile, which curled her beautiful lip, as
she looked at them from time to time, on the night we are describing.
Gray and MacLellan confessed to each other that two sisters more
charming could scarcely be met.
Murielle's face was pale, her features were delicate, and her eyes of
that deep hue, alternating between hazel and violet, which seemed black
at night. Her hands and arms were lovely in their form and delicacy.
Then Margaret was so stately and queen-like, pure and cold as marble,
save when excited (which was not unfrequent), distant and proudly
reserved at one time--full of fire and passion at another. Tall and
beautifully formed, her hair and eyes were of the deepest jet, to
which the purity of her complexion formed a singular contrast; while
a softness was imparted at times to her otherwise haughty expression
by her long and thick eye-lashes, which she could drop with the most
skilful coquetry.
The face and eyes of Murielle, though less striking, had a strange
charm, as they brightened, deepened, and seemed to _grow_ in beauty,
one knew not why or how; but it was the indescribable charm of
_expression_.
The old abbot, finding his efforts to amuse his fiery and feudal
friends a somewhat arduous task (as they were all inspired by jealous,
ambitious, or angry thoughts), came in despair to Murielle, who was his
favourite, and who loved him as a daughter would have done.
"Your harp is here; sing us something, my lady daughter," said he; "a
song of our wild Galloway hills--or a Lowland ballad, if you prefer
it; but do so, I pray you, for clouds are gathering in your kinsmen's
faces, and I know that your sweet voice can best dispel them."
Murielle assented with a kind smile, and in a moment, Gray,
anticipating Lord David Douglas, handed the harp to her, and in doing
so, contrived, quick as lightning, to touch and press her hand, which
made her colour slightly, as she bent over the instrument, and ran her
rapid little fingers among the strings.
It was a clairsach, or harp of the old Scottish form, being only thirty
inches or so in height, and furnished with thirty string holes. In
front of the upper arm was the crowned heart (the Douglas cognisance),
formed of precious stones, and surrounded by minute inlaying of
mother-of-pearl.
"I thank you, child, for your readiness," said the abbot, patting her
pretty shoulder, "and in my turn, though I may not sing now at my
years, I shall tell you a legend of the olden time, which was told me
by an aged monk of Tongland, now asleep with his fathers in the abbey
kirkyard."
"A bribe, my lord, to make me hasten with my song," said Murielle,
smiling in the old man's face.
"And to make it as brief as possible," added the impatient Margaret.
"Say not so, countess," said the abbot, "we will not tire readily of
Lady Murielle's voice."
"A churchman turned a gallant in his old age!"
"Your sister is fortunate, lady, in the best gifts of heaven,"
continued the abbot, "and must have been born--"
"Under a fortunate star, you would say?"
"Yes, countess, if such things exist."
"Nay," said Murielle, laughing, "I had a kind fairy for a godmother,
like the good princesses of the old romance."
Then in the chaunting cadence adopted by the singers of those days,
she sang the four-and-thirty verses of the old ballad of "Sir Hugh le
Blonde," a knight of the Mearns--but with these we will not inflict the
reader.
It told of how the subtile Rodinghame made love to a fair coquette, who
was queen of Scotland; and how, when she repelled him, in revenge he
put a leper man in her bower chamber. Then came the proud and jealous
king, who, on finding him in such a place, ordered the queen to be
burned at a stake, unless she could find a champion to do battle with
Rodinghame, her traducer, but such was the terror of his prowess that
none appeared; the day of doom came; the hapless queen was bound to a
stake, and the torch was about to be applied, when Sir Hugh le Blonde,
in his armour, sprang forward, and lifted the gage of Rodinghame.
They fought long and desperately, but Sir Hugh slew the accuser, after
forcing him to confess his treachery. Thus the queen was restored once
more to favour and honour, to the joy of her husband and all his court.
In gratitude to her preserver,
Then said the queen unto the king,
"Arbuthnot's near the sea;
Oh yield it to the northern knight
Who fought this day for me!"
"Yes," said our king, "and thou, Sir Knight,
Come, quaff this cann of wine;
Arbuthnot's but a baronie,
We'll to it Fordoun join."
Thus the descendants of Sir Hugh became lords of Arbuthnot and Fordoun;
the sword with which he defended the queen was long preserved by the
viscounts of his family, and his helmet was hung in the church of
Garvoch, which, in 1282, he bestowed upon the monks of Arbroath for the
safety of his soul, and in memory of his victory.
"How like you the song?" asked Abercorn of the countess.
"Well," she replied, with a dark smile; "because it acts as bird-lime."
"Bird-lime," said he, with a perplexed smile; "how?"
"For the king's popinjay," replied the countess, waving her fan towards
Sir Patrick Gray; but the ballad was suited to the fashion and spirit
of the age, and as Murielle's voice was soft and low, it mingled
sweetly with the rippling notes of her little harp.
In the olden time, by ballads and stories the nights were usually
passed before bed-time; and thus, after some well-bred compliments had
been uttered on her performance, Murielle relinquished her harp to Sir
Patrick (who achieved one more pressure of a pretty hand), and turned
to claim from her venerable friend the fulfilment of _his_ promise.
"My story," said the abbot, smoothing his cassock over his ample
paunch, "relates to a time when the Spirit of Evil, he whom I hope to
turn one day to a spirit of goodness and purity (here the earl gave
a sigh of impatience), had more power in the land even than he hath
now. Yet he was conquered and put to flight by our blessed apostle St.
Andrew; and now I shall proceed to show you how the cross on which the
latter was martyred became the symbol of the Scottish nation, and why
it has been borne on our breasts and on our banners in many a righteous
battle."
"'Tis well, Lord Abbot," said Earl James the Gross, bluntly; "I like
your ending better than your beginning, which savoured somewhat of a
sermon, and the night waxes apace."
Then the abbot related the following miraculous story, which we give
more correctly than it will be found in the Bollandists, in the
"History of the Blessed Regulus," which was written at St. Andrew's
in 1140, in the "Golden Legend," or even in the old Gothic "Legenda
Sanctorum, post Longobardicam Historiam," because we had it from the
writings of the abbot himself.