A MOTHER'S STORY.
"I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.
Thou, thou hast metamorphos'd me;
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought;
Made wit with musing weak; heart-sick with thought."
--SHAKESPEARE.
It was late one sunny afternoon when, the tedious journey at length
accomplished, Primrose alighted before the door of her unknown
mother's stately residence, and having taken leave on the threshold
of the Black Horseman, who promised to call again later in the
evening, was escorted by a powdered and liveried serving-man through
a spacious entrance-hall to a small but luxuriously-furnished
apartment, which, he told her, was her ladyship's boudoir, and where
she would presently come to receive her. "Her ladyship!" Primrose's
heart beat fast as she seated herself on a low-cushioned chair by a
window which looked out upon a gay pleasaunce, and thought to
herself: "Is my mother then really some great lady, and withal my
foster-father's kinswoman! How strange to be transplanted suddenly
into all this splendour! How will she greet me, a poor country
maiden, with but such little knowledge of the world's ways as the
Lady Bryn Afon's passing kindnesses have given me? She comes! Ah,
Heaven, protect me in this trying hour!"
The door opened softly, and ere Primrose dared raise her eyes, soft
arms were clasped about her slender form, and loving, burning kisses
were pressed on her cheek and brow and lips by one the recognition of
whom took away her breath, and made her for a moment turn sick and
faint with overpowering feelings. It was none other than the Lady
Bryn Afon herself! "My darling--my beautiful daughter!" she murmured
in a broken voice; "did you ever dream of this? In the long hours
you have spent at my side, when I have yearned to clasp you to my
heart with all a mother's love, did no secret yearning fill your own?
Call me 'mother' but once! Let me hear the sweet name my heart has
these long years craved in secret bitterness to hear but once fall
from your lips, and I will wait patiently for the love I ill deserve,
yet would fain believe you will perchance not find so very hard to
give me. Oh! my darling--my little baby whom I tore from my breaking
heart nineteen long years ago--tell me you will try to love me a
little, and forgive me these weary, bitter years of parting! Not
bitter though to you, thank God, but to me--ah! none but He can ever
know a mother's suffering in such a plight as mine!" "Dear mother,"
whispered Primrose softly, kissing her pale cheek, "I have long loved
you dearly as the kindest of friends and benefactors, and though this
sudden surprise has taken away all the words I fain would utter, yet
let me stay awhile thus in your loving arms in silence, and the truth
of the strange dream will gently steal over me, and I shall be the
better able to tell you presently of all the love I have stored up in
my heart these many long years for my unknown mother. Indeed I have
ever felt drawn to you with strange affection, yet I never dreamed of
being your child, and it still seems to me too wonderful for truth!"
"As yet, sweet one," said Lady Bryn Afon, "it must be truth to you
and me alone. Tell me, my child, since I have borne my sad secret
these many weary years alone, will you be brave enough to share it
yet awhile with me only?" "Your will is mine, sweet mother," said
Primrose gently. "As yet I have no thought but for you--that we have
found each other. It shall be enough till you are pleased to tell me
more." "You shall hear more anon," said Lady Bryn Afon. "That is my
brave daughter. Now let me take you to your chamber, where I will
tend you on this first evening with my own hands, and afterwards,
when we have supped, and you are refreshed after your journey, we
will have much talk together."
[Illustration: "'MY DARLING--MY BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER!' SHE MURMURED."]
Primrose followed her newly-found mother to the apartment prepared
for her, and suffered herself to be tenderly waited upon and cared
for, feeling as though she were in a trance, from which she would
surely awake presently, to find herself once more in her own tiny
chamber, looking out upon the rippling Gwynnon. And through the
evening meal which followed, when, in kind consideration for her
fatigue and strange new feelings, Lady Bryn Afon dismissed her
powdered attendants, and waited upon herself and her daughter in
quiet new enjoyment, she could hardly speak, or even think clearly,
for the whirling of her brain at the thought of the strange things
which had befallen her.
It was not until they had once more retired to the boudoir, and
Primrose had thrown herself at her mother's feet upon the hearthrug,
and had grown gradually soothed and calmed by the soft touch of the
loving motherly fingers in her golden hair, that she suddenly started
up with the hitherto unthought-of question; "Then is the beautiful
earl, whom I worshipped in my childish days, and who was so good to
me, indeed my own father? Sweet mother, in finding you I had
forgotten I must needs also learn to love a new father, other than my
dear old dad, who has been all to me? Can it be that I am the Earl
of Bryn Afon's daughter?" "'Thereby hangs a tale,' sweetheart,"
answered Lady Bryn Afon, catching her breath painfully for a moment.
"Have patience with me, and you shall know all of my own sad history
and yours that I may at present tell." "But tell me first, dear
mother," cried Primrose eagerly, "may I see my father to-night? Is
he here with you? Methinks I will soon learn to love that beautiful
hero of my childhood, and learn to call him 'father'! Oh, when you
said just now that you and I alone must at present share this happy
secret, you did not surely mean apart from him!" Tears filled her
mother's eyes. "I feared me it would be a wound for your loving
heart, dear daughter," she said in a trembling voice. "Yet it must
be even so for a time. Trust me, and all shall at last, I hope, go
well. Yes, you are indeed the earl's own daughter, yet for reasons I
dare not put aside, I may not yet suffer him to know of your
existence, save only as my sweet and dearly-loved companion; and
you--you must yet save up for him in your heart that store of love
which, you tell me, you have these many years saved up for me, and in
time, I pray God, it shall not be wasted. Only wait a while. I have
waited nineteen years to claim my only child! Let her be brave
likewise, and wait her mother's pleasure ere she claims a father!"
"I will trust and obey you, dear mother," said Primrose, though tears
of disappointment stood in her eyes; "but shall I not even see him?
I should dearly love to look upon his face, if it were but once, and
methinks I could pretend bravely to be nought save your humble
attendant." "He is now out of town with our chaplain," said Lady
Bryn Afon; "but he returns ere long, and you shall then see him, if I
may surely trust you, ere I take you with me once again to spend a
few happy weeks at Glyn Helen, which I hope to do next month, when my
husband will be in close attendance on the king. I grieve to thwart
your loving heart, my darling, but you shall hear my tale, and after
that judge me as you will. Tell me first, however, ere I begin my
relation, whether you know aught of the curse which hangs over our
family, and whether your faithful guardian has indeed been true to
the trust I placed in him?" "I know nothing of it, dear mother,"
answered Primrose, "but the fact of its existence, and that it is
said to have hung over the family for some centuries. In what its
nature lies I have never known, nor indeed does my foster-father or
any one else know it, to the best of my belief. There is at times
some talk thereon among our villagers, but it is now to them an old
tale, and no one among them appears to know its true origin or the
cause of its continuance. All I have ever learnt is, that for some
generations past the Earls of Bryn Afon have refused to reside at the
castle, save at short intervals, during which they have lived in
great retirement and secrecy, their stay within its walls being
sometimes known only by the lights in the windows, and the shrieks
heard from time to time from within by those bold enough to venture
near the walls. There is a tale too, that at such times as the
shrieks are heard, a lady may be seen walking to and fro in the dark
avenue, wringing her hands and weeping; and this, I must confess, I
have myself seen, for one day--only once, dear mother!--my childish
curiosity got the better of my obedience, and I stole round the lanes
at the farther side of the hill, and stood a long while peering
through the great iron gates of the avenue, hoping I might see the
mysterious lady. For which I was chidden afterwards by my
foster-father, yet found consolation, I fear me, in the fact that I
had verily seen the ghost, sin though it had been! She wore a long
dark cloak, and came so near the iron gates that I feared she must
see me, and as she came, she wrung her hands and sobbed pitifully.
Suddenly she raised her head, and fixing her eyes for a moment upon
me, as I gazed speechless with wonder between the iron bars, turned
and fled, with a bitter cry, up the long avenue again towards the
castle. I told no one what I had seen till long afterwards, when at
last, my conscience having oft reproached me for my disobedience, I
confessed my vision to dad and to good Master Rhys, who bade me put
the matter speedily from my thoughts." "It was your mother, yearning
with breaking heart to clasp you to her arms, whom you saw, sweet
one!" interrupted Lady Bryn Afon. "But go on, my child." "Also I
heard at one time, that although the lords of the castle avoided it
so strangely during their lifetime," continued Primrose, "yet that
each one of them had always come thither to die, being driven so to
do, as people say, by some strong spell, which they may not overcome.
And the people say too, dear mother, that they have all died in turn
a terrible death, and that at such times the castle is full of
shrieking and wailing, though none can tell the cause of their
departing this life amid such woe. That is all I can tell, dear
mother. What the curse may be, I know not, nor have I much fear of
it, for I have ever held such reports to be but idle tales." "I am
thankful that you have not learned the knowledge of its nature, my
child," said Lady Bryn Afon, drawing a quick breath of relief as
Primrose ended her tale. "Seek not to know it, save at my bidding, I
beseech you! I marvel at times that it has not been sooner
discovered; yet, well, it is far better so. Now listen, Primrose, to
my tale....
"The story of my early life, of my relationship to your guardian, of
my secret marriage with your father against my own father's will or
knowledge--that part of my tale you shall hear fully at another time.
"I will now pass over my early disobedience and sin, and begin my
story at the time when the consequences of my ill-doing first thrust
themselves miserably into my girlish dreams of bliss, and shattered
them at my feet. I married at just over one-and-twenty years of
age--a wayward, impulsive child still in all my words and actions,
very beautiful, so my proud young husband constantly assured me, but,
as you must know, from the fact of my being the boatman's kinswoman,
and therefore of humble parentage, utterly ignorant, not only of the
ways of the great world, but of all those arts of education which
befitted her whom the Earl of Bryn Afon should choose as his wife and
the partner of such a life as he was called upon to lead. I had,
like yourself, heard nought of the curse, beyond the flying rumours
passing ever from mouth to mouth about the country-side, and in my
daring youth, rather rejoiced over my own bravery in thus wilfully
ignoring its existence, and consenting to share the life of one who
thought himself surely doomed in his turn to bear its woful burden.
The first few months of our married life were spent in travelling,
and passed by in one short dream of bliss, from which the first
awakening came when my husband took me to town, and began, among his
gay and educated companions, to discover that I was on all points of
worldly knowledge but as an ignorant child, unable, in spite of my
proud bearing, to take that part in the life and conversation of the
Court which he had rashly expected of me, and I as rashly had ne'er
dreamed of being unable to fulfil. It would be wronging him to say
that he at any time conveyed to me his disappointment and chagrin in
open words of blame, but I grew daily more conscious of the presence
of such feeling in his thoughts, and of my own unfitness for my new
station; and by-and-by, to add to my secret trouble, came the
knowledge of my husband's sad failing--a cross to me all through my
life--his inability to resist the direful temptations of strong
drink. This knowledge too only grew upon me gradually, but ere I had
been a year married it had become too evident, and I could no longer
blind my love-bound eyes to the sad fact of my husband's miserable
weakness. At last the climax came to my misery, when one evening,
while under the influence of wine, he revealed to me the secret which
he had vowed never to disclose lest it should mar my happiness--the
dread secret of the curse of the Bryn Afons family. That I will not
reveal to you, my sweet daughter, for since in your up-bringing I
have striven to avert from you every chance of its influence, I feel
that it were better to keep you still in ignorance so long as it
shall please God.
"The following morning, when my husband was once more in possession
of his sober senses, I entreated him to tell me if the tale he had
told me were indeed true, and he assured me that it was so, but with
bitter regret that he should unawares have allowed me to share its
burden; for he was still ever loving and tender with me, and I too,
in spite of my sorrows, loved him dearly.
"But now must follow the most bitter portion of my story. Appalled
at what I had heard, I took, during the sleepless hours of the
ensuing night, a stern resolution. That very day I had looked
forward, with all a young wife's pride and joy, to whispering in my
husband's ear a new-found secret, which, I well knew, would be to him
no less a source of joy and delight than to myself; but now--I dared
not utter it! I dared scarce dwell myself upon the thought, that a
child of mine must bear the woe which for three hundred years and
more no Bryn Afon had escaped! My brain reeled with the terror and
misery of it, and my resolve was taken. My husband should never know
my cherished secret, and my child should be saved from the dread
curse which hung like a sword over the head of its unhappy father.
Next day I told my husband that a strong desire had taken possession
of me to make myself more fit to wear the honours of a lady of the
House of Bryn Afon, by educating myself in those arts of learning and
grace in which I knew myself to be so sadly deficient, and I begged
him, on my knees, to send me away from him for the space of two or
three years, into a convent in France or elsewhere, where I might
grow more worthy of my dignity as his chosen wife, and whence I might
return to him with the full consciousness that I should not disgrace
by any acts of folly or ignorance the great name I bore. How I
gained my point I scarce know, for he was grievously loth to consent
to so painful a parting, yet at last my tears and prayers, and, I
think, a certain sense that I had reason in my request, prevailed
over him, and he allowed me to depart, promising that he would not
seek me out in my retirement, nor disturb the quiet of my mind and
studies by any communication with me whatever during my absence. Ere
I left him, I begged his physician, the Black Horseman, who was ever
our most faithful friend, to have him always in his most tender
keeping the while I was absent from him, and through his kind
assistance (for he only in the world had knowledge of my secret) I
was placed in a small convent in Brittany, in private apartments,
under the special supervision of the Lady Abbess--a lady he had known
well in his youth, and in whom he placed the fullest confidence, and
in whose loving hands a sweet sense of peace and security stole over
my agonised spirit ere I had been many weeks in her company. Under
her skilful instruction too I made, before your birth, rapid progress
in many studies, besides becoming easily acquainted, in that French
household, with the language of the country. My strange history had
been of course made known by the Black Horseman to his old friend,
whom I shall ever regard with feelings of the greatest love and
devotion for the care she bestowed on you, my little fragile blossom,
thus secretly entering this troublesome world, and thus cruelly
concealed by a stern Fate from any knowledge of the father who would
so dearly have loved you!
"But such was my unutterable dread of the curse that I dared not
suffer him to share my joy and pride in my sweet new possession, and
none but a mother's heart can know the unspeakable horror of darkness
which was wont to fall upon me, as I looked forward to severing
myself from you, as I knew I must too surely do ere you should grow
to love me too well. Ah, my sweet Primrose, should your glad spirit
e'er be shadowed by a passing cloud, think not it is any shadow of
the curse which pursues your innocent soul and mars its peace! That
has been surely averted from you, and whate'er of sadness and
darkness may perchance e'er weigh upon you is but the faint re-echo
of your mother's woful suffering of spirit, as for weary weeks she
weighed from one bitter hour to another your helpless claims upon her
against those of your loved father! You tremble, sweet one! Have I
then too truly bequeathed to you such an heritage?" "Some passing
clouds of nameless woe, sweet mother," answered the young girl
thoughtfully, "have indeed from time to time weighed down my spirit
with mysterious pain, which I might take to be some shadow of the
curse upon my forefathers, did you not assure me I am indeed wholly
free from so dread a foe. It is but at long intervals that such
clouds have oppressed me, and now they have some long time since been
wholly banished. Yet were it not so, dear mother, I would willingly
bear for your sake such passing sufferings as my small share of your
great trouble of heart. Would indeed it were more I could have borne
for you!" "Nay, sweetheart," answered her mother fondly, "I would
have given my life to save you one passing pang, and I do but dwell
on this point for a brief moment, that I may thoroughly assure you of
your own immunity from the curse of your unhappy fathers, and show
you other good reason for any chance heaviness of spirit which may
briefly o'ercloud your happiness. Now, put this thought wholly from
you, and listen once more to my tale....
"For nearly two years you, my sweet unconscious baby, shared my
convent solitude, and beguiled my long hours of study with your
infant wiles; and during that time I formed the plan of committing
you to the care of Jack the boatman, whose character I had from
childhood well known and trusted, and in whose charge, albeit under
the very shadow of your own blighted home, I felt I could sooner
bring my heart to leave you than anywhere else. The Lady Abbess
would fain have kept you at her side, but I would not have you
brought up in the Roman faith, neither could I endure the thought of
the sea ever rolling betwixt us, so at the close of the bright spring
month of April, just after your second birthday, I brought you over
to the land of my birth, where, hiding ourselves with trusted friends
of Rhiwallon's, my ever faithful friend and physician, in that lowly
homestead far up in the mountains, which you know and love as the
farm Glyn Helen, we played together through the spring and summer
days, and you learned to call yourself by your baby name of 'Little
Miss Primrose,' as your infant feet wandered hither and thither in
search after the flowers you loved. Just those few short months I
sunned myself in the light of your bright infant presence in the
loneliness of our mountain retreat, ere I could summon courage for
that terrible moment of agony, when, on a dark and raging winter's
night, after walking mile after mile with you in my arms amid driving
rain and howling winds, I arrived at the bridge built by the boatman
across the Gwynnon, close to his own home, and chancing there to meet
him in the midst of the frail footpath, placed my warm living burden
in his arms, and rushed away into the blackness of the night,
well-nigh mad with the bitter aching of my heart. How I lived
through the next few days I know not, and but for the care of the
Black Horseman, whom I had summoned to meet me at Caer Cynau, I must
verily have lost my mind by reason of my agony; but his tender
ministrations restored me to health, if not to happiness, and under
his charge I journeyed to town, to my husband's home, where, after
our strange separation, he received me with loving welcome and open
arms, finding in my new accomplishments and apt acquaintance with the
French and Italian tongues that I had used the time of my absence in
the manner I had promised, and rejoicing with a boyish delight, which
used to be one of his great charms, over what he was pleased to call
the 'wonderful progress' I had made in my various studies, as well as
over the added dignity and grace of person and carriage which he
vowed I had gained during the three years of our separation. Nothing
at any time in the years that followed ever led him to have the least
suspicion of his unknown daughter's existence; but how often my heart
has been torn asunder by his repeated wish that God had given us
children! And how it was well-nigh burst within me in times past,
when, during our short sojourns at Bryn Afon, fascinated by the
infant beauty of the boatman's foster-child, he has more than once
begged me to adopt you for my own, declaring that no true Bryn Afon
could e'er be to me a fairer daughter! Oh, Primrose, weep not, I
pray you! I have indeed suffered as few women, methinks, are called
upon to suffer, but I have deserved my punishment. I have sat from
early eve till dawn of day at the casement of my chamber in the
castle, which overlooked the river, just to watch the light burning
in your window at my feet, and feast my eyes on the poor roof that
sheltered my darling, my husband ever coming to my side, wondering
what strange fascination held me rooted night after night to the same
spot." "And I have watched your light too, sweet mother," said
Primrose, "calling it one Christmastide my 'Star in the East,' and
when I was older, ever looking for it year after year with childish
interest and pleasure, and much joy and wonder when once or twice, at
long intervals, the sight of it again rewarded my long watching.
But, dear mother, tell me, was your long hiding of me indeed
necessary? Have you truly found the curse to have such dread effect
upon my poor father, that you have felt you have verily had no choice
but to keep my birth secret from him?" "Yes, I have done well, my
child," answered Lady Bryn Afon gravely. "Had my heart broken, as I
oft thought it needs must, I would have let it break sooner than call
you from your happy, innocent home into the blighted atmosphere of
ours. But once, in your early childhood, did I suffer Rhiwallon to
bring you to Glyn Helen, where I was then staying, that I might for a
few brief hours sun myself in your infant presence ere there were
fear of your carrying away any permanent recollection of me; and how
I suffered in that renewed parting God only knows! But Primrose,
sweet one, prithee dismiss all thought and fear of the curse from
your own mind. The steps I have taken to avert it from you have
surely kept even its shadow from falling upon you, and so shall it
ever be, an you will do my bidding faithfully, and neither seek to
learn its nature nor crave a further knowledge of your father than I
dare at present permit. The time may come when I may, without danger
to you, suffer him to know of your existence, and perchance in the
years to come he may be granted the now little-dreamed-of joy of
clasping to his heart an heir to his name and estate, who shall,
owing to the sorrows you and I have undergone for its sake, be free
from the dread taint of its forefathers! But enough now of this
dream. What think you, sweet daughter, of the baptismal name
bestowed upon you in the tiny Breton church wherein one of our own
countrymen ministered, within a stone's-throw of the Convent, to a
handful of English church people, and by whom you were duly
christened according to our own Church's rites? To my ear the name
Shanno hath a sound of soft music. Your father's mother bore the
name, and it is well loved by him. Like you also its sound?"
"Yes, dear mother," answered Primrose, "I am well content to bear a
name my father loves, and which belongs to the House of Bryn Afon;
and I have also ever liked its sound. It was strange, at my
Confirmation, to possess suddenly a new and unaccustomed name, and
now it seems to me that I must surely be dreaming all these strange
new things of which you tell me! Yet it is a happy dream, to find so
sweet and loving a mother!"
"And you will not despise her for her lowly birth, my darling?" asked
Lady Bryn Afon somewhat wistfully. "You, who belong to a proud and
ancient race, you will try to think kindly of one who is but too
unworthy of being the mother of an earl's daughter, and who,
moreover, in her youth has greatly erred, and yet has one more
ever-present grief and sin, which she has not yet disclosed to you?"
"It is not for me to judge my mother's past," said Primrose gently;
"and whatever your birth, dear mother, you show no sign that you have
not ever been as great and noble as now. I marvel not that my dear
father loved you, for you must indeed have been wondrously beautiful,
and fitted by nature for your high station. Do you truly think that
I may indeed see him just once ere we travel into Wales? Do you fear
lest any likeness in me to you or him may betray me?" "Nay, I fear
not so," she answered, "for nature has so evenly blended his likeness
and my own in your fair face and features, that you bear no very
marked resemblance to either of us, having rather a beauty and
radiancy all your own, my sweet one, which makes your fond mother's
heart glow with pride as she beholds you! You bear perhaps a greater
resemblance to your father's mother, a lady of noble English birth,
than to his Welsh ancestors. You shall see her portrait in the long
gallery at the castle some happy day, when hand in hand we wander
through the silent corridors and deserted chambers of your ancestral
home; and by her side you will likewise see the lovely Lady
Gwendolen, to whom you do indeed bear a very striking
resemblance--insomuch that, somewhat to my terror, your father
himself noticed the likeness you bore to his unfortunate sister the
last time he beheld you, and on that account felt the more drawn
towards you. But he is so wholly unsuspicious of a daughter's
existence, that my fears were groundless, and I speedily found, to my
relief, that he regarded the likeness as a mere curious coincidence,
without a thought of its true cause. She died at the early age of
seventeen within the gloomy castle walls, in all the radiance of her
youth and beauty!" "Was she too a prey to the cruel curse?" asked
Primrose sadly. "Indirectly so, I fear it must be confessed,"
answered Lady Bryn Afon, "But fear it not, dear heart, for on you it
can have no power. Our learned Rhiwallon himself accounts you wholly
free from its influence; and," she added smilingly, "you must ne'er
feel any shadow of distrust of one of the skilled and far-famed
'Physicians of Glyn Helen!' It is not every maiden who has been
privileged from her cradle with such high and sacred ministrations!"
"Is the Black Horseman indeed that one living descendant of the
Mystic Brethren, who has ever been said to dwell apart in some
unknown haunt, and practise in secret their ancient arts for the good
of his fellows?" asked Primrose eagerly. "I have oft wished to meet
with one in whose existence I have believed from childhood, but of
whose dwelling-place none have ever been able to give account! How
came you to discover him, sweet mother, or what led him to reveal
himself to you?" "His ancestors," replied Lady Bryn Afon, "have
these some centuries past enjoyed high favour and repute with the
royal houses in Wales, and our loved Black Horseman is descended in
direct line from that far-famed and learned Rhiwallon who for his
wondrous skill in medicinal lore was chosen by Rhys Grug, Prince of
South Wales, in the thirteenth century, to be his private physician.
I know not whether or no before that time the descendants of the
Craig Aran shepherd's mystic bride had practised their healing arts
in such high places, but there is no doubt of the renown of this
bygone Rhiwallon, nor of our own dear physician's descent from his
family; nor again of the favour shown to each learned doctor
successively by noble Welsh families from the time of Rhys Grug and
onwards. Our present Rhiwallon's father was in the service of the
Caradocs for years, and through their means he himself became
acquainted with your father in their boyhood, and also, to his own
sorrow, with the fair Lady Gwendolen, whom I afore mentioned, with
whom, by means of the secret passage, he enjoyed many a stolen
interview, your father knowing their mutual love, and delighting,
with all a younger brother's pride, in being permitted to share their
secret and abet their schemes and stolen meetings. They were but boy
and girl, but his love for her was true and deep; and when, as I told
you, at the age of seventeen, death overtook her, he was sorely
broken-hearted, and to this day has ever remained faithful to her
memory. During his stolen visits to the castle, he discovered its
fatal secret, and for the sake of his lost love, whom he believed a
victim, though indirectly, to the family curse, he resolved to devote
himself to her house for the remainder of his life, and so, being
commended by the Caradocs to your grandfather's notice, became in due
time your own father's private physician, since when his sole desire
has been to seek the removal of his secret sufferings by every means
in his power. He puts great faith in a certain herb, on which he is
ever experimenting in his laboratory, and from which he even yet
hopes some future day to work wondrous effects. Yet at present he is
sadly forced to own himself at every turn baffled by this dread evil,
which he can as yet mitigate only, but not overcome. But he is a
good as well as wise and learned friend, and his influence with your
dear father is great; and now, combined with that of our beloved
chaplain, who has likewise devoted himself, for reasons of his own,
to our unfortunate house, may verily be potent for good." "Poor Lady
Gwendolen!" said Primrose softly. "I am glad her lover is faithful
to her memory! I marvel not that so sad a life-sorrow should have
given such sternness to his countenance, and wrought in it such deep
lines of pain. I have oft studied his face with wonder, seeing
therein surely some sad secret history of woe. That may perchance be
the reason why he has ever from my babyhood been so tender with
me--that I bear, as you have told me, some little likeness to his
lost love in my own countenance. He has ever borne patiently with my
childish wiles for the sake of that sweet and fair Lady Gwendolen!
Poor Black Horseman!" And burying her face in her mother's lap,
Primrose relapsed into wondering silence, and long they both
remained, deep in thought, till Lady Bryn Afon roused herself at
last, and gently led her daughter to her chamber, where she lingered,
to brush out with her own hands her wealth of golden hair, saying
with a half-sad smile, as she lovingly twined them in her fingers;
"These tresses are worth a kingdom!" Then bidding her sleep well,
nor be disturbed by any thought of what had passed between them, she
retired to her own apartment, leaving Primrose, in spite of her
injunction, to toss restlessly from side to side for hours, thinking,
too deeply for sleep, over her strange history, and wondering above
all if the chaplain as yet knew aught of it, and what could be his
own secret reason for devoting his services, as the Black Horseman
had done, to her ill-starred house.