No place is more solitary than this. In Sydney Smith’s phrase, “You must here send twelve miles, and over the fells too, for a lemon.” Golden Friars is the metropolis of this stem and somewhat savage region, and, thus placed within the circle of dependency, I may treat this relation as a chronicle of Golden Friars.
It was here, in moonlight, on that stormy night, not yet a fortnight since, that William had first come within the circle of a strange enchantment — when, like a spirit in the solitude, that beautiful girl stood before him. By the same path, as nearly as he could make it out, he now approached these tall time-furrowed stones.
Traversing a thick screen of hawthorn and wild birch, on a sudden this solemn circle stood full in view.
Not among these rude columns, but some twenty yards nearer to the spot where he then stood, on a slight elevation, full in the level light of the red sun, two figures were fixed in attitudes that betokened an engrossing dialogue.
William’s step was stayed. He gazed on them, breathless. One was Euphan Curraple — the other was a wonderful stranger.
CHAPTER XXII.
HECATE.
THIS stranger was an old woman, dark and grim beyond anything he could have imagined, and resembled nothing that William had ever heard of but the witch of a fairy-tale. Her shoulders were humped with age; her face extraordinarily long and swart, the chin resting on her breast. Her eyes were black and vivid. She wore a very wide-leafed black hat, tied down over her ears with a handkerchief, and a short dark cloak, from the folds of which her brown bare arm was extended; and her fingers, on which were several rings, grasped a long stick, on which she leaned.
Beautiful Euphan leaned with her shoulder lightly on the silvery stem of a birch-tree, one of three that sprang forking from the same root; and her arm and slender hand wound on a branch beside her, the small leaves of which waved and quivered slightly in answer to the motion, else unperceived, with which she accompanied her talk. Now and then her narrow shapely foot peeped forth, and listlessly poked the little tufts of grass.
Here, truly, were the embodied types of the graceful and the grotesque — the ugly and the beautiful — contrasted.
The old woman is talking now. The strange mask shines in the setting sun, like burnished bronze.
And now it is Euphan’s turn, and William sighs, “How beautiful she is! — how beautiful!”
What a mysterious prettiness, and novelty, and finish in all her movements, when a gesture or a change of attitude accompanies her speech! How strange and sinister the bright-eyed hag, who now and then, as she talks, lifts the point of her stick, and makes little diagrams and circles in the air! The shrivelled hand, the fixed smile, the hawk-like eye and myriad wrinkles, lend a malignant force to that picture of a witch performing an incantation.
Now they join hands, The old woman’s head is nodding in time to some last words; and now she walks, with her hunched stoop and wiry gait, swiftly enough to the old Druidic ring, close by, through which her path lies. As she reaches these tall gray stones, she turns, extending her long shrunken arm towards the girl, with an uncertain wave in the hand, as if pronouncing a farewell benediction. As she does so, William thinks she sees him; for it seemed, far as he was, that her piercing black eyes were directed suddenly on him. He had caught her eye, he felt She remained fixed, for a moment or two. Then — had she made a sign to the girl? — she turned again, and disappeared among those hoary stones and bushes.
Euphan Curraple looked towards William, smiled — not kindly, he thought — and remained where she was.
The young Squire was nettled. Here was a secret conference — a secret influence, he assumed — advising and planning going on; and he not informed even of the subject of it! He was stung and angry. Yet, could anything be more unreasonable? What right on earth had he to all this girl’s confidence?
Is not the whole Court of Love near akin to Bedlam? Is ever love without jealousy? And what madder than jealousy — save love itself?
If William had reflected for a moment, being proud, I think he would have walked straight home without troubling Euphan with a word. But, being impulsive too, he walked straight up to her, and raised his hat ironically, and said: —
“I’m so afraid I’ve interrupted a conversation.”
“Why need ye raise your hat, sir, to a gipsy girl?”
The avowal did not come by surprise on William. This was his second theory. But she interested him the more.
“I treat all people — and your sex especially — with respect.”
“Oh no! That was banter, sir, and you’re angry.”
“Angry? Not a bit. Why should I?”
“Very true — why should you?” she replied, coldly.
“I say, I’m not angry!” said William, a little hotly. “Every one has their own business, and, provided that’s not interfered with, I don’t see what right any one has to be angry.”
“It is I that should be angry, sir,” said the girl.
“I don’t think, lately,” said William, “I have had an opportunity of saying anything to incur your displeasure.”
“You should not have watched me, sir, like that; no gentleman would have done so.”
As she spoke she waved her hand, ever so slightly, towards the spot where William had been standing.
“Watch you!” said William. “I never dreamed of such a thing. I was walking home, and saw you, ana was surprised — little more than one minute; and I did not hear one word you were saying — not a syllable. If you knew anything of me — if you cared to understand me — you would know that I’m no such person; that’s quite impossible.”
“Well, you need look no more, and guess no more; I’ve told you all.”
A brilliant color flushed under the clear brown of that beautiful girl, and made her splendid black eyes burn like fire.
“You’ve told me only what I thought before, Euphan,” he said, in a tone on a sudden quite changed. “I have read about your race, ever SQ much, with the deepest interest. Think what you will of me, Euphan, but don’t think me a fool or a worldling. I treasure the words you said to me — words that you forget — when first you came, so true and wise, containing the very secret of all the happiness that this sad earth can yield.”
“If you had asked me, sir, when I told you my name, I’d have told you all; we never deny our people. There are some of them passing, and they’ll camp near the cat-stone, on the moss, tonight, They are bad gipsies; we don’t like them, but they can fetch a message, and that old woman had a message for me. She says I may go on safely to my own people now. That was all; I would have told you, if you had asked me.”
She spoke a little coldly — she looked pained. What a dignity there was in this young queen of nature!
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE OPEN HEART.
“I HAVE told you the truth,” said William; “and when you think a little, Euphan, you will do me justice. I have not been watching you; you ought to have known that I was quite incapable of that.”
“I was wrong, sir, I’m sure. I had not time to think — I was angry.”
“Well, Euphan, you won’t refuse to shake hands.”
She laughed a little, and did shake hands.
“Euphan,” said William, still holding her hand in his, “you are the loveliest creature on earth — there is no other like you!”
“You don’t think so.”
“I do, Euphan. I never dreamed of such a creature. You are the finest spirit, the most beautiful being — I adore you I”
“No — no, you don’t.” She shook her head, as if smiling the thought away.
“Oh, Euphan! you wring my heart — you are cruel!”
Euphan smiled her proud wild smile, in which expressions mingled strangely — something of disdain, more of compassion, also something beautiful of gratification.
“You Rias talk so to us gipsy-girls, but you don’t mean it.”
“Oh, darling! you’ll break my heart. May God destroy me, bu
t I do!”
He had taken her hand, and was holding it in both his.
“No, sir — ah no. ’Tis all folly,” she said, drawing it back, with a look that was grave, and even sad, and, having withdrawn it, she waved it back, ever so little, her arm extended; but it was a prohibition queenlike, quite natural — even girlish, but not to be disobeyed.
“Why did God make you so beautiful and so pitiless?” said William, clasping his hands.
“Beauty is only in the eyes that see it. We are all as we are, sir — we can’t change.”
“‘Sir!’ You call me ‘sir,’ and you promised to call me ‘Willie.’”
“’Twas in play.”
“No — it was no jesting; I never was so in earnest in my life,” said William, impetuously.
“There is a distance between us.”
“There’s no distance, Euphan; what shall I do to prove it?” wildly he answered.
“I don’t mean rank — there’s no rank,” she said, carelessly. “The real gipsy was never a servant from the time the world began.”
“Where is the distance, then?”
“Wide and wild as the sea,” she said sadly, and smiled, and was grave again.
“My mother told me, a Gorgio, long ago, married one of our people — a girl he fell in love with; it was but a fancy, it could not be more. It would not do — never; the tame and the wild bird should not mate.”
“God made us all, Euphan; there’s no such difference. I have read of your wild free life — there’s nothing like it. Young men of wealth and birth have so fallen in love with it as to renounce all, and follow the fortunes of the camp, and chosen beautiful wives of your mysterious race, and lived free and happy, and every year loved its liberty and beauty better, and never repented their choice, or thought with a sigh of the dull world they had left behind.”
Euphan smiled a melancholy smile at these wild words: —
“If I thought you spoke in earnest, sir, you should see me no more. You shan’t stay with me longer. Go your way home, Willie, as if you had not seen me. I’ll talk no more now, for Euphan’s heart is heavy.”
“Euphan!” he said, wild and pale, “you are going; if I leave you now I shall see you no more. Swear — that if I leave you, you will return as usual!”
“I will,” she said.
“You would not deceive me?” he pleaded.
“I’ll go back, as you say, sir. I’ll be thinking a bit here, alone; and I’ll go to the house again, and see you just the same as ever.”
The Squire looked in her face for a moment; it was pale and gentle, and the fires of her lustrous eyes were misty. In that saddened face was a look he could not doubt.
As he went homeward alone, a mad dream was whirling in his brain:
“Oh Euphan! if I thought you could ever love me best of all! Yes, the wild free life! — there’s nothing like it; the miserable life that chains us to fear and drudgery is all a fallacy. Give me the life of the tent, the mountain march, the forest camp, the simple free republic, where mortals have time to think, and to enjoy, and live with nature — God’s beautiful creation! Think no more of vain pre-eminence and tawdry competition, and the fever and lassitude of a shabby ambition. What a miserable slave I’ve been! — what a coward and a suicide! I’ve had enough of this. I have found courage at last. Beautiful Euphan! you are the spirit of liberty, who can break my chains, and lead me into an enchanted world!”
CHAPTER XXIV.
FURIOSO.
EUPHAN CURRAPLE kept her word. She was soon by old Martha’s side again! She was very merry. Never had the old kitchen rung to pleasanter peals of laughter.
William heard these sounds, as he paced his study, in a tumult of fancies and feelings. He opened the door, and leaned smiling at its side, with his arms folded. He hardly breathed, for the voice that was more silvery than choirs of angels in his ear was dimly audible in the merriment: and oh! how clear, and though the faintest, the only one he heard. He sighed, in his lonely rapture.
A world as new as the world of spirits was opening to him. These sounds of merriment were of good augury to him, he hoped. Had she thought over all he had said, and was she happy? Oh! if that friendless being could only love him as he loved her — hand-in-hand, through enchanted ground, they would walk henceforward together!
His darling was there — his idol, his muse, his beautiful spirit — and everything was interesting; the tick of his old Dutch clock was musical; the light of fairy land was on the panels of his homely house. The look down the dim passage was a gaze into beautiful futurity. O Time! wing on, and bear him swiftly to the gate of his paradise!
Next morning, just as usual, Euphan was there, very merry, at breakfast with old Martha.
You are not to suppose that she was a useless visitor. Ready to lend a hand whenever it was needed — very quick, very neat was she, and could use her needle for half an hour as well as any. She was a wise adviser, too, in all household matters; and old Martha had come, by this time, habitually to consult her — obliquely and accidentally, as it were; for the old housekeeper had her pride of rule and care, but made no secret of her opinion that the lass had a good notion of housekeeping, and would make a very pretty housewife in time. And anything she did was pleasantly done, with a song or a story.
Now it was the last loitering five or ten minutes after their last cup of tea, when Mall had gone to her work in the scullery, or among the poultry, and she and Mrs. Gillyflower were alone, each on her clumsy kitchen-chair, at the opposite side of the little deal table on which their cloth was spread — clumsy, but also beautifully white.
“There’s a song I used to laugh at,” said the handsome stranger, smiling down upon her hands that lay on the table— “about a poor girl that loved a prince, and the prince loved her, ever so much, and he would have married her; but she bethought her how his father the king, and his mother the queen, would rate him, and his lords and great folk despise him, and how he would be made little of, and sorry — and all for her sake. And just because she loved him too well, she would not marry him — and wasn’t she a big fool?”
“Never a bigger,” acquiesced Martha. “She was called Dun Alice, and he was the Lord of Linton, and a king’s son. And will ye miss the song and the dances, and all the nonsense — and think of me when I’m gone away?”
And suddenly, leaning across the table, she kissed old Martha on the cheek; and Martha caught her close to her heart, and said: —
“Gone, lass! Ye shan’t think o’ that for mony a day. I would not know my old self, or the old house, or the fields without ye, my bonny rogue!” s And thus saying, old Martha rose abruptly, with a little laugh, and trotted away to the dresser, and then to the cupboard — or (as in that northern region they term it) the “catmallison” — and was busy over cups and flagons in an instant; for she did not choose people to see her eyes wet, and dried them hastily, with her back turned, and speaking hilariously all the time.
William was not likely to make a secret of his love anywhere. But he could not tell how Euphan might resent his letting Martha guess it, and therefore he had to act with circumspection. Sorely it tried him, as you may fancy, to know that she was so near, and yet so effectually hidden from him. As to reading, that was quite out of the question; equally so was his remaining in his study. He was in a state of sublimest restlessness.
Quietly, with an unavowed fear of old Martha Gillyflower, he let himself out, gently, by the hall-door, and stood leaning on the outer edge of the porch, vainly looking for Euphan, listening for her voice.
Then the young Squire walked away through the trees to the right, and, making a detour, reached the wood of thorn and birch, oak and hazel, that skirts the moss, and so up again, by the Druid ring of tall stones — always, henceforward, an enchanted region for him.
“Quite lonely it now was, and beyond it, through rugged glades of scattered dwarf oak and birch, he still looked in vain.
He was in the acme of his fever — he could
not rest. Those who measure all things by mundane prudences and proprieties will regard his infatuation with proper astonishment and disgust. There are others to whom it will appear essential true love, and in so far heavenly as it was uncontaminated by the sordid. The inner man, the ‘xardia’, the spiritual man who is to live forever, is the shrine of every celestial affection. There reside the true and the loving in all human nature. If not there, both are extinct, and what is then that inner man? An immortal principle of evil, the Satanic lord of the tabernacle of the flesh, which is not, as in the happier man, a veil through which, as in the countenance, the glory of the inner love and truth shines forth; but a fixed and a goodly mask, within which lurks and rules a satanic stranger. When, from the celestial tenant in the other, shines forth a sudden truth or affection — how the heavenly spirits thrill with a strange delight! In this law is the life of what we call romance — that noble folly, which to some seems so ridiculous, and to others so beautifully wise.
William is now walking in his dream — in his delirium. The intoxication’ is not, as in some, selfish. Generous madness! — who can charm it into sanity, or impose on it the laws of plodding quietude? Will it listen to reason, or be strapped down on its bed? Alas! no; it will talk from its frenzy, and enjoy its suicidal liberty — and gather supernatural strength from its very mania.
Euphan liked, when the sun shone out, to sit on a stile, or under an old tree, or to wander up and down the hedgerows — with the dog by her side, or the bird’s cage in her fingers — singing sometimes, sometimes silent, and sometimes talking to her mute companions.
CHAPTER XXV.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 774