THE LILY'S QUEST.
AN APOLOGUE.
Two lovers once upon a time had planned a little summer-house in theform of an antique temple which it was their purpose to consecrate toall manner of refined and innocent enjoyments. There they would holdpleasant intercourse with one another and the circle of their familiarfriends; there they would give festivals of delicious fruit; therethey would hear lightsome music intermingled with the strains ofpathos which make joy more sweet; there they would read poetry andfiction and permit their own minds to flit away in day-dreams andromance; there, in short--for why should we shape out the vaguesunshine of their hopes?--there all pure delights were to cluster likeroses among the pillars of the edifice and blossom ever new andspontaneously.
So one breezy and cloudless afternoon Adam Forrester and Lilias Fayset out upon a ramble over the wide estate which they were to possesstogether, seeking a proper site for their temple of happiness. Theywere themselves a fair and happy spectacle, fit priest and priestessfor such a shrine, although, making poetry of the pretty name ofLilias, Adam Forrester was wont to call her "Lily" because her formwas as fragile and her cheek almost as pale. As they passed hand inhand down the avenue of drooping elms that led from the portal ofLilias Fay's paternal mansion they seemed to glance like wingedcreatures through the strips of sunshine, and to scatter brightnesswhere the deep shadows fell.
But, setting forth at the same time with this youthful pair, there wasa dismal figure wrapped in a black velvet cloak that might have beenmade of a coffin-pall, and with a sombre hat such as mourners weardrooping its broad brim over his heavy brows. Glancing behind them,the lovers well knew who it was that followed, but wished from theirhearts that he had been elsewhere, as being a companion so strangelyunsuited to their joyous errand. It was a near relative of Lilias Fay,an old man by the name of Walter Gascoigne, who had long labored underthe burden of a melancholy spirit which was sometimes maddened intoabsolute insanity and always had a tinge of it. What a contrastbetween the young pilgrims of bliss and their unbidden associate! Theylooked as if moulded of heaven's sunshine and he of earth's gloomiestshade; they flitted along like Hope and Joy roaming hand in handthrough life, while his darksome figure stalked behind, a type of allthe woeful influences which life could fling upon them.
But the three had not gone far when they reached a spot that pleasedthe gentle Lily, and she paused.
"What sweeter place shall we find than this?" said she. "Why should weseek farther for the site of our temple?"
It was indeed a delightful spot of earth, though undistinguished byany very prominent beauties, being merely a nook in the shelter of ahill, with the prospect of a distant lake in one direction and of achurch-spire in another. There were vistas and pathways leading onwardand onward into the green woodlands and vanishing away in theglimmering shade. The temple, if erected here, would look toward thewest; so that the lovers could shape all sorts of magnificent dreamsout of the purple, violet and gold of the sunset sky, and few of theiranticipated pleasures were dearer than this sport of fantasy.
"Yes," said Adam Forrester; "we might seek all day and find nolovelier spot. We will build our temple here."
But their sad old companion, who had taken his stand on the very sitewhich they proposed to cover with a marble floor, shook his head andfrowned, and the young man and the Lily deemed it almost enough toblight the spot and desecrate it for their airy temple that his dismalfigure had thrown its shadow there. He pointed to some scatteredstones, the remnants of a former structure, and to flowers such asyoung girls delight to nurse in their gardens, but which had nowrelapsed into the wild simplicity of nature.
"Not here," cried old Walter Gascoigne. "Here, long ago, other mortalsbuilt their temple of happiness; seek another site for yours."
"What!" exclaimed Lilias Fay. "Have any ever planned such a templesave ourselves?"
"Poor child!" said her gloomy kinsman. "In one shape or other everymortal has dreamed your dream." Then he told the lovers, how--not,indeed, an antique temple, but a dwelling--had once stood there, andthat a dark-clad guest had dwelt among its inmates, sitting for everat the fireside and poisoning all their household mirth.
Under this type Adam Forrester and Lilias saw that the old man spakeof sorrow. He told of nothing that might not be recorded in thehistory of almost every household, and yet his hearers felt as if nosunshine ought to fall upon a spot where human grief had left so deepa stain--or, at least, that no joyous temple should be built there.
"This is very sad," said the Lily, sighing.
"Well, there are lovelier spots than this," said Adam Forrester,soothingly--"spots which sorrow has not blighted."
So they hastened away, and the melancholy Gascoigne followed them,looking as if he had gathered up all the gloom of the deserted spotand was bearing it as a burden of inestimable treasure. But still theyrambled on, and soon found themselves in a rocky dell through themidst of which ran a streamlet with ripple and foam and a continualvoice of inarticulate joy. It was a wild retreat walled on either sidewith gray precipices which would have frowned somewhat too sternly hadnot a profusion of green shrubbery rooted itself into their crevicesand wreathed gladsome foliage around their solemn brows. But the chiefjoy of the dell was in the little stream which seemed like thepresence of a blissful child with nothing earthly to do save to babblemerrily and disport itself, and make every living soul its playfellow,and throw the sunny gleams of its spirit upon all.
"Here, here is the spot!" cried the two lovers, with one voice, asthey reached a level space on the brink of a small cascade. "This glenwas made on purpose for our temple."
"And the glad song of the brook will be always in our ears," saidLilias Fay.
"And its long melody shall sing the bliss of our lifetime," said AdamForrester.
"Ye must build no temple here," murmured their dismal companion.
And there again was the old lunatic standing just on the spot wherethey meant to rear their lightsome dome, and looking like the embodiedsymbol of some great woe that in forgotten days had happened there.And, alas! there had been woe, nor that alone. A young man more than ahundred years before had lured hither a girl that loved him, and onthis spot had murdered her and washed his bloody hands in the streamwhich sang so merrily, and ever since the victim's death-shrieks wereoften heard to echo between the cliffs.
"And see!" cried old Gascoigne; "is the stream yet pure from the stainof the murderer's hands?"
"Methinks it has a tinge of blood," faintly answered the Lily; and,being as slight as the gossamer, she trembled and clung to her lover'sarm, whispering, "Let us flee from this dreadful vale."
"Come, then," said Adam Forrester as cheerily as he could; "we shallsoon find a happier spot."
They set forth again, young pilgrims on that quest whichmillions--which every child of earth--has tried in turn.
And were the Lily and her lover to be more fortunate than all thosemillions? For a long time it seemed not so. The dismal shape of theold lunatic still glided behind them, and for every spot that lookedlovely in their eyes he had some legend of human wrong or suffering somiserably sad that his auditors could never afterward connect the ideaof joy with the place where it had happened. Here a heartbroken womankneeling to her child had been spurned from his feet; here a desolateold creature had prayed to the evil one, and had received a fiendishmalignity of soul in answer to her prayer; here a new-born infant,sweet blossom of life, had been found dead with the impress of itsmother's fingers round its throat; and here, under a shattered oak,two lovers had been stricken by lightning and fell blackened corpsesin each other's arms. The dreary Gascoigne had a gift to know whateverevil and lamentable thing had stained the bosom of Mother Earth; andwhen his funereal voice had told the tale, it appeared like a prophecyof future woe as well as a tradition of the past. And now, by theirsad demeanor, you would have fancied that the pilgrim-lovers wereseeking, not a temple of earthly joy, but a tomb for themselves andtheir posterity.
"Whe
re in this world," exclaimed Adam Forrester, despondingly, "shallwe build our temple of happiness?"
"Where in this world, indeed?" repeated Lilias Fay; and, being faintand weary--the more so by the heaviness of her heart--the Lily droopedher head and sat down on the summit of a knoll, repeating, "Where inthis world shall we build our temple?"
"Ah! have you already asked yourselves that question?" said theircompanion, his shaded features growing even gloomier with the smilethat dwelt on them. "Yet there is a place even in this world where yemay build it."
While the old man spoke Adam Forrester and Lilias had carelesslythrown their eyes around, and perceived that the spot where they hadchanced to pause possessed a quiet charm which was well enough adaptedto their present mood of mind. It was a small rise of ground with acertain regularity of shape that had perhaps been bestowed by art, anda group of trees which almost surrounded it threw their pensiveshadows across and far beyond, although some softened glory of thesunshine found its way there. The ancestral mansion wherein the loverswould dwell together appeared on one side, and the ivied church wherethey were to worship on another. Happening to cast their eyes on theground, they smiled, yet with a sense of wonder, to see that a palelily was growing at their feet.
"We will build our temple here," said they, simultaneously, and withan indescribable conviction that they had at last found the very spot.
Yet while they uttered this exclamation the young man and the Lilyturned an apprehensive glance at their dreary associate, deeming ithardly possible that some tale of earthly affliction should not makethose precincts loathsome, as in every former case. The old man stoodjust behind them, so as to form the chief figure in the group, withhis sable cloak muffling the lower part of his visage and his sombrehat overshadowing his brows. But he gave no word of dissent from theirpurpose, and an inscrutable smile was accepted by the lovers as atoken that here had been no footprint of guilt or sorrow to desecratethe site of their temple of happiness.
In a little time longer, while summer was still in its prime, thefairy-structure of the temple arose on the summit of the knoll amidthe solemn shadows of the trees, yet often gladdened with brightsunshine. It was built of white marble, with slender and gracefulpillars supporting a vaulted dome, and beneath the centre of thisdome, upon a pedestal, was a slab of dark-veined marble on which booksand music might be strewn. But there was a fantasy among the people ofthe neighborhood that the edifice was planned after an ancientmausoleum and was intended for a tomb, and that the central slab ofdark-veined marble was to be inscribed with the names of buried ones.They doubted, too, whether the form of Lilias Fay could appertain to acreature of this earth, being so very delicate and growing every daymore fragile, so that she looked as if the summer breeze should snatchher up and waft her heavenward. But still she watched the daily growthof the temple, and so did old Walter Gascoigne, who now made that spothis continual haunt, leaning whole hours together on his staff andgiving as deep attention to the work as though it had been indeed atomb. In due time it was finished and a day appointed for a simplerite of dedication.
On the preceding evening, after Adam Forrester had taken leave of hismistress, he looked back toward the portal of her dwelling and felt astrange thrill of fear, for he imagined that as the setting sunbeamsfaded from her figure she was exhaling away, and that something of herethereal substance was withdrawn with each lessening gleam of light.With his farewell glance a shadow had fallen over the portal, andLilias was invisible. His foreboding spirit deemed it an omen at thetime, and so it proved; for the sweet earthly form by which the Lilyhad been manifested to the world was found lifeless the next morningin the temple with her head resting on her arms, which were foldedupon the slab of dark-veined marble. The chill winds of the earth hadlong since breathed a blight into this beautiful flower; so that aloving hand had now transplanted it to blossom brightly in the gardenof Paradise.
But alas for the temple of happiness! In his unutterable grief AdamForrester had no purpose more at heart than to convert this temple ofmany delightful hopes into a tomb and bury his dead mistress there.And, lo! a wonder! Digging a grave beneath the temple's marble floor,the sexton found no virgin earth such as was meet to receive themaiden's dust, but an ancient sepulchre in which were treasured up thebones of generations that had died long ago. Among those forgottenancestors was the Lily to be laid; and when the funeral processionbrought Lilias thither in her coffin, they beheld old Walter Gascoignestanding beneath the dome of the temple with his cloak of pall andface of darkest gloom, and wherever that figure might take its standthe spot would seem a sepulchre. He watched the mourners as theylowered the coffin down.
"And so," said he to Adam Forrester, with the strange smile in whichhis insanity was wont to gleam forth, "you have found no betterfoundation for your happiness than on a grave?"
But as the shadow of Affliction spoke a vision of hope and joy had itsbirth in Adam's mind even from the old man's taunting words, for thenhe knew what was betokened by the parable in which the Lily andhimself had acted, and the mystery of life and death was opened tohim.
"Joy! joy!" he cried, throwing his arms toward heaven. "On a grave bethe site of our temple, and now our happiness is for eternity."
With those words a ray of sunshine broke through the dismal sky andglimmered down into the sepulchre, while at the same moment the shapeof old Walter Gascoigne stalked drearily away, because his gloom,symbolic of all earthly sorrow, might no longer abide there now thatthe darkest riddle of humanity was read.
Twice Told Tales Page 37