Legends of Lancashire 20

Legends of Lancashire 20

“My brother,” gaily answered the companion of the lady, whom the

speaker addressed, and whose arm was within his, “is pleased to

be poetical. But cannot you prevent that same widow of yours, Mrs.

Twilight, from leaving this vale, and entering the town in search

of a husband, by wedding her yourself? Perhaps you are engaged

already?--Is he Katharine?”

 

“Really, Alice, do you suppose that your brother would make me his

confidant?”

 

“Would that Mrs. Twilight,” was the exclamation of the mischievous

girl, “were here, to hide the blush on somebody’s face! Oh, look

angry, hate James and his sister. He has scarcely succeeded in

making you as sly a hypocrite as himself. My father sent him to

Cambridge, to devote himself to Mother Alma, but he soon found

another saint, who cared not for books and themes. The diligent

student, whose letters home spoke of nothing but long vigils, and

faint tapers burning through the night, was in love! He had met

with a beautiful lady of gentle blood, and high birth, whom I have

seen, Katharine,” and she looked archly up at her companion. “He

thought of nothing but love, and of no one but her, and yet he

counterfeited so well, that when he returned to us, he was pale in

appearance, and retired in habits.”

 

“Alice,” replied her brother, laughing, “you are a rare vixen, and

will never be reformed, until love has caught you. You, indeed, pay

but a poor compliment to the imagination and heart of a student,

to suppose that he cannot be a lover. Ponderous tomes will crush

every feeling but love. Mathematics will measure and bound, with

their cold laws, every feeling but love. Amidst all his researches,

the image of one appears before him, bright and beautiful, even by

the faint light of his lamp. She is of earth, but holy; and the

more that learning and genius throw their rays upon his mind,--that

being the mirror in which she is reflected,--the purer and softer

does she become. But, Alice, you frequently cautioned me not to be

a hard student.”

 

“And,” added Katharine, “did not your brother gain many of the

highest prizes?”

 

“He has gained one, Katharine, has he not?” and the mischievous

girl smiled significantly to her companion, who blushed with a

deeper tinge than before, and seemed still more embarassed.

 

“You mean the beautiful gold medal, Alice?” inquired her brother,

anxious to smooth over the hint.

 

“Ah! do I?” returned his sister with a playful sneer. “But I have

a tale to unfold concerning it. I often observed you walking in

the garden, looking anxiously upon something suspended from your

neck, and when I came up, you quickly placed it again next to your

breast. Katharine, are you listening? Well, one day I surprized

you; you affirmed that it was the gold medal--I denied that it was.

It was a miniature likeness of one of my friends,” and she fondly

placed her arm around her companion, who drew the necklace closer

to her bosom, lest, perchance, some miniature might be discovered

there also.

 

They wandered on, and they beheld the beauties of the setting sun,

only on each other’s countenances. They became more thoughtful,

but not less happy. The two lovers,--for such was the relationship

between James Dawson, and Katharine Norton,--frequently exchanged

kind looks, which the playful Alice did not fail to remark.

James and Alice were the only children of a wealthy physician in

Manchester. Their mother had died early, and this circumstance made

them cling closer to each other. Dr. Dawson was harsh to them: he

had been disappointed in the marriage-portion of his wife; and he

bade a very cold adieu to his son, as he left for Cambridge, and

chided Alice for crying and teazing herself many days after. Yet,

at times, affection arose in his breast towards them, for they were

the exact image of her, who had once been enshrined in his love,

until avarice hoarded up other treasures. Besides, he knew that he

could not, with justice, condemn his son as a mere bookworm, for

James excelled in every athletic and graceful accomplishment: and

he could not, on the other hand, taunt him as only a gamester and a

fencer, for he had carried off the highest literary and scholastic

honours. His endowments, both physical and mental, had frequently

drawn forth the admiration of his father, but it soon subsided into

indifference and neglect. Alice, occasionally, as she sung the

lays which her mother had taught her, and romped about his chair,

in all her beauty and innocence, could warm her father’s heart, so

that he pronounced a blessing upon her destiny. But often, all her

smiles and fond arts to please him were disregarded: she could not

relax, by all her attentions, the sternness of his countenance. A

tear would then start into her deep blue eye, and she would retire

to call up the remembrance of her sainted mother.

 

Katharine Norton was an orphan, and her parents had been of

illustrious rank. She had travelled with a maiden aunt, and, as

they were residing for a few weeks in the vicinity of Cambridge,

she had met with young Dawson, and thus commenced an ardent

attachment between them. And well might her appearance have

inspired even a stoic with the most thrilling love. Smooth, and

fair as light was her finely-formed brow,--changing its __EXPRESSION__

as a dark ringlet fell upon it,--or was thrown back. Her eyes

seemed to be souls in themselves, endued with the faculty of

thinking and feeling; their brilliancy their colour, and their

form, were as if they had been given by the emotion which then

ruled her mind. The features were stamped with a wild and noble

beauty. Nor was her form inferior to her countenance: majestic, yet

playful; like a vision with all the movements of music. She was now

spending the summer in Manchester, where Dawson had introduced to

her his sister, and they were seldom out of each other’s presence.

They walked together, and James frequently joined them.

 

The shadows of twilight were now mixing with the fading light of

the western sky, and the hush of early eve was whispering silence

in the vale where they were wandering. At length they reached the

angle; on rounding which, at a short distance, was the Hermit’s

Well, not famed for any medicinal properties, but for the pure

water, which was said to have refreshed an old man (who, in olden

times, haunted the adjacent hills,) every morning, as soon as he

had left his hard couch to journey along with the sun.

 

On a stone beside it, there sat a young female, dressed in the

rustic simplicity of a foreign country. Her age seemed only that of

a child. Yet there was a feverish rolling of the eye, a changing

tremor of the lips, and a gentle throbbing of the breast, which

speak the mystery of a hidden sorrow, or of a superior nature. Not

a blush of colour tinged the pure pallor of her face--like a statue

dedicated to thought, in the midst of fragrance and light. Her

hands were playing with flowers, carelessly,--for her thoughts, it

was evident, were on a less tranquil subject,--and although they

were, at intervals, raised to her face, yet it assumed a still

sadder __EXPRESSION__.

 

She was singing to herself in a low and melancholy strain, almost

modulated to the still hush of the vale: and the notes seemed not

so much to be proceeding from her voice, as her soul. Once or twice

she started up, held her hands towards the west, and then placed

them on her brow. Then she dipped them in the well, and with the

pure water bathed her eyes. As soon, however, as young Dawson and

his fair companions had approached within a few yards, her eyes

quickly moved in the direction of the spot where they stood, and

she became silent in her song.

 

“Ah, brother,” cried the laughing Alice, evidently not conscious

of the merry tone in which she spoke, for her heart had quickly

sympathized with the youthful sadness, of which she had now,

unexpectedly, been a witness;--“is this your young and interesting

Mrs. Twilight? What a beautiful creature! She seems to enjoy all

the luxury of grief, and her heart refuses to lose a tear of its

sorrow. That brow might have been kissed by the last breath of many

a brother, sister, and playmate:--so pale, calm and holy.”

 

“She is not of our country,” added Katharine Norton. “Her dress,

as well as her air, is foreign. How simply are those raven tresses

braided!”

 

“Katharine,” said her lover, “dost thou believe in young spirits,

who are said to haunt solitary places? Here, you might almost

imagine, that we have intruded upon one of them. How beautiful and

thoughtful that girlish face is! Now she looks towards us. Let

us draw near, and entreat her to sing to us, while the stars are

taking their places in the sky.”

 

The object of their curiosity and admiration arose meekly, as they

stood before her, and allowed the hand of Katharine to be laid on

her head.

 

“A blessing on you, fair strangers! It is night,--and do you wander

abroad? It is night, for the dew is upon me. Ah! that hand now laid

on my head is gentle and soothing, as that which so often presses

it in my sleepless dreams, throughout the long night;

 

Ah! it speaks not to me:

No face appears with smile,

Its light I could not see,

And trace the gentle wile,

But bathed in perfume from the far-off land,

Upon my head comes,--lies, a holy hand,”

 

and she raised her face to the sky so earnestly.

 

“But, my pretty child,” inquired Katharine, “why do you gaze

upwards? Does that hand, which visits you so oft, in dreams, appear

then, at this hour, from out one of those changing clouds?”

 

“Do I!” the child exclaimed in intense emotion, indicated by her

livelier tones and brightened face,--“do I, indeed, gaze upon the

wide, the beautiful sky? Yes, it breathes upon my forehead! Feel

it!”

 

They were bewildered at the strangeness of her words and movements.

She took Katharine’s hand, and held it to her brow, and then

resumed,--

 

“Now take it away. You would not deprive me of that sweet, sweet

influence. Oh! they tell me how glorious the sky is. I cannot see,

I cannot think of it, I cannot even dream of it. I know all the

flowers of earth by their touch and fragrance. I know, fair ladies,

that you are beautiful, but the sky is far, far above me. I hear

its sounds, but its face is veiled from me. Will the time never

come, when mine eyes shall open to a star, a bright-tinged cloud,

a fair expanse of love, to canopy and bound our dream? Must the

mean reptile be permitted to see them, although it prefers to crawl

amidst dust and clods,--and shall not I?”

 

“God pities the blind, fair child,” kindly returned Dawson.

 

“Have you seen God?”

 

“No; he cannot be seen by us, now.”

 

“Then I am happy,” she replied. “Oh! what a curse it would have

been on me, when all others could see the perfection of love,

wisdom, and power,--(for the flowers of earth, the sounds of

heaven, tell me that God must be that perfect being,)--I, I alone

was blind. Yes, I shall see yet. The little infant, for days awakes

not its eyelids to behold the mother, in whose bosom it is so fondly nursed, and the rich stream by which its pouting lips are fed; but soon they are opened to meet hers, beaming love upon every movement. I never knew that infant’s joy.