There was to be an entertainment in the village and Paula was to assist. The idea had come from her aunt and was not to be rejected. In one of the strange incomprehensible moods which sometimes came upon her at this time, she had written a poem, and nothing would do but that she must read it before the assembled company of neighbors and friends, that were to be gathered at the Squire’s house on this gala evening. She did not wish to do it. The sacred sense of possession passes when we uncover our treasure to another’s eyes, giving way to a lower feeling not to be courted by one of Paula’s sensitive nature. Besides she would rather have poured this first outburst of secret enthusiasm into other ears than these; but she had given her word and the ordeal must be submitted to. There are many who remember how she looked on that night. She had arrayed herself for the occasion, in the prettiest of her dresses, and mindful of Ona’s injunction, did not mar the effect of its soft and uniform gray with any hint of extraneous color. The result was that they saw only her beauty; and what beauty! A very old man, an early settler in the village, who had tottered out to enjoy a last glimpse of life before turning his aged face to the wall, said it made the thought of heaven a little more real. “I can go home and think how the angels look,” said he in his simple, half-childish way. And no one contradicted him, for there was a still light on her face that was less of earth than heaven, though why it should rest there to-night she least of all could have told, for her poem had to do with earth and its deepest passions and its wildest unrest. It was a clarion blast, not a dreaming rhapsody, that lay coiled up in the paper she held in her hand.
My readers must pardon me if I give them Paula’s poem, for without it they would not understand its effect and consequent result. It was called, “The Defence of the Bride,” and was of the old ballad order. As she rose to read, many of the younger ones in the audience began cautiously to move to one side, but at the first words, young as well as old paused and listened where they stood, for her voice was round and full, and the memory of clashing spears and whirling battle-axes that informed the war-song which she had heard Bertram play, was with her, to give color to her tones and fire to her glance.
THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE.
He was coming from the altar when the tocsin rang alarm,
With his fair young wife beside him, lovely in her bridal charm;
But he was not one to palter with a duty, or to slight
The trumpet-call of honor for his vantage or delight.
Turning from the bride beside him to his stern and martial train,
From their midst he summoned to him the brothers of Germain;
At the word they stepped before him, nine strong warriors brave and true,
From the youngest to the eldest, Enguerrand to mighty Hugh.
“Sons of Germain, to your keeping do I yield my bride to-day.
Guard her well as you do love me; guard her well and holily.
Dearer than mine own soul to me, you will hold her as your life,
’Gainst the guile of seeming friendship and the force of open strife.”
“We will guard her,” cried they firmly; and with just another glance
On the yearning and despairing in his young wife’s countenance,
Gallant Beaufort strode before them down the aisle and through the door,
And a shadow came and lingered where the sunlight stood before.
Eight long months the young wife waited, watching from her bridal room
For the coming of her husband up the valley forest’s gloom.
Eight long months the sons of Germain paced the ramparts and the wall,
With their hands upon their halberds ready for the battle-call.
Then there came a sound of trumpets pealing up the vale below,
And a dozen floating banners lit the forest with their glow,
And the bride arose like morning when it feels the sunlight nigh,
And her smile was like a rainbow flashing from a misty sky.
But the eldest son of Germain lifting voice from off the wall,
Cried aloud, “It is a stranger’s and not Sir Beaufort’s call;
Have you ne’er a slighted lover or a kinsman with a heart
Base enough to seek his vengeance at the sharp end of the dart?”