Kenelm Chillingly — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

“Fire!” added Tom.

Kenelm began to read,—and he read well.

LORD RONALD’S BRIDE.
PART I.
“WHY gathers the crowd in the market-place
Ere the stars have yet left the sky?”
“For a holiday show and an act of grace,—
At the sunrise a witch shall die.”
“What deed has she done to deserve that doom?
Has she blighted the standing corn,
Or rifled for philters a dead man’s tomb,
Or rid mothers of babes new-born?”
“Her pact with the fiend was not thus revealed,
She taught sinners the Word to hear;
The hungry she fed, and the sick she healed,
And was held as a Saint last year.
“But a holy man, who at Rome had been,
Had discovered, by book and bell,
That the marvels she wrought were through arts unclean,
And the lies of the Prince of Hell.
“And our Mother the Church, for the dame was rich,
And her husband was Lord of Clyde,
Would fain have been mild to this saint-like witch
If her sins she had not denied.
“But hush, and come nearer to see the sight,
Sheriff, halberds, and torchmen,—look!
That’s the witch standing mute in her garb of white,
By the priest with his bell and book.”
So the witch was consumed on the sacred pyre,
And the priest grew in power and pride,
And the witch left a son to succeed his sire
In the halls and the lands of Clyde.
And the infant waxed comely and strong and brave,
But his manhood had scarce begun,
When his vessel was launched on the northern wave
To the shores which are near the sun.
PART II.
Lord Ronald has come to his halls in Clyde
With a bride of some unknown race;
Compared with the man who would kiss that bride
Wallace wight were a coward base.
Her eyes had the glare of the mountain-cat
When it springs on the hunter’s spear,
At the head of the board when that lady sate
Hungry men could not eat for fear.
And the tones of her voice had that deadly growl
Of the bloodhound that scents its prey;
No storm was so dark as that lady’s scowl
Under tresses of wintry gray.
“Lord Ronald! men marry for love or gold,
Mickle rich must have been thy bride!”
“Man’s heart may be bought, woman’s hand be sold,
On the banks of our northern Clyde.
“My bride is, in sooth, mickle rich to me
Though she brought not a groat in dower,
For her face, couldst thou see it as I do see,
Is the fairest in hall or bower!”
Quoth the bishop one day to our lord the king,
“Satan reigns on the Clyde alway,
And the taint in the blood of the witch doth cling
To the child that she brought to day.
“Lord Ronald hath come from the Paynim land
With a bride that appals the sight;
Like his dam she hath moles on her dread right hand,
And she turns to a snake at night.
“It is plain that a Scot who can blindly dote
On the face of an Eastern ghoul,
And a ghoul who was worth not a silver groat,
Is a Scot who has lost his soul.
“It were wise to have done with this demon tree
Which has teemed with such caukered fruit;
Add the soil where it stands to my holy See,
And consign to the flames its root.”
“Holy man!” quoth King James, and he laughed, “we know
That thy tongue never wags in vain,
But the Church cist is full, and the king’s is low,
And the Clyde is a fair domain.
“Yet a knight that’s bewitched by a laidly fere
Needs not much to dissolve the spell;
We will summon the bride and the bridegroom here
Be at hand with thy book and bell.”
PART III.
Lord Ronald stood up in King James’s court,
And his dame by his dauntless side;
The barons who came in the hopes of sport
Shook with fright when they saw the bride.
The bishop, though armed with his bell and book,
Grew as white as if turned to stone;
It was only our king who could face that look,
But he spoke with a trembling tone.
“Lord Ronald, the knights of thy race and mine
Should have mates in their own degree;
What parentage, say, hath that bride of thine
Who hath come from the far countree?
“And what was her dowry in gold or land,
Or what was the charm, I pray,
That a comely young gallant should woo the hand
Of the ladye we see to-day?”
And the lords would have laughed, but that awful dame
Struck them dumb with her thunder-frown:
“Saucy king, did I utter my father’s name,
Thou wouldst kneel as his liegeman down.
“Though I brought to Lord Ronald nor lands nor gold,
Nor the bloom of a fading cheek;
Yet, were I a widow, both young and old
Would my hand and my dowry seek.
“For the wish that he covets the most below,
And would hide from the saints above,
Which he dares not to pray for in weal or woe,
Is the dowry I bring my love.
“Let every man look in his heart and see
What the wish he most lusts to win,
And then let him fasten his eyes on me
While he thinks of his darling sin.”
And every man—bishop, and lord, and king
Thought of what he most wished to win,
And, fixing his eye on that grewsome thing,
He beheld his own darling sin.
No longer a ghoul in that face he saw;
It was fair as a boy’s first love:
The voice that had curdled his veins with awe
Was the coo of the woodland dove.
Each heart was on flame for the peerless dame
At the price of the husband’s life;
Bright claymores flash out, and loud voices shout,
“In thy widow shall be my wife.”
Then darkness fell over the palace hall,
More dark and more dark it fell,
And a death-groan boomed hoarse underneath the pall,
And was drowned amid roar and yell.
When light through the lattice-pane stole once more,
It was gray as a wintry dawn,
And the bishop lay cold on the regal floor,
With a stain on his robes of lawn.
Lord Ronald was standing beside the dead,
In the scabbard he plunged his sword,
And with visage as wan as the corpse, he said,
“Lo! my ladye hath kept her word.
“Now I leave her to others to woo and win,
For no longer I find her fair;
Could I look on the face of my darling sin,
I should see but a dead man’s there.
“And the dowry she brought me is here returned,
For the wish of my heart has died,
It is quenched in the blood of the priest who burned
My sweet mother, the Saint of Clyde.”
Lord Ronald strode over the stony floor,
Not a hand was outstretched to stay;
Lord Ronald has passed through the gaping door,
Not an eye ever traced the way.
And the ladye, left widowed, was prized above
All the maidens in hall and bower,
Many bartered their lives for that ladye’s love,
And their souls for that ladye’s dower.
God grant that the wish which I dare not pray
Be not that which I lust to win,
And that ever I look with my first dismay
On the face of my darling sin!

As he ceased, Kenelm’s eye fell on Tom’s face upturned to his own, with open lips, an intent stare, and paled cheeks, and a look of that higher sort of terror which belongs to awe. The man, then recovering himself, tried to speak, and attempted a sickly smile, but neither would do. He rose abruptly and walked away, crept under the shadow of a dark beech-tree, and stood there leaning against the trunk.

“What say you to the ballad?” asked Kenelm of the singer.

“It is not without power,” answered he.

“Ay, of a certain kind.”

The minstrel looked hard at Kenelm, and dropped his eyes, with a heightened glow on his cheek.

“The Scotch are a thoughtful race. The Scot who wrote this thing may have thought of a day when he saw beauty in the face of a darling sin; but, if so, it is evident that his sight recovered from that glamoury. Shall we walk on? Come, Tom.”

The minstrel left them at the entrance of the town, saying, “I regret that I cannot see more of either of you, as I quit Luscombe at daybreak. Here, by the by, I forgot to give it before, is the address you wanted.”