'Well, at your own risk!' cried the child, leading him by some deserted passages through the house and garden into the open fields, where the waters of a meandering stream glistened among the trees in the evening sun.
'She is there behind that thicket of alder bushes upon the border of the stream!' whispered the child. 'Good success to you, sir officer!' and she ran back to the house.
'Even at the north pole,' said Arwed, proceeding forward, 'the sex indulge in amorous intrigues, and promote those of others when they have none of their own.' He came to the bushes, and was not a little astonished when, instead of Christine, he beheld a Finnish peasant girl, who sat angling on the bank with her back towards him. But the disguise was soon betrayed by the beauteous golden locks of the girl, and the deep reverie into which she had fallen,--and he silently approached through the bushes, that he might surprise his fair cousin.
The latter discovered by the slight movements of the foliage that some one was approaching; but, pretending not to have remarked it, she sang in her sweetest tones a Finnish song, in keeping with her assumed character. The words were as follows:
Oh! if the dear and only loved
Might by some magic art appear,
Though on his mouth the wolfs blood hung,
My lips should kiss its beauty clear!
Though round his hand a serpent's coil
Envious, had twined its venom'd ring,
Would not all-powerful love defy
The danger of the reptile's sting!
Why lacks the wind a fervent soul
Like that which glows within my breast?
Why lives not language in its sigh?
Then could it speed my fond request!
Then, truant, then the whisp'ring breeze
Thy thoughts might interchange with mine;
And, faithful carrier, swiftly bear
The throbbings of this heart to thine!
'Poor maiden!' sighed Arwed with fearful misgivings. 'God grant that the man thy heart has chosen, drip only with the blood of the wolf, that the serpents of hell be not coiled around the hand which thou wouldst press so tenderly in thine!'
Meanwhile Christine, having ended her song, listened a moment, and then turning towards the thicket, exclaimed, 'tease me no longer, Mac Donalbain, it is you--I hear your breathing.'
'The lover hears acutely, but not always rightly,' said Arwed advancing. 'It is only the breathing of your insignificant kinsman.'
'My God, what have I done!' shrieked the terrified Christine, covering her face with her hands.