Had quenched, at length, his boyish flame,
Nor knew, till seated by her side,
His heart in all save hope the same.
Byron.
Meanwhile David Lindsay had returned to his grandmother’s cottage, his soul filled with the image of the lovely girl he had just landed on the promontory.
“I shall go mad if it continues much longer,” he groaned. “Yes, it will craze me! If I could only escape and fly to new places and scenes that would not remind me of her so constantly, so bitterly! But I cannot leave my grandmother, who has no one but me. I must stay, though I am bound to the rack. I must see my angel and not open my lips in adoration! I must suffer and not utter a cry! Why, it would insult her to tell her I love her! And yet in our innocent childhood she has set by me hours reading out of the same books. She kindled a soul under the poor fisher lad’s rough bosom!—a soul to love and to suffer the anguish of a lost Heaven in the loss of her. Oh, my little angel, did you know what you were doing? Oh, my little angel, my little angel, who am I that I should dare to love you? A poor, rude fisherman, to whom you came as a messenger from heaven to inspire him with intelligent life, with a soul to love and suffer. Oh! my darling, you fill my life! You are my life! I see your bright face shining in the darkness of my room at night. I hear your sweet voice ringing in the silence! What shall I do? Ah, Heaven, what shall I do? If I could ship on one of these schooners that touch here sometimes, and if I could go to new scenes where I should never meet her again, I might conquer this madness. But that is impossible at present. I must not fly from duty. I must stay here and meet whatever fate may have in store for me, and that is insanity or death, I think. Oh! I fear, I fear that I shall go mad some day, and in my madness tell her how I love her! And then—the deluge!”
So absorbed was the poor lad’s soul in his love and his woe, that it was a purely mechanical and unconscious work to row back to the islet, secure his boat, and walk up to the cot.
He did not “come to himself” until he had run his head against the door.
His grandmother opened it, smiled, and said:
“Come in, David, and see what the little lady has left here for me and for you.”