Love's bitterest cup

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

“And then I had to tell my neighbors the secret, for I could not bear they should think ill o’ my ain lass. But nane o’ them would believe me. Not one. They laughed me to scorn—me and my lass. It is an old tale—oh, such an old tale, such a common old tale! Only it comes hame when it’s one’s ain bairn.

“One day my lord came hame and heard the report, and a fine passion he was in with my lass and me. He denied her and her child. He pretended it was Andy, the stableboy, she had married. And he scorned her, and threatened to turn us both out of the hut if we ever so much as named his name again.

“Oh, but he was the devil of the whole world!

“After that, in many long nights that my lass and I lay awake, we talked, and I got to know why the great earl had married my beauty and angel of the whole world. First he tried to win her love without her hand; but my girl was good and firm; and then he grew so mad for her love that he took her before a priest and married her.

“One day we did hear that the earl was to wed the duke’s daughter, and all the cottagers said I was a mad crone to think my lord had stooped to my lass. Ah, my lass! She was fading away before my very eyes. But not fast enough for my lord.

“One day there was a fair at Enderby Town, and all the laborers on the estate and all the servants at the castle had a holiday to go to the fair. All went but me and my lass. We ne’er left hame in those days. We could no bear that any should look on us and scorn us.

“So that day I left my lass spinning at the hut door, and the baby was sleeping in the basket by her side, and I went to my duty in the hen-houses. I had the old nests to clean out and fresh straw to put in them. I got done about twelve of the clock and come hame.

“But my girl was not in the house, nor the babe. I had no misgiving. I went in and waited for her. But she came no more. She never came again. When it grew dark I began to be so uneasy that I went out to look for her, but could no find her. There was no one as I could ask; all the world was gone to the fair, and nane would be hame till late, maybe not till morning.

“Well, bairn, when I had walked till my limbs were ready to sink under me I went hame and laid down, just as I was, on the outside of my bed. I was not asleep. Nay, bairnie, I was not asleep. I did no dream what followed. I saw it. My eyes were shut and all the world was still; for it was long after midnight, and even drawing near the morning; but still it was pitch-dark, when—no, I wasn’t asleep, and I didn’t dream it—when I felt a light through my shut eyelids. I opened them and saw the room was full of light that did not come from sun, or moon, or star, or candle, or lamp, or fire, but from a bright form that stood in the midst of the place and beckoned me to come to it.

“In an awe that was not a fright, I got up and went to it and said ‘Phebe!’ for I knew it was my lass that stood there, with her child in her arms, and clothed, not in the white raiment of the blest, but in what I thought was lovelier, a clear, soft, rosy gown that fell from her shoulders down to her feet. She had no crown on her head, but her silky, yellow hair streamed down around her form like sunbeams. I knew she was a spirit.