“It would never be a very general favorite,” Miss Tresilyan observed. “It seems hardly right to set to music even an imaginary story of great sin and sorrow. I saw a sketch of it some time ago. The murderess was sitting on a cushion close to the earl’s body, with her head bent so low that one of her black tresses almost touched his smooth golden curls; you could just see the hilt of the dagger under her left hand. That, and the corpse’s quiet, pale face were the only two objects that stood out in relief; for the storm outside was stirring the window-curtains, and making the one lamp flare irregularly. Her features were in the shadow, and you had to fancy how hard, and rigid, and dreary they must be. It was the merest sketch, but if it had been worked out, it would have made a very terrible picture.”
“A good conception,” Royston said; “well, perhaps it would not be a pleasant song to sing, but better, I should think, than some of those dreadful sentimental ones. They are not much worse than the Strephon and the Chloe class, in which our ancestors delighted; still, they are indefensible. If our Lauras find Petrarchs now, they are usually very beardless ones, and the green morocco cover, with its golden lock, covers their indiscretions. Those who write love ditties for the piano must celebrate a shadow who can’t be critical. Imagine any man insulting a real woman of average intellect with ‘Will you love me then as now!’”
“Yes,” she assented, “they are too absurd as a rule. They make our cheeks burn, as if we were performing some very ridiculous part in low comedy; but they do not warm one’s heart, like ‘Annie Laurie.’”
“Ah! it’s curious how that always suggests itself as the standard to compare others with: not fair, though, for it makes most of them sound so feeble and effeminate. Douglas of Finland wrote it, you know, in the campaign which finished him. Long before that the charming Annie had given her promise true to Craigdarroch; and she had to keep it, tant bien que mal, for it was pronounced in the Tron Church, instead of on the braes of Maxwellton. I wonder if she 15 inscribed those verses in her scrap-book? I dare say she did, and sang them to her grandchildren, in a cracked treble.”
“I am so sorry you told me that,” Cecil exclaimed; “my romance was quite a different one, and not nearly so sad. I always fancied the man who wrote those lines must have ended so happily! One would despise her thoroughly if she could ever have forgiven herself, or forgotten him.”
Her eyes brightened, and her cheeks flushed as she spoke. The momentary excitement made her look so handsome that Keene’s glance could not withhold admiration; but there was no sympathy in it, any more than in his cold, quiet tones.
“No, don’t despise her,” he said. “She could scarcely be expected to wait for a corporal in the Scottish regiment. When the cavaliers sailed from home they knew they were leaving every thing but honor behind them; of course, their mistresses went with the other luxuries. They had not many of these in the brigade, if we can believe history. Fortunately for us (or we should have missed the song) Finland never knew of the ‘fresh fere’ who dried the bright blue eyes so soon. He would not have carried his pike so cheerily either, if his eyes had been good enough to see across the German Ocean. Well, perhaps the story isn’t true; very few melodramatic legends are.”
“I shall try not to believe it; but I am afraid you have destroyed an illusion.”
“You don’t say so?” was the reply. “I regret it extremely. If I had but known you carried such things about with you! Indeed, I will be more careful for the future. We are out-walking the main-guard, I see. Shall we wait for them here? It is a good point of view. One forgets that there are two invalids to be considered.”
Did Royston Keene speak thus purposely, on the principle of those practiced periodical writers, who always leave their hero in extreme peril, or their heroine on the verge of a moral precipice, in order to keep our curiosity tense till the next number? If not, chance favored him by producing the very effect he would have desired.