Ah, could the evil-minded Clermistonlee have witnessed this scene!
The sun set behind the dark woods of Corstorphine; its last rays faded away from the turret vanes and seared foliage of Bruntisfield; the oaks and loch of the Burghmuir grew dark, as the shadows of the autumnal gloaming increased around them, and warned the lovers of the necessity of retiring and—separating.
Never was the glowing memory of that interview forgotten by Walter Fenton; and it cheered him through many an hour of sorrow, humiliation, and misery; through the toils of many a weary night, and the carnage of many a dangerous day. How happy and how well it is for us that the future is covered by an impenetrable veil that no mortal eye can pierce, and no hand draw aside!
The swans had quitted the lake, and the last glow of the day that had passed, was dying away upon its glassy surface, when hand in hand, the girl and her lover, contented, if not supremely happy, left the garden. There, by the old fountain of mossy and fantastic stone-work, on the pedestal of which a grotesque visage vomited the water from its capacious throat into a stone basin, they had plighted unto each other their solemn troth, according to the simple custom of the time and country.
There was no witness but the evening star that glimmered in the saffron west. There was no record but their own beating hearts.
Standing one on each side of the gushing fountain, and laving their hands in the limpid water, they called upon God to hear and register their vows of truth and love—vows which were, perhaps, less eloquent than deep, but uttered with all the quiet fervour of two young hearts as yet unseared and unsoured by the trouble, the duplicity, the selfishness, and the bitterness of the world.
Poor lovers! It was their first hour of delight; and even then, though by them unseen, a human visage of livid and terrible aspect was steadily regarding them from the thick foliage of a dark holly hedge, with eyes like those of a serpent—eyes that glared like two burning coals, and seemed full of that dire expression with which the superstitions of Italy gift the possessors of the mal-occhio. The lips were colourless and white, the teeth were clenched; it was all that a painter could pourtray of agony and mortification. As they arose from the fountain, it vanished; footsteps crashed among the fallen leaves and withered branches, but the lovers heard them not. Lilian, though she still wept from over-excitement and the approaching separation which had so suddenly called all these secret feelings to empire and control in her bosom, with sensations of mingled happiness and grief too intense to find vent in words, hung on Walter's arm, and thus clasped hand in hand with more apparent composure, they slowly returned to the house and entered the chamber-of-dais.
Its panels of polished oak, the silver plate on the buffet, the china jars, and japan canisters, on the grotesque ebony cabinets, glittered ruddily in the light of the blazing fire. A noble stag-hound, with red eyes and wiry hair, Lilian's lap-dog, and a favorite cat, were gambolling together on the hearth and tearing the snow-white wool from the prostrate spinning wheel. Lady Grisel still slept soundly; but Lilian stole to her side, kissed, and awoke her by murmuring in a broken voice, and with a sickly attempt at playfulness,
"Awake, aunt Grisel, Mr. Fenton has come to bid us farewell. He marches by crow of the cock, and we may not see him again for—for many a weary day."
"My dream is read!" exclaimed the old lady, starting. "O, Lilian, lass! what is this you tell me? Walter, my poor bairn, come to me; for whence are ye boune?"