"God bless thee mine own dear child!" said the kind old lady; "though poor Walter Fenton hath nothing on earth but his heart and his sword, and though I might wish a longer pedigree than he, good lad, can boast of, still I esteem him for his manly bearing—I love him for his generosity, and I have ever loved thee, Lilian, much too well to withhold aught on which thy happiness depends. May the kind God bless thee, my fair-haired bairn! and may thy love be fortunate and happy as it is innocent and pure!"
Lilian's heart was full, and she wept on the breast of her kind old kinswoman.
After a time the idea did occur to Lady Bruntisfield, that the first love of her grand-niece, who since the captain's outlawry had become the only hope and last representative of an old baronial race, should be a nameless and penniless soldier, about to become a partisan in a dangerous civil war, was a matter for serious deliberation; but her blessing had been given, her honour had been pledged, and neither could be now withdrawn. She remembered too, that if William conquered in the coming struggle, that Lilian would be dowerless; for on her own demise, the lands of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes (of which as before stated she had but a life-rent) passed to her nephew the captain of the Scots Dutch, as next heir of entail; and she knew that the crafty Lord Clermistonlee, who had long been Lilian's avowed suitor, based his mercenary and ambitious hopes mainly on breaking this law by bringing the unfortunate captain under the ban of the Council, now no difficult matter, as he had openly joined the standard of the Prince of Orange.
Though his Lordship's rank made him, in one respect, an eligible suitor, his general character for cruelty, debauchery, and every fashionable vice, caused him to be viewed with detestation by all, save a few wild and kindred spirits; and there were current certain dark, and, perhaps, exaggerated stories concerning the death of his lady several years before; and these, more than any thing else, led every woman, in that moral age, to regard him with secret horror.
Yet all admitted that he was pre-eminently a handsome man, and that none dressed so magnificently, danced more gracefully, had better trained hawks and hounds, or fleeter racers than Randal, Lord Clermistonlee. Notwithstanding all this, Lady Grisel would rather have seen her dear-loved Lilian in the coils of a boa-constrictor than in his arms; and as the image of the daring roué came vividly before her, she blessed poor Walter more affectionately, and kissing her fair grand-niece again, made her feel more happy than she ever thought to have been in absence of her lover. Rendered buoyant in spirit by the hopes which the affection and approbation of her venerable kinswoman had kindled anew within her breast (for love and hope go hand in hand), she retired to the garden, to view, for the hundredth time, the spot where she had plighted her faith and love to Walter Fenton, a species of hand-fasting in those days so solemn and binding, that it was almost esteemed a half espousal.
Day was closing, and the old knotty oaks creaked mournfully in the evening wind: now their October foliage was crisped and brown; the branches of many were bare and leafless, and the voice of the coming winter was heard on the hollow gale; while the fallen leaves and faded flowers, the apparent exhaustion and decay of nature, increased the idea of desolation in her mind, and poor Lilian's heart swelled with the sad thoughts that oppressed it. Seated by the mossy dialstone, resigned to solitude and to sorrow, she yielded to the grief that gradually stole over her, and wept bitterly.
How vividly she recollected all the circumstances of that dear interview, and Walter's last injunction—"Remember the hour beside the fountain, and forget not the 20th of September!" The hour was the same; and the fountain was plashing with the same monotonous sound into the same carved basin, and the voice of Walter seemed to mingle with the echo of the falling water.
"Walter! Walter!" she exclaimed, and, dipping her hands again in the water, pressed to her lips the pledge he had given her at parting—his mother's ring, the only trinket he had ever possessed in the world; and though small its apparent value, it contained a secret that was yet to have a potent influence on the fortunes of both.
On the preservation of that ring depended the life of Walter and the mystery of his birth.
Absence had now rendered more dear to her that love which preference, chance, and congenial taste had previously made the all-absorbing feeling of her heart.