CHAPTER XII.
"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,
The mirror where the stars and mountains view
The stillness of their aspect in each trace
Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue."
Childe Harold.
"And can you rend, by doubting still,
A heart so much your own?"—Moore.
"What a delightful evening this is!" said Lady Arranmore to Ellen Ravensworth, as their boat, whose wing-like sails not a breath filled, was rowed slowly up clear Leman by the measured splash of the oars, over which bent two stout Switzers. "How exquisite is every tint of mountain, lake, and cloud! it was surely on a sister evening to this that Lord Byron penned those beautiful lines in Childe Harold? Listen, Miss Ravensworth," continued the young Marchioness, as she opened a handsomely bound pocket edition of that poem, and in a sweet clear voice read the following stanza:—
"It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,
There breathes a living fragrance, from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more."
Childe Harold, Canto iii., Stanza lxxxvi.
Ellen listened abstractedly without reply, as if her mind was too filled with beauty to speak, and preferred silent adoration. The slight felucca-like craft, in which our young friends glided over the glassy surface of the dark-blue lake, was now some miles from Geneva, whose white palaces rose clearly above the waters, and were doubled in apparent height by their perfect reflection below. To the left frowned the black chain of Jura, and on the right beyond the Salève—dear to Ellen from its wonderful resemblance to the Salisbury crags of modern Athens—rose, cloud-like, "the monarch of mountains," throned high above the many aiguilles that stood like courtiers around their king. The summits of these Alps were distinctly reflected in the indigo depths beneath their boat, though a distance of fifty miles severed the admirers from their mirror.
The sun had already set, the evening star shone silvery over the west glowing with the lingering daylight; the valleys lay already robed in gloom; the lake shadowed; but the far heights of Mont Blanc still showed sunny peaks, and presented a strange contrast to "darkened Jura." Not a zephyr was awake—not a flaw disturbed the serenity of the waters, broken only by the dip of the oar which, as it touched the dark surface, made the waters flash with a blue light inconceivable to those who have never viewed this lake. The useless sails of the picturesque little craft resembled the wings of a sea-gull, or some other bird, calmly suspended a moment ere closed to rest. Towards the upper end of the lake the Alps descending rise more perpendicularly from the surface, and looked like grim sentinels watching over a fairy fountain. As the lake is crescent-shaped this part was of course hidden; but from behind the slight eminence that sloped down to the right bank, the sails of a similar craft were visible, and from them the clear notes of the silver bugle, mellowed into softness by the distance, rose with an indescribable sweetness, and died away in soft decay along the tranquil waters. There is something peculiarly delicious in music on the waters, and as the strains rose or fell in softest cadence our heroine listened with an earnestness as if it was the minstrelsy of angels. The musician was probably English if we might judge by the song he selected:—"There is no place like Home." Whilst it lasted the very boatmen, as if loath to lose one note, bent over their suspended oars, and the young friends looked at each other but spoke not. At last the dying fall grew fainter and fainter, till it entirely ceased, but was once more taken up and echoed among the vocal hills ere silence again brooded.
"Ah, how true that is, Lady Arranmore," said Ellen; "is it not? Beautiful as this land is, it is not home; and whilst our lips may say there is no scene like this in the land of our birth, yet our heart belies our words, and whispers, 'There is no place like home.'"
"True, Miss Ravensworth; yet you must remember we are here for our own pleasure, we are not like the exile, or the emigrant, unable to return;—we can hasten back when we please, and find the smiles of friends all the brighter after a slight absence. I fear you are unhappy, and look on the shady instead of the sunny side of life, and bend your eye rather toward yonder dark-browed Jura, than to the sunlit crest of Mont Blanc."
"And yet, Lady Arranmore, how cold is that peak of snow!—rosy though it be it only reflects the light and warmth it cannot feel. I have sometimes thought my heart was like that snowy height; in all perhaps except the imperishable pureness of its tint. To my mind there is something melancholy, almost distressing, in an evening like this; the last loveliness, the dying glory which lingers a few moments ere darkness lowers. It seems to tell us not to trust the smile of fortune, but to recollect how a night, whose darkness passeth not away, comes after."