Slowly departing, I raised my eyes to the Castle of Inismore and sighed, and almost wished I had been born the Lord of these beautiful ruins, the Prince of this isolated little territory, and adored chieftain of these affectionate and natural people. At that moment a strain of music stole by me, as if the breeze of midnight stillness had expired in a manner on the Eolian lyre. Emotion, undefinable emotion, thrilled on every nerve. I listened. I trembled. A breathless silence gave me every note. Was it the illusion of my now all-awakened fancy, or the professional exertions of the bard of Inismore? Oh, no! for the voice it symphonized, the low, wild, tremulous voice which sweetly sighed its soul of melody o’er the harp’s responsive chords, was the voice of a woman!
Directed by the witching strain, I approached an angle of the building from whence it seemed to proceed; and perceiving a light which streamed through an open casement, I climbed with some difficulty the ruins of a parapet wall which encircled this wing of the castle, and which rose so immediately under the casement as to give me, when I stood on it, a perfect view of the interior of that apartment to which it belonged.
Two tapers, which burned on a marble slab at the remotest extremity of this vast and gloomy chamber, shed their dim blue light on the saintly countenance of Father John, who, with a large folio open before him, seemed wholly wrapped in studious meditation; while the Prince, reclined on an immense Gothic couch, with his robe thrown over the arm that supported his head, betrayed by the expression of his countenance those emotions, which agitated his soul, while he listened to those strains which spoke at once to the heart of the father, the patriot, and the man—breathed from the chords of his country’s emblem—breathed in the pathos of his country’s music—breathed from the lips of his apparently inspired daughter! The white rising of her hands upon the harp the half-drawn veil that imperfectly discovered the countenance of a seraph; the moonlight that played round her fine form, and partially touched her drapery with its silver beam—her attitude! her air! But how cold—how inanimate—how imperfect this description! Oh! could I but seize the touching features—could I but realize the vivid tints of this enchanting picture, as they then glowed on my fancy! By heavens! you would think the mimic copy fabulous; “the celestial visitant” of an overheated imagination. Yet, as if the independent witchery of the lovely minstrel was not in itself all, all-sufficient, at the back of her chair stood the grotesque figure of her antiquated nurse. O! the precious contrast. And yet it heightened, it finished the picture.
While thus entranced in breathless observation, endeavouring to support my precarious tenement, and to prolong this rich feast of the senses and the soul, the loose stones on which I tottered gave way under my feet, and impulsively clinging to the wood work of the casement, it mouldered in my grasp. I fell—but before I reached the earth I was bereft of sense. With its return I found myself in a large apartment, stretched on a bed, and supported in the arms of the Prince of Inismore! his hand was pressed to my bleeding temple, while the priest applied a styptic to the wound it had received; and the nurse was engaged in binding up my arm, which had been dreadfully bruised and fractured a little above the wrist. Some domestics, with an air of mingled concern and curiosity, surrounded my couch; and at her father’s side stood the Lady Glorvina, her looks pale and disordered—her trembling hands busily employed in preparing bandages, for which my skilful doctress impatiently called.
While my mind almost doubted the evidence of my senses, and a physical conviction alone painfully proved to me the reality of all I beheld, my wandering, wondering eyes met those of the Prince of Inismore! A volume of pity and benevolence was registered in their glance; nor were mine, I suppose, inexpressive of my feelings, for he thus replied to them:
“Be of good cheer, young stranger; you are in no danger; be composed; be confident; conceive yourself in the midst of friends; for you are surrounded by those who would wish to be considered as such.”
I attempted to speak, but my voice faltered; my tongue was nerveless; my mouth dry and parched. A trembling hand presented a cordial to my lips. I quaffed the philtre, and fixed my eyes on the face of my ministering angel. That angel was Glorvina! I closed them, and sunk on the bosom of her father.
“Oh, he faints again!” cried a sweet and plaintive voice.
“On the contrary,” replied the priest, “the weariness of acute pain something subsided, is lulling him into a soft repose; for see, the colour reanimates his cheek, and his pulse quickens.”
“It indeed beats most wildly,” returned the sweet physician; for the pulse which responded to her finger’s thrilling pressure moved with no languid throb.