“What is it, Dragon?” exclaimed both the children in a breath.
“They say in moonlight nights, the fairies have a feast here, and get their wine out of the well; and that there’s aye some about in the gloaming spreading the tables; but they’ll no meddle wi’ ye, if you’re guid bairns.”
Violet shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked intently under the brushwood, to one spot of bright reflected light upon the water. She did not speak, but with a shiver of fascination and awe watched the slender current steal away under the leaves, and devoutly believed that she had seen the golden vessels of the fairy feast; but even this did not make her forget the story, and again she repeated, “The lady, Dragon, the lady.”
“Weel, bairns, ye see it was the spring season then,” resumed Dragon, “and there was a lang summer time to come—bonnie days—we never have the like of them now—when Leddy Violet was constant at the Well. And the lad—they ca’ed him Sir Harry—came and went, and lay on the grass at her feet, and courted her, and sang to her, and made his reverence, till she learned to think, poor lassie, that there wasna a man like him in a’ the world. So he got acquaint at her father’s house, and courted the auld laird for her, and was about Allenders night and day; and at last it came to pass that they were to be married.
“Now, ye see, having mair to do now, when she was soon to be a married wife, she never got out to her auld wanderings, but sat with her maids, and saw them make gowns of silk and satin for the grand bridal; and this very same sma’ fairy that first brought the gentleman to see her, had cast out with her ain lad by this time, and was in a sorrowful humour, and could not keep her hand from aye meddling with the leddy’s concerns. So what did she do, for an imp of mischief as she maun hae been, but flee away to Sir Harry’s ain land, and gather I kenna how mony stories of him; for he had been but a wild lad in his young days, and was nae better than he should be even then. And I canna tell ye, bairns, what art magic it was dune by, but this I ken, that it a’ came to Leddy Violet’s ain ears—every word o’t. Now ye maun mind, that for her ain sel, she was like a saint; no a wee new-born bairn, nor ane of the like of you, mair innocent than her, though she was a woman grown. And nae suner had she heard this, than her maid that was wi’ her, was aware of a sound like the snapping o’ a string. Na, missie, ye couldna guess what that was—it was a sairer thing than you ever heard tell o’ a’ your days—it was Leddy Violet’s heart.”
Violet had fixed her dilating melancholy eyes, in which the tears were fast swelling, upon the old man’s face, and sat leaning her head upon her hands, bent forward with the deepest attention; while Katie, arrested suddenly in the very act of balancing herself upon the little canopy, turned a look of eager interest upon him, till released by this conclusion she slipped down, and placed herself very quietly on the fallen tree by his side. In his monotonous, half-chaunting voice, the old man proceeded.
“The wedding was put off, and naebody kent what for, for Leddy Violet had a wise heart, and wouldna send him away till she was sure. But there came a gray-bearded man to the gate in the night, and asked to see her—what he said nae man kent; but when the morning broke, Leddy Violet was sitting at her ain window, gripping her hands fast, with a face as wan as the dead, and the bonnie gold hair upon her head a’ covered wi’ flakes of white, like snaw. But she rose up and cried upon her serving-woman, and put on her wedding gown. It was a’ white and glistening—the auld brocade that you read about in books, wrought with flowers, and grander than you ever saw. And then she put her bride’s veil on her head, and went away with a slow, stately step out of Allenders. The serving-woman in fear and trembling creepit away after her, hiding under the hedges along the whole road, and she mindit often that the leddy didna meet a single living person a’ the way—for she came straight here to the Lady’s Well.”
With a shiver of excitement and wonder the children looked round them, and drew closer to Dragon; but the old man went steadily on.
“It was just half-licht, and the woman could see naething but the leddy, with her grand glistening gown and her veil about her head, gaun stately alang the quiet road. When she came to the Well, she sat down upon the stane, and crossed her hands upon her breast, and droopit her head; but there came a noise of folk upon the road at that moment, and Leddy Violet’s woman ran to see what it was. She looked east, and she looked west, but there wasna so much as a shadow on the haill way; and then she was scared and feared, and ran without a stop till she wan hame.
But never mortal man saw Leddy Violet mair.”