“Alas, Damœtas, this is mournful counsel for a man not three days married!” sighed the unhappy shepherd, and resumed his melancholy musings, to which the hermit sorrowfully left him. Continuing his journey, Damœtas arrived presently in view of Colin’s rustic cot, which was seated on a gentle eminence, commanding a charmingly diversified prospect. Here he discovered the beauteous Silvia, who had thrown herself weeping on the ground in the delicious shades of the grove, paying no heed to the whispers of the balmy gale, nor to the music of the rill that murmured beside her. Hearing the approaching footstep, however, she sprang up from her lowly couch.
“Oh, sir, what of Colin?” cried the lovely nymph. “Is he safe?”
“I left him but now in perfect safety,” replied the good Damœtas. “But what ails the fair Silvia, and why is she concerned for her Colin’s safety?”
“Oh, sir,” she replied with tears, “I think I have not enjoyed one easy moment since hearing of the menaces uttered by Sinzonius. I can’t endure that Colin should be out of my sight, and yet when he is with me I am tormented with apprehensions of beholding him murdered before my eyes, and it is I have brought this danger upon him. Thoughtless and wicked damsel that I was, I consented to unite my own evil fate with his, forgetting the misfortunes that are come upon all connected with me.”
“But sure Silvia was acquainted with this when she consented to oblige Colin?”
“Alas, sir! I forgot it, as I have said, for the moment, transported as I was with joy to think that I might hope to render him happy. But ’twas a deceitful hope. Colin has already learned his mistake.”
“Has he discovered that his Silvia can’t make him happy?”
“Alas, sir, yes! I have observed his uneasiness grow continually these two days. He has questionless determined that his poor Silvia en’t worth the perils that the possessing her involves. My tears distress him, and I seek to hide them, but my apprehensions I can’t conceal, and they tease him excessively. If I had but the assurance of his affection I could be happier, but the cup of my misery is filled by the thought that he was persuaded by his friends to take pity on me owing to my desolate situation. This very day I sought to express to him something of the distress I experience for the wrong I have done him, when he answered me very shortly that we had both made a mistake, but that ’twould do no good to weep over it.”
The hermit, now become fully sensible of what the tragedians call the irony of the situation, was at some loss how to proceed, but said at length—
“In that remark, as I can’t deny, Silvia’s spouse was justified. I would have her dry her tears and meet Colin with a cheerful countenance. Let her dress herself in her best——”