And, as she concluded, she evinced a degree of determination in her voice and manner, which caught the attention of Ashley. But he saw nothing in it, except a little jealousy, which only measured by its intensity the strength of her love; and his pride was inflamed by the demonstration, while the ardour of his purpose was increased. Throwing his arms around the waist of the still somewhat excited maiden, he removed her jealousy by blandishments, and vowed that he had no affection for Catherine Hamilton, who could never stand in a nearer or dearer relation to him than that of acquaintanceship.
Thereafter for a long period the groves of “The Castle,” were frequented by the lovers. The affection of Mary engrossed all her thoughts and feelings, and lent an eloquence to her words and looks, which, to Robin, seemed different from any demonstrations of affection he had yet witnessed. His feelings became interested to a degree beyond what he could have expected as the result of a few meetings with a fisherman’s daughter; and he felt it as a reproach to his true and genuine character of libertinism, that he was in this instance more in earnest, and more sincere in his love, than he had been in any former instance. The feeling was increased by the apparent determination of Mary to defend the fortress of her virtue. The gipsy fancier had been so fortunate in his former amours, that success had made him domineering and impatient of restraint, while a firm opposition hurt his pride, and increased his desire of victory. In this instance, his love—bastard in its nature as it still was—became increased by Mary’s firmness, and he was compelled to have recourse to expedients which implicated his honour in a greater degree than the ordinary schemes of the seducer, bad as they are, generally do. Finding all his endeavours to overcome her virtue unavailing, he had recourse to promises of honourable intentions—those fatal sappers of female innocence, which, directed only where there is strength, are relied upon as the last resources of insidious assailants.
The heart of Mary, occupied as it was with one of the strongest affections of human nature—in her instance, all-engrossing and resistless—did not so far act the traitress to her understanding, as to induce her to resign her honour, without a condition. Her youth and innocence, rendering her unacquainted with the arts of the world and its vices, suggested, as the only result of a mutual attachment, a union of the parties in holy wedlock; and, when Ashley spoke of marriage, as a thing to take place between them, after the death of his father, she only felt surprised at the ceremony being postponed. That these expectations of Mary did not please Ashley, is not unlikely; but the only other effect produced by them, was to make him promise more fervently, and with stronger protestations, that he would abide by his word, as he was a gentleman and a man of honour. Alas! the love of woman is credulous, as well as blind; and if we did not believe those who are dearest to us of all the world, who is there in it to whom faith should be given? Mary believed; and, like millions who have had the same faith, and the same apparently irrefragable grounds whereon to build it, she was undone. He who takes the honey sometimes gets the sting; the little insect which supplies the figure of speech fulfils a purpose in nature, when, after its support, during the period when no flowers exist, from which to get a supply, has been taken from it, and it is consigned to want and death, it throws away in its vengeance on the spoiler, the life which is only of use to dart the sting, and leave its spark of vitality along with the poison in the wound.
As time waned, the ruined Mary felt her passion increase and saw her lover’s decay. He came now no longer to the grove where the sweet dalliance of a new passion ruffled the silence with the music of muffled sighs. She went at the accustomed hour, and at the hour not accustomed, and she returned without bringing with her a token that the hope of the morning had found a resting-place at even. The willow where they had met retained its charm, and, long after she had given up hopes of his coming, she sat under it, and wept bitterly for a loss which no power on earth could make up to her. But her tears flowed in vain—for Robin-a-Ree came not; and her groans only awakened the dull and drowsy ear of the hind, who, driving his cattle from the field, thought it strange that a woman should weep, and whistled his tune, which her sobbing had interrupted for a moment. The breaking heart of love has no consolation, unless when its sorrowful indications imitate the vulgar hues of bodily disease, and then it can command a prescription; yet sometimes it finds for itself, and in its own recesses, a poison, which has more virtue in it than all the simples of the leech.
Now a considerable time had passed without any intelligence of Ashley, when, one day, as Mary sat under the tree, she saw a gentleman approach, whom she recognised as Ashley’s friend, George Henley. He accosted her in a bold and familiar style; and told her that her friend and lover had gone to Edinburgh, in the company of Miss Catherine Hamilton, and had commissioned him to yield her what consolation was in his power, in the shape of supplying his place as a new and fresh lover—a commission which he could have no inclination to disobey, when he contemplated her beauty, and recollected the favours she had bestowed on his fortunate friend. The salutation struck the unhappy girl dumb, and Henley mistook the benumbing effects of incipient despair as a passive acquiescence in his ribald sentiments—a consent to his unhallowed purposes. Under this impression, he was about to clasp his arms round her waist, when the enraged and frantic girl struck him a blow, concentrating in its force the collected strength of her frenzied energies, and stunned him beyond what could have been conceived to be the effect of a woman’s uplifted arm. But injured virtue—and poor Mary Lee’s feelings had still a virtue in them—has a power which proud man has been often brought to acknowledge and to feel. The cowardly braggart, only brave in pseudo love, was so tamed by the blow, and so humiliated by the noble attitude of the asserter of her dearest rights, that he slunk away as if he had been caught in an act of larceny, or stung by a serpent.
“Go,” cried she, “an’ tell him wha commissioned ye, how weel ye have done your duty, an’ how I have performed mine. Think, as ye look on the earth—for ye canna face heaven—that there is the connach worm crawlin’ amang yer feet, claimin’ the kindred o’ ane wha wasna formed to look in the face o’ a woman! Shun, as the screech-owl does, the licht o’ day, yon eagle that perches on the trystin’ oak, for the gleam o’ its bright e’e will, as the sun puts out the humble peat-moss ingle, blind the dastardly wretch, wha canna abide the look o’ the woman he has insulted. If Robin-a-Ree sent ye to me, tell him that I have sent ye to him, to say that Mary Lee has, in the wreck o’ her feelin’s, enough left to fire the house an’ hearth o’ his new affections.”
A strange speech, and delivered with the impassioned mien and voice of the Pythoness. A new and hitherto unfelt power and energy had seized the frame of this strange girl, the instinctive enthusiasm of a deep revenge had come upon her like an inspiration. She turned her eyes from the direction in which Henley had gone, and, with downcast look and a brooding melancholy, sought her home.
Thereafter, it was currently reported in the village that Robert Ashley was about to be married to Catherine Hamilton. From that period, the whole character of Mary underwent a change: she was never seen to smile, yet she never wept. Her griefs had left the heart, where they operate to soften or to break, and seized the brain, where they generate dreams of revenge, and frenzied illusions of the fancy. Her blue eye now burnt with a sterner fire than even in her former fits of anger she had ever exhibited; her demeanour, shewing fits and starts, and a general disturbance of all her feelings, told, to the most careless observer, that the change which had come over her extended to the fountain of her feelings, and the springs of her hope. Her usual sympathies seemed to be dried up, and nothing was left but the simoom of a stern and deadly hatred, which shewed itself in sudden exclamations, clenching of the hands, and wild looks. The report was soon circulated, that Mary Lee was mad; but those who knew her better, saw, in her strange conduct and demeanour, only the workings, on a larger scale, of the same spirit which had been noticed by her father at a very early period.
The rumours as to the intended marriage of Ashley were indeed true; and they were soon followed by an announcement of a more certain nature, that the marriage was to take place at “The Castle” within a month. The intelligence reached the ears of Mary; but its effect was only to add to the gloom which had apparently taken its eternal seat in her countenance. She spoke to no one of the marriage, and gave no answer when any question regarding it was proposed by the neighbours. Her father, who had watched her conduct, and suspected an undue intimacy between her and Ashley, conjectured the cause of the change that had taken place on his child; but from his knowledge of her peculiar temper, which had uniformly resisted every attempt to draw from her her secrets, or to change the character and hue of her feelings, he despaired of being able to acquire any proof of the reality of his conjecture: so he followed the course suggested by his paternal feelings, and endeavoured to soothe his daughter under her affliction, and soften the obduracy of her apparent misanthropy. His efforts were vain—the change on his daughter’s heart was as complete and lasting as if it had been effected by an organic mal-disposition of its functions; her looks, and short ejaculations of bitter scorn of the higher sanctions of love or marriage, evinced a settled spirit of demoniac frenzy; every indication proved the existence of that extraordinary state of the female mind, produced by a deluded or scorned affection, when the heart, instead of giving way to the revulsion of rejected feeling, and breaking, secretes and nourishes a poison—like the saliva of the serpent which has bit itself—destructive to the destroyer and the victim.
On the day fixed for the marriage of Ashley, there were great preparations made for rejoicings at “The Castle.” A dinner was prepared for the tenents on the lawn, and all males and females residing on the estate were invited to attend, to partake of the liberality of the young laird, and wish him and his lady joy. An immense number of people were collected, and the dinner was pronounced worthy of the spirit of the young bridegroom. The repast being finished, the party were regaled with drinks of various sorts; and Ashley and his bride came down from “The Castle” to witness the gay scene. Then it was resolved that the whole guests should rise with queghs in their hands, and drink to the health and happiness of the young and handsome pair. This was accordingly done; and the shouts of the boisterous labourers of the land rent the welkin in honour of the toast. Ashley rose, as his guests resumed their seats, and returned thanks for the kindness which had been exhibited to him. He made large promises of reductions of rent, when fate should be so unkind as to remove his father from this earthly scene; and told them that the man who had never broken his pledge, had that day a right to demand their faith and trust in a profession which filled the hearts of the poor farmers with joy. These sentiments were responded to by louder shouts, and a scene of joyous uproar was exhibited which had never before been witnessed from the windows of “The Castle.” Ashley sat down; and, nearly opposite to the place he occupied, there was seen to rise a figure wrapped up in a cloak, as if in the attitude of one intending to address the assembly. This person was no other than Mary Lee. Pointing her finger over to Ashley, and fixing her eye with the sternness of one determined not to be shaken from a desperate purpose, she said, in a tone of voice which suited itself with wonderful pathos to the style of her speech—