GLORVINA, THE MAID OF MEATH.
(Concluded from Vol. I. page 619.)
The board was spread. He sat at it abstracted for a time. The dead silence of the place at last recalled him to himself. He was alone! He sprang from his seat, and darted breathlessly to the outward door! No one was in sight. Niall heaved a sigh that seemed to rend his breast, as he wished that the eyes which looked in vain were closed for ever. He returned to the table of repast; he took a small chain of hair from his neck; he laid it on the cover that was before him: he approached the door again. But the keepsake, that had never left its seat for many a year, was too precious to him to be so discarded. He returned: he lifted it, and, thrusting it into his bosom, pressed it again and again to his heart, then again and again to his lips, drinking his own tears, that fell fast and thick upon the loved and about-to-be-relinquished token; he looked at it as well as he could through his blinded eyes, convulsively sobbing forth the name of Glorvina. He made one effort, as it were a thing which called for all the power of resolution, to achieve that he desired to accomplish; and, violently casting the gift of Glorvina down again, he tore himself away!
Oh, the feet which retrace in disappointment the path which they trod in hope, how they move! Through how different a region do they bear us—and yet the same! Niall's limbs bore him from the retreat of Glorvina as if they acted in obedience to a spirit repugnant to his own. He cast his eyes this way and that way to divert his thoughts from the subject that engrossed them, and fix them upon the beauties of the landscape; but there was no landscape there. Mountain, wood, torrent, river, lake, were obliterated! Nothing was present but Glorvina. Rich she stood before him in the bursting bloom of young womanhood! Features, complexion, figure, voice—everything changed; and, oh, with what enhancing! Her eyes, in which, four years before, sprightliness, frankness, kindness, and unconsciousness used to shine,—what looked from them now? New spirits! things of the soul which time brings forth in season. Expression,—that face of the heart,—the thousand things that it told in the moment or two that Niall looked upon the face of Glorvina! A faintness came over the young man; his limbs seemed suddenly to fail him; he felt as if his respiration were about to stop; he stood still, he staggered, utter unconsciousness succeeded.
Niall opened his eyes. Slowly recollection returned. He was aware that he had fainted, but certainly not in the place where he was reclining,—a bank a few paces from the road. The repulse he had met with from Glorvina returned to his recollection in full force. He sighed, and thrust his hand into his bosom to press it to his overcharged heart. His hand felt something there it did not expect to meet! It drew forth the token of Glorvina! Niall could scarce believe his vision. He looked again and again at the precious gift; he pressed it to his lips; he thrust it into his breast; snatched it thence to his lips again, and looked at it again; divided between incredulity and certainty, past agony and present rapture. He looked about him; no one was in sight. "How came it here?" exclaimed he to himself. "Glorvina! Glorvina!" he continued, in tender accents, "was it thy hand that placed it here? Hast thou been near me when I knew it not? Didst thou follow me in pity,—perhaps, O transporting thought! in kindness,—guessing from the untasted repast and the abandoned pledge that Niall had departed in despair? If so, then art thou still my own Glorvina! then shalt thou yet become the wife of Niall!"
"The wife of Niall!" repeated the echo, and echo after echo took it up.
Niall listened till the last reverberation died away.
"The wife of Niall!" he reiterated, in a yet louder voice, in the tone of which exultation and joy were mingled.