“And if not,” resumed the crone, “the change may be far more fearful—but where was I? Oh—a merry romping lass of eighteen, with blue eyes, fair curling locks and red ripe lips—admired by all the village—but above all the favored choice of young Albert Wessenbery. The handsomest, bravest, noblest being! I wish you could have seen him, Mary, in all his pride of vast strength, and perfection of manly beauty. Words cannot express the love with which I loved him. A lifelong loneliness has proved it. Well, as I told you, I was his choice, and consequently the envy of all my acquaintances, for no one thought of denying that Albert Wessenbery was the pride of the village. So powerful, so stately, so devoted to me,—well, well! our wedding day was fixed, and the bridesmaids appointed. A week before—yes, just seven days before our wedding was to have taken place, I bade farewell to Albert for a day only, I believed. Just such a day as this, it was—and perhaps that is the reason why the soft clear sunshine, and the sweet sounds in the air have called up all these old memories so freshly. He pressed me in his arms and bade me farewell till evening. I dreaded his going out to work that day, for there was dangerous duty to be done; but he went in spite of my entreaties, and from that hour to this, I have never seen him return. I remember but dimly what followed. A stunning shock as if an avalanche had overwhelmed me. Death to him was worse than death to me. They told me he had perished in the mine. I know not whether they spoke truly. I have known nothing clearly since that time. I remember only that the light was removed from my path, and that the blackness of madness gathered round me for a while. How long this lasted I know not—when I arose from my bed of sickness, my heart and my flesh failed me, and I was as useless and decrepid as if years had passed over my head. Since that time I have struggled on through a long life of darkness and misery, dragging on a useless and tedious existence.”
“Oh say not useless my good friend; have you not while you had strength, given to others the happiness which fate denied you?”
“My brother gave me a home in his chimney corner, and here have I lived more years than I can count, and for what? God knows—perhaps I may yet live to see Albert return. I cannot fancy him altered as I am. I cannot help hoping to see him once more as he was of old. Vain as the hope may seem to you—that hope has been the only happiness I have known since he left me—the only hope. Of what other use am I in the world? why should I live? what other use? what other hope?” So speaking and shaking her palsied head, she relapsed into her former half unconscious state, occasionally muttering words to which her young companion listened with strained attention; but she could hear no more, neither did she succeed in again arousing the old woman from her apathy.
The Artist sauntered idly onward until he reached the mines; here finding that the reflection of the noon-tide brilliancy from the crystals was painful to the eyesight, he descended into one of the deepest excavations, where he found his acquaintance of the morning, and a fellow labourer at work. The day’s work was a heavy one, for they were opening a communication between the mines, and in heaving up the massive rocks there was great danger of being buried alive beneath their crumbling weight. Such things had often happened.
“Here is a mass which requires more strength than we can furnish,” said Philip, and he shouted for help. The desired assistance arrived, and after an hour’s severe labor, the huge rock was heaved upwards. This removal disclosed a solid stratum of the salt for which they were toiling; but the attainment of the object of their labor called forth no expression of pleasure from the beholders, for the attention of every one was riveted upon a strange and unlooked for apparition. Extended upon this singular couch, lay the form of a young man, apparently not more than twenty years of age; his limbs were exquisitely moulded, and he looked as if but yesterday he had been hushed in the deep sleep of death. It was evident to the minds of all, that many years must have elapsed since the being they had thus disinterred, had been overwhelmed with destruction in attempting to move that massive weight; for many years had passed since that portion of the mine had been worked upon. But was his destruction instantaneous? or did he linger on, day after day, in vain hope for the help which came not? how long had that crystalized rock been his mausoleum? who was he? where were his kindred? Here was a wide field for conjecture. Could no one remember that form which might have passed for a sculptured image of Antinous? But stranger than all this, the body seemed utterly untouched by the hand of time. The very pliability of the flesh remained! Destruction had passed harmlessly by that glorious form, and decomposition had not come near it. There he lay—he, whose existence none could remember—life-like, and beautiful—embalmed as it were in the solid rock. The sinewy, and rounded limbs told of the strength and beauty which had once been theirs, and the long black hair curled wildly over the clay cold face, and nerveless shoulders. He was in his ordinary mining dress, and by his spade and pickaxe beside him, gave evidence of his final and fatal occupation. The body was removed, and laid upon the thick green sward for further inspection, and perhaps recognition. The news spread rapidly, and the inhabitants quickly crowded around. None recollected him, although some of the oldest among them told stories of such an accident which had happened when they were little children; but none could remember the circumstances. After awhile a universal murmur broke from the crowd, for they beheld their oldest villager, Dame Ursula, approach with tottering and unsteady steps, leaning on the arm of a handsome young female. Not the exhumation of the life-like corpse itself, produced greater sensation among them, than the appearance of the living spectre—for such the old woman appeared, having never left her home for more than twenty years.
“Jesu, Maria—the Saints save us,” were echoed around her as the crowd respectfully made room for her to advance. She passed on slowly, and with difficulty, until she reached the stiff white figure of the dead miner. Then throwing herself upon the grass beside him, she passed her withered long fingers through his hair, and pressed it back from the pale brow.
“It is he, it is he—Albert Wessenbery,” she murmured; “and it was for this I have been spared through long years of loneliness, and wretchedness—long, long years—I knew not why I lived. It was for this, for this: that I might see him once more, once more in all his unearthly beauty, in his unmatched perfection: that I might see, and know that time has not marred, nor decay changed, nor the worm defiled the being I have idolized for nearly a century. Spared too to rejoice that my own Albert cannot behold the change which time, and life have wrought in a form he once loved so well. To him these withered arms and lips are welcome as if they yet retained all their former loveliness. He will not reject his early love for her age, and sickness, and unsightlessness. To him therefore I devote the remainder of my existence. Here will I fulfil the vows of love and constancy plighted in the spring time of life.”
She bent her head as she spoke and imprinted with bloodless lips a kiss upon his; her white hair streamed down, and mingled with his raven tresses, her long skinny fingers warm with life, pressed the cold marble hand of the dead! Strange union of youth and age—beauty and deformity—life and death! Seven days afterwards they were buried in the same grave, the superannuated woman, and her youthful lover. The constancy of a lifetime was rewarded, for she was permitted to rest her aged and hoary head, upon the manly, and unaltered breast of him she had loved so long and so well. Turf and flowers sprung up as greenly and freely above their grave as if they had been always young, and beautiful, and happy. Many a garland of young flowers, and the more lasting wreaths of the amaranth were hung upon that grave; and the names of Ursula and Albert, rudely sculptured on the grey stone which covered them, formed their only obituary, save the memory which survives in the hearts of the villagers.