"She's dead," said she, at last, and then added,—"let's see,—ain't you the gentleman that called here, some three or four years ago?"
"Yes", said I, entering the room; "I should like to hear about her death."
"Well,—'twas rather queer. She was failin' when you was here. After that she got softer and weaker-like, an' didn't have her deathlike wearin' sleeps so often, but she went just as fast for all that. The doctor said 'twas heart-disease, and the nerves was gone, too; so he only giv' her morphy, and sometimes pills, but he knowed she'd no chance from the first. 'Twas a year ago last May when she died. She'd been confined to her bed about a week, but I'd no thought of her goin' so soon. I was settin' up with her, and 'twas a little past midnight, maybe. She'd been layin' like dead awhile, an' I was thinkin' I could snatch a nap before she woke. All't onst she riz right up in bed, with her eyes wide open, an' her face lookin' real happy, an' called out, loud and strong,—'Farewell, Eber Nicholson! farewell! I've come for the last time! There's peace for me in heaven, an' peace for you on earth! Farewell! farewell!' Then she dropped back on the piller, stone-dead. She'd expected it, 't seems, and got the doctor to write her will. She left me this house and lot,—I'm her second cousin on the mother's side,—but all her money in the Savin's Bank, six hundred and seventy-nine dollars and a half, to Eber Nicholson. The doctor writ out to Illinois, an' found he'd gone to Kansas, a year before. So the money's in bank yit; but I s'pose he'll git it, some time or other."
As I returned to the hotel, conscious of a melancholy pleasure at the news of her death, I could not help wondering,—"Did he hear that last farewell, far away in his Kansas cabin? Did he hear it, and fall asleep with thanksgiving in his heart, and arise in the morning to a liberated life?" I have never visited Kansas, nor have I ever heard from him since; but I know that the living ghost which haunted him is laid forever.
Reader, you will not believe my story: BUT IT IS TRUE.
* * * * *
RHOTRUDA.
In the golden reign of Charlemaign the king,
The three-and-thirtieth year, or thereabout,
Young Eginardus, bred about the court,
(Left mother-naked at a postern-door,)
Had thence by slow degrees ascended up,—
First page, then pensioner, lastly the king's knight
And secretary; yet held these steps for nought,
Save as they led him to the Princess' feet,
Eldest and loveliest of the regal three,
Most gracious, too, and liable to love:
For Bertha was betrothed; and she, the third,
Giselia, would not look upon a man.
So, bending his whole heart unto this end,
He watched and waited, trusting to stir to fire
The indolent interest in those large eyes,
And feel the languid hands beat in his own,
Ere the new spring. And well he played his part,—
Slipping no chance to bribe or brush aside
All that would stand between him and the light:
Making fast foes in sooth, but feeble friends.
But what cared he, who had read of ladies' love,
And how young Launcelot gained his Guenovere,—
A foundling, too, or of uncertain strain?
And when one morning, coming from the bath,
He crossed the Princess on the palace-stair,
And kissed her there in her sweet disarray,
Nor met the death he dreamed of in her eyes,
He knew himself a hero of old romance,—
Not seconding, but surpassing, what had been.
And so they loved; if that tumultuous pain
Be love,—disquietude of deep delight,
And sharpest sadness: nor, though he knew her heart
His very own,—gained on the instant, too,
And like a waterfall that at one leap
Plunges from pines to palms, shattered at once
To wreaths of mist and broken spray-bows bright,—
He loved not less, nor wearied of her smile;
But through the daytime held aloof and strange
His walk; mingling with knightly mirth and game;
Solicitous but to avoid alone
Aught that might make against him in her mind;
Yet strong in this,—that, let the world have end,
He had pledged his own, and held Rhotruda's troth.
But Love, who had led these lovers thus along,
Played them a trick one windy night and cold:
For Eginardus, as his wont had been,
Crossing the quadrangle, and under dark,—
No faint moonshine, nor sign of any star,—
Seeking the Princess' door, such welcome found,
The knight forgot his prudence in his love;
For lying at her feet, her hands in his,
And telling tales of knightship and emprise
And ringing war, while up the smooth white arm
His fingers slid insatiable of touch,
The night grew old: still of the hero-deeds
That he had seen he spoke, and bitter blows
Where all the land seemed driven into dust,
Beneath fair Pavia's wall, where Loup beat down
The Longobard, and Charlemaign laid on,
Cleaving horse and rider; then, for dusty drought
Of the fierce tale, he drew her lips to his,
And silence locked the lovers fast and long,
Till the great bell crashed One into their dream.