“O Gabriel! Gabriel! well indeed have I loved you; nor will I say, after all that has passed between us, that you are not deserving, after all, of a better love than mine. Vain were it to deny my love, either to you or to my own soul. But look me in the face—be not wrathful—think not to hide the truth either from yourself or me, for that now is impossible—but tell me solemnly, as you shall answer to God at the judgment-day, if you know any reason why I must not be your wedded wife.” She kept her mild moist eyes fixed upon him; but he hung down his head and uttered not a word, for he was guilty before her, before his own soul, and before God.
“Gabriel, never could we have been happy; for you often, often told me, that all the secrets of your heart were known unto me, yet never did you tell me this. How could you desert the poor innocent creature that loved you; and how could you use me so, who loved you perhaps as well as she, but whose heart God will teach, not to forget you, for that may I never do, but to think on you with that friendship and affection which innocently I can bestow upon you, when you are Sarah’s husband. For, Gabriel, I have this night sworn, not in anger or passion—no, no—but in sorrow and pity for another’s wrongs—in sorrow also, deny it will I not, for my own—to look on you from this hour, as on one whose life is to be led apart from my life, and whose love must never more meet with my love. Speak not unto me—look not on me with beseeching eyes. Duty and religion forbid us ever to be man and wife. But you know there is one, besides me, whom you loved before you loved me, and, therefore, it may be better too; and that she loves you, and is faithful, as if God had made you one, I say without fear—I who have known her since she was a child, although, fatally for the peace of us both, we have long lived apart. Sarah is in the house; I will bring her unto you in tears, but not tears of penitence, for she is as innocent of that sin as I am, who now speak.”
Mary went into the little parlour, and led Sarah forward in her hand. Despairing as she had been, yet when she had heard from poor Mary’s voice speaking so fervently, that Gabriel had come, and that her friend was interceding in her behalf, the poor girl had arranged her hair in a small looking-glass—tied it up with a ribbon which Gabriel had given her, and put into the breast of her gown a little gilt brooch, that contained locks of their blended hair. Pale but beautiful—for Sarah Pringle was the fairest girl in all the country—she advanced with a flush on that paleness of reviving hope, injured pride, and love that was ready to forgive all and forget all, so that once again she could be restored to the place in his heart that she had lost. “What have I ever done, Gabriel, that you should fling me from you? May my soul never live by the atonement of my Saviour, if I am not innocent of that sin, yea, of all distant thought of that sin, with which you, even you, have in your hard-heartedness charged me. Look me in the face, Gabriel, and think of all I have been unto you, and if you say that before God, and in your own soul, you believe me guilty, then will I go away out into the dark night, and, long before morning, my troubles will be at an end.”
Truth was not only in her fervent and simple words, but in the tone of her voice, the colour of her face, and the light of her eyes. Gabriel had long shut up his heart against her. At first, he had doubted her virtue, and that doubt gradually weakened his affection. At last he tried to believe her guilty, or to forget her altogether, when his heart turned to Mary Robinson, and he thought of making her his wife. His injustice—his wickedness—his baseness—which he had so long concealed, in some measure, from himself, by a dim feeling of wrong done him, and afterwards by the pleasure of a new love, now appeared to him as they were, and without disguise. Mary took Sarah’s hand and placed it within that of her contrite lover; for had the tumult of conflicting passions allowed him to know his own soul, such at that moment he surely was, saying with a voice as composed as the eyes with which she looked upon them, “I restore you to each other; and I already feel the comfort of being able to do my duty. I will be bride’s-maid. And I now implore the blessing of God upon your marriage. Gabriel, your betrothed will sleep this night in my bosom. We will think of you, better, perhaps, than you deserve. It is not for me to tell you what you have to repent of. Let us all three pray for each other this night, and evermore, when we are on our knees before our Maker. The old people will soon be at home. Goodnight, Gabriel.” He kissed Sarah; and, giving Mary a look of shame, humility, and reverence, he went home to meditation and repentance.
It was now midsummer; and before the harvest had been gathered in throughout the higher valleys, or the sheep brought from the mountain-fold, Gabriel and Sarah were man and wife. Time passed on, and a blooming family cheered their board and fireside. Nor did Mary Robinson, the Flower of the Forest (for so the woodcutter’s daughter was often called), pass her life in single blessedness. She, too, became a wife and mother; and the two families, who lived at last on adjacent farms, were remarkable for mutual affection throughout all the parish, and more than one intermarriage took place between them, at a time when the worthy parents had almost forgotten the trying incident of their youth.
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND CHATELAR;
OR, TWILIGHT MUSINGS IN HOLYROOD.
There are no mysteries into which we are so fond of prying as the mysteries of the heart. The hero of the best novel in the world, if he could not condescend to fall in love, might march through his three volumes and excite no more sensation than his grandmother; and a newspaper without a breach of promise of marriage is a thing not to be endured.
It is not my intention to affect any singular exception from this natural propensity, and I am ready to confess that the next best thing to being in love oneself, is to speculate on the hopes, and fears, and fates of others. How truly interesting are the little schemes and subterfuges, the romancing and story-telling of our dove-eyed and gentle-hearted playfellows! I have listened to a lame excuse for a stolen ride in a tilbury, or a duet in the woods, with wonderful sensibility; and have witnessed the ceremony of cross-questioning with as much trepidation as I could have felt had I been the culprit myself. It is not, however, to be maintained that the love adventures of the present age can, in any way, compete with the enchantment of days agone; when tender souls were won by tough exploits, and Cupid’s dart was a twenty-foot lance, ordained only to reach the lady’s heart through the ribs of the rival. This was the golden age of love, albeit I am not one to lament it, thinking, as I do, that it is far more sensible to aid and abet my neighbour in toasting the beauty of his mistress, than to caper about with him in the lists, for contradiction’s sake, to the imminent danger and discomfort of us both. After this came the middle or dark ages of love, when it had ceased to be a glory, but had lost nothing of its fervour as a passion. If there is here less of romance than in the tilting days, there is considerably more of interest, because there is more of mystery. In the one, the test of true love was to make boast, in the other it was to keep secret. Accordingly, for an immense space of time, we have nothing but such fragments of adventures as could be gathered by eavesdroppers, who leave us to put head and tail to them as best suits our fancy; and the loves of Queen Elizabeth, who lived, as it were, only yesterday, are less known than the loves of queen Genevra, who perhaps never lived at all.
These amatory reflections occurred to me some little time ago, during a twilight reverie in the long, gloomy banqueting-room of Holyrood. It was the very land of love and mystery, for there was scarcely one of the grim visages which glared upon the walls, but had obtained his share of celebrity in lady’s bower, as well as in tented field; and of scarcely one of whom any certain and defined adventures have been handed down. I continued speculating through this line of kings, blessing the mark and confounding the painter, who has given us so little of their history in their faces, till I grew quite warm upon the subject, and found myself uniting and reasoning upon the few facts of which we are in possession, till I fancied I could penetrate through two or three centuries at least, and had a pretty shrewd idea as to who and who had been together.
Scotland has, I think, in spite of its sober, money-making character, always excited a more romantic curiosity than England. This, perhaps, is more owing to its peculiar misfortunes than to any particular difference of disposition. English heroes have been as brave, and no doubt as loving, but they do not walk under such a halo of pity; and whilst we pry with eagerness into the secrets of the gallant Jameses, we suffer those of their English contemporaries to be “interred with their bones.” I have always felt this strongly, and at the time of which I speak, I felt it stronger than ever. I was treading upon the very boards which had bounded to their manly steps, and was surrounded by the very walls which possessed the secret whisperings of their hearts. From that identical window, perhaps, had the first James gazed upon the moon, which I saw rising, and fancied that he almost held commune with the eyes of his English beauty. There, perhaps, had the royal poet entwined her name with the choicest hopes of his bosom, and woven a tale of happiness which concealed but too securely the assassin and the dagger behind it. There, too, might the courteous and courageous victims of Flodden Field and Solway Moss have planned the loves which characterised their lives, and the wars which concluded them, almost at the same moment. And there might the hapless Mary have first listened to the poisonous passion of a Darnley, or a Bothwell, and afterwards shed the tears of bitterness and self-reproach.