But, though Amy Gordon knew not yet what it was to love, she was herself the object of as deep, true, tender, and passionate love, as ever swelled and kindled within a human breast. Her own cousin, Walter Harden, now lived and would have died for her, but had not hitherto ventured to tell his passion. He was a few years older than her, and had long loved her with the gentle purity of a brother’s affection. Amy had no brother of her own, and always called Walter Harden by that endearing name. That very name of brother had probably so familiarised her heart towards him, that never had she thought of him, even for a single moment, in any other light. But, although he too called Amy sister, his heart burned with other feelings, and he must win her to be his bride, and possess her as his wife, or die. When she was a mere child he had led her by the hand—when a fair girl he had in his arms lifted her across the swollen burns, and over the snow-drifts—now that she was a woman he had looked on her in silence, but with a soul overcharged with a thousand thoughts, hopes, and desires, which he feared to speak of to her ear; for he knew, and saw, and felt, in sorrow, that she loved him but as a brother. He knew, however, that she loved none else; and in that—and that alone—was his hope,—so he at last determined to woo the Lily of Liddisdale, and win her, in her beauty and fragrance, to bloom within his house.
The Lily was sitting alone in a deep hollow among the hills, with her sheep and lambs pasturing or playing around her, while over that little secluded circle a single hawk was hanging far up in the sky. She was glad, but not surprised, to see her brother standing beside her; and when he sat down by her side, and took her hand into his, she looked upon him with a gentle smile, and asked if he was going upon business further on among the hills. Walter Harden instantly poured forth, in a torrent, the passion of his soul, beseeched her not to shut up her sweet bosom against him, but to promise to become, before summer was over, his wedded wife. He spoke with fervour but trepidation; kissed her cheek; and then awaited, with a fast-throbbing and palpitating heart, his Amy’s reply.
There was no guile, no art, no hypocrisy in the pure and happy heart of the Lily of Liddisdale. She took not away her hand from that of him who pressed it; she rose not up from the turf, although her gentle side just touched his heart; she turned not away her face so beautiful, nor changed the silvery sweetness of her speech. Walter Harden was such a man as in a war of freemen, defending their mountains against a tyrant, would have advanced his plume in every scene of danger, and have been chosen a leader among his pastoral compeers. Amy turned her large beaming hazel eyes upon his face, and saw that it was overshadowed. There was something in its expression too sad and solemn, mingling with the flush of hope and passion, to suffer her, with playful or careless words, to turn away from herself the meaning of what she had heard. Her lover saw in her kind but unagitated silence, that to him she was but a sister; and, rising to go, he said, “Blessed be thou all the days of thy life; farewell, my sweet Amy, farewell!”
But they did not thus part. They walked together on the lonely hill-side, down the banks of the little wimpling burn, and then out of one small glen into another, and their talk was affectionate and kind. Amy heard him speak of feelings to her unknown, and almost wondered that she could be so dear to him, so necessary to his life, as he passionately vowed. Nor could such vows be unpleasant to her ear, uttered by that manly voice, and enforced by the silent speech of those bold but gentle eyes. She concealed nothing from him, but frankly confessed, that hitherto she had looked upon him even as her own father’s son. “Let us be happy, Walter, as we have been so long. I cannot marry you—oh—no—no; but since you say it would kill you if I married another, then I swear to you by all that is sacred—yes, by the Bible on which we have often read together, and by yonder sun setting over the Windhead, that you never will see that day.” Walter Harden was satisfied; he spoke of love and marriage no more; and in the sweet, fresh, airless, and dewy quiet of evening, they walked together down into the inhabited vale, and parted, almost like brother and sister, as they had been used to do for so many happy years.
Soon after this, Amy was sent by her father to the Priory, the ancient seat of the Elliots, with some wicker-baskets which they had made for the young ladies there. A small plantation of willows was in the corner of the meadow in which their cottage stood, and from them the old shepherd and his daughter formed many little articles of such elegance and ingenuity, that they did not seem out of place even in the splendid rooms of the Priory. Amy had slung some of these pieces of rural workmanship round her waist, while some were hanging on her arms, and thus she was gliding along a footpath through the old elm-woods that shelter the Priory, when she met young George Elliot, the heir of that ancient family, going out with his angle to the river-side. The youth, who had but a short time before returned from England, where he had been for several years, knew at the first glance that the fair creature before him could be no other than the Lily of Liddisdale. With the utmost gentleness and benignity he called her by that name, and after a few words of courtesy, he smilingly asked her for one small flower-basket to keep for her sake. He unloosened one from her graceful waist, and with that liberty which superior rank justified, but, at the same time, with that tenderness which an amiable mind prompted, he kissed her fair forehead, and they parted—she to the Priory, and he down to the linn at the Cushat-wood.
Never had the boy beheld a creature so perfectly beautiful. The silence and the songs of morning were upon the dewy woods, when that vision rose before him; his soul was full of the joy of youth; and when Amy disappeared, he wondered how he could have parted so soon—in a few moments—from that bright and beaming Dryad. Smiles had been in her eyes and round her pearly teeth while they spoke together, and he remembered the soft and fragrant lock of hair that touched his lips as he gently kissed her forehead. The beauty of that living creature sank into his soul along with all the sweet influences of nature now rejoicing in the full, ripe, rich spirit of summer, and in fancy he saw that Lily springing up in every glade through which he was now roaming, and when he had reached the linn, on the bank too of every romantic nook and bay where the clear waters eddied or slept. “She must recross the bridge on her way home,” said the enamoured boy to himself; and, fearing that Amy Gordon might already be returning from the Priory, he clambered up the face of the shrubby precipice, and, bounding over the large green mossy stones, and through the entangling briers and brushwood, he soon was at the bridge, and sat down on a high bank, under a cliff, commanding a view of the path by which the fair maiden must approach on her homeward journey.
The heart of the innocent Amy had fluttered, too, as the tall, slim, graceful stripling had kissed her brow. No rudeness, no insult, no pride, no haughty freedom had been in his demeanour towards her; but she felt gladly conscious in her mind, that he had been delighted with her looks, and would, perhaps, think now and then afterwards, as he walked through the woods, of the shepherd’s daughter, with whom he had not disdained to speak. Amy thought, while she half looked back, as he disappeared among the trees, that he was just such a youth as the old minstrels sang of in their war or love ballads, and that he was well worthy some rich and noble bride, whom he might bring to his hall on a snow-white palfrey with silken reins, and silver bells on its mane. And she began to recite to herself, as she walked along, one of those old Border tales.
Amy left her baskets at the Priory, and was near the bridge, on her return, when she beheld the young heir spring down from the bank before her, and come forward with a sparkling countenance. “I must have that sweet tress that hangs over thy sweeter forehead,” said he, with a low and eager voice; “and I will keep it for the sake of the fairest Flower that ever bloomed in my father’s woods—even the Lily of Liddisdale.” The lock was given—for how could it be refused? And the shepherdess saw the young and high-born heir of the Priory put it into his breast. She proceeded across the hill, down the long Falcon-glen, and through the Witch-wood—and still he was by her side. There was a charm in his speech, and in every word he said, and in his gentle demeanour, that touched poor Amy’s very heart; and as he gave her assistance, although all unneeded, over the uneven hollows, and the springs and marshes, she had neither the courage, nor the wish, nor the power, to request him to turn back to the Priory. They entered a small quiet green circlet, bare of trees, in the bosom of a coppicewood; and the youth, taking her hand, made her sit down on the mossy trunk of a fallen yew, and said—“Amy—my fair Amy!—before we part, will you sing me one of your old Border songs? and let it be one of love. Did not the sons of nobles, long ago, often love the daughters of them that dwelt in huts?”
Amy Gordon sat there an hour with the loving, but honourable boy, and sang many a plaintive tune, and recited many a romantic story. She believed every word she uttered, whether of human lovers, or of the affection of fairies, the silent creatures of the woods and knowes, towards our race. For herself, she felt a constant wild delight in fictions, which to her were all as truths; and she was glad and proud to see how they held in silent attention him at whose request she recited or sang. But now she sprang to her feet, and, beseeching him to forgive the freedom she had used in thus venturing to speak so long in such a presence, but at the same time remembering that a lock of her hair was near his heart, and perceiving that the little basket she had let him take was half filled with wild-flowers, the Lily of Liddisdale made a graceful obeisance, and disappeared. Nor did the youth follow her—they had sat together for one delightful hour—and he returned by himself to the Priory.
From this day the trouble of a new delight was in the heart of young Elliot. The spirit of innocence was blended with that of beauty all over Amy, the shepherdess; and it was their perfect union that the noble boy so dearly loved. Yet what could she be to him more than a gleam of rainbow light—a phantom of the woods—an imagination that passed away into the silence of the far-off green pastoral hills? She belonged almost to another world—another life. His dwelling, and that of his forefathers, was a princely hall. She, and all her nameless line, were dwellers in turf-built huts. “In other times,” thought he, “I might have transplanted that Lily into mine own garden; but these are foolish fancies! Am I in love with poor Amy Gordon, the daughter of a shepherd?” As these thoughts were passing through his mind, he was bounding along a ridge of hills, from which many a sweet vale was visible; and he formed a sudden determination to visit the cottage of Amy’s father, which he had seen some years ago pointed out when he was with a gay party of lords and ladies, on a visit to the ruins of Hermitage Castle. He bounded like a deer along; and as he descended into a little vale, lo! on a green mound, the Lily of Liddisdale herding her sheep!