At last she seemed to be falling down from a height, but softly, as if borne on the wings of the air; and as her feet touched the ground, she knew that young Elliot had taken her from that fleet courser, and, looking up, she saw that she was in a wood of old shadowy trees of gigantic size, perfectly still, and far away from all known dwellings both on hill and plain. But a cottage was before her, and she and young Elliot were on the green in its front. It was thickly covered with honeysuckle and moss-roses that hung their beautiful full-blown shining lamps high as the thatched roof; and Amy’s soul sickened at the still, secluded, lovely, and lonely sight. “This shall be our bridal abode,” whispered her lover into her ear, with panting breath. “Fear me not—distrust me not; I am not base, but my love to thee is tender and true. Soon shall we be married—ay, this very evening must thou be mine; and may the hand that now clasps thy sweet waist wither, and the tongue that woos thee be palsied, if ever I cease to love thee as my Amy—my Lily—my wedded wife!”
The wearied and half-fainting maiden could as yet make no reply. The dream that she had believed was gone for ever now brightened upon her in the intense light of reality, and it was in her power to become the wife of him for whom she had, in the innocence and simplicity of her nature, once felt a consuming passion that had brought her to the brink of the grave. His warm breath was on her bosom; words charged with bewitching persuasion went thrilling through her heartstrings; and if she had any pride (and what human heart has it not?) it might well mingle now with love, and impel her into the embrace that was now open to clasp her close to a burning heart.
A stately and beautiful lady came smiling from the cottage door, and Amy knew that it was the sister of Elliot, and kneeled down before her. Last time the shepherdess had seen that lady, it was when, with a fearful step, she took her baskets into the hall, and blushing, scarcely lifted up her eyes, when she and her high-born sisters deigned to commend her workmanship, and whisper to each other that the Lily of Liddisdale deserved her name. “Amy,” said she, with a gentle voice, as she took her hand, “Amy Gordon! my brother loves you; and he has won me to acknowledge you as my sister. I can deny my brother nothing; and his grief has brought low the pride—perhaps the foolish pride—of my heart. Will you marry him, Amy? Will you, the daughter of a poor shepherd, marry the young heir of the Priory, and the descendant, Amy, of a noble race? Amy, I see that thou art beautiful; I know that thou art good; may God and my mother forgive me this, but my sister must thou be; behold my brother is at his shepherdess’s feet!”
Amy Gordon had now nothing to fear. That sweet, young, pure, noble lady was her friend; and she felt persuaded now that in good truth young Elliot wished to make her his wife. Might she indeed live the Lady of the Priory—be a sister to these beautiful creatures—dwell among those ancient woods, and all those spacious lawns and richest gardens; and might she be, not in a dream, but in living reality, the wife of him on whose bosom her heart had died with joy in that lonely dell, and love him and yield him her love even unto the very hour till she was dead? Such changes of estate had been long ago, and sung of in many a ballad; and was she to be the one maiden of millions, the one born in hundreds of years, to whom this blessed lot was to befall? But these thoughts passed on and away like sun-rays upon a stream; the cloud, not a dark one, of reality returned over her. She thought of Walter Harden, and in an instant her soul was fixed; nor from that instant could it be shaken by terror or by love, by the countenance of death, or the countenance, far more powerful than of death—that of the youth before her, pale and flushed alternately with the fluctuations of many passions.
Amy felt in her soul the collected voice, as it were, of many happy and humble years among her hills, and that told her not to forsake her own natural life. The flower that lived happily and beautifully in its own secluded nook, by the side of the lonely tarn or torrent, might lose much both of its fragrance and its lustre, when transplanted into a richer soil and more sheltered bed. Could she forget for ever her father’s ingle—the earthen floor—its simple furniture of day and night? Could she forget all the familiar places round about the hut where she was born? And if she left them all, and was taken up even in the arms of love into another sphere of life, would not that be the same, or worse than to forget them, and would it not be sacrilege to the holiness of the many Sabbath nights on which she had sat at her widowed father’s knees? Yet might such thoughts have been destroyed in her beating heart by the whispered music of young Elliot’s eloquent and impassioned voice. But Walter Harden, though ignorant of her present jeopardy, seemed to stand before her, and she remembered his face when he sat beside her dying bed, his prayers over her when he thought she slept, and their oaths of fidelity mutually sworn before the great God.
“Will you, my noble and honoured master, suffer me, all unworthy as I am to be yours, to leave your bosom? Sir, I am too miserable about you, to pretend to feel any offence, because you will not let me go. I might well be proud of your love, since, indeed, it happens so that you do love me; but let me kneel down at your beautiful sister’s feet, for to her I may be able to speak—to you I feel that it may not be, for humble am I, although unfortunately I have found favour in your eyes.”
The agitated youth released Amy from his arms, and she flung herself down upon her knees before that lovely lady.
“Lady! hear me speak—a simple uneducated girl of the hills, and tell me if you would wish to hear me break an oath sworn upon the Bible, and so to lose my immortal soul? So have I sworn to be the wife of Walter Harden—the wife of a poor shepherd; and, lady, may I be on the left hand of God at the great judgment-day, if ever I be forsworn. I love Walter Harden. Do you counsel me to break his kind, faithful heart? Oh, sir—my noble young master! how dare a creature such as I speak so freely to your beautiful sister? how dare I keep my eyes open when you are at your servant’s feet? Oh, sir, had I been born a lady, I would have lived—died for you—gone with you all over the world—all over the sea, and all the islands of the sea. I would have sighed, wept, and pined away, till I had won your love, for your love would have been a blessed thing—that do I well know, from the few moments you stooped to let your heart beat against the bosom of a low-born shepherdess. Even now, dearly as I love Walter Harden, fain would I lay me down and die upon this daisied green, and be buried beneath it, rather than that poor Amy Gordon should affect the soul of her young master thus; for never saw I, and never can I again see, a youth so beautiful, so winning, so overwhelming to a maiden’s heart, as he before whom I now implore permission to grovel in the dust. Send me away—spurn me from you—let me crawl away out of your presence—I can find my way back to my father’s house.”
It might have been a trying thing to the pride of this high-minded and high-born youth, to be refused in marriage by the daughter of one of his poorest shepherds; so would it have been had he loved less; but all pride was extinguished, and so seemed for ever and ever the light of this world’s happiness. To plead further he felt was in vain. Her soul had been given to another, and the seal of an oath set upon it, never to be broken but by the hand of death. So he lifted her up in his arms, kissed her madly a hundred times, cheek, brow, neck, and bosom, and then rushed into the woods. Amy followed him with her streaming eyes, and then turned again towards the beautiful lady, who was sobbing audibly for her brother’s sake.
“Oh! weep not, lady! that I, poor Amy Gordon, have refused to become the wife of your noble brother. The time will come, and soon too, when he and you, and your fair sisters and your stately mother, will all be thankful that I yielded not to entreaties that would then have brought disgrace upon your house! Never—never would your mother have forgiven you; and as for me, would not she have wished me dead and buried rather than the bride of her only and darling son? You know that, simple and innocent as I am, I now speak but the truth; and how, then, could your noble brother have continued to love me, who had brought dishonour, and disagreement, and distraction, among those who are now all so dear to one another? O yes—yes, he would soon have hated poor Amy Gordon, and, without any blame, perhaps broken my heart, or sent me away from the Priory back to my father’s hut. Blessed be God, that all this evil has not been wrought by me! All—all will soon be as before.”