“A perfect fairy queen,” said Elliot, as the door closed behind her.
“So you have already heard that silly story?” answered his host. “Well! I have no right to complain, for I have only myself to thank for it.”
Elliot requested that he would explain his meaning, and he in compliance narrated his “whole course of wooing.”
“I was detained abroad, as you well know, for some years after his Majesty’s restoration, partly on account of the dilapidated state of my fortunes, and partly because I wished to prosecute the career of arms I had commenced. It is now about nine months since I returned to my native country. It was a gloomy day as I approached home. You remember the footpath which strikes across the hill behind the house, from the bed of the stream which mingles, about a mile below us, with that on whose banks we now are. Where it separates from the public road, I gave my horse to the servant, intending to pursue the by-path alone, resolved that no one should watch my emotions when I again beheld the home of my fathers. I was looking after the lad, when I heard the tread of horses close behind me. On turning, I saw a tall, elderly gentleman, of commanding aspect, and by his side a young lady upon a slender milk-white palfrey. I need not describe her; you have seen her to-day. I was struck with the delicacy of her features, the sweet smile upon her lips, and the living fire that sparkled from her eyes. I gazed after her until a turning of the road concealed her from my view.
“It was in vain that I inquired among my relations and acquaintances. No person was known in the neighbourhood such as I described her. The impression she left upon me, vivid though it was at the moment, had died away, when one day, as I was walking near the turn of the road where I had lost her, she again rode past me with the same companion. The sweet smile, the glance of the eye, were heightened this time by a blush of recognition. The pair were soon lost to me round the elbow of the road. I hurried on, but they had disappeared. The straggling trees which obscured the view, ceased at a bridge which stood a couple of gun-shots before me. Ere I could reach it, I caught a glimpse of the companions. They were at the edge of the stream, a little way above the bridge—their horses were drinking. I pressed onward, but before I had cleared the intervening trees and reached the bridge, they had once more disappeared. There was a small break in the water immediately beneath the place where they had stood. For a moment, I thought that I must have mistaken its whiteness for the white palfrey, but the glance I had got of them was too clear to have been an illusion. Yet no road led in that direction. I examined the banks on both sides of the river, but that on which I saw them was too hard to receive a hoof-print, and the opposite bank was loose shingle, which refused to retain it when made. The exceeding beauty of the maiden, the mysterious nature of her disappearance, the irritable humour into which I had worked myself by conjectures and an unavailing search, riveted her impression upon my memory. I traversed the country telling my story, and making incessant inquiry. In vain! No one knew of such a person. The peasants began to look strangely on me, and whisper in each other’s ears, that I had been deluded by some Nixy. And many were the old prophecies regarding my family remembered—or manufactured—for the occasion.
“Five months passed away in vain pursuit. My pertinacity was beginning to relax, when one evening, returning from a visit to our friend Whitelee, I heard a clashing of swords on the road before me. Two fellows ran off as I rode hastily up, leaving a gentleman, who had vigorously defended himself against their joint assault. ‘Are you hurt, sir?’ was my first inquiry. ‘I fear I am,’ replied the stranger, whom I immediately recognised as the companion of the mysterious beauty. ‘Can I assist you?’ He looked earnestly at me, and with an expression of hesitation on his countenance. ‘Henry Scott, you are a man of honour.’ He paused, but immediately resumed, ‘I have no choice, and I dare trust a soldier. Lend me your arm, sir. My dwelling is not far from here.’ I accompanied him, he leaning heavily upon me, for the exertion of the combat had shaken his frame, and the loss of blood weakened him. We followed the direction he indicated for nearly half an hour round the trackless base of a hill, until we came in sight of one of those old gray towers which stud our ravines. ‘There,’ said my companion, pointing to the ruin. I recognised it immediately; it stood not far distant from the place where he and his fair fellow-traveller had disappeared, and had often been examined by me, but always in vain.
“Turning an angle of the building, we approached a heap of debris, which in one part encumbered its base. Putting aside some tangled briers which clustered around, he showed me a narrow entry between the ruins and the wall. Passing up to this, he stopped before a door, and gave three gentle knocks; it opened, and we were admitted into a rude, narrow vault. It was tenanted, as I had anticipated, by his fair companion. As soon as her alarm at seeing her father return exhausted, bleeding, and in company with a stranger, was stilled, and the old man’s wound dressed, he turned to explain to me the circumstances in which I found him. His story was brief. He was of good family; had killed a cadet of a noble house, and was obliged to save himself from its resentment by hiding in ruins and holes of the earth. In all his wanderings his gentle daughter had never quitted his side.
“I need not weary you with the further details of our growing acquaintance. It is the common story of a young man and a young woman thrown frequently into each other’s company in a lonely place. But, oh! tame though it may appear to others, the mere memory of the three months of my life which followed is ecstasy! I saw her daily—in that unfrequented spot there was small danger of intrusion, and she dared range the hillside freely. We walked, and sat, and talked together in the birchen wood beneath the tower, and we felt our love unfold itself as their leaves spread out to the advancing summer. There was no check in the tranquil progress of our affections—no jealousies, for there was none to be jealous of. Unmarked, it overpowered us both. It swelled upon us, like the tide of a breathless summer day, purely and noiselessly.
“A few weeks ago her father took me aside, and prefacing that he had marked with pleasure our growing attachment, asked me if I had sufficient confidence in my own constancy to pledge myself to be for life an affectionate and watchful guardian of his child? He went on to say, that means of escaping from the country had been provided, and offers of promotion in the Spanish service made to him. Your own heart will suggest my answer; and I left him, charged to return after nightfall with a clergyman. Our good curate is too much attached to the family to refuse me anything. To him I revealed my story. At midnight he united me to Ellen, and scarcely was the ceremony over, when Sir James tore himself away, leaving his weeping child almost insensible in my arms.
“Two gentlemen, who accompanied Sir James to the coast, were witnesses of the marriage. It was therefore unnecessary to let any of the household into the secret. You may guess their astonishment, therefore, when, having seen the curate and me ride up the solitary glen alone under cloud of night, they saw us return in the course of a few hours with a lady, who was introduced to them as their mistress. Great has been their questioning, and great has been the delight of our jolly priest to mystify them with dark hints of ruined towers, hillsides opening, and such like. The story of the Nixy has been revived, too, and Ellen is looked on by many with a superstitious awe. I rather enjoyed the joke at first, but now begin to fear, from the deep root the folly seems to have taken, that it may one day bear evil fruits for my delicate girl.”