University of Virginia Library

ERWIN AND LINDA.

A TALE OF TALES.

There bright-lipp'd smiles, and rings of glossy hair
Were shining softly in the flick'ring glare
The ruddy-burning fire was flinging o'er
The lofty-sided hall, and stonen floor.
For while Orion, glitt'ring with his bright
Three-spangled girdle, climb'd his southern height;
And laurel leaves were gleaming in the sheen
Of downcast moonlight on the grassy green;
And chilly winds, that now no longer found
The summer's leafy boughs and dewy ground,
With shrilly-whistling eddies idly play'd
Through prickly holly in the house's shade:
There neighbours, in a widely-spanning bow,
Were sitting merry round the fire's red glow;
Each ready, as his turn might come, to hold
The others' minds with tales as yet untold.

MRS. FANNY'S TALE.

MR. JOHN'S TALE.

What lightly comes, they say, will lightly go,
For ill-earn'd wealth will waste as melting snow,
And faithful labor's hard-earn'd mite will win
More happiness than all the hoards of sin.
So Wingreed gave his ward, with all the land
So mis-bestow'd, his worthless daughter's hand:
And he must needs, as if his few small grounds
Were some vast manor, keep his pack of hounds:
And when the bow-neck'd steed that he bestrode
Pranc'd forth with high-toss'd head upon the road,
His upcast face no more look'd down to greet
His lowly friends that met him on their feet.
And where strong drinks, all reeking with their damp
Hot vapor, sparkled to the far-spent lamp,
He linger'd through the waning night, to steep
His giddy-brain in late-sought morning sleep;
Till landless, friendless, and with houseless head,
He went to earn or beg his daily bread.
And Wingreed, once benighted on the road
Beside the land that he had wrong bestow'd,
Saw walking there, with faces silver-bright,
Two angels, clad in filmy robes of white,
As thin as gauzy night-clouds, streaming fast
Before the moon upon a hasty blast;
And straining o'er the ground, with shining hands,
A fiery chain, as if to halve the lands.
And from that awful night, his neighbours say,
He never knew another happy day.
All this I know for truth; but what befel
Poor Erwin, some of you may better tell.

MR. ROBERT'S TALE.

Why, Mr. Wanhope that is lately dead,
Liv'd then below this roof that's overhead;
And lived here till his death—it was his own—
A single life, retired and little known.
And some folk thought, what others could not find,
That he was sometimes flighty in his mind;
Lost in the love of one he could not win,
Some ne'er-forgotten maid of high-born kin:
For till the last, whene'er his mem'ry brought
The young man's idol to the old man's thought,
He roam'd bewilder'd out by field and lane,
Forlorn in wordless thought like one insane;
And when he died some others' hands set free
From trusty wardship of a lock and key,
A writing of his youth, that show'd in part
The ne'er-forgotten sorrows of his heart.

LUCY LEE.

MRS. MARY'S TALE.

Before his father yet was dead,
Or blighting sorrows came to try
His soul, as he with houseless head
Went forth an outcast to the sky;
Young Erwin, at the wake, had seen
One maid more lovely than the rest,
And Linda felt that she had been
With him that she could like the best.
And when the Sunday throng outflow'd
Through church-yard from their worship done,
And stream'd, in knots, by ev'ry road,
In gay hues brighten'd by the sun;
The sight of lovely Linda drew
His feet the way that she had gone,
And she ne'er hasten'd when she knew
'Twas Erwin that was coming on.
But when a deadly blight was brought
Upon his early life, he tried
To wean his mind from ev'ry thought
Of making her his lowly bride;
And yet, when lucklessly they met,
Her lovely looks soon put to flight
The vain resolves his soul had set
So strong against her out of sight.
And there had happen'd, neighbours show,
Some tokens they could only take
To mean that, whether high or low,
They liv'd for one another's sake:
For once, when summer's shortest night
Came round, so slowly letting fall
Its sparkling dew below the light
The moon cast down upon the wall;
The while the slowly-clanging bell
Struck twelve o'clock, and giggling maids
Stole out to try the well-known spell

One of the matrimonial oracles of Midsummer Eve, not unknown to maids in the West of England, is to walk out at midnight, sowing hemp-seed over the right shoulder, and repeating the spell,—

“Hemp-seed I set, hemp-seed I sow;
The man that is my true love come after me and mow.”

That brings their unknown husbands' shades;
Young Linda too was scatt'ring wide
Her hemp-seed, crying “This I sow
That he who takes me for his bride
Should now come after me and mow.”
And turning round her fair-neck'd head
With timid smile, and backward look,
She saw—and seeing—felt half dead—
A shape come slowly o'er the brook,
And when she saw his scythe-blade's bow
Behind him, gleaming by the moon,
She sank, with one convulsive throe,
Against an elm-tree in a swoon.
'Twas Erwin, who had been to mow
Some swaths on Mr. Wanhope's land
In mead, to help the mowers throw
A patch of grass they had in hand.
And other tokens seem'd to show
That she was born for Erwin's wife;
For I have heard, what you may know,
That he at one time sav'd her life.

MRS. ANNE'S TALE.

ERWIN SAVES LINDA FROM FIRE.

One sunny day, when freaky winds swam o'er
The timber-shaded lawn before her door;
While flutt'ring on its slack-bow'd cords, uphung
From tree to tree, the snow-white linen swung,
She stood in hall with slightly bending back,
And cheeks behung with sidelocks raven-black,
And smooth'd, below the iron's slow-drawn weight,
With lily hands, some garment's snow-white plait;
When, springing from the fire with sudden glow,
A tiny firebolt track'd its shining bow,
And, like a bee, pitch'd down with fiery bite
Within her frock-tail's folds, out of sight.
And as she skipp'd athwart the lawn to bring
Some waving kerchief from its loose-hung string,
The playsome air, that soon began to flirt
In eddies round her softly-flutt'ring skirt,
Fann'd up the smould'ring fire, until it came
Out-bursting in a wildly-twisting flame;
And drove it quickly on to mar, within
Her frock, the iv'ry polish of her skin.
But Erwin, coming o'er the lawn to do
Some business with her father, wildly flew,
And caught, with ready hands, a sheet that hung
Upon its low-bow'd line, and deftly flung
Its heavy length up o'er her, trailing slack
Its folds behind her trimly-bending back,
And quench'd the flame, still looking, to his cost,
On her that he had sav'd, as only lost.
And then, when Linda saw that God had sent
To save a life that seem'd so nearly spent,
The man to whom she best of all could give
The days that through him she had yet to live,
She thanked him with a broken voice, and kept
Her hidden love within her heart, and wept.
This happen'd then, but something else befel
Poor Linda afterwards, that you may tell.

MR. WILLIAM'S TALE.

THE GREAT HORSE.

The hidden sun throughout a stormy day
Had roll'd unseen around its high-bow'd way,
And rain was wildly dashing, in the squall,
Against the dripping moss of tree and wall;
While gurgling brooks rolled foaming down their beds,
And winds were hissing through the timber's heads,
And waters, in a sea-wide sheet, o'erflow'd,
With sluggish eddies, stream-side mead and road,
Where Linda, riding home at eventide,
Was sitting by her stripling driver's side,
Behind her steed now loth to draw his load
By Whitburn-bridges o'er the flooded road.
And as she saw, with mind-bewild'ring dread,
The flood roll foaming through the willow's head,
And, sorely fearful that she might not win
Her home before the darksome night set in,
Was almost in the mighty stream that flow'd
With hollow eddies o'er her homeward road;
She heard a heavy horse that slowly beat
The shaking road behind, with coming feet;
And found, with leaping heart, 'twas one bestrode
By Erwin Akley riding home her road.
That horses lofty back was broad, and round,
And trusty as a grass-turv'd earthen mound;
His sleekly-flowing mane hung loosely down
Beside his lofty neck, unclipp'd and brown;
And, high above his loudly-snorting nose,
And lengthy face, his wide-tub'd ears arose;
And down his trusty legs were hung loose roofs
Of white-hair'd fetlocks o'er his heavy hoofs,
That left, in deeply-sinking turf, their flat
Round tracks, as hollow as the cheese-maid's vat.
Stay, cried young Erwin to the stripling, stay.
You know you cannot ford the stream to-day.
At least your mare shall never go this road
To-night with all that now makes up her load.
For I am on the only horse, I fear,
That I could trust to keep his footing here;
And so, Miss Linda, I beseech you, take
A seat upon his back, for others' sake.
Then, after much ado, she took her place
Behind young Erwin, with a blushing face,
While from her trim-set waist, outspreading wide,
Her skirt hung loosely o'er the horses side.
And now his legs, in water to their knees,
Withstand the deep'ning flood like rooted trees;
And now the whirling waves, with foamy crest,
Roll slowly-gurgling round his mighty breast;
And, now with lighter splashes, nearly through
The stream, he beats it with his glitt'ring shoe:
But ere he shook his streaming fetlocks dry
Poor Linda heard, dismay'd, a muffled cry;
And saw the stripling clinging to the trunk
Of some small willow, while his horse had sunk
In wheeling vortices that overflow'd
The sluggish wheels, and plung'd to find the road.
Then snatching off a new-bought rope that hung
Around his horses neck, young Erwin flung
Its quiv'ring noose, uptrailing from the strand
Its waving length, to that poor stripling's hand,
And sav'd him; but his horse was driven dead
On Whitburn meadow near the willow-bed.
So Mr. Farmund, thinking still to make
His child another's bride for money's sake,
Was thankful for her life, but griev'd to find
It owed twice over to a friendless hind.
“'Tis odd” quoth he, “why thus your life is thrown
On this young Akley's hands, and his alone;
For if you only go abroad to cast
Yourself upon him, I must keep you fast
Within the house—or else I sorely fear
That I shall find his kindnesses too dear.”
So down her burning cheeks young Linda shed
Salt tears, with swelling heart, and downcast head;
And shortly afterwards, as I have heard,
She found her father making good his word.
I do not know it for a truth, but true
Or false, the tale may not be new to you.

MISS JANE'S TALE.

The Browns that lived at Burncoombe Hall,
Invited Linda down to spend
An evening with some friends, that all
Met there to see the old year's end;
And for his worthy father's sake,—
For they had known him from his birth,—
They ask'd young Erwin down to take
His share of that gay evening's mirth.
And Erwin, in his shape and height,
Stood up the smartest young man there;
And Linda walk'd in shining white
By far the fairest of the fair.
And when the freaky tune was done,
And breathless dancers, in a ring,
Sat round the room; and ev'ry one
Was called upon in turn to sing;
Then Mr. Wanhope, when it came
To Erwin, cried you can't decline
To sing—I do not know its name—
That little song of yours and mine.

ERWIN'S SONG.

And so—

CONCLUSION.

—While thus she speaks they hear the sound
Of trampling horses' feet upon the ground,
And crackling carriage wheels, that stop before
The fair-wall'd house, and porch-beshaded door,
That, swinging slowly backward, opens wide
For Erwin, and for Linda made his bride.
For Mr. Farmund now withholds no more
His lovely Linda from her Erwin's door;
And she, brought home this happy night, has show'd
Her wife's first smiles within her new abode:
Where he has gathered round his hall fireside,
The few that stood his friends when he was tried.
So joy be with them all, and joy betide,
Each faithful husband and true-hearted bride.