Sir Rohan's ghost a romance |
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MIRIAM. |
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 | III.
MIRIAM. Sir Rohan's ghost |  |
3. III.
MIRIAM.
IT was a long time since he had entered these
grand districts of the house, and, closed and
deserted, the walls had gathered damp, the
panels dust, the whole region a funereal gloom.
As he looked down, he saw without surprise,
since he had grown incapable of such emotion,
that the gay curtains and carpets were dim and
faded, the ornaments fallen from their brackets,
and thick, silvery, shaking webs woven from cornice
to cornice of the long drawing-room. He
saw without a shudder the rare cast of some
antique statue staring sad and forlorn from its
nook of tarnished tapestry, like a corpse risen
with the mould and mire of the grave upon it;
and no question arose in his mind at the wide-open
hall door, and the sweet, fresh draught bearing
thence through the close rooms. Still looking
dream that made him motionless, his eye rested
on a figure standing by the old clavichord, and
he waited till the dream should pass and the
spell loosen its chain. A girl, tall and in the
gloom, standing by the old clavichord and noiselessly
moving her fingers over the stained keys.
Had he seen her before?
A singular face, totally destitute of any roseate
glow, but by no means wan, — rather, one would
say, a soft, creamy skin that should not be otherwise.
The chin extremely short and upturned;
the mouth compensating for some width by rich,
velvet curves and handsome teeth, the upper
lip a haughty, disdainful feature; the nose well
moulded, with thin nostrils, and occupying more
than its classical third in length. A face whose
first impression was one of peculiar loveliness,
the next, a captious sentiment that it was
greatly too wide; but few, perhaps, saw it without
recurring to the first. The forehead was
low and wide, the dark masses of hair sweeping
off it in a long line, till, dropping with a
sudden wave below the cheek, they were looped
up again, as Sir Rohan had seen other hair,
feuille-morte, and without arch, nearly met
across this face; and beneath, the long-cut
waxen lids were heavily fringed. A gleam of
sunlight stole timidly through an open shutter,
and then in a broad sheet athwart the face, as
Sir Rohan observed it. The girl raised her lids
in the abrupt illumination. Square as the outline
might be, albeit without the high cheek-bones
which characterize this class of countenance,
it was well worth while if that were
necessary to give such purport and range and
large magnificence to the eyes, — soft, dark,
lustrous, and bearing a dazzled splendor at the
light, through the golden warmth it imparted to
them. Ah, well! Sir Rohan was to paint other
eyes to-morrow.
It pleases me to think that that face, now so
fair and soft, never lost the smooth, olive skin,
even through the season of a long life, nor sowed
its cares in wrinkles when they grew too many
for the heart to bear alone; nor that those eyes
lost their brilliant kindliness, though wearing forever
the frightened aspect which one cruel day
was to give them, — though never, when the snow
to look back and sun themselves in the
gleam of any lost happiness, — though borrowing
all their joy from those Beulah hill-tops which
only the old have in certain prospect. Yet there
was something in the face which led you not
so much to its owner as its authors, till you
lost yourself conjecturing under what conditions
and circumstances it had obtained life. A peculiar
face, — had Sir Rohan seen it before? Was
it his Ghost, come in tangible form — but was
it tangible? Pshaw! did it not flash on him
from the travelling-chariot? Did ghosts wear
long cloaks half untied and pulling apart from
the confining cord; or gowns, just seen beneath,
of a fawn brocade, to harmonize with the other
brown shades; or antique jewels and a moonstone
carcanet? Did ghosts touch the uncompliant
keys of clavichords, and entice thence
sweet, unfamiliar sounds? Unfamiliar, — only
too well known, indeed! Could it be anything
but his persistent enemy who played, with the
long, slender fingers of her left hand, the very
melody to whose tune the sorrow of his life had
been this day set? The sunshine that had been
floor, nestling and mingling with the yellow
tinges there, stole up across the foot, the tall
figure whose drapery fluttered in the increasing
draft, the queenly neck, and withdrew behind a
cloud, while the girl began humming the same
tune and beating a gentle time with her head.
Sir Rohan recovered himself, concluding that
the supernatural was not an agent in this apparition.
It was a tune common enough in Kent,
— he had first heard it there; she was probably a
Kentish girl, too charming a piece of flesh and
blood ever to throw off for filmy, impalpable
essence. If his Ghost came in that shape, she
might stay while she pleased. But was not his
Ghost a fairer shape, whose dead eclipsed this
living, breathing beauty? Why think of it?
It was pleasure enough, for one revelling in form
and color, only to gaze, as he did, on the picture
to which the drawing-room door below was
frame; to ask by what means she had entered
his house did not occur to him. Before Sir Rohan
began to reason, the tune had ceased, and
while he gazed, the girl, glancing round, glided
up the apartment out of sight. He remained a
back upon his steps. Two questioning eyes in
every darker shadow sought his own, and a long-drawn
sob was audible beside him, as, quickening
his motions, he sprang up the stairs and
confronted two men on the upper landing; one
was his gray-haired steward.
“I have been seeking your worship,” said he,
timorously, but without reply, for the other had
seized Sir Rohan's hands, and was pouring forth
rapid question and answer over a long-lost friend.
“I am not dreaming, then!” said Sir Rohan
unsteadily, at last. “This is you, St. Denys,
and your daughter below?”
“I, certainly,” was the cheery response, “and
my ward below. God give me long life! for the
name and fame of St. Denys flow to a rascal
when I die.”
“We won't talk of dying,” said Sir Rohan,
looking behind him quickly, “and while we live
will grasp what we may. How did you find
me?”
“In the simplest way conceivable. We lunched
at an inn yclept the Belvidere Arms, and, remembering
that you buried yourself at one time in
difficulty in recognizing our gay youth in one
taciturn, possessed gentleman, till mine host
christened him Sir Rohan!”
The old man had withdrawn. “Something
ails you, Rohan,” said his friend. “You are in
trouble!”
“The weather and a walk,” was the hurried
answer, “and — and dyspepsia!”
“Parent of all blue devils! Come down to
this dungeon of yours, into which I have taken
the liberty of inviting some sky, alias light and
air.”
“My friend can take no liberty in my house.”
A merry bow from the friend prefaced a prescription
for good health and spirits, which closed
by recommending good company. “For which
purpose —”
“The sky has fallen and dropped you here.”
“And consequently I shall see a rapid improvement
in Monsieur le Cadavre!”
Sir Rohan shuddered again. “I am better,”
he said directly, “already better.” And indeed
his friend would have been like a bracing wind
blowing through sultry fever regions, did not
of electric shocks, constantly thrilling his patient.
By this time they were in the drawing-room.
“This is a drawing-room of the Belvidere
estate in Cornwall, Sir Rohan,” said his friend.
“Probably a place unfamiliar to you.”
“I should be, perhaps, ashamed to say that a
quinquenniad has passed since I have stood in
it,” replied he whose Ghost had at least taught
him to discriminate delicate shades of truth.
“And this is Miriam, my child.”
As the girl turned to receive his salutation,
he extended his hand. Shy as a bird, her own
dropped into it an instant, and brushed away
again. Yet there was something positive in that
slight touch; most different in its soft, warm sense
from the gelid grasp that had so often met his
palm, — more real it could not be.
“I am very happy,” said he, with a grave
courtesy which had lost nothing from disuse, “in
welcoming the child of St. Denys to my house,
although but a dreary place to shelter youth
and beauty.”
“Well, well,” laughed his friend, “a candle
would not be brilliant in sunny windows.”
“But she has brought the sun in with her.”
Miriam raised her large, wary eyes, and, throwing
back the haughty head, surveyed her host
with quick displeasure, — motions which did not
escape Sir Rohan.
“I am at a loss as to what title — ” he began,
turning to St. Denys, who interrupted him,
saying, as he laid his hand caressingly upon her
shoulder, —
“No need! Since the morning she had been
sixteen years my darling, this child has been
afflicted with a whim, and throws off my name
and protection and love — ”
“Not your love or your protection, father,”
she murmured, quickly.
“And chooses,” he added, “to be known only
as Miss Miriam.”
“And why?” escaped Sir Rohan's lips before
he could recall it. Yet he had been waiting to
hear that voice address him, and now it came,
low, clear, and full of inflections.
“Because I have no other name,” she replied
instantly, and with a proud gesture which the
possession of sixty titles could not have enhanced.
He seemed to have heard it elsewhere.
“Pardon! I was born for mistakes on this
afternoon, I think.”
“Sir Rohan, Miriam, was my friend before
you knew the light, and seeing less and less of
him as years passed, I soon saw nothing. In
a while wondrous rumors reached us from the
corners of the earth, then all sounds were lost, —
and here he is. Where is your housekeeper,
Rohan?” with a quizzical look at the existing
neglect.
“I have none. My steward's maid attends to
my necessities.”
“I doubt if she can do so much for me!”
“As exacting as ever,” returned the other,
with an absent smile. “We will soon find servants
enough.”
“A sorry day for them, if spiders can make
it,” exclaimed St. Denys, tossing off a tawny
Arachne who danced, on a long-spun thread from
the dusky ceiling, across his face.
“And if I confess that this is the best room
I have, what will my guests think?”
“That the drawing-room generally occupies that
rank among apartments, and that the little feminine
element so bustling in my home may effect,
shape of two sleeping-rooms here! What say
you, Miriam?”
“If Sir Rohan desire it —”
“By no means,” said Sir Rohan. “The young
lady is wearied with her journey. It will be unnecessary;”
and excusing himself, he soon found
the old steward, who was awaiting him in anxiety
of mind.
“Let your wife, Redruth, move herself and
maids up here, at what salary you please,” said
his master. “Procure other servants from the
village at once. We will dine at six, and let two
bedchambers be cleansed and aired by twelve.”
Having received which orders, and it being now
nearly four, the steward scrambled away to perform
impossibilities, and Sir Rohan ascended to
his own room. Without bestowing a glance on
his painting, he wheeled the great chair out upon
the landing, and, in a moment after, descended
and deposited it inside the drawing-room. The
young lady was walking up and down, with her
skirts gathered in one hand from the floor, and
her brow wearing an expression of combined
amusement and annoyance, as Sir Rohan opened
“You will find it less dusty and sufficiently
cool, Miss Miriam, without,” he said, and in order
to conduct her there, he again offered his hand.
She looked round, however, for his friend, and
stepping across the sill, lightly planted St. Denys
in the chair, and took her own seat upon the turf
at his feet. “She 's tired,” she said as St. Denys
laid her head against the cushions of the chair,
and, dropping the lids from her first gaze that
crept across the woods, then up the distant fields
to the lawn below, and finally rested on the smooth
cheek, she slept the deep sleep of a healthy child.
“I do not understand,” said Sir Rohan, leaning
against the window. “Is this your daughter who
says father to you?”
“You are very slow, then! We make believe,
as children do. Seriously, though, you know I
do not hold in chance, and thus I take my accidents
as commissions from God. So when we
heard of this child, then some five weeks old, a
foundling in the house of a tenant, we took her
home; and the woman, an old dame who had
found and sheltered the babe on some tramp or
And she has been God's gift to sweeten a bitter
draught he poured out for me not long after.
So, she is my daughter.”
“It is many years since we met.”
“That, indeed. Nearly a score.”
“You married?”
“Yes.”
“And your wife?”
His friend paused as if heaving the weighty
words from some painful depth. “I lost her.”
“Still unfound?”
“One day I hope to find her. She is dead.”
It did not seem so sorrowful a thing to Sir
Rohan; or if he had the pity, he was compelled
to probe the wound.
“She died suddenly?” he asked.
“By a long illness, a year after Miriam came.”
“And has never returned, — you have never
seen her since?”
“Rohan!”
“I am vexed to have occasioned an unpleasant
thought. And who named the child, Miriam?”
“My wife.”
“It is strange to know no more about her.”
“Yes. We met with no clew. Her nurse died
some five years since; I often wondered if she
had no information, but she denied with genuine
surprise when questioned once. Yet on dying,
she called Miriam and whispered to her.”
“What?”
“I never asked.”
“You are very simple, then,” said his interlocutor.
“Changing parts,” said St. Denys. “You,
Rohan! have you married?”
A sudden spasm of pain darted through Sir
Rohan. The happy humble-bee, swimming homeward
honey-laden through the air, could not have
stung so savagely, nor have caused him to spring,
like one shot, from his station. However, immediately
resuming his self-possession, “No,”
he answered.
“Ah? There was a legend among us, I remember,
just after we parted with you, that
you were buried with some sweetheart, some
beautiful peasant-girl, now in the depths of these
Cornish haunts, and then in that forlorn tower
of yours at the North.”
“A legend, like most others, more pretty than
pallor on his face.
“You wear proof-armor, then?”
“Not at all. I adopt bolder tactics, and
wear none. A noble archer does not strike the
defenceless.”
“Never doubt but your turn will come.”
Sir Rohan did not reply, and it was some
time before St. Denys spoke again.
“And how do you pass your time?” said he,
at last.
“As you see; at the last profession I have
adopted — painting — and in deadly self-introspection.”
“Ah! and you see no company?”
“You are the first.”
“Have you exhibited any paintings yet?”
“None. I have never finished any of sufficient
worth to look on myself.”
“But you intend it?”
“Hardly.”
“Great goodness, Rohan! What a wretched
life! No wonder you are sad as a masque of
tragedy! Why don't you kill yourself?”
Another spasm of pain. “Then I also should
be a Ghost!” he exclaimed vehemently.
The guest sprang up in alarm, but Sir Rohan
relapsed to his former stern reticence, with his
eyes bent fixedly upon the distance. A momentary
doubt of the sanity of this recluse overpowered
St. Denys, and he may have trembled lest
he had brought his treasure into the den of a
madman. But the tenderness of his nature
soon regained its balance, and he reflected, with
pity, that the unhappy man's loneliness was ruinous.
Nevertheless, his sudden movement had
roused the girl from her convenient nap, who
looked round amazed an instant, and then rose
laughingly. No flush of sleep stained her cheek;
her haughty coolness seemed as involuntary as
her breath. Just stepping from the footprints
of the child into the sadder ways of womanhood,
she walked almost as if conscious of fate, with
a quick, impetuous gait, to meet it.
“Mistress Miriam wears the air of a Spartan,”
said St. Denys.
“Rather like the Brown Girl of the Ballad,”
Sir Rohan returned.
“Alas for fair Elinor if I confront her with
my bodkin!” laughed the Brown Girl.
The image of an Elinor who might, instead,
out the young face that laughed without dimples,
and he turned away to evade it.
Miriam stooped over the chair. “He is very
strange, this friend of yours, papa, with his
sudden ways and mouldy house. Don't stay
here long,” she whispered.
“He is too unhappy, and perhaps ill, to be
left longer in this state. Entertain him while
here, and perhaps he will go with us.”
Miriam raised her eyebrows and her shoulders
as if the prospect did not charm her.
“Do you suppose he means to starve us?”
she said.
“Young ladies who take naps in company
should have courage —”
“But I was so tired!”
“Here he comes, — if you should ask him!”
“O no, no, papa!”
“Miriam has a question to propose,” said he,
as Sir Rohan drew near again.
“Hush!” she whispered.
“Can I answer it?”
“By the help of all your formulas and statistics,”
said the other.
She turned with a pretty mixture of defiance
and shame. “I am hungry,” she said.
“An extraordinary question, which I hope
dinner will answer. Let us hunt some up.”
“I wonder,” thought she, “if we shall have
to eat it, standing, from the shelves of the
larder.”
“I wonder,” thought he, “if there is anything
in the house to eat.” And he led the way
back through the drawing-room and hall, to
what had once been a sumptuous dining-room.
Less out of repair than the other apartments,
it was yet large, gloomy, and from its solitary
occupant, almost out of use. Nevertheless, since
noon it had experienced a slight rearrangement;
the glass doors of the cabinets and buffet
had been washed, the walnut floor swept
and polished, and curious pieces of furniture
had been ransacked from other rooms. The
table was laid with bountiful folds of snowy
linen, ancient plate, and costly china; for wherein
Sir Rohan, during these desolate years, had
suffered himself to be served at all, he had
caused himself to be served well; and, frugal as
he was, had insisted on a certain table etiquette,
from day till dusk.
It was a dark room, and the glittering table
occupied but a small corner of it. As Miriam
entered, she swept forward and threw open the
heavy shutters of the window behind it, and
sent a glad burst of light through the place.
Looking out, she disappeared, and in a moment
returned with an armful of white raspberry-blossoms,
and long wreaths of the purple nightshade,
and heaped them in a large vase upon
the sideboard.
“A bush for the wine,” she said.
“And good wine needs no bush,” returned
Sir Rohan.
A white rose overlaced the window, and hastily
gathering a few stems, they were placed in
a glass upon the table; but not one was perfect,
every rose bearing a small, brown taint, — observing
which, she as quickly dashed them away.
“Perhaps Sir Rohan does not like flowers at
dinner,” said St. Denys.
“Excuse me,” she cried, turning tartly.
“We have them always, they are so cheerful.”
“A new ornament. I like them,” responded
the nightshade, he presented it to her, saying,
“It agrees well with the Carthaginian hair.”
“I seldom wear flowers,” she exclaimed; adding
instantly, “Yet these gorgeous stars, with
their gold-drops at centre, tempt too much,”
and she hung them in the heavily festooned tress
next Sir Rohan. A moment afterward the dishes
were brought in by amazed waiters, and a stately
servant stationed himself behind the host's chair.
All formality was banished at the onset, when
Miriam, to avoid spilling her soup, overset a decanter
whose contents ran down the table in a
red stream, just as, from his sudden movement,
Sir Rohan's soup probably burned his mouth.
Whereupon, hiding her embarrassment, she broke
forth into merry quip and sally, till the room
rung with her gay voice, and long before they
rose, the pale Sir Rohan paused confounded at
the sound of his own laughter.
Meanwhile a great noise and hurry had been
holding high carnival in the region of the guest-chambers.
Long since, large fires had been roaring
up the chimneys notwithstanding the heat,
beds had been airing, carpets spread, and coarse,
in lavendered folds across bedposts and ward-robes.
The maids were bustling about sufficiently
for enjoyment, and the general racket was such
as had not scared the echoes of this dead old
house for half a century. But only an intermittent
buzz reached the remote dining-room, where,
dinner being concluded and the gentlemen not
caring to sit over their wine, it was decided to
remain, rather than adjourn to the dingy drawing-room;
for through some fine sense, Sir Rohan
felt an approaching danger, and this was a
more familiar place than the other.
“How dark it is!” said Miriam. “An odd
day of odd adventures. I smell thunder.” And
looking out, they all saw a large, brassy cloud
driving swiftly over the paling sunset, and sphering
the sky with ominous splendor. Miriam had
taken a seat directly before the open window,
and neither of the others were far off. Recalling
old times, the two gentlemen had long conducted
the conversation, when gradually silence
fell, gathering an increasing awe as loud thunders
broke close above them, letting sharp lightning
slip piercingly down.
“When we were descending the Alps, last
summer,” said Miriam, “riding through a thunder-storm,
the lightnings came and played round
our feet.”
“But I hardly think it rained so, there,” said
St. Denys, as one vast sheet gushed in torrents
from the low bosom of the impending cloud,
appearing, in the uninterrupted flashes that illuminated
every drop, like a rain of fire. Sir Rohan
sat leaning his head upon one hand, but
with a singular alertness and vigilance apparent
in his whole figure. Electric thrills had been
coursing through his blood, till his fingers tingled
and his eyes sparkled.
“Sir Rohan,” exclaimed Miriam, “I believe
if I should touch you, you would flash!”
“Try, Miss Miriam.”
The same delicate, airy finger-touch met his a
second.
“Ah, well!” laughed she; “you did n't, but
it 's because you are cold as death.” The word
made him wince.
“Are you afraid?” she continued.
“No. It is a constitutional weakness, I fancy,
something involuntary, so that in every thunderstorm
life crowds down, and is as suddenly wrung
away, leaving me with an unaccountable depression,
limp and wilted.”
“We heard a fanatic preacher, yesterday,”
said Miriam, after a short pause, “who, I should
think, was fulfilling the promise of his text, to-day.
A strange-looking man, with long, white
hair, pale face, and glittering eyes, and dressed
in a dusty gray gown as if just off a long
journey. He looked like some old shade.
His text was, `To-morrow I will stand on the
top of the hill, with the rod of God in my
hand.'”
As she spoke, a more dreadful crash than had
yet been heard split the heavy air, and a bolt of
flame fell at not a dozen paces' distance, while
the withered branches of an old poplar shot
forth simultaneously a hundred sparks, and a
tower of fire streamed up in defiance.
“The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen
thereof,” ejaculated St. Denys; but almost before
he ceased, the light went out, leaving only the
charred trunk standing boldly against the low
gleam of the horizon.
A throstle shook the rose-vines over the window,
and whistled clearly a sweet charm against
the rain.
“And behold the Lord passed by,” said Miriam,
“and a great and strong wind rent the
mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before
the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind:
and after the wind, an earthquake; but the
Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the
earthquake, a fire; but the Lord was not in the
fire: and after the fire a still, small voice.”
Sir Rohan's head fell forward into his hands,
and no one broke the stillness.
The storm had spent its violence, and was
rolling away to the north. The rain still pattered
from leaf to leaf, and poured off in plenteous
streams down deserted alleys and ruined
garden-walks. Darkness crept up from the distant
corners, and brooded round them; but
blacker shadows had already wrapt Sir Rohan,
and he silently warred with them.
Still sitting there, a light, timid pressure was
laid upon his shoulder, growing bold enough to
remain. He knew it was Miriam, and did not
turn. A sweet, strong influence seemed to flow
sense of peace to envelop him; and long, rejoicing
under the delicious consciousness of reviving
strength and vigor, he would have sat, had
the touch long continued. But as if aware of
his desire, she perversely flitted away, and opening
the door into the lighted hall, suffered its
gleam to irradiate the gloom.
“You are too sudden in your movements,
child,” said St. Denys, as she swept over a clattering
chair in her way.
“And I was growing dainty as a lady with my
fingers,” she rejoined. “It 's not my fault; but
something about the house, some sprite twitches
them.”
“Do you think the miraculous would stoop
into Sir Rohan's dining-room?”
“I don't care, papa. I want to hear that
ghost-story. I came for that. It 's just the
house to be haunted, — unless the fragrance of
paints and oils does not agree with their honors,
— and just the hour. We have a ghost at the
Castle, but he has been quiet so long as to afford
no amusement. We were brought here, too, in
a miraculous manner.”
“You are absurd, Miriam,” said St. Denys,
with a smile. “Be quiet.”
“Don't you know, Sir Rohan,” she continued
disregardfully, “that animals — brutes, of course
— are said to perceive apparitions more quickly
than men? Last night we were on the road
very late, and going smoothly, when suddenly
the horses began to caper from side to side,
dashed into a lane, and then through a broken
hedge, racing over the moor like hounds till
they pulled up near another highway, and to-day
that road took us to the village below here,
where we had not intended to stop, and which
was, you know, quite out of our way. It 's a
wonder our necks were n't broken. The coachman
told me that he knew the creatures met
the Swairth, — that he himself saw something
swinging, white and shining, before them, and
nothing could have tempted him to proceed.
He told of it at the inn, and they said very
likely it belonged up here; that it was the
wraith of some forlorn woman of your house,
and that, if papa had a tourist's curiosity, we
should find some pictures here, and might see
the wraith for ourselves. So you perceive the
Have n't you a ghost, Sir Rohan?”
A class of words which Sir Rohan had grown
to avoid even in his thought, was now perpetually
dropping from the lips of his guests, and he
expended his energy nerving himself against the
abrupt attacks.
“No ghost?” persisted Miriam.
“My ancestors never had one,” he replied, in
a low, distinct tone, the volume of his voice compressed
from trembling.
“But you! have you no phantom, no spectre?”
“Pardon me if I say that you confound the
terms.”
“Have you, then, found any difference between
ghosts and spectres?” questioned St. Denys,
gayly.
“There should be a distinction. A spectre
seems rather to have risen from the grave, to
own a glimmering shroud, to carry with it the
smell of the dead and the air of vaults and coffins.
But a ghost! — A ghost,” said Sir Rohan,
“is a very different thing.”
“Then you have nothing to tell us?”
“Nothing.”
“And I am positively cheated?”
“You must forgive the rural superstition.”
“Well. If one opening fails, I can try another.
I am a meteoromant, you know, an inheritance
of certain people. I know a charm to
ward off the Evil Eye.”
“And that surprises no one, Miss Miriam.”
“Nonsense! I tell papa's fortune often enough,
and it comes true often enough.”
“And what is St. Denys's fortune?”
“He was born to trouble and much peace.
Begin as I will, these words always come and I
must say them, — trouble, yet much peace.”
“You divine by thunder and lightning, and,
having called your imps around you, would now
tell me my fate, — is it so?” and he extended
his hand.
“Yes,” poring over the hand gingerly, without
taking it. “But there 's no fortune for you,
good or bad. I should think your life had been
wiped out; there 's not a line on the palm.
Alackaday, kind gentleman,” said she, assuming
the sing-song gypsy tone, “great evil have you
waded through, and greater is to come. Small
pleasure will you know in life, and in sorrow
will you die.”
“A fortune not at all new,” said Sir Rohan,
dismally.
“Was it true?” she asked.
“You should know best.”
“Papa says I don't know at all. But the fact
is, that once when I was a child I fell in with
some gypsies wandering through Kent, who fancied
me strangely like themselves, taught me
half their singular words and ways, and never
come by the Castle now but they leave me a
cake of rich and costly condiments; — so the
housekeeper wrote. An odd life, that of the
woods, — with a relish that no other life possesses.
One would feel, I should think, living
an outlaw in those deep recesses, like all the
rest of the wild growth there, — the lichen
on the trees, the little wood-pigeons, the six-striped
snakes that shoot from under one brown
leaf to another like darts of poison, — feel as
if life ceased with death, if indeed death ever
came there. I wonder why you never followed
it, Sir Rohan, among your other adventures.”
Sir Rohan did not think it necessary to tell
her of the solitary days and nights he had spent
housed with `the cold-crowned snake,' and meeting
room, humming in a low key to herself. As
she walked, the nightshade in her hair emitted
a heavy fragrance, and having flung it down,
she stole from the room. In a short time Sir
Rohan heard a sweet strain wafting along, and
recognized the tones of the old clavichord, softened
by distance and winding toward them with
a gentle insinuation. Trifles were now indeed the
sum of his life, and he waited in horrified suspense
till the indistinct prelude should unravel
into the tune that so powerfully affected him.
But when the voice joined the instrument, there
rose, instead, the solemnly chanted opening of
the song of Deborah.
“A voice as sweet as wild honey in the crevices
of rocks,” said Sir Rohan.
St. Denys had fallen into a doze, but awakened
by the music, saw Sir Rohan bending forward,
his hands upon his knees, spell-bound, like
some old Egyptian statue. Still the voice, a rich
mezzo-soprano of great compass, sang sweetly on,
thrilling the hearers through the warlike spirit
clashing and chiming with its melody. A pastoral
simplicity was reigning over this portion
lower notes, till the earthly allies of the
Israelites were numbered, when a lofty chord
rolled up in a succession of broad flashes, announcing
the helps which Nature sent to the
battle.
“They fought from heaven,” she sang. “The
stars in their courses fought against Sisera.”
A deep groan escaped Sir Rohan, and he grew
rigid as iron. “The stars in their courses fought
against Sisera!” he repeated.
“The river of Kishon, that ancient river, the
river Kishon swept them away,” proclaimed the
victorious voice. “O my soul, thou hast trodden
down strength!”
Sir Rohan would gladly have laid aside that
vigilance which he had worn for years, had it
been possible; but no oblivion came to his aid,
no confusion of sound or sense would drown the
words.
“Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord,”
she sang, clear as a clarion across the fray.
“Curse ye bitterly —” when the loud snap of
a rusty wire broke the burden suddenly. Sir
Rohan rose and stood in the starlight, gazing
The summer night had slowly deepened, a gentle
wind was lightly tossing fragrance from the rank
flower-blooms without, rain dripped now and then
with a low plash from the eaves. A sudden
meteor shot across the sky, leaving a track of
shining light where the eternal stars glowed
coldly, untouched and unchanged in their places.
What was the misery of one creature to them,
he thought; but higher than they he dared not
send a murmur.
Miriam speaking to Mrs. Redruth was now
heard, and in a moment after, singing gently
other verses of the chant, and armed with a
taper, she came down the hall into the dining-room.
It was like the angel who, entering purgatory,
struck the first dreadful letter from
Dante's forehead, Sir Rohan thought.
“I have accomplished to-night what two generations
have failed to do. I have ruined your
clavichord, Sir Rohan!” she said, gayly.
“To-morrow, then, we may hear that voice
without a foil,” he replied; “weak and thin, a
strident griding foil, like the cricket three months
hence.”
Going to St. Denys, she received his good-night
kiss, whispering, “Our rooms are in the same
hall, papa, or I should be afraid.”
“Good night, Miss Miriam.”
“I wish you a good-night, Sir Rohan,” was
the demure response.
On the landing she paused to protect her candle
from the draught, and as her happy unconscious
voice fell downward, they heard her still singing
from the chant of the Prophetess: —
“At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down;
at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed,
there he fell down dead.” A door slammed, the
voice died, and all was still.
“And the evening and the morning were the
first day,” said Sir Rohan, as, when the clock
struck one, he showed the remaining guest his
room, and left him.
Seeking the steward, he gave some orders for
cleansing and restoring the drawing-room next
day. “You will remain for the present, Redruth,”
said he, “and I suppose it makes no
difference to your wife.”
“Lord bless you, no, sir! And right glad are
we both at seeing your worship brighten a little.
and moping like, my woman says —”
Here, utterly confused and filled with abashment
at the stern surprise with which his master
regarded him, the steward hesitated, stammered
an apology, and bowed himself away; whereon
Sir Rohan sought his painting-room.
All things there were as he left them, — the
brushes in the vase where they had been plunged,
and the window open for the entrance of exhalations
from the adjacent salt-marshes. Hastily
closing it, he took the candle in his hand to
look at his picture. It seemed to Sir Rohan
as if he were becoming, since noon, more and
more the master of himself, — all the past events
of his life a dream, and nothing real but this
day. What consternation overwhelmed him, then,
when on approaching the canvas, with the light
in his hand, every trace of the painting had disappeared,
no glimpse was to be observed there, —
nothing, in fact, but here and there a streak of
some positive color, and the two staring patches
of lime and soda! A cold perspiration beaded
his forehead as he saw all this weary work absorbed
and expunged. Did Destiny thus with
it possible that, in drawing the Ghost's eyes from
his picture, she had revenged herself by drawing
after them the whole? Justice, not Vengeance,
he said to himself; and with a sullen despair
confessed that had the Ghost desired those cruel
eyes to remain, no power of his could have effaced
them. Again alone, his phantasms, and
not he, ruled.
Setting down the candle, he stooped forward
and searched the work eagerly. Low in one
corner, a vermilion fillet close upon a mass of
unspeakably precious ultra-marine; further up,
some dim outline, obscured by a smoky air that
curled across the whole. That was all. But
as he searched atom by atom, he caught gleams
of his former design, and, recalling by the help
of memory line after line, the truth flashed
upon his mind. His picture should have been
full of purple shades; yellow, neutralized purple.
As this idea seized him, the candle, which
was flaring in its socket, dipt and fell into darkness,
disclosing the moonlight that fell through
the panes and overlay his easel. He waited for
the effect. Slowly struggling in the beams, the
his vision, till with ineffable satisfaction he saw
every particle of his work, still undestroyed,
resolve dimly in the uncertain light. He would
have endured as much more pain for the sharp
pleasure that now flushed and filled him. Purple,
then, vanished by candle-light, he had discovered;
and thus through his own suffering and failures
he was instructed. Throwing himself upon
the lounge, he slept his first unbroken slumber
since he had endeavored to install art in the
place of the Ghost.
| III.
MIRIAM. Sir Rohan's ghost | |