The Sword of Damocles Part 27

When Miss Belinda first saw Paula, she did not, like her sister, remark upon the elegance of her appearance, the growth of her beauty, or the evidences of increased refinement in the expression of her countenance and the carriage of her form, but with her usual penetration noted simply, the sadness in her eye and the tremulous motion of her lip.

"You had then become fond of your cousin?" queried she with characteristic bluntness.

Paula not understanding the motive of this remark, questioned her with a look.

"Young faces do not grow pale or bright eyes become troubled without a cause. Grief for your cousin might explain it, but if you have suffered from no grief--"

"My cousin was very kind to me," hurriedly interrupted Paula. "Her death was very sudden and very heart-rending."

"So it was;" returned Miss Belinda, "and I expected to see you look worn and sad but not restless and feverish. You have a living grief, Paula, what is it?"

The young girl started and looked down. For the first time in her life she wished to avoid that penetrating glance. "If I have, I cannot talk of it," she murmured. "I have experienced so much this past week; my coming away was so unexpected, that I hardly understand my own feelings, or realize just what it is that troubles me most. All that I know is, that I am very tired and so sad, it seems as if the sun would never s.h.i.+ne again."

"There is then something you have not written me?" inquired the inexorable Miss Belinda.

"The experiences of this last week could never be written,--or told,"

returned Paula with a droop of her head. "Upon some things our better wisdom places a stone which only the angels can roll away. The future lies all open before us; do not let us disturb the past."

And Miss Belinda was forced to be content lest she should seem to be over anxious.

Not so the various neighbors and friends to whom the lengthened sojourn of one of their number in an atmosphere of such wealth and splendor, possessed something of the charm of a forbidden romance. For months Paula was obliged to endure questions, that it required all her self-control to answer with calmness and propriety. But at length the most insatiable gossip amongst them was satisfied; Paula's figure was no longer a novelty in their streets; curiosity languished and the young girl was allowed to rest.

And now could those who loved her, discern that with the lapse of time and the daily breathings of her native air, the sad white look had faded from her face, leaving it a marvel of freshness and positive, if somewhat spiritualized, beauty. The print of deeper thoughts and holier yearnings was there, but no sign of blighted hopes or uncomprehended pa.s.sions. A pa.s.sing wind had blown the froth from off the cup, but had not disturbed the sparkle of the wine. She had looked in the face of grief, but had not as yet been clasped in her relentless arms. Only two things could vitally disturb her; a letter from Cicely, or a sudden meeting in the village streets with that elderly lady who haunted the j.a.pha mansion. The former because it recalled a life around which her fancies still played with dangerous persistency, and the latter because it aroused vain and inexplicable conjectures as to that person's strange and lingering look in her direction. Otherwise she was happy; finding in this simple village-life a meaning and a purpose which her short but pa.s.sionate outlook on a broader field, had taught her, perhaps, both to detect and comprehend. She no longer walked solitary with nature. The woods, the mountains with all their varying panoply of exuberant verdure, had acquired a human significance. At her side went the memories of beloved faces, the thoughts of trusted friends. From the clouds looked forth a living eye, and in the sound of rustling leaf and singing streamlet, spake the voices of human longing and human joy.

Her aunts had explained their position to Paula and she had responded by expressing her determination to be a teacher. But they would not hear of that at present, and while she waited their pleasure in the matter, she did what she could to a.s.sist them in their simple home-life and daily duties, lending her beauty to tasks that would have made the eyes of some of her quondam admirers open with surprise, if only they could have followed the action of her hands, after having once caught a glimpse of the face that brightened above them. And so the summer months went by and September came.

There was to be an entertainment in the village and Paula was to a.s.sist.

The idea had come from her aunt and was not to be rejected. In one of the strange incomprehensible moods which sometimes came upon her at this time, she had written a poem, and nothing would do but that she mast read it before the a.s.sembled company of neighbors and friends, that were to be gathered at the Squire's house on this gala evening. She did not wish to do it. The sacred sense of possession pa.s.ses when we uncover our treasure to another's eyes, giving way to a lower feeling not to be courted by one of Paula's sensitive nature. Besides she would rather have poured this first outburst of secret enthusiasm into other ears than these; but she had given her word and the ordeal must be submitted to. There are many who remember how she looked on that night. She had arrayed herself for the occasion, in the prettiest of her dresses, and mindful of Ona's injunction, did not mar the effect of its soft and uniform gray with any hint of extraneous color. The result was that they saw only her beauty; and what beauty! A very old man, an early settler in the village, who had tottered out to enjoy a last glimpse of life before turning his aged face to the wall, said it made the thought of heaven a little more real. "I can go home and think how the angels look," said he in his simple, half-childish way. And no one contradicted him, for there was a still light on her face that was less of earth than heaven, though why it should rest there to-night she least of all could have told, for her poem had to do with earth and its deepest pa.s.sions and its wildest unrest. It was a clarion blast, not a dreaming rhapsody, that lay coiled up in the paper she held in her hand.

My readers must pardon me if I give them Paula's poem, for without it they would not understand its effect and consequent result. It was called, "The Defence of the Bride," and was of the old ballad order. As she rose to read, many of the younger ones in the audience began cautiously to move to one side, but at the first words, young as well as old paused and listened where they stood, for her voice was round and full, and the memory of clas.h.i.+ng spears and whirling battle-axes that informed the war-song which she had heard Bertram play, was with her, to give color to her tones and fire to her glance.

THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE.

He was coming from the altar when the tocsin rang alarm, With his fair young wife beside him, lovely in her bridal charm; But he was not one to palter with a duty, or to slight The trumpet-call of honor for his vantage or delight.

Turning from the bride beside him to his stern and martial train, From their midst he summoned to him the brothers of Germain; At the word they stepped before him, nine strong warriors brave and true, From the youngest to the eldest, Enguerrand to mighty Hugh.

"Sons of Germain, to your keeping do I yield my bride to-day.

Guard her well as you do love me; guard her well and holily.

Dearer than mine own soul to me, you will hold her as your life, 'Gainst the guile of seeming friends.h.i.+p and the force of open strife."

"We will guard her," cried they firmly; and with just another glance On the yearning and despairing in his young wife's countenance, Gallant Beaufort strode before them down the aisle and through the door, And a shadow came and lingered where the sunlight stood before.

Eight long months the young wife waited, watching from her bridal room For the coming of her husband up the valley forest's gloom.

Eight long months the sons of Germain paced the ramparts and the wall, With their hands upon their halberds ready for the battle-call.

Then there came a sound of trumpets pealing up the vale below, And a dozen floating banners lit the forest with their glow, And the bride arose like morning when it feels the sunlight nigh, And her smile was like a rainbow flas.h.i.+ng from a misty sky.

But the eldest son of Germain lifting voice from off the wall, Cried aloud, "It is a stranger's and not Sir Beaufort's call; Have you ne'er a slighted lover or a kinsman with a heart Base enough to seek his vengeance at the sharp end of the dart?"

"There is Sa.s.sard of the Mountains," answered she without guile, "While I wedded at the chancel, he stood mocking in the aisle; And my maidens say he swore there that for all my plighted vow, They would see me in his castle yet upon Morency's brow."

"It is Sa.s.sard and no other then," her n.o.ble guardian cried; "There is craft in yonder summons," and he rung his sword beside.

"To the walls, ye sons of Germain! and as each would hold his life From the bitter shame of falsehood, let us hold our master's wife."

"Can you hold her, can you s.h.i.+eld her from the breezes that await?"

Cried the stinging voice of Sa.s.sard from his stand beside the gate.

"If you have the power to s.h.i.+eld her from the sunlight and the wind, You may s.h.i.+eld her from stern Sa.s.sard when his falchion is untwined."

"We can hold her, we can s.h.i.+eld her," leaped like fire from off the wall, And young Enguerrand the valiant, sprang out before them all.

"And if breezes bring dishonor, we will guard her from their breath, Though we yield her to the keeping of the sacred arms of Death."

And with force that never faltered, did they guard her all that day, Though the strength of triple armies seemed to battle in the fray, The old castle's rugged ramparts holding firm against the foe, As a goodly d.y.k.e resisteth the whelming billow's flow.

But next morning as the sunlight rose in splendor over all, Hugh the mighty, sank heart-wounded in his station on the wall, At the noon the valiant Raoul of the merry eye and heart, Gave his beauty and his jestings to the foeman's jealous dart.

Gallant Maurice next sank faltering with a death wound 'neath his hair, But still fighting on till Sa.s.sard pressed across him up the stair.

Generous Clement followed after, crying as his spirit pa.s.sed, "Sons of Germain to the rescue, and be loyal to the last!"

Gentle Jaspar, lordly Clarence, Sessamine the doughty brand, Even Henri who had yielded ne'er before to mortal hand; One by one they fall and perish, while the vaunting foemen pour Through the breach and up the courtway to the very turret's door.

Enguerrand and Stephen only now were left of all that nine, To protect the single stairway from the traitor's fell design; But with might as 'twere of thirty, did they wield the axe and brand, Striving in their desperation the fierce onslaught to withstand.

But what man of power so G.o.dlike he can stay the billow's wrack, Or with single-handed weapon hold an hundred foemen back!

As the sun turned sadly westward, with a wild despairing cry, Stephen bowed his n.o.ble forehead and sank down on earth to die.

"Ah ha!" then cried cruel Sa.s.sard with his foot upon the stair, "Have I come to thee, my boaster?" and he whirled his sword in air.

"Thou who pratest of thy power to protect her to the death, What think'st thou now of Sa.s.sard and the wind's aspiring breath?"

"What I think let this same show you," answered fiery Enguerrand, And he poised his lofty battle-ax with sure and steady hand; "Now as Heaven loveth justice, may this deathly weapon fall On the murderer of my brothers and th' undoer of us all."

With one mighty whirl he sent it; flas.h.i.+ng from his hand it came, Like the lightning from the heavens in a whirl of awful flame, And betwixt the brows of Sa.s.sard and his two false eyeb.a.l.l.s pa.s.sed, And the murderer sank before it, like a tree before the blast.

"Now ye minions of a traitor if you look for vengeance, come!"

And his voice was like a trumpet when it clangs a victor home.

But a cry from far below him rose like thunder upward, "Nay!

Let them turn and meet the _husband_ if they hunger for the fray."

O the yell that sprang to heaven as that voice swept up the stair, And the slaughter dire that followed in another moment there!

From the least unto the greatest, from the henchman to the lord, Not a man on all that stairway lived to sheath again his sword.

At the top that flame-bound forehead, at the base that blade of fire-- 'Twas the meeting of two tempests in their potency and ire.

Ere the moon could falter inward with its pity and its woe, Beaufort saw the path before him unenc.u.mbered of the foe.

Saw his pathway unenc.u.mbered and strode up and o'er the floor, Even to the very threshold of his lovely lady's door, And already in his fancy did he see the golden beam Of her locks upon his shoulder and her sweet eyes' happy gleam: