Kenelm Chillingly Part 31

"I cannot guess how."

"Possibly not, but you have shown me how the realism of Nature herself takes colour and life and soul when seen on the ideal or poetic side of it. It is not exactly the words that you say or sing that do me the good, but they awaken within me new trains of thought, which I seek to follow out. The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.

Therefore, O singer! whatever be the worth in critical eyes of your songs, I am glad to remember that you would like to go through the world always singing."

"Pardon me: you forget that I added, 'if life were always young, and the seasons were always summer.'"

"I do not forget. But if youth and summer fade for you, you leave youth and summer behind you as you pa.s.s along,--behind in hearts which mere realism would make always old, and counting their slothful beats under the gray of a sky without sun or stars; wherefore I pray you to consider how magnificent a mission the singer's is,--to harmonize your life with your song, and toss your flowers, as your child does, heavenward, with heavenward eyes. Think only of this when you talk with my sorrowing friend, and you will do him good, as you have done me, without being able to guess how a seeker after the Beautiful, such as you, carries us along with him on his way; so that we, too, look out for beauty, and see it in the wild-flowers to which we had been blind before."

Here Tom entered the little sanded parlour where this dialogue had been held, and the three men sallied forth, taking the shortest cut from the town into the fields and woodlands.

CHAPTER XIII.

WHETHER or not his spirits were raised by Kenelm's praise and exhortations, the minstrel that day talked with a charm that spellbound Tom, and Kenelm was satisfied with brief remarks on his side tending to draw out the princ.i.p.al performer.

The talk was drawn from outward things, from natural objects,--objects that interest children, and men who, like Tom Bowles, have been accustomed to view surroundings more with the heart's eye than the mind's eye. This rover about the country knew much of the habits of birds and beasts and insects, and told anecdotes of them with a mixture of humour and pathos, which fascinated Tom's attention, made him laugh heartily, and sometimes brought tears into his big blue eyes.

They dined at an inn by the wayside, and the dinner was mirthful; then they wended their way slowly back. By the declining daylight their talk grew somewhat graver, and Kenelm took more part in it. Tom listened mute,--still fascinated. At length, as the town came in sight, they agreed to halt a while, in a bosky nook soft with mosses and sweet with wild thyme.

There, as they lay stretched at their ease, the birds hymning vesper songs amid the boughs above, or dropping, noiseless and fearless, for their evening food on the swards around them, the wanderer said to Kenelm, "You tell me that you are no poet, yet I am sure you have a poet's perception: you must have written poetry?"

"Not I; as I before told you, only school verses in dead languages: but I found in my knapsack this morning a copy of some rhymes, made by a fellow-collegian, which I put into my pocket meaning to read them to you both. They are not verses like yours, which evidently burst from you spontaneously, and are not imitated from any other poets. These verses were written by a Scotchman, and smack of imitation from the old ballad style. There is little to admire in the words themselves, but there is something in the idea which struck me as original, and impressed me sufficiently to keep a copy, and somehow or other it got into the leaves of one of the two books I carried with me from home."

"What are those books? Books of poetry both, I will venture to wager--"

"Wrong! Both metaphysical, and dry as a bone. Tom, light your pipe, and you, sir, lean more at ease on your elbow; I should warn you that the ballad is long. Patience!"

"Attention!" said the minstrel.

"Fire!" added Tom.

Kenelm began to read,--and he read well.

LORD RONALD'S BRIDE.

PART I.

"WHY gathers the crowd in the market-place Ere the stars have yet left the sky?"

"For a holiday show and an act of grace,-- At the sunrise a witch shall die."

"What deed has she done to deserve that doom?

Has she blighted the standing corn, Or rifled for philters a dead man's tomb, Or rid mothers of babes new-born?"

"Her pact with the fiend was not thus revealed, She taught sinners the Word to hear; The hungry she fed, and the sick she healed, And was held as a Saint last year.

"But a holy man, who at Rome had been, Had discovered, by book and bell, That the marvels she wrought were through arts unclean, And the lies of the Prince of h.e.l.l.

"And our Mother the Church, for the dame was rich, And her husband was Lord of Clyde, Would fain have been mild to this saint-like witch If her sins she had not denied.

"But hush, and come nearer to see the sight, Sheriff, halberds, and torchmen,--look!

That's the witch standing mute in her garb of white, By the priest with his bell and book."

So the witch was consumed on the sacred pyre, And the priest grew in power and pride, And the witch left a son to succeed his sire In the halls and the lands of Clyde.

And the infant waxed comely and strong and brave, But his manhood had scarce begun, When his vessel was launched on the northern wave To the sh.o.r.es which are near the sun.

PART II.

Lord Ronald has come to his halls in Clyde With a bride of some unknown race; Compared with the man who would kiss that bride Wallace wight were a coward base.

Her eyes had the glare of the mountain-cat When it springs on the hunter's spear, At the head of the board when that lady sate Hungry men could not eat for fear.

And the tones of her voice had that deadly growl Of the bloodhound that scents its prey; No storm was so dark as that lady's scowl Under tresses of wintry gray.

"Lord Ronald! men marry for love or gold, Mickle rich must have been thy bride!"

"Man's heart may be bought, woman's hand be sold, On the banks of our northern Clyde.

"My bride is, in sooth, mickle rich to me Though she brought not a groat in dower, For her face, couldst thou see it as I do see, Is the fairest in hall or bower!"

Quoth the bishop one day to our lord the king, "Satan reigns on the Clyde alway, And the taint in the blood of the witch doth cling To the child that she brought to day.

"Lord Ronald hath come from the Paynim land With a bride that appals the sight; Like his dam she hath moles on her dread right hand, And she turns to a snake at night.

"It is plain that a Scot who can blindly dote On the face of an Eastern ghoul, And a ghoul who was worth not a silver groat, Is a Scot who has lost his soul.

"It were wise to have done with this demon tree Which has teemed with such caukered fruit; Add the soil where it stands to my holy See, And consign to the flames its root."

"Holy man!" quoth King James, and he laughed, "we know That thy tongue never wags in vain, But the Church cist is full, and the king's is low, And the Clyde is a fair domain.

"Yet a knight that's bewitched by a laidly fere Needs not much to dissolve the spell; We will summon the bride and the bridegroom here Be at hand with thy book and bell."

PART III.

Lord Ronald stood up in King James's court, And his dame by his dauntless side; The barons who came in the hopes of sport Shook with fright when they saw the bride.

The bishop, though armed with his bell and book, Grew as white as if turned to stone; It was only our king who could face that look, But he spoke with a trembling tone.

"Lord Ronald, the knights of thy race and mine Should have mates in their own degree; What parentage, say, hath that bride of thine Who hath come from the far countree?

"And what was her dowry in gold or land, Or what was the charm, I pray, That a comely young gallant should woo the hand Of the ladye we see to-day?"

And the lords would have laughed, but that awful dame Struck them dumb with her thunder-frown: "Saucy king, did I utter my father's name, Thou wouldst kneel as his liegeman down.

"Though I brought to Lord Ronald nor lands nor gold, Nor the bloom of a fading cheek; Yet, were I a widow, both young and old Would my hand and my dowry seek.

"For the wish that he covets the most below, And would hide from the saints above, Which he dares not to pray for in weal or woe, Is the dowry I bring my love.