Baron Bruno Part 16

It was long before she recovered her consciousness, but at last she was aroused by the sound of sweet singing,

"I would I were a little bird, To build upon his breast, Or if I were a nightingale, To soothe my love to rest.

To gaze upon his tender eyes, All my reward should be, For I love, I love, I love my love, Because my love loves me."

Opening her eyes with a shiver at the wild pathos of these tones, the Queen, by the chill bright light of the December sun, beheld her daughter, with Luachan beside her, seated on the beach of Raasay and twining pieces of damp sea-weed into her long hair.

Queen Margaret raised herself from the ground, and drew her hand across her brow. What had happened?

She herself lay on the gra.s.s close to the sea-sh.o.r.e; and near at hand Castle Brochel towered frowning into the morning sky. She called to her daughter. Miranda heeded not.

But now the sound of oars was heard, one-eyed Donald roughly grated his boat on the shingle, and scrambling out, asked the Queen somewhat gruffly how she came there.

Confused and distressed, she could give no satisfactory answer. Donald then recounted to her how he had been rowing for hours round and round the spot where they had landed the previous night, unable to discover any trace of the large flat rock on which they had disembarked. At last in despair he had returned to the Island.

When he observed Miranda and her mother on the sh.o.r.e he expected also to see Eudaemon near at hand. Disappointed in this hope, he now continued, pointing inland with his long, skinny finger. "I wadna say but the maister is in the Castle itsel'."

At this moment, however, the Princess approached them, singing, sadly,

"But should it please the pitying powers, To call him to the sky, I'll plead a guardian angel's charge, Around my love to fly.

To guard him from all danger, How happy I should be, For I love, I love, I love my love, Because my love loves me."

As she sang, Luachan uttered a melancholy howl. The perplexed seneschal looked from one to another in silent amazement, then muttering to himself, "It's no unco canny for the beast to howl that gate," he hastened, as fast as his withered limbs would permit, up the steep ascent to the Castle gate.

Meantime the Queen gazed fixedly on her daughter. What strange alteration had taken place in her beloved child? Those gentle blue eyes, wont to rest so placidly on all they surveyed, now restlessly turned from side to side, and never looked her straight in the face.

Her busy fingers plucked nervously at the wet garlands she carried on her arms, and her lips moved ceaselessly, though no audible sound came from them.

"Miranda, my love," said the anxious mother, "how came we hither?" A look of unutterable woe troubled the maiden's face. She drew from her bosom a golden needle, and holding it towards the north, she exclaimed,

"As points the faithful needle to the pole."

Swinging the long slimy sea-weeds around her, she then suddenly gave a shrill laugh, and rushed up the castle hill, followed by Luachan, whose drooping ears and limp tail, seemed to the Queen's excited imagination prophetic of evil.

Stiff and sore in every limb from her unusual exposure, Queen Margaret raised herself from the ground and toiled slowly up the steep ascent.

Ere she reached the crest of the rocks upon which the Castle stood, the King came forth to meet her. In a terrible voice he cried--"What have you done to our child, to my darling Miranda?"

Thoroughly overcome with fatigue and misery, the poor Queen burst into tears, and Murdoch forgetting for the moment all save his wife's uncontrollable emotion, soothed her as best he could, and led her into the Castle hall.

Here she told her husband the strange events of the past night. She related their various adventures after Donald left them on the rock, and now, when too late, she bitterly lamented over her own hasty interference, and her imprudent words. She described how she had only time to perceive a being of n.o.ble and majestic mien seated on the previously empty throne. As his eye fell upon her she became unconscious, and could remember nothing more until she found herself on the beach at Raasay in the early morning.

The hours of this melancholy day wore slowly on, but no Eudaemon appeared. At last, towards evening, they forced open the door of his little turret chamber--it was empty. All his books and instruments were gone; everything belonging to him or his mother had disappeared from the Castle. Even the harp itself, beside which so many pleasant evenings had been whiled away, was no longer there.

The only things left, and upon these Miranda flew with eagerness, were the chess-board, the wooden men he had so patiently carved for her, and the box to contain them. For long hours the poor child would sit as in a dream, arranging and re-arranging the motley pieces, softly laughing to herself the while; for her mind was hopelessly gone.

Eudaemon had never wholly disclosed the fact that when they entered the enchanted precincts of Thuisto, any infringement of the rules prescribed must re-act upon himself. In his unselfish devotion, he imagined that if he alone fell a victim to the powerful sea-kings, his beloved and her mother would be saved. Freed at last from enchantment, he trusted that the Princess and her parents would then live on as happily as if no forfeit had been paid for Miranda's deliverance.

He fathomed not the unchanging love that had of late struggled into existence in the dreamy maiden's breast. In the terrible moment that by no fault of his own determined his fate, Eudaemon for once forgot his careful self-control, and clasped Miranda to his heart. In his dread father's presence he bade her a long farewell; he knew not that the sorrow of parting would overwhelm her gentle spirit, and break her tender heart.

King Murdoch and his wife took their daughter by slow stages to her native country, hoping to benefit her by the change. But no following spring should ever re-kindle the roses in those waning cheeks--no mortal hand arrest the progress of decay. The faithful Luachan could not be separated from her, he was her constant comfort and playmate.

There was a spot on the little c.u.mbrae where Miranda loved to sit and gaze across the Clyde's broad estuary to the blue hills of Arran.

Perhaps their clear outline reminded her of the Cuchullins, as seen from Raasay. Perhaps being on an island, spoke to her of the halcyon past.

Be that as it may, one day, towards evening, alarmed by her long absence, the attendants sought and found her here, cold and motionless.

One arm was clasped around Luachan's neck, the other, faithful in death, still pointed the golden needle to "the true and tender north."

They buried Miranda where she lay. On that far island you still may see the lonely tomb, beneath which the weary one is at rest, and drop, perchance, a tear over her untimely fate.

Yes! They are united at last never more to part! Behold, in the regions of eternal peace, a youth divinely fair, a maiden serenely beautiful.

Together they bow before the Almighty Ruler they served on earth, and, as they cast their golden crowns at his feet, the tongue of the dumb sings sweetly, "G.o.d is Love!"

Castle Brochel was never more inhabited. Donald, a sincere mourner for his kind young master, could not bear to live by himself within its shadowy portals. He transferred what he needed to the shieling near at hand, and thence descending every day, kept all in readiness for the expected return of the youth he loved so well.

But the old man watched in vain. He was gathered at last to his fathers. The lonely, neglected Castle fell into decay, and still, through following ages, the well-remembered Enchanter returned not, to awaken with his light springing footsteps the echoes of that deserted abode. Desolation and solitude spread their wings around its time-honoured precincts, and cast a halo of their own over its crumbling walls.

Break gently, ye wavelets, on Raasay's lone sh.o.r.e, Eudaemon shall roam on your mountains no more.

As fragrance distilled by the cold air of night, So Absence and Time shall bring forth to the light, The deeds and the virtues of one without guile, Whose genius and wisdom shed light o'er your isle.

Mourn wildly, ye seabirds!--all nature make moan!

His chamber is empty--his footsteps are gone.

He toiled unrewarded--no guerdon he sought, As soothing relief to the weary he brought; But the mother's soft tear, and the infant's glad cry, The blessings of grat.i.tude garnered on high, Shall, e'en in his Home, 'mid the Regions of Light, Add l.u.s.tre untold to his coronal bright.

THE END.

LONDON R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.