THE Jjoent of the {leather 1 ft vlN?) OTHE^ WRITINGS IN TROSS APD TOETTIY /8?S BY MARGARET ELENORA TUPPER Youngest daughter of the late MARTIN F. TUPPER I8 95 LONDON: The Leadenhall Prefs, Ltd : 50, Leadenhall Street. E.G. Simpkin <^Marshall. Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd: York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 153-157, Fifth ^Avenue. AI.U RIGHTS RESERVED The collecting and editing by Miss BissiGKS, of Fox Hill, Upper Norwood, is acknowledged with grateful thanks. Dedicates TO THE MEMORY OF MARGARET ELENORA TUPPER BY MANY AFFECTIONATE FRIENDS PREFACE THE act of dying is the most intimately private in the world. Private, too, is the grief that every death entails. Yet both the death and the grief have their own publicity. They find public record on the gravestone, challenging the eye of the casual visitor to the burying-ground. The common fate of death ensures from all human creatures a common kind- ness for the dead. The most fitting monument to Miss Margaret Elenora Tupper is found in her own words and thoughts. These, therefore, are gathered together into a volume by her friends and offered to the public eye. Such a memorial is, from the mere circumstances of its publication, secure from the in- difference of the beholder. But it remains for the inherent beauty and sweetness of the contents of the book to win from readers a more particular and personal regard for this accomplished daughter of Martin Farquhar Tupper. LOLO JULIA BESLEY. ROSE MOUNT, SYDENHAM HILL. CONTENTS THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 13 PRELUDE 26 A PERFECT DAY ........ 28 A SHADOWED LIFE 35 A DIFFERENCE 59 WHEN SUMMER GOES 59 HEALED 60 KEY-NOTES 61 A CHORD 62 CHERUBIM 62 YEARNING 63 A WINTER BIRTHDAY 64 MORTAL, I. AND II 65 LOST YOUTH . .66 H. DE B. TUPPER 67 THE OLD, OLD STORY 68 To A FRIEND . . .68 SPRING 69 THE GALOP OF THE THISTLEDOWN . . . .69 SWALLOWS 70 A SUMMER DAY ON THE SHORE 71 OCEAN . 72 SWIMMING 73 SEA AND SKY 74 A WRECK LAST NIGHT 75 A SKETCH AT THE " LAND'S END," CORNWALL . . 77 EVENTIDE ... 77 MY STAR .... 78 PARTED 80 A LIFE'S Two LOVES 82 7 8 CONTENTS PAGE OH LOVE, SWEET LOVE 83 PSYCHE'S LAMENT 84 IN MEMORIAM 86 A SOUVENIR SKETCH 86 FAILED, A LETTER 88 BENEATH .......... 88 A RACE 89 THE DAYS OF WALLACE 90 ONLY A DAISY 92 WHY 93 COMPLETION 95 AN OLD MAID'S LOVE-STORY 95 SONNETS. COMPETITION 103 LAUGHTER . 104 THOUGHTS 104 REACTION, 1 105 A HELPMEET, II 105 THE REIGN OF LOVE 106 A POET, 1 106 A POET, II 107 THE HEIGHT OF GENIUS 107 BEETHOVEN 108 PASSING 108 INABILITY 109 FOILED 109 PSYCHE TO VANISHED EROS . . . . . 1 10 A PEASANT CHILD, FOUR YEARS OLD . . . .no IN A COUNTRY CHURCH in THE MULTITUDE in OVERLOOKED 112 LOTTIE'S LOVERS 112 REST .... 127 LIFE'S MELODY 128 A RING 129 TRUE AS GOLD 129 PATIENCE 130 A MESSAGE FROM THE ANGELS 134 CONTENTS 9 PAGE DREAMING AND HELPING J 35 THORNS J 3 6 SUBMISSION 1 3% WAITING J 38 FAITHFUL *39 HEAVEN ] 39 EARTH HO FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN HO A SIMPLE IDYLL HI His WORK WAS DONE H5 A VISION OF LIGHT H7 FORSAKEN H8 PERHAPS H9 BEYOND H9 OLD FOLK *5 CHRISTMASTIME I 5 I CHRISTMAS EVE J 5 2 IN THE WINTER SUNSET i5 2 HARRY GOLD, THE CONVICT 153 A LAMENT J 65 A MAN'S DREAM 169 THE SKYLARK'S SONG *8i A STRAIN OF Music l82 A PHOTOGRAPH l82 HIDDEN OF GOD . . . . . . .183 HE CARES NOT 184 CHRIST LEAVING THE PRETORIUM 185 UNTIL THE DAY DAWN 186 ONE WORD 187 IMMUTABLE J 88 A HEART TO THE WORLD 189 FAREWELL 19 GONE iQ 1 HEROISM 19 * HE AND SHE i9 2 GIRLHOOD ... *93 SUMMER-TIME 194 LIFE (IDEAL AND REAL) 195 THE LILY KNIGHTS OF LYONESSE 196 LIST OF ORIGINAL SUBSCRIBERS ADAMS, Mrs. CLAYTON, Ewlmrst Hill, near Guildford. BARTHOLOMEW, Mrs., 8, Cintra Road, Norwood. BESLEY, EDWARD T. E., 65, Sydenham Hill. BESLEY, LOLO JULIA, 65, Sydenham Hill. BESLEY, NORA, 65, Sydenham Hill. BISSICKS, ADA, Gleninnis, Fox Hill, Norwood. BODKIN, A. H., 4, Brick Court, Temple. BRADSHAW, Miss, 22, Victoria Road, Gipsy Hill. BROWNE, S. A., 20, Anerley Grove, Upper Norwood. BUBB, Mrs., Wairuna, Mowbray Road, Upper Norwood. BULLOCK, Mrs., Yoroshi, Bromley Common. BURCH, ETHEL, Eden Wood, Sydenham Hill. COLE, BLAYNEY, 2, Church Terrace, Bowes Park, Middlesex. EAST, Mrs., Adelphi Coropin, Co. Clare. ELLIOT, Miss, 23, Hamlet Road, Upper Norwood. ELLIOTT, Mrs., Cranborne House, West Bournemouth. EVELYN, W. J., Esq., Wotton House, W. Dorking. ERASER, W. J., 191, Clapham Road, S.W. FREND, Miss, Belmont, Hawke Road, Gipsy Hill. GAREY, N. E. B., Blithedale, Sydenham Avenue, S.E. GILL, WILFRED A., Magdalene College, Cambridge. GILL, W. BLACKET, The Stone House, Caterham. GRANT, ISABEL, Lanark House, Church Road, Norwood. GRIFFITHS, Miss M., 19, Mount Park, Ealing. HARRISON, GILBERT, Seascale, Carnforth, Cumberland. HARTLEY, ALFRED, 14, Aubrey Walk, Campden Hill. HEALES, MAJOR ALFRED, Leesons, Chislehurst. JONES, Mrs., 28, Highbury Grove, London, N. KING, JESSIE, 17, Vernon Terrace, Brighton. LANE, Mrs., 3, Pembroke Villas, Maidstone Road, Bowes Park. LARSEN, Mrs., 69, Palace Road, Upper Norwood. LEES, Mrs. G. C., 47, Palace Square, Upper Norwood. LINDELL, Mrs., Homedale, Cedar Road, Sutton. MACKENZIE, Dr. STEPHEN, 12, Cavendish Square, W. MERCER, W. J., 12, Marine Terrace, Margate. METGE, Mrs., Pimmerfield, Dalhey, Ireland. MORRIS, LEWIS, Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, S.W. 11 12 LIST OF ORIGINAL SUBSCRIBERS MUNTZ, F. E., 42, Thurloe Square, S.W. NICOLL, DONALD, 44, Hyde Park Gate, S.W. OWEN, J. A., 9, Seymour Terrace, Anerley. PARSONS, Mrs., Oakhyost, Park Hill Rise, Croydon. PATON, ROSE, Blackburn, Dulwich Wood Park. PECK, Mrs., 32, York Place, Portman Square. PHELPS, NINA, Milton, Alexandra Road, Gipsy Hill. PILKINGTON, Mrs., St. Mark's Vicarage, Dalston. PONTIGNY, HENRY DE, Drymona, Belvedere Road, Norwood. PULLEY, M. R., 70, Woodvale, Forest Hill. ROBINSON, ELEANOR B., Holmwood, Sydenham Hill. RYAN, GEO. E. M., Teddington. SMITH, HENRY C., 13, West Halkin Street, S.W. SPENCER, M., 45, Belvedere Road, Upper Norwood. STOCKDALE, Mrs., Melrose, Central Hill, Upper Norwood. SULLIVAN, JOHN, Clarendon Housh, St. Helier's, Jersey. TOWNROE, Mrs., St. Augustine's, Auckland Road, Norwood. TUER, Mrs. ANDREW W., 18, Campden Hill Square, W. TUPPER, Lady, 97, Cromwell Road, S.W. TUPPER, W. F., Underbill, Cintra Road, Norwood. TUPPER, Mrs., 17, Southsea Terrace, Southsea. TUPPER, Mrs., 9, Strathmore Gardens, Kensington. TUPPER, C. L., Woodlands, Harrow-on-the-Hill. WELLER, Miss, Amersham, Bucks. WHITE, EDW. F., Morden Road, Blackheath Park, S.E. WHITSHED, Lady, Silwood Hall Hotel, Brighton. WINTERBOTTOM, AUG., 1 6, Sloane Street, S.W. WILDS, Mrs., 35, Lullington Road, Anerley. WILLIAMS, W., Finsbury House, Blomfield Street, E.G. WOODHOUSE, F., 6, Gray's Inn Square, W.C. WOODHOUSE, Miss, The Grange, Albury, near Guildford. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER. 1 CHAPTER I. IT was an evening in mid- August The sun had just sunk in gold and crimson, and all the air was aglow ; it was just the time for lovers, just the time when all the commonplace on earth is obliterated, when those whose hearts are young may exult in the eternal youth of nature. They were not exactly lovers, however, the two who were walking together over the heather-clad hills ; no promises and vows had passed between them : they were merely great friends " chums," they called themselves, both he and she. They had grown up together from babyhood in the small village of Lonehurst she the Vicar's only child, he the Squire's youngest son. Being sisterless and brother- less, Katherine Ainslie counted all the Drake boys her brothers, and Jack her special one ; he was nearest her in age, and somehow he was, and always had been, altogether the best of the five. His bap- tismal name, of course, was not Jack, but John, but no one had ever called him anything but Jack ; if his father had settled upon Robert or Thomas, or any other name, for him instead of John, he would 1 Reprinted from Household Words, by kind permission of the Editor. 13 14 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER certainly have always been called Jack all the same. He was just an ideal Jack, strong, tall, broad, with the purest, frankest eyes, the brownest face possible beneath an English sky, and a smile joyful as sun- shine. Kathleen Ainslie was a pretty, unaffected, healthy English girl, bright-haired, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, clear-voiced as a silver bell. She knew nothing of tight stays and high heels, so her figure was as nature intended a woman's should be. She was by no means perfect ; she possessed a very wilful temper, having always had her own way, and even to her well-loved Jack was very trying sometimes. If his sunny nature could have been spoilt, she would certainly have spoilt it, but its sunshine was altogether too strong for any amount of east wind. He was very fond of her, wilfulness and all ; she was the one woman the world contained for him, and he knew it for a fact by this time, having been round the world and nearly all over it more than once in his sailor-life. Each voyage, since first he stood out to sea in the glory of his midshipman's buttons and the sorrow of a first in his brave little heart, Jack Drake had come home more convinced than ever that the world contained but one woman in it who was altogether lovable and beautiful. They had been having rather a solemn walk on this glowing August evening ; to-morrow he was off to sea again for two long years. He was two-and- twenty now, and Kathleen nineteen, and to them both had come the same thought when they began this last walk together : that there was a something different between them than had been since both THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 15 could remember a curtain of strange reserve seemed to have been drawn between them by invisible but resistless hands. " Kitty," said Jack at last, in a voice that trembled a little, " if you were to marry any one while I am away, I I don't think I could bear it." " I don't see how I can marry any one in Lonehurst while you are away," replied the girl, in a voice she meant to be bantering ; " there is nobody to marry." " But, Kitty," continued Jack, in a beseeching tone, " you know what I mean, dear : I want you some day to marry me. Will you promise ? " Now Kitty, in spite of the strange, sweet, new feeling down at the bottom of her heart, was at that moment taken possession of by her habitual spirit of wilfulness. " No, Jack, I won't promise," she said brusquely. The young sailor's bright, expectant face became suddenly clouded, as if a great physical pain had clutched him. "Kitty, darling," he said piteously, "you know how I love you ! " If he could have looked straight into the girl's heart, as he looked into her eyes, he would have known that at that moment, and always, she held him dearest and best ; but he could not look into her heart, neither could she herself look into her own heart and understand it at that time of her in- experienced youth. If she could have done so, what sorrow she would have saved both herself and him ! And so he had to part from her with no word of sweet promise to take with him over the lonely seas, to leave her with no definite hope that she cared for him above and beyond the old familiar feeling of 1 6 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER brotherliness ; had to go away from her with a terrible uncertainty in his faithful heart, carrying with him but the beloved, maddening remembrance of her presence and the sweet scent of the heather- clad hills. CHAPTER II. THE autumn and winter that followed on Jack Drake's departure were very dreary at Lonehurst, very dreary at least to Kathleen, who was not by any means a model vicar's daughter. She did not care a bit for district visiting, or for coal and flannel petticoat clubs. Doubtless such things were necessary, but Kitty left all such matters to her mother, who was never so happy as when organising something. If she had lived a few years later, she would certainly have reigned supreme on a school board, and have expended her exhaust- less energy on cramming the little rustics with useless knowledge ; as it was, food for the body being then deemed more necessary than food for the mind, she looked after the winter soup-kitchen, made little dainties for the poor, and was quite a blessing to her village. But Kathleen felt very dull all that long winter, which seemed so much longer than usual and so stupid. There was no good ice for skating, though plenty of cold, none of the bright, sparkling days such as had been the winter before, when she and Jack had such fun on the great pond below the hills. None of the Drakes were at home now, only the old Squire, and he was so deaf that Kitty's impatient THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 17 nature could not put up with him for more than an occasional five minutes. All his five sons were gone. Two were in India ; one was a London curate ; Randolph, the eldest, was with his regiment in Malta ; and now Jack was gone too ! She really did miss him dreadfully ; if he could but have known how much, it would have cheered him on many a dreary night at sea. However, spring came at last, and the outside of things began to brighten. When a girl has lived all her life in the country, although she may have attained the enormous age of nineteen years a period when a town belle has come to believe that existence is but vanity she is still little more than a child in heart and experience ; her fancies are still fresh and unspoilt ; she still rejoices in the coming of spring-time as she did when she sat a little girl among the daisies. With April all that winter depression fled ; if she still lamented Jack's absence, it was not with the same feeling of loneliness. There were all the birds building nests and singing, all the primroses coming out in the nut copse, all the sweet anemones down in the shadows ; it was rather difficult not to be happy and sing too. And the spring brought sud- denly a new thing to Lonehurst : it brought that rara avis, a visitor, to the Squire's. Captain Randolph came home on leave, bringing with him a friend Sir George Harding whom he had met abroad. " There's not much to attract you down in our wilds," he had said to him when giving the invita- tion. " My father is deaf as a post ; but there's a rustic beauty at the Vicarage." Sir George considered himself a great judge of B 1 8 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER beauty as far as womankind went, and having wandered about for years with no particular object in life but to please himself, it is quite possible that he had beheld more pretty faces than most men. He had grown critical on the subject and at times cynical ; but when, on that first evening at Lonehurst, he and Randolph, strolling through the copse together with their after-dinner cigar, came suddenly upon Kathleen Ainslie, seated on an old nut-stump, bunch- ing together fresh-gathered primroses, his genuine admiration expressed itself in the impulsive and classical sentence, "By Jove, she's a beauty !" Kitty had seen so few people in her life that a new face was of itself an attraction ; and when the face belonged to a highly accomplished man of the world who knew exactly how to please every woman he had ever met, its charm was irresistible. Was it greatly to be wondered at, then, that at the end of a fortnight she was his affianced wife ? It all seemed strangely sudden to the girl, of course, a dream, a quite unreal thing to happen to her, that this wonderful, handsome man, who had lived in every capital of Europe and danced with Russian princesses, should care for her, the little country girl, who only knew she was pretty because Jack had told her so. How glad she felt now that she had made Jack no absurd promise ! Of course she was as fond of him as she had always been, she argued to herself ; but it would have been so silly to have promised to marry him, and then for him to go away and leave her for years. For a moment sometimes a little tender qualm would come into her wilful heart, a yearning to be back again on the summer hills, the old familiar Jack THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 19 by her side ; but she was just now in a state of complete fascination, and such half-formed regrets were fleeting as bubbles on a stream. In the Vicar's mind there was no let or hindrance why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony. He would miss his little Kitty, of course, but then a girl must marry sooner or later, he remarked to his wife. " And, my dear, it's a great relief to me that she has not chosen Jack Drake ; the lad's well enough, but there's no money. Now, Sir George is rich, and a baronet" The fact that his child would become " my lady " doubtless had its effect. The clerical mind is some- times apt to relapse into human feelings, and the Rev. Thomas Ainslie found something very soothing in regarding his daughter from such a point of view. That the handsome, dashing baronet did not bear the most immaculate of characters in that society which knew him best would, could it have reached the country vicar's ears, have scarcely been a strong enough impediment against his manifold eligible qualities. "Wild oats!" he would have said; "but he will settle down when he is married, and he is very fond of Kitty." This was quite true. Sir George, whatever may have been his past sins, was indeed for the time being, at least as much and truly in love with this fresh little country damsel as it was in his nature to be with any woman. She fascinated him from her very simplicity, just as much as he himself aroused her admiration by its opposite. And so it came to pass that before the primroses had withered on their stems, or the April birds were fully fledged, there was a gay wedding at Lonehurst, and Kathleen Ainslie left her heather-clad hills and her childhood behind her, and went away as Lady Harding to Paris. An old Times reached Jack Drake one day far away on the coast of China. What he read there wrought a change in him such as storms and hard- ships had never had the power to do : the old sun- light vanished out of his face for ever. He staggered up from his seat a stern, weary-looking man. " I will never go back to Lonehurst voluntarily," was all he said, but he said it like a vow. CHAPTER III. TEN years had passed away since that wedding morning which was to bring so much misery to two bright young lives. For a long time now Kathleen had been back at the Vicarage, taking her place there again as of old ; but it was not the joyous Kitty of former days. A worn woman, weary of life, had come back after seven years of what the world calls marriage, but which had been in reality a long martyrdom and cruel destruction of youth's fair dream. Sir George had soon tired of his new toy, and resumed his old habits, leaving her more and more alone as the years went by, until at last he deserted her altogether, leaving her almost penniless in a far- away German town. Kitty in her few letters home had never complained of her married life ; her pride forbade complaint that would only provoke pity ; THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 21 moreover, she knew now how blind and foolish her own conduct had been in responding to Sir George's momentary fascination and consenting to such a hasty match. It was her own doing, and she must suffer in silence ; but when, after hearing nothing of her husband for weeks, she at last received news of his death in a low gambling-house, she wrote to her father, " I am coming home, if you will have me " ; and the Vicar went to Germany, and found her so changed from the bright little daughter he had last seen that he hardly recognised her. So for the last three years Kathleen had lived again in the home of her childhood. She was very quiet and reserved, and scarcely ever went beyond the Vicarage grounds. The old Squire was dead, his eldest son also, and the place belonged now to the second-born, who was still away in India ; so the house where so many of her happy childish hours had passed was now quite empty, desolate, and still, with no one but the old gardener's wife to keep it from falling into ruin. Lonehurst was not like the same place as that in which the merry child had frolicked, or from which the pretty maiden had taken her wilful way ten long years ago. And the hills those everlasting hills, which no change touched, though centuries came and went, altering the destinies of nations were the hills the same as of old ? Ay, there it was just the same the same wide expanse of sky ; the same pure air ; the same silver birches, with their tremulous leaves ; the same tiny streams trickling down through the moss ; the same wondrous purple hue ; the same sweet scent of the heather. How unchanged they were, these hills among which her bright youth had sped ! 22 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER how almost maddening was that old-time smell of the heather! how it brought back the happy past, and the Kitty and Jack of the sweet long ago ! Ah, where was Jack, that faithful, glorious, blue-eyed lover of her youth ? What had become of him ? Through all those ten years no tidings had ever come to Lonehurst of the lost Jack Drake. He was dead, his brothers and all believed. News of him would surely have come before now if he still lived. They did not know of his vow never to return, so concluded that he must be dead. But the woman who had spoilt his life could not believe him dead ; this sweet, unchanged scent of the heather brought him back so vividly to her brought back to her now, when her eyes were opened by sore experience of life, what a noble nature it was that she had so wilfully sacrificed, and how happy she might have been ; and the remorse that had secretly gnawed at her heart ever since that night when she refused his love and took her own wilful way overwhelmed her now with an undying bitterness. CHAPTER IV. IN one of the wards of a London hospital a patient was lying ; he had been sent there half dead from a ship come home from San Francisco. It was a case of utter prostration of strength rather than absolute disease, brought on doubtless by the hardships and exposures of an adventurous life. He gave his name as John Drummond, and his age as thirty-two, which latter statement the doctors regarded as fiction, and registered him as forty. Certainly, to look at the THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 23 worn, grey-haired man lying there in his shattered strength, his once powerful frame now helpless as a baby's, no one could regard him as any more belong- ing to the bright side of youth, although he looked better now than when first brought in, for his shaggy locks had undergone the advantageous operation of cutting and trimming, and, in spite of the weather- beaten face and horny hands, his appearance imme- diately gave an impression that he was by birth a gentleman. He was quite blind, and this was the worst part of his case, for the bodily prostration was slowly improving under hospital treatment, but the eyes that still looked clear and bright had lost all power of seeing for ever. The creeping paralysis had seized on the optic nerves, and no help of doctors could touch it there. It was this growing blindness that had driven the exile back to his native land. " Surely it could be cured," he had thought ; but even in London no man had been powerful enough to heal that. The sister of the ward, a bright, cheery person, whom all her patients loved as flowers love sunshine, had taken a great interest in this weary-looking, for- lorn man, and tried to draw him out and learn his career; but John Drummond, although touched by her care and kindness and expressing his gratitude in many ways, yet remained wholly silent as to his history. One summer night, returning from a day's holiday in the country, she came into the ward, a large bunch of heather in her hand. It was her nightly custom to go round to all the beds to see that all her patients were comfortable, and to bid them a kindly good- night ; and so on this occasion, coming in late, she 24 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER made her usual circuit just as she was, nosegay in hand. "What is it, John Drummond ? " she asked, for this most quiet of all her patients started up in his bed as she approached, a strange look of excitement on his face as he called out in a beseeching voice, "Oh, Kitty! my little Kitty!" "You are dreaming," she said soothingly, and as she would have talked to some tiny boy-patient. " There, there ! go to sleep again." " I thought I was back on the hills," he answered, with a voice of keen disappointment ; " I smelt the old sweet scent of the heather." And his bright, blind eyes looked up at her pathetically. " Then you shall have this ; here is a big bunch of heather for you," she said, placing it in his hand, pleased to have at last found something to arouse interest in this reticent man. That nosegay did more to restore strength to the enfeebled frame of Jack Drake than all the doctor's tonics had done. It took him back to the old happy days before his life had become nought but a weary burden ; it brought him face to face with his youth once more, and set him longing for the old, old hills. All the last ten hopeless years vanished like an evil dream ; his only thought of Kitty now was as the dear love of his boyhood, not as the woman who had dealt him such a cruel blow. He no longer remem- bered his vow "never voluntarily to return to his native place." Nay, his one wish, strengthening day by day, was to go back to Lonehurst " If I am to be blind," he said to his kind nurse, to whom, now that the hardness of years had been broken through, he had told all his past history, " I THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 25 will go back and live among the dear old hills, and breathe the old sweet air, and dream of poor little Kitty. I have been too hard upon her, sister ; she was very young, and I was away so long." So the longing for his native hills grew greater and greater ; and at last, one August evening, a fly drew up to the door of Lonehurst Vicarage, and the good hospital sister guided the blind man into the house. " They will let me stay there a little for old times' sake," he had said. A pale, grave woman rose as the visitors entered the room, and then was it instinct ? for Kitty could not by any other means have recognised in the grey- haired, broken-down man before her the bright young lover of her girlhood she gave a long, low cry : " Jack, my darling, my darling ! " " He is blind," said the sister as her patient stood immovable, only stretching out his arms towards the familiar voice. There is little more to tell. These two, both weary and worn with hard experience of life, had met again met to know and love each other with a far deeper and more tender love than in the days gone by. Kitty was never wilful now ; if ever the old spirit rose within her, one look at her husband's sight- less eyes drove it out in an instant, and many a sweet summer-time yet did they pass together amid the hills of their youth, ofttimes rambling hand in hand, as though childhood had returned to them, or sitting side by side in great content, their faces bright with sunset glory. " It was the scent of the heather that brought me back to you, Kitty," said Jack. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER PRELUDE. OH, you mighty ones, the poets, Who have crowned the world with light Down the centuries that show its Else interminable night, Oh, you large souls whose deep throbbings Pulse along the cold, dead years, I bring these, my poor low sobbings, To your holy fount of tears. Do you turn your radiant faces In astonishment Divine, Deeming one so mean disgraces The effulgence of your shrine ? Do you scorch me with your glances ? Do you spurn me as I come ? Yet to you alone advances This my spirit, shy and dumb. TO your Godlike feet I stumble ; Better there lie unforgiven Than to earth-born souls seem humble, While my wings soar high as heaven, While my wings yearn to the crimson, So the everlasting light May enkindle ruby rims on This pale gleam of earthly white. Ah, so confident in flying, How may I your pardon gain ? Sinks my heart anigh to dying At the shining of the fane ; At the steps I pause and falter, Burdened with such mighty boon, On the threshold of your altar Trembling downward in a swoon. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER How shall I, that am no speaker, In the coronal Divine Dare to sip the golden beaker All abrim with poet's wine ? How dare I in such communion, Though my lips but touch the edge, Claim as one with your high union By this sacramental pledge ? Like to silence of the Gorgons, I should listen and be mute While the rolling of your organs Drowns the murmur of my lute ; I should listen at the portals, With beyond enraptured ears, While the song of the immortals Peals triumphant through the spheres. Yet, O gods, that I so listened, Grant excuse that thus I come ; From your music's might have glistened These my tears, which else were dumb- From your music, from the sweeter Hymn eternal and alone ; Other throat would pipe them better, For their cadence chokes mine own. Such weak plainings, yet so loving, They are strong with strength Divine, And I feel their unction moving In your souls like your own wine ; Oh, my poets, though the bringer Faints o'erburdened with the thought, Yet forgive the feeble singer For the Godlike music brought. 28 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER A PERFECT DAY. LET the eyes close, and see a world aglow With fervour of an endless summer-time, Sweet-cooled with April rain, an endless prime, Yet changing ever, bud on bud to grow Till perfect fruit, and that again to know The sensitive quick bliss of propagation And prick the warm earth with a new creation. An endless music thrills from wood to wood ; Such myriad notes, new harmonies are stirred From countless discords ; melodies unheard In the small limit of beatitude Allowed to mortal ear rise like a flood Of perfect sound, and waft the soul along On an eternal glory of sweet song. The crimson hues of morning earth-born eyes Revel in for a moment, then droop back Thirsty for more, here poured out with no lack, Here rising as no wine of earth can rise From its dull lees, enriches all the skies With the dyed chrism of a large content, And shines an everlasting sacrament. The happy meads with dust of stars are sown, And hold up golden cups to fairy lip Of but more sensitive flowers that here sip The nectar for a moment ; then flit on, A moving silence, glancing up and down, Bright jewels on the light ; then motionless Lie broidered on the field's green satin dress. Dance all about exulting daffodils, Sweet children of the sunshine and the breeze, Tossing their yellow curls in happy ease, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 29 Bending to peep into the little rills ; And in the dimpled twilight of the hills Tender anemones blush out and whiten, Pearl-stars that all the lull of shadows brighten. The northern slopes out-blue the southern sky, Clouded by shade of plumy beech and haze Of ferny greenness ; down their pathless ways Come thoughtless, downy creatures, swift and shy, Nibble the affluent nuts that round them lie, Smooth furry cheeks against cool stalks, or play In this soft summer of reflected day. About the bright lakes, making day more bright, Fleet swallows spear the air in shining throng And tournament of laughter all day long, Careless alike for aught in depth or height, For game or goal, whose prize is just delight In being, moving, thrilling in the glow Of present bliss, nor knowing more to know. Some tricksy sprites there are, idealess breath Yet lovely, as creation needs must be That sing, and float, and laugh ; each glittering tree Has its sweet sylphs and fauns, that know no death, Each sunny pool its shadowy nymphs beneath, That, like a dream of coolness in the noon, Lie sleeping through the everlasting June. Or merrier elves than these, the sexless pets Who ride the sunbeams ; gambol with the dew ; Tangle the cowslips ; chatter down the blue Of meadow streams ; tickle the wren that sits Mute on her spotted eggs, till she forgets A moment their warm roundnesses, and flits Along the shallow banks with happy twits. 30 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Across the heath, with perfumed fire ablaze, Comes, clad in shine of noon, a zephyr sweet, Moves whisperingly down with velvet feet The gossamer-laced, never-trodden ways, Among the purple bells, whose steepled sprays Repeat the self-same blossoms that have rung Uninterrupted since the world was young. The tarn-born torrent whitens in a quiver Of sunny glances through the mountain shadows, Goes rippling, dancing, downward to the meadows, Then stiller grows, and greater, deepening ever, Till, marching in a vast, majestic river, It dies, in the great sea to live anew And feed the earth once more with showers of dew. Dead shells build up a world ; in nature's plan Death is seed sown that springs to larger life, An endless triumph through an endless strife ; The dust of corals goes to mould a man : Thus passive loveliness may be, and can, Touched with the joy of loving and love-giving, Mingled immortal with the ever-living. Lo, a voice speaks ! and all the former best Of the vast universe seems poor and mean ; Immortal beings that have never been, In likeness of the Holy One and Blest, Are born to vision, and stand forth expressed, The incarnate thoughts of God, His lesser Christs ; His language of humanity exists Exists, and loves, and worships, bliss transcending, The joy that lights the flowers with deeper stain For a brief moment, then flits on again, Or that of downy breast tenderly bending Over its helpless young, all these unending Possessed, but with them bliss of conscious bliss, The child made happy with its Father's kiss. Because there must be sadness in all less, Lo, when the Infinite speaks His eyes grow dim, Wherefore there glisten burning seraphim, The tears of God no finite can express, For that Himself is love and loveliness ; Wherefore, as each new being leaves His lips, Baptismal dew upon its beauty drips. All else His hands have formed and smiled upon, But these, because He gives them consciousness They, knowing their great likeness and their less, Will yearn for that the finite cannot own, To be the very love, and love alone, These moulds He with keen pity, moulds with tears,. Wherefore men weep, none else in all the spheres. Last made of all, the jewelled clasp which clamps The perfect chain, man loves, and stands apart, By right of God's own love within his heart, From lesser orbs that bear no separate lamps, But which their Maker's glory lights and stamps With lesser tenderness, that leaves no trace If for a moment He but hides His face. Liking of brute for brute ; moss-cradled bird, Who spreads her little life to warm the dumb And senseless eggs, and afterwards will come To quite forget her own ; the joys unheard Of reptile, fish, and insect, briefly stirred, That leave their young to care of sun and showers, Down to the passive marriages of flowers 32 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER All these are sparks from God ; but man's one whole, Divided into consciousness of love, Shines so much nobler than these, and above Their littleness, as giant worlds that roll Are more than flicker of the petty soul Struck out upon the deadness of a stone, Which dies again because it is alone. So only one inherited this best ; The woman he should love should flame from man, Even as man flamed out from God : creation's span Had lived and lain eternal in God's breast, So woman lay in man's, his thought expressed, Part of the perfect whole to round his sun, The burning and the burnt full-orbed in one. If left completed white, how should there blaze The jewels wound about Jehovah's brow ? Awakened ruby, dazzling brighter now For nearness to its complement and ease Of tender emerald, shining topaz rays With gentle shade of amethyst, unite More gems than when they slept in chrysolite, Parting in blissful sorrow to resphere A happier joy, a joy the infancy Of bliss lay dull to : from the child to be The perfect angel, burning white and clear, Yet flashed with opal hues ; a creature fair That multiplies God's light ; a double sun Rounding to image of His Holy One. What marvel is this sculpture of warm flesh A sympathetic touch will set aglow, As roses where God passes nearest blow ? THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 33 What beauty to be ever a rose-mesh Pulsing with hue of love, for ever fresh, Wrought out from mind and marble here to be The living statues of God's gallery ! A soul devoid of body ! Who can part A thought from its uttered word ? Because this warm, Quick, passionate loveliness was made the form Wherein the Infinite revealed His heart, Even He Himself is powerless to start The twain asunder, lest He wound His own, The Immortal die, self-murdered, all alone ! Pure, sacred beings, in this summer land No cloud may come to mar their radiant will ; The minor of sweet shade of bush and hill Adds but fresh splendour to the all too grand And dazzling light before and after spanned Of unclad forms that move in harmony With lesser notes of bird, and stream, and tree. Swiftly they tread the waves, their confident feet Borne on the running steps with easy motion Out to the tendrilled gardens of the ocean, Where lowest creatures shine and are complete (For even the dregs of God's great wine are sweet), Curving their marvellous grace in myriad change, An endless freedom in a prisoned range ; Or, lifted on the plumeless wings of air, Reach to a height of solitude sublime, Where lies the rhythmic pause in music's time, To meet no life but the lone eagle there, C 34 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Who, as the symbol of all strength, may dare To face with unflinching eyes the naked sun, Which blinds aught other that it looks upon. Slid down to twilight cool of mossy dell, They lie amid the hum of drowsy bee, Drinking the honey from all flowers, while she With laden thighs must prick each separate bell For sip of sweetness, here a while to dwell With the unreasoning myths of restful dreams That lull the effulgent thoughts to gentler beams. Thus man lives happy, conscious of his bliss; Thus God lives happy in His sweet outpouring Of a creation loving and adoring, Of the one form made capable of this The heart, the soul, whose smiling lips, His kiss, Glow ever ruby-tinted with the wine Printed upon them in that touch Divine. And so Love left His seal upon His love ; So rings the voice of laughter, and reveals Immortal happiness, and gently steals Down all the golden links, and dumb things move To joy of faithful dog, to coo of dove, To lark that bears an echo to the sky, To lone brook tinkling its soft lullaby. All hymned together in a harmony Whose key-note is the chord of man and woman, Whose theme the bliss of God, Divine and human, So moves illimitable melody Along the golden notes that stud the sky, For ever and for ever soft and strong In splendour of unutterable song. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 35 A SHADOWED LIFE. To paint the story of a shadowed life What pleasure ? Yet as deeper dark but tells The intenser brightness, so I, gleaning up The large ears left by Boaz in the field, Do bring my sheaf now at the eventide, And standing it by others, see how rich The corn is, spite of greater husk and straw. Among the Cornish hills my childhood sped, Happy as summer sea-birds on the cliffs Who spread white wings above the dimpled blue, And sun themselves in ecstacy of light. What knew I of the cares I could see barred Men's brows in, prison-like ? while wistful eyes Would follow me, a wild, free child, about The breezy shores, and when they saw me laugh At waves that crept to touch my asking feet, Held out to tempt them and drawn back with shout, Would beam a moment with forgotten joy, As winter sunlight breaks on barren hills. Such eyes my father's : he was old, they said, And widowed since my birth, his only child ; As I grew taller I would claim to sit And smooth the furrows out, or, failing that, Sow them so thick with kisses, could such spring And form the immortal aureole of saints, His brow had shone the brightest in all heaven. Ah me ! those years were morning all day long, And shadowless as pink, transparent shell Fresh-born from sparkling ripple, morning all ; But noon must follow morning, and the clouds Of that one face which was my human sky 36 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Grew on me, chilling, chilling, till folks said I should comb white hairs from my dusky curls If I so soon coiled up unfettered youth And hid it under coif of sober age : But as my father with such double weight Bent nearer earth with every step he took, What else but I must rein my bounding feet To pace with his, till, imitating age, They seemed as feeble, and my face grew grave As northern slope that some remembered sun Smiled on one happy hour, whose pale flowers strain To the live air quick-pulsing in the glow Far off on unattainable June hills? My lips had lost their sauciness, folks said ; How could I bubble out sweet rills of youth When such a weight had fallen, scoring down With stones and barren earthiness the green Whose dimpling streams had caught their blue from heaven ? We had one neighbour near our lonely home, Sir Ulph Penrhyn ; but even in those bright days, When a child's life is like a butterfly's, Sipping each offered blossom, I had feared That cunning face as if a poison lurked Deep in his soul through seeming friendliness ; My infant hands refused his proffered gifts, My girlish wants his tempting bribes of books, By some keen instinct, as a bird will shun The berry-covered trap among the trees. He owned a sea-girt castle, Penrhyn Keep, , A place of rock, as though the granite cliff Had taken ogre form and frowned for aye Upon the laughing world. There often went THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 37 My father all alone, for when he went His face grew stern almost as that grim pile, Forbidding me to follow him, and when Next morning, merry with the fresh young day, I greeted him, each time I could but mark How his sad night seemed blinding out his day More hopelessly than ever. So years passed. At last a hideous time fell, and he lay Dying ; ten days and nights he had fought with death, Unconscious of my presence ; then he woke And knew me, and the tide of life leapt up In a last ebbing wave. " Kathleen," he said With hollow voice I could but weep before, As though his knell were sounding through the hills, " Though death comes pressing sore, I cannot die Till you have done my wish ; 'tis only thus, My child, I can undo the nameless wrong That makes your name a byword. Marry him, Sir Ulph Penrhyn, and I shall die in peace." He looked at me with eyes like living coals, That burnt into my soul and palsied it, And held me speechless. What was this great sin That he must offer me to atone for, I Who was but sixteen, spite of all my cares ? I marry Sir Ulph Penrhyn, that old man Who had seemed ever the embodied dark Of our else cloudless summer! marry him ! I could not hold the thought for agony ; I deemed my father's mind was wandering still, And tried to soothe, but he, with sudden strength, Caught my wrists fiercely as a drowning man, Crying, " Child, listen, it is for your good : My Kathleen, my poor beggared child, this man 38 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Has step by step gained all the wealth I stored Through plenteous years to leave my orphan girl- He says he loves you, Kathleen, loves you, child ; Oh, marry him, and I shall die content." " Father," I cried, " what do I care for wealth ? I will work, young and strong, will work to live ; Rather would I go begging through the world, Rather lie down amid the blinding snow And sleep life out, than chain myself to him. Oh, save me from the horror, from the shame, The living death ! I can bear all but this." But he, resolved still, though with feebler hand Smoothing my curls close nestled to his breast. Kept moaning, " I have beggared my own child, My own last child, the last of all my race " ; Then blazing into sudden fire, the pride Of all his long line flashing from his eyes, " Kathleen," he cried, " this is a sacrifice Which must be made : I shall not rest in peace With thought that you, the last of all our race, The princely race who fought by Arthur's side, Are staining your white hands to toil for bread Or taking alms of strangers. Oh, my child, Do this ; till this be done I cannot die ! " But I had swooned, then woke and swooned again All night ; but in the conscious intervals I heard his feeble moaning through the room, " Kathleen, till this be done I cannot die ! " His weary face lay rigid as the dead ; But all that day and night, and days and nights Which followed, five long, ghastly days and nights.. That seemed to have no day, but all one dark, His patient voice fell moaning through the room, " Kathleen, till this be done I cannot die ! " THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 39 Then I gave in ; that pitiful great moan Broke down all barriers of self-defence, And left me helpless as the finch's nest A wild night sweeps away. They married me. I did not see the hard and cruel face As he stood there ; I did not hear his voice ; My dead lips spoke no words : they married me As one might cut an idol out of stone And set it in a church, no soul to show The act-consenting God ; my life was deaf To aught beside that pitiful great moan, " Kathleen, till this be done I cannot die ! " Then it was over ; the wild storm was hushed, And with a smile that lit his weary face, The first I ever saw upon his lips, That night my father died. Long days and weeks, Many they must have been I lay and tossed In fever, dreaming, " This is surely death, And this the grave " ; and when I woke once more To life and woe for life is strong in youth, And will rise conqueror with all its woe The snow that shrouded all the barren wolds Before he died whose death had come to mean My death in life the snow had gone, and green Of spring grown high, mocking me with its joy. The air was blue as in that far-off May One short year since ; the gulls, as in old days, Went gleaming through the light with silver sails, Mocking me, mocking with their happiness, For all my May was dead : beneath its pall Of infamy my murdered youth lay dumb, An insult to the sweet awakening world. Clearly I now could realize my woe ; 40 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Too weak to stir a hand, I could but think, Hungeringly yearning for the joyful past, The golden, golden past, whose cares seemed now But shadows 'twixt the petals of a flower, Pierce clearly to my future heights of dark, Through which the lightning burst with mocking flash And awful beauty of the " might have been." Buried, I lay and heard the coming years Dancing above my grave, bright, tinkling feet Of youth attuned to young love's golden lute, The tyrant earth between my silenced lips And their sweet laughter ; then the trumpet peal Of honour sounded to my muffled ears, And a serene procession passed along, Each fairer than the last in that fair train, Fit-climaxed in a queen of happiness. Over my grave they trooped, over my grave ! The lily will unfurl her opal wings, And spring into the light from out her tomb, But I I must lie still, lie still and bear This weight of earth ; no risen Christ for me ! The weeks dragged on, but health, like nature kind, That will hide even the stain of murdered blood With loving daisy-plots, bloomed fresh again, And gave a summer semblance to my face. Then came that bad old man to claim his " wife," But at the blasphemous, accursed word, The pure archangel loathsome in a snake, I flung him back his name and fled away. Weeks, months, I toiled, toiled in the smoke and din, The sunless region of a city room ; Since days when childhood, checked from noisy play By the still hush which seemed the atmosphere THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 4! My father best could breathe in, had been wont To hold mute jubilee in realms of thought With the quaint legends of the country round, I had somewhiles poured out my joys in rhymes, My joys, and then my strange and shadowy griefs, Till, growing with my growth, the trick had come To be the darling and familiar friend A lonely heart will turn for comfort to. Long months I toiled, selling my soul for bread, Traitor to youth's sweet fancies, pruning thoughts Of all their large, wild instincts, lest the shape Might suit not with my lady's drawing-room, Till, cut and modelled to a pretty toy, I made a book to fit the boudoir shelves And idle hour of reclining belle Weary with too much worship. " Charming book ! " Light lips would lightly lisp, and it slide down Meanwhile among lace cushions and lie there Forgotten. Yet I made a book to sell, And gained the price so sorely laboured for ; But the hot guineas as they touched my palm Burnt all the coward shame into my blood And set me loathing at the hard-earned bread, Till, filled with envy, gladly I had changed With her fresh from the heath, with dainty brooms Bright-bound to tempt a baby townsman's eye, Who plies her simple trade in light of day, Not bartering darkly with her children's souls. I could not write again ; the large thoughts clogged Delicate runnels of the perfumed ink Fit for white pages lying on white hands : The lava heat that throbbed through all my veins Welled out in fiery streams, and glowed and burnt Dawn-like along a yet unmoulded world, 42 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Life-blood that ebbed away and left me faint Only to make a chaos where peace reigned. "Ah ! " cried my soul in agony of dread, " Why all this effort only to gain death ? " But a voice, breaking through the subtlest doubt, Spoke comforting : " Wait thou the hour to come When from its fiery baptism shall shine Another star to light the firmament." Meanwhile I toiled for bread another way : " Companion " was I, friendly-sounding name Which means a paid machine for so much work ; Yet she was kind, my mistress, thoughtful too, With creature comforts most exemplary ; Sent me an hour a day to walk for health ; Was careful when my voice fell too much flat In reading out her favourite discourse ; Sent up hot possets when the nights were cold ; Kept her machine, in fact, in right repair To grind its daily duties. So I lived. Lived ! Was this life, this petty fretting round, In which the highest joy was just to sleep And dream of what life might be ? You can say, " This oak-tree lives "; " That groundsel is alive," But where the bounding, throbbing, quickening soul Which lifts the sensual from its clod to feel A consciousness of life, the great " I AM " Eternal, though these blood-beats stream away Their short, mysterious years ? Not to lie still In dull contentment, grovelling in the earth, Is this strange sense to live, not with weak hands Feeling out just the necessary length To reach a needful moisture to the sap, But shaking off the dust from rising wings, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 43 Exultingly to soar a living song Till lost in light and ecstasy of joy. Ah me ! yet how was I to soar and sing, Held down to earth, coral-like, weaving through A maze of tinted lacework, day by day The same drear round of loops and rippling lines The old eyes lost their way amongst, for me To mesh back into shape with my bought hands, Her hands now, mine no more, my feet her feet ? I had sold myself a slave, and must be still Still, though the rebellious spirit would leap up And cry out, in the glory of its youth, Against the wrong I did it, yet not I ; The hard, cold world, that measures out its love, Its help, smiles, praises, generosity, For just the weight in guineas, that's to blame. For one free hour along the deadening day I burst my iron bands of servitude And ran mad through the fields in pure delight To drink large draughts of sunshine and sweet air, To feel my free feet choose their own wild way Among the cowslips downwards to the Thames There as the fresh wind rushed against my face To hear an echo of the bygone time, For a brief moment quite forget all care, Until relentless chimes would warn the hour Was passing, and I was no more my own. He came first one June morning, Olaf Blount, A neighbour's son it seemed, fresh from his books And boating feats at Oxford. I sat still As usual, bending o'er the entangled wool, For " Miss Tregarth " was never introduced To visitors ; she was a part of the room, 44 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Needful as velvet stool or cushioned chair : But he turned round to rny dark corner once, Twice, many times, his handsome, happy face, That seemed to bring the summer in with it And flash a glory through the dismal room. Never before in all my chequered life Had I seen aught so fresh and beautiful, And stared at it with eyes that had been rude Except for their unconsciousness ; and he On leaving held his frank hand out for mine, Startling the bounding blood into my cheeks At the unusual courtesy, which set My spirit singing all that glowing day, Unreasoning, as a prisoned lark will sing For just the sight of sunshine. After that I met him sometimes walking in the fields ; Sometimes he would swing by me in his boat, Stilling the oars a moment as he passed To lift his hat from mass of waving hair. He grew to love that bank beneath the trees, And would land there and sit the bright hour through, His happy, handsome eyes upon my face, Speaking out all the visions of his youth And glories that the future should reveal. Oh, happy, happy hour of morning dreams ! Oh, sweet, brief hour that all the after-time Yearns back to when the music-stream of life Is silenced by loud sobbing of the rain ! The golden ladder mounting up to heaven Steadfast and possible, the perfect day Seen, realized, not that sad " might have been " Which leaps a sudden moment on the dark Despairingly, though thunder follow close, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 45 The wild light only God's hand can reclaim And fix in new-born suns, but deep, true life, Calm, sweet, and utter peace, surely revealed To youth's clear-seeing eyes in smile of dawn, In light which breaks upon the morning hills, And face of Christ new-risen from the grave. Three glad weeks sped away, three weeks that wrought A change in all my soul : his magic touch Had turned its strings to gold ; with what delight My glowing harp caught up the harmony And thrilled along the splendour of his song ! At last, at last, my winged spirit rose To join the angel host who zone this earth Invisible till on the dreamer's eyes Love lays a holy hand and bids them wake. Then came a day it seemed as if the green Had blazed into its perfect blossoming : The shining water pulsed beneath our feet ; The shining air beat quivering with light ; The woods were dumb with passion heat of June, And our quick souls with one deep melody, The everlasting music of the world. " Kathleen," he whispered low and his strong soul, With love bowed down, stood pleading in his eyes " How shall I keep God's morning on my brow When you, the sun He gave to set your light A chrism there and wake me from the dead, Shall turn your face back into heaven again And leave me to the desolate beyond ? Oh, shine upon me still, my love, my wife ! " I felt the passionate clasp of his strong arms ; I felt his fluttering breath upon my lips 46 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER And the long kiss that drew my soul to his For one delicious moment : then despair, Despair which seized and shrivelled up all good, The gates of hell burst in upon my heaven, One dark dire thought glowing with devil's fire, The chain that lie three years ago had forged To hold me evermore from all life's bliss. How could I tell him the dark, bitter truth ? How could I crush this beautiful, bright boy, Devouring all my soul with his fond eyes, Lips utterly happy, but sighing for joy ? When his voice broke in blissful words again I sprang up, like one stung, from his tight clasp, Crying, " It cannot be ! it cannot be ! " Then the dread word leapt out, " Married ! " and all That sad, accursed history. But he Glared at me pale and faint, then staggering, lay In rigid stillness at my trembling feet. I had murdered him, my darling, my own love ; Had pierced his heart with that one cruel word ! Against his stricken form I flung myself, So close, so close, folding him heart to heart, Mouth to mouth ; oh, these kisses are such fire, They must, must wake him. " Oh, my love, my love, My murdered love, awake to feel my life Poured out upon your lips ! " Then shuddering back To consciousness, he rose with sudden strength And held me, in a husky whisper crying, " No bar shall come between us ; break all bars : Let all the past be past. What matters it ? I will be more to you than all the world ; Come, all my world, my life, my good ! come ! come ! You must and shall be mine." And his wild eyes Maddened me with a wild, delirious joy. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 47 I thought no more of flight ; that cruel white Paling his young lips conquered all my soul ; But suddenly, with a convulsive bound, He sprang away, laughing a mocking laugh, And fled. I lay for many hideous weeks Tossing in fever. Late that dreadful day They found me lying senseless on the grass, With one dire thought, clear and distinct as flame, That burnt with horrid throbs through all my veins, " Murderer ! murderer !" hissing in my ears All those long, hideous weeks ; then when I woke, And knew the room for other than a maze Of crowding, shadowy shapes, that, mocking, laughed And jeered out, " Murderer !" in the quiet night, I heard them speak of Olaf to themselves In whispers by the lamp, deeming I slept : " To think of it, that poor deluded boy ! And she so crafty whom they thought so good ! She well deserved her punishment ; but he Her cruelty had ruined in his wealth Of youth, that had such promise, he must die, The doctors said ; he had not roused to sense Once since they found him raving on the hills, Lost three days, but kept moaning out her name (The heartless flirt !) or would start wildly up Shrieking out, ' Married ! married ! ' then fell back Swooning like death, till his poor mother's heart Was well-nigh broken." So I lay and heard Their bitter words, lying there all too weak To think or wish, with just one yearning hope That I might die and meet my darling love Spirit to spirit, free from clogs of flesh, This earthy, mouldering partition-wall, 48 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER That keeps even loving hearts so far apart. I know his spirit heard mine cry that night ; I felt him in the room, the rapturous rush Of more than mortal love ; and I sprang up, Leaving my body in a deathlike trance, And met him soul to soul. For one free hour We lived united in an utter joy ; Then I woke back to earth again content : They called me " better," knowing not that I Had felt the splendour of transcendent love Which shines above time's dark eternally, So could wait patiently, with such deep wine Refreshing weary heart ! the transient woe That holds life buried in a dungeon here. I knew he too was better ere they spoke : His soul had revelled in the same great peace, And would keep bravely the allotted term Of separation. So we rose and lived. Ten years long, weary years, spite of that pledge, That sacrament of spirits passed away ; This body is but mortal after all, And will in utter weariness moan out, " I cannot reach the Jordan ; 'tis too far ; Though honeyed land of Canaan be beyond, I still must lie down in the wilderness." Our view is limited ; rare times alone We scale a mountain's height by arduous toil And gain a larger vision of the world, Or sink to caverned darkness and behold The stars at midday : the more usual lot Is just to turn aside a step, and peep Beyond the hawthorn hedge, and see the bees Winging their perfumed way from gorse to brier THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 49 Along the level common, till we lose In the hot dust choking the thirsty road That sense of joy which bathed the dewy fields And sweet refreshment of the morning hills. I wrote through those long years, wrote many books, Not, as of old, to trim the careless skirt Of passing fashion ; but as furrowed trees Shoot into blossom urged by the strong stir In all their sappy blood until perforce They must wave out their splendour to the sun, So sprang my books. Those glowing lava-streams Of passionate, hot youth bear richer fruit Than the cool, calculated, grain by grain, Slowly contrived sand sediment heaved up, A barren soil to all the after-time. In large luxuriance my vine-clad hills, Fed deep with southern kisses fiery-sweet, Glow in the splendid summer of their wine, Streaming its purple to the jewelled rims Of mighty cups held out by thirsting gods ; Idle I lie lapped rapture-still in flowers, My flowers of truth, of peace, of boundless love, My lilies, pansies, and my roses red With beauty born of passion : let these speak, While I lie still and dream and feel the pulse Of affluent life keep dancing through my soul As through the veins of Eve in paradise. In a high star I lived ; what mattered then That men went plodding through prosaic days Down in their lower sphere, grew old, and died ? I breathed the sweet air of Elysium ; Immortal youth shone radiant on my brow ; I laved in springs of light men's night-dimmed eyes D 50 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Yearn to a moment when the level glow Of evening seems to move across the earth As God in Eden, then must hide afraid Before the eternal glory trailing by. To live above all want and weariness, A Deity calm and immutable In His own sun-made world is this true good ? Is this the best ? The Divine part of life Looks down with shining eyes from out its peace. The Divine part of life ; the human part Looks up with eyes that also shine, but lit With light from heaven reflected in Christ's tears. I revelled as I wrote ; the large delight Poured out, as morning bird pours out its heart For very joy and ecstasy : and then The skylark's nest is ever in the dust My wearied spirit fell to darker depths From very dazzling nearness to the sun, Alone ! alone ! to sing my song alone ! With none to care, so that they had the song, What ill the bird might suffer. Solitude That slew me ! How they envied my great gift Of clothing thoughts with the same readiness Bright mosses clothe the hills, guessing not I Would give the myriad children of my brain Gladly so one of those sweet, tumbling babes, That rose of flesh among the buttercups, Might bubble up his mouth to one full kiss And claim me " mother" with his greeting eyes. I see the picture through the garden hedge, The calm, completed poem, husband, wife, And, that sweet symbol of a perfect love, Union of both, a happy little child. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Will any mourn for me when I am dead ? Will any heart pour out its fount of tears And weep along for ever, keeping white The lilies on my grave ? Fame ! what is fame, Fame, to a woman's life, that should be green With mignonette and jasmine and sweet plots Of happy household simples, not with bays Pressing the aching brow and sombreing The fullest sunshine ? What is woman's fame ? The raising of a statue, chill as death, Of spotless marble ; not the loving arms Clasping her neck, while dear lips spend a wealth Of kisses, till the furrowing frowns of care Dimple to smiles : to gain the student's wreath, But miss the crown of perfect womanhood : To earn the approbation of the world, Yet stretch wide arms in the relentless night And clasp but barren darkness. To delight A new-set fashion, live on tongues of all A little while, perhaps in hearts of some A little longer ; yet he, spite of such, A vagabond, begging an alms of love, And getting in return the ready scoff A beggar must take patiently : then die, Watched round by alien faces, pitying looks ; The patronising pity coward hearts Intrude, and sting to death with ; all the hive A-buzz when weakness lies too faint to lift A finger in defiance. Better go And throw oneself upon the ebbing sea, The lonely, sobbing, sympathetic sea, And surge into the night to gasp life out Beneath the large compassionating stars. Ay, note those stars, that simile of love, 52 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Down through unfathomed depths the stars still gleam. Beyond the reach of man, where all is dark And utter loneliness, God shines the same. Olaf was far away in India, But ever-widening circles of his fame Came sparkling to me, keeping bright the calm Of uneventful years : that his true voice Should set the world athrob was more to me Than harmony to discord-wearied ears, Than rain to gasping forests : his true voice Striking the keynotes in forgotten souls, And waking a new world of melody From lives long buried in dumb hopelessness, With giant strength cleaving the earth apart To find its precious gems, and with love's ray Setting ablaze rare jewels fit for heaven. Olaf, a man of men ; but yet it seems A man's life is complete so in itself He shines the central sun of his own sky, Nor needs another's light ; his large-sphered height Knows nothing of the patient daisy plot Waiting for morning beam on lonely hill : His glowing, glorious life rolls on alone, And never feels the cruel chill that bathes The groping night with tears : his crimson light Is love for universal, not for one. And so the moon of lesser womanhood Is caught up in his day, absorbed and lost In his large splendour, living to make bright The lonely night with dreaming of his face. Thus passed those ten long years. Then came the news That I was " free " : that hard old man was dead, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 53 " My husband ! " how the sacred name shrinks back From all the desecration of its lie ! Ah, free at last ! Let in the sudden light To eyes long seared with darkness ; dazed and dim, They cannot bear the glory. What use now, This liberty so craved for, in the dark ? When I yearned up to that great host of suns, Blazing their whiteness out across the sky, So far away their light was cold to me. What use this new day dawning a new life ? I am grown old, grown old and sick of life, With all the golden dreams of youth dreamed out. I must sit still and watch the happy feet Of younger generations roam the fields And pluck the roses ; sit and hear their mirth, Yet find no note upon my broken lute To chime in with their laughter. Liberty That comes when the sweet singing voice is dumb ; Open the cage, the weak wings cannot rise. I will go back to my wild childhood's land, There find the seaweeds trailing from the rocks, The shells afloat upon the shining pools Unchanged : there, in the bright immutable, I will forget these sorrowful dark years, This fever-dream called life, and feel again The salt wind lifting careless waves of hair, The tide in pearly foam about my feet, And light of April skies upon my face. Summer lay spread about amongst the hills In islets here and there of ripening corn That drained the scanty richness of the waste And waved their gold around the simple homes Of simple seamen. Hither had I come, 54 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER And dwelt among them : not in Penrhyn keep, Which was mine now by law : how could I breathe In that grim everlasting sepulchre Of my sweet murdered youth ? I closed it up, And left it to the night winds and the owls, Fit music for the ghosts which haunted it ; While I, keen-striving for the " long ago," The peace of childhood, ere life's waves sweep down To spoil the golden castles we build up, Merrily toying with the sands of Time, I had turned back to simple haunts again Among the fishers : well I loved the men, Those stalwart, rough-hewn Cornishmen, whose hearts Beat tenderer than a woman's : here it seemed One still might feel the freshness, still might hear The happy voice of truth and innocence That lingers from the morning of the world. I sat one summer night beside the sea, On the green cliff, low stooping to the sand, That broke a sudden hollow in the hills Where stood my stone-piled dwelling with the rest. I, sitting thus, drank in the starlit peace, Drank in deep draughts of peace, as drinks the day, The tired thirsty day, deep cools of night. Had I found rest at last then, found my night To lull the pain of day with tender sleep Here on the quiet, unfrequented shore, With sea and sky to breathe a benison, And all the fury of the former day Forgotten ? Yes, forget, forget, forget, Lest the wild fire awake and blaze again, And blind these stars out ! ... As I sat, there fell A footstep, nearer, nearer, till he stood THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 55 Beside me : was it Olaf, or a dream ? "" Kathleen ! " and all the music of old years Burst forth again ; the passionate grand song The world had stopped its ears at, rang again Exultant, triumphing. In calm of night I heard the breathing of the sleeping sea Softly, but all my being pulsed and throbbed And bounded in a very storm of bliss Right to the very heavens : then I felt A dread, a chilling utter solitude ; Those ten dead years seemed all piled up between His life and mine. " Kathleen," he murmured low, Tremulous as a travel-weary dove Dropt down upon its nest in sweet content, " Kathleen, I come to crave the sun may shine Once more upon my days ; they have been dark, Dark, endless night, without you. Dearest love, The rumour of your freedom came, and I Travelled unresting to my only rest." But I broke in upon him suddenly : " Olaf, ten years have passed ; I am grown old ; These charitable stars will not reveal The wrinkled face you would not recognise. You shall not sacrifice your heart to wed With such a shattered remnant of a life As mine is now. Nay, seek the fresher bloom Of a new generation : let me be ; I am content to live alone, content." But he, impatient, cried : " Can love grow old ? What are the blossoms of the world to me ? There is but one whose depth is all perfume, The sweet by which I live. Kathleen, my own, Should a man cast away the dear dead flower Worn next his heart long years, because he sees 56 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Roses much fairer blooming on his path ? If you are weak, then how much more the need My strength should bear you ? " Then I : " Ah, kind heart," Your tenderness would keep you bound to earth, While fame would bid you soar unfettered, free, A monarch. Olaf, I have heard your fame." He answered : " Fame ! yes, I have sought and won Greatness, in hope that one day I might bring, Here or hereafter, yet one day, the gem All frail and brittle, but my best, to her My queen, that she might wear it in her crown. Kathleen, what was that toiling Indian life But just the senseless clay, till thought of you Glowed through it, breathed a soul into it, woke A glory in the perishable thing, Imperishable ! " But with that strange fear Which held me, I here interrupted him : " You love the sweet ideal of your youth ; But when the morning shall reveal my face, You will laugh at the rapture of your dream, And drop to earth again from such wild flight Of happy fancy. All the past is dead, And cannot live again this side the grave." Then he spoke very quietly, as one Might speak beside a grave : " In wanton youth We clamour for the fairest ; none but that Can please our sight, true sight, yet seeing nought Beyond the passing bloom ; but as the years Grow parched with sin, a man's deep thirst cries out For life-restoring wine, the luscious fruit, Not mocking flowers. Kathleen, from your books I have drunk draughts of healing in sore need. In that dark hour which left me all alone THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 57 (Nay, darling, shudder not, it is long past), In that sad hour I tried to turn my face Skyward, where gleamed my sun become a star, Yet still my own ; but as the time went on, Hungry I grew for light, for the large glow Of your dear love : not this forgetting star, This cold, unsympathising, far-off star. The past alone became my sky, my world, Haunting me with its passionate sweet eyes, An utter joy become an utter pain, Stabbing me night and day with utter pain ; Till, like the coward man is in his woe, The woe a woman's heart will bear, and be Yet purer for, though life-blood ebb away, Leaving her statue white, I, coward man, Cast off the holy bonds of self-restraint, That strengthening angel in the feeble man Which holds him from the selfishness of brutes, Broke from all good, and leapt to maddening depths The white soul of a woman dare not reach ; There, in abandonment of devil's wine, To drown that ever-present agony Of utter pain. Ah ! veil those sickening years, Loathing, despair, hopelessness : till one day By chance God's chance I lighted on your books, Sweet human books that feel the breadth and depth Of all temptation, and yet overcome : And in that hour my soul drew strength to live, Clear sight to see the truth beyond the deed, The nobleness of living through the dark, Living, riot dying, till from out dead hopes Comes a man's resurrection of himself Purer and stronger, as the tree has power From dark which fed the roots. From that blest hour 58 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER I have striven hard to live true life in life, The incorruptible, triumphant gold That needs hell's fire to burn the dross away, The helpless stroke of death to fashion it A worthy chalice for the lips of God. Oh, love, love, love, the fount of all my good, My soul bows down to thank you, comes to you. Ah ! 'tis in utter greed, for what am I That you should feed me with life's sweetnesses ? " Then I turned round (the summer stars were dim With coming brightness), I turned round and saw The trouble of his face, the same dear face Ripened by suns of thought, and bearing now Rich harvest from the promise of his youth ; But wakening to a sudden joy, he cried : " Once, long ago, in the dark night of death, Your spirit sprang to mine and bade it live. By that eternal Eucharist of souls We can now no more separate than can Two streams in this great sea that once have touched, Two notes struck out together, evermore A unison of sweetness doubly sweet. Kathleen, complete my life, my love, my own ! " " Oh, true and faithful heart ! " I cried ; but he Had wrapped me all too close for room of words, Raining from his strong manhood such a flood Of kisses that the passion-heat of youth Is but as summer shower to : no more I felt a dread between our lives ; all fear Was conquered and cast out by perfect love. And from the East uprose a new-born day. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 59 A DIFFERENCE. A WOMAN'S songs, they say, are sad : A man's with hope and promise glad. A man can to the summits climb, And revel in a light sublime. A woman waits, in cold and rain, Upon the dark and level plain. Yet does she sometimes feel the sweet, Low songs of morning touch her feet, And lift her through the realms of blue, To heights the mountain never knew, There to pour out a song so clear, The angels hush their harps to hear. Her next is on the cold wet plain : Down drops she out of heaven again. Her note returns to common things, To sighs and little comfortings. Upon the ground she cannot pour That chant of triumph as before. And so a woman's songs are sad, And so a man's are blythe and glad. WHEN SUMMER GOES. WHEN summer goes, what follows ? Long flights of happy swallows, To their own sunshine true ; But you, my Summer, vanished, All my heart-sunshine banished, When shall I follow you ? 60 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER The swallows with the morning Of summer sun returning Will ever constant be : But you I wait for, weary, You come not, and all dreary Is summer sun to me. Beneath the eaves sweet trilling, Content, soft bosom filling Warm nest, long waiting cold : Have you a nest still wanting Its darling, longing, panting, Her in your heart to hold ? HEALED. O VOICE that sobs down Summer streams, O moan that haunts the laughing woods. O shadow to youth's brightest dreams, O words too scant for kindliest moods ; O thirst unquenchable of souls, O cry that groaning worlds repeat, The knell that through the ages tolls, All incomplete ! All incomplete ! Gather the fragments that remain, The daisy-wreath on childhood's brow, Birds' songs, that bring youth back again. Long days that live in summer glow ; The moments pausing, like a spell, That counted time in kisses, mete For music ; but the discord knell, All incomplete ! All incomplete ! " Gather ye all the fragments up, That nothing may be lost," cried One, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 6 1 And crying, drank to the dregs the cup Of all things done and left undone ; And through the ages rings a voice, " The Marah waters are made sweet, A boundless tide ; rejoice, rejoice ! Soul, drink thy fill, in me complete ! " KEY-NOTES. MOMENTS there are that come to us like fingers Moving rare chords to rapture deep and strong, Striking again the harp of life, where lingers, Though hushed to sleep, the everlasting song : Waking a soul Divine from out the human, Drowning the jar of discords daily heard : O not one life is ever wholly common, But has its music, were the strings but stirred ! Except for this, how should we still the crying That wears our lives ? " Why all this fruitless pain ? Why evermore the best and sweetest dying, While naught but dull and weary sounds remain ? " Then comes a moment flashed from out the blindness Of a wild night, beaming through summer noon ; Breathed from a face, a word, a thought of kindness, Touching again the long-forgotten tune. Patience, true heart ; that song for ever swelling, Though but in snatches through discordant time, Is of the glory of a whole foretelling, Somewhere, eternal, perfect and sublime. 62 THE SCENT OF THE HEAT HEX A CHORD. MY voice grows faint, grows faint and dies. Silenced by hunger for your speech : Blurring all else, great tears arise ; Ah ! does their pathos quicklier reach Your heart, beloved, your heart so gained, Than all the grief in music plained ? You shine so far away, so far ; My lute wailed wild you did not hear The tumult : do you think, pale star, How all its song is just a tear, Sad orbed that glistens up to you, Will drink it as the sun the dew? Will drink it : then am I more sweet, Whole-lifted into you, to be The note that makes my note complete : In joy of perfect harmony You sing, and I in you ; and death Is conquered by the living breath. CHERUBIM. THE free birds fly in the sun, High over the mountain I climb up so slowly, With ignorant steps one by one, And toiling that never is done ; O for wings bright and holy To join in ineffable Sun Of omniscience won ! In lonely darkness and pain The days come and go, with their cold disappoint- ment : 68 Shall I reach to the height, shall I gain The glory, or plead all in vain For the grace, the anointment Of light that shall heal all the pain, Touch of Christ come again ? Cast down, cast down in the dim : Comes breath of the life-giving dawn from the highest, Shine plumes of the near Cherubim, Chant voices the wonderful hymn, Joy, O toiler, that criest So long for the light through the dim, For the winged Cherubim ! We weave thy robe from the blue, Serene in the glory thy bright wings are awaiting : Climb higher, O faithful and true, Through darkness with courage anew, And resolve, unabating, To reach the ineffable blue Utter light of the true. YEARNING. O GLORY where the highest light doth rest Calm and immutable ! our human sight Blinks up into the whiteness, half opprest, Half hungering to touch the infinite. Our passionate strong hearts would burst the bars And blaze their crimson light along the glow, Far out to deeps of unimagined stars, Free, free for ever in the great I know. 64 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Yearn out, O loving heart, yearn out and rest In peace of utter living ! even yet A little light shall touch, a little blest The dark shall be, although the glory set. A WINTER BIRTHDAY. THERE is snow on the hills, there is ice in the air, And the golden-robed beeches stand ghastly and bare, Death ! Death ! is the cry of the strong ; But a day of warm Summer is shining to me, With jubilant blossom, with glittering tree, And joy of a beautiful song. Come back from the South, happy swallows, and trill The sweet of this day to the sunshine, and fill Rare moments with roses of May ! Come back from the South, purple Summer, and brim The wine-cup with rubies, and pour it to him Whose birth makes a song of to-day ! What matter drear woods, so the joy-bells shall ring Their paeans aloud in the heart of my Spring, That pulses with gladness renewed ? What matter cold breath of November, so May Shall garland his brow with the wreath of to-day, With wreath of an unalloyed good ? What gift for this morning ? what gift shall express My jubilant Summer in Winter's distress, Wine, roses, shall these be his crown ? Nay, more ; for the heart's deepest roses will blow, The heart's deepest wine to his lips overflow, And bring him a glory unknown. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 65 MORTAL. I. O YOUTH, so beautiful and bright, Such living bloom upon your cheek, Your eyes as pure as morning light, Like music all the words you speak ! O youth so strong, so full of glee, I cannot laugh to you for tears At thought of all the doom to be, The change of death and coming years ! Live now again, grand dream of old, The gods, immortal in their prime, Years could not mar, nor love grow cold In everlasting Summer-time. Ah, dreams ! realities are worse, My soul weeps out in agony, Strong crying, wrestling with the curse, O youth, O youth, why must you die ! II. Cease, soul, so blindly crying, Think rather of this thing : Youth, like sown seed, though dying, To glorious fruit may spring. Not bloom alone, nor beauty, The whole of life can show, But tenderness and duty, Truth, love, all these must grow. But youth, you cry, its gladness, Its days so free from care, Yet leave me these, lest sadness Be all my future share ; 66 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Still leave the roses blooming, Still leave the glowing sun, Nor chill me with the dooming That summer joys are done ! O man, take manhood rather With thorns upon your brow, Than crowned with flowers you'd gather, It is more honoured now : More noble deep-scored furrows Than smooth front of a boy ; Christ was a Man of sorrows, Would you instead choose joy ? LOST YOUTH. O DAYS of youth, so free from care, And sweet as summer wind that tossed The sunshine of a maiden's hair When all the morning life was fair, O youth so early lost ! What now ? stern toil, no rest, no time For earth's best music ; love departs ; How stay with whirr of wheels, that grime The days of manhood in his prime, And leave but breaking hearts. Yet he but touched life's brink before, Whose eyes were never blind with tears,. Hot, passionate heart-streams that score With furrows deep for evermore The meads of easy years. Not then a thought of after gain, In sudden dark the storm descends : THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 6~ Yet swollen waters leave the grain, And man's sad heritage of pain Bears fruit to nobler ends. Pure heart still left, though youth be gone. Cry, is youth gone while so much bliss Fade down, O morning skies that shone, Pale out earth's roses one by one, Undying youth is this ! H. DE B. TUPPER. (Killed by an accident in South Africa^) OUT on the summer hills, In the free air and sunshine that he loved, His spirit rose and left the countless ills, Left toil and weariness behind, and moved As skylark from the grass, to soar away To purer sunlight and more glorious day. Did it seem hard in truth, Thus suddenly struck down in health and strength, The laughter of his merry-hearted youth Rippling yet round him, in a moment's length, Without one warning sign, when all was mirth, That death should lay him silent in the earth ? What more could he have done ? Have lived the usual years out ? yet how few Departing, crowned with honoured days, have won A higher prize than his ! Pure heart and true, With not one thought of self' to cloud the sight Of God's own presence in His perfect light. His life was not in vain, Though altogether simple ; no pretence 68 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Of saintliness, no hope of after gain, But full of tender, child-like innocence, And kindly acts that make strong eyes grow dim With unaccustomed tears at thought of him. THE OLD, OLD STORY. HE moved along the yellow corn, A reaper young, of stalwart mould ; She gleaned the fields from early morn, And followed him, like Ruth of old. At evening, all the harvest done, When every golden sheaf was told, They stood and watched the setting sun, Yet spake she naught, like Ruth of old. She met his gaze, and turned away, Blushing, like maiden far too bold ; They seemed to have no words to say, Though playmates oft in days of old. But down the dewy, moonlit lane, When all the thirsty flowers unfold, Hand clasping hers, he told again The story ever new, though old. TO A FRIEND. NOT because you are fair, And a picture I see, That nature painted sweet and rare, With happy eyes and shining hair, Are you a Sunbeam to me : But for the brave, true heart, Unchanging year by year, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 69 Unchilled by fashion or by art, That still loves on and will not part From aught it once held dear. Shine on, my Sunbeam bright, No cloud upon your way ; And be far more than I can write, A living poem, whose sweet light Sheds gladness day by day. SPRING. A WHISPER along the hills, A stir in the wakening ground, The touch of a tender hand A hand in the dark that thrills The heart to a great rebound. O, the soul of the Spring has gone into the land, The soul of the Spring, and the joy of the Spring, And the glory of light and love ! A whisper along the hills, The music of life again, A sweet intangible good That enters and warms and fills The Winter of heart and brain. O, the soul of the Spring has gone into my blood, The soul of the Spring, and the song of the Spring, And the splendour of light and love. THE GALLOP OF THE THISTLEDOWN. THE fresh wind blowing, The warm sun glowing Over the breezy downs, We rise in the air 70 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER From the thistle-crowns In myriads there, And onward we go, Bounding along in the Autumn glow : Flying on glittering, fairy-like wings, Sparkling and bright, Like flowers of light, Through the clear air while the skylark sings, Frolicking, dancing, Radiant, glancing, Galloping, leaping, Over the tremulous grass-flowers sweeping ; Silently as falls the snow, Softly we rest for a moment, then on, On through the air, like flakes from the sun ; Faster, fleeter yet we go, Leaving the hills and the valleys behind, Racing along on the wings of the wind. A bright fairy gallop, a gossamer strife, Flittering onward, Earthward or sunward, Filling the air with an exquisite life, Till star-like we take our far-away flight, Vanishing fast in the noonday light, Passing from sight ! SWALLOWS. ONCE more the swallows come On black and shining wing ; From out their Southern home, What sunny hopes they bring ! And dart, like thoughts of Summer, Through the budding days of Spring. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER J I Once more at eve they fly Round in their circling maze, Far up the sunset sky, Amid the golden haze ; Till, like bright flakes of silver, They soar above our gaze. Again with happy song They greet the early day, Or by the streams along Skim on their sunny way, And sip the morning dew-drops From the thousand flowers of May. O birds ! ye never know The cold, bleak winter clime, But live in one bright glow Of endless Summer-time, Emblems of unmixed happiness, Of one long golden prime. A SUMMER DAY ON THE SHORE. IMPROMPTU. SPARKLING sea ! bright gleaming sea ! 1 love among your haunts to be, Among your wild rocks far and wide, Left shining from the ebbing tide. O calm blue sea ! fair sunny sea ! In all your crystal purity, Your silvery ripples kiss the land, And murmur to the golden sand. .Sweet-sounding sea ! soft whispering sea ! In happy tones you talk to me, In music which no words can tell That soothes me with a pleasant spell. 2 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER O glorious sea ! mysterious sea ! From beaten paths of men I flee, From petty views and narrow sphere To boundless joys of nature here ! OCEAN. I STOOD by the roaring sea, As the waves came thronging in : What said those sounding billows to me, Through all the noise and din ? They cried, " For ever along We roll by night and by day ; With a resolute purpose stern and strong That knows nor stop nor stay : For ever are moving on, As into the storms we leap ; Or, sparkling bright in the evening sun Go rippling past in sleep. And here to the craggy shores Where the earth and the ocean meet, We bring the bright flowers from deep-sea floors,. And fling them down at your feet. The white gulls over us roam, On strong wings flapping free ; And thickly we throng their rock-bound home,. Far out in the wilds of the sea. The stately ship sails by, Freighted with human lives, Yet into the tempest we toss her on high, Or down the deep troughs she dives. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 73 No human power or skill Our thundering might can stay ; No human voice cry, " Peace, be still ! " That we would hear and obey. But often a small still sigh Echoes from wave to wave, As we mourn for those who were doomed to die, Plunged in a drowning grave. For down in the calmness deep, Beyond all restless strife, The brave, and the good, and the beautiful sleep, Who have passed the storms of life. And we chant a requiem dirge Around them evermore, And tablets white of the foaming surge Their unseen graves pile o'er ! " So spoke that sounding sea, Those waves with their tossing crests, Changing for ever, and rolling and free, In a world that never rests ! SWIMMING. FLOATING in the summer sea, Shining, lake-like, clear and bright, Sunny ripples kissing me With warm lips so soft and light ; Silently along the tide, While the waters sleeping lie, With calm, lazy strokes I glide, Cool beneath a sultry sky. 74 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Over depths where twilight dwells, Isletted with weedy crags ; Round bright corallines and shells, Skimming through the long brown flags, Where the crimson sea-flowers crouch : Resting amid wondrous things, I would not exchange my couch For the rich divans of kings ! SEA AND SKY. ABOVE, a deep and cloudless sky, So calm, serene, and clear, Where stars like shining islands lie Upon a silent mere : The morning moon with radiance bright Is gazing softly down, A Guardian Angel through the night Above the sleeping town. Below, what mean these roaring waves, This fierce and foaming sea, That rages horribly, and raves Like souls in agony ? Unresting, as some evil thing They moan, and cry, and creep, These ghastly waves, then howling spring As ghosts from out the deep. \\hat are you doing to this sky, Oh wild and furious storm ! That black-sailed clouds go scudding by With weird and spectral form ? A trailing, shadowy line of death The peace and glory mars, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 75 Go back to your dark depths beneath, Hide not these shining stars ! It moves, it passes pure once more, Undimmed by earthly strife, The calm sky sleeps in silence o'er The fierce and restless life : A path of peace, a jewelled ray, Falls on your wrath, O sea ! Thou canst not harm the stars, but they A glory give to thee ! A WRECK LAST NIGHT. So calm, so tender, so fair and so clear, A morning sky in a crystal mere ; O sea ! but your waters are stained with blood, Your billows are rolling a crimson flood : You are hiding a horrible midnight strife That in darkness has widow'd many a life ! The radiant sun from the ocean starts, And shines on desolate, desolate hearts Whose sun nevermore will rise ! Why does the morning look down so bright, Why lie those faces so quiet and white, Turned up to the glowing skies ? You are mocking us, mocking us, treacherous day, You are painting these poor dead features of clay With the hues of life in your ghastly play. Nay, better so ; it is better to keep A dream for a moment than always to weep. The breeze is lifting a tangled tress, There is warmth, there is breath, they are only asleep, 76 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Kissed by a sunbeam's soft caress, Day is not utterly pitiless. Long hour of mortal bitterness ! Why does the sea not rage and roar ? Why is the sky not wild with storms ? Not sleeping thus in a terrible lull, Not shining down so joyfully o'er This wreck, and ruin, and death on the shore, These cold and mangled forms. You should moan, O waters, for evermore, Not look so lyingly beautiful ! The carols of birds are filling the air, The breath of the heather is wafted around ; Life seems so bountiful everywhere, But down on the shore they are lying drowned. Hush ! you are treading on holy ground ; Hush ! for the presence of death reigns there. Lift them up gently, with reverence now ; They have been hard, rough men in their life : Ah, but that life was so rough and so hard, How should these toilers come out unscarred, How bear no traces on heart and on brow, Combatting daily with peril and strife ? Those drowning waters have cleansed each stain, Those drowning waters have washed them white,- Those waters that washed their lives away. Will He, the merciful Saviour, be Less pitiful than His dark sea To cleanse their souls so long in night, And take them to His perfect day ? 77 A SKETCH AT THE LAND'S END, CORNWALL. WILD Cornish bays, where granite cliffs surrounding Tower in calm grandeur while the ocean raves ; Deep in whose caverns evermore resounding Rolls the long thunder of Atlantic waves. Blue, bold, and mighty, shiningly ethereal, Rush those wild billows foaming far and wide, While radiant spray ascends in forms aerial, Spirit-like floating o'er the raging tide. Sparkling below me silver sands are lying, Huge logans heavily rock upon the steep, High overhead grey sea-mews, slowly flying, Swoop with the falcon downwards to the deep. Through the long glen a prattling murmur, pleasant, Of rushing torrents musically trills Past this rude hamlet, where the Cornish peasant Lives in wild freedom on his native hills. Sons of the soil, brave, strong, and self-reliant, Piling their dwellings with Cyclopean art As their own cliffs, of storms and men defiant, Rough in their speech, but tender in their heart. A glorious scene around these breezy highlands, Grand boulder pile, and echoing dim recess, Dark plains of sea, to Scilly's shadowy islands, Rolling above King Arthur's Lyonesse. EVENTIDE. A RAINY day, a grey bleak day, With only gusts of wind to break The dim monotony, and shape The strong trees till they bow and sway. 78 THE SCE.VT OF THE HEATHER And eventide is drawing near : Must this sad Autumn day so die, Without one ray of brightness nigh, The closing hour to charm and cheer ? There, out along the West, behold ! Breaks forth a sudden line of light, And soon the sky, long dimmed in night, Is robed in purple, gemmed with gold. In gold and purple, like a king, So goes the Autumn day to rest ; Goes down into the glowing west In all his royal jewelling, To where the silent apple-green Out in the radiant distance shines, Barred with long purple-pencilled lines, Like a clear lake with isles between. Oh, such a wealth of glory seems Suddenly to have filled the sky ! The air, the earth, all far and nigh, Are glowing in the gladdening beams. And so the day dies royally ; The golden light to crimson grows ; Till, hushed into a calm repose, Slumbers the silent, star-lit sky. MY STAR. Where art thou, O dear Love ? I cannot feel the beaming Of thy bright presence : in the bitter chill I strain weak hands up to the silent gleaming Of million stars that gaze unmoved and still. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 79 However eyes are dim, however tears are streaming, Unmoved, and still, and dreaming, Though love is evermore. Where art thou, O fond Love ? These weak hands cannot find thee, Though strong on earth, they bound thee with light touch : Where lie the nearer chains that now so bind thee Far from the soul thine own soul loved so much ; Or dost thou soar from links that once so sweet en- twined thee, While I but creep behind thee, And love is evermore ? Where art thou, O bright Love ? what need my dim eyes turning To the dim stars that answer not, nor say ? O flame of love, that must out-burn the burning Of these pale orbs, until night blaze to day ! Where art thou yearning now, in greatness of thy yearning, For one so sorely mourning, While love is evermore ? O Love, thine eyes are sweet ; how may the dark- ness cover Such joy of truth, that shines with light Divine ? Why beam they not, the youngest star bright over All other lesser, colder lights than thine, A very star of dawn that shall immortal hover Above each holy lover ? For love is evermore. Ah, cold, I wait : in silent white of morning My star may rise, and shine, and fill my soul 80 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER With new and blessed peace ; in tender burning Drawing it upward, till in souls one whole It lies all satisfied, no more returning, For death has quenched the yearning, And love is evermore. PARTED. IT came in flush of summer, The year's unclouded noon, When not one shadow lingered To dim the golden June ; A desolation wailing, That stilled my happy tune. Sore crying ; yet to hear it A gleam of joy would come ; The love than life-blood dearer, Might have grown cold and dumb, And passed away for ever Without one thought of home. But on my heart it nestled, Close, like a weary child, With eyes so full of loving, That gazed at me and smiled ; So passed to death, as living, Holy and undefiled. Came tears and bitter anguish, And a hunger all in vain For the clasp of tender fingers That made mine strong again ; For the lips whose clinging kisses Drew out my heart's dull pain. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Si Came tears and bitter anguish For the years that would not be While the sun rolled on in glory, Lighting up earth and sea ; A foretaste of the darkness Through all the years for me. The loneliness and longing, And eyes that search about For a belief in loving, Since hands so long stretched out To grasp the fruit of faithfulness Find but a barren doubt. But in the lonely midnight A voice fell on mine ear, The dear voice of a spirit Spoke to me strong and clear, In the old tender accents, " Darling, I still am near. " Take up this cold, dead sorrow, And bury it ; for, lo, The earthly old affection Is darkness to the glow Of love past understanding That burns within me now. " Down in the world's low level, Through life's uncertain range, Love might have flown out from you, To droop back cold and strange ; But now it lives immortal, And never more can change." Then I took my weary burden, And in the summer sea F 82 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER I laid it, where none other Should know the spot but me ; I could not bear my darling With common graves should be. Once we were long time parted, But now are ever near, And nearer meet and nearer Down each converging year ; My love that died and I that live Have grown to each more dear. It draws me upward, upward, With such strong cords of love, I almost feel the Presence Sometimes to breathe and move, With more than all the rapture That bygone days could prove. It draws me upward, upward, E'en to the golden rim Of everlasting splendour, Till earth grows cold and dim ; And for my lost June music I hear the Eternal hymn. A LIFE'S TWO LOVES. HE came when the morning was blushing rose red With glittering banners of spring, And he shook my bright bough hanging over his head Till the petals dropped down at his feet, and he said, " See how this fair blossom of love has been shed For me only, the beautiful thing ! " THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 83 So he gathered them up from the ground where they lay In sweetness and fragrance of love ; And safe in his bosom he hid them away, And thought, " I shall keep them for ever and aye." Then he went, and returned not for many a day To the bough that still stretched out above. You came when the evening was crimson and gold, When the fire of Autumn had past ; And you touched my sad bough where he touched it of old; But I gave you my fruit, ripe and mellow, to hold ; My glory I gave you ; the bough is left cold, For its fervour is hid in your heart. The blossom he gathered died out like the dew, Long ago with the flowers of yore ; But the wine of my life I have poured out for you In hallowed soul-sacrament he never knew, Content with the bloom, not regarding the true Ripe love that shall brim evermore. O LOVE, SWEET LOVE ! (SONG.) O LOVE, sweet love ! what words are meet To kiss your lips, and gather there Life's roses ? They would take them, sweet, To scatter at the cold world's feet Such blossoms all too rare. O love, sweet love ! and all mine own ; More dear than torrent to the hills, Than southern skies to swallows flown, Than tenderness to hearts so lone ; O love that all things fills ! 84 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Sweet love ! .the roses soon decay, The torrent wanders to the shore, The swallows northward wing their way ; But thou, true tenderness, dost stay, True love for evermore ! PSYCHE'S LAMENT. O RIVER, flowing down so fleet, so fast, That none may stay thee, not even mighty Pan, What time he pipes such music out, nor can But pause to listen every fish and beast ; And every tree and every winged thing Must hush their leaves and poise on level wing, Drawn to a moment's sweet forgetfulness Of mortal life's distress. But, river, thou dost rush on very sure, And very sure my sweet youth flows away, So fast it runneth onward, none can stay, Not mighty Pan himself has might to cure This wound of very life-blood hurrying down, So quick it faileth, youth that seemed mine own And his, who loved me, he the immortal boy Who filled my life with joy. And ever doth he dwell, and ever shall, Immortal, in the very sweet of youth, But mine must pass, in spite of my sad ruth, Must pant itself away and dwindle small, Until there nothing left is but the story Of Psyche made so beautiful, the glory Of very Love himself, who yet did wane, Made beautiful in vain ! THE. SCENT OF THE HE A THER 85 Oh, youth, so strange, so sweet, so very sweet, Oh, youth, that stays not once, but running ever, Wastes all thy lovely strength, like rushing river, Until with weak and ever wearier feet Thou comest to the margin of the sea, And Lethe's dark flood makes thee not to be ; Oh^youth, so strange, so sweet, so incomplete, Why art thou still so sweet ? Why art thou still so sweet, that I should crave For an immortal draught to make thee mine, So I may sit among the gods divine, Beside him, who his love immortal gave To me, that needs must die, must wane and die, And sleep forgotten through eternity, And evermore to his remembrance seem The dreaming of a dream. O gods, that I must wane ! that I must wane ! O Love, who art the god of all the gods, Obtain high grace for me when great Jove nods ; Else thine immortal love must be in vain, Thy Psyche thou didst deem so very fair, In wondrous morning bloom and corn-lit hair, Must fade and pass, and perish with the rest, And be no more the best ! O river, running down so fast, so fleet, For one short minute pause, here in the reeds Whence Pan drew out his pipe which soothes men's needs For a delicious moment, as their feet Go hurrying by ; O river, rest but now, So I may feel the light upon my brow, A leisure-flash, from the arrested strife, Of bright immortal life. 86 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Alack, the river runneth by so chill, As chill as age and the sure-coming death ; It chills my naked feet as just beneath The peaceless surface I engulph them still To ease their sorrow, these the Love-god's kiss So oft gave little wings to in the bliss When I arose from his dear couch at dawn, To follow him withdrawn. IN MEMORIAM. SWEET, lovely soul, breathed out so still, Without a moan, without a sigh ; No sign, no thought of sudden ill, But softly, as a bird might fly From some low nest to reach the sky. O beautiful, completed life That nothing now can change or mar : Pure soul at peace from mortal strife ; Upon the firmament afar The shining of another star. He rests beneath the quiet sod In sure and certain hope to wait The resurrection day. O God, Whose human love and grief were great, Shed peace on hearts left desolate ! A SOUVENIR SKETCH. JUST here is the spot for my sketching, Down here in the midst of the heath, From which all the blue hills are stretching, With fields, farms, and valleys beneath : THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 87 Old friends are these dark fir-fringed hill-tops From Leith with its old castle-keep, Till Ewhurst's high landmark, the mill, tops All Whortwood's wild heathery steep. Far over those wild " Surrey Highlands " The eye ranges free as a bird ; Then wanders to cloud-fields, like sky lands That no breeze of morning has stirred. And what for a foreground is lying, Down here on the grass at my feet ? Blue harebells and thistledown flying, And gorse, no king's nectar so sweet. Will you in new summers look back on These scenes of your earliest days ; Remember the green waving bracken, The hollows and long winding ways : The joy and the quiet together That here in the sunshine would lie, Dream deep in the breath of the heather, Or sing with the larks in the sky ? There, now I have pictured the places, Each valley and hill within reach ; But where are the friendly old faces That gave such a beauty to each ? Far sweeter than skylarks their laughter, Than sunshine the light of their eyes : Need I sketch them, will any hereafter Obliterate these from your skies ? 88 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER FAILED. A LETTER. I HAD a thought, you know, and took Paper and pen : now will I win Men's praise for you ; I'll write a book, And you shall be the heroine. I wrote : it grew beneath my hand.; The sweetest words that language holdt Were there encircling you : O grand This queen, thought I, my book enfolds. Thus calm, the pages back I laid, My fair, half-finished work to view : This beauteous form ! What have I made ? Your marble image, but not you. I stopped my writing, for no words Express you, though a volume fills ; You are to me like songs of birds At sunny morning on the hills. Can their wild notes in tunes be caught ? Can all the freshness of the spring Down to some weak perfume be brought > And so I failed to do this thing. BENEATH. THEY show me the glitter and glare That has you entranced, They tell me you are not the rare, Sweet spirit I fancied : They know not your heart as I know it, O my sweet, dumb poet ! THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER They see not the love that must screen Its pity too tender With seeming of coldness, and mien Of world-courting splendour : They see not your heart as you show it To me, O my poet. They guess not the tears that arise In moments all lonely ; They think that such frivolous eyes Were meant for mirth only ; They guess not your true heart, and how it Can sob, O my poet. Ah, down 'mid the glitter and glare, That largely can win you, You see not yourself all the rare, Sweet spirit within you ; You know not your heart as I know it, O my sweet, dumb poet. A RACE. WHICH is to win him, Life or Death ? They both ride with him, they race all three ; He sees them not, he is young and free, And cares for no danger above or beneath. They ride, they gallop, they near the brim : Cries Death, Ha, ha ! I've won the boy ; I'll still his heart in the midst of its joy, And crush out his beautiful youth for him ! Life races, Life clutches his bridle-rein : His eyes are opened, he sees Death loom, He stands on the brink of a horrible doom, Yet knows not 'tis Life that has won him again. 90 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Why has Life saved him; not sealed his breath In whiteness of youth ere sin had part ? That thou mightest join in the race, true heart, And win back for God many souls from Death. THE DAYS OF WALLACE. DARK is all Scotia's ancient land, Dim shadows on her mountains loom, O'er town and glen, o'er sea and strand, Hangs a long night of deepest gloom : For English Edward in his might Holds all beneath his tyrant will, And fierce oppression's deadly blight Falls, shroud-like, over vale and hill. Are there no patriot chieftains left ? Are all her valiant warriors dead ? Is Scotland in her need bereft Of those who nobly fought and bled ? Shall her free sons, who never yet Have bowed to serve a foreign foe, Their country's glories now forget, And for her freedom strike no blow ? A name through all the land is heard, Each heart with patriot ardour thrills, And everywhere new life is stirred, For Wallace on his native hills Stands forth a champion for the right ! His stalwart form and golden hair, In Scotland's hour of darkest night, Like a bright star uprising there. And quickly now each kilted clan Throngs round him, eager for the fray, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 91 Resolved and ready to a man To drive that hated foe away ! Quickly they rise from hill and glen, From city and from Isle they come, Wild warriors, fierce and rugged men, But tender in the love of home. These tidings to the English spread ; And, mustered soon, the well-armed ranks, With bold Earl Warren at their head, March northward to the river's banks, Till over the bright winding Forth, Where the dark bridge its water spans, They see the armies of the North, Brave Wallace and his gallant clans. " Yield up your arms ! " Earl Warren cries, " And ye have pardon from the king." " Never ! " the Scottish chief replies, " Such pardon to the ground we fling ; Your king and armies we defy, Come on, and fight by Stirling's Plain ; Resolved are we to win or die, But Freedom shall be ours again ! " Along the bridge's narrow course The Southern troops in long file go, Till passed is half the English force : Then, with a shout, upon the foe Rush down those stalwart Highland hordes, And charge in all their strength and might ; And clanging shields and clashing swords Flash lightning-like along the fight ! With arms raised high, with clenched breath They fall upon the English ranks, 92 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER And down into a drowning death Hurl them from off the river's banks ; The only road that narrow track, Succour, though near, is far away, And not a Southern man goes back Of all who crossed the bridge to-day ! Then from the Scottish clans a shout Of victory rings, of Scotland freed ; And soon that scattered host they rout, Beyond the Forth, beyond the Tweed, Till none in all the land remain, And liberty is theirs once more ; Freedom's sweet voice is heard again, And gladness smiles from shore to shore. And though, alas for patriots brave ! Again awoke the bitter strife, And Wallace for his country gave That honoured and heroic life ; Yet never more the mountain land Lay crushed beneath victorious foes, But, in the light of freedom grand, Through all the glooms of battle rose. ONLY A DAISY. So mean a thing, and common, What here to praise or pity ? As common as the human Souls of a thronging city. As common as stars whitening The fields of midnight lonely ; As common as day's brightening, A little day's eye only. 93 Come now, and hold this chalice Of emerald :- hope's pure sorrow That fortune ever dallies, And ever waits a morrow. Quaff deep this gold wine burning To ruby as it lingers, Till dross of earth is turning To light betwixt your fingers : The pearl plumes flashed with crimson, That round this gold heart flutter, Now hear you not the hymns on Far harps that seraphs utter. So mean a thing and common, What here to praise or pity More than the myriad human Souls of a thronging city ? WHY? HE wrote a book, then died : Those learned said, Killed from an o'erwrought brain, nor guessed instead A great heart, which through all that languish cried, Was just wept dead. He wrote a book . . . then what ? Will the book last, Or if it live, was it worth while to cast This beautiful warm breath away, and not Be, but be past ? A book upon a shelf, The dust will clinsr ; 94 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER The cold inanimate dry leaves will bring No pleasure like the glory of himself In quick of Spring. This, a dead, graven stone, That, the rose-flesh Dewed blossoms ever deepening, ever fresh With sweet new revelations ; Ah, to own Such ruby mesh ! How shall his gracious soul Prove now so much ? Part gone : nor lips, nor faithful eyes, nor touch, Nor rhythmic pulse of joy ; too dear a dole Death claims from such ! By a mean book be less Of so much gain ! For this poor still-born child the costly pain Of parted life from that which doth express Life's glory plain ! Dead ; and the deed lies there For which he died ; Is he himself, think you, now satisfied Far better that the book lay there it were By his cold side ? Ay, touch it reverently, It hath some place ; Lo, crimson tears drip down the lines apace, A great heart gave its life-blood and did die, And this hath grace. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 95 COMPLETION. Two flames, so parted, once together orbed In a far ether when God spake the word ; Sundered to gold and sapphire still absorbed To ruby all alone the other stirred. Truth blends with knowledge hard and dearly bought, And pale the patient emerald hopes on, faint Glows the ripe love that tears of blood have wrought To right completion for its complement. Sundered ! why so ? In new-created white The unseen glories slept : shall joy be less, v Or greater, in the resurrection light, For consciousness of beauty that doth bless ? The sorely tempted life, the pale despair, Experience from keen woe ; these shall glide in All happy, with the anguish other-where Of hunger-tortured passion, and begin. A re-sphered joy the young star could not feel, The hush of bliss, not sleep of infancy : This when God's pitying touch shall come and heal The green and red to one chalcedony. AN OLD MAID'S LOVE-STORY. IT was a bright, peaceful evening in spring-time. A girl sat on a low stool by her aunt's armchair, placed close to the open window. The Cornish landscape lay spread in its wild, clear beauty before them. The girl was fondling the invalid's well-shaped white hand, on whose third finger was a quaint old ring, a wreath of pearls, dull with constant wear, encircling a soft fair curl ; it was the only jewel she ever wore. 96 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Rachel spoke softly. " May I hear your love-story to-night, Auntie ? " " It is a sad story, dearie, and yet the sadness is well-nigh past now. My night has lasted fifty years, but the eternal dawn will break soon." A dreamy look was in her face as she paused, gazing up into the tender radiance of the sky, where the swallows were threading their happy maze with the light under their wings. " Don't tell me if you would rather not, dear Auntie." " Yes, child, it is a lovely story. I should like you to know it: ay, I should like all on earth to know it as the angels do in heaven ; but I have never been able to speak of it before." "And you must not now," cried the girl, kissing the old hand fondly. " The end is not far off now, my child, and when the end comes, all past pain is forgotten in exceeding joy. It will help to bring it nearer, my telling you. Listen, dearie : " John Penrhyn was son of our good neighbour at Treffurth ; we grew up boy and girl together. Ever since I can remember we were playmates, for, you know, I was a lonely child at home, my only brother (your grandfather) being many years my senior, and always away at school. My mother died before I can remember, and my father rarely lived at home. So Johnnie and I were all in all to each other. His father did not like sending him to school ; schools were hard places for boys in those days, and John was the light of his father's eyes and comfort of his widowhood ; and he could not bear to be parted from him for long together. So the boy had his tutor, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 97 and I my governess, and when our studies were over, we were free to run about our adjacent parks, riding our forest ponies or scrambling after nuts or wild flowers, as the fancy took us. We never once quarrelled, Johnnie and I ; his nature was so sweet, he made all the best in me grow and expand like sunshine does the flowers. My governess used to call me naughty, but Johnnie never did ; however wilful I may have been over my lessons, directly I was free and looked into my dear boy's loving grey eyes I felt penitent and full of tears, and over and over again he would kiss them away, and we would be happier than ever. " I don't think many young girls of this generation know what true love is, as we two knew it even in those early years. If there are lovers in heaven and I think there are we were more like those than the ordinary children of earth ; and the feeling grew with our growth and strengthened with our strength. I cannot tell you when we became regularly engaged to one another ; there never seemed a time when we did not belong to each other altogether : but when John was seventeen he had to go to Cambridge : he was to be a scholar like his father, and he was wonderfully clever. I was a year younger, so I was just sixteen when we parted for the first time in our lives. " That first year, even now, when I look back on it from the distance of all these years, comes back vividly to me in its terrible loneliness. " My governess found me worse then than in the former times of childish obstinacy ; she thought my brain was becoming dulled, I was so quiet and list- less ; I would take no interest in anything she said. G 98 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER I could not ; all the life had gone out of me when we were separated. Travelling was difficult in those days, and could only be undertaken at great expense and risk, even to life sometimes, in out-of-the-way parts of the country like this. So Johnnie was to go for a year without coming home. His father felt it keenly too, but he cheered himself with the thought that his son was gaining knowledge, and that this sacrifice was necessary to make him a grand scholar. At last that terrible year, which seemed endless, was over, and he was to return for the Long Vacation. " He came with the summer roses and brought life back to my heart and brain. He had grown taller and stronger, and the soft fair down was coming on his upper lip, but in all else he was utterly un- changed ; he was my own dear loving boy, only dearer and more loving if that could be. " Oh, how lovely that summer-time was ! No other year has ever seemed so gorgeous in flowers and fruits, no other skies half so bright. We were more together than ever, and loved each other more if that were possible. We began talking of the future and planning out our life together and all the grand things he would do to make the world nobler. Those long summer evenings, how we talked, and planned, and hoped, and believed, and loved ! Then the time came for him to return to Cambridge. It did not seem quite so bad now that he had come home again and broken the dreary spell which had bound me in a kind of utter hopelessness. He would return again ; moreover, he was to return at Easter, so as not to be away so long a time at once. His father had missed him terribly, although he had borne it so bravely. That winter was very dreary, of course ; but I found THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 99 out a slight mitigation in it in going to see John's father and talking and reading with him. It was so comforting to both of us to talk about our boy ; and, now that I had done with lessons, I was free to do as I liked at any time. The management of the house had always been left to my governess, who still con- tinued to live with us in the capacity of housekeeper, so that there were no positiv^ home duties for me ; and when I realized the ol'd man's loneliness, and found out how much I could cheer him, I spent hours with him daily. It was so sweet to be a comfort to Johnnie's father. " I remember every little incident of the day that preceded our dear 'one's return, how we decked his room with wild daffodils, and brought into it a pot of lovely white lilies which I had nursed up with much care in the hothouse that winter, because he loved lilies beyond all other flowers. Whenever I see white lilies they remind me of him better than any other symbol can ; he was like them in his unchangeable sweet purity, in his bright, unspotted nature. " He came back to us well and dearer than ever, and we spent happy days, oh, so happy, together ! " She paused a moment, the thought of that long- ago happiness filling her whole soul. Rachel put her arms round her. " It is a very lovely story, Auntie dear," she whispered, kissing the shining white hair. " We talked of our marriage that was to be when he had taken his degree," the old lady continued. " We had not actually spoken much about it before, but now the time was coming nearer, and he seemed to grow anxious that we should not wait longer than necessary. Then I began to notice a new look in his TOO THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER eyes, a look I cannot describe even to myself ; I used to kiss his eyes to shut them, and laughingly tell him not to look so lovely: but that word does not half describe it. It was a sort of far-away look, as if he saw into another world, and a little dread came into my mind that he would never grow old. " More and more he urged our early marriage as those precious days went by. " I shall not live a great many years,' he said with calm conviction one evening. The dreaded thought I had tried to stifle leapt to my lips. ' Johnnie, I could not bear it,' I cried. ' God could never do such a cruel thing ! ' ' Hush, darling ! ' he said, laying his soft cheek on my hair for I was sobbing on his shoulder ' God can only do loving things, and it may be I am wrong, and it is only a fancy, but the fancy comes so clearly to me sometimes, I wanted to tell you.' "Every word he said that evening, that last evening of all, I remember as though it had been stamped indelibly on my brain. I asked him if he felt ill. ' No,' he answered, laughing, ' quite well ; see how broad and strong I have grown,' and I looked proudly at his broad chest and manly form. ' I have never felt better in my life,' he added. But that lovely far- away look was still shining in his eyes ; and a great dread took possession of me." The speaker paused ; a shudder passed over her. " Darling Auntie, don't tell me any more," cried Rachel ; " it is such pain to you ; you must not." "The pain will turn to joy soon now, dearie. God knew I needed His discipline of patience to make me fit for such a glorious inheritance as shall be mine, and I thank Him now with my whole heart ; but I could not see the reason of suffering then, nor why THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER IOI the grain must dwell in cold and darkness to bring about the perfect fruit " I will tell you how my darling died, how nobly and gloriously he died. I have never told it to a human being since. " The morning after our talk there blew one of our south-west gales which come with such terrible force on this coast ; the sea was raging, and great breakers tearing against the rocks and roaring all along the shore. Johnnie and I loved storms, and we were down early in the bay watching. Before long a ship came in sight, beating about helplessly ; and the gale was driving her against our iron-bound coast. Steamers were unheard of in those days, and sailors' lives were at the mercy of the winds ; there were none of those wonderful life-boats, either. " In a short time the vessel came closer to us, and we could see the men clinging to the rigging ; they were foreigners, and seemed terrified. That part of the shore was quite uninhabited, for it was but the sea end of our adjoining parks, and no possible help could be obtained. The ship got driven in closer and closer until, with a loud crash above the thunders of the waves, she struck fast upon a sharp black rock twenty yards from safety ; and as she did so we saw a little child on the deck stretch out its baby arms in terror. " I looked at John's face ; there was a light shining in it like the look on Stephen's face when they stoned him, as if the far-away world I had so dreaded were close and bright to him now. " He turned and folded me in his arms, saying, ' Darling, God will bring us together,' and then he leapt into those maddening waves. He was a bold 102 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER swimmer, and for a few moments battled bravely against the overwhelming tide. A shout came from the men clinging to the sinking ship, and they threw him a rope. He caught it, and holding it firmly be- tween his strong white teeth, began struggling back towards me. Oh, the agony of those minutes ! Rachel, my hair became grey then, though I was not eighteen. I would have plunged into the sea too, but I felt turned to stone ; I could not move hand or foot or utter a sound : I leant against the rock just as he had left me, and could only feel the horrible agony. "He gained the shore ; yes, he gained it with the rope in his teeth : but he was dead. That terrible shore-wave had struck the life out of him ere it flung him high up at my feet. Action came back to me then ; and, with the strength of a giant, I grasped the rope and bound it round and round a point of rock, for to finish his deed seemed to me at that moment all I had ever been born for, and then I dropped down by his side and remembered no more." The old maid sat quite still, with her eyes closed. Tears were rolling down the girl's cheeks. Presently the quiet voice resumed : " I was not eighteen when that happened, and fifty years have passed since. When they buried my dar- ling out of my sight I longed, I prayed, I implored God to let me die ; to live seemed the most terrible of all punishments. I have been here all these years ; I could not bear to be farther away : my love is buried in Treffurth churchyard, and every year since I have been to visit his grave when the white lilies are blooming over it. They put up a stone telling his name and age and how heroically he died, but I THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 103 planted lilies all about him ; nothing could express him like that, ' The white flower of a blameless life,' as Tennyson has since said. Soon the time will come round again for my visit, and then I may not have to go any more, but shall meet my dear one again ; ' God will bring us together,' as he said when he entered heaven." She unfastened from her neck, close hidden among the folds of her white kerchief, a beautiful little mini- ature. " That is his face," she said, " as far as artist could portray it ; but the glory that was upon it when God took him no earthly limner could paint." Rachel took the fair young face in her hands with a reverent awe, and looked lovingly up into the old one, wrinkled and white with age. This was one of Heaven's true marriages, she felt. COMPETITION. LIKE a spent arrow, deep down in the grass You lie, hot, breathless, and have missed the goal ; Jostles the race by : crowds shout as they pass, Think not of you you, who, with youth so whole, Should have been first the golden prize to wear, Fit tribute to such majesty of youth. Failed utterly, think you, faint heart ? Learn truth Here from the flowers your passionate fingers tear. Come to my blooming garden ; see how grows Each calm in its own beauty : must the rose Pale to the lily to be counted sweet ? Shall oaks for glories of the vine compete ? He wins the highest prize who lives, like those, True to himself and in himself complete. 104 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER LAUGHTER. SWEET Laughter, bells of morning, clear- voiced Laugh- ter, Ripple for ever down time's hurrying stream, As moonlight silvers city roof and rafter, As swallow, summer-loving, follows after, As mosses on lone ruins grow and gleam. Oh, Laughter, how could all the stately forest Endure such solemn still of August noon If no break came, no evening breeze, nor rest From straining at the sun, leaves limp with dew And boughs that lie all careless to the moon ? Oh, Laughter, all my stream of life flows sadly, In depths unfathomable, or leaps madly Down untried precipices. Oh, how gladly It hears thee bubbling rainbows from the blue ! THOUGHTS. I SIT in silence dreaming, and there come A troop of thoughts, like children clamouring ; " Hear me," " Hear me," some happy voices sing, Like morning birds in wakening woods : and some Falter through tears welled from a hidden spring, As weeps the torrent all the summer round From lonely tarn, whose depth no line can sound. Then a fresh troop bound in, and soft hands bring June blossoms, pillowing my happy rest With fragrances, the sweetest and the best. Oh, lovely thoughts ! yet I may try in vain To capture you : ye troop away as fleet ; Far on the vanishing hills I lose your feet, And murmur of a song I shall not hear again. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER IO5 REACTION. I. LIKE one just slain he lies, he who but now Held the world at his feet, as skylark might, Pouring down songs of sweetness and delight ; Her nest is in the dust, his the pale brow, The chill of ashes with the fire burnt out, The sun gone down, and now the dreary night. You envied him that glory all too bright, Nor thought of shadow and the larger doubt A larger faith must strive with. He was born To clearer light than you, but as the morn Which rises o'er a southern land will wring That land with storms your cold climes never know, So is his life intenser, high and low : The greater joys the greater sorrows bring. A HELPMEET. II. SOFT hands that come like doves of peace again ; Soft hands, as kisses tender, that do try To draw the anguish from his weary brain ; Sweet, loving little perfumed hands that lie Like crown of roses on the brow he deemed Utterly vanquished till an angel gleamed, This happy household angel, on his night. What though he has fallen from the highest height ? She is wrapt round with heaven, more than he dreamed, And sits beside him, fans the ashes bright, Breathes thoughts of hope, buds bursting into spring. The world is sunshine ! vanish, all things sad ! And he leaps up again to soar and sing, Renewed and strengthened, confident and glad. 106 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER THE REIGN OF LOVE. OH, Love, you rose once like a morning star, But larger than all stars that ever shone, And claimed the universe, as king his throne, Reigning a monarch of all things that are ; And through the land broke not one sound to jar, But all was music sweet and beautiful, Nor fell there any touch of shade to dull The glories of its summer. There men stood Divinely strong, clear minds, large hearts that glowed With holy rapture, or, immense, outflowed In oceans vast and fathomless of good, To wash the feet of nations with glad tears ; So rose my star, my world of love bestowed. Ah, dreams ! Yet dreams may live in after-years. A POET. I. HE seems to rank with other men ; he seems To take the common joys that make life up And ask no more : you note the smile that beams Now from his eye, and say he finds life good, Not knowing you of a world where he may sup With gods ; you meet him in a pleasant mood, Nor guess in what draughts of ambrosial wine His soul has slaked its thirst ; you fall asleep While he soars intimate with forms Divine, The ever-young, the beautiful, the true, Who cannot touch this false earth lest they weep You see their tears at dawn, and call it dew. " Show us," you cry, "these visions ; let them shine On our lives." Nay, it would be dark to you. .THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER IOJ A POET. II. A POET should be happy, else, they say, The stream which rises in the purple mountain Will bear a bitter taste, and taint each fountain That slakes men's thirst in plains below. It may, But who that sits above the world and hears Its griefs and littlenesses must not lay His head down in the flowers and weep away Such tears ? The stream which falls is nought but tears ! Yes, but a poet may be happy still ; He can take wings, you say, and soar afar, Forget all else and mount from star to star, Find joy in all things joyful. Not until He can with this his poet's nature part, The world that beats beneath it is his heart. THE HEIGHT OF GENIUS. HE lived alone upon the mountain-top, In silence of the everlasting hills ; Familiar eagles on his height would drop, Eternal snows around his dwelling stop : But never rose the laughter of the rills Which trickle down bright valleys ; never broke Sweet human voices on his straining ear. Storms were his music, mighty thunders spoke, But never could the happy songs come near That bubble from sweet lips of youth below. " Too vast ! " he cried, and laid him down to die, Crushed by a solitude none else can know, A height of genius all too cold and high For throbbing heart of weak humanity. 108 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER BEETHOVEN. FORTH from the silent ages came a hand, And burst the bonds long holding music dumb, Where heretofore but sigh or sob did come Yearning through some pure life ; his was the grand. Rare privilege to wake the voice Divine, The universal language, so each land Might hold true converse and might understand Heart calling unto heart. That hand was thine, Oh, mighty master ! oh, most lovely servant ! Who but a soul so reverent and so fervent Could dare approach such sanctity, dare touch Such lips ? To thy humility of love The goddess answered, raising thee so much, Thou sittest now with her a god above. PASSING. LAST glimmer of a sail on the bright rim Of summer sea that shall return no more ; A flush of glory ere the days grow dim That stills the woods, so sweet with song before ; Pale gleam of sunset on the wintry wold, Like living hand laid on the white, dead face Of friend, and in its grief almost as cold, The flashes that leap out and leave no trace When northern skies are darkest. Coming doom Knelled in the voice of him whose early tomb Draws down more tears than can rain drops of dew- Nightly above him, loving words, and kind, That break the air with music, yet, though true, Passing and leaving but the thought behind. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 109 INABILITY. THE thought, the thought, was glory, light of light : How shall I show it ; can you face the sun ? Alone I felt, and eagle-like, upon The silence of a solitary height. How shall I show it ? A bright bird gleams by ; Capture it, can I, though it daze my sight ? The odours of a common primrose lie Too deep for sense to follow. Shuts the night On daylight, and the deed is not yet done You swore to accomplish. Sigh you like the rest, A captive beating at his prison door Who still must beat and groan for evermore ? So groans for freedom, pants against my breast, The thought that lives, but cannot be expressed. FOILED. THE thought was light, was glory ; yet I tried To tell it : guess how conscious is the dark. " Canvas shall show it," said I in my pride ; I made a picture : think how wide the mark. Give skill and patience, shot may reach the goal ; But skill and patience cannot make a soul. How paint the joy of sunrise by a spark ? The merest daffodil that decks the grass Outshines, ay makes my purest lines seem foul I thought so true and tender. Let it pass ; Down to the flower my pride pales as the moon At look of morning. Dead for evermore The deed I trusted to have done so soon ! Yet lives the thought, the soul, mine as before. 110 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER PSYCHE TO VANISHED EROS. AH, Love, you came so near once, long ago ; You held me in your arms and kissed my lips ; I slaked my soul with joy large draughts, not sips And then you vanished like the morning glow, That draws the dew to heaven and comes not back, And I am left among the thorns below That grow up round me : more and more they grow, Leaving me narrower room to keep the track Of roses blooming where your kisses pressed. Ah, Love, sometimes I look upon a face Shining as calmly in its happy rest As shines the moon completed in her sun ; Oh, Sun, oh, Love, with light the moon you grace, Yet leave my fading roses all alone. A PEASANT CHILD, FOUR YEARS OLD. SHE runs to you with rosy, dimpled hands, So full, they scatter cowslips in their going, The loving little heart more wealth bestowing Than tiny palms can hold, the pet that stands And beams into your face, eyes and cheeks glowing, Sweet rosebud of a mouth, the white teeth showing As dewdrops flash and sparkle in the sun. Fearless, she claims your kisses, not yet knowing Her life each day farther from yours must run ; The book of nature never yet has taught her : You are a lady, she a poor man's daughter ; To-day you still are equal. Climb upon Her knee, sweet child, your bright head on her heart ; When next you meet you will be wide apart. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER III IN A COUNTRY CHURCH. THE spire whose point ends only in the sky ; Grey, time-stained walls, whose echoes have been prayers For centuries ; still roof that unawares Has heard the griefs of thousands reverently I tread your stones, old church, dear house of God, And, in the quiet of this summer day, Move through the ranks of death, which every way Lie round you. Blooms the many-daisied sod, But bears no record of the human dust That for a thousand years has nourished weeds, And once beat high with joy of noble deeds And mighty faith which even death could trust. That such should fail ! Dull walls withstand all strife ! The daisies answer, " Death is larger life." THE MULTITUDE. AND God takes thought for sparrows, not alone For lark, for nightingale, whose songs so sweet Hold the world listening raptured at their feet, But sparrows, common things. Think you, Let one, Let twenty, fall, what lack ? Yet God takes thought, Nor lets one perish in the grass unknown. Oh, poor neglected ones, whom none else own ; Oh, common lives who feel 'in living nought Beyond the thankful heart for daily bread ; Who never moan through nights the glories dead Or make new mornings cleaving heaven with song ; Who never strive at the higher, never aim For light on light, but calmly pass along, Yet God takes thought for sparrows all the same. 112 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER OVERLOOKED. WHAT of kind word, kind look, things you deem slight As touch of may-fly on the shadowed lake, So small an incident, too weak to break Its calm with growing circles spreading light ? The wild dove coos on his mate's breast warm and white ; Meadows are bright with daisies sweetly dumb ; A shell upon the shore is kissed and kissed By gentle ripple : then the storm-waves come ; Thus pass all beauties common and so unmissed. A star falls from the sky, yet leaves the night Unchanged in glory. Ah, but turn, who hears, To great humanity, whose worn heart feels A drop from God's own well that comes and heals, And soothes its thirst with holy dew of tears. LOTTY'S LOVERS. CHAPTER I. ON one of the wildest shores of Cornwall, where the blue Atlantic waves beat against iron-bound cliffs and fall back over the whitest of silver sand, stood an old farmhouse ; it had been there for centuries, and the massive grey stones of which it was built be- longed to the primeval world. Solid in its construc- tion rather than architectural, there was little of the picturesque about it. Over the door and windows some rude attempts at carving might be discovered, but it had nothing of THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 113 the artistic beauty of the old timbered farmhouses in other parts of England. This house, like all those on the Cornish coast, had been built to withstand storms, and to keep out the winter winds that sweep unbroken over miles of grey moorland. Inside it was snug and comfortable, the living- room, into which you entered at once from the outer door, a large, low, homely apartment, with a stone floor and great open hearth, on which smouldered fragrant peat turfs. Generations of Ruthvens had grown to manhood and womanhood in this rude domicile, and the world at large had been the better for them. They were a fine race, handsome, gigantic in stature, simple in heart and life glorious children of nature, now only to be found in the forgotten corners of this over- civilized country. For centuries they had lived independent of the outside world, growing on their own land enough grain to supply their need, keeping a few sheep and fowls, two or three cows ; and for the rest there was fish in abundance to be brought in by their own boat from the sea close by. What more creature comforts could unspoilt nature want ? Generations of daughters had married and gone to other like homely farms, and many a stalwart son had fought his country's battles on land and sea. At the time when we write Lotty Ruthven and her widowed mother alone occupied the farm ; the only two sons had been drowned in the foundering of a man-of-war, and now the father was also lying buried in the far-away stony churchyard, side by side with his ancestors. Lotty was heiress to the old H 114 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER farm, therefore, and many a far nobler estate in more civilized countries would have gladly possessed such a beautiful heiress. She was like a Greek statue for symmetry, her complexion clear and fresh as the morning, and her eyes the colour of her own Atlantic ; dark-ringed and long-lashed, they looked you straight in the face with their own frank simplicity. Of course Lotty had lovers ; such a girl without a penny of her own would still possess lovers by the dozen, and as one who, besides her personal advan- tages, would inherit the Old Lea Farm, she had more admirers than fall to the lot of many a London belle. They were farmers' sons mostly from neighbouring homesteads, and some came from the not very distant old-world town to the south. Lotty had never been out of her native country, and not very much over it ; she had never seen any other young men than those of. her own race ; tourists from other regions rarely, if ever, took the trouble to ramble over that wild but unbeautiful country, that no railway had yet pene- trated. But one summer's day an event happened. A young artist from London planted his white umbrella on the hill just beyond the Old Lea Farm, and pro- ceeded to paint. Lotty stood gazing at the strange sight as she rubbed the cow's head in the paddock. A white umbrella had never been seen in that district before, and produced as much astonishment as did its rain-protecting progenitor in the bucolic mind of Mid-Surrey when first seen there a hundred years ago. But if the girl were astonished at this novel sight, much more was the town-bred young gentleman astonished at the artistic beauty of this Cornish THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 115 rustic. It was but the work of a moment to get up from his picture and approach the loose stone wall boundary-line where she stood barefoot in her short, grey homespun dress, leaning against the old brown cow. " By Jove, you're a beauty ! " he exclaimed in the familiar manner supposed to be acceptable to country damsels. Cornishmen are blunt rather than flattering, and Lotty was unaccustomed to be told of her beauty ; she flushed up, partly with instinctive disapproval, partly with youth's native vanity. The blush only added to her charms. " If you would come to London, now," continued her beguiler, " you would make no end of money ; all the artists would be mad to paint you." " London is where the Queen lives ? " queried the girl, with her pretty west-country accent. There was quite a look of awe in her eyes as she said it. " What an opportunity," thought Jack Smith- son, " to gull this beautiful but ' green ' young woman ! " He described the Queen's palaces and London generally in such gorgeous colours that the girl, whose only literature had been the Bible and " The Pilgrim's Progress," formed a very heavenly idea of the metropolis, and a newly created longing began to stir in her mind to get away for a while from these eternal grey hills and see the wonderful golden city. That night she was very quiet as she sat in the twi- light, while her mother spun by the house door, humming to herself an old-time psalm-tune. The girl was not planning, and she was not think- ing she was not used to consecutive thinking she Il6 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER was only wondering ; but in the midst of her wonder- ing over this newly heard-of London life would come to her mind the remembrance of her cousin John Ruthven, the one of all her lovers that she cared for most. Why on this evening, when, far from any allusion having been made to him, her mind had been turned to topics entirely new and apart from all her experience, his face should so strangely haunt her, could in no ordinary way be accounted for. It was months since she had seen him ; he had gone away in a merchant-ship for a long voyage, and would not be back till Christmas ; but somehow whenever she reflected on the stranger of that afternoon, with his smart moustachios and wonderful learning, the honest grey eyes of the Cornish giant seemed to come in be- tween it all. She had said nothing to any one about the meet- ing ; she would wait till she heard from her neigh- bours of the wonderful stranger. So her mother went on with her spinning and her psalm-tune as she had done through all the past quiet years. CHAPTER II. THE weeks went by, and the white umbrella, which for the first few days had caused much excitement among the natives, had become a thing of no con- cern, nor was the London gentleman, whose appear- ance, dress, and general style had formed the principal topic of conversation when any two met together, any more of particular interest ; they were merely inclined to be critical now, and apt to compare his slight figure with their stalwart proportions. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER llj " London town can't produce such men as old Cornwall," was their verdict. But Lotty was still under the fascination of Mr. Jack Smithson. In her heart perhaps she despised him as much as any of her neighbours, but she was in that state of being when the last thing she would do would be to listen to the true warnings of her heart. She was at present the slave of her imagina- tion, and nature had given her a large share of that quality, all the stronger from having been hitherto so little exercised. In the summer twilight the girl was often now missing from the stone bench at the house door where she had usually sat and knitted while her mother spun. After dark she would come in looking flushed, and saying little in answer to the older woman's questions. " I have been on the shore, Mother," she would say, and the mother had no suspicions, only thought Lotty growing strange in her ways. " She misses John, maybe," she would say to her- self, " and truly the lad is worth a woman's whole love." At length the climax came when the girl must decide between the old life and the new. " The day after to-morrow I go back to London, Lotty," said Jack Smithson, " and I am going to take you with me." She started back a little. She had Cornish pride, and would not be taken anywhere against her will. " I cannot leave my home and my mother," she said. " When you ride in your carriage, as you will in London, you can send for your mother," he said Il8 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER temptingly. " Surely you would not rather keep her here in poverty ? " " We have no poverty ; we have enough and to spare," she answered proudly. " Yes, yes, my beauty, I know all that ; but when you see rich, glorious London, and wear velvet and satin, you will understand that I should think your present life totally unfit for you, who should be a princess." So he beguiled her with great promises, with hap- piness such as she had never dreamed of, with mar- vellous sights and gorgeous array, until the girl's imagination became enthralled beyond all control, and she consented to go away with him. Moreover, having once consented to go, she readily fell in with all her tempter's plans, and agreed to perfect silence on the subject and a secret flight. " Of course we send for the old lady the very first thing," he assured her, and the last reluctance vanished. So one night her mother sat watching, watching for her, sat till near midnight on the stone bench by the door, but Lotty came not back. Then she grew frightened, and roused her young nephew, who lived with them and dug the land, and the two went down to the shore and called her name, but they called in vain. " The girl is drowned," sobbed her mother ; " she has been caught by the tide, and will never come back." There was a rousing of nearest neighbours, and a long search with lanterns all through the summer night, and a calling her name far and near, but morning broke, and there were no tidings. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 119 " She is drowned," said her mother. She was sure of this now. So for days they searched the coast, and her lovers rowed about the sea in a vague, despairing kind of way, until a week passed, and then one after another gave up as useless, and the widow Ruthven sat reading her Bible instead of spinning any more, and Lotty became a memory and a mystery. CHAPTER III. To a girl who in all the eighteen years of her life had never even seen a train, the journey by the Great Western, although only in a crowded third-class carriage, seemed marvellous. What a delightful sensation it was, rushing along so smoothly and seeing the trees and fields fly past ! But when, late in the evening, they neared Paddington, Lotty's spirits fell. The atmosphere was thick and foggy ; there had been a thunderstorm somewhere, and the air seemed all smoke and sulphur. " How dark it is," she said in an anxious tone. " Are we getting into another of those dreadful tunnels ? " " Why, this is London," laughed Jack Smithson. " This London, this the beautiful golden city where the Queen lives ? " asked the girl in a voice of keen disappointment. " Oh, you don't see the grand streets here. This is only the station." He helped her out of the carriage, and she stared round in expectation of seeing the wonderful golden 120 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER gates which she still imagined to be the entrance to this city of her dreams ; but Smithson hurried her across to the underground railway, for this aristo- cratic young gentleman resided far away from the West End. Lotty trembled and choked all the way to Moorgate Street, and at last fairly sobbed. " You have not brought me to London at all," she exclaimed ; "you are taking me down some dreadful mine." " Be quiet," he said roughly, lest she should attract the attention of the other passengers. " We'll get out here," as the train stopped. The further journey in a rattling four-wheeler through the dreary streets which lead beyond Lon- don Bridge and the Borough did not tend to brighten her ; she felt utterly desolate and despairing. For the first time since her flight she began to realize what she had done, and to reflect with horror on what was going to become of her. While she had still believed in an ethereal London, no fears for herself had troubled her innocent heart ; she had not thought at all about where she was to live ; it had all been too dreamlike for such details. But now, when she woke to the dreary reality, and found herself in a horrible, dark, dirty town, which seemed to go on for ever, the misery of her position burst upon her. " Take me back to Cornwall," she sobbed piteously. " We'll stop in Kennington first," laughed her com- panion, and he gave another direction to the cabman, who a few minutes afterwards pulled up at a dingy- looking house in an equally dingy-looking, narrow street. "Turner will be having his weekly supper- party," THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 121 he said as he alighted. " So you shall be introduced to all the fellows at once, my beauty." When the door was opened by a ragged old woman, sounds of uproarious mirth came from the floor above. Smithson pushed the girl on in front of him up the ricketty, narrow stairs and into the supper-room. " Here's a model for us all to make our fortunes with," he shouted boisterously. " Picked her up in an outlandish place in Cornwall. Give her some supper, my boys ; she's hungry." Lotty gave one look at the drunken party round the table, and darted from the room before Smithson, whose arm was in the fast clutch of his friend Turner,, could stop her ; she was down the stairs and through the open street door, where the cab still waited, and up the street in a moment. On, on, she sped through the dimly lit streets, knowing not where she was or where she was going. Her dream of beautiful London had turned into a terrible nightmare of horrible places that she could not get out of. There were few people about at that time of night, and policemen were, as usual, scarce, or the girl's flight might have ended in the lock-up. For two or three hours she kept on trying to get away from the everlasting streets, not running like a deer, as she did at first, and when she feared pursuit, but walking quickly with her free country gait and elastic step. At last she stopped ; she found herself on a rough shore and heard the sound of the tide on the stones. " It is the sea at last," she said aloud in her joy. "'T'ain't the sea ; it's the Thames," said a gruff voice. A rough-looking old man was tying up a boat close by her. He took his pipe out of his mouth to make this remark, and did not immediately replace it. 122 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER " Why don't you get home, my girl ? " he asked more kindly. Lotty's heart was full ; she had been rushing madly through this dark, dreadful London, and trying to escape from it ; the old man's question made her sob again. " My home is far, far away in Cornwall," she said. " I left it because I thought London was beautiful, but it is horrible." He held his lantern up to her face. " You're an honest-looking lass," he said, " and Lon- don's not the place for such as you. Come and see my old woman." He led her up some dirty, narrow steps and opened an old door that grated on its hinges. " Martha," he said, " here's a poor girl got lost in London, and she comes from Cornwall." An old woman rose from a broken wooden chair, where she sat cooking something by the small fire. She was neither pleasant-looking nor clean, but at the mention of the word " Cornwall " her face became animated and kindly. " It's years and years since I left the old west country," she said in a cracked old voice ; " there's no other like it. You are heartily welcome, my girl." She sat Lotty down on a wooden bench and gave her a plateful of the mysterious stew she had con- cocted, portioning out the rest between her husband and herself. Whatever it was composed of, Lotty ate it thank- fully and ravenously. After all the misery of the many hours past, she had found a haven where she might rest for a while in safety. " Timothy can lie here," said the old woman when THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 123 supper was over, " and you shall share my bed, lass." So Lotty's first night in London was not passed in a golden palace, such as she had dreamed of, but in a poverty-stricken hovel the like of which had never before entered her imagination. CHAPTER IV, " SECOND-SIGHT" is not unusual in the west country, and this is not to be wondered at, the faculty of spirit- seeing belonging rather to the children of nature than to those who inhabit more civilized regions. John Ruthven returned from his voyage some time before he had told them to expect him back at the Old Lea Farm, and arrived there from Falmouth about a fortnight after Lotty's disappearance. When the terrible news reached him he was stunned as with a physical blow ; he sat down on the settle, opposite his aunt, who went on reading to herself from the book of Revelation and growing hourly wiser about the Golden City sat in profound silence, with a strange, far-away look in his clear grey eyes. Presently he lay down on that hard couch utterly prostrated, and went off into a death-like sleep. Widow Ruthven wrapped a blanket over him and left him to his slumber. " Poor lad, poor lad," she said as she went up to bed, " 'tis a hard home-coming for him." But next morning when she returned to the kitchen, still keeping up her early habit of six o'clock breakfast, the bright look on John's face startled her. 124 TH E SCENT OF THE HEATHER " Lotty is not dead, Aunt," he said , decidedly ; "she is in London : I saw her last night." The old woman turned deadly white, and sank down on a chair. " Lord have mercy upon us," she groaned. Like a flash the remembrance of the London artist came back to her. She had never once thought of him as in any way connected with her daughter's disappearance. " Was she living alone ? " she asked, in a voice full of dread, accepting John's vision as gospel truth. " That part was misty ; it was in a dim, dark place I saw her, and there was water near ; she looked thin and pale, but just herself, and she sprang up to meet me, as though she knew her own mind now, and loved me fully," and his giant brown face became all aglow at the thought. Widow Ruthven only groaned. She would rather Lotty should lie drowned in her innocence than that this terrible thing should have happened. To her simple mind dishonour was far worse than death. Amid sobs and moans she told her nephew of the artist's visit that summer, and how that now, when she came to think of it, he had never been seen since Lotty was lost. " All were so taken up with trying to find her, we never gave a thought to strangers," she sobbed. John Ruthven rose to his full height, looking strong and awful in his righteous wrath. " I am going to her ; say not a word of what you dread to a living soul ; I will bring her back as my wife. But if I find that villain, he shall feel what it is to have wronged a Cornishwoman." He strode away over the grey hills to a far-off THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 125 station, where he knew he could meet a train for London. He had never been to London, nor to any English town larger than Falmouth, but this ignor- ance of the metropolis in no way deterred him from his purpose. He took sober views of things, and knew that the city he was bound for was immense, but not for one moment did any fear of not finding Lotty enter his mind. He had seen her last night, he knew she was in London, and by a something surer than reason he knew he should find her. For three days he wandered about in all directions, through an eternal labyrinth of streets, until even he, with his childlike faith in God and goodness, began to have a feeling of despair. But for his vision he would have lost heart altogether, but that sustained him as a sure thing when all else grew vague and improbable. It never occurred to the simple Cornishman to go before a magistrate, have her advertised for, or get detectives to aid his search ; he was dazed and half stunned with the roar and bustle going on around him, but he still felt that he had come there to find Lotty, and that he alone must find her. At last, by that "providence which shapes our ends," he took to rowing about on the Thames. "There was water near her," he reflected as he turned his vision over in his mind for the hundredth time ; " I should have thought of that at first." For the next two days this plan seemed as futile as his vague wanderings through the streets had been, but on the evening of that second day, when he felt more nearly hopeless than he had ever felt before in all the twenty-five years of his life, his boat, a cranky old affair, got stuck fast on a mud-bank, and began filling rapidly. 126 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER To the young Cornish giant it was nothing to swim away and leave it to sink ; he had brought no luggage with him : he had come off, just as he had arrived from Falmouth, in his blue seaman's dress and a hidden belt round his waist, wherein were stored his money and a curl of Lotty's hair that she had given him nearly two years ago. He struck out for the nearest boat. " Want me to pick you up, eh ? " said a gruff voice. " Pity you ain't a corpse ! They pays." John grasped hold of the side of the gaunt-looking craft, and swung himself in. His left hand was bleed- ing profusely. " It hit against something sharp in the mud, broken glass, I think," he said. " Makes you feel a bit faint, my son ? " said the old man, looking at John's white face. He had lost more blood than he supposed, and lay in a half-swooning state in a corner of the boat ; the anxiety and exertions of the last week had told upon even this strong man's perfect health, and what he would at another time have regarded as a mere scratch made him now weak as a woman. Old Timothy pulled his boat ashore quickly, and helped the fainting man up the ricketty stairs, and through the creaking door, and into the same dismal little room into which he had taken Lotty three weeks before. " Here, my lass," he said, " give us a strip of them rags you're a-sewing of; this chap's got a bad cut." ' The girl looked up from the " slop " she was rapidly sewing together for a ready-made shop close by, and sprang to her feet. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER I2J "John!" she cried in a voice in which terror mingled with joy. John opened his eyes. " My Lotty at last ! " he murmured, and fainted dead away. ***** A week later John Ruthven and his wife came back to the Old Lea Farm. The neighbours, after getting over their first fright at sight of Lotty's ghost, took to asking questions as to her mysterious disappear- ance, but John silenced them with the remark, " She always liked me the best of all her lovers, so thought she would come and meet me in London, but I was just as anxious to meet her, and landed at Falmouth, and so we missed each other at first." And this was quite satisfactory to such simple, believing folk. " Lotty deserves her lovers," they said. REST. FAR off in the region of shadows, Far off in the dreamy land Where the dew ever lies on the daffodil meadows Like touch of a tender hand, In the far-off dreamy land There dwells sweet rest. The twilight gates open, and show it, A moment they stand ajar ; Through their pearl sobs the passionate heart of a poet : " Oh, land away so far, While the dim gates stand ajar, Take me to rest ! " 128 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER The land is all filled with the sweetness Of angels that live and move Serene in the joy of their being's completeness, Calm in Divineness of love ; " Dear angels of God, that love And find sweet rest, " Oh bear me away to the portal, So once I may gaze and know That the love of the human is the love immortal, And only made perfect so ; But once let me gaze and know, Then wait for the rest" LIFE'S MELODY. OUR lives are set to music ; one tune floats Ever along : Through days of common chords we lose the notes, Yet lives the song. Now and again it breaks upon the soul Sudden and clear, With the old cadence that our senses stole In a past year. Scent of a flower will waken it again, A swallow's trill, Sight of a pictured face renew^the strain With the old thrnl. In pearly twilight the same notes are heard, Holy and sweet ; 'Mid noble deeds, when all the heart is stirred, Loudly they beat. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 129 Rare moments only, too intense their bliss For greater length, Calmed to a minor, better meted this To human strength. At last we shall, though now so quick to doubt Some discord wrong, Find that life's melody has but played out A perfect song. A RING. ONLY a time-worn circle of gold, Only a common thing ; But eyes grow dim with a grief untold At sight of the pearls, all blackened and old, In this little worthless ring. A face long dead, so dear of yore, Smiles out from a bygone spring, And loving fingers cling once more And play again as they played before With this little worthless ring. It passes, the vision sweet and fair, That vanished years still bring ; And I keep but the treasure of dear brown hair Wreathed round in pearls so dull with wear On this little priceless ring. TRUE AS GOLD. SONG. THE bright birds sing for joy of spring And jubilee of May, And young Love lies with happy eyes Dreaming the livelong day ; 130 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Oh, fond heart ! oh, fond heart ! Oh, loving heart of old ! Oh, happy day of love and May, And a heart as true as gold ! Glowing and still, o'er wood and hill Summer her silence keeps ; While deep in shade, on mosses laid, Love folds his wings and sleeps ; Oh, fond heart ! oh, fond heart ! Oh, heart of love untold ! The summer day must live for aye, And the heart as true as gold. The wind sweeps cold on barren wold, The night is blind with rain, And love has spread his wings and sped Away to heaven again ; Oh, fond heart ! oh, fond heart ! Oh, broken heart and cold ! The love and May have passed away, And a heart as true as gold. PATIENCE. OH, SPIRIT longing for the love That comes not nigh to shine above The weary pain of living, How canst thou still all-patient wait ? What after-joy shall compensate For that God holds from giving ? In bird-voiced morning, ere the might Of love upon thine eyes did smite, And left them blindly yearning THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER For light that pales all light to dark, And earth's best glory to a spark Beside such holy burning, Thy feet did twinkle in the grass ; The daisies were sufficient stars To coronal the angel Of thy young dreaming : tears did press But lightly as the dew to bless Thy childhood's sweet evangel. Then came the stirring of the years ; A music fell upon thine ears That moved not through the meadows Where grew there aught to satisfy The want of that beginning cry For real beyond the shadows ? Ay, love did gleam a little when, Raised from the flower-stars up to men, Thine eyes met sweeter fringes Enfolding wells of deeper fire Than e'er thy young soul did desire 'Mid daisies' ruby tinges. A small, shy kiss, like touch of bird ; But o'er the maiden snow is stirred A glow of rosy blushing : How stands the chaste, sweet image then Stepped down from marble unto men By very life of blushing ! Then sudden did the red love pierce Thy quivering heart, as doth the fierce, Hot dawn the southern summer; 132 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER No more the shouting spring is free, But from the very light must be All lonelier and dumber. Ah, Patience ! Patience preacheth still, But can she the large thirst fulfil That feels all drink unworthy ? Where shines the blessed heaven that can With wine of glory overspan The lees that are so earthy ? In calm of youth thy soul was fed With common wine, with common bread, Nor did it ask for stronger ; Now does it need the costlier food Of very flesh, of very blood, To still immortal hunger. Lone spirit in some far still air, So dumb, so shuddering, in the bare Death-chill of unclothed essence, Where now the comfort of thy touch, The lips, the eyes, that loved so much, The warm bliss of thy presence ? Oh, silenced in such early grave, How does thy human spirit crave Once more the body tender ! How yearnest thou once more to feel Along the harp-strings, and reveal The music of thy splendour ! THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 133 Thou yearnest, soul, for one that can Not be again a son of man, Passed out beyond this common ; . . . Thou yearnest, soul ; yet yearn ! yet yearn ! It may be somewhere : shall it burn A light Divine and human ? How flames the lamp burnt dry of oil ? Doth oil of holy unction soil That runs adown God's fingers In moulding His bright creatures, or Nor rather make them mightier for The Spirit there that lingers ? One did there dwell a while on earth, One born in moan of mortal birth, That death did not dissever From the loved, lovely flesh that He Bore unto highest heaven, to be His Spirit's word for ever. Patience, poor heart, that art so sad ! Elsewhere beyond time's wrong made glad With hope of all perfection, Those souls await ail-patiently The knowledge of the mystery That hides their resurrection. " Let Patience have her perfect work," The true Book saith : even here must lurk Pity beyond the sentence, Not lulling, till too dull to moan, The flesh-heart into hopeless stone That knows no more repentance ; 134 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Not poppy-thumbed forgetfulness Upon the weary lids to press, And curtain out the roses ; Not hush of deaf-born ears that deem The sweet eternal song a dream ; Not age that calm reposes Through sickening back of life, to find Content in joys long left behind, Its buttercups and daisies : Nay ! rather rage the pain, the fire, Of never-satisfied desire That from the level raises. " Entire and perfect," this thy use ? Oh, Patience, shake thy bound heart loose And leap to some far reaching, To a sure glory that shall come For the long woe that must sit dumb Beneath thy silent teaching, Where voices may e'en rise to sing The mystery of suffering, Where all its patient pining, The emerald robe that swathes the world Around the throne of God unfurled, Is like a rainbow shining. A MESSAGE FROM THE ANGELS. WE are weaving thy wings from the blue and the crimson, Thy beautiful wings, oh, poor toiler below, Who nightly look'st upward, with vision that dims, on The glimpse of God's face in the still twilight glow. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 135 All night we keep weaving ; through all the sweet dreaming And infinite rest thy blind gazing but sees As a land afar off, full of silence and gleaming, With dewdrops of stars on its fields of deep peace. All night we keep weaving : oh, soul not forsaken, Though God veils His presence, His presence is here ; Keep weaving, keep weaving, though morning awaken Earth's discords anew to thy song-thirsting ear. All day we keep weaving ; all day thou art yearning To flee from the tumult and heat, as a dove From the anguish of life to God's shadow returning, Calm-bathed in perfection of knowledge and love. All day we keep weaving ; oh, toiler that criest So long for thy birthright, soon, soon, from earth's tears On beautiful wings thou shalt soar to the highest And glorify God through the satisfied years. DREAMING AND HELPING. ON God's wide ocean countless forms are sailing, Some fair and bright ; Some toiling sorely through long years, yet failing To steer aright, Thou, too, oh, soul, so bitterly bewailing The mournful sight. The lives that lie about thee, man and woman, In day's hard shine 136 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Thou criest at their coarse sails, " Not this common, But silken fine," Holding aloof because the sin-stained human Is not Divine. Reach out quick hands, true heart, nor let the glory Of the "might-be" Dazzle thine eyes from these that lie before thee, Calling to thee, Not in vain dreams, not from the blue depths o'er thee, But from earth's sea. Reach out strong hands, and force them back from drifting Into the dark, From the black storm whose thunderbolts are rifting Each helpless bark ; Point them their guide, from which the clouds are lifting, God's holy ark. There is a country where all true heart-yearning, Soul questionings, Shall rest in joy : help now these lives, not spurning Such common things ; Help them until the blackened sails are turning To radiant wings. THORNS. WEARY, along the wilderness The Saviour toils alone ; His face is marred with sore distress, For, coming to His own, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 137 He finds a once-bright world that scorns His flowers and wastes itself in thorns. The roses He had made so fair Are changed to briers instead ; Sharp thistles choke the way, and tear The blessed feet that tread : Yet pain and weariness He spurns, Toiling to gather up the thorns. Souls cry to Him from out the dark, " Lord, we are so hedged round, We cannot feel the light." But hark ! He answers, " I have found "A ransom ; oh, poor soul that mourns, My hands shall pluck away the thorns." So high on Calvary's sad hill A King is crucified, The Man Christ Jesus, to fulfil God's law, so long denied ; A monarch's crown His brow adorns, A crown, but all composed of thorns. The world's long anguish, care, and sin His love has borne away, And to the weak, soiled heart within Let shine the eternal ray ; And day by day He still returns To crush the yet rebellious thorns. 138 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER SUBMISSION. I LAID my sorrow at the feet of God. I laid it down, and cried, " Lord, look upon these tears that wet the sod Which Thine own blood has dyed." I prayed, " Thy will be done, O God, not mine ; Show me Thy will alone " : When evening came there broke a light Divine, And on my sorrow shone. My tears had mingled with the tears of blood ; I rose content and still, With strength returned to do the will of God, And lo, it was my will ! WAITING. WAITING, waiting, waiting, Through the starless night, For the coming morning, For the promised light, For the wondrous beauty that shall surely rise On the eyes uplifted to dark midnight skies. Waiting, waiting, waiting, In the cold and rain, With dumb voices pleading, Pleading all in vain, Steadfast still and looking with a hope Divine For the promised morning that shall surely shine. Waiting, waiting, waiting, Till there gleam afar THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 139 Faith and hope triumphant In the morning star, Waiting, waiting, waiting, till beyond the dim Burns the crimson splendour of the seraphim. FAITHFUL. HEAVEN. IT is the vesper hour ; and from the earth Comes a still ecstasy of praise and prayer, As flowers that in the twilight empty forth Their sweetness, hidden while the weight and glare And blaze of noon causes a soulless dearth Amid the splendours : all the blessed air Of paradise is sweet with holy joy, That never other morrow can destroy. Lovely and shining stand the waiting souls, Bright with the dawning of eternal bliss ; But one seems weary, though each hour that rolls Bears off a woe, and the time nearer is For hearing of the passing bell which tolls, A spirit coming evermore to his : He has been here since youth, while she below Has had to bear the lonely years of woe. Has he not watched her ? Ay, when death did move His life from hers, cried he with passion strong, " Make me her guardian angel, God of love ! " And God said, " Son, I grant it " ; so among Dim haunts of men his spirit from above Has tended hers, guiding her down the long Sad, patient waste of years, and seen her face Shed its last beauty, and her form its grace. 140 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER EARTH. IN a dim city's room, where comes no sun Nor anything to cheer, alone she dies : A face which Time might count his records on, . So wrinkled and so aged ; hollow eyes, You scarce would guess them woman's, so long done With joy or sorrow and the love that lies Back in the morning land : the storm of grief, Crushing the bloom, harms not the withered leaf. So quietly she lies, you scarce can say The dead life is alive, the dead soul glows ; Such little flicker of the shining day Is left to tell the sun from which it rose ; The flame has burnt the oil, to pass away, Go out for ever, as its fuel goes : What heeds she now the life and love that stir In younger hearts ? Life, love, have ceased for her ! FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN. He has stood watching in that lonely room Through night's long hours : now one ray of morn Gleams feebly through the smoke-grimed window's gloom, Dim showing all the wretchedness forlorn Around the aged face, still as a tomb ; Then, bearing forth a radiant soul, new-born, The happy spirit soars again to heaven, Bright with his everlasting bliss fresh-given. It is the hour of morning prayer and praise, And heaven is glistening as with tears of dew Transformed to jewels shining all ablaze Around Jehovah's brow ; seraphs anew Echo earth's praises in their songs, and raise Earth's feeblest prayers on wings of crimson hue, Laying them at the holy feet of Him Who grants love's best to His own seraphim. With these ascends that spirit, once so sad Amid heaven's beauty, radiant now his face With perfect peace, beside him, newly glad, His soul's completion filling her sweet place, Her lovely youth, in earthly years long dead, Renewed immortal and with fairer grace ; Kneeling, they bow before the shining throne : We thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast made us one." A SIMPLE IDYLL. SHUT to the door ; keep out the sound ; Close up the window-shutters tight : The wind is moaning so around, I cannot bear the house to-night. It was a night like this when last I saw him ; long, so long, they seem, Those ten drear widowed years : the past Grows like a never-ending dream. He was so handsome, brave, and tall ; There was none like him far and wide : He stood a prince among them all ; I was so proud to be his bride. He had but one day called me wife ; I felt so happy in the name That linked me to his side for life : . . . A summons from the captain came : 142 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER His ship must start from port that night To battle with the foe abroad ; They should not wait till morning light : " Within an hour all hands aboard ! " My heart gave one great leap and throbbed ; I would not leave him, come what may ; He clasped me to his breast and sobbed, Then in the darkness rushed away. What then I did I cannot tell ; My senses reeled, my reason fled : The neighbours found me where I fell ; They lifted me, they thought me dead. I could not weep ; tears would not come : I think my heart was turned to stone ; I felt so cold, so chill and numb, I spoke, they started at the tone : They tried to speak a cheering word, " He would be back again ere long " ; Far off as in a dream I heard : I only felt that they were wrong. Far off as in a dream the day, My wedding-day, came back to me, The marriage bells, the laughter gay, All silenced in the sobbing sea. The dreary wind went shuddering round, The wintry blast and driving rain ; I could not rest : the weary sound Kept moaning like a soul in pain. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 143 That mournful voice will not depart, But evermore has sobbed and wailed, A dull, low moaning in my heart, Since the dark night when last he sailed. The days went by, the months ; a year Had passed, but still he never came : No news, no tidings, could I hear ; I was a wife but in the name. One night there raged a furious storm ; I thought he stood beside my bed, So pale, so weak, so changed the form : He strove to speak, then fell back dead. I shrieked, a long, wild shriek, and woke ; They said I had been dreaming, tried To laugh it off, but as they spoke I knew that he that hour had died. Ere long a straggling rumour came : The Falcon had been seen that night High blazing in a sheet of flame, With no trace left by morning light. Then my last hope died too ; and so Summer and winter years, went by : But all the days had lost their glow ; There was no sunshine in the sky. Yet now I had grown calm ; in truth, Having no hope, I had no fear, And hold of life is strong in youth : I tried to do my duty here. 144 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER The neighbours, too, were good, and they All helped me in the daily strife ; Then one came wooing me one day, And asked me to become his wife. He urged me ; he was kind, he said ; I had a long life yet to live : I thanked him, but I shook my head ; I had no other heart to give. At last I left the place, the home Which never had been home to me, Where love and peace had never come, Where joy lay buried in the sea. I know you think me strange and cold ; You cease your laugh when I come near The village children call me old ; I am not thirty till next year. There, now you know my story, why I cannot bear the wind and rain : They bring before me days gone by, The sound of his death-wail again. Along the road that night A sailor trudged ; afar He saw the village light Beam as his guiding star. 'Tis gained at last ; he stands By Mary's door and waits, Holding with trembling hands The latch, and hesitates. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 145 He is not weak and old ; Why does he shrink and muse ? Is it the wet and cold, Or does he bring ill news ? He opens it at last, And stops and gazes round ; She shudders at the blast, But hears no other sound, A moment turns her head, Then a wild shriek and start : " He's risen from the dead ! " He caught her to his heart. "HIS WORK WAS DONE, AND GOD TOOK HIM." JOHN JOB, M.D., Died of typhus fever March, 1878, AGED 27. GOD took him in the beauty of his life, A flower by thorns surrounded, Up from the darkened way that was all strife To light unbounded, Up from the sorrow of a noble doubt And pain of things uncertain To where the hand invisible shines out And lifts the curtain. 146 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Now the long-yearned-for perfcctness of God From night of earth's entombing ; Now from the anguish of its tear-wet sod The lily blooming : World-sick, world-weary, finding all too small To fill his spirit's dreaming ; Waked to the great reality of all Beyond this seeming. " Too soon, too soon, to leave his unfilled place ! " We cry in human blindness, Who long so sorely for the vanished face, . The vanished kindness, Who long so sorely for the silenced ring Of his bright voice, and merry, That never failed in others, comforting, However weary. Died at his post ! then death has but become The nobleness of duty ; Died at his post ! our anguish must lie dumb Before such beauty. For down the shadowed path of future years Shall this his death's brave story Shine through our lifelong tenderness of tears In rainbow glory. His work was done ; 'tis not the lengthened span Of years which makes that sweetness, Developing the angel from the man, And life's completeness. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 147 Sometimes the end comes in the golden prime Of his pure youth's uprightness, Leaving a greater sorrow to all time, Yet greater brightness. His work was done ; his work was but begun, Love's holy work, and tender, That needs the summer of immortal sun To show its splendour. Most lovely heart, most lovely mind and soul From earthly soil transplanted, Because the garden of the perfect whole His beauty wanted. A VISION OF LIGHT. UPON the sea there was no light, Upon the soul no love ; Though day was darkening into night, There shone no star above. Upon the cold, dim sea no breath Moved even of storm and strife ; The cold, dim soul lay still as death Before the gates of life. Then on the icy water broke A sudden light, and clear ; To the dead soul a sweet voice spoke : " Arise, for / am here ! " And so along the crimson tide A wondrous Form did move ; The seraphs' wings were dull beside The light of very love. 148 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER He breathed upon that weary soul, And to the far-off shore It sped, all jubilant and whole, Alive for evermore. FORSAKEN ? SHALL He who the boundless skies Moves lovingly amongst His stars, As moves a child with happy eyes From flower to flower along the grass Shall He forsake His own once blest, Dearer than babe to mother's breast ? Moves lovingly along His meads Out to the desert wilds of space, Where lies His wandering sheep that bleeds. His fallen world that hides its face ; Carries it home with tenderer care Than all the unstained glories share. Ah ! souls in bright and sinless spheres, Who never this dark earth have trod, Know not the pains, the bliss, of tears, Feel not the human touch of God. How shall your suns so purely shine As those washed white with blood Divine ? Forsaken ? Bid the godless word Bow down before the lily's trust, Before the faith of common bird, Before the very grains of dust, Before eternity's I AM, Before the everlasting Lamb. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 149 He who through unimagined space Feeds the faint stars with wine of light Never shall leave the dying face Of His own blood-bought child to-night, But lift it to Himself in one Long sacrament of endless sun. PERHAPS. PERHAPS if in one social sphere Our lives had been ordained by God, We two had held each other dear, And none had dreamed it wrong or odd : But now I only see a star All unattainable and far. Perhaps if we two first had met When childhood takes its own sweet right, And love by love is equal set, As fresh-blown roses in the light, Though worldly wisdom said us nay, We still might love as in that day. Perhaps in some grand after-time, When all the little laws of men Are merged into a life sublime, We two shall stand as equals then, And heart with heart and worth with worth Meet as they cannot meet on earth. BEYOND. BEYOND the dark lies day ; from winter's sod, In cold and desolation left forlorn, Comes spring, eternal miracle of God, 150 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Come life and beauty from the things which seem Most dead and all-unlovely, lilies born From tombs, and angels from the fever-dream. How should it rise, that happy song of morn, But that the night was sad ? How should it shine, That radiant glory of the summer corn, But for the chill winds and the dreary rain ? So from the age-long mystery of pain Shall break a joy more splendid and Divine Than unmarred ease has ever understood, For out of evil comes the highest good. OLD FOLK. 'TWAS long ago, they tell me, That I first saw you, dear ; But what that day befell me Is ever new and near : Before the hour I met you I deemed life hard and sad, But now .till I forget you It evermore is glad. My locks since then are whiter, The young folk call me "sage," But while your eyes grow brighter Whac do I care for age ? Deep furrows line my brow, love, And feebler speaks my tongue ; But you are with' me now, love, And I am always young. Your hand, you say, is wrinkled ; The bloom has left your face : THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 151 Your hair is silver-sprinkled ; Its gold has left no trace : This may be as you say, dear, It matters not to know ; 1 only see to-day, dear, My love of long ago. CHRISTMAS-TIME. YOUTH'S sweet, merry days returning, Come to brighten hearts grown old, Like the holly-berries burning When the winter light is cold ; Christmas-time it comes with gladness, Telling out the sweet old truth That beyond life's care and sadness Lives an everlasting youth. Christmas-time ! Our hearts remember In the happy years gone by How the days, although December, Seemed as sunlit as July, How the eyes that made our glory Beamed upon us bright and dear As we breathed the old, old story Into ears that loved to hear. Christmas-time ! Though some are parted, Set for some the vacant chair, Still it brings to those true-hearted Days as glad as once they were, Making all the world grow kinder Basking in its happy truth, Year by year the sweet reminder Of an everlasting youth. 152 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER CHRISTMAS-EVE. " THE night is bitter cold," she said, And shivering, wrapped her ragged shawl More closely round the poor bare head, So young, so golden-haired and small ; The happy light of Christmas hearths Shone through the windows as she passed, But not for her, not heaven's nor earth's : Homeless she sped from all outcast. The churches bright and holly-hung Were filled with worshippers, as meet ; The old familiar hymns were sung By voices beautiful and sweet : But not for her such places were ; How could she be a worshipper, The homeless outcast, how even dare To think such hymns were meant for her? But leaning faint against the door, Sunk low upon the frozen street, The old words reached her ear once more, Most holy and Divine and sweet, How Christ, the King of men, was born All homeless and an outcast too ; And down her young cheeks, white and worn, The hot tears fell with love anew. IN THE WINTER SUNSET. THE land is bright : a golden glow Floods all things far and near ; The streamlet sings a song I know, A song I used to hear : THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 153 Is it a dream, a moment's gleam Of summer long ago ? Will you too come who loved me so, Whose presence was so dear, Whose music through my life will flow Unsilenced year by year ? Will joy supreme complete my dream Of that sweet long ago ? The brief light fades ; the shadows grow : O'er bare hills brown and drear The wintry wind goes wailing low, And I alone shall hear The babbling stream repeat that dream Of summer long ago. HARRY GOLD, THE CONVICT. Told by my Grandmother. CHAPTER I. IN the days when I was young girls were not like those of this generation. We never sat in the presence of our elders until invited to do so ; we were more courteous prim, if you like to call it so in those days than in these ; we styled our parents " Sir " and " Ma'am," and obeyed them as though their com- mands were the law of the land. My father owned an old manor-house in Oxford- shire. It had belonged to our family for centuries ; 154 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER the De Beauvoirs had been there ever since the Con- quest, and far and near we were held in respect. I was the only child of my parents, and was there- fore their heiress. Their wish was that I should marry my cousin, Captain de J3eauvoir ; I could never discover why they so strongly wished it, except that by so doing the old name and race would still continue at the Manor. I could not bear my cousin. He was years older than I, and from my first days of childhood I had always stood in dread of his cold looks. But my parents had ordained it that we should marry, and to me this was a law as of the Medes and Persians. It mattered not that I should love Harry Gold with all the strong affection of my lonely heart. Harry was but the Rector's son, and a student at Oxford ; he was not a De Beauvoir, or even a captain in his Majesty's service ; he was but Harry Gold, the parson's son, too poor to think of marrying for many a year to come. I did not enjoy my girlhood. After the careless years of childhood had gone by, I began to feel the weight of the fate that I thought inevitable ; year by year it was coming nearer, and my silent misery grew greater. At last, when I was eighteen, my father called me into his private room one morning, and addressed me formally in the presence of my mother and cousin. " Rachel," he said, " you are now of an age when you can fully understand your parents' wishes and commands. The time has come when we would see you given in marriage to your cousin Hugh. Nephew, come here." He took our hands and joined them ; I recoiled THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 155. with an involuntary hatred as I touched the fingers of the man I loathed : but my father took no notice of my reluctance. " You are now formally betrothed," he said, " and the marriage-day shall be a week from this." When I got back to my own quiet room I did not feel that any heavy blow had fallen ; it was nothing unexpected that had happened. Ever since I became old enough to understand anything, I knew that this marriage-day would come sooner or later. Since I was sixteen I had often wondered why it was still delayed, and had lived from day to day in dread of the announcement. My mother's women were very busy the week that followed ; an atmosphere of bustle and preparation pervaded the house. They were getting ready my wedding clothes, and I, who should have been the happiest among all the merry household, wandered alone and miserable through the empty rooms. One longing alone was in my mind : to see Harry Gold once more, to say good-bye to my childhood's playmate, before I took up the sore burden of life, for I never thought of escaping from my fate. It was the evening before the wedding, and Harry was to return to the Rectory for the Long Vacation. He did not know, so far as I was aware, that the time of my marriage was fixed. We had never spoken of my cousin and my parents' wish in the matter. Harry and I had our own interests apart from others ; he was intellectual and different from, any one else, and always took my thoughts away from the petty troubles of every-day existence, until when we were together we seemed to live in a world of our own. 156 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER I went out across the park in the summer twilight away into the old nut copse, where ran a path up which he would be sure to come, as it was the shortest way to the Rectory from where the Oxford coach set him down, and just as I reached the stile that separated the common-land from our domain, I saw him coming, walking rapidly along. How handsome he looked, with his bright brown curls and clear, laughing eyes ; he looked altogether happy, as I had never seen him look before. As the path turned he saw me standing by the stile and ran up to me with outstretched hands. "Rachel, I have taken a first-class," he said joy- fully ; " there is now some hope for the future." " I am glad, Harry," I said mechanically. " Why, what ails you, my darling ? " he asked anx- iously, springing lightly over the stile and putting his arm round me as he used to do in our childish walks together. " To-morrow is fixed for my marriage-day," I answered sadly. " Your marriage, Rachel ! " he exclaimed. " Is it to your cousin ?" " Yes, to my cousin." Harry ground his strong white teeth. "Rachel, you hate him !" " I do, but it is my parents' wish and command." Harry Gold was a dutiful son, who adored his good father and the memory of the fair young mother that had died in his childhood. There was no gainsaying my argument. He only groaned. We stood there in the deepening twilight ; how hard, hard, hard, it was to have to part for ever. I felt the great burning tears welling into my eyes. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 157 This was too much for Harry ; he clasped me tight in his arms. " Darling, you shall not marry him," he cried ; "you shall not be sacrificed ; you shall escape." I pushed him gently from me. " There is no escaping my fate," I said, now that the burst of grief was over feeling the old quiet of despair coming back to me. " God alone ordains our fates," Harry said solemnly, "and He can never bless such a marriage. Come home and talk to my father ; he is wiser than I." I went with him to the Rectory and into the dear old rooms where we two children had spent so many happy hours in the days never to come back. How benign Mr. Gold was, and how kindly he talked to me. He was greatly distressed at my coming marriage, but not nearly so indignant over it as was Harry. He seemed to think that I could not possibly avoid it now that it was all arranged, and so gave me much wise counsel about resignation and taking up life as a duty. I felt quieter after this conversation as I walked back to the Manor with Harry, but his father's advice had not in the least calmed him. It must have been nearly eleven o'clock when I parted with him at last. "Dear Harry, be resigned for my sake," I said, trying hard not to let him hear me sob, for, now that the final moment had come, the whole bitter woe overwhelmed me. " I cannot be resigned, Rachel," he said in a wild, despairing voice. " It is too much to bear ; I shall go mad." He ran back down the park along the short way to the Rectory by the old Manor pond, where he 158 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER and I had so often spent happy days sliding on the ice. " God take care of him," I prayed in my agony, for he looked so strange, I did not know what he might do with himself. But I was obliged to go indoors, for although I went in and out of the house very much when and how I pleased, yet on this night before my wedding I knew there would be inquiries made if I absented myself any longer. If I was resigned now, it was the resignation of despair. CHAPTER II. ALL that night I lay in a kind of stupor rather than sleep, from which about seven o'clock next morning I was suddenly aroused. My mother stood beside the bed. "There will be no wedding to-day, Rachel," she said in a terrified voice. " Hugh has been murdered." The most intense feeling of relief came over me ; I could not say a word. '' He was found in the Manor pond early this morning," continued my mother in the same awed tone ; " and young Gold is suspected of the foul <:rime." Those dreadful words roused me to life. " It is not true," I cried aloud ; " Harry has not done it." " He, and none other, was seen running quickly away from that very spot late last night," replied my mother ; " the lodge-keeper noticed a strange look on his face as he passed through the gates. He has not been seen since ; he is not at the Rectory." I gave an exceeding bitter cry. I knew quite THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 159 clearly and plainly at that awful moment that my noble Harry was innocent, and yet there flashed out horribly to my remembrance the look on his face and his strange, wild words when he fled from me towards the Manor pond ; what if they had happened to meet on that spot ? All deadness and stupor left me ; I rose, dressed quickly, and ran down to the Rectory, only going round by the nut-walk : I could not pass the pond. Mr. Gold sat white and trembling ; he looked years older than when I last saw him, only a few hours before. "Where is Harry?" he asked me piteously. " Rachel, you know, as I know, that he is innocent of this awful crime. Where is he ? When did you see him last ?" I told him exactly how we had parted, and how miserable Harry was. " I think he has gone away," I said ; " he could not have borne to have been here on my marriage-day. Perhaps he has gone to Ox- ford." The Rector started up looking almost himself again. " Rachel, let us go to Oxford, you and I. You will come with me, my child ?" Oh, how willingly would I go with him, for this idea of his flying from my wedding bells made it all certain to me now why he had never come home, and I felt sure of finding him at Oxford. The coach took us up on the common, and the journey seemed terribly long ; we were both so im- patient to reach our destination. At last, towards evening, it rattled over the roughly paved streets and set us down. 160 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Yes, Harry was there, back in his own rooms, but he was in a raging fever. For days we nursed him, his father and I, and doctors came and bled him and kept ice on his head ; from which the beautiful curls had all been cut. He was too delirious to talk in any way coherently, and the only name he ever mentioned was mine ; but though I tended him with the most loving care, he seemed quite incapable of recognising even me. " Brain fever," the doctors said, " brought on by some great shock ! If he ever regains his senses, he will wake with a lost memory." He was young and strong, and threw off the fever at last, and knew me, and loved to see me sitting beside his bed, but he could not recall anything that happened on that terrible night, not even my telling him of my intended marriage ; the whole of our last meeting was a total blank in his mind. We men- tioned not a word about the murder. I only told him that my cousin Hugh had died suddenly, and then spoke of other things, happy things such as we used to talk about in our childhood, for he could not bear much thinking yet. Those days after he began to get better were some of the happiest in my life. Such a huge weight had been taken off me ; the terror of my inevitable marriage, that had crushed down all my youth, was gone for ever ; and I seemed to have slipped back again into the old careless days of childhood. A lortnight passed, and I had forgotten all about Hugh's murder and of Harry's ever having been suspected of it, and was planning in my own mind how soon now his father and I could take him home to the Rectory and what a free and happy future THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER l6l was in store for us for, now that my cousin was dead, I did not think my parents would prevent my ulti- mately marrying Harry when a horrible change came over everything : the first day that Harry was able to take a little walk in the sunshine, leaning on his father's arm, two strong, rough men came up and arrested him in the King's name for the murder of Captain de Beauvoir. Harry stopped horrified and aghast, and then fell back fainting into his father's arms. CHAPTER III. THE time that followed will always lie like a night- mare on my life. Resistance was vain for Harry ; he must take his trial. Mr. Gold procured the best legal advice to be got in his defence, and he might have been acquitted if only he could have given an account of himself on the night of the murder ; but this he could not do. In vain the Oxford doctors who had attended him during the fever gave learned reasons for such absence of memory ; it was the natural con- sequence of some sudden shock, they said, but what the shock was no one present could tell. I had begged to attend the trial, but my parents would not hear of it ; they had allowed me to remain at Oxford with Mr. Gold, thinking it more prudent perhaps that I should be away from the Manor during the first days following on my interrupted wedding and the murder of Captain de Beauvoir : but, now that Harry was an arrested criminal, they forbade any more intercourse. Perhaps even I, with my blind L 1 62 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHEX obedience to my parents' will, should at such a crisis have thought my first duty lay in doing everything in my power to help Harry ; but the strain of the last few weeks and the reaction to the most terrible misery, just when for the first time in all my girlhood I had felt really joyous, had been too much ; and I was lying prostrate on my bed, with no other feeling but just the wish to die. I lay there for weeks, I believe, never inquiring or hearing anything about what was going on ; but at last one day they told me that Harry had been sentenced to transportation for life and was now on his voyage to Botany Bay, that, as he was convicted on circumstantial evidence alone, the court had taken into consideration his youth and good character and commuted the capital sentence to transportation. I cannot say how the years passed after that ; I grew grey before I was twenty ; I felt lifeless and hopeless. All my heart was buried in Harry's far- off prison. I never heard a word about him ; letters in those days were rare and costly things, and a convict might not write one if he wished. Mr. Gold was de,ad ; Harry's conviction killed him. Why I did not die, I cannot say ; living was so utterly hopeless and desolate. I saw little of my parents, although I still inhabited the Manor with them ; they seemed rather to shun me, awed by my terrible grief. Once they tried to rouse me to mix in society again, saying it was high time to give up this foolish regret for a man wholly unworthy of me, and begged I would receive the attentions of the young squire on the estate adjoining our own ; but the bare thought of marrying any one else than Harry filled me with such horror that I THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 163 fainted dead away, and no allusion was ever made to the subject again. One dark winter's night a messenger came through the deep snow to my father. The lodge-keeper was dying, and implored him to come down. " It's some- thing on his mind, sir," said the lad, " for he's quite mad-like to see you." My father was always good to his dependants ; he wrapped round him his great cloak and followed the messenger. I never heard exactly how it was told to him by the dying man, but when my father returned, although it was past midnight, he called me to his room, having, he said, strange news for me. The lodge-keeper had been the murderer of Captain de Beauvoir ; he had followed Hugh through the park, after watching him come alone through the gates, on that evening before my intended marriage, and faced him just as he stood by the old, deep pond. The lodge-keeper accused him of having not long before enticed away a daughter who had never come back to him, and then a deadly struggle ensued, which resulted in my cousin falling into the deep water. " I saw him drown," the dying man said to my father, " and then I went back to the lodge, and more than an hour afterwards saw young Mr. Gold run by looking strange and altered. The dread of having done that business, whether accident or not, was coming over me, and in the early hours of the morning I made that cowardly resolve to let suspicion fall on Mr. Harry. He was going off somewhere by his hurried way, I felt sure, so could manage to escape the law ; and then afterwards, when he was found and tried, it was too late to draw back : but he was not 164 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER near the pond until two hours after it all happened. Make them prove his innocence, sir, and then I shall die in peace." All this my father had written down at the man's bedside. It was forwarded by the first express to the proper authorities, and information went out to Botany Bay, and after some months Harry came back a free man. He was to come to us, my parents could not do enough for him now, and late one evening he arrived. How changed he was : my bright, laughing-eyed Harry of old days was gone, and a pale, sorrowful man had taken his place. The first time we were alone he turned to me and said, sadly but with decision, " Rachel, our marriage can never be now." " Harry," I said, " I love and honour you ten thousand times more now than in the days before all this happened." " You shall not marry a man who has been a convict," he answered. " I will marry that noble, innocent, terribly wronged man, and no other." "Then I will drop my disgraced name, and you shall give me yours, Rachel." " Harry Gold," I said, taking the hands he held out to me, "the name De Beauvoir is an ancient one, and we are proud of it ; but in my mind it is not to be compared with that name under which you have suffered so long, and which so justly expresses my husband's noble nature." And so, Harry, I changed my name to his, and your grandfather was a convict. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 165 A LAMENT. Argument. A youth sends a maiden a letter. She reads it carelessly ; he dies. Years after she dis- covers his meaning and makes this lament. LOVE, with the morning hair And light upon thy face, Never thou wert more fair Than now, when years have piled A darkness in the place Where thy true summer smiled. Oh, pure and undefiled, Passed to the land of light, Heaven's kingliest human child, Who was too high for earth ! And I have found the night Left from thy radiant birth. Ah, death to me ! and dearth, That was thy good and gain, That was thy harvest mirth In golden fields afar! Alone to me the pain Far as from star to star. Love, beyond death's cold bar, Most beautiful, most dear, Where thy warm summers are Lives love in countless blooms, Perfect of all best here And all beyond their dooms. 166 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Love breaking from our tombs, The holy lily-flower Of life, but lovelier comes From that dread mortal woe, And in its bright birth-hour Sets heaven's glad fields aglow. As the root may not show The glory of its end, I can but feebly know How thy bright beauty gleams, How thy bright thoughts extend Beyond all earthly dreams, Thine the long glory-streams, Mine the cold, night-drenched sod ; In God's own earth it seems, For those that cannot die Comes no strong light of God, No dawn beneath the sky. Could I in years gone by Guess from our twofold life There merged one destiny, From our two souls one good ; Thou husband, I the wife, One angel in our blood ? Fair days, ill understood ! As young birds take the spring Of heaven in their green wood With but half-wakened eyes, Caring not anything For all its mysteries, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER So I love's melodies Felt not, heard not, content That day by day might rise And bring me food for mirth ; Only for laughter meant Seemed this rejoicing earth. But thou, deep-souled from birth, Yearned through the actual light To the Diviner worth Of God's apocalypse, There read His glory right, Dim to my youth's eclipse. Oh, Love, from thy dead lips I read that glory now, Now when a great tear drips On each long-faded line, Through sorrow learning how The human is Divine. Dumb words, these words of thine Were in that summer fled, As taste of hallowed wine Whose hidden sacrament Seems vanished with the red Of its own lustre lent. The touch of God is blent With common wine to heal ; Thy words had deep intent Beyond their outer sweet, And now such love reveal As shall make life complete. 1 68 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Ah me ! with tired feet I press the weary years ; The rose-time passion heat, When with heaven's harmonies This earth most true appears, Lies cold beneath the skies. Thou to love's height doth rise, To splendour of its June, And I, with tear-dimmed eyes, Read thy deep-opening bud As the immortal noon In far-off fields of good. Far off! The star-flowers stud Sky-fields ; art thou more near, Beating from blood to blood As star must beat to star, Complete in either sphere Of music near and far ? Nor height nor depth can bar A spirit from its will ; Yet dim its glories are, However nigh they be, To those who, statue-still, See with blind eyes to see : .But thou, yearning to me, Wakest a human glow From my cold stone to thee, As Eve to Adam born Or ever love had woe In the world's golden morn THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 169 And through the days forlorn Comes a bright thought like light, That God must set His corn, Not in the sweet June air, But in the cold, dark night And winter of despair. So I in fields most fair Shall rise and bloom for aye ; Love, with the morning hair And light upon thy face, Night breaks in golden day, As mine must break apace. A MAN'S DREAM. Two friends upon a summer's afternoon Lay stretched in manly grace beneath the trees Of Clarendon, that Shelley-haunted wood By classic Isis ; down below them moored, Their boat stayed idle as deserted shell Two three years' college friends, drawn each to each By that strange law uniting opposites Which keeps the equilibrium of the world, This Finlack Rhys, a man of sculptured rock, So resolute his face, his will, his life, His long-fixed aim ; that Wildred Evremond, A creature born of light, of summer song, ' Of winds that kiss his careless, sun-browned face, Fickle as they so life be full of joy. Earnestly Finlack speaks, and his one theme Is sweet Elais, heiress of Gaston Hall, 170 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Where he and Wildred have been guests of late Wild Evremond, the ward of old Sir Hugh, Cousin and playfellow from infancy With sweet Elais, and Rhys, his chosen friend, Warm welcomed for his friend's sake and his own. " Yes, I will win her, Evremond," he said, " And win my way up through the toils of law And reach the mighty woolsack. Ah, you laugh, Strange dreamer, at the solid prize I deem Life's dearest good ; is not a man a man, And born to rule, claiming all lesser things His own by legal right ? To win the best, Substantial best, in this substantial world Is his clear happiness. Your poet's mind Is made of such queer stuff, having no eyes For the reality, but must peer through To find its shadow. Wildred, I scarce think That your fair cousin ever seems as fair To your strange eyes as to all other men's ; You want instead some ghostly-wonderful, Divine, chaste Dian, seated on the moon, And most Divinely out of human reach." " Oh no," laughed Wildred, " Dian is too cold, But dear Elais why, she is just herself ; One does not analyse one's cousins. Perhaps you do ; I have not your clear man's mind To test the properties of living joy ; The chemistry of faces is not mine : I only know that Ellie's has been bright Since we were tumbling babies in the grass ; And later on, when, dressed in gipsy guise, We hid the livelong day in Gaston Wood, Truant from lessons and grim governess, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER I? I That prim dame at the sight of the bright face And dusky curls beneath the scarlet hood Showed such an admiration in her eyes, She quite forgot to preach her proper words And straight forgave us both." Here Rhys broke in, Not jealously there lurked no jealousy, No sudden, unexpected lightning flash, In his well-calculated, calm, clear mind But to make sure more sure, asked, " Evremond, Tell me now plainly, as from friend to friend, Do you not wish to make Elais your wife ? " " I ! " Wildred cried, " I do not want a wife, The prose of life, its full-blown happiness, That leaves no sweet beyond ; give me instead The hopeful, doubtful, large mysterious joy That may flash out impossibilities From all its myriad buds, and knows no end. No, no, my sober friend, no wife for me, No end of dreams in plodding work-a-day, And heaven forgotten in the toils of earth ! Oh no ; they call me butterfly, you know : So, like a butterfly, I shall flit forth To other lands that poets dream about, And get the sweets without the cares of life. But, for yourself, you are of different clay, And when you reign above the minds of men, As reign you will, oh Rhys, most noble prince, The sweet Elais in sparkling coronet Will look a very queen, make a grand mate For such distinction ; yet I loved her best In those old careless days forgotten now, My little Ellie in her gipsy hood. But come, we must return ; 'tis growing late." 172 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Five years have passed ; it is sweet summer-time, And Gaston Hall, with all its rich demesne, Is glowing in the warmth and happiness. Elais is standing quiet and demure Among the flowers ; straight to his wife's side Comes Finlack, half-way to the woolsack now, And viewing in the distance step by step His clear-marked pathway to the premiership. He brings an open letter in his hand, With date of three months back. " 'Tis from Wil- dred," He says ; " the wild bird talks of coming home After these four years of erratic flight, Seems sick at last of life, and so purposeless. He talks of you, Elais, they get no news It seems, in Colorado has not heard About our marriage ; listen now to this : 'Twill make you laugh, such strange, new earnest- ness In butterfly Wild Evremond. He writes, 4 Finlack, I think now your old way was right How to find life's true best, your steadfast plan To make yourself a name, another star That from the lengthening night of history May light a darkened world ; while I instead In those bright, careless, happy-hearted days Aimed not at all, thought not at all, but lived, Ay, lived for self. But I am weary grown Of such a soulless, goalless nothingness, This dreaming of the " might be " ; I have waked, You see, to the stern morning, and I find There is no plan or purpose in my life, My day is but a blank, so have resolved (I hear you laughing, Rhys, at this from me ; THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 173 But never mind) I have resolved, I say, To grow into the stature of a man, A poet, if you will, but still a man, A working man, which means a god of men In fresh-creating, to work out my thoughts, And build a sweet world for all tired souls To drink refreshment from, and hope, and joy. Ah ! you will call this dreaming still, old friend, But, to make plain it is not all a dream ; I have already written half a book ; And when the rest, that burns and surges now Like lava in my brain, shall have cooled down To sweet and pleasant words, I mean my book, The first-fruit of the flower that bore no fruit (So all the fellows said in those old days), To be an offering, though unworthy still, To sweet Elais, my gipsy queen of old. Yes, I am coming home ; the word sounds dear After long wandering : perhaps it takes In some strange souls long pain and banishment, Even death itself, to prove a sacrament. But this is all too grave ; I'm coming home, And home means Gaston Hall and Elite's face ; I wonder, is she changed, or still the same, Most wilful, lovable, of womankind ? I think, Rhys, in those selfish days of youth I did not half appreciate my good ; We take the summer sunlight as our right, Nor feel its kindness till the dark days come, But in the lonely years and narrowing joys Faces of old familiar as our own, And so less thought of, being always near, Come haunting us again with strange regret And keener sense of loss than may be felt 174 TH E SCENT OF THE HEATHER For all the newer ones that cross our lives ; And so, old friend, I long for sight of you And sweet Elais more than this pen can write. 'Tis two full years since last I heard from you No letters ever reach us in these wilds You said in that epistle you were well And all successful in your well-planned life, Nor even heart-broken, though Elais refused To share the crown we used to joke about ; You thought she had a lingering fondness left For her " Wild Evremond," and should be glad (Dear, faithful friend) if that was what it meant ; Well, to refuse yoii must mean very much.' " He paused in reading, glancing at Elais ; So very white she looked in her white dress Among the lilies, even to her face, The gipsy face of old grown strangely pale. " The sun is hot," she said, " I will go in " ; Then Finlack watched her as she moved away : As one that walks in sleep she moved away, Mechanically, with the soul gone out ; He watched her as she went, but lent no aid To steady her weak steps : his legal mind, Calm, every-sided, took in the whole case In that one glance, and settled how to act. So then his test had proved the thought still there He fancied faded out with girlish heart That loved its playmate : when two years ago He asked her for his wife, and she refused, The thought had met his reason-seeking brain, So fairly logical, and generously He cared not to be rival to his friend, For Finlack's heart was not so very hot But it could calmly judge, with all sides fair, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 175 Even in its love ; yet as the years went by, And no word came from Wildred, and all deemed Him gone to that mysterious No Man's Land, The country of the lost, he came again, Perhaps a little drawn by Gaston Hall (Her own now since the death of old Sir Hugh), With its broad lands, but mostly for herself : And when her answer this time had been " Yes," The thought of any love for Wildred left Had quite passed out of his contented mind, As one discards a toy of bygone years. Yet it was there, there still, and must be met, Not weakly lie ignored, lie cankering To eat into his life and its high plan, But met and conquered reasonably at once ; Elais must never guess he guesses it ; She has a strong will, and will rise above This youth's vain fancy now her lot is cast, And never knowing that he knows of it, Will first conceal with all a woman's art, Art that is very nature in its ease, And then, as women do, she will forget : Months will go on, and closer tie arise To quite eclipse the day which went before " The mother has no past," a wise man says But now they must not meet, not till that time When, with her rosy heir upon her knee, She laughs into the blue of his bright eyes And deems all summers that have gone before But silly dreams to such reality. No, now they must not meet for his sake too, " Poor Wildred ! such the waking from his dream ! Ah well, we cannot order circumstances, Can only wisely act when things arise 1 76 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Beyond our planning ; in a year or two He also will have flung off vain regrets To take life as it is, as wise man should : He seems becoming rational at last, And with some practical and lively wife, Who laughs her common-sense into his soul, May yet become a known, successful man. Yes, Wild, I think you'll live to thank me yet For having won Elais by three months' start ; She is too dreamy and too like yourself : You need the counteraction of sound prose, While as for me, she suits me to a turn, A whole poetic desert to subdue And cultivate to meet the wants of men." So Finlack wrote at once to his old friend, That it might find him at the landing-place ; " Dear Evremond," he said, " Elais and I Are three months wedded : we are sorry both We cannot ask you home to Gaston Hall, But are to-morrow off again abroad To travel for a year ; we both are glad That you at last have waked up from your dream To find the substance is man's proper care, And not the shadow. Elais sends her love, And wishes you success in every way, I also, and remain, dear Evremond, Your old friend, Finlack Rhys." This he despatched, And, with his calm, unalterable face, Made all arrangements for the sudden move. It is late autumn of that fatal year, Fatal to two bright lives ; and Evremond Is slowly riding through the Gaston woods For the last time, for through the settled brown THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 177 Of sun and travel that has masked his face His face gleams wan and worn, and whitening fast To its last ashes, with the fire burnt out. " But just once more," he murmured to himself, "Just once again to look upon my home, So little cared for in the happy days, So all-desired now, my Ellie's face ! Yes, dying men may covet and break through The social laws ; there are no laws in heaven. Dear face ! dear face ! But that can never be, Not this side heaven : you are so far away, And far from me in heart as circumstance ; I cannot blame you, sweet : I blame myself, The careless selfishness of those old days, The halcyon days of youth men take and spoil And think life's best fulfilment, till they wake To find the true elixir they have missed Beyond their wine-cups ! Ah, my life's true wine, I thought not of your sweetness when the brim Stood shining to my lips ; and now, and now ; Sin brings its punishment : I die of thirst. Yes, here we played at gipsies, she and I, In that bright time so very long ago ; And there oh ! " Wildred started : like a ghost His face looked ; did he dream, or did there sit On the same moss-grown rock, their play-time throne, His gipsy queen of old ? There sat Elais, A red shawl folded close to her bare head And round her, like the little cloak of old ; The path, piled thick with moss, muffled all sound, And Wildred was beside her ere she knew ; " Ellie," he cried, " is it your very self? Oh, speak ! " and slow dismounting from his horse, So feeble had he grown with waning life, M 178 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER He came and lifted up her white, thin face With weak and trembling hands, his hungry eyes Devouring it a moment ere she moved : Then her low voice found vent, held mute at first By its own tumult at the sudden joy, The dear reality of her long dream. " Wildred," she said, " I knew that you would come : Each day I come to our old gipsy throne And wait for you ; each night I hear your voice Low calling to me, ' Ellie, I will come.' " They sat down side by side, as in old years, In fun and laughter then, in quiet now, And hushed solemnity of coming death. " This strange, new phase has puzzled me," he said ; " I cannot understand this thing, Elais : Rhys said that you were going, you with him, To live abroad, and now I find you here, And mine own love, as in my fondest dreams, Not Finlack's wife ; and yet you are his wife : Dear, tell me what it means, this strange, new joy ? " " It means," she answered, " I am Finlack's wife, Am bound to him by a short hour's mistake, A little sin, yet, like Eve's sin of old, It cannot be redeemed by aught but death, And that is coming surely, surely, now. I thought not to have told you till we met In God's great, perfect world, that I was true And faithful to you, Wildred ; I believed You dead : and though I deemed you had no thought Of deeper love than our old cousin love, Yet that to me was greater and more dear Than others' worship, half of mine own soul And all its best : but as the years went on, You dead and I alive with all the cares THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 179 That come with riches, I held counsel sad With heart and brain, and made a calm resolve To send my true love up to heaven and you, To wait God's time ; while I took up my life As a plain duty, stern and terrible, The cold snow needed to make bread for men. And so when Finlack urged me once again I straight consented to become his wife ; He was your special friend of college days, So seemed a little nearer than the rest : He is most kind, and does not guess my grief; He thinks me ' fanciful,' yet generously Yields to each fancy : when four months ago He took a sudden wish to live abroad, I, stabbed by your dear letter, all too late Living and loving me, felt death would come, And could not leave the spot that was our home So many happy years ; he yet gave in To no plain reason, but I liked to stay ; And now you too have come, my last, last wish." She paused, with wan, faint lips. " Ellie," he said, " I would not talk with you as I do now To Finlack's wife but that I feel the hand Of death is on me ; also for my sin There comes redemption now." " You dying too ? " She interrupted him ; and in her eyes, Worn blank with fever, gleamed a new-born joy. " Yes, dear," he said ; " and so we meet at last On the bright threshold of the larger life, Here may hold converse with that great white light Upon our faces, as the angels do Sitting so near us on the other side, Where never marriage rite need be performed, Because their state already is complete, l8o THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER The man and woman as God made them first, Perfect in one. Our ignorant mistakes, Purged from their wrong and sin and misery, Come right at last ; a land of morning lies Beyond all punishment, though that is sore : Sore it has been to me, dear, all too late Finding the good beyond my selfish dream, That melts into its very nothingness, As image formed of snow at the warm touch Of living womanhood. Yet, Ellie, still From thought of you this last year of my life I have accomplished something ; 'tis not quite The wasted fancies of a selfish dream : From that dear thought has sprung a tender book, Which may give grateful drink to thirsting souls, A cup of water only, yet new life In the parched desert ; after I am dead It shall fly forth, as our winged souls shall fly From these cocoons : in those old laughing days You called me butterfly ! " He took her hand, Where the hot veins burnt, wasting fast away The waxen flesh. " Dear little hand," he said, " It soon will knock now at the golden door ; It seems too sweet a joy that we shall join So soon in happiness : I had no hope But to stand waiting on the other side Through years of awful loneliness, while you, My own, yet alien still, lived all content In the low sphere my sin had doomed you to ; Ah, that indeed were punishment, but now God is most merciful." Slow as he spoke The silent face beside him dropped, and fell Death-white against his shoulder. " Love ! " he cried, " Has it then come so soon ?" But the white lips THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER l8l Nor moved nor breathed. Then, with wild kisses poured On the cold face, he raised her in his arms Despairingly ; but the man's feeble strength Was gone, with that last effort ebbed away, And, falling with his burden in his arms, He gasped his faint life out. There Finlack, Searching that evening for his missing wife, " Who would take such imprudent, senseless walks, Careless of consequences," found them both, Two lifeless bodies lying on the moss ; But Wildred and Elais were far away. THE SKYLARK'S SONG. THE woods are grey ; the fields are brown and fallow A veil of midst is on the silent hills ; There is no voice of birds, no gleam of swallow, Nought but a murmuring sound of lazy rills. Then on the stillness, sudden and victorious, Breaks the wild rapture of a skylark's song, Beyond the darkness, up in light all-glorious Chanting the tale of summer sweet and long. Troubled we gazed upon the dreary dying Of summer glory ; gazed with weary hearts On clouded sky, on faded forest, sighing, " Why must all beauty bear such transient part ? " Then fell that song of rapture from the portal Of a near heaven, singing, " All is right : Forests may fade, but summer is immortal ; Skies may be darkened, but beyond is light." 1 82 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER A STRAIN OF MUSIC. THE first sweet waking of spring-time, The joy of a summer day ; The longing in smoke-dimmed city For hills that are far away : Sea-winds when the rosy morning Smiles down on a silent shore ; The sad, sweet mystical twilight High up on a lonely moor : The still enchantment of mountains, Where even the distance seems To reach ineffable glory And shine on our souls in dreams : The heroes that make life holy As visions from worlds above ; The one whose touch is the dearest, Whose look is Divine with love : An angel in some far heaven, Singing the anthems of bliss ; It was but a strain of music, But in it I heard all this. A PHOTOGRAPH. WHY should I start ? why should my cheek turn pale, My eyes fill full of tears ? 'Tis but his picture, that can tell no tale From out the bygone years. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 1 " Turning the pages of a stranger's book, Then suddenly to see The form, the face, the eyes, the old old look, That brought all heaven to me ! " Why did we part, oh, love, my love of old ? Was it not foolish pride That made us break a troth more true than gold, Than all the world beside ? " Ah, put it back, thy dear remembered look ; Shut it away again : The past must ever be a hidden book, To open which is pain." She closed the album, turning to depart ; Was it a dream, or true, That he who once had clasped her to his heart Should clasp her there anew ? HIDDEN OF GOD. OH, not with death must rest our recollection Of him we count so dear ; Strong over death still shines his pure affection, For ever bright and clear. We must not gaze down through the lonely portal Of his dark hiding-place, But at the beauty of that light immortal Beyond upon his face, 1 84 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER At the same smile, so radiantly beaming, That lit his face of old Through toil and care, like a glad angel dreaming Among his thoughts untold. Not dead, not dead, but for a little season Hidden from those most dear, Yet God, who hides him, God, who knows the reason, May let him still be here, Here as a child, all silenced from his laughter By sleep and midnight gloom ; We cannot see beneath the darkened rafter, Yet know him in the room, And know that from this night of lives so parted In loneliness and pain Shall wake a morning for the loving-hearted, With his dear smile, again. HE CARES NOT. " HE is cold," she said, " He is cold and dead ; If ever he loved me, that love has all fled ! " And the maiden's sad tone Took one silent moan : " He cares not ; oh, he cares not." She saw him one day He thought her away Take up her dropped glove in the meadow that lay ; Oh, that little old glove ! With what passionate love He kissed it ! oh, he kissed it. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 185 They met as of old, He careless and cold, And love's happy story remained all untold ; But the maiden no more Moaned, sad as before, " He cares not ; oh, he cares not." CHRIST LEAVING THE PRETORIUM. A SURGING of selfish passions, A raging of human strife, And down through the midst there cometh The higher, Diviner life. A clash of discordant colour, A tumult of jarring light, And down in the midst the music Of pure, self-radiant white. A clamour of hideous voices, That reach to the storm-black sky, And down through the midst the quiet Of Him who goes forth to die. The wreck of God's once bright image Men make of their mortal span, And down in the midst the beauty Of Him who is perfect man. A terror of stricken faces At sight of that face benign, The God in the midst that passeth, The Man who is all Divine. 1 86 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER UNTIL THE DAY DAWN." HYMN. LAND of glory shining With eternal light ; Land of love combining Beauties infinite ; Land of all perfection That our eyes shall see In the resurrection, In the life to be. Here in darkness lying, Long we wait and pray For the light undying, For the golden day, For the radiant glory, For the clouds withdrawn, For life's shadowed story, Beautiful with dawn. Who shall gain that beauty, Win that heart's desire ? He who follows duty, Though it lead through fire, On, though sore temptation Lures him to remain, Upward to salvation, Through the gates of pain. Who can speak the gladness Of that land Divine When the night of sadness Shall in morning shine ? THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 187 Who can sing the reaping Of that golden store When the voice of weeping Shall be heard no more ? Upward to the splendour, By one light enticed, Light most bright and tender From the face of Christ ! Love for ever beaming This our eyes shall see : Fair beyond all dreaming Shall that glory be. ONE WORD. I THINK of it, I dream of it ; You cannot guess my treasure : No summer day, all golden-lit, Could bring me half the pleasure ; No wealth of nightingales in June Could set my spirit singing To such a song as that dear tune This one sweet word is bringing. The larks soar upwards to the sky With blithe and happy voices ; My spirit with them soars, and high Above them all rejoices : The larks drop downward to their nests Among the fields and stubble ; My spirit in her gladness rests, And knows no more of trouble. 1 88 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER It seems too slight a thing, I ween, To set the joy-bells ringing, A silly thing, you say, and mean, To wake the world to singing ; 'Tis but a letter lying here, Wherein (oh, heart love-smitten !) One for the first time, one most dear, My simple name has written. IMMUTABLE. 'TIS said the world is growing old, That all the songs of life are sung, That all the tales of love were told Long, long ago, when time was young ; Then, youth and maiden, say, oh, say, What have you left to tell to-day ? They sat upon a glowing height, That youth and maiden, young and fair, And all the splendour and delight Of sunset lay around them there, And on their faces lay a glow, As in love's freshness long ago. Then, youth and maiden, say, oh, say, If all the fire of love went out Far back in earth's first dawn of day, What is there left to talk about ? What is there left to make your eyes As glorious as the sunset skies ? But they who sat serene and still, In silent glory of the skies, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 189 Upon that wondrous golden hill, With all love's splendour in their eyes They knew no reason for this spell, Save one sweet word : " Immutable." A HEART TO THE WORLD. WHAT though I bring fair blooms ? Can small hands reach To lay the year's fresh glories in your laps ? Ye might bend down with kindly eyes, perhaps, Ease your great talk a moment each to each, Sighing, " Ah, happy child to roam the meads And feel the innocence of daffodils ! " Alas ! you miss the sorrow that o'erfills The joy-cup I would hold up to your needs. Common you call my flowers, a common thing, Cut down by thousands with the meadow's grass ; They are not common unto me, alas ! But stand apart in pain and suffering Christs, that a climbing Calvary upbears, Rough-hewn and smirched with paint at every turn, Tortuous things the artist's eye would spurn, A while the man bows down with bitter tears. Symbols of agony to you I bring, Symbols of triumph ; if the grey doth hold A little space betwixt the gold and gold, Yet greet the sorrow as an equal thing. 190 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER FAREWELL. LIFE is contrived with such short intervals Of joy, and peace, and beauty, such long waste Of dreary desert oft my spirit fails In utter weariness, panting to taste The wells of love, to rest among the flowers Of precious moments in this world of ours. Farewell, oh, friend ! I clasp your hand to-day, A sweet oasis in the wilderness, That I shall look back to through all the way, That I shall thirst for more, though less and less The vision shines, the tender memory Of deep companionship and sympathy. Ah, friend, we cannot know each other quite While these partition walls stand up between, Shrouding the soul so yearning for the light, And letting but a longing glimpse be seen, Brightening the windows, when heart calls to heart, " Come forth, and let me know thee as thou art." Farewell this earth is sighing with farewells, The wintry wind that moans down barren wold ; Our joy-bells wail too soon with funeral knells : The song is over, and the story told ; And a low voice keeps crying through the years, " Why must the seeds of joy be sown with tears ? " Ah, never yet was any great deed wrought Without keen agony ; life-blood must flow To liberate a soul : 'tis not for nought We sound the depths of pain ; such deeps but show The higher height, the truer, intenser life, Above the level plains of feebler strife. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 191 GONE. A MORNING fair and bright, A sky washed clear with floods of midnight rain ; A morning altogether for delight, And not for mortal pain. That morning moves a ship With sails like snow-plumed wings, that shine and soar Up to the sea's far edge, then, lingering, dip, And sink for evermore. Does that same morning seem Still fair and beautiful to her who stands With eyes that gaze as in a dreadful dream, With cold and trembling hands ? Is not that bright, sweet sky Black as though morning sun had never shone ? Is there aught left on earth but just to die ? For he she loves is gone. HEROISM. WHAT did I do ? Why, nothing much ; I'm used to darkness, don't you see ! It warn't as hard for me to touch The hole's black bottom as for he. He was a new hand at a pit ; A feeble sort of man he was ; And one must be just born to it To run the chance of meeting gas. IQ2 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER He'd done me a good turn, that chap, And so 'twas only fair to he When orders came that we should swop, And he stay up instead of me. He didn't want for me to go ; Says he, " You've got a sweetheart, Jim " ; I'm not a swearing man, you know, But maybe then I swore at him. Says I, " If I can't act the man, I don't deserve that girl for wife ; You doesn't know my Mary Ann : I'm not a-going to risk a life." So down I went. I can't just mind What happened when I got below ; I feels a little queer and blind, But that'll soon wear off, you know. And Mary Ann why, that's her touch Upon my forehead ! Tell them, dear, I really ain't done nothing much, And just am glad to find you here. HE AND SHE. A CAVALIER stopped at the gate ; She waited there to greet him, A lowly maid, whom luckless fate Had preordained should meet him She knew no life of princely state, Knew life of peasant solely ; He loved her just a feather's weight, And she she loved him wholly. 193 He lingered long that summer day, Then bent to lightly kiss her, And when he rode upon his way He quite forgot to miss her : But she she kept that kiss for aye, Her one exhaustless treasure ; He loved her with the breath of May, She loved him without measure. A rumour ran adown the glade That marriage bells were ringing ; From foreign land, the rumour said, The prince his bride is bringing : But in the lone churchyard they laid, While wintry winds were sighing, That broken-hearted peasant maid Who loved him unto dying. GIRLHOOD. I SIT writing, writing, writing, Piling books upon a shelf; But you, my heart inviting, Are a poem in yourself : What are all my dusty pages To the freshness of your face ? Here stands wisdom of all ages, But you hold a higher place. In your beauty and your brightness, Whose sense can hnd no words, You come like morning lightness And the early songs of birds ; N 194 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER You move like summer breezes Through forests dull with rain, Till on all the wrinkled trees is A glow of youth again. I may toil long days repeated, Learning truths that cannot die, But you hold them all completed In one bright glance of your eye ; Do you know it, know your treasure, Or, like volumes sweet and true, Ever spread a living pleasure All unconscious what you do ? SUMMER-TIME. THE larks were chanting in the blue ; The hills were sweet with heather : In cool of trees the pigeons' coo Whispered of peace together. And with the cooing of the dove And hum of bee home-laden Went singing through the land the love Of happy youth and maiden. The sun shone down on ripening corn And poppies deep and mellow, On harmony of colour born From crimson and from yellow. And 'mid the corn in crimson set, With sweet and happy laughter, That happy youth and maiden met For all the glad hereafter. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 195 And through the summer land they went, And through the summer weather, In quiet of a great content, For evermore together. LIFE. IDEAL. A LAND of roses and sweet skies, and we Devoid of care as children, and as free As swallows darting over summer sea. A land where life's rich cup is all abrim, All glowing to our lips with jewelled rim, A golden summer land that grows not dim. A land where all is peaceful and serene, Where never any discord comes between Its harmony of blissful sound and scene. REAL. A land where sorrowful, sad faces move 'Mid scattered roses, raised to skies above, Asking if this is all the might of love. A land where life's full cup may never shine, The jewelled rim, the glow of crimson wine, A hallowed rim, a sacrament Divine. A land where truest harmonies are found Mingled with discords, and with sighing drowned, Whose sweetest music gives the saddest sound. A land of weariness and days unsunned, Whose sorrowful, sweet souls alone respond To that one song of hope the Glad Beyond. 196 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER THE LILY KNIGHTS OF LYONESSE. THE VIGIL. LONG hours within the dim cathedral aisle The young knight knelt ; A prayer was in his heart, and all the broken, Low voice in agonising tears did melt : " Lord, give me grace, so I may not defile Thy precious token ! " All night through he felt The powers of darkness warring mortal fight ; But when the morning dealt A heaven-born joy, renewing earth with light, There dawned into his soul in words unspoken A peace past understanding and a might That held him stronger than all human strength. Then came the priest at length, And from the altar took a banner bright Of crimson wrought with lilies : " This," he said, " Take, keep, bring back in honour ; by this red Thou art blood-bought to Christ ; the lilies, thine, Keep in their white Divine." I. Cadmar and Gwain, twin sons of Earl Gudress And knights of Arthur's court in Lyonesse, Rode forth together, like as like could be, From their old castle by the ancient sea. It was a day of Arthur's tournament, And bright between them as they gaily went Passed youth's light talk and laughter sweet and long Or notes of unpremeditated song ; It was the time of deep, joy-silenced June, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 197 With life and youth, and out upon the hills Carolled the larks, and laughed a thousand rills. In a lone cavern on the bright hillside, Where winds brought echoes of the far-off tide, Lived a lone man ; a century had shed Its winters on his snow of beard and head, And from old time, ere Arthur, gold-crowned child, Like a new morning from the sea had smiled, Had lived apart, a prophet to his race, Alone with Nature, till he read her face And knew the soul beneath, and what should come Behind the present, to all others dumb. As up the steep, wild hill the two knights rode This old white prophet on the summit stood ; He looked on Cadmar, and he looked on Gwain, And saw the unearthly likeness of the twain, Yet, with his keener eye than man may dare, Pierced to each soul and saw no likeness there. " Sir Cadmar," cried he and his voice was strong " Beware lest thou repent of cruel wrong ! Sir Gwain, most trusting knight, to-day shall see A joy that shall be sorrow come to thee, Yet sorrow hath an end ; love and be brave " : Then he returned into the lonely cave. For a few moments down the steep descent The two young knights in sudden silence went ; The old man's words had struck upon their mirth Like cold on ruddy summer of the earth : Yet as that warning breath will pass away, Nor be fulfilled for many a happy day, So passed those chilling words from Cadmar first, And out into light-hearted speech he burst : 41 The poor old hermit dwells too much alone, And has into a senseless babbler grown. 198 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Likely it is that I, King Arthur's knight, Who won my maiden spurs in thickest fight, And took the crowning oath of chivalry ' Death-true to God and womanhood to be ' Could so beshame my honour and my vow As to make true those words he spake just now, 1 Repent a cruel wrong ! ' Oh, pity 'tis We bore him not away from life like this, A mere herb-browsing sheep among the rocks, And set him in the crown of his white locks Amid the quenchless stars of women's eyes ; He soon would find earth holier than the skies And cease to babble dreams ! " But Gwain was still, Nor answered him down all that long, wild hill ; No smile was on his lips, but his eyes bore A glad, deep look seen never there before : As a lone tarn upon a mountain's height To depths unfathomed mirrors heaven's own light, So sorrow still held joy in his new dream, And conquered darkness by its light supreme. " Love and be brave " ; the words rang in him now Like an " Amen " to clasp his perfect vow Of " faith to God and womanhood." Sir Gwain Thought not of sorrow, of the years of pain The old man prophesied ; when from a height We gaze upon the land of promise bright, Beyond the hot, bare desert, goes no thought To the long anguish and the days of drought That first must be : enough we see the end, The lasting joy whereto the way must tend. " What ? dreaming too ? " laughed Cadmar ; " wake up, Gwain, And let us gallop o'er this grassy plain : See, Camelot is nearing on our view ! " 199 So they sped on, nor ever much rein drew Till the great tilting field before them showed Its silken tents that in the red sun glowed. They entered this bright world ; on golden chair King Arthur sat, with Guinevere the fair On other golden chair at his right hand, While all the noblest ladies of the land Tier above tier sat round and graced the place With the high heaven that beams from woman's face. There fell sweet music too, for harpers mild From Cymbria's mountains far away and wild Breathed their long glories of triumphant kings Down the long rapture of a thousand strings. In centre of the place so wide it was, Six hundred horsemen all abreast might pass The knights were ranged, three hundred knights in all, But none more noble looked, nor were more tall, Than old Earl Gudress' sons, that double star Of sun-wrought beauty, as twin planets are ; In fight-tried armour clad from helm to heel, That gave quick lightnings from the shiny steel, Slowly they paced upon their twin white steeds, Come of the cream-white race which Mona breeds Upon her green plains, where the west winds play And rain wide fountains of Atlantic spray. Twin shields of crimson hue these twain knights bore, On which, most rarely wrought in silver pure, Ran lilies white and marvellous : their crest A hand that held a lily stood expressed On the blue air ; and all their armour bright From heel to helm was wrought with hidden white Of silver lilies traced so finely fair, It seemed no mortal hands had wrought them there, 200 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER And so these two were called " the Lily Knights," And pure had kept their whiteness through great fights. II. IN a far castle by the northern sea Of ancient mountain Cymbria, wild and free, Dwelt an old king, who had one daughter fair, The blossom of his age, most sweet and rare, Gladys her name, and " splendid " did she beam Upon his winter, like a morning dream Of unlived summer. In her golden eyes The light of gentle years again would rise, And the old time when he, a stripling, went To grim Calmordock with the sweet intent Of claiming as his queen in future prime The lady Gladys of that younger time, Till his old eyes would dim with sudden tears At the keen wrong of those long-vanished years And the lone fate of her, nor maid nor bride, Who, leaving one weak babe, had wept and died, Then the long silence till that babe, grown fair, He took to his wronged heart with love most rare, And lived his youth again, till she too bore Another likeness of his love of yore, Then also died ; and so this Gladys left Shone trebly precious in those eyes bereft Of the lost twain, who never age had known, But ever youthful lived, seeming one grown With this bright, happy face, these gold-lit curls, And skin of roses, blent with liquid pearls. THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 2OI Most delicate she was, yet strong withal As a young birch-tree rising straight and tall Upon the mountain's side. No wind may break What so floats on its breath as swan on lake ; So Gladys, child of nature, sweet attuned To earth's most loving music, writ and runed On sea and sky, sang in the mountain wind, That through the flowery grass its notes will find, Danced out her joy in laughter with the streams, Or lay in summer silence wrapt in dreams, Breathed music such as nature breathes unheard But by the fine-eared soul which, like a bird, Hears the dumb stirrings of the wakening earth, And into singing must perforce break forth. So the wild maiden, gentle still as wild, Had bloomed upon the mountains, till the child Sprang into womanhood that knows no law But all earth's best into itself to draw. Then old King Cedric, in his threefold pride Of daughter, boyhood's dream, and twice-loved bride, Blent into one in this pure type of all, Said in his radiant heart, " King Arthur's hall Had never aught so fair. Not Guinevere Herself but would abashed stand vanquished here Before my queen of beauty ! " Then as time Went on, and more and more at her young prime His fond eyes gazed, stronger and stronger came The wish no longer to withhold such fame As must await her at far Camelot ; Then he bethought him how in years forgot, Before Earl Gudress, that young knight of fire, Had filched with wanton love his heart's desire He had been wont in Lyonesse to roam, And in full many a castle find a home 202 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER A hunting season long. So his wish grew, Fed fat with wishing, till the flame upflew In a found action : henchmen twain he sent To Calmordock. Years nigh a score had spent Since last he entered at its friendly gate To claim his fair young bride, whose mother's fate Left orphan to the kindness of her kin ; And now that mother's brother, old Earl Gwyn, Would make him welcome as in years before, When on their sword-hilts friendship true they swore. Now Calmordock was near to Camelot, So thought King Cedric, " It must come, I wot, That Gladys reign the queen of beauty soon"; So when the summer days had grown to June Southward they journeyed over hill and plain, The king and princess, with their lengthened train Of squires and liegemen, armed with bow and sword : And so they came to old Calmordock's lord. Now it so happed that on that day as well King Arthur's mighty tournament befell ; So spake Earl Gwyn to Cedric, " Go we straight To Camelot ere it be growing late, And our sweet Gladys lose the golden sight Of Guinevere and Arthur and each knight Of his round table. There to-day, I ween, More bravery and beauty shall be seen Than falls within the span of years threescore Of most men's lives." So they rode on once more And came to the silk town of gorgeous hue Where gold and crimson mixed with royal blue And made a rainbow on the plain of green. Now as these strangers entered was the queen Crowning with crown of gold that Lily knight, The young Sir Gwain, for prowess in the fight ; THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 203. He, wearing round his helm that golden band, Passed close to where Earl Gwyn had made his. stand. Being mounted still, and lifting his deep eyes, They lit on Gladys with a glad surprise ; Her bright, frank eyes met his : her soul, attune With nature's loveliness, drew in full soon This human beauty, heart and noble face, And all his attributes of manly grace. He might not stop nor pause beneath the spell, But to the tumult of his thoughts there fell That ancient prophet's words, " Love and be brave, For sorrow hath an end." Oh, joy to have Remembrance of that look all beautiful ! Thus he strode back ; the jousts seemed all grown dull And lifeless jests ; but on his face there lay A light as of the dawning of the day. III. SIR CADMAR rode to Calmordock alone One summer noon ; for it had chanced upon That day of tournament when crowned Sir Gwain Passed from the queen to join the jousts again Cadmar stood nigh the place where old Earl Gwyrt Paused with his guests, and noted how his twin Had seen the lady Gladys, noted, too, The sudden look that passed between the two. Now Cadmar's heart had long been full of guile Beneath his seeming virtue and frank smile ; For growing selfishness and secret sin Had cankered the once manly heart within. 204 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER So when he saw the smile and matchless grace Beam on his brother from that matchless face He plotted how himself this prize might gain Through the strange likeness .'twixt himself and Gwain, And till the ending of that joisting day He let no sight of his twin self betray That they were twain, but, riding back alone, Went round by a drear wood, where dwelt a crone Who dealt in herbs and knew the uses deep Of poisonous weeds, and just how much would keep A man a little sick, yet cause no harm To life or reason : so he bought such charm With liberal gold, and when at home arrived Into his father's nightly mead contrived To stir the potion ; for his subtle plan Was to keep Gwain house-tied, knowing the man, And that, however he might fume and fret Another sight of that bright face to get, He had a very woman's tenderness, And would not leave his father if distress Of sickness took him, aged now and blind. Thus did the base Sir Cadmar win his mind, And came to Calmordock exultant, sure The love of Lady Gladys to secure. Now Gladys lived on in a strange, new bliss ; She knew not why, yet could no more dismiss The radiant image of the Lily Knight, For so that day she heard that he was dight, And longed her sire to question, or Sir Gwyn ; But when her lips were parted to begin A strange and new-born shyness held her dumb, While the warm blood on cheek and brow would come THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 205, With tell-tale banners of the jubilance In her heart's castle : yet her eager glance And quickened ear strained out to catch some word That told of Gwain ; but never such was heard, For the old feud that raged from Gudress' sin Had left long silence 'twixt him and Earl Gwyn, Nor would he broach that name of cruel might To Cedric's ear. Yet sometimes had the knight Sir Gwain come riding to grim Calmordock, With the king's hope that he would leave his rock And long seclusion to behold and praise The perfect order of the younger days In happy Camelot. So the brave face By its own truth had won a welcome place At the earl's lonely hearth, who times so rare Descended to the world below him there ; He knew not Gudress had more sons than one, Nor ever learnt the name of this young son. Thus when Sir Cadmar formed his secret plot, And saw Earl Gwyn that day at Camelot, And knew the guests were his, straightway his plan Burst into shape : at Calmordock no man Knew aught but one, so might that one be he, Since none the difference 'twixt the twain could see. That summer afternoon went Gladys forth To seek the lone shore ; child of the wild north, She longed to tell her new thoughts to the sea : But as adown the rocky way went she, With hair like wind-blown corn and gown of white,. There met her face to face the Lily Knight, For he had seen her form come firm and fair From the grim turret those bold rocks to dare, So left his horse, that he quite free might be To climb and meet her ere she reached the sea. 206 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Now when her eyes beheld the noble face And the brave limbs of perfect manly grace The moment's rapture of that jousting day Flashed out upon her dreams as morning's ray On the dumb twilight : yet a consciousness, That new, shy feeling, seemed to all possess The frankness of her eyes, while her firm frame Trembled a little ; and when Cadmar came Nearer and spoke low-voiced, she could not raise Her shy, sweet eyes to meet his fiery gaze, Or else perchance she might at once have seen Another soul than in Gwain's look had been. But Cadmar knew just how to tune his speech The love-depths of a woman's heart to reach, While his strong arm, close, yet not touching quite The soft encasement of her gown of white, Gave such protection down the way she went, Protection with a loyal worship blent, That her young soul, or e'er they reached the shore, Had vowed itself to him for evermore. They sat beside the waves of limpid blue, And many a thought of knightly love and true He softly breathed into her dream-charmed ear, With long, sweet pauses, music still more dear To loving souls than uttered syllable That half discloses, yet not half can tell, God's great, mysterious book, written and furled In Eden's golden morning of the world ; But quickly did the love-lit hours speed by, And Gladys, turning to the western sky Her happy eyes, saw the sun's level ray Upon the shining waters glint and play : So hurriedly she rose and 'gan ascend The rugged pathway, till at its high end THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 2O7 Sir Cadmar took her hand with gentle might And printed fiery kisses on its white. Then Gladys shyly gave him parting look Of sweet farewell ; but a dim shadow struck Her soul with sudden coldness : his dark eyes Seemed other grown since, raised in bright surprise, They shone into her soul at Camelot With love's pure dawn, not these two coals red-hot ! But as a summer cloud not long can last, So this strange chill as quickly came and passed, And all that evening, all that sleepless night, She dreamed of her found love as pure and white As his own virgin name, and heard once more His true, fond words breathed on the shining shore, And knew his prowess and the queen's delight In crowning with gold crown her Lily Knight. IV. IN Gudress' castle many a weary day Passed for Sir Gwain till summer sped away, And the wild autumn winds in midnight lone Came shuddering round the house with warning moan. Still was the old earl sick with a strange ill That left him neither power to move nor will Or wish for aught but just a sick child's whim That Gwain should never leave or go from him ; Thus was that knight kept captive, howsoe'er His heart might yearn to find the vision fair Of that June day : yet he, all-trusting still, Never conceived his twin could work him ill, While Cadmar went and came with ready say Of where each ride had led him, though each day In secret from her father and Earl Gwyn 208 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER He met the lady Gladys deep within A rock-surrounded bay, where gulls were tame, And never mortal footstep went or came Until these two discovered such resort For their bright hours, nor came another thought To Gladys of that look so different Her Lily Knight wore at the tournament ; She deemed it but the look that she had dreamed Before she knew him as he always seemed : And oh, so chivalrous he was, and true, And into her lone life had come so new And bright a glory that as summer's wane, When Cedric wearied for his home again, Seeing his fair child loved the lonely shore And her wild life as in the days before And did not care in Arthur's court to move Though Guinevere had called her " Queen of Love " That evening of the jousts a summer waned, And dying autumn through the lone hills plained, A shadow came upon her happiness, Which Cadmar seeing, seized with bold caress Her yielding form and with wild passion pressed Their flight together to the southern crest Of neighbouring Erin. There a holy man He knew (so his forged tale of baseness ran) Should wed them ; and from thence in the same ship They would to Cymbria sail and with sweet lip Gain Cedric's pardon when the deed was done, Though she were wedded to Earl Gudress' son, For there was ancient feud between the two (Though of that feud Sir Cadmar little knew). But Gladys trembled at the daring scheme At first, then sighing for her summer dream, So changed and broken, gave a dull consent, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 209 And Cadmar went to work out his intent ; This in a few days all complete he got, And a small ship moored in a secret spot Of the wild bay, with five strong men for crew Whom gold had bought the lawless deed to do. So came the last day, and King Cedric's child Moved softly through the rooms, but never smiled, As was her wont, but went as though she dreamed ; And to the old king all the more it seemed He home must take her, that the mountain air Might make her cheek once more grow round and fair, And at his parting kiss to her that night He pressed her to his heart more close and tight Than even his loving use, saying, " My child, Soon shall you see again the mountains wild, My little mountain roe, that droops and dies, Shut out from her own hills." But her sweet eyes Were dim with tears, and never word she spoke, But with one kiss of fervent love she broke From his embrace, and to her chamber passed, Where her hot tears in a wild storm fell fast For a long hour ; then, the lone grief rained out, Returned the blissful thought, undimmed by doubt, Of her brave knight, and all she must go through To prove her love for him was strong and true : So at the first hour of the night-born day Adown a secret stair she groped her way And came into a cavern, moving thence, With many a new-felt shiver and strange sense Of coming dread, out to the dim-seen shore ; Then Cadmar quickly caught her up and bore Her, cold and sobbing, to his anchored ship, Where soon the muffled oars with silent dip O 210 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Strode down the ebbing tide, then sails spread high Like vulture's wings against the starlit sky, And faint and fainter grew till vanished quite : And so they passed away into the night. V. Now when the morning shone on Calmordock And brought no Gladys, with her radiant look Of greeting, to her sire, the ancient king Was struck with wonderment at this new thing, Yet eased his mind with the most likely thought That she some distant height had seen and sought, As was her wont of old : but as the day Wore on, and she returned not, he gave way To a new dread his darling had been drowned In the deep tide that washed the castle round, So he and grave Earl Gwyn and henchmen young Climbed down the rocky way, where oft had sung The happy voice of Gladys, to the shore ; But the white, wind-blown sand no traces bore Of her light footprints. There they searched with dread For the loved form washed white and lying dead Among the sea-foam, searching with keen strain That sees one image multiplied again On every sand-wedged stone, on wind-blown pile Of fine bright coralline, fearing the while To find the thing they searched for, till the night Came down again. At dawn of the fresh light The dreadful search went on, but the old king, Grown feeble with his direful suffering, Sat death-struck in his chair ; to him were brought 211 Each hour the tidings that were tidings nought Of her his thrice-loved Gladys : all the shore, With that wild bay which none had seen before, Long days they searched, till the lone gulls grew wild. Then Cedric, hoping to embrace his child Upon that golden shore of lasting rest, The far-off, happy island of the blest, Breathed his brave spirit out into the vast. Now when Sir Cadmar had his plans made fast He had a story framed for trusting Gwain That he a hunting season should remain With Arthur's camp among the Scillian boars And thence by sea would go, whereby his stores And sailing men he fetched in light of day And thus all unsuspected went his way ; But when a week had sped there came to Gwain (The night King Cedric died) a vision plain : He saw his brother on a Scillian height Chasing a roe, and as he watched its flight, Behold, its face bore that sweet maiden's eyes Whose look had filled him with such glad surprise And made his life love's holy dawn to know ; Then wondering, as he gazed upon the roe She seemed to spring to him, and sobbing, pressed Her weary, hunted head against his breast. Now as Sir Gwain awoke he marvelled much At this strange vision, and resolved to touch Its truth, if truth it had ; he rose straightway, And long before the dawning of the day Reached the high dwelling of that hermit lone, And sitting down beside the couch of stone, Told his strange dream ; and a deep silence fell For five long minutes. Then the prophet's spell 212 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Seemed come upon him, for uprising tall In the dim lamplight high niched in the wall, He looked toward the south, where Scilly's rock Ends in the sea, then spake : " To Calmordock Came an old king from Cambria's mountains wild Whose daughter is the fair and wondrous child That has become thy highest joy, Sir Gwain, Thy keenest woe ; for now a strange new pain Must tear thee. Know then that thy trusted twin, So seeming true, is base and vile within And to that far shore has the maiden led Whither for love of thee alone she fled. Not of her own act will the hunted roe Into the clutches of the base wolf go ; Yet sorrow hath an end : love and be brave." Then back he turned him deep into the cave, But through the day-dawn home returned Sir Gwain, His great soul in a storm of love and pain, Cadmar dishonoured ! he, the Lily Knight ! And his pure love, his fount of life and light, Stained with black shame ! " Yet," vowed this noble heart, " Oh, never shame or stain or aught shall part Thy soul and mine, oh, love, with honour crowned, Though in deep hell I thy lost presence found." But Cadmar's baseness grew upon his soul With utter pain that could not face the whole For keen remembrance of the love-bound years That made their life as one from childhood's tears To that proud day when, heroes of great rights, They bore the token home of Arthur's knights. The large pain stunned him ; but one thought stood clear : Straight must he go to rescue her so dear, THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 213 His roe that laid her head upon his breast, And that dream act wrought to a moment's rest His soul's fierce tumult. Gudress since the night Cadmar had left him, free from secret blight Of nightly poison, like a grey old oak Eased of base winds, from his strange sickness woke And was himself again : so now Sir Gwain Found easy reason why he should remain Absent a season ; but he spoke no word To sire or henchman of the rage which stirred His wronged and trusting heart, on fleetest horse Starting alone upon his secret course, That no great scandal of the thing might blow About the land and add to his new woe. VI. WHEN, coaxed by warmth of April's fickle sun, Some trusting bud deems summer has begun And opens to its joy with that one love Which cannot back to a past peace remove At finding the deception of its king, But must remain a- blighted, wind-tossed thing, Fading in early death, so Gladys sweet, Trusting her knight as light of life complete Till he had drawn her from her sheath of home To love but him, lay in her life's one bloom Scorched in his presence, chilled with cold despair ; For what had seemed so beautiful and rare, Such perfect knighthood and such heaven-sent love, Had grown to mean the hawk's care for the dove For at a week's end over that lone sea 214 THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER Cadmar contrived beneath the rocky lea Of lonely Scilly so his ship to stave Where he might live with Gladys in a cave Till such time as the stores he had ran short, Nor cared he for her end who cared for nought. A week's wild, wanton joy before him lay ; But long before the dawn of its first day, While sleep and darkness reigned about the place, Gladys had crept from his wine-dulled embrace, And, with her mountain childhood's nimble feet, Fled up the rocks, and panting, but most fleet, Sped mile on mile along the hills of stone, Not caring where she went so that alone She might die, die, now love's dear truth had lied : But as she lay upon the lone hill's side, Utterly weary, sleep upon her fell With a glad dream, more sweet than words can tell. She still was flying faint with great despair From Cadmar's face, his eyes with wolfish glare Scorching her soul, when, looking faintly up, To heaven's cold blue with hopelessness of hope, A vision seemed within her dream to move : She saw the knightly form of her first love, Cadmar's, yet other, as in that first hour Which woke her womanhood with magic power, That nobler face, and in his eyes there lay A light as of the dawning of the day Then in her dream she wept with joy too deep For aught but tears, even as the angels weep And in their glistening eyes reflect God's light ; But turning her glad face, she saw despite Cadmar's dark, evil glance upon her fixed : Then she bethought her what strange wrong had mixed THE SCENT OF THE HEATHER 21$ With her high good and in despair and shame Fell prone upon the earth : but closer came He with the dawn-lit eyes, and laid her head Against his breast, and in soft accents said, " Thou art my love, and honoured most of all " ; Then sweet, deep sleep seemed on her sense to fall. 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