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and weeps
While Beauty sleeps:
Oh for Music’s softest numbers,
To prompt a theme,
For Beauty’s dream,
Soft as the pillow of her slumbers!
II
Through groves of palm
Sigh gales of balm,
Fire-flies on the air are wheeling;
While through the gloom
Comes soft perfume,
The distant beds of flowers revealing.
III
Oh wake and live,
No dream can give
A shadow’d bliss, the real excelling;
No longer sleep,
From lattice peep,
And list the tale that Love is telling!”
The voice of Cleveland was deep, rich, and manly, and accorded well with the Spanish air, to which the words, pro bably a translation from the same language, had been adapted. His invocation would not probably have been fruitless, could Minna have arisen without awaking her sister. But that was impossible; for Brenda, who, as we have already mentioned, had wept bitterly before she had sunk into repose, now lay with her face on her sister’s neck, and one arm stretched around her, in the attitude of a child which has cried itself asleep in the arms of its nurse. It was impossible for Minna to extricate herself from her grasp without awaking her; and she could not, therefore, execute her hasty purpose, of donning her gown, and approaching the window to speak with Cleveland, who, she had no doubt, had resorted to this contrivance to procure an interview. The restraint was sufficiently provoking, for it was more than probable that her lover came to take his last farewell; but that Brenda, inimical as she seemed to be of late towards Cleveland, should awake and witness it, was a thought not to be endured.
There was a short pause, in which Minna endeavoured more than once, with as much gentleness as possible, to unclasp Brenda’s arm from her neck; but whenever she attempted it, the slumberer muttered some little pettish sound, like a child disturbed in its sleep, which sufficiently showed that perseverance in the attempt would awaken her fully.
To her great vexation, therefore, Minna was compelled to remain still and silent; when her lover, as if determined upon gaining her ear by music of another strain, sung the following fragment of a sea-ditty: —
“Farewell! Farewell! the voice you hear,
Has left its last soft tone with you, —
Its next must join the seaward cheer,
And shout among the shouting crew.
The accents which I scarce could form
Beneath your frown’s controlling check,
Must give the word, above the storm,
To cut the mast, and clear the wreck.
The timid eye I dared not raise, —
The hand that shook when press’d to thine,
Must point the guns upon the chase, —
Must bid the deadly cutlass shine.
To all I love, or hope, or fear, —
Honour, or own, a long adieu!
To all that life has soft and dear,
Farewell! save memory of you!” 1
1 I cannot suppress the pride of saying, that these lines have been beauti fully set to original music, by Mrs. Arkwright, of Derbyshire.
He was again silent; and again she, to whom the serenade was addressed, strove in vain to arise without rousing her sister. It was impossible; and she had nothing before her but the unhappy thought that Cleveland was taking leave in his desolation, without a single glance, or a single word. He, too, whose temper was so fiery, yet who subjected his violent mood with such sedulous attention to her will — could she but have stolen a moment to say adieu — to caution him against new quarrels with Mertoun — to implore him to detach himself from such comrades as he had described — could she but have done this, who could say what effect such parting admonitions might have had upon his character — nay, upon the future events of his life?
Tantalised by such thoughts, Minna was about to make another and decisive effort, when she heard voices beneath the window, and thought she could distinguish that they were those of Cleveland and Mertoun, speaking in a sharp tone, which, at the same time, seemed cautiously suppressed, as if the speakers feared being overheard. Alarm now mingled with her former desire to rise from bed, and she accomplished at once the purpose which she had so often attempted in vain. Brenda’s arm was unloosed from her sister’s neck, without the sleeper receiving more alarm than provoked two or three unintelligible murmurs; while, with equal speed and silence, Minna put on some part of her dress, with the intention to steal to the window. But, ere she could accomplish this, the sound of the voices without was exchanged for that of blows and struggling, which terminated suddenly by a deep groan.
Terrified at this last signal of mischief, Minna sprung to the window, and endeavoured to open it, for the persons were so close under the walls of the house that she could not see them, save by putting her head out of the casement. The iron hasp was stiff and rusted, and, as generally happens, the haste with which she laboured to undo it only rendered the task more difficult. When it was accomplished, and Minna had eagerly thrust her body half out at the casement, those who had created the sounds which alarmed her were become invisible, excepting that she saw a shadow cross the moonlight, the substance of which must have been in the act of turning a corner, which concealed it from her sight. The shadow moved slowly, and seemed that of a man who supported another upon his shoulders; an indication which put the climax to Minna’s agony of mind. The window was not above eight feet from the ground, and she hesitated not to throw herself from it hastily, and to pursue the object which had excited her terror.
But when she came to the corner of the buildings from which the shadow seemed to have been projected she discovered nothing which could point out the way that the figure had gone; and, after a moment’s consideration, became sensible that all attempts at pursuit would be alike wild and fruitless Besides all the projections and recesses of the many-angled mansion, and its numerous offices — besides the various cellars, storehouses, stables, and so forth, which defied her solitary search, there was a range of low rocks, stretching down to the haven, and which were, in fact, a continuation of the ridge which formed its pier. These rocks had many indentures, hollows and caverns, into any one of which the figure to which the shadow belonged might have retired with his fatal burden-lor fatal, she feared, it was most likely to prove.
A moment’s reflection, as we have said, convinced Minna of the folly of farther pursuit. Her next thought was to alarm the family; but what tale had she to tell, and of whom was that tale to be told? — On the other hand the wounded man — if indeed he were wounded — alas, if indeed he were not mortally wounded! — might not be past the reach of assistance; and, with this idea, she was about to raise her voice, when she was interrupted by that of Claud Halcro, who was returning apparently from the haven, and singing, in his manner, a scrap of an old Norse ditty, which might run thus in English: —
“And you shall deal the funeral dole;
Ay, deal it, mother mine,
To weary body, and to heavy soul,
The white bread and the wine.
And you shall deal my horses of pride;
Ay, deal them, mother mine;
And you shall deal my lands so wide,
And deal my castles nine.
But deal not vengeance for the deed,
And deal not for the crime;
The body to its place, and the soul to Heaven’s grace
And the