Poems (Hinxman)/The Wraith
THE WRAITH.
Four maidens on a summer SaturdayWent up the hill against whose pleasant greenThe grey roofs of the village street reclined.The air was sweet that met them, yet it lackedThe wonted hilly freshness,—and the girlsSauntered and sat, and plucked with idle handsLate roses here, a single raspberry there,Where straggling brushwood clothed a ledge of rock;And, loitering thus, marked not that one dull hueHad grown o'er all the heavens, until they heardThe muttering thunder close them round, and feltLarge drops fall ominous on hand and brow. How dreary were the uplands now, that late Seemed so familiar! and how far awayThe village, hidden by the winding gorge,When peal and bolt were in the homeward path!But near at hand a covert lay, well known:Two rocks, together leaning, made a cave,Where oft, by storm surprised, the sportsman sat,Or herdsmen harboured thro' a day of rain.Thither the maidens sped, and nestled downA fluttering covey, while the tempest broke;The lightning from its rolling darkness slid,The thunders leapt from its continuous roar;A roar of struggling winds and clouds above,—Of rushing rains upon the further peaks,—Of waters maddened at their secret source,—And of what other powers unknown to man,Nature in these her inmost haunts may workWhen the hour of strength is on her. But awhileAnd the great tumult dwindled: weak and fewThe flashes fell, the tempest lifted up His skirts from off the shoulders of the hills,And muttering hied him westward—rain he left,And tattered clouds, but bore his terrors far. And now the tongues were loosed again, and madeA swift and merry music thro' the cave.Light thoughts flew downward to the valley-home,And led up many a theme for careless talkOf work and play, of little joys and cares,Of coming christ'nings, marriages, or wakes.At last blithe Agnes spake, the frankest she,And, though the eldest, gayest of the group. "Come, we are here, four maidens and fast friends,With none at hand to catch our secrets upExcept the straggling sheep or lonely crow;So let us each to each confess the nameWe hold the dearest and would make our own."There was a silence; Agnes urged again:Then little Barbara lifted up her face—A blushing face, as child-like as 't was sweet,And whispered, "Nay then, Agnes, 'tis for thee To speak the first." And Agnes laughed anew,And full on Barbara fixed her merry eyes."And whose then should I choose? need ye to ask?Search all the village through, whom will ye findTo match young Duncan, bonnie Duncan Roy?Whom should I choose but Duncan?" Barbara's wordShot like a swallow's wing athwart her speech—"He does not love thee."—"Does he not, in sooth?And wherefore no? How was it that I woreThose dappled pinks last week? and who was thatBut yester-evening hanging on our gate?""O, Agnes, this is cruel!" Barbara cried,With tears in eye and voice, "you that can tellSo many wooers! there's not one, I know,But would be blithe to win you if he might,And now you steal my only one, my own,He that has sworn he loves me. Go your ways,Can you not go your ways, and leave me him?"Then Agnes laughed more gaily than before, But Lois, whose grey eyes were calm and clearAs the early summer morning, and her voiceAs mellow as a church-bell touched by chance,Turned round the pleading face to meet her own."Nay, sister mine," she said, "and would you keepA heart that cannot hold its faith exceptAnother choose to let it be? Nay fie!This Duncan woes whoever lists to hear:Me once he told, if I were only kind,There 's not a face in all the valley roundThat he would care to look on." Barbara's eyesGrew large with wonder, Agnes still laughed on:"Well, be it so, he is a town-bred youth,And we must judge him tenderly; he learntThese fashions ere he came among our hills."But Lois said, "Nor town, nor country, breed,Perforce, a cold heart and a double tongue;This man has both; I saw it in his eyesWhen first I met them." Barbara hung her head,Shamefaced and daunted like a chidden child,But careless Agnes bent her bow again,This time at Marian aiming her light shafts.Now Marian was the fairest of them all,A wealth of beauty with her years had grown,So that the passing stranger, whensoe'erHe met the dark, sweet eyes, and perfect face,Looked back, and wished her valley was his home.Leaning against the rocky wall she sat,Her plaid about her drawn, and Agnes stoppedHer ready jest midway, for all the threeWere suddenly aware how Marian's faceAgainst the dusky stone looked wild and white,And ringed with purple, ghastly broad her eyes.They looked in silence, pitying and amazed;But ere the troubled sense could frame a word,A flash of lightning, like a springing snake,Shot thro' the cave, and drank its twilight up, The thunder crashed upon the quivering rocks,And tossed its angry echoes on and on,Then, in the breathless pause their lulling left,Silent and swift a figure passed the cave,The shape of Duncan Roy.The shape of Duncan Roy.No other pealDisturbed the settling elements; afarThe bleat of flocks came clearly thro' the air,And from the bowers below, the linnet's trill,The cushat's tender moan, came sweetly up,Heard through the single tone of rushing streams.
A pleasant sight it is to see the sunWin back his old possessions on the heightsBehind the yielding storm; when far blue peaksSteal softly into sight, from penance freed,And down the bosoms of the nearer hillsThe emerald brightness grows. Nor would, that day,A gazer's eye have deemed the picture marredBy those four figures winding down the slope,— The sunshine glinting on the burnished heads,While round the naked feet, from many a pool,And many a swelling tuft of coloured moss,The glittering spray flew up. Yet low of cheer,These figures, clad with outward brightness, moved.Agnes and Barbara first. In under tonesThey spoke together, with compunctious hearts,And fearing, what, they knew not. "How we talked!How foolishly, how idly," whispered one:"Alas, what ails poor Marian! didst thou knowShe loved him, Agnes? how much more than we!"And Agnes said, "O do not talk of love,We never loved him! what I said but nowWas all a jest, or, if you will, a lie,A wicked lie; I never loved but one,My own true sailor Alick, and the restWas only sport to while the weary time. Pray Heaven that I be wiser from to-day!"More slowly came the second pair. Her armRound Marian's waist had silent Lois wound,And the firm hand that clasped her side could feel.The wild, unequal fluttering heart within.
Between the village and the mountain-pathA turf-grown ledge, smooth as a garden-lawn,Lay, governed by one solitary Pine,And, whether o'er the eastward heights he peered,Or slanted through the golden westward vale,Its solemn purple frowned against the sun,And threw a wedge of shadow o'er the grass;And whether north or south the wandering windCame through the gorge, among its muffling boughsThey stopped imprisoned, leaving all belowIn breathless calm, and filling, night and day,Those gloomy labyrinths with unquiet sound. Through years untold, yet vigorous to his core,This sentry of the mountain-path had stood,Honoured of all the dwellers in the vale,And seen by many a sailor in his dreams,And many a pale mechanic, when in sleepHe trod again his childhood's pastoral haunts. How strange the sight then, as the maidens turnedThe pathway's sudden curve, which. met their eyes!For, parted at his crest, the giant nowTrailed earthwards on each side his sky-nurst plumes,The splinters in the sun stared ghastly bright,And downwards coiling from that cloven topThe death-stripe coursed the stem. It coursed the stem,And where it should have sheathed in senseless earthIts sated blade, a figure lay—a face Turned blankly to the sky;—the shadow this,Or this the substance, of that form and faceThat fleeted by the mountain-cave erewhile?Oh, Marian knows! and with a shriek that sendsA thousand frantic echoes down the gorge,Falls senseless at its side. Adown the valeWith sobs and cries the maidens fly aghast,Save Lois; by the guilty dead she sits,And props with tender care against her kneeThe wretched mourner, lifting up meantimeThrough the dark boughs her limpid eyes to Heaven,Between whose brightness and their trustful lookNo cloud has ever come; so Lois stays,And seems an angel lighted down beneathThose dreadful shades for pitying ministry,Fearless, because so pure. But voices nowCome up the path, now crowds are gathering round,Silenced with awe. They lift her helpless charge, And to its age-long heritage thenceforth,Of haunting horror, the lone spot is left.
But Lois leaves not Marian's side throughoutThat woeful night; while all the neighbours slept,She with the aged mother watched her bed;They only knew the misery to its depth,As life ebbed out, and carried with itselfInto the pitying silence of the graveAnother life, on whose unconscious shameNo morning ever dawned. Now all is done,Smoothed for the sepulchre the lovely clay.And now the mother in the ingle nookSits rocking in her chair, and pours her wail,But low, beneath her breath, as if she fearedA thousand ears in the still creeping dawn. "My bairn! my winsome bairn! my ruined bairn!O, would that bonnie face had been less sweet,And would those lovesome eyes had been less bright, For thou hadst still been fair enough for me.And, Lois! O but she was good at heart,Though sair misled—she was a gentle lamb!O Lois, woman! say ye think her saved.She cried upon her Saviour all the night:Ye heard her, how she cried and blamed herself.Wae 's me, how many a time this summer pastShe took her Bible ben, and read and sobbed;Wae 's me, and then my heart was glad and proud:I thought she was a vessel full of grace!" And Lois answered, "Christ is pitiful;He knew the snare, He saw the bitter grief:Vessels there are of mercy, as of grace." But morning grew, and now the kirk-bell's toneSwelled down the street, and many feet went by.Then Lois, moving to the window, sawHer sister pass with Agnes, hand in hand.She watched them as with downcast eyes they came, Like two scared pigeons, pressing side to side,Nut just escaped the ruthless falcon's swoop.She watched them through the porch, and casting upOne look of joy amid her falling tears,Turned to the aged woman's chair again.There still she rocked, and murmured o'er and o'er,"She cried upon her Saviour all the night."
Oct. 8. 1854.