Part 5

But the solicitude of her parents interfered, in some degree, with these plans. They discovered that she was not so ill as to be unable to seek what might do her service--her former walks and amusements around Kirconnel Lee; and thus was she obliged to yield to kindness; yet she contrived to have her parents near her, so as to deprive Blacket House of an opportunity of communicating to her his imputed plan of enforcing his suit. As yet, his silence had been continued: her parents were still in ignorance; and it was only (so she argued) because he had not hitherto found her alone, that his dreaded communication had not as yet been made. On the occasion of her first walk, however, she, by some untoward chance, was left in one of the arbours alone, and the opportunity (the first that had occurred) was seized by him--Blacket House was again before her, and all her fears were in a moment roused. Their eyes met with an intelligence they had never before possessed. Every passing thought seemed to be mutually read, while a few words of ordinary import seemed to be only as a preparation to his expected statement. Helen did not dare to leave him; she feared to rouse his anger, and yet she wanted courage to reply with ordinary pertinence to his remarks. His eye was constantly fixed on her, and the few words he uttered came with difficulty and pain; yet was there not the slightest allusion to the secret he undoubtedly held locked up in his breast. Was he not to bring forward his threat of exposing her, as a wrenching instrument, to force from her a consent that he was satisfied would never be given voluntarily? There was no indication of any such issue. What could be the true meaning of this dark-minded man's conduct? Again he had disappointed her fearful anticipations. He had not told her parents; he was not to tell herself. What then was he to do? She could not answer her self-put question; and her surprise when he parted from her, after a short conversation, conducted with difficulty, with his secret unapproached, and the mysterious stare of his illegible eye, was not less than her terror of the anticipated issue when she first encountered him.

This new extraordinary element in the subject of her meditations and fears disarranged all her ideas, and sent her thoughts in new channels for a discovery of what might be the secret plans of her cousin. She sighed for an interview with her lover; but that, she was satisfied, would be attended with great danger; and thus reduced to her own resources, she passed the night following her meeting with Blacket House in still increasing pain and difficulty. In the morning she was visited in her own chamber by her mother, who appeared, from the serious aspect of her countenance, to have something of great importance to communicate.

"Helen," began the good matron, "though your father and I have seldom broached the subject of love and marriage in your presence, we have, with heartfelt satisfaction, observed and understood that the man who alone has our consent to win your virgin heart is your own choice. Your wooing has lasted so long, that the very birds in the woods are familiar with your persons and converse; and surely this is not to last always. You are twenty years old, my dear Helen, at the next Beltane, the first of May; and I know that it is Blacket House's wish that your happiness may be crowned by a union within as short a period as we will agree to fix. I have broken the matter to you, my love; and as I am well acquainted with the fluttering of Love's wings when Hymen enters the bower, I will not urge you to fix a day at present, but leave you to the pleasant meditations my communication cannot but call forth. I shall send your breakfast to your bedroom this morning, my love; but I hope we may walk in the afternoon. Say nothing, Helen. Adieu! adieu!"

And the mother left the room rapidly, as if to avoid noticing the blushes of the supposed happy damsel. Helen heard the words uttered, as one may be supposed to feel the syllables of a condemnation falling upon the heart. It was well that her mother departed so rapidly, for the agitation the kind parent attributed to joy, was but the prelude to a faint, which retained her cold and struggling in its relentless arms for a considerable period. The first indications of consciousness were, if possible, more terrible than the last thoughts that frightened it away. For a long period she sat upon the couch where she had heard the dreadful intelligence, and, passing her hand over her brow, tried to collect her energies, so as to be able to contemplate the full extent of her evil. She thought she could now see some connection between the announcement made by her mother and the extraordinary and mysterious conduct of Blacket House, though she was satisfied that neither of her parents possessed any knowledge of her intercourse with Kirkpatrick. The scheme of the early marriage might originate in the fears of her cousin, while his secresy was only still maintained till he found that she would not yield to her parents' authority; when would be the time for using his threat of disclosure to Helen, to compel her consent. All this reasoning seemed founded in existing circumstances and appearances; but so confused were her thoughts, and so painful every effort of her mind to acquire clearer views, that she felt inclined to renounce reasoning on a subject that seemed at every turn to defeat all her efforts to come to the real truth. Her misery was at least certain; for now, while the absolute necessity of a disclosure of her secret love became more peremptory and inevitable, the circumstances under which it would be made were such as would add to the unhappiness of her parents, and to the apparent deceit and treachery of her own nature, which was, notwithstanding, incapable of guile.

Meanwhile, the effects of so much mental anguish, acting upon a tender frame, became soon apparent in her pale countenance and swollen eyes. She would not leave her apartment; and when her mother again visited her, she saw a change on her daughter very different from that which accompanies the character of a bride in prospective. The circumstance surprised the old lady; but still so satisfied was she that there could exist no objection to a lover whom she had (as was thought) cherished for years, that it never occurred to her that the change in her daughter was attributable to the announcement she had made to her; while Helen herself, oppressed with the secret which she struggled (as yet in vain) to divulge, shunned a subject which she found herself unable to treat in such a way as would insure to her relief from her sorrow. Every effort was made to get her out into the woods, where her former scenes might enliven her mind, and bring back her wonted spirits, which, chiming the musical bells of youth's happy glee, used to charm the age-stricken hearts of her parents. But these scenes had lost their power over her. The secrets Blacket House had to divulge still lay like an unholy spirit upon her heart, killed its energies, and rendered her miserable. She expected the additional sorrow of his society in these forced walks, and her grief was mixed with surprise at his absence. He was often at the house, but he avoided her. She even saw him turn into a by-path, to get out of the way in which she walked--a circumstance as inexplicable as any of the prior difficulties with which the whole affair was beset on every side. She continued her meditations, called up repeated energies to nerve her for her disclosure, and, with many a sigh, felt them die away, and the tongue cleave to her mouth, as the unavailing effort shook her frame.

She had been in the habit of meeting Kirkpatrick at regular intervals; but two of the stated periods had passed without an interview. The third was approaching; and she trembled as the necessity of throwing herself on his bosom, and seeking counsel in her difficulty, appeared to her in such a form as to shake her resolution not to encounter another night-meeting with her cousin. On the morning of that evening when she must repair to the burying-ground, or lose the chance of meeting Kirkpatrick for a considerable time, it was announced to her parents, in her presence, at the table of the morning meal, that Blacket House had, on the previous day, gone on a visit to a relation in a very distant part of the country, and that he would not return for eight days. She heard it, and her eyes were involuntarily turned up to heaven, in thanksgiving for the opportunity she now enjoyed of sobbing out her sorrows on the bosom of her Kirkpatrick, and getting good counsel in her distress. She said nothing when the announcement was made, and heard, without heeding, the remarks of her parents. Her thoughts were in Death's Mailing, and the pallid hue of her cheek gave place for a moment to the flush that followed the fancied touch of his lips, and the pressure that brought her nearer to the bosom where lay all the relief she now had in this world. She sought more freely than she had done for some time her old retreats, and again the song of the merle had some music for her ear--so ready is the oppressed soul to seek its accustomed pleasures, that it will clutch them in the interval of a suspended grief, though sure to return. Her cousin was gone for a time; he could not cross in these paths of the wood; and, oh happy thought! she would lie on the bosom of her Kirkpatrick, and breathe forth, uninterrupted, love's sweet tale, rendered sweeter and dearer by the grief with which it was shaded.

The evening fell that night beautiful and serene. No vapour clouded the "silver sheen," and no breath of wind rustled a leaf on the trees.

"Hail to ye, bright queen!" ejaculated Helen, as she folded her mantle round her, and was on the eve of seeking the wood; "once more light me to my lover, if, after this meeting, you should for ever hide your face among the curtains of heaven."

And, breathing quick with the rising expectation of being enclosed in his arms, she issued from the house, and sought the well-known loaning that led to the burying-ground. Her grief had sunk for a time amidst the swelling impulses of her passion; and it was not till she had been pressed to his bosom, her brow kissed by his burning lips, and deep-drawn sighs exhausted the ardour of a first embrace after so long a separation, that one single thought of the cruelty of her situation arose in her mind. They sat on the tumulus where they had sat often before. The gravestones around them lay serene in a flood of moonlight; the soft "buller" of the wimpling Kirtle was all that disturbed the silence of the night; calmly there reposed the dead of many generations; if their lives were ended, their griefs, too, were past; and Mary of the Le', whose grey monument reflected clearly the moon's light, was free from the anguish which, in struggling sighs, came from the bosom of her who was _yet_ above the green mound. Helen told her lover all the extraordinary circumstances of her situation. She wept at every turn of a new difficulty, and Adam's eyes were also suffused with tears; he pressed her again to his breast, and bade her be of better heart, for that better days were coming on the wings of time.

"I confess," he said, "my dear love, that I am unable to understand the conduct of that dark-minded man; but what can he do, if my Helen should yet redeem her error, and make this necessary disclosure? That is alone the cure of our pain. Oh, Helen! what a load of evil might have been averted from our heads by the exercise of a little self-command!"

"I see it, I feel it," replied she; "but there are powers higher than the resolves of mortals. I have struggled with myself till the blood was sent back in my veins, and frightened nature saved the powerless victim of grief by the mantle of unconsciousness. What, Adam, shall I do? I feel I am unequal to the task of speaking a daughter's rebellion and a traitor's resolution."

"When everything is explained, Helen," replied the other, "the treachery disappears, and a father and mother's love will not die under the passing cloud of a little anger. Think of our bliss, love! Did hope never bring courage to your tongue, Helen? Ah, what would that bright goddess make Adam Fleming dare!"

"And what," said she, "would Helen Bell not dare for the love she bears to her Adam, if that sacred feeling of a daughter's duty were overcome? But it must be. I shall fall upon my mother's neck, and weep out with burning tears of repentance a daughter's contrition. I will appeal to the heart of a mother and a woman. I will conjure up her own first love, move again the spring of her earliest affection, and feign to her my father lost, and her heart wrecked. Ay, Adam, hope--the hope of the possession of you--will accomplish all this. Helen has said it, and the issue will prove."

This burst of generous resolution produced a flood of tears. She crept closer to him, and the throbs of her heart were heard in the silence which reigned among the graves. A rustling sound among the trees roused her; she lifted her head, and fixed her eyes on a part of the wood on the other side of the Kirtle. For a moment she watched some movements not noticed by her lover. They rose, and Adam stood aside to get a better view of the interruption. In an instant she clung to his bosom; a loud shot reverberated through the wood; Helen fell dead--the ball destined for Kirkpatrick having been received by the devoted maiden, who saw the hand uplifted that was to do the deed of blood. Neither scream nor audible sigh came from her; one spring when the ball entered the heart--and death!

Kirkpatrick saw at once death and the cause of it, and in an instant he gave pursuit. Springing with a bound over the Kirtle, he seized Blacket House in the act of flight. The murderer turned, sword in hand, and a battle was fought in the wood, such as never was witnessed in the heat of the contest of armies. Had his opponent had twenty lives, the fury of Kirkpatrick would have been unsatiated by them all. His spirit was roused to that of a demon; a supernatural strength nerved his arm; he despised life and all its blessings; the world had in an instant lost for him any charms, but as the place where lived that one man whose blood was to glut his vengeance. His sword found the heart of Blacket House, and twenty wounds verified the ballad:--

"I lighted down my sword to draw-- I hacked him in pieces sma'-- I hacked him in pieces sma', For her sake that died for me."

He returned to the burying-ground. His Helen's body was as cold as that of those who lay beneath.

"O Helen fair beyond compare, I'll mak a garland of thy hair, Shall bind my heart for evermair Until the day I dee."

Such is the story of Helen Bell, a subject that has employed the pen of many a poet, and brought tears to the eyes of millions. We sometimes, according to our privilege, amuse our readers with pure unadulterated fiction. Would that our task had been such on this occasion!--for we prefer the sorrow which fancy, imitating truth, rouses in the heart, to the depressing power of "owre true a tale." We may add, that the Maid of Kirconnel is more frequently called Helen Irving than Helen Bell, in consequence of some doubt as to whether her mother was not really one of the Bells, and her father an Irving. After giving the matter all due consideration, and searching several authorities, we are satisfied that the truth is as we have related it. Our very ingenious friend, Professor Gillespie, in a section of the "Gleanings of the Covenant," says that the beautiful ballad, some of the lines of which we have quoted, was written on "Helen Palmer." We must have his authority.

TOM DUNCAN'S YARN.

William Duncan had lived nearly thirty years in the service of a landed proprietor in Dumfries-shire; where his honest, upright, trustworthy character had gained him the esteem and respect of his employer; and he was looked upon more in the light of a humble friend, than of a hired menial. Nearly five-and-twenty years had elapsed since his marriage to Janet, who had long before been his "neebor" servant. Their family consisted of two children, a son and daughter; the latter of whom had been, at the time our story commences, for some time married to a farm-servant, and was living in a cottage closely adjoining her father's. The son had been sent, when about seventeen years of age, with cattle to Annan, and had there made acquaintance with some seafaring men, whose stories of the wonders of other lands had excited his curiosity, and awakened an irrepressible longing to witness the strange sights he had heard of. It was in vain that his father and mother strove to divert his thoughts into another channel--"he _would_ be a sailor;" and they at last wisely consented to what they could not prevent. About two years after his departure, Willie's good old master died; having left his faithful servant a small annuity, sufficient to make his old age comfortable--for he was now almost superannuated. The old gentleman had died childless, leaving his estate to a distant relative; and his successor, knowing the estimation in which Willie had been held by his late master, allowed him to live rent-free in one of the cottages on the estate, and treated him, on all occasions, with great consideration and kindness. There was but one thing wanting to make the old couple happy: their simple appetites were easily satisfied; they had enough and to spare, without the toil of labour; but their son, their only son, was a wanderer, and years had passed since they had received any intelligence of him, and then they had only been informed that he had gone to some foreign station. "Oh, could we but see him ance mair afore we dee!" was often their exclamation.

One stormy night in October, the old couple were startled by a loud rap at the door.

"Preserve us!" said Janet, in great alarm, "what's that? Wha can that be chappin at the door on sic a nicht as this? Maybe it's some puir seekin body, wantin shelter frae the blast. Up, Willie, man, an' ask wha it is."

"It's me, faither--it's Betty," replied the voice of the daughter, in answer to her father's queries; "let me in."

"What's brocht ye oot, woman," said Willie, "in sic a clash o' rain as this?"

"There's a puir sailor lad come to oor hoose," replied she, "an' he wants something to eat an' drink, an' we haena a bite o' cake left: hae ye ony to spare? An', what think ye, faither? he kens oor Tam weel, an' says he saw him no tha' lang syne."

"Kens oor Tam!" said the old man; "what for did ye no bring him wi' ye? Gie's doon my plaid; I'll gang an' speak to him mysel."

"Na, na, faither; ye maunna cross the door while it's pourin this gate. I'll fetch him when he's had his supper. I'd hae brocht him afore, but I thocht maybe he micht be makin ye believe oor Tam was comin hame, or some sic clavers, an' ye wad be wearyin to see him, an' maybe no see him after a'."

"An' what for micht he no be comin hame?" said Willie. "It's time he war, I think, if he wishes to find the auld folk to the fore."

"Well, but, faither, suppose he war to tell ye that he had seen oor Tam twa or three days syne, an' that ye micht expeck to see him hame sune?"

"Mercy, lass! what's the matter wi' ye, wi' yer maybes an' yer supposes? What gars ye gang swaggerin up an' doon that gait, lookin as ye were demented? There's something pleasin ye by common. If 'twar Tam himsel, ye couldna be mair uplifted."

"An' guid richt hae I to be uplifted, mither, if ye kent a'."

"Eh, it's Tam himsel!" almost screamed the old woman; "where is he? Let me see my bairn."

"Here's all that's left of him, mother," said a fine, stout-looking sailor; who, unable any longer to restrain his impatience, stumped in on a wooden leg just as Janet was speaking.

"My bairn! my bairn!" sobbed the old woman, throwing her arms round him; "mony a lang day hae I prayed to see ye ance mair; an' noo that I hae ye, oh, do I see ye a puir cripple!"

"Oh, that's nothing, mother; nothing but the fortune of war. If I'd lost my head instead of my leg, mother, I wouldn't have been here to tell my own story."

"That's Gude's truth; an' great reason hae we to be thankfu it's nae waur. But, oh! it's a sair dispensation."

"Ah, old boy! how are you?" said Tom, shaking his father heartily by the hand; "all alive and hearty--eh?"

"Weel aneugh, weel aneugh, Tam; just choppin on; but richt glad am I to see ye again, my son. But, Tam, that wasna the gate ye wad hae spoken to yer auld faither afore ye gaed frae hame."

"My manner of speaking may be changed, father," replied the young man, respectfully; "but there's no change in my heart--that's true-blue still; and it'll be long before I can clear off my reckoning with you for all your kindness to me. No, no, father, my _heart's_ in the right place still."

"Weel, my man, I hope sae. Sit doon an' tell us a' that's happened ye sin' we last heard frae ye. But wait a wee. Janet, seek oot the best that's in the hoose for the puir fallow; an', whan he's had a guid supper, he'll be in better fettle for giein us his cracks."

"Tak aff yer jacket, my bonny man," said his mother; "an' hing it up afore the fire, an' draw in till't yersel. Willie, I'm thinkin there's something in the bottle. I'll put on the kettle, an' we'll gie the lad something he'll be nane the waur o'."

After the sailor had done his devoirs at the supper-table, the whole party drew round the fire, and the old man, lighting his "cutty," said--

"Noo, Tam, tell us a' aboot what ye've been doin, an' hoo ye cam to lose yer leg."

"It's a terrible long yarn, father, and I'm afeared ye'll be glad to sing out Avast! before I've spun it out; besides, you'll not understand my sea lingo."

"Nae fear o' that," replied he; "ye ken I was ance a bit o' a sailor mysel. We could see the Solway frae the hoose I hired at when I was a callan."

"But, eh, Tam, my man," said old Janet, "ye talk English as weel's the grand folk doon by."

"Ay, ay, mother; leave me alone for that. My messmates used to say as how I ought to have been a Methodist preacher, seein I knowed so well how to tip them the dictionary."

"Hear till him!" said the delighted mother, holding up her hands in admiration.