Chapter XI: The Opal Ring

Late my spring-time came, but quickly
Youth's rejoicing currents run,
And my inner life unfolded
Like a flower before the sun.
Hopes, and aims, and aspirations,
Grew within the growing boy;
Life had new interpretations;
Manhood brought increase of joy.
_Mary Howitt._

After a pause their eyes met, and the lady's were instantly averted; the cheeks of both were suffused by a blush, for they "were so young, and one so innocent," that they were incapable of feeling emotion without exhibiting this charming, but, at times, most troublesome symptom of it.

The lady spoke first.

"And so, sir, you are still resolved to preserve your _incognito_--to maintain your character of the unknown knight?"

"Yes, madam," said he in the same spirit of banter, "while in the castle of an enchantress--for here, indeed, am I under a spell. And, more than all, my wounds have made me cautious to the extent, perhaps, of ingratitude."

"So you actually mistrust us!" exclaimed the lady colouring deeply, while her dark-blue eyes sparkled with mingled amusement and surprise.

"I will risk anything rather than lie longer under an imputation such as your words convey," replied the young man impetuously: "I am Florence Fawside of that ilk. And, now that you know my name, I pray you tell not my enemies of it, for I might be slaughtered here perhaps, without once more striking a gallant blow in my own defence. I have told you my name," he added, lowering his voice to an accent of tenderness, while attempting to take her hand; but she started back; "and now, dear lady, honour me with yours."

But the lady had grown deadly pale; her fine eyes surveyed the speaker with an expression of gloomy and startled interest, mingled with pity and alarm. Florence, on beholding this emotion, at once detected that he had made a mistake by the sudden revelation of his name, and a vague sense of helplessness and danger possessed his heart.

"I shall never forget the kindness, the humanity, and the tenderness with which you have treated me, lady; but why all this strange mystery--for _you_ cannot be unfriended and alone here, as I at present am? Why have I been concealed even from your servants? None have approached me but Master Posset the leech, and a Frenchman, Antoine, who pretends--as I suspect--to be deaf or dumb. All betokens some mystery, if not some pressing danger. Oh, that I were again strong enough to use my sword--to sit on horseback and begone!"

"To all these questions I can only reply by others. Why all these complaints--whence this alarm?"

"I must begone, lady," said Florence with a tremulous voice; for though dazzled and lured by the beauty of the speaker on one hand, he dreaded falling into some deadly snare on the other; "I long to see my aged mother--and I have letters----"

"_Not_ for the Regent, I hope?" said the young lady, coming forward a pace.

"Probe not my secrets, lady. I have told you my name--I am the last of an old race that never failed Scotland or her king in the hour of need or peril. I shall be faithful to you----"

"To _me_!" reiterated the beautiful girl in a low voice, while blushing deeply. "I need not your faith, good sir?"

"To you and to my royal mistress; but I long to leave this--to see once more the aged mother who tended my infant years----"

"A harsh and stern woman, who, if men say true, will urge you to the committal of dreadful deeds!"

"Say not so--she was ever gentle and loving to me, and to my brave brother Willie, who now, alas! sleeps in his father's grave."

"Gentle and loving!--so are the bear or the tigress to their cubs; but their fierce nature still remains."

"Remember that she you speak of is my mother, lady," said Florence, colouring with vexation.

"Pardon me--I speak but from report."

"I long, too, to see honest old Roger of the Westmains, with his white beard and hale nut-brown visage--my tutor in the science of defence, he who taught me to handle sword and dagger, arquebuse and pike, as if I had come into the world cap-a-pie; and next there is Father John of Tranent, the kind old vicar, who was wont in the long nights of winter to take me on his knee, and tell me such wondrous tales of Arthur's round table, of William Wallace, of Alexander, and of Hector--the prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer, and how they never fail to be fulfilled--the story of Red Ettin, the giant who had three heads, and of the Gyre Carlin, the mother-witch of all our Scottish witches, till my hair stood on end with terror of men so bold and people so weird and strange. I long to see my old nurse Maud, who was wont to rock me to sleep in the old turret, and sing me the 'Flowers of the Forest,' or the sweet old song of 'Gynkertoun;' and I long once more to find myself under the moss-covered roof of the old tower, where my mother waits and, it may be, weeps for me--that grim old mansion, with its barred gate, its dark loopholes, and narrow stairs, whose steps have been hallowed by time, and by the feet of generations of my forefathers who are now gone to God, and whose bones sleep under the shadow of His cross in the green kirkyard of Tranent."

"In short," said the lady, with a very decided pout on her beautiful red lips, "you are tired of dwelling here, and long to be gone."

"Here--ah, madam, say not so! Here, here with you, could I dwell for ever; but I have beloved ties and stern duties, that demand my presence elsewhere."

The dark-haired girl smiled and drooped her eyelids, while her confusion increased; for affection soon ripened in young hearts in those old days of nature and of impulse, before well-bred folks had learned to veil alike their hatred and their love under the same calm and impenetrable exterior.

The ice was now fairly broken, but their conversation became broken too.

After a pause, during which Florence had succeeded in capturing the little hand of the unknown, and kissing it at least thrice.

"You mean still to conceal your name from me!" said he with a tone of tender reproach.

"I act under the orders of another----"

"Another!--to whom do you yield this obedience? To me you seem inferior to none on earth."

"To none, I trust, in your estimation," said she, coquettishly.

"But to esteem, to love you as I do--to have intrusted you with my name, and yet to know not yours, is unkind, unfair, and subjecting me to torture and anxiety."

"I cannot give you my name--oh, pardon me, for in this matter, be assured, I am not my own mistress," said she, in a trembling voice.

"This is most strange, and like a chapter of Amadis, or some old romance. Then how shall I name you?"

"'Urganda the unknown,'[*] or aught you please," she replied, smiling to conceal her confusion as she withdrew her hand; and, taking from one of her fair and slender fingers a ring, she dropped it on the pillow of Florence, adding, "take this trinket--it has a _secret_ by which one day you may know me. Take it, Florence Fawside, and wear it in memory of one who will never cease to regard you with most mournful interest, but who can never even be your--friend!"

[*] A famous enchantress in _Amadis de Gaul_.

"In memory--as if I could forget you while life and breath remained?" exclaimed Florence, bending over the jewel (an opal) to kiss it.

When he looked up the fair donor was gone. A tremulous motion of the arras in the twilight--eve had now closed in--indicated where she had vanished, before he could arrest her by word or deed, and implore an explanation of the strange and enigmatical words which had accompanied a gift so priceless to a lover.

She was gone; and, exhausted by the excitement of the interview, by the sudden turn it had taken, and the mutual revelation of a mutual interest in each other's hearts, Florence fell back upon his pillow, and lay long with his eyes closed and his whole being vibrating with joy, while the sober shadows of evening deepened in the tapestried room around him.

He was filled with a new happiness, his soul roved far away in the land of sunny dreams, his whole pulses seemed to quicken, and, with the conviction that this beautiful unknown loved him, he suddenly discovered there was in the world something else to live for than feudal vengeance.

"To-morrow I shall see her again," thought he; "to-morrow I shall hear her voice, and see her dear dove-like eyes assure me that she loves me still; and her name--oh, she must assuredly reveal it to me then. But are this interview and this ring, her gift, no fantasies of mine? Oh, to solve this strange mystery and concealment!"

As he thought thus, and gave utterance to his ideas half audibly, a red light flashed across the tapestried walls of the room. It came from the outside, and on raising himself he saw the wavering gleam of several torches on the well-grated windows, while the voices of men, one of whom, uttered hoarsely several words of command, the clatter of horses' hoofs, and the clank of iron-shod halberds and arquebuses, rang in the adjacent street. What did all these unusual sounds mean?

A vague emotion of alarm, filled his breast; he glanced round for his sword, and kept it in his hand in case of a sudden attack; but anon the gleam of the torches faded away, and the clatter of hoofs and spurs seemed to pass up the narrow street, and to lessen in distance.

Then all became still in the mansion and around it; and a foreboding, that portended he knew not what, fell upon the heart of the listener.