Frida, or, The Lovers Leap, A Legend Of The West Country | Page 6

when I have the honour to speak with an Englishman."
"Ah, there Foreign again! My lord, you will never speak English."
De Wichehalse could never be quite sure, though his race had been long in this country, whether he or they could speak born English as it ought to be.
"Perhaps you will find," he said at last, with grief as well as courtesy, "many who speak one language Striving to silence one another."
"He fights best who fights the longest You will come with us, my lord?"
"Not a foot, not half an inch," the baron answered sturdily. "I've a-laboured hard to zee my best, and 'a can't zee head nor tail to it."
Thus he spoke in imitation of what his leading tenant said, smiling brightly at himself, but sadly at his subject.
"Even so!" the young man answered; "I will forth and pay my duty. The rusty-weathercock, my lord, is often too late for the oiling."
With this conceit he left De Wichehalse, and, while his grooms were making ready, sauntered down the zigzag path, which, through rocks and stubbed oaks, made toward the rugged headland known, far up-and down the Channel, by the name of Duty Point. Near the end of this walk there lurked a soft and silent bower, made by Nature, and with all of Nature's art secluded. The ledge that wound along the rock-front widened, and the rock fell back and left a little cove, retiring into moss and ferny shade. Here the maid was well accustomed every day to sit and think, gazing down at the calm, gray sea, and filled with rich content and deep capacity of dreaming.
Here she was, at the present moment, resting in her pure love-dream, believing all the world as good, and true, and kind as her own young self. Round her all was calm and lovely; and the soft brown hand of autumn, with the sun's approval, tempered every mellow mood of leaves.
Aubyn Auberley was not of a sentimental cast of mind. He liked the poets of the day, whenever he deigned to read them; nor was he at all above accepting the dedication of a book. But it was not the fashion now--as had been in the noble time of Watson, Raleigh, and Shakspere--for men to look around and love the greater things they grow among.
Frida was surprised to see her dainty lord so early. She came here in the morning always, when it did not rain too hard, to let her mind have pasture on the landscape of sweet memory. And even sweeter hope was always fluttering in the distance, on the sea, or clouds, or flitting vapour of the morning. Even so she now was looking at the mounting glory of the sun above the sea-clouds, the sun that lay along the land, and made the distance roll away.
"Hard and bitter is my task," the gallant lord began with her, "to say farewell to all I love. But so it ever must be."
Frida looked at his riding-dress, and cold fear seized her suddenly, and then warm hope that he might only be riding after the bustards.
"My lord," she said, "will you never grant me that one little prayer of mine--to spare poor birds, and make those cruel gaze-hounds run down one another?"
"I shall never see the gaze-hounds more," he answered petulantly; "my time for sport is over. I must set forth for the war to-day."
"To-day!" she cried; and then tried to say a little more for pride's sake; "to go to the war to-day, my lord!"
"Alas! it is too true. Either I must go, or be a traitor and a dastard."
Her soft blue eyes lay full on his, and tears that had not time to flow began to spread a hazy veil between her and the one she loved.
He saw it, and he saw the rise and sinking of her wounded heart, and how the words she tried to utter fell away and died within her for the want of courage; and light and hard, and mainly selfish as his nature was, the strength, and depth, and truth of love came nigh to scare him for the moment even of his vanities.
"Frida!" he said, with her hand in his, and bending one knee on the moss; "only tell me that I must stay; then stay I will; the rest of the world may scorn if you approve me."
This, of course, sounded very well and pleased her, as it was meant to do; still, it did not satisfy her--so exacting are young maidens, and so keen is the ear of love.
"Aubyn, you are good and true. How very good and true you are! But even by your dear voice now I know what you are thinking."
Lord Auberley, by this time, was as well within himself again as he generally found himself; so