Theresa Marchmont | Page 5

raging so furiously that the very gulls dared not take their delicious perch upon the waves. Tomorrow perhaps--"
"What now, my Hugh, afraid to venture? When I walked on the sands at noon, there was a bowshot spare."
"No! mother, no, not afraid, not afraid to venture a fall, or meet a sprinkling of sea spray, and good truth I have enough to do with fears in doors, here in this grim old mansion, without--"
"Fears?"--
"Yes, fears, dear mother," said the boy, looking archly round at his attendant, who waited in the back ground, and who vainly sought by signs to silence her unruly charge.
"Do you know that the figure of King Herod, cruel Herod, the murderer of his wife, and the slayer of the innocents, stalks down every night from the tapestry in my sleeping room and wanders through the galleries at midnight; and than the cross, where the three Jews were executed a long, long time ago, in the reign of King John I think; they say that it drops blood on the morning of the Holy Friday;--and then mother, and this is really true," continued the child, changing from his playful manner to a tone of great earnestness, "there is the figure of a lady in rich attire, but pale, very pale, who glides through the apartments--yes; Herbert and Richard and several of the serving men have seen it; and mistress Alice, poor old soul once was seen to address it, but she would allow no one to question her on the subject; and they say it was her doom, and that she must therefore die of her present sickness. Ay: 'twas in this very room too--the lady's chamber."
"Boy," interrupted Lord Greville sternly, "if thou canst find no better subject for thy prate, than these unbecoming fooleries, be silent--Helen! why should you encourage his forwardness, and girlish love of babbling? Go hence, sirrah! take thyself to rest; and you, Margaret," added he, turning angrily to the woman, "remember that from this hour I hear no more insolent remarks, on any dwelling it may suit your betters to inhabit, nor of this imp's cowardly apprehensions."
Margaret led her young charge from the room; who, however sad his heart at being thus abruptly dismissed, walked proud and erect with all the welling consciousness of wounded pride. Helen followed him to the door with her eyes; and when they fell again upon her work, they were too dim with tears to distinguish the colours of the flowers she was weaving. Lord Greville had again relapsed into silent musing; and as she occasionally stole a glance towards him, she perceived traces of a severe mental struggle on his countenance; the muscles of his fine throat worked convulsively, his lips quivered, yet still he spoke not. At length his eyes closed, and he seemed as if seeking to lose his own reflections in sleep.
"I will try the spell which drove the evil spirit from the mind of the King of Israel," thought the sad and terrified wife; "music hath often power to soothe the darkness of the soul;" and she tuned her lute, and brought forth the softest of its tones. At length her charm was successful; Lord Greville slept; and while she watched with all the intense anxiety of alarmed affection, the unquiet slumbers which distorted one of the finest countenances that sculptor or painter ever conceived, she affected to occupy herself with her instrument lest he should awake, and be displeased to find her attention fixed on himself.
With the sweetest notes of a "voice ever soft and low, an excelling thing in woman," she murmured the following song, which was recorded in her family to have been composed by her elder brother, on parting from a lady to whom he was attached, previous to embarkment on the expedition in which he fell, and to which it alludes:
Parte la nave Spiegan le vele Vento crudele Mi fa partir. Addio Teresa, Teresa, addio! Piacendo a Dio Ti rivedrò. Non pianger bella, Non pianger, No!-- Chè al mio ritorno Ti sposerò.
Il Capitano Mi chiama a bordo; Io faccio il sordo Per non partir! Addio Teresa, Teresa, Addio! Piacendo a Dio Ti rivedrò. Non pianger bella, Non pianger, No!-- Chè al mio ritorno Ti sposerò.
Vado a levante Vado a ponente Se trovo gente Ti scriverò. Addio Teresa, Teresa, Addio; Piacendo a Dio Ti rivedrò. Non pianger bella, Non pianger, No!-- Chè al mio ritorno Ti sposerò.
Helen had reached the concluding cadence of her soft and melancholy song, when raising her eyes from the strings to her still sleeping husband, she beheld with panic-struck and breathless amazement, a female figure, standing opposite resting her hand on the back of his chair--silent, and motionless, and with fixed and glassy eyes gazing mournfully on herself. She saw--yes!--distinctly saw, as described by