CHAPTER XXVIII

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THE GIPSY'S TALE.

"Every sense Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense, And each frail fibre of her brain (As bow-strings when relaxed by rain The erring arrow launch aside) Sent forth her Thoughts all wild and wide." --BYRON.

The twin streamlets of the fair river Gwynnon were rushing merrily down the hillside out of their solitary birthplaces in the deep mountain caverns, hurrying with eager jest to their glad marriage union in the grassy slopes below, and Primrose, in the mysterious stillness reigning ever around the Robbers' Cavern, stood watching them with fascinated eye, seeing in the glad meeting of the rippling waters and their onward joyful journey together, a picture, as Percival Vere had seen two summers agone, of their own two lives, as yet divided like the tiny streamlets, but so soon to be united for all eternity in a glad bond of union, which, like the broad and shining river below, should, in God's great mercy, overflow with love to Him and His creatures, and fill the dark valleys of life with the sunshine running over from their own cup of pure and holy wedded bliss. Accompanied by the two farm maidens, Shanno had wandered hither one bright afternoon over miles of hill and dale, which seemed in the fresh mountain air to have no power of wearying her glad young feet, and in the gathering spring twilight she paused for a last look at the wild, weird spot ere rejoining her maidens and turning homeward. As she watched the bubbling streamlets, lost in her own happy thoughts, a moan suddenly struck on her ear, and with swift recollection she pushed aside the brambles which concealed the entrance to the Robbers' Cavern, and, penetrating within, found, lying upon her wretched bed of straw, the withered form of the ancient gipsy whom Percival had endeavoured to befriend two years before, but who had eluded his grasp after their first strange meeting. Now at last the lonely wanderings of the poor worn-out, restless frame had ceased, and, withered almost to a skeleton, she lay prostrate, the shadows of death fast gathering on her wasted brow, and her skinny hands clutching convulsively at the ragged coverings which were her only bed-clothes. Primrose shuddered at the sight, but, fearing to terrify the superstitious mountain maidens, forbore to call them to her side, as her first impulse prompted, and crept fearfully to the old woman's bedside, longing impotently that Percival had been at hand, to commend this poor benighted soul at its last hour into the hands of One who might still have mercy.

On her approach the gipsy drew herself up suddenly, and fixing her wild eyes piercingly upon the trembling girl, gasped out in the harsh, discordant tones which her failing breath hardly softened; "What do you want with me, pale Primrose? Will you have me curse you ere I die--you, the daughter of the accursed house, which shall surely perish on the day I let loose the river-spirit from his prison? I shall die here like a dog, but my spirit shall haunt the Bryn Afons till my day of judgment is come, and I am avenged! Then beware of the gipsy's vengeance! I bade the lily-knight beware of the pale Primrose, but he would not heed my warning, and thinks he can undo the curse, poor fool, that his forefather laid upon you! And he defies me e'en now as I lie, and tortures me with his pure and holy face, which is like the face of One I may ne'er look upon, whose name I dare not utter. I am mad, girl, and your fathers drove me to madness! They killed my child with the terror of their drunken furies. It was your grandsire, girl, whose death-bed turned her brain and killed her, and I have vowed vengeance. Will you marry the lily-knight, and hand down the curse from generation to generation? I tell you none shall escape it, for Ap Gryffyth, who was betrayed to his death by your forefather, in a fit of drunken folly, bade, with his dying breath, the curse to cleave unto him and his seed for ever; and so these hundreds of long years it has been fulfilled. Ah, you wince and shudder, girl! They thought to hide from you the shame of the curse, and thought the old gipsy knew it not! But she had vowed her vengeance, and did but bide her time. Drink--drink! One after another the Bryn Afons have perished horribly through drink! Now go--put on your white bridal robes, and bid the lily-knight take you to his heart and defy the curse, if he dare! Yet my poor mad soul feels a little pity for you in your youth and beauty, and would spare you the worst. You shall not die a death of raving terrors, but the river-spirit shall have you for his prey, and shall lull you to sleep on his breast. In the dark river--in the dark river"--and her harsh voice sank to such a feeble whisper that poor tortured Shanno could but just catch the words--"the Primrose and Lily shall sleep!"

Then with one wild shriek she suddenly threw up her arms and fell back dead. How long Shanno lay there stunned and motionless she never knew, nor how, when after what seemed to her an eternity of misery, walking with tottering feet between the two trembling and wondering farm-maidens, she at last reached Glyn Helen. There, staggering with unsteady feet to her mother's chamber, with dazed eyes and face as white as death, she terrified Lady Bryn Afon, already alarmed at her long absence, by her strange appearance, and by the wild cry with which she flung herself at her feet. Slowly, word by word, as the soft touch of her mother's fingers gradually soothed her excited nerves, she gasped out her strange tale, then wildly cried: "The truth, mother, the whole truth! I must know it! It is too late now to hide it longer from me. Tell me, mother, if you love me, whether the gipsy's tale is true! And then send men quickly to take away the poor dead body, and give it decent burial, and leave me to my misery. Tell me the tale of Ap Gryffyth's curse, and spare me nothing!"

"I would have given my life itself to hide it from thee, sweet one!" said her mother in a low heart-broken voice. "Already have I given all my life's happiness so to do, and now--thus rudely has my secret been revealed to thy tender heart! Little thought I yon dead woman could have betrayed it! That she should know the truth of our sad tale I never dreamed, e'en though her daughter was its victim! Listen, my sweet Shanno; then put away from your mind the miserable tale, and rest happy as before, for God forbid that any shadow of the curse should e'er fall on this fair golden head! It is true that the Earl of Bryn Afon, who so shamefully betrayed Ap Gryffyth to his death, did so in a fit of intoxication from strong drink, by which he, the first of his race so miserably addicted to this most unhappy vice, was, alas, frequently overcome, although, when not under its influence, the bravest of soldiers and kindest and most generous of men, moreover greatly esteemed by his sovereign for his own devotion to him and for his many noble and lovable qualities.

"But, surprised by some of Edward's officers, who knew his weakness, and took advantage thereof to gain their own ends, he committed, one unlucky day, while beside himself from the influence of wine, the shameful deed of betrayal of his loved king and master; and encountering Ap Gryffyth on the battlefield, as the enemy's soldiers were in the act of dragging him away to Carnarvon, where he was beheaded, and falling in deepest misery and dejection at his feet, to sue his pardon for the sin committed in a moment of miserable folly and weakness, he but drew upon his own head the awful curse of the betrayed and wretched monarch, who with terrible imprecations doomed him and his heirs for ever to the slavery of a drunkenness they should be powerless to resist, and to a deathbed of horror, which, the result of so terrible a life, no Bryn Afon has since escaped. The wretched earl was dragged away, a white-haired, prematurely-aged man, to fulfil the curse most terribly, by drinking down his misery until an early and dreadful death overtook him; and though the fearful words of Ap Gryffyth were only heard by his own son and by his miserable betrayer, and so have ever since remained a dead secret to the outside world, yet they have borne their terrible fruit only too truly in each of the unhappy Bryn Afon's descendants, until in you, fair Primrose, reared as I, long ere your birth, resolved to rear you, they have at length in the providence of a merciful God become dead and lifeless. How the gipsy gained her knowledge I know not, nor need we to know. And now, sweet daughter, by your marriage with one whose whole manhood is given to combating this especial deadly evil, and whom it has never had power to hurt or lead astray, you shall raise up the fallen fortunes of your race, and remove for ever the stain which has darkened for so many generations your ancient House. So look up, my darling, and put away from you all remembrance of its sin-darkened history and past shame, and go forth without fear or trembling into the new life which awaits you, and into the loving arms of one whose deep devotion shall chase away every care and every thought of past pain from this fair brow!"

But Primrose neither spoke nor moved, only clung convulsively, with buried face, to her mother's knee, ever drawing deep and shuddering breaths, but showing no other sign of life or hearing. At length she raised herself wearily, and pushing back the tangled locks from her weary eyes, said in a strange, unnatural voice, which went to her mother's heart; "I thank you, sweet mother. Now I know all, and will go to my chamber, for I am weary. Go to your rest, mother, and think no more of me--only bid them take thought for yon poor dead body!" And pressing her hands upon her ears, as though to shut out that dying shriek, which had rent the still mountain air, and still rang through her bewildered brain unceasingly, the girl drew herself from her weeping mother's arms, and crept, with unsteady footstep, to her room.

Lady Bryn Afon sat motionless where her daughter left her, her hands pressed upon her brow, till with sudden recollection she roused herself to make arrangements with the old farmer and his men with respect to the interment of the gipsy's body; and having placed the matter in their hands, to be referred ere nightfall to the vicar of their scattered hamlet, and having charged them to go at once to the cavern and bring away the lifeless remains into a place of safe shelter, she repaired to her own apartment, where she sat in deep thought until the household had retired for the night. Then creeping to her child's door, she crouched down beside it, and listened during more than one long weary hour for the sound she would fain have heard--the sound of sobs and bitter weeping, which would have relieved her darling's bursting heart. But in vain--Shanno's low moan from time to time as she lay prostrate upon her bed, and her inarticulate cry, "The curse is not dead, mother! it is not dead! Oh, Percival, my love, my love!" was too faint to reach her listening ear, and at last, believing her daughter slept, she too sought her couch, and had fallen into uneasy slumbers ere Shanno's light footfall passed down the narrow staircase, and the unhappy girl, worn almost to frenzy by the force of her conflicting emotions, rushed out into the dark night.

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