CHAPTER XL

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REUNION.

"The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by." --ROBERT BROWNING.

"So ends my story. If ye think it sad, It is because ye look with weeping eyes, Because for gloom ye cannot see the skies Where Love is Lord, and life forever glad." --JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD.

So at break of day a wandering peasant found the lovers sleeping, and he stood awhile and marvelled at the beauty of the holy upturned faces, ere he passed along the river-bank towards the hamlet to tell what he had seen. And ere the sun was high came Master Jeremy Taylor, wandering with slow and reverent step along the riverside, conning the manuscript pages of his _Holy Living and Dying_ as he walked, and ever and anon lifting his eyes to gaze upon the devastation wrought upon the fair river's banks by the wild storm, now succeeded by a still, sad morning. Scarcely had he closed his eyes throughout that fearful night for thinking of his bosom-friend, whom he had perforce left to pursue alone his homeward battle with the storm, and to find on his arrival his beloved church a heap of blackened ruins; and very early he had left his uneasy couch and taken the road to Cwmfelin, that he might be the first, after the Lady Shanno, to offer consolation to his friend. But finding it yet very early, on his arrival at the vicarage, and unwilling to disturb Percival at his morning meal, he had strolled on to the riverside, to note what havoc might have been wrought during the night; and so, after some half-hour's ramble and mingled study of his manuscript and of nature, he too came to the silent pool under the willow-tree, and gazed, awe-struck and dumb with horrified amazement, upon the sleeping pair. Around their motionless forms the waters rippled gently in mournful whisper, and the early morning breezes sobbed through the willow-boughs, which bent, weeping, over them; and through the bare branches a few pale sunbeams, struggling from out the watery sky, glinted down upon the pale, upturned faces, bathing them in an ethereal glow. And in the silence of that early winter morning a bitter cry burst forth from Master Taylor's loving heart, as he knelt upon the cold ground, and, stooping over the river brink, passionately kissed the pale icy forehead of his friend. And still kneeling over those sleeping figures, his whole frame shaken with sobs, he was found some while later by the eager crowd who at the peasant's tidings came hastening to the riverside, and forgetting the strife and bitterness of the night past, stepped forward one by one, with hushed and reverent tread, to gaze with weeping eyes upon the faces of those whom they had so dearly loved; and on the still air there rose a wail of bitter weeping and lamentation for Master Vere and his fair dead love--a wail so heart-rending that certain ones among his enemies who had mingled with the crowd, unseen, were fain to slink away like evil things of darkness from the scene of woe.

And soon to their cries of sorrow succeeded such wild threats and terrible execrations against their enemies for the horrid deed of the past night, that good Master Taylor rose, pale and haggard, from his knees, and rebuked them in his dead friend's name for their thoughts of vengeance, exhorting them for the sake of those dear, sleeping forms they were gazing upon with so great love and sorrow to pray like their Lord upon the bitter cross; "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!"--and to disperse in peace and quietness to their own homes. And with many other holy words he strove amid his own tears there upon the river bank to soothe their grief and calm their angry passions, till at length they stole sadly homewards one by one, leaving him, their vicar's ever-faithful friend, once more alone with the holy dead, to await the arrival of the castle guardsmen, who should bear homewards the lifeless forms of the lovers. And presently, to join him in his watch, came with tottering step the aged Master Rhys, bowed down with sorrow, and refusing to be convinced that the lovers truly slept in death; and together they kept vigil beneath the willow-tree. But among the mourners who came and went upon the river bank the weather-beaten face and bent form of Jack the boatman were missing, for he too was quietly sleeping his last sleep within the castle walls, in the fireside corner where his grand-daughter had left him, his deaf ears having heard nothing of the strife upon the hillside, nor his calm sleep been disturbed by the mighty crash of his beloved bridge as it had fallen headlong into the roaring river--for the loud report had stolen in upon his slumbers but as some far-distant echo, which to his dreaming soul had sounded as a call from his daughter in Paradise, and to which the maid-servants, rushing wildly into the room as they heard the terrifying sounds from below, had heard him answer in clear, glad tones, "Yes, my daughter, I follow quickly!" And one of them, stealing gently to his side, marvelling at his words, saw him give but one deep sigh ere his spirit passed from the land of dreams into Paradise, there to join those twin souls who at that same moment had quitted their cold prison in the waters.

The bodies of the lovers were laid in one grave in the peaceful hillside churchyard, where nought but a blackened ruin remained of the sacred building they had loved, and close beside them, and at the foot of the grass-grown graves of his daughter and her noble husband, faithful Jack the boatman was by his own wish laid. And the venerable hands of their friend, good Master Rhys, who lived to a great old age among his books in his quiet home in the valley, brought flowers day by day to the grassy mounds he loved, and Master Jeremy Taylor rarely failed at eventide to steal away from his school-house at Craig Arthur and spend an hour in prayer and meditation in that quiet spot where lay the earthly remains of his dearest friend. And often the childish feet of the little Elidore of Caer Caradoc were wont to follow upon his master's track, unseen, till a sudden outburst of childlike grief, interrupting the holy man's musings, revealed the presence of the Lady Shanno's infant champion, who loved to help his master in tending her grave and that of her lover, and in planting them with choicest flowers from the treasure-houses of Craig Arthur, and who through all his boyish days clung to the memory of his "faire ladye" with all the chivalry of a true knight of olden time.

By the order of Master Rhys and Master Jeremy Taylor a cross of white marble was placed at the head of the lovers' grave, inscribed with the text, "They, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time," and beneath it the Psalmist's words; "Gather my saints together unto Me, those that have made a covenant with Me with sacrifice."

And strangers passing by in after years would pause by the well-kept graves, and reading some beautiful meaning in the words upon the marble, would ask to whose memory they had been written, and would hear from the faithful villagers the story of the curse of Bryn Afon and of the beautiful lives of the lovers who had restored the crumbling walls to honour and renown, and caused the ancient name of that house to be once more loved and revered throughout the valley. And their tears would fall as they told of the faithful, yet in this world ever hopeless, love of their vicar for the Lady Shanno, who had been worshipped by rich and poor for her exceeding loveliness, and who, for the curse inherited from her forefathers, had forsworn for the sake of Christ all earthly love and marriage. And with hushed voices they would yet further tell of that wild night in January, when all the village wept for the murder of the king, and when to crown their woe their church was burnt to the ground by their enemies, and in wrath the river-spirit arose, and swept away the boatman's bridge, and drowned the luckless lovers in its fury. And the travellers, passing on, would gaze up from the river banks upon the fast-crumbling battlements, frowning above them from the steep greensward's summit, and think with mingled awe and pleasure upon the tragic scenes enacted within those old walls; then, walking yet farther down the stream, would, an it chanced to be in the spring-time, marvel at the wondrous wealth of the yellow primroses which clothed the mossy banks, and would be told by the children how, ever since the night when the Lily and the Primrose had slept their last sleep in the river, the primroses had sprung up each spring season, along the banks by which their bodies had floated, in ever-increasing profusion; and how, in the hollow by the still pool in which their fair forms had been discovered, some lingering yellow blossoms ever tarried year by year until the lilies of the valley sprang up behind their shining leaves, that they might greet them with a lover's kiss of welcome, ere they passed away beneath the brightness of the summer sun.

THE WALTER SCOTT PRESS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.