Wyseby

126 wyseby: a legend
but as the traces of no feelings save those of woman-
ly compassion were there, she resumed : — M I said.
lady, that I sometimes thought that souls were
bound together — that they sympathise with each
other ; for ever in our mountain- home, when his
spirit grew glad, mine grew glad also ; and the
clouds that darkened his, darkened mine." She
paused an instant, and then resumed : — " We met at
last, — he was chief then, — -and ah ! such a meeting!"
Edith related, my child, with all the wild fervour of
love, and the deep pathos of genuine gratitude, the
touching tale of heroism which the chief of the
Irvings had already told. " Then came his evil
fortunes," Edith continued ; " and the base deserted
his councils, and the cowardly shrunk from his side.
Forced to abandon his own castle, he sought shelter
in the mountains. In such a tide would it have
been well to have left him to loneliness and terrible
solitude, lady ?'' Meeting no answer in the cold but
mild look of Catharine, she continued emphatically :
• — " No, no ! / could not. Lady," she said, raising
herself up, t: the world may be very wise ; but it is
cold and selfish too ; — it will condemn my conduct ;
but amid the silences of midnight, heaven, of which
our conscience is the voice, has not condemned it."
She sunk back on her couch, exhausted. A few
minutes, and she resumed: — " I knew that he loved
me not as it was in his nature to love, but I
deemed that he loved no other, and I was happy
in our mountain-cavern. The idols w r hich the
chief had erected were hurled to the earth ; the
faithlessness of his friends had disgusted him with
the world. But amid the hills which change not,
pnd listening to the songs of the many tempests who