Kenelm sighed. Was it from envy, from pity, from
fear? I know not; but he sighed.
After a brief pause, the lady said, still in low tones,
but not too low this time to escape Kenelm’s
fine sense of hearing,—
“Tell me those verses again. I must remember
every word of them when you are gone.”
The man shook his head gently, and answered, but inaudibly.
“Do,” said the lady; “set them to
music later; and the next time you come I will sing
them. I have thought of a title for them.”
“What?” asked the minstrel.
“Love’s quarrel.”
The minstrel turned his head, and their eyes met,
and, in meeting, lingered long. Then he moved
away, and with face turned from her and towards the
river, gave the melody of his wondrous voice to the
following lines:—
LOVE’S QUARREL.
“Standing by the river, gazing on the
river,
See it paved with starbeams,—heaven
is at our feet;
Now the wave is troubled, now the rushes
quiver;
Vanished is the starlight:
it was a deceit.
“Comes a little cloudlet ’twixt
ourselves and heaven,
And from all the river fades the
silver track;
Put thine arms around me, whisper low,
‘Forgiven!’
See how on the river starlight settles
back.”
When he had finished, still with face turned aside,
the lady did not, indeed, whisper “Forgiven,”
nor put her arms around him; but, as if by irresistible
impulse, she laid her hand lightly on his shoulder.
The minstrel started.
There came to his ear,—he knew not from
whence, from whom,—
“Mischief! mischief! Remember the little
child!”
“Hush!” he said, staring round. “Did
you not hear a voice?”
“Only yours,” said the lady.
“It was our guardian angel’s, Amalie.
It came in time. We will go within.”
THE next morning betimes Kenelm visited Tom at his
uncle’s home. A comfortable and respectable
home it was, like that of an owner in easy circumstances.
The veterinary surgeon himself was intelligent, and
apparently educated beyond the range of his calling;
a childless widower, between sixty and seventy, living
with a sister, an old maid. They were evidently
much attached to Tom, and delighted by the hope of
keeping him with them. Tom himself looked rather
sad, but not sullen, and his face brightened wonderfully
at first sight of Kenelm. That oddity made himself
as pleasant and as much like other people as he could
in conversing with the old widower and the old maid,
and took leave, engaging Tom to be at his inn at half
past twelve, and spend the day with him and the minstrel.
He then returned to the Golden Lamb, and waited there
for his first visitant; the minstrel. That votary
of the muse arrived punctually at twelve o’clock.
His countenance was less cheerful and sunny than usual.
Kenelm made no allusion to the scene he had witnessed,
nor did his visitor seem to suspect that Kenelm had
witnessed it or been the utterer of that warning voice.
