When it is three parts drawn, take your aim at the centre. Keep the head of the arrow a little to the right of the mark. Be cool, and, if you are sure of your aim, draw the arrow quickly and steadily to the head, and gently part your fingers and let it go!"

The shaft, loosened from the string, cut the air and buried itself in the very centre of the golden eye of the target. A shout from every part of the field acknowledged the success of the quick pupil, and bore testimony to the skill of the experienced old archer.

"It is Cormac's shot, not mine," said the archeress; "I am satisfied with piercing the glittering centre of yonder escutcheon."

"The queen shall decide," cried several of the party, turning towards the throne where sat the lovely countess, amid her youthful attendants, partic.i.p.ating with girlish interest in the scene, and prepared to decide all appeals to her royal umpirage.

"Gracy is right. Cormac's skill directed the shaft. She has no honest claim to the honour of the hit, save the credit of having stood quiet longer than she was ever known to before! The banner with its perforated target she is justly ent.i.tled to; and," added the countess, with a smile, "I here award it to her."

"And if I ever get a husband he shall carry it before him into battle,"

said the merry sylph. "Now, divine Kate, see that you don't wound my arrow. I would not have it injured for a silver one."

"It tapers from the middle in each direction, I have no doubt," said Kate, archly, glancing mischievously towards her esquire as she prepared to take her place at the stand.

"Your speech tapers in both directions, wild Kate," retorted the other, blushing. "I wonder what you and Lord Robert could have been doing, that you loitered so long about the pavilion! There, I declare, if you are not holding your bow with the short limb uppermost!"

Kate blushed in her turn, and reversed it.

"Why, cousin Kate Bellamont, you are going to shoot with the feather towards the target!" cried the tantalizing little maiden. "Really, I _do_ begin to wonder what you and Lester _could_ have been about, that the mention of it scatters your wits and makes you look so _very_ foolish!"

Kate shook her head with a playful menace at her tormentor, placed her arrow with the right end to the bow-string, and took her stand by the target. The instant she fixed her eyes on it her self-possession returned, and, elevating her bow, she threw herself with careless grace into the att.i.tude of an accomplished archeress.

A more beautiful object than this young creature, standing in the strikingly spirited att.i.tude she had a.s.sumed, can hardly be imagined.

Though but sixteen, her form was divinely perfect. Every limb--foot, hand, and arm--was a rare model for the sculptor's chisel. The undulating outline of her shoulders was faultless; and her figure, perhaps, was the more beautiful that her bust and waist, and the wavy symmetry of her whole person, was just receiving that harmony of touch and roundness of finish which marks the era when the wild romping girl is merging into the blushing, conscious, loving, and loveable maiden of seventeen. Descended from an ancient Milesian family, she betrayed her origin in her complexion, which was a rich brunette, reflecting in warm, sunny tints the mantling blood, which came and went at every emotion.

Her eyes were dark and sparkling as night with its stars, and as, with a slightly bent brow, she fixed them on the target, they had a cool and steady expression remarkable in one of her years and s.e.x. She wore a dark ruby velvet jacket, laced over a stomacher rich with brilliants, and a velvet hat of the same dark ruby, surmounted by a plume of white ostrich feathers, in that day a rare and costly ornament, which gracefully drooped about her head in striking contrast with her raven locks that floated around her superb neck in the wildest freedom. Her lips, like most of the lips of Erin's fair maidens, were of a rich coral red, and, just parted as she took sight, rendered visible a pearly line of beautifully-arranged teeth. Her mouth, when closed, was finely shaped, and sometimes wore an air of decision, that did not, however, in any way diminish its witchery. The glow of health, and the pride of birth and beauty, were upon her countenance, and every feminine grace and charm seemed to play around her.

As she stood with one foot a little advanced, her neck slightly curved to bring her eyes down to a level with the mark, her left side, but no part of the front of the body, accurately turned towards the target, the eyes of old Cormac Dermot glistened with pride. Slowly she elevated the bow, drawing the arrow simultaneously towards the ear with the first three gloved fingers of her right hand, till she had drawn it out three quarters of its length, when, pausing till she had filled her eye with the golden eye of the target, she drew it smartly to its head and let it loose from her fingers. For an instant she stood following its swift flight: the pupils of her dark eyes dilated and eager; her lips closely shut; her chest advanced; her right arm elevated and curved above her shoulders, the wrist bent, and the fingers of the hand turned gently downward; the left arm extended at full length, and grasping the relaxed bow; her neck curved; her spirited head thrown back, and her whole action animated and commanding; presenting altogether, perhaps, the most graceful att.i.tude the female form is susceptible of a.s.suming.

The arrow was sent with unerring aim, struck the golden eye within half an inch of Grace Fitzgerald's, and buried itself to its feather. The lawn rung with the plaudits of both archeresses and esquires; and even the retainers and fishermen, who were humble but curious spectators of the sports, gave vent to their admiration in shouts of clamorous applause. Old Cormac swung his long yew bow above his head with delight, and looked as if, in the pride of the moment, he would have hugged his accomplished pupil to his heart.

"Do not be so elated, good Dermot," she said, laughing; "it was the arrow I chose--a taper from the pile."

"The more skill in the hand that drove it so truly," said the forester.

"I must do still better than this, else neither you nor Lord Robert, who, methinks, looks somewhat blank to find I have not missed to gratify him, will neither of you get the prize."

"It was not a fair trial, Kate," said the esquire, gayly; "the wind has lulled; and, as you drew your bow, there was not a breath of air."

"If, nevertheless, that had been a taper from the feather," said the forester, after surveying the target earnestly for a moment, as obstinately bent on adhering to his original opinion as even the spirited young n.o.ble himself, "it would have cleft the arrow of Lady Gracy through its length to the pile."

"We will see to that anon, worthy Cormac. I have two shots more. Here is the arrow you chose for me, which I will fit to my bow-string, and do my best to drive it through my cousin's."

"I dare say you will if you can, and would like, also, to destroy everything else Lord Robert gives me," said the roguish Grace, putting up her lip and tossing her head, with its cloud of rich hair, in admirably affected pique.

The young esquire of Kate Bellamont looked embarra.s.sed; Kate laughed and drummed on the ground with her foot, while the whole party began forthwith to prepare for the next round. The customary mode of ascertaining the value of the hits in archery, by estimating it in proportion to their distance from the centre, was departed from in the present instance. By the method alluded to, a hit in the gold counts nine; in the red, three; in the orange, two; in the black, one; and their sum is the value of the hits: a process which makes three hits in the red circle of the same value, or nearly so, of one in the gold. In the present case, the shots were limited to three, and the prize awarded to the greatest number of hits in the gold.

In the second round, the first three arrows struck three different circles; and one well-directed shaft, shot by the archeress who had before broken her bow, hit the gold, though at its junction with the red. Grace Fitzgerald bent her bow without aim, but the courteous arrow went accurately to the mark, and struck within a finger's breadth of the centre, much to the delight of Cormac, the forester, who took himself all the credit of the fair shot. Kate, with the arrow given her by Cormac fitted to her bow-string, took somewhat less careful aim than with her first shot, and was about to loose the arrow, when a hawk, bearing a live fish in his talons, soared above the cliff, and with swift wing flew high across the lawn in the direction of the forest.

Quicker than thought, the point of the arrow was elevated from the target into the air, drawn to its head with a stronger arm and more resolute eye, and launched from the bow-string. With irresistible force and unerring aim, it cleft the air and struck the proud bird of prey beneath the wing. He uttered a wild cry, flew heavily a few feet perpendicularly upward, and then, whirling round and round in concentric circles, each gyration bringing him nearer the earth, fell, transfixed with the arrow, among the fishermen: fluttering wildly on the ground in agony, he succeeded, before they could secure him, in flapping himself over the precipice. He was instantly followed by a daring young fisherman, who had been endeavouring to capture him--the same youth whose admiration of her had before attracted the notice of Kate Bellamont.

For a moment the generous heart of the fair archer shrunk from the wreck she had made, and she turned away her head from the dying struggles of the dark bandit of the air. But maidens of that period were too familiar with the more revolting scenes of the chase to show emotion at witnessing the death of a hawk; and, therefore, sympathy for the fate of the victim of her skill gave place to the pride of the successful archer.

"There is a prize for you, Cormac, better than a golden arrow," she said, with a flashing eye; "and, when next I go a hawking," she archly added, "I will be sure to use arrows that taper from the feather."

The third and final round now followed. Each archeress had shot her last arrow save Kate Bellamont, yet but three arrows besides her own and the equivocal shot of Grace Fitzgerald were in the centre, and these from as many different bows. Grace had made a wilder shot even than her first; for her arrow, jeopardizing the lives of the poor fishermen, flew far over the cliff out of sight. Four of the companions of Kate had, equally with herself, each an arrow in the gold; but as she had yet to shoot her third arrow, she had yet a chance of making a second hit and winning the prize. Glancing with proud consciousness of her own skill towards her young esquire, she drew her remaining arrow through her fingers, carefully examining each one of its three feathers, and fitted it accurately to the bow-string; then elevating her bow, she steadily drew the arrow. All was breathless expectation. The old archer looked on as if he would not grieve if for once his pupil should miss; while her young esquire watched her with the anxiety of one who felt that his judgment and skill in the n.o.ble science of archery were at stake. As she was ready to loose the arrow, the wind, which had hitherto gently fanned her cheek, increased suddenly to a strong breeze, lifting the hair from her brow and tossing her tresses in wild confusion about her neck. The eyes of Cormac lighted up with triumph, while Lord Robert himself curled his lip scornfully and smiled with confidence. The archeress, who had dropped the point of the arrow with a misgiving, remembering what Cormac had said of it as ill adapted to a wind, on catching the confident eye of her esquire again raised the bow, and coolly and steadily drew the shaft to its head. Every eye followed it in its swift course, and saw it strike the arrow of Grace Fitzgerald on the end, shiver it to its pile, and drive itself through the target to the feather. A general exclamation of surprise and admiration bore testimony to the skill of the victor; the dark eyes of the young esquire sparkled with triumph, while the discomfited Dermot said, with a broad laugh of good-humour,

"Well, Master Robert, it's your time to boast now. By the boar's head o'

Castle Cor! I shall never hear the end of your double taper. Faith, masters, no hand but my young Lady Kate's could have sent a double taper with such an aim and in this wind, which young Lord Robert there has got old Elpsy to set a blowing to triumph over the old man's skill. Well a-day! What the gray-headed forester said of it is true, nevertheless; but when such a hand and eye as Lady Kate's sends the bolt to the b.u.t.t, there is no depending on old rules; especially," he added, laughing, "with a witch's wind to carry the arrow to its centre."

The young n.o.ble frowned darkly on the speaker, and joined not in the laugh of his companions. Lady Bellamont now commanded Cormac to sound his horn three times, and bid, in the name of the queen of archery, the band of archeresses, with their esquires, who were hastening towards the target to collect their arrows, to approach the throne, and witness the award of the prize to the victor.

Amid the congratulations and applauses of the whole field, for, unenvious, each light-hearted girl seemed to share the triumph of the accomplished archeress, the victoress advanced to the rustic footstool of the throne, and gracefully knelt to receive, from the hand of the beautiful queen of the sports, the glittering prize--a finely-wrought arrow of silver, five inches in length, with a chased gold head, on which was graven, in small Gothic characters, these words:

"Field of Archery, Castle Cor, May, MDCXCIV."

"Victorious archeress," said the queen, rising, her face beaming with maternal love and pride, and extending her arm containing the prize, "receive this fair token of your matchless skill, so well displayed this day. May you in every other female accomplishment, my sweet Kate, be as successful as in archery."

"She'll be a match for poor little Cupid, with his tiny bow and arrow, I dare say," said Grace Fitzgerald, with a roguish eye. "Poor youth!" she continued, glancing significantly towards the handsome Lord Robert, who stood at the right hand of the victress, "I pity him if he's like to have such a hole made in his heart as Kate has made in yonder target."

This sally of the sprightly maiden was merrily received by all the youthful circle save the conscious two who were its subjects. The lovely countess now left the throne, embraced and kissed her n.o.ble Kate, whom her companions, gathering around her, playfully forced into the vacant seat. She was about to bound from it again, when she checked the impulse, reseated herself, and bade her esquire advance and kneel before her. The gallant youth obeyed; when, bending gracefully forward, she fastened the silver arrow in the loop of his bonnet, and bade him wear it on every return of that day in memory of the field of archery at Castle Cor.

The n.o.ble youth accepted the gift, won by the arrow he had chosen, with the same playful, half-serious spirit in which it was bestowed, and then kissed the fair hand that presented it with at least full as much pa.s.sion as gallantry. Amid the merry sallies, especially from Grace Fitzgerald, this scene created, the whole party of archers bounded away like a troop of wild deer towards the target, to ascertain more accurately the nature, of the several hits, while the countess, at a more dignified pace, attended by the forester, returned to the castle to prepare for the further entertainments of the day. But the fleetest of foot among the youthful bevy of fair girls had not measured half the green s.p.a.ce between the linden-tree and bristling target, when a thrilling outcry of terror from a fisherman on the cliff, who wildly waved his arms to some one below, and the next moment clasped his hands together in despair, checked them in mid career; and, with hearts palpitating with vague apprehensions of danger, they flew to the precipice to ascertain the cause of this sudden alarm.

CHAPTER II.

"From crag to crag descending--swiftly sped Stern Conrad down, nor once he turned his head; He bounds, he flies, until his footsteps reach The verge where ends the cliff, begins the beach."

_The Corsair._

"Dark was the flow of Oscar's hair, But Allan's locks were bright and fair."

_Oscar of Alva._

"But who is he, whose darken'd brow Glooms in the midst of general mirth?"

_Ibid._

When the hawk, which had been so skilfully struck by the arrow of Kate Bellamont, flapped himself, in his violent death-throes, over the edge of the cliff, a gallant young fisher's lad, seeing him lodge in the topmost branches of a blasted tree twenty feet below, fearlessly flung himself off the precipice, and lighted, by the aid of a limb, on a projecting rock within twelve feet of him. The cliff at this place was one hundred and forty feet in height, and, except where its surface was opened by narrow crevices, in which a few shrubs and dwarf cedars found precarious roothold, or where a fragment, hurled from its seat by the lightning, or fallen through age into the sea, left a narrow shelf, it presented to the pa.s.sing boatman on the bay below a naked and gigantic wall, of nearly perpendicular ascent and inaccessible to human foot: indeed, from a midway brow seventy feet from the base, it receded, leaving a sheer descent of that s.p.a.ce from the water, which lay black, still, and of profound depth beneath. Near the top of the cliff grew a scathed cedar, clinging with its hardy roots into a cleft in its face, and leaning threateningly over the flood. Its top reached within twenty feet of the summit of the precipice; but, inclining at an angle away from it, stood full seven feet out from its side. It was the ragged arms of this tree which caught the hawk in his descent, and where, with fierce cries of rage and pain, he struggled to free himself from the fatal shaft, but which he drove deeper and deeper into his side with every beat of his strong wing.

The young man paused after lighting upon the first landing-place, and measured with a cool glance the dizzy descent; and then fixed his gaze on the bird, whose blood-red eyes flashed forth vindictive fire as they met his, with a resolute look that conveyed a determination to capture him at whatever risk. The pliant limb of a tree growing on the summit, by which he had let himself down to the place where he stood, had, on being released, sprung back to its natural position far beyond his reach: the surface of rock, eight feet in height above him, was as even as a wall of masonry; and an upward glance satisfied him that, without a.s.sistance from those above, to reascend again would be impossible.

Quietly smiling at the difficulty in which he had involved himself, the fearless lad placed his eyes again on the hawk with the confident and resolute, and almost stern, expression they had before borne, and began to examine narrowly his position, and to look about for some safe way of descending to a perilous spur, the breadth of a man's two hands, which, on peering down, he discovered projecting from the side of the rock on a level with the top of the tree. Whether governed solely by that pride of spirit which is found in most youths of high-toned feelings, he internally resolved to accomplish what he had thoughtlessly undertaken; whether actuated by the spirit of adventure, or whether fascinated by the beauty of Kate Bellamont, he wished to preserve the proud bird as a trophy of her skill; whether one or all of these motives influenced the daring fisher's lad, remains to be unfolded.

The spot on which he stood was the projecting edge of the second stratum of rock, twenty inches wide, running irregularly along the face of the precipice, and appeared to have been formed by the falling away of large chips or flakes from the upper and softer stratum. From this rim there ran a zigzag crevice, an inch wide, obliquely downward along the rock to the shelf below, on which grew a handful of long gra.s.s and two or three slender shrubs. On a level with it was the top of the tree; underneath, thirty feet below, were visible its gnarled roots clinging to a mere lip of the rock, yet vigorously inserting themselves in the neighbouring crevices; farther down, on the edge of the brow where the cliff began to incline inward, was visible yet one more foothold, scarcely a palm in breadth; below that, the shrinking eye measured a dizzy vacancy till it fell upon the still, pool-like bay beneath.

The youth surveyed these features of the dangerous precipice with a steady eye; and having coolly calculated his chance of accomplishing safely the descent of the twelve feet below him, sat down with his legs hanging over, and deliberately drew off his stout fisher's boots and hung them on a twig beside him. Then turning round, he carefully slid off and suspended his body an instant by his right hand, till he had firmly inserted the tip of one foot and the fingers of the other hand in the zigzag crevice. Releasing his right hand from its grasp on the shelf, he then carried it below the left, and having got a firm hold of the edge of the fissure, let go with the left and pa.s.sed it in its turn under the right: he changed the position of his feet in the same manner so long as he could obtain, which was not always the case, a resting-place for his toes; and in this way, with cool self-possession and undaunted nerve, which even the wild cries and beating wings of the bird could not move, he succeeded in safely reaching the small projecting leaf, and stood on a level with the top of the tree. The falcon was now within seven feet of him horizontally; but he seemed as far from the attainment of his object as before. It was impossible to spring into the tree, even if its roots should not be torn from their rocky bed by the force of the leap and his weight. But the young fisherman possessed a temper that never yielded to obstacles, and seemed to be governed by a spirit that scorned defeat. Stretching himself out upon the shelf, which was just broad enough to contain his body lying sideways to the face of the rock, he looked down, and saw within reach of his arm a stout root, the strength of which he tested; and below this, within reach of his feet if he should swing himself off, was a sharp projection scarce the size of his foot; and a few inches below that, a stout limb of the tree rested against the precipice. His eye embraced at once these advantages, and he did not hesitate to avail himself of them.