'Oh! there is one path through the forest so green, Where thou and I only, my palfrey, have been: We traversed it oft, when I rode to her bower To tell my love tale through the rift of the tower.

'Thou know'st not my words, but thy instinct is good: By the road to the church lies the path through the wood: Thy instinct is good, and her love is as true: Thou wilt see thy way homeward: dear palfrey, adieu.'

They feasted full late and full early they rose, And church-ward they rode more than half in a doze: The steed in an instant broke off from the throng, And pierced the green path, which he bounded along.

In vain was pursuit, though some followed pell-mell: Through bramble and thicket they floundered and fell.

On the backs of their coursers some dozed as before, And missed not the bride till they reached the church door.

The knight from his keep on the forest-bound gazed: The drawbridge was down, the portcullis was raised: And true to his hope came the palfrey amain, With his only loved lady, who checked not the rein.

The drawbridge went up: the portcullis went down; The chaplain was ready with bell, book, and gown: The wreck of the bride-train arrived at the gate, The bride showed the ring, and they muttered 'Too late!'

'Not too late for a feast, though too late for a fray; What's done can't be undone: make peace while you may': So spake the young knight, and the old ones complied; And quaffed a deep health to the bridegroom and bride.

Mr. Falconer had listened to the ballad with evident pleasure. He turned to resume his place on the sofa, but finding it preoccupied by the doctor, he put on a look of disappointment, which seemed to the doctor exceedingly comic.

'Surely,' thought the doctor, 'he is not in love with the old maid.'

Miss Gryll gave up her place to a young lady, who in her turn sang a ballad of a different character.

LOVE AND AGE

I played with you 'mid cowslips blowing, When I was six and you were four; When garlands weaving, flower-b.a.l.l.s throwing, Were pleasures soon to please no more.

Through groves and meads, o'er gra.s.s and heather, With little playmates, to and fro, We wandered hand in hand together; But that was sixty years ago.

You grew a lovely roseate maiden, And still our early love was strong; Still with no care our days were laden, They glided joyously along; And I did love you very dearly, How dearly words want power to show; I thought your heart was touched as nearly; But that was fifty years ago.

Then other lovers came around you, Your beauty grew from year to year.

And many a splendid circle, found you The centre of its glittering sphere.

I saw you then, first vows forsaking, On rank and wealth your hand bestow; Oh, then I thought my heart was breaking,-- But that was forty years ago.

And I lived on, to wed another; No cause she gave me to repine; And when I heard you were a mother, I did not wish the children mine.

My own young flock, in fair progression Made up a pleasant Christmas row: My joy in them was past expression,-- But that was thirty years ago.

You grew a matron plump and comely, You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze; My earthly lot was far more homely; But I too had my festal days.

No merrier eyes have ever glistened Around the hearthstone's wintry glow, Than when my youngest child was christened,-- But that was twenty years ago.

Time pa.s.sed. My eldest girl was married, And I am now a grandsire gray; One pet of four years old I've carried Among the wild-flowered meads to play.

In our old fields of childish pleasure, Where now, as then, the cowslips blow, She fills her basket's ample measure,-- And that is not ten years ago.

But though first love's impa.s.sioned blindness Has pa.s.sed away in colder light, I still have thought of you with kindness, And shall do, till our last good-night.

The ever-rolling silent hours Will bring a time we shall not know, When our young days of gathering flowers Will be an hundred years ago.

_Miss Ilex._ That is a melancholy song. But of how many first loves is it the true tale! And how many are far less happy!

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ It is simple, and well sung, with a distinctness of articulation not often heard.

_Miss Ilex._ That young lady's voice is a perfect contralto. It is singularly beautiful, and I applaud her for keeping within her natural compa.s.s, and not destroying her voice by forcing it upwards, as too many do.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Forcing, forcing seems to be the rule of life. A young lady who forces her voice into _altissimo_, and a young gentleman who forces his mind into a receptacle for a chaos of crudities, are pretty much on a par. Both do ill, where, if they were contented with attainments within the limits of natural taste and natural capacity, they might both do well. As to the poor young men, many of them become mere crammed fowls, with the same result as Hermogenes, who, after astonishing the world with his attainments at seventeen, came to a sudden end at the age of twenty-five, and spent the rest of a long life in hopeless imbecility.

_Miss Ilex._ The poor young men can scarcely help themselves. They are not held qualified for a profession unless they have overloaded their understanding with things of no use in it; incongruous things too, which could never be combined into the pursuits of natural taste.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Very true. Brindley would not have pa.s.sed as a ca.n.a.l-maker, nor Edward Williams{1} as a bridge-builder. I saw the other day some examination papers which would have infallibly excluded Marlborough from the army and Nelson from the navy. I doubt if Haydn would have pa.s.sed as a composer before a committee of lords like one of his pupils, who insisted on demonstrating to him that he was continually sinning against the rules of counterpoint; on which Haydn said to him, 'I thought I was to teach you, but it seems you are to teach me, and I do not want a preceptor,' and thereon he wished his lordship a good-morning. Fancy Watt being asked how much Joan of Naples got for Avignon when she sold it to Pope Clement the Sixth, and being held unfit for an engineer because he could not tell.

1 The builder of Pont-y-Pryd.

_Miss Ilex._ That is an odd question, doctor. But how much did she get for it?

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Nothing. He promised ninety thousand golden florins, but he did not pay one of them: and that, I suppose, is the profound sense of the question. It is true he paid her after a fashion, in his own peculiar coin. He absolved her of the murder of her first husband, and perhaps he thought that was worth the money. But how many of our legislators could answer the question? Is it not strange that candidates for seats in Parliament should not be subjected to compet.i.tive examination? Plato and Persius{1} would furnish good hints for it. I should like to see honourable gentlemen having to answer such questions as are deemed necessary tests for government clerks, before they would be held qualified candidates for seats in the legislature.

That would be something like a reform in the Parliament. Oh that it were so, and I were the examiner! Ha, ha, ha, what a comedy!

1 Plato: Alcibiades, i.; Persius: Sat. iv.

The doctor's hearty laugh was contagious, and Miss Ilex joined in it.

Mr. MacBorrowdale came up.

__Mr. MacBorrowdale.__ You are as merry as if you had discovered the object of Jack of Dover's quest:

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Something very like it. We have an honourable gentleman under compet.i.tive examination for a degree in legislative wisdom.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ Truly, that is fooling compet.i.tion to the top of its bent.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Compet.i.tive examination for clerks, and none for legislators, is not this an anomaly? Ask the honourable member for Muckborough on what acquisitions in history and mental and moral philosophy he founds his claim of competence to make laws for the nation. He can only tell you that he has been chosen as the most conspicuous Grub among the Moneygrubs of his borough to be the representative of all that is sordid, selfish, hard-hearted, unintellectual, and antipatriotic, which are the distinguishing qualities of the majority among them. Ask a candidate for a clerkship what are his qualifications? He may answer, 'All that are requisite: reading, writing, and arithmetic.' 'Nonsense,' says the questioner. 'Do you know the number of miles in direct distance from Timbuctoo to the top of Chimborazo?' 'I do not,' says the candidate. 'Then you will not do for a clerk,' says the compet.i.tive examiner. Does Moneygrub of Muckborough know? He does not; nor anything else. The clerk may be able to answer some of the questions put to him. Moneygrub could not answer one of them. But he is very fit for a legislator.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ Eh! but he is subjected to a pretty severe compet.i.tive examination of his own, by what they call a const.i.tuency, who just put him to the test in the art of conjuring, to see if he can shift money from his own pocket into theirs, without any inconvenient third party being aware of the transfer.

CHAPTER XVI

MISS NIPHET--THE THEATRE--THE LAKE--DIVIDED ATTRACTION--INFALLIBLE SAFETY

Amiam: che non ha tregua Con gli anni umana vita, e si dilegua.

Amiam: che il sol si muore, e poi rinasce; A noi sua breve luce S'asconde, e il sonno eterna notte adduce.

Ta.s.so: Aminta.

Love, while youth knows its prime, For mortal life can make no truce with time.

Love: for the sun goes down to rise as bright; To us his transient light Is veiled, and sleep comes on with everlasting night.

Lord Curryfin was too much a man of the world to devote his attentions in society exclusively to one, and make them the subject of special remark. He left the inner drawing-room, and came up to the doctor to ask him if he knew the young lady who had sung the last ballad. The doctor knew her well. She was Miss Niphet, the only daughter of a gentleman of fortune, residing a few miles distant.

_Lord Curryfin._ As I looked at her while she was singing, I thought of Southey's description of Laila's face in _Thadaba_:

A broad light floated o'er its marble paleness, As the wind waved the fountain fire.