The Village of Youth Part 4

"It is an aeolian harp," said the Queen, in a whisper.

"An aeolian harp! I have never seen one. Methinks it must be a sweet instrument."

The Queen sighed heavily. She feared that her sin against truth would overtake her at last.

Myra found the Prince and his attendants engaged in fixing the wind harp outside her cas.e.m.e.nt.

"There," he said, as he bent his knee and saluted her hand, "when I am away this will discourse to thee of love."

"But why place it outside the cas.e.m.e.nt, good my lord? I cannot learn to play upon it there."

"Sweet Princess, thou couldst never play upon it, nor could I. The Wind alone can draw music from its heart. When he sweeps the strings the melody is as the very breath of love, so tender and yet so wailing is the strain."

"The Wind!" exclaimed the Princess. "Hast ever seen the Wind?"

"Ay, and romped with him and flown with him over sea and earth."

"Ah! now thou art pleased to be merry, as thou wert yesterday when I saw thee talking to the King, ere we had met. Thy countenance was full of mirth and sunlight then. Tell me, why art thou changed? Wherefore art thou sad?"

"Dear one, I am not sad when I have thy companions.h.i.+p. It is only the thought of losing thee that shadows my face."

So they pa.s.sed out of the chamber into the garden.

Thus the time wore away. Summer began to wane. The nights grew longer and the days more brief.

The King's impatience to see his daughter married increased hourly. Yet the Prince daily put him off with excuses when asked to fix the date of the wedding. At length His Majesty grew angry at the delay.

"It is time," he said to Myra, "that thou wast settled in life. We are old, and in all probability have little longer to live. Thy good lord seemeth all he should be. In grace of form and beauty of face he stands unsurpa.s.sed. But methinks, for all that, he means thee ill."

"Indeed, my father, thou art wrong to say so," replied the Princess, with difficulty suppressing her anger. "He is truth itself, and he loves me."

"But he will not marry thee!" the King muttered.

"There, again, thou art mistaken, my lord. He will marry me to-day--at once, so thou stand pleased withal!"

"Bring him before us, then, and let us hear his vow."

Myra made a deep obeisance, and left the King's closet.

Immediately she had gone His Majesty despatched a page to summon the Queen and Council. They were all a.s.sembled before Myra entered with her lover. She had not told him for what reason she had been sent in search of him; therefore, when he saw the grave faces of those present, he was surprised. The King rose and addressed him in dignified words, Myra making her way to her royal mother's side.

"Good my lord, our daughter tells us that thou art willing thy nuptials should be celebrated as soon as we consider meet. We have conferred with these grave counsellors, and they think with us that the ceremony should take place to-day."

"To-day, most powerful sovereign! Is not to-day somewhat soon? Methinks it were not well to hurry the Princess."

"Our child hath given her consent, n.o.ble sir. Hast thou not, my daughter?"

"An' it please my dear lord, I have," was the low reply.

There was a long silence in the chamber. Every eye was fixed on Myra's lover. He stood gazing on the beautiful face of her whom he wors.h.i.+pped--a gloomy figure in his purple garments, his eyes full of infinite sorrow.

"It seemeth that the Prince hesitateth," said the King, in a threatening voice.

Myra left the Queen, and with bent head approached her love.

"My good knight," she said, "methinks I do but dream; or, if I am awake, then hast thou changed, or some trouble hath befallen thee. Speak; my father awaits thine answer. Shall our wedding be to-day?"

"Fair lady, nothing could change my love, nor hath any trouble befallen me; and yet, our marriage ceremony cannot be solemnised to-day."

"Then to-morrow, good sir," said the King, "or the week after?"

"Your Majesty, the daughters of earth will never see the celebration of our nuptials."

The King turned grey with wrath, and gasped for breath as if death was upon him. The Council rose; the Queen rushed to her royal consort's side. Myra sank down in a heap at her lover's feet. He knelt beside her for one brief second.

"Forgive me," he murmured, "forgive me, in that I shall suffer eternally, whilst thy pain will end in the grave. Farewell, dear one; would I were mortal for thy sake. Love bids thee farewell."

When the King recovered his senses the Prince had disappeared. The country was scoured for miles round, but not a trace of him nor his followers could be found. No member of the royal household noticed a hundred beautiful red chrysanthemums, which had suddenly rooted themselves in the palace garden.

V.

Myra wandered about the precincts of her home like one distraught with sorrow. The sun of her life had gone out, and left all dark and cold and desolate. The flowers had lost their rare colours, and had clothed themselves in sombre tints of red and purple. The river had lost its merry voice, and went sobbing through the grounds. Many days pa.s.sed, and life became one long memory. With brooding and sorrowing over her lost Love she grew pale and thin. Her eyes became wan and hollow, and misery closed her lips.

Some weeks after the Prince had disappeared she visited her garden. The flowers had grown tall and straggling, the walks were weedy, the lawn had lost its velvet softness, and all was desolation. As she walked, weeping, beside the once brilliant border, she saw the Rose-Mallow lying half-dead across her path.

"Alas, sweet flower! what aileth thee?" she said, lifting his head and looking into his face.

"My dear mistress, I am hurt to death," he murmured.

"Speak. Tell me thy sorrow."

"I worked by day and by night to climb the wall of the garden, and after much labour I reached the summit, just as the sun was setting. There I saw the lady whose melodious voice had won my heart. Ah, fair Princess!

she was more beautiful than dawn or daylight. I gazed at her, and told her that I loved her; but she would not even look at me; she spread forth her pale blossoms with sweet pride. 'I love the Night alone, and only raise my face to his,' she said. Then I drooped and drooped with pain. I am indeed hurt to death," he moaned.

She threw her arms around him, while her tears fell on his poor faded leaves; and when the moon had risen her favourite lay dead in the once happy garden.

The Princess fetched her golden spade, and dug his grave where he had lived. Then she bent down and plucked a little cl.u.s.ter of flowers from the Violet whose love had been wasted, to place upon the earth above his resting-place; and from each blossom a tear-drop flowed from the Violet's heart.

"Ah! if I had not advised him to seek his love away from those with whom his life had been pa.s.sed," moaned Myra. "He could have cared for one of the flowers in the garden before he saw the Evening Primrose; his life was spoilt through my counsel, and ended in pain. And, oh! that I had been as other women, and had taken a knight of my father's court for husband. If only I had put up with little imperfections, then this trouble had not come upon me. But now life is over, and I can never know happiness again."

That night Fate told the North Wind the story of his child. On his mountain home he learned of the Queen's treachery, of Myra's early life, and of Love's hateful blunder.

Spreading his powerful wings, by Fate's command, he flew earthwards, to bear his daughter to the halls of that dread arbiter of destiny. He was oppressed with sorrow. The snow-flowers hid their heads as he rushed, sobbing, down the mountain; the earth shook at his voice as he shrieked through village and valley; the dead leaves sighed as he scattered them in thousands before him. But when he gained the palace gardens and approached his daughter's window his fierce sorrow abated, and he touched the strings of her harp with gentle fingers. The first strains were more like the voice of the South Wind than that of the wilder North. Then followed long wailing strains of melody, as of a soul in distress.

Myra, sitting brooding on her misery, became strangely roused, as she heard the weird instrument played upon by a master hand. Often the sad music seemed to be the voice of her lover; then the tones softened to a sigh; it was the Rose-Mallow's dying sob.

An overmastering wish seized her to open the cas.e.m.e.nt. She must admit those pleading tones, or her heart would break. Unable to quell the desire, she threw wide the window.