"For Heaven's sake, peace, brother!" said Edward; "if such words were taken up and reported out of the house, they would be our mother's ruin." "Report them yourself then, and they will be your making, and nobody's marring save mine own. Say that Halbert Glendinning will never be vassal to an old man with a cowl and shaven crown, while there are twenty barons who wear casque and plume that lack bold followers. Let them grant you these wretched acres, and much meal may they bear you to make your brochan." He left the room hastily, but instantly returned, and continued to speak with the same tone of quick and irritated feeling. "And you need not think so much, neither of you, and especially you, Edward, need not think so much of your parchment book there, and your cunning in reading it. By my faith, I will soon learn to read as well as you; and-for I know a better teacher than your grim old monk, and a better book than his printed breviary; and since you like scholarcraft so well, Mary Avenel, you shall see whether Edward or I have most of it." He left the apartment, and came not again. "What can be the matter with him?" said Mary, following Halbert with her eyes from the window, as with hasty and unequal steps he ran up the wild glen "Where can your brother be going, Edward ?—what book?-what teacher does he talk of ?" "Halbert is angry, "It avails not guessing," said Edward. he knows not why, and speaks of he knows not what; let us go again to our lessons, and he will come home when he has tired himself with scrambling among the crags as usual." But Mary's anxiety on account of Halbert seemed more deeply rooted. She declined prosecuting the task in which they had been so pleasingly engaged, under the excuse of a headach; nor could Edward prevail upon her to resume it again that morning. Meanwhile Halbert, his head unbonneted, his features swelled with jealous anger, and the tear still in his eye, sped up the wild and upper extremity of the little valley of Glendearg with the speed of a roebuck, choosing, as if in desperate defiance of the difficulties of the way, the wildest and most dangerous paths, and voluntarily exposing himself a hundred times to dangers which he might have escaped by turning a little aside from them. It seemed as if he wished his course to be as straight as that of the arrow to its mark. He arrived at length in a narrow and secluded cleuch, or deep ravine, which ran down into the valley, and contributed a scanty rivulet to the supply of the brook with which Glendearg is watered. Up this he sped with the same precipitate haste which had marked his departure from the tower, nor did he pause and look around until he had reached the fountain from which the rivulet had its rise. Here Halbert stopt short, and cast a gloomy, and almost a frightened glance around him. A huge rock rose in front, from a cleft of which grew a wild holly-tree, whose dark green branches rustled over the spring which arose beneath. The banks on either hand rose so high, and approached each other so closely, that it was only when the sun was at its meridian height, and during the summer solstice, that its rays could reach the bottom of the chasm in which he stood. But it was now summer, and the hour was noon, so that the unwonted reflection of the sun was dancing in the pellucid fountain. "It is the season and the hour," said Halbert to himself; " and now I I might soon become wiser than Edward with all his pains! Mary should see whether he alone is fit to be consulted, and to sit by her side, and hang over her as she reads, and point out every word and every letter. And she loves me better than him-I am sure she does-for she comes of noble blood, and scorns sloth and cowardice. And do I myself not stand here slothful and cowardly as any priest of them all?-Why should I fear to call upon this form this shape? Already have I endured the vision, and why not again?-What can it do to me, who am a man of lith and limb, and have by my side my father's sword? Does my heart beat-do my hairs bristle, at the thought of calling up a painted shadow, aud how should I face a band of Southrons in flesh and blood? By the soul of the first Glendinning, I will make proof of the charm!" He cast the leathern brogue or buskin from his right foot, planted himself in a firm posture, unsheathed his sword, and first looking around to collect his resolution, he bowed three times deliberately towards the holly-tree, and as often to the little fountain repeating at the same time, with a determined voice, the following rhyme: "Thrice to the holly brake Thrice to the well: I bid thee awake, White Maid of Avenel ! Noon gleams on the Lake Noon glows on the Fell- White Maid of Avenel!" These lines were hardly uttered, when there stood the figure of a female clothed in white, within three steps of Halbert Glendinning. "I guess 'twas frightful there to see A lady richly clad as she Beautiful exceedingly."* • Coleridge's Christabelle. YOUNG Halbert Glendinning had scarcely pronounced the mystical rhymes, than, as we have mentioned in the conclusion of the last chapter, an appearance, as of a beautiful female, dressed in white, stood within two yards of him. His terror for the moment overcame his natural courage, as well as the strong resolution which he had formed, that the figure which he had now twice seen should not a third time daunt him. But it would seem there is something thrilling and abhorrent to flesh and blood, in the consciousness that we stand in presence of a being in form like to ourselves, but so different in faculties and nature, that we can neither understand its purposes, nor calculate its means of pursuing them. Halbert stood silent and gasped for breath, his hairs erecting themselves on his head- his mouth open-his eyes fixed, and, as the sole remaining sign of his late determined purpose, his sword pointed towards the apparition. At length, with a voice of ineffable sweetness, the White Lady, for by that name we shall distinguish this being, sung, or rather chanted, the following lines: "Youth of the dark eye, wherefore didst thou call me? Wherefore art thou here, if terrors can appal thee? He that seeks to deal with us must know nor fear nor failing! To coward and churl our speech is dark, our gifts are unavailing. The breeze that brought me hither now, must sweep Egyptian ground, The fleecy cloud on which I ride for Araby is bound; The fleecy cloud is drifting by, the breeze sighs for my stay, For I must sail a thousand miles before the close of day." The astonishment of Halbert began once more to give way to his resolution, and he gained voice enough to say, though with a faltering accent, "In the name of God, what art thou?" The answer was in melody of a different tone and measure:— "What I am I must not shew- Riding on the whirlwind's wing; Aping in fantastic fashion Every change of human passion, Ours the sleep that knows no morrow. This is all that thou mayest know. The White Lady paused, and appeared to await an answer; but, as Halbert hesitated how to frame his speech, the vision seemed gradually to fade, and become more and more incorporeal. Justly guessing this to be a symptom of her disappearance, Halbert compelled himself to say, "Lady, when you in the glen, and when you brought back the black book of Mary of Avenel, thou didst say I should one day learn to read it." The White Lady replied, "Ay! and I taught thee the word and the spell, To waken me here by the Fairies' Well. But thou hast loved the heron and hawk, More than to seek my haunted walk; And thou hast loved the lance and the sword, And thou hast loved the deer to track, More than the lines and the letters black; And thou art a ranger of moss and of wood, And scornest the nurture of gentle blood." saw "I will do so no longer, fair maiden," said Halbert; "I desire to learn; and thou didst promise me, that when I did so desire, thou wouldst be my helper; I am no longer afraid of thy presence, and I am no longer regardless of instruction." As he uttered these words, the figure of the White Maiden grew gradually as distinct as it had been at first; and what had wellnigh faded into an ill-defined and colourless shadow, again assumed an appearance at least of corporeal consistency, although the hues were less vivid, and the outline of the figure less distinct and defined -so at least it seemed to Halbert than those of an ordinary inhabitant of the earth. "Wilt thou grant my request," he said, "fair Lady, and give to my keeping the holy book which Mary of Avenel has so often wept for?" The White Lady replied: "Thy craven fear my truth accused, He that draws to harbour late, Must sleep without, or burst the gate. Its influence wanes, its course is turn'd; Valour and constancy alone Can bring thee back the chance that's flown." "If I have been a loiterer, Lady," answered young Glendinning, "thou shalt now find me willing to press forward with double speed. Other thoughts have filled my mind, other thoughts have engaged my heart, within a brief period—and by Heaven, other occupations shall henceforward fill up my time. I have lived in this day the space of years- I came hither a boy - I will return a man—a man, such as may converse not only with his own kind, but with whatever God permits to be visible to him. I will learn the contents of that mysterious volume - I will learn why the Lady of Avenel loved it-why the priests feared, and would have stolen it- why thou didst twice recover it from their hands. What mystery is wrapt in it? Speak, I conjure thee!" The lady assumed an air peculiarly sad and solemn, as drooping her head, and folding her arms on her bosom, she replied: "Within that awful volume lies "Give me the volume, Lady," said young Glendinning. "They call me idle-they call me dull-in this pursuit my industry shall not fail, nor, with God's blessing, shall my understanding. Give me the volume." The apparition again replied. "Many a fathom dark and deep I have laid the book to sleep; Ethereal fires around it glowingEthereal music ever flowingThe sacred pledge of Heav'n All things revere, Each in his sphere, Save man for whom 'twas giv❜n: Lend thy hand, and thou shalt spy Things ne'er seen by mortal eye. Halbert Glendinning boldly reached his hand to the White Lady. "Fearest thou to go with me?" she said, as his hand trembled at the soft and cold touch of her own "Fearest thou to go with me? A peasant to dwell; Thou mayst drive the dull steer, But never more come near This haunted well." "If what thou sayest be true," said the undaunted boy, "my destinies are higher than thine own. There shall be neither well nor wood which I dare not visit. No fear of aught, natural or supernatural, shall bar my path through my native valley." He had scarce uttered the words, when they both descended |