Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/492

484 pale and tired. The events of the night had upset Cissy, and she was trembling.

“Why not remain till to-morrow. You look as if you wanted rest.”

“The fog is clearing away. We shall have the moon yet.”

“Charles! What is that on your face!”

“Nothing. A scratch. The briers did it.”

A long, low wail, very like a child’s cry, sweeps across the distant hills, and the fog, becoming of a bluish tint from the moonlight, seems about to clear away. As Charles wraps his cloak closer around him, and waves his hand in farewell, Cissy shudders, for a sudden chill, the first touch of the fever which is approaching to lay her low for many weeks, has come upon her: and little Effie, holding her mother’s hand, peers out into the garden, with a puzzled, half-sorrowful expression; and the clouds chase each other across her earnest face more wildly than ever.

And so it was that George, though the injury he had sustained from Cairtree’s treachery was still serious, was neither forced to stop payment the next day, nor to sell his house, nor to take the rings off Cissy’s fingers.

Charles left England the day after the events above narrated. It was spring before they heard of him again, and then they received an announcement of his death.

George told it to Cissy as she sat, quite recovered from her illness, working at the window overlooking the garden. Effie was by her side, playing with a skein of bright-coloured silk from Cissy’s workbox. A shade of pain crossed Cissy’s face, as she tossed one piece of work aside, and took up another: “Oh, George! how dreadful!”

“It’s strange,” said George, musing, “that he should have taken such a fancy to that child. He died worth more than one would have expected, after the life of extravagance he led; and has left all, which amounts to a comfortable competency, to Effie.”

“Poor dear cousin!” said Cissy, beginning to cry. H. A. R.

, noble lady! weep no more!

The woman’s joy is won:

Fear not! thy time of grief is o’er,

And thou hast borne a son!

Then ceased the Queen from pain and cry,

And, as she proudly smiled,

The tear stood still within her eye,—

A mother saw her child!

Now bear him to the castle-gate!”

Thus did the King command:

There, stern and stately all, they wait,

The warriors of the land!

They met,—another Lord to claim,—

And loud their voices rung:

We will not brook a stranger’s name,

Nor serve the Saxon tongue!

Our King shall breathe a British birth,

And speak with native voice:

He shall be Lord of Cymrian earth,

The chieftain of our choice!”

Then might you hear the drawbridge fall,

And echoing footsteps nigh:

And, hearken! by yon haughty wall,

A low and infant cry!

God save your Prince!” King Edward said,

Your wayward wish is won:

Behold him, from his mother’s bed,

My child! my first-born son!

Here, in his own, his native place,

His future feet shall stand;

And rule the children of your race

In language of the land!”

’Twas strange to see: so sternly smiled

Those warriors gray and grim:

How little thought King Edward’s child

Who thus would welcome him!

Nor knew they then how proud the tone

They taught their native vales;

The shout whole nations lived to own,—

God bless the Prince of Wales. R. S. H.

, I was going to fight a duel. Not that there was any necessity for me to fight, far from it, for I had quarreled with no one. No, I was going to fight, with a man whom I had only seen once before, for the mere pleasure of fighting.

This will, I have no doubt, sound curious to English ears, but the facts of the case were as follows: I was at that time (some five or six years ago) studying at a German university; and was, of course, intimate with a considerable number of the students, whose countless duels I was very fond of witnessing. One day, as I was walking home with one them, Müller by name, from the fighting ground, he suddenly said to me:

“I say, Albion,” (Albion was my nickname among the students), “I say, Albion, you ought to fight once, too; you will never get quite behind the scenes of German student life, unless you do so.”

“Well,” I said, “I think that I should like to fight once, just to see what my sensations would be like. I wonder whether I should feel afraid or not?”

“Then you will do so?” he said.

“Yes, I think I will,” I replied; “but I have no quarrel with anybody.”

“Never mind about that,” said he. “I will arrange everything for you, come to our Kneipe this evening, and afterwards we shall be sure to pick up a man for you in the Market Place.”