When the next evening of our assembly came, I could see on Adela's face a look of subdued expectation, and I knew now to what to attribute it: Harry was going to read. There was a restlessness in her eyelids—they were always rising, and falling as suddenly. But when the time drew near, they grew more still; only her colour went and came a little. By the time we were all seated, she was as quiet as death. Harry pulled out a manuscript.  
"Have you any objection to a ballad-story?" he asked of the company generally.
 
"Certainly not," was the common reply; though Ralph stared a little, and his wife looked at him. I believe the reason was, that they had never known Harry write poetry before. But as soon as he had uttered the title—"The Two Gordons"—
 
"You young rascal!" cried his brother. "Am I to keep you in material for ever? Are you going to pluck my wings till they are as bare as an egg? Really, ladies and gentlemen," he continued, in pretended anger, while Harry was keeping down a laugh of keen enjoyment, "it is too bad of that scapegrace brother of mine! Of course you are all welcome to anything I have got; but he has no right to escape from his responsibilities on that account. It is rude to us all. I know he can write if he likes."
 
"Why, Ralph, you would be glad of such a brother to steal your sermons from, if you had been up all night as I was. Of course I did not mean to claim any more credit than that of unearthing some of your shy verses.—May I read them or not?"
 
"Oh! of course. But it is lucky I came prepared for some escapade of the sort, and brought a manuscript of proper weight and length in my pocket."
 
Suddenly Harry's face changed from a laughing to a grave one. I saw how it was. He had glanced at Adela, and her look of unmistakeable disappointment was reflected in his face. But there was a glimmer of pleasure in his eyes, notwithstanding; and I fancied I could see that the pleasure would have been more marked, had he not feared that he had placed himself at a disadvantage with her, namely, that she would suppose him incapable of producing a story. However, it was only for a moment that this change of feeling stopped him. With a gesture of some haste he re-opened the manuscript, which he had rolled up as if to protect it from the indignation of his brother, and read the following ballad:
 
"The Two Gordons.
 
I
 
"There was John Gordon, and Archibold,
    And an earl's twin sons were they.
When they were one and twenty years old,
    They fell out on their birth-day.
"'Turn,' said Archibold, 'brother sly!
    Turn now, false and fell;
Or down thou goest, as black as a lie,
    To the father of lies in hell.'
"'Why this to me, brother Archie, I pray?
    What ill have I done to thee?'
'Smooth-faced hound, thou shall rue the day
    Thou gettest an answer of me.
"'For mine will be louder than Lady Janet's,
    And spoken in broad daylight—
And the wall to scale is my iron mail,
    Not her castle wall at night.'
"'I clomb the wall of her castle tall,
    In the moon and the roaring wind;
It was dark and still in her bower until
    The morning looked in behind.'
"'Turn therefore, John Gordon, false brother;
    For either thou or I,
On a hard wet bed—wet, cold, and red,
    For evermore shall lie.'
"'Oh, Archibold, Janet is my true love;
    Would I had told it thee!'
'I hate thee the worse. Turn, or I'll curse
    The night that got thee and me.'
"Their swords they drew, and the sparks they flew,
    As if hammers did anvils beat;
And the red blood ran, till the ground began
    To plash beneath their feet.
"'Oh, Archie! thou hast given me a cold supper,
    A supper of steel, I trow;
But reach me one grasp of a brother's hand,
    And turn me, before you go.'
"But he turned himself on his gold-spurred heel,
    And away, with a speechless frown;
And up in the oak, with a greedy croak,
    The carrion-crow claimed his own.
II
 
"The sun looked over a cloud of gold;
    Lady Margaret looked over the wall.
Over the bridge rode Archibold;
    Behind him his merry men all.
"He leads his band to the holy land.
  They follow with merry din.
A white Christ's cross is on his back;
  In his breast a darksome sin.
"And the white cross burned him like the fire,
  That he could nor eat nor rest;
It burned in and in, to get at the sin,
  That lay cowering in his breast.
"A mile from the shore of the Dead Sea,
  The army lay one night.
Lord Archibold rose; and out he goes,
  Walking in the moonlight.
"He came to the shore of the old salt sea—
  Yellow sands with frost-like tinge;
The bones of the dead on the edge of its bed,
  Lay lapped in its oozy fringe.
"He sat him down on a half-sunk stone,
  And he sighed so dreary and deep:
'The devil may take my soul when I wake,
  If he'd only let me sleep!'
"Out from the bones and the slime and the stones,
  Came a voice like a raven's croak:
'Was it thou, Lord Archibold Gordon?' it said,
  'Was it thou those words that spoke?'
"'I'll say them again,' quoth Archibold,
  'Be thou ghost or fiend of the deep.'
'Lord Archibold heed how thou may'st speed,
  If thou sell me thy soul for sleep.'
"Lord Archibold laughed with a loud ha! ha!—
  The Dead Sea curdled to hear:
'Thou would'st have the worst of the bargain curst—
  It has every fault but fear.'
"'Done, Lord Archibold?' 'Lord Belzebub, done!'
    His laugh came back in a moan.
The salt glittered on, and the white moon shone,
    And Lord Archibold was alone.
"And back he went to his glimmering tent;
    And down in his cloak he lay;
And sound he slept; and a pale-faced man
    Watched by his bed till day.
"And if ever he turned or moaned in his sleep,
    Or his brow began to lower,
Oh! gentle and clear, in the sleeper's ear,
    He would whisper words of power;
"Till his lips would quiver, and sighs of bliss
    From sorrow's bosom would break;
And the tear, soft and slow, would gather and flow;
    And yet he would not wake.
"Every night the pale-faced man
    Sat by his bed, I say;
And in mail rust-brown, with his visor down,
    Rode beside him in battle-fray.
"But well I wot that it was not
    The devil that took his part;
But his twin-brother John, he thought dead and gone,
    Who followed to ease his heart.
III
 
"Home came Lord Archibold, weary wight,
    Home to his own countree;
And he cried, when his castle came in sight,
    'Now Christ me save and see!'
"And the man in rust-brown, with his visor down,
    Had gone, he knew not where.
And he lighted down, and into the hall,
    And his mother met him there.
"But dull was her eye, though her mien was high;
    And she spoke like Eve to Cain:
'Lord Archibold Gordon, answer me true,
    Or I'll never speak again.
"'Where is thy brother, Lord Archibold?
    He was flesh and blood of thine.
Has thy brother's keeper laid him cold,
    Where the warm sun cannot shine?'
"Lord Archibold could not speak a word,
    For his heart was almost broke.
He turned to go. The carrion-crow
    At the window gave a croak.
"'Now where art thou going, Lord Archie?' she said,
    'With thy lips so white and thin?'
'Mother, good-bye; I am going to lie
    In the earth with my brother-twin.'
"Lady Margaret sank on her couch. 'Alas!
    I shall lose them both to-day.'
Lord Archibold strode along the road,
    To the field of the Brothers' Fray.
"He came to the spot where they had fought.
    'My God!' he cried in fright,
'They have left him there, till his bones are bare;
    Through the plates they glimmer white.'
"For his brother's armour lay there, dank,
    And worn with frost and dew.
Had the long, long grass that grew so rank,
    Grown the very armour through?
"'O brother, brother!' cried the Earl,
    With a loud, heart-broken wail,
'I would put my soul into thy bones,
    To see thee alive and hale.'
"'Ha! ha!' said a voice from out the helm—
    'Twas the voice of the Dead Sea shore—
And the joints did close, and the armour rose,
    And clattered and grass uptore—
"'Thou canst put no soul into his bones,
    Thy brother alive to set;
For the sleep was thine, and thy soul is mine,
    And, Lord Archibold, well-met!'
"'Two words to that!' said the fearless Earl;
    'The sleep was none of thine;
For I dreamed of my brother all the night—
    His soul brought the sleep to mine.
"'But I care not a crack for a soul so black,
    And thou may'st have it yet:
I would let it burn to eternity,
    My brother alive to set.'
"The demon lifted his beaver up,
    Crusted with blood and mould;
And, lo! John Gordon looked out of the helm,
    And smiled upon Archibold.
"'Thy soul is mine, brother Archie,' he said,
    'And I yield it thee none the worse;
No devil came near thee, Archie, lad,
    But a brother to be thy nurse.'
"Lord Archibold fell upon his knee,
    On the blood-fed, bright green sod:
'The soul that my brother gives back to me,
    Is thine for ever, O God!'"
"Now for a piece of good, honest prose!" said the curate, the moment Harry had finished, without allowing room for any remarks. "That is, if the ladies and gentlemen will allow me to read once more."
 
Of course, all assented heartily.
 
"It is nothing of a story, but I think it is something of a picture, drawn principally from experiences of my own childhood, which I told you was spent chiefly in the north of Scotland. The one great joy of the year, although some years went without it altogether, was the summer visit paid to the shores of the Moray Firth. My story is merely a record of some of the impressions left on myself by such a visit, although the boy is certainly not a portrait of myself; and if it has no result, no end, reaching beyond childhood into what is commonly called life, I presume it is not of a peculiar or solitary character in that respect; for surely many that we count finished stories—life-histories—must look very different to the angels; and if they haven't to be written over again, at least they have to be carried on a few aeons further.
 
"A CHILD'S HOLIDAY.
 
"Before the door of a substantial farm-house in the north of Scotland, stands a vehicle of somewhat singular construction. When analysed, however, its composition proves to be simple enough. It is a common agricultural cart, over which, by means of a few iron rods bent across, a semi-cylindrical covering of white canvas has been stretched. It is thus transformed from a hay or harvest cart into a family carriage, of comfortable dimensions, though somewhat slow of progress. The lack of springs is supplied by thick layers of straw, while sacks stuffed with the same material are placed around for seats. Various articles are being stowed away under the bags, and in the corners among the straw, by children with bright expectant faces; the said articles having been in process of collection and arrangement for a month or six weeks previous, in anticipation of the journey which now lies, in all its length and brightness, the length and brightness of a long northern summer's day, before them.
 
"At last, all their private mysteries of provisions, playthings, and books, having found places of safety more or less accessible on demand, every motion of the horse, every shake and rattle of the covered cart, makes them only more impatient to proceed; which desire is at length gratified by their moving on at a funeral pace through the open gate. They are followed by another cart loaded with the luggage necessary for a six-week's sojourn at one of the fishing villages on the coast, about twenty miles distant from their home. Their father and mother are to follow in the gig, at a later hour in the day, expecting to overtake them about half-way on the road.—Through the neighbouring village they pass, out upon the lonely highway.
 
"Some seeds are borne to the place of their destiny by their own wings and the wings of the wind, some by the wings of birds, some by simple gravitation. The seed of my story, namely, the covered cart, sent forth to find the soil for its coming growth, is dragged by a stout horse to the sea-shore; and as it oscillates from side to side like a balloon trying to walk, I shall say something of its internal constitution, and principally of its germ; for, regarded as the seed of my story, a pale boy of thirteen is the germ of the cart. First, though he will be of little use to us afterwards, comes a great strong boy of sixteen, who considerably despises this mode of locomotion, believing himself quite capable of driving his mother in the gig, whereas he is only destined to occupy her place in the evening, and return with his father. Then comes the said germ, a boy whom repeated attacks of illness have blanched, and who looks as if the thinness of its earthly garment made his soul tremble with the proximity of the ungenial world. Then follows a pretty blonde, with smooth hair, and smooth cheeks, and bright blue eyes, the embodiment of home pleasures and love; whose chief enjoyment, and earthly destiny indeed, so far as yet revealed, consist in administering to the cupidities of her younger brother, a very ogre of gingerbread men, and Silenus of bottled milk. This milk, by the way, is expected, from former experience, to afford considerable pleasure at the close of the journey, in the shape of one or two pellets of butter in each bottle; the novelty of the phenomenon, and not any scarcity of the article, constituting the ground of interest. A baby on the lap of a rosy country-girl, and the servant in his blue Sunday coat, who sits outside the cover on the edge of the cart, but looks in occasionally to show some attention to the young woman, complete the contents of the vehicle.
 
"Herbert Netherby, though, as I have said, only thirteen years of age, had already attained a degree of mental development sufficient for characterization. Disease had favoured the almost unhealthy predominance of the mental over the bodily powers of the child; so that, although the constitution which at one time was supposed to have entirely given way, had for the last few years been gradually gaining strength, he was still to be seen far oftener walking about with his hands in his pockets, and his gaze bent on the ground, or turned up to the clouds, than joining in any of the boyish sports of those of his own age. A nervous dread of ridicule would deter him from taking his part, even when for a moment the fountain of youthfulness gushed forth, and impelled him to find rest in activity. So the impulse would pass away, and he would relapse into his former quiescence. But this partial isolation ministered to the growth of a love of Nature which, although its roots were coeval with his being, might not have so soon appeared above ground, but for this lack of human companionship. Thus the boy became one of Nature's favourites, and enjoyed more than a common share of her teaching.
 
"But he loved her most in her stranger moods. The gathering of a blue cloud, on a sultry summer afternoon, he watched with intense hope, in expectation of a thunder-storm; and a windy night, after harvest, when the trees moaned and tossed their arms about, and the wind ran hither and hither over the desolate fields of stubble, made the child's heart dance within him, and sent him out careering through the deepening darkness. To meet him then, you would not have known him for the sedate, actionless boy, whom you had seen in the morning looking listlessly on while his schoolfellows played. But of all his loves for the shows of Nature, none was so strong as his love for water—common to childhood, with its mills of rushes, its dams, its bridges, its aqueducts; only in Herbert, it was more a quiet, delighted contemplation. Weakness prevented his joining his companions in the river; but the sight of their motions in the mystery of the water, as they floated half-idealized in the clear depth, or glided along by graceful propulsion, gave him as much real enjoyment as they received themselves. For it was water itself that delighted him, whether in rest or motion; whether rippling over many stones, like the first half-articulate sounds of a child's speech, mingled with a strange musical tremble and cadence which the heart only, and not the ear, could detect; or lying in deep still pools, from the bottom of which gleamed up bright green stones, or yet brighter water-plants, cool in their little grotto, with water for an atmosphere and a firmament, through which the sun-rays came, washed of their burning heat, but undimmed of their splendour. He would lie for an hour by the side of a hill-streamlet; he would stand gazing into a muddy pool, left on the road by last night's rain. Once, in such a brown-yellow pool, he beheld a glory—the sun, encircled with a halo vast and wide, varied like the ring of opal colours seen about the moon when she floats through white clouds, only larger and brighter than that. Looking up, he could see nothing but a chaos of black clouds, brilliant towards the sun: the colours he could not see, except in the muddy water.
 
"In autumn the rains would come down for days, and the river grow stormy, forget its clearness, and spread out like a lake over the meadows; and that was delightful indeed. But greater yet was the delight when the foot-bridge was carried away; for then they had to cross the stream in a boat. He longed for water where it could not be; would fain have seen it running through the grass in front of his father's house; and had a waking vision of a stream with wooden shores that babbled through his bedroom. So it may be fancied with what delight he overheard the parental decision that they should spend some weeks by the shores of the great world—water, the father and the grave of rivers.
 
"After many vain outlooks, and fruitless inquiries of their driver, a sudden turn in the road brought them in sight of the sea between the hills; itself resembling a low blue hill, covered with white stones. Indeed, the little girl only doubted whether those were white stones or sheep scattered all over it. They lost sight of it; saw it again; and hailed it with greater rapture than at first.
 
"The sun was more than halfway down when they arrived. They had secured a little cottage, almost on the brow of the high shore, which in most places went down perpendicularly to the beach or sands, and in some right into deep water; but opposite the cottage, declined with a sloping, grassy descent. A winding track led down to the village, which nestled in a hollow, with steep footpaths radiating from it. In front of it, lower still, lay the narrow beach, narrow even at low water, for the steep, rocky shore went steep and rocky down into the abyss. A thousand fantastic rocks stood between land and water; amidst which, at half-tide, were many little rocky arbours, with floors of sunny sand, and three or four feet of water. Here you might bathe, or sit on the ledges with your feet in the water, medicated with the restless glitter and bewilderment of a half-dissolved sunbeam.
 
"A promontory, curving out into the sea, on the right, formed a bay and natural harbour, from which, towards the setting sun, many fishing-boats were diverging into the wide sea, as the children, stiff and weary, were getting out of the cart. Herbert's fatigue was soon forgotten in watching their brown-dyed sails, glowing almost red in the sunset, as they went out far into the dark, hunters of the deep, to spend the night on the waters.
 
"From the windows, the children could not see the shore, with all its burst of beauties struck out from the meeting of things unlike; for it lay far down, and the brow of the hill rose between it and them; only they knew that below the waves were breaking on the rocks, and they heard the gush and roar filling all the air. The room in which Herbert slept was a little attic, with a window towards the sea. After gazing with unutterable delight on the boundless water, which lay like a condensed sky in the grey light of the sleeping day (for there is no night at this season in the North), till he saw it even when his eyelids closed from weariness, he lay down, and the monotonous lullaby of the sea mingled with his dreams.
 
"Next morning he was wakened by the challenging and replying of the sentinel-cocks, whose crowing sounded to him more clear and musical than that of any of the cocks at home. He jumped out of bed. It was a sunny morning, and his soul felt like a flake of sunshine, as he looked out of his window on the radiant sea, green and flashing, its clear surface here and there torn by the wind into spots of opaque white. So happy did he feel, that he might have been one who had slept through death and the judgment, and had awaked, a child, still in the kingdom of God, under the new heavens and upon the new earth.
 
"After breakfast, they all went down with their mother to the sea-shore. As they went, the last of the boats which had gone out the night before, were returning laden, like bees. The sea had been bountiful. Everything shone with gladness. But as Herbert drew nearer, he felt a kind of dread at the recklessness of the waves. On they hurried, assailed the rocks, devoured the sands, cast themselves in wild abandonment on whatever opposed them. He feared at first to go near, for they were unsympathizing, caring not for his love or his joy, and would sweep him away like one of those floating sea-weeds. 'If they are such in their play,' thought he, 'what must they be in their anger!' But ere long he was playing with the sea as with a tame tiger, chasing the retreating waters till they rallied and he, in his turn, had to flee from their pursuit. Wearied at length, he left his brother and sister building castles of wet sand, and wandered along the shore.
 
"Everywhere about lay shallow lakes of salt water, so shallow that they were invisible, except when a puff of wind blew a thousand ripples into the sun; whereupon they flashed as if a precipitous rain of stormy light had rushed down upon them. Lifting his eyes from one of these films of water, Herbert saw on the opposite side, stooping to pick up some treasure of the sea, a little girl, apparently about nine years of age. When she raised herself and saw Herbert, she moved slowly away with a quiet grace, that strangely contrasted with her tattered garments. She was ragged like the sea-shore, or the bunch of dripping sea-weed that she carried in her hand; she was bare from foot to knee, and passed over the wet sand with a gleam; the wind had been at more trouble with her hair than any loving hand; it was black, lusterless, and tangled. The sight of rags was always enough to move Herbert's sympathies, and he wished to speak to the little girl, and give her something. But when he had followed her a short distance, all at once, and without having looked round, she began to glide away from him with a wave-like motion, dancing and leaping; till a clear pool in the hollow of a tabular rock imbedded in the sand, arrested her progress. Here she stood like a statue, gazing into its depth; then, with a dart like a kingfisher, plunged half into it, caught something at which her head and curved neck showed that she looked with satisfaction—and again, before Herbert could come near her, was skimming along the uneven shore. He followed, as a boy follows a lapwing; but she, like the lapwing, gradually increased the distance between them, till he gave up the pursuit with some disappointment, and returned to his brother and sister. More ambitious than they, he proceeded to construct—chiefly for the sake of the moat he intended to draw around it—a sand-castle of considerable pretensions; but the advancing tide drove him from his stronghold before he had begun to dig the projected fosse.
 
"As they returned home, they passed a group of fishermen in their long boots and flapped sou'-westers, looking somewhat anxiously seaward. Much to Herbert's delight, they predicted a stiff gale, and probably a storm. A low bank of cloud had gathered along the horizon, and the wind had already freshened; the white spots were thicker on the waves, and the sound of their trampling on the shore grew louder.
 
"After dinner, they sat at the window of their little parlour, looking out over the sea, which grew darker and more sullen, ever as the afternoon declined. The cloudy bank had risen and walled out the sun; but a narrow space of blue on the horizon looked like the rent whence the wind rushed forth on the sea, and with the feet of its stormy horses tore up the blue surface, and scattered the ocean-dust in clouds. As evening drew on, Herbert could keep in the house no longer. He wandered away on the heights, keeping from the brow of the cliffs; now and then stooping and struggling with a stormier eddy; till, descending into a little hollow, he sunk below the plane of the tempest, and stood in the glow of a sudden calm, hearing the tumult all round him, but himself in peace. Looking up, he could see nothing but the sides of the hollow with the sky resting on them, till, turning towards the sea, he saw, at some distance, a point of the cliff rising abruptly into the air. At the same moment, the sun looked out from a crack in the clouds, on the very horizon; and as Herbert could not see the sunset, the peculiar radiance illuminated the more strangely the dark vault of earth and cloudy sky. Suddenly, to his astonishment, it was concentrated on the form of the little ragged girl. She stood on the summit of the peak before him. The light was a crown, not to her head only, but to her whole person; as if she herself were the crown set on the brows of the majestic shore. Disappearing as suddenly, it left her standing on the peak, dark and stormy; every tress, if tresses they could be called, of her windy hair, every tatter of her scanty garments, seeming individually to protest, 'The wind is my playmate; let me go!' If Aphrodite was born of the sunny sea, this child was the offspring of the windy shore; as if the mind of the place had developed for itself a consciousness, and this was its embodiment. She bore a strange affinity to the rocks, and the sea-weed, and the pools, and the wide, wild ocean; and Herbert would scarcely have been shocked to see her cast herself from the cliff into the waves, which now dashed half-way up its height. By the time he had got out of the hollow, she had vanished, and where she had gone he could not conjecture. He half feared she had fallen over the precipice; and several times that night, as the vapour of dreams gathered around him, he started from his half-sleep in terror at seeing the little genius of the storm fall from her rock-pedestal into the thundering waves as its foot.
 
"Next day the wind continuing off the sea, with vapour and rain, the children were compelled to remain within doors, and betake themselves to books and playthings. But Herbert's chief resource lay in watching the sea and the low grey sky, between which was no distinguishable horizon. The wind sti............