The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 26 June 1919, Page 3

The Storyteller

THE WILD BIRDS OF KILLEEVY v. ; ; . Rosa Mulholland. ' (By arrangement with Messrs. Burns and Oatea, . London.) '■"- ' ' (Continued.) x CHAPTER XXX.—HIGH REGIONS. -j Herr Harfenspieler could not rest in his bed, nor sleep the sleep of the just. At daylight of the summer morning he arose, and, taking his violin, went to soothe his soul with music in the solitude of the woods. Along the rose-wreathed terrace walk was a little glade, a well of deep green shadow, dim and solemn as a sanctuary, and here throwing himself on a mossy trunk, he poured out floods of mournful music on the ' : air. -After a time the signora, taking her morning walk, floating along the terrace like a streak of grey mist; with her silver ringlets and colorless dress, heard his strains and found her way to the spot whence they came. ' Maestro she cried, clasping her hands, "how is it all to end ?" "Well," said the Harfenspieler, "Kevin has proved a friend after all. Our Fanchea will not leave us to marry Captain Rupert." "But if we should meet with this Kevin?" "Signora, you do not rightly understand our pupil. She has the ideal mind that i:; always seeking to fix its eye on something nobler and greater than itself, than the ordinary run of mortals. Life will torture her with disappointments; one after another her idols will cast themselves down before her eyes. As soon as she meets this Kevin, who has till now been her ideal, because unseen and unknown, she will begin to perceive flaws in him which now she could not believe to exist. Her imagination will pass over his head and fix itself on some noble abstract being; and so it will be with her, till through suffering and in all humility she will come to acknowledge that such ideal cravings are not to be satisfied on earth; and she will eagerly follow the voice of music, which 'alone can assuage the sorrows of the soul, by. expressing its yearnings after the unseen;;''Behold the narrow and painful track which our Fanchea's feet have got to travel through life. And therefore she. will not fail us : to-morrow .'she- will be with us .in Italy." .- \.\ \- % f'\ I "To-morrow ?" ;; ., '*;?"" ~' ■-...* I As soon as "we can arrange to start. Let us go to Lord Wilderspin and talk about it." | Lord Wilderspin was in the library when the musif Cians appeared before him. ~',,-;-.; | "Yes, it is a beautiful morning," said the-pro* fessor ; "but we have come to speak about our pupil; Take her to Italy at once, my lord, and she will be ready to make her debut in a few weeks hence." S "Are you not aware, sir, that I have other views for that young lady said the old nobleman, getting very red and angry. • - ..;*■■''.-*■■-■-• ■ i.i-witf.-i.'oscwwKfjfe ' •■■'■• "She will not carry out those views. Let 'us go back to our original- intentions regarding her." f "Here comes the person who must answer you,'-' said Lord Wilderspin, as his nephew entered the' room. "Rupert, you must tell us whether or not "my ward has consented to go on the stage." , \, <ct *~ | "I know nothing more on* the.subject, than you do, uncle," said Rupert, coldly. | "You do not mean to say, sir, that you are jealous -of the child's Irish affection for her foster-brother?" | .;.; Rupert was silent.•; ; r ... ..-•-. .:i .••".-/.>•-1 ~: "I -will-not allow- ; you to shake her-off, sir. My daughter and niece she shall be if she wishes it. We will decide this matter at once":'' And he rang the bell and] sent for Fanchea. •,;=;.:■'.<..■;■•■.'■ ..' : ■■■;■-■ . >■■■,, -m She came : in, i looking pale and frightened. :-.. \f-. 'Jf "Come here,,Fan," said the old man, kindly, "and don't look" so scared. We are not; plotting to make i»£»«*wy-i ...'■■•' s&s • '' : &M§& W$M

'away with Kevin. Now tell me frankly, my little..girl, whether you will be, my nephew's wife, mistress and lady of Wilderspin, with all the happiness a husband and father can provide for you; or will you (with a •sudden fierce change of manner) go with this pair of musical owls, to sing on the stage and make a show $/t yourself to the world "Lord Wilderspin," said Fan, trembling a little, "you have brought me up and trained me for a particular purpose. I wish to fulfil that purpose." The signora and the Harfenspieler advanced, and each seized one of her hands. She broke from them, and followed Captain Rupert, who had turned to the door. "Do not be vexed with me," she said. "You never could have been satisfied with me. As the lady of Wilderspin I -should have been a troublesome failure." "I was willing to take the risk," said Rupert, and looked as if he would say something more ; but, instead, dropped her hand and -left the room abruptly. "Off to London without his breakfast," growled Lord Wilderspin, looking after his nephew with an amount of sympathy which he had never before felt for the younger man—a sympathy which was destined to lay the foundation of thorough good feeling between the two men for the remainder of their lives. Thus -much good had Fan's little involuntary mischief-making brought in its train. "A nice dance you have led us, you minx," grumbled his lordship, scowling at the girl, who stood with pale cheeks and two great tears in her eyes gazing at the door through which her lover had gone. "Serve us right for being such fools. Never will I think to understand a girl again. Now, run away, you impertinent monkey, and pack your trunks for Italy." In a very short time after this the signora. Kerr Harfenspieler, and Fan were on their way to Milan, where Lord Wilderspin was to join them a few weeks later. Seated between her two triumphant instructors, Fan, in the beginning of the journey, was sad enough. She was leaving the good home that had sheltered her for years, having grieved and disappointed each one of the kind friends who had cherished her. True, she had enjoyed theWsupreme pleasure of hearing news of Kevin and of seeing her benefactors forced to acknowledge that he was as worthy, as noble, as she had ever believed him to be. Rut with this had come no certainty that he remembered her or was seeking for her. And she had no clue to his whereabouts, no means of reaching him, or recalling the fact of her existence to his mind. As they proceeded on their beautiful way, however, she gradually awakened from her dull, uninterested state of disappointment to the consciousness of new life: the strange world of the Alps excited and amazed her. Even at its very entrance her heart began to beat fast, and as valley after valley was traversed, and still higher regions of beauty opened above her head, a glad light began to shine in her eyes again, and the bright blood began to glow in her cheeks. The perpetual mustering and shifting cf great heights fascinated her: mountains that met, soared, and parted again to make way for yet greater than they, to allow giants still more 'mighty to mount and climb nearer heaven upon their shoulders. Always peering on before towards dazzling vistas, opening as if from the clouds, she gradually lost sight of self with its burdens, and entering the Via Mala seemed to tread upon air. -,■ They had left their carriage, and walked along the narrow road. The mountains, no longer opening their arms to receive smiling valleys into their bosom, now became locked together in an iron embrace, making ramparts of almost infinite height and depth, through which water, sunshine, and human will forced their way daringly and with difficulty. From mighty crag to crag overhead, the sunshine leaped,, filling the chasms with darkness, and transfiguring the taper summits of Titanic pines. The Rhine, like a white snake in the dizzy distance below, bored a passage for itself

."• as if * through the recesses of a" cloven world; and -there, imitating its indomitable .'energy, and washed by its spray, the pines ■," planted their roots, and rising towards the light, clothed' many a terrible gap and fissure with . the long, : sweeping draperies of their dark green, empurpled ; mist-laden boughs. Looking down into this narrow, almost bottomless- hollow, one is overwhelmed with awe at the grandeur that Nature has piled within its depths and up its sides, the luxuriance of vegetation and magnificence of color enriching its gloom : looking up, one grows giddy with joy at the glory that wraps the spires and crowns of mountain, crag, and pine. Now passing through dripping caves tunnelled in the rock,'now carried over the awful gulph by a bridge, the road winds on, a triumph of the ingenuity of man ; and the traveller, following it, feels at once his own personal insignificance, and the astonishing power of the human race which has thus penetrated into the secret fastnesses of Nature. "Mamzelle," said Fan, suddenly lowering her gaze from the glories above her head, "why are we ever • unhappy in this beautiful world? God, and so muclr loveliness, ought to be enough for us." "How enraptured yon look, my darling! To me there is gloom as well as joy in all this grandeur. Walking here on this dim path, midway between gigantic heights and depths, I am forced to think of Dante's conceptions. Above our heads is the Paradiso—look how like a group of angels yon golden cloud hangs over that highest, darkest cluster of pines —below our feet is the Inferno ; and we are travelling with trembling hearts amid the shades of the Purgatorio." "What a strange fancy, Mamzelle; and I can see such beautiful things down yonder!" Higher and yet higher they kept wending. Every half-hour brought them into a new and cooler region. The sunset intensified in glory, the tips of the pines grew darker in the rosy light, and a deeper purple was folded among their branches ; golden veils of cloud hovered round the amethyst peaks, and the blinding glory from above cast more appalling shadows into the gorges below. "Still higher, still higher," said Fan, with two bright, red spots burning on her cheeks. "We shall surely soon be at heaven's gate" ; as yet another Rhinethreaded valley opened- out of the clouds above her head. The air was now getting cooler, the sunlight paler, and the pines had diminished in size. The river brawled between green banks, like any common shallow stream of our lowlands. As the travellers still ascended, the pines, now grown dark and thick, were covered from their roots as with a soft green fur. A chill touch of frost seemed to come with the twilight ; winter had succeeded summer, as night had come after the day. Snowy peaks began to rise around them, and a fewvivid stars appeared in the sky. After another spsiL of almost benighted wandering in this eerie and magnificent upper world, they began to approach the hotel near the summit of the pass. "This is not exactly the gate of heaven, my dear," said the signora, "but to me it is almost as 'welcome at this moment." Shut up for a few hours' sleep in a little upper room, Fan surveyed the alpine world from her balcony.Multitudes of peaks, grimly dark or glittering white with snow, filled the horizon, and round and above them the stars flashed with an extraordinary brilliancy. Fascinated with the beauty and majesty of the scene, the girl felt that she could stay here for ever. "I do not want to go down into the world any more," she reflected. "No one needs me there, and this place suits me exactly." She did not ask herself what she could do here ; existence in such a region must be enough. It looked like the entrance into still nobler realms. She fancied herself passing between those glittering and star-crowned peaks, and emerging into wonderful valleys; that would lead to heaven. Behind such mighty and shining gates an angel would be -sure to meet her, as Raphael met Tobias, and would dead her by the hand in her heavenward wanderings.^'

—-~— —- ———-——^?— ———■» : -■•,-•-,._.. _ ~-.r:Vr - .-:.>> - M '^y^§£-f|si Irk- Excitement began to give way before bodily fatigue ' and Fanchea crept into the little bed ; provided for her. In her dreams she continued to explore the white rvalleys, holding the angel fast by the hand. And now the angel had got Kevin's face. i> , She left the hotel at dawn, her imagination still filled .-•with snowy fields, lit by the stars and tracked by spirit feet; but in a few hours afterwards the first sight of Italy had colored her brain with vivid pictures of .life and set the warm blood tingling in her, veins. .. ■'--■ ■- "Now I am going to be happy," said the signora. Youth, joy, hope, have all been frozen out of me in colder climes yet I am bringing back, my soul into the sunshine of my native land." And at the first sight of 'the blue mountains she wept. "I am bringing my Italy an offering worthy of her acceptance," she continued, embracing Fanchea. "Here is a treasure which proves I have not quite thrown away my years. If I have failed to develop my own genius, I have at least found a substitute." lierr Harfenspieler nodded assent, and , bade their charioteer stop, and all three travellers alighted and «at by the roadside while the professor produced his Violin and poured forth one of his most impassioned ■reveries from its strings. It was a greeting, he said., a homage, a love-song to the land of music. The signora shed copious tears and Fan stood by, gazing down into half-disclosed vistas of Italy. Rich mountain valleys clustered with chestnut trees, and in the distance deep and exquisite hues glowing among the folds of the lower mountains, like the gems from a half-open casket. The two old people beside her seemed inspired. Would not Italy and song be to her all they were to them? Must not her life be well spent in devotion to the art they so adored ? Descending tho strange staircases down the mountain sides, alighting in lower and still lower valleys, each one richer than the last in teeming fruit trees and luxuriant vegetation, Fanchea dropped down out of the clouds into Italy. After some particularly rugged descent, whose peril had made the heart stop beating, and the breath come hard, how sweet to see the stream, again running placidly through the valley, the burnished campanile glittering among the trees. How pleasant to hear the shouts and laughter of the peasants busy in the shady recesses of the chestnut boughs, gathering in their harvest of food. Chiavenna with its yellow-green ■' mantle of vines, backed by deep blue "mountain walls, and illuminated by the flash of its sunlit rivers was left behind at last, and under the warm brooding sunshine our friends sped along through the flush and glory of the gardens and fields of Lombardy. The grasshoppers sang loud in the grass, and a monstrous green one perched on the driver's shoulder. " Close to smiling, embowered homesteads the melons ripened in the sun, and picturesque maidens, sunburnt- and dark-eyed, carried long baskets of fruit upon their backs. A draught of new-made wine, procured from the makers at a roadside cottage, gave the travellers strength to press on and catch the steamer proceeding down the lake to Como. Overpowered with fatigue and the drowsiness of the warm air, Fan lay down upon the deck with half-closed eyes, and was floated through the enchanting beauties that girdle the beautiful lake. Established at Milan in apartments not far from the Duomo, Fanchea threw herself into the musical studies awaiting her, yet was allowed time to explore the great-city, with its treasures. After a siesta, wellearned by i an industrious morning, she and her guardians, spent : the ■ afternon visiting: the churches and galleries£; studying the glories of the Brera, sitting in the silent, : deserted refectory of the banished Dominicans -before the wonderful Cenacolo, the fading picture... of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci diving into primitive ages among the solemn shades of the- rude, grand old Romanesque church of St. Ambrogio, where spectral bishops, saints, and Lombard kings lie in wait for you along the ghostly aisles. • A few :moments were always saved, going or 'Coming, to spend in the sweet ?;

■ ■'•■■'—■ ■-- '" -■■- ■• - • - -'— ■■ ■ -■" g) ■----v.: ..-^_:—ij-^-i i; .and- glorified stillness of the magical Duomo. twilight drive on the Corso refreshed them after all their exertions* and, later, they walked* about the merry streets to see the crowds of pleasure-takers, or visited • the ;i brilliantly-lighted arcades to look at the shops. The Duomo was a perpetual delight to Fanchea. "Ah, Mamzelle!" she exclaimed, "if you had seen our -little church -at. Killeevy— four bare, white■washed walls, a wooden altar,' and a crucifix! Yet how strong:: our prayers - were! How well we loved God. I only hope they pray as well here. If our hearts could, they would have piled up riches like these to give honor to heaven. And oh, how glad lam that someone has been able to do it!" ' ... ""'.". She was never weary of walking round the aisles on solemn tip-toe, basking in the enchanted light that fell through the jewelled windows, scrutinising the ! grave or benignant faces of the saints that clustered round the tabernacles on the summits of the majestic columns, or marvelling at the details of lilies, sunflowers, fruit, heads of cherubs, sculptured out of the rich yellow-white marble. Walking through lanes of glory, her eyes wandered down cooler aisles full of shadowy majesty, but ending in vistas of violet, and crimson, and gold. The beauty and the holiness of it alike laid hold of her soul. She saw it all with the. eyes of a mind early trained to the influences of the same re-'/ ligion that had • gathered all these glories as upon one • altar. Her heart accepted it as a new joy that had suddenly become her own, and she offered it, as if this were the first time it had been offered, to the Creator. "I did not do it," she thought, "I had no part in making it, but the delight I have, in it makes me feel it entirely my own. And I rejoice to lay it all at the feet of God!" She would rise with the very first light, so as to have an hour to spend in the cathedral before the work of her morning began, and return to her tasks saturated to the very finger-tips with' the sweetness and holiness that lurk,"as lurks incense, in this marvellous sanctuary. One morning, having finished her devotions, she was wandering as usual in half-solemn, half-flut-tered delight through the mazes of the Duomo. Having got away into the curved, marble-paved alley behind the great altar, she stood, herself a little in shadow, gazing at the three gigantic eastern windows that fill the apsis, and half-dazed : by the flood of sunshine that came pouring through their painted panes, casting myriads of ethereal jewels upon the air and along the pavement. Beyond this indescribable glory the depths of the mighty Duomo retreated into a rich and sombre shade, out of which shone dark bronzes, warm yellow -white marbles, a cloud of transparent crimson, and glimmers of gold. Leaning against the wall, out of the light, she saw a gentleman come round . from the other side of the choir, and pause, dazzled by the. splendor of the sunlit windows. He walked forward into the light, and then stood quite still. His figure was tall and well knit, and had a certain manly grace, but there was nothing about it to remind Fanchea of anyone she had ever known. Her eye rested on him for a moment: she was pleased to see another person smitten with the same enthusiasm that was devouring herself. Another moment of quiet- observation from her shadowy corner, and a qualm of strange emotion shook her heart. Surely something in that .upraised face was intimately familiar to her the broad white brow, the serene grey eyes, were associated in her mind with all that is beautiful and good in existence. The light crisp hair had become a darker brown, the lower part of the face 'was clothed a still darker beard, yet who in all 'the world could this be but 'the friend of her childhood ; a taller, more matured, more graceful, , s more, cultivated,! an altogether idealised, yet perfectly ; recognisable Kevin! %*'*■ Fan's first impulse was to utter such a scream of joy as would have startled the echoes of the mighty " Duomo, and to fling herself forward into the light; the . next was to stayVquite,still in her corner, unseen, till a i; sudden faintness 'which had. seized her should have

* ■ Vj-K _• ._."•■■'■ passed away. Then, as she hesitated, gazing at him with half-blind eyes, he moved, still with upraised face, and, turning his glance aloft, hither -and thither, he passed "before her and out of. her sight. "Kevin!" she tried to call, but her...,voice refused to obey her. Had he glanced towards where she stood, he would only have noticed a slight, elegant young figure clothed in a black dress, v the drooping head draped in v the usual black lace mantle. No unusual sight in Milan; and what was there about it to suggest the idea of Fanchea? •After he had been gone a few minutes she overcame her weakness, and, starting up, hurried as fast as -she could in the direction he had taken. "My friend! my friend!" she murmured, "have I found him only to lose him again Oh, who could have believed it of me? Who would have dared to say it?" She could not see him anywhere; crowds were coming into the cathedral, the morning was advancing, and she ought to be at home .at her work. Sitting. down to watch the people go past, she was suddenly stricken by a : fear that after all she might have been mistaken. Had it been Kevin, surely he must have seen her, have felt that she was there, and would not have passed her by like one of the stone images upon the walls. And yet, with his eyes so full of light, how could he have seen anything so slight as she ? A silver bell tinkled, and she knelt in the crowd and breathed a few fervent prayers. She thought of the bare whitewashed, church of.Killeevy, of the islands lying in the sunshine, the white birds flying off out over the world, the story of the princess, and Kevin's voice telling it to her. r The princess had received her prince dead at her feet; but Fanchea's was here, alive. Ah, was it indeed Kevin, or some other ? (To be continued.)