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<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74635 ***</div>
<h1>THE MINSTREL’S CURSE.</h1>
<hr class="r5">
<p class="center">By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller,<br>
<i>Author of “The Bride of the Tomb,” etc.</i></p>
<hr class="r5">
<p class="center">IN FOUR PARTS.
</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS">TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2>
</div>
<p class="center">
<a href="#PART_I"><i>PART I.</i></a><br>
<a href="#PART_II"><i>PART II.</i></a><br>
<a href="#PART_III"><i>PART III.</i></a><br>
<a href="#PART_IV"><i>PART IV.</i></a><br>
</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_I"><i>PART I.</i></h2>
</div>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“‘When nightly my wild harp I bring</div>
<div class="verse indent4">To wake all its music for thee,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">So sweet looks that face while I sing,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">To reason no longer I’m free.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I forget thou art queen of the land—</div>
<div class="verse indent4">’Tis thy beauty alone that I see:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And, trembling at touch of thy hand,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">All else is forgotten by me!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“‘The spell is upon me in sleep,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">In the region of dreams thou art mine!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I wake—but, ah! ’tis to weep,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And the hope of my slumbers resign.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Ah! hadst thou been less than thou art,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Or I more deserving of thee,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Thou mightst have been queen of my heart,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Thou mightst have been all things to me!’”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>The exquisite tenor voice of the singer died away
into mournful echoes; the low accompaniment
wailed along the piano-keys like the cry of a breaking
heart, then sobbed itself out—and silence
reigned.</p>
<p>“There is still another verse, Mr. Winthrop,”
said Lady Edith Chilton, softly.</p>
<p>“Which I shall not sing,” answered Guy Winthrop,
coolly.</p>
<p>“<i>Shall</i> not?” the girl repeated after him, in a rising
tone of displeasure. “No one ever says ‘<i>shall
not</i>’ to me, Mr. Winthrop.”</p>
<p>“I suppose not”—Mr. Winthrop bowed slightly
in homage to her fair young beauty—“therefore
I say it. I—whom fate has placed so far beneath
you, that I am not restricted to the sweet flatteries
of your ladyship’s lordly admirers, nor yet to the
passive subservience of your vassals—can afford to
speak my mind!”</p>
<p>The long, magnificent drawing-room was deserted
save for these two at the grand piano—Lady
Edith Chilton of Chilton Park, Somersetshire, and
Guy Winthrop, her young brother’s handsome tutor,
who had just been singing at her request, the
touching lines written in commemoration of Catlett’s
love for the hapless Queen of Scots.</p>
<p>A sudden gleam of anger in her azure eyes reminded
him of summer lightning in evening skies.</p>
<p>“At least you are very ungracious,” she said,
petulantly; “you refuse out of mere perversity to
sing that song for me, although you know I am
not clever in singing, and have to learn after others
like a parrot.”</p>
<p>An amused smile curved Guy Winthrop’s handsome
mouth at her girlish pique.</p>
<p>“Pardon me, Lady Edith, but, to quote the compliments
of your lordly admirers, you sing divinely,
and even the dullest parrot might have learned
that song during the three months in which I have
daily sung it for you!”</p>
<p>“Well, then,” she confessed, frankly, “I like the
song and like to hear you sing it. I regret that I
have asked you to sing it once too often.”</p>
<p>“Once too often!” the young man rose to his
feet, speaking impetuously, forgetting all restraint
“Twice too often, twenty times too often for my
peace of mind, Lady Edith, and you know it! You
know as well as I that Catlett cherished no more
hopeless love for beauteous Mary Stuart than I for
you. Nay, start not—your brother’s humble tutor
presumes not too much! He but tells you what you
deserve to hear! Lady Edith, you knew when you
asked me to teach you to sing, when you stood at
my side in the pride of your high-born beauty and
mingled your heavenly voice with mine, what the
end must be! Perhaps you planned it all, you fair
coquette!”</p>
<p>“Hush!” she cried, indignantly, but he went on,
bitterly:</p>
<p>“You knew while I sung that song that it was
but the expression of my love for you, that the heart
throbbing bitterly below, lent its passion to the
voice. There was your triumph, trifler with human
hearts! Not content with your higher lovers, you
bent from your loftly sphere to ensnare an humble
heart—one weak enough to own your charms, but
too lowly even to dare to hope!”</p>
<p>She stood still, confused, surprised, unable to
speak one word in self-defense, her color rising and
falling by turns, her lips half parted, the pale winter
sunshine glinting through the stained-glass window
crowning her golden head like a halo, making her
seem not like a “trifler with human hearts,” but
some fair saint or angel.</p>
<p>And ere she could recover herself, Guy Winthrop
bowed with cold deference and withdrew.</p>
<p>Springing to the window, half-hidden behind the
rich lace curtain, she watched the tall, straight
figure striding swiftly down the elm avenue.</p>
<p>Something—perhaps it was the red evening light
shining on a waste of snow, or perhaps a tear—blurred
the outlines of the fair winter landscape,
and, sighing, she turned away.</p>
<p>“Poor and proud!” faltered in a soft undertone
from her lips. “Why, he has nothing in the world
but his profession, yet he talks to me like a prince
royal, upbraids me with my coquetry, and leaves
me with cold disdain! Ah, my haughty lover, did
you but know”—then she started and bit her lip
as if not even to solitude would she whisper the
secret trembling on that coral portal.</p>
<p>“So the Minstrel’s Curse is like to be fulfilled
again,” said a mocking voice behind her.</p>
<p>She turned with a start, the rosy color flooding
cheek and throat, but it was only old Katharine,
her nurse, who was almost a century old, and in
her dotage.</p>
<p>There she sat, curled cozily behind the curtain
that draped that odd little bay-window, and she
had heard every word Guy Winthrop uttered.</p>
<p>Lady Edith paled with indignation.</p>
<p>“How came you there? How dared you listen?”
she cried, and rushed away in a pet.</p>
<p>Old Katharine hobbled slowly after her mistress,
and found her sobbing on her silken couch.</p>
<p>“Don’t cry, that’s a dearie,” she whispered,
smoothing the silken curls with a tender hand.
“Old Kathie didn’t mean to make her bairn angry.
She only feared the curse would fall again. She
hid herself in the window to see for herself, and
she <i>has</i> seen—alas, alas!” the old creature moaned
half deliriously, rocking her body to and fro.</p>
<p>“What curse is it you’re talking of, Katharine?”
sobbed Edith in a sort of awe.</p>
<p>“The Minstrel’s Curse, to be sure,” answered
Katharine, between intervals of her rocking. “It’s
never been told you, child. Pity it hadn’t. It
might have been better for the poor young man.”</p>
<p>“Well, tell me about it now,” exclaimed the imperious
young beauty. She loved to hear the old
crone’s tales of the past, and settling herself among
her silken pillows, she prepared to enjoy some marvelous
story.</p>
<p>“Tell me, then, first,” said old Katharine, seriously—“you
love the young man with the handsome
dark eyes and the voice of music, do you not,
my pet?”</p>
<p>A little storm of blushing denial answered her,
but the protest was all in vain. The old nurse had
seen three generations of fair Chilton dames bloom
and fade. She paid no heed to the angry remonstrance,
but looking in her nurseling’s eyes, read
the secret in her heart.</p>
<p>“Ah, I knew it!” she sighed. “I knew it; but
you must crush that love out of your heart, my
child. It is his doom—his death. Better if you
hated him.”</p>
<p>“Katharine,” cried her young mistress, growing
suddenly white and chill, “cease this foolish driveling
at once, and tell me what you mean by the
Minstrel’s Curse.”</p>
<p>“I will then,” muttered the old nurse, crouching
down on the floor beside the couch.</p>
<p>“Go on,” said her young mistress, almost sternly
in her impatience.</p>
<p>“Almost two centuries ago,” said Katherine,
“when the Chiltons were richer and more powerful
than they are to-day, and before English minstrelsy
was on the wane, there was a Lady Edith Chilton
as fair and sweet as yourself. Her portrait hangs
in the gallery now, and you have her sweet blue
eyes, her golden hair, her lovely face. The Chiltons
were a proud race; proud of their long line of ancestry,
proud of their blue blood, and their sovereign’s
favor. But the men of the race were as cruel
and harsh as the women were fair and loving. It
was the fashion then for all the fair ladies of the
court to have a minstrel attached to the household
to beguile the idle hours with songs and improvisations.
Lady Edith followed the fashion and had
a favorite minstrel, too, one Douglas North. He
was of gentle blood, handsome, brave, and chivalrous.
My Lady Edith, was a flirt in her day. She
angled for the young minstrel’s heart, meaning to
play with it a moment, then cast it aside like a
broken toy. But in the meanwhile she lost her own,
and when they found it out they made a precious
pair of lovers, you may be sure, and she persuaded
Douglas North to ask her father for her hand in
marriage. Well, my lady, to make the story as
short as possible, the youth was murdered among
those proud, lawless Chiltons. They blamed him
for it all, never said a word to her, but shut him up
in a lonely tower, and one night he was secretly
taken out, and made way with. One of the castle
retainers told afterward a story of how young Douglas
sat up until after midnight improvising and
playing sad tunes upon his harp up in the lonely
tower. The last song he sung the old servitor remembered,
and long afterward it was printed in a
book of Chilton legends and has come down to us
as ‘The Minstrel’s Curse.’”</p>
<p>“And the curse? What was it?” breathed the
young girl eagerly.</p>
<p>“I’ll get the book and show you,” answered
Katharine, hobbling out of the room. When she
tottered back with the antique volume, Lady Edith
eagerly turned the musty, yellow pages. She looked
eagerly at the date. It was more than a hundred
years old—a book of traditions and stories of
the great Chilton race.</p>
<p>“Oh, Kathie, you should have shown me this
long ago,” she began, reproachfully, and just then
her fascinated gaze lighted upon:</p>
<p>“<span class="smcap">The Minstrel’s Curse!</span></p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“The minstrel’s curse be on the love</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Of all who bear the Chilton name</div>
<div class="verse indent1">Long after he shall sleep in death,</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Who, blameless, bore their blame.</div>
<div class="verse indent1">A Chilton maiden ne’er shall love</div>
<div class="verse indent3">A man of low degree,</div>
<div class="verse indent1">But she shall bring on him the doom</div>
<div class="verse indent3">That one has brought on me.</div>
<div class="verse indent1">Until there meet in future years</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Some Chilton of <i>her</i> name,</div>
<div class="verse indent1">And some proud branch of my own blood</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Who knows not whence he came,</div>
<div class="verse indent1">But bears the name that now I bear—</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Douglas the True—and she</div>
<div class="verse indent1">Is named for my lost Edith—</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Edith, so dear to me—</div>
<div class="verse indent1">When these shall meet, and, meeting, wed,</div>
<div class="verse indent3">The minstrel’s curse has died,</div>
<div class="verse indent1">And Douglas and his love shall know</div>
<div class="verse indent3">The bliss I was denied!”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>Lady Edith read these singular lines over twice
before she turned her inquiring gaze on old Katharine.
The nurse nodded, gravely.</p>
<p>“You see how it is, my lady. You dare not love
‘a man of low degree,’ for the curse of Douglas
North, the murdered minstrel, always comes upon
every such man that the ladies of Chilton have
doomed with their love. They have all died, one
after another, strange, unnatural deaths; and this
young singer you love will die, too, if you do not
in mercy to him forget your fancy for his handsome
face and sweet voice.”</p>
<p>“Nonsense!” cried Lady Edith; but she was
still pale, and her voice trembled. There was a
vein of superstition in her nature that she could
not overcome. It had descended to her along with
the blue blood that flowed in her veins. Then a
gleam of hope brightened her eyes as she continued:
“You forget, Katharine, that my name is Edith, and
the curse says expressly, that when the lady’s
name is Edith the curse is ended.”</p>
<p>“It says no such thing,” the privileged old nurse
answered flatly. “It says when her name is Edith,
and he is a descendant of the Norths’, and named
Douglas, the doom is ended—not before. And now
I have warned you! If you keep on loving this
Guy Winthrop, with his sweet voice, and his ‘low
degree,’ you love him to his doom and to his
death.”</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_II"><i>PART II.</i></h2>
</div>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“The <i>curse</i> is come upon me!” cried</div>
<div class="verse indent1">The lady of Shalott.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="sig">
—<i>Tennyson.</i><br>
</p>
<p>Lady Edith tried to banish the memory of her
eventful day in the gayety and splendor of the masquerade
ball she attended that night. In vain, for,
strangely enough, it seemed to her excited fancy,
she had not been in the rooms more than an hour
before a black domino in the costume of a minstrel
of the Fifteenth Century approached her and
begged for the honor of a promenade with the
“beauteous Mary.”</p>
<p>Lady Edith, in the superb costume of the lovely
Mary, Queen of Scots, and looking magnificently
grand, bowed with queenly dignity, and placing
her white-gloved hand on the minstrel’s arm, moved
on with him among the throng of revelers.</p>
<p>Who was he, she wondered. His face was so
shrouded in his mask that she could not guess his
identity, and his voice sounded unfamiliar. Yet,
as she leaned upon his arm a sweet sense of restfulness
and peace crept over her such as she had
never known before, and a quick thought of Guy
Winthrop thrilled her, only to be dispelled with a
shuddering sigh at the memory of Nurse Katherine’s
warning.</p>
<p>“You tremble,” murmured her stately companion,
in deep musical tones. “What earthly emotion
can have power to disturb the serenity of a
crowned forehead?”</p>
<p>“A woman’s heart is the same, whether born to
the russet or the purple,” she answered lowly, and
almost, it seemed to her, without volition of her
own.</p>
<p>“I should like to believe it,” the minstrel answered,
simply.</p>
<p>The queen asked lightly:</p>
<p>“Have any of my fair subjects given you cause
to doubt my assertion? If so, you have but to
speak—and I punish!”</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound.’”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>“You have no proof that your assertion applies
to me,” the queen replied tremblingly.</p>
<p>“Your pardon, my liege, but:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“‘Your heart is a snowdrift where foot never trod,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Love’s sun has not wakened a bud on its sod.’”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>A laugh rippled sweetly over her lips, like the
soft music of a little stream dashing over rocks and
pebbles.</p>
<p>“How do you know that?” she queried.</p>
<p>“Because I know you! You are glorious as
Mary, Queen of Scots, but not less lovely as Edith,
Queen of Hearts!”</p>
<p>She gave a violent start, then, tossing her head,
tried to rectify the unconscious admittal that he
had penetrated her mask.</p>
<p>“I think you mistake,” she said lightly. “But
you show me your secret ‘as a bird betrays its nest
by striving to conceal it.’ So you love some cruel,
fair maid whose name is Edith?”</p>
<p>“<i>Edith!</i>”—he repeated it after her, in almost a
passion of pain, “I have never dared call her so—she
is as far above me as yonder star.” He paused
at an open window and lifted his hand to a glorious
planet glittering in mid heaven. “Ah, Mary, ah,
my queen! ‘Hadst thou been less than thou art!’”</p>
<p>“Guy Winthrop!” broke wildly from her parted
lips.</p>
<p>“Your majesty!” he straightened his fine form,
and made a deprecatory movement with his white
hand. “It seems that we have mutually mistaken
each other for a different person. But suppose—remember,
I only say suppose—that you were really
the Edith whom I love, and I the Guy you
named—what do you think they would say to each
other? For instance now, what would Guy say to
Edith? What do you think he would say, I
mean?”</p>
<p>A sudden daring spirit, inherent in the grand old
Chilton blood, leaped to her lips, and before she
could think twice, she had uttered these words:</p>
<p>“He would say, ‘Edith, my darling, I love you!’”</p>
<p>The arm she leaned on trembled with the fierce
throb of his heart.</p>
<p>“And what would Edith say?” he asked her, in
low, unsteady tones.</p>
<p>“What would you like her to say?”—coquettishly.</p>
<p>“I should like to have her say, ‘Guy, I love you,
and am yours forever!’ But what do you think she
would say?”</p>
<p>Low and tenderly she whispered:</p>
<p>“Guy, I love you, and am yours forever!”</p>
<p>At that moment a fine courtier pushed in between
the pair.</p>
<p>“Your majesty, your fair hand was promised me
for this dance,” he reminded her; and with a slight,
imperial bow to the young minstrel, the Queen of
Scots swept away on the arm of her partner.</p>
<p>And then a great horror of remorse struck coldly
to her heart. Oh, what had she done? Betrayed
her heart to the man who loved her so well, but
whom to love in return was to doom to a cruel
death. Oh, horror of horrors!</p>
<p>The lights danced before her, the ballroom
whirled around in a fantastic measure, the sea of
faces grew dim and faded. She gasped for air,
threw up her arms with a feeling of suffocation,
and fell back fainting. The handsome courtier
caught her in his arms and bore her to the door.</p>
<p>“Give her to me. She is <i>mine</i>!” cried a passionate
voice; and the strong arms of the minstrel took
her forcibly from the other’s clasp. Presently,
with a weary sigh, she drifted back to life.</p>
<p>“The dressing-room,” she murmured, and the
minstrel’s arm was again at her service. He left
her with her maid, and mingled, as before, with
the crowd.</p>
<p>“A word with you, Sir Poet,” said a stern voice
in his ear.</p>
<p>It was the jeweled courtier. His eyes burned
balefully beneath his mask.</p>
<p>“You forcibly took Mary Stuart from my arms—an
insult for which I demand instant satisfaction.”</p>
<p>Two fiery spirits confronted each other in the
wide grounds the next moment, two swords leaped
from their scabbards, and two men struck at each
other with vengeful fury.</p>
<p>The silver moon looked down on a scene of strife
and bloodshed, and presently on a still form
bathed in gore, around which a crowd was gathering,
shouting, gesticulating, uttering all sorts of
frenzied cries, while some struck out in hot haste
after the murderer who had thrown away his sword
and rushed headlong from the scene of his dastardly
crime.</p>
<p>Presently, through the moving throng of excited
maskers rushed the form of a beautiful woman.
She flung herself on her knees by the dead man and
tore the shrouding mask from his face.</p>
<p>As the moonlight fell on the closed eyes and pallid,
handsome face, the Queen of Scots uttered a
cry of sharp despair.</p>
<p>“The curse, oh, God! the curse! It is I—it is I
who have killed him!”</p>
<p>Some one lifted the swooning form away, some
one else knelt there by the still form and felt for
the heart.</p>
<p>“He is not dead,” proclaimed the authoritative
voice of a physician. “Let a litter be brought immediately
and we will carry him into the house.”</p>
<p>The ball broke up in confusion as the wounded
man was taken into Lady Heathcote’s house, and a
stream of carriages marked the departure of the
guests. In one of them was the weeping Lady
Edith, attended by her uncle, who was also her
guardian.</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_III"><i>PART III.</i></h2>
</div>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“Alas! it’s far from russet frieze</div>
<div class="verse indent3">To silks and satin gowns,</div>
<div class="verse indent1">But I doubt if God made like degrees</div>
<div class="verse indent3">In courtly hearts and clowns;</div>
<div class="verse indent1">Yet homely hose must step apart</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Where gartered princes stand;</div>
<div class="verse indent1">Ah, may he wear my love at heart</div>
<div class="verse indent3">That wins her lily hand!”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="sig">
—<i>Hood.</i><br>
</p>
<p>“Well, I warned you,” said old Katharine, “but
you would not heed an old crone’s tale. I warned
your grandmother before you, but she would not
listen, and there was the young squire of Elmdale
broke his heart and died for love of her, and she
knowing all the time that she caused it all by her
unwise love of him. Oh, I’ve no patience with
these willful Chiltons! But I’m getting on, thank
the Lord! I won’t live to see your unborn children,
my lady, driving thoughtless men to their
death.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Kathie, how wicked and cruel you are!”
sobbed Lady Edith.</p>
<p>Lady Edith lifted a warm, white face from the
pillow and looked at old Katharine with heavy
eyes full of pain and remorse. The long wretched
night had worn away, and the old nurse was opening
the blinds, letting in the morning sunshine. It
glowed through the rosy silk of the curtains, and
made Edith’s face look terribly pale and sad in its
dim light. She had not slept all night, and she
looked as conscience-stricken and remorseful as
her nurse could possibly desire.</p>
<p>“Don’t think I’m not sorry for you, dearie,”
soothed the old crone. “But I’m grieved for the
manly young fellow—yester eve so full of
life and love and health—to-day another victim to
the dreadful curse that has come down to us from
barbarous times to blight the innocent and unoffending.”</p>
<p>Lady Edith bowed her head in a passion of
tears.</p>
<p>“Oh,” she sobbed. “I never knew the truth
until it was too late, too late! Guy, Guy, I would
have given my life to have saved yours!” she cried
in a passion of impotent despair.</p>
<p>Old Katharine took the slight form into her motherly
arms, and let Edith sob on until the rest of
exhaustion stole over her, and, too weak for tears
or cries, she lay still, with her violet eyes fixed on
vacancy, and a frozen calm, more terrible than
tears, on her lovely face.</p>
<p>Presently the kind old face of the earl, her uncle
and guardian, looked in upon his petted darling.</p>
<p>“Dear uncle, you—have—news! Speak, but do
not tell me that—that—he is dead!” she cried, with
trembling lips.</p>
<p>“Tut, no, of course he is not dead, my love;
but——” He broke off and looked distressfully at
her pale face.</p>
<p>“Speak!” she cried, almost imperiously in her
impatience.</p>
<p>“Yes, I have news,” he said. “Eustace and I
went to Lady Heathcote’s this morning to see the
poor fellow, and she told us that it had been discovered
that Guy was not mortally wounded—a flesh
wound, deep, but not necessarily fatal, but——”
He paused and regarded her curiously.</p>
<p>“Poor darling, how badly she looks! Yet I never
suspected before that she and her brother’s handsome
tutor were in love with each other,” he
thought.</p>
<p>“Dear uncle, please go on,” she exclaimed, eagerly.</p>
<p>“Oh, yes. Where was I when I stopped to think?
Yes, Lady Heathcote told us that this morning, at
daybreak, a conveyance was sent for Mr. Winthrop.
An old gentleman was in it who claimed to be a
relative of the young man. He insisted on taking
the wounded man away, and as no one had the
authority to prevent him, he did so.”</p>
<p>“And you followed?” she asked.</p>
<p>“No, for he left no address, saying bitterly that
the young fellow had no friends to mourn for him.
That is all I have to tell you, Edith.”</p>
<p>“But Guy will certainly send and let Eustace
know where he is, uncle, do you not think so?”</p>
<p>Lord Chilton looked relieved at her brightening
face.</p>
<p>“Certainly, undoubtedly, to-day or to-morrow,”
he replied, cheerily. “Keep up your heart, little
one. I will go now and send your brother to sit
with you this morning if indeed he can tear himself
away from the library, dry book-worm that he
is. By-by, dear.”</p>
<p>He kissed her, smoothed her fair curls lovingly,
and went out.</p>
<p>Presently came Eustace—pale, studious, quiet—a
handsome pair they made—he was twenty, she
eighteen.</p>
<p>Edith leaned her head on his shoulder and wept
softly. Poor Eustace, he hardly knew how to
soothe a girl’s grief. He was shy and quiet, his
thoughts were up among the stars. He meant to be
a great scholar. But he smoothed her hair and said,
tenderly:</p>
<p>“Don’t cry, sis, Guy will be sure to let us hear
from him soon, and I hope he will soon get well. I
didn’t know you loved each other, dear, but I’m not
sorry it’s so, and uncle and I sha’n’t oppose your
marriage. I don’t hold with so much nonsense
about rank and blue blood. A scholar is as good
as a man of rank, and Guy Winthrop is one of
the greatest scholars of his time.”</p>
<p>But between tears and blushes Lady Edith whispered
the story of old Katharine’s story—the minstrel’s
curse that must part her from her lover, and
cause his death, Lord Eustace laughed the old
tradition to scorn.</p>
<p>“Nonsense,” he said, lightly. “There’s nothing
in it, and when Guy comes back to us alive and
well, you’ll forget old Katharine’s superstitions in
your new-found happiness.”</p>
<p>“Yes, when he comes back,” croaked the old
nurse, entering, and catching the sentence. “But
he hasn’t come back yet.”</p>
<p>The longest day of Edith’s life dragged wearily
to its close.</p>
<p>And still no word from Guy. The suspense grew
almost unendurable.</p>
<p>After dinner she threw a long wrap over her white
dress, and walked alone in the garden.</p>
<p>Twilight had fallen long ago, and the air was
chilly. Lady Edith walked briskly up and down
the elm avenue, thinking, thinking, till her brain
seemed on fire. Was it only yesterday he had
told her how he loved her? How long ago it
seemed. Perhaps he was dead now. The dark eyes
would never look into hers again. A stifled sob
escaped her lips.</p>
<p>Hark! a footstep. Through the gloom a man
came toward her with uncovered head, mutely
respectful. He bore a note which she deciphered
hurriedly in the moonlight. Oh, heavens! what
cruel, cruel words to be signed with her lover’s
name!</p>
<p>“Edith, I am dying, they tell me. Will you
come to me with Eustace?</p>
<p class="sig">
<span class="smcap">Guy.</span>”<br>
</p>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_IV"><i>PART IV.</i></h2>
</div>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">Oh, linger by my side to-night,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The hour will soon be past</div>
<div class="verse indent0">When I shall turn and gaze again</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To look on thee my last.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="sig">
—<i>Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller.</i><br>
</p>
<p>The shaded night-lamp glimmered softly in the
large, oak-paneled room where the recumbent
form of a man lay extended on a large, old-fashioned
bed. Heavy curtains of crimson damask
were pushed back over the gilded canopy, and
brought out in pale relief the white, pain-drawn
face of the sufferer. The physician stood by with
finger on the sick man’s wrist. An old man and
his elderly wife were the only other occupants of
the room.</p>
<p>Presently the door swung lightly ajar, and the
faint light shone on the faces of Lady Edith and
her brother as they crossed the room to the bedside.</p>
<p>Poor Edith! She threw out her hands with a
smothered moan of despair, and the heavy cloak
fell from her shoulders, revealing her exquisite
dinner gown of white lace. Priceless pearls gleamed
on her neck, and her wealth of golden ringlets fell
around her in sad beauty as she bent over her
lover.</p>
<p>“Edith, dear Edith, I am glad you have come in
time,” he whispered, faintly. “Tell her, Uncle
Jamie, before it is too late. But place her chair
close by my side. Let me see her now all the while
until the last.”</p>
<p>They obeyed his wish, and Edith sitting still,
with her hand clasped in the weak one of her lover,
listened to a story told in the quivering voice of
the old man—a story of wrong and treachery to the
dead and to the living—a wrong done to a brother’s
orphan heir and repented of, alas! too late.</p>
<p>“I deserted the infant boy—put him in a foundling
asylum without a name. His father had been
a wealthy man, and I wanted the child’s fortune.
So I announced that the little Douglas was dead,
and there being no near relatives to inquire into its
fate, my scheme succeeded well. My wife and I
have enjoyed our ill-gotten gains for twenty-five
years, but we always kept cognizant of my nephew’s
whereabouts, meaning when we died to right
the cruel wrong we had done to the orphan boy.
Alas, alas!” moaned the old man in futile sorrow.</p>
<p>“Leave us now,” said the weak voice from the
bed, and the old man moved away, leaving Edith
alone by the side of the beloved one drifting away
from her so swiftly out on the shoreless waters of
Eternity.</p>
<p>She bent over him, brushing the dark curls back
from his white brow, a world of love in her tender
eyes.</p>
<p>The clasp of his hand tightened on hers, and he
murmured:</p>
<p>“My darling, I have so much to tell you. They
have told me such strange things to-day. Have
you ever heard that strange tradition of the Chilton
race—the Minstrel’s Curse?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she sobbed. “But, my own dear love, I
pray you forgive me the doom I have brought upon
you. Never until yesterday, was I told that strange
story—yesterday when it was all too late.”</p>
<p>Oh, the love and sorrow in the sad dark eyes
looking into hers, they almost broke her heart.</p>
<p>“Oh, my own love, how could I blame you?”
whispered the dying man, “I would have given my
life at any moment to win your heart. And it is
mine, although I must leave you soon, for the doctor
has told me, I cannot live until to-morrow’s
sunset.”</p>
<p>“Oh, no, no, no!” she sobbed, bitterly.</p>
<p>“Be calm, Edith, for I have such good news for
you. I, your beloved, have it in my power to end
the curse that has darkened the lives of so many
fair women of the Chilton race. Do you guess
how?”</p>
<p>She shook her golden head, gazing at him with
dilated blue eyes.</p>
<p>Smiling faintly at her wonder, he continued:</p>
<p>“I want you to become my wife for the few
hours I have to live. Will you, Edith?”</p>
<p>It was too solemn an hour for girlish coquetry.
Edith gave him a frank, sweet assent, and sealed
it with a tender kiss.</p>
<p>There was silence for awhile—the eloquent silence
of love—between them; then he spoke again:</p>
<p>“But you have not asked me, Edith, how I have
power to end the Minstrel’s Curse. Listen, dear. It
is to be accomplished by your marriage with me.”</p>
<p>“I do not understand,” Lady Edith answered,
with puzzled eyes.</p>
<p>“It is this way, my darling. You are the namesake
and descendant of Lady Edith, the minstrel’s
beautiful love of two centuries ago, and I am
really and truly a descendant of the only brother
of the minstrel, and namesake of——”</p>
<p>“Douglas North!” she cried, in startled tones.</p>
<p>“Yes, Edith, and ‘knew it not’ until to-day,
when my uncle’s grief and repentance at my untimely
end caused him to confess the truth to me.
And ‘unknowing whence I came,’ I loved you,
dearest, so it only remains for us to wed to fulfill
the last clause of the doomed minstrel’s weird
prophecy.”</p>
<p>“Not the last,” she wept, sadly. “They were
to be happy, you know.”</p>
<p>“And shall we not be happy, dearest? You on
earth rejoicing that you have delivered future
generations of the great Chilton race from that
dread curse, and I—happy”—his voice broke
slightly—“in heaven.”</p>
<p>Lord Eustace came over to them, grave, tender,
thoughtful.</p>
<p>“They have told me everything, my poor Douglas;”
he bent compassionately over the sufferer.
“The earl will give his consent, I know. I am
going to him now. I will leave my sister to nurse
you.”</p>
<p>The earl did not refuse, you may be sure, and the
next morning there was a quiet, solemn marriage
in the sick-room, where Lady Edith Chilton gave
heart and hand to Douglas North, and so ended the
Minstrel’s Curse. Old Katharine was there, weeping
for blended joy and sorrow—joy that the curse
was void forever, sorrow that bonny Douglas North
must die and leave his young bride desolate.</p>
<p>But physicians are not always infallible, or perhaps
love has some potent power that can conquer
death.</p>
<p>Douglas North did not die of the wound he had
received from the unknown courtier. I will show
you one more picture of his life ere I write that solemn
word, the End.</p>
<p>It is almost the same picture you saw in the beginning.
He is sitting with Lady Edith at the
grand piano in the Chilton drawing room, his fingers
wandering softly over the pearl keys. He has
inherited, not only the name but the musical talent
of his ancestor, Douglas North. He looks very
handsome, very distinguished to the fair young wife
by his side.</p>
<p>How lovely she is, with her golden tresses floating
over her white robe like a halo of light!</p>
<p>He looks at her in passionate admiration.</p>
<p>“My darling, you are beautiful as an angel!”
he says.</p>
<p>“Did I ever!” cries a shocked voice, and old
Katharine, passing by, shakes her head at the married
lovers. “Mr. Douglas North, that’s simple
profanity, calling your wife an angel. You’ll be
punished for it,” she said.</p>
<p>Lady Edith’s sweet, ringing laugh woke all the
echoes in the long, magnificent room.</p>
<p>“Nurse Kathie will never be anything but a
croaker,” she says.</p>
<p>“Giddy children, silly children!” responds the
old crone, passing out.</p>
<p>Lord Eustace enters with his usual companion, a
book, his fine, scholarly face lighted up with pleasure.</p>
<p>“Katharine has made me a present,” he said,
showing an old moth-eaten volume. “Here, it is—full
of marvelous traditions of the Chilton race,
and last but not least, The Ministrel’s Curse.”</p>
<p>Lady Edith shuddered at the words, but Douglas
North took the book and read the quaint verses
with deep interest.</p>
<p>“‘And Douglas and his love shall know the bliss
I was denied,’” he repeats, in a musing tone.
“Well, Edith the prophecy comes true. We are indeed
blest,” and he returns the volume to its proud
owner with a sigh to the memory of his fated ancestor
and the lovely lady whom he loved. “By
the way,” he added, “I have never heard what became
of that fair Lady Edith.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” says Lord Eustace, “she married an earl,
as this musty chronicle relates; but it says, also,
that she died three years after of a broken heart.”</p>
<p>“Eustace,” calls his uncle’s voice in the hall,
“here is that box of new books you ordered from
London.”</p>
<p>The book-worm rushes out in eager haste, and
Douglas, drawing his wife to his heart, kisses off
the dew of tears from her lashes.</p>
<p>“They are at rest after their blighted life,” he
whispers, reverently.</p>
<p>“Sing for me, Douglas dear. Sing something
sad, and sweet, and tender.”</p>
<p>A smile, half-sad, half-mischievous, dawned in
his dark eyes as he touched the keys with skillful
fingers, and sang with his heart in his voice the
last verse of that sweet love song, over which he and
Lady Edith had quarreled when we first saw them:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent0">“When, Mary, thy love is at rest.</div>
<div class="verse indent3">His harp all unstrung in thy bowers;</div>
<div class="verse indent1">And others like him, but more blest,</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Shall seek to beguile thy lone hours,</div>
<div class="verse indent1">Thou wilt think of the days of lang syne,</div>
<div class="verse indent3">When Holyrood echoed the strain;</div>
<div class="verse indent1">And your voice sweetly mingled with mine</div>
<div class="verse indent3">As it never shall mingle again!”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
<div class="transnote">
<div class="chapter">
<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes:</h2>
</div>
<p>This story was originally serialized in Norman L. Munro’s <i>New York Family
Story Paper</i>, volume XIX, numbers 952-955 (January 2-23, 1892).</p>
<p>A table of contents has been added by the transcriber and placed in the
public domain.</p>
<p>Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
</p>
</div>
<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74635 ***</div>
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