1 late. We bring an acceptable present: we bring Ronald of the Perfect Hand." Thus they. sang in the boat, labouring all the while with the winds and waves, but surer now than ever of reaching the shore. And' they did's so, by the first light of the morning. When they came to the circle of sacred stones, from which the island took it's name, they placed their late conqueror by the largest, and kindled a fire in the middle. The warm smoke rose thickly against the cold white morning. "Let 1 me be offered up to your gods," said Ronald, "like a man, by the sword; and not like food, by the fire." We know all," answered the priests: " be thou silent." "Treat not him," said Ronald," who spared your prince, unworthily. If he must be sacrificed, let him die as your prince would have died by this hand." Still they answered nothing, but "We know all: be thou silent." Ronald could not help witnessing these preparations for a new and unexpected death with an emotion of terror; but disdain and despair were uppermost. Once, and but once, his cheek turned deadly pale in thinking of Moilena. He shifted his posture resolutely, and thought of the spirits of the dead whom he was about to join. The priests then encircled the fire and the stone at which he stood, with another devoting song; and Ronald looked earnestly at the ruddy flames, which gave to his cold body, as in mockery, a kindly warmth. The priests however did not lay hands on him. They respected the sparer of their prince so far as not to touch him themselves; they left him to be dispatched by the supernatural beings, whom they confidently expected to come down for that purpose as soon as they had retired. N Ronald, whose faith was of another description, saw their departure with joy; but it was dampell the next minute. What was he to dolin winter-time on an island, inhabited only by the amphibious creatures of the northern sea, and never touched at but for a purpose hostile to his hopes? For he now recollected, that this was the island he had so often heard of, as the chief seat of the Scandinavian religion; whose traditions had so influenced countries of a different faith, that it was believed in Scotland as well as the continent, that no human being could live there many hours. Spirits, it was thought, appeared in terrible superhuman shapes, like the bloody idols which the priests worshipped; and carried him off til: 7 sinuit mont -The warrior of Inistore had soon too much reason to know the extent of this belief. He was not without fear himself, but disdained to yield to any circumstances without a struggle. He refreshed himself withi some snow-water; and after climbing the highest part of the island to look for a boat in vain (nothing was to be seen but the waves tumbling on all sides after the storm) he instantly set about preparing a habitation. He saw at a little distance, on a slope, the mouth of a rocky cave This he destined for his shelter at night; and looking round for a defence for the door, as he knew not whether bears might not be among the inhas bitants, he cast his eyes upon the thinnest of the stones which stood upright about the fire. The heart of the warrior, though of a different faith, misgaves him as he thought of appropriating this mystical stone, carved full of strange figures; but half in courage, and half in the very despair of fear, he suddenly twisted it from it's place. No one appeared. The fire altered not. The noise of the fowl and other creatures was no louder on the shore. Ronald smiled at his fears, and knew the undiminished vigour of the Perfect Hand. He found the cavern already fitted for shelter; doubtless by the Scandinavian priests He had bitter reason to know how well it sheltered him; for day after day he hoped in vain that some boat from Inistore would venture upon the island. He beheld sails at a distance, but they never came. He piled stone upon stone, joined old pieces of boats together, and made flags of the sea-weed; but all in vain. The vessels, he thought, came nearer, but none so near as to be of use; and a new and sickly kind of impatience cut across the stout heart of Ronald, and set it beating. He knew not whether it was with the cold or with misery, but his frame would shake for an hour together, when he lay down on his dried weeds and feathers to rest. He remembered the happy sleeps that used to follow upon toil; and he looked with double activity for the eggs and shell-fish on which he sustained himself, and smote double the number of seals, half in the very exercise of his anger: and then he would fall dead asleep with fatigue. In this way he bore up against the violences of the winter season, which had now past. The sun looked out with a melancholy smile upon the moss and the poor grass, checquered here and there with flowers almost as poor. There was the buttercup, struggling from a dirty white into a yellow; and a faint-coloured poppy, neither the good nor the ill of which was then known; and here and there by the thorny underwood a shrinking violet. The lark alone seemed chearful, and startled the ear of the desolate chieftain with it's climbing triumph in the air. Ronald looked up. His fancy had been made wild and wilful by strange habits and sickened blood; and he thought impatiently, that if he were up there like the lark, he might see his friends and his love in Inistore. Being naturally however of a gentle as well as courageous disposition, the Perfect Hand found the advantage as well as necessity of turning his violent impulses into noble matter for patience. He had heard of the dreadful bodily sufferings which the Scandinavian heroes underwent from their enemies with triumphant songs. He knew that no such sufferings, which were fugitive, could equal the agonies of a daily martyrdom of mind; and he cultivated a certain humane pride of patience, in order to bear them. His only hope of being delivered from the island now depended on the Scandinavian priests; but it was a moot point whether they would respect him for surviving, or kill him on that very account, out of a mixture of personal and superstitious resentment. He thought his death the more likely; but this at least was a termination to the dreary prospect of a solitude for life; and partly out of that hope, and partly from a courageous patience, he produced as many pleasant thoughts and objects about him as he could. He adorned his cavern with shells and feathers; he made himself a cap and cloak of the latter, and boots and a vest of seal-skin, girding it about with the glossy sea-weed; he cleared away a circle before the cavern, planted it with the best grass, and heaped about it the mossiest stones: he strung some bones of a fish with sinews, and fitting a shell beneath it, the Perfect Hand drew forth the first gentle music that had ever been heard in that wild island. He touched it one day in the midst of a flock of seals, who were basking in the sun; they turned their heads towards the sound; he thought he saw in their mild faces a human expression; and from that day forth no seal was ever slain by the Perfect Hand. He spared even the huge and cloudy-visaged walrusses, in whose societies he beheld a dull resemblance to the gentler affections; and his new intimacy with these possessors of the place was completed by one of the former animals, who having been rescued by him from a contest with a larger one, followed him about, as well as it's half-formed and dragging legs would allow, with the officious attachment of a dog. But the summer was gone and no one had appeared. The new thoughts, and deeper insight into things, which solitude and sorrowful necessity had produced, together with a diminution of his activity, had not tended to strengthen him against the approach of winter; and autumn came upon him like the melancholy twilight of the year. He had now no hope of seeing even the finishers of his existence before the spring. The rising winds among the rocks and the noise of the whales blowing up the spouted water till the hollow caverns thundered with their echoes, seemed to be like heralds of the stern season which was to close him in against all approach. He had tried one day to move the stone at the mouth of his habitation a little further in, and found his strength fail him. He laid himself half reclining on the chilly ground, full of such melancholy thoughts as half bewildered him. Things by turn appeared a fierce dream and a fiercer reality. He was leaning and looking on the ground, and idly twisting his long hair, when his eyes fell upon the hand that held it. It was livid and emaciated. He opened and shut it, opened and shut it again, turned it round, and looked at it's ribbed thinness and laid-open machinery; many thoughts came upon him, which he understood not, and some which he recognized but too well; and a turbid violence seemed rising at his heart, when the seal his companion drew nigh, and began licking that weak memorial of the Perfect Hand. A shower of self-pitying tears fell upon the seal's face and the hand together. some On a sudden, he heard a voice. It was a deep and loud one, and distinctly called out, Ronald! He looked up, gasping with wonder. Three times it called out, as if with peremptory command; and three times the rocks and caverns echoed the word with a dim sullenness. Recollecting himself, he would have risen and answered, but the sudden change of sensations had done what all his sufferings had not been able to do; and he found himself unable either to rise or to speak. The voice called again and again, but it was now more distant; and Ronald's heart sickened as he heard it retreating. His strength seemed to fail him in proportion as it became necessary. Suddenly the voice came back again. It advances. Other voices are heard, all advancing. In a short time, figures come hastily down the slope by the side of his cavern, looking over into the area before it as they descend. They enter. They are before him and about him. Some of them, in a Scandinavian habit, prostrate themselves at his feet, and address him in an unknown language. But these are sent away by another, who remains with none but two youths. Ronald has risen a little, and leans his back against the rock. One of the youths puts his arm between his neck and the rock, and half kneels beside him, turning his face away and weeping. "I am no god, nor a favourite of gods, as these people supposed me," said Ronald, looking up at the chief who was speaking to the other youth: if thou wilt dispatch me then, do so. I only pray thee to let the death be fit for a warrior, such as I once was." The chief appeared agitated. "Speak not ill of the gods, Ronald," said he," although thou wert blindly brought up. A warrior like thee must be a favourite of heaven. I come to prove it to thee. Dost thou not know me? I come to give thee life for life." Ronald looked more steadfastly. It was the Scandinavian prince whom he had spared, because of his bride, in battle. He smiled, and lifted up his hand to him, which was intercepted and kissed by the youth who held his arm round his neck. "Who are these fair youths?" said Ronald, half turning his head to look in his supporter's face. "This is the bride I spoke of," answered the prince," who insisted on sharing this voyage with me, and put on this dress to be the bolder in it." "And who is the other?" The other, with dried eyes, looked smiling into his, and intercepted the answer also." Who," said the sweetest voice in the world," can it be, but one?"-With a quick and almost fierce tone, Ronald cried out aloud I know the voice;" and he would have fallen flat on the earth, if they had not all three supported him.. It was a mild return to Inistore, Ronald gathering strength all the way at the eyes and voice of Moilena, and the hands of all three. Their discovery of him was easily explained. The crews of the vessels, who had been afraid to come nearer, had repeatedly seen a figure on the island making signs. The Scandinavian priests related how they had left Ronald there, but insisted that no human being could live upon it, and that some God wished to manifest himself to his faithful worshippers. The heart of Moilena was quick to guess the truth. The prince proposed to accompany the priests. His bride and the destined bride of his saviour went with him, and returned as you heard; and from that day forth many were the songs in Inistore, upon the fortunes of the Perfect Hand and the kindness of the Perfect Voice. Nor were those forgotten, who forgot not others. Orders received by the Newsmen, by the Booksellers, and by the Publisher, THE INDICATOR. There he arriving round about doth flie, SPENSER. No. XXI.-WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1st, 1820. SCENES FROM AN UNFINISHED DRAMA. THE following scenes are from a play which the Editor intended to write, and belonged to the more serious part of it. The rest he has retained for another purpose. The objects of the picce in general were to shew the character of an English gentleman in the time of Elizabeth; the manners at the same period of the Venetians, both rich and poor; and the generous struggle of a mother to suppress a passion she conceived for our countryman, who had saved her daughter from drowning. The accident, like the scheme of Pollexfen in Sir Charles Grandison, had been purposely contrived by a Venetian of darker character, Malipiero, as the only means of gaining the young lady's affection; but the Englishman was quicker to rescue her, and so threw him doubly aback. The incidents, or rather the dialogues, which took place immediately after this circumstance, occupy the scenes now laid before the reader. Vittoria and Fiammetta, the mother and daughter, are of a similar character for goodness and frankness; but the one is the more stately minded, the other sparkling and full of spirits. Candian, her granduncle, Sebastian, her brother, Molino, Contarini, and Malipiero, are Venetian gentlemen, the four first of different characters of sprightliness or warmth; the last an intelligent man like the rest, but of a violent and envious disposition. Vanni and Gregory are the servants of Candian and the Englishman. With Walter Herbert the Englishman, and indeed with most of the others, it is lucky perhaps that the author had nothing farther to do; for he intended him as one of those high and graceful spirits, in the best age of this country, who were admitted to the society of it's poets and other great men. 2nd Edition. "For valour, is not Love a Hercules?" |