Captain Kyd: The Wizard of the Sea. J. H. Ingraham

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СКАЧАТЬ Grace," said the maiden, placing a finger on her bright lips. "What will you now do, Mark, with this bird, that has cost us, through your thoughtlessness, so much anxiety and suffering?"

      "And betrayed a secret that was not quite a secret before," said the mischievous Grace.

      "Grace, prithee hist!" cried Kate, with a spice of asperity.

      "Give me the bird, peasant!" said Lester, in a tone of authority. "I will nail it on the door of the lodge at Castle More, in honour of the fair archer who shot it."

      "Here is the gentle owner," replied the youth, turning towards Kate Bellamont; and gracefully kneeling as he spoke, he gallantly laid the bird at her feet, saying,

      "Gentle archeress, deign to accept—it is the only boon I crave for my peril—this trophy of thy skill. I have obtained it for thee at the risk of life and limb, valuing neither, so that I might do thee a service, and save what I know thou wilt be proud to preserve in remembrance of this day."

      "By the cross! a forward youth! an Alfred in disguise, I would swear!" said Lester, haughtily, his quick spirit kindling at the scene. "He will be offering next, fair Kate," he added, scornfully, "to share with thee his palace of bark and poles, and his wide realm of sand and seashells. S'death! a proper peasant!" The young noble's eyes sparkled, and he paced the sward with angry impatience, as he concluded.

      Kate Bellamont was not indifferent to the tone, manner, and language with which the hawk was presented by the humble youth. She was flattered by his well-directed compliments, and pleased, without knowing why, with the deep, silent admiration with which he regarded her. Was it the language of love? His manner reminded her of Lester in his most impassioned moments of devotion; but there was in the fine face of the young fisherman a calmer, sweeter, more chastened expression; a reverence without humility; devotion without awe. Was it love? She trembled, as she thought so, and dared not a second time meet his dark-beaming eyes. The peculiar character of the expression of his face was read aright by none but herself and Lester: for only love and jealousy can translate the language of love. The light blue eyes of the young noble flashed fierce fire as he witnessed what he deemed palpable proof of his suspicions. His glance turned rapidly from the face of one to the face of the other. The expression of his maddened him; that of hers troubled and puzzled him; and he turned away, grinding his teeth with bitterness: for what is there on earth so bitter as jealousy?

      The contrast between the appearance of these two haughty young men was as great as that existing between their ranks in life. The young noble was in his eighteenth year, tall, and firmly made, with uncommon breadth and expansion of chest, which gave a striking appearance of compactness and muscular finish to his frame, that promised, in manhood, nobleness of carriage as well as great personal strength. His complexion was fair as the Saxon's; his features regular as the Greek's; but, unlike his, stamped with that union of manly grace and strength, and bold, fiery energy, supposed to be characteristic of the ancient Briton. Over his clear, high forehead fell locks of light flaxen hair of rare beauty, and shining tresses of the same pale, golden hue floated about his shoulders. His eyes were his most remarkable feature. They were large and blue, clear as light, and of a beautiful shape, glowing with intellect and sparkling with animation, and, when undisturbed, beaming with a soft and gentle expression betokening gayety of temper and lightness of spirit; but, when roused by anger, they flashed fierce fire, and seemed literally to blaze, so bright was the light they emitted. They further possessed a striking peculiarity, which so marked his angered glance that he who once encountered it never forgot it till his dying day. This was a habit, or, rather, nature had given it to him, when under the influence of angry passions, of lowering his brows down over his eyes in such a way as to destroy their fine, oval form, and give them a strange, triangular shape; and the pupil of his eyes darkening at the same time till they grew black as night, communicated to them a singularly wild and terrible expression.

      His lips were very beautiful both in form and colour; but the upper wore a haughty curl that marred the beauty of a mouth which nature had chiselled with the nicest hand. He carried himself at all times with a gallant but proud air; and his demeanour was like that of the highborn youths of his time, taught to regard all of low degree as created for their use and pleasure. His faults were those of education rather than of the heart; and, where these deeply-grafted prejudices were not attacked, he was frank, noble, and generous, and not unworthy the love of a noble maiden like Kate Bellamont. At the moment seized upon to describe his appearance, he was standing within a few feet of the young fisherman, his eyes sparkling with anger and assuming that remarkable shape which has been described, with his head and one foot advanced, and his whole attitude hostile and threatening.

      The fisher's lad, who continued kneeling for an instant at the feet of the fair archeress awaiting her acceptance of the trophy he had presented, met his dark look unmoved, and, as he thought, with a smile of proud defiance. The appearance of this bold youth, whose bearing caused the haughty Lester to question if nature had not a nobility of her own creation, was, save in his proud carriage, strikingly opposite to that of the young noble. He was about the same age, and nearly as tall, but had not such fulness in the chest, and was wanting something of his breadth of shoulders; but his figure, if lighter, was more elegant, and united great muscular activity with native dignity and ease of motion. He wore fishermen's loose trousers, with a coarse jacket of brown stuff, and was both barefooted and bareheaded. His face was exceedingly fine. It was oval in shape, with an olive complexion, still more darkened by exposure to wind and sun: now, with the glow of exercise and the magic presence of her before whom he bent, it had become of the richest brown colour. His dark hair was glossy with sea-water, and, parted naturally on his brow, fell in long raven waves adown his well-shaped neck. His eyes were dark as hers on whom he gazed, exceedingly large-orbed, and eloquent with thought and feeling.

      "What handsome eyes!" thought Grace Fitzgerald, as she gazed on them.

      "What dangerous eyes!" thought Kate.

      His eyebrows were as even and accurately arched as if pencilled; but they were redeemed from anything like effeminacy, on account of the delicacy of their outline, by the intellectual fulness of the brow. His nose was straight, and of just proportions; his mouth beautiful as a girl's, yet full of character, decision, and strength, and oftener it was the seat of dejected thought than of smiles. Its expression was generally quiet; yet the finely chiselled lips were full of spirit; and, when silent, seemed most to speak, so eloquent were the thoughts that coloured them with their ruby life. The merest movement of the upper conveyed the intensest feelings with the vivid rapidity of the lightning's flash, whether they were begotten of scorn or irony, love or hatred. His bearing, as well as his appearance, was above his station; and he manifested a haughty independence of spirit that scorned the distinctions of rank, and a pride of character that, in one of his humble grade, was not far from being closely allied to audacity. But perhaps this only proceeded from a certain impatience at being compelled, nevertheless, to admit in his own person a conventional inferiority to those with whom he felt he was on that broad basis of equality, the elements of which are equal physical and intellectual qualifications.

      Though a poor fisher's lad, he possessed all the feelings and sensations common to humanity, and experienced emotions both of pleasure and pain; could feel disgusted at what was revolting, and be pleased at what was agreeable. He shared, therefore, with all men, of whatever rank, from the prince to himself—for there could scarcely be a lower scale—that mysterious principle of the heart by which it attracts, and is attracted to, woman—he beheld Kate Bellamont, and this moral loadstone, acting as nature intended it should do, irresistibly drew him towards her. Without reflection, without cherishing either a hope or a fear, but simply happy in the contiguity, he gave himself up to the new and delightful sensations produced by the flow of love's magnetic fluid through his heart. In plain words, the poor fisher's lad fell deeply in love with the highborn heiress of Castle Cor.

      No one of the wonderful phenomena of the human mind so fully demonstrates that it is a mesh of anomalies, as the existence of the СКАЧАТЬ