Forget Me Not/1827/The Three Damsels

by David Lyndsay

THE THREE DAMSELS.

A TALE OF HALLOWEEN.

BY DAVID LYNDSAY, ESQ.

“Come hither, my beautiful Jean, and my fairy Lilias,” said the venerable Countess of Moray to her laughing, happy grand-daughters—“come hither, my children, and spend your Halloween with me. It is true I have not prepared the charms of the night, nor am I ready to join you in the incantations of the season, but I have a tale may suit it well; and you will not like it the less because the gray head tells you with her own lips the story of her day, when her locks were as bright as the berry, and her eyes as beaming as your own.”

“That, in truth, shall we not, noble grandam,” said the sparkling Lilias; “but yet would I have the charm of Halloween. Ah, little canst thou dream how dear this night is to the expecting maiden!—Let us perform the rites of the even, and to-morrow, grandam, thy tale shall find us most attentive listeners.”

“Ah, true Scots!” said the Countess, “thus clinging to the wonderful, and seeking to peep into futurity: but try not the charm, my children, if you love me. Alas! I think not of it without tears and a sorrow unspoken of till now; for the fate of a friend, dear to my early youth, gushes into my bosom. Sit, my children, and my story shall repay you for this loss of your time; me it will also please to speak of the things gone by: and if it convince you, as I trust it will, of the folly of these superstitions, I shall have more than gained my purpose. Will my children listen?” “What is there we can refuse you, noble grandam?” said the lovely Jean, burying her locks of amber amid the snowy curls of the venerable Countess. “Speak on, then; you have made us listeners already—and hark! wind, and rain, and snow—a goodly night for a tale. Tell on, dear grandam; the fire is bright, the lamp is clear, and we are seated gravely, our thoughts composed to attention—now for thy wondrous tale!”

“It was on this very eve, many years since, my children,” began the noble lady to her auditors, “that the three lovely daughters of a noble house assembled together in a dreary wood to try the charm of the night, which if successful was to give to their earnest sight the phantom form of the lover who was afterwards to become the husband. Their powerful curiosity had stifled their fear (for they were as timid as beautiful) on their first setting out on this expedition; but, on finding themselves alone in the dark and melancholy wood, some touches of cowardice and compunction assailed them together, and they determined by a somewhat holy beginning to sanctify the purpose which had brought them thither. They were too young to laugh at this mock compact between God and the Devil, and therefore when Catherine, the eldest sister, began, in an audible voice, to recite the prayer against witchcraft, the others joined in it most devoutly. Now then, fortified against evil, their courage rose with every additional sentence; and when the soft voice of the young Agnes, the loveliest and youngest of the three, steadily responded the ‘amen,’ they were as courageous as was necessary, and no longer fearful of the power of the evil one. I know not, my children, all the forms used upon this occasion; but Catherine, after repeating certain words in a solemn voice, advanced before her sisters, and quietly placed upon the ground her offering to the shade she had invoked, as by his conduct towards it she was to judge of her future prospects. It was a beautiful rose-tree which she had chosen, and the flowers were full and many; and the sisters were contemplating from a little distance the richness of their hue, when they were startled by the clashing of arms and the loud outcries of men in fierce contention, breaking upon the stillness of the night. For a moment they hesitated whether to fly or remain concealed, when their doubts were decided by the rapid approach of a stern and stately Highland chief, who, brandishing his broad sword, swept on to the rose-tree as if he would annihilate from the earth its fair and fragile beauty. Suddenly he paused—his arm was no longer raised to destroy—the weapon drooped gently down beside the tree—and they saw his blue eye look mildly and kindly on the flowers, as, bending down to gather them, he faded from their sight in the action. Catherine was by no means displeased with her fortune; and the appearance of her handsome bridegroom gave courage to the other two to hasten the coming of theirs. Marian, the second sister, removed the rose, placed a lily bough in its stead, and then, with a beating heart and wandering eye, repeated the charm. Again the silence was broken, as the quick but steady tramp of a warrior’s horse struck upon the ear, and the shade of a noble cavalier, dismounting from his phantom steed, advanced slowly, very slowly, towards the lily: his face was beautiful, but sad—beyond expression sad; and they saw a tear fall upon the flower as he pressed it to his lips and deposited it gently in his bosom. He too had faded like a dream, when the beautiful Agnes advanced to perform her part in the witcheries of the night. She trembled, but she would not recede, and faintly repeating the charm, hung her white handkerchief on the branch of a distant tree. This time there was no sound, but a dread and solemn silence slowly ushered in her unexpected fate. From the wood came a long and sable procession of horse and foot, following a coffin, that was steadily borne towards them: many were the ghastly attendants supporting the pall, and many were the shadowy mourners who followed. Agnes watched with breathless attention the march of the phantom dead: they advanced slowly and steadily till they came under the tree, where her white offering fluttered lightly in the air; it was seen suspended a moment above them, then dropped amidst the cavalcade, and Agnes beheld the pale fingers of the chief mourner clutch at the offering as it fell.

“Days, weeks, months, passed away, and still found Agnes drooping over her blighted hopes, and expecting the death of which the omen of the forest had assured her; but still she died not, and was every succeeding month astonished that she yet lived. She now began to doubt the truth of the omen, more especially as the Highlander had not yet wedded her sister, who was betrothed to, and about to become the wife of, a favourite of the king, who had earnestly sought her hand. Agnes thought she too might now listen to a tale of love; and such a one as was soon told her by a noble lover, and of her sovereign’s blood, she listened to with pleasure. Walter was now her all, and the omen of the forest was forgotten.

“The marriage of Catherine was appointed to take place at a country residence of her affianced husband, and Agnes, with her betrothed, was invited to be present. Marian too was there, and no happiness could have been more complete than that of the bridal party; but a dark night set upon this brilliant morning: ere they could reach the church which was to be the scene of their union, the Highlanders had descended in force from their mountains and assailed the unarmed guests. ‘The Camerons come!’ cried the shrieking maidens, and flew in all directions from their sight; the bridegroom fell in the conflict; and the bride, as she rushed to the side of her dying husband, was clasped in the arms of the insolent chief, and borne away to his bridal bed in the Highlands. Marian escaped in the tumult, and Walter preserved his adored by the effects of his desperate valour, cutting with his sword a passage through his foes, and encouraging the armed men, who now came to their assistance, to drive the invaders from their hold. They were successful; and silence, though accompanied by sorrow, again reigned in the halls of the young and hapless bridegroom.

“But the greatest evil resulting from this cruel inroad was the sad effect it had upon the mind of Agnes. Her belief in the omens of the forest again returned: her confidence in her prospects was shaken; and with the same feeling that bids the giddy wretch throw himself at once from the precipice over which he fears he shall fall, she determined to hasten the destiny which she now firmly believed to await her. Convinced by the fate of her sister of the certain fulfilment of her own, she resolved to spare her lover the anguish of beholding her expire; and, for this purpose, suddenly broke off all connexion with him, and refused to admit him to her presence. Walter’s hope still struggled with his despair: he made some earnest appeals to her tenderness, her reason, and her gratitude. Agnes was deaf to all: she believed herself destined to fall an early victim to death, and that that bridegroom would snatch her from an earthly one, even at the altar’s foot. Walter, heart-broken, retired from his home, and joining the cavalier army of the king, sought in the tumult of a military life forgetfulness of the wound his calmer days had given. In the intervals of his visits to his family Marian became interested in his welfare: she saw him frequently, spoke to him of Agnes, soothed his sufferings by her compassion, and gratified his pride by her admiration. He had no thought for any other: and though he loved not Marian, yet she became his trusted friend, his companion, and finally his wife. It was her will, not his: and what woman ever failed in her determination over the mind of man! They wedded and were wretched. The heart of Walter had not been interested, and the temper of Marian was not such as to acquire its delicate preference. She became jealous, irritable, perverse, and soon taught her hapless husband the difference between herself and the gentle Agnes. Such a course could have but one termination: stretched at length on that sick bed which was to be her last, she sent to desire the attendance of her younger sister. Agnes obeyed the mandate, but only arrived in time to meet the funeral procession which conducted the hapless Marian to her early grave. The widower instantly recognised, from a distance, his young heart’s love, and rapidly flew to meet her; and as she shed tears of unfeigned sorrow for his loss, he took the white handkerchief she held and tenderly dried them away. O! at that moment, how deeply Agnes sighed! She beheld in this scene the fulfilment of the omen, and wept to think she had thus wasted some of the best years of her life, and trifled with her lover’s happiness and her own. ‘Ah, silly delusion!’ she exclaimed in bitterness of heart, ‘of what hast thou not bereaved me!’ After the period of mourning had expired, she gave her hand to Walter, and endeavoured, in making his days tranquil, to forget the felicity she had lost.”

“But they were wedded, grandam dear,” said the beautiful Lilias, laughing—“what more would the people have had?” “Youth, and its love, and its hope, and all its bright and gracious feeling,” said the venerable Countess: “they had all fled with time, and nothing but their remembrance remained with Agnes and her Walter, which made their lot more bitter. He was at their wedlock past even manhood’s prime; she was no longer young; and though not wretched, yet they were not happy; and it was only in their descendants they looked for felicity. Agnes has found it truly, but for Walter ——”

“Grandam, it is your own tale you tell and our grandsire’s, I am certain, by the tears which roll down your face,” replied Lilias. “Ah, I will wait Heaven’s own good time for a husband, and try these charms no more. Kiss me, noble grandam: your Lilias will never forget the Tale of Halloween.” The bright maiden threw herself into the arms of her venerable ancestress, and at that moment it was scarcely possible to decide which was the nobler object, the damsel in the glory of her brilliant youth, or the Countess in the calmness of her majestic age.

---