The wild beauty of the retreat, bursting upon him as if by magic, augmented the mingled feeling of delight and awe with which he approached her, like a fair enchantress of Boiardo or Ariosto, by whose nod the scenery around seemed to have been created, an Eden in the wilderness.
Flora, like every beautiful woman, was conscious of her own power, and pleased with its effects, which she could easily discern from the respectful, yet confused address of the young soldier.
But, as she possessed excellent sense, she gave the romance of the scene, and other accidental circumstances, full weight in appreciating the feelings with which Waverley seemed obviously to be impressed; and, unacquainted with the fanciful and susceptible peculiarities of his character, considered his homage as the passing tribute which a woman of even inferior charms might have expected in such a situation.She therefore quietly led the way to a spot at such a distance from the cascade, that its sound should rather accompany than interrupt that of her voice and instrument, and, sitting down upon a mossy fragment of rock, she took the harp from Cathleen.
``I have given you the trouble of walking to this spot, Captain Waverley, both because I thought the scenery would interest you, and because a Highland song would suffer still more from my imperfect translation, were I to introduce it without its own wild and appropriate accompaniments.To speak in the poetical language of my country, the seat of the Celtic muse is in the mist of the secret and solitary hill, and her voice in the murmur of the mountain stream.He who wooes her must love the barren rock more than the fertile valley, and the solitude of the desert better than the festivity of the hall.''
Few could have heard this lovely woman make this declaration, with a voice where harmony was exalted by pathos, without exclaiming that the muse whom she invoked could never find a more appropriate representative.But Waverley, though the thought rushed on his mind, found no courage to utter it.Indeed, the wild feeling of romantic delight with which he heard the first few notes she drew from her instrument, amounted almost to a sense of pain.He would not for worlds have quitted his place by her side; yet he almost longed for solitude, that he might decipher and examine at leisure the complication of emotions which now agitated his bosom.
Flora had exchanged the measured and monotonous recitative of the bard for a lofty and uncommon Highland air, which had been a battle-song in former ages.A few irregular strains introduced a prelude of a wild and peculiar tone, which harmonized well with the distant waterfall, and the soft sigh of the evening breeze in the rustling leaves of an aspen which overhung the seat of the fair harpress.The following verses convey but little idea of the feelings with which, so sung and accompanied, they were heard by Waverley:---Battle Song.
There is mist on the mountain, and night on the vale, But more dark is the sleep of the sons of the Gael.
A stranger commanded---it sunk on the land;It has frozen each heart, and benumbed every hand!
The dirk and the target lie sordid with dust;The bloodless claymore is but reddened with rust;On the hill or the glen if a gun should appear, It is only to war with the heath-cock or deer.
The deeds of our sires if our bards should rehearse, Let a blush or a blow be the meed of their verse!
Be mute every string, and be hushed every tone, That shall bid us remember the fame that is flown!
But the dark hours of night and of slumber are past;The morn on our mountains is dawning at last;Glenaladale's peaks are illumed with the rays, And the streams of Glenfinnan<*> leap bright in the blaze.