"What have they done with the flowers and the terrace walks?" he said,--"the garden where Tristan and his Queen basked in the sunshine of their days; and where they parted for ever?--
"'All the spring time of their love Is already gone and past, And instead thereof is seen Its winter, which endureth still Tyntagel, on its surge-beat hill, The pleasaunce walks, the weeping queen, The flying leaves, the straining blast, And that long wild kiss--their last.'
And where--oh, where--are those graves in the King's chapel in which the tyrant Marc, touched with pity, ordered the fated lovers to be buried? And, behold! out of the grave of Tristan there sprung a plant which went along the walls, and descended into the grave of the Queen, and though King Marc three several times ordered this magical creeper to be cut off root and branch, it was always found growing again next morning, as if it were the very spirit of the dead knight struggling to get free from the grave, and to be with his lady-love again! Show me those tombs, Miss Courtenay."
"You can take your choice," said Jessie Bridgeman, pointing to a green mound or two, overgrown with long rank grass, in that part of the hill which was said to be the kingly burial-place. "But as for your magical tree, there is not so much as a bramble to do duty for poor Tristan."
"If I were Duke of Cornwall and Lord of Tintagel Castle, I would put up a granite cross in memory of the lovers; though I fear there was very little Christianity in either of them," said Angus.
"And I would come once a year and hang a garland on it," said Christabel, smiling at him with
"Eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue-- Eyes too expressive to be blue, Too lovely to be grey."
He had recalled those lines more than once when he looked into Christabel's eyes.
Mr. Hamleigh had read so much as to make him an interesting talker upon any subject; but Christabel and Jessie noticed that of his own life, his ways and amusements, his friends, his surroundings, he spoke hardly at all. This fact Christabel noticed with wonder, Jessie with suspicion. If a man led a good wholesome life, he would surely be more frank and open--he would surely have more to say about himself and his associates.