[Footnote 5:
[Footnote 6:
[Footnote 7:
[Footnote 8:
Winter 2005 no. 55
simplicity, the purest artlessness, and holiest
affections of woman's gentle nature. Bred up
among the rough and savage crowds which
thronged her father's lawless halls, and meeting
with no responsive or kindred spirit among those
fierce barbarians (many of whom, however,
touched by her surpassing charms, though
insensible to her virtues and mental endowments,
had vainly sought her hand in marriage), this
young creature had spent the greater part of her
life in the solitude of her own apartments, or in
contemplating the charms of nature arrayed in all
the luxury of eastern voluptuousness. At length
she hears from an aged and garrulous attendant,
her only female adviser (for her mother died when
she was yet an infant), of the sorrows and
sufferings of the Christian captive. Urged by pity
and womanly sympathy, she repairs to his prison
to succour and console him. She supports his
feeble and tottering steps to her father's cellar,
recruits his exhausted frame with copious draughts
of sparkling wine, and when his dim eye brightens,
and his pale cheek becomes flushed with the glow
of returning health and animation, she-
unaccustomed to disguise or concealment, and
being by nature all openness and truth-gives vent
to the feelings which now thrill her maiden heart
for the first time, in the rich gush of unspeakable
love, tenderness, and devotion-
I vish Lord Bateman as you vos mine!]
[Footnote 4:
Oh, in sevin long years I'll make a wow,
I'll make a wow, and I'll keep it strong
Love has converted the tender girl into a majestic
heroine; she cannot only make "a wow," but she
can "keep it strong;" she feels all the dignity of
truth and love swelling in her bosom. With the
view of possessing herself of the real state of Lord
Bateman's affections, and with no sordid or
mercenary motives, she has enquired of that
nobleman what are his means of
subsistence, and whether _all_ Northumberland
belongs to him. His Lordship has rejoined, with a
noble regard for truth, that _half_
Northumberland is his, and that he will give it
freely to the fair young lady who will release him
from his dungeon. She, being thus assured of his
regard and esteem, rejects all idea of pecuniary
reward, and offers to be a party to a solemn wow-
to be kept strong on both sides-that, if for seven
years he will remain a bachelor, she, for the like
period, will remain a maid. The contract is made,
and the lovers are solemnly contracted.]
_Now sevin long years is gone and past,
And fourteen days veil known to me._
In this may be recognised, though in a minor
degree, the same gifted hand that portrayed the
Mussulman, the pirate, the father, and the bigot, in
two words. The time is gone, the historian knows
it, and that is enough for the reader. This is the
dignity of history very strikingly exemplified.]
_Avay and avay vent this proud young porter,
Avay and avay and avay vent he._
Nothing perhaps could be more ingeniously
contrived to express the vastness of Lord
Bateman's family mansion than this remarkable
passage. The proud young porter had to thread
courts, corridors, galleries, and staircases
innumerable, before he could penetrate to those
exquisite apartments in which Lord Bateman was
wont to solace his leisure hours, with the most
refined pleasures of his time. We behold him
hastening to the presence of his lord: the
repetition of the word "avay" causes us to feel the
speed with which he hastens-at length he arrives.
Does he appear before the chief with indecent
haste? Is he described as rushing madly into his
presence to impart his message? No! a different
atmosphere surrounds that
remarkable man. Even this proud young porter is
checked in his impetuous career which lasted only
_Until_ he came to Lord Bateman's chamber,
Vere he vent down on his bended knee.
Lord Bateman's eye is upon him, and he quails.]
_Vot news! vot news! my proud young porter?_
A pleasant condescension on the part of his
lordship, showing that he recognised the stately
youth, and no less stately pride of office which
characterized his follower, and that he was
acquainted with the distinguishing appellation
which he appears to have borne in the family.]
And broke his sword in splinters three.
Exemplifying, in a highly poetical and striking
manner, the force of Lord Bateman's love, which
he would seem to have kept strong as his "wow."
We have beheld him patient in confinement,
descending to no base murmurings against
The Dutch Dickensian Volume XXV
2 1
