The
Old Monks Well Knew How To Choose Beautiful Places To Live In.
All
harmonizes, except - I grieve to tell of it - a shocking modern house,
very near, very ugly, and, I suppose, ridiculously elegant and
comfortable inside.
From this hideosity you must resolutely turn
away; and then you may say, as I did, that your mortal eyes have
never rested on any thing so lovely as the ruins of Calder Abbey.
Sometimes Miss Martineau would tell us some pretty legend, or some
good story.
This was one of the legends: Near the borders of the Ullswater is
the beautiful Ara Force, one of the most lovely falls I have seen in
England. One may stand below, and look up at the rushing stream, or
above, on the top of the fall. Here, long ago, in the time of the
crusades, stood a pair of lovers; and here grows an old oak which
was their trysting tree. The lady was of noble birth, and lived in a
castle near by; and her true knight used to come at the still hour
of evening to meet her at the Ara Force.
At length the lover was called away to the Holy Land. As he left his
lady, he vowed to be her true knight, and to return and wed her.
Many long days passed away, and the lady waited in vain for her true
knight. Though she heard often from others of his chivalrous deeds
in the East, yet no word came from him to tell her he was faithful;
and she began to fear that he was no longer true to her, but was
serving some other lady. Despair at last came upon her; and she grew
wan and pale, and slept no longer soundly: But, when the world was
at rest, she would rise in her sleep, and wander to the trysting
tree, and pluck off the green oak leaves, and throw them into the
foaming water.
The knight was all this time faithful, but was not able to send word
to his lady love. At last, he returned to England, and hastened
towards the castle where she lived.
It was late at night when he came to the Ara Force; and he sat him
down under the trysting tree to wait for the morning. When he had
been there a long time, he saw a figure approach, all in white, and
pluck off the oak leaves, and fling them into the stream. Angry to
see the sacred tree thus injured, he rose to prevent it. The figure
started and awoke. In a moment he knew his beloved lady. She was now
on the frail bridge. The sudden shock, and the roar of the Force
below, had made her giddy. He leaped forward to embrace and save
her. Alas! too late. Her foot slipped, and she fell. It was all
over. The water tumbling far down into the rocky chasm beneath told
the story of death.
The knight was inconsolable.
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