BY JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

Ireland has had her heroines. Glorvina, the daughter of Malachi, king of Meath, was the joy and pride of her father, yet at the same time his anxious, never-resting care; for the Dane was in the land. The rovers were led by Turgesius, a voluptuous prince, though advanced in years. Turgesius approached the gate of Malachi with the smile of peace upon his countenance, but with the thoughts of rapine in his heart. He was hospitably received; the banquet was spread for him; and when he was weary with feasting and hilarity, he was conducted to the richest, softest couch.

He had not yet seen Glorvina, but he had heard of her surpassing beauty; and one day he requested of the king that his daughter should sit at the feast. A shade came over the brow of Malachi; but he bowed his head, and it was gone. With a timid, yet stately step, the virgin entered the hall. Thick and clustering, and reaching far below her tapering waist, hung her auburn hair; her eyes were cast down; her fair skin mantled and faded, as her colour came and went; and she spake not as she sank in modest, graceful obeisance, to the salutation of Turgesius.

The Dane had no appetite for the banquet that day. He seemed to be conscious of nothing but the presence of Glorvina. Alarm and ire were painted in the countenance of the king, but Turgesius noted it not. He never removed his eyes from the royal maid; they wandered incessantly over her features and her form, and followed the movements of her white, roundly-moulded arms, as she accepted or returned the cup or the viands which were proffered for her use. Haughty for the first time was the fair brow of Glorvina: the bold stare of man was a stranger to her. Again and again she offered to retire, but was withheld by the dissuasions of Turgesius, seconded by the admonishing glances of her father. At last, however, in spite of all opposition, she withdrew.

The Dane sat abstracted with a clouded brow; deep sighs came thick and strugglingly from his breast. Malachi tried to rouse his guest, and succeeded at last, with the aid of the cup. Turgesius waxed wildly joyous; he spoke of love, and of the idol before which the passion bows; and he asked for the strain that was in unison with the tone of his soul; the song of desire was awakened at his call; and as it flowed, swelling and sinking with the mood of the fitful theme, the rover's cheek flushed more and more, and his eyes more wildly flamed.

Turgesius did not sleep at the castle that night. He was summoned on a sudden to a distance: oppression had produced reaction. In the place of the slave, the man had started up; and the air all at once was thick with weapons, where for months the glare of brass or of steel had not been seen, except in the hand of the foreigner. Outposts had been driven in; large bands were retracing steps which they had no right to take; the sway of the freebooter was tottering. His presence saved it, and the native again bowed sullenly to resume the yoke.

After the lapse of a few weeks, Turgesius once more drew near the gate of Malachi. Loudly the blast of his herald demanded the customed admission, and with impatience the Dane awaited the reply to his summons. It came; but there was wailing in the voice of welcome, and the visitor felt that he grew cold. The mourner received him in the hall:—Glorvina was no more! Turgesius turned his face away from the house of death, and departed for his own stronghold, where with alternate sports and revels he endeavoured to assuage disappointment and obliterate recollection.

Dusk fell. Silent and gloomy was the aisle of the royal chapel. Before a monument, newly erected, stood a lonely figure gazing upon the name of Glorvina, which was carved upon the stone. The figure was that of a youth, tall, and of matchless symmetry. His arms were folded, his head drooped, he uttered no sound; his soul was with the inmate of the narrow house. He heard not the step of the bard who was approaching, and who presently stood by his side unnoted by him.

Long did the reverend man gaze upon the youth without attempting to accost him. More and more he wondered who it could be whom sorrow so enchained in abstraction. At length the lips of the figure moved, and a sigh, deep-drawn, ushered forth the name of Glorvina. No stranger to the bard was the voice that fell upon his ear. "Niall!" he exclaimed. The youth started and turned; it was Niall. He threw himself upon the neck of the bard. The flood of the eyes began to flow: he sobbed forth aloud and incontinently the name of Glorvina!

"Niall," said the bard, as soon as the paroxysm of grief had a little subsided,—"Niall, you are changed in form, your stature has shot up, your shoulders have spread, and your chest has rounded. Your features, too, I can see by this spare light, have received from manhood a stamp which they did not bear before; but your heart, my son, is the same. Niall in his affections has come back what he went. The Saxon has not changed him, nor the Saxon's daughter; her golden hair has waved before his eyes, her skin of pearl has shone upon them, the silver harp of her voice has streamed upon his ear; but his heart hath been still with Glorvina!"

"To what end?" passionately burst forth the youth. "Glorvina is in the tomb!" The tears gushed again; the bard was silent.

"Where is your prophetic Psalter?" resumed Niall; "where is it? Who will give credence to it now? Did you not say that Glorvina was the fair maid of Meath by whom it foretold that the land was to be rescued from the Dane; and that I was that son of my house who should be joined with her in perilous, yet happy wedlock? This did you not say and repeat a thousand times?—Then why do I look upon that tomb?"

"Niall," said the bard, "have faith, though you look upon the tomb of Glorvina!" The youth shook his head.—"Have you yet seen the king?" inquired the bard. Niall replied in the negative. "Come, then, young man, and look upon a father's grief!"

The bard led the way towards the closet of the king. The light of the taper streamed from the half-open door: and as Niall, by the side of the bard, stood in the comparative darkness of the ante-chamber, he stared upon the face of Malachi, bright with a smile at a false move at chess which a person with whom the king was playing had just that moment made. Niall could scarce believe his vision.—"Where is the grief of the father?" whispered he to the bard.

"Note on!" was the old man's reply.

"He laughs!" exclaimed Niall, almost loud enough to be heard by those within.—"Yes," said the bard; "he who wins may laugh. He has got the game."

"And where is his child?" ejaculated Niall with a groan so audible that Malachi heard it and started; but the bard hurried the youth from the room.

Niall and the bard sat alone in the apartment of the latter. Sparingly the youth partook of the repast, which was presently removed. He sat silent, leaning his head upon his hand. At length he lifted his eyes to the face of the bard; it was smiling like the king's, as he played the game of chess. The young man stared; the bard smiled on.

"A strain!" cried the reverend man, and took his harp and tuned it, and tried the chords till every string had its proper tone. "Now!" he exclaimed, ready to begin. The young man watched the waking of the lay, which he expected would be in unison with the mood of his soul: but, lo! note rapidly followed note in mirthful chase, still quickening to the close; and the countenance of Niall, overcast before with grief, now lowered with anger.

"I list not strain like that!" he exclaimed, starting from his seat.

"You list no other, boy, from me," rejoined the old man; "it is your welcome home."—"My home," ejaculated Niall, "is the tomb where Glorvina sleeps the sleep of death!"

"The Psalter," said the old man solemnly, "is the promise of Destiny, and is sure to be fulfilled."

"Why, then," asked the youth sternly,—"why, then, is Glorvina no longer among the living?—Why in the place of her glowing cheek do I meet the tomb?—the silence of death, instead of her voice?"

The bard made no reply, but leaned over his harp again, and spanned its golden strings. He sang of the chase. The game was a beauteous hind; eager was the hunter, but too swift was her light foot for his wish. She distanced him like the wind, which at one moment brushes the cheek, and the next will be leagues away; and now she was safe, pressing the mossy sward in the region of the mountain and the lake, where the waters mingle and spread one silvery sheet for the fair tall heavens to look into.

Niall sat amazed!—conjecture and doubt seemed to divide his soul. He sprang towards the old man, and, throwing himself at his feet, snatched the hand that still lay upon the strings and caught it to his bosom. Yet he spake not, save by his eyes; in the intense expression of which, inquiry, and entreaty, and deprecation were mingled.

The old man rose and stood silent for a time, looking down benevolently upon Niall, who seemed scarcely to breathe, watching the lips that he felt were about to move.

"Niall," at length said the bard,—"Niall, the strength of the day is the rest of night. Fair upon the eye of the sleeper, awakening him, breaks the light of morning. Then he springs from his couch, and stretches his limbs, and braces them, eager for action; and he asks who will go with him to the field of the feat; or haply betakes him to the road to try his strength alone; and following it through hill and valley, moor and mead, suddenly shows his triumph-shining face to the far friend that looked not for him!"

The bard ceased. Both he and the youth remained motionless for several seconds, intently regarding one another. At last Niall sprang upon his feet, and threw himself upon the neck of the old man, whose arms simultaneously closed around the boy.

"You will sleep to-night, my son," said the bard, withdrawing himself at length from the embrace of Niall. "The dawn shall not come to thy casement before thou shalt hear my summons at thy door. Good-night!" They parted.

By the side of a bright river strayed hand in hand two young females, seemingly rustics. Rain had fallen. The thousand torrents of the mountains were in play; and the general waters, swoln beyond the capacity of their customed channel, ran hurried and ruffled.

"Who would think," remarked the younger of the two,—"who would think that this was the river we saw yesterday?"

"'Tis changed indeed," said her companion; "but the sky that was lowering yesterday, you see, is bright and serene to-day. Did you hear the storm in the night?"

"No: I would I had. It would have saved me from a dream darker than any storm."

"A dream!—Tell it me. I am a reader of dreams."

"You know," began the younger,—"you know I was brought up with the only son of a distant branch of my father's house. I know not how it was, but, from my earliest recollection, my foster-mother, and others as well as she, set me down for his wife; and, strangely enough, I fancied myself so. Yet could it be nothing more than a sister's love that I bore him. Much he used to make of me. His pastime—even his studies—were regulated by my will. Being older than I, he let me play the fool to the very height of my caprice, which cost me many a chiding,—but not from him, though he had to bear the greater portion of the consequences. You know by his father's will he was enjoined to travel the last four years preceding his majority. He set out the very day that I completed my fourteenth year. I wish it had been before. I should have felt the separation less, for indeed it cost me real agony. For months after, they would catch me weeping: they did not know the cause; but 'twas for him! Still I only loved him as a brother—but a dear one,—Oh, Myra! I cannot tell you how dear!—and absence has not abated my feelings, as you may more than guess by my dream last night."

"Look!" interrupted the other; "see you not some one through the interval of the trees descending yonder road that winds round the foot of the nearest mountain?"

"No," replied the former, after she had looked in the direction a moment or two. "But attend to my dream. I thought I was married indeed, and that he was my husband; and that we were sitting at the bridal feast, placed on each side of my father; and there were the viands, and the wine, and the company, and everything as plain as you are that are standing there before me; when, all at once——"

"I see him again!" a second time interrupted the friend. "Look! don't you catch the figure?"—"No."

"Then you'll not catch it at all now, for he has dived into the wood through which the road runs."

"Was it a single person?"—"Yes."

"Then we have nothing to care for; so don't interrupt me in my dream again."

"Go on with it," said the other.

"Well; we were sitting, as I said, at the bridal feast, when, turning to speak to my father, the fiery eyes of one I hope never to see again were glaring on me, and my father was gone; and fierce men, with gleaming weapons waving above their heads, surrounded him to whom I had just pledged my troth, and bore him, in spite of his struggles and my screams, away: leaving me to the mercy of the spoiler, who straight, methought, started up with the intent of dragging me to the couch which had been prepared for another!"

"Do you mark," interrupted the friend, "as you increase in loudness, the echoes waken? I heard the last word repeated as distinctly as you yourself uttered it. But go on. Yet beware these echoes; they may be tell-tales. What followed?"

"Oh, what harrows my soul even now! Thither, where I told you, did he try to force me, struggling with all my might to resist him. I called on my father,—I called on my bridegroom,—I called on every one I could think of; but no one came to me, and fast we approached the door, on the threshold of which to have died, I thought in my dream, would be bliss to the horror of crossing it, and there at last we stood: but it was shut. Yet soon it moved; and who think you it was that opened it? Niall!—Niall himself! and no resistance did he offer to him that forced me onward,—none, though I called to him by his name, shrieking it louder than I am speaking now, 'Niall!—Niall!' He spoke not,—he moved not; and I was within a foot of the very couch, when I awoke, my face bathed in the dew of terror. 'Niall!—Niall!' did I cry, did I shriek; and Niall was there, and I shrieked in vain—'Niall!—Niall!'——"

"Here!" cried Niall himself, springing from a copse, out of which led a path that made a short cut across an angle of the road, and throwing himself breathless at the feet of Glorvina.

The astonished maid stood motionless, gazing on the young man, who remained kneeling, until her companion, taking her hand, and calling her by her name, aroused her from the trance of astonishment.

"Come," said Myra, "let us return;" and, motioning to the young man to follow them, she led her passive companion back to the lonely retreat whither Malachi had transported his fair child.

Glorvina did not perfectly recover her self-possession till she arrived at the door. Then she stopped, and turning, bent her bright gaze full upon the wondering Niall, who moved not another step.

"Niall—if you are Niall—" said the maid. She paused, and a sigh passed, in spite of them, the lips that would have kept it in: "If you are the Niall," she resumed, "to whom I said farewell four years ago, the day and the hour are not unwelcome that bring back, in health, and strength, and happiness, the playmate of our childhood to the land of his fathers; and we bless God that he has suffered them to shine. But why comes Niall hither? Who taught him to doubt the testimony of the tomb? Who directed his steps to the solitudes of the mountains, the woods, and the lakes? Who cried, "God speed!" when his heel left the home of my father behind it? Was it the master of that home?—was it Malachi, my father?"

A thought that had not occurred to him before, seemed suddenly to cross the mind of Niall. His lips that would have spoken remained motionless, his cheek coloured, his eye fell to the feet of Glorvina; he stood confounded and abashed.

"'Tis well!" cried the stately maid. "The tongue of Niall is yet unacquainted with falsehood, though his feet may be no strangers to the steps of rashness. The repast is spread; enter and partake!" and she paused for a second or two. Niall slowly lifted his eyes till they met those of Glorvina; apprehension and supplication mingled in the gaze of the youth. At length, with a tone that spoke at once compassion and resolve, the word "Depart!" found utterance; and the maid and her companion, stepping aside, left the entrance of their lonely habitation free, as Niall mechanically passed in.

(To be concluded in our next.)