The Celtic Maiden: A Story of Ancient Britain

THE
CELTIC
MAIDEN. A
STORY
OF
ANCIENT
BRITAIN BY
PROFESSOR
WILLARD DONE. CHAPTER VI. The morning dawned clear and cold. Neither Decius nor the girl had slept. In his restless anxiety, he urged his men to an early march. Preparations were being made when an ominous noise was heard in the wood. Instantly alert, Decius called his men to arms. He stationed himself at the door of Genevra's tent, and arranged his men along the stream which an attacking party would be forced to ford. A few men in Roman armor came out of the wood to reconnoiter. A shower of arrows from Decius' men drove them back. Half an hour later, a dense body of men emerged from the woods, in a charge. Decius recognized Claudius as the leader, and hurled a taunt at him. His habit of reckless jesting would not down, even in a moment of intense peril. Claudius plunged into the stream, and was followed by his men. Decius had dragged the girl to the door of his tent. He threw his arms about her, and in spite of her struggles held her close to him. He called smilingly to Claudius: "You have found us, as I said.
Would you mar this peaceful scene?" A deep purpose prompted his taunt. He was determined that his combat with Claudius should be deadly. His words and actions had the intended effect. They made Claudius furious. He rushed upon his enemy. Decius thrust the girl back into the tent and drew his sword.
His face grew stern with hatred.

434 IMPROVEMENT ERA. "Come, Claudius," he shouted. "You cannot welcome such a meeting more gladly than I." The battle had now become general, and the fight between Decius and Claudius was only a part of the whole conflict. But it was worthy of two trained patrician officers, and Genevra witnessed it with mingled dismay and admiration. Long the combatants fought, their blood becoming hotter with every thrust and parry. It seemed to the girl that the duel would never cease. At length Decius' night of wakefulness began to have its effect. Weakened by carousal and want of rest, his arm grew less skillful, and Claudius fiercely pressed his advantage. "Yield, Decius," he said at length. "To you?" replied the scornful man, rallying his strength for a final struggle. Their panting breath permitted no more words. Decius gradually sank beneath his adversary's blows. By the last skillful blow, he was disarmed. The maddened Claudius sprang forward to cut him down, but the girl had rushed between them. Decius, summoning all his remaining strength, roughly seized her and threw her to one side, at the same time recovering his sword. "I scorn the protection of a girl !" he exclaimed. The two men rushed at each other again, — both thrusts were unparried— both men were wounded, Decius mortally. In the meantime, the conflict had been decided. The band of renegades was annihilated, their bodies being thrown into the stream. The British prisoner had been released, and just as De- cius and Claudius fell, Genevra was clasped in her father's arms. But there was little time for inaction. She knew that the wounded needed her attention. With a pang, which he could hardly explain to himself, Claudius saw her go to Decius first. ■ She knew he was dying, and would not need her attention long. She brought a pillow from her couch and laid it under his head, asking her father to do a similar kindness for Claudius. She knelt at Decius' side, and spoke words of faith and comfort. The vindictive light died out of his eyes, and a softened glow of gratitude and admira- tion took its place. So also his cynical, harsh bantering gave way to a gentle gallantry, inspired by the girl's forgiving, self-forgetful ministrations.

THE CELTIC MAIDEN. 435 "Conquered; and by your beauty," he murmured with a smile. "Rather say, by the forgiveness of Christ," she replied with reverence. He looked at her wonderingly for a moment. Then he turned white and faint. "Claudius — forgive — " he whispered, and his spirit passed through darkness into light. Tenderly Genevra closed his eyes, and then leaving him and the wounded to the care of the soldiers, she had Claudius carried into her own tent. Her father and Kenneth chose to remain connected with the Roman camp, partly because Genevra could best be protected there for the time, and partly for the puropse of trying to find a trace of the mother and brother. Kenneth was dispatched, with .an escort of the soldiers, to procure supplies, as it was clear that the wounded could not be removed for some days. The father busied himself about the camp. Genevra's ministrations to Claudius were thoughtful and ten- der. Yet he was restless and discontented. As evening came on, his restlessness increased. His eyes followed her movements with nervous eagerness. She was entirely unconscious of the feelings she had awakened in his heart; but from the time she had been carried from the Roman camp, he had known that his reverence for her was the first pure and holy love of his life. Its growth had been so gradual that he was taken unawares, and when he awoke to a realization of it, it was entwined with every fibre of his being. And now, as she glided in and out of the tent, with the noise- less step of a tender, delicate woman; as she bestowed the soft, soothing attentions which only a true woman is capable of, the flame of love leaped high in his heart and overmastered him. Yet, he was ill at ease. He saw in Genevra the same defer- ential service that she had given him from the first. He feared that her attentions to him were prompted now, as they had always been, by duty and not by love. He knew she was aware of the life he led before her influence over him brought him to a higher moral plane. Could her purity brook the memory of a life of sin? Could she become "one flesh" with one who had been a sinner? She saw his troubled look, and hastened to his side. "Your wound is painful?" she asked.

436 IMPROVEMENT.
ERA. "More painful than you can know," he answered, with a glance that perplexed her.
She looked at him questioningly. Impulsively he seized her hand, and poured forth his pleadings in a passionate flood. "Genevra, Genevra, gentle and beautiful as the name you bear, breathing sweet peace and inspiring purest love, can you not see the wound I suffer from? It is not the wound inflicted by Decius' sword. That, if it be healed at all, will heal itself. If not, it will slay only the gross and perishable body. But the wound I suffer from is deeper. If it be not healed, it will kill not body, but soul, life, happiness, contentment! If it be healed at all, you alone can heal it!" She half turned away — a look of pain on her face. "Genevra," he pleaded, "may I not hope? Has my past life so dimmed my manhood that you in your purity revolt at thought of my love? Let me love you — worship you — as I must and will, and sin and its soul-stains will be consumed like dross in the goldsmith's fire. Let me but hope to win your love, and all the darkness of my sinful past will be swallowed up in the brightness of my hope. But if you frown on me — if life be left without hope — " his brow dark- ened, and the girl shuddered at the depths of his despair. "Listen," she said, when she had recovered from the surprise of his sudden and passionate avowal, "five years ago, I shrank from your gaze and your touch, when the law' of might placed me in your power. I knew by instinct the life you had lived — the life you might continue to live. I do not upbraid you with the past," she hastily added, as she saw his pained look, "what I have said is but to explain what I must say. As I have served you, I have come to know the purity and nobility lying beneath the dross of heathen custom. From honoring you, as master, in my outward acts, I have learned to honor you as a man, in my inmost soul. Should I honor you less because of the past? The Christian lives not in the past, but in the present and the future. He whom we serve lifted the sinner from the mire of the past to the glory of the future. If I have helped you, I am glad. If, as your slave, I can still do you service, I shall be faithful." "No, no, Genevra — " She understood the protest he was about to utter, and she wished to forestall it.
"I am your slave, and in all things possible

THE CELTIC MAIDEN. 437 shall be obedient to you. All that is mine to give, I shall give to you, as is my duty. But heart and soul are not mine to give. My soul belongs to him who bought me with his blood, whose love I hope will shine in all my influence over the lives of others. If I have exerted any influence — " "You have,;'you have !" Claudius exclaimed, sobbing in mingled grief and gratitude. "Whatever is noble in me, you have called into life. All my grossness is conquered in your presence. But your heart, Genevra. Is it not yours to give? May I not hope to win it?" Blushing with maiden modesty, yet weeping with womanly sympathy, she looked the answer she dared not speak. He fell back upon his pillow with a groan as of mortal agony. She knelt beside him, and clasped his hand. As she knelt there her father entered. "Father, my master," she said sincerely, rising to her feet. But Claudius still held her hand. His eyes rested upon her father's face for a short time, as he strove to master his feelings. At length he spoke in a low, constrained < ice, "Your daughter has no master. She is free. I restore her to you. She has been the one sweet, peaceful element of my life. For five years she has been a blessing to me and to others. I had hoped to keep her for- ever under a holier bond, but it cannot be. What it costs me to say this, you cannot know. May the gods smile on her and hers. May hope stay with her, as it leaves my heart forever. I can no more !" Hefturned his face to the tent wall, and sank into a death- like lethargy. CHAPTER VII. Genevra was as tender in her ministrations as before, and Claudius began to rally from the shock he had sustained. But his zest for life was lost; and all elasticity had gone from him. He was as one without hope, living on from day to day, simply be- cause the vital processes would not stop of themselves. But his strength increased, and by the time Kenneth and his party re- turned, he was able to walk listlessly around, and mechanically at- tend to his duties. Kenneth had not taken kindly to Claudius.
He felt for him

438 IMPROVEMENT ERA. a sort of vague distrust, not unmixed with jealousy. For now that he had seen Genevra as a woman, his boyhood love for her as a girl rose to the strength of a man's first passion. He knew her father favored his suit. The feelings of the girl he had no oppor- tunity of discovering. He feared that her long absence from her native island had led her to prefer Roman civilization and polish to the semi-barbarism of Britain. If he had known how little she saw to admire, and how much to disapprove, in the civilization of pagan Rome, he would have dismissed his fears. She had brought from Rome the purity and simplicity of the Christian faith, but she was willing to exchange its voluptuous pagan civilization for the simplicity of her native land— Rome's effete, corrupt senility, for the pure, strong manhood of Britain. Therefore, her heart turned to the young, stalwart, handsome Kenneth, as the most worthy representative of that manhood. It was the night of his return. Her duties in Claudius' tent were ended, and she was walking meditatively near the banks of the stream. Clouds tempered the frosty cold, and the air was bracing enough to give to her a sense of freedom from the depression she had felt since Claudius made his avowal. "Genevra." She turned and saw Kenneth. He held toward her a branch, on which glowed the rich, red hue of ripened berries. With a flush of pleasure she advanced to meet him, and accepted the simple offering. "Let us go to the wood, Genevra," he said; and together they walked to the trees that bordered the plain. As they reached the underwood, Kenneth took her hand and detained her. They turned and looked back on the plain. Her hand trembled in his, as her self-consciousness increased. He pressed it, as if to still its trembling. Yet his voice betrayed an intensity of feeling, and the blood was sent rushing in a flood to her face. "The grass grows on the level sward," said he, "the kine feed there, and pass their quiet, homely lives. The river winds in and out among the dunes, its water scarcely rippling; yet grass and trees and flowers and kine drink life and refreshment from its depth. The clouds float quietly in the arching blue, and drop their moistening rain or mantling snow.
If storms rage, they do not

THE CELTIC MAIDEN. 439 lash the stream to madness, or uproot the delicate flower, or dis- turb the calm composure of the mild-eyed kine. "Now, turn your eyes toward the wood. Tall trees wave their branches in the upper air; their tops are swayed by every passing breeze; and storm and wind hurl the mightiest to the ground. In- stead of mild-eyed kine, the fierce, ravening wolf, the shambling bear, the timid, frightened deer. Instead of peace, majesty; instead of contentment, strife. 0, Genevra, do you know what I would say to you? Which of these shall be the emblem of your life ? The pomp and glory of the courts of kings, I cannot offer you, nor will I fright you with their discontent. But the calm peace of household love — the sweet content of daily labor, bringing its own reward — these, with all the devotion of a heart never touched be- fore, and a soul unstained by sin, can I give to you. Which shall it be Genevra, Rome or Britain?" As the flood of his simple, almost barbaric eloquence swept along, she listened with a rapt intensity. As he asked this ques- tion, she raised her eyes to his, and in them he read his answer. He took her in his arms, and kissed her lips, and she clasped her hands about his neck, and gave herself in trust to him. With a sigh that seemed to tear out the very roots of his life, Claudius came to them from the wood. "I could not help hearing you," he said, as they started in confusion at his approach. Then he continued: "The pride of Rome is humbled. Five years ago, the brightness and beauty of Rome were at my feet Maids and ma- trons vied with one another for my favor. With one and with another, I spent the passing hours, as the bee gathers honey from myriad flowers. But by none of these was my soul filled, or my heart satisfied. My freedom of choice had made of me a liber- tine. Then came into my life the wondrously beautiful face of a British slave maiden. Her face was the indication of perfect pur- ity— her soul was its fulfilment. I thought that as that rare flower unfolded, its beauty would be for me alone. But as the rarest beauties man could gaze upon developed, they were so much higher than my reach, that I could only hope and plead for them. My sins had placed such perfection far beyond me. I asked in vain from a slave, the smiles which princesses had lavished on me with- out the asking.
But I might have known that such a soul could

440 IMPROVEMENT ERA. be awakened only by one equally pure. Yours is that soul, Ken- neth. Then take the pure Genevra, and treasure her as you would your life, for there is only one such. I ask leave only to devote myself to her happiness and to yours." Bat little remains to be told. When the wounded had recov- ered sufficiently to be removed, Claudius led his command back to the Roman camp. Genevra and her father and Kenneth accom- panied him as honored guests. By his own request, he was granted a leave of absence by the imperator. He received permission to take a small escort with him to Rome. He said nothing publicly as to his intentions, but on the day before his departure, he asked Genevra for a private interview. She walked with him to the place where she had met with her strange adventure. Standing near the graves of those who fell in the conflict, Claudius told her of his plans. He would return to Rome and search the city for her mother and brother. She could only look her gratitude, but the memory of her glance and smile, he carried with him through all the dark days of his quest. "Genevra," he said, as they were about to part, "what is it in your creed that changes the human heart from baseness to noble- ness, and gives joy and peace instead of selfishness and strife? I have felt its influence through you, and have seen its effect on the lives of others.
What is this power, Genevra?" Simply, but fervently, she told him of the love of Christ, prompting him to bring salvation to man. When she told him of the plan of salvation, as yet untainted with apostate errors, he became enthusiastic for it. "By their fruits ye shall know them," were her closing words, and he acknowledged the fruits of the gos- pel in her life, and promised to bring forth such fruits in his own. He was baptized that night. His quest in Rome was successful. The mother and son were restored to their own, the reunion being made all the happier by the marriage, on the same day, of Kenneth and Genevra. Claudius was the first to give them his blessing, but the pain in his heart would show itself in his face, in spite of all his self-control.
But