"
"Marry why?" said brother Michael. "The solution is not physical-natural,
but physical-historical, or natural-superinductive. And thereby hangs a tale,
which may be either said or sung:
The damsel stood to watch the fight
By the banks of Kingslea Mere,
And they brought to her feet her own true knight
Sore-wounded on a bier.
She knelt by him his wounds to bind,
She washed them with many a tear:
And shouts rose fast upon the wind,
Which told that the foe was near.
"Oh! let not," he said, "while yet I live,
The cruel foe me take:
But with thy sweet lips a last kiss give,
And cast me in the lake."
Around his neck she wound her arms,
And she kissed his lips so pale:
And evermore the war's alarms
Came louder up the vale.
She drew him to the lake's steep side,
Where the red heath fringed the shore;
She plunged with him beneath the tide,
And they were seen no more.
Their true blood mingled in Kingslea Mere,
That to mingle on earth was fain:
And the trout that swims in that crystal clear
Is tinged with the crimson stain.
"Thus you see how good comes of evil, and how a holy friar may fare
better on fast-day for the violent death of two lovers two hundred
years ago. The inference is most consecutive, that wherever you
catch a red-fleshed trout, love lies bleeding under the water:
an occult quality, which can only act in the stationary waters of a lake,
being neutralised by the rapid transition of those of a stream.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34