but, doubtless, upon that sweet creature his love must have settled,
who suggested, in her soft, relenting voice, a penitence in me that,
alas! had not dawned, saying, "_Yes; but perhaps he will not do so any
more._" Thinking, as I ran, of her beauty, I felt that this jealous
demoniac must fancy himself justified in committing seven times seven
murders upon me, if he should have it in his power. But, thank Heaven,
if jealousy can run six miles an hour, there are other passions--as,
for instance, panic--that can run, upon occasion, six and a half; so,
as I had the start of him, (you know, reader,) and not a very short
start,--thanks be to the expanded petticoats of my dear female
friends!--naturally it happend that the green-eyed monster came in
second best. Time, luckily, was precious with _him_; and, accordingly,
when he had chased me into the by-road leading down to Greenhay, he
turned back. For the moment, therefore, I found myself suddenly released
from danger. But this counted for nothing. The same scene would probably
revolve upon me continually; and, on the next rehearsal, Green-eyes
might have better luck. It saddened me, besides, to find myself under
the political necessity of numbering amongst the Philistines, and as
daughters of Gath, so many kind-hearted girls, whom, by personal proof,
I knew to be such. In the profoundest sense, I was unhappy; and, not
from any momentary accident of distress, but from deep glimpses which
now, and heretofore, had opened themselves, as occassions arose, into
the inevitable conflicts of life. One of the saddest among such
conflicts is the necessity, wheresoever it occurs, of adopting--though
the heart should disown--the enmities of one's own family, or country,
or religious sect. In forms how afflicting must that necessity have
sometimes occurred during the Parliamentary war! And, in after years,
amongst our beautiful old English metrical romances, I found the same
impassioned complaint uttered by a knight, Sir Ywain, as early as A.D.
1240--