Fu’ mony a schriek that waefu’ nicht
Raise fra the boisterous main,
An’ vow’d was mony a bootless vow,
An’ praied war’ praiers vaine.
An’ sair-pyned widows moned forlorn
For mony a wearie daye,
An’ maidens, ance o’ blithsome mood,
Tined heart and dwyned away.--OLD BALLAD.
[Sidenote: THE FISHERMAN’S WIDOW.]
The headland which skirts the northern entrance of the Firth is of
a bolder character than even the southern one--abrupt, stern, and
precipitous as that is. It presents a loftier and more unbroken wall
of rock; and where it bounds on the Moray Firth there is a savage
magnificence in its cliffs and caves, and in the wild solitude of its
beach, which we find nowhere equalled on the shores of the other. It is
more exposed, too, in the time of tempest. The waves often rise, during
the storms of winter, more than a hundred feet against its precipices,
festooning them, even at that height, with wreaths of kelp and tangle;
and for miles within the bay, we may hear, at such seasons, the savage
uproar that maddens amid its cliffs and caverns coming booming over
the lashings of the nearer waves like the roar of artillery. There is
a sublimity of desolation on its shores, the effects of a conflict
maintained for ages, and on a scale so gigantic. The isolated,
spire-like crags that rise along its base, are so drilled and bored
by the incessant lashings of the surf, and are ground down to shapes
so fantastic, that they seem but the wasted skeletons of their former
selves; and we find almost every natural fissure in the solid rock
hollowed into an immense cavern, whose very ceiling, though the head
turns as we look up to it, owes evidently its comparative smoothness to
the action of the waves.
One of the most remarkable of these recesses occupies what we may term
the apex of a lofty promontory. The entrance, unlike that of most of
the others, is narrow and rugged, though of great height, but it widens
within into a shadowy chamber, perplexed, like the nave of a cathedral,
by uncertain cross lights, that come glimmering into it through two
lesser openings which perforate the opposite sides of the promontory.
It is a strange ghostly-looking place; there is a sort of moonlight
greenness in the twilight which forms its noon, and the denser shadows
which rest along its sides; a blackness so profound that it mocks the
eye, hangs over a lofty passage which leads from it, like a corridor,
still deeper into the bowels of the hill; the light falls on a
sprinkling of half-buried bones, the remains of animals that, in the
depth of winter, have creeped into it for shelter and to die; and when
the winds are up, and the hoarse roar of the waves comes reverberated
from its inner recesses, it needs no over-active fancy to people its
avenues with the shapes of beings long since departed from every gayer
or softer scene, but which still rise uncalled to the imagination in
those by-corners of nature which seem dedicated, like this cavern, to
the wild, the desolate, and the solitary.
A few hundred yards from where the headland terminates towards the
south, there is a little rocky bay, which has been known for ages
to the seafaring men of the town as the _Cova-Green_. It is such a
place as we are sometimes made acquainted with in the narratives of
disastrous shipwrecks. First, there is a broad semicircular strip of
beach, with a wilderness of insulated piles of rock in front; and so
steep and continuous is the wall of precipices which rises behind,
that, though we may see directly overhead the grassy slopes of the
hill, with here and there a few straggling firs, no human foot ever
gained the nearer edge. The bay of Cova-Green is a prison to which the
sea presents the only outlet; and the numerous caves which open along
its sides, like the arches of an amphitheatre, seem but its darker
cells. It is in truth a wild impressive place, full of beauty and
terror, and with none of the squalidness of the mere dungeon about it.
There is a puny littleness in our brick and lime receptacles of misery
and languor, which speaks as audibly of the feebleness of man as of his
crimes or his inhumanity; but here all is great and magnificent--and
there is much, too, that is pleasing. Many of the higher cliffs which
rise beyond the influence of the spray, are tapestried with ivy; we
may see the heron watching on the ledges beside her bundle of withered
twigs, or the blue hawk darting from her cell; there is life on every
side of us--life in even the wild tumbling of the waves, and in the
stream of pure water which, rushing from the higher edge of the
precipice in a long white cord, gradually untwists itself by the way,
and spatters ceaselessly among the stones over the entrance of one of
the caves. Nor does the scene want its old story to strengthen its hold
on the imagination.
Some time early in the reign of Queen Anne, a fishing yawl, after
vainly labouring for hours to enter the Bay of Cromarty during a
strong gale from the west, was forced at nightfall to relinquish
the attempt, and take shelter in the Cova-Green. The crew consisted
of but two persons--an old fisherman and his son. Both had been
thoroughly drenched by the spray, and chilled by the piercing wind,
which, accompanied by thick snow-showers, had blown all day through
the opening from off the snowy top of Ben-Wevis; and it was with no
ordinary satisfaction that, as they opened the bay on their last tack,
they saw the red gleam of a fire flickering from one of the caves, and
a boat drawn up on the beach.
“It must be some of the Tarbat fishermen,” said the old man, “wind
bound like ourselves; but wiser than us, in having made provision for
it. I’ll feel willing enough to share their fare with them for the
night.”
“But see,” remarked the younger, “that there be no unwillingness on the
other side. I am much mistaken if that be not the boat of my cousins
the Macinlas! Hap what may, however, the night is getting worse, and
we have no choice of quarters. Hard up your helm, father, or we shall
barely clear the Skerries;--there now--every nail an anchor!”
He leaped ashore, carrying with him the small hawser attached to the
stem, known technically as the _swing_, which he wound securely round
a jutting crag, and then stood for a few seconds until the old man,
who moved but heavily along the thwarts, had come up to him. All was
comparatively calm under the lee of the precipices; but the wind was
roaring fearfully in the woods above, and whistling amid the furze and
ivy of the higher cliffs; and the two boatmen as they entered the cave
could see the flakes of a thick snow-shower, that had just begun to
descend, circling round and round in the eddy.
The place was occupied by three men--two of them young, and
rather ordinary-looking persons; the third, a greyheaded old man,
apparently of great muscular strength, though long past his prime,
and of a peculiarly sinister cast of countenance. A keg of spirits,
which was placed before them, served as a table. There were little
drinking-measures of tin on it; and the mask-like, stolid expressions
of the two younger men, showed that they had been indulging freely. The
elder was comparatively sober. A fire, composed mostly of fragments of
wreck and drift wood, threw up its broad cheerful flame towards the
roof; but so spacious was the cavern, that, except where here and there
a whiter mass of stalactites, or bolder projection of cliff, stood out
from the darkness, the light seemed lost in it. A dense body of smoke,
which stretched its blue level surface from side to side, and concealed
the roof, went rolling onwards like an inverted river. On the entrance
of the fishermen, the three boatmen within started to their feet,
and one of the younger, laying hold of the little cask, pitched it
hurriedly into a dark corner of the cave.
“Ay, ye do well to hide it, Gibbie!” exclaimed the savage-looking old
man in a bitter ironical tone, as he recognised the intruders; “here
are your good friends, William and Ernest Beth come to see if they
cannot rob and maltreat us a second time. Well! they had better try.”
There could not be a more luckless meeting. For years before had the
crew of the little fishing-yawl been regarded with the bitterest hatred
by the temporary inmates of the cave; nor was old Eachen of Tarbat one
of the class whose resentments may be safely slighted. He had passed
the first thirty years of his life among the buccaneers of South
America; he had been engaged in its latter seasons among the smugglers,
who even at this early period infested the eastern coasts of Scotland;
and Eachen, of all his associates, whether smugglers or buccaneers,
had ever been deemed one of the fiercest and most unscrupulous. On his
return from America the country was engaged in one of its long wars
with Holland, and William Beth, the elder fisherman, who had served
in the English fleet, was lying in a Dutch prison at the time, and a
report had gone abroad that he was dead. He had inherited some little
property from his father in the neighbouring town--a house and a little
field, which in his absence was held by an only sister; who, on the
report of his death, was of course regarded as a village heiress, and
whose affections, in that character, Eachen of Tarbat had succeeded in
engaging. They were married, but the marriage had turned out singularly
ill; Eachen was dissipated and selfish, and of a harsh, cruel temper;
and it was the fate of his poor wife, after giving birth to two boys,
the younger inmates of the cave, to perish in the middle of her days,
a care-worn, heart-broken creature. Her brother William had returned
from Holland shortly before, and on her death claimed and recovered
his property from her husband; and from that hour Eachen of Tarbat had
regarded him with the bitterest malice. A second cause of dislike, too,
had but lately occurred. Ernest Beth, William’s only son, and one of
his cousins, the younger son of Eachen, had both fixed their affections
on a lovely young girl, the toast of a neighbouring parish; and Ernest,
a handsome and high-spirited young man, had proved the successful
lover. On returning with his mistress from a fair, only a few weeks
previous to this evening, he had been waylaid and grossly insulted by
his two cousins; and the insult he might perhaps have borne for the
sake of what they seemed to forget--his relationship to their mother;
but there was another whom they also insulted, and that he could not
bear; and as they were mean enough to take odds against him on the
occasion, he had beaten the two spiritless fellows that did so.
The old fisherman had heard the ominous remark of the savage as if he
heard it not. “We have not met for many years, Eachen,” he said--“not
since the death of my poor sister, when we parted such ill friends;
but we are shortlived creatures ourselves, surely our anger should be
shortlived too. I have come to crave from you a seat by your fire.”
“It was no wish of mine, William Beth,” said Eachen, “that we should
ever meet; but there is room enough for us all beside the fire.”
He resumed his seat; the two fishermen took their places fronting him,
and for some time neither party exchanged a word.
“This is but a gousty lodging-place,” at length remarked the old
fisherman, looking round him; “but I have seen worse, and I wish the
folk at hame kent we were half sae snug.”
The remark seemed directed to no one in particular, and there was no
reply. In a second attempt he addressed himself to the old man.
“It has vexed me, Eachen,” he said, “that our young folk, were it but
for my sister’s sake, should not be on mair friendly terms; an’ we
ourselves too--why suld we be enemies?” The old man, without deigning a
reply, knit his grey shaggy brows, and looked doggedly at the fire.
“Nay, now,” continued the fisherman, “we are getting auld men now,
Eachen, an’ wald better bury our hard thoughts o’ ane anither afore we
come to be buried oursels.”
Eachen fixed his keen scrutinizing glance on the speaker, there was
a tremulous motion of the upper lip as he withdrew it, and a setting
of the teeth; but the tone of his reply savoured more of sullen
indifference than of passion.
“William Beth,” he said, “ye have tricked my boys out o’ the bit
property that suld have come to them by their mither; it’s no so long
since they barely escaped being murdered by your son. What more want
you? But, mayhap, ye think it better that the time should be passed in
making boss professions of good-will than employed in clearing off an
old score.”
“Ay,” hiccuped out the elder of the two sons, “the houses might come my
way then; an’, if Helen Henry were to lose her ae joe, the tither might
hae the better chance.”
“Look ye, uncle,” exclaimed the younger fisherman, “your threat might
be spared. Our little property was my grandfather’s and of right
descended to his only son. As for the affair at the tryst, I dare
either of my cousins to say the quarrel was of my seeking. I have no
wish to raise my hand against the sons or the husband of my aunt; but
if forced to it, you will find that neither my father nor myself are
wholly at your mercy.” He rose to his feet as he spoke.
“Whisht, Ernest,” said the old fisherman calmly, “sit down; your uncle
maun hae ither thoughts. It is now twenty years, Eachen,” he continued,
“since I was called to my sister’s deathbed. You cannot forget what
passed there. There had been grief and hunger beside that bed. I’ll
no say you were willingly unkind. Few folk are that but when they have
some purpose to serve by it, and you could have none; but you laid no
restraint on a harsh temper, and none on a craving habit, that forgets
everything but itself, and sae my poor sister perished in the middle of
her days, a wasted heart-broken thing. I have nae wish to hurt you. We
baith passed our youth in a bad school, and I owre aften feel I havena
unlearned a’ my own lessons to wonder that you suldna have unlearned a’
yours. But we’re getting old men, Eachen, why suld we die fools? and
fools we maun die, if we die enemies.”
“You are likely in the right,” said the stern old man. “But ye were aye
a luckier man than me, William--luckier for this warld, I’m sure--maybe
luckier for the next. I had aye to seek, and that without finding, the
good that came in your gate o’ itsel’. Now that age is coming upon
us, ye get a snug rental frae the little house and croft, and I have
naething; and ye have character and credit, but wha wald trust me, or
wha cares for me? Ye hae been made _an elder_ o’ the kirk, too, I hear,
and I am still a reprobate; but we were a’ born to be just what we are,
an’ sae we maun submit. And your son, too, shares in your luck: he has
heart and hand, and my whelps have neither; and the girl Henry, that
scouts that sot there, likes him; but what wonder of that!--William
Beth, we needna quarrel; but for peace’ sake let me alone--we have
naething in common, and friends we canna and winna be.”
“We had better,” whispered Ernest to his father, “not sleep in the cave
to-night.”
But why record the quarrels of this unfortunate evening? An hour or
two passed away in disagreeable bickerings, during which the patience
of even the old fisherman was well-nigh worn out, and that of Ernest
had failed him altogether. And at length they both quitted the cave,
boisterous as the night was, and it was now stormier than ever; and
heaving off their boat till she rode at the full length of her swing
from the shore, they sheltered themselves under the sail. The Macinlas
returned next evening to Tarbat; but though the wind moderated during
the day, the yawl of William Beth did not enter the Bay of Cromarty.
Weeks passed away during which the clergyman of the place corresponded
regarding the missing fishermen with all the lower ports of the Firth,
but they had disappeared as it seemed for ever; and Eachen Macinla,
in the name of his sons, laid claim to their property, and entered a
second time into possession of the house and the little field.
Where the northern headland of the Firth sinks into the low sandy
tract that nearly fronts the town of Cromarty, there is a narrow
grassy terrace raised but a few yards over the level of the beach. It
is sheltered behind by a steep undulating bank--for though the rock
here and there juts out, it is too rich in vegetation to be termed a
precipice. To the east, the coast retires into a semicircular rocky
recess, terminating seawards in a lofty, dark-browed precipice, and
bristling throughout all its extent with a countless multitude of crags
that at every heave of the wave break the surface into a thousand
eddies. Towards the west, there is a broken and somewhat dreary waste
of sand. The terrace itself, however, is a sweet little spot, with its
grassy slopes that recline towards the sun, partially covered with
thickets of wild-rose and honeysuckle, and studded in their season
with violets and daisies, and the delicate rock geranium. Towards
its eastern extremity, with the bank rising immediately behind, and
an open space in front which seemed to have been cultivated at one
time as a garden, there stood a picturesque little cottage. It was
that of the widow of William Beth. Five years had now elapsed since
the disappearance of her son and husband, and the cottage bore the
marks of neglect and decay. The door and window, bleached white by
the sea winds, shook loosely to every breeze; clusters of chickweed
luxuriated in the hollows of the thatch, or mantled over the eaves;
and a honeysuckle, that had twisted itself round the chimney, lay
withering in a tangled mass at the foot of the wall. But the progress
of decay was more marked in the widow than in her dwelling. She had had
to contend with grief and penury;--a grief not the less undermining
in its effects from the circumstance of its being sometimes suspended
by hope--a penury so extreme, that every succeeding day seemed as if
won by some providential interference from absolute want. And she was
now, to all appearance, fast sinking in the struggle. The autumn was
well-nigh over; she had been weak and ailing for months before; and she
had now become so feeble as to be confined for days together to her
bed. But happily, the poor solitary woman had at least one attached
friend in the daughter of a farmer of the parish, a young and beautiful
girl, who, though naturally of no melancholy temperament, seemed to
derive almost all she enjoyed of pleasure from the society of the widow.
Autumn we have said was near its close. The weather had given
indications of an early and severe winter; and the widow, whose
worn-out and delicate frame was affected by every change of atmosphere,
had for a few days been more than usually indisposed. It was now long
past noon, and she had but just risen. The apartment, however, bore
witness that her young friend had paid her the accustomed morning
visit; the fire was blazing on a clean, comfortable-looking hearth, and
every little piece of furniture was arranged with the most scrupulous
care. Her devotions were hardly over when the well-known tap and light
foot of her friend Helen Henry were again heard at the door.
“To-morrow, mother,” said Helen, as she took her seat beside her, “is
Ernest’s birthday. Is it not strange that, when our minds make pictures
of the dead, it is always as they looked best, and kindliest, and most
lifelike? I have been seeing Ernest all day long, as when I saw him on
his _last_ birthday.”
“Ah, my bairn!” said the widow, grasping her young friend by the hand,
“I see that, sae lang as we continue to meet, our thoughts will be aye
running the ae way. I had a strange dream last night, an’ must tell it
you. You see yon rock to the east, in the middle o’ the little bay,
that now rises through the back draught o’ the sea, like the hulk o’ a
ship, an’ is now buried in a mountain o’ foam. I dreamed I was sitting
on that rock, in what seemed a bonny simmer’s morning. The sun was
glancin’ on the water, an’ I could see the white sand far down at the
bottom, wi’ the reflection o’ the little waves aboon running over it in
long curls o’ gowd. But there was no way of leaving the rock, for the
deep waters were round an’ round me; an’ I saw the tide covering ae wee
bittie after anither, till at last the whole was covered. An’ yet I had
but little fear, for I remembered that baith Ernest an’ William were in
the sea afore me; an’ I had the feeling that I could hae rest nowhere
but wi’ them. The water at last closed o’er me, an’ I sank frae aff the
rock to the sand at the bottom. But death seemed to have no power given
him to hurt me, an’ I walked as light as ever I had done on a gowany
brae, through the green depths o’ the sea. I saw the silvery glitter o’
the trout an’ the salmon shining to the sun, far, far aboon me, like
white pigeons i’ the lift; and around me there were crimson star-fish,
an’ sea-flowers, and long trailing plants that waved in the tide like
streamers; an’ at length I came to a steep rock wi’ a little cave like
a tomb in it. Here, I said, is the end o’ my journey--William is here,
an’ Ernest. An’ as I looked into the cave, I saw there were bones in
it, an’ I prepared to take my place beside them. But, as I stooped to
enter, some one called on me, an’, on looking up, there was William.
‘Lillias,’ he said, ‘it is not night yet, nor is that your bed; you are
to sleep, not with me, but, lang after this, with Ernest; haste you
home, for he is waiting for you.’ ‘Oh, take me to him!’ I said; an’
then all at once I found mysel’ on the shore dizzied and blinded wi’
the bright sunshine; for at the cave there was a darkness like that o’
a simmer’s gloamin; an’ when I looked up for William, it was Ernest
that stood before me, lifelike and handsome as ever; an’ you were
beside him.”
The day had been gloomy and lowering, and though there was little wind,
a tremendous sea, that as the evening advanced rose higher and higher
against the neighbouring precipice, had been rolling ashore since
morning. The wind now began to blow in long hollow gusts among the
cliffs, and the rain to patter against the widow’s casement.
“It will be a storm from the sea,” she said; “the scarts an’ gulls
hae been flying landward sin’ daybreak, an’ I hae never seen the
ground-swell come home heavier against the rocks. Waes me for the puir
sailors that maun bide under it a’!”
“In the long stormy nights,” said her companion, “I cannot sleep
for thinking of them; though I have no one to bind me to them now.
Only look how the sea rages among the rocks as if it were a thing of
life--that last wave rose to the crane’s nest. And look, yonder is a
boat rounding the rock with only one man in it. It dances on the surf
as if it were a cork, and the little bit sail, so black and wet, seems
scarcely bigger than a napkin. Is it not bearing in for the boat-haven
below?”
“My poor old eyes,” replied the widow, “are growing dim, an’ surely
no wonder; but yet I think I should ken that boatman. Is it no Eachen
Macinla o’ Tarbat?”
“Hard-hearted old man!” exclaimed the maiden, “what can be taking him
here? Look how his skiff shoots in like an arrow on the long roll o’
the surf!--and now she is high on the beach. How cruel it was of him to
rob you of your little property in the very first of your grief! But
see, he is so worn out that he can hardly walk over the rough stones.
Ah me, he is down!--wretched old man, I must run to his assistance;
but no, he has risen again. See, he is coming straight to the house;
and now he is at the door.” In a moment after, Eachen entered the
cottage.
“I am perishing, Lillias,” he said, “with cold and hunger, an’ can gang
nae farther--surely ye’ll no shut your door on me in a night like this?”
The poor widow had been taught in a far different school. She
relinquished to the worn-out boatman her seat by the fire, now
hurriedly heaped with fresh fuel, and hastened to set before him the
simple viands which her cottage afforded.
As the night darkened, the storm increased. The wind roared among the
rocks like the rattling of a thousand carriages over a paved street;
and there were times when, after a sudden pause, the blast struck the
cottage as if it were a huge missile flung against it, and pressed on
its roof and walls till the very floor rocked, and the rafters strained
and quivered like the beams of a stranded vessel. There was a ceaseless
patter of mingled rain and snow--now lower, now louder; and the fearful
thunderings of the waves as they raged among the pointed crags, were
mingled with the hoarse roll of the stones along the beach. The old man
sat beside the fire fronting the widow and her companion, with his head
reclined nearly as low as his knee, and his hands covering his face.
There was no attempt at conversation. He seemed to shudder every time
the blast yelled along the roof, and as a fiercer gust burst open the
door, there was a half-muttered ejaculation.
“Heaven itsel’ hae mercy on them! for what can man do in a night like
this?”
“It is black as pitch!” exclaimed the maiden, who had risen to draw the
bolt, “and the drift flees so thick that it feels to the hand like a
solid snow-wreath. And, oh, how it lightens!”
“Heaven itsel’ hae mercy on them!” again ejaculated the old man. “My
two boys,” said he, addressing the widow, “are at the far Firth; an’
how can an open boat live in a night like this!”
There seemed something magical in the communication--something that
awakened all the sympathies of the poor bereaved woman; and she felt
she could forgive him every unkindness.
“Waes me!” she exclaimed, “it was in such a night as this, an’ scarcely
sae wild, that my Ernest perished.”
The old man groaned and wrung his hands.
In one of the pauses of the hurricane there was a gun heard from the
sea, and shortly after a second. “Some puir vessel in distress,” said
the widow, “but, alas! where can succour come frae in sae terrible a
night? There is help only in Ane! Waes me! would we no better light up
a blaze on the floor, an’, dearest Helen, draw off the cover frae the
window? My puir Ernest has told me that my light has aften showed him
his bearings frae the deadly bed o’ Dunskaith. That last gun,” for a
third was now heard booming over the mingled roar of the sea and the
wind, “cam frae the very rock edge. Waes me! maun they perish, an’ sae
near?” Helen hastily lighted a bundle of mire-fir, that threw up its
red sputtering blaze half-way to the roof, and dropping the covering,
continued to wave it opposite the window. Guns were still heard at
measured intervals, but apparently from a safer offing; and the last,
as it sounded faintly against the wind, came evidently from the
interior of the bay.
“She has escaped,” said the old man; “it’s a feeble hand that canna do
good when the heart is willing;--but what has mine been doing a’ life
lang?” He looked at the widow and shuddered.
Towards morning the wind fell, and the moon in her last quarter rose
red and glaring out of the Firth, lighting the melancholy roll of the
waves, and the broad white belt of surf that skirted the shore. The
old fisherman left the cottage, and sauntered along the beach. It was
heaped with huge wreaths of kelp and tangle, uprooted by the storm,
and in the hollow of the rocky bay lay the scattered fragments of a
boat. Eachen stooped to pick up a piece of the wreck, in the fearful
expectation of finding some known mark by which to recognise it; when
the light fell full on the swollen face of a corpse, that seemed
staring at him from out a wreath of sea-weed. It was that of his eldest
son; and the body of the younger, fearfully gashed and mangled by the
rocks, lay a few yards further to the east.
The morning was as pleasant as the night had been boisterous; and,
except that the distant hills were covered with snow, and that a heavy
swell continued to roll in from the sea, there remained scarce any
trace of the recent tempest. Every hollow of the neighbouring hill had
its little runnel, formed by the rains of the previous night, that now
splashed and glistened to the sun. The bushes round the cottage were
well-nigh divested of their leaves; but their red berries--hips and
haws, and the juicy fruit of the honeysuckle--gleamed cheerfully to the
light, and a warm steam of vapour, like that of a May morning, rose
from the roof and the little mossy platform in front. But the scene
seemed to have something more than merely its beauty to recommend it
to a young man, drawn apparently to the spot, with many others, by the
fate of the two unfortunate fishermen, and who now stood gazing on the
rocks, and the hill, and the cottage, as a lover on the features of his
mistress. The bodies had been carried to an old storehouse, which may
still be seen, a short mile to the west; and the crowds that, during
the early part of the morning, had been perambulating the beach, gazing
at the wreck, and discussing the various probabilities of the accident,
had gradually dispersed. But this solitary individual, whom no one
knew, remained behind. He was a tall and somewhat swarthy, though very
handsome man, of about seven-and-twenty, with a slight scar on the
left cheek; and his dress, which was plain and neat, was distinguished
from that of the common seaman by three narrow strips of gold lace
on the upper part of one of the sleeves. He had twice stepped towards
the cottage door, and twice drawn back, as if influenced by some
unaccountable feeling--timidity, perhaps, or bashfulness; and yet the
bearing of the man gave little indication of either. But at length, as
if he had gathered heart, he raised the latch and went in.
The widow, who had had many visitors that morning, seemed to be
scarcely aware of his entrance; she was sitting on a low seat beside
the fire, her face covered with her hands, while the tremulous
rocking motion of her body showed that she was still brooding over
the distresses of the previous night. Her companion, who, without
undressing, had thrown herself across the bed, was fast asleep. The
stranger seated himself beside the fire, which seemed dying amid its
ashes, and, turning sedulously from the light of the window, laid his
hand gently on the widow’s shoulder. She started and looked up.
“I have strange news for you,” he said. “You have long mourned for your
husband and your son; but though the old man has been dead for years,
your son Ernest is still alive, and is now in the harbour of Cromarty.
He is lieutenant of the vessel whose guns you must have heard during
the night.”
The poor woman seemed to have lost all power of reply.
“I am a friend of Ernest’s,” continued the stranger, “and have come to
prepare you to meet with him. It is now five years since his father
and he were blown off to sea by a strong gale from the land. They
drove before it for four days, when they were picked up by an armed
vessel cruising in the North Sea, and which soon after sailed for the
coast of Spanish America. The poor old man sank under the fatigues he
had undergone; though Ernest, better able from his youth to endure
hardship, was little affected by them. He accompanied us on our Spanish
expedition--indeed, he had no choice, for we touched at no British
port after meeting with him; and through good fortune, and what his
companions call merit, he has risen to be the second man aboard; and
has now brought home with him gold enough from the Spaniards to make
his old mother comfortable. He saw your light yester evening, and
steered by it to the roadstead, blessing you all the way. Tell me, for
he anxiously wished me to inquire of you, whether Helen Henry is yet
unmarried?”
“It is Ernest--it is Ernest himself!” exclaimed the maiden, as she
started from the widow’s bed. In a moment after he had locked her in
his arms.
It was ill before evening with old Eachen Macinla. The fatigues of
the previous day, the grief and horror of the following night, had
prostrated his energies bodily and mental; and he now lay tossing in a
waste apartment of the storehouse in the delirium of fever. The bodies
of his two sons occupied the floor below. He muttered unceasingly in
his ravings, of William and Ernest Beth. They were standing beside him,
he said, and every time he attempted to pray for his poor boys and
himself, the stern old man laid his cold swollen hand on his lips.
“Why trouble me?” he exclaimed. “Why stare with your white dead eyes
on me? Away, old man! the little black shells are sticking in your
grey hairs; away to your place! Was it I who raised the wind or the
sea?--was it I--was it I? Aha!--no--no--you were asleep--you were fast
asleep, and could not see me cut the _swing_; and, besides, it was only
a piece of rope. Keep away--touch me not! I am a freeman, and will
plead for my life. Please your honour, I did not murder these two men;
_I only cut the rope that fastened their boat to the land_. Ha! ha! ha!
he has ordered them away, and they have both left me unskaithed.” At
this moment Ernest Beth entered the apartment, and approached the bed.
The miserable old man raised himself on his elbow, and, regarding him
with a horrid stare, shrieked out--“Here is Ernest Beth come for me a
second time!” and, sinking back on the pillow, instantly expired.