be Lord Glenallan. “Is there not,” he said, “an old woman lodging in
this or one of the neighbouring cottages, called Elspeth, who was long
resident at Craigburnfoot of Glenallan?”
“It’s my gudemither, my lord,” said Margaret; “but she canna see
onybody e’enow--Ohon! we’re dreeing a sair weird--we hae had a heavy
dispensation!”
“God forbid,” said Lord Glenallan, “that I should on light occasion
disturb your sorrow;--but my days are numbered--your mother-in-law is in
the extremity of age, and, if I see her not to-day, we may never meet on
this side of time.”
“And what,” answered the desolate mother, “wad ye see at an auld woman,
broken down wi’ age and sorrow and heartbreak? Gentle or semple shall
not darken my door the day my bairn’s been carried out a corpse.”
While she spoke thus, indulging the natural irritability of disposition
and profession, which began to mingle itself with her grief when
its first uncontrolled bursts were gone by, she held the door about
one-third part open, and placed herself in the gap, as if to render the
visitor’s entrance impossible. But the voice of her husband was heard
from within--“Wha’s that, Maggie? what for are ye steaking them out?--let
them come in; it doesna signify an auld rope’s end wha comes in or wha
gaes out o’ this house frae this time forward.”
The woman stood aside at her husband’s command, and permitted Lord
Glenallan to enter the hut. The dejection exhibited in his broken frame
and emaciated countenance, formed a strong contrast with the effects of
grief, as they were displayed in the rude and weatherbeaten visage of
the fisherman, and the masculine features of his wife. He approached
the old woman as she was seated on her usual settle, and asked her, in
a tone as audible as his voice could make it, “Are you Elspeth of the
Craigburnfoot of Glenallan?”
“Wha is it that asks about the unhallowed residence of that evil woman?”
was the answer returned to his query.
“The unhappy Earl of Glenallan.”
“Earl!--Earl of Glenallan!”
“He who was called William Lord Geraldin,” said the Earl; “and whom his
mother’s death has made Earl of Glenallan.”
“Open the bole,” said the old woman firmly and hastily to her
daughter-in-law, “open the bole wi’ speed, that I may see if this be
the right Lord Geraldin--the son of my mistress--him that I received in my
arms within the hour after he was born--him that has reason to curse me
that I didna smother him before the hour was past!”
The window, which had been shut in order that a gloomy twilight
might add to the solemnity of the funeral meeting, was opened as she
commanded, and threw a sudden and strong light through the smoky and
misty atmosphere of the stifling cabin. Falling in a stream upon the
chimney, the rays illuminated, in the way that Rembrandt would have
chosen, the features of the unfortunate nobleman, and those of the old
sibyl, who now, standing upon her feet, and holding him by one hand,
peered anxiously in his features with her light-blue eyes, and holding
her long and withered fore-finger within a small distance of his face,
moved it slowly as if to trace the outlines and reconcile what she
recollected with that she now beheld. As she finished her scrutiny, she
said, with a deep sigh, “It’s a sair--sair change; and wha’s fault is
it?--but that’s written down where it will be remembered--it’s written on
tablets of brass with a pen of steel, where all is recorded that is done
in the flesh.--And what,” she said after a pause, “what is Lord Geraldin
seeking from a poor auld creature like me, that’s dead already, and only
belongs sae far to the living that she isna yet laid in the moulds?”
“Nay,” answered Lord Glenallan, “in the name of Heaven, why was it that
you requested so urgently to see me?--and why did you back your request
by sending a token which you knew well I dared not refuse?”
As he spoke thus, he took from his purse the ring which Edie Ochiltree
had delivered to him at Glenallan House. The sight of this token
produced a strange and instantaneous effect upon the old woman. The
palsy of fear was immediately added to that of age, and she began
instantly to search her pockets with the tremulous and hasty agitation
of one who becomes first apprehensive of having lost something of great
importance;--then, as if convinced of the reality of her fears, she
turned to the Earl, and demanded, “And how came ye by it then?--how came
ye by it? I thought I had kept it sae securely--what will the Countess
say?”
“You know,” said the Earl, “at least you must have heard, that my mother
is dead.”
“Dead! are ye no imposing upon me? has she left a’ at last, lands and
lordship and lineages?”
“All, all,” said the Earl, “as mortals must leave all human vanities.”
“I mind now,” answered Elspeth--“I heard of it before but there has been
sic distress in our house since, and my memory is sae muckle impaired--
But ye are sure your mother, the Lady Countess, is gane hame?”
The Earl again assured her that her former mistress was no more.
“Then,” said Elspeth, “it shall burden my mind nae langer!--When she
lived, wha dared to speak what it would hae displeased her to hae had
noised abroad? But she’s gane--and I will confess all.”
Then turning to her son and daughter-in-law, she commanded them
imperatively to quit the house, and leave Lord Geraldin (for so she
still called him) alone with her. But Maggie Mucklebackit, her first
burst of grief being over, was by no means disposed in her own house to
pay passive obedience to the commands of her mother-in-law, an authority
which is peculiarly obnoxious to persons in her rank of life, and which
she was the more astonished at hearing revived, when it seemed to have
been so long relinquished and forgotten.
“It was an unco thing,” she said, in a grumbling tone of voice,--for the
rank of Lord Glenallan was somewhat imposing--“it was an unco thing to
bid a mother leave her ain house wi’ the tear in her ee, the moment her
eldest son had been carried a corpse out at the door o’t.”
The fisherman, in a stubborn and sullen tone, added to the same purpose.
“This is nae day for your auld-warld stories, mother. My lord, if he be
a lord, may ca’ some other day--or he may speak out what he has gotten to
say if he likes it; there’s nane here will think it worth their while
to listen to him or you either. But neither for laird or loon, gentle or
semple, will I leave my ain house to pleasure onybody on the very day my
poor”--
Here his voice choked, and he could proceed no farther; but as he had
risen when Lord Glenallan came in, and had since remained standing,
he now threw himself doggedly upon a seat, and remained in the sullen
posture of one who was determined to keep his word.
But the old woman, whom this crisis seemed to repossess in all those
powers of mental superiority with which she had once been eminently
gifted, arose, and advancing towards him, said, with a solemn voice,
“My son, as ye wad shun hearing of your mother’s shame--as ye wad not
willingly be a witness of her guilt--as ye wad deserve her blessing and
avoid her curse, I charge ye, by the body that bore and that nursed ye,
to leave me at freedom to speak with Lord Geraldin, what nae mortal ears
but his ain maun listen to. Obey my words, that when ye lay the moulds
on my head--and, oh that the day were come!--ye may remember this hour
without the reproach of having disobeyed the last earthly command that
ever your mother wared on you.”
The terms of this solemn charge revived in the fisherman’s heart the
habit of instinctive obedience in which his mother had trained him up,
and to which he had submitted implicitly while her powers of exacting
it remained entire. The recollection mingled also with the prevailing
passion of the moment; for, glancing his eye at the bed on which the
dead body had been laid, he muttered to himself, “He never disobeyed me,
in reason or out o’ reason, and what for should I vex her?” Then, taking
his reluctant spouse by the arm, he led her gently out of the cottage,
and latched the door behind them as he left it.
As the unhappy parents withdrew, Lord Glenallan, to prevent the old
woman from relapsing into her lethargy, again pressed her on the subject
of the communication which she proposed to make to him.
“Ye will have it sune eneugh,” she replied;--“my mind’s clear eneugh now,
and there is not--I think there is not--a chance of my forgetting what I
have to say. My dwelling at Craigburnfoot is before my een, as it were
present in reality:--the green bank, with its selvidge, just where the
burn met wi’ the sea--the twa little barks, wi’ their sails furled, lying
in the natural cove which it formed--the high cliff that joined it with
the pleasure-grounds of the house of Glenallan, and hung right ower the
stream--Ah! yes--I may forget that I had a husband and have lost him--
that I hae but ane alive of our four fair sons--that misfortune upon
misfortune has devoured our ill-gotten wealth--that they carried the
corpse of my son’s eldest-born frae the house this morning--But I never
can forget the days I spent at bonny Craigburnfoot!”
“You were a favourite of my mother,” said Lord Glenallan, desirous to
bring her back to the point, from which she was wandering.
“I was, I was,--ye needna mind me o’ that. She brought me up abune my
station, and wi’ knowledge mair than my fellows--but, like the tempter of
auld, wi’ the knowledge of gude she taught me the knowledge of evil.”
“For God’s sake, Elspeth,” said the astonished Earl, “proceed, if you
can, to explain the dreadful hints you have thrown out! I well know you
are confidant to one dreadful secret, which should split this roof even
to hear it named--but speak on farther.”
“I will,” she said--“I will!--just bear wi’ me for a little;”--and again
she seemed lost in recollection, but it was no longer tinged with
imbecility or apathy. She was now entering upon the topic which had long
loaded her mind, and which doubtless often occupied her whole soul
at times when she seemed dead to all around her. And I may add, as a
remarkable fact, that such was the intense operation of mental energy
upon her physical powers and nervous system, that, notwithstanding her
infirmity of deafness, each word that Lord Glenallan spoke during this
remarkable conference, although in the lowest tone of horror or agony,
fell as full and distinct upon Elspeth’s ear as it could have done at
any period of her life. She spoke also herself clearly, distinctly, and
slowly, as if anxious that the intelligence she communicated should
be fully understood; concisely at the same time, and with none of the
verbiage or circumlocutory additions natural to those of her sex and
condition. In short, her language bespoke a better education, as well as
an uncommonly firm and resolved mind, and a character of that sort from
which great virtues or great crimes may be naturally expected. The tenor
of her communication is disclosed in the following CHAPTER.
CHAPTER TWELFTH.
Remorse--she neer forsakes us--
A bloodhound staunch--she tracks our rapid step
Through the wild labyrinth of youthful frenzy,
Unheard, perchance, until old age hath tamed us
Then in our lair, when Time hath chilled our joints,
And maimed our hope of combat, or of flight,
We hear her deep-mouthed bay, announcing all
Of wrath, and wo, and punishment that bides us.
Old Play.
“I need not tell you,” said the old woman, addressing the Earl of
Glenallan, “that I was the favourite and confidential attendant of
Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, whom God assoilzie!”--(here she crossed
herself)--“and I think farther, ye may not have forgotten that I
shared her regard for mony years. I returned it by the maist
sincere attachment, but I fell into disgrace frae a trifling act of
disobedience, reported to your mother by ane that thought, and she wasna
wrang, that I was a spy upon her actions and yours.”
“I charge thee, woman,” said the Earl, in a voice trembling with
passion, “name not her name in my hearing!”
“I must,” returned the penitent firmly and calmly, “or how can you
understand me?”
The Earl leaned upon one of the wooden chairs of the hut, drew his hat
over his face, clenched his hands together, set his teeth like one who
summons up courage to undergo a painful operation, and made a signal to
her to proceed.
“I say, then,” she resumed, “that my disgrace with my mistress was
chiefly owing to Miss Eveline Neville, then bred up in Glenallan House
as the daughter of a cousin-german and intimate friend of your father
that was gane. There was muckle mystery in her history,--but wha dared to
inquire farther than the Countess liked to tell?--All in Glenallan House
loved Miss Neville--all but twa, your mother and mysell--we baith hated
her.”
“God! for what reason, since a creature so mild, so gentle, so formed to
inspire affection, never walked on this wretched world?”
“It may hae been sae,” rejoined Elspeth, “but your mother hated a’
that cam of your father’s family--a’ but himsell. Her reasons related to
strife which fell between them soon after her marriage; the particulars
are naething to this purpose. But oh! doubly did she hate Eveline
Neville when she perceived that there was a growing kindness atween
you and that unfortunate young leddy! Ye may mind that the Countess’s
dislike didna gang farther at first than just showing o’ the cauld
shouther--at least it wasna seen farther; but at the lang run it brak
out into such downright violence that Miss Neville was even fain to seek
refuge at Knockwinnock Castle with Sir Arthur’s leddy, wha (God sain
her!) was then wi’ the living.”
“You rend my heart by recalling these particulars--But go on,--and may
my present agony be accepted as additional penance for the involuntary
crime!”
“She had been absent some months,” continued Elspeth, “when I was ae
night watching in my hut the return of my husband from fishing, and
shedding in private those bitter tears that my proud spirit wrung frae
me whenever I thought on my disgrace. The sneck was drawn, and the
Countess your mother entered my dwelling. I thought I had seen a
spectre, for even in the height of my favour, this was an honour she had
never done me, and she looked as pale and ghastly as if she had risen
from the grave. She sat down, and wrung the draps from her hair and
cloak,--for the night was drizzling, and her walk had been through the
plantations, that were a’ loaded with dew. I only mention these things
that you may understand how weel that night lives in my memory,--and weel
it may. I was surprised to see her, but I durstna speak first, mair than
if I had seen a phantom-- Na, I durst not, my lord, I that hae seen mony
sights of terror, and never shook at them. Sae, after a silence, she
said, Elspeth Cheyne (for she always gave me my maiden name), are not ye
the daughter of that Reginald Cheyne who died to save his master, Lord
Glenallan, on the field of Sheriffmuir?’ And I answered her as proudly
as hersell nearly--As sure as you are the daughter of that Earl of
Glenallan whom my father saved that day by his own death.’”
Here she made a deep pause.
“And what followed?--what followed?--For Heaven’s sake, good woman--But why
should I use that word?--Yet, good or bad, I command you to tell me.”
“And little I should value earthly command,” answered Elspeth, “were
there not a voice that has spoken to me sleeping and waking, that drives
me forward to tell this sad tale. Aweel, my Lord--the Countess said to
me, My son loves Eveline Neville--they are agreed--they are plighted:
should they have a son, my right over Glenallan merges--I sink from
that moment from a Countess into a miserable stipendiary dowager, I
who brought lands and vassals, and high blood and ancient fame, to my
husband, I must cease to be mistress when my son has an heir-male. But
I care not for that--had he married any but one of the hated Nevilles,
I had been patient. But for them--that they and their descendants should
enjoy the right and honours of my ancestors, goes through my heart like
a two-edged dirk. And this girl--I detest her!’--And I answered, for my
heart kindled at her words, that her hate was equalled by mine.”
“Wretch!” exclaimed the Earl, in spite of his determination to preserve
silence--“wretched woman! what cause of hate could have arisen from a
being so innocent and gentle?”
“I hated what my mistress hated, as was the use with the liege vassals
of the house of Glenallan; for though, my Lord, I married under my
degree, yet an ancestor of yours never went to the field of battle, but
an ancestor of the frail, demented, auld, useless wretch wha now speaks
with you, carried his shield before him. But that was not a’,” continued
the beldam, her earthly and evil passions rekindling as she became
heated in her narration--“that was not a’; I hated Miss Eveline Neville
for her ain sake, I brought her frae England, and, during our whole
journey, she gecked and scorned at my northern speech and habit, as her
southland leddies and kimmers had done at the boarding-school, as they
cald it”--(and, strange as it may seem, she spoke of an affront offered
by a heedless school-girl without intention, with a degree of inveteracy
which, at such a distance of time, a mortal offence would neither have
authorized or excited in any well-constituted mind)--“Yes, she scorned
and jested at me--but let them that scorn the tartan fear the dirk!”
She paused, and then went on--“But I deny not that I hated her mair than
she deserved. My mistress, the Countess, persevered and said, Elspeth
Cheyne, this unruly boy will marry with the false English blood.
Were days as they have been, I could throw her into the Massymore* of
Glenallan, and fetter him in the Keep of Strathbonnel.
* Massa-mora, an ancient name for a dungeon, derived from the Moorish
language, perhaps as far back as the time of the Crusades.
But these times are past, and the authority which the nobles of the
land should exercise is delegated to quibbling lawyers and their baser
dependants. Hear me, Elspeth Cheyne! if you are your father’s daughter
as I am mine, I will find means that they shall not marry. She walks
often to that cliff that overhangs your dwelling to look for her
lover’s boat--(ye may remember the pleasure ye then took on the sea, my
Lord)--let him find her forty fathom lower than he expects!’--Yes! ye may
stare and frown and clench your hand; but, as sure as I am to face the
only Being I ever feared--and, oh that I had feared him mair!--these were
your mother’s words. What avails it to me to lie to you?--But I wadna
consent to stain my hand with blood.--Then she said, By the religion of
our holy Church they are ower sibb thegither. But I expect nothing but
that both will become heretics as well as disobedient reprobates;’--that
was her addition to that argument. And then, as the fiend is ever ower
busy wi’ brains like mine, that are subtle beyond their use and station,
I was unhappily permitted to add--But they might be brought to think
themselves sae sibb as no Christian law will permit their wedlock.’”
Here the Earl of Glenallan echoed her words, with a shriek so piercing
as almost to rend the roof of the cottage.--“Ah! then Eveline Neville was
not the--the”--
“The daughter, ye would say, of your father?” continued Elspeth. “No--be
it a torment or be it a comfort to you--ken the truth, she was nae mair a
daughter of your father’s house than I am.”
“Woman, deceive me not!--make me not curse the memory of the parent I
have so lately laid in the grave, for sharing in a plot the most cruel,
the most infernal”--
“Bethink ye, my Lord Geraldin, ere ye curse the memory of a parent
that’s gane, is there none of the blood of Glenallan living, whose
faults have led to this dreadfu’ catastrophe?”
“Mean you my brother?--he, too, is gone,” said the Earl.
“No,” replied the sibyl, “I mean yoursell, Lord Geraldin. Had you not
transgressed the obedience of a son by wedding Eveline Neville in secret
while a guest at Knockwinnock, our plot might have separated you for
a time, but would have left at least your sorrows without remorse to
canker them. But your ain conduct had put poison in the weapon that we
threw, and it pierced you with the mair force because ye cam rushing to
meet it. Had your marriage been a proclaimed and acknowledged action,
our stratagem to throw an obstacle into your way that couldna be got
ower, neither wad nor could hae been practised against ye.”
“Great Heaven!” said the unfortunate nobleman--“it is as if a film fell
from my obscured eyes! Yes, I now well understand the doubtful hints
of consolation thrown out by my wretched mother, tending indirectly
to impeach the evidence of the horrors of which her arts had led me to
believe myself guilty.”
“She could not speak mair plainly,” answered Elspeth, “without
confessing her ain fraud,--and she would have submitted to be torn by
wild horses, rather than unfold what she had done; and if she had still
lived, so would I for her sake. They were stout hearts the race of
Glenallan, male and female, and sae were a’ that in auld times cried
their gathering-word of Clochnaben--they stood shouther to shouther--nae
man parted frae his chief for love of gold or of gain, or of right or of
wrang. The times are changed, I hear, now.”
The unfortunate nobleman was too much wrapped up in his own confused
and distracted reflections, to notice the rude expressions of savage
fidelity, in which, even in the latest ebb of life, the unhappy author
of his misfortunes seemed to find a stern and stubborn source of
consolation.
“Great Heaven!” he exclaimed, “I am then free from a guilt the most
horrible with which man can be stained, and the sense of which, however
involuntary, has wrecked my peace, destroyed my health, and bowed me
down to an untimely grave. Accept,” he fervently uttered, lifting his
eyes upwards, “accept my humble thanks! If I live miserable, at least
I shall not die stained with that unnatural guilt!--And thou--proceed if
thou hast more to tell--proceed, while thou hast voice to speak it, and I
have powers to listen.”
“Yes,” answered the beldam, “the hour when you shall hear, and I shall
speak, is indeed passing rapidly away. Death has crossed your brow with
his finger, and I find his grasp turning every day coulder at my heart.
Interrupt me nae mair with exclamations and groans and accusations, but
hear my tale to an end! And then--if ye be indeed sic a Lord of Glenallan
as I hae heard of in my day--make your merrymen gather the thorn, and
the brier, and the green hollin, till they heap them as high as the
house-riggin’, and burn! burn! burn! the auld witch Elspeth, and a’ that
can put ye in mind that sic a creature ever crawled upon the land!”
“Go on,” said the Earl, “go on--I will not again interrupt you.”
He spoke in a half-suffocated yet determined voice, resolved that no
irritability on his part should deprive him of this opportunity of
acquiring proofs of the wonderful tale he then heard. But Elspeth had
become exhausted by a continuous narration of such unusual length;
the subsequent part of her story was more broken, and though still
distinctly intelligible in most parts, had no longer the lucid
conciseness which the first part of her narrative had displayed to such
an astonishing degree. Lord Glenallan found it necessary, when she had
made some attempts to continue her narrative without success, to prompt
her memory by demanding--“What proofs she could propose to bring of the
truth of a narrative so different from that which she had originally
told?”
“The evidence,” she replied, “of Eveline Neville’s real birth was in
the Countess’s possession, with reasons for its being for some time kept
private;--they may yet be found, if she has not destroyed them, in the
left hand drawer of the ebony cabinet that stood in the dressing-room.
These she meant to suppress for the time, until you went abroad again,
when she trusted, before your return, to send Miss Neville back to her
ain country, or to get her settled in marriage.”
“But did you not show me letters of my father’s, which seemed to me,
unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avow
his relationship to--to the unhappy”--