THE COUSINS.--THE STORY CONTINUED.
Many years had glided thus away.
The summer of 1594 was at hand. Kenneth Logie was then twenty years
of age, and his cousin was two years younger. Kenneth, a handsome
and athletic lad, excelled in all the manly sports and exercises
necessary to complete the education of a Scottish gentleman. But
Lily! The bud had become a rose, the pretty child a beautiful woman;
mild and happy, merry or pensive, by turns. Lily, in her eighteenth
year, had indeed become the Lily of Logie--the Lily of the many songs
in which her memory has been embalmed. Heaven never created a being
more beautiful!
There are some women whom we admire for their dazzling skin; for
their fine hair, or their sparkling eyes; for their dimpled hands,
their handsome ankles, or their necks of snow; but in every point of
form and feature fair Lily was admirable. She was one of those
magnificent beings that appear but once in a century. She was then
the wonder, as she is still the boast, of all Cromar and the Garioch.
Her violet-coloured eyes were soft and brilliant, but their lashes
were of the darkest brown; and her hair was of that bright hue which
alternates between auburn and gold, like the tresses attributed to
Venus, or to Scotland's martyred Mary. Her feet and hands were
small, but beautifully proportioned, and nothing could be more
alluring than the sound of her sweet voice; nothing more attractive
than the happy vivacity and brilliance of her manner, which was full
of pretty retort and merry repartee.
Cousin Kenneth felt conscious that she was more than beautiful--that
she was supremely innocent and good; and he loved her with a quiet
depth of passion, which, as it was based on the most perfect feeling
of security, knew no warp or interruption in its current. Though he
still called her his "dear little wifie," a change had, of course,
come over them since he had first been taught to say so; for now the
time approached when she was to become--as he said--"his dear little
bride in earnest."
Kenneth Logie was, more than ever, all the world to Lily! Save
Halbert Gordon, she had never been intimately acquainted with any
other man; and, though he was eminently handsome, there was a
something in his air and in his aspect, that made her shrink from the
man still more than she had shrunk from the boy. Yet Halbert was not
without many external graces; he had a swarthy cheek and a dark
fierce eye, with a strong and well knit figure. He carried a sword,
which he used as if he had been born with it; he could ride the
wildest horses, break the strongest lances, throw the heaviest
hammers, and hit the most distant targets with the arrow or bullet;
but there was a certain air about him, somewhat between the soldier
and the bravo, that Kenneth never cared to imitate. Being laird of
the moated Tower he was a lesser baron, and head of a branch of the
house of Huntly, while poor Kenneth was but a penniless orphan, and
in right of his future wife was destined to be merely the gudeman of
Culbleine.
At county meetings, at weaponshows, at kirk or market, wherever
Halbert presented himself, with a falcon on his dexter thumb, a sword
and dagger in his belt, a velvet mantle dangling on his left
shoulder; his doublet covered with lace, his bombasted trunk breeches
and gold spurs, his bonnet slouched over his fierce and
devil-may-care dark eyes--he enforced respect, and completely
overshadowed the less assuming, but assuredly not less brave, Kenneth
Logie, who was inoffensive and quiet, as the other was offensive and
quarrelsome. Gordon was rakish and libertine; so old Jock of the
Cleugh had every reason to be satisfied with his pupil, whom he had
trained up in the path which he thought most proper for a gentleman
and soldier to pursue. Thus, in his twentieth year, Gordon's stormy
and licentious manners, together with his fierce disposition, made
him a terror and a proverb in the quiet and pastoral district of
Cromar.
Save in occasional rides or chance walks, he never now saw the Lily
of Culbleine; for, although the chimneys of their dwellings were
visible from each other's windows, difference of faith, and certain
dark rumours, political and religious, which were then floating
through Scotland, made still wider that gulf between "Catholic and
Presbyterian" which had always separated their mothers as aliens and
enemies. In short, an armed insurrection of the Scottish Catholics,
to co-operate with a Spanish invasion of England, and to avenge the
murder of Queen Mary, was hourly expected; and James VI., with the
Calvinists of the kingdom, were watchful and on the alert. Thus,
Gordon, though he cared not a rush for religion or any thing else
when a pretty woman was concerned, was restrained from visiting as a
man, the scenes where he had played as a boy, for his haughty soul
could not brook the idea of being an intruder. In a word, this wild
gallant loved Lily as he hated Kenneth, with his whole heart and his
whole soul.
A region of fierce and sudden impulses, his breast knew but two
sentiments; for one cousin, love--for the other, hatred; and both
these sentiments were the offspring of an indomitable pride. The
jealousy of the sullen boy had become the settled hatred of the
haughty man; and the age was one when the bold Scot owned no laws
save those which the heart dictated and the sword enforced.
In the gloomy solitude of his mother's Tower he brooded over these
things, and envied Kenneth the society of a being so beautiful and so
winning; for he knew--to his agony--that the cousins were ever
together, where whilome they had played in childhood--that they read
the same books--that they had still but one heart and one soul
between them. The children had grown up into lovers, and he knew
that, to them, a third companion would be intolerable.
Full of bitterness as these thoughts swelled up in his fiery and
resentful heart, he would leap on horseback and gallop towards the
Forest or the Lea, in the hope of obtaining a glimpse of Lily; and
when he did see her--
"A thousand furies!" he would exclaim, and abruptly turn horse; "that
puling ass is ever by her side!" Once he reined in his horse by the
margin of the Dee, that it might drink of the gurgling stream. The
place was beautiful. Cool and dark, deep and still, the river glided
over its brown pebbles, and scarcely a sunbeam reached it through the
thick foliage of that leafy glen, for overhead the trees entwined
their branches like the arches of a vast cathedral; and the coo of
the cushat-dove, or the voice of the mavis alone woke the echoing
dingles. From gazing dreamily at the trout darting in the calm depth
of the summer pool, the sound of voices made Gordon raise his head,
and lo!
Kenneth Logie and his cousin Lily approached.
So full were they of themselves, and their own sweet conversation,
that they never perceived Halbert, who, motionless as an equestrian
statue, remained gazing at them with eyes that, like his heart, were
full of fire. Fair Lily wore a dress of light blue silk, that
charmingly became her bright and pure complexion; it had little white
slashes, inlet at the shoulders; the wide and hanging sleeves
displayed her dimpled elbows, and the snowy whiteness of her arms;
she carried her hood in one hand, the other rested on the arm of
Kenneth; and her hair, which fell like a shower of gold upon her neck
and bosom, swept over his shoulder, when at times their heads were
bent together. The sunbeams, as they darted through the summer
foliage, gave an additional lustre to her hair and eyes; and, when
she spoke or smiled, her mouth, from time to time, revealed the
whiteness of her close and well set teeth.
The handsome youth who walked by her side seemed fully worthy of this
alluring girl, for his tall strong figure appeared to the utmost
advantage in a suit of green velvet, laced with Venetian gold; a
black feather drooped from his bonnet; he had a rapier in his belt
and a falcon on his wrist. Another sat on the hand of Lily, and the
lovers were laughing merrily as they flirted their birds, making them
peck at each other, scream, and flap their wings; for an old
chronicler tells us, that at the Scottish court he was considered the
most finished gallant who could make his falcon play most tricks with
the falcon of a lady.
Their thoughts were wholly of that nearer and dearer relationship
which they were soon to bear unto each other; and as Lily bent her
pure white brow towards Kenneth's sunburnt cheek, she said more than
once--
"Oh, cousin Kenneth! are we not the happiest beings in the world?"
"In our love for each other, we are, dearest Lily!"
"In every thing," and Kenneth assented by a kiss.
Their conversation was made up of those little nothings which are so
charming to lovers, but which will neither bear to be written nor
rehearsed.
These were as molten lead to the heart of the unhappy Gordon; and
when he saw Lily smiling with joyous confidence as her favoured lover
painted many a vision of happiness to come, he felt that with all his
love--a love the stronger by its very hopelessness--he could have
cursed her.
Like a vision they passed before him, and disappeared down a vista of
the wood. His horse, which had raised its head as they passed, was
again drinking placidly; the river was running on; the trees were
rustling their green leaves overhead; but the miserable man remained
as one entranced, and the sound of their voices--one so charming, the
other so hateful--seemed to linger in his ear long after they were
gone.
So much were they absorbed in each other, that they had never once
observed him; and his suit, which was of scarlet laced with silver,
was, he thought, assuredly conspicuous enough. Rage and fury filled
his heart! But he had learned something of importance from their
conversation as they passed, and on that information he resolved to
act.
At six o'clock that evening, Lily Donaldson was to visit the miln of
Newtoun on a mission of kindness to the miller's wife, who was
suffering under a grievous illness; Kenneth was to meet her at the
haugh by Deeside as she returned. Full of desperate and despairing
thoughts, Gordon resolved to anticipate the lover, and, forcing his
horse across the stream, he urged it up the steep and wooded bank,
where never horse or man had ascended before, and rode straight back
to his Tower among the morasses.
The bridge was up and the gates were shut, and such were the
precautions taken to prevent ingress and surprise, that even he had
some trouble in gaining admittance.
"What the devil is astir now--an English invasion? speak--thou--Jock
of the Cleugh!" he said angrily, on seeing that the whole place was
in the hurry of warlike preparation; that the barbican was strewn
with swords and lances; that twenty horses showed their barbed heads
at their stable doors, as if chiding his delay; that every man in the
tower was busy in the furbishment of steel bonnets and corslets, or
grinding pike-heads, sword-blades, and daggers.
"The Lords Argyle and Huntly are in arms," said Jock in a low
whisper, as he limped close to his master, "and sae the Grole o' the
Garioch maun mount and ride, ye ken."
"Right, Jock! God's heavy malison be on him who lingers in joining
the gay Gordons!"
"The cock o' the north for ever!" added Jock, flourishing his wooden
leg.
The fierce heart of young Gordon leaped with joy at these tidings.
He had long looked for them; "and now the hour had come when he
hoped," as he said, "to ride above his bridle in the blood of the
accursed Calvinists," all of whom he embodied in the idea of Kenneth
Logie. Ascending to the hall, which formed the first floor of the
Tower, he found his stern and enthusiastic mother, excited by
vengeful and religious hopes, in close council with Father Ogilvie,
an itinerant priest of the Scottish mission, who, while encountering
innumerable perils and the most severe poverty, travelled in disguise
from one Catholic family to another. Garbed as a peasant, and
looking like a buirdly farmer from the braes of Angus, in a canvass
doublet and grey plaid, the priest was covered with dust, and, by the
mud on his gambadoes, seemed to have ridden both fast and far that
day.
"Joy, my son, Halbert--joy!" said his mother, while her eyes flashed
fire.
"Welcome, my bairn," said the priest affectionately.
"So Huntly is in arms," said the young chieftain, with a kindling
eye; "and is ready to sweep from Scottish ground the accursed brood
of Knox and Calvin."
"Nay, my bairn," replied the old priest; "'tis Argyle who is in arms,
with the Campbells, the Grants, and McGregors, 12,000 strong, and
these are about to pour like a torrent down upon the Catholic lords.
Thus, if all to whom the cross and the cause of Heaven are dear,
delay to join Lord Huntly, the church of our fathers will sink even
lower than Knox and Wishart levelled it."
"Halbert," said his mother, whose fierce spirit--for she was a
Borderer--snuffed blood from afar; "in three hours ye will have
twenty horsemen in their harness, and prepared to march."
"'Tis well," he replied through his clenched teeth, as he selected a
sword and carbine from among the many that hung upon the wall; "but
one word, good Father Ogilvie, where is the Lord Huntly's
trysting-place?"
"His castle of Strathbogie, in the Garioch."
"In three hours then, mother, I will ride, to conquer or die with our
chief and our kinsmen."
There was a ghastly smile on Halbert's lips, and a deep and dire
intent was visible in his dark eyes, as he proceeded with the utmost
care to fix a match in his carbine, and hummed the while a surly
song--
"'When the Grole o' the Garioch
Meet the bowmen of Lord Mar;
Upon the hill of Bennochie,
The Grole shall win the war!'
Ha--ha! mother, does not the old song say so?"
"My brave boy, I see there is determination on your brow," said the
stern matron, as she kissed her haughty son.
"Yea, madam," said he, grinding his teeth, and with a voice that made
even her start; "victory, vengeance, and death are in my heart."
.........
The trysting-place beside the Dee was a most sequestered spot. In
all the windings of that beautiful river, by haugh and strath, there
was not a lonelier. Among the dense summer foliage of the old
beech-trees, around whose gnarled trunks the thick dark ivy
clambered, the cushat-doves were still cooing, while the black mavis
and the merry merle sang on their topmost boughs. Among rocks
overhung by the clustering Gueldre-roses, the sweet brier and the
fragrant honeysuckle, the deep blue Dee was jarring in tiny waves,
that every rock and pebble fretted into little bells of foam; while,
numerous as the stars of the sky, the yellow buttercups, the wild
violets, and white gowans spangled the bright green grass on which
the dew was falling thick and fast; for it was evening now, and the
last rays of the sun were giving a farewell gleam on the clustered
chimneys of the old mansion of Culbleine, and the older spire of
Logie kirk. The murmur of the gliding water, and the rustle of the
shady branches, the perfume of the summer flowers, the voices of the
happy birds, and the partial glimpses of the evening sun, all
combined to make beautiful the trysting-place where fair Lily was to
meet her lover-cousin, as she returned from the miln of Newtoun.
On her arm hung a little basket, in which she had conveyed to the
sick wife of the miller the various comfits and medicaments the good
old lady her mother had so carefully prepared. Her plaid, though
fastened under her chin by a silver brooch, had fallen from her head,
and permitted a shower of curls to fall over her shoulders--those
golden curls, such as the early painters would have adored. There
was a bloom on her rounded cheek, for exercise had imparted a rosy
tinge to it, and a rich red to her smiling lip; while a clear light
sparkled in her deep violet eyes, as she reached the place of tryst,
and looked anxiously round for her lover.
"Kenneth!" she exclaimed, on seeing a tall cavalier leaning against
the well-known tree, with a feather drooping over his eyes, and a
mantle dangling over his left arm, which rested on the muzzle of a
carbine; "dear Kenneth!"
He turned abruptly, and she beheld the olive face and dark glittering
eyes of Halbert of the Tower.
"I am not Kenneth Logie," said he courteously, raising his bonnet as
he slightly kissed her hand; "may I hope that I am not the less
welcome to fair Lily of the Forest?"
"Oh, no!" said she, concealing the terror with which his presence
inspired her; "why should you be unwelcome? Are you not my old
playmate, and, save Kenneth, the oldest friend I have known!"
Gordon stamped his foot at the name of his rival.
"And as your playmate in older and happier times, fair Lily, I now
come to bid you adieu; for I am going far from the woods of Logie and
Culbleine, and all those scenes around which your presence casts a
charm."
"For Flanders, where your poor father went before you?" she asked,
with a mixed feeling between sorrowful interest and joy at this good
riddance to the district; "to the wars of Low Germanie?"
"Nay--to wars certainly, but not so far off," he replied, with a deep
smile.
"And you came to bid me adieu, my poor old friend! It is so kind of
you, Master Halbert; but," she added suspiciously, "how knew you that
I should be here at this hour?"
"Surely it was intuition, Lily--some happy, some divine
presentiment!" He paused with something like confusion, and she
glanced anxiously along the shady forest vista by which she expected
Kenneth Logie to approach. Gordon drew off his long leather
gauntlet, and took her soft small hand in his.
"He is going far away," she thought, and did not withdraw it.
"Lily," said he, "where I am going, and on what errand, matters not
at present, for anon you will know all; but it is a mission of
secresy, of danger, and of death--one from which I may never return;
and I could not leave these, our native woods and glen, the hawthorn
birks, and the bonnie brae of Logie, without saying how long, how
well, and how deeply I have loved you--yea, loved you, Lily, from my
boyhood upward. I cannot go forth, to die perhaps, with this
long-treasured secret in my heart. I could not fall in battle
happily, and have it buried with me, unconfessed, untold, and
unheard. I know all you would urge," he added, sighing deeply, and
speaking hurriedly; "Kenneth, your cousin--yes, yes--all say you love
him; but such attachments should not be--they are within degrees
forbidden by _the_ church; moreover, I cannot believe it! Oh! think
well of the love I have to offer. Kenneth is the penniless orphan of
a dowerless bride, and a poor younger son. In this world he
possesses nothing; I am a lesser baron, with an estate here and
another in Glencairn--my mother's inheritance. I can summon a
hundred horsemen in time of need. The Lords of Badenoch, the Earls
of Huntly and of Mar, have quartered their shields with mine; and in
the storm which is at hand, when a sword may be in every Catholic
hand, with its point at every Galvinist throat, you may find a worse
protector than Halbert of the Tower; but nowhere in broad Scotland
will ye find a better. Ponder, dearest Lily, over all I have said,
for I must soon be gone, as time and tide will wait for no man."
Lily trembled excessively; she became pale, and endeavoured to
release her hand from Gordon's, but his grasp tightened, and she
struggled in vain.
"Think, think!" he continued; "think, Lily, from being the daughter
of a bonnet-laird, a mere Gudenian of the Wood, I can make you a lady
of that Ilk, and on the nameless bestow one of the best names in all
the brave north countrie."
"Halbert Gordon," replied Lily with some asperity, "my father's name
is as good as yours; and the wise Regent called him ever his leal man
and true in the Douglas' wars."
"James Stuart--pho! a heretic and regicide!"
"He who speaks slightingly of my father's friends involves my
father's honour, and cannot love me," replied Lily, endeavouring to
free her hand.
"Thou wrongest me, and art unnecessarily angry, dearest Lily. I mean
not to slight the gudeman, thy father's memory; but thou hast not yet
answered me."
"Sir, I cannot answer while you detain me thus."
Gordon's dark eyes began to sparkle.
"You scorn me then---you?"
"Nay, nay, Heaven forbid! but remember, that even if I could love
you--which is impossible--our religion--our religion! thou a
Catholic--I a Calvinist!"
Gordon uttered a bitter laugh.
"Fair Lily," said he; "a time is coming (yea, it is at hand!) when
such marriages will be as a boon from God to the accursed brood of
Knox and Calvin--of Rough and Wishart; but once more, dearest Lily,
hear me----"
"Impossible--impossible!"
"I am going far away from these green woods, from Strathdon and
Strathdee, and I will have nothing of thee--of thee, I have loved so
long to look upon. Give me but a tress, a ringlet, however small; a
riband, a glove--a rag, a shred--oh Lily, Lily!--if you knew how I
have loved you!"
"Halbert Gordon, it is improper to give such a gift--and impossible,
too----"
"And why is it either improper or impossible?" he asked suddenly,
confronting her with a cold and imperious aspect.
"Because," replied Lily, who trembled while she resented this lofty
bearing; "because my heart is no longer my own, and oh, Halbert! you
know that well."
Though this was quite the answer he expected, anguish distorted the
brow, and fury glared in the eyes of Gordon; for there was something
intensely exasperating in hearing such an avowal from her own
beautiful lips. His mouth was compressed, and his dark eyes regarded
her fixedly with a gloomy scrutiny.
Footsteps were heard approaching, and the clear clank of Rippon
spurs, that jangled as the wearer strode through the echoing glade.
A joyful expression spread over the face of fair Lily; but a spasm
shot through the heart of Gordon, for he knew that he was no longer
wanted there, and that Kenneth Logie approached.
Unable to confront this young man otherwise than as an enemy, and
still more unable to endure his meeting with Lily, Gordon bestowed
upon her a deep and inexplicable smile; threw his carbine into the
hollow of his left arm, and, crossing the Dee, though its waters came
up to his waist-belt, sprang up the opposite bank, and disappeared
among the thick coppice that covered it.
"Fie, cousin Kenneth!" said Lily playfully, as she tapped him on the
cheek with her pretty hand; "is it thus ye keep tryst?"
Kenneth had been late in meeting her, and, as he had not seen Gordon
when approaching, he proposed that they should seat themselves by the
bank of the stream to converse a little; and, agitated as she had
been by her lucent painful interview, fair Lily gladly consented.
On the grassy brae, with the still water flowing at their feet, and
the hawthorn spreading its white and fragrant branches above them,
they conversed in low tones, with long pauses, for they were wrapped
in the purest and dearest of dreaming. Lily soon forgot the
terrible, the fixed regards of Halbert Gordon.
They knew not--those happy lovers--that from the opposite bank, and
scarcely a pistol-shot distant, two fierce eyes were watching them.
I have said that Kenneth Logie was handsome, strong, and active; the
bloom of twenty years was on his cheek, and his fine figure was
displayed to advantage by the Scoto-French costume of the Lowlands.
His blue velvet bonnet lay beside him, and his high white forehead,
around which the dark hair curled in heavy locks, was bare. He was
all that a young girl dreams of in her future lover; and his eyes, by
turns expressive of pride, tenderness, and impetuosity, were bent
fondly on the golden-haired fairy that sat by his side--she, whose
ringlets poured like a shower upon his breast, and whose soft violet
eyes were raised to his, from, time to time, with appeals of
confiding tenderness; for he was the friend of her earliest memory,
and all her affections, and all her thoughts and hopes, were entwined
with his idea and his name.
And so it was with Kenneth; for the opinions, the feelings, the
sentiments of Lily, had ever been but the mirror of his own; and
again and again, by those glances which never pencil drew nor pen
portrayed, he told her that she was dearer to him than all the world
beside.
So they dreamed on, this pure and happy pair of loving hearts; the
old oaks shook their rustling leaves above them; the hawthorn put
forth its sweet perfume, and the Dee murmured complacently by.
Oh, they were so happy! so united--so one in thought, in heart, and
impulse!
Reclined on Kenneth's breast, Lily lay half embraced and half
entranced, with her eyes fixed on the still waters of the flowing
stream, and the thick green coppice, which cast a shadow on its
surface. Suddenly her eyes dilated with terror; her breast heaved; a
voiceless cry arose to her lips, and died there.
The brass muzzle of a carbine glittered among the thick alders
opposite; and a fierce eye glared along the polished barrel. She had
only time to utter a shriek, and throw herself as a shield before
Kenneth, when a red flash broke from among the green leaves; the
report rang with a hundred reverberations in the copsewood glen, and
the beautiful Lily Donaldson fell on the bosom of her lover, a
corpse, with blood flowing in a torrent from her lips.
Who could paint the terror, the despair, of Kenneth?
With glaring eyes and outstretched arms, he stood for a moment like a
statue of horror. His first impulse was to dash across the stream;
to pierce the thicket, and reach the heart of her destroyer; his
second to fling himself by her side, and endeavour to recall the life
which had too surely fled for ever.
Entering her left shoulder, the ball intended for _his_ heart had
pierced that of Lily, and her pure spirit had departed to its Creator.
* * * *
From that hour poor Kenneth was a sad and silent mourner.
* * * *