sinking his voice to a half whisper.
"Call her not my lady mother!" said Sir Walter, angrily, "my lady
step-mother, if thou wilt, or my step-mother without the lady, for
that, in truth, would better befit her, disgrace as she hath been and
still is to us all.--Here, undo this buckle!--But what, I pr'ythee,
hath she to do with the proud Priest of Dalestie, as thou hast so
well named him?"
"Nay, nothing that I know of, Sir Walter, unless it be to confess her,"
replied Dugald.
"Why, the good old father, Peter of Dounan, was here but yesterday,
was he not?" exclaimed Sir Walter, "might he not have shriven her?"
"Father Peter was here sure enough," replied Dugald, "but it would
seem that he is not to the lady's fancy."
"Beshrew her fancy!" cried Sir Walter, bitterly,--"Where could she,
or any one, find a worthier confessor than Father Peter of Dounan? He
is, indeed, a good and godly man, and, frail as he is in body, we
know that he is always ready to run, as fast as his feeble limbs
can carry him, wherever his pious duties or his charities may call
him.--Moreover, he is at all times within reach, what need, then,
hath she to send so far a-field for one whose character is, by every
one's report, so very questionable--give me my hose and sandals,
Donald.--Now thou may'st go.--By the Rood, I like not that pestilent
and ill-famed fellow coming about our house! He hath more character
for arrogance, and self-indulgence as a glutton and a toss-pot, than
for sanctity.--It was an ill day for this country side when it was
disgraced by his coming into it."
After muttering this last sentence to himself, Walter quickly
descended the narrow stair, and approached the door of the lady's
bower in another part of the building.--It was partially open.--He
tapped gently, and, no answer being returned, he pushed it up, and
great were his surprise and disgust at the scene which he beheld. The
Lady Stradawn was sitting, or rather reclining in her arm-chair, with a
pretty large round table before her, covered with good things.--A huge
venison pasty occupied the centre of it, and around it stood several
dishes, in no very regular order, containing different dainties. Two
well-used trenchers, showed that some one else had assisted her, in
producing the havoc that appeared to have been wrought in the pie,
and among the other viands--and a black-jack half full of ale--and a
tall silver stoup, which, though now empty, still gave forth a potent
odour of the spiced wine which it had contained--together with two
mazers of the same metal, which bore the marks of having been used in
the drinking of it, proved that the guest, who had just left the lady,
must have been a noble auxiliary in this revel, which, judging from
the fact of an over-turned drinking horn that lay on the floor, and
one or two other circumstances that appeared, must have been a merry
one. The deep sleep in which the lady lay, and her flushed countenance,
left no doubt in Sir Walter's mind that she had enjoyed a full share
of this private banquet. By the time he had leisure to make himself
fully aware of all these particulars, the lady's bower-woman appeared
at the chamber door. She started, and would have retreated--but Sir
Walter seized her by the wrist, and adroitly put a question to her
before she had time to recover from her confusion.
"When did the priest of Dalestie go forth from hence, Jessy?" demanded
he.
"I have just come from seeing him to horse, Sir Knight," said the
woman, trembling.
"Well, Jessy, thou mayest go; I would speak with thy mistress in
private," said Sir Walter, seeing her out, and shutting the chamber
door; and then, turning to the Lady Stradawn, and shaking her arm till
he had awakened her. "Madam," said he, "what unseemly sight is this?"
"Sis--sis--sis--sight, Sir Priest?" replied the lady, with her eyes
goggling; "sis--sight! What mean ye, Sir Priest? he! he! he!"
"Holy Saint Andrew grant me temper!" said Sir Walter. "Madam, Sir
Allan waits for thee to give him his evening meal: he is impatient. Sir
Allan, I say!"
"Tut! hang Sir Allan," cried the lady, still unconscious as to whom
she was addressing, and taking him by the arm; "hang Sir Allan, as
thou thyself saidst but now, thou most merry conditioned mettlesome,
Sir Priest. He! he! he! Hang the old stobber-chops, and let's be
jolly while we can. Come; sit down--sit down, I say. You need not go
yet. Did I not tell thee that Jessy keeps the door?"
"I am not the priest, vile woman!" cried Sir Walter, with indignation,
whilst, at the same time, he shook her off with a force and rudeness
that seemed almost to bring her back to her senses. "Did'st thou not
now, alas! alas! to our shame, most unworthily fill that place once
occupied by my sainted mother, and that thine exposure would prove but
the greater dishonour to our house, by the holy Rood, I would call up
every thing that hath life within these walls, down to the very cat,
that all eyes might behold thy disgrace, and then should'st thou
be trundled forth, and rolled into the river, that the fishes might
gorge themselves on thine obscene carcase!"
Bursting from the apartment, Walter hastily sought the hall; and
the evening meal having been by this time spread, he called to the
retainers to be seated, and hastened to busy himself in attending
to his father, in supplying him with the food prepared for him, and
with such little matters as he knew the old man most liked--feeding
him from time to time like a child.
"Aye, aye, that's good," said old Sir Walter. "Thanks, thanks,
my boy; you are a good boy. But where is Bella? where is the Lady
Stradawn? Och hey, that's good,--but she is often away now; seldom
it is, I am sure, that I see her. Aye, aye, Walter, boy, that is
good--that is very good."
When his father was satisfied, Walter seated himself at the board, and
ate and drank largely, from very vexation and ire, and in order to keep
down the storm of rage which was secretly working within him. This, as
well as the cause of it, he privately determined to conceal, even from
his brother Patrick, with whom he had been, upon all other occasions,
accustomed to share his inmost thoughts. For the rest of the night he
sat gloomy and abstracted, and at an earlier hour than usual he hurried
off to his chamber. There, having summoned his attendant, Dugald Roy,
he questioned him more particularly as to all he knew regarding the
visits of the Priest of Dalestie to Drummin, and having then dismissed
him, with strict injunctions to maintain a prudent silence, he threw
himself into bed, to pass a restless and perturbed night.
The next morning saw the Lady Stradawn glide into the hall, to preside
over the morning meal, gaily dressed, and covered as usual with chains,
brooches, and rings of massive worth, which she procured no one knew
how. Her countenance beamed with her wonted smiles, as if nothing
wrong had happened, or could have happened on her part. Walter and
Patrick saluted her with that cold yet civil deference, which they had
always been in the habit of using towards her, as the wife of their
father, and in which Walter took care that neither his brother, nor
any one else, should perceive any shadow of change upon the present
occasion. The manner of her salutation was as blythe, kind, free,
and unconcerned as it ever was before.
"Wicked rogue, Walter, that thou art!" said she in a tone of merry
railery, "fie for shame on thee! to steal into thy lady mother's
bower to catch her asleep in her arm-chair! In sooth I was not
altogether well last night, else had I joined thee at the festive
board, to rejoice with thee over the spoils of that grim gaffer wolf,
whom they tell me thou hast so nobly slain."
"Thou did'st indeed seem somewhat indisposed, madam," said Sir Walter
with a peculiarly significant emphasis, and with a penetrating look
which she alone could understand.
"I was very much indisposed as you say, Walter," replied she, as if
quite unconscious that he had intended to convey to her any covered
meaning; "that foolish old woman, Nancy, the miller's wife, took it
into her wise head to come a plaguing me, to reckon with her about
the kain fowls she had paid into the castle since last quarter-day;
and she talks--Holy Virgin, how the woman does talk!"
"Truly the woman does talk marvellously," replied Walter, biting his
nether lip to keep down his vexation.
"As thou say'st, son Walter, she does e'en talk most marvellously. Her
tongue seems to have learned the art of wagging from the clapper of
old John's mill. I protest I would as lieve sit listening to the one
as to the other. My head aches still with the noise of her clatter."
"I wonder not indeed that thy head should ache," replied Sir Walter.
"And then, forsooth, I behoved to call up meat for the greedy cummer,"
continued the lady,--"Holy Mother, how the woman did swallow the
eatables and drinkables!"
"She must have swallowed enough of both sorts," said Sir Walter,
with a meaning in his mode of speaking, that he began to suspect he
might have made almost too plainly marked; and, hastening to change
the subject, "Madam," continued he, "I fear you have forgotten Sir
Allan this morning."
"Holy Saints, but so I have!" cried she, starting up from her
seat,--"what have I been thinking of? My poor Sir Allan!" continued
she, as she hastened to him with a covered silver dish, that contained
the minced food the old man was wont to take; and, after making of
him, with all the fuss and phrase she would have used to an infant,
she put a napkin around his neck, and proceeded to feed him.
"Where is Murdoch this morning?" demanded Patrick of his brother.
"I know not," replied Walter, as he sat musing with a clouded brow.
"He was not at supper last night," observed Patrick again; "nay,
I know not that I have seen him for these three days bypast."
"He was not at supper," said Sir Walter, still absorbed by his own
thoughts.
"Murdoch is an idle good-for-nothing," said the Lady Stradawn, joining
in the conversation, from the place where she stood by the side of
Sir Allan's chair. "Though he be mine own son, I will say that for
him, that it would be well for him to take a pattern by his elder
brothers, and be killing wolves, or doing some such useful work,
and not be staying out whole days and nights this way, at weddings
and merry-makings, without ever showing us his face. I wish you would
give him a good word of your brotherly advice, my dear son Walter."
"Chut!--tut!" cried old Sir Allan,--"let the boy alone!--aye,
aye--let the boy alone. The lad is young.--I was a wild slip myself
once in a day--that I was. But old age will creep on--hech sirs!--aye,
aye--what days I have seen!--Och, hey!"
"Here, take this, my dear Sir Allan," said the lady,--"take this,
dearest--'tis the last spoonful."
"Where art thou going, brother?" said Patrick, rising to follow his
brother Sir Walter, who had left the table, and was moving towards
the door.
"Up the glen to look for a deer," replied Walter.
"Then have with thee brother," said Patrick.
Sir Walter would have fain shaken himself free from his brother, for
that morning at least; but he felt that he could not do so without
a certain appearance of unkindness, which the warm affection that
subsisted between them could not allow him to use, or that otherwise,
he must have given him an explanation, which he was conscious that
he could not have given him, consistently with those designs which
he then privately cherished in his bosom. He was therefore compelled
silently to assent to his accompanying him. They both accordingly
assumed that humble garb, which they usually wore when bent upon the
pursuit of the deer,--in which, but for their carriage and bearing,
they might easily have been mistaken for the humblest of their party,
and, after such preparation, they sallied forth.
They were hardly gone, when the Lady Stradawn, leaving the old Sir
Allan to entertain himself with his own dreamy musings and vacant
thoughts, climbed to the bartizan of the tower to look out for her son,
Murdoch. It was yet early in the morning--but as her two step-sons
had a walk of a good many miles before them, ere they could reach
the place where they proposed hunting, they and their people were
seen toiling up the valley, at a pace which corresponded with the
violence of those feelings which then possessed Sir Walter, who was
stretching away at the head of the party.
"Curses on ye both!" cried the lady, with intense bitterness, after
having followed them with her malignant eyes, till they had wound out
of sight behind a projecting spur of a wooded mountain that flanked
the valley.--"Curses!--black and withering curses on ye both, vile
spawn that ye are, that stand between my boy and his prospects!--I
fear that Walter--my especial curse upon him!--for, with all his fair
words, he is stern and ferocious as a wild cat when he is roused.--But,
wild cat though he be, the wily viper may yet wind its folds silently
around him, and sting him to the death ere he may have time to unglove
his claws.--What can make my darling boy tarry so long.--He has now
been absent for more than three days.--Much as he hath enriched me
with money and jewels, I like not the risk he runs.--But he will not
be forbidden.--Nature works in him, and perhaps it is as well that he
should thus render himself hardy, seeing that he must one day--aye,
and that soon too, if I have any cunning left in me--command the proud
Clan-Allan. Stay, did I not see tartans yonder, and arms glittering in
yon farther lawnde, in the vale below, beyond those nearer woods? That
must surely be Murdoch and his men. The foolish boy will not surely
bring them within nearer ken of the Castle? Ha!--I see one figure
separate from the rest, whilst the main body seems to take to the
woods on the hill-side. In sooth, there is no prudence lacking in
the youth, nay, nor any cunning neither, as I well know, from the
trouble it hath cost me to lull his suspicions regarding the Priest of
Dalestie. But if Murdoch hath cunning, he hath it from me, his mother;
and it will be hard indeed if mine cannot match it. Ah!--there he
already bursts from the wood--I must hasten to meet him in my bower,
that I may learn what luck he hath had."
The lady hurried down to her bower--quickly found some errand on which
to despatch her woman--and then she sat waiting impatiently, turning
over the bunch of antique keys which hung at her girdle, until she
heard her son's step in the passage, and his gentle tap at her door.
"Come in!" said the Lady Stradawn in a subdued voice--"come in,
my son!"
"Ha!--I am glad that thou art here and alone, mother," said Murdoch,
a slim, handsome, dark-eyed youth, who, after cautiously entering,
shut the door behind him, and carefully turned the huge key that
locked it. "I am glad that you are here alone, for I have such treasure
for you."
"Hush, hush, my darling," said the lady, almost in a whisper--"speak
lower, I entreat you, lest any eaves-dropper should hear
you.--Quick!--how sped ye?--and what have you got?"
"We have been all the way to Banff again this time," replied
Murdoch. "Seeing that we sped so well the last time we made thither,
as thou well knowest we did, we thought we should try our luck there
once more. We heard that there was a market in the Brugh, and we
sent a clever-witted spy among the packmen, to gather who among them
might be best worth holding talk with. Two of them we learned were to
travel together for company's sake,--fellows who dealt in goldsmiths'
work. But, marry! they travelled not far from the town-end till we
met them, when, like good-natured civil fellows, we eased them of
their heavy loads, under which they seemed to sweat so grievously;
and that they might not trouble us here, and at the same time being
loth to part two such friends, we set them both a travelling together
on a journey to the next world."
"Speak not of the next world, Murdoch!" said the lady, shuddering. "But
they were sickerly sent thither, said'st thou?"
"As surely as we shall one day go there ourselves, good mother,"
replied Murdoch.
"Speak not of our going there, boy," said the lady. "'Tis time enough
yet. But there is little crime I wot, after all, in ridding this
world of such cheating gangerels as those you tell me of."
"Crime!" replied Murdoch, "Why, mother, there is an absolute virtue in
such a deed. Have we not put an end to their rapacity and knavery? And
have we not thereby saved many a foolish maiden from being cheated
by them? By Saint Nicholas, but the doer of so good a deed deserves
to be canonized!"
"But come, boy, thy treasure," said the greedy and impatient
dame. "Quick,--what hast thou got to show me? Haste thee to feast
mine eyes with the spoil of these miscreants."
"In the first place, then," said Murdoch, "as at a feast we should
always begin with the solids,--here is a small bag of broad pieces,
which might well satisfy many a hungry man. Secondly, here are
your curious cates and delicacies, enow to bedizen out a dozen
of lordlings' daughters!--See what a chain!--how exquisite the
workmanship!--Behold these rings,--see what sparkling gems! Every one
of them set, too, most rarely in a different fashion! Here is one,
for example, which would seem to have a curious posey in it; some
ready-made love verse, I suppose. Let me see,--'Feare God and doe no
evyle,'--eh! ha!--that--that is a good advice, which the last owner,
as I take it, was too great a knave to profit by; but you and I,
mother dear----"
"Have done with thy foolery, Murdoch," said the lady, impatiently;
"have done with thy foolery, and give me thy booty, without farther
nonsense. Now, leave me for a while, and go talk with the old man,
whilst I bestow the treasure in a place of safety. Thou knowest it
will all go to deck thy bride, when thou canst find one."
"Leave me alone for that, mother," said Murdoch, significantly. "I
promise thee, I have mine eye on a good man's daughter, whom I shall
have by foul or by fair means ere I die. But that is a secret I shall
keep to myself till the time comes; so good day, good mother."
"What can he mean?" said the Lady Stradawn, after he was gone. "But
'tis nothing, after all, but his wild talk. No, no; I must have my
say with him when it comes to that!"
Now that the lady found herself alone, she doubly locked and bolted the
door. She then spread the gold and the jewels on the table before her,
and glutted her eyes for a time with the glittering sight. Applying
her keys to a cabinet which stood against the wall, she opened the
leaves of it, and so exposed the front of a set of secret drawers,
shallower above and deeper below. Selecting other keys from the bunch,
she began to open and to examine the drawers, one by one, from above
downwards--her eyes successively surveying the riches they contained,
whilst, with scrupulous attention, she from time to time selected
articles from among the spoils on the table, and deposited them among
the rest, as fancy led her to sort and arrange them, carefully locking
each drawer ere she proceeded to open the next; and thus she went on
until she found that she had disposed of the whole of the trinkets.
"'Twas no great things, after all," said she, musing; "I wonder when
they will go forth again? But let me count the money.--Aye, that is
pretty well; and yet it might have been more for the death of two
men. But there are other two men I know of, whose lives would be
worth more!--Hush!--did I not hear a noise?--Quick--let me huddle
the gold into this drawer in the cabinet, where I bestowed the
broad pieces in the hurry I was taken with when the Priest came in
last night.--What!--nothing there!--Ha!--can the man who--can the
villain have robbed me?--Yes; it could have been no one else.--I
see clearly how it was. He asked me for money--I gave him two pieces
from that very drawer. His greedy eyes saw what it contained, and,
whilst my back was turned, he must have cleverly helped himself to
the whole. It could have been nobody else, because I well remember
that I carefully closed the leaves of the cabinet, locked them, and
put the keys into my iron strong-box, before I called Jessy to bring
the refreshments.--What a consummate knave!--But what could I expect
better of such a reprobate--a priest who glories as he does in his
wickedness? It would have been well perhaps for me that I had never
seen him.--And yet--But his share of his crime is his own.--Wretch that
he is, he might have had it all for the asking.--Weak woman that I am,
I could have refused him nothing.--Well, I must e'en let it pass, and
be more careful again.--But I shall look better after this bag of broad
pieces. It shall be added to the heap I have here," continued she,
unlocking a drawer of deeper and larger dimensions. "Aye!" said she,
eyeing the treasure it contained with avaricious delight,--"that is all
safe; go thou, then, to increase the store, and may my darling boy soon
fetch me other bags to bear these company in this their prison-house!"
I must now return to the two brothers. Walter, who usually directed
every thing in all their expeditions, never halted until he found
himself far up on these very mountains now before us. He sought for
deer, it is true; but, whilst he did so, or rather, whilst he allowed
his brother and his people to do so, his mind seemed to be occupied
with something else than hunting. It was towards evening, when he
and the rest of the party were still tracking their way through
the forest without success, when, they at last found themselves in
that part of it, which then covered the hill that hangs over the
haugh of Dalestie, some miles above this. Partial breaks among the
trees there gave Sir Walter, now and then, a view downwards into
the valley below; and, as he walked and ruminated within himself,
as if oppressed with some weighty matter, his secret musings were
suddenly broken by the distant toll of the bell of a small chapel,
which, if I am rightly informed, then stood near the bottom of the
hill. The sound came mellowed over the intervening woods, and Sir
Walter started as it reached his ear. He became deeply moved; but
his emotion was not like that movement of piety which the note of the
church-going bell should awaken. It more resembled that, which, when
the hoarse trumpet has sounded, or the shrill pipes have struck up,
I have myself seen convert the godlike countenance of man into that
of a demon. Sir Walter Stewart stamped upon the ground.
"Dugald!" cried he aloud; "What ho, Dugald Roy, I say. Does that bell
call to evening mass?"
"It does, Sir Knight," replied Dugald.
"Then get thee down through the wood," said Sir Walter; "get thee
down through the wood ere it hath ceased to sound, and tell the proud
priest of Dalestie that I, Walter Stewart of Clan-Allan, am upon the
hill, and that, if he dares to mumble a word, yea, or a syllable,
before I come, his life shall pay for it."
"Stay, stay," cried Patrick Stewart, eagerly; "stay him, dear
brother! What sudden fit is this that hath seized thee? A priest!--how
canst thou think of sending such a message as this to a priest?"
"Dugald Roy, begone, and obey thy master's bidding!" cried Sir Walter,
sternly. "Brother, I forgive thee this thine interference, though
I cannot allow myself to be swayed by it. Trust me, I have mine own
good reasons for so acting, though this be no fitting time for making
thee aware of them."
Patrick, whom affection, as well as habit had long disposed to show
implicit deference and obedience to his brother Walter's will, said
no more, but followed his solemn footsteps down the mountain path
that led to the chapel. They had not gone half the way till the bell
had ceased to toll. And they had not gone two-thirds of the way till
Dugald Roy met them.
"Thou hast not sped on thine errand, then?" said Sir Walter, with
an expression in which more of satisfaction than of disappointment
might have been read. "Speak, Dugald; how did the arrogant caitiff
receive my message?"