of working my way into his good favour. But I shall tell you more of
this anon. We shall meet again to-morrow night, shall we not?"
"Yes, yes!" replied Catherine, hurriedly.
"At the same hour and place?" said Patrick. "Alas! till then I must
be contented with such converse with thee as our eyes may yield us:
and blessings on thine for the intelligence they convey to me."
"I hope my father may not be able to read them so readily," replied
Catherine. "But I must go now."
"Stay for one moment, my sweetest heart," said Patrick. "Ere you go,
let me fix thine arryssade more firmly over thy bosom." And, as he
said so, he took from his sporran a golden brooch, formed of two
entwined hearts, set with garnets. "Wear this trifle for my sake over
thy heart. And now may I say, what I dare not utter in thy father's
hall--Farewell, my love--my dearest Catherine!"
"Farewell! farewell! my dearest Patrick!" replied she, with a throbbing
heart. "I shall never part with this thy gift whilst life or sense
endures; and I shall wear it ever thus, as thou sayest, over this
heart, which beats but for thee alone."
Thus they at last parted, with lingering reluctance; and each took
a different and circuitous way to return to the Castle.
As Patrick entered the hall, a significant nod passed between him
and Arthur Forbes. Soon afterwards, the retainers came crowding in,
and the evening meal was placed on the board by the serving men. The
piper had played his accustomed number of turns upon his walk, in the
open gallery over the court-yard. All were ready to sit down. But
there was one most important personage wanting; I mean, the fair
Lady Catherine Forbes. The fashion of the house, as well as of all
well fashioned houses of the time, forbade their sitting down till
the lady appeared. The Lord of Curgarf grew impatient.
"Go!" said he at length to one of the attendants; "go, and send some
of the women to knock at the Lady Catherine's chamber door, to tell
her that supper is served, and that we wait for her presence."
Again the company remained standing for some time. The old Lord of
Curgarf arose from his arm chair, and took two or three turns on the
large hearth before the fire place. Meanwhile, Arthur Forbes stole
an enquiring glance at Patrick Stewart, but could gather nothing in
reply. At length the Lady Catherine's bower woman entered the hall,
pale and trembling.
"What wouldst thou say, girl?" cried the Lord of Curgarf. "What of
my daughter? Thy looks are ominous! She is not ill?"
"No, my Lord," replied the girl, "my Lady is not ill; that is, she
was quite well little more than an hour ago--but--but----"
"But what?" cried Arthur Forbes, anxiously; "cannot the girl speak
out?"
"Tempted by the balmy evening," replied the girl, "my Lady threw
her arryssade about her, and walked forth beyond the castle walls,
as her custom sometimes is, to breathe the air a little while."
"Run!--fly all of you!--take lights, and search for her every
where!" cried the Lord of Curgarf. "How provoking this is! How often
have I tried in vain to cure her of this most foolish and pernicious
custom! And then to go without an attendant too! and beyond the
walls!--how very imprudent!"
The two friends were among the first to hurry out, in obedience to
these orders from the old man. Both were extremely agitated; and, so
far as this example went, it would have been difficult to have, from
it, determined the question whether the affection of a loving brother
or a tender lover, should be accounted the greater. Arthur Forbes was
eager for some explanation from Patrick Stewart as to what he knew of
the Lady Catherine. But, alas! Patrick could give him no information
beyond that which I have already detailed to you. Leaving the crowd
of the retainers to examine every hole and corner, bush and brake,
immediately around the castle walls, Arthur and Patrick, from their
knowledge of circumstances, pushed their search farther; and as they
secretly knew the way that Catherine had taken from the pine grove
homewards, they looked diligently for her all along the path. Of her,
or any thing belonging to her, they discovered nothing. But at last, in
one place, where the path ran through a thicket, where the ground was
soft, they were struck with the appearance of numerous newly impressed
prints of footsteps. On examining these more closely by means of a
torch, they observed, among those of many a rude brogue and sandal,
mixed and mingled together, and pointing in all directions, as if those
who wore them had been engaged in hurried action--among all these,
I say, they observed one tiny and delicate footprint, which was here
and there perceptible, and which Patrick Stewart at once declared,
could have belonged to no one but to the Lady Catherine Forbes.--Wild
with dread and alarm, they returned to the castle. On questioning the
warder, he admitted that he did remember having heard something like a
woman's shriek, that came faintly from some distance in the direction
of the thicket, but as it was immediately drowned by the first drone of
the piper's warning, and had been heard by him no more, it had passed
away altogether from his thoughts. Not a doubt now remained in their
minds, that the Lady Catherine had been carried off by some villains,
who had been lurking about the castle. The old Lord of Curgarf was
inconsolable.--He was quite unmanned, and unable to give an order
as to what should be done. His son Arthur, the Master of Forbes,
lost no time in acting for him.--The retainers were hastily armed,
and commanded to prepare for instant pursuit; and, being divided,
at Patrick Stewart's request, into two bands, the friends determined
each to take the command of one of them,--and accordingly, with such
hasty refreshments as the men could snatch, and carry with them, they
took leave of one another, and started off, each upon such a line of
country as he, in his quickly summoned forethought, judged to be the
most likely to bring his expedition to a successful termination.
As we have already learned from the conversation of the Master of
Forbes, when he first met Patrick Stewart after the accident which
befell him near Dalestie, it was pretty generally known in the country,
at this time, that a gang of Catteranes, or free-booters, from the
west, were occasionally harboured somewhere among the neighbouring
mountains, but no one could precisely tell whereabouts they most
commonly secreted themselves. On this point, however, Patrick Stewart
had some general suspicions, though he knew nothing that could lead
him to guess--even within miles--as to the exact spot where their
lurking place might be.--He took his way directly over the mountain
that separates the upper part of the river Don from the Aven, and
he descended towards the valley of the latter stream, through that
precipitous ravine, that affords a course for the little tributary
burn of Cuachan-Seirceag, down the face of the white cliffs that
almost overhang the small house of Inchvory, which, if we be all
spared gentlemen, we shall see this night before we sleep. There is
not a tree there now; but, at that period, the ravine was thickly
shaded by such timber as could find footing, or nourishment among
the rocks, and it therefore formed a good and well-known place of
shelter. Having fixed on it as the point of rendezvous, Patrick took
his way up the valley of the Aven for some little distance, and then,
dividing his people into two parties, he sent one of them off by
the pass leading in the direction of Loch Builg, whilst he continued
to lead the other up that which is more properly called Glen Aven,
by the Lynn of Aven, where the river throws itself over the rocks
in a fine wild fall. Having then ascended the mountains, he began,
by break of day, to march, and countermarch, over and across them,
visiting, and carefully examining every retired nook or corner that
he thought might be the least likely to be chosen, by such villains,
as a hiding-place, until mid-day came without bringing him the least
clue to the object of his search. Then it was that he unwillingly
halted his party in a hollow by the side of a spring, that the poor
fellows might refresh themselves with food, and rest for a time.
THE SERJEANT HALTED FOR REFRESHMENT.
Clifford.--(Interrupting the Serjeant.)--Gentlemen, I beg to remark,
that I think it would be quite proper that we should refresh ourselves
with food, whilst Mr. Patrick Stewart and his party are engaged in
doing so. We shall thus save time, as must be self-evident to all,
seeing that the action of the story is thus brought, for a little
while, to a state of repose. Of bodily rest we have had enough,
in all conscience--thanks to the length of Mister Archy's yarn.
Grant.--I beg to second the motion of our worthy secretary, which,
in my mind, is most sensible.
Clifford.--Methinks, then, that a slice or two from that cold round
of beef, which I saw so carefully bestowed in the right hand pannier
on the pony's back, would come well in as an episode to Serjeant
Stewart's story. Here Davy, untruss, if you please.
Grant.--Spread the cloth before us here on the grass, and then lay
out the eatables.
Clifford.--Now, methinks, we can more readily sympathise with Patrick
Stewart and his people at their luncheon. But come, Davy; we must
have something potable too.
Author.--Bring us one of those bottles from the pannier on the other
side of the pony.
Clifford.--Aye, that's right; something to wash the dust out of the
serjeant's throat would considerably improve his voice. What say you
to my prescription, Archy?
Serjeant.--Troth, sir, you're an excellent doctor. Well, here's
wishing all your good healths, gentlemen!
Author.--By the way, Clifford, how many trouts have you caught?
Clifford.--None of your jokes, my good friend. Why, you know very well
that I have never made a single cast. Before I had time to give one
throw over the stream, Archy hooked me here with the thread of his
discourse, and here he has been reeling me out such a line, that I
can plainly see it will be some time ere he can wind it up again so
as to land me. Fish!--no, no, I may as well put up my rod at once,
that we may all hear his Legend quietly to an end.
Author.--I think so, indeed.
Grant.--Well Archy, when you think that your Patrick Stewart and his
party have had their luncheon, and that you have satisfied your own
hunger and thirst, we shall all be ready to listen to you.
Serjeant.--I am well served now, sir, and quite ready to proceed.
Clifford.--Spin away then, my gay fellow.
LEGEND OF THE CLAN-ALLAN STEWARTS CONTINUED.
With a view of multiplying the chances which might still remain of
effecting the anxious object of his expedition, Patrick Stewart
had no sooner started again from the heather where they had been
seated, than he subdivided his party into several sections, under
certain intelligent leaders, and having given to each of them such
instructions as he deemed necessary for their guidance, he sent them
off in different directions, with orders to meet together again,
by nightfall, at the ravine of Cuachan-Seirceag. There they were
all to wait till he should join them, unless in the event of the
Lady Catherine being recovered by any of them, in which case they
were to proceed in a body, without tarrying, to carry her straight to
Curgarf, leaving one of their number behind them to certify him of the
agreeable intelligence. For his own part, he took with him a single
attendant only, one of the Curgarf retainers, called Michael Forbes,
with whose superior sagacity and activity, some former circumstances
had led him to be more particularly acquainted.
After all the others had left them, Patrick and his companion began a
most particular and persevering search through the forest, and among
the mountains, of that part of the country which he had especially
marked out and reserved for himself, leaving no spot unexplored
that had any thing the least suspicious connected with it. But the
wilderness through which they wandered was so wide, and, in many
places, so very thickly wooded, that they might have been employed
for days in the same way, without his being one whit nearer his
object. It is not wonderful, then, that the evening began to manifest
its approach, whilst he was yet actively engaged in laborious travel,
yet still he bore on with unremitting exertion, altogether unconscious
of the wane of day.
The wild scenery by which he was surrounded was beginning to grow dim
in the increasing obscurity, when he arrived at the edge of a deep
corry or ravine, in the steeply inclined side of a mountain. It was a
place, of the existence of which, neither he nor his companion had ever
been aware, well as they were both acquainted with the mountains. The
precise position of it has been long ago forgotten; and indeed, if it
could be guessed at, it is probably now so altered, and blocked up,
by the fall of the mountain masses from time to time, as to be no
longer in such a state as might admit of its being identified. But it
was one of those rugged places of which there are plenty of examples
among these mountains. The elevation on the mountain side was not
greater than to have allowed Nature, at that time, to have carried the
forest partially up around it, and the wood, that in a great measure
concealed it, was chiefly composed of the mountain pine. The trees,
which were seen struggling against the wintry tempests that prevailed
around the summits of the cliffs above, appeared twisted and stunted,
yet they grew thickly and sturdily together, as if resolved, like
bold Highlanders in possession of a dangerous post, to put shoulder to
shoulder for the determined purpose of maintaining their position, in
defiance of the raging elements. Their foliage was shorn, not thinned
by the blast. On the contrary, it was thickened by it, from that very
clipping to which the storms so continually subjected it, so that the
shade which was formed by their tops overhead, was thereby rendered
just so much the more dense and impenetrable. The narrow and inclined
bottom of the immense gully below, was composed of enormous fragments,
which had been wedged out by time and frosts from the faces of the
overhanging crags, and piled one over the other to an unknown depth,
whilst the ground, that sloped rapidly down into it, from the lower
part of the abrupt faces of the precipices on either side, was covered
with smaller and lighter materials of the same sort, mingled with a
certain proportion of soil. There some scattered trees had been enabled
to grow to a huge size, from the uninterrupted shelter which the place
afforded; but whilst few of these had altogether escaped injury and
mutilation from the frequent descent of the stony masses, many of them
had been entirely uprooted and overturned, by the immense magnitude
of some of those falling rocks which had swept down upon them, and
there lay their enormous trunks, resting upon their larger limbs, or
upon one another, the whole being tossed and tumbled together in most
intricate confusion, so as to cover the rocky fragments beneath them,
with one continued and almost impervious natural chevaux-de-frize.
Patrick Stewart halted behind the bole of a tree, and, resting
against it, so as to enable him to lean forward over the precipice,
he surveyed the gulf below, as accurately as the evening twilight,
and the intervening obstacles permitted him to do. He and Michael
Forbes then stole slowly and silently along the very verge of it,
in that direction that lay down the mountain side, using their eyes
sharply and earnestly as they went, and peering anxiously everywhere,
with the hope of discovering some track which might tend downwards
into the ravine. While so occupied, Patrick became suddenly sensible
of the fresh smell of wood smoke. From the manner in which it was
necessarily diffused, by the multiplied network of boughs through
which it had to ascend, he looked for it in vain for some time,
till he accidentally observed one or two bright fiery sparks mount
upwards from below, such as may be often seen to arise from a cottage
chimney top, when new fuel has been thrown upon the fire by the
people within. Marking, with great attention, the spot whence these
had proceeded, he commenced a more narrow examination of the edge
of the ravine, until he at length discovered a perforation in the
brushwood, so small, that it might have been easily mistaken for the
avenue leading to the den of some wild beast, but which, a closer
inspection persuaded him, might have been used by human creatures,
there being quite enough of room for one man at a time to creep
through it in a stooping posture. At all events he was resolved to
explore it, and accordingly, having first stationed his attendant,
Michael Forbes, in a concealed place, near to its entrance, that he
might watch and give him warning if any one approached from without,
he bent himself down, and began his strange and hazardous enterprise.
Creeping along, with his bonnet off, and almost on his hands and
knees, he found that the track, which inclined gently at first over
the rounded edge of the ravine, became, as he proceeded, nearly as
steep as an upright ladder, but it was less encumbered with branches
than the first part of the way had been, though there was still enough
of growth to aid him in his descent, and to take away all appearance
of danger. It went diagonally down the face of the cliff, dropping
from one narrow ledge of footing in the rock, to that beneath it,
with considerable intervals between each. But to one accustomed,
as Patrick Stewart was, to scramble like a goat, the difficulties
it presented were as nothing. All his anxiety and care was exerted
to guard, if possible, against surprise, as well as against making
any noise that might betray his approach, to any one who might be
harboured in the ravine below.
Having at last got to the foot of the precipice, he found it somewhat
easier to descend the rugged slope that inclined downwards from its
base, and, upon reaching the bottom, he discovered that the track
continued to lead onwards under the arched limbs of an overthrown
pine, the smaller branches and spray of which, appeared, on a minute
examination, to have been evidently broken away by frequent passage
through underneath it. This circumstance he had some difficulty in
discovering, as the increasing darkness was rendered deeper here, by
the overhanging shade of the rocks and trees high above him. Bending
beneath the boughs of the fir, he advanced with yet greater caution,
and with some difficulty, over the rugged and angular fragments,
until he suddenly observed something, that made it prudent for him
to halt for a moment, that he might well consider his position. This
abrupt stop was occasioned by his observing a faint gleam of light,
that partially illumined the broad side, and moss-grown edge, of
a large mass of stone, a little way in advance of the place where
he then was. He hardly breathed, and he tried to listen--and, for a
moment, he fancied he heard a murmur like that of human voices. Again
he stretched his ear, and again he felt persuaded that he heard the
sound of the voices coming hollow on his ear, as if from some cavity,
somewhere below the surface, at a little distance beyond him. Resolving
at last to proceed, he moved on gently, and upon a nearer approach to
the great stone, on the broad edge of which the light fell, he found
that it formed one side of a natural entrance to a passage, that led
upwards under the enormous superincumbent masses, that had been piled
up over it, in their fall from the shattered crags above. Pausing
again for a moment, he drew himself up behind a projecting part of
another huge stone, that formed the dark side of the entrance, that
he might again listen. He was now certain that he distinctly heard
voices proceeding from within, though he was not yet near enough to
the speakers to be able to make out their words. The smell of the
wood smoke was exceedingly powerful, and his heart began to beat high,
for he was now convinced that his adventure was drawing to a crisis.
He plucked forth his dirk, and stooped to enter the place. He found
the passage to be low, narrow, gently ascending, and running somewhat
in an oblique direction, from the illuminated stone at the mouth, for
a few paces inwards, till it met with another block of great size. The
edges of this block glowed with a brighter light, that seemed to come
directly upon it, at a right angle, from some fire, not then visible,
but which was evidently blazing within, and which was again reflected
from the side of this stone towards that of the stone at the entrance.
Having crept onwards to this second fragment of rock, where the passage
took its new direction, he discovered that it led into a large, and
very irregularly-shaped chamber, which was within a few feet only of
the spot which he had now reached, but he had no accurate means of
judging of the full extent of the cavern. He could now see the rousing
fire that was burning in a recess, in the side of the rocky wall of the
place, the smoke from which seemed to find its way upwards, through
some natural crevice immediately over it, for the interior of this
subterranean den was by no means obscured by any great accumulation
of it. By the light of the fire, one or two dark holes were seen,
apparently forming low passages of connection with other chambers. How
many living beings the place might then contain, he had no means of
knowing or guessing. All that came within the field of his vision
were two persons, which he supposed were those whose voices he had
heard. One of these was a slim youth, who was employed in feeding
the fire from time to time with pieces of rotten wood and branches,
and in attending to a large pot, that hung over it by an iron chain,
depending from a strong hook fastened in the rock above. But the youth
and his occupations were altogether disregarded by Patrick Stewart,
in the intense interest and delight which he experienced in beholding
the Lady Catherine Forbes, the fair object of his toilsome search,
who sat pensively and in tears, on a bundle of heather on the farther
side of the fire.
You will easily believe, gentlemen, that it was difficult for him to
subdue his impatient feelings, so far as to restrain himself from
at once rushing forward to snatch her to his arms. But prudence
whispered him that her safety might depend on the caution he should
use. Ignorant as he was of the extent of the subterranean den,
or how it might be tenanted, he felt the necessity of exerting his
self-command, and to remain quietly where he was for a little time,
until he might be enabled to form some judgment, from what he should
see and hear, as to the probable force he should have to contend with,
as well as to determine what might be his best plan of action.
"If thou wouldst but listen to my entreaty," said Catherine Forbes,
addressing the youth in an earnest tone of supplication, whilst
the tears that ran down her cheeks roused Patrick's feelings to an
agonizing pitch of intensity--"If thou wouldst but fly with me, and
take me to Curgarf, my father would give thee gold enough to enrich
thee and thine for all thy life."
"I tell thee again that it is useless to talk of it, lady," replied
the youth. "I have already told thee that I pity thee, but it were
more than my life were worth to do as thou wouldst have me. And what
is gold, I pray thee, compared to such a risk?"
"Methinks that, once out amidst these wide hills and forests, the
risk would be but small indeed," said Catherine.
"That is all true," replied the youth. "The hills and forests are wide;
but the men of the band well know every nook and turn of them. Nay,
they are every where, and come pop upon one at the very time when they
are least looked for. Holy Virgin, an' we were to meet any of them as
we fled!--My head sits uneasily on my neck at the very thought!--By
the Rood, but there would be a speedy divorce between them! and where
would your gold be then, lady?"
"Then let me go try to explore mine own way without thee," said the
Lady Catherine.