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LEGENDARY
TALES OF THE HIGHLANDS.
A SEQUEL TO
HIGHLAND RAMBLES.
BY
Sir THOMAS DICK LAUDER, Bart.
AUTHOR OF "LOCHANDHU," "THE WOLFE OF BADENOCH,"
"THE MORAY FLOODS," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOLUME II.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
M.DCCC.XLI.
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
PAGE
THE LEGEND OF CHARLEY STEWART TÀILLEAR-CRUBACH, 1
A TEMPEST, 79
THE LEGEND, &c.--Continued, 82
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR, 150
THE LEGEND, &c.--Continued, 152
AN OLD FRIEND WITH A NEW FACE, 207
THE LEGEND, &c.--Continued, 217
THE AUTHOR FLOORED, 289
A DAY BAD FOR ONE THING MAY BE VERY GOOD FOR ANOTHER, 290
ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF INCHRORY, 292
COMFORTS OF A FIRESIDE, 293
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR IS DISCRETION, 71
THE HOWLET, 114
HIGHLAND RAMBLES.
THE LEGEND OF CHARLEY STEWART TÀILLEAR-CRUBACH.
There is a long, low, flat-topped, and prettily wooded eminence,
that rises out of the middle of the bonny haughs of Kilmaichly,
at some distance below the junction of the rivers Aven and Livat. I
don't remember that it has any particular name, but it looks, for all
the world, like the fragment of some ancient plain, that must have
been of much higher level than that from which it now rises, which
fragment had been left, after the ground on each side of it had been
worn down to its present level, by the changeful operations of the
neighbouring streams. But whatever you geology gentlemen might say, as
to what its origin might have been, every lover of nature must agree,
that it is a very beautiful little hill, covered as its slopes are
with graceful weeping birches, and other trees. The bushes that still
remain, show that, in earlier times, it must have been thickly wooded
with great oaks, which probably gave shelter to the ould auncient
Druids, when engaged in their superstitious mysteries. At the period
to which the greater part of my story belongs--that is, in and about
that of the reign of King James the III.--the blue smoke that curled
up from among the trees betrayed the existence of a cottage, that sat
perched upon the brow of its western extremity, looking towards the
Castle of Drummin. This little dwelling was much better built, and,
in every respect, much neater than any of those in the surrounding
district; and its interior exhibited more comforts as to furniture and
plenishing of all sorts, and those too of a description, superior to
any thing of the kind which a mere cottager might have been reasonably
expected to have possessed.
The inhabitants of this snug little dwelling were, a very beautiful
woman, of some four or five and twenty years of age, named Alice
Asher, and her son, a handsome noble looking boy, who, from certain
circumstances affecting his birth, bore the name of Charles Stewart.
There was a well doing and brave retainer of the house of Clan-Allan,
called MacDermot, who had lived a little way up in Glen Livat, and who,
for several years, had done good service to the Sir Walter Stewart,
who was then chieftain of the Clan, as son and heir of that Sir Patrick
whom my last Legend left so happily married to the Lady Catherine
Forbes, and quietly settled at Drummin. This man MacDermot died bravely
in a skirmish, leaving a widow and an infant daughter. It happened that
some few months after the death of her husband, the good woman Bessy
MacDermot went out to shear one of those small patches of wretched
corn, which were then to be seen, almost as a wonder, scattered here
and there, in these upland glens, and which belonged in run-rig, or
in alternate ridges, to different owners, being so disposed, as you
probably know gentlemen, that all might have an equal interest, and
consequently an equal inducement, to assemble for its protection in
the event of the sudden appearance of an enemy. Charley Stewart, then
a fine, kind-hearted boy of some nine or ten years of age, had taken
a great affection for the little Rosa, the child of Bessy MacDermot;
and this circumstance had induced the mother to ask permission of
Alice Asher, to be allowed to take her son with her on this occasion
to the harvest-field, that, whilst she went on with her work, he
might watch the infant. Charley was delighted with his employment;
and accordingly she laid the babe carefully down by him to leeward
of one of the stooks of sheaves. Many an anxious glance did the fond
mother throw behind her, as the onward progress of her work slowly
but gradually increased her distance from Charley and his precious
charge. The thoughts of her bereft and widowed state saddened her
heart, and made it heavy, and rendered her eyes so moist from time
to time, that ever and anon she was compelled to rest for an instant
from her labour, in order to wipe away the tears with her sleeve. Her
little Rosa was now all the world to her. The anxiety regarding the
child which possessed her maternal bosom was always great; but, at
the present moment, she had few fears about her safety, for, ever as
she looked behind her, she beheld Charley Stewart staunchly fixed
at his post, and busily employed in trying to catch the attention
of the infant, and to amuse it by plucking from the sheaves those
gaudy flowered weeds, of various kinds and hues, which Nature brought
up everywhere so profusely among the grain, and which the rude and
unlearned farmers of those early times took no pains to extirpate.
Whilst the parties were so occupied, the sun was shining brightly upon
the new shorn stubble, that stretched away before the eyes of Charley
Stewart, when its flat unbroken field of light was suddenly interrupted
by a shadow that came sailing across it. He looked up into the air,
and beheld a large bird hovering over him. Inexperienced as he was,
and by no means aware that its apparent size was diminished by the
height at which it was flying, he took it for a kite, or a buzzard,
and it immediately ceased to occupy his attention. Round and round
sailed the shadow upon the stubble, increasing in magnitude at every
turn it made, but totally unheeded by the boy amid the interesting
occupation in which he was engaged. At length a loud shriek reached
him from the very farther end of the ridge. Charley started up from
his sitting position, and beheld Bessy MacDermot rushing towards him,
tossing her arms, and screaming as if she were distracted. She was
yet too far off from him to enable him to gather her words, amidst
the alarm that now seized him; and, accordingly, believing that she
had been stung by some viper, or that she had cut herself desperately
with the reaping-hook, he abandoned his charge, and ran off to meet
her, that he might the sooner render her assistance; but, by the time
they had approached near enough to each other to enable him to catch
up the import of her cries, he halted--for they made his little heart
faint within him.
"The eagle! the eagle!" wildly screamed Bessy MacDermot. "Oh, my
child! my child!"
Turning round hastily, Charley Stewart now saw that the very bird
which he had so recently regarded with so little alarm, had now
grown six times larger than he had believed it really to be. It was
in the very act of swooping down upon the infant. Charley ran towards
the spot, mingling his shrieks with those of the frantic mother; but
ere their feet had carried them over half the distance towards it,
they heard the cries of the babe, as the fell eagle was flapping his
broad wings, in his exertions to lift it from the ground; and, ere
they could reach it, the bird was already flying, heavily encumbered
with his burden, over the surface of the standing corn, from which
he gradually rose, as his pinions gained more air, and greater way,
till he finally soared upwards, and then held on his slow, but strong
course, towards his nest in the neighbouring mountains.
"Oh, my babe! my babe!" cried the agonized Bessy MacDermot, her eyes
starting from their very sockets, in her anxiety to keep sight of
the object of her affections, and her terrors.
But she did not follow it with her eyes alone. She paused not for
a moment, but darted off through the standing corn, and over moor
and moss, hill and heugh, and through woods, and rills, and bogs,
in the direction which the eagle was taking, without once thinking
of poor little Charley Stewart, who kept after her as hard as his
active little legs could carry him; and, great as the distance was
which they had to run, the eagle, impeded as he was in his flight
by the precious burden he carried, was still within reach of the
eyes of the panting and agonized mother, when a thinner part of
the wood enabled her to see, from a rising ground, the cliff where
he finally rested, and where he deposited the child in his nest,
that was well known to hang on a ledge in the face of the rock,
a little way down from its bare summit. On ran the frantic mother,
with redoubled energy,--for she remembered that an old man lived by
himself, in a little cot hard by the place, and she never rested till
she sank down, faint and exhausted, at his door.
"Oh, Peter, Peter!--my baby, my baby!" was all she could utter,
as the old man came hobbling out, to learn what was the matter.
"What has mischanced your baby, Mrs. MacDermot?" demanded Peter.
"Oh, the eagle! the eagle!" cried the distracted mother. "Oh, my
child! my child!"
"Holy saints be about us! has the eagle carried off your child?" cried
Peter, in horror.
"Och, yes, yes!" replied Bessy. "Oh my baby, my baby!"
"St. Michael be here!" exclaimed Peter. "What can an old man like me
do to help thee?"
"Ropes! ropes!" cried little Charley Stewart, who at this moment came
up, so breathless and exhausted that he could hardly speak.
"Ropes!" said Peter; "not a rope have I. There's a bit old hair-line
up on the baulks there, to be sure, that my son Donald used for
stretching his hang-net; but it has been so much in the water, that
I have some doubt if it would stand the weight of a man, even if we
could get a man to go down over the nose of the craig;--and there is
not a man but myself, that I know of, within miles of us."
"You have forgotten me," cried Charley Stewart, who had now somewhat
recovered his wind. "I will go down over the craig. Come, then,
Peter!--get out your hair-line. It will not break with my weight."
"By the Rood but thou art a gallant little chield!" said Peter.
"Oh, the blessings of the virgin on thee, my dearest Charley!" cried
Bessy MacDermot, embracing him. "And yet," added she, with hesitation,
"why should I put Alice Asher's boy to such peril, even to save
mine own child? Oh, canst thou think of no other means? I cannot put
Charley Stewart in peril."
"Nay," said Peter, "I know of no means; and, in truth, the poor bairn
is like enough to have been already half devoured by the young eagles."
"Merciful Mother of God!" cried poor Bessy, half fainting at the
horrible thought. "Oh, my baby, my baby!"
"Come, old man," cried Charley Stewart, with great determination,
"we have no time to waste--we have lost too much already. Where is the
hair-line you spake of?--Tut, I must seek for it myself;" and rushing
into the cot, he leaped upon a table, made one spring at the rafters,
and, catching hold of them, he hoisted himself up, gained a footing
on them, and ran along them like a cat, till he found the great bundle
of hair-line. "Now," said he, throwing it down, and jumping after it;
"come away, good Peter, as fast as thy legs can carry thee."
Having reached the summit of the crag by a circuitous path, they could
now descry the two eagles, to which the nest belonged, soaring aloft
at a great distance. They looked over the brow of the cliff, as far
as they could stretch with safety, but although old Peter was so well
acquainted with the place where the nest was built, as at once to be
able to fix on the very spot whence the descent ought to be made, the
verge of the rock there projected itself so far over the ledge where
the nest rested, as to render it quite invisible from above. They could
only perceive the thick sea of pine foliage that rose up the slope
below, and clustered closely against the base of the precipice. A few
small stunted fir trees grew scattered upon the otherwise bare summit
where they stood. Old Peter sat himself down behind one of these,
and placed a leg on each side of it, so as to secure himself from
all chance of being pulled over the precipice by any sudden jerk,
whilst Charley's little fingers were actively employed in undoing the
great bundle of hair-line, and in tying one end of it round his body,
and under his armpits. The unhappy mother was now busily assisting the
boy, and now moving restlessly about, in doubtful hesitation whether
she should yet allow him to go down. Now she was gazing at the distant
eagles, and wringing her hands in terror lest they should return to
their nest; and torn as she was between her cruel apprehensions for
her infant on the one hand, and her doubts and fears about Charley
Stewart on the other, she ejaculated the wildest and most incoherent
prayers to all the saints for the protection and safety of both.
"Now," said Charley Stewart at length; "I'm ready. Keep a firm hold,
Peter, and lower me gently."
"Stay, stay, boy!" cried the old man. "Stick my skian dhu into your
hoe. If the owners of the nest should come home, by the Rood, but thou
will't need some weapon to make thee in some sort a match for them,
in the welcome they will assuredly give thee."
Charley Stewart slipped the skian dhu into his hoe, and went boldly
but cautiously over the edge of the cliff. He was no sooner fairly
swung in air than the hair rope stretched to a degree so alarming that
Bessy MacDermot stood upon the giddy verge, gnawing her very fingers,
from the horrible dread that possessed her, that she was to see it
give way and divide. Peter sat astride against the root of the tree,
carefully eyeing every inch of the line ere he allowed it to pass
through his hands, and every now and then pausing--hesitating, and
shaking his head most ominously, as certain portions of it, here and
there, appeared to him to be of doubtful strength. Meanwhile, Charley
felt himself gradually descending, and turning round and round at the
end of the rope, by his own weight, his brave little heart beating,
and his brain whirling, from the novelty and danger of his daring
attempt--the screams of the young eagles sounding harshly in his
ears, and growing louder and louder as he slowly neared them. By
degrees he began distinctly to hear the faint cries of the child,
and his courage and self-possession were restored to him, by the
conviction that she was yet alive. In a few moments more he had the
satisfaction to touch the ledge of rock with his toes, and he was at
last enabled to relieve the rope from his weight, by planting himself
upon its ample, but fearfully inclined surface. He shouted aloud,
to make Peter aware that the line had so far done its duty, and then
he cautiously approached the nest, where, to his great joy, he found
the infant altogether uninjured, except by a cross cut upon her left
cheek, which she seemed to have received from some accidental movement
of the beak or talons of one of the two eaglets, between which she had
been deposited by the old eagle. Had she not been placed between two
so troublesome mates, and in a position so dangerous, nothing could
have been more snug or easy than the bed in which the little Rosa was
laid. The nest was about two yards square. It was built on the widest
and most level part of the ledge, and it was composed of great sticks,
covered with a thick layer of heather, over which rushes were laid
to a considerable depth. Fortunately for the infant, the eaglets had
been already full gorged ere she had been carried thither, and there
yet lay beside them the greater part of the carcass of a lamb, and
also a mountain hare, untouched, together with several moorfowl, and
an immense quantity of bones and broken fragments of various animals.
Charley Stewart did not consume much time in his examination of the
nest. Being at once satisfied that it would be worse than hazardous
to trust the hair-line with the weight of the child, in addition
to his own, he undid it from his body. Approaching the nest, he
gently lifted the crying infant from between its two screeching and
somewhat pugnacious companions. The moment he had done so, the little
innocent became quiet, and instantly recognising him, she held out her
hands, and smiled and chuckled to him, at once oblivious of all her
miseries. Charley kissed his little favourite over and over again,
and then he proceeded to tie the rope carefully around and across
her, so as to guard against all possibility of its slipping. Having
accomplished this, he shouted to Peter to pull away--kissed the little
Rosa once more, and then committed her to the vacant air. Nothing
could equal the anxiety he endured whilst he beheld her slowly rising
upwards. And when he beheld the mother's hands appear over the edge of
the rock, and snatch her from his sight, nothing could match the shout
of delight which he gave. The maternal screams of joy which followed,
and which came faintly down to his ears, were to him a full reward
for all the terrors of his desperate enterprise. For that instant he
forgot the perilous situation in which he then stood, and the risk
that he had yet to run ere he could hope to be extricated from it.
But a few moments only elapsed ere all thoughts of any thing else
but his own self preservation were banished from his mind. The angry
screams of the two old eagles came fearfully through the air, and
he beheld them approaching the rock, cleaving the air with furious
flight. He cast one look upwards, and saw the rope rapidly descending
to him--but the eagles were coming still faster, and he had only time
to wrench out a large stick from the nest, to aid him in defending
himself, when they were both upon him. He had nothing for it but
to crouch as close in under the angle of the rock as he could, and
there he planted himself, with the stick in his right hand, and the
skian dhu in his left, resolved to make the best fight he could of
it. They commenced their attack on him whilst still on the wing, by
flying at him, and striking fiercely at him with their talons, each
returning alternately to the assault after making a narrow circuit
in the air. Whilst thus engaged, Charley neither lost courage nor
presence of mind, but contrived to deal to each of them a severe
blow now and then with the rugged stick, as they came at him in
succession. Finding that they could make no impression upon him in
this way, sheltered as he was by his position under the projecting
rock, they seemed at once to resolve, as if by mutual consent, to
adopt a more resolute mode of attack.
Alighting on the ledge of rock at the same moment, one on each side
of the place where he was crouching, both the eagles now assailed him
at once with inconceivable ferocity. Half fronting that one which was
to his right, he laid a severe blow on it, which somewhat staggered
it in its onset. But whilst he was thus occupied with it, the other,
which was to his left, tore open his cheek, with a blow of his talons,
that had nearly stunned him. More from mechanical impulse, than
from any actual design, he struck a back-handed blow with his skian
dhu. Fortunately for him it proved most effectual, for it penetrated
the eagle to the very heart, laid it fluttering on its back, and,
in the violence of its struggles, it rolled over the inclined ledge,
and fell dead to the bottom of the crag. But poor Charley had no
leisure to rejoice over this piece of success. He looked anxiously
to the hair-line, which hung dangling within reach of his grasp;
but, ere he could seize it, his other enemy was at him again. As if
it had profited by the severe lessons it had gotten, the strokes of
this second eagle were given with so much rapidity and caution, that
close as Charley Stewart was obliged to keep into the angle of the
rock, and stupified as he was, in some degree, by the wound he had
received, he was able to do little more than to defend his own person
from injury, whilst he was obliged slowly to give ground before his
feathered assailant. Whilst retreating and fighting in this manner,
one blow of his stick, better directed than the rest, struck the eagle
on the side of the skull, close to its juncture with the neck, and
it went fluttering down over the rock, in the pangs of death, after
its fellow. But alas! poor Charley Stewart's victory cost him dear.
The two listeners above, who had seen the approach of the eagles,
were dreadfully alarmed by the noise of the terrific conflict that was
going on upon the ledge below. In vain did they shout to terrify the
birds. In vain did old Peter frequently try the hair-line, by pulling
gently at it, in the hope of finding that the weight of Charley's
body was attached to it. They were tortured by anxious uncertainty
regarding him, until a piercing shriek came upwards from him, and
all was quiet. Winged by terror, Bessy MacDermot rushed, with her
child in her arms, down the winding path, to a point whence she could
command a view of the ledge. The boy was no longer there!--She rubbed
her dimmed eyes, gave one more intent gaze. From the very nature of
the place, it was impossible that he could be there unseen by her,
from the point she now occupied, and she was thus too certainly
assured that he was gone. Uttering a despairing scream, she flew
franticly down to look for him among the trees at the bottom of
the cliff. There she sought all along the base of it, dreading every
moment to have her eyes shocked with the sight of his mangled remains,
and uttering the most doleful lamentations that she had murdered her
dear friend's gallant boy. She found both the dead eagles indeed,
but she could see nothing of Charley Stewart. Old Peter then came
hobbling after her, to join her in her search, and both of them went
over the ground again and again in vain. A faint hope began at length
to arise in the minds of both, that he might, after all, be still on
the ledge above, though, perhaps, lying wounded, or in a swoon; and,
although both felt it to be almost against all reason to indulge in
it, they instantly prepared to return, to endeavour more perfectly
to ascertain the fact; and, if it could be done no otherwise, Bessy
MacDermot resolved to run and rouse the country, in order to procure
strong ropes, and men to go down to examine the ledge itself.
Full of these intentions, they were in the act of quitting the bottom
of the cliff, when a faint voice arrested their steps. They stopped
to listen, and, after a little time, they were aware that it came down
from over their heads. They looked up, but, seeing nothing, they became
more than ever convinced, that it was Charley's voice calling to them
from the ledge, and they again turned to hurry away to assure him of
help. But the voice came again, and so much stronger, as to satisfy
them that the speaker could be at no very great distance from them.
"Peter!--Bessy!--I am here in the tree," said Charley Stewart,
"for the love of Saint Michael, stop and take me down!"
Some minutes elapsed before they could catch a glimpse of the poor
boy. At length they discovered him, half way up a tall pine tree,
hanging by his little coat to the knag of a broken branch. I may as
well tell you at once how he came there. Whilst he was in the very
act of dealing that last well directed blow of the stick, that proved
so fatal to the second eagle, his foot slipped on the narrower and
more inclined part of the ledge, to which he had been gradually driven
back during the combat, and uttering that despairing scream which rang
like his knell in the affrighted ears of Bessy MacDermot, and Peter,
he fell through the air, and crashed down among the dense foliage
of the pine-tops below. One of his legs was broken across a bough,
which it met with in his descent through the tree, but his head, and
all his other vital parts, had luckily escaped injury; and the knag,
which so fortunately caught his clothes, and kept him suspended, had
been the providential means of saving him from that death, which he
must have otherwise inevitably met with on coming to the ground.
But how were they to get poor Charley down from the tree? Old Peter
could not climb it; but, seeing that it was furnished with branches
nearly to its root, Bessy MacDermot gave her child into the hands of
the old man, and, taking a double end of the hair-line with her, she
clambered up the stem to the place where the boy was hanging. Tenderly
relieving him from his distressing position, she quickly passed two
or three double folds of the rope around him, and then lowered him
gently down to Peter. So patient had Charley been under his sufferings,
excruciating as they were, that it was not until they were about to
move him from the ground, that they discovered the injury that his
limb had received.
"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Bessy MacDermot, wringing her hands;
"Oh, how can I face Alice Asher, after thus causing so sad a mischance
to her darling, her beautiful boy?"
"Tut, Bessy, never mind me!" said Charley faintly, but with a gentle
smile, that sorted but ill with his wounded and bloody countenance;
"I shall soon get the better of all this; but if it had been twice
as bad with me, Bessy, nay, if I had been killed outright, I should
have well deserved it, for quitting my poor little Rosa there, as I
did upon the harvest rig."
"Nay, nay, my dearest boy, Charley," said Mrs. MacDermot, kissing him,
and weeping fondly over him; "thou did'st thy part faithfully. Had
it not been for my foolish fright, and my silly screams when I first
saw the eagle, thou wouldst never have left my child, and nought of
these sad mischances could have happened."
With some difficulty, and not without Bessy MacDermot's help, old
Peter managed to carry Charley Stewart down to his hut, whence he was
afterwards moved home, when proper assistance could be procured. Alice
Asher was overpowered with grief, when the darling of her heart
was brought to her in this melancholy and maimed condition. But she
readily forgave Bessy MacDermot for the innocent share she had had in
producing it; and after Charley's wounds were dressed, the bones of
his fractured limb set, and that she was satisfied that his life was
perfectly safe, she not only felt grateful to God that he had been
so wonderfully preserved, but she began to regard him with honest
pride for the gallant action he had performed.
"Well hast thou proved thyself, my boy, to be a true Clan-Allan
Stewart!" said she to him, with a deep blush on her countenance, as
she sat fondly watching by the bed where Charley was quietly sleeping,
from the effects of the drugs that had been given to him, till the
tears began to follow one another fast from her eyelids. "Well might
thy father now, methinks, make thee his lawful son, by extending
to me those holy rites, the false hope of obtaining which betrayed
mine innocent and simple youth! Thou at least ought not to suffer for
thine unhappy mother's fault, which now nearly nine years of sorrow,
of remorse, and of heart-felt penitence, and prayer, and penance,
have not yet expiated! But God's holy will be done!"
Poor afflicted Alice Asher had occasion to repeat these last words
of pious resignation to the will of God, more than once after the
recovery of her son. She was deeply grateful to Heaven indeed, that
his life had been spared to her, and that his health and strength
were completely restored to him, but his handsome countenance had been
greatly and permanently disfigured, by the deep cross-like scar that
remained upon his left cheek, and the grace of his person had been
much destroyed by the limping of his left leg, occasioned by the bad
surgery of the rude practitioner who had set the broken bones. She
bore this affliction, as she did all others, with meek submission,
as a divine chastisement which her sin had well merited, though she
wept to think that she had been visited by it through the suffering
of her innocent boy. Some eight or nine long years passed away,
during which Sir Walter Stewart of Drummin was liberal in providing
richly for the wants of the mother, as well as for the education of
her son, though he strictly avoided seeing either of them. The story
of Charley's brave achievement, and severe accident, reached him not,
for he was at that time abroad upon his travels in foreign lands;
and, ere he returned home, the talk about it had died away, so that it
had never been permitted to exercise any influence upon him whatsoever.
Passing over these years, then, we find Alice Asher, paler and thinner
than before, but still most beautiful, sitting one morning, at the
window of her cottage, that looked towards the tower of Drummin,
which was partially seen from it, through between the thick stems
of the trees. Her elbow rested on the window-sill, and supported
her head, which was surrounded by a broad fillet of black silk,
from beneath which her hair clustered in fair ringlets around her
finely formed features, and fell in long tresses over her neck and
shoulders. Her close fitting kirtle, and her loose and flowing gown,
were of sad-coloured silk, and the embroidered bosom of her snow-white
smock was fastened with a golden brooch, that sparkled with precious
stones, and more than one of her fingers glittered with rings of
considerable value. Alice was not always wont to be so adorned; but,
ornamented as she thus was, beyond the simplicity of that attire which
she usually wore, her countenance bore no corresponding expression
of gladness upon it. She sat gazing silently towards the distant
stronghold of the Clan-Allan Stewarts, sighing deeply from time to
time, until the thoughts that filled her heart gradually dimmed her
large blue eyes, and the tears swelled over her eyelids, and ran down
her cheeks, and she finally began to relieve the heaviness of her soul,
by thinking aloud in broken and unconscious soliloquy.
"Aye! he is going to-day!" said she, in a melancholy tone. "He is
going to the court, to mix with the great, the proud, the gay,
and the beautiful; and I shall not see him ere he goes! Yet the
vow of separation which we mutually took, had a saving condition
in it. He might have come--he may at any time approach me--aye, and
honourably too--when the object of his visit may be to do me and my boy
justice. But, after so many years have passed away in disappointment,
why should my fond and foolish heart still cling to deceitful hope? a
hope, too, that wars with those of a purer and holier nature, which
may yet ally me, a penitent sinner, to Heaven. Then, what have I to
do with those glittering gauds that would better become a bride? Yet
they are his pledges, if not of love, at least of kindness and of
friendship, sent to me from time to time, to show me that I am not
altogether forgotten; and surely there can be no harm in my wearing
them? and then to-day--to-day, methought that he might have come. But
if he had ever intended to come, would he have sent, as he has done,
for Charley? Oh, my boy! would that he could but think of doing thee
justice, and thy poor sinful mother would die contented! But, if he
is pleased with the youth, may he not yet come hither along with
him? How my silly heart beats at the very thought! What sound was
that I heard? Can it be them?--No, no, no, he will never come more
to me!--Alas, alas! my poor boy's face and person have suffered too
much to win a father's eye, and he knows not the virtues that lie so
modestly concealed within them. But what is that I see yonder?--The
bustle of the horsemen before the gate, with their pampered steeds
and their gay attire--their pennons fluttering, and the sun glancing
from the broad blades of their Highland spears?--What!--was that
a distant bugle blast I heard?--Again!--Then they are moving--aye,
indeed! They are now galloping off along the terrace!--Alas, alas,
they are gone! and my vain and foolish hopes have gone with them!"
These last words were uttered in the deepest tone of anguish, and
Alice drew hastily back into the darkest recess of the apartment,
where she seated herself, covered her face with the palms of her
hands, and wept aloud. Having thus given full vent to her feelings,
she retired to the privacy of her closet, where she endeavoured to
divert her mind by holy exercise from the sorrows that oppressed
her. At length, a gentle tap at the door informed her that her son
had returned from his visit to Drummin, and tremblingly anxious to
know the result of it, she immediately admitted him.
"Mother! my dearest mother!" said Charley Stewart, tenderly embracing
her, and with a manifest effort to subdue certain emotions that were
working within him; "Why hast thou been weeping?"
"Alas! I weep often, my beloved, my darling boy!" replied she, warmly
responding to his caresses; "I weep, and I deserve to weep! But
hast thou aught of tidings for me, that may give me a gleam of
joy?--Say--how wert thou received?"
"Why, well, mother!" replied Charley, endeavouring to assume a lively
air; "I was well and kindly received, though neither, forsooth,
with parade of arms, nor with flourish of trumpets, nor of clarions;
but Sir Walter received me kindly."
"Did he embrace thee, dear Charley?" demanded his mother, with great
anxiety of expression.
"Um----Aye," replied her son, with some degree of hesitation;
"he did embrace me, though hardly indeed with the same fervour that
thou art wont to do, dearest mother. But then thou knowest, mother,
that Sir Walter is a courtly knight of high degree, and they tell me
that the fashion of such folks allows them not to yield themselves
altogether, as we humbler people are wont to do, to the feelings that
are within us."
"Alas! thou say'st that which is but too true!" replied Alice, in a
desponding tone; "but go on, boy."
"Sir Walter put his hand on my shoulder, and turned me round,"
continued Charley. "Then he made me walk a step or two, and eyed me
narrowly from top to toe, pretty much as if he had been scanning the
points and paces of a new horse.--'How camest thou so lame and so
disfigured?' demanded he.--'By a fall I had in climbing to an eagle's
nest,' replied I.--'A silly cause,' said Sir Walter; 'and yet, perhaps,
the bold blood that is in thee must bear the blame. But know, boy,
that fate hath not given to all the power to climb into the eyry of the
eagle.' And having said this much he changed the subject of his talk."
"Would that thou could'st but have gathered courage enow to have told
him all the circumstances of that adventure!"
"Nay, mother, I had courage for any thing but to speak aught that
might have sounded like mine own praise," replied Charley.
"Would that he but knew thee as thou art!" said Alice, with a
sigh. "Would that he but knew the soul that is within thee! With
all his faults--and perhaps they are light, save that which concerns
thee alone--he hath a generous spirit himself, and he could not but
prize a generous spirit in one so kindred to him. But tell me all
that passed. Did--did he--did he ask thee for tidings of me?"
"He did question me most particularly about thee," replied Charley. "He
questioned me as if he would have fain gathered from me the appearance
and condition of every, the minutest feature of thy face, and of every
line of thy form. He questioned as if with the intent of limning thy
very portrait on the tablet of his mind; and, as if he would have
traced it beside some picture, which he still wore in fresh and lively
colours there, for the purpose, as it seemed to me, of making close and
accurate comparison between them. Thus he would pause at times during
his questioning of me; and, after a few moments of deep abstraction,
he would say, as if forgetful of my presence, and in converse with
himself alone, 'Strange! aye, but she was then but fifteen, scarce
ripened into woman--the change is nothing more than natural--the same
loveliness, but more womanly;' and so he went on, now to question,
and now to talk of thee, for a good half hour or so."
"And he!" cried Alice, with unwonted animation; "Say, boy, looked he
well? I mean in health; for of his manly beauty, his tall and well
knit form, his graceful air, his noble bearing, and his eagle eye! how
could I have lived till now, without hearing from those who have seen
and admired him? Alas!" added she, in a melancholy and subdued tone,
"of such things I have perhaps inquired too much!"
"Sir Walter had all the ruddy hue, as well as the firmness of vigorous
health, dear mother," replied the youth.
"Thanks be to all the saints!" exclaimed Alice fervently; "Then,
come boy--tell me what passed between you?"
"After all his questions touching thee and thy health were done,"
said Charley, "and that we had talked of other matters of no import,
he sat him down, and thus gravely addressed me as I stood before him:
'I have been thinking how best to provide for thee, boy. I can see that
thou art but ill fitted for hardy service, or the toils of war. And,
by the Rood, it is well for thee that, in these times, there are
other ways of winning to high fortune, yea, and to royal favour even,
besides that which leads to either by doughty deeds of arms, where
so many perish ere they have half completed the toilsome and perilous
journey. Thou must content thee, then, with some peaceful trade. Let
me see--let me see. Ah! I have it. Now-a-days, men have more chance
to push themselves forward by the point of the needle, than by the
point of the lance. What thinkest thou of Master Hommil, the king's
tailor, who, as all men say, hath a fair prospect of shaping such a
garb for himself, as may yet serve him to wear for a peer's robes,
if he doth but use his sheers with due discretion? This is the very
thing for thee, and it is well that I have so luckily hit on it. I'll
have thee apprenticed to a tailor, and, when thy time is out, I'll
have thee so taught in all the more curious mysteries of thine art,
by its very highest professors, that none in the whole land shall be
found to equal thee. Thou shalt travel to France for learning in the
nicer parts of thy trade, and then, I will set thee up, close under
the royal eye, with such a stock of rarest articles in thy shop, as
shall make it a very Campvere, for the variety and richness of its
merchandize. But thou must begin thy schooling under Master Jonathan
Junkins here, who, though but a country cultivator of cabbage, hath
an eye towards the cut of a cloak or doublet, that might well beget
the jealousy of the mighty Hommil himself. I once wore a rose-coloured
suit of Jonathan's make, that did excite the envy, yea, and the anger,
too, of that great master, by the commendations that royalty himself
was heard to pass upon it. Though there were some there, who, from
malice, no doubt, did say, that the merit lay more in the shape of the
wearer, than in that of the garments. But I am trifling. I have some
orders to give ere I mount, and this, as to thy matter with Junkins,
shall be one; and time wears, boy, and thou, too, hast some little way
before thee to limp home; therefore, God keep thee. Bear my love, or,
as she would herself have it to be, my friendship, to thy mother. And,
see here; give her this ring as a fresh remembrance of me. Farewell--I
shall see that all be well arranged regarding thee ere I go; and I
trust that thou wilt not idly baulk the prudent plans I have laid down
for thee, or the good intentions I have towards thee; and so again,
farewell, my boy!'--And thus, my dearest mother, was I dismissed."
"Well, God's will be done!" said Alice, with a deep sigh, after a
long pause, and after having betrayed a variety of emotions during
her son's narrative. "I had hoped better things for thee, my boy, but
God's will be done! Thou hast no choice but to submit, Charley. Forget
not that Sir Walter Stewart is thy father, and that thou art bound
by the law of nature to obey him."
"It is because I do not forget that Sir Walter Stewart is my father,
that I find it so hard a thing to obey him in this," said Charley, with
a degree of excitement, which all his earnestly exerted self-command
was, for the moment, unable entirely to control. "But, as it happens,
that it is just because he is bound to me by the law of nature,
and by no other law, that he thus condemns me to be nailed down to
the shop-board of a tailor, instead of giving me a courser to ride,
and a lance to wield, so, as thou most truly sayest dear mother, by
the law of nature, but by that law alone, am I compelled to submit
to this bitter mortification, and to obey him."
"Nay, nay, dearest Charley, talk not thus!" cried Alice, throwing
her arms around her son's neck, and fondly kissing him; "talk not
thus frowardly if thou lovest me!"
"Love thee, my dearest mother!" cried Charley, returning her embraces
with intense fervour, and weeping from the overpowering strength of
his feelings; "Nay, nay, thou canst not doubt my love to thee; thou
canst not doubt that, on thy weal, or thy woe, hangs the happiness
or the misery of your poor boy. Be not vexed, dearest mother, for
though I have spoken thus idly, trust me that a father's word shall
ever be with me as the strictest law, which I, so far as my nature
can support me, shall never wilfully contravene."
Charley Stewart again tenderly embraced his mother, and, scarcely
aware that he was leaving her to weep, he hurried away to seek some
consolation for himself, in a quarter where he never failed to find
it. This was at the cottage of Bessy MacDermot, whither he was wont
frequently to wander, for the purpose of listening to the innocent
prattle of his young plaything Rosa, who, having now seen some eight
or nine summers, was fast ripening into a very beautiful girl. As
Charley approached the widow's premises on the present occasion, he
found Rosa by the side of a clear spring, that bubbled and sparkled
out from beneath a large mossy stone, that projected from the lower
part of the slope of a flowery bank, under the pensile drapery of
a grove of weeping birches. The moment she beheld him, she came
tripping to meet him, with a rustic wreath of gay marsh marigolds
and water-lilies in her hand.
"Where have you been all this long, long morning, dearest
Charley?" cried Rosa; "I have been so dull without you; and see what a
wreath I have made for your bonnet! But I have a great mind to wear
it myself, for you don't deserve to have it, for being so long in
coming to me."
"I have been over at the castle, Rosa," said Charley, stooping
to embrace her, as she innocently held up her lips to be kissed
by him. "I have been over at Drummin, looking at the grand array
of steeds and horsemen. But what are these flowers?--Water-lilies,
as I hope to be saved! Holy Virgin! Rosa, how didst thou come by them?"
"I got them from the pool," replied Rosa, hesitating, and gently
tapping his cheek with a few stray flowers which she held in her hand;
"I got them in the same way that you pulled them for me the other day,
that is with a long hazle rod, with a crook at the end of it."
"From the pool, Rosa?" cried Charley; "What could tempt thee
to risk thy life for such trifles? If thou hadst slipt over the
treacherous brink, where there was no one by to save thee--thou wert
gone! irrecoverably gone! How couldst thou be so rash? my very flesh
creeps to think on't!"
"Don't be angry with me, Charley!" said Rosa coaxingly--"what risk
would I not run to give thee pleasure?"
"But you have given me any thing but pleasure in this matter, Rosa,"
said Charley; "I tremble too much to think of the hazard thou hast run,
to look with pleasure on any thing that could have occasioned it."
"So thou wilt not let me put the wreath on thy bonnet, then?" said
Rosa, with a tear half disclosing itself in her eye-lid; "Come, come,
Charley! sit down--sit down on this bank, and do let me put it upon
thy bonnet."
"If it will pleasure thee to make a fool of me, Rosa," said Charley,
smiling on her, and kissing her; "Thou shalt do with me as thou
mayest list."
"That is a dear kind Charley," cried Rosa, her moist eyes sparkling
with delight, and throwing her arms around his neck; "I'll make no
fool of thee: I'll make thee so handsome!"
"Handsome!" exclaimed Charley, laughing. "Why Rosa, it is making a
fool of me, indeed, to say that thou can'st make me handsome, with
this ugly deep cross-mark on my cheek."
"That cross-mark on your cheek, Charley!" cried the little girl, with
an intensity of feeling much beyond anything which her years might have
warranted; "To me that cross-mark is beautiful! I love that noble brow
of thine--those eyes, that whenever they look upon me, tell me that I
am dear to thee--those lips, that so often kiss me, and instruct me,
and say kind things to me--but that mark of the cross on thy cheek--oh,
that hath to me a holy influence in't; it reminds me that, but for
thy noble courage which earned it for thee, I should have been food
for the young eagles of the craig. Charley! I could not fail to love
thee, for thy kindness to me; but I never could have loved thee as I
do love thee, but for these living marks which you bear of all that
you suffered for thine own little Rosa. Kiss me my dear, dear Charley!"
"My little wifey!" cried Charley, clasping the innocent girl in his
arms, and smothering her with kisses.
"Aye," said Rosa, artlessly, "I am thy little wifey. All the gossips
say that I am fated to be so; for you know I have got my cross mark
as well as you, aye, and on my left cheek too. The eagles did that
kind turn for me. They marked us both with the cross alike. See! you
can see my cross here quite plain."
"I do see it," said Charley, kissing the place. "But thanks be to
the Virgin thy beauty hath not suffered one whit by it. I can just
discern that the mark is there, and that is all; and I trust that it
will altogether disappear as you grow up to be a woman."
"The Virgin forbid!" cried Rosa energetically. "The gossips say that
we have been so miraculously signed with the cross expressly for
each other, and I would not lose so happy a mark, no, not to be made
a queen! But do let me put on thy chaplet, dear Charley. I hope to
see thee some day with a grand casque on thy head--a tilting spear
in thy hand--bestriding a noble steed, and riding at the ring with
the best of them."
"Alas, Rosa!" said Charley, with a deep sigh, "that will never be
my fate!"
"Why not?" demanded Rosa; "surely Sir Walter Stewart may make thee
his esquire?"
"Alas, no!" said Charley, despondingly. "The casque he dooms me to is
a tailor's cowl--the shield a thimble--the lance a needle--and the
gallant steed I am to mount is a tailor's shop-board, and if ever
I tilt with silk, velvet, or gold, it will be to convert them into
cloaks and doublets for my betters!"
"A tailor!" exclaimed Rosa, with astonishment; "surely thou art
jesting, Charley."
"I'faith, it is too serious a matter to jest about," replied
Charley. "Truly I am doomed to handle the goosing iron of Master
Jonathan Junkins."
"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" shouted Rosa--"Ha, ha, ha, ha!--What an odd fancy
of Sir Walter!"
"Nay, laugh not at my misery, Rosa," said Charley, gravely, and
somewhat piteously. "I cannot bear the thought of such a life! What
think you, Rosa, of being a tailor's wife?"
"So that thou wilt always call me thine own dear little wifey, I
care not what thou art," replied Rosa, tenderly, and throwing her
arms around his neck. "And why, after all, mayest thou not be quite
happy as a tailor? Old Johnny Junkins sings at his task from morning
till night. Besides, he hath no risk of being killed in battle, as
my poor father was. He always sleeps in a whole skin, save when his
wife Janet beats him with the ell-wand, and surely thou wouldst have
no fears that I should do that for thee, dear Charley?"
It was now Charley's turn to laugh, which he did very heartily, and
having thus gained a temporary victory over his chagrin, he improved
upon it by immediately taking a small Missal from his sporran,
and commencing his daily occupation of giving instructions to Rosa,
who greedily learned from him all that he could impart.