Where they were carrying her was more than Lady Carse herself could
discover. To the day of her death she never knew what country she had
traversed during the dreary and fatiguing week which ensued. She saw
Stirling Castle standing up on its mighty rock against the dim sky; and
she knew that before dawn they had entered the Highlands.
But beyond this she was wholly ignorant. In those days there were no
milestones on the road she travelled. The party went near no town,
stopped at no inn, and never permitted her an opportunity of speaking to
anyone out of their own number. They always halted before daylight at
some solitary house--left open for them, but uninhabited--or at some
cowshed, where they shook down straw for her bed, made a fire, and
cooked their food; and at night they always remounted, and rode for many
hours, through a wild country, where the most hopeful of captives could
not dream of rescue. Sometimes they carried torches while ascending a
narrow ravine, where a winter torrent dashed down the steep rocks and
whirled away below, and where the lady unawares showed her desire to
live by clinging faster to the horseman behind whom she rode. Sometimes
she saw the whole starry hemisphere resting like a dome on a vast
moorland, the stars rising from the horizon here and sinking there, as
at sea.
The party rarely passed any farmsteads or other dwellings; and when they
did silence was commanded, and the riders turned their horses on the
grass or soft earth, in order to appear as little as possible like a
cavalcade to any wakeful ears. Once, on such an occasion, Lady Carse
screamed aloud; but this only caused her to be carried at a gallop,
which instantly silenced her, and then to be gagged for the rest of the
night. She would have promised to make no such attempt again, such a
horror had she now of the muffle which bandaged her mouth, but nobody
asked her to promise. On the contrary, she heard one man say to
another, that the lady might scream all night long now, if she liked;
nobody but the eagles would answer her, now she was among the Frasers.
Among the Frasers! Then she was on Lord Lovat's estates. Here there
was no hope for her; and all her anxiety was to get on, though every
step removed her further from her friends, and from the protection of
law. But this was exactly the place where she was to stop for a
considerable time.
Having arrived at a solitary house among moorland hills, Mr Forster
told her that she would live here till the days should be longer, and
the weather warm enough for a more comfortable prosecution of her
further journey. He would advise her to take exercise in the garden,
small as it was, and to be cheerful, and preserve her health, in
expectation of the summer, when she would reach a place where all
restrictions on her personal liberty would cease. He would now bid her
farewell.
"You are going back to Edinburgh," said she, rising from her seat by the
fire. "You will see Lord Carse. Tell him that though he has buried his
wife, he has not got rid of her. She will haunt him--she will shame
him--she will ruin him yet."
"I see now--" observed a voice behind her. She turned and perceived
Lord Lovat, who addressed himself to Mr Forster, saying, "I see now
that it _is_ best to let such people live. If she were dead, we cannot
say but that she might haunt him; though I myself have no great belief
of it. As it is, she is safe out of his way--at any rate, till she dies
first. I see now that his method is the right one."
"Why, I don't know, my lord," replied Lady Carse. "You should consider
how little trouble it would have cost to put me out of the way in my
grave; and how much trouble I am costing you now. It is some comfort to
me to think of the annoyance and risk, and fatigue and expense, I am
causing you all."
"You mistake the thing, madam. We rejoice in these things, as incurred
for the sake of some people over the water. It gratifies our loyalty--
our loyalty, madam, is a sentiment which exalts and endears the meanest
services, even that of sequestrating a spy, an informer."
"Come, come, Lovat, it is time we were off," said Mr Forster, who was
at once ashamed of his companion's brutality, and alarmed at its effect
upon the lady. She looked as if she would die on the spot. She had not
been aware till now how her pride had been gratified by the sense of her
own importance, caused by so many gentlemen of consequence entering into
her husband's plot against her liberty. She was now rudely told that it
was all for their own sakes. She was controlled not as a dignified and
powerful person, but as a mischievous informer. She rallied quickly--
not only through pride, but from the thought that power is power,
whencesoever derived, and that she might yet make Lord Lovat feel this.
She curtseyed to the gentlemen, saying, "It is your turn now to jeer,
gentlemen; and to board up windows, and the like. The day may come when
I shall sit at a window to see your heads fall."
"Time will show," said Lord Lovat, with a smile, and an elegant bow.
And they left her alone.
They no longer feared to leave her alone. Her temper was well-known to
them; and her purposes of ultimate revenge, once clearly announced, were
a guarantee that she would, if possible, live to execute them. She
would make no attempts upon her life henceforward. Weeks and months
passed on. The snow came, and lay long, and melted away. Beyond the
garden wall she saw sprinklings of young grass among the dark heather;
and now the bleat of a lamb, and now the scudding brood of the
moor-fowl, told her that spring was come. Long lines of wild geese in
the upper air, winging steadily northwards, indicated the advancing
season. The whins within view burst into blossom; and the morning
breeze which dried the dews wafted their fragrance. Then the brooding
mists drew off under the increasing warmth of the sun; and the lady
discovered that there was a lake within view--a wide expanse, winding
away among mountains till it was lost behind their promontories. She
strained her eyes to see vessels on this lake, and now and then she did
perceive a little sail hoisted, or a black speck, which must be a
rowboat traversing the waters when they were sheeny in the declining
sun. These things, and the lengthening and warmth of the days,
quickened her impatience to be removed. She often asked the people of
the house whether no news and no messengers had come; but they did not
improve in their knowledge of the English tongue any more than she did
in that of the Gaelic, and she could obtain no satisfaction. In the
sunny mornings she lay on the little turf plat in the garden, or walked
restlessly among the cabbage-beds (being allowed to go no further), or
shook the locked gate desperately, till someone came out to warn her to
let it alone. In the June nights she stood at her window, only one
small pane of which would open, watching the mists shifting and curling
in the moonlight, or the sheet lightning which now and then revealed the
lake in the bosom of the mountains, or appeared to lay open the whole
sky. But June passed away, and there was no change. July came and
went--the sun was visibly shortening his daily journey, and leaving an
hour of actual darkness in the middle of the night: and still there was
no prospect of a further journey. She began to doubt Mr Forster as
much as she hated Lord Lovat, and to say to herself that his promises of
further personal liberty in the summer were mere coaxing words, uttered
to secure a quiet retreat from her presence. If she could see him, for
only five minutes, how she would tell him her mind!
She never again saw Mr Forster: but, one night in August, while she was
at the window, and just growing sleepy, she was summoned by the woman of
the house to dress herself for a night ride. She prepared herself
eagerly enough, and was off presently, without knowing anything of the
horsemen who escorted her.
It was with a gleam of pleasure that she saw that they were approaching
the lake she had so often gazed at from afar: and her heart grew lighter
still when she found that she was to traverse it. She began to talk, in
her new exhilaration; and she did not leave off, though nobody replied.
But her exclamations about the sunrise, the clearness of the water, and
the leaping of the fish, died away when she looked from face to face of
those about her, and found them all strange and very stern. At last,
the dip of the oars was the only sound; but it was a pleasant and
soothing one. All went well this day. After landing, the party
proceeded westwards--as they did nightly for nearly a week. It mattered
little that they did not enter a house in all that time. The weather
was so fine, that a sheepfold, or a grassy nook of the moorland, served
all needful purposes of a resting place by day.
On the sixth night, a surprise, and a terrible surprise, awaited the
poor lady. Her heart misgave her when the night wind brought the sound
of the sea to her ears--the surging sea which tosses and roars in the
rocky inlets of the western coast of Scotland. But her dismay was
dreadful when she discovered that there was a vessel below, on board
which she was to be carried without delay. On the instant, dreadful
visions arose before her imagination, of her being carried to a foreign
shore, to be delivered into the hands of the Stuarts, to be punished as
a traitor and spy; and of those far off plantations and dismal colonies
where people troublesome to their families were said to be sent, to be
chained to servile labour with criminals and slaves. She wept bitterly:
she clasped her hands--she threw herself at the feet of the conductor of
the party--she appealed to them all, telling them to do what they would
with her, if only they would not carry her to sea. Most of them looked
at one another, and made no reply--not understanding her language. The
conductor told her to fear nothing, as she was in the hands of the
Macdonalds, who had orders from Sir Alexander Macdonald, of Skye, to
provide for her safety. He promised that the voyage would not be a long
one; and that as soon as the sloop should have left the loch she should
be told where she was going. With that, he lifted her lightly, stepped
into a boat, and was rowed to the sloop, where she was received by the
owner, and half a dozen other Macdonalds. For some hours they waited
for a wind; and sorely did the master wish it would come; for the lady
lost not a glimpse of an opportunity of pleading her cause, explaining
that she was stolen from Edinburgh, against the laws. He told her she
had better be quiet, as nothing could be done. Sir Alexander Macdonald
was in the affair. He, for one, would never keep her or anyone against
their will unless Sir Alexander Macdonald were in it: but nothing could
be done. He saw, however, that some impression was made on one person,
who visited the sloop on business, one William Tolney, who had
connexions at Inverness, from having once been a merchant there, and who
was now a tenant of the Macleods, in a neighbouring island. This man
was evidently touched; and the Macdonalds held a consultation in
consequence, the result of which was that William Tolney was induced to
be silent on what he had seen and heard. But for many a weary year
after did Lady Carse turn with hope to the image of the stranger who had
listened to her on board the sloop, taken the address of her lawyer, and
said that in his opinion something must be done.
In the evening the wind rose, and the sloop moved down the loch. With a
heavy heart the lady next morning watched the vanishing of the last of
Glengarry's seats, on a green platform between the grey and bald
mountains; then the last fishing hamlet on the shores; and, finally, a
flock of herons come abroad to the remotest point of the shore from
their roosting places in the tall trees that sheltered Glengarry's
abode. After that all was wretchedness. For many days she was on the
tossing sea--the sloop now scudding before the wind, now heaving on the
troubled waters, now creeping along between desolate looking islands,
now apparently lost amidst the boundless ocean. At length, soon after
sunrise, one bright morning, the sail was taken in, and the vessel lay
before the entrance of an harbour which looked like the mouth of a small
river. At noon the sun beat hot on the deck of the sloop. In the
afternoon the lady impatiently asked what they were waiting for--if this
really was, as she was told, their place of destination. The wind was
not contrary; what where they waiting for?
"No, madam; the wind is fair. But it is a curious circumstance about
this harbour that it can be entered safely only at night. It is one of
the most dangerous harbours in all the isles."
"And you dare to enter it at night? What do you mean?"
"I will show you, madam, when night comes."
Lady Carse suspected that the delay was on her account; that she was not
to land by daylight, less too much sympathy should be excited by her
among the inhabitants. Her indignation at this stimulated her to
observe all she could of the appearance of the island, in case of
opportunity occurring to turn to the account of an escape any knowledge
she might obtain. On the rocky ledges which stretched out into the sea
lay basking several seals; and all about them, and on every higher
ledge, were myriads of puffins. Hundreds of puffins and fulmars were in
the air, and skimming the waters. The fulmars poised themselves on
their long wings; the fat little puffins poffled about in the water, and
made a great commotion where everything else was quiet. From these
lower ridges of rock vast masses arose, black and solemn, some
perpendicular, some with a slope too steep and smooth to permit a
moment's dream of climbing them. Even on this warm day of August the
clouds had not risen above the highest peaks; and they threw a gloom
over the interior of the small island, while the skirting rocks and sea
were glittering in the sunshine. Even the scanty herbage of the slopes
at the top of the rocks looked almost a bright green where the sun fell
upon it; and especially where it descended so far as to come into
contrast with the blackness of the yawning caverns with which the rocky
wall was here and there perforated.
The lady perceived no dwellings; but Macdonald, who observed her
searching gaze, pointed his glass and invited her to look through it.
At first she saw nothing but a dim confusion of grey rocks and dull
grass; but at length she made out a grey cottage, with a roof of turf,
and a peat stack beside it.
"I see one dwelling," said the lady.
"You see it," observed Macdonald, satisfied, and resuming his glass.
Then, observing the lady was not satisfied, he added, "There are more
dwellings, but they are behind yonder ridge, out of sight. That is
where my place is."
Lady Carse did not at present discern where the dangerous sympathy with
her case was to come from. But there was no saying how many dwellings
there might be behind that ridge. She once more insisted on landing by
daylight; and was once more told that it was out of the question. She
resolved to keep as wide awake as her suspicions, in order to see what
was to be done with her. She was anxiously on the watch in the darkness
an hour before midnight, when Macdonald said to her, "Now for it, madam!
I will presently show you something curious."
The sloop began to move under the soft breathing night wind; and in a
few minutes Macdonald asked her if she saw anything before her, a little
to the right. At first she did not; but was presently told that a tiny
spark, too minute to be noticed by any but those who were looking for
it, was a guiding light.
"Where is it?" asked the lady. "Why have not you a more effectual
light?"
"We are thankful enough to have any: and it serves our turn."
"Oh! I suppose it is a smuggler's signal, and it would not do to make
it more conspicuous."
"No, madam. It is far from being a smuggler's signal. There is a
woman, Annie Fleming, living in the grey house I showed you, an honest
and pious soul, who keeps up that light for all that want it."
"Why? Who employs her?"
"She does it of her own liking. Some have heard tell, but I don't know
it for true, that when she and her husband were young she saw him drown,
from his boat having run foul in the harbour that she overlooks, and
that from that day to this she has had a light up there every night. I
can say that I never miss it when I come home; and I always enter by
night, trusting to it as the best landmark in this difficult harbour."
"And do the other inhabitants trust to it, and come in by night?"
Macdonald answered that his was the only boat on the island; but he
believed that all who had business on the sea between this and Skye knew
that light, and made use of it, on occasion, in dangerous weather. And
now he must not talk, but see to his vessel.
This is the only boat on the island! He must mean the only sloop.
There must be fishing boats. There must and should be, the lady
resolved; for she would get back to the mainland. She would not spend
her days here, beyond the westerly Skye, where she had just learned that
this island lay.
The anxious business of entering the harbour was accomplished by slow
degrees, under the guidance of the spark on the hill-side. At dawn the
little vessel was moored to a natural pier of rock, and the lady was
asked whether she would proceed to Macdonald's house immediately or take
some hours' rest first.
Here ended her fears of being secluded from popular sympathy. She was
weary of the sea and the vessel, and made all haste to leave them.
Her choice lay between walking and being carried by Highlanders. She
chose to walk; and with some fatigue, and no little internal
indignation, she traversed a mile and a half of rocky and moorland ways,
then arriving at a sordid and dreary looking farmhouse, standing alone
in a wild place, to which Macdonald proudly introduced her as Sir
Alexander's estate on this island, of which he was the tenant.