BEATRIX GILRUTH.
Her heart was full
Of passions which had found no natural scope.
She hated men because they loved not her,
And hated women because they were beloved,
And thus in wrath, in hatred and despair,
She tempted hell.----
THE CURSE OF KEHAMA.
Clermistonlee walked hurriedly forward, with his mantle rolled about
him, his hat flapped over his eyes, and his sword-hilt ready at hand,
for his amorous quarrels and politics had, through life, created him
innumerable enemies. He muttered as he went, and his cheek flushed
at times, though his nether lip was pale as marble, and under the
broad shadow of his Spanish beaver his fierce dark eyes burned like
two sparks of fire.
Inflamed by wine and the beauty of Lilian, who had never appeared so
enchanting as in her ball-dress, he had determined that very night to
make another desperate attempt to obtain possession of her person, at
whatever ultimate danger and odium. It was curious how strongly the
sentiments of pride, avarice, and revenge, mingled with his
love-musings;--his matchless pride was fired by the idea of the woman
he loved being given to another--he had revenge to be gratified
because, with ill-disguised loathing, she had shrunk from his
addresses, and avarice crowned all, as he doubted not if by fair
means or foul he obtained her hand, the entail of Bruntisfield and
the Wrytes would soon become a dead letter. In effect, it was so
already. But once a prisoner in his power, even for a single night,
he knew that shame and her injured reputation would compel her to
become his wife.
Full of these thoughts, which crowded and chased each other in rapid
succession through his unsettled brain, he strode forward at a quick
pace, impatient for the triumphant consummation of his projects. The
city was silent and dark, for the moon had now become obscured, and
there were no lamps to light the narrow ways through which he
hurried. In the High Street a few oil lanterns had been suspended
about four years before by the Provost, Sir George Drummond, of
Milnab, and these at long intervals shed a pale and sickly light; but
all the numerous alleys diverging from this great thoroughfare were
still involved in Cimmerian darkness. Deserted as they were, the
cogitations of Clermistonlee were often interrupted by scraps of
conversation from belated passengers, or stair-head gossips, who were
making all secure for the night, and maintained at the top of their
voices a colloquy with their neighbours opposite.
"Ken ye cummer, at what hour the morn that vile witch is to be
worrit?" screamed one.
"When the Tron Kirk bell rings aucht. My Lord Provost, the Baillies
and the Captain of the Guard are to eat the deid-chack at Hughie
Blair's twa hours thereafter. Fie upon the greedy gleds that meet to
revel and roister oure a puir sinner's departure, and to drink
Gascony and Rhenish like spring water, though they be eight-pence the
quart, and at this time when a puir man's four hours' draught----"
"But gif a' be true, nane hae sae well deservit bridle and faggot,
since that monster o' iniquity, Weir, was burnt wi' his staff, whilk
my ain faither, as honest a body as ever wore the blue ribbon at his
lug, often met stoting down the Bow, for a plack's worth o' snuff for
its hellicate master. And mair, cummer----"
But Clermistonlee hurried on, and passing the Porte of the Potter's
Row, hurried down the steep College Wynd, where picturesque edifices
of vast strength and unknown antiquity towered up on each side of the
way, and excluded the pale light of the stars. A single ray from a
window revealed the rich dresses of two gentlemen who were slowly
ascending.
"I insist upon giving you a Kelso convoy, my Lord," said one.
"A devil of a dark night, Laird, especially for a summer one--but I
vow to ye, Libberton, that my Lord Perth's claret has cast a glamour
oure me."
"Hold up, Balcarris, or ye'll measure your length in the gutter; and
that would be a braw place for the Lord High Treasurer to be found in
the morning. Thank God, the gate is no a broad ane. I mind when
Cromwell, that's now roasting in a pretty hot place--ahoa! who goes
there? Draw, Balcarris--it's some spy o' the States-General--a
keeper o' conventicles contrary to proclamation. Stand, ye deil's
buckie--for King or Covenant?"
"For the King!" cried Clermistonlee; and, irritated by their stopping
the narrow way, he unceremoniously tumbled the inebriated laird of
Libberton to the right and the Treasurer to the left, as he broke
past and hurried into the Cowgate (the ancient _comunis via_), then
the residence of aristocratic exclusives. An old author,* who wrote
in the sixteenth century, informs us "that the nobility and chief
senators of the city dwell in the Cowgate--_via vaccarum in qua
habitant patricii et senatores urbis;_" and that "the palaces of the
chief men of the nation are also there; that none of the houses are
mean or vulgar, but, on the contrary, all magnificent--_sed omnia
magnified_."
* Munster Cosmograph, p, 52.
The troubles of Clermistonlee were not yet over. On issuing into the
High Street a crowd of tipsy roisterers, young bucks, students, and
Life Guards, burst out of Hugh Blair's tavern, with shouts of
laughter and drawn swords, ripe for mischief. They beat back the
axes of the watch, and joining hands in one long line, danced down
the broad street, vociferously chaunting the merry old ditty--
"Now let us drinke,
Till we nod and winke,
Even as good fellows should do;
We shall not misse
To have the blisse
Good wine doth bring men to!"
"Hold fast, my brethren," cried one whom his lordship recognised to
be the Reverend Mr. Joram, the famous cavalier chaplain of
Dunbarton's Foot. "Hold fast--and every lass we meet must kiss us
all from right to left--ay, d--me! or drink a pint of hot sack at one
gulp."
"Bravo!" shouted the rest. "Once, twice, thrice, and away!"--and
onward they came, hand in hand, dancing and singing with stentorian
voices that made the whole street ring. Clermistonlee drew his
rapier, and shrunk under the carved arches of those stone arcades
which supported the houses on both sides of the way; and, without
perceiving him, this crowd of merry fellows passed on to beat the
watch and terrify the sleepy denizens of other quarters. Glad of his
escape--for he had confidently expected a dangerous
brawl--Clermistonlee hurried down Mary King's Close.
Debauched and roué as he was, he felt an involuntary shudder on
descending into the gloomy precincts of that deserted street, a
locality shunned by all since the plague had swept off its entire
inhabitants. For a hundred years its houses remained closed, and
gradually it became a place of mystery and horror, the abode of a
thousand spectres and nameless terrors. Superstition peopled it with
inhabitants, whom all feared, and none cared to succeed.
Those who had been foolhardy enough to peep through the windows after
nightfall, saw within the spectres of the long-departed denizens
engaged in their wonted occupations--headless forms danced through
the moonlit apartments, and on one occasion a godly minister and two
pious elders were scared out of their senses, by the terrible vision
of a raw head and blood-dripping arm, which protruded from the wall
in this terrible street, and flourished a sword above their heads,
and many other terrors which are duly chronicled in that old calender
of diablerie, _Satan's Invisible World_.
Scarcely a foot's space from his elbows on either hand, the tall
mansions rose up to a great height, empty, dark, and desolate, with
their iron-barred and shadowy windows decaying and rattling in the
gusts that swept through the mouldering chambers. Who Mary King was,
is now unknown; but though the alley is roofless and ruined, with
weeds, wallflowers, and grass, and even little trees, flourishing
luxuriantly among the falling walls, her name may still be seen
painted on the street corner. Clermistonlee was not without a strong
share of the superstition incident to the time and country, and he
certainly quickened his pace as he turned down the steep alley
towards the dark loch, the waters of which rippled in little wavelets
against the bank, then named Warriston Brae. The eastern sluice was
shut, for there was a whisper abroad of coming strife, in which the
city might require all the strength of its fortifications; and thus
in a few weeks the loch had risen many feet above its usual margin.
The ferry boat was chained to a stake, against which it jarred
heavily, as the west wind swept over the darkened water.
It was down this steep bank that the Earl of Arran and his son
rushed, after being defeated in their famous feudal battle in the
High Street; and finding a collier's horse at the edge of the loch,
leaped upon its back, and though both were sheathed in complete
armour, forced it to swim them over to the opposite bank. And down
the same place, the wild young master of Gray dragged the fair
mistress Carnegie, whom, sword in hand, he had torn from her fathers
house, and boated over the loch, attended by twelve men-at-arms.
Lustily the impatient Lord thundered at the door of the ferryman's
cottage; but it was long ere the unwilling Charon of the passage
attended his summons.
"Hallo, boatmen! Harkee, fellow, truss your points and come forth,"
he cried in his usual overbearing manner. All cavaliers of the time
spoke thus towards inferiors; but Clermistonlee carried it to an
outrageous extent. "Come forth, rascal, or I will chastise thee so
tremendously, that thou wilt never pull paddle again, in this world
at least."
"Awa, ye impudent limmer, awa!" replied a voice from the profundity
of a box-bed. "Is that the way to ding at a douce man's yett? Awa,
ye misleared loon, or I tak' my dag frae the brace, and send a bullet
through your cracked harnpan."
A terrible oath burst from Clermistonlee, for he was frenzied by
wine, passion, and delay. "Insolent runnion! attend me, or by ---- I
will beat down the door, and twist thy whaisling hause! Beware thee,
fool," he added in a low tone; "I am the Lord Clermistonlee!"
On hearing that terrible name the affrighted boatman sprang from bed;
an exclamation of fear and much anxious whispering followed. The
door was immediately opened by a lean and withered old man, whose
face was a mass of wrinkles. Scarcely daring to raise his grey
twinkling eyes, he stood lamp in hand, cringing and bowing his bald
head with the most abject humility before Clermistonlee, who cut
short his muttered apologies by saying,
"Unmoor, dyvour loon, and pull me across the loch, if you would be
spared the beating I owe you."
The old ferryman hurriedly dragged his leather galligaskins over his
hodden grey breeches, donned his skyblue coat and broad bonnet, and
bowing at every step of the way, though inwardly cursing the summons
from his cosy nest and gudewife's side, led the proud Baron towards
the little boat, for the use of which he paid a yearly rental to the
city. They stepped on board; he unlocked the mooring-chain and
shoved off.
Fed by the springs of the castle-rock and the rivulets that gurgled
down its northern bank, the loch had of late become considerably
swollen, and now rose high upon the bastions of the Well-house-tower.
It was without current, and, save the ripple raised by the soft west
wind, was still and motionless as a lake of ink.
Clermistonlee, with his rocquelaure rolled around him, and his broad
beaver with its heavy plumage shading his face, lounged silently in
the stern, watching the gigantic features of the city as they rose in
sable outline behind him, towering up from the lake like a vast array
of castles, or a barrier of splintered rock, a forest of gables and
chimnies, whose summits shot upwards in a thousand fantastic shapes.
To the westward, from a cliff of perpendicular rock, three hundred
feet in height, rose the towers of the castle. Beneath the gloomy
shadow of this basaltic mass the loch vanished away into obscurity;
but from under its impending brow there gleamed a light that
tremulously shed one long red ray across the dark bosom of the water.
It shone from the guard-fire in the Well-house-tower. Save the
measured dash of the oars, and the creaking of the boat, all was so
still that Clermistonlee heard the pulsations of his own evil heart.
Suddenly the moon gushed forth a glorious blaze of light between the
flying clouds. Magnificent was the effect of that silver splendour,
and wondrous was the beauty it lent to that romantic scene. High
over the jagged outline of the tall city it streamed aslant, and its
thousand points and pinnacles became tipped with instant light. The
great stone turrets, the massive towers and angular bastions of the
Castle and its perpendicular cliffs were thrown forward, some in
silver light, while others remained in sombre shadow. To its base
the still loch rolled like a silver mirror, while the dewy alders,
the waving osiers and bending willows that fringed its northern bank,
shone like fairy trees of gleaming crystal.
Even the old boatman paused for a moment and looked around him.
City, rock, wood, and water, all shone in the magnificent moonlight,
but once more the gathering vapours obscured the shining source, and
the whole faded like a vision. The varied masses of the city and its
stupendous fortress sank again into darkness, and once more the sheet
of water rolled to their base a black and foetid lake. At that
moment the boat grounded, the passenger sprang ashore, and addressed
the boatmen in his usual style:--
"Peril of thy life, knave, tarry till my return, or thy fee will
contain more cudgel-blows than bonnet-pieces."
"Yes, my Lord, yes," stammered the poor man, whose teeth chattered
with cold and fear: meanwhile his imperious employer sprang up the
bank, and hurried on, till, reaching the Lang Dykes, a road which led
westward, and which he traversed until he gained the Kirk-brae-head,
where on one hand the road branched off towards the castle rock, and
on the other plunged down between thick copsewood towards the
secluded village of the Dean, which lay at the bottom of a deep dell
overhung by the richest foliage.
By the margin of the Loch, and surrounded by an ample churchyard,
where the long grass waved and the yew-trees cast their solemn
shadows on many an ancient grave, where the moss-grown headstones,
half sunk in earth and obliterated by time, marked the resting-place
of the dead of other days, the old cross kirk of St. Cuthbert reared
up its dark façade with a gloomy square tower and pointed spire
surmounting its nave and transept. There slept all the ancestors of
Clermistonlee; he cast but a glance at its vast outline and hurried
on. The occasional stars alone gleamed through its mullioned
windows, for the tapers of the midnight votary had long since been
quenched on the altars of Cuthbert and St. Anne the mother of the
Virgin.
Under a mouldering gateway, where two stone wyverns with forked tails
and outspread wings, reared up on their mossy columns, Clermistonlee
paused for a moment--for a host of strange fancies and burning
thoughts, the memories of other days, crowded fast upon his mind as
he surveyed the long gloomy vista beyond.
It led to his mansion of Drumsheugh.
The avenue was long and dark; thick oaks and beeches, clothed with
the most luxuriant foliage of summer, formed a leafy arcade, which
seemed dark and impervious as if hewn through the bowels of a
mountain.
"Long, long it is," thought he, "since the hoof of the trooper's
horse, or the blast of the hunter's horn, the voice of mirth, or the
merry voice of a woman awoke these lonely echoes.
Alison--Alison--pshaw! I am another man now," he added aloud, and
endeavoured to whistle a fashionable couranto, as he walked up the
grass-grown avenue, at a pace which soon brought him to the door of
the house, where again he made a brief pause.
The mansion was a high and narrow edifice, built on the very verge of
a cliff overhanging the water of Leith, that struggled through a deep
and wooded gorge a hundred feet below, and the rock was so abrupt
that a plumb-line could have reached without impediment from one of
the turrets to the rocky bed of the river.
The house had the usual Scottish gablets, turrets at the angles and
machecoulis between. Its windows were all thickly barred, dark,
silent, and in many places broken. The vanes creaked mournfully in
concert with the rooks and the wind that sighed through the ancient
oaks. All else was silent as the grave. There came no sound from
the mansion; none from the empty stalls of the stable court, and none
from the tenantless perches of the Falconry.
On the door-lintel, notwithstanding the darkness, Clermistonlee could
decypher _I fear God onlye_, 1506, a legend placed there by his pious
forefathers to exclude witches and evil spirits, on whom it was
supposed that the name of the Deity would act as a spell of potence.
The present Lord was as evil a spirit as the city contained; but the
legend neither affected him or his purpose, and he furiously tirled
at the risp and kicked at the door till the whole house rang to the
noise. A ray of light streamed through the key-hole, and vizzying
slit of the door, on the green leaves and dewy grass, and the
approach of a slip-shod female was heard.
"Who knocks so late?" asked a shrill voice. "A proper hour and a
pleasant to disturb folk. Marry, Deil stick the visitor," she added,
withdrawing the ponderous bolts, and opening the door.
"As of old, good Beatrix, you are still without fear," said
Clermistonlee.
"Why? because I am without hope," she rejoined in a fierce tone.
"Fear! what should I fear? Did I not know it was thee? But what
fool's errand or knavish purpose brings thee here now?"
"Silence, Mistress Malapert!"
There was a momentary pause, and a terrible glance--one at least of
intense expression passed between these two. A sentence will explain
it.
When Clermistonlee was but a youth, Beatrix though ten years his
senior, was among the first of his loves, and by her own futile
endeavours to ensnare the heir of a powerful Baron, became one of the
first victims of his gallantry; she was then a beautiful and artful
woman; but gradually her beauty faded, her arts failed, and her
spirits sank: abandoned by her friends, and despised by her betrayer,
she had long, long since lost sight of every hope of marriage, or of
regaining an honourable position in life, and now she had sunk so low
as to be a mere abject dependant, a vile panderer to the amours of
her early lover--an entrapper of others; and when the old mansion was
abandoned to the crows and spiders, she had remained there, a
half-forgotten pensioner on his bounty--a creature only to be
remembered when her vile services were required. Now she was old,
wrinkled, and hideous; but Clermistonlee in his fortieth year seemed
as gay and as young, as in the days when first he pressed her to his
bosom. Beatrix was now fifty!
These ten years made a world of difference between them.
He felt all her eagle glance conveyed, but uttering a very
cavalier-like malediction, strode along the passage or ambulatory
with his bright spurs clanking, and his white plumes waving as
gallantly as they had done twenty years before. How different was
the aspect of Beatrix! Crime, mental misery, and a life of disease
and dissipation made her seem many years older than she was. She
stooped much at times, and was poorly clad in garments that like
herself had seen better days. Her head was covered by a dirty
long-eared linen cap, beneath which a few grizzled hairs escaped to
wander over a face that, like her hands and neck, had by the use of
lotions and essences become a mass of saffron wrinkles. Her eyes
were grey, hollow, keen, and unpleasant in expression; her lips thin
and colourless, and grey hairs were appearing on her chin.
"Zounds!" thought Clermistonlee, as he loathingly gazed upon her;
"can this old kite be the creature I once loved?"
By the course of time and desertion, the house seemed as much
dilapidated as its occupant; but an air of desolate grandeur pervaded
its lofty chambers and echoing corridors. Masses of the frescoed
ceiling had in many places fallen down; in others the wainscoting had
given way, revealing the rough masonry behind. The once gaudy
tapestry hung mouldering on its tenter-hooks, and a dreary air of
dusky dampness was everywhere apparent. A thousand spiders spun
their nets undisturbed across the unopened windows and unentered
doorways; and through the rattling casements the hurrying clouds were
seen afar off chasing each other in masses across the pale-faced moon
and paler stars, that twinkled through the tossing trees.
Traversing an ambulatory, on the discolored walls of which old
pictures and older trophies hung decaying, Clermistonlee was about to
enter the hall; but its vast space rang so hollowly to his tread, and
its gloom so much resembled that of a church at midnight, that he
drew back overpowered by some superstitious feeling, and entered a
small apartment which adjoined it, and had in earlier days been named
the Lady's Bower.
A fire burned cheerily on the hearth; the furniture and the tapestry
were fresh; the gilding and scarlet marquise of the high-backed
chairs unfaded; a large mirror gleamed over the carved buffet, which
two grotesque imps sustained on their heads; and several old
portraits in the warm glow looked complacently out of their round oak
frames.
"And 'tis here you have made your lair!" said Clermistonlee, throwing
himself into a chair.
"Yea: it was her boudoir--her bower. Hast thou forgotten that too?"
responded the woman, setting down her lamp, and surveying him with a
malicious eye.
"Well! old dame, and what recks it thee?" asked the Lord,
impatiently. "Art alone--of course--eh?"
"Alone!" reiterated the woman, bitterly--"when am I ever otherwise?
Alone--and why! Because I am old and hideous now. Yet there was a
time when it was otherwise. Yea--I am ever alone, save when the
knave and the fool (on whose scanty bounty I am too often dependant),
prompted by the devil, come hither to visit me."
"Dependant? have I not given thee a fee of four hundred pounds Scots
per year, and what the devil more?"
"Between your own necessities and your butler's villany, not a plack
of it have I seen since Lammas-tide."
"This shall be seen to. Come, come, Beatrix, my merry old lass, thou
art as petulant as when I led you into this chamber twenty years ago.
You want gold, I know; but, faith! I have devilish little of that."
He spread a few French crowns on the table.
"'Tis but white money," said the hag, her eyes sparkling as, with
clutching hands, she swept the coins into her lap.
"Greedy Gled! if thou art faithful, the gold will come in bushels
anon."
"On what ill errand come ye now? Is there any one to be
poisoned--hah! any poor flower to be torn from its stem, and trod
under foot when its perfume is gone?"
"Harkee! Lucky Gilruth," said the Lord, striking his clenched hand
on the table; "thou knowest me well, I think."
"O would to Heaven I had never, never known thee!" said Beatrix, with
a tearless sob. "I know little of thee that is good."
"What know ye that is bad?"
She gave him a glance of scorn and fear.
"Say forth, old Barebones--I care not. I am one----"
"Who never spared a man in his hatred or a woman in his lust! A
renegade covenanter!--a relentless persecutor of the pious and the
holy!--a perjured lover!--a faithless husband!--a false friend!--one
to whom Lord Solis of old, and the Marquis de Laval, were as saints
in comparison. Randal Clermont, thou art a fiend in the form of a
man!"
"With a heigh lillilu and a how lo lan! ha! ha!" laughed
Clermistonlee, shaking back his feathers and long cavalier locks,
while regarding Beatrix with a sardonic glance, for her words stung
him deeply. "And I know thee for one whom the tar-barrels and
thumb-screws await, if ye prove false to me. Ay, woman, I doubt not
my learned gossip Mersington would soon find the devil's mark on that
poor hide of thine. But I came to arrange, not to quarrel with
thee--ha! ha! I want my fortune read."
Beatrix gave him a long steady glance; her bleared eyes were glaring
with insanity, and a certain degree of intoxication; but she quailed
before the dark basilisk eye of her former lover, for the ferocity of
her expression relaxed, and she burst into a horrid laugh.
"Thy fortune? ho! ho! I tell thee, Randal, that the blade is forged
and tempered that will drink thy heart's blood!"
"Gadzooks! likely enough; for I do not expect to die in bed," replied
Clermistonlee, calmly, yet nevertheless exasperated by her reply, as
he knew from old experience the value of her prophecies. "But I
trifle. I know, good Beatrix, you can be faithful, and will serve me
as of old. Here is my hand--shall I be fortunate in love?"
"How often these twenty years hath that question been asked of me;
and where now are those anent whom ye asked it? Fortunate? I doubt
not ye will be more so than she whose portrait is there;" and
suddenly withdrawing a veil from a panel, she displayed the portrait
of a pale young lady, in a rich dress and high ruff. Her features
were soft and beautiful; her hair fair and in great profusion; and
her parted lips appeared to smile with inexpressible sweetness.
Clermistonlee turned pale, and averted his face, for the portrait
seemed full of life and expression.
"Cover it!" said he, in a husky voice; "Cover it!--dost hear me? or
must I blow the panel to pieces with my pistols, that these
upbraiding eyes may look on me no more?"
"Wretch--ye dare not!" said Beatrix, scornfully, while gazing with
something like pity on the fair face the pencil of Vandyke had traced
in other times. "Yes, Lady Alison, I hated thee in life, but in
death I can respect thee. Oh! Randal, she shared thy wedded love;
but was it more fortunate than mine? It was--it was; for she is at
rest in her grave, while I still linger here."
"Pity you are not there too! Enough! I am tired of these eternal
complaints; and were ye fair as Venus----but look to my hand--what
say its lines to-night?"
In her long, lean, and wrinkled fingers she took his ungloved hand,
and he half withdrew it, with ill-concealed disgust.
"Ha!" screamed Beatrix, in a terrible voice; "you shrink from my
touch now! Oh! Randal, Randal!" she added, in a tone of intense
bitterness, "to kiss these faded hands was once a boon of love to
thee. Oh! Randal Clermont, have you so quite forgotten these days
as to feel no pity for the being you once loved so well?"
"Hum!" muttered the Lord, impatiently.
"How different was I then from what I am now!" she exclaimed,
pressing her hands upon her breast, as if it would burst.
"The deuce!" Clermistonlee whistled.
"Yes, base and ungrateful! the hand that now ye loathe was then white
as the new fallen snow, and these grey locks were like the dewy wing
of the raven. My eyes could then look love to thine, that flashed
with the youth, the joy, and the brightness of twenty summers. Who
that saw us then, would dream that we are the same? I am no longer
young, no longer lovely, and thou--art still a man."
"Crush me if this is not ridiculous! art nearly done, old lady?"
"No--there is a rival in thy way!"
"S'Death, I know that too well. 'Tis that spawn of the Covenant,
young Fenton of Dunbarton's Foot. But I am still trifling. Listen,
Beldame, and lay my words to heart. A brisk young damsel will be
here in an hour hence. See that the turret that overhangs the rocks
is prepared for her reception, for I swear by all that is holy! she
shall never leave this roof until she is mine--yea, as much as----"
"As I once was, and many more have been, hah!"
Clermistonlee laughed loudly. "I have arled thee, Beatrix, and woe
if thou failest or playest me false, for the hemp is twisted that
shall strangle, and the faggots oiled that shall consume thee. Yet
more. The eyes of the Council have long been on thee for suspected
sorcery, and dealing in love potions and medicinal charms--the red
hand of Rosehaugh is over thee, wretched Beatrix, and ere long thou
mayest know the full value of the protection I afford thee. Enough!
we know each other, I think."
"Not quite," replied Beatrix, with an air that startled her proud
tormentor: "Vain fool! ye know not that by a word I could crush thee
to nothing--yea, to the dust beneath my feet. Randal Clermont, I
could reveal that, would smite thee like the scorching lightning.
But no! my lips shall remain sealed, until----"
"When?"
"When the measure of my wrongs and my vengeance _is full_!"
"Pshaw! thou art but a woman--a fool," replied Clermistonlee, jerking
on his buff gloves carelessly, but feeling somewhat surprised by her
manner.
"When will this new victim be here?" asked Beatrix, with a ghastly
grin.
"I have said in an hour, if all goes well. Prepare the old turret
for her--that cage hath held a wilder bird ere now; nay, nay, none of
that kind of work," said he, changing colour as Beatrix took a
poniard from the mantelpiece; "nothing of that sort will be
required--once in a life-time--tush! I will be back anon--till then,
adieu." He hurried away with evident confusion, and rushing down the
avenue without looking once behind him, leaped into the boat and was
pulled over to the city.
"Will your Lordship be crossing the water again this nicht?" asked
the boatman, with the utmost humility.
"That is as may be--what recks it to such as thee, fellow?" rejoined
the passenger haughtily, as he tossed a few coins into the extended
bonnet of the ferryman, sprang up Mary King's Close, and hurried
towards Bristo.