verbal tests when applied to my patient proved complete failures. Her
memory was excellent, and indeed in this respect she was far better
than her husband, who was constantly forgetting things. As to her
judgment, it struck me as above the average, for she was a widely-read
woman, and we had a stiff argument one night as to the merits of our
favourite authors. She managed her own housekeeping, and capitally
she did it too; and, in fact—not to exhaust the reader’s patience
by entering into details—the only visible outcome of her mental
aberration was this extreme terror in which she lived, and for which
I could find no reason. (I may remark parenthetically that the mad
undoubtedly have rules of their own by which they are influenced.
Experience thus teaching me that Mrs Crawford had some reason for this,
to us, inexplicable dread—even though it might be but a fear of her
own shadow—it became my business to solve this reason.) What baffled
me most was the fact that while it was Crawford himself who primarily
excited this terror, she was undeniably fond of him. Indeed, the word
‘fond’ is hardly suitable, for she simply adored him. I never heard
him express the slightest wish as to the household arrangements but it
was instantly fulfilled; while every whim—and he was the most whimsical
of men—was implicitly obeyed. In fact, at the end of a week I was
precisely in the same state as when I first entered the house. But that
my _amour propre_ was piqued, and I felt angry at my non-success, I
should have been paying a very enjoyable visit. Arthur Crawford made
a capital host; and although, as I have already said, he was a very
whimsical man, and was subject to unaccountable fits of depression, he
and I got on excellently together.
At the end of the week, something happened which had the double effect
of lowering me several inches in my own estimation, and of placing
matters in a totally different light. It was an exceedingly hot night;
and after we had all gone to bed, I was tempted to leave my room, and
seating myself by the open window in the corridor, to indulge in an
extra cigar. The fact that it was a fine moonlight night, and that
while the corridor window boasted a lovely view, that of my own room
looked into the stables, amply justified my choice of a seat. I had
been there for perhaps an hour, when I heard the Crawfords talking in
their room, which was on a level with my own. The tones were excited
and eager; and fearing that Mrs Crawford might be lashing herself into
a fury, and that her husband might be ignorantly increasing it, I stole
down to their door and stood listening.
‘Arthur, dear, give it to me. You don’t want it to-night. Why not wait
until the morning?’
These were the first words that I caught spoken in Mrs Crawford’s
usually gentle tones.
‘Give it to you?—No; not I! I know a trick worth two of that. Ah, you
think I don’t know that you and that confounded mealy-mouthed doctor
are in league against me.’
Crawford’s voice, shrill and mocking, but undoubtedly his. Good
heavens! was the man drunk? There was a moment’s pause, and then he
began again, this time more gently.
‘Come, come, Beatrice. Drop this stupid joking. I only want to have
a little cut at Bertie, just a little cut; and look! the knife is so
bright and sharp, it cannot hurt him much.’
The wall seemed to reel around me as I leaned against it for support.
In a flash of revelation that nearly blinded me, as I realised the full
horror of the situation, I understood for the first time how matters
actually stood. Crawford himself was the madman, and the devoted wife,
whom I had been taught to look upon as insane, had known the truth all
this time; and knowing it, for some inscrutable woman’s reason, had
shielded him, perhaps at the cost of her very life. In a moment the
meaning of his many whims, his loss of memory, his fits of depression,
were made clear to me; and as I thought of the martyrdom through which
his girl-wife had passed, I cursed myself for the readiness with which
I had been duped.
While these thoughts were rushing through my brain, I had noiselessly
opened the outer door, and now stood in the dressing-room, peering
into the bedroom beyond. The door between the two was standing open;
but a heavy curtain hung in the aperture, and by making a little slit
in it by means of my penknife, I was enabled to command a view of
the interior. At the farther end of the apartment lay Bertie asleep
in his cot. Standing before him, clad in a long white wrapper, and
with her auburn hair flowing over her shoulders, was the young mother
herself; while at some paces from her stood Crawford, still in evening
dress, and balancing in his fingers a long glittering dagger, that I
recognised as one that usually hung in the library below. By this time
he had dropped his angry tones, and was speaking in his accustomed
pleasant fashion. ‘You know, dear,’ he was saying, ‘it really is
necessary that we both drink some. Half a glassful of young and
innocent blood, and we both shall keep young and happy for ever.’
‘Won’t my blood do?’ asked the girl desperately. She stretched her bare
arms towards him and forced a smile to her poor quivering lips. ‘You
are much fonder of me, aren’t you, dear? I shall do much better.’
He laughed softly. ‘No, no, my darling; not you. I wouldn’t hurt you
for all the gold of all the Indies.’ He stopped suddenly, as if struck
by his own words. ‘Gold?’ he repeated. ‘Ah! yes, of course, I must have
gold. Where did I put it now?’
He retreated a few steps, looking uneasily from side to side.
‘Perhaps you left it in the library.—Ring for James. Or go to Mr
Lennox, Arthur; he will help you to find it.’
He laughed again—a low monotonous laugh, to which my hospital-work
had but too well accustomed me, and then he moved nearer her, still
balancing the dagger in his long nervous fingers. That terrible knife!
If he had only put it down for a moment, I could have rushed in and
secured it before turning to him; but as matters were, cruel experience
taught me that the instant he caught sight of me, he would rush to the
child, to carry his dreadful purpose into effect, and that the mother
in all probability would fall the victim. On the other hand, I dared
not quit my post to summon assistance, and so leave Beatrice entirely
at his mercy. I glanced round the dressing-room, and the window-cord
caught my eye. It was new and strong. I cut it as high as I could
reach, and crept back to my hole at the curtain. Crawford was growing
rapidly angry.
‘Give me that boy!’ he cried roughly. ‘Get out of the way, Beatrice,
and let me have him;’ and he caught her by the arm and dragged her from
the cot.
‘Arthur, Arthur! husband, sweetheart!’ She clasped both arms around his
neck, and raised imploring eyes to his; but the sight of the thin white
face only moved him to greater wrath.
‘It is all your fault I have not made you strong long ago,’ he
exclaimed irritably. ‘You never laugh now, and you can’t sing, and you
won’t dance.’
‘Dance? O yes, I can. Look, Arthur!’ She drew rapidly back towards the
cot, speaking in her ordinary quiet voice. ‘You shall do what you like
with Bertie; I was only joking. Only we must have our dance first, you
know.’
With a sudden movement, she stooped and lifted the sleeping child
from the bed, talking all the time in an arch merry voice, that still
retained its old power over the poor madman. He nodded approvingly as
she began rocking to and fro with the boy in her arms, and he moved a
chair or two, to give her more space.
‘Dance, Beatrice!’ and he began whistling a then fashionable valse,
beating time to the air with the dagger, of which he never relinquished
his hold.
‘Very well,’ she responded cheerily. ‘Stand by the mantel-piece and
give us plenty of room. Now, then, my baby boy; one, two, and off we
go.’
My life has shown me instances of self-devotion in plenty; I have seen
proofs of ready wit, and more of indomitable pluck; but I have never
seen them so marvellously combined as on that terrible June night.
Instinct taught me what she meant to do. She had persuaded her husband
to stand at the end of the room farthest from the curtain that hid her
one means of escape, and now she intended to hazard her only chance,
dash through it, lock the door on the other side, and then go for help.
Backwards and forwards, round and round, she circled, a weird enough
figure in her white draperies. The little white feet were bare, and it
taxed her utmost strength to hold the heavy boy in her arms; but with a
sublime heroism of which I should never have believed her capable, she
never once paused for breath. A miracle alone kept the child asleep;
but when I saw the poor mother’s lips move dumbly between the snatches
of the gay valse she was humming, I felt that she was praying God he
might not waken. Nearer and nearer the curtain she came; but, to my
horror, I perceived that Crawford was growing uneasy and advancing
slowly in the rear.
‘Mrs Crawford! Quick!’
There was not a minute to be lost. I tore the curtain aside, and she
rushed towards me; but ere I could fasten the heavy door, her husband
was upon us. With a yell of baffled rage, he was tearing after her
through the open doorway, and in another moment would have reached her
with uplifted knife, when I tripped him up, and he fell headlong to the
floor. He was stunned by his fall; and while I fastened his hands and
feet by means of the cut window-cord, his wife went back to the inner
room and rang loudly for assistance.
Ere he came to himself, Arthur Crawford was safely secured in my own
room. Leaving him there under charge of the men-servants, I went back
to seek Mrs Crawford. She was lying on the bedroom floor with her
nervous fingers still tightly interlaced, and by her side sat her
little son, warm and rosy from his broken sleep. He was kissing the
paling lips as I came hastily into the room, and now held up a warning
finger as I knelt beside them.
‘Poor mamma is fast asleep,’ he whispered. ‘And she is so cold!’
She was not dead. The long and frightful mental strain through which
she had passed brought on brain-fever, and for some days we despaired
of her life; but she came through it bravely; and ere the summer waned,
I had the satisfaction of installing both mother and son in a seaside
cottage, far enough away from her Berkshire home.
Crawford, poor fellow, only lived a few months, for a dangerous fall
in the asylum grounds put a merciful termination to his confinement.
During those few months, I visited him occasionally, and he always
spoke most tenderly of his wife, whom he imagined to be dead.
When he died, I went to break the news to his young widow; and while
staying in her pretty Devonshire cottage, I solved much that had
puzzled me. Her terror at my first introduction to her had been
occasioned by the fact that she had at once recognised me as Lennox
the mad doctor. I had been pointed out to her in the park the season
before. She dreaded Arthur’s incipient madness being known to any one;
for she had a blind terror of a lunatic asylum in connection with
her idolised husband, and hoped that a quiet country life, free from
trouble and contradiction, might in time restore him. But had he never
broken out before? I asked, for it seemed to me incomprehensible that
so slight a frame should be capable of such courage. Once, she said,
only once, and then he had been bent on killing himself. In struggling
with him for the possession of the knife, he had accidentally cut her
wrist, and so occasioned the ugly scar that disfigured it. As for
Bertie’s presence on that fatal night, she told me he had always been
accustomed to sleep in their room; and as I had refused to second her
theory that the child wanted change of air, and so aid in sending him
out of the house, she could devise no other means of getting rid of him.
And then I took my leave; and I have never seen Mrs Crawford from that
day to this; but still, in spite of a certain pair of sweet brown eyes
which make the sunshine of my home, I am forced to admit that there is
no woman on earth for whom I have such a boundless admiration as for
that unfortunate lady of whom I at one time thought as my First Patient.
FYVIE CASTLE.
Great are the vicissitudes of landed property in these modern times.
Estates of more than local name are constantly being placed in
the market, and even manors and castles of national interest are
occasionally brought to the auctioneer’s hammer. Old families are
dying out or becoming embarrassed, and many of ‘the stately homes
of England’—often associated with legendary lore and the history of
centuries—have to be handed over to the highest bidder. We are not here
concerned with the political or economical aspect of this transference
of landed property; but even the most utilitarian will admit that
there is something melancholy in seeing a fine old historic mansion
advertised for sale, or a family divorced from an estate with which it
may have been connected for generations. On the other hand, nothing,
we should fancy, would be more tempting to the new class of rich men
desirous of acquiring landed possessions than the chance of securing
some old family seat, of quaint architectural design, and crowded with
memories of the past. A splendid chance of this kind was offered some
time ago in the proposed sale of Fyvie Castle, in Aberdeenshire, along
with the adjoining estate; but no sale was effected. This castle may be
said to be complete in its way. It possesses dungeons, a ‘murder-hole,’
and a secret, inaccessible chamber, with, of course, a dreadful threat
hanging over the head of him who first enters it; a ‘Green Lady’ is
said to occasionally walk up and down its main staircase; a ‘dripping
stone’ is one of its curiosities; a family history is associated with
each of its four towers; it figures prominently in a well-known local
ballad; and Thomas the Rhymer even delivered himself of a prophecy
concerning it. Yet, withal, it is a comfortable and commodious mansion,
pleasantly situated, with park, lake, river, and shootings attached.
What more could one wish for in a castle?
The traveller from Aberdeen to Banff by railway may catch a glimpse of
Fyvie Castle to his right when he has accomplished about three-fourths
of his journey. He will only see its turret-tops, however, for
the castle stands in a well-wooded hollow—familiarly known in the
Aberdeenshire dialect as ‘the howe o’ Fyvie’—encircled by low,
undulating hills and stretches of highly cultivated land. The castle
occupies two sides of a square, and is a high and narrow structure of
the old Scotch baronial type, which would be designated plain were it
not for its numerous turrets and dormer windows, surmounted with carved
canopies and statuary. It has something of the appearance of a French
chateau, and it has indeed been cited by John Hill Burton in his _Scot
Abroad_ as one of the finest specimens of how the chateau architecture
of France was superimposed upon the original grim square block of a
Scotch baronial mansion. The chief front is to the south, and is formed
by the union of three tall towers, built by and called after three
successive families who, at one time or other, have been owners of
Fyvie. Of these three towers, the most noticeable is the central one,
the Seton Tower, named after a member of the Seton family, to whose
French upbringing and architectural tastes the general design of the
building is attributed. It is curiously recessed, two semi-round twin
towers being united by an arch above the fourth story. In the recess
thus formed, which is rendered striking by its great height and width,
is the former grand entrance, leading into a low, vaulted passage, the
doorway being defended by a ponderous iron grating bolted into the
massive walls. The west side, terminating in a corresponding tower
at the north end, is of more modern construction, but is in perfect
harmony with the front. The main architectural feature of the castle,
however, is, as already hinted, its many bartisan turrets and dormer
windows and high-pitched gables, the turrets being surmounted with
stone figures, and the dormer windows with carved canopies. A good view
of this portion of the structure is given in Billings’s _Baronial
and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland_, the castle being there
described (again by Hill Burton, who furnished the letterpress to
Billings’s engravings) as ‘one of the noblest and most beautiful
specimens of the rich architecture which the Scottish barons of the
days of King James VI. obtained from France. Its three princely towers,
with their luxuriant coronet of coned turrets, sharp gables, tall roofs
and chimneys, canopied dormer windows, and rude statuary, present a sky
outline at once graceful, rich, and massive, and in these qualities
exceeding even the far-famed Glammis.’ The interior of the building is
in keeping with the exterior, and abounds in narrow passages, winding
staircases, and small rooms; though there are apartments the size and
elegance of which could hardly be predicated from a mere survey of the
outside of the castle. For such an old place, the light and airiness of
the rooms are something remarkable; while the views across the park and
policies that are obtained from the windows are charming and charmingly
diversified. But the main attraction is a grand stone staircase of
unique design, said to be without an equal, or even a rival, in
Scotland. It is best described as ‘revolving in corkscrew fashion round
a massive central pillar, the skill of the architect being chiefly
shown in the turns and windings of the ribbed and vaulted roof, with
its arches springing occasionally out of carved capitals in the walls.’
The steps are of great breadth, and are so gently graduated, that it is
easy to accept a tradition to the effect that the horse of one of the
lairds used to ascend them.
The stone figures on the tops of the turrets, wrought in the red
sandstone that lends colour to the canopies and other ornamentations,
are somewhat diminutive, and, with one exception, have lost their
personality, if they ever had any. This exceptional figure is said to
represent Andrew Lammie, ‘the trumpeter of Fyvie,’ immortalised in a
well-known Aberdeenshire ballad, _Mill o’ Tifty’s Annie_. The miller’s
daughter fell in love with the trumpeter, and was done to death by her
family in consequence, the tragedy being completed by the pining away
of the trumpeter. We quote the concluding verses of this truly pathetic
ballad:
‘Fyvie lands lie braid and wide,
And oh, but they be bonny!
But I wadna gie my ain true-love,
For a’ the lands in Fyvie!
‘But mak my bed, and lay me down,
And turn my face to Fyvie,
That I may see, before I die,
My bonny Andrew Lammie!’
They made her bed, and laid her down,
And turned her face to Fyvie;
She gave a groan, and died or morn—
She ne’er saw Andrew Lammie.
The laird o’ Fyvie he went hame,
And he was sad and sorry;
Says, ‘The bonniest lass o’ the country-side
Has died for Andrew Lammie.’
Oh, Andrew’s gane to the house-top
O’ the bonny house o’ Fyvie;
He’s blawn his horn baith loud and shrill
O’er the lowland leas o’ Fyvie.
‘Mony a time hae I walked a’ night,
And never yet was weary;
But now I may walk wae my lane,
For I’ll never see my dearie.
‘Love pines away, love dwines away,
Love—love decays the body;
For the love o’ thee, now I maun dee;
I come, my bonny Annie!’
Mill of Tifty is still ‘to the fore,’ and the effigy of the trumpeter
points his trumpet in its direction; and the ballad seems to have some
truth in it, for the tombstone of the unfortunate Annie—her real name
was Agnes Smith—was till recently in Fyvie kirkyard, being now replaced
by a handsome monument; and documents show that her father was owner of
the mill in 1672.
The castle as it now stands—there is supposed to have been an older
castle or keep—is believed to date from about 1397, the oldest tower
extant having been built by Sir Henry Preston—of the family of Preston
of Craigmillar—who fought at Otterburn, and who acquired the estate
from Sir James de Lindsay, ‘Dominus de Crawfurd et Buchan.’ From the
Prestons, the estate passed by marriage into a family called Meldrum;
but the family most associated with the castle is the family named
after it. In 1596, Fyvie was purchased from the Meldrums by Alexander
Seton, third son of George, sixth Lord Seton, and brother of the first
Earl of Winton. This Alexander Seton was first created Lord Fyvie, and
then Earl of Dunfermline—the former title being apparently used by the
family in the north. He was a lawyer-statesman of great ability and
influence, and a favourite councillor of James I.’s. He held a number
of state and judicial offices, being successively President of the
Court of Session and Lord Chancellor of Scotland; and he was the King’s
Commissioner to the Scotch parliament of 1612, which rescinded the Act
of 1592 establishing the Presbyterian system of church government.
The second Lord Fyvie took a prominent part, under Montrose, in the
operations against the Covenanters, and afterwards lived abroad with
Charles II., and shared in the honours distributed at the restoration
of the Merry Monarch. The fourth and last peer fought at Killiecrankie
on the royalist side, was outlawed, and died at St Germain. The estate,
which had been forfeited to the Crown, was sold in 1726 to William,
second Earl of Aberdeen, who settled it on his eldest son by his third
wife, Lady Anne Gordon, sister of Lord Lewis Gordon—the ‘Lewie Gordon’
of the Jacobite ballad; and it has since descended through members of
junior branches of the Gordon (Aberdeen) family. Its present proprietor
is Sir Maurice Duff-Gordon, son of Lady Duff-Gordon, whose pleasant
_Letters from Egypt_ have not yet escaped memory.
It will thus be seen that a considerable historic interest attaches to
the castle that was so recently in the market. The domain of Fyvie,
indeed, is said to have been a royal chase at one time; and some would
even have it that in the reign of Robert the Bruce it was a royal
residence, and was visited in 1296 by Edward I. on his progress through
the north of Scotland. There is a ‘Queen Mary Room’ in the castle,
and some good specimens of the furniture of Mary’s period, though it
is doubtful if Mary herself ever occupied the room. The great Marquis
of Montrose, who certainly encamped once in the neighbourhood of the
castle, is reported to have spent a night under its roof; and a century
later, the Duke of Cumberland marched through the policies of Fyvie on
his way to Culloden.
Turning from the historical to the legendary, we have a prophecy of
Thomas the Rhymer’s respecting Fyvie:
Fyvns riggs and towers,
Hapless shall your mesdames be,
When ye shall hae within your methes,
Frae harryit kirk’s land, stanes three—
Ane in Preston’s tower;
Ane in my lady’s bower;
And ane below the water-yett,
And it ye shall never get.
Two of these stones have been found in their respective places, but
the third one remains true to the seer’s prediction. One of the weird
stones is carefully kept, and is known as the ‘dripping stone,’ as
at times it exudes a large quantity of moisture, often sufficient to
fill a large basin with water. Singular to say, nothing is known of
a ‘water-yett,’ or of there having been one; while the alleged raid
on Church property is equally a mystery; and though the hapless fate
of the ladies of Fyvie is not specified, it is a curious circumstance
that no heir has been born in Fyvie Castle for several generations. But
whatever the prophecy may portend, it completes the charm of a castle
which possesses much to delight both the lover of the picturesque and
the worshipper of the past.
BIRD NOTES.
Six poplar trees, in golden green,
Stand up the sweet May snow between—
The snow of plum and pear tree bloom—
And I, looking down from my little room,
Call to the bird on the bough: ‘What cheer?’
And he pipes for answer: ‘The spring is here.’
A month goes by with its sun and rain,
And a rosebud taps at my window pane;
I see in the garden down below
The tall white lilies a stately row;
The birds are pecking the cherries red:
‘Summer is sweet,’ the starlings said.
Again I look from my casement down;
The leaves are changing to red and brown;
And overhead, through a sky of gray,
The swallows are flying far away.
‘Whither away, sweet birds?’ I cry.
‘Autumn is come,’ they make reply.
Keenly, coldly, the north winds blow;
Silently falls the pure white snow;
Of birds and blossoms am I bereft—
Brave bright robin alone is left,
And he taps and chirps at my window pane:
‘Take heart; the spring will return again.’
FLORENCE TYLEE.
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and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
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