I must honestly tell you, gentlemen, that my story hath much the
air of a romance, as well as much of love in it, and many of the
other ingredients of such like vain and frivolous compositions; but
you shall have the facks as told me by my much honoured father, who,
being a well-employed blacksmith, not many miles from the spot where
we now are, may be said to have been the chronicler of the passing
yevents of his day.
Awell, you see, it happened that a well-grown, handsome, proper looking
young shepherd lad, called Robin Stuart, had possessed himself of
the young affections of a bonny lassie, the daughter of Donald Rose,
one of the better sort of tenants of these parts. Their love for one
another had grown up with them, they could not well say how. Its
origin was lost in the innocent forgetfulness of their childhood,
as the origin of a nation is buried in the fabulous history of its
infancy; but, however born, this they both felt, that it had grown
in strength and vigour every day of their lives, until with Robin it
began to ripen into that honest and ardent attachment natural to a
manly young heart, which was responded to on the part of bonny Mary
Rose by all the delicacy and softness that ought to characterise the
modest young maiden's return of a first love. But however natural
it was for the tender heart of the daughter to beat in unison, or,
as I may say, to swing in equal arcs with that of her lover, just as
if they had been two pendulums of like proportions and construction,
it was equally selon les règles, as the modern men of Gaul would say,
that the churlish and sordid old tyke of a father, who had been
accustomed to estimate merit more by the rule of proportion than
anything else, exactly perhaps as he would have valued one of his own
muttons according to the number of its pounds, should have stormed
like a fury when he actually deteckit the callant Robin Stuart in
the very ack of making love to his daughter in his own house!
A desperate feud of some years' standing had made Donald the declared
enemy of Robin's father, old Harry the herd of the Limekilns, a
cognomen which he had from the circumstance of his cottage being
placed on the side of yonder hill of that name, so called from
a prevailing tradition that the lime used in the building of the
Castle of Loch-an-Dorbe was brought in the state of stone in creels
on horses' backs from the quarries near to Grantown, and burned
there. Old Harry was a poor man and a herd, whilst Donald Rose was
wealthy, and especially prided himself on being a Duniwassel, or small
gentleman, so that there thus existed three most active awgents, to
wit, enmity, avarice, and pride, which combined to compel him to put
an instantaneous stop to all such proceedings between Robin Stuart
and his daughter Mary. Without one moment's delay, he thrust the
young shepherd, head and shoulders, violently forth from his door,
and smacking the palm of his hand significantly and with great force
and birr on his dirk sheath, so as to cause the weepon to ring again--
"I'll tell ye what it is, my young birkie," said he, in a voice like
thunder, "gif I catch ye again within haulf a mile o' my dochter,
ye sall ha'e a taste o' sweetlips here! An' as for you, Mary, an' ye
daur to let siccan a beggarly chield as that come within a penny stane
cast o' ye, by my saul but I'll turn ye out ower my door hauld wi' as
leetle ceremony as I ha'e done the same thing to Rab himsell yonder!"
But, as one of the ancient heathen poets hath it, love is a fire which
no storm can extinguish; it feeds itself with hope, and only burns the
brighter the more it is blown against by adverse blasts. You know,
gentlemen, how Pyramus and Thisbe contrived to hold secret converse
together. Though Robin and Mary had no crack in a wall through which to
pour the stream of their mutual love,--nay, although their respective
dwellings were some mile or two separate from each other, yet many were
the private meetings which the youth and maiden contrived to obtain,
during which they employed their time in fostering their mutual hopes,
and in strengthening their belief that better and happier days were
yet in store for them. And happy indeed would have been those days
of their anticipation, if they could have proved happier than were
those stolen hours which they thus occasionally enjoyed together.
Now, it happened one beautiful day, in the beginning of summer,
that Donald Rose rode off from his door to go to a distant market,
whence there was no chance of his returning till late at night. The
old saying hath it, that when the cat is away the mice will play. This
was too favourable an opportunity to be lost by a pair of young lovers
so quick-sighted as Robin and Mary. It had been marked by both of them
for some weeks before it came; and the farmer's long-tailed rough grey
garron had no sooner borne his master's bulky body in safety along
the ticklish and treacherous path that went by a short cut through
the long moss, and over the distant rising ground, than Robin Stuart,
true to his tryst, appeared to escort his bonny lassie on a ramble of
love. No one was at home to spy out their intentions but old Mysie
Morrison, the good-natured hireling woman of all work; and she was
too much taken up with her household affairs to trouble her head
about watching the young lad and lass. Indeed, if she had thoughts
of them at all, she was too much attached to her young mistress,
and too well acquainted with her secret, and too shrewd to betray
her either by design or by accident.
As you may see, gentlemen, there was no great choice of pleasure walks
in this bleak destrick, but the two young creatures were so taken
up with each other, and so full of joy in each other's company, that
the dreariest spot of it was as a rich and blooming garden in their
delighted eyes. They tripped along merrily together, and bounded like
roe deer over the heathery knolls, scarcely knowing, and not in the
least caring, which way they went, until they found themselves by the
side of the little lochan which we have but just left behind us. It
was then the season when the wilderness of this upland country was
clad in a mantle of wild flowers, and thereabouts especially they
grew in so great variety and profusion that it seemed as if the
goddess Flora had resolved to hold her court in that place. There,
then, they resolved to rest a while; and Robin, producing the simple
contents of a little wallet which he carried under his plaid, they
sat down together and feasted luxuriously.
When they had finished their meal the lovers began to waste the
hours in idle but innocent sport. They roamed about here and there,
gathering the gaudy flowering plants that grew around them; and
after filling their arms with these wildling treasures, they again
seated themselves side by side, to employ their hands in arranging and
plaiting them into rustic ornaments. Whilst thus occupied they were too
happy and too much taken up with their own pleasing prattle to think
of the progress of the sun, who was all this time most industriously
urging his ceaseless journey over their heads, without exciting any
of their attention, except in so far as his beams might have lent a
livelier hue to the gay garlands they were weaving for each other,
or yielded a fresher glow to the cheeks, or a brighter sparkle to
the eyes, of those who were to wear them.
Whilst they were thus so happily and so harmlessly occupied, they went
on, with all the innocent simplicity of rustic life, repeating over
and over again to each other their solemn vows of eternal love and
fidelity, as if they could never have been tired of these their sweet
and sooth-fast asseverations, whilst, at the same time, they uttered
them with a copiousness of phraseology and a variety of dialogue
truly marvellous in such a muirland pair as they were. It would have
absolutely astonished all your writers of novelles to have overheard
them, and it would have puzzled any of these fiction-mongers to have
invented the like.
"Oh that your father was but as poor and as humble as mine,
Mary!" exclaimed the youth at last, "or, rich and proud as he is, that
you could leave him and content yoursel' wi' bein' a poor man's wife!"
"Na, Robin!" replied she, shaking her head gravely, and then laying
her hand upon his arm, and looking up wistfully into his eyes, "you
would never ask me, my father's ae bairn, to leave him noo that he
has grown auld, and that my dear mother has left us baith and gane to
heeven! Gif, indeed, he could be but brought to look wi' a kind ee on
you--then--then"--continued she, with a faultering tongue, whilst she
blushed deeply, and threw her eyes down amidst the heap of flowers
that lay at her feet,--"then, indeed, we might baith be his bairns."
"Oh! I wish again that he were but a poor man!" cried Robin
enthusiastically, "for then might thir twa arms o' mine mak' me as gude
a match in his een as a' the bit tocher he could gie might warrant him
to look for. Weel and stoutly wad I work for sic a prize as you, Mary!"
"An' weel wad I be pleased that ye should ha'e it, Robin, little
worth as it is!" said Mary, with an expression of undisguised
fondness. "Though I could na gie up my father, I could gie up a'
my father's gowd, gif it wad but bring you hame to help him. And
gif it warna for him," added she, with a tear trembling in her eye,
"I trow I could gang wi' you to the warld's end, an' I war never to
see anither human face!"
"O Mary!" exclaimed Robin, in a transport, "I could live wi' you in
a desert. I could live wi' you in some wee uninhabited spot in the
midds o' the muckle ocean, aye, though it war nae bigger than the
bit witches' island there afore ye, aye, and as fond o' flittin'
as it is too, and that we sould never leave its wee bit bouns."
There was something so absurdly extravagant in the very idea of two
people being confined together to a space of a few yards square,
to live the sport of every varying breeze that might blow over
the surface of the deep, that Mary's gravity was fairly overcome,
notwithstanding the high pitch of devoted feeling to which she had
been wound up at the moment. She could not control herself; and she
gave way to loud peals of laughter, in which her lover as heartily
joined her. "See!" cried she, the moment she could get her breath,
whilst she pointed sportively to the little floating islet which
was at that moment lying motionless, and almost in contact with the
shore near to the spot where they were sitting, "see, see, Robby,
how our wee bit fairy kingdom is waitin' yonder to bid us welcome!"
"Come, then, my queen, let us take possession o 't then in baith our
names!" cried Robin, in the same tone, and gaily and gallantly seizing
her hand at the same time, he, with great pretended pomp and ceremony,
led her, half laughing, and half afraid, towards the place where the
island rested.
At the time my story speaks of the borders of the loch were less
encroached upon by weeds and rushes than you have seen that they now
are, and the island lay, as if it had been moored, as mariners would
say, in deep water close to the shore. It was, therefore, but a short
step to reach it, and Robin easily handed the trembling Mary into it
with as much natural grace, I'll warrant me, as the pious Æneas himself
could have handed Queen Dido. The lassie's light foot hardly made its
grassy surface quiver as it reached it; but, full of his own frolic,
and altogether forgetful for that moment of the precarious and kittle
nature of the ground he had to deal with, he sprang in after her with
a degree of force which was far from being required to effect his
purpose, and so great was the impetus which he thus communicated to
the floating islet, that it was at once pushed several yards away from
the shore. With one joint exclamation of terror both stood appalled,
and they silently beheld the small fragment of ground that supported
them moving, almost insensibly, yet farther and farther towards the
middle of the loch, so long as any of the force which Robin had so
unfortunately applied to it remained, and then it settled on the
motionless bosom of the deep and black looking waters, at such a
distance even from the bank which they had just left as to forbid
all hope of escape to those who could not swim.
Fled indeed, gentlemen, was now all the mirth of this unlucky
pair. Poor Mary was at once possessed by a thousand fears; and even
the firmer mind of her companion, though sufficiently occupied with
its anxiety for her, was not without its full share of those individual
superstitious apprehensions naturally produced by the place where they
were, and which secretly affected both of them. Neither of them could
resist the belief that supernatural interference had had some share
in producing their present distress. But whatever Robin's private
thoughts may have been, he was too manly to allow them to become
apparent to Mary. Plucking up some long grass and sedges, therefore,
and making them into a large bundle, he took off his jacket, threw it
over it, and by this means made a dry seat for her in the very middle
of the quivering and spongy surface of the islet. Then casting his
red plaid over his shoulder, he stood beside her, now bending over
her to whisper words of comfort and encouragement into her ear, and by
and by stretching his neck erect, that his eyes might have the better
vantage to sweep around the whole circuit of the dull and monotonous
surface of the surrounding wastes. How mixed, yet how antagonist
to each other were the ideas which now passed rapidly through his
mind! At one moment he felt a strange and indescribable rapture as
the mere thought crossed him that this small floating spot of earth
did indeed contain no other human being but himself and her whom he
would wish to sever from all the world besides, that she might be the
more perfectly dependent on himself alone, and therefore the more
indissolubly bound to him; and then would he utter some endearing
words to Mary. Then, again, the shivering conviction would strike
him, that although there was no human being but themselves there,
there might yet be other unknown and unseen beings in their company
that neither of them wist of, and he looked fearfully around him,
scanning with suspicious eye, not only the whole surface of the lake,
but every little nook and crevice of the shore. And then bethinking
him of night, he lifted up his eyes with anxious solicitude from
time to time, to note the position of the sun, whose progress he and
his fair companion had previously so much disregarded; and great was
his internal vexation when he perceived how rapidly his car was now
rolling downwards, not, as the auncient poets would say, in his haste
to lay himself in the lap of Thetis, but as if he had been eager to
escape behind yon great lump of a muirland hill yonder to the westward.
But a yet more trying discovery soon began to force itself upon his
attention. The islet on which they stood seemed, as he narrowly
measured it with his eye, to have sunk some inches into the
water! Already in idea he felt its bubbling wavelets closing over
his own head and the dear head of her whom he so much loved! His
heart grew sick at the very thought. Summoning up courage, however,
he contrived to allow no outward sign to betray his feelings to Mary;
and taking certain marks with his eye, he set himself to watch them
with an anxiety so intense, and with a look so fixed, that he was
unable rationally to reply, either by word or sign, to anything that
the poor lassie said to him, so that she began at length to entertain
new apprehensions at the wild expression which his countenance
exhibited. By degrees, however, she became more assured, for, after
long and accurate observation had led him to believe that at least no
very rapid change was taking place, his features gradually relaxed,
and hers were for the time relieved by that very sympathy which had
so enchained them.
And now the sun was fast approaching the horizon, and Robin's eyes were
eagerly employed in endeavouring to penetrate even the most distant
shadows that were rapidly settling down upon the hills, behind which
he was about to disappear, whence they began to spread themselves
over the wide extent of brown moors and black mosses that stretched
everywhere around them. As the light passed away, his glances flew
more hastily in every direction, in the vain search for some human
being. Above all, he earnestly surveyed the road where he for some time
sanguinely hoped that he might discover some one returning from the
market, who might yet lend them an aid, though he felt that it quite
defied him to form any rational conception as to what the nature of
that aid could be. Again, he would most inconsistently shrink back,
and instinctively shut his eyes, as if that could have concealed his
person, from very dread that Donald Rose might come home that way
and discover them in this their distressing and dangerous situation,
for he was fully aware that he had but little chance of rising in the
old man's estimation by having thus had the misfortune to bring the
life of his only child into so great peril. As he thus ruminated,
he remembered that although this was not old Donald's shortest way
home, yet it was that which he was most likely to take towards night,
as being the best. And he moreover distinctly perceived, that if he
did come that way before it was dark, he could not fail to discover
them. For as the rugged and irregular muirland road wound round nearly
one-third of the whole margin of the little loch, by reason of its
having to cross the bit brook that issues from its western extremity,
it was self-evident that no one could travel that way without having
his eyes intently fixed, for a considerable time, in a direction that
must compel him to survey the whole surface of the sheet of water,
so that not a duck or a dab-chick could yescape them. And what if
the farmer did not come? Might they not be discovered by some other
hard-hearted person, who, instead of assisting them, might be so wicked
as to carry the news of their situation directly to old Rose, whose
rage, he felt persuaded, would be enough to burn up the waters of the
loch. Such a finis to the adventure was the least misfortune they could
look for from the malice of those evil spirits of the islet, by whom
he believed that he and Mary had been thus entrapped. Anxious as he
had at first been to descry some one, he now longed for night to fall
down on them and render them invisible. Then the utter hopelessness
of eventual concealment occurred to him, for he reflected that the
farmer must return home at some hour during the night; that when
he did so return, he must find his daughter absent, and that his
ungovernable fury would not be diminished by the tormenting suspense
in which he would be kept regarding her until next day, when they
should certainly be discovered. Robin's mind was tossed to and fro
among such unpleasant thoughts as these, till they were all put to
flight by the overwhelming force of that superstitious dread which
taught him to believe that night would soon give an uncontrolled
power to those evil beings who had thus so cruelly used them.
"Oh, for a breeze of wind!" cried poor Robin in his agony, as a
thousand formidable and ghastly shapes began to dance before his
disturbed fancy. And--
"Oh, for a breeze!" sighed the soft and tremulous voice of Mary
Rose, whose mind had all this while been silently following the same
irregular train of thought, and sympathetically participating in the
distressing emotions which had been agitating her lover.
And now the sun went down in a blaze of glory beyond the western hills,
and his last beams took leave of the surface of the water, after
having shed a radiance over it, as well as a cheerful glow over the
countenances of the two lovers, that but ill assorted with the misery
of soul which they were enduring. By degrees a soft summer exhalation
began to arise from the bosom of the loch, as well as from all the
neighbouring pools, peatpots, and marshes. But balmy, and cheering,
and invigorating as it was to all the parched offspring of nature
that grew in this desert, which opened their bosoms to receive it,
and gratefully exhaled their richest perfumes, it chilled the very
hearts of the lovers, as night fell darkly and dismally around them.
"Robin," said Mary in a voice that quivered from the effects of the
chilling damp, combined with those secret terrors which were every
instant taking more and more powerful possession of her, in spite
of all her reason and resolution to resist them. "Robin, put on your
jacket, you will starve."
"Mair need for me, Mary, to gie ye this plaid o' mine," replied he
in a tender tone. "Here, tak' it about ye, my dearest lassie, and
keep up a gude heart."
"Na, I'll no tak' nae mair aff ye," said Mary gently, refusing to
allow him to throw the plaid over her.
"Let me--let me gie ye haulf o't then," said he, with a modest
hesitation.
After some little further discussion, the matter was at last arranged,
for Mary stood up by Robin's side, and the ample plaid having been
thrown over both of them, somewhat in the manner of a tent, the
edges of it were held together by her lover's nervous arm, so as in a
great measure to exclude the cold damp air. If it was not altogether
shut out, Robin at least for some time felt none of its influence,
for, finding himself thus the sole protector of his beloved Mary,
his heart burned within him with love and pride, and all thoughts of
evil spirits were banished for a time.
Things had not been long accommodated in this manner, when Mary
complained that her feet began to grow cold and wet, and the change in
Robin's thoughts may be conceived when he too became convinced that the
water was certainly somehow or other gaining upon them. The darkness
was now such as to render it impossible for him to make any such minute
observation as he had done before. He could only now guess vaguely,
and his whole frame shivered with horror as the suspicion crossed him,
that the unusual weight which the islet now bore having pressed it
downwards, the upper and more porous parts of it, which were formerly
comparatively dry, had imbibed a greater quantity of water than usual,
and the specific gravity of the whole being thus increased, it was
gradually sinking, and must soon be altogether submerged. I say not
that the poor lad reasoned thus upon pheelosophical principles, but,
nevertheless, he did come to the conclusion that this treacherous bit
of ground was sinking fast. How long or how short a time it might
possibly take before the awful catastrophe should arrive, was more
than he had any means of determining. He had nothing now left but to
nerve himself with resolution to enable him to conceal his fears and
his horrors from Mary, though, at the same time, he could not help
clinging to her with an earnestness and a wildness of manner that
did anything but allay her terrors. Dark as the night was, all those
superstitious fancies which had disturbed their minds were banished
by the overpowering conviction of speedily approaching dissolution
which individually possessed them in secret. The black gulf by which
they were environed seemed, in the mind's eye of each of them, to
be yawning to swallow them up; and the thought that they should die
in each other's arms, was the only consolation that visited their
afflicted souls in that awful moment.
"Let us pray to the Lord!" said Mary solemnly, "for our death-hour
is come!"
Robert, who would now have deemed it to be a sinful ack to speak to
her of hope, which he had himself so utterly abandoned, immediately
obeyed her command. You know, gentlemen, that it is the glorious
preevilege of our Scottish peasantry to receive education from the
pious and well conducked teachers of our parochial schools. Even the
youngest men are thereby exerceesed in prayer, so that it becomes
so much of a habit with them, that they are at all times prepared
to pour out their souls in extemporaneous offerings to the Deevine
Being. You can easily understand, therefore, that at such a moment when
convinced that he himself, and she whom he loved beyond all yearthly
things, were about to be summoned to the footstool of their Creator,
his prayer was solemn, yearnest, simple, and sublime. So certain did
the sealing of their doom now appear, that he put up few petitions
for present help in this world. The whole force of his supplication
was directed to their salvation through the merits of a Saviour,
in that on which they were so soon to enter, and Mary clung closer
to him as he spoke, and continued to follow all his expressions, now
internally and now audibly, with a fervour that sufficiently proved
the intensity of her faith and hope.
Whilst the poor creatures were thus employed a dim gleam of light from
the eastern horizon seemed as if struggling through the dense fog that
hung over the loch, and soon afterwards a gentle passing breath of
air was distinctly felt by both of them. It murmured around them, and
fanned them, as it were, for a moment, and found its way even within
the hollow of the plaid. Its voice was to them as the voice of their
guardian angel, and it refreshed their drooping souls, although they
knew not very well how it did so. In a very few minutes afterwards,
however, the mist being broken up by the influence of a full moon that
had just risen, began to collect itself into distinct spiral columns,
which dissipated themselves one after another, as if they had been
so many spirits melting into air. The long wished-for breeze then
at length came singing most musically as it skimmed over the surface
of the perfumed heath. And it had not long curled the hitherto still
surface of the loch, till Robin and Mary began to perceive that the
half-drowned island was sensibly increasing its distance from the
shore whence they had taken their departure. There was something very
fearful in this, and the poor lassie clung closer to her lover. But
with all their fears it now seemed as if Hope was sitting beckoning to
them on the opposite shore, towards which the breeze was so evidently,
though so slowly, propelling them.
The moon now shone forth in full radiance, and speedily dissipated
the broken fragments of the fog that yet remained. One mass only,
denser than the rest, still hung poised over their heads, naturally
maintained in that position by the attraction of the damp floating
earth they stood on. To their great joy they perceived that the breeze
was increasing, and that their motion was gradually accelerating.
"Mary, my dear," cried Robin, "keep a gude heart; I'm thinking that
we'll maybe mak out yet. Let's hoize up the plaid till it catches
mair o' the wund."
And, accordingly, they raised their arms and kept the plaid high over
their heads, till it was bellied out by the breeze like the lugsail
of a herring buss, and their velocity was tripled.
They were thus moving gallantly onwards, in anxious expectation that
a very few minutes more would moor them in safety to the shore, so
that there might yet be time for Mary to hurry home before her father
should arrive to question her absence, when they suddenly perceived
a horseman riding along the road which sweep't around the end of
the loch they were now nearing so fast. What think ye, gentlemen,
was the astonishment, dread, and mortification of the poor lassie
and her lad when they beheld the moonbeams reflecked from a face as
broad and as pale as the disc of the luminary from which they had been
last projected? It was Donald Rose himself! As their supporting bit
of earth drifted onwards with them, they stood together for a moment
petrified with surprise and fear, whilst they beheld him check his
horse, and turn his head towards the loch, as if to gaze at them;
and then, with one shriek from Mary and a deep groan from Robin,
which might have made a good treble and bass for the psalmody of the
martyrs, both the two of them, by one simultaneous movement, sank
down together among the rank grass and water-weeds in which they
were standing, and the folds of the plaid collapsing around them,
both were completely shrouded beneath it. There they lay, abandoning
themselves to their perverse fate, and fearing to move or speak, until,
in a very few seconds, they were drifted to the very spot where they
too well knew that the enraged farmer must be already standing like
a roaring lion ready to devour them; and they were thus prostrated,
as it were, at the very feet of him whose ungovernable rage they had
so much reason to wish to have avoided.
The floating island had touched the terra firma for some seconds, but
still the conscious pair dared not to peep from beneath the covering
that enveloped them. They lay, as I might say, as quiet as two mice
in a bag of meal. They uttered not a word. They hardly even dared
to breathe. But tremblingly in need of support under circumstances
so very trying, the poor lassie Mary clasped her Robin about the
waist with an energy equal to the terror she was moved by. It was
the feeling of this her utter dependence upon him for support and
defence that first subdued Robert's own fears, and awakened him to
a sense of his own dignity as a man.
"An' ye'll hae but a thoughty o' patience, Maister Rose, I'll tell
ye a' aboot it," said he, commencing his peroration from beneath the
plaid, somewhat sotto voce, as the degenerate modern Romans would
say. But gaining greater boldness as he heard the sound of his own
voice, and that his words remained as yet unanswered, he went on
to speak, gradually raising his tone as he did so, and at the same
time erecting his person by slow degrees from his abject attitude,
though without unveiling himself.
"Ye may think as ye like, Maister Rose, but I canna help lovin' Miss
Mary; I maun love her spite o' mysell, an' gin ye wad hae me no to
love her nae mair, ye maun just dirk me here at aince. But for the
sake o' a' that's good!" continued he, blubbering from very emotion,
"dinna offer to hurt ae hair o' her bonny head, for by my troth an'
ye do, Maister Rose!"----
These last words were uttered in so loud and impassioned a key,
that it sufficiently indicated the nature as well as the resolute
determination of the threat that was intended to follow, even if the
furious action of the uplifted arm and clenched fist had not left it
quite unequivocal. So violent was the effect, that the plaid which
had risen along with the speaker, and which had up to this point
continued to muffle his head and eyes, was suddenly thrown off.
"Gude keep hus a' he's gane!" cried Robin with a stare of horror. "As
I'm a leevin' man!--as I houp and believe I am"--continued he, pinching
his own arms and thighs as he said so, to convince himself of the fack
that he really was alive, "it was your father's wraith we saw, Mary!"
Half fainting from the effect of the complication of terrors which had
surrounded her, Mary Rose was hardly conscious of what Robin had said,
and he for his part having gained that self-command of which the sudden
nature of his alarm had for a moment deprived him, now bit his lip
and studiously avoided uttering one word that might convey to her the
least inkling of that conviction which had just then flashed upon him,
or that might distress her mind with any share of that superstitious
dread which at this moment so completely filled his own.
"He's gane indeed, dear Mary," said he as he gently assisted her
to rise; "let's be thankful that we're safe on dry land, and let me
help you hame to your ain house as fast as I can, and may the Lord
be aboot us!"
Adjusting his plaid over her, and placing his arm around her slender
waist to support her tottering steps, he guided her homewards by the
light of the moon through the rugged moor by a short path. Often as
they went did each of them secretly remember how auspiciously the
morning sun had shone upon them as they had danced lightly together
over the blooming heather! But they were both too much sunk by the
unfortunate issue of their day's adventures, believing as they,
poor things, foolishly did, that the powers of evil themselves had
combined to thwart them; they were too much sunk, I say, to be able
to utter much more than monosyllables to each other, or such words at
least as were expressive of gratitude to Heaven for having permitted
them to yescape with life, whilst an indefinite dread of the fate
that awaited them hung secretly lowering over each of their minds.
Lights blazed within the white-washed windows of Donald Rose's cottage
as it appeared on a knoll before Mary's dizzy eyes. Whether these
might indicate her father's presence or not, she could not daur to
guess. The poor lassie was so feared, that she hesitated to approach
the door herself; yet she felt that there was still greater danger
there for Robin, and, with a delicate pressure of the young lad's hand,
she bade him tenderly farewell.
"Robin, haste ye hame to the Limekilns," said she. "Ye maunna face
my father. Leave me to face him mysell."
"No!" said Robin boldly and with peculiar emphasis, "I ha'e noo faced
mair than your father, Mary; and sae I'm no ga'in' to flee your
father himsell, though he does wear a durk. Gif he be comed hame,
ye may the mair want my help to meet him."
Fearfully alarmed for the consequences, and still more apprehensive for
her father's wrath against him than against herself, she endeavoured
to argue with him on the folly of his rashness; and whilst they were
both engaged in an animated and somewhat imprudently loud discussion
on this subject, they were startled by the voice of Mysie Morrison,
who came suddenly upon them from the cottage.
"Bless ye, my bairns, is that you?" exclaimed this good domestic. "What
i' the warld has keepit ye sae lang oot daffin'? An' is that the end o'
a' your courtin' after a', that you're to come hame an' end it that
gate wi' a colly-shangy?"
"Has my father come back frae the market yet, Mysie?" tremblingly
demanded Mary.
"Na, he's no come hame yet," replied the old woman, "and I'm thinkin'
that he'll no be comin' hame the night noo. I 'se warrant he's been
weel set wi' some drouthy customer, an' he'll hae staid whar he
wuz. But come ye're ways in, my bairns, an' get some meat; I trow ye
maun be clean starvin'."
With Robin's recollection of the spectre which he had beheld riding
by the loch-side he had little heart, at that hour, to cross the wide
muir that lay between Donald Rose's house, where he then was, and his
father's cottage on the hill of the Limekilns. He much preferred the
risk of meeting Donald's substantial body of flesh and blood, dirk
and fury and all, within the four walls of a well lighted up room,
to having his moonlight path crossed upon the heath by the terrific
simulacrum or wraith which had already blasted his sight. In addition,
therefore, to the seducing attractions which Mary's society held out
to him, coupled with those urgent admonitions which he was receiving
at that moment from hunger and thirst, he had thus some vurra strong
and powerful secret reasons for preferring to remain, to which he did
not choose to give utterance. Mary, for her part, was sorely buffeted
between her wishes and her fears. She had every desire to do that
hospitality to her lover which her own faintness began to remind her
must now be so highly necessary to him. On the other hand, she had
the strongest apprehension that her father might suddenly return, in
spite of all that Mysie had said to the contrary, and she thus hung
for a moment in dootful equilibrio, as a body may say, between the two
opposing forces which were thus operating on her. But Mysie, who was
much less timorous, having done all she could to assure her that there
was no danger of a surprise, she at length hushed her fears and tacitly
yielded to her wishes. She and Robin, therefore, were soon seated
over some comfortable viands by a blazing hearth, whilst Mysie, with
a judgment and prudence that might have well befitted an attendant of
Queen Dido herself when she took refuge from the storm with the Trojan
king in the cave, retired to make security doubly sure, by setting
herself to watch at the window of the neighbouring apartment, where,
by the light of the moon, she might see her master return, so that she
might give timeous notice to Robin Stuart to yescape by the back-door,
whilst old Rose was occupied in putting his horse into the stable.
This was well enough arranged in the old woman, gentlemen. Caius
Julius Cæsar himself could not have made better dispositions to
have prevented a night surprise. But, as our immortal bard, William
Shakespeare, hath it, in the words which he hath put into the mouth
of the lively Rosalind, time goes at different paces with different
individuals. Upon this occasion it certainly went fast enough with
Robin Stuart and Mary Rose. For, though their minds were for a short
time crossed occasionally by very fearful visions of the past, of
some of which they dared hardly to speak to each other, yet these
were soon banished altogether by their mutual smiles, and by the
ardent and endearing expressions which they went on interchanging
together. Swift flew the minutes, and their conversation was still
waxing more and more interesting. They were seated close together;
and, as their tender dialogue became more intensely moving, Robin's
arm had unconsciously found its way around Mary's waist, whilst
hers had fallen carelessly over his shoulder, and had accidentally
carried with it the folds of his plaid, which she had not yet thrown
off. The cheerful gleam from the blazing moss-fir faggots threw a
strong effect of light from the ample chimney over their figures. They
indeed believed, from their inaccurate calculation, that this their
felicity had endured for some short half hour only, whilst, by the
drowsy account of old Mysie, who had sat nodding, and every now and
then catching her head up to save it, if she possibly could, from
dropping irrecoverably into the lap of Morpheus, the god of sleep,
four good hours had gone by. As the truth probably lay between, I
shall take the mean of these two extremes, and therefore I may say,
with some degree of confidence, that about two hours had yelapsed when
she at last yielded to the soporific influence, and fell into a sleep
so profound, that ere it had endured for ten minutes, ten cannons or
ten claps of thunder could hardly have awakened her; and whilst matters
were in this state the door of the apartment where Robin and Mary were
so comfortably seated as I have just described them to be,--the door
of the apartment was suddenly opened, and Donald Rose himself, covered
with mud from neck to heel, and with a countenance pale and haggard
as death, entered,--followed, gentlemen, still stranger to tell,
by--Harry Stuart, the herd of the Limekilns! The surprise by which
the lovers were thus taken was perfectly complete. Their presence of
mind was altogether gone. They started up together at once, without
even attempting to unfold or withdraw their arms from the different
positions which they had respectively assumed, whilst the drapery
of the plaid hung over both of them, mingled with the garlands which
they still wore. They stood as if they had been converted into statues.
"Gude keep us a' frae evil!" cried Donald Rose the moment he entered,
whilst, to their utter astonishment, he started back as he said so,
his eyes glaring at them with a ghastly look of fear and horror
that was much too natural not to be perfectly genuine. "Gude keep
us frae a' evil, are ye wraiths or are ye real? The same plaid! the
same garlands! and the same guise! Speak! speak! what are ye? But I
see," continued he, after a pause, during which he recovered himself
a little; "I see, Gude be thankit! that ye are baith flesh and bluid."
"Aye, flesh and bluid we are," said Robin Stuart, summoning up all
his resolution and speaking in a determined tone. "We are flesh and
bluid truly, and I trust that we shall soon be one flesh and one
bluid too! Our souls are already as one! sae let not ane auld man's
avarice rend asunder twa leal hearts already joined by Heeven!"
"Joined by Heeven, indeed, Rabby!" replied old Rose, with a solemn
and mysterious air; "and Heeven forbid that sic a miserable vratch
as I am sould daur to interfere. What Heeven hath joined let not man
put asunder! O bairns! bairns!" continued he, as he swopped himself
down into his great oaken elbow chair, as if quite overcome with
fatigue both of body and mind; "och, bairns! bairns! what ane awfu'
gliff I hae gotten this blessed night! As I was on my road hame frae
the market--an' at a decent hour, too,--for the drover an' me had
but three half mutchkins a-piece whan we pairted at Grantown--whan
I was on my road hame, as I was sayin', an' just as I was gaein' to
pass round this end o' the Witches' Loch, to cross at the bit fuirdy
yonder, what does I see, it gars my very flesh a' creep again to think
on't--what does I see, I say, but your twa figures, as plain as I see
ye baith at this precious moment, in thay very garments ye hae on, an'
wi' thay very garlands about your necks, an' shouthers, an' breasts,
an' baith claspit thegither, as ye war just yenoo whan I came in. I
say, I saw ye baith in that very guise, an' in that very pouster,
comin' skimmin' o'er the surface o' the deep water o' the loch, wi'
that very red plaid aboon ye baith for a sail. But, Gude proteck us
a'!--what think ye?--The full moon was just risen in the east, an'
her very light was shinin' through the twa spirits, an' aboot them
there was a kind o' a glory, just like unto the mony coloured brugh
that ye hae nae doot aften seen about the moon hersel'. Och me,
it wuz a grusome sight! I wish I may e'er won ower wi't!"
Robin and Mary exchanged intelligent glances with each other during
this part of old Rose's narrative; but he was too much overpowered
with what he had seen, and too full of his subject, to observe what
passed between them.
"Tak a wee drap o' this, father," said Mary, handing him a brimming
cuach; "you will be muckle the better o't."
"Thank ye, thank ye, my bonny bairn!" said the farmer, giving her back
the empty cuach, and kindly patting her head as he did so. "I'm sure,
my dauty, it was ill my pairt to cross ye as I did. But, stay!--whaur
was I?--Weel, ye see, just as the twa speerits war comin' whush athort
the loch upon me far faster than ony wild duke could flee,--the very
dumb brute that I was on started back wi' fear, whurled aboot in a
moment, an' whuppit me awa' back o'er the moss in spite o' mysel',
regairdless o' ony road; and I trow I never stoppit till I wuz on the
t'ither side o' Craig Bey, whar, by good luck, I forgathered wi' Harry
o' the Limekilns there--fear, like death, will pit oot the fire o'
the auldest feud; and whan Harry heard the cause o' my flight,--for
whan he met me I was fleein' like a muir-cock down the wund,--I
say, whan Harry heard o' what an a sight I had seen, an' he bein',
as it were, in some degree conneckit wi' it, as weel as mysel',
I trow he wuz as glad to hae me wi' him as I wuz to hae him wi me,
wi' the houp o' keepin' aff waur company. Harry had nae better wull
to gae by the Witches' Loch than I had, and sae we cam' ower by the
short cut through the lang moss thegither. A bonny road, truly, for
sic an afu' late hour of the night, for a' that we had the moon, as
ye may see well eneugh by the dabbled state o' my trews. I'm sure my
puir beast 'ill no be able to crawl the morn after a' the gliffin',
an' galloppin', aye, an' I may say soomin' too, that he has had,
for I hae some doots gif there be ae moss hole atween Craig Bey an'
this hoose that he has na' had to swatter through."
"Let me get dry stockin's for ye, father," said Mary.
"Na, my dauty, its no worth while for a' the time!" replied
Donald. "An' noo, Harry, man," continued he, turning to his companion,
who had been all this while standing near the door, "cum ben, man,
an' sit doon; what for dinna ye sit doon? An' noo, I say, although
ye are but a poor man, Harry, an' no just sae weel come by deschent
as I am, wha, as ye are maybe awaur, am come o' a cousin sax times
removed of the Laird of Kilravock himself, which a' the warld kens
to be ane o' the maist auncientest families in Scotland,--I say,
though ye are no just descended frae siccan honourable forebears,
yet ye are ane honest man."
"I trust that I am sae, neebour," said Harry modestly, but with his
head yereck, as ane honest man's always should be.
"Aweel, aweel!" cried old Rose impatiently, "as I was gaein' to say,
we's just owerlook a' thae things, an' souther up a' oonkindness that
may hae been atween us, an' sae we'll mak' the best o't, an' hae your
laddie an' my lassie buckled thegither as soon as the minister can mak'
them ane. Come, man, gie's your hand on't!"
"Wi' a' my heart!" replied Harry Stuart, with a good-natured chuckle;
"an' I'll tell ye what it is, Carl, maybe ye'll find after a' that
the son o' Harry the herd o' the Limekilns is no just sae bare a
bargain as ye wad hae yemagined. The herdin' trade gif it maks little
it spends less; an' I hae na been at it for better nor fifety years
without layin' by a wee bit pose o' my ain; an' gif a gude bien bit
hill farmie can be gotten for the twa, I'se no say but I may come doon
wi' as muckle as may buy the best end o' the plenishen an' stockin'."
"That's my hearty cock!" exclaimed old Rose, slapping Harry soundly
on the back. "Mary, my dauty! I was sae muckle the better o' the wee
drap ye gied me yon time, that I think neither Harry nor me wad be
the waur o' anither tasse."
It would be yequally vain and unnecessar, gentlemen, for me to attempt
to describe the happiness of the two lovers, or the general joy of
that night. If Homer or Maro were alive, and here present, they would
fail to do justice to such a theme. I may shortly conclude by simply
telling you, however, that Mysie's slumbers were rudely broken by the
stentorian voice of her master,--that she was speedily put to work
at her yespecial occupation in the kitchen,--that the rustic feast
was quickly spread,--that the bowl circulated, or, rather, to speak
with a due regard to fack, that it passed backwards and forwards
very frequently from lip to lip of the two thirsty seniors,--that
the young couple were in Elysium,--that the old men were garrulously
joyous,--that Mysie was frantic, and danced about like a daft woman,
and that the sun peeped in upon them from the distant eastern hills
ere they even began to think of terminating their revels.