EXPLAINS SOME CURIOUS FACTS
Gabrielle was silent for a moment. No doubt Stewart meant what he said;
he was not endeavouring to alarm her unduly, but thoroughly believed in
supernatural agencies. "I suppose you've already examined the ruins
thoroughly, eh?" she asked at last.
"Examined them?" echoed the gray-bearded man. "I should think sae,
aifter forty-odd years here. Why, as a laddie I used to play there ilka
day, an' ha'e been in ilka neuk an' cranny."
"Nevertheless, come up now with me," she said. "I want to explain to you
exactly where and how I heard the voices."
"The Whispers are an uncanny thing," said the keeper, with his broad
accent. "I dinna like them, miss; I dinna like tae hear what ye tell me
ava."
"Oh, don't worry about me, Stewart," she laughed. "I'm not afraid of any
omen. I only mean to fathom the mystery, and I want your assistance in
doing so. But, of course, you'll say no word to a soul. Remember that."
"If it be yer wush, Miss Gabrielle, I'll say naething," he promised. And
together they descended the steep grass-slope and overgrown foundations
of the castle until they stood in the old courtyard, close to the
ancient justice-tree, the exact spot where the girl had stood on the
previous night.
"I could hear plainly as I stood just here," she said. "The sound of
voices seemed to come from that wall there"; and she pointed to the gray
flint wall, half-overgrown with ivy, about six yards away.
Stewart made no remark. It was not the first occasion on which he had
examined that place in an attempt to solve the mystery of the nocturnal
whisperings. He walked across to the wall, tapping it with his hand,
while the faithful spaniel began sniffing in expectancy of something to
bolt. "There's naething here, miss--absolutely naething," he declared,
as they both examined the wall minutely. Its depth did not admit of any
chamber, for it was an inner wall; and, according to the gamekeeper's
statement, he had already tested it years ago, and found it solid
masonry.
"If I went forward or backward, then the sounds were lost to me,"
Gabrielle explained, much puzzled.
"Ay. That's juist what they a' said," remarked the keeper, with an
apprehensive look upon his face. "The Whispers are only h'ard at ae
spot, whaur ye've juist stood. I've seen the lady a' in green masel',
miss--aince when I was a laddie, an' again aboot ten year syne."
"You mean, Stewart, that you imagined that you saw an apparition. You
were alone, I suppose?"
"Yes, miss, I was alane."
"Well, you thought you saw the Lady of Glencardine. Where was she?"
"On the drive, in front o' the hoose."
"Perhaps somebody played a practical joke on you. The Green Lady is
Glencardine's favourite spectre, isn't she--perfectly harmless, I mean?"
"Ay, miss. Lots o' folk saw her ten year syne. But nooadays she seems to
ha'e been laid. Somebody said they saw her last Glesca holidays, but I
dinna believe 't."
"Neither do I, Stewart. But don't let's trouble about the unfortunate
lady, who ought to have been at rest long ago. It's those weird
whisperings I mean to investigate." And she looked blankly around her at
the great, cyclopean walls and high, weather-beaten towers, gaunt yet
picturesque in the morning sunshine.
The keeper shook his shaggy head. "I'm afear'd, Miss Gabrielle, that
ye'll ne'er solve the mystery. There's somethin' sae fatal aboot the
whisperin's," he said, speaking in his pleasant Highland tongue, "that
naebody cares tae attempt the investigation. They div say that the
Whispers are the voice o' the De'il himsel'."
The girl, in her short blue serge skirt, white cotton blouse, and blue
tam-o'-shanter, laughed at the man's dread. There must be a distinct
cause for this noise she had heard, she argued. Yet, though they both
spent half-an-hour wandering among the ruins, standing in the roofless
banqueting hall, and traversing stone corridors and lichen-covered,
moss-grown, ruined chambers choked with weeds, their efforts to obtain
any clue were all in vain.
To Gabrielle it was quite evident that the old keeper regarded the
incident of the previous night as a fatal omen, for he was most
solicitous of her welfare. He went so far as to crave permission to go
to Sir Henry and put the whole of the mysterious facts before him.
But she would not hear of it. She meant to solve the mystery herself. If
her father learnt of the affair, and of the ill-omen connected with it,
the matter would surely cause him great uneasiness. Why should he be
worried on her account? No, she would never allow it, and told Stewart
plainly of her disapproval of such a course.
"But, tell me," she asked at last, as returning to the courtyard, they
stood together at the spot where she had stood in that moonlit hour and
heard with her own ears those weird, mysterious voices coming from
nowhere--"tell me, Stewart, is there any legend connected with the
Whispers? Have you ever heard any story concerning their origin?"
"Of coorse, miss. Through all Perthshire it's weel kent," replied the
man slowly, not, it seemed, without considerable reluctance. "What is
h'ard by those doomed tae daith is the conspiracy o' Charles Lord
Glencardine an' the Earl o' Kintyre for the murder o' the infamous
Cardinal Setoun o' St. Andrews, wha, as I dare say ye ken fra history,
miss, was assassinated here, on this very spot whaur we stan'. The Earl
o' Kintyre, thegither wi' Lord Glencardine, his dochter Mary, an' ane o'
the M'Intyres o' Talnetry, an' Wemyss o' Strathblane, were a year later
tried by a commission issued under the name o' Mary Queen o' Scots; but
sae popular was the murder o' the Cardinal that the accused were
acquitted."
"Yes," exclaimed the girl, "I remember reading something about it in
Scottish history. And the Whispers are, I suppose, said to be the
ghostly conspirators in conclave."
"That's what folk say, miss. They div say as weel that Auld Nick himsel'
was present, an' gied the decision that the Cardinal, wha was to be
askit ower frae Stirlin', should dee. It is his evil counsel that is
h'ard by those whom death will quickly overtake."
"Really, Stewart," she laughed, "you make me feel quite uncomfortable."
"But, miss, Sir Henry already kens a' aboot the Whispers," said the man.
"I h'ard him tellin' a young gentleman wha cam' doon last shootin'
season a guid dale aboot it. They veesited the auld castle thegither,
an' I happened tae be hereaboots."
This caused the girl to resolve to learn from her father what she could.
He was an antiquary, and had the history of Glencardine at his
finger-ends.
So presently she strolled back to Stewart's cottage, and after receiving
from the faithful servant urgent injunctions to "have a care" of
herself, she walked on to the tennis-lawn, where, shaded by the high
trees, Lady Heyburn, in white serge, and three of her male guests were
playing.
"Father," she said that same evening, when they had settled down to
commence work upon those ever-arriving documents from Paris, "what was
the cause of Glencardine becoming a ruin?"
"Well, the reason of its downfall was Lord Glencardine's change of
front," he answered. "In 1638 he became a stalwart supporter of
Episcopacy and Divine Right, a course which proved equally fatal to
himself and to his ancient Castle of Glencardine. Reid, in his _Annals
of Auchterarder_, relates how, after the Civil War, Lord Dundrennan, in
company with his cousin, George Lochan of Ochiltree, and burgess of
Auchterarder and the Laird of M'Nab, descended into Strathearn and
occupied the castle with about fifty men. He hurriedly put it into a
state of defence. General Overton besieged the place in person, with his
army, consisting of eighteen hundred foot and eleven hundred horse, and
battered the walls with cannon, having brought a number of great
ordnance from Stirling Castle. For ten days the castle was held by the
small but resolute garrison, and might have held out longer had not the
well failed. With the prospect of death before them in the event of the
place being taken, Dundrennan and Lochan contrived to break through the
enemy, who surrounded the castle on all sides. A page of the name of
John Hamilton, in attendance upon Lord Dundrennan, well acquainted with
the localities of Glencardine, undertook to be their guide. When the
moon was down, Dundrennan and Lochan issued from the castle by a small
postern, where they found Hamilton waiting for them with three horses.
They mounted, and, passing quietly through the enemy's force, they
escaped, and reached Lord Glencardine in safety to the north. On the
morning after their escape the castle was surrendered, and thirty-five
of the garrison were sent to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. General Overton
ordered the remaining twelve of those who had surrendered to be shot at
a post, and the castle to be burned, which was accordingly done."
"The country-folk in the neighbourhood are full of strange stories about
ghostly whisperings being heard in the castle ruins," she remarked.
Her father started, and raising his expressionless face to hers, asked
in almost a snappish tone, "Well, and who has heard them now, pray?"
"Several people, I believe."
"And they're gossiping as usual, eh?" he remarked in a hard, dry tone.
"Up here in the Highlands they are ridiculously superstitious. Who's
been telling you about the Whispers, child?"
"Oh, I've learnt of them from several people," she replied evasively.
"Mysterious voices were heard, they say, last night, and for several
nights previously. It's also a local tradition that all those who hear
the whispered warning die within forty days."
"Bosh, my dear! utter rubbish!" the old man laughed. "Who's been trying
to frighten you?"
"Nobody, dad. I merely tell you what the country people say."
"Yes," he remarked, "I know. The story is a gruesome one, and in the
Highlands a story is not attractive unless it has some fatality in it.
Up here the belief in demonology and witchcraft has died very hard. Get
down Penny's _Traditions of Perth_--first shelf to the left beyond the
second window, right-hand corner. It will explain to you how very
superstitious the people have ever been."
"I know all that, dad," persisted the girl; "but I'm interested in this
extraordinary story of the Whispers. You, as an antiquary, have, no
doubt, investigated all the legendary lore connected with Glencardine.
The people declare that the Whispers are heard, and, I am told, believe
some extraordinary theory regarding them."
"A theory!" he exclaimed quickly. "What theory? What has been
discovered?"
"Nothing, as far as I know."
"No, and nothing ever will be discovered," he said.
"Why not, dad?" she asked. "Do you deny that strange noises are heard
there when there is so much evidence in the affirmative?"
"I really don't know, my dear. I've never had the pleasure of hearing
them myself, though I've been told of them ever since I bought the
place."
"But there is a legend which is supposed to account for them, is there
not, dad? Do tell me what you know," she urged. "I'm so very much
interested in the old place and its bygone history."
"The less you know concerning the Whispers the better, my dear," he
replied abruptly.
Her father's ominous words surprised her. Did he, too, believe in the
fatal omen, though he was trying to mislead her and poke fun at the
local superstition?
"But why shouldn't I know?" she protested. "This is the first time, dad,
that you've tried to withhold from me any antiquarian knowledge that you
possess. Besides, the story of Glencardine and its lords is intensely
fascinating to me."
"So might be the Whispers, if ever you had the misfortune to hear them."
"Misfortune!" she gasped, turning pale. "Why do you say misfortune?"
But he laughed a strange, hollow laugh, and, endeavouring to turn his
seriousness into humour, said, "Well, they might give you a turn,
perhaps. They would make me start, I feel sure. From what I've been
told, they seem to come from nowhere. It is practically an unseen
spectre who has the rather unusual gift of speech."
It was on the tip of her tongue to explain how, on the previous night,
she had actually listened to the Whispers. But she refrained. She
recognised that, though he would not admit it, he was nevertheless
superstitious of ill results following the hearing of those weird
whisperings. So she made eager pretence of wishing to know the
historical facts of the incident referred to by the gamekeeper.
"No," exclaimed the blind man softly but firmly, taking her hand and
stroking her arm tenderly, as was his habit when he wished to persuade
her. "No, Gabrielle dear," he said; "we will change the subject now. Do
not bother your head about absurd country legends of that sort. There
are so many concerning Glencardine and its lords that a whole volume
might be filled with them."
"But I want to know all about this particular one, dad," she said.
"From me you will never know, my dear," was his answer, as his gray,
serious face was upturned to hers. "You have never heard the Whispers,
and I sincerely hope that you never will."