But there is little time for either observation or dreaming in a railway train.

They stopped but a few minutes at Berwick, and then shot off northward, still keeping near the coast.

Claudia looked out upon the gray North Sea, and enjoyed the magnificence of the coast scenery as long as the daylight lasted.

When it was growing dark Lord Vincent said:

"You had just as well close that window, Claudia. It will give us all cold; and besides, you can see but little now."

"I can see Night drawing her curtain of darkness around the bed of the troubled waters. It is worth watching," murmured Claudia dreamily.

"Bosh!" was the elegant response of the viscount; "you will see enough of the North Sea before you have done with it, I fancy." And with an emphatic clap he let down the window.

Claudia shrugged her shoulders and turned away, too proud to dispute a point that she was powerless to decide.

They sped on towards Edinboro', through the darkness of one of the darkest nights that ever fell. Even had the window been open Claudia could not have caught a glimpse of the scenery. She had no idea that they were near the capital of Scotland until the train ran into the station. Then all was bustle among those who intended to get out there.

But through all the bustle Lord Vincent and his party kept their seats,

"I am very weary of this train. I have not left my seat for many hours. Can we not stop over night here? I should like to see Edinboro' by daylight," Claudia inquired.

"What did you say?" asked Lord Vincent, with nonchalance.

Claudia repeated her question, adding:

"I should like to remain a day or two in Edinboro'. I wish to see the Castle, and Holyrood Palace and Abbey, and Roslyn and Craigmiller, and----"

"Everything else, of course. Bother! We have no time for that. I have taken our tickets for Aberdeen, and mean to sleep at Castle Cragg to-night," replied the viscount.

Claudia turned away her head to conceal the indignant tears that arose to her eyes. She was beginning to discover that her comfort, convenience, and inclination were just about the last circumstances that her husband was disposed to take into consideration. What a dire reverse for her, whose will from her earliest recollection had been the law to all around her!

The train started again and sped on its way through the darkness of the night towards Aberdeen, where they arrived about eight o'clock.

"Here at last the railway journey ends, thank Heaven," sighed Claudia, as the train slackened its speed and crawled into the station. And the usual bustle attending its arrival ensued.

Fortunately for Claudia, the viscount found himself too much fatigued after about sixteen hours' ride to go farther that night.

So he directed Mr. Frisbie to engage two cabs to take himself and his party to a hotel.

And when they were brought up he handed Claudia, who was scarcely able to stand, into the first one, and ordered Frisbie to put the "gorillas" into the other. And they drove to a fourth- or fifth-rate inn, a degree or two dirtier, dingier, and darker than the one they had left at Liverpool.

But Claudia was too utterly worn out in body, mind, and spirit to find fault with any shelter that promised to afford her the common necessaries of life, of which she had been deprived for so many hours.

She drank the tea that was brought her, without questioning its quality. And as soon as she laid her head on her pillow she sank into the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion.

She awoke late the next morning to take her first look at the old town through a driving rain that lashed the narrow windows of her little bedroom. Lord Vincent had already risen and gone out.

She rang for her servants. Old Katie answered the bell, entering with uplifted hands and eyes, exclaiming:

"Well, my ladyship! if this ain't the outlandishest country as ever was! Coming over from t'other side we had the ocean unnerneaf of us, and now 'pears to me like we has got it overhead of us, by the fog and mist and rain perpetual! And if this is being of lords and ladyships, I'd a heap leifer be misters and mist'esses, myself."

"I quite agree with you, Katie," sighed Lady Vincent, as, with the old woman's assistance, she dressed herself.

"It seems to me like as if we was regerlerly sold, my ladyship,"

said old Katie mysteriously.

"Hush! Where are we to have breakfast--not in this disordered room, I hope?"

"No, my ladyship. They let us have a little squeezed-up parlor that smells for all the world as if a lot of men had been smoking and drinking in it all night long. My lordship's down there, waiting for his breakfast now. Pretty place to fetch a 'spectable cullored pusson to, let alone a lady! Well, one comfort, we won't stay here long, cause I heard my lordship order Mr. Frisbie to go and take two inside places and four outside places in the stage-coach as leaves this mornin' for Ban. 'Ban,' 'Ban'; 'pears like it's been all ban and no blessin' ever since we done lef' Tanglewood."

Lady Vincent did not think it worth while to correct Katie. She knew by experience that all attempts to set her right would be lost labor.

She went downstairs and joined Lord Vincent in the little parlor, where a breakfast was laid of which it might be said that if the coffee was bad and the bannocks worse, the kippered herrings were delicious.

After breakfast they took their places in or on the Banff mail coach; Lord and Lady Vincent being the sole passengers inside; and all their servants occupying the outside. And so they set out through the drizzling rain and by the old turnpike road to Banff.

This road ran along the edge of the cliffs overhanging the sea--the sea, ever sublime and beautiful, even when dimly seen through the dull veil of a Scotch mist.

Claudia was not permitted to open the window; but she kept the glass polished that she might look out upon the wild scenery.

Late in the afternoon they reached the town of Banff, where they stopped only long enough to order a plain dinner and engage flies to take them on to their final destination, Castle Cragg, which in truth Claudia was growing very anxious to behold.

CHAPTER XV.

CASTLE CRAGG.

The wildest scene, but this, can show Some touch of nature's genial glow; But here, above, around, below, On mountain or in glen, Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower.

Nor aught of vegetative power The weary eye may ken.

For all is rocks at random thrown, Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone.

--_Scott._

Immediately after dinner they set out again on this last stage of their journey, Claudia and Vincent riding in the first fly and Frisbie and the "gorillas" in the second one. The road still lay along the cliffs above the sea. And Claudia still sat and gazed through the window of the fly as she had gazed through the window of the coach, at the wild, grand, awful scenery of the coast. Hour after hour they rode on until the afternoon darkened into evening.

The last object of interest that caught Claudia's attention, before night closed the scene, was far in advance of them up the coast. It was a great promontory stretching far out into the sea and lifting its lofty head high into the heavens. Upon its extreme point stood an ancient castle, which at that height seemed but a crow's nest in size.

Claudia called Lord Vincent's attention to it.

"What castle is that, my lord, perched upon that high promontory? I should think it an interesting place, an historical place, built perhaps in ancient times as a stronghold against Danish invasion,"

she said.

"That? Oh, ah, yes! That is a trifle historical, in the record of a score of sieges, storms, assaults, and so on; and a bit traditional, in legends of some hundred capital crimes and mortal sins; and in fact altogether, as you say, rather interesting, especially to you, Claudia. It is Castle Cragg, and it will have the honor to be your future residence."

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Claudia, gazing now in consternation upon that drear, desolate, awful rock. "Dread point of Dis" it seemed indeed to her.

"For a season only, my dear, of course," said the viscount, with the queerest of smiles, of which Claudia could make nothing satisfactory.