"But I hae come a' this way on purpose to deliver it, Francis, and ye really maun help me at a pinch."

"Neer speed then if I dinna," answered the Aberdeenshire man: "let them be as cankered as they like, they can but turn me awa, and I was just thinking to ask my discharge, and gang down to end my days at Inverurie."

With this doughty resolution of serving his friend at all ventures, since none was to be encountered which could much inconvenience himself, Francie Macraw left the apartment. It was long before he returned, and when he did, his manner indicated wonder and agitation.

"I am nae seer gin ye be Edie Ochiltree o' Carrick's company in the Forty-twa, or gin ye be the deil in his likeness!"

"And what makes ye speak in that gait?" demanded the astonished mendicant.

"Because my lord has been in sic a distress and surpreese as I neer saw a man in my life. But he'll see you--I got that job cookit. He was like a man awa frae himsell for mony minutes, and I thought he wad hae swarv't a'thegither,--and fan he cam to himsell, he asked fae brought the packet--and fat trow ye I said?"

"An auld soger," says Edie--"that does likeliest at a gentle's door; at a farmer's it's best to say ye're an auld tinkler, if ye need ony quarters, for maybe the gudewife will hae something to souther."

"But I said neer ane o' the twa," answered Francis; "my lord cares as little about the tane as the tother--for he's best to them that can souther up our sins. Sae I e'en said the bit paper was brought by an auld man wi' a long fite beard--he might be a capeechin freer for fat I ken'd, for he was dressed like an auld palmer. Sae ye'll be sent up for fanever he can find mettle to face ye."

"I wish I was weel through this business," thought Edie to himself; "mony folk surmise that the Earl's no very right in the judgment, and wha can say how far he may be offended wi' me for taking upon me sae muckle?"

But there was now no room for retreat--a bell sounded from a distant part of the mansion, and Macraw said, with a smothered accent, as if already in his master's presence, "That's my lord's bell!--follow me, and step lightly and cannily, Edie."

Edie followed his guide, who seemed to tread as if afraid of being overheard, through a long pa.s.sage, and up a back stair, which admitted them into the family apartments. They were ample and extensive, furnished at such cost as showed the ancient importance and splendour of the family. But all the ornaments were in the taste of a former and distant period, and one would have almost supposed himself traversing the halls of a Scottish n.o.bleman before the union of the crowns. The late Countess, partly from a haughty contempt of the times in which she lived, partly from her sense of family pride, had not permitted the furniture to be altered or modernized during her residence at Glenallan House. The most magnificent part of the decorations was a valuable collection of pictures by the best masters, whose ma.s.sive frames were somewhat tarnished by time. In this particular also the gloomy taste of the family seemed to predominate. There were some fine family portraits by Vand.y.k.e and other masters of eminence; but the collection was richest in the Saints and Martyrdoms of Domenichino, Velasquez, and Murillo, and other subjects of the same kind, which had been selected in preference to landscapes or historical pieces. The manner in which these awful, and sometimes disgusting, subjects were represented, harmonized with the gloomy state of the apartments,--a circ.u.mstance which was not altogether lost on the old man, as he traversed them under the guidance of his quondam fellow-soldier. He was about to express some sentiment of this kind, but Francie imposed silence on him by signs, and opening a door at the end of the long picture-gallery, ushered him into a small antechamber hung with black. Here they found the almoner, with his ear turned to a door opposite that by which they entered, in the att.i.tude of one who listens with attention, but is at the same time afraid of being detected in the act.

The old domestic and churchman started when they perceived each other.

But the almoner first recovered his recollection, and advancing towards Macraw, said, under his breath, but with an authoritative tone, "How dare you approach the Earl's apartment without knocking? and who is this stranger, or what has he to do here?--Retire to the gallery, and wait for me there."

"It's impossible just now to attend your reverence," answered Macraw, raising his voice so as to be heard in the next room, being conscious that the priest would not maintain the altercation within hearing of his patron,--"the Earl's bell has rung."

He had scarce uttered the words, when it was rung again with greater violence than before; and the ecclesiastic, perceiving further expostulation impossible, lifted his finger at Macraw, with a menacing att.i.tude, as he left the apartment.

"I tell'd ye sae," said the Aberdeen man in a whisper to Edie, and then proceeded to open the door near which they had observed the chaplain stationed.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

--This ring.-- This little ring, with necromantic force, Has raised the ghost of pleasure to my fears, Conjured the sense of honour and of love Into such shapes, they fright me from myself.

The Fatal Marriage.

The ancient forms of mourning were observed in Glenallan House, notwithstanding the obduracy with which the members of the family were popularly supposed to refuse to the dead the usual tribute of lamentation. It was remarked, that when she received the fatal letter announcing the death of her second, and, as was once believed, her favourite son, the hand of the Countess did not shake, nor her eyelid twinkle, any more than upon perusal of a letter of ordinary business.

Heaven only knows whether the suppression of maternal sorrow, which her pride commanded, might not have some effect in hastening her own death.

It was at least generally supposed that the apoplectic stroke, which so soon afterwards terminated her existence, was, as it were, the vengeance of outraged Nature for the restraint to which her feelings had been subjected. But although Lady Glenallan forebore the usual external signs of grief, she had caused many of the apartments, amongst others her own and that of the Earl, to be hung with the exterior trappings of woe.

The Earl of Glenallan was therefore seated in an apartment hung with black cloth, which waved in dusky folds along its lofty walls. A screen, also covered with black baize, placed towards the high and narrow window, intercepted much of the broken light which found its way through the stained gla.s.s, that represented, with such skill as the fourteenth century possessed, the life and sorrows of the prophet Jeremiah. The table at which the Earl was seated was lighted with two lamps wrought in silver, shedding that unpleasant and doubtful light which arises from the mingling of artificial l.u.s.tre with that of general daylight. The same table displayed a silver crucifix, and one or two clasped parchment books. A large picture, exquisitely painted by Spagnoletto, represented the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and was the only ornament of the apartment.

The inhabitant and lord of this disconsolate chamber was a man not past the prime of life, yet so broken down with disease and mental misery, so gaunt and ghastly, that he appeared but a wreck of manhood; and when he hastily arose and advanced towards his visitor, the exertion seemed almost to overpower his emaciated frame. As they met in the midst of the apartment, the contrast they exhibited was very striking. The hale cheek, firm step, erect stature, and undaunted presence and bearing of the old mendicant, indicated patience and content in the extremity of age, and in the lowest condition to which humanity can sink; while the sunken eye, pallid cheek, and tottering form of the n.o.bleman with whom he was confronted, showed how little wealth, power, and even the advantages of youth, have to do with that which gives repose to the mind, and firmness to the frame.

The Earl met the old man in the middle of the room, and having commanded his attendant to withdraw into the gallery, and suffer no one to enter the antechamber till he rung the bell, awaited, with hurried yet fearful impatience, until he heard first the door of his apartment, and then that of the antechamber, shut and fastened by the spring-bolt. When he was satisfied with this security against being overheard, Lord Glenallan came close up to the mendicant, whom he probably mistook for some person of a religious order in disguise, and said, in a hasty yet faltering tone, "In the name of all our religion holds most holy, tell me, reverend father, what am I to expect from a communication opened by a token connected with such horrible recollections?"

The old man, appalled by a manner so different from what he had expected from the proud and powerful n.o.bleman, was at a loss how to answer, and in what manner to undeceive him. "Tell me," continued the Earl, in a tone of increasing trepidation and agony--"tell me, do you come to say that all that has been done to expiate guilt so horrible, has been too little and too trivial for the offence, and to point out new and more efficacious modes of severe penance?--I will not blench from it, father--let me suffer the pains of my crime here in the body, rather than hereafter in the spirit!"

Edie had now recollection enough to perceive, that if he did not interrupt the frankness of Lord Glenallan's admissions, he was likely to become the confidant of more than might be safe for him to know.

He therefore uttered with a hasty and trembling voice--"Your lordship's honour is mistaken--I am not of your persuasion, nor a clergyman, but, with all reverence, only puir Edie Ochiltree, the king's bedesman and your honour's."

This explanation he accompanied by a profound bow after his manner, and then, drawing himself up erect, rested his arm on his staff, threw back his long white hair, and fixed his eyes upon the Earl, as he waited for an answer.

"And you are not then," said Lord Glenallan, after a pause of surprise-- "You are not then a Catholic priest?"

"G.o.d forbid!" said Edie, forgetting in his confusion to whom he was speaking; "I am only the king's bedesman and your honour's, as I said before."

The Earl turned hastily away, and paced the room twice or thrice, as if to recover the effects of his mistake, and then, coming close up to the mendicant, he demanded, in a stern and commanding tone, what he meant by intruding himself on his privacy, and from whence he had got the ring which he had thought proper to send him. Edie, a man of much spirit, was less daunted at this mode of interrogation than he had been confused by the tone of confidence in which the Earl had opened their conversation.

To the reiterated question from whom he had obtained the ring, he answered composedly, "From one who was better known to the Earl than to him."

"Better known to me, fellow?" said Lord Glenallan: "what is your meaning?--explain yourself instantly, or you shall experience the consequence of breaking in upon the hours of family distress."

"It was auld Elspeth Mucklebackit that sent me here," said the beggar, "in order to say"--

"You dote, old man!" said the Earl; "I never heard the name--but this dreadful token reminds me"--

"I mind now, my lord," said Ochiltree, "she tauld me your lordship would be mair familiar wi' her, if I ca'd her Elspeth o' the Craigburnfoot--she had that name when she lived on your honour's land, that is, your honour's worshipful mother's that was then--Grace be wi' her!"

"Ay," said the appalled n.o.bleman, as his countenance sunk, and his cheek a.s.sumed a hue yet more cadaverous; "that name is indeed written in the most tragic page of a deplorable history. But what can she desire of me?

Is she dead or living?"

"Living, my lord; and entreats to see your lordship before she dies, for she has something to communicate that hangs upon her very soul, and she says she canna flit in peace until she sees you."

"Not until she sees me!--what can that mean? But she is doting with age and infirmity. I tell thee, friend, I called at her cottage myself, not a twelvemonth since, from a report that she was in distress, and she did not even know my face or voice."

"If your honour wad permit me," said Edie, to whom the length of the conference restored a part of his professional audacity and native talkativeness--"if your honour wad but permit me, I wad say, under correction of your lordship's better judgment, that auld Elspeth's like some of the ancient ruined strengths and castles that ane sees amang the hills. There are mony parts of her mind that appear, as I may say, laid waste and decayed, but then there's parts that look the steever, and the stronger, and the grander, because they are rising just like to fragments amaong the ruins o' the rest. She's an awful woman."

"She always was so," said the Earl, almost unconsciously echoing the observation of the mendicant; "she always was different from other women--likest perhaps to her who is now no more, in her temper and turn of mind.--She wishes to see me, then?"

"Before she dies," said Edie, "she earnestly entreats that pleasure."

"It will be a pleasure to neither of us," said the Earl, sternly, "yet she shall be gratified. She lives, I think, on the sea-sh.o.r.e to the southward of Fairport?"

"Just between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock Castle, but nearer to Monkbarns. Your lordship's honour will ken the laird and Sir Arthur, doubtless?"

A stare, as if he did not comprehend the question, was Lord Glenallan's answer. Edie saw his mind was elsewhere, and did not venture to repeat a query which was so little germain to the matter.

"Are you a Catholic, old man?" demanded the Earl.

"No, my lord," said Ochiltree stoutly; for the remembrance of the unequal division of the dole rose in his mind at the moment; "I thank Heaven I am a good Protestant."

"He who can conscientiously call himself good, has indeed reason to thank Heaven, be his form of Christianity what it will--But who is he that shall dare to do so!"

"Not I," said Edie; "I trust to beware of the sin of presumption."

"What was your trade in your youth?" continued the Earl.