Part 13
"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!"