Part 28

The stair was included in one of those curious thin round towers which are so frequently seen rising from the side of the doorway of these old Scottish castles, and a small window about half a story up seemed to have been placed there to enable the appearance of all applicants for entrance to be well reconnoitred before admission should be granted to them, whilst a small round arrow or musket hole on a level with their heads, enabled them to be easily and successfully assailed from below, if they were likely to be at all troublesome. A flaring light streamed suddenly out from the small window above, and threw a partial and fitful gleam over a part of the dripping weeds of the wet court-yard. It proceeded from a lighted torch of bog-fir, and the stranger's attention was instantly arrested by the apparition that brandished it aloft with a bare extended arm. It was a woman, whose countenance, though wasted, and tarnished, and rendered wiry, as it were, by exposure to weather, yet exhibited features of the noblest character, so that even a momentary glance at them and the dark eyes that flashed from them with a wild expression, as the torch which she held forth threw back its flickering light upon them, convinced the stranger that they must have been once beautiful.

"Who comes at this unseasonable hour to these my castle gates?" demanded the woman, in a haughty tone.

"A single traveller overtaken by night and by this pelting rain," replied the stranger, "from which, with your kind permission, he would fain find a temporary shelter."

"Aha!" exclaimed the woman again, with a curious expression of extreme and cunning caution, "dost think that these gates of mine ever turn upon their hinges to admit any guests but those who come in their gilt coaches,--aye, and with their running footmen and out-riders too?"

"I doubt not what you say," replied the stranger; "but I am at this moment acting the part of my own out-rider; I left my carriage to go by another road, whilst I came on this way on horseback. Pray, good madam, send down one of your people, and his inspection of my horse, which I have used the freedom to tie up in your stable, will no doubt satisfy you."

"My people! ha! ha! ha!" exclaimed she laughing wildly, "you look to be a gentleman, though, Heaven knows, looks are never to be trusted in this deceitful world. But I will see you nearer," and having disappeared from the window, he heard her step descending the lower flight of the stair. After a few moments of a pause, the heavy bolts were withdrawn, and the door was slowly opened to about one-third of its extent. Although prepared to behold something rather extraordinary, the gentleman was absolutely startled by the appearance of the woman who now stood before him. He had already seen her countenance, but now he could perceive that her hair was exceedingly long and untamed, and whilst the greater part of it was white or grizzled, as if from premature failure, it still contained what, if properly dressed, might have been called tresses of the most beautiful glossy black, and the strange effect of this unnatural intermixture of the livery of youth and of age, was heightened by the wild combination of such fantastical wreaths of heather and sea-weed, mingled with, sea-birds' feathers, as insanity is usually so fond of adopting by way of finery. Her arms were bare to the shoulders, and her bust was but imperfectly covered by a coarse canvas shirt. A red flannel petticoat that descended to her knees, and which was confined at the waist by a broad leathern belt, was the only other piece of drapery that she wore. She stood before the stranger exhibiting the wrecks of a form of the most exquisite mould, and her whole appearance betraying the fact, that whatever the soul that animated it might have once been, its reason was now obscured by the darkness arising from confirmed derangement.

"Enter my castle, sweet sir!" said the maniac in a gentle and subdued voice, and at the same time courtseying with a grace which might have better befitted the attire of a court than that which she wore. "Enter my castle, and I will speedily usher you up to the grand banqueting-room. But stay," added she, with a sudden and wild change of manner, after he had obeyed her invitation, "I must make my gates secure against the wretches, they might find me out even here. Bolt! bolt! bolt! there my brave bolts," she continued, changing her speech into a chant, as if addressing them in incantation,--

"Keep your wards, Be faithful guards,-- And you, master-key, Great warden shall be; To defend me from force and from traitorie."

"Come along, sir," continued she, again changing to a wild mood; "this way--I have a pride and a pleasure in personally attending on so distinguished a guest, as your whole appearance and manners declare you to be."

The gentleman followed his conductress up the half-ruined screw stair, which here and there exhibited fearful chasms, from the entire absence of two or three successive steps, over which she skipped without the least hesitation, whilst he was obliged to thrust his nails into the crevices of the wall to hoist himself over the difficulty. But after he had ascended two flights, he came to a landing-place where there was a doorway entering into that large hall, from which he had first heard the voice of the maniac. Into this she led the way, and as he was about to follow her, you may imagine his astonishment when I tell you he discovered that the whole flooring was gone except the bare oaken beams, and the apartments below being in the same state, his eyes stretched uninterruptedly downwards till vision was lost in the impenetrable darkness of the dungeons below. But his conductress hesitated not a moment, and went onwards from beam to beam, with as much indifference as she would have walked across a paved court, until she gained the great hearth, which, with a small portion of the planking in its vicinity, was still entire, and where a fire of wood was burning under the huge projecting chimney.

"Come, sir," said the maniac, smiling courteously, "never mind your wet boots; don't stand upon ceremony, I pray you, your long ride and the state of the weather are sufficient apologies. Here is a seat by the fire for you."

She then busied herself in placing an old rotten-looking chair, which appeared to have once had a back, and which seemed to have belonged to the castle in its better days, whilst she seated herself on an opposite stool, and began to arrange her head-gear, to run her taper fingers, with, nails on them like eagle's talons, through her long hair, and to twist it round into certain curls that had now probably become natural from the art and care which had once been bestowed upon them. Meanwhile, the stranger, after bracing up his nerves and steadying his head, and balancing his person, with some difficulty and hazard accomplished the perilous passage.

"You must be hungry, sir, after your ride," said the maniac, in the same mild tone. "I was about to sup when you came in. Perhaps you will have no objections to join me." And then suddenly changing in her tone, and bursting into an uncouth laugh, as she looked into a pot that hung simmering over the fire--"Ha!--ha!--ha!--hah!--see!--the water has boiled well. The lightning has helped to do that for me. I am the favoured one! The very elements are my cooks! Hah! did you see where it came again? flash--zigzag--zigzag. Now 'tis time to mix the pudding," and, thrusting her hand into a large square hole in the wall, she dragged out, first a bag of oatmeal, and then a small wooden vessel full of salt, and with an earnestness which for the time absorbed her attention from everything else, she proceeded to put the ingredients into the pot, and to stir them about with a large wooden spoon.

"Now for my silver dish!" said she again, as she pulled forth a pewter basin from the same recess in the wall. "Well is it for me that my gates are watched and warded, else would robbers soon carry off this rare treasure of my castle. See here now--ha! ha! ha! let us begin the feast." And as she said so, she filled the pewter basin from the pot, by means of the wooden spoon, and set it between them on an old box turned upside down, and drawing forth a couple of pewter spoons from her curious cupboard, she handed one to the stranger.

"Hah!" said she sternly, as she broke into a more violent state of excitement than she had hitherto exhibited, "do you see that mark?" And as she said this, she drew with her forefinger a line of division across the surface of the mess that stood between them--"That's your half and this is mine: so take care what you do, for I'll have no foul play--men can cheat!--but I'm hungry, and I must have my food; so see to it that you eat no more than what is your own."

The mind of the traveller was too much filled with this strange and distressing scene to admit of his appetite leading him to infringe on the rule thus prescribed to him, even if the food itself had been much more inviting than it really was; on the contrary, he had hardly eat a third part of his way up to the boundary line, when he found that his hostess had scrupulously given it a straight edge upon her side.

"Come!" said she, in an angry tone of voice, quite different from any she had hitherto used; "eat up your share! do you think I want it? Come, there is no poison in it. Come! come!"

"I do, I do," said the gentleman, pretending to eat; and every now and then contriving to throw unobserved a large spoonful down between the beams; until, partly by eating, and partly by this occasional manoeuvre, he at last succeeded in emptying the dish.

"Now, sir!" said the maniac, resuming all the quiet and decorous demeanour of a well-bred woman, "a little gentle exercise after supper conduces to good repose. I shall be happy to give you my hand for a minuet."

Pushing back the seats they had occupied, she seized the stranger's hand, and took her position beside him on the hearth. He offered no opposition to her proposal; and she immediately began to sing with great brilliancy and effect that minuet so well known to our grandsires and grandmothers under the name of the Minuet de la Cour. Following the example of his entertainer, the gentleman was obliged to make his preliminary bows corresponding to her preliminary courtesies; and had any eye looked upon the couple as they were thus employed, it might have been naturally enough supposed that he danced with some handsome lady of quality disguised in a fancy dress, so perfectly did the grace of her attitudes assimilate themselves to the various movements of the minuet. But the gentleman had not altogether calculated the nature of his present undertaking. The spot of terra firma on which the dance commenced was by no means large enough for the extent of one-tenth part of the figure of the minuet; and a less bold man than he would have felt anything but tranquillity of mind, when his insane partner, giving him her hand, glided with him over the beams, amidst the half light that proceeded from the decaying embers, like some spirit from the other world. But if this was alarming, what were his feelings, when, after the slow part of the minuet was over, she began to carol the sprightly gavot which follows it, with a clear voice, that made the lofty vaulted roof ring again, whilst she darted off and called to him to follow. So, indeed, he found himself compelled to do; but whilst he, at the risk of his life, contented himself with keeping up something like a semblance of the figure, he was astonished and appalled to see his partner go through the whole dance with all that activity which might have been exhibited on a common floor by the ablest professional dancer. Though he felt not for himself, his hair actually stood on end as he looked with trembling on her, whom he expected every moment to see disappear from his eyes into that abyss of darkness that lay below; and great was his relief from anxiety when the dance was at last terminated on the hearthstone where it began.

"And now, gentle sir," said the maniac, "you are doubtless well prepared for your night's repose after this healthful exercise. Let me see that your sleeping apartment is ready."

Had the roaring elements without permitted the stranger to have again ventured abroad, he saw that he could not have possessed himself of the keys of the outer door without the employment of force, which his feeling heart never could have allowed him to have attempted. He therefore sat patiently waiting until his hostess crossed the beams, and went into a small stone closet opening in the wall, whence she speedily returned, and lifting a lighted brand of bog-fir from the fire, she presented it to him with the same air as if she had been putting a silver candlestick, with a wax candle in it, into his hand; and taking up another for herself, she, with all the delicacy of the most refined lady, wished him a good night, and retired into a room on the other side of the hall similar to that which she had indicated to him. Before retreating to his dormitory, the gentleman took the precaution to rake the fire together, and to add to it one or two pieces of wood, which were piled up in the chimney near it, so as to keep up a certain degree of light in the place. He then moved across the beams to the stone closet, where he found a heap of ferns nicely spread over heather, and putting his cloak on, which had by this time become tolerably dry, he lay quietly down to try to procure a little repose.

He had not lain long until he was awakened by several rats running over him, and on looking out at the open door which gave him a view into the large apartment, he beheld swarms of these creatures gambolling about on the beams. Whilst he was lying watching their motions, he was surprised to perceive his hostess crawling silently forth on hands and knees from the small place she had occupied. Suddenly she sprang upon the rats with all the agility of a cat, flew after them hither and thither, with wild and frantic yells, leaping at the walls in such a manner that she absolutely seemed to scramble up a portion of their height in the eagerness of her pursuit. The chase lasted until all the rats had disappeared, but ere it terminated, several of them had fallen victims to her wonderful expertness in capturing them. Proceeding then to the hearth, she seated herself on the stool by the fire, in a state of great excitement, and inserting her long nails into them, she stripped off their skins one after the other with inconceivable expedition, and as she did so, she rose up from time to time and suspended the bleeding reptiles on tenter-hooks on one side of the chimney among many others which the stranger had not till then observed, whilst she attached their skins to a similar set of hooks on the other side of the fire, amongst a corresponding number of trophies of the same kind.

"This is for my winter beef," said she in a wild soliloquy, "and this is for my winter cloak!" This she repeated as every new occasion required, till all were stowed away. After which the furious fit seemed to subside; and soon afterwards she retired to her bed, where she lay so quiet as to give no more disturbance to her stranger guest, till both were roused by the early dawn.

The morning was a smiling one, and as if she had partaken of its peaceful nature, she was again in one of her gentle lady-like humours.

"Will you walk, sweet sir?" said she to her guest, with a profound courtesy. "Will you walk forth to see the morning sun kissing the opening flowers and drinking up the dewdrops from their lips? This way," continued she, as she ushered him down the broken stair, and silently opened the locks and bolts of the outer door.

"I thank you most sincerely for your hospitality, Madam," said the traveller to her whilst she was carefully locking the door behind her. "I must now bid you farewell. I see my horse has had the good sense to break out from his stable during the night to feed on yonder rich bank of grass, so that he must be well enough refreshed by this time to be able to finish my journey."

"What," exclaimed the maniac with a sudden transition to her highest pitch of excitement, and with great rapidity of utterance, "are you going to leave me too? Did you not come to this my castle to woo me for your bride? And are you going to leave me too? But I forget, I forget," continued she, sinking into a low thoughtful tone of feeling, whilst tears came rushing to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. "I must not forget that I am pledged in my own mind. There was but one that ever truly loved me, and him I lost by being true to a base deceiver."

"What said you?" exclaimed the stranger with intense interest.

"I say that men are deceivers!" cried she with her wildest tone and gesture; and then becoming gradually calm, she went on singing with great pathos,--

"Sigh no more ladies, Ladies sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, Men were deceivers ever, One foot on sea and one on shore----

Yes! yes! on sea!--how many vows did that false man of the sea utter! and how cruelly did he break them on shore!"

"What do I hear?" exclaimed the gentleman. "The very song! the very song we so often sang in duet together at Calcutta!"

"Calcutta!" cried the maniac, earnestly seizing his wrist, and in a tone of deep feeling; "yes, I sang that song often at Calcutta with one who tenderly loved me. How often do I think on that!"

"Merciful powers!" cried the stranger, as he suddenly observed a small Indian wrought ring on the little finger of that hand by which she had for a moment held his; "by all that is wonderful, it is the ring! the very ring! Let me see that ring!"

"No!" said the maniac, in a high, haughty, and determined manner; "it shall never be touched by you nor any one else. He gave it to me--I have worn it--I have preserved it through all my miserable sufferings, and it shall go with me," added she, fervently kissing it; "it shall go with me to my cold cold grave."

"Stop, stop!" cried the gentleman, as she was turning away from him; "avoid me not! I am he who gave it you!"

"You!" cried she, stopping suddenly in her retreat, drawing herself up to her full height, and looking back upon him with an air of the most sovereign contempt; "you Charles Græme!--Ha! ha! ha! ha!--you Charles Græme!--His face was fair, and with the expression of an angel; yours is sallow, withered, and wrinkled, like that of a baboon--his hair was lovely as the beams of the morning sun; yours is white, as the eternal snow of the Himala--his form was like that of the Grecian Apollo; yours is like that of winter. Go, traitorous man! I have had enough of falsehood! Come not near me! Chirsty Ross will wed no one now but Charles Græme or the grave!"

In an instant she darted from his sight, before he was aware of her intention, and she disappeared among the ruins. In the wildest state of agitation he rushed after her. He thought he heard a faint shriek, but he vainly sought her with unremitting solicitude for some hours. Believing at length that she must have got into the interior of the building by some secret passage known only to herself, he unwillingly gave up his search, and the sea having now ebbed, and the flood in the river having somewhat subsided, he mounted his horse, with some difficulty crossed the ford, and, oppressed with sorrowful thoughts, he slowly made his way to the castle of his noble friend, to whom he confided his sad tale. From him he learned much that was new to him. A cambric handkerchief, embroidered with Chirsty's story, had found its way to her friends, who, after many difficulties, succeeded in rescuing her from her confinement. But alas! they found her not till her sufferings had rendered her a confirmed maniac. For a time she felt soothed by the kindness shown her by her afflicted parents; and during the short time they lived, she amused herself by wandering harmlessly about the scenes of her childhood. But when her father and mother were both dead, and all her other relatives being likewise gone or removed, she abandoned her home and took up her abode in the ruinous building, of which she was for the most part left in undisturbed possession. Such was the melancholy outline of her history.

But Charles Græme was too feelingly alive to her unhappy situation to delay one moment in attempting to find her, that he might spend the remainder of his life in watching over and protecting her. Next day, therefore, assisted by his friend's people, he made his way into the ruins, and sought every part of them. But he sought in vain. Everything remained as when he had left them on the previous morning, and although the door was locked, the bolts on the inside were not fastened, showing that the wretched inhabitant had not returned.

But the mystery was cleared up towards mid-day by a fisherman, who, as he was landing from his boat, found her lifeless body on the sands, where it had been left by the receding tide. The supposition was that she had been drowned in attempting to ford the swollen river, immediately after the scene of her parting with Charles Græme.

COMPLIMENTARY CRITICISM.

Dominie.--'Pon my word, Mr. Clifford, you have given us good measure indeed; and of ane excellent faybric, too. As I shall answer, we are well on with the small hours.

Grant (pulling out his watch)--Is it possible? I declare I thought that it had been only about ten o'clock. Why, it is a good hour and a half after midnight.

Clifford.--I was resolved to reel you out a good long line while I was about it. I thought that it was but fair to give Mr. Macpherson an opportunity of being even with me, by enjoying as good a slumber as I had last night, but his politeness was proof against the soporific influence of my tale.

Dominie.--Your tale would have been as good as an umberella against all the drowsy drops that ever were shaken from the bough of Morpheus himself.

Author.--Perhaps it might; but now that the umbrella is taken down, the dewy balm of the god begins to descend very heavily upon my eyelids.

Grant.--Come, then, let us to bed.

The next morning's sun found us all later in bed than usual. After breakfast we left the village, and winding down through the forest of tall pines that lies between it and the river, and crossing the ancient bridge, we left the Spey behind us, and climbed the old military mountain road that leads towards Tomantoul.

Clifford (stopping and looking back over the valley)--What a grand Highland prospect!

Grant.--How proudly the grim old castle domineers over the extended forests, and the country of which it is the lord paramount! Let us sit down on this green bank of velvet grass, and enjoy the view. See how happily that single touch of bright light falls on the Cumin's tower.

Clifford.--Well thought off. Talking of the Cumins, we must not allow you to leave us, Mr. Macpherson, without telling us the story of Gibbon More, to which you alluded at Castle Grant.

Dominie.--I must tell it to you now then, gentlemen; for I grieve to say that I must part from you at the top of the hill a little way farther on. So, if you have a mind to sit down and enjoy this refreshing breeze for a little time, I shall give you the legend in as few words as I can.

LEGEND OF GIBBON MORE CUMIN AND HIS DAUGHTER BIGLA.