CHAPTER XXIII.

THE COUSINS.--THE STORY CONTINUED.

Many years had glided thus away.

The summer of 1594 was at hand. Kenneth Logie was then twenty years of age, and his cousin was two years younger. Kenneth, a handsome and athletic lad, excelled in all the manly sports and exercises necessary to complete the education of a Scottish gentleman. But Lily! The bud had become a rose, the pretty child a beautiful woman; mild and happy, merry or pensive, by turns. Lily, in her eighteenth year, had indeed become the Lily of Logie--the Lily of the many songs in which her memory has been embalmed. Heaven never created a being more beautiful!

There are some women whom we admire for their dazzling skin; for their fine hair, or their sparkling eyes; for their dimpled hands, their handsome ankles, or their necks of snow; but in every point of form and feature fair Lily was admirable. She was one of those magnificent beings that appear but once in a century. She was then the wonder, as she is still the boast, of all Cromar and the Garioch.

Her violet-coloured eyes were soft and brilliant, but their lashes were of the darkest brown; and her hair was of that bright hue which alternates between auburn and gold, like the tresses attributed to Venus, or to Scotland's martyred Mary. Her feet and hands were small, but beautifully proportioned, and nothing could be more alluring than the sound of her sweet voice; nothing more attractive than the happy vivacity and brilliance of her manner, which was full of pretty retort and merry repartee.

Cousin Kenneth felt conscious that she was more than beautiful--that she was supremely innocent and good; and he loved her with a quiet depth of passion, which, as it was based on the most perfect feeling of security, knew no warp or interruption in its current. Though he still called her his "dear little wifie," a change had, of course, come over them since he had first been taught to say so; for now the time approached when she was to become--as he said--"his dear little bride in earnest."

Kenneth Logie was, more than ever, all the world to Lily! Save Halbert Gordon, she had never been intimately acquainted with any other man; and, though he was eminently handsome, there was a something in his air and in his aspect, that made her shrink from the man still more than she had shrunk from the boy. Yet Halbert was not without many external graces; he had a swarthy cheek and a dark fierce eye, with a strong and well knit figure. He carried a sword, which he used as if he had been born with it; he could ride the wildest horses, break the strongest lances, throw the heaviest hammers, and hit the most distant targets with the arrow or bullet; but there was a certain air about him, somewhat between the soldier and the bravo, that Kenneth never cared to imitate. Being laird of the moated Tower he was a lesser baron, and head of a branch of the house of Huntly, while poor Kenneth was but a penniless orphan, and in right of his future wife was destined to be merely the gudeman of Culbleine.

At county meetings, at weaponshows, at kirk or market, wherever Halbert presented himself, with a falcon on his dexter thumb, a sword and dagger in his belt, a velvet mantle dangling on his left shoulder; his doublet covered with lace, his bombasted trunk breeches and gold spurs, his bonnet slouched over his fierce and devil-may-care dark eyes--he enforced respect, and completely overshadowed the less assuming, but assuredly not less brave, Kenneth Logie, who was inoffensive and quiet, as the other was offensive and quarrelsome. Gordon was rakish and libertine; so old Jock of the Cleugh had every reason to be satisfied with his pupil, whom he had trained up in the path which he thought most proper for a gentleman and soldier to pursue. Thus, in his twentieth year, Gordon's stormy and licentious manners, together with his fierce disposition, made him a terror and a proverb in the quiet and pastoral district of Cromar.

Save in occasional rides or chance walks, he never now saw the Lily of Culbleine; for, although the chimneys of their dwellings were visible from each other's windows, difference of faith, and certain dark rumours, political and religious, which were then floating through Scotland, made still wider that gulf between "Catholic and Presbyterian" which had always separated their mothers as aliens and enemies. In short, an armed insurrection of the Scottish Catholics, to co-operate with a Spanish invasion of England, and to avenge the murder of Queen Mary, was hourly expected; and James VI., with the Calvinists of the kingdom, were watchful and on the alert. Thus, Gordon, though he cared not a rush for religion or any thing else when a pretty woman was concerned, was restrained from visiting as a man, the scenes where he had played as a boy, for his haughty soul could not brook the idea of being an intruder. In a word, this wild gallant loved Lily as he hated Kenneth, with his whole heart and his whole soul.

A region of fierce and sudden impulses, his breast knew but two sentiments; for one cousin, love--for the other, hatred; and both these sentiments were the offspring of an indomitable pride. The jealousy of the sullen boy had become the settled hatred of the haughty man; and the age was one when the bold Scot owned no laws save those which the heart dictated and the sword enforced.

In the gloomy solitude of his mother's Tower he brooded over these things, and envied Kenneth the society of a being so beautiful and so winning; for he knew--to his agony--that the cousins were ever together, where whilome they had played in childhood--that they read the same books--that they had still but one heart and one soul between them. The children had grown up into lovers, and he knew that, to them, a third companion would be intolerable.

Full of bitterness as these thoughts swelled up in his fiery and resentful heart, he would leap on horseback and gallop towards the Forest or the Lea, in the hope of obtaining a glimpse of Lily; and when he did see her--

"A thousand furies!" he would exclaim, and abruptly turn horse; "that puling ass is ever by her side!" Once he reined in his horse by the margin of the Dee, that it might drink of the gurgling stream. The place was beautiful. Cool and dark, deep and still, the river glided over its brown pebbles, and scarcely a sunbeam reached it through the thick foliage of that leafy glen, for overhead the trees entwined their branches like the arches of a vast cathedral; and the coo of the cushat-dove, or the voice of the mavis alone woke the echoing dingles. From gazing dreamily at the trout darting in the calm depth of the summer pool, the sound of voices made Gordon raise his head, and lo!

Kenneth Logie and his cousin Lily approached.

So full were they of themselves, and their own sweet conversation, that they never perceived Halbert, who, motionless as an equestrian statue, remained gazing at them with eyes that, like his heart, were full of fire. Fair Lily wore a dress of light blue silk, that charmingly became her bright and pure complexion; it had little white slashes, inlet at the shoulders; the wide and hanging sleeves displayed her dimpled elbows, and the snowy whiteness of her arms; she carried her hood in one hand, the other rested on the arm of Kenneth; and her hair, which fell like a shower of gold upon her neck and bosom, swept over his shoulder, when at times their heads were bent together. The sunbeams, as they darted through the summer foliage, gave an additional lustre to her hair and eyes; and, when she spoke or smiled, her mouth, from time to time, revealed the whiteness of her close and well set teeth.

The handsome youth who walked by her side seemed fully worthy of this alluring girl, for his tall strong figure appeared to the utmost advantage in a suit of green velvet, laced with Venetian gold; a black feather drooped from his bonnet; he had a rapier in his belt and a falcon on his wrist. Another sat on the hand of Lily, and the lovers were laughing merrily as they flirted their birds, making them peck at each other, scream, and flap their wings; for an old chronicler tells us, that at the Scottish court he was considered the most finished gallant who could make his falcon play most tricks with the falcon of a lady.

Their thoughts were wholly of that nearer and dearer relationship which they were soon to bear unto each other; and as Lily bent her pure white brow towards Kenneth's sunburnt cheek, she said more than once--

"Oh, cousin Kenneth! are we not the happiest beings in the world?"

"In our love for each other, we are, dearest Lily!"

"In every thing," and Kenneth assented by a kiss.

Their conversation was made up of those little nothings which are so charming to lovers, but which will neither bear to be written nor rehearsed.

These were as molten lead to the heart of the unhappy Gordon; and when he saw Lily smiling with joyous confidence as her favoured lover painted many a vision of happiness to come, he felt that with all his love--a love the stronger by its very hopelessness--he could have cursed her.

Like a vision they passed before him, and disappeared down a vista of the wood. His horse, which had raised its head as they passed, was again drinking placidly; the river was running on; the trees were rustling their green leaves overhead; but the miserable man remained as one entranced, and the sound of their voices--one so charming, the other so hateful--seemed to linger in his ear long after they were gone.

So much were they absorbed in each other, that they had never once observed him; and his suit, which was of scarlet laced with silver, was, he thought, assuredly conspicuous enough. Rage and fury filled his heart! But he had learned something of importance from their conversation as they passed, and on that information he resolved to act.

At six o'clock that evening, Lily Donaldson was to visit the miln of Newtoun on a mission of kindness to the miller's wife, who was suffering under a grievous illness; Kenneth was to meet her at the haugh by Deeside as she returned. Full of desperate and despairing thoughts, Gordon resolved to anticipate the lover, and, forcing his horse across the stream, he urged it up the steep and wooded bank, where never horse or man had ascended before, and rode straight back to his Tower among the morasses.

The bridge was up and the gates were shut, and such were the precautions taken to prevent ingress and surprise, that even he had some trouble in gaining admittance.

"What the devil is astir now--an English invasion? speak--thou--Jock of the Cleugh!" he said angrily, on seeing that the whole place was in the hurry of warlike preparation; that the barbican was strewn with swords and lances; that twenty horses showed their barbed heads at their stable doors, as if chiding his delay; that every man in the tower was busy in the furbishment of steel bonnets and corslets, or grinding pike-heads, sword-blades, and daggers.

"The Lords Argyle and Huntly are in arms," said Jock in a low whisper, as he limped close to his master, "and sae the Grole o' the Garioch maun mount and ride, ye ken."

"Right, Jock! God's heavy malison be on him who lingers in joining the gay Gordons!"

"The cock o' the north for ever!" added Jock, flourishing his wooden leg.

The fierce heart of young Gordon leaped with joy at these tidings. He had long looked for them; "and now the hour had come when he hoped," as he said, "to ride above his bridle in the blood of the accursed Calvinists," all of whom he embodied in the idea of Kenneth Logie. Ascending to the hall, which formed the first floor of the Tower, he found his stern and enthusiastic mother, excited by vengeful and religious hopes, in close council with Father Ogilvie, an itinerant priest of the Scottish mission, who, while encountering innumerable perils and the most severe poverty, travelled in disguise from one Catholic family to another. Garbed as a peasant, and looking like a buirdly farmer from the braes of Angus, in a canvass doublet and grey plaid, the priest was covered with dust, and, by the mud on his gambadoes, seemed to have ridden both fast and far that day.

"Joy, my son, Halbert--joy!" said his mother, while her eyes flashed fire.

"Welcome, my bairn," said the priest affectionately.

"So Huntly is in arms," said the young chieftain, with a kindling eye; "and is ready to sweep from Scottish ground the accursed brood of Knox and Calvin."

"Nay, my bairn," replied the old priest; "'tis Argyle who is in arms, with the Campbells, the Grants, and McGregors, 12,000 strong, and these are about to pour like a torrent down upon the Catholic lords. Thus, if all to whom the cross and the cause of Heaven are dear, delay to join Lord Huntly, the church of our fathers will sink even lower than Knox and Wishart levelled it."

"Halbert," said his mother, whose fierce spirit--for she was a Borderer--snuffed blood from afar; "in three hours ye will have twenty horsemen in their harness, and prepared to march."

"'Tis well," he replied through his clenched teeth, as he selected a sword and carbine from among the many that hung upon the wall; "but one word, good Father Ogilvie, where is the Lord Huntly's trysting-place?"

"His castle of Strathbogie, in the Garioch."

"In three hours then, mother, I will ride, to conquer or die with our chief and our kinsmen."

There was a ghastly smile on Halbert's lips, and a deep and dire intent was visible in his dark eyes, as he proceeded with the utmost care to fix a match in his carbine, and hummed the while a surly song--

"'When the Grole o' the Garioch Meet the bowmen of Lord Mar; Upon the hill of Bennochie, The Grole shall win the war!'

Ha--ha! mother, does not the old song say so?"

"My brave boy, I see there is determination on your brow," said the stern matron, as she kissed her haughty son.

"Yea, madam," said he, grinding his teeth, and with a voice that made even her start; "victory, vengeance, and death are in my heart." .........

The trysting-place beside the Dee was a most sequestered spot. In all the windings of that beautiful river, by haugh and strath, there was not a lonelier. Among the dense summer foliage of the old beech-trees, around whose gnarled trunks the thick dark ivy clambered, the cushat-doves were still cooing, while the black mavis and the merry merle sang on their topmost boughs. Among rocks overhung by the clustering Gueldre-roses, the sweet brier and the fragrant honeysuckle, the deep blue Dee was jarring in tiny waves, that every rock and pebble fretted into little bells of foam; while, numerous as the stars of the sky, the yellow buttercups, the wild violets, and white gowans spangled the bright green grass on which the dew was falling thick and fast; for it was evening now, and the last rays of the sun were giving a farewell gleam on the clustered chimneys of the old mansion of Culbleine, and the older spire of Logie kirk. The murmur of the gliding water, and the rustle of the shady branches, the perfume of the summer flowers, the voices of the happy birds, and the partial glimpses of the evening sun, all combined to make beautiful the trysting-place where fair Lily was to meet her lover-cousin, as she returned from the miln of Newtoun.

On her arm hung a little basket, in which she had conveyed to the sick wife of the miller the various comfits and medicaments the good old lady her mother had so carefully prepared. Her plaid, though fastened under her chin by a silver brooch, had fallen from her head, and permitted a shower of curls to fall over her shoulders--those golden curls, such as the early painters would have adored. There was a bloom on her rounded cheek, for exercise had imparted a rosy tinge to it, and a rich red to her smiling lip; while a clear light sparkled in her deep violet eyes, as she reached the place of tryst, and looked anxiously round for her lover.

"Kenneth!" she exclaimed, on seeing a tall cavalier leaning against the well-known tree, with a feather drooping over his eyes, and a mantle dangling over his left arm, which rested on the muzzle of a carbine; "dear Kenneth!"

He turned abruptly, and she beheld the olive face and dark glittering eyes of Halbert of the Tower.

"I am not Kenneth Logie," said he courteously, raising his bonnet as he slightly kissed her hand; "may I hope that I am not the less welcome to fair Lily of the Forest?"

"Oh, no!" said she, concealing the terror with which his presence inspired her; "why should you be unwelcome? Are you not my old playmate, and, save Kenneth, the oldest friend I have known!"

Gordon stamped his foot at the name of his rival.

"And as your playmate in older and happier times, fair Lily, I now come to bid you adieu; for I am going far from the woods of Logie and Culbleine, and all those scenes around which your presence casts a charm."

"For Flanders, where your poor father went before you?" she asked, with a mixed feeling between sorrowful interest and joy at this good riddance to the district; "to the wars of Low Germanie?"

"Nay--to wars certainly, but not so far off," he replied, with a deep smile.

"And you came to bid me adieu, my poor old friend! It is so kind of you, Master Halbert; but," she added suspiciously, "how knew you that I should be here at this hour?"

"Surely it was intuition, Lily--some happy, some divine presentiment!" He paused with something like confusion, and she glanced anxiously along the shady forest vista by which she expected Kenneth Logie to approach. Gordon drew off his long leather gauntlet, and took her soft small hand in his.

"He is going far away," she thought, and did not withdraw it.

"Lily," said he, "where I am going, and on what errand, matters not at present, for anon you will know all; but it is a mission of secresy, of danger, and of death--one from which I may never return; and I could not leave these, our native woods and glen, the hawthorn birks, and the bonnie brae of Logie, without saying how long, how well, and how deeply I have loved you--yea, loved you, Lily, from my boyhood upward. I cannot go forth, to die perhaps, with this long-treasured secret in my heart. I could not fall in battle happily, and have it buried with me, unconfessed, untold, and unheard. I know all you would urge," he added, sighing deeply, and speaking hurriedly; "Kenneth, your cousin--yes, yes--all say you love him; but such attachments should not be--they are within degrees forbidden by _the_ church; moreover, I cannot believe it! Oh! think well of the love I have to offer. Kenneth is the penniless orphan of a dowerless bride, and a poor younger son. In this world he possesses nothing; I am a lesser baron, with an estate here and another in Glencairn--my mother's inheritance. I can summon a hundred horsemen in time of need. The Lords of Badenoch, the Earls of Huntly and of Mar, have quartered their shields with mine; and in the storm which is at hand, when a sword may be in every Catholic hand, with its point at every Galvinist throat, you may find a worse protector than Halbert of the Tower; but nowhere in broad Scotland will ye find a better. Ponder, dearest Lily, over all I have said, for I must soon be gone, as time and tide will wait for no man."

Lily trembled excessively; she became pale, and endeavoured to release her hand from Gordon's, but his grasp tightened, and she struggled in vain.

"Think, think!" he continued; "think, Lily, from being the daughter of a bonnet-laird, a mere Gudenian of the Wood, I can make you a lady of that Ilk, and on the nameless bestow one of the best names in all the brave north countrie."

"Halbert Gordon," replied Lily with some asperity, "my father's name is as good as yours; and the wise Regent called him ever his leal man and true in the Douglas' wars."

"James Stuart--pho! a heretic and regicide!"

"He who speaks slightingly of my father's friends involves my father's honour, and cannot love me," replied Lily, endeavouring to free her hand.

"Thou wrongest me, and art unnecessarily angry, dearest Lily. I mean not to slight the gudeman, thy father's memory; but thou hast not yet answered me."

"Sir, I cannot answer while you detain me thus."

Gordon's dark eyes began to sparkle.

"You scorn me then---you?"

"Nay, nay, Heaven forbid! but remember, that even if I could love you--which is impossible--our religion--our religion! thou a Catholic--I a Calvinist!"

Gordon uttered a bitter laugh.

"Fair Lily," said he; "a time is coming (yea, it is at hand!) when such marriages will be as a boon from God to the accursed brood of Knox and Calvin--of Rough and Wishart; but once more, dearest Lily, hear me----"

"Impossible--impossible!"

"I am going far away from these green woods, from Strathdon and Strathdee, and I will have nothing of thee--of thee, I have loved so long to look upon. Give me but a tress, a ringlet, however small; a riband, a glove--a rag, a shred--oh Lily, Lily!--if you knew how I have loved you!"

"Halbert Gordon, it is improper to give such a gift--and impossible, too----"

"And why is it either improper or impossible?" he asked suddenly, confronting her with a cold and imperious aspect.

"Because," replied Lily, who trembled while she resented this lofty bearing; "because my heart is no longer my own, and oh, Halbert! you know that well."

Though this was quite the answer he expected, anguish distorted the brow, and fury glared in the eyes of Gordon; for there was something intensely exasperating in hearing such an avowal from her own beautiful lips. His mouth was compressed, and his dark eyes regarded her fixedly with a gloomy scrutiny.

Footsteps were heard approaching, and the clear clank of Rippon spurs, that jangled as the wearer strode through the echoing glade. A joyful expression spread over the face of fair Lily; but a spasm shot through the heart of Gordon, for he knew that he was no longer wanted there, and that Kenneth Logie approached.

Unable to confront this young man otherwise than as an enemy, and still more unable to endure his meeting with Lily, Gordon bestowed upon her a deep and inexplicable smile; threw his carbine into the hollow of his left arm, and, crossing the Dee, though its waters came up to his waist-belt, sprang up the opposite bank, and disappeared among the thick coppice that covered it.

"Fie, cousin Kenneth!" said Lily playfully, as she tapped him on the cheek with her pretty hand; "is it thus ye keep tryst?"

Kenneth had been late in meeting her, and, as he had not seen Gordon when approaching, he proposed that they should seat themselves by the bank of the stream to converse a little; and, agitated as she had been by her lucent painful interview, fair Lily gladly consented.

On the grassy brae, with the still water flowing at their feet, and the hawthorn spreading its white and fragrant branches above them, they conversed in low tones, with long pauses, for they were wrapped in the purest and dearest of dreaming. Lily soon forgot the terrible, the fixed regards of Halbert Gordon.

They knew not--those happy lovers--that from the opposite bank, and scarcely a pistol-shot distant, two fierce eyes were watching them.

I have said that Kenneth Logie was handsome, strong, and active; the bloom of twenty years was on his cheek, and his fine figure was displayed to advantage by the Scoto-French costume of the Lowlands. His blue velvet bonnet lay beside him, and his high white forehead, around which the dark hair curled in heavy locks, was bare. He was all that a young girl dreams of in her future lover; and his eyes, by turns expressive of pride, tenderness, and impetuosity, were bent fondly on the golden-haired fairy that sat by his side--she, whose ringlets poured like a shower upon his breast, and whose soft violet eyes were raised to his, from, time to time, with appeals of confiding tenderness; for he was the friend of her earliest memory, and all her affections, and all her thoughts and hopes, were entwined with his idea and his name.

And so it was with Kenneth; for the opinions, the feelings, the sentiments of Lily, had ever been but the mirror of his own; and again and again, by those glances which never pencil drew nor pen portrayed, he told her that she was dearer to him than all the world beside.

So they dreamed on, this pure and happy pair of loving hearts; the old oaks shook their rustling leaves above them; the hawthorn put forth its sweet perfume, and the Dee murmured complacently by.

Oh, they were so happy! so united--so one in thought, in heart, and impulse!

Reclined on Kenneth's breast, Lily lay half embraced and half entranced, with her eyes fixed on the still waters of the flowing stream, and the thick green coppice, which cast a shadow on its surface. Suddenly her eyes dilated with terror; her breast heaved; a voiceless cry arose to her lips, and died there.

The brass muzzle of a carbine glittered among the thick alders opposite; and a fierce eye glared along the polished barrel. She had only time to utter a shriek, and throw herself as a shield before Kenneth, when a red flash broke from among the green leaves; the report rang with a hundred reverberations in the copsewood glen, and the beautiful Lily Donaldson fell on the bosom of her lover, a corpse, with blood flowing in a torrent from her lips.

Who could paint the terror, the despair, of Kenneth?

With glaring eyes and outstretched arms, he stood for a moment like a statue of horror. His first impulse was to dash across the stream; to pierce the thicket, and reach the heart of her destroyer; his second to fling himself by her side, and endeavour to recall the life which had too surely fled for ever.

Entering her left shoulder, the ball intended for _his_ heart had pierced that of Lily, and her pure spirit had departed to its Creator.

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From that hour poor Kenneth was a sad and silent mourner.

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