CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GROWTH OF LOVE AND HOPE.

The lady of my love resides Within a garden's bound; There springs the rose, the lily there And hollyhock are found. An instant on her form I gazed, So delicately white; Mild as a tender lamb was she, And as the red rose bright. LAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to inform the reader that, thanks to the delay caused by Juden's cunning or superstition, Lord Clermistonlee's intended seizure of Lilian Napier had been attempted an hour too late. This was indeed fortunate. Had it been made earlier, blood and blows and loss of life must have undoubtedly ensued.

Exactly one hour before the unexpected visit which ended in the destruction of Elsie's cottage, and nearly terrifying the poor woman out of her senses, her late guests had all departed in one of those vast and solemn hackney equipages (before described) which crawled away over the Burgh muir like the mighty catafalco of a deceased hero, past the end of the still and waveless Burghloch, and up the dark and gloomy avenue of Bruntisfield, after being nearly an hour in traversing, a space which any modern cab will carry one over in three minutes. Like a true gallant of the day, Walter Fenton stood on the footboard behind, while Hab with his matchlock slung, shared the driver's ample hammer-cloth, so that the ladies and their attendant Meinie (whose delight and wonder at being in such a vehicle must be duly commemorated) were pretty safe from those bold lads of the post who prowled about after nightfall with sword and pistol, making every unarmed citizen who chanced to pass that way, stand and deliver cloak and purse with so cavalier an air, that it was almost impossible to refuse.

With as much formality as if she was entering a conquered city, Lady Grizel received the keys of the barbican gate from her ground-baillie Syme, of the Greenhill, who, bareheaded, with three stout sons, bearing torches, and several of the old servants who had found shelter in Syme's onsteading, and whose clamorous joy burst forth in loud pæans of triumph, as she was led by the baillie into the old baronial chamber of dais, the canopy of which, to the simple "tenant bodies" of those days, was fraught with more terrors than the chair of the Lord President Lockhart.

"A thousand welcomes to your Ladyship," said Symon, bowing profoundly for the twentieth time.

"Thanks, Symon," replied Lady Bruntisfield, giving him her hand to kiss. "I hope your gude wife is well, and that your youngest bairn got over its hooping cough by the means I prescribed."

"My lady, wi' the advice o' a barber-chirurgeon----"

"A barber-guse! did I not tell ye to pass that afflicted bairn three times through a blackberry bush, whilk is an infallible remedy--but I'll see after it mysel to-morrow."

Lilian wept and laughed, and gave her hands to the servants to kiss, for her heart beat as joyously to find herself under the old ancestral roof, as if she had doubled Cape Horn since she last saw it. She kissed grand-aunt Grizel, and rushed from one dark and silent apartment to another, as if to gladden them by her happy presence, and looked forth with beaming eyes on the waving woods and the long expanse of the placid lake, whose dark bosom gave back the light of a thousand stars, and anon she paused to listen to that old familiar sound, the cawing of the rooks amid those great hereditary oaks, the remnants of the vast forest of Drumsheugh, which, in the days of St. David, surrounded the city and its castle on every side.

Meantime, standing under the old velvet canopy, and leaning on her walking-cane, Lady Grizel was listening with a kindling eye and glowing cheek to her ground-baillie, who poured forth a dismal and exaggerated report of the extortions and outrages committed on her tenantry by Capt. Crichton's troop of the Grey Dragoons, who had carried off all the baillie's own grain, "whilk he had laid up for seed; they had taken the best cow, and a notable nowte from the gudeman of Netherdurdie, and nae less than three bonnie servitor lassies frae the farmtoun of Drumdryan; they had toomed every corn-ark, meal-girnel, and beer-barrel in the barony, forby and attour, extorting riding-money three times owre wi' cockit carbines!" It was a lamentable story, and three energetic taps from the Lady Grizel's cane closed the tale.

She, however, found her own mansion scatheless, save where several drawers and lock-fast places had been forced and damaged during the search of Macer Maclutchy and other underlings in authority, for treasonable papers (and more especially loose cash), while in the cellars an empty runlet or two, and empty flasks in such number that Drouthy the butler surveyed them in silence for ten minutes before he began to swear and count them--bore evidence of the strict search which Sergeant Wemyss and his musqueteers had prosecuted in the lower regions of the house. The news of their lady's return spread to the Home-grange and neighbouring cottages like wildfire, and, half dressed, the good people came crowding to the mansion testifying by repeated acclamations their joy at her return and restoration to rank; for, save the honoured, envied (and, from that moment, hated) Elsie Elshender, none knew where she had been concealed for the past month. It was generally thought that she had fled to England, to the "Lowlands of Holland," or some other "far awa place." The affection which the Scottish tenantry ever manifested for the old families on whose lands they dwelled, whose banner their ancestors had followed, with whose name and fame, and hope, and happiness, or misfortune, their own were so interwoven, and under the wing of whose protection so many generations of their race had lived and died, was a noble sentiment of the purest love peculiar to the nation. It knit together in a manner which we cannot now conceive, the interests of the highest and the lowest--a remnant of the good old patriarchal times, which strongly marked the character of the people, and, like the endearing ties of clanship, was very different from the feudal tyranny that existed in other lands.

Late though the hour, the old house was crowded with glad faces; casks of ale were set abroach by Mr. Drouthy, and every ruddy cheek became flushed with joy and the brown October beverage; every eye was bright and moist; a buzz of happiness pervaded the spacious mansion, and rang in the dark woods around it. But midnight passed; the morning waxed apace, and now the baillie rang the household bell, as a warning for all to retire, and, making an obeisance, bonnet in hand, he set the example by trotting away on his plump Galloway cob.

Walter Fenton, as he had no excuse, (though every wish,) to stay, would have retired with the rest; but this Lady Grizel's hospitality would by no means permit; he remained without much pressing, and after the parting or sleeping cup had been passed round, they separated for the night, and Walter, in the same apartment which had witnessed his combat with Captain Napier, lay down on his couch, not to sleep, but to brood over bright and joyous visions of the future that were never to be realised. One moment his heart glowed with unalloyed rapture and unclouded hope; and the next he was half despairing when he compared his humble fortune with that of Lilian. His whole inheritance was military service: of his family he knew nothing but their name. He was a child of war and misfortune; and these, more than he could foresee, were to be his companions through life. He was poor and obscure; while Lilian, with her artless beauty and girlish sweetness of manner, inherited the name and blood of one of the oldest and proudest houses in the Lowlands--barons to whom the Prestons of Gourton, the Kincaids of Warriston, and the Toweris of that ilk, were but mushroom citizens; and when he pictured the grey old mansion which sheltered him, so tall, so grim, and aristocratic in aspect and association, and the many acres of fertile field, of grassy pasture, and bosky wood that stretched around it, and weighed in the balance his half-pike......

Lovers are the most able of all self-tormentors. His horizon became fearfully overcast, and his bright visions seemed to end in smoke, till hope came again to his aid. Poor Walter! he was now fairly in love, and for the first time; his heart was unhackneyed in the ways of the world, and he knew not that the time might come when, with an inward smile, he would wonder that he ever thought so. But between his own anxious fears, the cawing of the rooks and creaking of the turret vanes, grey morning began to brighten the far off east before he slept.

With the first blush of dawn, old Elspat Elshender arrived with a confused but lamentable history of the disasters and terrors of the night--of how she had been carried away by the devil and Major Weir on a high trotting horse--how claps of thunder had rung around her cottage, and lightning consumed it--and that it was not until she was able to repeat the Lord's Prayer that they assumed the forms of Lord Clermistonlee and his hellicate butler, Juden Stenton, and thereafter vanished in a flash of fire, leaving Elsie among the nettles and whins at the avenue gate.

Lady Bruntisfield, who, seated in her arm-chair, cane in hand, had listened to this wonderful narrative with great gravity, was at no loss to attribute the enterprise to the proper personages, and though the indignation she felt was very great, her alarm and uneasiness were greater. She now saw to what lengths the passion and daring of this rash and profligate suitor might carry him. In consequence of his rank and power, (which the complaints of a hundred old women could never shake,) it was deemed expedient to commit the affair to silence, but to be on their guard, and in future never to go abroad without an armed escort--composed of old Syme the baillie and his sons, or some such stout fellows, with sword and pistol. Meantime, the burning of the cottage (a loss which Elsie deeply mourned, for there she had dwelt a wife and widow for more than forty years,) was attributed by some to the outcast Cameronians who lurked among the whins of Braid, and by others to certain malicious spunkies who then inhabited the morasses to the westward.

At a late hour next morning Walter awoke. It was now the month of April. The sun shone warmly from a bright blue sky streaked with fleecy clouds that gleamed like masses of gilded snow, as his radiance streamed aslant between them. The grass and the budding trees were heavy with dew, and the merry birds were chirruping and hopping from branch to branch, as if their little hearts rejoiced at the approach of summer. The ravenous gled and the ominous rook were soaring on their dark wings into the azure sky, and their light shadows floated over the still bosom of the loch, scaring the lonely heron that waded in its waters, till piercing up, and farther up they grew mere specks in the welkin, as they flew towards the rising sun. The old mansion, with its tall smoky chimneys and projecting turrets, gleamed cheerily in the red sunlight that streamed down the long shady avenue, where myriads of gad-flies wheeled and revolved in the golden beams as they pierced and shot through the thickening foliage--thickening and expanding under the warm showers and warmer sun of April, the balmy month of fresh leaves and opening flowers, of fleecy clouds and bright blue skies.

The beauty of the spring morning, and the passages of the preceding night, made Walter feel joyous and gay. At his toilet he took more than usual care in folding his cravat of point lace, hooking his coat, of tight and spotless buff, with its bars of silver lace, and in twisting his smart moustachios. His thick dark locks escaped from under a bonnet of blue velvet, adorned with the cross of St. Andrew and a single white feather. His breeches were of red regimental cloth, and his stockings of scarlet silk. A gorget of bright steel, and a long basket-hilted rapier, suspended by a buff shoulder-belt, were his only arms, and he was altogether a handsome and gallant-looking fellow. With a light step, and a lighter heart, he followed the servant, who ushered him into the chamber of dais, where Lilian arose from tinkling on the spinnet, and running towards him with that delightful frankness which made her so charming, bade him good morning.

For the first time since they were children, he found himself alone with her, and the young man felt seriously embarrassed. Lilian seemed so fresh, rosy, and beautiful, the touch of her hand was so gentle and graceful, and the purity of her complexion so dazzling, (exhibiting just enough of red to shew perfect health,) that she might have passed for the goddess of the season. The richness and neatness of her dress did full justice to her round and charming person; a well busked boddice and stomacher of black taffeta, edged round the fair and budding bosom with a deep tucker of rich lace, and short sleeves frilled with deep falls of the same revealed her round and spotless arm, from the dimpled elbow to the slender waist. Her bright glossy hair (Meinie had found her very difficult to please in its arrangement that morning) rolled over her shoulders in massive tresses, perfumed, and tied with a white ribbon, which drew them back from her delicate temples and beautiful ears. A carcanet of Scottish pearls--those found of old on the rocks of Orrock--encircled her neck, and a long sweeping skirt of black satin gave a stateliness to her air, which with the admirable contour of her nose and short upper lip, by their noble yet piquant expression, completed. Her blue eyes were beaming with delight, and a half blush played about her cheek as she glided towards Walter Fenton.

"My dear old friend," said she, after the usual compliments, "I hope you slept well in this poor house of ours, notwithstanding the ghosts that make it their special business to plague all visitors; but after the turmoil of last night, I can hardly doubt it."

"The redness of your cheek, gentle Lilian, shows me that you must have slumbered soundly, and have quite recovered the terrors of the last few weeks."

"O no, I scarcely slept at all, or did so only to dream I was still at poor Elsie's, hiding in the meal girnel. My head is buzzing still with the clamour of the tenantry (are they not all dear folks?) and old Syme of the Hill, with his doleful catalogue of enormities, stoutrief and hamesucken committed by the troopers; and then poor old Elsie with her mishaps! Ah, good Heavens! if it was really the devil that ran off with her! But were not the poor vassals happy last night? O I could have kissed every one of them; and I am so happy, Mr. Fenton, to find myself under this dear old roof again, that I could dance with glee if you would join me. But you, who were so kind when greater friends shunned and forgot us, you who have endured so much contumely for our sake, how can we ever recompense or thank you?"

"By ceasing to remember it as an obligation. O rather view it as a duty!" said Walter, in a low voice. "Madam Lilian, often ere this, I have by intentional remissness of duty, saved many an unfortunate from the dungeon and the cord. But they were poor Recusant Cameronians whose escape was valued as little as their lives.

"As nurse Elsie says, these are indeed fearful times," replied Lilian, laughing; "but truly, when I remember the kind and gentle little Walter I used to play with long ago, I think you must be much too tender hearted for soldiering."

"Under favour, Lilian," said Walter, feeling his heart flutter as she spoke, "a true soldier is ever compassionate; and the hand that strikes down a foe should be the first to succour and protect him when fallen. I am too well aware that in these days of religious persecution and political misrule, the Scottish soldier is often, too often indeed, the instrument----"

"Hush, friend Walter! art not afraid I will betray thee? Have you forgotten that horrid vault, the Tolbooth, and its grim Gudeman?"

"Ah, the rascally clown, I have a crow to pluck with him yet; but I was only about to say, that in these days of ours----"

"Ah, you are about to speak treason again," said she playfully. "I mean to be very loyal, and must not permit you, although there are none here who would betray you, unless it be the old corbies that croak on the chimney head. But come with me, and I will show you their nests in some strange places, I promise you; and I have flowers to visit, and my pigeons too, poor pets! I once thought never to behold them again. Come, Mr. Fenton, your hand; how beautiful the morning is!"

Charmed with her vivacity, Walter became every moment more delighted with Lilian Napier. With a very cavalier-like air which he had acquired among his Parisian comrades of the Musqueteers, who had returned from the French to the Scottish service only ten years before, he hastened to give her his ungloved hand, and they sallied forth into the garden, where the deep rows of Dutch boxwood that edged the walks, the leaden statues of satyrs, swains, and shepherdesses, the gravelled terraces and flights of steps, the old mossy sun and moon dial, and the fantastic arbours, were all in admirable keeping with the quaint old manor house that towered above them. Old John Leekie, the gardener, clad in his coarse sky-blue coat, and long ribbed galligaskins, reverently doffed his broad bonnet, and bowed his lyart head, as his young mistress passed, and patting his shoulder with her hand, bade him a "good morning." The old man's eye brightened as he surveyed the garb and bearing of Walter Fenton, and continued his occupation of hoeing up the early kail, with a sigh;

"For he thought of the days that were long since by, When his limbs were strong, and his courage was high:"--

and when he rode in the iron squadrons of the loyal Hamilton and stern Leslie.

"Gentle Lilian," said Walter, colouring deeply as he gazed on the fine old mansion, the walls of which were quite encrusted with coats armorial and quaint legends, "it is when surveying so noble a dwelling as this that I feel most bitterly how hardly fortune has dealt with me."

"Tush, friend! hast never got the better of those old glooms and fancies yet? Read the motto over yonder window; ah! 'tis my dressing-room that," said the lively girl, pointing to a distich in Saxon characters, which was one of the many that adorned the edifice.

"Quhen Adam delved and Eve spanne, Quhair war a' the gentlis than?"

"It is very true; but I, who am a soldier, cannot think of those things like a philosopher."

"Then do not think of them at all."

"How numerous are the coats and quarterings here! there is the eagle of the Ramsays, the unicorns of the Prestons, and the saltier of Napier."

"But, Mr. Walter, do you know that Aunt Grizel asserts there is an ancient prophecy which says, that like the Scottish crown, the fortune of our house came with a lass, and will go with one."

"Indeed!" rejoined Walter, considerably interested, "its fortune?"

"That is--you must understand--you know that," and here poor Lilian became seriously embarrassed, "that it came to the Napiers by marriage from the Wrytes, and by marriage it will go to others."

Walter's heart fluttered; he was about to say something, but the words died on his lips, and there ensued a silence of some minutes; Lilian, who sometimes became very reserved, being abashed by what she had said, and Walter stupidly pondering over it. Lilian was the first to speak.

"See you that old corbie on the branch of the dale tree, that horrid branch, all notched by the ropes of old executions?"

"He with the bald head now watching us?"

"The same: what think you Aunt Grizel says? He saw my great grandsire and his train in all their harness, ride down the avenue when they marched with brave King James to Flodden."

"By that reckoning he must be--let me see--one hundred and seventy-five years old."

"O, there are some older than that hereabouts; but come to the dovecot, and there we shall see birds of brighter plumes and better augury than these gloomy corbies."

As they approached the dovecot, a round edifice vaulted and domed with stone in the most ancient Scottish fashion, a tame pigeon winged its way from amid the scores that clustered on the roof, and after fluttering for a time over Lilian's head, alighted on her shoulder and nestled in her neck, rubbing its smooth and glossy head against her soft cheek, and even permitting Walter to stroke its shining pinions, which in the sunlight varied alternately from green to purple, and from purple to red and gold. On each leg it had a silver varvel with Lilian's cypher on it. As Walter caressed the beautiful bird, his hand often touched the soft cheek and softer tresses of the happy and thoughtless girl.

"How properly this gentle emblem of innocence and happiness greets you as its mistress."

"And am I not its proper mistress?" asked Lilian artlessly. "It is the bird of peace, too."

"And love--so that it well becomes the hand of beauty."

"Ah! you are beginning to be waggish now. It is just so that your friend Douglas of Finland--he with the flaunting feathers--addresses my gay gossip, Annie Laurie. You know Annie? She is considered the first beauty in the Lothians, and 'tis said (but that is a great secret, and you must not say I said so) that the young lairds of Craigdarroch and Finland are going to fight a solemn duel about her. She is much taller than me."

"Then she is too tall for my taste."

"Oh! but I am quite little; you used to call me little Madam Lily once. But her hair is the most beautiful brown."

"I prefer," said Walter, taking up one of Lilian's heavy tresses, "I prefer the colour that approaches to gold."

"And her eyes are just like mine."

"They must be beautiful indeed."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the merry girl: "harkee, Mr. Fenton, did I not know positively to the contrary, I would think you had been in France."

"Wherefore, Madam?"

"Because," said she, roguishly, with half-closed eyes, "you twist all one's speeches into compliments so readily and bluntly, and so quite unlike our douce Scots' gallants (who always let slip the opportunity while they are making up their minds), that you quite remind me of Monsieur Minuette, who came here with the Duke of York. Ah, you remember him, with his long sword--how like a grasshopper on a pin he looked; and he tried stoutly with his frightful rigadoon and the bretagne, to put our good old Scottish dances into the shade, and so out of fashion. And yet Aunt Grizel says that, to see the Lady Anne (she that is now princess of Denmark), so tall and stately, and Claverhouse, so graceful and courtly, dancing the Italian vault-step, enraptured every body. O, it it was quite a sight.--But there jangles the house-bell, and now let us hie to breakfast."

Once more she placed her hand in Walter's, and they returned to the chamber of dais, where Lady Bruntisfield, no longer disguised in the humble attire of a cottar, but in all her pristine splendour of perfumed brocade, and starched magnificence of point lace and puffed locks frizzled up like a tower on her stately head, welcomed Walter with a courtesy of King Charles the First's days, and kissed her grandniece.

After a long and solemn grace, the repast began. The most substantial breakfast of these degenerate days would dwindle into insignificance when compared with that which loaded the long oaken table of Bruntisfield House. In the centre smoked a vast urn of coffee, surrounded by diminutive cups of dark-blue china, flanked on the right by a side of mutton roasted, on the left by a gigantic capon; a dish of wild ducks balanced another of trout, both being furnished by the adjacent loch; broiled haddocks, pickled salmon, kippered herrings, pyramids of eggs, and piles of oat and barley-cakes; wheaten loaves and crystal cups of honey were also there; but chief above all towered a vast tankard of spiced ale; beside it stood a long-necked bottle of strong waters to whet the appetite, lest through the eyes it should fairly become satisfied by the mere sight of so many edibles.

At the lower end of the board, the servants were accommodated with bickers and cogues of porridge and milk, which they supped with cutty-spoons of black horn, while two mighty trenchers of polished pewter held the magazines from which they drew their supplies. The custom of domestics sitting at the same table with their superiors was then almost obsolete; but Lady Grizel, whose memories and prejudices went back to the days of King James VI., still retained the ancient fashion, and consequently all her household sat down with her, save two old serving-men in green livery, with her crest on their sleeves: these were in attendance each as an _écuyer tranchant_, or cutting squire. On the party being joined by the ground bailie, Syme of the Greenhill, who, in consequence of his being a bonnet-laird, was permitted to sit above the salt, the important business of making breakfast proceeded with all the gravity and attention such a noble display deserved. Cheerful and good-humoured, though punctilious to excess, like every noble matron of her time, Lady Grizel Napier did the honours of the feast with that peculiar grace which makes a guest feel so much at home. She never once recurred to late events, but conversed affably on the topics of the day, like Lilian, investing little trifles with an air of interest that made them quite new and charming to Walter; for though aged and failing fast, she still possessed that art so agreeable in a well-bred woman, that even when she talked nonsense, one could scarcely have thought it so; and certainly, when witches, spells, and ghosts were the theme, the wise and gentle King James himself was nothing to her in credulity.

"Symon, I hope ye obeyed my injunctions to the letter, in the affair o' your bairn's hooping-cough," said the old lady, who took an active hand in all the family matters of her vassalage.

"Faith did I, my Lady, but found the wee thing no' a hair the better of it. It is an unco trouble, the cough, but Lucky Elshender says, gif I put my forefinger down the bairn's throat for fifteen minutes, it will never cough mair."

"I'll warrant it o' that," said the old lady, scornfully; "but how dare she prescribe for any bairn on the barony without consulting me? I'll gang o'er in the gloaming and see about it."

"Mony thanks to your Ladyship."

An air or two on the virginals, and Lady Anne Bothwell's touching _Lament_ performed at full length by Lilian in her sweetest manner concluded the visit, and Walter reluctantly prepared to retire. Lady Bruntisfield and Lilian departed in their sedans with two armed servants before and two behind them, to pay a most ceremonious visit of thanks to Lord Dunbarton and his beautiful Countess, and Fenton, after accompanying them to the arch of the Bristo Port, left them to the care of their retinue, and receiving a warm invitation to visit them soon again, pursued his way in a maze of stirring thoughts through the steep wynds, narrow closes, and crowded streets of the city to his sombre quarters in the Canongate.