CHAPTER I.

LILIAN.

I love thee, gentle Knight! but 'tis, Such love as sisters bear; O, ask my heart no more than this, For more it may not spare. KNIGHT TOGGENBURG.

The image of Clermistonlee and his threats came painfully upon Lilian's memory. She shrieked for aid, but her cries were lost in the vacuity of the old-fashioned coach in which she was being carried off. She strove to open the windows, but they were immoveable as those of a castle, and she resigned herself to tears and despair. The vehicle was rumbling and jolting over a waste of frozen snow; here and there, a farm-house or a congealed rivulet were passed, but everything appeared so strange and new, when viewed in their snowy guise by the twilight of the mirky winter night, that Lilian had not the most remote idea in what direction she was taken; and, shuddering with cold and apprehension, the poor girl crouched down in a corner of the coach, and abandoned herself to grief and wretchedness.

The excessive chill of the night, and prostration of spirit under which she laboured, produced a sort of stupor, and when the coach stopped, she was unable to move; but a tall dark man, muffled and masked like an intriguing gallant of the day, lifted her out. As one in a dream, who would in vain elude some hideous vision, she attempted to shriek; but the unuttered cry died away on her lips, and she closed her eyes. A strong embrace encircled her; a hot breath--(was it not a kiss?)--came upon her cold cheek, and she felt herself borne along; doors closed behind her, and by the warmth of the altered temperature she was aware of being within a house.

She was seated gently in a chair; and now she looked around her. A large fire of roots was blazing on the rough stone-hearth; its ruddy glow rendered yet more red the bare walls and strongly arched roof of a hall (built of red sandstone) such as may be seen in the old fortlets of the lesser barons of Scotland. The windows on each side were deeply embayed by the thickness of the wall, and a deep-browed arch spanned each; they had stone seats covered with crimson cushions, and foot-mats of plaited rushes.

The hurrying clouds and occasional stars were seen through the strong basket-gratings that externally defended these prison-like apertures. The hall was paved, and its rude massive furniture consisted only of a great oblong table of oak, several forms or settles, a few high-backed chairs, and one upon a raised part of the floor, at the upper end, had a canopy of crimson cloth over it, announcing that it was the state-chair of the Lord of the Manor. Swords, pikes, harquebuses, hunting and hawking appurtenances, with a few veiled pictures, were among its ornaments.

A great almery, or cupboard (so called from the old hospitable custom of setting aside food as _alms_ for the poor), occupied one end of the apartment, and an ancient casque surmounted it. Various bunkers of carved oak, bound with iron, occupied the other. On the right hand of the doorway, a stone lavatory, covered with magnificent sculpture projected from the wall. This old-fashioned bason was furnished with a hole to carry off water, and was an indispensable convenience to every ancient dining-hall.

With one rapid glance of terror Lilian surveyed the whole place, and started from her chair to be confronted by one whose aspect made her instinctively shrink back. The keen and hawk-like eyes of Beatrix Gilruth were fixed upon her with an expression at once menacing, searching, and scornful. There was something in the wild visage of this inexplicable woman that excited curiosity, while her air terrified, and her withered person repelled approach.

"Who are you, woman?" asked Lilian firmly, as, stepping back a pace, she surveyed her from head to foot; "and what are you?"

"_What_ am I?" reiterated the other, with a voice that thrilled, while her grey eyes gleamed with a blue light, and she ground her teeth. "I am what thou shalt be, my pretty minx, ere ye leave these walls, perhaps."

Lilian, terrified by her aspect and her answer, sank into a chair, saying, as she clasped her hands, and looked up imploringly from her bright dishevelled hair--

"Woman, for the love of God, say where am I?"

"In the tower of Clermistonlee."

"So my soul foreboded; but can _he_ have dared thus far?"

"What will he not dare that man can do?"

"O Heaven, protect me!"

"Neither the Heaven that is above us, nor the Hell that is beneath, will protect you, pretty one; but you will be made what many as fair have been,--the toy, the plaything of an hour, to be cast aside when some new fancy has seized the wayward mind of your lord and betrayer. Look at that veiled portrait----"

At that moment three distinct knocks were heard against the almery. Lilian started and turned pale.

"Yes, yes," said Beatrix scornfully, addressing the knocker; "you are impatient. There was a time--but it matters not--I bide mine; and my long delayed vengeance will wither thee up, false lord, even as if the lightning of God had scorched thy perjured soul."

Low as this was uttered, it reached the ears of Lilian; she became doubly terrified, and a momentary feeling of utter abandonment made her cover her face with her hands and weep bitterly. But, suddenly starting up, she said with energy--

"I will go hence, madam; and whatever be the danger, I will risk it. But the snow, the darkness, and the distance--oh, horror!--Aunt Grisel--gossip Annie--what will they think of this?--what will become of me?"

"Stand," said Beatrix, interposing. "Are you mad, to think of leaving this roof in the middle of a winter night? Remember the dreary lea of Clermiston, the rocks and the frozen marshes of Corstorphine, you are fey, maiden, to think it."

"Begone, thou ill woman," replied Lilian contemptuously; "I will go, and I dare thee to stay me."

"Then," rejoined Beatrix spitefully, "remember the barred windows, the bolted gates, and the good stone walls. Pooh, maiden, take tent and bide where ye are; for I swear ye can never go from hence, but at the pleasure of my lord."

"Insolent! Know ye who I am?" asked Lilian.

"The young lady of Bruntisfield," answered Beatrix coldly; "a wayward lass with a braw tocher, it seemeth,--one who prefers a younger cap and feather than my lord. Ha! hath he not sworn--(and mark me, maiden, he never swears in vain!)--that he will compel thee yet to beg his love at his hand as a boon, even as humbly as he now sues thine."

"In sooth!" retorted Lilian, with angry surprise. "He will surely have the aid of some such witch as thee to work so modern a miracle."

"Witch, quotha!" replied Beatrix, whose withered cheek began to redden with passion. "Lilian Napier, there was a time when these grey grizzled locks were once as bright and as glossy as thine; when this brow was as smooth, this faded form as round, yea, and as beautiful; this step as light, and this poor face as fair, as thine now are. So beware thee of taunts, maiden; for the time is coming (if thou art spared) when thou mayest be loathsome as I now am, and loathing as I now do. That hour is coming; for Clermistonlee hath an evil eye, beneath whose baleful influence all that is good and beautiful in woman will wither and die. Oh! Lilian Napier, what a tale of love and weakness, shame and misery, sin and horror, would the history of my life reveal! But my hour of revenge is coming. Yes----"

Again three knocks louder than before rang on the almery; and Beatrix, trembling, ceased to talk, and busied herself in laying a supper on the hall-table.

"Oh, Walter! Walter!" murmured Lilian, "if you knew of this--if you were here to protect me!" Her tears flowed freely.

"Walter!" reiterated Beatrix musing; "can it really be the same? No, it is impossible; and yet, why not?--He is your lover, then, this Walter?" she asked in a low voice, while laying some cold grilled meat, confections, and wine from a buffet. "I know he is--that blush tells me (when did my cheek blush last?) He is young and handsome, I warrant?"

Lilian nodded an affirmative.

"And men say he is brave?"

"Oh, yes! brave as a hero of romance," said Lilian in the same low tone; for there is nothing so pleasing to love as to hear the object of it praised. "And so noble--so generous! If true worth gave a title, my dear Walter would be a belted Earl."

"Instead of being a poor standard-bearer in the ranks of Dunbarton."

"You have seen him then?" said Lilian, her blue eyes beaming, as she almost forgot her present predicament in the thought of her lover. "Is he not handsome, good woman?"

"It is the same!" exclaimed Beatrix, in her shrillest tone. "Walter, the powder-boy--the soldier's brat--hah!"--she ground her teeth, and clenched her shrivelled hands like knots of serpents--"I bide my time. Oh, I will be fearfully avenged!"

A third time there was a knocking on the almery, and Beatrix muttered--

"I am dumb--I will speak no more."

She pointed to the supper-table, and, throwing herself into a chair, fixed her sunken eyes upon the red glowing fire, and, lost in her own wild thoughts, continued to jabber with the rapidity and restlessness of insanity. It was evident that she was partly deranged,--a discovery which, while it raised the pity of the gentle Lilian, increased the dread and the horror of her situation.

Clermistonlee, with his faithful rascal Juden, were both within earshot. The former had sufficient tact and experience to know that it would be better to defer any interview with Lilian until next morning, by which time he hoped she would be a little more familiarised with her situation; and leaving Juden, who was ensconced in the recesses of the almery, to be a check upon the troublesome garrulity of his only female domestic, he retired to a snug apartment, where, enveloped in his shag dressing-gown, and comforted by a great tankard of his favourite mulled sack, and several books of "ungodly jests," he practised all his philosophy to enable him to endure this temporary separation from Lilian, consoled by the idea that she was completely in his clutches, within his strong tower, which he was entitled to defend against all men living; and well aware that, in the political storm which in another week would convulse all Scotland from the Cheviots to Cape Wrath, the abduction of a girl--more especially the daughter of a "persecuting cavalier"--would be less regarded than the wind blowing over the muir.

As the still, quiet night wore on, and the fumes of the wine mounted into his head, very strange ideas floated through the brain of the roué. Again and again the thought of Lilian being so utterly in his power intruded itself upon his heated imagination; he felt his blood begin to glow; his mind became confused; he endeavoured to combat his constitutional wickedness, and, by aid of his repeated potations, and a highly seasoned grillade, dozed away the night very comfortably in a well-cushioned chair; while his leal henchman was in the same happy state of oblivion, through the medium of various stoups of ale which he imbibed in the spence or buttery.

Not so did poor Lilian pass the slow and heavy hours.

The repast prepared for her was left untouched, she resisted every invitation to repose, and resolved on passing the night by the hall-fire; until, reflecting that she would be quite as safe in one part of the tower as in another, and wishing to be alone, that she might weep unseen, she was ushered by Beatrix up a narrow stair into a little sleeping apartment, the greater part of which was occupied by a great hearse-looking tester, or canopy bed. The only light in the chamber came from the fire-place, where a heap of logs and coals were blazing, and diffusing a warm glow on the dark wainscotted walls, the oaken floor, and rude ceiling, which was crossed by a massive dormant-tree of oak, covered with grotesque and hideous carving.

There was something very gloomy and catafalcque-like in the aspect of the gigantic bed in which Lilian was to repose; its massive posts of dark oak and darker ebony were covered embossage, and the deep crimson curtains, with heavy fringes, fell in shadowy festoons, while four great plumes of feathers surmounted the corners in sepulchral grandeur. It stood upon a raised dais of three steps, and on the back, amid a wilderness of bassi-relievi, flowers, angels, satyrs, and ivy, appeared the coronet and gorgeous blazon of Clermistonlee.

"I cannot sleep here, good woman," said Lilian shuddering; but the noise of the closing door, and the bolt jarring outside, was her only reply. She found herself alone. Her first impulse was to fasten her door within securely; her second to examine the chamber, by the light of the fire. In the deep little window stood a beautiful cabinet, on the upper part of which were a mirror and all the usual appurtenances for a lady's toilet, but of the most costly and elegant description, with all the perfumes, oils, essences and lotions then most in vogue. She turned from them with disgust to survey the walls, for the fear of secret entrances was impressed powerfully upon her mind by her knowledge of the number that existed in her own home; but, upon examination, she found nothing to increase her dread, save the cabinet, the doors of which were locked, and returned an unusually hollow sound when she touched them.

Alternately a prey to fear and indignation, she walked about the little apartment, or sat by the fire weeping and praying, until sleep began to oppress her; and, unable longer to resist its effects, with an audible supplication to Heaven that the morrow might bring about her release, she threw herself (without undressing) on the bed, and almost immediately fell fast asleep.