CHAPTER XXXI.

HOW BERNHARD DELIVERED THE LETTER.

Gabrielle had now counted that eight-and-thirty hours had elapsed since she had seen the figure of Ian appear for a moment at that angle of rock, which was the first point whereon she hurried to gaze in the morning, and the last one at night. So far as she knew, no effort had yet been made to free her. Could his appearance, then, have been reality? Was it not one of those flitting shadows, those Doüblegangers, those dire forebodings of coming evil, of which she had heard so often in the wild stories of Germany? Or was it merely a conjuration of her own excited fancy, which clung to the image of Ian as one might cling to the memory of the dead; for though Ian, by many a kindness and by a thousand pretty attentions had (unconsciously) left nothing undone to make this young and simple girl love him, she had no hope of ever being loved in return; for, true as the needle to the pole, his heart ever turned to that provoking Highland love, which he had left behind him in the land of the rock and eagle.

Of late, Ian's image had recurred less frequently to the mind of Gabrielle, for in her excessive tribulation she wept for her father and sister, and thought of them alone; but now the sudden vision of that well-remembered form, so stately and so graceful, with the glittering accoutrements, the waving tartan, and the eagle's double pinions towering on his polished helmet, brought back all that secret hope to her heart, and those dear thoughts, as yet unuttered save to Ernestine. Again the old fascination stole over her senses, like a chaste and mellowed light along a waveless sea; for tumult, storms, and wrath, lay slumbering in its placid depths.

Evening had come again. Gabrielle was alone, and seated in one of the little arched windows of her room. All was silent in that old castle by the sea; not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the green oaks or copper beeches; not a murmur floated along the waters of the narrow Belt.

The remembrance of the kind and loveable manner, the dark and somewhat severely handsome face of Ian Dhu, excited in her breast a new and unmitigated repugnance for her tormentor, Merodé; though the count was also a handsome man, and (save when an occasional gleam of misanthropy or hatred flashed in his eyes) had usually a merry and reckless aspect.

Gabrielle was enduring another evening of her mechanical existence, watching the daylight fade along the sea, and as the sun sank behind the gravel hills, the low, flat, naked shores of Juteland—the Jylland of the Danes—the foamy crests of the dancing billows sparkled in gold, and the long sandy shore was steeped in the same saffron light.

Merodé's offer of marriage, after every other means of persuasion had failed, she considered a fresh insult; and about an hour before, he had left her, with a remembrance that the three days he had given her to think of it were rapidly drawing to a close.

"I assure you, my dear Gabrielle," he had said, in his usual easy and assured way; "your marriage with me will suit your father's ideas exactly. In fact he will be quite delighted to find that he is still likely to have a son-in-law a count; for by this time he will probably have learned all I told you yesterday, of poor Kœningheim's death. Now, if he had not been in such a devil of a hurry to die, old Rupert-with-the-Red-Plume would have had both his daughters countesses; but let us not despair, for of counts there are more than plenty between this and the ramparts of Belgrade."

A voice below her window startled her; she looked down, and saw a tatterdemalion, with a shock head of dark hair, that mingled with an enormous and untrimmed beard, holding in his hands a conical white hat and knotted stick, and with a long knife in his girdle. He was seated on a fragment of that rock on which the castle was built; and one side of which jutted into the tideless sea, while the outworks seemed to be based on drifted sand. The stranger waved his battered hat. Gabrielle shuddered and withdrew with a sudden emotion of anger; for she remembered the pretended valet of Bandolo, and their voyage in the dogger of Dantzig.

The visiter muttered an oath, and shrunk close to the wall, lest a Merodeur, who leaned on his musket on the bartisan of the tower overhead, should observe him. After a time Gabrielle resumed her seat at the window, but immediately rose again, for the man was still there. He made many signs which she did not understand; sometimes touching his hat; at other times placing one finger beside his nose and winking slily; then kissing his hand and laying it on his heart.

These were all Master Bernhard's modes of evincing a desire to communicate something that was secret and important, while at the same time he vowed fidelity and truth—and no doubt the memory of the helmet full of trinkets, &c., awaiting him at Hesinge, made the rascal (for the time) true as steel to his mission.

Believing that he was mocking her, Gabrielle again withdrew with a sad and swelling heart; for now such a trivial circumstance as the supposed insolence of this man fretted her.

On her pretty face disappearing a second time, Bernhard uttered a tremendous oath, gave his conical hat a violent punch on the crown, and began to whistle on two of his fingers, uttering low and peculiar notes, indicative of various things best known to himself, who had acquired this accomplishment in the common prison and Rasp-haus; but fears of the sentinel recurred to him, and he was compelled to revert to patience and rending his beard, which made his face closely resemble a black furze bush, with a cat looking out of it.

After a time Gabrielle returned to the window. The sun had now set; its golden beams still lingered on the wavelets of the Belt; but the man was yet beneath her window, seated on the shelf of rock, where the yellow sea was rippling; and again he greeted her with his whole vocabulary of nods, winks, and signs.

"This is strange pertinacity," thought Gabrielle; "the man is intoxicated!"

At last, after searching in a deep pocket of his tattered doublet, he fished up a little note, and displayed it with a glance of triumph, holding the while his conical hat between it and the castle, lest the sentinel should see. It was evident that he cared less about being seen himself, than having his letter intercepted.

"A letter—from whom can it be?" thought Gabrielle, while her heart beat with increased velocity; "and in his care, too! 'tis some fresh insult—an officer of Merodé has discovered that I am here, and takes this mode of sending me a billet, expressing a love, perhaps, as good as his commander's."

Full of anger again at this idea, she again retired; and then Bernhard bequeathed himself again to the devil—tore his hat with his teeth, and stamped with rage. Curiosity made Gabrielle peep again, and then Bernhard held up the letter with a sulky and indignant air, and made a motion indicative of his intention to tear it in pieces, if it was not accepted. Suddenly connecting the billet with the recent appearance of Ian, she threw open her window, and Bernhard with a joyful grin held up the letter.

"From Hesinge, lady," said he in a husky whisper; "from your sister."

"From Ernestine! ah, forgive me, forgive me for my reluctance and delay!" replied Gabrielle, while her heart swelled almost to bursting with sudden emotion; "ah, Heaven! how am I to obtain it—the window is so high?"

"If you had a cord—quick, or that schelm of a Merodeur on the tower top may send a bullet this way to pay the postage."

Gabrielle gave a hurried glance about her. There was not in all her apartment a piece of cord. Ernestine's letter was not twenty feet from her; she was in despair, and trembling with eagerness.

"O joy!" she exclaimed, as a sudden thought seized her; "this will do!" and seizing her scissors, in a moment she ripped off six or seven yards of silver braid from the skirt of her fardingale—a blue satin brocade, one of many that Merodé (who had at his disposal selections of all the best wardrobes in Juteland) had given her, and which, for lack of others, she had been compelled to wear.

To this cord, which he thought was much too valuable for such a purpose, Bernhard tied the note; Gabrielle towed it in like a little fish, and, kissing her sister's handwriting, fell on her knees to thank Heaven for sending her this; a mist came over her eyes—they were full of hot salt tears; and though she trembled with eagerness to read, for some moments she found herself incapable of doing so.

It was the familiar handwriting of her sister; but hurriedly and tremulously written. Advice and directions were intermingled with ardent expressions of regard; for though they were the daughters of different mothers, the love between these two girls was as strong as esteem, affection, and the tie of blood could make it. There was a difference in their love, too; for Gabrielle looked up to her tall and dark-eyed sister with something of a daughter's reliance and respect; and Ernestine, from the habit of giving advice, and taking charge of her blue-eyed and merry little sister (for she never could alter her first impression, that Gabrielle was yet a child), had that regard for her which we always have for those whom we protect.

Interrupted at every word or two by reiterated expressions of sisterly regard, the letter urged that she should immediately escape, if possible, from Helnœsland, as the Highlanders could only remain at Hesinge for another day, after which they must march for Helsingör; and that she must trust implicitly to the bearer—("What a man to confide in!" thought Gabrielle, glancing at Bernhard's tremendous beard)—the bearer, when could conduct her to a place near Helnœs, where friends would be waiting to receive her.

"Escape—but how am I to escape?" thought Gabrielle, as her eyes filled with tears, and she pressed her hands upon her burning temples; "all the doors of the passages and ambulatories between this and the court are kept closed and locked by Merodé or his creatures; and the wall—it is so high! and I have only a day to decide; ah, dear Ernestine, I have no hope—none—none!"

Again and again she read the letter, in the hope that it might contain some hint; but there was no such item there.

"Are you coming, then—not just now; but when the darkness sets in?" said Bernhard, who was still sitting below the window, and to whom she turned for some advice.

"How can I descend? I will do any thing—any thing to escape from this."

"Could you slide down a stout cord if I brought one?"

"I believe that I could."

"Are you not certain, young lady?"

"Oh yes! I am quite certain."

"Well, by ten o'clock I will be back again, for I do not like sitting in view of that fellow on the tower head. I am in expectation of receiving a shot every moment. Listen—collect all the valuables you have, for I will expect a little fee from you for my trouble; I am only a poor fellow who has lost his employment by the war. When you have them all ready, secure your door inside."

"Alas! 'tis generally bolted on the outside."

"Well, pile whatever you can move against it—a bed, an almerie, chairs, tables, every thing that will obstruct entrance, and give us an opportunity of getting clear off; at least, so far as yonder sandhills beyond the thicket, for there your friends will be waiting you, even before this perhaps. Have all prepared, lady; in two hours I will be back with a stout cord from one of the boats moored at the point yonder."

Gabrielle had not words to thank him, but kissed both her hands, and then, stealthily as a cat, he crept away. He had measured the wall by a glance of his eye. In many an escape and robbery he had scaled and descended a higher and more dangerous; thus he felt assured that Gabrielle must be able to do so, too.

She turned to a sundial that was carved on the corner of one of the windows, and found that it wanted exactly two hours of the time at which this man was to return for her; and she was all impatience. Could Gabrielle have conceived, or been informed, of half the atrocities this outlaw had committed, she would rather, perhaps, have remained with Merodé than trusted herself to his guidance; but she had a pure soul and a charitable heart, and viewed the emotions and impulses of other minds through the innocent medium of her own. Thus, though she knew Bernhard to be the person who brought her to Merodé, she now implicitly believed that he had lost his way at Eckernfiörd, and been deceived, as well as herself. She even imagined that her repugnance to his aspect was not so great as at first; the villanous leer of his yellow eyes, seemed to be only a comical twinkle; and his exuberance of beard and matted mass of hair, like his rags and worn shoes, might only be the result of poverty; and had she not heard Father Ignatius preach, that it was wrong to despise the poor, for they were peculiarly the children of Heaven? It seemed wicked to suspect the poor man who had come so far to free and serve her; and, as if to make reparation, she selected the most beautiful of her own rings (setting aside all the more valuable and magnificent jewels with which Merodé had encumbered her room) as a gift for her liberator.

Half an hour had elapsed, and now the sun's rays seemed to tremble above the western horizon and the level shores of Juteland.

"In two hours and a half I shall be with Ernestine! Two hours and a half—ah, my Heaven! can it be possible? At last! at last! Oh, how I shall kiss her, and weep upon her breast! My dear, good, kind Ernestine! My sister and my mother, too!"

Thus did Gabrielle mutter from time to time, as she watched the rays slowly revolve round the sundial, and saw the shadow of the gnomon gradually fade away; as the evening bells began to toll, the sun sank behind Sleben, and his rays shot upwards, diverging with tenfold brilliance as the coast between, became a darker and more defined outline. The setting of the sun was the first approach to night. She beheld it with joy, and, by the pure transparent atmosphere of the northern evening, continued to watch the growing shadows, and that landscape on which she hoped she was now gazing for the last time.

Placid as a mirror of polished steel the water lay in the fiörd; the scenery was calm and tranquil. Meadows of emerald green bespangled with wild-flowers, or young corn-fields bending under the breath of the soft summer wind, covered the long and narrow promontory of Helnœs. Rising from the turf fires and cottage chimneys, the silvery smoke curled far into the amber-coloured sky of evening; on one side, lay a scene of peace and contentment, beautiful and rich as browsing cattle, the fragrance of orchards and flowers, corn and honey, could make it; on the other, lay the long blue waters of the Belt, winding between Sleswig and Fuhnen-the-Fine.

All this was visible from her window in that grim old castle, which was founded on a mass of rock, that, darkly and grey, jutted from among the golden-coloured sand into the chafing sea. Silvering every wavelet that rippled the calm surface of the narrow ocean, the soft moon rose slowly above those level shores that hem in the waves, from whence sailed those savage but adventurous conquerors, who gave their name to all the land between the British channel and the Scottish frontier.

Now, Gabrielle remembered the advice of Bernhard concerning the barricading of her door; she rose hastily to execute it; and saw at a glance, that, by placing a table between it and an angle of the wall, she could effectually bar all entrance; for the door (which opened inwards) was of oak, hinged with iron, and though old, was of great strength, being received into the stone work all round; thus, if so secured, nothing less forcible than a cannon-shot, or a battering-ram, could affect it.

"Ah! how foolish I have been in never perceiving this before! How many nights might I have slept in comparative peace, nor trusted to the lingering honour and casual pity of Merodé."

Thus thought Gabrielle.

But half an hour, she calculated, was wanting of the time when Bernhard would return; and she was preparing to secure her door in the manner described, when the sound of steps in the passage arrested her; the door was hastily opened, and her agitated heart almost ceased to beat when she beheld the Count Merodé!

CHAPTER XXXII.

CAN SHE ESCAPE NOW?

Ulrick entered, and, by the manner in which he closed the door and crossed the room, Gabrielle could perceive with terror (though there was no other light than those afforded by the set sun and rising moon), that he was quite intoxicated. Bad as he was, he had hitherto treated her—all things considered—with remarkable respect; and, never until this important night, had fatally dared to conceive the idea of a visit at such an hour.

Gabrielle had always thought, that, as love could not exist without a returned affection, the flame in Merodé's heart would soon expire; but the pretty casuist did not know that it was not the love of a pure heart which animated the count. Had it been so, she had long since been free.

The count wore a magnificent suit of dark blue velvet, adorned by sparkling diamond buttons and seed pearls. On his head was a montero cap with a tall feather, the quill of which was studded with diamonds. His shoulder-belt and boots were of spotless white leather, and his broad collar was of the richest lace; but cap and feather, belt and doublet, were all awry, the latter being half buttoned in the wrong holes, while his plume hung down his back.

The count was reeling; and, in the twilight, Gabrielle could perceive that his face was flushed, his eyes bloodshot, and inflamed by passion and excitement. He closed the door of the room, and, to her inexpressible alarm—locked it! He then, with a maudlin expression of admiration on his face, and with outspread arms, approached her, but she eluded him, and he sank into a chair; his cap fell off, and after several ineffectual attempts to recover it, he said, with many pauses—

"My darling must not be alarmed if I come thus to visit her at an hour so untimeous; 'tis for a moment—only for a moment—'pon my soul it is—bah! you are not angry with me, are you?"

"Will your excellency never weary of persecuting me?"

"Little rogue, you are angry!"

"Oh no! my lord, I am not," replied Gabrielle, trembling with fear and perplexity.

"How could you be angry? 'twould be very cruel; 'tis only a bridegroom's privilege, for we are to be married to-morrow by Camargo's chaplain. Der Teufel! yes—I will show you a magnificent dress which our quartermaster picked up somewhere; it is worth ten thousand ducats if it is worth a stiver! and you are to be married in that, my pretty one. It will almost stand with seed pearls and embroidery—yes, 'tis devilish fine, I assure you; and in it my little bride will look magnificent. Ah! come and give me a kiss! Do not be angry, 'tis the wine—strong wine. The dress, it belonged to the Countess of Fehmarn, old King Kit's one-eyed wife—I mean the left-hand of old King Christian. 'Tis a glorious fashion that of his, marrying one wife for love and another for money. If the emperor would only marry my sister Josephine in that way, I should be sure of my marshal's baton—but what do I care for money? We don't want it—we Merodeurs—no! we pay all our scores with a roll on the drum, or by hanging up the burgomaster. I wonder if the devil will be satisfied with a check on the same bank; but he beats a little on the drum himself, for we all know the devil's tattoo."

"Oh, what a sensual wretch is this when compared to Ian Dhu, that soul of honour!" thought Gabrielle, as Merodé rocked himself on a chair during his long and rambling speech, which was interrupted by many a hiccup.

Every moment she expected the arrival of Bernhard, and now she was locked into her chamber with her intoxicated tormentor—locked in hopelessly for the night.

"Gabrielle, Gabrielle," said the count; "dost love me any better than at first?"

"My lord," began Gabrielle (willing to humour him a little), "first love——"

"A fig for first love!" cried he, snapping his fingers, and making ineffectual efforts to rise. "'Tis all stuff, and makes a bold fellow timid and retiring—and then the girl, with her mystery, modesty, and touch-me-not face! Bah! 'tis enough to give one a fit of the spleen. Second love is founded upon judgment, and is strengthened and matured by it—yes—I am a philosopher—d—me! But if such is the case with a second or third love, what must be the strength and maturity, the fervour and ferocity of a twentieth love, like mine, for thee? Oh, Gabrielle—Gabrielle, come hither, you little devil, and kiss me!"

At that moment the shrill low whistle of Bernhard sounded beneath the window, and made Gabrielle start.

"So you will not come to me—eh? Ah—true love is always modest and retiring—it likes mystery, too! How good to think that I have had you under lock and key for so many weeks, and not one of my merry rascals—even Count John of Brisgaü or Jehan de Vart—have found you out! Come to me, I tell you, or I shall lose patience; one kiss, little one—only one."

Gabrielle remained aloof, and wept with mingled emotions of shame and mortification, then Merodé began to swear, and say some things that made the poor girl turn alternately cherry red and deadly pale. Again she heard Bernhard whistling, and her anxiety was almost insupportable.

"Der Teufel! yes—to-morrow is the happy day—and Camargo's chaplain—(Camargo's, is it not? oh, yes!)—will do the affair for us; those whom Heaven and Camargo's chaplain have put together—let no rascal put asunder. Right—Henckers! my girl, why do you spin round in that fashion?—and who is that who whistles there?—

"Three days—three days, my love will last,
And—in—three days—my—love is past."

After this, a few indescribable snorts and flourishes were the only signs of life he made; his head had sunk forward on his breast, and fearfully Gabrielle approached him. He was in a profound and unmistakeable drunken sleep. Gabrielle's heart beat like lightning; she sprang to the window, and below, in the twilight, discerned the dark figure of Bernhard.

"You have appeared at last," he growled in a low voice; "I thought you were never coming."

"Pardon me—I have been watched."

"Watched—by whom?" asked Bernhard in a low whisper.

"Merodé."

"Gott in Himmel! do you say so? and he——"

"Is now asleep, as fast as wine can make him."

"Quick, then! Lower your cord, and draw up the rope, for we have not a moment to lose. If the rounds pass, they will fire, and I would not run the risk of being shot for all the women between the Elbe and the Oder."

Gabrielle lowered the silver cord, by which she had received Ernestine's letter, and thereby towed in the end of a stout rope.

"Oh, to what shall I fasten this?" she asked.

"How should I know?" growled Bernhard; "to any thing—but be quick—any thing that will cross the narrow window and sustain your weight."

The long iron tongs by which the turf was placed on the hearth now met the eye of Gabrielle; she tied the rope with her pretty and trembling hands to the centre of them, and placed them across the aperture of the narrow window, thus forming a double bar, strong enough to sustain the weight of a cuirassier armed cap-à-pee—horse and all.

"Hist!" said Bernhard, as he steadied the end of the rope; "be sure, that you have knotted it well, and fixed it crosswise, for I have no wish that you should slip and break my neck, to say nothing of your own bones. Now then, descend, if you please."

"But I must cover my poor hands, or the rope will fret them."

"Bravo! get a pair of gloves, a handkerchief, or any thing," said Bernhard, who—vagabond as he was—began to be quite charmed by the courage and foresight of this noble girl; and he felt a satisfaction in serving her. Never before had such an honest glow spread through his savage heart.

Gabrielle placed a soft handkerchief over each of her tender hands, and by the assistance of a chair, passed over the window-sole; then the night wind blew her light dress and her fair hair about, for, in her haste, hood and mantle were alike forgotten. Merodé still slept like a dormouse, and it was evident that he would continue to do so until morning; but the foreboding thought flashed upon the mind of the fugitive, that she might only be flying from one danger to fall into another.

"My God!" sighed Gabrielle; "thou wilt be kind, and protect a poor girl who cannot protect herself. Oh yes—I will confide in Thee!"

Inspired by this thought she took courage and slid in a moment to the ground, alighting with a shock which Bernhard lessened, by partly receiving her in his arms. Had she known all—or even a few of the crimes his hands had committed—she would have shrunk from their touch as from death.

She could scarcely whisper her thanks, and indeed Bernhard, who heard the tramp of the approaching rounds on the tower above, did not give her time; for, seizing her hand, he led her softly and hurriedly round an angle of the outworks, from whence, concealed by palisadoes and shrubbery, they were to creep towards the road that led by the margin of the bay towards Hesinge ......

Next morning Merodé was awakened by the quartermaster's wife, knocking at the door of Gabrielle's room. He started from his drunken slumber, and opened the door with an air of perplexity. Frail Rumple appeared with the famous pearl dress upon her arm, and with a bridal veil and chaplet in her hands; but on seeing the bewildered count, she curtsied with a waggish smile, and said that Colonel Camargo's chaplain had arrived.

"Der Teufel!" cried Merodé, as he rushed to the open window, and saw the chair, the crossed tongs, and the cord yet dangling by the wall. "Call Sergeant Swaschbückler! by the Henckers! my bird has flown!"

On one hand, favoured by the moon, which lit their devious path, and on the other, shrouded by high palisadoes painted green, and stunted trees that grew upon the peninsula, Gabrielle and her guide had rapidly and stealthily pursued their way towards a ridge, where grew a clump of trees. It was visible in dark outline between them and the last flush of dusky yellow that lingered at the horizon. The clump was about three or four miles distant; and near it, Bernhard informed Gabrielle that a party of Scottish Highlanders were halted.

As the distance increased between her and the grim tower on Helnœsland, and when she began to be more reassured, Gabrielle, who tied a handkerchief over her flowing and beautiful hair, turned from time to time, and examined the face of her guide. It was hideous! its aspect was terrible; for ignorance and crime had done every thing to destroy the intellectual, and develop the animal propensities of Bernhard, whose surname I never learned. Gabrielle observed that his stealthy eyes wore a constant expression of alarm; he seemed to be in perpetual dread of meeting some one.

Fear on her part, with anxiety and avarice on his, enabled them to walk so well, that in three quarters of an hour they were close to the thicket of trees, when a man approached them from under their very shadow. This was the first person they had met since leaving Helnœs.

Gabrielle shrunk close to the side of Bernhard, who grasped the haft of his knife; while an exclamation of rage and fear escaped his lips, on finding himself confronted by—Bandolo!

It was indeed that man, whom (of all others in the world) he dreaded most to meet at such a moment. In each hand he had a cocked pistol—the Highland tacks which he had stolen from Phadrig Mhor.

Bernhard had only his knife, and, as he unsheathed it, Bandolo swore on seeing its blue and sinister gleam. Then he uttered one of those exulting laughs, to which his ferocious character imparted a sound not unlike the growl of a panther.

"Ha! ha! ha! Well, fool—you knew not, that while you made that precious bargain at the inn-door of Hesinge, I was seated among the branches of the Green-Tree above. Maldicion de Dios! but this is a meeting, as unexpected to me as it seems unwelcome to you, Camarada Bernhard!"

The Spaniard and the German glared at each other like two wild-cats, and Gabrielle felt as if she was about to die with terror, between them.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE CRAPE SCARF OF M'ALPINE.

While relating the adventures of Gabrielle, as I afterwards learned them, I must not lose sight of my own.

With sixty Highland soldiers, accompanied by Angus Roy M'Alpine, Kildon, and one or two other officers, I had formed a little bivouac at a small clump of trees, about three or four miles from the castle of Helnœs; there we waited anxiously the result of Bernhard's mission, and made many resolutions, if it failed, to bring on the whole regiment, and, though we had only twelve hours to spare, set the king's commands at naught, and—if Ian consented—take the Merodeurs by storm.

We lay in concealment near the thicket, and our advanced sentinels sat among the long grass beyond it, rolled up in their green plaids, and were quite invisible; for we made use of every precaution that Scottish warfare and Highland hunting made familiar to us, to approach Helnœs as near as possible without being seen.

Our Weywacht, as the Germans would call it, was made on a spot of the greenest turf; there we piled our loaded muskets; opened our havresacks, and every man who had been able to procure a bottle containing spirit of any kind, from Neckar down to plain Odenzee beer, produced it, and the quaighs of wood and horn were passed round from man to man without distinction, in the good old northern fashion; for the patriarchal system, and the acknowledged relationship of the lowest in station to the highest in rank, is one of the finest features in social Highland life. Every Gordon is the kinsman of Lord Huntly, and every Campbell is a cousin to Breadalbane and Macallum Mhor, as the humblest gilly is the kinsman of his chief.

Different from many a bivouac I have seen—where (like the camps of the Egyptians of Scotland, or the gitanos of Spain) it seemed to be little better than systematic vagabondizing in the cold and rain, with no covering but a blanket, nestling together for warmth—on this summer evening our halt near that fiörd, which is formed by the long narrow promontory of Helnœs, resembled a pleasure party.

We saw the sun set in the amber west, and the moon rise in all her silver glory; the soft night wind rustled the leaves above our heads, and bore on its breath that peculiar fragrance which night exhales from the teeming land and darkened sea. Afar off, several beacons of turf and wood were burning on distant promontories, to mark the shoals and sands; and, amid the summer haze, they gleamed on the trembling waters of the Belt like flickering ignes fatui.

In the lower parts of the level landscape, large pools of water glittered here and there in the rushy hollows; a shower of rain had fallen about mid-day, and now a bright silver haze floated over the enamelled meadows. Near our bivouac a stream gurgled on its way almost noiselessly to the sea, unlike our mountain burns at home, which, after a shower, rush in fury sheeted with foam, and bearing at times rocks, trees, and stones, to the German ocean or the Caledonian sea.

As the time wore slowly on, and I did nothing in the way of conversation to lighten its tedium, but sat at the foot of a tree lost in thought, old Kildon, as he filled the quaighs of all around him, proposed that we should have a song or a story after the good old fashion at home; and he forthwith set the example by singing, in very good style, that old and dirge-like song which Ossian has addressed to The Owl, and which elicited a burst of applause from our soldiers.

"Aire Muire! let us have a story now," said he, "or we shall all mope here like the owls of the song; come, Phadrig Mhor—a story; or do you, Rollo, tell us something. You did not study at the King's College for naught—and, faith! that same study must have cost the old Laird of the Craig a good many silver bonnet-pieces."

"He is in the region of clouds," said M'Alpine, "and has nothing to tell or propose."

"Except your health, Angus," said I; "and that you will please to tell us why you wear that crape scarf on your arm."

Red Angus started, and a fierce gleam shot athwart his fiery eyes and darkening face.

A murmur of dissent among those near us, warned me that I had broached an unfortunate subject, which some of them knew.

"Pardon my thoughtlessness, Angus," said I, grasping his hand; "if I have probed an old wound, or awakened a bitter memory, by my soul it was done unwittingly."

"You have probed an old and a deep wound, Philip, and referred to a badge which I never can behold without bitterness and regret. Had you come from among the clans in the west, instead of from those of the north, you had known the story. Kildon, M'Coll, Sir Donald the chief, all knew it, and might a hundred times have told it; but they respected the sorrow and shame of their comrade—said I shame? Nay, there is in it none to me; then why should I refrain from relating what I have so little reason to conceal."

Captain M'Alpine filled twice his quaigh with wine, and twice he drained it, with the air of a man who requires false courage to tell his story, and after twirling his long mustaches, began thus in his native and forcible Gaëlic:—

"Though I am descended from that portion of the Siol nan Alpin which inhabit the frontier of the Highlands, forming one of the greatest barriers against the aggressive spirit of the Lowlander, an ancestor of mine, who had fought under Angus of the Isles, at the great sea battle of the Battle Bay, in Mull, obtained the isle of Gometra as a free gift from the Lord of the Ebudæ. There my people dwelt for several generations, and, without going back to the days of Fergus the son of Ere, that is enough to give one consequence in the west.

"The isle was poor and barren, for it lies between the tremendous mountains of Mull and the basaltic cliffs of Staffa, and is separated from the dark blue terraces of Ulva by a narrow strip of ocean. My father's people never took the field under less than a hundred claymores and forty bowmen; they were poor, but honest, brave, and industrious, clothing and feeding themselves by the fruits of their labour—by the loom and the forge, the breeding of sheep, cattle, and horses, and the manufacture of kelp.

"We held our lands of a M'Lean—Hector of Lochdon," added Angus, grinding his teeth; "he dwelt in a castle which had towers and gates; brass cannon and iron bombardes; we occupied a little mansion by the Sound of Ulva. By our tenure, we were required to have always a war-galley in the Sound, but M'Lean had never less than twelve; five hundred brass targets hung in his hall, and a thousand claymores; yet we cocked our bonnets as high as he did; and, unless when under his banner, would never yield an inch to him, at kirk or market—at hunting or hosting.

"To our family was entrusted the education of the successive heirs of Lochdon. We taught them the use of arms, the sword, the oar, the harp, and the bow; with every accomplishment becoming a duinewassal. All these, four successive generations had acquired at our little dwelling on the Sound of Ulva. I was twenty when my father died——"

"With an arrow in his throat," said M'Coll.

"Ay—shot in a quarrel with the McDonalds; but he bequeathed to me, as a sacred trust, the chieftain's motherless son, M'Garadh, then in his sixth year, a noble and beautiful boy.

"To enable me to fulfil my charge with honour, and in obedience to my father's special wish, as well as my own, I married the daughter of a kinsman, a brave and honourable gentleman of the isles, whose name I need not sully anew, by linking it with mine in this bitter revival of the past.

"Una, for she bore that fine old Highland name, was beautiful, and every harper between Isla and the Lewis sung of her beauty, and composed songs in her honour. These songs cost her father (for the old man doted on her) not less than a hundred brooches, silver quaighs, and carved dirk-handles; for no cunning harper of the Hebrides strung his harp to Una's praise in vain.

"Una was graceful and tall among the maids of the Isles; the proportion of her form, was so perfect, that her height could only be distinguished when she stood among others. Her hair was dark and luxuriant; parted over her forehead, and bound by a fillet of gold, it fell in silky waves upon her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and dangerously beautiful; they were like two stars; her cheek had a transparent olive tint, for her mother had a tinge of the Douglas' blood in her. Her eyes were as if a pencil had traced them, and her nose had that aquiline arch which is ever indicative of pride. When calm and thoughtful, she might have passed for the Malvina of Ossian, or the Goddess of the Parthenon; when smiling, for the Goddess of Love herself. I was proud of my beautiful bride, and I loved her for her gentleness, for the memory of the battles her forefathers had won, and for the lustre which their name, with all her charms and virtues, would cast around my island home.

"Una, alas! had no heart. Her bosom was high and spotless as the new-fallen snow; but it swelled only at the emotions of vanity.

"M'Lean visited us often; and when his great gilded birlinn, with his banner waving, the pipers playing in the prow, the oarsmen chanting as they bent to the wave, the axes of his Leine Chrios sparkling in the sun, swept down the Sound of Ulva, she more than once stung me to the soul by drawing a cold comparison between his state and mine.

"Una was not content. I redoubled my efforts to procure luxuries for her, and exacted a heavy kain from my poor tenants, that I might barter with the English traders for silks and velvets, and with the Norwegians for fine furs and broadcloths; the finest gloves from Perth, the finest laces from Glasgow, the fairest pearls from Cluny, the most sparkling stones from Cairngorm—our Scottish jaspers, topazes, and amethysts—were procured for her. I parted with my father's Spanish gun (which he received from Dunvegan, when he destroyed the Florida, the great Spanish treasure-ship)—I parted with my Florida, the great Spanish treasure-ship)—I parted with my best coat of harness—my polished lurich, with all its rings of steel—to procure for her ornaments and passements, such trumpery and trash as had not been seen in the Isles since the days of Alexander the Great Steward.

"We had visited our chief; the splendour and luxuries of his mansion dwelt long in her mind, and my exertions were unavailing.

"Yet I redoubled my efforts and exchanged my wild ponies and short-legged cattle for the luxuries brought to the Clyde by the merchants of Bordeaux and the Flemings of the Dam. M'Lean came often to visit us—and always when I chanced to be absent, hunting in Mull, or in my birlinn on the Sound, looking after my fishermen.

"I saw little to suspect; but I dreaded much, and thought more. Una was often pensive, cold, and irritable. Then a pain gnawed my heart, and a whisper that seemed to come from hell ascended to my ear. I was jealous—jealous of this bright being, whom I loved with my whole heart: for, I could perceive that, though she sometimes smiled on me, her smile was ever brightest when the birlinn of M'Lean was seen upon the Sound, sweeping down between the isles, with banner flaunting, and oars, shields, and axes flashing in the sun.

"'Una!' said I, one day, making a terrible effort to suppress my rising passion; 'you look after M'Lean as if you had never seen him before.'

"'Ah!' said she with a smile, 'I know that a Highland matron should only have eyes for her husband—for the man she loves. Surely, dear Angus, you are not jealous of me?'

"'No, Una—true love has no jealousy.' (I knew that I spoke false.)

"'It has—it must—just to infuse a little life into it!'

"Then she playfully kissed my cheek, saying—

"'Now, Angus, I would never suspect you, though I have heard that dark men are more constant than fair.'

"'And fair women more constant than dark.'

"'Oh, fie! to say so, dear Angus Roy, after my pretty compliment.'

"My heart leaped within me; methought I was a wretch to suspect her; and, taking my gun, I climbed the western cliffs of the isle in quest of a great golden eagle, which had then built an eyry there, and the yellow pinions of which I resolved to bring Una, though at the risk of my neck.

"It was Di Donich, or St. Duncan's day, as we call the Sabbath in the west, from some great missionary of the olden time; and I remember it well, as if every hour of it had passed but yesterday. I was long away; when, descending towards my house on the beach, I heard the sound of pipes and the song of the rowers. A turn of the rocks brought me in view of the azure Sound, then tinged red with the flush of a western sun; the bannered barge of M'Lean was speeding across as fast as the broad flashing blades of twenty oars could carry it. M'Lean was at the stern, and a lady sat beside him. Anxiety and fear must have sharpened my vision; for, even at the vast distance between us, I could recognise the dark hair of Una, bound by its fillet of gold, and, among the green tartans of the M'Leans, her scarlet plaid, with its bridal brooch, that shone like a star. That brooch I had placed upon her shoulder at the altar. It was indeed my wife; she had left me! I was alone upon the rock—and the fury of a demon swelled up within me.

"I levelled my gun at Una, but my heart failed me; then I pointed it at M'Lean, but withdrew it from my shoulder; for the distance was too great. I sat down on the hillside and wept like a deserted child. Long I lingered there; the daylight faded from the ocean, and its tints of gold and blue deepened into black; the moon rose, and waned again; the shadows of night melted into the light of day—but, alas! I was still sitting there. The sun came out of the waters, and his rays shed a roseate tint on Ulva's brows of rock, and the loftier peaks of Mull; while that beautiful island, with its deep inlets, its rock-built castles, and grey old Scandinavian burghs, raised by the long-haired warriors of Ivar and Acho, were before me; but I saw only one spot in all that line of coast. It was the tall grim tower of M'Lean.

"Upon the solitary shore, with no eye upon me but the blessed one of God, with my knees on the sand, and the dirk on my lips—the Holy Iron—I swore by the black stones of Iona, by the grey rock of M'Gregor, by the four blessed Gospels, and by my own soul, a terrible vow, to revenge myself upon M'Lean, and to make his hand the means of punishing Una. I remembered the proverb—that deeds are men, and words are women; but I was resolved that my deeds should make me little less than a fiend.

"My people met me with shame, with anger, and with silent sorrow; there were some who showed the wounds they had received from the Leine Chrios of M'Lean, for they had manfully resisted the departure of my wife, and blows had been given and arrows shot before that abduction—to which she consented with a willingness she was at no pains to conceal—had been effected. A savage thought seized me.

"'By the soul of Mary! I have still a hostage!' said I; "'where is M'Garadh—the cub of yonder wolf?'

"'The M'Leans were too wary to trust the child among us after the deed of yesterday, and he is away with his father in the birlinn.'

"I gnashed my teeth with rage, for I knew that M'Lean loved the boy—the hope of his house—even as his own life, and more. But why protract this story? among you, there are many who know it but too well. It has an echo yet in Mull; for there my vengeance gave a name to a mountain which, as yet, had been unnamed since Time began.

"I was too true a son of Alpin to take unwary measures. I bided my time for revenge, and the time came, though slowly; for the passing fishermen of Aros, the traffickers of Tobermory, and the pilgrims who came to drink of St. Mary's well (from which that clachan took its name), told me how Una had lost all sense of shame and honour; and, to the eternal disgrace of her father's name and mine, was living with M'Lean, even as Fair Helen lived with Paris. Her aged father sent a duine-wassal, proposing to lend me four hundred swordsmen, three brass cannon, and ninety archers, if I wished to assail M'Lean under his roof-tree; but I declined, for the men of Mull were too many for us, and I brooded over a deeper revenge.

"M'Lean proclaimed a great hunting-match, and it took place on St. Duncan's day—exactly one year after Una had left me. All the men of Mull were there; M'Coll of that Ilk, the M'Donalds of Aros, the M'Leans of Duairt and those of Lochbuy. As a poor fisherman from Lochlinnhe, disguised in bonnet, kilt, and plaid of undyed wool, with a long beard, and a face so pale and wan, that not even Una would have known me, I mingled with the hunters. For three days the sport continued, and one great stag—the prince of the island—after escaping many a spear, bullet, and arrow—after flinging the strongest of the grey dogs aloft on its branching antlers—and after swimming Loch Uisc and Loch Ba; was slain by my foe at the foot of a great hill which overlooks a narrow valley, above which it rises on pillars of basalt, two hundred feet in height. He laid the horns at the feet of Una, who, regardless of the darkened brows, averted faces, and muttered reprehensions of the Highland chieftains, was queen of the chase, and presided at the feast on the greensward, where a thousand men sat down to banquet on the fruits of their prowess, while the war-pipe and harp, the uisquebaugh, the ale of the Lowland bodachs, and the wine of the Frenchman and Spaniard, made the merriment ring between the mountain peaks.

"I alone was sad. A snake was in my breast. Una sat beside M'Lean, and with painful acuteness my eye saw every movement of both. When their hands touched, or their eyes met, my heart seemed to burn, and my pulses beat like lightning. I knew that there was a glare in my eye, and a terrible expression in my face, that would discover me, and reveal the wild thoughts of murder and assassination that were rising in my heart; and yet my Una was so beautiful, her smile was so full of fascination, and her deportment so full of unstudied grace, that, though I might loathe, I could not wonder at M'Lean for loving her, and robbing me of a being so adorable. But Hector of Lochdon, with all his barbarous magnificence, could never love as I—her husband—loved her.

"His son, the little boy M'Garadh, recognised me through all my disguise, my agony of visage, and outward change; and, creeping to my side, he clambered into my arms. As if he had been my own, I loved this child; but now I felt something strange fluttering about my heart, and with a pang that hovered between the throb of pleasure and the thrill of rage, I clasped the boy to my breast; and then, holding him aloft in one hand and my naked dirk in the other, I sprang with a wild shout from, the sward where the hunters were carousing, and rushed up the side of the mountain.

"''Tis M'Alpine!' cried a hundred voices; ''tis Red Angus of Gometra!' I soon reached a shelf of overhanging rock, some ninety feet above the hunting-party, and there I paused.

"'M'Lean—Hector of Lochdon!' I cried with a wild voice, and the aspect of a madman, for I felt there was madness in my brain, and the emotions of a devil in my heart; 'from the summit of this rock I will dash your son to its foot, if you slay not the infamous woman who sits beside you!'

"'Shoot—shoot!' he exclaimed; 'to your bows and hand-guns! Aid me, M'Coll—Aros—Duairt, and Lochbuy!' But these chiefs looked darkly on, and made no response.

"'Dost thou pause, villain?' I cried again; 'then hear me.—I swear by the four blessed gospels of God, by the Holy Iron, and by the grave of Alpin, that I will dash this screaming child brainless at your feet, if you do not—this instant—and with your own hand, slay the wretch who sits beside you!' I swung the fair-haired child above my head, and his cries came faintly downward to his father's ear. Then could I feast my eyes upon that father's agony; as trembling in every limb, with sword unsheathed, he gazed alternately upward at me and downward at his pallid and voiceless paramour, who bowed her beautiful head like a lily to the blast, and had bared her white bosom to the impending steel; for well she knew that M'Lean loved his boy, the hope of his house, better than her—the tool of guilty pleasure, the plaything of an hour.

"'Red Angus!' cried M'Lean, in a choking voice; 'I will restore your wife, and with her yield a thousand head of cattle, a hundred targets of brass, and as many Spanish guns; I will yield you the best farm I possess, with the salmon-fishings of Lochdon, to thee and thine for ever, freely and irredeemably, but spare my boy!'

"'Wretch!' I replied; and once more swung the unhappy child aloft; 'if thou and all thy posterity yielded to me their possessions on earth and their share of paradise, I would not spare thy whelp, nor will I now if thou sparest her who sits beside thee! Once!'

"'Shoot—shoot!' he cried to his Leine Chrios.

"Thirty archers bent their bows and drew their arrows to the ear, but relinquished them; thirty long-barrelled guns were levelled at me, but were lowered again, for the gillies feared to shoot the boy.

"'Dost them hear me?—twice!' I cried, swinging the child again, for I was mad, but had no intention of throwing the boy, alone at least. I intended to spring down with him, that we might perish together.

"Trembling with terror for the safety of his child, and urged by the fierce persuasions of his Leine Chrios, who considered the life of the heir of more value than the lives of a hundred adulterous women, M'Lean ran his sword into the heart of Una! She bent over the blade and died at his feet.

"From the edge of that frightful precipice I saw the white bosom of my wife, and the blood (red as the checks of her tartan plaid) that dyed her yellow kirtle. Then the light left my eyes, the strength of my hands relaxed, and the boy fell from them into the valley below. From that abyss I heard a terrible cry ascend to the summit of the basaltic columns; there was a confused discharge of fire-arms; bullets and arrows whistled about me; I reeled like a drunken man, a swoon came over me, and I remember no more.

"The poor child had been killed. In my madness and helplessness I destroyed him; and, to this hour, the men of Mull call that rocky hill which had no name before, Ben Garadh.*

* The Hill of Garadh. This is still a tradition of the Isle of Mull.

"Why prolong a tale so painful? Grey dawn was stealing along the narrow Sound and tumbling sea; and morning was reddening the summits of the hills when I awoke, or recovered, to find myself in silence, with honest M'Coll of that Ilk (who now commands our pikes), standing by me, while his men were in the valley below. All the other huntsmen had departed, and taken with them the bodies of the dead. He had protected me at the risk of his life; for our fathers had fought side by side in the same galley, at the battle of the Bloody Bay.

"'You must fly, Angus,' said he; 'for all the Isles cannot afford you long a hiding-place, and the Lowlanders will not receive you.'

"I knew the truth of this, and had no wish to remain, where every thing was hateful to me. I was outlawed by the Lord Justice-General of Scotland; I was proclaimed a fugitive by the High Court of Justiciary, and my lands were given to the Campbells (of course), for every thing in the west that is in want of an owner belongs to them. I hid me long in M'Kinnon's cave, and other recesses of the isle, until an opportunity occurred of leaving the place, and joining old Sir Andrew Gray, whose Scottish bands were sailing for Bohemia. The memory of that Di Donich will never die but with myself; and in token of the sorrow, the bitterness, and remorse I have endured, for the barbarity of my revenge, and the unwitting death of the poor child I loved, I have worn this scarf of crape, and on many a field and in many a breach, since the battle of the White Mountain, where the walls of Prague rang to the slogan of the Scottish musketeers, down to the battle of Semigallia, when, under the gallant Gustavus, we cut the Poles to pieces, I have worn this mark of mourning. Now, gentlemen and brother soldiers," continued Angus, heaving a deep sigh as he filled his quaigh from Kildon's brandy bottle, "you have heard my story; pray tell me if ever—ha! what is that?"

A pistol-shot, followed by the low faint cry of a woman, came towards us on the night wind. Every man looked in his comrade's face, and listened.

The cry, with the impression made upon me by M'Alpine's horrid story, brought a deadly chill over my heart; but I unsheathed my claymore, exclaiming—

"To your arms, and follow me!"

The whole party snatched up their muskets, and rushed through the thicket, in the direction from whence the cry seemed to come.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE PISTOL-SHOT.

A few pages back, we left Bandolo the scout, and Bernhard his fellow-ruffian, confronting each other with knife and pistol, not sixty yards from where we were quietly seated on the grass, listening intently to the story of Angus Roy M'Alpine. Bernhard's heart was swollen with rage, but fear of Bandolo repressed it; for he knew all that personage was capable of; and, moreover, that he would require at least one-half of the expected reward for the only good act the woodman had ever performed—yea, since he left his cradle in infancy.

"For this girl you are to get about the value of eight hundred ducats?"

"Yes," growled Bernhard. Bandolo laughed, and replied—

"I dare say Merodé would give another thousand to have her back again; but that is a slender chance. We shall then have four hundred ducats each—is it not so, camarado?"

"No—it is not so," said Bernhard, hoarsely; "you have no right to dictate to me in this matter. I never marred your little plots or speculations; leave mine to the event of fortune. Now stand aside, or by——"

"Ha—ha—ha!" laughed Bandolo, standing right in the centre of the narrow path, while Gabrielle clung to a tree, for terror had quite unnerved her.

"Schelm!" growled Bernhard, "do you know that a party of Christians, Scottish musketeers, are within pistol-shot?"

"Yes; and that, by firing one of these, I could at the same moment summon them, and blow out your brains, which I shall assuredly do if you utter a cry or sound."

Inflamed by sudden fury, Bernhard made a spring at Bandolo, knife in hand; but he was hurled back like a boy by the more powerful ruffian; and one touch of the cold pistol barrel against his face, was sufficient to curb the emotion that sprang from avarice.

"Then you will not divide with me?"

"No—I will rather see you in the lowest pit of——."

"Time enough, Bernhard, my camarado; we may see each other there yet. But why do I chaffer here, and what are four hundred despicable ducats to the sum I lost in that cottage near Eckernfiörd?"

At this recollection a gleam seemed to shoot athwart the savage eyes of Bandolo; his livid face became convulsed by the emotions of an enraged and ferocious heart; and he spoke in broken sentences.

"Hear me, camarado, I have to punish thee for robbing me of a thousand ducats——"

"I swear that Merodé never gave them to me!"

"Silence! I have to punish Ernestine, the count's daughter, for robbing me of my hard won gold and treasury bills, and for leaving me like a fool, drugged, senseless, and snorting, for two days in Fraü Krümple's hut; I have to punish Carlstein, for riding over me like a dog in the streets of Vienna, without a word of pity, because he knew me to be Bandolo. (Ha! did not that name bring one thought of terror to his haughty heart?) I have to punish the Scottish Captain Rollo, for wounding, discovering, and disarming me—for insulting me, and crossing my purposes, and marring my profits on a hundred occasions; last of all, I am not to be outwitted by a mere animal like thee; and thus I rob thee of thy ducats, and avenge myself like Bandolo the Spaniard—like the man I have always been!"

He levelled a pistol at Gabrielle, but it flashed in the pan; and that flash showed her a face that froze her very blood; for the pallid and distorted visage of the Spaniard, with his inflated nostrils, and sharp jackal-like teeth, made him resemble a fiend—a vampire—any thing but a man. Yet she sprang forward, and said in a piercing voice, while clasping her trembling hands, and bending upon him a timid and imploring smile—a smile that would have fascinated the most ascetic saint, and softened even the heart of a Nero—

"Ah, Spaniard, you cannot have the heart to kill me! I never did you wrong."

Bandolo laughed like a hyena, and cocked his second pistol; then she uttered a wild cry, and hung upon his arm, saying—

"Spare me—spare me! Do not kill me—I am too young to die—I must see my sister—do not kill me—none shall know—none shall hear! Spare me, and you will be rewarded—my father—my sister——"

The bright flash of the pistol was followed by a dull, but terrible sound: the barbarian had shot her dead, and she fell quivering at his feet.

Unfortunate Gabrielle!

"Now go to Hesinge—to the Schottlanders—-and get your eight hundred ducats, or so much as this carrion is worth!" said Bandolo, as he sprang through the thicket, and vanished.

Fear, the first impulse of the guilty and the vile, impelled Bernhard also to fly, and it was not until the next day at noon that he presented himself among us at Hesinge, and explained circumstantially the particulars of a deed of barbarity so wanton, that I believe it has few parallels in the annals of crime.

Rushing from our bivouac, with sword drawn and musket cocked, we scattered through the wood, seeking for the source of the cry and the shot we had heard. Soldiers' eyes are accustomed to scan and recognise objects even in the gloomiest night; thus Angus Roy first found Gabrielle, and like the sound of a trumpet his Highland hollo drew us all to the spot.

I shall never forget my emotion on beholding the poor girl's body, stretched at full length on the grass, and quite dead, but still warm, though the blood was flowing profusely from a terrible wound under the right ear; for through there the ball had passed, departing by the back part of the head. She must have died on the instant.

The blood soon ceased to ooze; her jaw fell, and her once merry blue eye became glazed and dim. Ernestine was now my sole thought. I anticipated all she would suffer; and my sympathies for the once happy and childlike being who was gone, were mingled with pity for the survivor. I knew that she would, indeed, be lonely now!

It was a dreary place where Gabrielle lay, and, bedabbled in blood, her bright golden hair was spread among the rank, luxuriant grass.

With something akin to terror, I contemplated our return to Hesinge, and for a time felt completely bewildered. Our sternest clansmen all shared my emotions, though of course in a less degree; and while Phadrig Mhor and two others remained by my side, Angus M'Alpine with the rest, scoured the whole vicinity, without meeting a single person whom they could in any way implicate in the terrible catastrophe of the night.

"Be patient, sir," said Phadrig Mhor, seeing how deeply I was moved; "be patient—for this is the dispensation of God."

"From his blessed hand there never came a blow so cruel!" I replied bitterly. "O for the power of magic to discover, to reach, to punish, the author of this dire calamity!"

"Let us make the poor corpse look as comely as possible," said Phadrig, "lest we needlessly shock the poor lady at Hesinge."

"Comely!" said I.

"By washing the gore from her beautiful hair—oichone! and her neck, poor innocent!" A big tear trembled on the sturdy sergeant's eye-lashes. "She often spoke very kindly to me, sir," he added.

"I thank you, Phadrig, for the gentle and delicate thought," said I; "get me some water."

The honest fellow ran to an adjacent runnel, and brought me some water in his bonnet. I knelt down, and tore my white silk scarf (we all wore Scottish scarfs), and bathed the face, neck, and hair of Gabrielle. I closed her eyes, and arranged her luxuriant tresses about her head, so as to conceal that terrible wound from whence her pure spirit had gone to happier regions. I dropped more than one hot tear upon her pallid face, as I kissed her cold lips with all the affection of a brother, and spread my tartan plaid over her.

It would have been a fine subject for a picture—that poor girl's body lying lifeless on the ground, and the grim group of kilted soldiers standing gravely and sadly around it, leaning on their muskets; and some there were, whose eyes, though dimmed by honest emotion, had looked on many a battle-field—stout fellows who would march to the cannon's mouth; but were now recalling those prayers for the dead, which their Highland mothers had taught them in other times, when James of Jerusalem and Father Ignatius had preached to the Catholic clans.

When all our party had returned, a bier was formed by stretching my plaid between two sergeants' halberts, and thus the remains of Gabrielle were borne by Phadrig Mhor and Gillian M'Bane towards our cantonments.

All who, like myself, have marched between Helnœsland and Hesinge, must have remarked a little roadside tavern near the head of the bay.

There we first carried the body, and after procuring a more suitable bier, set out on our mournful journey for Hesinge.

How can I describe the grief of Ernestine!

* * * * * * *

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE MIDNIGHT FUNERAL.

Ernestine had been watching our approach from a window. It was some time before she recovered from the stupefaction into which the appearance of the body of Gabrielle, and the relation of our terrible narrative (which then wanted the unity that after inquiries have enabled me to give it), had plunged her. As yet one of the principal actors had not come forward; thus, the cause of Gabrielle's death was involved in a mystery, alike perplexing and impenetrable.

"All is over now," said Ernestine; "all is over now! My father—my father—let me reach my father's side, and then die too!"

Grief affected her by alternate fits of bitterness and calmness. At one time she was somewhat composed in her woe; at others, she flung herself upon her knees beside the bed on which the body lay (the same bed whereon her sister's slayer so nearly assassinated herself), and fondly kissed her again and again, playing with the masses of golden-coloured hair, that streamed over the pillow, with the pretty but pallid fingers that still yielded to her touch—arranging, and re-arranging her dress, uttering the while many a piteous endearing epithet, with many of those pious and beautiful exclamations of hope and woe, which the prayers of her Catholic preceptor had taught her.

"It is my own Gabrielle come back to me, after all! God has sent her to me, that once more I might take a sister's fond farewell of her. But God has been very cruel to me! Oh! what do I say? No, no—he has taken you to himself—you are now among the angels in heaven, sister; you were too good for this bad world! You are happy, and I must not grudge you to Him, who will one day require me too."

"She will know how kind you are to her," said Phadrig Mhor, who, being a Catholic, had earnestly begged leave to say his prayers at the foot of the bed, where he knelt down, and behind his bonnet was making very wry faces to conceal his sorrow, for grief easily affects the hearts of the brave and honest; "she will indeed, lady, for the dead know all that passes here."

There is something sacred in grief. We all withdrew, and at her own request left Ernestine along with the body for a time.

With a delicacy of sentiment that charmed me, she would not allow either the hostess of the inn, or any other woman, to assist her in arranging the remains of the poor child (for in many things Gabrielle was but a child) for the grave. She knew whose hands Gabrielle would have preferred to perform this sad and solemn, this last duty of affection; and thus unaided, she lifted and laid her in the coffin, tying her consecrated medals round her neck, laying a chaplet of white roses on her brow, and a crucifix upon her breast; she concluded, by repeatedly reading aloud, with a broken voice, those prayers which the church, in whose tenets she had been reared, directed shall be said for the dead.

These little offices, the pleasing dictates of mingled affection and religion, soothed and occupied her mind; and I could not help thinking how much the ideas inculcated by the ancient faith (whether derived from paganrie or not), were calculated to rob the grim tyrant of his terrors, rather, than like our Scottish customs, to invest him with others more appalling.

I beheld her with admiration, and her faith and fervour stirred a thousand deep and pious thoughts within me. The memory of those two days at Hesinge is full of pain; for we spent one day more, Ian delaying his march, in consequence of this melancholy catastrophe, over which I mean to hurry as briefly as possible.

It appeared at times impossible to realise the conviction, that our poor Gabrielle had passed away, or now existed only in memory!

During nearly an entire day I sat with Ernestine beside the body, which was to be buried at midnight in the old village church close by. As the dusk of evening stole on, strange alternations of light and shadow fell on the beautiful face of the dead girl, giving it at times a most lifelike expression. Then it would seem as if the features moved, and, but for her awful placidity, I could have imagined that, in her old spirit of waggery, the pretty Gabrielle was mocking us all. Though my brother-soldiers mourned for the untimely end of the poor young girl, I thought they should all love her as much as I did; for sorrow is sometimes unreasonable; and the easy indifference with which they continued their military duties, made me indignant at them all. But they felt like soldiers. Their first impulse was to have Merodé punished, and after considerable disputation among the officers as to who should have the honour of effecting this, unknown to me lots were cast in Ian's helmet under the Green-Tree, and it fell to the stout old Laird of Kildon to challenge Merodé to advance one hundred paces from the gate of Helnœsland, and, after exchanging four pistol-shots on foot or horseback, to decide the contest by the sword; but the necessity for immediately marching by daybreak, prevented this desirable rencontre from taking place. Had it been, sure am I that the white-haired Mackenzie had cut the German count into pieces.

The whole regiment attended the funeral, which the rank of Gabrielle required should take place at midnight.

It was a strange and striking scene! The coffin of that young being, once so happy and so full of life, with a chaplet of white lilies on its lid, borne on the shoulders of four tall Highland soldiers, preceded by the village girls in white, and old Torquil Gorm, with his pipes, pouring to the still midnight a slow and subdued lament; our bronzed and scarred officers in their picturesque arms and garb following close behind, with the veiled form of Ernestine in the midst;—all this was seen, be it remembered, by the lurid and uncertain light of twenty torches carried by Highland soldiers.

The night air was soft and mild; no moon was visible, but occasional red stars shot across the sky, and the pale northern lights were gleaming at the far and flat horizon. The leaves of the old yew-trees, the grass of the graves, and the flowers that bordered the churchyard path, were gleaming in dew; and the grotesque architecture of the massive and ancient porch, the low-browed arches of every window and aisle were bathed in red and wavering light, or rounded into deep and gloomy shadow, as the funeral train swept slowly down the centre of the church, preceded by a minister of the Lutheran faith, a venerable Dane, clad in a white surplice and embroidered stole, with a large brass-bound Bible in his hand. He was an aged and silver-haired man, whose thin wan haffets glittered in the light of the uplifted torches. There was no sound but the sputtering of the latter, and the sobs of Ernestine, who leant upon my arm.