The Antiquary - Volume II

Chapter 12

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Remorse--she neer forsakes us--

A bloodhound staunch--she tracks our rapid step

Through the wild labyrinth of youthful frenzy,

Unheard, perchance, until old age hath tamed us

Then in our lair, when Time hath chilled our joints,

And maimed our hope of combat, or of flight,

We hear her deep-mouthed bay, announcing all

Of wrath, and wo, and punishment that bides us.

Old Play.

"I need not tell you," said the old woman, addressing the Earl of

Glenallan, "that I was the favourite and confidential attendant of

Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, whom God assoilzie!"--(here she crossed

herself)--"and I think farther, ye may not have forgotten that I shared

her regard for mony years. I returned it by the maist sincere attachment,

but I fell into disgrace frae a trifling act of disobedience, reported to

your mother by ane that thought, and she wasna wrang, that I was a spy

upon her actions and yours."

"I charge thee, woman," said the Earl, in a voice trembling with passion,

"name not her name in my hearing!"

"I must," returned the penitent firmly and calmly, "or how can you

understand me?"

The Earl leaned upon one of the wooden chairs of the hut, drew his hat

over his face, clenched his hands together, set his teeth like one who

summons up courage to undergo a painful operation, and made a signal to

her to proceed.

"I say, then," she resumed, "that my disgrace with my mistress was

chiefly owing to Miss Eveline Neville, then bred up in Glenallan House as

the daughter of a cousin-german and intimate friend of your father that

was gane. There was muckle mystery in her history,--but wha dared to

inquire farther than the Countess liked to tell?--All in Glenallan House

loved Miss Neville--all but twa, your mother and mysell--we baith hated

her."

"God! for what reason, since a creature so mild, so gentle, so formed to

inspire affection, never walked on this wretched world?"

"It may hae been sae," rejoined Elspeth, "but your mother hated a' that

cam of your father's family--a' but himsell. Her reasons related to

strife which fell between them soon after her marriage; the particulars

are naething to this purpose. But oh! doubly did she hate Eveline Neville

when she perceived that there was a growing kindness atween you and that

unfortunate young leddy! Ye may mind that the Countess's dislike didna

gang farther at first than just showing o' the cauld shouther--at least

it wasna seen farther; but at the lang run it brak out into such

downright violence that Miss Neville was even fain to seek refuge at

Knockwinnock Castle with Sir Arthur's leddy, wha (God sain her!) was then

wi' the living."

"You rend my heart by recalling these particulars--But go on,--and may my

present agony be accepted as additional penance for the involuntary

crime!"

"She had been absent some months," continued Elspeth, "when I was ae

night watching in my hut the return of my husband from fishing, and

shedding in private those bitter tears that my proud spirit wrung frae me

whenever I thought on my disgrace. The sneck was drawn, and the Countess

your mother entered my dwelling. I thought I had seen a spectre, for even

in the height of my favour, this was an honour she had never done me, and

she looked as pale and ghastly as if she had risen from the grave. She

sat down, and wrung the draps from her hair and cloak,--for the night was

drizzling, and her walk had been through the plantations, that were a'

loaded with dew. I only mention these things that you may understand how

weel that night lives in my memory,--and weel it may. I was surprised to

see her, but I durstna speak first, mair than if I had seen a phantom--

Na, I durst not, my lord, I that hae seen mony sights of terror, and

never shook at them. Sae, after a silence, she said, Elspeth Cheyne (for

she always gave me my maiden name), are not ye the daughter of that

Reginald Cheyne who died to save his master, Lord Glenallan, on the field

of Sheriffmuir?' And I answered her as proudly as hersell nearly--As sure

as you are the daughter of that Earl of Glenallan whom my father saved

that day by his own death.'"

Here she made a deep pause.

"And what followed?--what followed?--For Heaven's sake, good woman--But

why should I use that word?--Yet, good or bad, I command you to tell me."

"And little I should value earthly command," answered Elspeth, "were

there not a voice that has spoken to me sleeping and waking, that drives

me forward to tell this sad tale. Aweel, my Lord--the Countess said to

me, My son loves Eveline Neville--they are agreed--they are plighted:

should they have a son, my right over Glenallan merges--I sink from that

moment from a Countess into a miserable stipendiary dowager, I who

brought lands and vassals, and high blood and ancient fame, to my

husband, I must cease to be mistress when my son has an heir-male. But I

care not for that--had he married any but one of the hated Nevilles, I

had been patient. But for them--that they and their descendants should

enjoy the right and honours of my ancestors, goes through my heart like a

two-edged dirk. And this girl--I detest her!'--And I answered, for my

heart kindled at her words, that her hate was equalled by mine."

"Wretch!" exclaimed the Earl, in spite of his determination to preserve

silence--"wretched woman! what cause of hate could have arisen from a

being so innocent and gentle?"

"I hated what my mistress hated, as was the use with the liege vassals of

the house of Glenallan; for though, my Lord, I married under my degree,

yet an ancestor of yours never went to the field of battle, but an

ancestor of the frail, demented, auld, useless wretch wha now speaks with

you, carried his shield before him. But that was not a'," continued the

beldam, her earthly and evil passions rekindling as she became heated in

her narration--"that was not a'; I hated Miss Eveline Neville for her ain

sake, I brought her frae England, and, during our whole journey, she

gecked and scorned at my northern speech and habit, as her southland

leddies and kimmers had done at the boarding-school, as they cald it"--

(and, strange as it may seem, she spoke of an affront offered by a

heedless school-girl without intention, with a degree of inveteracy

which, at such a distance of time, a mortal offence would neither have

authorized or excited in any well-constituted mind)--"Yes, she scorned

and jested at me--but let them that scorn the tartan fear the dirk!"

She paused, and then went on--"But I deny not that I hated her mair than

she deserved. My mistress, the Countess, persevered and said, Elspeth

Cheyne, this unruly boy will marry with the false English blood. Were

days as they have been, I could throw her into the Massymore* of

Glenallan, and fetter him in the Keep of Strathbonnel.

* _Massa-mora,_ an ancient name for a dungeon, derived from the Moorish

language, perhaps as far back as the time of the Crusades.

But these times are past, and the authority which the nobles of the land

should exercise is delegated to quibbling lawyers and their baser

dependants. Hear me, Elspeth Cheyne! if you are your father's daughter as

I am mine, I will find means that they shall not marry. She walks often

to that cliff that overhangs your dwelling to look for her lover's boat--

(ye may remember the pleasure ye then took on the sea, my Lord)--let him

find her forty fathom lower than he expects!'--Yes! ye may stare and

frown and clench your hand; but, as sure as I am to face the only Being I

ever feared--and, oh that I had feared him mair!--these were your

mother's words. What avails it to me to lie to you?--But I wadna consent

to stain my hand with blood.--Then she said, By the religion of our holy

Church they are ower _sibb_ thegither. But I expect nothing but that both

will become heretics as well as disobedient reprobates;'--that was her

addition to that argument. And then, as the fiend is ever ower busy wi'

brains like mine, that are subtle beyond their use and station, I was

unhappily permitted to add--But they might be brought to think themselves

sae _sibb_ as no Christian law will permit their wedlock.'"

Here the Earl of Glenallan echoed her words, with a shriek so piercing as

almost to rend the roof of the cottage.--"Ah! then Eveline Neville was

not the--the"--

"The daughter, ye would say, of your father?" continued Elspeth. "No--be

it a torment or be it a comfort to you--ken the truth, she was nae mair a

daughter of your father's house than I am."

"Woman, deceive me not!--make me not curse the memory of the parent I

have so lately laid in the grave, for sharing in a plot the most cruel,

the most infernal"--

"Bethink ye, my Lord Geraldin, ere ye curse the memory of a parent that's

gane, is there none of the blood of Glenallan living, whose faults have

led to this dreadfu' catastrophe?"

"Mean you my brother?--he, too, is gone," said the Earl.

"No," replied the sibyl, "I mean yoursell, Lord Geraldin. Had you not

transgressed the obedience of a son by wedding Eveline Neville in secret

while a guest at Knockwinnock, our plot might have separated you for a

time, but would have left at least your sorrows without remorse to canker

them. But your ain conduct had put poison in the weapon that we threw,

and it pierced you with the mair force because ye cam rushing to meet it.

Had your marriage been a proclaimed and acknowledged action, our

stratagem to throw an obstacle into your way that couldna be got ower,

neither wad nor could hae been practised against ye."

"Great Heaven!" said the unfortunate nobleman--"it is as if a film fell

from my obscured eyes! Yes, I now well understand the doubtful hints of

consolation thrown out by my wretched mother, tending indirectly to

impeach the evidence of the horrors of which her arts had led me to

believe myself guilty."

"She could not speak mair plainly," answered Elspeth, "without confessing

her ain fraud,--and she would have submitted to be torn by wild horses,

rather than unfold what she had done; and if she had still lived, so

would I for her sake. They were stout hearts the race of Glenallan, male

and female, and sae were a' that in auld times cried their gathering-word

of _Clochnaben_--they stood shouther to shouther--nae man parted frae his

chief for love of gold or of gain, or of right or of wrang. The times are

changed, I hear, now."

The unfortunate nobleman was too much wrapped up in his own confused and

distracted reflections, to notice the rude expressions of savage

fidelity, in which, even in the latest ebb of life, the unhappy author of

his misfortunes seemed to find a stern and stubborn source of

consolation.

"Great Heaven!" he exclaimed, "I am then free from a guilt the most

horrible with which man can be stained, and the sense of which, however

involuntary, has wrecked my peace, destroyed my health, and bowed me down

to an untimely grave. Accept," he fervently uttered, lifting his eyes

upwards, "accept my humble thanks! If I live miserable, at least I shall

not die stained with that unnatural guilt!--And thou--proceed if thou

hast more to tell--proceed, while thou hast voice to speak it, and I have

powers to listen."

"Yes," answered the beldam, "the hour when you shall hear, and I shall

speak, is indeed passing rapidly away. Death has crossed your brow with

his finger, and I find his grasp turning every day coulder at my heart.

Interrupt me nae mair with exclamations and groans and accusations, but

hear my tale to an end! And then--if ye be indeed sic a Lord of Glenallan

as I hae heard of in _my_ day--make your merrymen gather the thorn, and

the brier, and the green hollin, till they heap them as high as the

house-riggin', and burn! burn! burn! the auld witch Elspeth, and a' that

can put ye in mind that sic a creature ever crawled upon the land!"

"Go on," said the Earl, "go on--I will not again interrupt you."

He spoke in a half-suffocated yet determined voice, resolved that no

irritability on his part should deprive him of this opportunity of

acquiring proofs of the wonderful tale he then heard. But Elspeth had

become exhausted by a continuous narration of such unusual length; the

subsequent part of her story was more broken, and though still distinctly

intelligible in most parts, had no longer the lucid conciseness which the

first part of her narrative had displayed to such an astonishing degree.

Lord Glenallan found it necessary, when she had made some attempts to

continue her narrative without success, to prompt her memory by

demanding--"What proofs she could propose to bring of the truth of a

narrative so different from that which she had originally told?"

"The evidence," she replied, "of Eveline Neville's real birth was in the

Countess's possession, with reasons for its being for some time kept

private;--they may yet be found, if she has not destroyed them, in the

left hand drawer of the ebony cabinet that stood in the dressing-room.

These she meant to suppress for the time, until you went abroad again,

when she trusted, before your return, to send Miss Neville back to her

ain country, or to get her settled in marriage."

"But did you not show me letters of my father's, which seemed to me,

unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avow

his relationship to--to the unhappy"--

"We did; and, with my testimony, how could you doubt the fact, or her

either? But we suppressed the true explanation of these letters, and that

was, that your father thought it right the young leddy should pass for

his daughter for a while, on account o'some family reasons that were

amang them."

"But wherefore, when you learned our union, was this dreadful artifice

persisted in?"

"It wasna," she replied, "till Lady Glenallan had communicated this fause

tale, that she suspected ye had actually made a marriage--nor even then

did you avow it sae as to satisfy her whether the ceremony had in verity

passed atween ye or no--But ye remember, O ye canna but remember weel,

what passed in that awfu' meeting!"

"Woman! you swore upon the gospels to the fact which you now disavow."

"I did,--and I wad hae taen a yet mair holy pledge on it, if there had

been ane--I wad not hae spared the blood of my body, or the guilt of my

soul, to serve the house of Glenallan."

"Wretch! do you call that horrid perjury, attended with consequences yet

more dreadful--do you esteem that a service to the house of your

benefactors?"

"I served her, wha was then the head of Glenallan, as she required me to

serve her. The cause was between God and her conscience--the manner

between God and mine--She is gane to her account, and I maun follow. Have

I taulds you a'?"

"No," answered Lord Glenallan--"you have yet more to tell--you have to

tell me of the death of the angel whom your perjury drove to despair,

stained, as she thought herself, with a crime so horrible. Speak truth--

was that dreadful--was that horrible incident"--he could scarcely

articulate the words--"was it as reported? or was it an act of yet

further, though not more atrocious cruelty, inflicted by others?"

"I understand you," said Elspeth. "But report spoke truth;--our false

witness was indeed the cause, but the deed was her ain distracted act. On

that fearfu' disclosure, when ye rushed frae the Countess's presence and

saddled your horse, and left the castle like a fire-flaught, the Countess

hadna yet discovered your private marriage; she hadna fund out that the

union, which she had framed this awfu' tale to prevent, had e'en taen

place. Ye fled from the house as if the fire o' Heaven was about to fa'

upon it, and Miss Neville, atween reason and the want o't, was put under

sure ward. But the ward sleep't, and the prisoner waked--the window was

open--the way was before her--there was the cliff, and there was the

sea!--O, when will I forget that!"

"And thus died," said the Earl, "even so as was reported?"

"No, my lord. I had gane out to the cove--the tide was in, and it flowed,

as ye'll remember, to the foot o' that cliff--it was a great convenience

that for my husband's trade--Where am I wandering?--I saw a white object

dart frae the tap o' the cliff like a sea-maw through the mist, and then

a heavy flash and sparkle of the waters showed me it was a human creature

that had fa'en into the waves. I was bold and strong, and familiar with

the tide. I rushed in and grasped her gown, and drew her out and carried

her on my shouthers--I could hae carried twa sic then--carried her to my

hut, and laid her on my bed. Neighbours cam and brought help; but the

words she uttered in her ravings, when she got back the use of speech,

were such, that I was fain to send them awa, and get up word to Glenallan

House. The Countess sent down her Spanish servant Teresa--if ever there

was a fiend on earth in human form, that woman was ane. She and I were to

watch the unhappy leddy, and let no other person approach.--God knows

what Teresa's part was to hae been--she tauld it not to me--but Heaven

took the conclusion in its ain hand. The poor leddy! she took the pangs

of travail before her time, bore a male child, and died in the arms of

me--of her mortal enemy! Ay, _ye_ may weep--she was a sightly creature to

see to--but think ye, if I didna mourn her then, that I can mourn her

now? Na, na, I left Teresa wi' the dead corpse and new-born babe, till I

gaed up to take the Countess's commands what was to be done. Late as it

was, I ca'd her up, and she gar'd me ca' up your brother"--

"My brother?"

"Yes, Lord Geraldin, e'en your brother, that some said she aye wished to

be her heir. At ony rate, he was the person maist concerned in the

succession and heritance of the house of Glenallan."

"And is it possible to believe, then, that my brother, out of avarice to

grasp at my inheritance, would lend himself to such a base and dreadful

stratagem?"

"Your mother believed it," said the old beldam with a fiendish laugh--"it

was nae plot of my making; but what they did or said I will not say,

because I did not hear. Lang and sair they consulted in the black

wainscot dressing-room; and when your brother passed through the room

where I was waiting, it seemed to me (and I have often thought sae since

syne) that the fire of hell was in his cheek and een. But he had left

some of it with his mother, at ony rate. She entered the room like a

woman demented, and the first words she spoke were, Elspeth Cheyne, did

you ever pull a new-budded flower?' I answered, as ye may believe, that I

often had. Then,' said she, ye will ken the better how to blight the

spurious and heretical blossom that has sprung forth this night to

disgrace my father's noble house--See here;'--(and she gave me a golden

bodkin)--nothing but gold must shed the blood of Glenallan. This child is

already as one of the dead, and since thou and Teresa alone ken that it

lives, let it be dealt upon as ye will answer to me!' and she turned away

in her fury, and left me with the bodkin in my hand.--Here it is; that

and the ring of Miss Neville, are a' I hae preserved of my ill-gotten

gear--for muckle was the gear I got. And weel hae I keepit the secret,

but no for the gowd or gear either."

Her long and bony hand held out to Lord Glenallan a gold bodkin, down

which in fancy he saw the blood of his infant trickling.

"Wretch! had you the heart?"

"I kenna if I could hae had it or no. I returned to my cottage without

feeling the ground that I trode on; but Teresa and the child were gane--

a' that was alive was gane--naething left but the lifeless corpse."

"And did you never learn my infant's fate?"

"I could but guess. I have tauld ye your mother's purpose, and I ken

Teresa was a fiend. She was never mair seen in Scotland, and I have heard

that she returned to her ain land. A dark curtain has fa'en ower the

past, and the few that witnessed ony part of it could only surmise

something of seduction and suicide. You yourself"--

"I know--I know it all," answered the Earl.

"You indeed know all that I can say--And now, heir of Glenallan, can you

forgive me?"

"Ask forgiveness of God, and not of man," said the Earl, turning away.

"And how shall I ask of the pure and unstained what is denied to me by a

sinner like mysell? If I hae sinned, hae I not suffered?--Hae I had a

day's peace or an hour's rest since these lang wet locks of hair first

lay upon my pillow at Craigburnfoot?--Has not my house been burned, wi'

my bairn in the cradle?--Have not my boats been wrecked, when a' others

weather'd the gale?--Have not a' that were near and dear to me dree'd

penance for my sin?--Has not the fire had its share o' them--the winds

had their part--the sea had her part?--And oh!" she added, with a

lengthened groan, looking first upwards towards Heaven, and then bending

her eyes on the floor--"O that the earth would take her part, that's been

lang lang wearying to be joined to it!"

Lord Glenallan had reached the door of the cottage, but the generosity of

his nature did not permit him to leave the unhappy woman in this state of

desperate reprobation. "May God forgive thee, wretched woman," he said,

"as sincerely as I do!--Turn for mercy to Him who can alone grant mercy,

and may your prayers be heard as if they were mine own!--I will send a

religious man."

"Na, na--nae priest! nae priest!" she ejaculated; and the door of the

cottage opening as she spoke, prevented her from proceeding.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.