"I thought you meant with an exception," answered Beatrice. "But, if that is the case, we had better not go there at all. I tell you what, Gowrie, I have a plan that will answer very well. Let us go to Rhynd, and then up the Tay. At Rhynd we shall find good Mr. M'Dougal, the minister, poring over his books; and right glad will he be to see the yearl and his bonny titty Beatrix; and we shall have rare bringing out of bottles and glasses; and if I am not compelled to drink some strong waters, it will be by dint of vigorous resistance. Then we shall be able to go on to-morrow without any one knowing aught about it, for M'Dougal will ask no questions, and forget we have been there the moment we are gone. I am thinking you might have taken a shorter road to Trochrie, though; but I suppose you have grown so Italianized, that you have forgotten all the byways of Scotland."
"No, no," answered Gowrie; "but I came this way, that, in case of any inquiries, we might puzzle the pursuers. The stags teach us, Beatrice, to cheat the hounds; and so we get lessons from even the beasts we hunt. But the difference is very small; and we shall arrive in good time to-morrow. I like your plan well, dear sister, if you know the way to Rhynd in the dark."
"That do I well, Gowrie," she answered. "I believe my head was intended for a geographer's, and got fixed on my shoulders by mistake. I will send it back if ever I can find the right owner."
"Ask Hume's leave first," said Gowrie. "I should think he would not like to part with it."
And on they rode through the darkness, Beatrice fully justifying the account she had given of her own geographical talents. Not a step of the way did she mistake, but even led her brother straight to the best passage of the little river which joins the Tay near Rhynd, but the name of which I forget, and thence up to the door of the minister's manse. Her reception and that of her brother was as joyous and hospitable as she had anticipated. The old man had known them both well as children, and had seen Beatrice often since. But I must not pause to give any detail of how the evening or the night passed; of how the minister brought out his choicest stores for the earl, and sought his assistance in translating a difficult passage of Hebrew; of how he lodged Beatrice in a chamber all covered over with pieces of quaint embroidery, worked by the hands of a defunct sister; or how he gave up his own room to the earl, and laid strong injunctions on his maid-servant to redd it up--otherwise make it tidy--which, to say truth, it needed not a little.
Beatrice slept soundly, and though the earl was kept awake for some time by joyful thoughts of his meeting with her he loved, they were both on horseback again within half an hour after daybreak; and the good old man, after seeing them depart, returned into his house, to spend his time, as usual, between books and bottles, sermons and good cheer. It would be difficult to say whether nature had not originally intended him for a monk, if John Knox had not been born a century too soon, and compelled, what would have made an excellent Benedictine to become a Presbyterian minister. He was a good man and a kind one, however, acting by pleasant impulses, with a great deal both of the corporeal and of the mental in his mixed nature; and, if not possessing quite sufficient of the spiritual, altogether to curb the appetites of the one part and the energies of the other, so as to leave the purely ethereal her full exercise, yet he had a great many negative virtues and some active ones, which might, in a mass, compensate for a few not very violent failings. Mr. M'Dougal's blessing, as his two young guests departed, and his prayers for a pleasant and happy journey to them, seemed granted at once. All went gaily and easily with them as they rode on; and when the castle came in sight, with the wild and romantic scenery around--somewhat bare and desolate indeed, but beautiful and characteristic, Gowrie strained his eyes eagerly forward, gazing over the dark masses of gray stone, as if he would fain have seen through them into the chambers within. By the side from which he approached, Trochrie could be seen at a considerable distance. True, it was lost again behind the shoulder of a hill very soon; but, as he gazed at the walls, he thought he saw something like a figure, clad in dark garments, move along the battlements, not of the keep or donjon, but of the lower towers, which were backed by the body of the principal building. He said not a word, for love is timid of raillery; and he feared even the gay spirit of his young sister. But the moment after his doubts were removed, for the figure at the angle of the western tower stood forth against the clear sky, and he could see her pause, and, as he thought, turn round and gaze towards the spot where he and Beatrice were riding.
"See, Beatrice, see," he cried, "she is upon the ramparts, and looking out for me, as she promised she would."
"She has nothing else to do," answered Beatrice, "except to gaze at wild moors or gray stones, or the few scanty trees left of Birnham wood. See what a difference there is between gay, wild, enthusiastic love and calm, sober sense, Gowrie. You are all in a glow because you think that she is watching for you, and, my life for it, she has been looking at the corbies building their nests, just for nothing else to look at."
"Did you not look for Hume?" asked the earl, somewhat vexed, if one must speak the truth.
"Not I," answered Beatrice. "He found me and Alex quarrelling, or rather, me scolding him, and Alex, pouting--but I do think there is a woman on the battlements; and now she is moving away again. It may be a man in a cloak, but yet it looks like a woman too.--Now don't expect her to come down and meet you at the gate or on the drawbridge, for, if she has any sense of her own dignity, and the subjection in which woman should keep man, she will remain just where she is, and know nothing of your coming till you go to tell her."