But his guests rise to leave, and, receiving with antique grace their courtly acknowledgments, he attends the ladies across the stone-paved hall to their carriages.
Forty years ago! The old man since then has himself been carried across that hall to his long home, and no more do grand dames visit the high-walled garden. But the trees whisper yet above it; the warmth of summer beats on the gravelled walks; and the flowers, lovely as of old in their immortal youth, still open their stainless petals to the sun.
BY THE BLASTED HEATH.
The barometer has fallen somewhat since last night, and there are ominous clouds looming here and there in the west; but the sky remains clear blue overhead, the white road is dry and dazzling, and the sun as hot as could be wished. Out to the eastward the way turns along the top of the quaint fisher town, with its narrow lanes and throng of low thatched roofs, till at a sudden dip the little bridge crosses the river. Sweet Nairn! The river has given its name to the town. A hundred and forty years have passed since these clear waters, wimpling now in the sun, brought down from the western moors the life-blood of many a wounded Highlander fallen on dark Culloden. The sunny waters keep a memory still of the flight of the last Prince Charles.
Like a crow-flight eastward the road runs straight, having on the left, beyond the rabbit warren, the silver sand-beach and the sea, and on the right the fertile farm-lands and the farther woods. The white line glistening on the horizon far along the coast to the east, is a glimpse of the treacherous hillocks of the Culbin shifting sands. They are shining now like silver in the calm forenoon; but, as if restless under an eternal ban, they keep for ever moving, and, when stirred by the strong sea-wind, they are wont yet to rise and rush and overwhelm, like the dust-storm of the Sahara. For two hundred years a goodly mansion and a broad estate have lain buried beneath those wastes, and what was once called the Garden of Moray is nothing now but a desolate sea of sand. They say that a few years ago an apple-tree of the ancient manor orchard was laid bare for some months by a drift, that it blossomed and bore fruit, and again mysteriously disappeared. Curious visitors, too, can still see, in the open spaces where the black earth of the ancient fields is exposed, the regular ridges and furrows as they were left by the flying farmers; and the ruts of cart-wheels two hundred years old are yet to be traced in the long-hidden soil. Flint arrowheads, bronze pins and ornaments, iron fish-hooks and spear-points, as well as numerous nails, and sometimes an ancient coin, are to be picked up about the mouldered sites of long-buried villages; but the mansion of Kinnaird, the only stone house on the estate, lies yet beneath a mighty sandhill, as it was hidden by the historic storm which in three days overwhelmed nineteen farms, altered by five miles the course of a river, and blotted out a prosperous country-side. Pray Heaven that yonder terrible white line by the sea may not rise again some night on its tempest wings to carry that ruin farther!
Over the firth, looking backward as the highway at lasts bends inland, the red cliffs of Cromarty show their long line in the sun, and, with the yellow harvest-fields above them, hardly fulfil sufficiently the ancient name of the “Black Isle.” Not a sail is to be seen on the open firth, only the far-stretching waters, under the sunny sky, bicker with the “many-twinkling smile of ocean.” Here, though, two miles out of Nairn, where the many-ricked farmhouses lie snug among their new-shorn fields, the road rises into the trim village of Auldearn.
Neat as possible are the little gardens before the cottages, bright yet with late autumn flowers. Yellow marigolds glisten within the low fences beside dark velvety calceolarias and creamy stocks; while the crimson flowers of tropeolum cover the cottage walls up to the thatch, and some pale monthly roses still bloom about the windows. A peaceful spot it is to-day, yet a spot with a past and a grim tale of a hundred years before Culloden. Here it was that in 1645 Montrose, fighting gallantly for the First Charles, drove back into utter rout the army of the covenanting Parliament. On the left, among sheepfolds and dry-dyke inclosures, lay his right wing with the royal standard; nearer, to the right, with their backs to the hill, stood the rest of his array with the cavalry; and here in the village street, between the two wings, his few guns deceived the enemy with a show of force. It was from the church tower, up there in front, that Montrose surveyed the position; and below, in the little churchyard and church itself, lie many of those who fell in the battle. They are all at peace now, the eastern Marquis and the western, Montrose and Argyle: long ago they fought out their last great feud, and departed.
The country about has always been a famous place for witches, and doubtless the three who fired Macbeth with his fatal ambition belonged to Auldearn. Three miles beyond the village the road runs across the Hardmuir, and there it was that the awful meeting took place. The moor is planted now with pines, and the railway runs at less than a mile’s distance; but even when the road is flooded with sunshine, there hangs a gloom among the trees, and a strange feeling of eeriness comes upon the intruder in the solitude. On the left a gate opens into the wood, and the witches’ hillock lies at some distance out of sight.