'As you may know it—by looking in the Baronetage.'
In the days that succeeded the departure of Mary and Ellinor most eagerly were letters looked for at the manse of Kirktoun-Mailler, but none came from either, though both sisters had promised to write whenever they had found a new home, however temporary, and periodically the path through the fields, by which the postman always came, was watched by anxious eyes.
How was this?—what had happened? were the constant surmises of Dr. and Mrs. Wodrow, as they looked gravely in each other's face, while more than once each day Colville came to the manse in hope of having tidings. Were both ill—stricken down by some sudden ailment and among strangers—they so gentle, so tenderly nurtured, and so refined in nature?
The doubt and perplexity were intolerable! And the upbraiding, almost despairing looks of Dr. Wodrow cut Colville to the heart.
With their departure by railway all clue was lost, and as the days ran on to weeks the anxiety that preyed on the minds of the good people at the manse became sore indeed, and to Colville, who knew what London is, doubt was simply maddening! From the heir of entail Mr. Luke Sharpe received instructions that everything was to remain intact and untouched at Birkwoodbrae till the sisters should come back and once more sit by its hearthstone; and old Elspat, who had been installed there in charge, held for a time a kind of daily levee of humble neighbours, whose inquiries, comments, and regrets were reiterated and ever recurrent.
But days, we have said, passed on and became weeks and more, and no tidings came of the lost ones, for so those among the Birks of Invermay began to consider them.
Captain Colville had rejoined his regiment in London; Sir Redmond Sleath was no one knew precisely where, and Robert Wodrow, whose evil genius he had been, abandoning his studies in a kind of despair, had disappeared. Thus a great gloom reigned over the old manse, and the worthy descendant of the author of 'Analecta Scotica' could not find in any page thereof a passage to soothe him in his great sorrow.
With Colville's return to London a slight hope had grown in the old minister's heart that he might be the means of casting a little light on this painful mystery, but ere long that hope died away too.
September stole on, and October came, with its red, yellow, and russet autumnal hues; the leaves were falling on the empty air; hardy apples yet hung in the otherwise bare orchards for the coming frosts to ripen; dark berries clustered on the elder-trees; long rushes waved in the wind by the banks of the May, which careered the same as ever through its bed of rock towards the Earn; the call of the partridge and the few notes uttered by the remaining birds of the season came on the low sighing breeze; winter was close at hand, and yet there came no tidings of Mary Wellwood or her sister.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.