Dim and distant, the hills of Fife and Lothian seemed soon to be afar off; the isle the fugitives had left seemed also sinking fast, and little trace of the shore remained, after the moon sank behind the peaks of Stirlingshire. The earl now attempted to turn shoreward; but in a moment found the impossibility of making the least headway against the strong and increasing wind, the ebbing tide, and the fierce current of the mighty Firth, which had there expanded to an ocean.
"The shore—the shore now. Oh, good, my dear earl, turn towards the shore!" implored Sybil, in great terror, as she clung to her companion.
"It is impossible! Against such a wind as this, I should merely have our boat upset, and this, dearest Sybil, would not be very pleasant."
"Mercy! we shall be swept out into the homeless ocean!" she continued, with increasing fear, as the boat rose suddenly up, or surged as swiftly down into a deep, dark, and watery hollow, while the heaving of the waves increased every moment.
"Nay, now, Sybil, afraid!—thou a Douglas of Kilspindie? I will never believe it. Let us bear right on towards the bonny Bay of Aberlady, which will soon receive us, and lo! we shall find ourselves just under your father's castle of Kilspindie."
"Better are we here," replied Sybil, with a kindling eye: "know you not that, like Tantallon, it is garrisoned by a party of Hamiltons?"
"Now, God's malison be on this tribe, for they have come out of their native Clydesdale to spread even as locusts over all the Lowlands."
"But there is many a crofter at Kilspindie, and many a stout fisherman at Aberlady, who will shelter us for the love they bear our grandsire Sir Archibald Douglas, and for the sake of the old race. They are all leal men and true to the Douglas name."
"I have sufficiently perforated one Hamilton to-night, and have no wish to come to handyblows with another, especially while having thee, my little lady, to protect."
"And dost thou think, cousin Archibald, that I can neither fire a petronel, or unwind a pistolette, as my aunt, your mother, doth?"