But the aged chief replied solemnly in verse, as was his wont when inspired by his mysterious power—
"Though Thomas the Liar thou callest me,
The sooth, Lord Earl, I tell to thee!
By Aikeyside,
Thy horse shall ride;
He shall stumble and thou shalt fa',
Thy neckbane shall be broken in twa,
And the hunting dogs thy bones shall gnaw!
There, maugre all thy kin and thee,
Thine own belt thy bier shall be!"
And so it came to pass soon after, for when the earl was hunting in the gloomy Den of Howie, as he galloped over the green hill of Arkeybrae, his horse became dazzled by the setting sun, and threw him with such violence that his brains were dashed out by some blocks of grey stone, which to this day are named Comyn's Craigie, and there his bones were found after his hounds had gnawed and torn them asunder.
"So, for God's love, dear lady," resumed the Lord of Cavers with a shudder, "refer no more to these dark and terrible predictions."
The white lips of the haughty lady smiled, but a wild expression of rage and sorrow filled her eyes, and the glance she gave her kinsman was to him inexplicable, as she had not a doubt that this sudden journey was all a device of her husband to meet, or perhaps to elope, with Yolande. Dark and terrible were the silent thoughts of Gwendoleyne as the evening drew on. The old prophecy that like the Black Comyn, the Red one would die by a violent death, seemed ever before her in letters of fire; and she thought that now the time had come.
"How was I ever weak enough to expect that a fair-haired man could be true to me?" she muttered; "in all old Scripture tapestries are not Cain and Judas represented with large yellow beards, or red ones, like that of my husband Comyn! Oh, woe is me! and cursed be the hour I forsook Sir John the Grahame to become the wife of his home and the mother of his children!"
All that day she kept Yolande carefully under lock and key, and without food or drink, while the black dwarf watched the window and the corridor. The sunset faded on the green ridges of the Campsie Fells, evening darkened into sombre night, and the pale light of the moon, long before her rising, was spread across the blue and starry sky behind the hills of Lanarkshire. The woolly-leaved birches that fringed the banks of the Logie and Kelvin, diffused a rich fragrance as the dew of eve fell on them; and the lonely heron sent up its mournful cry at times, as it waded in the pools that gleamed below the castle walls.
Attired as Yolande, in a dress of dark velvet starred with silver, with her black locks gathered in a golden crespinette, a veil spread over her head and shoulders, and with her little white hand grasping the hilt of a jewelled dagger that was concealed in her bosom, the wife of the Red Comyn left the Castle of Kirkintulloch unseen by all, and by a little postern on the south, and, skirting the houses of the town, reached the trysting-place, the Caer-pen-tulloch, or old Roman fort at the west end of the hill. The fallen ramparts of the tower were eighty feet square, and the yellow broom, the green whin, the purple foxglove, and the sweet wallflower, all flourished together on the masses of fallen masonry which were covered by long grass that waved mournfully to and fro between the pale Gwendoleyne and the white starlight. The place seemed very silent, lonely, and desolate. All was intensely still, save the fierce beating of her heart, which teemed with passion, as her eyes did with tears she scorned to weep. Time stole away. The moments seemed like hours.
No one came! Could she have mistaken the place—the time?
Now the yellow moon began to peep above the distant hills, and its lustre glinted on the green mounds and shattered masonry of the ancient peel.