"Strange and unusual this!" said he; "for, save to mass, my mother never leaves her own gate. Where has she gone?"
Maud replied, with eyes averted, she did not know.
"You do know!" exclaimed Florence impetuously,—"speak!"
The old woman fumbled with the lappets of her curchie, and endeavoured to withdraw.
"Speak!" continued Florence, confronting her. "I am the victim of some vile plot. Ye have half-poisoned me, beldame, by some damnable philter; for at this moment there is a bitter sickness in my heart and in my soul! Speak, old nursie, speak, or, though your foster-son, by Him who hears us on high, I will hang you over the tower wall as I would a hag of Egypt!"
"Weel," replied the woman, trembling, "she gaed by the loan end to the kirk."
"Hah—to Tranant! I see it all. Fool! fool!—dupe that I have been, not to read the cruelty that glittered in her eye, while her lips seemed to smile! My horse—quick—my horse!" he exclaimed; but, without waiting for the groom, he rushed bareheaded to the stable-yard, saddled the first nag that stood at hand, leaped on its back, and galloped madly over hedge and ditch, through field and meadow, straight for the kirk-town of Tranant.
The whole affair seemed to unravel itself now. Aware of the appointment in the gloaming, his mother had gone in his place to meet Madeline; and his heart trembled at the prospect of the terror, the insult, if not the actual danger, to which the young countess might be subjected by Lady Alison; his swollen heart beat painfully, and wildly he rode, spurring his panting horse, and pricking it with his poniard as it lingered at every desperate leap.
Much of the fine old wood which once covered the district has now been cut down, rendering the landscape somewhat dreary and bare; but though flat and (for Scottish scenery) unpicturesque, it was then, and is still, fertile and well cultivated.
On this evening it seemed particularly gloomy. The sun, long before he set beyond the dark hills of Dunblane, had been thickly enveloped in masses of dun and grey cloud, thus imparting a sombre aspect to the waves that tumbled in the estuary of the Forth, and flecked its breast with foam, while the breakers that roared and hissed upon the rugged shore were spotless as winter snow. The white sea-birds were skimming over the harvest-fields, betokening a storm at hand; and the red glare of the salt-pans, which belonged to the monks of St. Mary, and were perched upon the bleak and rifted reefs of freestone that jutted into the dashing sea, streaked the dull-grey background with sudden gleams of vertical fire, imparting a weird aspect to the scenery.