A roofless and open ruin now, exposed to the blasts which sweep up the Firth from the German Sea, it has long been abandoned to the seamew, the bat, and the owl, or the ugla, as it was named of old in Fifeshire.
But the seclusion of Annora was not required; for, on the very day after the interview which was so roughly interrupted at Eglise Marie, Willie Calderwood, at the head of sixteen troopers, all sturdy "Kailsuppers of Fife," well mounted and accoutred in half armour—i.e., back, breast, and pot, with sword, pistol, and musketoon—had departed for the king's host, and joined the Marquis of Montrose, whose troops, flushed with their victorious battles at Tippermuir, Alford, Aldearn, and the Brig o' Dee, came pouring over the Ochil mountains, to sack and burn the Castle of Gloom.
Tidings of this advance spread rapidly from the West to the East Neuk of Fife. Great numbers of the Whig lairds repaired to the standard of Baillie, the covenanting general; and among others who drew their swords under him at the battle of Kilsythe, were Symon of Seafield and his three sons.
The latter, fiery and determined youths, had but one object or idea—to single out and slay without mercy William Calderwood, on the first field where swords were crossed.
The parting injunction of their father to Dame Grizel was to leave nothing undone to urge on the marriage of Annora with the Reverend Elijah Howler, a sour-visaged saint, in Geneva cloak and starched bands, with the lappets of a calotte cap covering his grizzled hair and cadaverous cheeks, who, during the troubles that seemed to draw nearer, had taken up his residence in that gloomy tower, which was half surrounded by the waves.
At another time, had she dared, Annora, who was really a merry-hearted girl, with curling chestnut hair and clear bright hazel eyes, might have laughed at such a lover as this "lean and slippered pantaloon," who now, in scriptural phraseology, culled chiefly out of the Old Testament, besought her to share his heart and fortunes; but the dangers that overhung her affianced husband and her father's household, whichever side conquered in the great battle that was impending, and the monotony of her own existence, which was varied only by the long nasal prayers and quavering psalmody in which the inhabitants of the tower (chiefly old women now) lamented the iniquity of mankind, and "warsled wi' the Lord"—prayers and psalms that mingled with the cries of the sea-birds, and the boom of the ocean on the rocks around the tower, all tended to crush her naturally joyous spirit, and corrode her young heart with artificial gloom.
She was frequently discovered in tears by Dame Grizel; and then sharp, indeed, was the rebuke that fell upon her.
"Oh, mother dear," she would exclaim, "pity me!"
"Silence! bairn, and greet nae mair," the lady would reply, sharply. "Hearken to the voice of ane that loves ye; but not after the fashion of this miserable world—the Reverend Elijah. Bethink ye on whom your hellicate cavalier may e'en the now be showering his ungodly kisses. Bethink ye—
That auld love is cauld love,
But new love is true love.