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CHAPTER XXIV.
THE RAID OF MACALLUM MHOR.
The scarlet mantle and the blue bonnet of the murderer, with his crest thereon, were found in the thicket, and left no doubt as to who was the perpetrator of this terrible deed, which cast a gloom over all the fair north countrie. His carbine was also found; for, though full of deadly hate against his rival, Gordon had not the most remote intention of injuring Lily. The moment he saw the frightful result of his fury, he had thrown down his weapon in dismay, and fled like a madman to his Tower among the morasses. In one hour from that time he had come forth again, sheathed in full armour, and crossed the hills at the head of twenty mounted spearmen, journeying no one knew whither.
Kenneth buried his Lily in the old kirkyard of Logie-colstaine, on the grassy holme where, when the sun was in the west, the cross of St. Woloc's spire might fall upon her grave; for those charming old superstitions which cast a halo round the ancient faith, were yet lingering in the hearts of the Scottish people; and thus, though rigid Calvinists, they laid Lily with her feet to the east, and her fair head towards the setting sun, that, according to the tradition of the early Christians, she might, at the day of doom, see our Saviour when he comes from the east in his glory.
And there by her open grave, Kenneth Logie, with his head bare and his sword drawn, knelt down among the damp mould—that hideous earth, impregnated with the bones of other times; and on his blade and on his Bible made a sad, a stern, but solemn vow of vengeance, which he called on his Lily to hear, and their Maker to register in heaven. He was the last to leave her grave; and, long after all others had departed, the lonely youth—for he was but a youth—was seen to linger there.
Long, long and bitterly, he wept, even as a child weeps, and, embracing the newly laid turf, kissed it many times; and the sun had set before he tore himself away. But the thought of Halbert Gordon, and the reflection that already four days had elapsed, nerved him anew; and, with lingering steps and many a backward glance, he left the place where the Lily of the Forest lay.
It was now generally known that the Protestant lords were in arms against their Catholic fellow-subjects. Kenneth learned that Gordon had ridden towards the north, and knew that, if he was to be found within the kingdom of Scotland, it would be with his clansmen, the Gordons, beneath the banner of Lord Huntly.
On the night after the funeral, a single horseman well mounted, and armed after the fashion of a Lowland gentleman, with a close morion, corslet and arm-pieces, gorget and steel gloves, with petronel, Glasgow axe, and two-handed sword, rode forth alone from the old Place and oak-woods of Culbleine. He crossed the Dee, and, leaving the glen, diverged upon the open moorlands, which were then covered with heath and furze, and watered by deep rivulets and swampy hollows; and, striking at once into the road which led towards the west, never halted until he reached a place where it dipped over a hill, and then he checked his horse and looked back.
Like a broad round silver shield, the summer moon was rising behind the oak-woods he had left, and its beams glinted brightly on the spire of the old ruined church, at the foot of which lay Lily's lonely grave. Its shadow was falling full upon the spot where he knew she was lying.