Two stone pillars, dated 1600, with an arch and coat of arms with the Lindsay supporters, two lions sejant, termed the barrier, which was usually closed by a massive iron gate, the barbs or pikes of which had once been gilt. A century later had seen it the favourite trysting-place of Roland Lindsay, the younger, of Earlshaugh, and a daughter of a neighbour, the Laird of Craigie Hall, till the former left with his regiment, the Scots Guards, for Spain. One evening the girl was lingering there, in the soft violet light of the gloaming, impelled by what emotion she scarcely knew, but doubtless to dream of her lover who she thought was far away, when suddenly a cry escaped her, as she saw him appear, in his scarlet uniform, with feather-bound hat—the Monmouth cock—his flowing wig, and sword in its splendid belt; but gouts of blood were upon his lace cravat, and she could see that his face was sad and pale, as face and figure melted away and she found herself alone.
Apparitions generally 'come in their habits as they lived,' says the authoress of the 'Night side of Nature,' 'and appear so much like the living person in the flesh that when they are not known to be dead, they are frequently mistaken for them. There are exceptions to this rule, but it is very rare that the forms in themselves exhibit anything to create alarm.'
So did the girl's lover appear to her as if alive.
With a power of reason beyond her years and time, she tried to think—could it be a dream of her excited brain? But no, she was awake with all her senses; she thought of the blood on his dress, and the awful knowledge came to her, that she had looked upon the face of the dead—on the wraith of her lover—who, a month after she learned, had perished at that very hour and time, shot by the Spaniards on the fatal field of Almanza.
'The divine arts of priming and gunpowder have frightened away Robin Goodfellow and the Fairies,' wrote Sir John Aubery of old; but the ghost of the Weird Yett lingered long in the unused avenue of Earlshaugh.
When he did recall the terror of his boyhood, Roland smiled; but kindly, for every feature round him spoke of home. Seen through the tree-stems was the old thatched hamlet of Earlshaugh, on the side of a burn crossed by one huge stone as a bridge—the hamlet where the clatter of the weaver's loom still lingered even in these days of steam appliances, and on the humble doors of which the old Scottish risp or tirling-pin was to be seen as elsewhere in the East Neuk; and as he looked at the gray fallen monolith by which the stream was crossed, he thought of the old song which seemed to describe it:
'Yet it had a bluirdly look,
Some score o' years ago,
An' the wee burn seemed a river then,
As it roared doon below;
And a bauld bairn was he,
In the merry days lang gane,
Wha waded through the burn,
Aneath the auld brig-stane.'
And, as if to complete the picture, an old woman, wearing one of those white mutches, with the modest black band of widowhood, introduced by Mary of Guelders, sat on a 'divot-seat' knitting at the sunny end of her little thatched cottage.
A love of his birthplace and a pride in his historic race were the strongest features in the character of Roland Lindsay, and Earlshaugh was certainly such a home as any man might be pardoned for regarding with something of enthusiasm.
As he looked upon the old manor house, high, square, and embattled, towering on its grassy steep above the haugh—that abode of so many memories, with all his pride in it, and pride of race and name, there came a stormy emotion, or sense of humiliation—even of rage, when he thought of the tenor or alleged tenor of that will, by which his father, in the senility of age (if all he heard were true), had degraded him to a cypher by leaving the estate entirely to an alien, to his second wife, who had been the artful companion of his first—to the exclusion of him—Roland, the heir of line and blood, save for such a pittance or allowance as she chose to accord him, for the term of his or her natural life, which, when the chances of war and climate were considered, was certain to exceed his own, his senior though she was in years.