Now he was on the old familiar road to his home. It was long past midnight. "Such a joyful surprise they will have!" said he, communing with himself, "and a merry new year it will be in the glen; but poor old Donald Iverach, he will look in vain for his fair-haired Evan."
The road was closely bordered by pine and birch trees. The latter were bare and leafless, and their stems and branches gleamed like a fairy shrubbery of silver in the moonlight; but the former, the solemn black pines of Caledonia, remained in all their rough unfading foliage, and cast around them a gloomy horror. Steep rocks, where the bright-eyed eagle and the giant glede looked forth from their eyrie, echoing caves, whilom the residence of wild and wondrous beings, the cairns of long-departed chiefs, rough obelisks, marking the ground of ancient battles and covered with mossy figures grim and terrible, bordered the devious way; but he hailed them all with delight, for they were the well-known haunts of his childhood, and his terror of the mysterious beings that were said to guard them had long since passed away. He set up his old hunting halloo as he galloped along, to hear if they re-echoed as of old, and in his glee he shouted fearlessly into a yawning chasm called the Uamhachoralaich, an uncouth name, which means 'the cavern of the strange spirit.' He hallooed again and again, to hear the voluminous echo which had so often stricken awe and horror into his heart when he was a child; and anon he dashed up the glen, scaring the deer in the thicket and the eagle on the rock, and causing the colleys on the distant hills and moors to hearken and howl in alarm.
Now, Lochisla lay before him! The whole scene burst upon his view at once, as his horse bounded up from the narrow gorge through which the road-way wound. The lonely Highland lake lay sleeping at the foot of the dark and wooded hills, which descended abruptly on all sides towards it. Tall and spectral on its rock, with one side covered with dark ivy and the other gleaming grey in the moonlight, the tower overhung the loch. Far beyond rose Ben-more, dim and distant. The declining moon was verging towards his ridgy back, behind which it would soon disappear. In the tower, or the clachan beneath it, no light was visible. Every loophole and window was dark.
"They are all a-bed; and the poor old watch-dog must be dead, or I should have heard his honest bark before this," said Ronald aloud, as he rode on towards the gate in the outer wall of the fortalice.
There seemed a stillness, an utter absence of life around him, which occasioned dark forebodings of evil, and he felt a strange sadness sinking on his heart. He longed to hear even the crow of a cock or the bark of a dog, but no sound could he detect, save the hoofs of his horse ringing on the frozen pathway which led from the clachan, or onsteading, to the tower. For a moment he became quite breathless with agitation, and clung to the mane of his horse.
"God be praised, there is no scutcheon over the gate!" he exclaimed; "but they lack somewhat of their usual care in leaving it open at this hour."
The gate of the barbican, or outer wall, was lying off its hinges on the earth. Janet's turret was dark. Her light, which she was wont to burn the whole night, gleamed there no longer, and a deadly terror chilled the heart of Ronald. He trembled, apprehending he knew not what, and for some minutes surveyed the court and keep before he dismounted and approached the door. Every thing was mournfully silent and desolate. Part of the barbican wall had fallen down; the wall-flower had sprung up between the stones; the moss and grass grew upon the cope, in the loop-holes, and between the pavement of the court-yard. The byres and stables were empty, and midnight depredators had torn away the doors and windows; the once noisy dog-kennel was silent, and the ancient tower was dark and desolate. The watch-dog's mansion was untenanted, and his chain lay rusting on the grassy ground.
All was as still as the tomb, and the soul of the soldier died within him. The flagstaff was yet on the mossy battlement, but the halliard waved wide on the wind. The old rusty carron gun was yet peeping through its embrasure, but a tuft of knotted grass hung down from its muzzle.
His heart, which so lately bounded with pleasure, now throbbed with apprehension and fear, for the silence around him seemed oppressive and terrible, when contrasted with the bustle he had witnessed in the capital a few hours before.
He struck with the hilt of his dirk on the door, knocking long and loud, and the building echoed like a huge drum, or some vast tomb. Again and again he knocked, but there was no answer save the mocking echoes. He attempted to force an entrance, but the door was locked and bolted fast, and he was compelled to retire. He looked up to the key-stone of the arched doorway, but the armorial bearings, of which his father was so proud, the antique crown, and initial letters R.n.R. (ROBERTUS n. REX) were there no longer. The stone remained, but the ancient sculpture was demolished. He muttered some incoherent things, for the memory of the past came swelling up in his breast, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He looked across the moonlit lake towards the islet, where the ruins of the church tower cast a long deep shadow on the graves of his martial ancestors, and their once numerous brave and devoted vassals.