CHAPTER V.
A PAIR OF RAPIERS.
If thou sleep alone in Urrard,
Perchance in midnight gloom,
Thoul't hear behind the wainscot
Of that old and darken'd room
A fleshless hand that knocketh——"
HIGHLAND MINSTRELSY.
In a dark old wainscotted apartment, in the small arched chimney of which a coal fire was glowing cheerily, supper and wine were sullenly laid for Walter by a sleepy and half-frightened servant; but the first remained untouched and the last untasted, at least for a time. Removing his burgonet and gloves, he sat with his elbow on the table and his forehead on his hand, with his fingers writhed among his thick dark locks. He was again sunk in one of his gloomy reveries; but at times a smile of pleasure and animation unbent his haughty lip and lit up his handsome face like sunlight through a cloud; and it was evident he thought more of Lilian Napier's bright blue eyes, her innocence, and her fears, than the dangers and ignominy to which coming day would assuredly expose him.
The mildness, modesty, and beauty of the young girl, with the touching artlessness of her manner, had awakened a nearer and more vivid interest in his heart, one to which it had hitherto been utterly a stranger. It was the dawn of passion; never before, he thought, had one so winning or so attractive crossed his path; he had found at last the well-known face that his fancy had conjured up in a thousand happy reveries, and he was predisposed to love it. Her tears and affliction for the last relative (save one) whom fate and war had left, had increased her natural attractions, and a keen sense of her unmerited humiliation, and the risk he ran for her, by knitting their names together, all tended to raise a glow in young Walter's solitary heart; for having no living thing in this wide world to cling to, it was peculiarly susceptible and open to impressions of kindness and generosity; now it expanded with a flush of happiness and delight to which since thoughtless childhood it had been a stranger; and in a burst of soldierlike enthusiasm, he uttered her name aloud, and drained the pewter flagon of Rhenish to the bottom.
As he set it down, a noise behind made him turn sharply round and listen; nothing was visible but the dark stains of the wainscotting, and its gilded pannels glistening ruddily in the glow of the fire. From an antique brass sconce on the wall, the light of three great candles burned steadily on the old discoloured floor, the massively jointed arch of the fire-place, which bore a legend in Saxon characters, on three old pictures by Jamieson, of cavaliers in barrelled doublets, high ruffs, and peaked beards, and one of the famous Barbara Napier of Bruntisfield, who so narrowly escaped the stake for her sorceries, on a spectral suit of mail, and six old heavily carved chairs, ranged against the wall like grotesque gnomes with their arms akimbo; but although nothing was visible to create alarm, the aspect of the chamber was so gloomy, that certain tales of a spectre cavalier who haunted the old house, began to flit through Walter's mind, and he could not resist listening intensely; still not a sound was heard, but the wind rumbling in the hollow vent, and the creaking of the turret vanes overhead.
"Tush!" said he, and whether it was the faint echo of his own voice or a sound again behind the wainscot, he knew not, but he palpably heard something that made him bring the hilt of his long rapier more readily to hand. The portraits, like all those of persons whom one knows to have been long dead, when viewed by the dim candle-light had a staring, desolate, and ghastly expression, and they really seemed to "frown" over their high ruffs on the intruder, who would probably have frowned in return, had he not, even in the harsh lines of the old Scottish artist traced a family likeness to the soft features of Lilian Napier. But there was a stern, keen and malignant expression in the features of the old sorceress, Lady Barbara, that made Walter often avert his eyes, for her sharp features seemed to start from the pannel instinct with life and mockery.
As sleep weighed down the eyelids of Walter, strange fancies pressed thick and fast, though obscurely, on his mind; and though once or twice the same faint hollow sound made him start and take another survey of the apartment by the dim light of the sconce and dying embers of the fire, his head bowed down on the table, and at last he slumbered soundly.
Scarcely had he sunk into this state when there was a sharp click heard; a jarring sound succeeded, and on the opposite side of the room, about three feet from the ground, a pannel in the wainscotting was opened slowly and cautiously, and the bright glare of a large oil cruise streamed into the darkened apartment. Beyond the aperture, receded a gloomy alcove or secret passage, into the obscurity of which the steps of a narrow stair ascended, and therein appeared the figure of a man, who gazed cautiously upon the unconscious sleeper. He was about thirty years of age, strongly formed, and possessing a handsome but very weatherbeaten countenance. He wore a plain buff coat and steel gorget; his waist was encircled by a broad belt, which sustained a pair of long iron pistols of the Scottish fashion, and a sharp narrow-bladed rapier glittered in his hand.
Young Fenton still slept soundly.
The stranger regarded him with a stern and louring visage, on which the lurid light of the upraised cruise fell strongly. It betokened some fell and deadly intention, and as the hostile ferocity of its aspect increased as slowly, softly, and ominously he descended into the apartment.