"For remember," added Lady Grizel, "it is equally unlucky either to meet or to avoid fairies or evil spirits."
"This cowes the gowan!" exclaimed Hab with a laugh, which awe for the old dame failed to restrain. "Lady Bruntisfield, a lad that hath heard Dunbarton's drums beating the point of war in the face of the Imperialists, need not care a brass bodle for all the fairies and witches in braid Scotland, and Gude kens, but there is plenty o' them—young anes, at least—eh, cousin Meinie?" and suddenly kissing her red cheek, he made a sweeping salute to the others, and sprang from the cottage.
Elsie now remembered that in her alternate joy and anxiety, the usual hospitality had been quite forgotten. Her nappy stone jars of usquebaugh and brown ale, with their attendant quaighs—crystal being then a luxury for the great and wealthy alone—cheese and bannocks of barley-meal were produced, and each person drank the health of all the rest with an air of solemn formality. The strong waters were tasted first for form-sake, and then their horns were replenished with the dun beverage of October, while their stools were all drawn close to the blazing fire, Lady Grizel, in the leathern chair, occupying the centre. Every face beamed with the purest happiness, and none more than that of Walter Fenton, and his handsome dark features, shaded by his clustering hair, glowing in the light of the fire and radiant with joy, formed an agreeable contrast to the paler and more interesting Lilian, whose eyes beamed with vivacity and drollery. Even old Elsie's face became dimpled with smiles, and she whispered in Meinie's ear, that "her auld een had never seen a mair winsome pair" than Walter and Lilian. Low as the whisper was, it reached the ear of the latter, or she divined its meaning, and it covered her with the most beautiful confusion, for to a young girl, there is nothing so indescribably charming, as when first her name is linked with that of a lover.
Though very happy, they were very silent. Lady Grizel was sunk in reverie; Lilian was a little abashed, and Walter, who was turning over his thoughts for a subject to converse on, was becoming more perplexed, until relieved by Elsie's loquacity, which found an ample theme in the terrors of the famous gnome or fairy boy, whose appearance about that time had caused no small consternation in Edinburgh. On the summit of the Calton—as all the gossips of the city were at any time ready to aver on oath—he was heard at midnight beating the role to the fairies, who came forth from under the long dewy blades of glittering dog-grass or heavy docken-leaves, from crannies in the rocks, and mole-tracks in the turf, to dance merrily on the Martyr's rock, in the blaze of the silvery moon. And, worse still, this same devilish gnome, by the clatter of his infernal drum, summoned weekly from the four quarters of heaven, the gyre-carlins and witches to Satan's periodical levée, and often the benighted citizen as he wended up the long and dreary loan from Leith (to which the ruins of a monastery, and a gibbet hung with skeletons, lent additional terrors), paused in dismay, when the din of the enchanted drum rang from the dark rocks on the gusts of the midnight wind, and the troop of gathering hags astride broom-sticks and sprigs from a gallows-tree, swept like a storm through the air, bending strong trees to the earth, laying flat the ripening corn, and rumbling among chimney-heads, making the nervous indwellers cower under the bed-clothes, and tremble in the wooden recesses of their snug box-beds, while they murmured old charms against sorcery and the devil. Other witches of more aquatic propensities, were ferried across Firth and Bay in eggshells, sieves, and milk-bowies, to that damnable conclave, where plots were laid to blast their neighbours' kail or cattle, and work all manner of mischief, as the Records of Justiciary show. On all these appalling facts, Lady Grisel and Elsie descanted with such earnest seriousness, that Walter felt half inclined to shiver with the rest, when the wind rumbled in the chimney as if a flock of gyre-carlins were sweeping past it, to their levée on the Calton, about the bluff black rocks of which Lady Grisel averred emphatically, she had repeatedly seen them swarming in the bright moonlight, like gnats in the summer sunshine; and after evidence so conclusive, we hope nobody will doubt it.
CHAPTER XV.
LOVE AND BURNT-SACK.
HORATIO. 'Tis well, sir, you are pleasant.
LOTHARIO. By the joys
Which my fond soul has uncontrolled pursued,
I would not turn aside from my least pleasure,
Though all thy force were armed to bar my way.
N. HOWE.
The evening of the night described in the preceding chapter had been a glorious one. The giant shadows of the rock-built city were falling from its central hill far to the eastward, and all its myriad casements were gleaming in the light of the western sky, where amid clouds of crimson, edged with gold, the sun's bright disc seemed to rest on the dark and wooded ridge of the Corstorphine hills, from whence it poured its dazzling flood of farewell radiance on all the undulations of the wide and varied scenery. On the vast and dusky mass of the hoary city which presented all the extremes of strong light, and deep retiring shadow, on the great stone crown of St. Giles, on the cordon of towers that girt the castled rock, and the stagnant lake that washed the city's base two hundred feet below, fell full the blood-red lustre of the setting sun.
The same warm tints glared along the western slopes of those bluff craigs and hills that rise to the westward, green, silent, stern, and pillared with basalt, rent by volcanic throes into chasms and gorges; where, though darkness was gathering, the slanting sunbeams shot through, and gilded objects far beyond. The loch, the city's northern barrier, usually so reedy and so stagnant, now swollen to its utmost marge by recent rains, was dotted by wild ducks and teals, that seemed floating in liquid gold, and like a polished mirror the water reflected its banks with singular distinctness. On one side appeared the inverted city, where gable, tower, and bartizan shot up so spectral, close, and dense, that it seemed like one vast fairy castle; on the other, a lonely and grassy bank dotted with whins, alder trees, weeping willows, and grazing sheep, while the old square tower of St. Cuthbert, rising above a clump of firs at one end of the loch, was balanced by the church of the Holy Trinity and its ancient orchard at the other.
On the northern bank of this artificial sheet of water flocks of crows were wheeling in circles among the furrows, and following the slow-drawn plough; and from the thatched cottages of St. Ninians, that nestled close to the ruins of an ancient convent, the smoke arose in long steady columns, and unbroken by the faintest puff of wind soared into the evening sky, and melted away into the blue atmosphere.