The old ferryman hurriedly dragged his leather galligaskins over his hodden grey breeches, donned his skyblue coat and broad bonnet, and bowing at every step of the way, though inwardly cursing the summons from his cosy nest and gudewife's side, led the proud Baron towards the little boat, for the use of which he paid a yearly rental to the city. They stepped on board; he unlocked the mooring-chain and shoved off.
Fed by the springs of the castle-rock and the rivulets that gurgled down its northern bank, the loch had of late become considerably swollen, and now rose high upon the bastions of the Well-house-tower. It was without current, and, save the ripple raised by the soft west wind, was still and motionless as a lake of ink.
Clermistonlee, with his rocquelaure rolled around him, and his broad beaver with its heavy plumage shading his face, lounged silently in the stern, watching the gigantic features of the city as they rose in sable outline behind him, towering up from the lake like a vast array of castles, or a barrier of splintered rock, a forest of gables and chimnies, whose summits shot upwards in a thousand fantastic shapes.
To the westward, from a cliff of perpendicular rock, three hundred feet in height, rose the towers of the castle. Beneath the gloomy shadow of this basaltic mass the loch vanished away into obscurity; but from under its impending brow there gleamed a light that tremulously shed one long red ray across the dark bosom of the water. It shone from the guard-fire in the Well-house-tower. Save the measured dash of the oars, and the creaking of the boat, all was so still that Clermistonlee heard the pulsations of his own evil heart.
Suddenly the moon gushed forth a glorious blaze of light between the flying clouds. Magnificent was the effect of that silver splendour, and wondrous was the beauty it lent to that romantic scene. High over the jagged outline of the tall city it streamed aslant, and its thousand points and pinnacles became tipped with instant light. The great stone turrets, the massive towers and angular bastions of the Castle and its perpendicular cliffs were thrown forward, some in silver light, while others remained in sombre shadow. To its base the still loch rolled like a silver mirror, while the dewy alders, the waving osiers and bending willows that fringed its northern bank, shone like fairy trees of gleaming crystal.
Even the old boatman paused for a moment and looked around him. City, rock, wood, and water, all shone in the magnificent moonlight, but once more the gathering vapours obscured the shining source, and the whole faded like a vision. The varied masses of the city and its stupendous fortress sank again into darkness, and once more the sheet of water rolled to their base a black and foetid lake. At that moment the boat grounded, the passenger sprang ashore, and addressed the boatmen in his usual style:—
"Peril of thy life, knave, tarry till my return, or thy fee will contain more cudgel-blows than bonnet-pieces."
"Yes, my Lord, yes," stammered the poor man, whose teeth chattered with cold and fear: meanwhile his imperious employer sprang up the bank, and hurried on, till, reaching the Lang Dykes, a road which led westward, and which he traversed until he gained the Kirk-brae-head, where on one hand the road branched off towards the castle rock, and on the other plunged down between thick copsewood towards the secluded village of the Dean, which lay at the bottom of a deep dell overhung by the richest foliage.
By the margin of the Loch, and surrounded by an ample churchyard, where the long grass waved and the yew-trees cast their solemn shadows on many an ancient grave, where the moss-grown headstones, half sunk in earth and obliterated by time, marked the resting-place of the dead of other days, the old cross kirk of St. Cuthbert reared up its dark façade with a gloomy square tower and pointed spire surmounting its nave and transept. There slept all the ancestors of Clermistonlee; he cast but a glance at its vast outline and hurried on. The occasional stars alone gleamed through its mullioned windows, for the tapers of the midnight votary had long since been quenched on the altars of Cuthbert and St. Anne the mother of the Virgin.
Under a mouldering gateway, where two stone wyverns with forked tails and outspread wings, reared up on their mossy columns, Clermistonlee paused for a moment—for a host of strange fancies and burning thoughts, the memories of other days, crowded fast upon his mind as he surveyed the long gloomy vista beyond.