At this time, when the sun had set enveloped in clouds—when the Forth was breaking in foam over the black scalp of the Beacon Rock, and while its billows boomed along the dreary ridges of the Mussel-cape and the far expanse of desert-sand that bordered the Figgate-muir,—Euphemia and Sybilla Drummond occupied a seat near the beach at Barton's house, where they sat hand-in-hand, and bathed in tears; for their sky, to speak figuratively, was as much overcast as that which yester-night had warned old Andrew Wood to drop his anchors and make all snug for riding out a gale in the bonny Bay of Largo. But it was not the sullen chafing of the waves, the darkening of the inky sky, the foam-flecked river, or the flying scud, that brought those tears to the hazel eyes of these two gentle and loving sisters, for they feared not for the safety of their lovers; they wept alone for that unhappy fate to which they seemed abandoned; for ambition or avarice had steeled the heart of their father against them; and family pride and priestly austerity had withered up the soul of their uncle; and hope they had none.
Callous, proud, and cold, Hailes and Home seemed bent on espousing them in a spirit of mere opposition or convenience—if not with something of revenge, for their rejection of an absurd and insulting suit which had been coarsely pressed upon them, while it was known that their affections were secured by others, and that their hearts were swollen with sorrow by the strange disappearance of their sister; and young Rothesay, who for her sake loved them well, and who might have unravelled one part of her story—viz., the discovery of the poor little babe in the alcove, was yet, by the lawless detention of the Bishop of Dunblane in England, obliged to seal his lips as to an espousal which he dared not acknowledge to the nation.
Two large willows shaded, and a thick boor-tree hedge screened this old garden seat, on which a hundred lovers had cut their names or initials; and on the soft rind of the wallows, Sybilla soon discovered the date 1486, between the letters D.F. and S.D.—the initials of herself and Falconer, who, in that year had first seen and learned to love her, and, like a true Orlando, had cut them there,—thus revealing, as it were, to the spirits of the air and the sea, that love which he dared hardly acknowledge to himself as yet.
"Poor dear Falconer!" said Sybilla, patting the rind with her pretty white hand; "thou lovest me well and truly!"
Since their separation at Dundee, she had never heard his voice; nor since that horrible day had Euphemia an opportunity of addressing Barton, her betrothed, save for one brief moment, the other evening, when with the admiral he left that house of which the prince and nobles had unlawfully possessed themselves; so both the poor girls were very sad and miserable, and the communings of each served but to feed rather than soothe the sorrow of the other.
Euphemia, who, as the eldest, had learned to act with more decision than her sister, had written and had now concealed in her bosom a letter for Robert Barton, relating to him the desperate crisis that was coming; and boldly saying, that unless he and Falconer rescued and concealed them from Hailes and Home, they would be compelled to bend before the overweening influence of their father, especially if united to the preaching and stern presence of their uncle, the Dean, of whose arrival from the cathedral city of Dunblane they were hourly in terror.
"It is here, you see, sister Sybie," said Lady Euphemia, opening two little pearl buttons of her boddice, and discovering the corner of a square epistle, tied with blue ribbons; "but how we are to get it conveyed to Robert's hand, I know not—for of all the hundreds about us, is there one we can trust? They are all Hepburns devoted to Hailes, Homes devoted to Home, or Drummonds who tremble at our father's name."
"There is young Mewie, or Balloch," said Sybilla; "both smile in the silliest way, and blush from their bonnets to their red beards, when I address them. What think you, Effie, of trying them?"
"I think it would be most unwise. Two cock-lairds, who are good for nothing but hunting the deer and hewing down the clan Donnoquhy, or any other tribe on whom our father unkennels them and their followers, like a pack of hungry hounds;—men who drink all day and sleep all night in their plaids under the hall tables, or anywhere else, like gillies or trencherman. You will find a hundred men as good in our father's band, yet there is not one I dare entrust with this!"
"Would not some old Franciscan or Hospitaller convey it, as an act of mercy?" said Sybilla, weeping bitterly.