CHAPTER III
JOCK O’ BREADALBANE’S WIFE
Loch Awe lay vast and gloomy under the gray skies; it was twilight and the sky burnt gold and purple with the last of the setting sun behind Castle Kilchurn. Though it no longer rained, great black clouds lay over the distant mountains and a thick mist hung over the placid water. The castle itself, standing huge and magnificent on the tongue of land that runs into the loch at the foot of Ben Cruachan, bore on the Gothic turrets the English standard: a symbol of the authority with which the government had invested the Earl of Breadalbane.
Along the road that wound by the edges of the loch to the castle, rode a woman in a scarlet cloak.
The vast expanse of cloudy sky, the huge outlines of misty mountains, the gloomy castle and the great storm-twisted fir-trees were all tinged with an air of awe and melancholy.
The woman and her bright brown horse were reflected among the shadows of the broken clouds in the still water; she rode slowly with her face lifted to the flaring sky and her red hair blown back from her face.
There were lights in the windows of the Castle Kilchurn, and the outer gates stood open.
The horsewoman rode through and up to the great entrance, where she alighted. Before she had time to knock, four or five servants came hurrying across the courtyard to take her horse, and the door was flung wide.
She silently entered the vast stone hall, and looked about her; a couple of white hounds came running up to her; a gray-haired butler stepped forward. She asked him in Saxon:
“Is my lord here yet?”
“Nay, my lady; he is looking for your ladyship, when he found ye were missing, he returned to find ye, my lady.”