Shew’d their grey heads; the blue face of ocean
Smil’d, and the white wave was seen tumbling round
The distant rock. I climbed the narrow path,
And stood on the cliff’s high brow.”
Our hero’s sacrifice was not quite so great as he imagined, the ball of the last night being the concluding one, a circumstance he had not considered.
Having written two notes of farewell, one to Lord Arandale, and one addressed to Julia and Frances jointly, our hero left Ayr, just before daybreak, riding, and without a servant. After forming, we suppose, very proper determinations respecting his route, he unfortunately forgot to communicate his plans to his horse; and, suffering the reins to lay very loosely on the animal’s neck, himself fell into a deep reverie.
His Bucephalus, thus left to his own devices, happened to perceive a gap in the boundaries of the high road, which particularly caught his eye, as it not a little resembled the approach to the race-course. He turned in accordingly on a rugged piece of moorland, and looked about him. Nor right, nor left, nor straight before, offered other prospect than a wide extent of close cropped sod, plentifully sprinkled with loose stones, and diversified here and there by pools of water and patches of heath; the horizon every where the only visible boundary; while on the extreme edge of this monotonous waste, the just risen sun stood in lonely majesty.
Uninteresting as all this may appear, it seemed to please Bucephalus mightily: he made wide his nostrils, snuffed the morning air, twice swung his neck, to try the length of his rein, and then set out at full speed. The road, or rather path he took, pursued a gradual ascent for some time, when suddenly the spirited animal stopped short and snorted, on which, Edmund perceived that he had reached the brow of a hill, or rather edge of a precipice; whence, looking down an abrupt and wooded descent, a valley presented itself, far below, possessing a species of beauty in some respects peculiar to the spot. A small river or rivulet, ran close beneath the overhanging cliffs which formed the opposite side of the valley. Its stream varied in breadth; its banks were rugged and irregular, while its course frequently divided and reunited, forming many of the most picturesque spots, into little islets. On most of these, as well as on many projecting points of the bank, stood, what, from this distance at least, had the appearance of ruined towers: some round, some square, all moss grown; some bearing small trees on their summits, and in the crevices of their sides, and almost all having their own large old tree or trees, standing close to them. The grassy carpet of the vale was of a green peculiarly vivid. The opposite cliffs were thickly wooded in every aperture; while, here and there, smooth brows of good pasture land, dotted with grazing cattle, appeared on their summits. The valley at one end opened on an extent of flat country, terminated by a distant chain of mountains; at the other it admitted a view of the sea, discernible between two bold headlands, the furthest and highest of which was crowned by a single tower, that appeared destined to reign over all those more humbly situated in the vale beneath. Tempted by the beauty of the prospect, though not sufficiently acquainted with the country to know where he now was, Edmund directed his horse to take a rather dangerous looking, very narrow road, which by running along the side of the precipice, lessened the steepness of the footing, while it promised to lead him into the midst of the region he had thus been for some moments contemplating.
As he gradually drew nearer and nearer the curious scene that lay beneath him, and, at length, accomplishing his perilous descent, entered the valley itself, and approached those objects which he had at first thought were numerous ruins, they in general began to assume somewhat of a different appearance, and, finally, on coming up to each, to his great surprise as well as disappointment, they one by one, proved to be but deep sided, perpendicular rocks; looking, however, as ancient as though they had in the time of Noah, resisted the retiring waters of the flood, when all more yielding substances had been borne along the narrow channel of the glen, into the sea.
He now crossed the river by means of a single arched bridge, much overhung by the trees of the opposite bank, under the thick cover of which it immediately led. Through this copse he rode for a time and then emerged just at the foot of the headland, the lofty summit of which bore on high that which he could now ascertain to be the only real tower of all he had in imagination so designated. Rock over rock, with wood between, shelved and projected, till how the building itself was to be reached seemed an impenetrable mystery; there did not appear to be nearly space enough to conquer so perpendicular an ascent by any windings of the road he still pursued. He next passed a lodge-gate, which was opened by a little bare-footed girl, who stretched first the one side on its hinges, then the other, though our hero had meanwhile passed through. At a second gate he demanded if he might pursue his course through what thus seemed to be an approach to some nobleman’s or gentleman’s place, though, as yet, he could discern no residence. He was answered in the affirmative, and proceeded till, having got round to the further side of the headland, a part of the height of which he had meantime, by a gradual ascent, achieved, he came suddenly in view of a magnificent castellated mansion, apparently surrounded by an extensive richly wooded and beautifully diversified demesne, some of the grounds of which, on one side, descended by an inclined plane to the sea, and the whole of which had been screened from view during the former part of his ride by the much greater height of the side nearest the valley, on the rocky pinnacle of which, at an elevation far above that of the castle, and surrounded up to its very base by wood, still appeared conspicuous the same single tower which from the first had attracted so much of his notice. Seeing a lad on the lawn, who was employed rolling the newly mown grass, Edmund gave him his horse, demanding to whom the place belonged, and if the family were at home? The lad first stared awkwardly, and when about to reply was prevented doing so, coherently, by the unruly movements of the animal committed to his charge. Our hero, however, on ascertaining that the family was not at home, without waiting to repeat the former part of his question, turned into a footpath among the trees, which promised to lead in the direction of the said solitary tower.