Deep Moat Grange

by S. R. Crockett

Then, as the night went past, Elsie prayed for the time to go faster. She saw the candles blink and dwindle; she saw the windows stand out more blankly. In her brain there grew up a fear of the dark, after the light should be extinguished, when she should find herself alone with that wild being who had murdered her grandfather. Her hope was in the morning light. If she could only dance till then!

Well it was for her that, as a child, she had danced, as a gnat over a pool, as a butterfly among the flowers of the garden. Light of foot, and ready, she had learned all as by nature. And now, with the candles going out one by one, and the bitterness of death rising like a tide in her heart—barred in, the door locked, utterly forsaken—she had yet to smile and dance—dance and dance—to the lilt and stress of Mad Jeremy's noisy instrument.

The jangle of bells thrilled her as he struck with a clash as of steel weapons into "Roy's Wife of Aldevaloch," or an irony of fiendish laughter as he shouted the refrain of "Duncan Grey," lifting a hand fleeringly from the German-silver keys, with a glance of terrible import.

"Ha, ha, the wooin' o't!"

It was, indeed, a memorable wooing, but Elsie smiled and danced tirelessly, her young body lithe and swift to the turn, her feet nimble and dainty. The last tune pleased the madman. With a "Hooch" of triumph, he sprang to his feet, marching up and down the room, playing all the time with desperate energy.

"This beats fiddlin'!" he cried. "The Herodias quean was leaden-footed to you, lassie! And noo Jeremy will play ye something o' his ain; and you, wee Elsie, shall dance to the movin' o' the speerit! Wave your airms and smile, Elsie, for I am the laird, and ye are the leddy!"

With one spring, he landed featly on the tall mantelpiece, where, mopping and mowing, swinging his instrument now high over his head, and now lower than his knees, Mad Jeremy seemed more like the sculptured gargoyle of some devil come alive than anything of human stock or human mothering.

The fire was black out, but on the hearth the shape of the burned violin lay in a black heap like a dead, dangerous beast. For the head and neck had twisted themselves back as if in agony, the black pegs looking as if they could sting. They seemed to watch the door of the weaving room into which their destroyer had gone. And certainly they had not been unavenged. For their sake, the madman's knife had bitten deep and keen. There was little need now for the head to twist itself as the tightening strings had pulled it, as the fire had left it. All was wiped out. And, as if in recognition of the fact, its master stirred the black ashes with his toe before he struck into a wild saturnalia of sound, to which Elsie danced like a Bacchante, with the last remnants of her girl's strength.

It was still far from the dawn, which is a laggard in February throughout Scotland. The red candles began to go out one by one. Fear surged tumultuous in Elsie's heart—as, indeed, well it might—to find herself thus shut up with the murderer of her grandfather, whose dead body she knew lay behind the nearest door, and the red candles going out one by one.

There remained only the huge centre one, a special purchase of Aphra's. And still the madman grimaced, crossing and uncrossing his legs on the high mantel-piece. Still he swung his instrument—still he called on Elsie to dance. But now the girl was utterly fatigued. Without a sign of giving way, something seemed to crack somewhere—in her head, perhaps, or about her heart. She sank unconscious on the floor in a heap.