“A vision!” exclaimed Macfarlane seriously; “tell me, Ellen, what did she see?”
“It was last night, my lord,” replied Ellen, “that my Aunt Margery came over to my mother’s cottage to settle some matters regarding—a—a—I mean, to speak with my mother of some little family affairs, which kept her better than an hour after nightfall, when, as she was crossing the hill again in her way home, she suddenly beheld a red glowing gleam in the sky, and turning to look behind her, the whole of the forest below seemed to be on fire. She rubbed her eyes in her astonishment, and when she looked again the vision had disappeared.”
“Strange!” said Macfarlane seriously.
“But this was not all,” continued Ellen, with increased earnestness of manner, and shuddering as she spoke, “for by the light that still gleamed in the sky, she beheld a dark object at some distance from her on the heath. It moved towards the spot where she was. Trembling with fear, she stood aside to observe it, and on it continued to come, gliding without sound. A single stream of faint light fell upon it from a broken part of the sky, and showed the figure and the features of—of—of you, Macfarlane.”
“What, my figure! my features!” exclaimed the laird, in a disturbed tone; and then, commanding himself, he quietly added, “Awell, and saw she aught else?”
“She did, my lord,” added Ellen, much agitated, “for, borne over your right shoulder she beheld a human corse; the head was hanging down, and the pale fixed features were those of—of—my betrothed husband!” Overpowered by her feelings, Ellen sank down on a mossy bank, and wept bitterly.
“Let not these gloomy fancies enter your head at a time like this, Ellen,” said Macfarlane, roused by her sobbing from the fit of gloomy abstraction into which her narration had thrown him. “If not altogether an unaccountable and unreal freak of imagination, it can be interpreted no otherwise than felicitously for you. The burning forest is but a type of the extent and the warmth of your mutual affection, and the dead figure of Angus only shadows forth the fact that your love will endure with life itself.”
“There needed not such a vision to tell us these truths,” said Angus energetically.
“Yet do we often see matters as palpable as these, as wonderfully vouched for by supernatural means,” said the chief. “Get thee home then, Ellen; and do thou see her safe, Angus, and let her not suffer her young mind to brood on such dreary and distressing phantasies as seem now to fill it. Be yours the joyous anticipations of the bride and bridegroom three days before they are made one for ever. Ere three days go round your indissoluble union shall be blessed by the happiest influence of the warm sunshine of your chief’s substantial favour. Meanwhile, may good angels guard you both!—Good night.”
With these words, Macfarlane sought his way home, musing as he went, impressed, more than he even wished to own to himself, with the strange tale he had heard, and when he could contrive to rid himself of it, turning in his thoughts from time to time certain benevolent schemes which suggested themselves to him for the liberal establishment of Angus and his bride.