“Amen!” replied the Lady Stradawn bitterly, in the same under tone. “But fear ye not, boy, thou shalt wear his eagle wing, aye, and sit in his chair to boot, ere long.”
This dialogue apart was unobserved by any one, and both son and mother speedily recovered their self-possession. The lady very cunningly set herself, straightway, to turn the weak and dribbling stream of Sir Allan’s thoughts from the subject which then occupied them, to some other, which was to her less disagreeable at the moment, and she easily succeeded.
Patrick Stewart’s attention was attracted from all this superstitious trifling, as well as from what followed it, by again observing the garnet brooch, which appeared in the bosom of the Lady Stradawn. His thoughts were entirely occupied with it, and his eyes were from time to time rivetted on it. At length it seemed as if Murdoch had somehow remarked his fixed gaze, for a private sign appeared to pass from him to his mother, after which she pleaded a sudden faintness, and left the hall, to return no more that night, and her son soon afterwards followed her. Patrick Stewart’s mind remained filled with strange speculations regarding the jewel, until the night wore late, and he began to think anxiously about his brother Sir Walter. Having done the last offices of attention to his father for the evening, he secretly desired Dugald Roy to follow him.
“Dugald,” said he, “I am, most unaccountably, unhappy about thy master. Surely, if all had been well with him he should have been here ere this? I cannot rid my mind of the idea that there is something amiss with him. He rested not, as thou knowest, when I was missing, and it would ill become me to sleep when he is absent. Let us go seek for him, then, without delay.”
Dugald Roy readily assented; and both of them having dighted themselves well up for turmoil, as well as for toil, they secretly left the tower of Drummin. All that night they travelled, and by daylight they had got into the range of mountains, and of forests, where they had reason to hope for tidings of Sir Walter. They searched through every part of the wooded side of that hill where he had last disappeared, and they visited every human dwelling within a great range around it, but all without obtaining the slightest intelligence regarding him. Disappointed, and disheartened, they had returned nearly as far as where the village of Tomantoul now stands, on their way home in the evening, when they met with Dugald Roy’s brother Neil.
“What brought thee here, man?” demanded Dugald; “and what a fiend gives thee that anxious face?”
“Holy Saint Michael, but it is well that I have foregathered with you both!” replied Neil. “You must take some other road than that which leads to Drummin, Sir Patrick. Believe me, it is no place for you at this present time.”
“What, in the name of all the saints, hath happened to make it otherwise?” demanded Patrick Stewart.
“Cannot ye speak out at once, ye Amadan ye, and not hammer like a fool that gate?” cried Dugald impatiently.
“Patience! patience!” said Neil; “patience! and ye shall know all presently. In the first place, then, Master Murdoch says that Sir Walter is murdered.”