“Do what thou wilt now, Nicol,” said Murdoch Stewart, with perfect composure; “We are both beyond thy power, or that of any one else within the castle of Drummin.”
Nicol at once guessed at what had happened, and ran instantly for the Priest. The good Father of Dounan was deeply skilled in medicine, as well as in divinity. He called for assistance, and antidotes were forcibly given to Murdoch Stewart, and passively received by his mother the Lady Stradawn. Their wretched existence was thus prolonged, though death could not be altogether averted. They lingered on, in great pain, for many days, during which all judicial proceedings were suspended. The pious priest lost not one moment of this precious time. By exerting all his religious learning, and all his eloquence, he at length succeeded in bringing both of them to a full sense of the enormity of their guilt, as well as to an ample confession of all their crimes. It is not for us to interpret the decrees of the Almighty in such a case as theirs; but if the apparent deep contrition that followed was real, and heartfelt, we may trust that the mercy, as well as the benefit of the merits of that blessed Saviour, who died for us all upon the cross, even for the thief that was crucified with him, was extended to them, dreadful as their crimes had been.
My legend now draws to a hasty conclusion. The days of mourning were fully numbered by Sir Patrick Stewart, for his murdered father and brother. The kindness of the old Lord of Curgarf, and his son Arthur Master of Forbes, towards him, was unwearied and most consolatory. Nor were the delicate affections of the Lady Catherine Forbes less tenderly or unremittingly displayed, so that, in due time, by becoming her husband, he bound himself to both his friends by the closest and dearest ties. In pious remembrance of his brother Sir Walter’s murder, he erected the pillar of stone I spoke of, as that which stood so long by the side of the well-eye where he was slain; but he refrained from inscribing any thing upon it, lest his doing so might have revived the recollection of Murdoch Stewart’s atrocity. He likewise ordered a stone to be set up, where the proud Priest of Dalestie was burned, rather as a sort of expiation of the stern act of justice, which his brother Sir Walter had inflicted upon him, than to perpetuate the detested memory of the depraved wretch who suffered there.
[1] Mòr, great, and Beg or Beag, little, are well known Highland cognomina, employed like Dubh, black, Ruadh, red, and Bàn, white, to distinguish different individuals of the same name. [↑]
[2] That is, having sixteen or more tynes upon his antlers. [↑]
FATE OF THE OULD AUNCIENT MONUMENTS.
Clifford.—(as we arose to pursue our journey.)—And what became of these two monuments, Serjeant Stewart?