Legendary Tales of the Highlands (Volume 2 of 3) / A sequel to Highland Rambles

by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

The apartment in which the Knight and his lady slept had a window in it which looked down the vale, formed by the combined waters of the Aven and the Livat. A faint but glowing red light shot through this window towards morning, and falling upon Sir Walter Stewart’s eyes, gradually unsealed their lids from the deep sleep in which they were closed. He started up at this appearance of approaching sunrise—hurried on his clothes, and hastened down stairs to the court-yard. There he found the men-at-arms, who had the watch, all at their posts; but none of the grooms, or the others whom he had expected to have found already busied with their preparations, were as yet astir. Having expressed his surprise at their laziness, he learned from those on guard, that it yet wanted two good hours of day. Being unwilling to retire again to his chamber, he walked forth beyond the walls, to the terrace on which the castle stands; and he had no sooner got there, than the cause of this his premature disturbance was made sufficiently manifest to him, for his eyes were immediately caught, and his attention fearfully arrested, by a column of fire that shot up from the cottage of Alice Asher, and inflamed the very clouds above.

Giving one loud shout of alarm to the people within the castle walls, he staid not for them, but rushed franticly down the green slope, and crossing a rustic foot-bridge that spanned the river Livat, immediately under the fortalice, he flew towards the wooded hill, too accurately guided through the obscurity of the night, by the conflagration, the light from which blazed in his eyes. But whilst it thus served to direct him towards its object, it had also the effect of dazzling his vision; so that, in the furious precipitation of his speed, he ran against some living being that was coming hurriedly in the opposite direction. Whatever it might be, his force was so tremendous, that he drove it aside from the path, like a ball from a bat, and then rolling forwards on the ground himself, and over and over, he lay for some moments senseless upon the grass. But, having soon afterwards recovered himself, he sprang again to his legs, and, his whole thoughts being absorbed at the moment by his agonizing anxiety for Alice Asher’s safety, he stopped not to enquire what had become of the individual who had produced his accident, but rushed on again towards the burning house, on which he still kept his eyes fixed. Long ere he gained the foot of the hill on which it stood, a momentary depression of the flame, followed by an equally sudden and very great increase of it, told him that the roof had fallen in, and that, if the inmates had not already fled for safety, they must now be beyond all reach of assistance. Yet still he paused not; but, doubling his speed, he rushed breathless up through the wood on the side of the hill, and at length arrived at the cottage.

What a sad spectacle did it now present! The walls alone were standing, like a huge grate, in which the inflammable materials of the heather-thatched roof, and the furniture, and interior wood-work, were rapidly consuming. The roses and woodbines that crept over the walls, or trailed in rude luxuriance over the porch, were now shrivelled up and scorched by the intense heat within, nay, even the shrubs and flowers that grew around, were dried up and killed by it.

“Oh, Holy Virgin Mother, she is gone! she is gone!” cried Sir Walter, giving way to a paroxysm of grief.

And now people came running together from the nearest cottages. Eagerly did he enquire of all he met for some information, regarding Alice Asher; but no one could tell him aught of her. The men from the Castle came crowding up the hill, bearing buckets of water. These were now useless. But still Sir Walter called on those who carried them to exert themselves, and, urged by his commands, they ran to and from a neighbouring pool, bearing water, and pouring it over the sinking flames, till they were finally extinguished, at least so far, that they were enabled to rake amid the red-hot embers with long poles, without danger to themselves. With what torturing anxiety did Sir Walter Stewart stand, in the hope that no human remains would be found, by which circumstance he expected to satisfy himself that Alice Asher had escaped. But, alas! they had not searched far, when they found a body, or rather a half-consumed skeleton, in so fearful a state of mutilation, that although its size left no doubt that it was that of a woman, it was quite impossible to guess at the person. Sir Walter was frantic. But still hope lingered within his bosom. Alice had a servant maid in the house. This skeleton was nearer, as he thought, to the size of the woman, than to that of the mistress. Besides, these remains were found in a part of the house which this attendant inhabited. No doubt was left that they were hers; and Sir Walter’s heart expanded with the temporary relief which it experienced.

But the search went on. And now Sir Walter Stewart’s heart again fluttered betwixt torturing hope and fear,—till,—oh, wretched and bitterly afflicting sight! in that part of the cottage which Alice Asher more particularly occupied, another half-consumed body was found. This was also that of a woman; and, as it corresponded accurately to the size of her about whose fate he was so unhappily interested, every spark of hope was at once extinguished within him. His brain whirled in strange and bewildering confusion. He gasped for breath, and seemed to swallow down liquid fire; all consciousness left him for a time; and he sank down on an adjacent bank in a temporary fainting fit.

I shall not attempt to describe the flood of strong and resistless feeling to which Sir Walter Stewart, resolute as he might be, was compelled to give way, when his senses fully returned to him. Those who were around him respected them in silence. The sun soon afterwards arose upon the melancholy scene; and then it was that the brave Knight’s countenance was observed by all, to bear powerfully-written testimony of the deep grief that had been at work upon it. Making a strong and manly effort to subdue his affliction, he gave orders to his people to see that the remains, now so revolting to look upon, should be properly attended to; and, despatching a confidential person to the priest who had acted as father-confessor to Alice Asher, he besought him to do all that might be requisite to ensure that the last sad duties should be decently and reverentially paid, and every religious rite duly performed to her, whose life of contrition, and penitence, for a sin which he felt to have been his alone, had so fair a prospect of reconciling her to her Maker. And, having made these arrangements, he slowly and silently, and with a sorrowful, heavy, and lacerated heart, bent his steps back to Drummin.

When Sir Walter Stewart, and those who were with him, had reached the place where he had been so unaccountably thrown down, he was surprised to see a human figure lying a few yards off the footpath, with the head and shoulders crammed into a thicket. On approaching it, the dress at once informed him that it was his lady’s page, English Tomkins. Having ordered some of his people to pull him forth from the bushes in which he was half hid, and to raise him up, he was discovered to be quite dead;—and his death was at once seen to have been occasioned, by his head having come against the thick and knotty trunk of an oak, which grew up from amidst the black thorns and honeysuckles, so that his skull had been dreadfully fractured, and instant extermination of life had ensued.

“Jesus have mercy on me!” cried Sir Walter, with great feeling. “I have been the innocent cause of this poor boy’s death, by running against him in the dark;” and having said so, he proceeded to explain to his people the circumstances which had produced and attended the accident.

“Methinks he hardly merits to be much wailed for, Sir Knight, unless thou canst say that these strange articles can have been innocently carried by him,” said one of the attendants, pulling, at the same time, from the bosom of the corpse, a small bundle of matches, and a tinder-box, with a flint and steel.—“Marry, these would seem to say, that he had been better employed had he been in his bed.”