“What do I see?” cried Sir Walter Stewart, filled with horror, and greatly agitated.—“What! was it murder then?—murder of the most horrible description? Oh, holy Mother of God, can there be such villainy upon earth?”
“What shall we do with this wretched carcass?” demanded one of the people.
“Oh, most unlucky accident!” cried Sir Walter, without heeding him.—“Would that I had but caught him in life! But, alas! strong as suspicion is against him, his secret has died with him! We cannot now wrench forth the truth from him either by spring or by screw. He is gone to his account, before that Judge, at whose tribunal all secrets must appear. Yet, bear him along with you, and see that you take especial care to preserve those dumb instances of his hellish art, till I may require thee to produce them.”
Sir Walter Stewart now left his people to carry the body at their own leisure, and shot away ahead of them, at a pace so furious, as to correspond with the violence of those various stormy feelings which then agitated him. On reaching Drummin, he hurried directly to his lady’s chamber, where he found her putting the last finish to her travelling dress.
“Madam!” said he to her bower-woman, in a voice which sufficiently betrayed the disturbed state of his mind; “my lady will dispense with thine attendance for a brief space—we would be private.”
“What strange conduct is this, Sir Walter?” demanded the lady after her attendant was gone, whilst her voice and manner might have led any one to believe, that she too was not altogether well at ease. “Why shouldst thou have thus sent Jane so rudely forth, when she hath yet so much to pack and to prepare?”
“Because I would fain have some private converse with thee, lady,” said the Knight solemnly.—“Dost thou usually send forth thy page Tomkins on errands of charity so very early as several hours before sunrise?”
“No!—No!” replied the lady in a voice of hesitation. “Such are not indeed,—no, they are not his usual hours to be sent on such errands; but—but—the boy had some distance to go. And then—and—and—and then he hath so much to do ere we depart, that—that—But I wonder much that he is not returning by this time!”
“He is returning now!” said Sir Walter, looking hard and somewhat sternly at her.—“But canst thou tell me what he did with a tinder-box, flint, and steel, and matches, concealed in his bosom?”
“Flint—flint—flint and steel saidst thou?” cried the lady, considerably agitated. “How can I say aught about it? Boys are ever full of tricks, and so, I doubt not, is Tomkins. But what hath he told thee himself? Didst thou not question him?”