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

by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder

Even this resolve—late though it might be, was, for the time, some consolation to the afflicted mind of his wife. Nay, it was in some degree matter of alleviation to his own sufferings. The broad sunlight of Heaven, and the bustling action of the creatures of this world while all creation is awake, produces a wonderful effect upon the human mind, in relieving it from all those phantoms of anticipated evil which the silent shades of night are so apt to conjure up within it. Inverawe and his lady were less oppressed with gloomy thoughts during that day than might have been supposed possible. It is true, that he often secretly repeated over the denunciation of the apparition, but even yet he would have fain persuaded himself, as he tried to persuade his wife, that he had been the sport of dreams, resulting from some morbid state of his system.

“Ticonderoga!” said he, “where is Ticonderoga? I know of no such place; nay, I never heard of any such place; and, in truth, I do not believe that any such place really exists on the face of this earth. Ticonderoga! A name so utterly unknown to me, and so strangely uncouth in itself, would lead me to believe that it is the coinage of my own distempered brain; and, if so, then the whole must have been an illusion. Yet it is altogether unaccountable and inexplicable.”

Thus it was that Inverawe reasoned during that day; but as night again approached, it brought all its phantoms of the imagination along with it.

Inverawe, however, wound himself up to go through with that which he now considered as his last trial. Having filled his basket as before, he set off on his wonted circuitous route to the cave. As he went thither, he endeavoured to steel up his mind to assume that resolute tone with the stranger which he now felt to be absolutely necessary to rid himself of so troublesome and distressing a charge. Much as it did violence to his innate feelings of hospitality to come to any such determination, he resolved to insist on his departure from the cave that very night, and he had no difficulty in persuading himself that his doing this would be the best line of safety he could prescribe for the stranger, seeing that, by the active use of his limbs during the remaining portion of it, he might well enough reach some distant place of concealment before day-break. Full of such ideas, he pressed on towards the cave, that he might get him off with as little delay as possible. The light which had shone from its mouth upon former occasions was now absent, and Inverawe hailed the circumstance as a proof that the wretched man had at last become more rational. He approached the orifice in the cliff, and gently called him. His own voice alone was returned to him from the hollow bowels of the rock. All was so mysteriously silent, that an involuntary chill fell upon Inverawe. He repeated his call in a louder voice, but still there was no reply—no stir from within. A cold shudder crept over him, and for a moment he half expected to see issue from the black void before him, that appalling apparition which had now three several times appeared by his bedside. A little thought enabled him to get rid of this temporary weakness. He recalled the last words of the spectre, and the strange uncouth name of Ticonderoga. If such a place had existence at all, it was there, and there only, that he could expect to behold him again. He became reassured, and all his wonted manliness returned to him. He struck a light, and crept into the cave. A short survey of its interior satisfied him that the stranger was gone. The blanket, the extinguished lamp, and some other things lay there, but no other vestige of its recent inmate was to be seen. Inverawe felt relieved; he was saved from even the semblance of inhospitality. But the recollection of the apparition’s last words recurred to him, and then every thing around him seemed to whisper him that indeed the time might now be past. He began, most inconsistently, to wish that the stranger had still been there—nay, he almost hoped that he might yet be lingering about the neighbouring rocks or thickets. He sallied forth from the cave, and abandoning all his former caution, he shouted twice or thrice in succession, at the very top of his voice, but without obtaining any response, except that which came from the echoes of the cliffs, muffled as they were by the roar of the numerous cataracts of the mountain side, and the howling blast that swept downward through the pass far below. For a moment he felt that if the stranger had been still in his power, he could have given him up to justice, to be dealt with as a murderer; but reason made him blush, by bringing back to him his high and chivalric sense of honour in its fullest force, so that he turned to go homewards possessed with a very different train of thought. When his lady met him, she was eager in her enquiries, and deeply depressed when she learned that Inverawe had now lost all chance of delivering up the murderer.

“Alas!” said she, in an agony of tears, “the time is now past.”

“Do not allow this matter to distress you so, my love,” said Inverawe, endeavouring to sooth her into a calm, which he could by no means command for himself. “The more I think of it, the more I am persuaded that the whole has been a phantasm of the brain. Let us have a cup of wine, and laugh all such foolish fancies away ere we go to bed. This perplexing and distressing adventure has now passed by, and this night I hope to shake off all such vapours of the imagination.”

Inverawe had little sleep that night, but he was undisturbed by any re-appearance of the apparition. Unknown to his wife, he made a circuitous excursion next day to Ben-Cruachan, where a more accurate examination of the cave and its environs satisfied him that the stranger was indeed gone. And he was gone for ever, for Inverawe never afterwards saw him,—nor, indeed, did he ever again hear the slightest intelligence regarding him.

Days, weeks, and months rolled away, and by degrees the gloom which these extraordinary and portentous events had brought upon Inverawe, as well as upon his lady, began to be in a great degree dissipated. His son had long since returned home in full health and vigour, and things fell gradually into their natural and usual course.

Inverawe was one night sitting in social converse with his wife and his son, and their friend, young George Campbell—the same individual who, as you may remember, was the giver of the toast of the roof-tree of Inverawe—when a packet of letters was brought in, and handed to the laird.

“What is all this?” exclaimed he, quickly breaking the seal, and hastily examining the contents. “Ha! the old Black Watch again! this is news indeed!”