But the more pressing danger brought her at last to recollection, and she rushed from her chamber to make an effort to escape. Already were the narrow passages filled with a stifling smoke, which she made some faint efforts to penetrate; but finding it impossible to proceed, she returned to her chamber, and, throwing herself upon her knees, grew faint from despair. Recovering herself in some degree, she grasped her croslet, and began offering up her prayers for that mercy in the next world of which she believed she had now no hope in this; and, as she was so employed, she thought she felt the very boards heating beneath her. She sprang to her feet, and again approached the open casement, that she might breathe more freely. At that moment a loud murmur, rather than a cry, arose in the court below.
“He cometh—’tis he—’tis he himself.—The Earl—the Earl of Buchan—the Wolfe of Badenoch!—Hush!”—And their clamour was instantly silenced.
“Out o’ my way,” cried the Wolfe of Badenoch, as, armed cap-a-pie, and with his vizor up, he came galloping furiously in at the Gothic gateway, followed by his four younger sons, and [[541]]some forty or fifty mounted spearmen and axemen. The pavement rattled under the clatter of their iron shod hooves, and their polished mail flashed back the blaze of the flaming edifice.
“Ha, ha, ha! by all the fiends, but the mischief doth work well here too,” shouted he laughing wildly as he reined up his steed, with a check that threw him backwards on his haunches; “yet this is but baby’s work compared to the blazing towers yonder—ha, ha, ha! The haughty pile on the which the pride of that scurvy Priest-Bishop hath heretofore been so loftily perched, will soon be prostrate amidst its own dust and ashes. Ha! by the beard of my grandfather, but it is a glorious vengeance. What was the brenning of Forres to this?—ha, ha, ha! Not a hole shall these corbies have to hide their heads in. Every nest polluted by these stinking carrions shall be levelled. Such be the fate of those who dare to contend with the Wolfe of Badenoch! But have all escaped from this burning house? I would not have the hair of a human head singed—not a hair of a head, I tell ye. Didst thou see all escape them hence?”
“I did, my noble Lord,” replied one of his esquires, who had superintended the execution of this part of his commands; “with our own eyes did we see them, as we arrived, scour from the walls, like an army of mice from a hollow cheese.”
“Ha! by my faith, but thou liest, villain,” cried the Wolfe, turning hastily round, and levelling the speaker to the earth with one blow of his truncheon; “thou dost lie black as hell. By all that is unlucky, I did even now behold a female form at yonder window. Nay, now the smoke doth hide it; but—see, see—ha! why hath it been so, knaves? Did I not warn ye all that not a life should be tint?”
“Help, help, Lord Badenoch,” cried the Lady Beatrice—“help, help, or I perish! The boards burn.—Help, help, for the love of mercy—for the love of the blessed Virgin, save me, save me!”
“By the holy mass, I should know that voice,” cried the Wolfe of Badenoch; “nay, ’tis she indeed, or ’tis her wraith I do behold.”
“’Tis some evil spirit, father,” said Sir Andrew Stewart, who had accompanied his father in this expedition, not willingly, but because the Wolfe of Badenoch had resolved that he should have a share in it.
“Evil spirit!” cried the Wolfe, turning angrily around on him; “ha! ’tis thou who art the evil spirit, son Andrew. Thou darest not to look on her whom thou wouldst have injured. But, by this hand, thou shalt. The damsel shall not perish, if [[542]]I can help her. I will go rescue her, and thou, son Andrew, shalt follow me.”