For two years there had been a maiden in the household named Susan, and to her care, when the child was not in her own arms, Lady Clennel intrusted her infant daughter; for every one loved Susan, because of her affectionate nature and docile manners—she was, moreover, an orphan, and they pitied while they loved her. But one evening, when Lady Clennel desired that her daughter might be brought her in order that she might present her to a company who had come to visit them (an excusable, though not always a pleasant vanity in mothers), neither Susan nor the child were to be found. Wild fears seized the bosom of the already bereaved mother, and her husband felt his
heart throb within him. They sought the woods, the hills, the cottages around; they wandered by the sides of the rivers and the mountain burns, but no one had seen, no trace could be discovered of either the girl or the child.
I will not, because I cannot, describe the overwhelming misery of the afflicted parents. Lady Clennel spent her days in tears and her nights in dreams of her children, and her husband sank into a settled melancholy, while his hatred of the Faa race became more implacable, and he burst into frequent exclamations of vengeance against them.
More than fifteen years had passed, and though the poignancy of their grief had abated, yet their sadness was not removed, for they had been able to hear nothing that could throw light upon the fate of their children. About this period, sheep were again missed from the flocks, and, in one night, the hen-roosts were emptied. There needed no other proof that a Faa gang was again in the neighbourhood. Now, Northumberland at that period was still thickly covered with wood, and abounded with places where thieves might conceal themselves in security. Partly from a desire of vengeance, and partly from the hope of being able to extort from some of the tribe information respecting his children, Clennel armed his servants, and taking his hounds with him, set out in quest of the plunderers.
For two days their search was unsuccessful, but on the third the dogs raised their savage cry, and rushed into a thicket in a deep glen amongst the mountains. Clennel and his followers hurried forward, and in a few minutes perceived the fires of the Faa encampment. The hounds had already alarmed the vagrant colony, they had sprung upon many of them and torn their flesh with their tusks; but the Faas defended themselves against them with their poniards, and, before Clennel's approach, more than half his hounds lay dead upon the ground, and his enemies fled.
Yet there was one poor girl amongst them, who had been attacked by a fierce hound, and whom no one attempted to rescue, as she strove to defend herself against it with her bare hands. Her screams for assistance rose louder and more loud; and as Clennel and his followers drew near, and her companions fled, they turned round, and, with a fiendish laugh, cried—
"Rue it now!"
Maddened more keenly by the words, he was following on in pursuit, without rescuing the screaming girl from the teeth of the hound, or seeming to perceive her, when a woman, suddenly turning round from amongst the flying gypsies, exclaimed—
"For your sake!—for Heaven's sake! Laird Clennel! save my bairn!"
He turned hastily aside, and, seizing the hound by the throat, tore it from the lacerated girl, who sank, bleeding, terrified, and exhausted, upon the ground. Her features were beautiful, and her yellow hair contrasted ill with the tawny hue of her countenance and the snowy whiteness of her bosom, which in the struggle had been revealed. The elder gipsy woman approached. She knelt by the side of the wounded girl.