"Dear Roderick," said the father, "this is a sad welcome to the Tower of Gloom. If I was superstitious, I should augur something bad from this event. Poor Moome! she had long been a faithful servant, and I could have wished her fate different. We must conceal it from Annette. She will be sufficiently unhappy as it is; and it would be cruel to add to her annoyance by disclosing the strange fact that she had perished in attempting the life of her benefactor's son. Once more, good-night, dear boy."
So saying, he pressed his son's forehead to his lips, and, removing the body, left Roderick to his own thoughts.
Poor Annette was shocked exceedingly by the unexpected death of the nurse; but sorrow is said to be near akin to love; and, in the delicate attentions of her cousin Roderick, the fair Celt felt her grief strangely soothed, and her bosom experience sensations to which it had previously been a stranger.
Old Campbell witnessed the progress of this passion with great delight, and gave the young couple every opportunity for studying "la belle passion:" indeed, the necessary confinement of Roderick in the tower threw them so much together, that it was no wonder they became attached to each other.
The scene from the top of the tower was magnificent: the clear and pellucid water of the fairest of Scotland's lakes at its feet; the isles with which its glassy bosom was studded, looked like so many fairy bowers; and the magnificent range of mountains to the northward, added to the grandeur of a scene, the beauty of which words can but inadequately express. Often, at night, by the light of the silvery moon, the cousins would repair to this favourite seat, where Roderick would speak
"Of moving accidents by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,
And sold to slavery;"
whilst Annette listened breathless, but delighted, to his words.
It was here that he first ventured to breathe of love. Seizing the guitar from his cousin's hand, he poured forth his feelings in the following verses:—
"Impell'd by angry fate's decree
In foreign lands to roam,
With heavy heart I bid adieu
To happiness and home.
"I braved the perils of the land,
The dangers of the sea;
But every suffering is repaid
By one kind look from thee."