This resolution on the part of Matilda, though it did not meet with the entire approbation of Bertha, was adhered to; but no opportunity occurred for putting it into execution. Every hour, in the meantime, added to her unhappiness. Sir George Douglas had returned to Edinburgh, to make preparations for the marriage; her mother watched her, to detect what she termed the trick of simulated illness; and her father, who was led by her mother, seemed determined to carry their cruel scheme into execution. Tortured throughout the day, the moon, now late in rising, afforded her no solace at night; the scene from the castle was changed from lightness to darkness; the screeching of night birds came, in the fitful blasts, in place of the melody of her lover's lute; and the dreary view called up by the power of association the picture of her lover lying on a death-bed, paying, by the torture of death, the dreadful penalty of having dared to love one above his degree.
After a suitable inspection, her mother had, as she thought, discovered that there existed no illness about her to prevent her from taking her usual airing, and Bertha, who had apparently some purpose in view, came and urged her to walk as far as the Monks' Mound, a green hillock that stood on the borders of the property of Roseallan. They accordingly set out. The day was not propitious; lazy clouds lay sleeping on the sides of the hills, and wreaths of mist floated along like shadows, assuming grotesque forms, and suggesting resemblances to aerial beings in the act of superintending the operations of mortals; the wind was hushed to the gentlest zephyr; and the sun, obscured by the masses of sleeping clouds, was not able even to indicate the part of the heavens where he was. Nature, "dowie and wae," seemed to have shrouded herself in the pall of mourning, and the feathered tribes, overcome by the instinctive sympathy, were mute, and cowered among the branches of the trees, as if they had borrowed the habits of the wingless, tuneless reptiles that crawled among the rank grass that covered the ground of the wood. The couple wandered along slowly, Matilda resting on the arm of the nurse. They came to the Monks' Mound, and sat down. The burying-ground of the monastery of Dominicans lay on their right hand, and they could see the tombstones rearing their grey, moss-covered heads over the turf-dyke that surrounded the consecrated ground.
"See ye the little thatched house at the foot o' Lincleugh Hill yonder?" said Bertha, after some moments of solemn silence, and holding out her shrivelled hand. "The smoke frae its auld lum is curling among the mist-clouds; but there's a darker mist within, and nae sun to send a flaught through it."
"I see it well," replied Matilda, in a melancholy voice; "and, humble as it is, and gloomy as it may be in its interior, I could even seek there the peace I cannot find in the proud towers of Roseallan. There are no forced marriages under roofs of thatch."
"Ay, but there is death, in the cottage as well as in the bonniest ha'," muttered Bertha, ominously.
Matilda looked into the face of her nurse, who continued to gaze in the direction of the cottage of Lincleugh.
"The mist blinds my auld een," she continued, as she passed her hand over her eyes. "The hour is come, and there should be tokens o' gathering there—yet I see naething."
Matilda looked again inquiringly into her face.
"Young een are sharp," said she again, "and now the mist is rowing awa frae the side o' Lincleugh, and breaking into wreaths in the valley. Look again, Matilda, and tell me what ye see."
"The removal of the mist," replied Matilda, directing her eyes to the cottage, "has revealed a cluster of people dressed in black standing round the door of the cottage."