Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 18

by Unknown

"My name," she replied, "is Bertha de Longoville. Brave and courtly warrior, but for whose generous and knightly daring I would have found yester-evening a horrid tomb in the ravenous maw of the wolf, do not, I pray you, ask me more. A vow binds me to secrecy for the time."

"Nay, fear not, gentle maiden," said Clelland, "that what you but wish to keep secret, I shall once urge you to reveal. But hear me, lady, and then judge how far I am to be trusted. You are the only daughter of Sir Thomas de Longoville, once a true soldier of the blessed Cross, but, in his latter days, less fortunate in his quarrels. Your father is now in France, and in two weeks hence will be in Paris."

"Saints and angels!" exclaimed the maiden, "he has fallen into the hands of his enemies!"

"Not so, lady; he is among his best friends. The knightly word of Sir William Wallace of Elderslie, who never broke faith with friend or enemy, is pledged for his safe-keeping. With my kinsman, he is secure of at least safety—perhaps even of grace and pardon. But the day has broken, maiden; suffer me to conduct you to your mother's."

They left the hermitage together, and ascended the side of the dell. As they passed the hollow in the rock, a bright patch of blood caught the eye of Clelland.

"Ah, poor Biscay!" he exclaimed; "there is all that now remains of him; and how to procure another steed in this wild district, I know not. My kinsman will be at Paris long ere his herald gets there. Well, there have been greater mishaps. Yonder is the carcass of the wolf I slew yester-evening, half eaten by his savage companions."

The morning, we have said, was calm and still; but the storm of the preceding night had left behind it no doubtful vestiges of its fury. The stream had fallen to its old level, and went tinkling along its channel, with a murmur that only served to shew how complete was the silence; but the banks were torn and hollowed by the recent torrent, and tangled wreaths of brushwood and foliage lay high on the sides of the dell. The broken and ragged appearance of the forest gave evidence of the force of the hurricane. The fallen trees lay thick on the sides of the more exposed acclivities—some reclining like spears, half bent to the charge, athwart the spreading boughs of such of their neighbours as the storm had spared; others lay as if levelled by the woodman, save that their long flexile roots had thrown up vast fragments of turf, resembling the broken ruins of cottages. And, in an opening of the wood, a gigantic oak, the slow growth of centuries, lay scattered over the soil, in raw and splintery fragments, that gave strange evidence of the irresistible force of the agent employed in its destruction. The trees opened as they advanced, and they emerged from the forest as the first beams of the sun had begun to glitter on the topmost boughs. A low, moory plain, walled in by a range of distant hills, and mottled with a few patches of corn, and a few miserable cottages, lay before them. A grey detached tower, somewhat resembling that of an English village church, rose on the forest edge, scarce a hundred yards away.

"Yonder tower, Sir Knight," said the maiden, "is the dwelling of my mother. Alas! what must she not have endured during the protracted horrors of the night!"

"There is, at least, joy waiting her now," said Clelland; "and all will soon be well."

They approached the tower. It was a small and very picturesque erection, of three low stories in height, with projecting turrets at the front corners, connected by a hanging bartizan, over which there rose a sharp serrated gable, to the height of about two stories more. A row of circular shot-holes, and a low, narrow door-way, were the only openings in the lower storey—the few windows in the upper, long and narrow, and scarce equal in size to a Norman shield, were thickly barred with iron. The building had altogether a dilapidated and deserted appearance; for the turrets were broken-edged and mouldering, and some of the large square flags had slidden from off the stone roof, and lay in the moat, which, from a reservoir, had degenerated into a quagmire, mantled over with aquatic plants, and with, here and there, a bush of willow springing out from the sides. A single plank afforded a rather doubtful passage across; and the iron-studded door of the fortalice lay wide open. Clelland hung back as the maiden entered.