A new family came to occupy “The Castle”—far removed in relationship to the Ashleys. Mary Lee continued to live on, for many years, exhibiting the same peculiarities of character—the same silence—the same scorn of social relations. Her desire of revenge was satisfied—but that satisfaction was no more effectual, in its assuaging consequences, than revenge is generally found to be. It even added to her moroseness; for the evil which she had removed, had been the only good she ever enjoyed, and the thirst for revenge which she had indulged, when slaked by the blood of all her enemies, left her nothing to wish for in the world. She took no interest in passing events, and as she increased in years, her faculties decayed. Latterly, and towards the termination of her life, she fell into temporary fits of insanity—which, however, did not conceal from her all her sorrows, for her lucid intervals were periods of misery; all her recollections seemed painful as the searing-iron of a roused conscience; she never displayed a symptom of remorse for the dreadful vengeance she had taken on the head and house of her seducer; but the wild laugh would break out only to settle again in the stare of idiotcy. So much for our legend.
THE LORD OF HERMITAGE.
Great was the surprise of the peaceful congregation assembled in the little church of Ettleton, in Liddisdale, on a Sunday forenoon, somewhere about one hundred and fifty years since, to see the Lord of Hermitage come in amongst them, just as the service of the day had begun. A surprise this, not without good and sufficient cause; for, although the patron of the parish, and living in the immediate neighbourhood of the church just named, the Lord of Hermitage had not entered it for many a long year. Some of those present thought it not unlikely, that he had begun to repent of his ways, which were, indeed, evil—for a vicious, dissolute, and tyrannical man was he—dreaded and detested by all who knew him; and that his coming to church, on this occasion, was not improbably meant as a public intimation of his having commenced the work of reformation; and that it might, therefore, be looked upon as the first overt act of contrition. Others, incredulous of so sudden a conversion in a man so notorious for his wickedness, dreaded that his appearance, on this occasion, boded no good; although they could not conjecture, either, how any evil should arise from it.
In the meantime, while all eyes were fixed on him, the dreaded Lord of Hermitage, slightly bowing to the officiating clergyman, took a seat and seemed to listen for some time, with decent attention, to his discourse. But it was only for a short time that he continued to exhibit this becoming respect for the devotional proceedings that were going forward. His eye was soon observed wandering over the assembly, as if in search of some object, and was at length seen fixed, with a steady and insolent gaze, on the beautiful countenance of Isabella Foster, the daughter of a respectable farmer, and one of his own tenants, who resided in the lower part of Liddisdale. In this circumstance, simple as it was, or rather would have been, but for the well-known character of the Lord of Hermitage, some of the congregation felt assured that they had discovered the secret of his appearance amongst them on this occasion, while all considered it matter for strong suspicion of evil intentions.
Isabella Foster was, on this occasion, accompanied by her father and her acknowledged lover—a young man of considerable property, but who was, nevertheless, much better known in the country by the familiar, Border-like soubriquet of “Jock o’ the Syde,” than by his real name, which was Armstrong. Isabella herself marked, and she did so with fear and trembling, the ominous gaze of the unprincipled Lord of Hermitage; and she clung closer and closer to her father and her lover, both of whom were also aware of the circumstance at which she was so much alarmed. Her father saw it with a feeling of dread and horror; for he knew well the infamous character of the man, and he knew, too, that he would perpetrate any villany, and have recourse, without the smallest hesitation or compunction, to any measures, however violent or atrocious, to accomplish the gratification of his passions; and he felt how vain would be all his precautions, how unavailing all the means he could employ, to defeat the designs of a man at once so determined, so unprincipled, and so powerful.
On her lover, however, the discovery that his Isabella had attracted the special notice of the Lord of Hermitage had a different effect. It roused his young blood; and in the look with which he contemplated him, as he gazed upon her, there was plainly to be read a proud defiance at once of his personal prowess and his power. Armstrong felt, at that moment, that his single arm, furnished with his own good sword, was alone sufficient to protect his lover from all the Lords of Hermitage that ever existed, although they all came upon him in a bundle.
With more experience of the world, Isabella’s father, as we have shown, thought and reasoned differently. He feared the worst; and these fears were much increased when, on the dismissal of the congregation, the Lord of Hermitage rode up to him, complimented him on the beauty of his daughter, and he told him that he meant to do himself the pleasure of paying him a visit soon, when he hoped, he said—at the same time turning towards and bowing to Isabella—that the fair Lily of Liddisdale would not be absent.
Isabella’s father made no further reply to this remark, than by bowing politely, and saying, with equivocal hospitality, that his house should always be open to the Lord of Hermitage.