The circumstance, indeed, very soon became apparent, from the appearance of the unhappy girl, who could no longer conceal her condition. She was, in consequence, sorely beset by Adam Hunter, and interrogated whether she had received any promise of marriage, or any pledge whereon she could found any expectation or hope that the knight's intentions towards her were of an honourable nature. On this subject, no satisfaction could be got from Margaret, who persisted in a dogged silence, whenever any question was put to her, tending to implicate, in any way, the man who, to all appearance, had ruined her. But chance brought to light what Margaret had been so anxious to conceal; for one evening, Janet Hunter discovered in Margaret's sleeping apartment a small scented paper, curiously folded up, which she instantly carried to her husband. Adam took the paper to a learned clerk, in Blackfriars' Hospital—(for few persons, at that day, could either write, or read writing)—who read it to him; and he was surprised to find that it contained a promise, on the faith of a knight, that Sir Willoughby Somerset would make, when time and circumstances afforded opportunity, Margaret Williamson his wedded wife. The paper was again returned to the place from which it was taken.
This paper, combined with Margaret's condition, having satisfied Adam Hunter of the truth of the general report and his own suspicions, he lost no time in waiting upon the knight. Being a man of hasty and even furious temper, he taxed Sir Willoughby, in unmeasured terms, with the seduction of his ward, and demanded, with a stern determination, satisfaction to the maiden and to himself. Touched to the quick, and wounded in his pride by the pertinacious manner of Adam Hunter, Sir Willoughby lost in turn his temper, and seizing a baton which lay near him, he struck the choleric Scot a heavy blow on the head, and, with the aid of his servants, kicked him out of the house. One of Sir Willoughby's servants, who aided in this ejection and outrage, was Richard Foster; the person who, it was supposed, first procured a meeting between his master and Margaret. He was possessed of his master's secrets, in this and many other dishonourable amours; and, though he now, by his master's orders, assisted in the expulsion of Adam Hunter, he hated him in his heart, in consequence of a blow which he had some time before received from him, on which occasion he had threatened to report his master's practices to Sir Robert Carey, who would not have failed to communicate them to King James, whereby Sir Willoughby's status at Court would have been lost, and his ruin accomplished. The knight wished, therefore, to get quit of Richard; but to part with him living was to part with his secrets; and he had accordingly made up his mind to get him disposed of in such a manner as that he could tell no tales. An opportunity for this occurred sooner than might have been expected.
Stung with an ungovernable rage, Adam Hunter, on passing the threshold of the house of Gordon, threw himself on his knees, and vowed to Almighty God that he would take the first opportunity that fortune afforded him of depriving his enemy of life. This dreadful purpose, thus definitively and impiously settled, calmed Adam Hunter's rage; for he felt, as if by anticipation, that he was revenged. He walked deliberately home, and without hinting anything of his deadly intention to his wife, sent for Simon Frazer, Margaret's rejected suitor, communicated to him his design, and requested his co-operation. Frazer entered into the scheme with all the spirit of his clan, and all the rage of a disappointed lover towards his successful rival. They resolved to fix the manner of accomplishing their purpose that evening, after Janet and Margaret had retired to rest.
In the evening, when Adam Hunter and Simon Frazer met, Margaret had just retired to bed, but not to sleep. Her mind was occupied with the thoughts of her situation. She had now become suspicious of Sir Willoughby's intentions. In her late interviews with him, he had been distant and shy; and he had even refused, on one occasion, to meet her, alleging, as an excuse, that he was engaged to go to an evening entertainment, to which it was ascertained he never went. He had, besides, endeavoured to get back from her the letter, which, in an unguarded moment, when intoxicated with love and wine, he had given to her. All these circumstances satisfied the unhappy maiden that she was about to become, or rather had already become, the dupe of a heartless villain. She now considered herself standing on the very verge of ruin; about to become, as Elspet Craig had foreboded, the victim of a passion insidiously introduced into her young heart; and left to the scorn of an unfeeling world, or the unavailing pity of a conceited and unfruitful philanthropy. These reflections were passing through her mind, when she heard Simon Frazer come into the house; for her bed was so situated that she could hear everything that occurred in the adjoining apartment. She soon ascertained the object of this late meeting of the two friends; and with feelings that shook her whole frame, she heard it fixed that, on the following evening, when Sir Willoughby was expected to go to an evening entertainment at the palace, Adam Hunter should gain the staircase window of Widow Hutchison, fire upon his enemy, and, upon seeing him fall, make his escape, along with his friend, by a back passage that led to the North Back of the Canongate. This resolved upon, the two friends parted.
The agitation which the knowledge of this fierce and bloody purpose produced in the mind of Margaret, was proportioned to the love which she still bore to her seducer, and to the gentle character of the maiden, who shrunk from the very thought of violence. Her nerves had, moreover, been severely affected by the train of sorrowful thoughts which, at the moment when she heard the fatal resolution, were passing through her mind. But a new feeling soon arose. She was now called upon to act, and the urgency of the case requiring the most prompt communication to Sir Willoughby, assuaged, in some degree, her nervous excitement, by forcing her ideas into a train calculated to the contrivance of some method of meeting him in the morning.
At daybreak, Margaret rose from her sleepless pillow, wrapt herself up in her plaid, and went and secreted herself behind a large tree, which stood in the garden at the back of the House of Gordon, from which she could observe the bedroom window of Sir Willoughby. It was a cold raw morning; the rain was pouring in torrents, and bursts of distant thunder shook the heavens. In this situation, Margaret sat for two hours, wet, wearied, and disconsolate. Her attention was, in some degree, arrested by a new equipage that stood in the court-yard, apparently newly arrived from a distance; and she concluded that Sir Willoughby had visitors—a prediction which she had good reason to verify. Her eye sought continually the casement of the knight's sleeping apartment, which was at last opened, and to her surprise and mortification, she saw standing behind the dressing-glass, the form of a gay and fashionable lady, with Sir Willoughby standing behind her—his head leaning on her left shoulder, and his right hand patting, with playful fondness, her cheek, and arranging her ringlets with the sportive gaiety and confidence of a professed libertine.
Overcome by this apparition, which so completely justified Margaret's suspicions of the character of her lover, and wearied and wasted as she was by the scene of the previous night, the fevered vigil which succeeded, and the cold and wet position she had so long occupied on this morning, she became faint; and, being unable longer to stand, leant herself, in a stooping posture, against the stem of the tree under which she stood. Sir Willoughby now entered the garden; he had observed her from the window, and came with marked displeasure in his countenance.
"Why this early visit, young maiden?" he said, with a querulous tone of voice, and without making any effort to assist her to rise.
"I dinna come here this morning, Sir Willoughby Somerset," replied Margaret, with the warmth of offended pride, and standing up, nerved by her feelings, which were roused as far as the gentleness of her nature permitted—"I dinna come here this morning on my ain account, though maybe I hae as meikle reason to do that as the braw leddie wha sits, even noo, in your sleepin chamber, and whose braw hair ye were pleased, in a fashion of merriment, to put in disorder. Oh, that it had pleased heaven that ye had deranged nae mair o' me than my worthless locks, I might this morning hae been the blithe, thochtless, and innocent Peggy Williamson, that I was when my stray wits left me to mysel' at the Hunter's Rest! Na, Sir Willoughby, I dinna come to tell ye o' your broken troth, and my lost love, and the ruin o' a puir lassie, wha wad gladly hae laid down her worthless life to save yours. These things—though, by our memories, whilk are but as the quicksand to the finger-marks of the drowning sailor, they may ance be forgotten—are recorded, doubtless, whar' they shall remain, ay, as the graving on adamant. Yet, though these things, in this world at least, concern only me, wha am, doubtless, o' sma concernment to ony living mortal; and though they may cost me my life, may be o' sma avail, they are o' less importance to me at this time than what I cam' to tell ye, being naething less than how to save your ain. Adam Hunter has resolved to slay ye this night, as ye gang to Holyrood. Tak' anither road than the Canongate; or, what is better, stay at hame, and save a life that is dearer to Peggy Williamson than her ain.—Fareweel, fareweel!" And before Sir Willoughby could reply, she had left him, waving her hand to him as she went. But, on looking back, as she opened the wicket, she saw the same lady—whom she afterwards ascertained to be lady Arabella Winford, a person of bad repute, with whom Sir Willoughby had resided for some time on the continent—enter the garden, and greet him in a manner very different from the modest custom of Scotland at that day.
After the departure of Margaret, Sir Willoughby, instead of being in any degree affected by gratitude for the preservation of his life, or by compassion for the kind maiden who had been instrumental in doing him that service, projected, from her information, a scheme marked by cowardice and cruelty, whereby he might get rid of his servant Richard Forster, and put an end to him and the secrets with which he had entrusted him, at the same moment. He resolved, and true to the character he bore—a combination of cruelty and frivolity—he resolved, amidst the blandishments of meretricious affection, and the imbecile badinage and persiflage of a strumpet's conversation, to send Richard down the Canongate in the evening, wrapped up in his cloak, and wearing his hat and white plume, by which he had become so remarkable. The project was executed as it was planned; and a deed was done with which Edinburgh, and indeed Scotland, rang for many a day. Richard Forster, wearing the cloak and plumed hat of his master, was shot dead in the Canongate, opposite the house of the widow Hutchison, by the unerring hand of Adam Hunter, who, seeing his supposed victim fall, flew in the direction of the Calton Hill, leaving the gun, with which he had done the deed, lying in a hedge, which at that time skirted a part of the north back of the Canongate.