“Ungenerous Lilias,” said Maurice, taking her hand, “listen to me. Lifting my head accidentally, I was surprised to perceive a man and woman walking away at some distance from me. The more attentively I looked at these individuals, the more uneasy I became, until my terror was completed by the figures slowly turning round and presenting to me the identical features of you, dear Lilias, and myself.”
“Maurice, Maurice! you amaze me!”
“Though fully aware of the unearthly nature of these appearances, I could not resist the desire I felt of following them. I did so, tracing their silent steps up the glen, until I saw them enter the churchyard without. I hastened after, but when I too entered the cemetery, the figures had disappeared!”
The lady’s cheek grew pale as she listened to this narration, for in those days the belief in such prognostications was universal; and the time of day when Maurice had seen the wraiths, their retiring motion, and the fatal spot to which he had traced them, were all indicative of fast approaching doom. She clung around her husband’s neck for a few moments in silence, until the deep-seated conviction of safety while with him, which forms so striking a characteristic of feminine affection, revived her spirits; and though the tear still hung on her silken eyelash as she looked up in his face, there was a languid smile on her cheek as she said,—
“Beshrew you, Maurice, for frightening me so deeply on my wedding-day! Could you find no other time than this to see bogles?”
“Well said, love,” answered Maurice, who felt no little alarm at seeing the effect which his story had produced on his wife: “’twas doubtless a mere delusion.”
“Even should it prove true,” replied Lilias, “we shall at least die together; and there is a tranquillising influence in that thought, Maurice, which would go far to make even death agreeable.”
“Let us leave this place,” said Maurice, after the emotion which so bewitching a confusion excited had in some measure subsided; “I fear Elspeth will miss us.”
“What then?”
“You know that I have ever distrusted that woman. She and I are as different from each other as day from darkness. She is a staunch Covenanter—I a graceless Cavalier. She rails at love-locks, love-songs, and love-passages—I adore them all. She prays for MacCallummore, and would fain see his bonnet nod above the crown of King Charles, and the caps of his merry men;—I would rather see his head frowning on the Netherbow Port. While she opposed my suit to you, I only hated her; now that she connives at it—shall I confess it to you?—I fear her.”