“Duncan, Duncan, my darling,” she said, with a low, trembling voice, but with passionate earnestness, “you did not hear it? Tell me that you did not hear it! You only want to frighten poor old nurse: some one has been telling you the story!”
It was my turn to be frightened now; for the matter became at once associated with my fears as to the possible nature of my auricular peculiarities. I assured her that nothing was farther from my intention than to frighten her; that, on the contrary, she had rather alarmed me; and I begged her to explain. But she sat down white and trembling, and did not speak. Presently, however, she rose again, and saying, “I have known it happen sometimes without anything very bad following,” began to put away the basin and plate I had been eating and drinking from, as if she would compel herself to be calm before me. I renewed my entreaties for an explanation, but without avail; for she begged me to be content for a few days, as she was quite unable to tell the story at present. She promised, however, of her own accord, that before I left home, she would tell me all she knew about it. The next day a letter arrived announcing the death of a distant relation, by whose influence my father had had a lingering hope of obtaining an appointment for me. There was nothing left but to look out for a situation as tutor.
I was now nineteen. I had completed the usual curriculum of study at one of the Scotch universities; and, possessed of a fair knowledge of mathematics and physics, and what I considered rather more than a good foundation of classical and metaphysical acquirement, I resolved to apply for the first suitable situation that offered. But I was spared even this trouble in the matter. Through a circuitous channel, a certain Lord Hilton, an English nobleman, residing in one of the southern counties of England, having heard that one of my father’s sons was desirous of such a situation, wrote to him, offering me the post of tutor to his two boys, of the ages of ten and twelve. He had himself been partly educated at a Scotch university; and this, it may be, had prejudiced him in favour of a Scotch tutor; while an ancient alliance of the families by marriage was supposed by my nurse to be the cause of his offering me the post. Of this connection, however, my father said nothing to me, and it went for nothing in my anticipations. I was to receive a hundred pounds a year, and to hold in the family the position of a gentleman; which might mean anything or nothing, according to the disposition of the heads of the family. Preparations for my departure were immediately commenced; and I set out one evening for the cottage of my old nurse, to bid her good-bye for many months, or probably years. I was to leave the next day for Edinburgh, on my way to London, whence I had to repair by coach to my new abode—almost to me like the land beyond the grave, so little did I know about it, and so wide was the separation between it and my home. The evening was sultry when I began my walk, and before I arrived at nurse’s cottage, the clouds rising from all quarters of the horizon, and especially gathering around the peaks of the mountain, betokened the near approach of a thunder-storm. This was a great delight to me. Gladly would I take leave of my home with the memory of a last night of tumultuous magnificence, followed, probably, by a day of weeping rain, well suited to the mood of my own heart in bidding farewell to the best of parents and the dearest of homes. Besides, in common with most Scotchmen who are young and hardy enough to be unable to realize to themselves the existence of coughs and rheumatic fevers, it was a positive pleasure to me to be out in rain, hail, or snow.
“I am come to bid you good-bye, Margaret, and to hear the story which you promised to tell me before I left home: I go to-morrow.”
“Do you go so soon, my darling? Well, it will be an awful night to tell it in; but, as I promised, I suppose I must.”
At the moment, down the wide chimney fell two or three great drops of rain, with slight explosions upon the clear turf-fire, the first of the storm.
“Yes, indeed you must,” I replied; and she commenced. Of course it was all told in Gaelic; and I translate from my recollection of the Gaelic; or, perhaps, rather from the impression left upon my mind, than from any recollection of the words. We sat a little way back from the fire, which we had reason to fear would soon be put out by the falling rain.
“How old the story is, I do not know. It has come down through many generations. My grandmother told it to me, as I tell it to you; and her mother and my mother sat beside, never interrupting, but nodding their heads at every turn. Almost it ought to begin like the fairy tales, Once upon a time,—it took place so long ago; but it is too dreadful and too true to tell like a fairy tale. There were two brothers, sons of the chief of our clan, but as different in appearance and disposition, as two men could be. The elder was fair-haired and strong, much given to hunting and fishing; fighting too, upon occasion, I daresay, when they made a foray upon the Saxon, to get back a mouthful of their own. But he was gentleness itself to every one about him, and the very soul of honour in all his doings. The younger was very dark in complexion, and tall and slender compared to his brother. He was very fond of book-learning, which, they say, was an uncommon taste in those times. He did not care for any sports or bodily exercises but one, and that too, was unusual in these parts. It was horsemanship. He was a fierce rider, and seemed as much at home in the saddle as in his study chair. You may think that, so long ago, there was not much fit room for riding hereabouts; but, fit or not fit, he rode. From his reading and riding, the neighbours looked doubtfully upon him, and whispered about the black art. He usually bestrode a great powerful black horse, without a white hair on him; and people said it was either the devil himself, or a demon-horse from the devil’s own stud. What favoured this notion was, that the brute would let no other than his master go near him, in or out of the stable. Indeed no one would venture, after he had already killed two men, and grievously maimed a third, tearing him with his teeth and hoofs like a wild beast. But to his master he was obedient as a hound, and was sometimes seen to tremble in his presence.
“The youth’s temper corresponded to his habits. He was both gloomy and passionate. Prone to anger, he had never been known to forgive. Debarred from anything on which he had set his heart, he would have gone mad with longing if he had not gone mad with rage. His soul was like the night around us now, dark and sultry and silent, but lighted up by the red levin of wrath, and torn by the bellowings of thunder passion. He must have his will: hell might have his soul. Imagine then the rage and malice in his heart, when he suddenly became aware that an orphan girl, distantly related to them, who had lived with them for nearly two years, and whom he had loved for almost all that period, was loved by his elder brother, and loved him in return. He flung his right hand above his head, swore a terrible oath that if he might not his brother should not, rushed out of the house, and galloped off among the hills.
“The orphan was a beautiful girl, tall, pale, and slender, with plentiful dark hair, which, when released from the snood, rippled down below her knees. Her appearance consequently formed a strong contrast with that of her favoured lover, and of course there was some resemblance between her and the other. This fact seemed, to the fierce selfishness of the younger, to be ground for a prior claim.