Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Edmund stood paralysed. It must be something human or supernatural, but how it came there, and whether its glaring eyes had been fixed upon him as he sat there believing himself alone, he could not guess. Resolved not to give way to the strange fears which came crowding into his mind, he climbed up the rock again, and crossing the bridge, followed, as he thought, the path described by the Highlander. Instead, however, of soon finding himself at the farm-house, he lost all view of that or any other habitation; and pausing for a moment to peer amongst the trees for signs of a path, he heard again that unnatural chuckle at no great distance from him.

“Absurd folly!” said he to himself; “it must either be a poor maniac or some mischievous young mountaineer;” so he turned towards the sound, pushing his way through the underwood till he perceived an opening in the wood. There, on the shadowy hill-side, in a magic circle of mossy grey stones and whins, or furze, he witnessed a ghastly dance of pallid forms tossing their arms wildly above their heads, and, in the midst of them, the hobgoblin being which had just escaped from him, its grey garment fluttering, and its limbs jerking frantically as it bounded from one to the other of its spectral partners. Edmund paused in bewilderment.

“This is fearful,” he mentally ejaculated. “I confess I don’t half like it.”

He then endeavoured to retrace his steps towards the stream, which he should have followed as a guide towards the house, and at length discovered it by the sound of its murmuring waters. Hastening on, he had almost reached the old stone bridge on which Mrs Cameron had received her guests, when he perceived, as he thought, a tall Highlander, kilted, plaided, and bonneted, leaning against a tree a little to the right of the path, in an easy attitude, with one foot crossed over the other, one hand on his side, and the other supporting his head. His face was ghastly in its whiteness, and not less so were his hands and knees, and Bayntun’s first impulse was to hasten to his assistance, believing him to be ill. Greatly was he startled to find, on reaching the tree against which the figure had leaned so immovably, that he was gone. Not a trace or sound of him, and in the spot he had occupied was a twisted thorn, from which some branches had been lopped off. In Bayntun’s excited state of imagination he never suspected the truth, that these twisted branches, with the light shining through them, and the white wood showing where boughs had been removed, had formed the figure he had seen. More than ever impressed with the idea that the place was haunted, or his own brain affected, he sprang upon the bridge, and in a few minutes was heartily welcomed into the kitchen of Glen Bogie, where Mrs Cameron and a stout Highland girl were busily preparing a substantial and savoury supper.

Soon afterwards voices were heard outside, and home came the “lads,” as Mrs Cameron called her sons.

“Gude Lochaber stock, the whole of them,” said she, giving each a hearty slap on his shoulders as he came in.

And they certainly all did credit to Lochaber, from the eldest, who was a thoughtful-browed Highlander, to Dugald the youngest, a slight active lad of nineteen, with mirth and daring in his eye.

The supper was laid out in what had once been the dining-room of the Campbells of Glen Bogie. When it was concluded, a short consultation between the mother and sons was carried on in Gaelic, the result of which was, that the eldest Cameron invited “Misther Hardy and his friend to take their pipes and whisky in the kitchen along with the rest of us.”

“Might we not come too?” whispered Mrs Hardy, who felt rather oppressed with the idea of entertaining their hostess, who was rather deaf, in the dreary parlour.

To the kitchen they all adjourned, where a bright peat-fire glowed on the ground, in the centre of the wide chimney. Some of the dogs had crept in actually behind it, and lay dozing with one ear always on the alert. Wooden settles were placed in the ingle-nook for the young men, and the guests were accommodated with heavy high-backed chairs. Mrs Cameron drew her spinning-wheel towards her, and for a few minutes there were no sounds but its busy hum, and the roaring of the wind down the chimney, and amongst the old trees, and the ceaseless voice of the burn chafing in its rocky bed.