Half-way down, however, with sudden resolve, she took a narrower path to the left, and was soon on the outskirts of the wood and out again in the bright moonlight.
The night was so glorious that she had resolved to stroll alone, to think and devise some plan for the future. Before her, silhouetted high against the steely sky, rose the two great, black, ivy-clad towers of the ancient castle. The grim, crumbling walls stood dark and frowning amid the fairy-like scene, while from far below came up the faint rippling of the Ruthven Water. A great owl flapped lazily from the ivy as she approached those historic old walls which in bygone days had held within them some of Scotland's greatest men. She had explored and knew every nook and cranny in those extensive ruins. With Walter's assistance, she had once made a perilous ascent to the top of the highest of the two square towers, and had often clambered along the broken walls of the keep or descended into those strange little subterranean chambers, now half-choked with earth and rubbish, which tradition declared were the dungeons in which prisoners in the old days had been put to the rack, seared with red-hot irons, or submitted to other horrible tortures.
Her feet falling noiselessly, she entered the grass-grown courtyard, where stood the ancient spreading yew, the "dule-tree," under which the Glencardine charters had been signed and justice administered. Other big trees had sprung from seedlings since the place had fallen into ruin; and, having entered, she paused amidst its weird, impressive silence. Those high, ponderous walls about her spoke mutely of strength and impregnability. Those grass-grown mounds hid ruined walls and broken foundations. What tales of wild lawlessness and reckless bloodshed they all could tell!
Many of the strange stories she had heard concerning the old place—stories told by the people in the neighbourhood—were recalled as she stood there gazing wonderingly about her. Many romantic legends had, indeed, been handed down in Perthshire from generation to generation concerning old Glencardine and its lawless masters, and for her they had always possessed a strange fascination, for had she not inherited the antiquarian tastes of her father, and had she not read many works upon folklore and such-like subjects.
Suddenly, while standing in the deep shadow, gazing thoughtfully up at those high towers which, though ruined, still guarded the end of the glen, a strange thing occurred—something which startled her, causing her to halt breathless, petrified, rooted to the spot. She stared straight before her. Something uncanny was happening there, something that was, indeed, beyond human credence, and quite inexplicable.
CHAPTER XI
CONCERNS THE WHISPERS
What had startled Gabrielle was certainly extraordinary and decidedly uncanny. She was standing near the southern wall, when, of a sudden, she heard low but distinct whispers. Again she listened. Yes. The sounds were not due to her excited imagination at the recollection of those romantic traditions of love and hatred, or of those gruesome stories of how the Wolf of Badenoch had been kept prisoner there for five years and put to frightful tortures, or how the Laird of Weem was deliberately poisoned in that old banqueting-hall, the huge open fireplace of which still existed near where she stood.
There was the distinct sound of low, whispered words! She held her breath to listen. She tried to distinguish what the words were, but in vain. Then she endeavoured to determine whence they emanated, but was unable to do so. Again they sounded—again—and yet again. Then there was another voice, still low, still whispering, but not quite so deep as the first. It sounded like a woman's.
Local tradition had it that the place held the ghosts of those who had died in agony within its noisome dungeons; but she had always been far too matter-of-fact to accept stories of the supernatural. Yet at that moment her ears did not deceive her. That pile of grim, gaunt ruins was a House of Whispers!