The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day by Walter Scott (popular romance novels txt) 📗

Louise,” replied Catharine, “you are a more privileged and experienced wanderer than I—do you go; and if you find me dead on your return, as may well chance, give my poor father this ring and a lock of my hair, and say, Catharine died in endeavouring to save the blood of Bruce. And give this other lock to Henry; say, Catharine thought of him to the last, and that, if he has judged her too scrupulous touching the blood of others, he will then know it was not because she valued her own.”

They sobbed in each other’s arms, and the intervening hours till evening were spent in endeavouring to devise some better mode of supplying the captive with nourishment, and in the construction of a tube, composed of hollow reeds, slipping into each other, by which liquids might be conveyed to him. The bell of the village church of Falkland tolled to vespers. The dey, or farm woman, entered with her pitchers to deliver the milk for the family, and to hear and tell the news stirring. She had scarcely entered the kitchen when the female minstrel, again throwing herself in Catharine’s arms, and assuring her of her unalterable fidelity, crept in silence downstairs, the little dog under her arm. A moment after, she was seen by the breathless Catharine, wrapt in the dey woman’s cloak, and walking composedly across the drawbridge.

“So,” said the warder, “you return early tonight, May Bridget? Small mirth towards in the hall—ha, wench! Sick times are sad times!”

“I have forgotten my tallies,” said the ready witted French woman, “and will return in the skimming of a bowie.”

She went onward, avoiding the village of Falkland, and took a footpath which led through the park. Catharine breathed freely, and blessed God when she saw her lost in the distance. It was another anxious hour for Catharine which occurred before the escape of the fugitive was discovered. This happened so soon as the dey girl, having taken an hour to perform a task which ten minutes might have accomplished, was about to return, and discovered that some one had taken away her grey frieze cloak. A strict search was set on foot; at length the women of the house remembered the glee maiden, and ventured to suggest her as one not unlikely to exchange an old cloak for a new one. The warder, strictly questioned, averred he saw the dey woman depart immediately after vespers; and on this being contradicted by the party herself, he could suggest, as the only alternative, that it must needs have been the devil.

As, however, the glee woman could not be found, the real circumstances of the case were easily guessed at; and the steward went to inform Sir John Ramorny and Dwining, who were now scarcely ever separate, of the escape of one of their female captives. Everything awakens the suspicions of the guilty. They looked on each other with faces of dismay, and then went together to the humble apartment of Catharine, that they might take her as much as possible by surprise while they inquired into the facts attending Louise’s disappearance.

“Where is your companion, young woman?” said Ramorny, in a tone of austere gravity.

“I have no companion here,” answered Catharine.

“Trifle not,” replied the knight; “I mean the glee maiden, who lately dwelt in this chamber with you.”

“She is gone, they tell me,” said Catharine—“gone about an hour since.”

“And whither?” said Dwining.

“How,” answered Catharine, “should I know which way a professed wanderer may choose to travel? She was tired no doubt of a solitary life, so different from the scenes of feasting and dancing which her trade leads her to frequent. She is gone, and the only wonder is that she should have stayed so long.”

“This, then,” said Ramorny, “is all you have to tell us?”

“All that I have to tell you, Sir John,” answered Catharine, firmly; “and if the Prince himself inquire, I can tell him no more.”

“There is little danger of his again doing you the honour to speak to you in person,” said Ramorny, “even if Scotland should escape being rendered miserable by the sad event of his decease.”

“Is the Duke of Rothsay so very ill?” asked Catharine.

“No help, save in Heaven,” answered Ramorny, looking upward.

“Then may there yet be help there,” said Catharine, “if human aid prove unavailing!”

“Amen!” said Ramorny, with the most determined gravity; while Dwining adopted a face fit to echo the feeling, though it seemed to cost him a painful struggle to suppress his sneering yet soft laugh of triumph, which was peculiarly excited by anything having a religious tendency.

“And it is men—earthly men, and not incarnate devils, who thus appeal to Heaven, while they are devouring by inches the life blood of their hapless master!” muttered Catharine, as her two baffled inquisitors left the apartment. “Why sleeps the thunder? But it will roll ere long, and oh! may it be to preserve as well as to punish!”

The hour of dinner alone afforded a space when, all in the castle being occupied with that meal, Catharine thought she had the best opportunity of venturing to the breach in the wall, with the least chance of being observed. In waiting for the hour, she observed some stir in the castle, which had been silent as the grave ever since the seclusion of the Duke of Rothsay. The portcullis was lowered and raised, and the creaking of the machinery was intermingled with the tramp of horse, as men at arms went out and returned with steeds hard ridden and covered with foam. She observed, too, that such domestics as she casually saw from her window were in arms. All this made her heart throb high, for it augured the approach of rescue; and besides, the bustle left the little garden more lonely than ever. At length the hour of noon arrived; she had taken care to provide, under pretence of her own wishes, which the pantler seemed disposed to indulge, such articles of food as could be the most easily conveyed to the unhappy captive. She whispered to intimate her presence; there was no answer; she spoke louder, still there was silence.

“He sleeps,” she muttered these words half aloud, and with a shuddering which was succeeded by a start and a scream, when a voice replied behind her:

“Yes, he sleeps; but it is for ever.”

She looked round. Sir John Ramorny stood behind her in complete armour, but the visor of his helmet was up, and displayed a countenance more resembling one about to die than to fight. He spoke with a grave tone, something between that of a calm observer of an interesting event and of one who is an agent and partaker in it.

“Catharine,” he said, “all is true which I tell you. He is dead. You have done your best for him; you can do no more.”

“I will not—I cannot believe it,” said Catharine. “Heaven be merciful to me! it would make one doubt of Providence, to think so great a crime has been accomplished.”

“Doubt not of Providence, Catharine, though it has suffered the profligate to fall by his own devices. Follow me; I have that to say which concerns you. I say follow (for she hesitated), unless you prefer being left to the