A Legend of Montrose - Sir Walter Scott (good fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

so as to remove the tawdry effect too frequently produced in tartan, by the mixture and strong opposition of colours. An antique silver chain hung round her neck, and supported the WREST, or key, with which she turned her instrument. A small ruff rose above her collar, and was secured by a brooch of some value, an old keepsake from Lord Menteith. Her profusion of light hair almost hid her laughing eyes, while, with a smile and a blush, she mentioned that she had M'Aulay's directions to ask them if they chose music. Sir Duncan Campbell gazed with considerable surprise and interest at the lovely apparition, which thus interrupted his debate with Allan M'Aulay.

"Can this," he said to him in a whisper, "a creature so beautiful and so elegant, be a domestic musician of your brother's establishment?"

"By no means," answered Allan, hastily, yet with some hesitation; "she is a--a--near relation of our family--and treated," he added, more firmly, "as an adopted daughter of our father's house."

As he spoke thus, he arose from his seat, and with that air of courtesy which every Highlander can assume when it suits him to practise it, he resigned it to Annot, and offered to her, at the same time, whatever refreshments the table afforded, with an assiduity which was probably designed to give Sir Duncan an impression of her rank and consequence. If such was Allan's purpose, however, it was unnecessary. Sir Duncan kept his eyes fixed upon Annot with an expression of much deeper interest than could have arisen from any impression that she was a person of consequence. Annot even felt embarrassed under the old knight's steady gaze; and it was not without considerable hesitation, that, tuning her instrument, and receiving an assenting look from Lord Menteith and Allan, she executed the following ballad, which our friend, Mr. Secundus M'Pherson, whose goodness we had before to acknowledge, has thus translated into the English tongue:


THE ORPHAN MAID.

November's hail-cloud drifts away,
November's sunbeam wan
Looks coldly on the castle grey,
When forth comes Lady Anne.

The orphan by the oak was set,
Her arms, her feet, were bare,
The hail-drops had not melted yet,
Amid her raven hair.

"And, Dame," she said, "by all the ties
That child and mother know,
Aid one who never knew these joys,
Relieve an orphan's woe."

The Lady said, "An orphan's state
Is hard and sad to bear;
Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate,
Who mourns both lord and heir.

"Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
Since, when from vengeance wild
Of fierce Strathallan's Chief I fled,
Forth's eddies whelm'd my child."

"Twelve times the year its course has born,"
The wandering maid replied,
"Since fishers on St. Bridget's morn
Drew nets on Campsie side.

"St. Bridget sent no scaly spoil;--
An infant, wellnigh dead,
They saved, and rear'd in want and toil,
To beg from you her bread."

That orphan maid the lady kiss'd—
"My husband's looks you bear;
St. Bridget and her morn be bless'd!
You are his widow's heir."

They've robed that maid, so poor and pale,
In silk and sandals rare;
And pearls, for drops of frozen hail,
Are glistening in her hair.

The admirers of pure Celtic antiquity, notwithstanding the elegance of the above translation, may be desirous to see a literal version from the original Gaelic, which we therefore subjoin; and have only to add, that the original is deposited with Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham.


LITERAL TRANSLATION.

The hail-blast had drifted away upon the wings of the gale
of autumn. The sun looked from between the clouds, pale as
the wounded hero who rears his head feebly on the heath when
the roar of battle hath passed over him.

Finele, the Lady of the Castle, came forth to see her
maidens pass to the herds with their leglins [Milk-pails].


There sat an orphan maiden beneath the old oak-tree of
appointment. The withered leaves fell around her, and her
heart was more withered than they.

The parent of the ice [poetically taken from the frost]
still congealed the hail-drops in her hair; they were like
the specks of white ashes on the twisted boughs of the
blackened and half-consumed oak that blazes in the hall.

And the maiden said, "Give me comfort, Lady, I am an orphan
child." And the Lady replied, "How can I give that which I
have not? I am the widow of a slain lord,--the mother of a
perished child. When I fled in my fear from the vengeance
of my husband's foes, our bark was overwhelmed in the tide,
and my infant perished. This was on St. Bridget's morn,
near the strong Lyns of Campsie. May ill luck light upon
the day." And the maiden answered, "It was on St. Bridget's
morn, and twelve harvests before this time, that the
fishermen of Campsie drew in their nets neither grilse nor
salmon, but an infant half dead, who hath since lived in
misery, and must die, unless she is now aided." And the Lady
answered, "Blessed be Saint Bridget and her morn, for these
are the dark eyes and the falcon look of my slain lord; and
thine shall be the inheritance of his widow." And she
called for her waiting attendants, and she bade them clothe
that maiden in silk, and in samite; and the pearls which
they wove among her black tresses, were whiter than the
frozen hail-drops.

While the song proceeded, Lord Menteith observed, with some surprise, that it appeared to produce a much deeper effect upon the mind of Sir Duncan Campbell, than he could possibly have anticipated from his age and character. He well knew that the Highlanders of that period possessed a much greater sensibility both for tale and song than was found among their Lowland neighbours; but even this, he thought, hardly accounted for the embarrassment with which the old man withdrew his eyes from the songstress, as if unwilling to suffer them to rest on an object so interesting. Still less was it to be expected, that features which expressed pride, stern common sense, and the austere habit of authority, should have been so much agitated by so trivial a circumstance. As the Chief's brow became clouded, he drooped his large shaggy grey eyebrows until they almost concealed his eyes, on the lids of which something like a tear might be seen to glisten. He remained silent and fixed in the same posture for a minute or two, after the last note had ceased to vibrate. He then raised his head, and having looked at Annot Lyle, as if purposing to speak to her, he as suddenly changed that purpose, and was about to address Allan, when the door opened, and the Lord of the Castle made his appearance.


CHAPTER X.

Dark on their journey lour'd the gloomy day,
Wild were the hills, and doubtful grew the way;
More dark, more gloomy, and more doubtful, show'd
The mansion, which received them from the road.
--THE TRAVELLERS, A ROMANCE.

Angus M'Aulay was charged with a message which he seemed to find some difficulty in communicating; for it was not till after he had framed his speech several different ways, and blundered them all, that he succeeded in letting Sir Duncan Campbell know, that the cavalier who was to accompany him was waiting in readiness, and that all was prepared for his return to Inverary. Sir Duncan Campbell rose up very indignantly; the affront which this message implied immediately driving out of his recollection the sensibility which had been awakened by the music.

"I little expected this," he said, looking indignantly at Angus M'Aulay. "I little thought that there was a Chief in the West Highlands, who, at the pleasure of a Saxon, would have bid the Knight of Ardenvohr leave his castle, when the sun was declining from the meridian, and ere the second cup had been filled. But farewell, sir, the food of a churl does not satisfy the appetite; when I next revisit Darnlinvarach, it shall be with a naked sword in one hand, and a firebrand in the other."

"And if you so come," said Angus, "I pledge myself to meet you fairly, though you brought five hundred Campbells at your back, and to afford you and them such entertainment, that you shall not again complain of the hospitality of Darnlinvarach."

"Threatened men," said Sir Duncan, "live long. Your turn for gasconading, Laird of M'Aulay, is too well known, that men of honour should regard your vaunts. To you, my lord, and to Allan, who have supplied the place of my churlish host, I leave my thanks.--And to you, pretty mistress," he said, addressing Annot Lyle, "this little token, for having opened a fountain which hath been dry for many a year." So saying, he left the apartment, and commanded his attendants to be summoned. Angus M'Aulay, equally embarrassed and incensed at the charge of inhospitality, which was the greatest possible affront to a Highlander, did not follow Sir Duncan to the court-yard, where, mounting his palfrey, which was in readiness, followed by six mounted attendants, and accompanied by the noble Captain Dalgetty, who had also awaited him, holding Gustavus ready