But she was informed by her younger brother, Philip, that she should never see that face or bearing more, as her lover had come home, sorely wounded and broken in health, not to seek vengeance on her or hers, but only to die among his kinsmen, the Calderwoods of the Glen; and that he had died there, three days after their meeting in the kirk; and was buried at Eglise Marie, in the tomb of the lairds of Piteadie.
It was in one of the last evenings of autumn, when after hearing this sorrowful narrative, and with it the knowledge that the only heart that ever truly loved her was cold in the grave, that Annora--in the craving for solitude and to be alone, left the old ivy-covered manse, and passing through the garden, issued into the glebe--a spacious park, surrounded by venerable trees--and seating herself upon a moss-grown stile, strove to think calmly, if possible, and pray.
Resplendent in gold and purple, the sky threw out in strong contour the summits of the Lomonds, from which the last rays of sunset had faded; and where she sat alone. The darkness had almost set in, the woods were so leafy and dense; yet in some places the twilight was liquid and clear. The trees were already yellowing fast, and the sear and russet leaves that had fallen before the strong gales that swept through the Howe, or great midland valley of Fife, were whirling about the place where she sat, as if to remind her that the year was dying.
Often in happier times had she wandered here with Willie, and the bark of more than one tree there bore their names and initials cut by his knife or dagger. The woodcock was seeking his nest in the hedges, and the snipe and the wild coot were among the reeds and rushes of the loch and burn; and Annora, as she gazed around her, thought sadly that it was the autumn of a year of married misery, and the winter of her aching heart.
Suddenly some mysterious impulse--for there was no sound but the sense of something being nigh, made her look round, and then a start, a shudder, convulsed her, rooting her to the spot; for there by the stile whereon she sat was Willie Calderwood, looking just as she had seen him last, in his cavalier dress, with plumed beaver and white cockade, long rapier and short velvet mantle: but his features, when viewed by the calm, clear twilight, seemed paler, his eyes sadder, and the sword wound on his cheek more livid and dark.
He was not dead--he lived yet, and her brother Philip had deceived her!
She made a start forward, and then drew back, withheld by an impulse of terror, and holding up her poor thin hands deprecatingly, faltered out--
"Oh! come not nigh me, Willie. I am a wedded wife."
"And false to me, Annora. Is it not so?" he asked, with a voice that thrilled through her.
She wept, and laid her hands upon her crushed heart, while Willie's sad eyes, that had a glare in them, caused doubtless by his wound, seemed to pierce her soul; they seemed so bright, so earnest, and beseeching in the autumn twilight.
"They told you I was false to you, or slain in France, and you believed them?"
"I did, Willie," she sobbed, as she covered her face.
"I have lain on many a field, lassie, where the rain of heaven and the wind of night swept over me--fields where the living could scarce be kenned frae the dead, yet I was never slain."
"But, oh," she urged, "Willie, never, never will ye ken----"
"I ken a'! They told you that I was dead, too, and graved in yonder kirk."
"They did, Willie dear--they did."
"Yet I am here before you. I came home to wed you, lassie, and to join my Lord Glencairn in the north, and to fight against this accursed Cromwell and his Puritans, but it maunna be," he added, sadly, in a hollow tone.
"Oh, leave me, Willie, leave me. If you should be seen wi' me----"
"Seen!" he exclaimed, with a bitter laugh.
"Oh, leave me; for what seek ye here?"
"But a lock o' your bonnie hair, lassie--a lock to lay beside my heart."
Her scissors were at the chatelaine that dangled from her girdle; she glanced fearfully at the windows of the manse, where lights were beginning to glimmer; but undoing her hair, she cut a long and ripply tress, and handed it to Willie. As she drew near, the expression of his eyes again froze her blood, they seemed so sadly earnest and glazed; and as his fingers closed upon the coveted tress, and touched hers, they felt icy cold and clammy, like those of a corpse.
Then a shriek of terror burst from her, and falling on the grass, she became senseless, and oblivious of everything.
For days after this she raved of her meeting with Willie Calderwood, and of the lock of hair she had given him. Some thought her mind wandered; but others pointed significantly to the facts that her scissors had been found by her side, and to where a large tress had been certainly cut from her left temple.
The young laird of Piteadie was assuredly dead, and buried among his kindred in St. Mary's Chapel; but the age was one of superstition, of wraiths, and omens; and people whispered, and shook their heads, and knew not what to think, save that she must have seen a spectre.
Ere a week elapsed, Annora died quietly in her mother's arms, forgiving and blessing her; but adhering to the story of the gift to her dead lover. So strong at last grew the excitement in the neighbourhood that some began to aver that he was not dead at all, but was leading a troop of horse, under Glencairn, in the north.
Even those who had seen the funeral cortege issue from the House of the Glen were so sceptical on the subject, that the tomb was opened by order of the next heir, and there, sure enough, was the body of Willie Calderwood; but the leaden cerements were rent from top to bottom, the grave-clothes were all in disorder, and in the right hand was clenched a long and silky tress of Annora's hair![*]
[*] The plough has recently uprooted the last stone of this old chapel; but its name, corrupted into "Legsmalie," is borne by the field where it stood.
How it came there none could say, though many averred it had been buried with him at his own request, and was the gift of other years; but the next heir, his nephew, William Calderwood, whose initials we may see above the eastern gate of the old fortalice, when he repaired it in 1686, in lieu of the palm branch of his name, placed above the helmet an arm and clenched hand, which holds a lock of hair--the same crest we all saw this morning.
From that time the Moultrays of Seafield never prospered. The last of the family was killed during the insurrection of 1715. Their line passed away. It was long represented by the Moultrays of Rescobie, also now extinct, and their tower is a crumbling ruin by the sea-shore.
* * * * *
Such was Cora's strange story, to which we all, myself included, listened with attention, though, sooth to say, I had heard it frequently before. Berkeley declared it to be "doocid good, but doocid queer."
In another land I was yet to hear a story still more gloomy and improbable than this--a story to be related in its place, and in some points not unlike the legend of the clenched hand.
While Cora had been rehearsing her gloomy story of the two ruined towers, my eyes had scarcely ever wandered from Louisa Loftus, who, with Miss Wilford and I, was seated in the same flirting, or tete-a-tete chair, and who, on this night, was in all the pride of her calm, pale, aristocratic beauty.
She was in the zenith of her charms; her figure, finely rounded, was full--almost voluptuous; her features were remarkably expressive to be so regular; and her eyes and glorious hair were wondrously dark when contrasted with the pure whiteness of her skin.
Seated under the brilliant crystal gaselier, the fine contour of her head, and the exquisite proportions of her bare shoulders and neck, on which a circlet of brilliants sparkled, were seen to perfection, and I felt bewildered while I watched her. Thus, I fear, Miss Wilford, in whose blue eyes a mischievous expression was twinkling, did not find me very entertaining company.
Down that fair neck a long black ringlet wandered, as if to allure, and at times it almost touched, my hand. Intoxicated by her beauty and close vicinity, I determined to do something to express my passion, even if I should do it--miserable timidity and subterfuge--under cover of a jest--a mockery.
Tremulously, between my fingers, unnoticed by others, I took the stray ringlet, and whispered in her ears--
"A strange story, that of my cousin's, Lady Louisa."
"And the lock of hair! such a terrible idea!" said she, shuddering, while her white shoulders and brilliants shone in the light together.
"Does it terrify you?"
"More than it gratifies me."
"As the chances are that I may be killed and buried in the East, will--will you give me _this_ to lie in the trenches with me?" said I, curling the soft ringlet round my finger, with mock gallantry, while my heart beat wildly with hope and expectation.
She turned her dark, full eyes to mine, with an expression of mingled surprise and sweetness.