Rob Roy and his followers being now left to themselves by the sudden dispersion of the MacKenzies and MacRaes, while the Rosses, Munroes, and others were still in arms against them, and while General Wightman's troops, though retreating, covered the main roads that led to the Perthshire highlands, were thus compelled to linger near the shore of Loch Duich and in the castle of Eilan Donan for a few days ere they could set out on their return home.
In the historical account of Rob Roy and his clan, we are told briefly, that after Glensheil, "he and his party plundered a Spanish ship, after it had been in possession of the English, which so enriched him that he went to the braes of Balquhidder, and began farming."
The details of this affair are as follows:—
On the night after the battle, Rob, on learning that Duncan nan Creagh and other MacRaes were wandering over the field, dirking and plundering the wounded, went there to drive them off, and to save as many as possible of the poor fellows.
The early June morning dawned brightly in the dewy glen, which was dotted thickly with red and yellow coats, among whom lay nearly thirty Spaniards; and Rob saw with regret the body of Captain Dawnes; it presented a deplorable spectacle, for both his eyes were shot out, and his face was a mass of blood.
Near him was a Spanish officer, seated half upright against a large stone; his dark-olive face was pale, ghastly, and sorrowful. As Rob approached, he raised his head, and opened his black and now lack-lustre eyes with a vacant stare, as if the poor fellow sought to assure himself that blindness and death had not yet come upon him. His uniform was blue, richly laced with silver, and on his left breast was the gold and eight-pointed cross of Malta. He had received two bullet wounds in the body, and appeared to be sinking fast.
As Rob Roy, like most of the loyal Highlanders, was perhaps more a Catholic than a Protestant, the cross upon the breast of the dying Spaniard excited his interest, and stooping down, he asked in English if he could assist him.
"Aqua—aqua!" (water—water!) muttered the sufferer, hoarsely, and then added in good English, "Water, for the love of Heaven!"
"Run to the linn, Greumoch, and fill your quaich," said Rob, raising the sufferer against his knee; "our forefathers lie under the shadow of the old cross on Inchcailloch, and they died believing in it as the sign of redemption unto men, so it would ill become us to neglect the stranger, who, with the cross on his breast, dies here for King James VIII. Quick, Greumoch, dash in some whisky too—it comes not amiss to the Saxons, and won't to the Spaniards!"
As soon as it was brought, he applied the quaich of cool spring water and usquebaugh to the parched lips of the wounded officer, whose tongue seemed to have become baked and hard by loss of blood and a night of agony.
Rob now proposed to have his wounds looked to and the blood stanched; but there were no surgeons near, and the Spaniard shook his head sadly, as if to indicate that their efforts were useless, and his eyes dilated wildly when Greumoch approached him with a bunch of wild nettles, the old Highland panacea for all manner of cuts, stabs, and slashes.
Then the Spanish cavalier smiled sadly, for he knew that he was mortally wounded, and felt death in his heart.
"What is your name—your rank?" asked Rob, kindly.
"I am Don José de Santarem, a Knight of Malta."
"A relation of the Spanish colonel?"
"I am his brother; but Alonzo has left me to my fate."
"Upbraid him not," said Rob; "he has been sorely pressed by the men of Culcairn and Morar Chattu, and is far down the glen by this time."
Had Rob said that he was "sorely pressed by the Medes and Persians," it would have been quite as intelligible to the Spaniard, who said,—"Senor Escosse, could you get me a priest?"
"A priest!" reiterated Rob, with perplexity.
"That I may confess me before I die."
MacGregor shook his head. "The priests are all banished or in their graves," said he; "the faith of our forefathers is proscribed here now—even as the Clan Alpine are proscribed by the Parliament and paper courts of the Lowlanders."
"No priests?" sighed the Spaniard, with a start.
"Not one," said Rob, on which Greumoch, who knew a little English, whispered,—
"Maybe Paul Crubach might do—he was mighty near being a priest once."
"No—no," said Rob. "Yet there is the parish minister of Glensheil."
But the Spaniard shook his head with disdain, and the blood spirted anew from his wounds.
"My forefathers lie buried in the chapel of our old castle at Quebara, in Alava—each under marble, with helmet, sword, and gloves of steel above his tomb; but I, a brother of St. John of Malta, must lie here among heretics, and, it may be, in earth that is unconsecrated otherwise than by the blessed dew of heaven!"
"Nay," said Rob, earnestly; "this shall not be! You are dying, my brave man—I can see death in your face, for I have seen it in the faces of too many not to know it now; but I swear that you shall lie in consecrated earth."
"Swear this to me!" gasped the Spaniard, writhing his body towards the speaker, whose hand he grasped convulsively.
"I swear it!" said Rob, pressing his dirk to his lips.
"You vow on your steel, as we do in my country," said the Spaniard, while his eyes sparkled with an unwonted light; "listen to me—I will reward you, if I can."
"I seek no reward," said Rob Roy; "you are a Spaniard who came hither to fight for our king, and against those lumbering louts, the Dutch, who came from King William's country—bodachs, who know not a stag's horn from a steer's stump, as the saying is."
"Alas! (ay de mi!) how little I thought to die in this wild land," said the Spaniard, closing his eyes, while his voice became more and more husky; "but draw nearer; keep your oath, and I shall reward you. I had charge of our treasure chest; it contains three thousand pistoles of Madrid and Malaga."
"And where is this chest?" whispered Rob, very naturally becoming more interested.
"It is on board a small galley or launch—which—which lies wedged——"
"Where—where?" asked MacGregor; for the Spaniard's voice and powers were failing fast.
"Wedged among the rocks, near where we formed a battery—"
"At the mouth of Loch Duich?"
"I know not how you name it—but 'tis there—there!"
"Good; speak on."
"Three British ships of war are hovering off the coast, and that treasure will become their prize, if you do not anticipate them. The pistoles are—are—are in a coffer marked with the cross of Malta." After this, the poor Spaniard relinquished his English, which was very broken, and began to talk and pray incoherently in Spanish and Latin, till gradually he became insensible, and in less than an hour had ceased to exist.
Rob Roy kept his word, and as soon as Don José was dead, he wrapped him up in a plaid, and conveyed him, with Alpine playing a lament in front, to Killduich, and there buried him at the east end of that ancient church, in a grave over which he placed a rough wooden cross, and above which all his followers fired thrice their muskets and pistols in the air.
That the Colonel Don Alonzo de Santarem did not endeavour to secure the military chest before surrendering to General Wightman, was probably because he was menaced by the Clans of Ross and Munro, who hovered between him and the sea, and by threatening his little camp, ultimately enforced his capitulation.
Rob now instantly seized boats, and with half his followers departed in search of what he termed, "the Spaniard's legacy;" while Greumoch, with the rest, occupied the castle of Eilan Donan, to await his return. It was evening now. After a long and careful search—a search which a dense fog impeded—in a sequestered creek of Loch Duich, the MacGregors found the craft they sought, partly jammed upon a reef. She appeared to be the large, half-decked launch of one of the Spanish frigates, both of which had now put to sea and disappeared. She lay in a deep chasm of the wild rocks, at the base of a steep mountain, the sides of which had been bared and rent by thescriddansof a thousand years—for so the natives term those water-torrents which at times hurl down gravel and massive stones, in vast heaps, to desolate the fields, the shore, or whatever may lie at the foot of these rugged hills in Kintail and Glensheil.
Here dense green ivy covered the brows of the chasm that beetled over the sea, and under it the hawks, the wild pigeons, and the sea-birds built their nests. Lower down were holes and fissures, in which the crabs and lobsters lurked, till the countrywomen came in boats to drag them out with old corn sickles, or other iron instruments, and by their songs and voices to scare the sea-dogs from the ledges, where they lay basking in the sunshine.
The launch was mounted with pateraroes, but how she came to be in such a situation we have no means of knowing; her crew, which consisted of some thirty Spanish seamen, though all well armed, jumped out of her, and fled up the rocks on the appearance of the MacGregors, as they knew not whether they were friends or foes, and were scared by their singular costume and bare limbs.
This craft, which was undoubtedly the launch of one of the frigates (that is, a boat of the largest size, for carrying great weight), had a kind of half-deck forward; and under the hatch of this, which was well secured by locks, bars, and iron bands, Rob had no doubt the money lay. Just as he and a number of his followers sprang on board, a shout from some of them who were higher up on the rocks drew his attention to seaward.
The fog had risen now, like the lower end of a thick grey curtain, showing the offing of Loch Alsh sparkling in silver ripples under the rising moon, and there, creeping along the shore, were three British frigates—doubtless the three of which the dying Spaniard had spoken—under easy sail, with their topsails, white as snow, glittering in the silvery sheen, though darkness yet obscured their lower sails and hulls.
Right before the wind they had been standing up Loch Alsh, and slightly altering their course, were now penetrating that branch of it which is named Loch Duich.
Sailing up Loch Duich, favoured by the fog, they had approached unseen to within a mile of where the Spanish launch lay in the creek, and midway between were three large armed boats, full of seamen and marines, pulling in shoreward with long and easy strokes. Up, up went the fog from the bosom of the brightening lake,—up the steep slopes of the dark mountains; and now the full splendour of the moon shone along the deep and narrow arm of the Atlantic, showing the bayonets, cutlasses, and broad-bladed oars, as they flashed and glittered in her silver rays. These vessels were theMermaid, theDover, and theStirling Castle, three thirty-gun ships or fourth-rates. The latter was one of the old Scottish fleet amalgamated with the English at the union, when Scotland had a complete set of frigates named after her royal palaces and castles.
The sudden appearance and close proximity of their approaching foes somewhat disconcerted even the MacGregors; but Rob, who was full of strategy, formed his plans in a moment.
"Dioul!" said he; "to have this prize—the Spaniard's legacy—torn out of our teeth at this moment will never do! We must draw the attention of these Sassenachs to another point."
"How—how?" asked his followers.
"By firing on them."
"But they are beyond range!"
"Never mind," said Rob; "they will soon be within it."
"Your plan—your plan?" asked some, with anxiety.
He sent twenty of his best marksmen with all speed to a point of rock about a quarter of a mile above where the launch lay, with orders to lure the enemy along the shore.
"Away, lads," said he, "and join us at Eilan Donan."
Running with the speed of hares, the MacGregors scampered over the rocks, loading their long Spanish guns as they went, and on gaining the place indicated, crouched among the whins and heather, from whence they opened a fire on the boats, which were barely yet within range of the firearms then in use. Flash, flash, flash, went the muskets redly out of the dark obscurity along the rocky shore, and a thousand echoes repeated the reports.
The challenge was soon accepted. A cheer rang across the shining lake from the man-of-war boats, and with fresh energy the oarsmen bent them to the task of rowing. Ere long the marines and small-arm men began to reply with their muskets; but they never hit one of the MacGregors, who were protected and concealed by bushes, boulder-stones, and ridges of rock; while the crowded boats presented a large mark for their muskets, which they could level steadily over the objects which protected them.
Leaping from rock to rock and from bush to bush, stooping down to reload, and starting up to fire, the MacGregors lured the boats' crews for nearly two miles up the loch in search of a landing-place, and then left them; for the whole twenty marksmen, with a shout of defiance and derision, plunged down a dark ravine, and took their way leisurely to Eilan Donan, without one of them being injured, while, on the other side, several unfortunate fellows were killed and wounded in the baffled boats of the frigates.
In the meantime Rob Roy was not idle on board the launch.
The hatch of the foredeck was soon burst open, and the black coffer described by the knight of Malta as being the military chest of the Spanish expedition—at least, of that portion which his brother commanded—was found. It was speedily forced, and there, in canvas bags, were found the heavy gold pistoles of Madrid and Malaga, each of which was worth sixteen shillings and ninepence sterling.
While the firing between the marksmen and the boats' crews was proceeding briskly, but receding up the loch, and while the frigates with their starboard tacks on board, crept closer and closer in shore, till Rob could hear the voice of the leadsman in the forechains of each as they sounded constantly in these, to them, almost unknown waters, he and his men were filling their dorlachs, or haversacks, with the treasure, after which they eat and drank all the provisions and liquors found in the launch, chiefly a bag of biscuits and a keg of brandy.
Then, to prevent the boat from becoming a prize to any of the king's ships, he ordered her to be set on fire, which was speedily done by thrusting bundles of dry branches and tarred rope under the foredeck, where her sails were stowed, and then applying a light.
The launch burned rapidly. The glare of the conflagration and explosion of the pateraroes as they became heated, soon attracted the attention of the boats' crews, and brought them down the loch, pulling with all their speed; but ere they reached the creek there remained only a heap of charred and smouldering wood, with the brass swivels or pateraroes, lying among it. By this time Rob Roy and his men had crossed the intervening hills, and were far on their way to Lord Seaforth's castle of Eilan Donan.
They soon reached this fine old fortress, which had been built by Alexander III. to protect Loch Duich from the Danes, and of which he made Colin Fitzgerald (a brave Irishman, who served under his banner at the victory of Largs) the first constable, in the year 1263. It consisted of a square keep, the walls of which measured four feet thick. It was surrounded by an outer rampart, and by water at full tide. Eilan Donan was a place of great strength, and the keep was lofty and spacious. The oldest parishioner (in 1793) remembered to have seen Duncan nan Creagh and other Kintail men under arms on its leaden roof, and dancing there merrily, ere they marched to the battle of Sheriffmuir, from whence few of them ever returned.
Here Rob Hoy and the MacGregors took up their quarters. Roaring fires were lighted in the great kitchen, and a couple of deer were soon roasting and sputtering on the spits, while ale and usquebaugh went joyously round in quaichs, cups, and long blackjacks in the hall, where the spoil—the treasure of the Spanish launch—was fairly portioned out, every man sharing alike, while a large sum was put aside for old and poor folks at home, not forgetting even Paul Crubach.
In the midst of all this the boom of a distant cannon was heard; another and another followed; and then a tremendous crash, as a 24-pound shot passed through the windows of the hall and tore down a mass of masonry opposite.
All rushed to the windows or to the roof, and lo! with their broadsides to the shore, there lay two of the frigates, theMermaid, under Commander Samuel Goodiere, and theDover, under Nicolas Robertson, with their foreyards backed, and opened ports, from which the red flashes of the ordnance broke incessantly, as they commenced a vigorous cannonade on Eilan Donan, which they had special orders to destroy, as a stronghold of the house of Seaforth.
"This is no place for us now, lads," said Rob, "so, ho for the march home. We have many a step between this and Balquhidder, so the sooner we depart the better."
Dislodged thus unexpectedly from Eilan Donan, to reach the mainland Rob and his hardy followers forded that portion of the isthmus which lay under water when the tide was at half ebb, and just as the clear summer twilight was brightening into day, they retired among the mountains that look down on the Sheil.
For some hours they could hear the din of the cannonade against Eilan Donan, which was so completely battered and destroyed, that little or nothing remains of it now, save its foundations, and a well in which, a few years ago, a quantity of plate and firearms was discovered. Several of the cannon-balls fired on this occasion have been found from time to time by the country people, who used them as weights for the sale of butter and cheese.
Not content with the demolition of the castle, the commanders of the frigates landed their crews, and with great wantonness burned the old church of Killduich to the ground, and pillaged the poor peasantry.
This severity was not unrequited by fate; for we learn from Shomberg's "Naval Chronology," that Captain Nicolas Robertson was soon after tried by a court-martial for keeping false musters and defrauding the Government, in whose cause he was so zealous when in the Highland lochs; and on the 4th April, 1740, Samuel Goodiere, then a captain, was hanged for the murder of his own brother on board H.M.S.Rubyin the Bristol Channel.
Towards the evening of the next day the MacGregors, on their homeward march, found themselves in the country of the Camerons, at the head of Loch Arkeig, a long and narrow sheet of water, lying between rugged mountains, and stretching far away towards Glen Mhor n'Albyn, or the great valley of Caledonia, which runs diagonally across the kingdom from the German Sea to the Atlantic. They bivouacked at the head of the loch, lighted a fire, and having no enemies in the neighbourhood, prepared to pass the night pleasantly, wrapped in their plaids, on the soft blooming heather; but first Rob Roy placed two sentinels on the drove road that led to and from their halting-place, that perfect security might not be neglected.
The summer night was clear and warm, and every star shone brightly amid the blue ether; all was stillness and deep silence, save where a mountain stream, a tributary of Loch Arkeig, swept down, now over falls and stony rapids, or among bold impending rocks spotted with lichens and tufted with broom, and now among pale hazel groves and black clumps of red-stemmed pine.
The MacGregors had scarcely been here two hours, and, weary with their march and lulled by the hum of the hurrying stream, most of them were fast asleep, when Rob heard his sentinels in violent altercation with a stranger; and as the Gaelic language is deficient neither in expletives nor maledictions, they were plentifully used on this occasion. On sending Greumoch to ascertain the cause of all this, he soon returned, with his drawn dirk gleaming in one hand, while by the other he dragged forward a harper, in whom, by the firelight, Rob immediately recognized Gillian Ross the Islesman, who had acted as their guide to Glensheil.
He was a man well up in years; his hair and flowing beard were snowy white; but his cheek was ruddy, and his eyes had a merry twinkle which showed that as a son of song he had led a jovial life and a roving one, though among turbulent clans, in a wild country and in perilous times.
His kilt and plaid were of the Ross tartan, which is gaily striped with red, green, and blue; and his clairsach or little Scottish harp was slung on his back by a belt, and covered with a case of tarpaulin or tarred canvas—probably a piece of a boat-sail. He carried a blackthorn stick, and as his occupation was a peaceful one, he had no weapon save a dirk, which, like the mouth-piece of his sporan, was gaily adorned with silver. "A spy, a spy!" cried the MacGregors, starting up and crowding about him with ominous expressions in their weatherbeaten faces.
"What is the meaning of this, thou son of the son of Alpine?" he boldly demanded of Rob, in his figurative Gaelic; "the children of the Gael should not draw their swords on each other, and still less on a son of song."
"Yet, son of song," replied Rob, drily, "you played those Rosses and Munroes, and the men of Morar Chattu, into battle against us near Dounan Diarmed* in Glenshiel—the tomb of one whom Ossian loved. Eh, what say you to that?"
* A warrior of Fingal, whose grave lies near the manse of Glensheil. Morar Chattu is the Celtic name of the Earls of Sutherland.
"There have been cold steel and hot blood between our people," began the harper in a gentler tone.
"True; but that was in the times of old; and now the righteous cause of our king should make even the false Whigs true, and every clan unite in one."
"Even the Grahames with the Clan Alpine?" said the harper, with a cunning smile.
"Yes—even the Grahames with the Clan Alpine!" repeated Rob, stamping his foot on the heather. "I could find in my heart forgiveness for them all, would they but join the king."
"When that day comes, the lamb shall share the lair of the lion, and the cushat-dove shall seek the nest of gled and iolar," replied the harper, still smiling.
"Whence come you, and where is your home?"
"The Isle of the Pigmies, in the west—far away amid the sea," replied the harper with a sigh; "and would, MacGregor, I were there now, where its black rocks are covered with sheets of snowy foam, where the wild sea-birds wheel and scream above the breakers, and where the level sunshine and the rolling sea go far together into its gloomy caves and weedy chasms."
The harper referred to one of the Western Isles, a little solitary place, where stand the ruins of a chapel, and where it was believed a dwarfish race were buried of old; "for many strangers digging deep into the earth have found, and do yet find," says Buchanan, "little round skulls and the bones of small human bodies, that do not in the least differ from the ancient reports concerning pigmies."
"I am grieved, harper, that you should die so far from your kindred and their burial-place," said Rob, gravely.
"Die!wherefore should I die?" asked the harper, starting, while his countenance fell.
"Oogh ay!" exclaimed several MacGregors, who were yawning and crowding round; "just let the bodach be hanged at once, and then we shall go to sleep again."
"Or would you prefer to be drowned?" said Greumoch; "Loch Arkeig is close by, and the water there is warm and deep."
"Neither is my wish," said the harper, fiercely; "I am a guiltless man, and demand my freedom!"
"Why were you in the ranks of the king's rebels at Glensheil?" asked Rob, sternly.
"I wasnotin their ranks!"
"You played them into battle."
"But I fought not—nor was I even girded with a sword."
"By my father's soul, that mattered little! A minstrel—a harper—should not play the traitor like a glaiket gilly."
"I went but to sing of the fight, that the story of it might go down to future times, even as the battles of our forefathers have come down by the songs of the bards to us. I went but as Ian Lom went with Montrose to Inverlochy. Had he fought there and fallen, who would have told us how he,
The bard of their battles, ascended the heightWhere dark Inverlochy o'ershadowed the fight,And saw the clan Donnell resistless in might!"
"Have you so committed to song our victory at Glensheil?" asked MacGregor, with a sharp glance; but the harper hung his head. "Ha! then what sought youhereto-night?"
"Was it to spy upon us?" added several MacGregors, with scowling brows; "answer, Islesman, while your skin is whole!"
"By the Black Stones of Iona, I swear that I knew not you were in the land of Lochiel!" said the harper, earnestly; "and beware how you spill my blood, for my mother was one of the Camerons, the sons of the Soldier of Ovi. I was peacefully pursuing my way to the fair of Kill-chuimin."
"It may be so," said Rob Roy; "for that fair is almost at hand. Tie him to a tree; in the morning, I will speak with him again."
The harper submitted in silence, and was bound to a tree, when a plaid was thrown over him and his harp, as a protection from the dew; and Greumoch, with a true Highland grin or grimace, gave him a dram, saying, "As it is the last you are likely to get, drain the quaich."
By dawn the MacGregors were all afoot again; they wiped and rubbed their weapons to preserve them from rust; shook the crystal dew from their kilts and plaids; then the pipes struck up a quick step, and they proceeded on their homeward way, taking with them the harper, concerning whom Rob Roy had given no instructions, for he was loth to punish him, though deeming that he deserved to be so.
For two days he conveyed him thus a prisoner, telling him that if he was actually going to the fair of Kill-chuimin (or the burial-place of the Cumins, as the Highlanders called Port Augustus) his time would not be lost, as their way lay so far together.
Towards the evening of the second day, they halted on a wild moorland waste, called Blair na Carrahan, or the moor of the circles, for there amid the vast expanse of purple heather were several large Druidical rings, wherein, it was confidently affirmed, the fairies always danced on the Eve of St. John; but more especially around a large obelisk which stood in the centre of one, and was covered with Runic figures.
When they halted in this desolate place, the harper became alarmed, and begged so earnestly to be released, that Rob said,—
"You must ransom yourself——"
"Ransom!—do you speak of ransom to one who has not in the world a coin the size of a herring scale?"
"Ransom yourself by a song or a story, I was about to say. If either meet with the general approval of my kinsmen, you shall be free—free as the winds that shake the harebells and the broom on the braes of Balquhidder; but fail us in song or story, and by the Grey Stone in Glenfruin, you shall hang—hang like the false cullion I deem you!"
Gillian Ross made a double Highland bow; the cord was taken from his wrists, and slung with a noose of very unpleasant aspect over the Druid monolith, for thereon he was to hang, if he failed to win the general applause.
The poor harper eyed it wistfully, and then seated himself on the green grass in the centre of the fairy circle, around which the MacGregors were lounging, with their arms beside them. He uncased his harp; and after running his fingers rapidly through the strings, suddenly seemed to change his intention to sing, and said he would tell them a story. A murmur of assent responded.
On that vast purple moorland, bounded in the distance by the countless dark-blue mountain peaks of Argyle, a picturesque group they formed, those weather-beaten clansmen, in their garish tartans, with their polished weapons, their round targets, and bare legs stretched upon the heather. Then there was also the green fairy circle, in the centre of which rose the grey old obelisk, and at its base reclined the bearded harper on his harp. The sun as he set beyond the western peaks crimsoned like a sheet of wine the heather of the Blair na Carrahan, and tipped with ruddy light the harper's silver beard and the glittering strings of his harp, as he told the following story, which we render here, not in his poetical and somewhat inflated Gaelic, but in our own way.
Far away in the north of Caithness stands the castle of Braal, on an eminence above the river Thurso. It is a vast square tower, with walls of great thickness, having the narrow stairs which lead to its various stories formed in the heart of them. A deep fosse lies on its north side, and the remains of various other ditches and outworks are traceable around it.
In the days of William I. of Scotland, surnamed the Lion, because he first put that emblem on his banners and seals, this castle was one of the many residences of Harold Earl of Caithness and Count of Orkney, Lord of Kirkwall, Braal, and Lochmore, who was otherwise named Morrar na Shean, or Lord of the Venison, from his passionate love of hunting and all rural sports.
Yet his character was cruel, fierce, morose, and savage; and he loved hunting chiefly because it was a means of indulging in bloodshed, slaughter, and destruction.
He brained with his axe every hound which proved faulty; and on more than one occasion, huntsmen who had erred, violated the rules of the chase, or otherwise incurred his displeasure, were tied to trees and left to be devoured by wolves. One, named Magnus of Staneland, he chained to a low rock in the sea, and left there to perish miserably by drowning as the tide rose.
Harold was a handsome and stately man, of great stature and strength. His fair hair and beard were curly and flowing; but his eyes were keen and wicked in expression, and his brows were ever knitted as if in perpetual defiance or wrath, unless at times when, gorged with food or flushed with wine, he joined in the chorus of the harpers who sang his praises at his banquets and festivals.
He could bend a stronger bow than three men could bend together. He was wont to twirl three sharp swords at once, catching each by its hilt in turn; and he could walk lightly and agilely along the oars of his great birlinn, or galley, when it was being propelled by the rowers, most of whom were Finns or Wends, whom he had captured in the Baltic and chained to its benches as slaves.
Though he gave vast sums towards the completion of the cathedral church of St. Magnus, which had been founded at Kirkwall by his predecessor, Count Rognwald of Orkney, in 1138, he was averred to be at heart an infidel; and Adam Bishop of Caithness, an amiable and gentle prelate, who frequently reproved his excesses, once said to him,—
"Earl Harold, are you a heathen or a believer? Do you hope for the Valhalla of Odin or the Heaven of the Christians?"
"I believe in my strong arm and sharp sword," said he, haughtily. "Am I a woman or a boy, that thou, a mitred monk, shouldst question me thus? Moreover, remember that I would rather be addressed as Morrar na Shean—Lord of the Venison—than as lord of all our uncounted isles."
And from that time he hated the old bishop in his heart; so much so, that John of Harpidale, one of his chief followers, proposed to have the prelate boiled alive in the great hunting cauldron, and given in broth to their hounds.
The earl's galley had thirty benches of rowers; its prow was adorned by the head of a horse, richly gilded, and its sides and stern shone with gilding and plates of burnished brass; its sails were purple, and along its sides hung the shields of John of Harpidale, Thorolf Starkadder, and others, who were his vassals. In its prow sat twenty bearded harpers, with their harps, and to their songs the long sweeps of the rowers kept time.
Wolves are said to have followed this great war-galley along the shore, and screaming eagles, carrion crows, and other birds ventured out to sea in expectation of the banquet that awaited them; for in his quarrels and feuds with his island neighbours, Morrar na Shean carried havoc and dismay wherever he went, and frequently appropriated, without inquiry, the ships that sailed between the Baltic coasts, the Elbe, and Flanders.
Then when his galley, with its purple sails shining in the sun, and its long red streamers floating on the wind, was seen cleaving with gilded prow the stormy seas that roll round the Orcades and Thule, it spread terror, for the simple people of the isles believed it had been built by the gnomes who abode in the sea-riven caves of Cape Wrath, and that they had constructed it with such powerful spells, that whenever the sails were spread, they directed its course wherever the earl wished, without an order being issued.
On the 16th of April, 1150, the festival of St. Magnus the Martyr, John of Harpidale and Thorolf Starkadder, on feeling some unpleasant twinges of temporary compunction for their misdeeds, urged the earl to visit either Rome or Kirkwall; for so great was the sanctity of the Patron of the Isles, that the Orcadians were long wont to decide by a throw of the dice whether they should pay their devotions at the shrine of St. Peter or the Martyr of Orkney.
But Morrar na Shean laughed at them, and swore with a great oath that he would visit neither, as he had merrier work to do. Then, collecting a great train of followers, he sailed away north, up the Cattegat, to the assistance of the King of Denmark, Waldemar the Great, who had recently repaired the wall of Gotrick, subdued the pagans of Rugen, and called himself lord of all the countries northward of the Elbe.
Earl Harold was long gone, and silence and emptiness reigned in the hall and chambers of Braal; but there were peace and repose in Caithness and the Isles. The red deer roamed on the hills, unscared by the bay of hound or the blast of horn; without fear, the fishers put forth to cast their nets in Scapa Flow and the Sound of Yell, to hunt the huge whale in the sandy bays, or the tusky walrus on the seaweedy rocks; and the white-haired Bishop of Caithness began to hope that they had all seen the last of the terrible Morrar na Shean.
But lo! one day, when the dark scud was driving fast across the northern sky, when the boiling foam rose high on every storm-beat cape and bluff, when the wild sea-fowl were flying far inland, and the hissing waves rolled white as snow over the Skerries of the Pentland Firth and the black Boars of Dungisbay Head, the well-known purple sails of the great birlinn were seen, as she came flying through the mist and spray, with her long sweeps flashing and the sheen of helmets and bucklers glittering above her bulwarks in the partial gleams of a stormy setting sun.
Then fast went the news over continent and isle that Morrar na Shean had come again, and that he had brought with him, out of the distant north, the Princess Gunhilda as his wife—the only daughter of Waldemar, the Danish king; so many who feared more than they loved him, crowded to see the dame who was now to be the lady of Braal and mother of the future Earls of Caithness and Counts of Orkney.
With the wiry tinkle of harps, the blare of brass trumpets and of hunting-horns, the voices of the rowers mingling with the regular plash of the long sweeps to which they were chained, the great galley came into the Bay of Inver-thorsa (or the mouth of the great river of Thor), whence Thurso takes its name; and all the people of Caithness were crowding on the shore, as thickly as the gulls and cormorants that cluster on the rocky Clett, which guards the entrance of the haven.
As she stepped ashore, the grace and beauty of the Danish princess charmed all; but she seemed pale and sad, for she had espoused the warlike Harold in obedience only to her father's will. Yet they seemed a stately pair.
She wore a blue silk tunic, a long flowing mantle of fine white cloth, adorned by ribands and tassels of gold; a veil of rich lace flowed from under the half-diadem which she wore above her golden tresses in virtue of her rank as a king's daughter and an earl's wife; and she had massive bracelets and armlets of gold.
The fierce Harold wore his lurich, or shirt of mail, that reached to his knees, which were bare. It was formed of fine rings of the brightest steel. He had long sandal-like boots of thick leather, studded with gilt knobs; and a golden serpent surmounted his helmet, which was of polished steel. His mantle was of purple silk, and hung from his shoulders by two sparkling brooches.
Massive bracelets of gold and silver were on his wrists. He carried a sword, a spear, a round shield of steel burnished like a mirror, and wore at his right side a mattacuslash, or long Scottish arm-pit dagger.
John of Harpidale, Thorolf Starkadder, and others, all similarly armed, leaped noisily ashore, with helmets and hauberks ringing, and brandished their swords in token of greeting to the people, and to express joy on treading their native soil again.
And now the gathered multitude divided like the waves of the sea to make way for an aged man who approached with a gilded pastoral staff in his hand, but whose garments were humble as those of a cowled friar. He was Adam, Bishop of Caithness, and lately Abbot of Melrose, who, preceded by his crossbearer, and followed by many ecclesiastics of his diocese, came to bless the newly-married pair.
The countess, though the daughter of a powerful king, knelt reverently and humbly to receive the old man's benison; but not so the haughty earl, who had sworn never to bow his head to mortal man, so he passed proudly on, and repaired to his castle of Braal.
On the very day after his arrival, he quitted the countess, and, accompanied by John of Harpidale, by Thorolf Starkadder, and other favourite companions, departed on one of his great hunting expeditions.
There were with him more than five hundred huntsmen, armed with bows, arrows, knives, and spears; and they had with them at least two hundred of the strong, wiry, rough-haired Scottish hounds, to scour the hills for game.
For many days the sport was carried over hill and through valley; and every night the hunters formed a camp. A fire was lighted of fuel piled up as high a house, and often the houses of the poor were unroofed for the purpose.
The glare of this great fire was visible at midnight from the mountains of Pomona and the Pentland Skerries far away out in the lonely ocean. Around it were scores of pots and kettles boiling salmon and chickens; and thereat were heathcocks, capercailzie, ptarmigan, venison, boars' hams, and partridges, being baked, broiled, roasted, or stewed; while ale, usquebaugh, and wines from Burgundy and the Flemings of Ostende were drunk by the roystering huntsmen, who often danced hand in hand round the vast roaring pyramid of flame, as their pagan sires were wont to do at the Baal-tein feasts of old, and if one by chance fell in, the fun was all the greater.
At times they would fill their cups to the brim. and standing in a circle round Morrar na Shean, whose goblet was full of wine, of ale, and of usquebaugh mixed together, they shouted,—
"Oh! Lord, let the world be turned upside down, that brave men may make bread out of it!"
And then the cups were drained and, amid wild hurrahs, flung high into the air.
Morrar na Shean, though he lived in so early an age of Scottish history, was not without some skill in mechanics, for we are informed that "there was a chest or some kind of machine fixed in the mouth of the stream below the castle (of Lochmore), for catching salmon in their ingress into the loch, or their egress out of it, and that immediately on the fish being entangled in the machine, the capture was announced to the family by the ringing of a bell, which the struggles of the fish set in motion, by means of a fine cord, one end of which was attached to a bell in the middle of an upper room, and the other end to the machine in the stream below."
This was an ingenious fish-trap; but while the Lord of the Venison pursued his more furious sports and drunken orgies, the poor Princess Gunhilda was left in utter loneliness at the castle of Braal; and the long nights which her husband spent in roystering among his wild followers, were passed by her, often in tears, and at the deeply arched windows of the lofty hall or of her bower chamber, watching the merry dancers, the streamers of the northern lights, which made her think of her Danish home, of her mother's farewell kiss, of the castle of Axel-huis, and the green, waving woods of Zealand.
Harold was soon weary of his wife, for her extreme gentleness tired him, and he loved her not, though he longed for a son—a little Count of Orkney—to heir his vast possessions, and in whose baby face he might see his own ferocious visage reflected.
He prayed at holy wells, and, candle in hand, he went bare-foot in sackcloth garments, with ashes on his head, to every shrine of sanctity in the Northern Isles; he sent gifts to Adam the bishop, and offerings to the altar of St. Magnus at Kirkwall, with silver lamps, rich garments, candles of perfumed wax, and jars of oil and wine; seeking in return of the prebendaries only their prayers that he might have a son; but on the Yule-day of 1153, the countess had a daughter, whom she named after her mother the queen, Algiva.
Morrar na Shean was furious with disappointment; he reviled Bishop Adam, and threatened to burn his cathedral, where prayers had proved of so little avail. Then for days and nights he sat drinking with John of Harpidale and Thorolf Starkadder; and thereafter ordering his great galley to be got in readiness, they put to sea, and were driven by a storm so far as Rona, a lonely isle which lies far amid the Atlantic sea, thirty leagues westward of the Orcades. In Rona was a little chapel, dedicated by a chief of the isles to St. Ronan, and it was said to be guarded by an unseen spirit; for if any person in the island died and a shovel was placed near the altar overnight, a grave was found ready dug in the morning.
The place was lonely and solemn, for no sound was ever heard there but the sough of the gusty sea-breeze, and the mournful moan of the white waves as they clomb the echoing rocks.
Sad and soothing as was the scene, yet in sheer despite at being driven so far away, Morrar and his followers ravaged this poor place, destroyed the chapel, and slew some of the people on the adjacent island of Suliska. But the vengeance of Heaven pursued them; for when returning, the great galley struck upon the Clett, a rock four hundred feet in height, near the entrance of Thurso Bay, and many of her crew were drowned.
Prior to this, Morrar na Shean had ceased to address Heaven, and now appealed to the idols of his forefathers. He visited the Temple of the Moon in Innistore, and at midnight, with strange barbaric rites, on his bare knees, spilt some of his blood by the self-inflicted stab of a dagger, on the central stone of Power.
This was a great obelisk carved with serpents, and the jormagundror great sea-snake, the emblem of eternity; and with many mystic emblems and Runic inscriptions; and there between midnight and morn, he prayed for the assistance of the Moon, of Odin, and Thor. But all this mummery was vain; for on his return he found that the countess had given birth toa second daughter, whom she had named Erica; and in the blindness of his wrath the earl struck her with his hand clenched in his steel glove, and threatened to toss the child from the windows of Braal into the Thurso.
Again with John of Harpidale, with the long-bearded Thorolf, and other roysterers, he put to sea in the great galley, and sailed into the Baltic, where they aided King Waldemar in the destruction of the famous city of Iomsberg, the stronghold of the northern pirates, whom on his return the earl imitated, for he destroyed several towns on the shores of the Baltic, and robbed the churches of their holy vessels. Then the earl sought the aid of enchanters and wizards, and passed whole nights in dark caverns and pine forests, where Druid circles stood, hoping to see elves, demons, gnomes, or fairies, but sought in vain.
He next sailed to the Isle of Rugen, where the Wends were still, in the twelfth century, unbaptized pagans, who worshipped Svantavit, the God of Light, in their capital, Arcona, which is situated on a high rock above the waves of the Baltic.
Svantavit was a monstrous idol having four heads; but he was consulted as an oracle, and the captain of every merchant ship which made a good voyage was compelled to pay tribute to the priests of his temple.
In the hands of this idol was a cornucopia, which in the first month of every year was filled with precious wine; by looking into what remained of it at Yule-tide, the chief-priest could predict peace or war, dearth or plenty for the ensuing year; and this absurd paganism existed in Rugen until the middle of the thirteenth century. Ratzo, King of the Isle, was a famous but aged warrior, who had destroyed the flourishing city of Lubeck in 1134; so to him, and to the chief-priest, the earl appealed, and laid at the foot of their hideous idol in Arcona all the plunder of the Christian churches—chalices of gold, lamps of silver, croziers studded with precious stones, and altar-cloths covered with embroidery.
The priest accepted the plunder, ascended a ladder, and peeped into the horn in the hands of the idol, where, as he averred, he could see amid the wine the figure of a little boy, with an earl's coronet on his head, and a sword in each hand. So Morrar na Shean with joy spread his purple sails upon the northern sea, and came home to find that the countess had brought into the worlda third daughter, whom she named Thora. The earl was ready to expire with passion.
"Let us return to Arcona!" said Thorolf Starkadder.
"For what purpose, fool?" asked the earl, gruffly.
"To destroy the temple of Svantavit, hang the false priest, and burn his idol."
"Nay," said Morrar na Shean, grinding his teeth. "I shall take other vengeance upon fate, for fate has conspired against me."
"How—how?" asked his followers.
"Anon, ye shall hear!"
"Shall we not see?" asked Thorolf, grimly, for he was a lover of mischief and cruelty.
"No," replied Morrar, briefly, as he gnawed his yellow moustaches in wrath.
One evening, when twilight was closing on the land and sea; when the clouds were gathering in heavy masses that portended a storm, and when the Thurso ran hoarsely and rapidly over its stony bed beneath the castle wall, Harold commanded the countess to assume her hood and cloak, and to accompany him. "Whither?" she asked, timidly, for his manner was strange, and he was sorely flushed with wine.
"Whither, matters not; but you shall learn when we reach the place."
"Do we go on foot?" she inquired, trembling, for there was a wild glare in his eyes that terrified her.
"Yes."
"Alone—unattended?"
"Yes," he repeated, hoarsely.
Then the heart of the countess sank; but she was compelled to obey. Her husband grasped her hand, and together they quitted the castle of Braal by a private postern at the foot of a long and secret stair.
Gunhilda was silent; she pressed her ivory crucifix to her breast with her left hand, for it was the parting gift of Absalon, Archbishop of Denmark; her right was firmly grasped by her husband, and she felt thathishand was cold:—yea, cold as ice!
She had heard of his proceedings on the shores of the Baltic, and how he had publicly worshipped the God of the Wends at Rugen; her soul became a prey to grief and horror, and beneath her veil her tears flowed hot and fast.
He led her along the banks of the Thurso for more than a mile, by a dark and lonely path. No one was near them; the hour was late, the place was solitary, and the countess gazed anxiously about her for succour, if required; but the pastoral hills were desolate. Even the sheep were in their folds, and there came no sound to her ear, save the rush of the dark and hurrying stream.
It was a night in the pleasant month of June, and in that part of Scotland at this season there is scarcely any darkness, the reflection of the sun on the Atlantic being so distinctly visible for the brief time that he is below the horizon, that one may read the smallest print even at midnight.
As they drew near a little chapel which stood upon a rock above the river, and was dedicated to St. Monina, the countess gathered courage, and said,—"Unless you say, my lord, for what purpose you have brought me hither in this secret manner, and at this unwonted hour, I go not one step further with you!"
"Listen," said he, drawing his long arm-pit dagger, while a cruel and wild glare came into his fierce blue eyes; "I have brought you hither to slay you!"
"Oh, my soul foreboded as much!" said Gunhilda, in a breathless voice; "to slay me—for what? What crime have I committed?"
"None; yet I will not have a wife who is to be the mother of baby-faced girls, whose husbands, if they get them, will rend and divide my heritage among them. I must have a son to heir me, as Earl of Caithness, Count of Orkney, Lord of Braal and Lochmore, and to transmit my name to future times; but thou——"
"I am the daughter of a king!" said the countess, haughtily.
"A king who is too far away to help you," said Harold, with a mocking smile.
"But not too far away to avenge me!"
"Let him do so, if he will!" replied the barbarous earl, as he grasped her wrists and dragged her shrieking, and on her knees, towards the rocks which overhung the stream.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "my three helpless daughters—your children—think of them with pity, if not with pity for me!"
"My daughters—name them not," said he, hoarsely, "lest I have them drowned in boiling water, even as Halli and Leckner were in the days of old!"
"I am not prepared to die!" she exclaimed in a piercing voice; "my sins of omission are many; oh, have mercy on me!"
"Thou art better prepared than I," said Morrar na Shean.
"At least let me say one prayer in yonder chapel ere you slay me—in pity for my sins and soul, permit me this."
"Go, then," said Morrar, grimly; "but return quickly, lest I drag you from its altar."
With tottering steps Gunhilda hurried into the little chapel; but ere three minutes had elapsed, the inexorable Morrar cried, sternly,—"Come forth!" There was no response.
"Come forth, Gunhilda, or by the Demon of the Wends I will drag thee out!"
"I come—I come," replied a voice within the vaulted oratory, from the arched windows of which a sudden light gleamed forth.
"'Tis well," said Morrar, "for my patience is nearly exhausted;" and the countess, with her head bent, and muffled in her veil, approached him from the arched doorway, through which a broad and rosy flake of light was streaming.
Seizing her again by the arm, he dragged her to the edge of the beetling rocks, where he meant to stab and toss her into the eddying stream, which was rushing in full flood towards the sea; but, marvellous to relate! as he tore the veil asunder, he beheld, not Gunhilda, but a strange woman whose face was of wondrous beauty, and whose head was encircled by a shining light. Then he knew in his heart that the spirit of St. Monina stood before him! The dagger fell from his hand; he closed his eyes with awe and dismay, and when he looked again the figure had melted into thin air and disappeared.
Appalled by this incident, he rushed away to the wildest part of the hills, and on being joined by Thorolf and John of Harpidale, he put to sea as usual in his galley, and departed no one knew whither.
The countess was found by her attendants in a deep but soft slumber, before the little altar of the river chapel; but immediately on her return to Braal, she took her three daughters, Algiva, Erica, and Thora, to Bishop Adam of Caithness, and besought him to conceal and protect them; and leaving them with tears and prayers, she returned to the home of her terrible husband, giving out that the children were dead.
Meanwhile the bishop, with all speed, despatched them to the court of King William the Lion, and consigned the three helpless girls to the care of the Queen Ermengarde de Beaumont.
The vision he had beheld on that night by the river Thurso long filled with terror the soul of Morrar na Shean; but after a time the impression became fainter, and gradually he came to the conclusion that the whole affair must have been a dream, originating most probably in his wine-cup.
He was long of returning to Braal, and solaced himself by ravaging Heligoland and plundering several of its towns, the sites of which have long since been covered by the encroaching sea. He then visited Shetland, carrying havoc and dismay wherever he appeared, and returning by Orkney, committed a crowning act of impiety at Kirkwall. There was preserved there a silver bowl, in which St. Magnus had baptized the earliest Christians of the Orcades. It was of great size, curiously carved, and was carefully preserved in the cathedral.*
* "It so far exceeds other bowls in size," says Buchanan, in his "History of Scotland," "that it seems to be a relic of the feasts of the Lapithæ."
Accompanied by his two inseparable comrades and mentors to mischief, he entered that stately Gothic church, which is one of the finest in Scotland, seized the great bowl, and filled it with wine, which he solemnly consecrated to Odin. Then, ascending the steps of the High Altar, he quaffed it to the dregs, after exclaiming,—
"I worship thee, Odin, and I am a heathen! A heathen will I die, if thou givest me but a son to heir my lands, my isles, and to send down my name to the days of other years."
For these proceedings they were all excommunicated by the Bishop of Caithness, and while they laughed to scorn the prelate and his solemn anathema, they swore by the blades of their swords and the shoulders of their horses (the old oath of the northern pagans) to have a terrible revenge upon him.
With this intention, after six years' absence, they returned home, and again the great war-galley, with all its purple sails spread, was seen to stand round the rocky bluff named the Clett, and come to anchor in Scrabster Roads, on the western side of Thurso Bay. On landing, the earl repaired straight to the episcopal palace, with all his followers, "to punish," as he said, "the bishop with the serpent's tongue." On seeing them approach, the old man came forth to meet them; and on beholding his serene and reverend aspect, John of Harpidale, Thorolf Starkadder, and other grim outlaws, were somewhat abashed and appalled, and leaned irresolutely on their drawn swords.
"After a six years' absence, come you here, Lord Harold, instead of visiting your lady at Braal?" asked the bishop, with an air of surprise that was not unmingled with alarm.
"The countess?—you speak not of my daughters."
"Alas! they are here no longer," said the bishop, evasively.
"Dead?" asked the earl, with a cold smile.
"To you and all of us."
"'Tis well," said Harold, grinding his teeth; "but I came not hither to speak of them!"
"Of what then?" asked Bishop Adam, with anxiety.
"Of thyself, who hast dared to pour empty anathemas on me, for merely drinking a bowl of wine in my own town of Kirkwall."
"Silence, thou blasphemous lord, who desecrated the altar of God by the praises of a heathen idol! I think of the coming time when thou shalt die!"
"And what then?" asked Morrar, with a fierce and mocking laugh.
"In all thy vast possessions, who shall mourn thee?"
"The greyhounds in my hall, and the birds of prey, for whom I have prepared many a banquet: yea, the black wolf and the yellow-footed eagle too shall mourn for Morrar na Shean. Priest, I have come to punish your insolence. Seize and drag him forth, Thorolf Starkadder!"
In a moment the mailed hands of Thorolf were wreathed in the white hair and reverend beard of the old bishop, who was roughly dragged through his own gate, and beaten to the earth beneath a shower of blows dealt by clenched hands and the heavy iron hilts of swords and daggers. Breathlessly, and on his knees, he implored mercy, beseeching them not to peril their souls by murder, and a sin so foul as sacrilege, by imbruing their hands in the blood of a priest; but the fury of cruelty and destruction was in their hearts. Thorolf, with his dagger, destroyed the eyesight of the poor old man; and John of Harpidale cut out his tongue.
Then procuring the large cauldron in which food was usually prepared for the staghounds of Morrar, they actually cast the blind and bleeding bishop into it, and boiled him alive.*
* The scene of this terrible outrage is still shown near the Manse of Halkirk.
On hearing of these proceedings, the Countess Grunhilda fled in horror to the cathedral of Kirkwall, and took refuge with William Bishop of Orkney, with whom she resided for several years, while her daughters, under other names than their own, were growing up to womanhood at the court of Queen Ermengarde, and while her husband, the Lord of the Venison, spent his days in hunting and his nights in drinking, carousing, fighting, and outrage, with his inseparable ruffians, John of Harpidale and Thorolf Starkadder.
It was long before King William, who resided at the palace of Scone, heard the correct details of these outrages, and then his soul was filled with sorrow and indignation, for he was a gentle, wise, and valiant king.
He resolved to punish the wicked Earl of Caithness, and for this purpose two earls, named Roland and Gillechrist, were sent against him with a body of troops.
Roland was the son of Uchtred, a brave lord of Galloway, who had recently defeated the King of England at Carlisle, when preparing to invade his province; and he had become the husband of Algiva, the eldest daughter of Morrar na Shean.
Gillechrist had wedded Erica, the second daughter. He was Earl of Angus, and from this marriage are descended the clan and surname of Ogilvie. By a singular coincidence these two peers were now marching against their father-in-law, with orders to subject him to the same death as that by which the unhappy bishop died.
Morrar na Shean met them in a battle which was long and bloody, though his people were cold in his cause. The men whom he had drawn from his county of Orkney and the town of Thurso ultimately gave way; and four hundred were instantly hanged on the field.
The castle of Braal, to which the survivors fled, was attacked, entered by the secret postern, and stormed. Therein, after a terrible conflict, were taken John of Harpidale and Thorolf Starkadder, who were put to dreadful deaths, and then the fortress was burned to the ground.
It was supposed that Morrar na Shean had perished in the flames; but he had escaped by the postern—the same postern through which he had led the countess to die—and reached his castle of Lochmore, a secluded tower of great strength, which is situated at the end of a loch, and overhangs the current of the Dirlet out of it. There the river is narrow, deep, and rapid.
This tower was then remote and little known, so there for years did Morrar live, secluded, forgotten, and abandoned by all; and then, as time crept on, he became a prey to remorse and horror.
Terrific visions and appalling spectres were said to haunt him, and the unquiet souls of Thorolf, of John of Harpidale, and others who had died in his service, were averred to wander at night through the silent chambers of Lochmore, and their wailing voices were heard to rise from the lake in the moonshine, and to mingle with the roar of the Dirlet beneath the castle-wall. At last no one would remain in such a dwelling-place, and the wretched Morrar na Shean was left entirely alone.
Then a sore illness came upon him with his growing years; and sick, despairing, and sad at heart, the earl lay on what he feared was his bed of death.
None were near him now: even the last of his hounds had gone to seek another, a merrier, or it might be kinder master; and he wept the salt, bitter tears of age, of sorrow, and repentance,—of an age that was lonely and unfriended—of sorrow for his lost wife and children—of repentance for a wasted life, and for his many unatoned-for crimes and sacrileges.
He found himself abandoned on earth, and feared that he would be excluded from Heaven. He was wifeless, childless, friendless, and alone—alone with only memory and the terrors of death and superstition!
He saw the clear, bright stars in the northern sky sparkling through the gloomy windows of Lochmore. He heard the hoarse brawl of the Dirlet beneath the castle wall; but he shut out the sound, for it made him think of that terrible night when the swollen Thurso was rushing over its stony bed, and Gunhilda was saved from his dagger by the vision of St. Monina; and again he seemed to see that pale, beautiful, and miraculous face shining amid its halo, in the twilight before him.
The perspiration burst upon his wrinkled brow; he called wildly for lights, but no one heard him now; and the echoes of his own voice appalled him. He trembled to be in the dark and alone; and yet there was no darkness, for it was the clear twilight of the northern summer, when the sun scarcely dips beneath the horizon.
"Old, old! childless and alone!" moaned the earl, crushed beneath the weight of sad thoughts and unavailing sorrow, as he covered his grey head beneath the coverlet, and sobbed heavily.
"Harold—husband," said a gentle voice, that thrilled through him, and tremblingly he started and looked up.
Lo! in the clear light of the midsummer night, there stood by his bedside the Countess Gunhilda, as he had last seen her, so fair and stately, with her Danish tunic of blue silk, her flowing mantle, and long lace veil, that fell over her shoulders from under her half-diadem, the gems of which sparkled in the light of the stars.
Beside her, but a little way behind, stood three tall and handsome girls, each of whom wore riding-hoods edged with pearls and long white veils, which they held upraised, as they surveyed him with sad and earnest eyes.
Believing that he saw but disembodied souls, the upbraiding spirits of his wife and their three daughters—for midsummer night is the time when demons, ghosts, and fairies are all supposed to be abroad,—the lonely earl uttered a cry of wild despair and fainted.
Yet they were no spirits whom he had seen, but the Countess Gunhilda and his three daughters, who, having heard of his sad and repentant condition, had hastened to visit and console him, and arrived thus in the night.
And with Thora, the youngest and the fairest, had come her husband—for she, too, was wedded to William Sinclair, Lord of Roslin; and thus from her descended the future Earls of Orkney, who were also Dukes of Oldenburg.
On returning to consciousness Morrar na Shean came to a new life of joy and happiness. With these came a more sincere repentance. He spent the remaining years of his life in endeavouring to atone for the atrocities of his youth, and died at a good old age when Alexander II. was King of Scotland—passing peacefully away, while the faces of his children and grandchildren were bowed in prayer around him.
Such is the story of Morrar na Shean, the Lord of the Venison.