第24章 A LEGEND OF MONTROSE.(17)

"Every baron in the country,"said he,"now swore revenge for this dreadful crime.They took arms with the relations and brother-in-law of the murdered person,and the Children of the Mist were hunted down,I believe,with as little mercy as they had themselves manifested.Seventeen heads,the bloody trophies of their vengeance,were distributed among the allies,and fed the crows upon the gates of their castles.The survivors sought out more distant wildernesses,to which they retreated."

"To your right hand,counter-march and retreat to your former ground,"said Captain Dalgetty;the military phrase having produced the correspondent word of command;and then starting up,professed he had been profoundly atttentive to every word that had been spoken.

"It is the custom in summer,"said Lord Menteith,without attending to his apology,"to send the cows to the upland pastures to have the benefit of the grass;and the maids of the village,and of the family,go there to milk them in the morning and evening.While thus employed,the females of this family,to their great terror,perceived that their motions were watched at a distance by a pale,thin,meagre figure,bearing a strong resemblance to their deceased mistress,and passing,of course,for her apparition.When some of the boldest resolved to approach this faded form,it fled from them into the woods with a wild shriek.The husband,informed of this circumstance,came up to the glen with some attendants,and took his measures so well as to intercept the retreat of the unhappy fugitive,and to secure the person of his unfortunate lady,though her intellect proved to be totally deranged.How she supported herself during her wandering in the woods could not be known--some supposed she lived upon roots and wild-berries,with which the woods at that season abounded;but the greater part of the vulgar were satisfied that she must have subsisted upon the milk of the wild does,or been nourished by the fairies,or supported in some manner equally marvellous.Her re-appearance was more easily accounted for.She had seen from the thicket the milking of the cows,to superintend which had been her favourite domestic employment,and the habit had prevailed even in her deranged state of mind.

"In due season the unfortunate lady was delivered of a boy,who not only showed no appearance of having suffered from his mother's calamities,but appeared to be an infant of uncommon health and strength.The unhappy mother,after her confinement,recovered her reason--at least in a great measure,but never her health and spirits.Allan was her only joy.Her attention to him was unremitting;and unquestionably she must have impressed upon his early mind many of those superstitious ideas to which his moody and enthusiastic temper gave so ready a reception.She died when he was about ten years old.Her last words were spoken to him in private;but there is little doubt that they conveyed an injunction of vengeance upon the Children of the Mist,with which he has since amply complied.

"From this moment,the habits of Allan M'Aulay were totally changed.He had hitherto been his mother's constant companion,listening to her dreams,and repeating his own,and feeding his imagination,which,probably from the circumstances preceding his birth,was constitutionally deranged,with all the wild and terrible superstitions so common to the mountaineers,to which his unfortunate mother had become much addicted since her brother's death.By living in this manner,the boy had gotten a timid,wild,startled look,loved to seek out solitary places in the woods,and was never so much terrified,as by the approach of children of the same age.I remember,although some years younger,being brought up here by my father upon a visit,nor can I forget the astonishment with which I saw this infant-hermit shun every attempt I made to engage him in the sports natural to our age.I can remember his father bewailing his disposition to mine,and alleging,at the same time,that it was impossible for him to take from his wife the company of the boy,as he seemed to be the only consolation that remained to her in this world,and as the amusement which Allan's society afforded her seemed to prevent the recurrence,at least in its full force,of that fearful malady by which she had been visited.But,after the death of his mother,the habits and manners of the boy seemed at once to change.It is true he remained as thoughtful and serious as before;and long fits of silence and abstraction showed plainly that his disposition,in this respect,was in no degree altered.But at other times,he sought out the rendezvous of the youth of the c]an,which he had hitherto seemed anxious to avoid.

He took share in all their exercises;and,from his very extraordinary personal strength,soon excelled his brother and other youths,whose age considerably exceeded his own.They who had hitherto held him in contempt,now feared,if they did not love him;and,instead of Allan's being esteemed a dreaming,womanish,and feeble-minded boy,those who encountered him in sports or military exercise,now complained that,when heated by the strife,he was too apt to turn game into earnest,and to forget that he was only engaged in a friendly trial of strength.

--But I speak to regardless ears,"said Lord Menteith,interrupting himself,for the Captain's nose now gave the most indisputable signs that he was fast locked in the arms of oblivion.

"If you mean the ears of that snorting swine,my lord,"said Anderson,"they are,indeed,shut to anything that you can say;

nevertheless,this place being unfit for more private conference,I hope you will have the goodness to proceed,for Sibbald's benefit and for mine.The history of this poor young fellow has a deep and wild interest in it."