Marriage. Susan Ferrier
the driver; "ca' ye thon a hoose? Thon's gude Glenfern
Castle."
Lady Juliana, not understanding a word he said, sat silently wondering at her husband's curiosity respecting such a wretched-looking place.
"Impossible! you must be mistaken, my lad: why, what's become of all the fine wood that used to surround it?"
"Gin you mean a wheen auld firs, there's some of them to the fore yet," pointing to two or three tall, bare, scathed Scotch firs, that scarcely bent their stubborn heads to the wind, that now began to howl around them.
"I insist upon it that you are mistaken; you must have wandered from the right road," cried the now alarmed Douglas in a loud voice, which vainly attempted to conceal his agitation.
"We'll shune see that," replied the phlegmatic Scot, who, having rested his horses and affixed a drag to the wheel, was about to proceed, when Lady Juliana, who now began to have some vague suspicion of the truth, called to him to stop, and, almost breathless with alarm, inquired of her husband the meaning of what had passed.
He tried to force a smile, as he said, "It seems our journey is nearly ended; that fellow persists in asserting that that is Glenfern, though I can scarcely think it. If it is, it is strangely altered since I left it twelve years ago."
For a moment Lady Juliana was too much alarmed to make a reply; pale and speechless, she sank back in the carriage; but the motion of it, as it began to proceed, roused her to a sense of her situation, and she burst into tears and exclamations.
The driver, who attributed it all to fears at descending the hill, assured her she need na be the least feared, for there were na twa cannier beasts atween that and Johnny Groat's hoose; and that they wad ha'e her at the castle door in a crack, gin they were ance down the brae."
Douglas's attempts to soothe his high-born bride were not more successful than those of the driver: in vain he made use of every endearing epithet and tender expression, and recalled the time when she used to declare that she could dwell with him in a desert; her only replies were bitter reproaches and upbraidings for his treachery and deceit, mingled with floods of tears, and interrupted by hysterical sobs. Provoked at her folly, yet softened by her extreme distress, Douglas was in the utmost state of perplexity—now ready to give way to a paroxysm of rage; then yielding to the natural goodness of his heart, he sought to soothe her into composure; and, at length, with much difficulty succeeded in changing her passionate indignation into silent dejection.
That no fresh objects of horror or disgust might appear to disturb this calm, the blinds were pulled down, and in this state they reached Glenfern Castle. But there the friendly veil was necessarily withdrawn, and the first object that presented itself to the highbred Englishwoman was an old man clad in a short tartan coat and striped woollen night-cap, with blear eyes and shaking hands, who vainly strove to open the carriage door.
Douglas soon extricated himself, and assisted his lady to alight; then accosting the venerable domestic as "Old Donald," asked him if he recollected him.
"Weel that, weel that, Maister Hairy, and ye're welcome hame; and ye tu, bonny sir" [1] (addressing Lady Juliana, who was calling to her footman to follow her with the mackaw); then, tottering before them, he led the way, while her Ladyship followed, leaning on her husband, her squirrel on her other arm, preceded by her dogs, barking with all their might, and attended by the mackaw, screaming with all his strength; and in this state was the Lady Juliana ushered into the drawing-room of Glenfern Castle!
[1] The Highlanders use this term of respect indifferently to both sexes.
CHAPTER III.
"What can be worse,
Than to dwell here!"
Paradise Lost.
IT was a long, narrow, low-roofed room, with a number of small windows, that admitted feeble lights in every possible direction. The scanty furniture bore every appearance of having been constructed at the same time as the edifice; and the friendship thus early formed still seemed to subsist, as the high-backed worked chairs adhered most pertinaciously to the gray walls, on which hung, in narrow black frames, some of the venerable ancestors of the Douglas family. A fire, which appeared to have been newly kindled, was beginning to burn, but, previous to showing itself in flame, had chosen to vent itself in smoke, with which the room was completely filled, and the open windows seemed to produce no other effect than that of admitting the rain and wind.
At the entrance of the stranger a flock of females rushed forward to meet them. Douglas good humouredly submitted to be hugged by three long-chinned spinsters, whom he recognised as his aunts; and warmly saluted five awkward purple girls he guessed to be his sisters; while Lady Julian stood the image of despair, and, scarcely conscious, admitted in silence the civilities of her new relations; till, at length, sinking into a chair, she endeavoured to conceal her agitation by calling to the dogs and caressing her mackaw.
The Laird, who had been hastily summoned from his farming operations, now entered. He was a good looking old man, with something the air of a gentleman, in spite of the inelegance of his dress, his rough manner, and provincial accent. After warmly welcoming his son, he advanced to his beautiful daughter-in-law, and, taking her in his arms, bestowed a loud and hearty kiss on each cheek; then, observing the paleness of her complexion, and the tears that swam in her eyes, "What! not frightened for our Hieland hills, my leddy? Come, cheer up—trust me, ye'll find as warm hearts among them as ony ye ha'e left in your fine English policies"—shaking her delicate fingers in his hard muscular gripe as he spoke.
The tears, which had with difficulty been hitherto suppressed, now burst in torrents from the eyes of the high-bred beauty, as she leant her cheek against the back of a chair, and gave way to the anguish which mocked control.
To the loud, anxious inquiries, and oppressive kindness of her homely relatives, she made no reply; but, stretching out her hands to her husband sobbed,
"Take, oh, take me from this place!"
Mortified, ashamed, and provoked, at a behavior so childish and absurd, Douglas could only stammer out something about Lady Juliana having been frightened and fatigued; and, requesting to be shown to their apartment, he supported her almost lifeless to it, while his aunts followed, all three prescribing different remedies in a breath.
"For heaven's sake, take them from me!" faintly articulated Lady Juliana, as she shrank from the many hands that were alternately applied to her pulse and forehead.
After repeated entreaties and plausible excuses from Douglas, his aunts at length consented to withdraw, and he then exerted all the rhetoric he was master of to reconcile his bride to the situation love and necessity had thrown her into. But in vain he employed reasoning, caresses, and threats; the only answers he could extort were tears and entreaties to be taken from a place where she declared she felt it impossible to exist.
"If you wish my death, Harry," said she, in a voice almost inarticulate from excess of weeping, "oh! kill me quickly, and do not leave me to linger out my days, and perish at last with misery here."
"For heaven's sake, tell me what you would have me do," said her husband, softened to pity by her extreme distress, "and I swear that in everything possible I will comply with your wishes."
"Oh, fly then, stop the horses, and let us return immediately. Do run, dearest Harry, or they will be gone; and we shall never get away from this odious place."
"Where would you go?" asked he, with affected calmness.
"Oh, anywhere; no matter where, so as we do but get away from hence: we can be at no loss."
"None in the world," interrupted Douglas, with a bitter smile, "as long as there is a prison to receive us. See," continued he, throwing a few shillings down on the table, "there is every sixpence I possess in the world, so help me heaven!"