The Mosstrooper: A Legend of the Scottish Border. Fittis Robert Scott
sped away, and the foundling was treated with as much care and kindness as could have been bestowed upon a son of the family; which, indeed, the retainers could not help suspecting that he was, and therefore, they gradually refrained from rehearsing to others the story of his exposure at the gate.
The boy was healthy, with pleasing features, a soft skin, and a clear complexion. He soon became familiar with his new guardians; and the lady forgot her sorrows in ministering to his wants, and fondling him upon her knee. A priest from a neighbouring chapel admitted the foundling within the pale of the visible Church by the Sacrament of Baptism, and christened him by the name of Eustace, in memory of the lady’s only brother who had died in infancy.
When Eustace had seen about a couple of years under the hospitable roof of Hawksglen, the lady was seized with a malignant distemper, which was destined to close her days. Despite the skill of physicians, the rapid progress of the disease could not be arrested: the lamp of hope burned dim: and now —
The mildest herald by our fate allotted
Beckoned, and with inverted torch did stand
To lead her with a gentle hand
Into the land of the great Departed,
Into the Silent Land.
As the lady was sinking, fully resigned to depart, she desired that the orphan boy should be brought into her presence, which was immediately done. Long ere this time she had become entirely persuaded in her own mind that he was really and truly of stranger blood. Raising herself with a last effort, she took him in her arms, and kissed his lips fervently; then turned to Sir James and said: —
“Son, I have one request to make ere I yield my fleeting breath. I have endeavoured to fill the place of the unknown mother of this fair child. In my last hour I leave him to your protection. I beseech you to befriend him until, by the workings of Providence, he be restored to the arms of his parents, or of his kinsfolk, which I am persuaded will some day take place. But until that day never let him feel that, under your roof, he is a stranger. In time you will lead a bride to the altar, and bring her to Hawksglen: children of your own will grow up around your knees: but, O, my son, never neglect this boy, never count him as an alien, while he abides under your roof. As I have cherished him till now, do thou cherish him still. This is my dying request, which I trust will be fulfilled.”
The knight gave his solemn promise, laying his hand on the crucifix which the attendant priest was holding up before the dying lady. The child instinctively clasped her neck, and whimpered some broken words. The parting moment drew nigh. The last offices of the Church were performed; and soon the lady, in the serenity of hallowed hope, passed through the dark tide of Jordan to the better land.
The knight of Hawksglen was overborne by his bereavement. Shutting himself within his castle, for a space, he seemed to have forsaken the changeful world beyond its walls. Time sped its course; and at length the torch of Love slowly scattered the clouds of unavailing sorrow. Not long after Sir James left his seclusion he was smitten by the charms of Anne Rutherford, the only daughter of a Border baron. Younger than himself, she possessed the witcheries of an exquisite form and a lovely face. It was whispered, sub rosa, that with her personal graces was united a disposition proud, self-willed, and shrewish. But what daughter of Eve, however fair, could claim perfection? Elliot, becoming her lover, was naturally incredulous of the faults or failings with which rumour charged her. To his glamoured eyes she appeared as a blooming rose without a thorn. She favoured his impassioned addresses: she accepted his hand: and, about eighteen months after his mother’s demise, Sir James brought a fair young bride to grace his hall.
For a season wedded life went pleasantly at Hawksglen – the cup of the happy pair, who seemed absorbed in a dream of love, betraying no bitter drop. But the time came when the dream was broken. The mask which the lady had worn was withdrawn, and her husband was undeceived. She now evinced an unequal temper, a degree of whim and caprice, and an obstinate desire to subject everything to her will, which eventually dissipated much of Elliot’s matrimonial happiness. In vain did he strive to wean her back to her former self: and he mingled with the troubles of the Border to counteract the feeling of disappointment.
An evil hour for the foundling boy was that in which Dame Anne came to Hawksglen. She was duly informed of the mysterious manner in which the child had been left, and of the injunctions laid upon her husband by his dying mother, which he felt it his bounden duty to respect. The lady affected to acquiesce in his sentiments; but at heart she thought otherwise. Secretly jealous that the boy might prejudice her own children in their father’s estimation, and perhaps ultimately receive some portion of the Hawksglen lands (suspicions which cannot be considered as wholly unnatural), she soon endeavoured, by various little arts, to diminish her husband’s regard for the foundling. Her enmity strengthened when, in about a year after marriage, she gave birth to twin daughters. After that event, little Eustace became more and more the object of the mother’s dislike, and Elliot, anxious to soothe her feelings, relaxed in his attentions to the boy.
Eustace grew up a handsome youth, of a high spirit but an urbane and generous nature, which endeared him to all the dependants of Hawksglen. Lady Elliot, seeing in him more and more the likely cause of future trouble and danger, never ceased plying her insidious arts against him. Every trivial mistake or fault of his she reported to her husband in such exaggerated shape as was possible: and it seemed her aim to lower Eustace from the position of an accepted member of the family to that of a mere dependant, who had no claim to higher consideration. As she had no more children, and the want of a son embittering her jealousy of the foundling, she frequently told her husband that unless he secretly wished to adopt Eustace altogether, to the injury of his daughters’ interests, it was doing wrong to maintain him in a station to which he had not the shadow of right.
The lady’s twin daughters, Eleanor and Catherine, were beautiful girls, lauded by all who saw them. Eleanor, however, surpassed her sister in charms of form and feature, and had a gentle, guileless, trustful heart; while Catherine, fickle, passionate, and overbearing, seemed to be endowed with all the worst qualities of her mother. It was not remarkable that a mutual sympathy and attachment arose betwixt Eleanor and Eustace, or that antipathy towards him gradually gained possession of Catherine’s mind, and was not concealed. Up to a certain period, Eustace was led to consider himself an orphan relative of the family: the sisters were allowed to entertain the same idea; but it was never mentioned what was the relationship, or whence he came. The retainers were constrained to avoid alluding in any way to the fact of his having been left at the gate: and, indeed, they generally formed the belief that he was Elliot’s own son, and would some day be openly acknowledged. But Eustace, as he grew, had anxious musings concerning his parentage and the strange reticence manifested by one and all around him on the subject. He could not help fancying gloomily that some dark secret was associated with his birth, and would in the end be disclosed to his dismay.
Eustace, brought up amid the warlike turmoils of the Border, was trained, like other youths, to the use of arms, and occasionally bore his part in the field as Elliot’s squire. In one desperate fray his daring saved the knight from slaughter, a gallant achievement which gained him the latter’s highest regard. This was as gall and wormwood to Dame Anne. In a fit of ungovernable spleen, she told her daughters that the young hero was nothing better than a nameless foundling who had been thrown upon the charity of Hawksglen. She entrusted them with this startling knowledge as with a profound secret, which they were not to disclose to any without her express permission, for fear of drawing down upon her and them their father’s displeasure. Probably the lady hoped that the revelation to her daughters would destroy the attachment betwixt Eleanor and Eustace, which, if allowed to exist, might result in love. Inconsiderate woman! she had no idea that she was taking the very step to thwart her own purpose. Catherine acted upon her mother’s counsels, in holding Eustace in undisguised indifference. But with Eleanor it was otherwise. To tell her that Eustace was the son of misfortune, cast upon strangers in his helpless infancy, was but to give new life to the affection for him which had grown in her mind.
Until about the age of one-and-twenty Eustace continued ignorant of the all-important secret, although distressing suspicions had long haunted his thoughts. But as intimacy betwixt him and Eleanor seemed, in the watchful lady’s eyes, to increase, she dared again to break her husband’s