Helen listened with astonishment and grief to this too probable story of her step-mother’s ill-judged tenderness or cruel treachery; and remembering the threats which had escaped that lady in their last conversation, she saw no reason to doubt what so clearly explained the before inexplicable seizure of her father, the betraying of Wallace, and her own present calamity.
“You do not answer me,” rejoined the woman; “but if you think I don’t say true, Lord Soulis himself will assure you of the fact.”
“Alas, no!” returned Helen, profoundly sighing, “I believe it too well. I see the depth of the misery into which I am plunged. And yet,” cried she, recollecting the imposition the men had put upon her:—“yet, I shall not be wholly so, if my father lives, and was not in the extremity they told me of!”
“If that thought gives you comfort, retain it,” returned the woman; “the whole story of the earl’s illness was an invention to bring you at so short notice from the protection of the prior.”
“I thank thee, gracious Providence, for this comfort!” exclaimed Helen; “it inspires me with redoubled trust in thee.”
Margery shook her head. “Ah, poor victim (thought she), how vain is thy devotion!” But she had not time to say so, for her husband and the deserter from Cressingham re-entered the cave. Helen, afraid that it was Soulis, started up. The stranger proceeded to lift her in his arms; she struggled, and in the evidence of her action, struck his beaver; it opened, and discovered a pale and stern countenance, with a large scar across his jaw; this mark of contest, and the gloomy scowl of his eyes, made Helen rush toward the woman for protection. The man hastily closed his helmet, and, speaking through the clasped steel, for the first time she heard his voice; it sounded, hollow and decisive; he bade her prepare to accompany Lord Soulis in a journey to the south.
Helen looked at her shackled arms, and despairing of effecting her escape by any effort of her own, she thought that gaining time might be some advantage; and allowing the man to take her hand, while Macgregor supported her on the other side, they led her out of the cave. She observed the latter smiled significantly at his wife. “Oh!” cried she, “to what am I betrayed? Unhand me! Leave me!” Almost fainting with dread, she leaned against the arm of the stranger.
Thunder now peaked over her head, and lightning shot across the mountains. She looked up: “Merciful Heaven!” cried she, in a voice of deep horror; “send down thy bolt on me!” At that moment Soulis, mounted on his steed, approached, and ordered her to be put into the litter. Incapable of contending with the numbers which surrounded her, she allowed them to execute their master’s commands. Macgregor’s wife was set on a pillion behind him; and Soulis giving the word, they all marched on at a rapid pace. In a few hours, having cleared the shady valleys of the Clyde, they entered the long and barren tracts of the Leadhill Moors.
A dismal hue overspread the country; the thunder yet roared in distant peals, and the lightning came down in such vast sheets that the carriers were often obliged to set down their burden, and cover their eyes to regain their sight. A shrill wind pierced the slight covering of the litter, and blowing it aside, discovered the mist; or the gleaming of some wandering water, as it glided away over the cheerless waste.
“All is desolation, like myself!” thought Helen; but neither the cold wind, nor the rain, now drifting into her vehicle, occasioned her any sensation. It is only when the mind is at ease, that the body is delicate; all within her was too expectant of mental horrors to notice the casual inconveniences of season or situation. The cavalcade with difficulty mounted the steps of a mountainous hill, where the storm raged so turbulently that the men who carried the litter stopped, and told their lord it would be impossible to proceed in the approaching darkness; they conjured him to look at the perpendicular rocks, rendered indistinct by the gathering mist; to observe the overwhelming gusts of the tempest; and then judge whether they dare venture with the litter on so dangerous a pathway, made slippery by descending rain!
To halt in such a spot seemed to Soulis as unsafe as to proceed. “We shall not be better off,” answered he, “should we attempt to return: precipices lie on either side: and to stand still would be equally perilous: the torrents from the heights increase so rapidly, there is every chance of our being swept away, should we remain exposed to the stream.”
Helen looked at these sublime cascades with a calm welcome, as they poured from the hills, and flung their spray upon the roof of her vehicle. She hailed her release in the death they menaced; and far from being intimidated at the prospect, cast a resigned, and even wistful glance, into the swelling lake beneath, under whose waves she expected soon to sleep.
On the remonstrance of their master, the men resumed their pace; and after a hard contention with the sto............