A CALM, pure summer moonlight fell upon the Ayrshire mosses and deans, but did not silver, as far as we are concerned, the Carrick Castle of Bruce, nor Cameron's lair amidst the heather, nor landward Tintock, nor even seagirt Ailsa Craig, but only the rolling waves of the Atlantic and a grey turreted mansion-house built on a promontory running abruptly into the water. The dim ivory light illuminated a gay company met in the dwelling with little thought of stillness or solemnity, but with their own sense of effect, grouped carelessly, yet not ungracefully, in an old-fashioned, though not unsuitable drawing-room.

They needed relief, these brilliant supple figures; they demanded the background of grey hangings, scant carpet, spindle-legged chairs, and hard sombre prints. To these very cultivated, very artificial and picturesque personages, a family sitting-room was but a stage, where lively, capricious, yet calculating actors were engaged in playing their parts.

The party were mostly French, from the mass of gallant, [Page 203]dauntless emigrants, many of whom were thus entertained with grateful, commiserating hospitality in households whose members had but lately basked in the sparkling geniality of the southern atmosphere, now lurid and surcharged with thunder.

There was a Marquise, worldly, light, and vain, whom adversity had not broken, and could not sour; an Abbé, bland and double, but gentle and kindly in his way; a soldier, volatile, hot-headed, brave as a lion, simple as a child; an older man, sad, sneering, indifferent to this world and the next, but with the wrecks of a noble head, and, God help him, a noble heart.

Of the three individuals present of a different nation and creed, two closely resembled the others with only that vague, impalpable, but perceptible distinction of those whose rearing affords a superficial growth which overspreads but does not annihilate the original plant. The one was a young man, buoyant, flippant, and reckless as the French soldier, but with a bold defiance in his tone which was all his own; the other a young girl, coquettish and vivacious as the Marquise, but with a deep consciousness under her feigning, an undercurrent of watchful pride and passion, of which her model was destitute. The last of the circle was a fair-haired, broad-shouldered lad, who stood apart from the others, big, shy, silent:—but he was earnest amid their shallowness, noble amid their hollowness, and devoted amid their fickleness. How he gazed on the arch, haughty girl, with her lilies and roses, her pencilled brows, her magnificent hair magnificently arranged, with her rich silk and airy lace, and muslin folded and gathered and [Page 204]falling into lines which were the very poetry of attire, unless where a piquant provoking frill, band, or peak, reminded the gazer that the princess was a woman, a mocking mischievous woman, as well as a radiant lady! How he listened to her contradictory words, witty and liquid even in their most worthless accents! how he drank in her songs, the notes of her harp, the rustle of her dress, the fall of her foot! how he started if she moved! how he saw her, though his eyes were on the ground, and though his head was in his hands, while she marked him ceaselessly, half with cruel triumph, half with a flutter and faintness which she angrily and scornfully resisted and denied.

A few more gay bons mots and repartees, a last epigram from the Abbé, a court anecdote from the Marquise which might have figured in one of those letters of Madame de Sévigné where the freshness of the haymaker of Les Rochers survives the glare and the terrible staleness of the Versailles of Louis XV., a blunt camp jest from the soldier, a sarcasm from the philosopher, a joyous barcarole, strangely succeeded by a snatch from that lament of woe wrung forth by the fatal field of Flodden, and the company dispersed. The horse's hoofs of the single stranger of the evening rung on the causeway, as he made for the smooth sands of the bay, the lights one by one leaping out, and the pale moon remaining mistress of Earlscraig as when the warder on yon tower peered out over the waters for the boats of the savage Irish kern, or lit the bale-fire that summoned Montgomery and Muir to ride and run for the love or the fear of Boswell of Earlscraig.

Had these old-world times returned by magic? had a [Page 205]crazed serving-man revived the vanished duties of his warlike predecessor? was the wraith of seneschal or man-at-arms conjuring up a ghostly beacon to stream into the soft air? was an evil spirit about to bewilder and mislead a fated ship to meet its doom on the jagged rocks beneath the dead calm of that glassy sea? So dense was the vapour that suddenly gathered over Earlscraig, till like an electric flash, a jet of flame sprang from a high casement and lit up the gathering obscurity. No horn blew, no bugle sounded, no tramp of horse or hurrying feet broke the silence; the house lay in profound rest, and the sleepers slept on, though truly that was no phantom glare, no marsh gleam, but the near presence of an awful foe.

And the smoke burst forth in thicker, more suffocating volume; the red streamers shot up again and again, and the burning embers fell like thickest swarms of fire-flies, before a single hasty step roused an echo already lost in the roar and crackle of fire. A scared, half-dressed servant ran out into the court, flung up his hands as he looked around him, then hurried back, and suddenly the great bell pealed out its faithful alarum. "Good folk, good folk, danger is at the door! For Jesu's sake and your dear lives, up and flee! The angels hold out their hands, Sodom is around you—away, away!"

The summons was not in vain. Within a few seconds clamorous outcries, shrieks of dismay, the dashing open of doors and windows, answered the proclamation. A horror-struck crowd assembled rapidly in the court; but notwithstanding that the Abbé's wan face and shaven crown appeared speedily, and the soldier shouted, "Who is in [Page 206]danger? mes camarades, suivez-moi!" the philosopher instinctively elected himself commander; he rose, tall and erect, over the heads of his fellows; his face flushed and brightened; and he spoke words of wisdom and resolution whose spirit men recognised through the veil of his frozen tongue; while cravens shrank back, brave men rallied round him!

"Where is Boswell? Mon Dieu! the house is burning and the master is not found! Adolphe, sauve la Marquise, cet escalier n'est pas perdu. But where is Boswell? Show his room to me—the nearest way—quick, or he perishes. Ah, le voilà!"

Down a flight of side steps stumbled the butler and a favourite groom, bearing between them the young laird, motionless, senseless, his dress dishevelled, but unscathed by flame, and unstained by blood; still breathing, but his marked imperious features were unconscious, heavy, and lethargic.

The Abbé and his elder friend exchanged glances. The brow of the latter contracted in disgust and gloom.

"Adolphe and he played billiards against my desire, as if he were not bête enough already," he said in an undertone. "Lay him here, my friends," to the servants, "and listen to me. If you love the Seigneur, let him never know that thus it happened this night. Cover him with a mantle; he will awake to see his chateau a ruin. Mais, n'importe, we will do our best. Carry out what is most precious; bring up buckets of water. Ma foi! there is enough at hand."

Yes; at their feet, but by a few fathoms unavail............