Half an hour elapsed: the sun was beginning to descend, when the sound of wheels was again heard, and a light wagon with four places and a brisk little horse came rattling down the street. A pleasant-looking fellow jumped down, took off his hat and said he had come to drive us to Perugia. We jumped up joyfully, but I asked the price. "Fifty francs"—a sum about equivalent to fifty dollars in those regions. I smiled and shook my head: he eagerly assured me that this included his buon mano and the cost of the oxen which we should be obliged to hire to drag us up some of the hills. I shook my head again: he shrugged and turned as if to go. My unhappy fellow-traveler started forward: "Give him whatever he asks and let us get away." I sat down again on the steps, saying in Italian, as if in soliloquy, that we should have to go by the train, after all. Then the new-comer cheerfully came back: "Well, signora, whatever you please to give." I named half his price—an exorbitant sum, as I well knew—and in a moment more we were skimming along over the hard, smooth mountain-roads: we heard no more of those mythical beasts the oxen, and in two hours were safe in Perugia.
THE PARADOX
CHARLOTTE F. BATES.A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE
I
Cockhoolet was the name of the place: it was a farm of which the Ormistons were and had been tenants for several generations. A father, mother and five olive-branches made up the family. A healthy, happy, united, thriving family they were, and as such much respected. There were two sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom was Bessie, the "Rose of Cockhoolet," as she was called; for that she had all the beauty and sweetness of the rose was generally allowed, although there were people who could not be made to see this—people who were probably idiopts; not idiots—although they might have a streak of idiocy in them, too, perhaps—but idiopts, or persons who were color-blind. None of the young men of the district were color-blind.
The clergyman of the parish in which Cockhoolet was situated, and at whose church the Ormistons attended, was an old man comparatively, whose sermons were old-fashioned, and not given forth with the fire of youth: he was not one you would have expected to be very popular, especially with the young; yet various young men from considerable distances were attracted to his church, and, generally speaking, they settled themselves in pews opposite the gallery in front of which sat Mr. Ormiston and his family. Any person who chanced to be in the vicinity, if of discerning powers, might have been conscious of the electricity in the air. Dull people neither saw nor felt it.
Bessie Ormiston was not dull, but, being a modest girl, she would rather not have been stared at; and, being a good girl, she thought people might be better employed in church: still, she was only a girl, and it would not be the truth to say she was mortally offended. Did the person ever exist who was offended at an honest compliment? If he ever did, he ought to have been fed on sarcasm for the rest of his days.
Not only was Bessie pretty—she was also rich. A grand-uncle had left her five thousand pounds, her brothers and sisters getting only one thousand each. There is no use in asking reasons for this: simply, the Rose was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Perhaps, indeed, the old man did not know he had so much money, for it was as residuary legatee that Bessie got the five thousand pounds, and it was not thought she would get anything like that: people remarked, in the language of the district, which was apt occasionally to be strong and graphic rather than elegant,—people remarked that "old Ormiston had cut up well." Five thousand charms added to those Bessie already possessed—not to mention that her father was a rich man—made her most miraculously charming: like Tibby Fowler of the Glen, whose perplexities of this kind have been embalmed in song, she had wealth of wooers, and wealth, it is well known, makes wit waver.
It is a saying that an Englishman's house is his castle, but the phrase is understood to be figurative: Mr. Ormiston's house was his castle without a figure. Cockhoolet Castle is very old, at least one part of it is, having been built probably about the year 1400. A more modern part was built in 1527, while the most modern part of all was added in 1726: this last division of it is used as the farm-house. The rooms have been painted and papered in the present style of house decoration, and in the sitting-rooms, in addition to the little old windows, the thick walls have been pierced and a large bow-window put in with fine effect. There are three narrow stone staircases leading up the three divisions of the castle; there are long passages; there are sudden short flights of steps taking you up or down into all manner of cornered rooms; there is a hall which might hold the population of the county. Keeping up one of the spiral staircases, you come out on the roof, round which there is a walk guarded by a low stone coping: should you want to fling yourself over, you have ample opportunity. There are stone sentry-boxes where you can sit hidden from the wind and everything else, and look far and wide over the country, and down into the garden if you can do so without growing giddy. There is also a dungeon tenanted by nothing more subject to suffering than potatoes and other roots, for which it is a most favorable receptable, the walls being so thick and the roof so low that cold cannot get in in winter nor heat in summer: there is only a single narrow slit in the wall for the admission of light, but it is comforting to know that the doomed wretches who inhabited it in past ages had at least a temperate climate.
There is the room Queen Mary Stuart slept in when she occasionally visited in the vicinity. The reader is perhaps not familiar with Queen Mary's name in connection with Cockhoolet Castle, but there may be other facts about her of which he is also ignorant. Does he know, for instance, that she had a daughter by her third marriage, whom, as an infant, she despatched to France to be reared in a nunnery, "that she may not," said the unhappy queen, "run the risk of having such a lot as I have"? Does he know that John Knox was possessed by a mad passion of love for Mary Stuart? It has always been thought otherwise—that in point of fact he held her in contempt; but as it is proverbial that "nippin' and scartin' (figurative of course) is Scotch folks' wooin'," there may be truth in the new discovery. But true or not true, it is enough to make the bold Reformer blush standing on the top of his pillar in the necropolis of Glasgow: perhaps he is blushing, if he were near enough to see.
Be that as it may, there is no manner of doubt that Mary Stuart honored Cockhoolet Castle by abiding under its roof when it suited her to do so. Have not I, the present writer, stood in the room she slept in—looked from the small windows set in the ten-foot thick wall from which she looked? Have I not gazed over the same country, up to the same skies, into the same moon at which she gazed? Could her face be more fair than that of the present Rose of Cockhoolet, her thoughts more innocent, her reveries more sweet, than those of Bessie Ormiston, who in the course of time had succeeded to the room which had been consecrated by royal slumbers?
It is a matter of certainty that Mary Stuart planted a tree fast by Cockhoolet Castle—she would not have been herself if she had not done that—and a magnificent tree it is, very old and quite big enough for its age. The queen must have been fond of planting trees, and, considering the number she planted, it is astonishing how she found time for so many less innocent employments: she must have improved each shining hour, and, poor woman! she had not too many of these.
There is a walk also, called the Lady's Walk, leading away from the castle up a bosky dell, where a burn amuses itself playing at hide-and-seek, but, like a little child, betrays its hiding-places by its voice, and comes out into the light again and laughs at its own joke. Did the queen ever wander here? did she ever "paidle in the burn when summer days were fine"? did its murmur ever soothe her ear? did she ever see her fair face in its pools, or drop bitter tears to mingle and; flow on with its waters?
The burn has kept trotting through the dell for six thousand years, singing its song all the time, and its speed is as good and its voice as clear and musical as when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Many a wild story it could tell if its murmur could be understood; but it is a murmur only—a murmur which crept into the ears of Cæsar's legions, of Queen Mary, of Bessie Ormiston, and will creep into yours, O reader! if you like to go and explore the Lady's Walk, when you can interpret the murmur for yourself, as all your predecessors no doubt did. In days of old it fed the moat, traces of which are to be seen round the castle still, although it has long since been filled up and covered, like the park of which it forms part, with rich natural pasture, soft, thick and velvety. In short, Cockhoolet had everything that a castle ought to have, and wanted nothing that a castle ought not to want, not even a ghost.
It was not the ghost of Mary Stuart: that would have been too shocking—a ghost without a head, or having a head and a broad vivid ray of red encircling its neck. Such a ghost would have made every one who saw it lose his senses. Cockhoolet Castle had a ghost: so much was certain, but hitherto no one had ever either seen or heard it. How, then, was it certain? Why ask a question like that? Is it reasonable to pin a human being down to prove a ghost? Will not presumptive evidence do? Strange things had happened, must have happened, at the castle: is it for a moment to be supposed that these things had happened and all gone scot free?—in other words, that not one of them had left a ghost? It is not to be supposed.
II
It was Christmas Day. Christmas Day is not solemnized and festivalized in Scotland as it is in England; still, the observance of it in some shape is creeping in more and more. It was Christmas, and Mr. and Mrs. Ormiston had gone to be present at a feast from which they were not expected to return till the following day. There were left at home the Rose, as head of the family for the time being; her sisters, Bell and Jessie, supposed to be little girls still, although the supposition made them very indignant; and her two brothers, John and William. A guest aad two servants made up the known inhabitants of the house.
The guest was a young man who had arrived before the heads of the house left, and had been laughingly charged by them to see that the children did not work mischief. He was an old friend of the family; at least as old a friend as he was a man, and she had been in the world a quarter of a century. We shall call him Edwin: that name will do as well as another; indeed, better, for he might not like his own made public. It need hardly be said that among the rest young Edwin loved, and, like his namesake in the ballad, he never talked of love. This might be stupid, but the stupidity which springs from true modesty is not to be classed with the stupidity which springs from want of brains, even when, as is quite likely, the consequences are to the full as disastrous. Now, how is a young lady to understand or bring things to a bearing in a case like this? The Rose could not go up to Edwin and tell him she was not a goddess; neither could she say, "Although I have five thousand pounds—and you know it, and I know that you know it, and you know that I know that you know it—I am quite ready to believe that you love me, and would love me if I hadn't a farthing:" she could not say this, but she thought it, she worried herself thinking over it, and, being a sensible girl with a humble opinion of herself, she came to the conclusion that she had been altogether mistaken—that Edwin did not care for her, at least not as she cared for him, otherwise why should he not say so? "If," she thought—"if I were in his place and he in mine, neither money nor pride, nor anything else, would keep me silent." And the roses in her face deepened in color as she thought of her own silly folly in allowing her feelings to be drawn in, and she determined her folly should cease from that hour; which determination had the effect of bringing sharp, short speeches about Edwin's ears tinged with sarcasm that were meant to convey to him the conviction that she did not care a pin about him; and they answered the purpose admirably.
Edwin was at Cockhoolet that Christmas Day by the same fatality that causes a moth to hover round a brilliant light; and when her sister told Bessie that Edwin had come and was putting his horse into the stable, she said, "Is Mr. Forrester here again? He must surely be dull at home." But of course she received him with friendly civility.
Edwin employed the forenoon out of doors with the boys and two other visitors. A Mr. and Mrs. Parker arriving unexpectedly, who were anxious to see the castle, the afternoon was spent in going through every part of it from dungeon to roof.
Bessie carried the keys: she was châtelaine, seneschal and cicerone, all rolled in one.
Going up the narrow stairs, the party had to climb Indian file: in the passages they could spread out a little, and in some of the rooms in the uninhabited portion they had to walk circumspectly, as if they were crossing water on stepping-stones, for the flooring was wanting in some places, leaving a stretch of bare rafters. Bessie tripped lightly over them, and then turned to wait for the others. "Don't be frightened," she said: "these rafters are as sound as the day they were laid down. The flooring has not rotted: it must have been taken up for some purpose. They did not know how to scamp work in those days."
"If we fall through, where shall we go?" inquired Mrs. Parker, looking down into what seemed deep mysterious darkness.
"Oh, not very far; but don't fall: it won't be pleasant," said Bessie: "you would alight on very hard stones."
Mr. Forrester got on the roof first, and handed up the ladies; and they all stood looking out over the country. It was not a cold, bleak, snowy day, as Christmas in northern latitudes has a right to be. The winter had been mild—one of a series of mild winters, overturning the old traditions of frosts and snow-storms that lasted for months, and to a great extent stopped traffic and labor, and made traveling difficult and wearisome. This Christmas was different. The year was dying with calmness and dignity, and with a smile on its face, as you might take the pale gleam of sunshine to be; and if you were a little sad in mood you could suppose there was a wistfulness in the smile that was spread over the still, soft face of Nature. Cockhoolet stood high, and the country immediately round it was flat, and much of it moorland.
Strike out the vineyards and that description will apply very well to Cockhoolet; and in addition you ought to have seen from its roof Edinburgh and the sea; but on this day the sea wore a garment of mist, and had wrapped the metropolis in it also, as it not unfrequently does. You ought to have seen more than one range of hills too, yet except by eyes well acquainted with them their outlines could hardly be distinguished from the leaden gray clouds lying in bands along the horizon.