Part 78 (1/2)
The darkness kept him from perceiving how the day went, and the rapidly increasing roar of the wind made the diminis.h.i.+ng sound of the tide's retreat less noticeable. He thought afterwards that perhaps he had fallen asleep; anyhow, when at length he looked out, the waves were gone from the rock, and the darkness was broken only by the distant gleam of their white defeat. The wind was blowing a hurricane, and even for his practised foot, it was not easy to surmount the high, abrupt spines he must cross to regain the sh.o.r.e.
It was so dark that he could see nothing of the castle, though it was but a few yards from him; and he resolved therefore, the path along the top of the cliffs being unsafe, to make his way across the fields, and return by the high road. The consequence was, that, what with fences and ditches, the violence of the wind, and uncertainty about his direction, it was so long before he felt the hard road under his feet that with good reason he feared the house would be closed for the night ere he reached it.
CHAPTER LV: THE SAME NIGHT
When he came within sight of it, however, he perceived, by the hurried movement of lights, that instead of being folded in silence, the house was in unwonted commotion. As he hastened to the south door, the prince of the power of the air himself seemed to resist his entrance, so fiercely did the wind, eddying round the building, dispute every step he made towards it; and when at length he reached and opened it, a blast, rus.h.i.+ng up the glen straight from the sea, burst wide the opposite one, and roared through the hall like a torrent. Lady Florimel, flitting across it at the moment, was almost blown down, and shrieked aloud for help. Malcolm was already at the north door, exerting all his strength to close it, when she spied him, and, bounding to him, with white face and dilated eyes, exclaimed--”Oh Malcolm! what a time you have been!”
”What's wrang, my leddy?” cried Malcolm with respondent terror.
”Don't you hear it?” she answered. ”The wind is blowing the house down. There's just been a terrible fall, and every moment I hear it going. If my father were only come! We shall be all blown into the burn.”
”Nae fear o' that, my leddy!” returned Malcolm. ”The wa's o' the auld carca.s.s are 'maist live rock, an' 'ill stan' the warst win'
'at ever blew--this side o' the tropics, ony gait. Gien 't war ance to get its nose in, I wadna say but it micht tirr (strip) the rufe, but it winna blaw 's intil the burn, my leddy. I'll jist gang and see what's the mischeef.”
He was moving away, but Lady Florimel stopped him. ”No, no, Malcolm!” she said. ”It's very silly of me, I dare say; but I've been so frightened. They're such a set of geese--Mrs Courthope, and the butler, and all of them! Don't leave me, please.”
”I maun gang and see what's amiss, my leddy,” answered Malcolm; ”but ye can come wi' me gien ye like. What's fa'en, div ye think?”
”n.o.body knows. It fell with a noise like thunder, and shook the whole house.”
”It's far ower dark to see onything frae the ootside,” rejoined Malcolm, ”at least afore the mune's up. It's as dark's pick. But I can sune saitisfee mysel' whether the deil 's i' the hoose or no.”
He took a candle from the hall table, and went up the square staircase, followed by Florimel.
”What w'y is 't, my leddy, 'at the hoose is no lockit up, an' ilka body i' their beds?” he asked.
”My father is coming home tonight. Didn't you know? But I should have thought a storm like this enough to account for people not being in bed!”
”It's a fearfu' nicht for him to be sae far frae his! Whaur's he comin' frae! Ye never speyk to me noo, my leddy, an' naebody tell't me.”
”He was to come from Fochabers tonight. Stoat took the bay mare to meet him yesterday.”
”He wad never start in sic a win'! It's fit to blaw the saiddle aff o' the mear's back.”
”He may have started before it came on to blow like this,” said Lady Florimel.
Malcolm liked the suggestion the less because of its probability, believing, in that case, he should have arrived long ago. But he took care not to increase Florimel's alarm.
By this time Malcolm knew the whole of the accessible inside of the roof well--better far than any one else about the house. From one part to another, over the whole of it, he now led Lady Florimel.
In the big shadowed glimmer of his one candle, all parts of the garret seemed to him frowning with knitted brows over resentful memories--as if the phantom forms of all the past joys and self renewing sorrows, all the sins and wrongs, all the disappointments and failures of the house, had floated up, generation after generation, into that abode of helpless brooding, and there hung hovering above the fast fleeting life below, which now, in its turn, was ever sending up like fumes from heart and brain, to crowd the dim, dreary, larva haunted, dream wallowing chaos of half obliterated thought and feeling. To Florimel it looked a dread waste, a region deserted and forgotten, mysterious with far reaching nooks of darkness, and now awful with the wind raving and howling over slates and leads so close to them on all sides,--as if a flying army of demons were tearing at the roof to get in and find covert from pursuit.
At length they approached Malcolm's own quarters, where they would have to pa.s.s the very door of the wizard's chamber to reach a short ladder-like stair that led up into the midst of naked rafters, when, coming upon a small storm window near the end of a long pa.s.sage, Lady Florimel stopped and peeped out.
”The moon is rising,” she said, and stood looking.
Malcolm glanced over her shoulder. Eastward a dim light shone up from behind the crest of a low hill. Great part of the sky was clear, but huge ma.s.ses of broken cloud went sweeping across the heavens. The wind had moderated.