The Bride of Lammermoor

e a C

t! my life is

KES

naturally timid, and bred up in those ideas of filial awe and implicit obedience which we

" said her father, turning sudd

red to do so, Lucy was bound to appear ignorant of the meaning of all that had passed betwixt Alice and her father, and imputed the emot

ts of old chronicles, and from the formidable remains frequently discovered in bogs and morasses when drained and laid open. The bull had lost the shaggy honours of his mane, and the race was small and light made, in colour a dingy white, or rather a pale yellow, with black horns and hoofs. They retained, however, in some measure, the ferocity of their ancestry, could not be domesticated on account of their antipathy to the human race, a

countenance for a different reason. For she had been familiarised with the appearance of the wil cattle during her walks in the chase; and it was not then, as it may be

of capricious ferocity to which their dispositions are liable, detached himself suddenly from the group which was feeding at the upper extremity of a grassy glade, that seemed to lose itself among the crossing and entangled bou

them at full speed. Assailed by a danger so imminent, firmer courage than that of the Lord Keeper might have given way. But paternal tenderness, "love strong as death," sustained him. He continued to support and drag onward his daughter, until her fears altogether depriving her of the power of flight, she sunk down by his side; and when he could no longer assist he

the spine with the skull, that the wound, which in any other part of his body might scarce have impeded his career, proved instantly fatal. Stumbling forward with a hideous bellow, the progressive force of his previous motion, rather t

able to perfect security. He gazed on the animal, terrible even in death, with a species of mute and confused astonishment, which did not permit him distinctly to understand what had taken place; and so inaccurate was his consciou

o give immediate attention to Miss Ashton, while he himself hastened to call assistance. The huntsman approached them accordingly, and the Lord Keeper saw he was a stranger, but was too much agitated to make any

ed well acquainted, stopped not until he laid her in safety by the side of a plentiful and pellucid fountain, which had been once covered in, screened and decorated with architectural ornaments of a Gothic character. But now the vault which had cover

explained to the Lord of Ravenswood that they were under the necessity of separating so soon as the bell of a chapel, belonging to a hermitage in the adjoining wood, now long ruinous, should toll the hour of vespers. In the course of his confession, the Baron of Ravenswood entrusted the hermit with the secret of this singular amour, and Father Zachary drew the necessary and obvious consequence that his patron was enveloped in the toils of Satan, and in danger of destruction, both to body and soul. He urged these perils to the Baron with all the force of monkish rhetoric, and described, in the most frightful colours, the real character and person of the apparently lovely Naiad, whom he hesitated not to denounce as a limb of the kingdom of darkness. The lover listened with obstinate incredulity; and

him adieu for ever, and, plunging into the fountain, disappeared from his eyes. The bubbles occasioned by her descent were crimsoned with blood as they arose, leading the distracted Baron to infer that his ill-judged curiosity had occasioned the death of this interesting and mysterious being. The remorse which he felt, as well as the recollection of her charms, proved the penance of his futu

nd whose blood was mingled with the waters of the locked fountain, as it was commonly called. Others imagined that the tale had a more remote origin in the ancient heathen mythology. All, however, agreed that the spot was fatal to the Ra

d in the last agony of separation from her lover, she was seated so as to rest with her back against a part of the ruined wall, while her mant

d her senses; the next called to remembrance that of her father. She looked around;

voice of a stranger-"perfectly saf

y. "The bull was close by us. Do not

from possessing the power to execute her purpose, she must have fallen against

ht, slight as it was, proved too heavy for her young and athletic assistant, for, without feeling the temptation of detaining her in his arms even for a single instant, he again placed her on the stone from which she had risen, and retreating a few steps, repeated

moment, that he seemed cold and reluctant to offer it. A shooting-dress of dark cloth intimated the rank of the wearer, though concealed in part by a large and loose cloak of a dark brown colour. A montero cap and a black feather drooped over the wearer's brow, and partly concealed his features, which, so far as seen, were dark, regular, adn full of majes

nger than her own were bent on the ground with a mixture of bashful embarrassment and fear. Yet there was a necessity to speak, or at last she thought so, and in a

the deep melody of his voice rendered powerful, but not harsh, by something like a severity of tone-"I l

eliverer any offence, as if such a thing had been possible. "I have been unfortunate," she said, "in endeavouring to express my thanks-I am sure it must be so, though I c

her-I would rather say Sir William Ashton-will learn it so

for his own. You do not know my father, or you are deceiving me with a story o

hich the accident had taken place, while the stranger, though he seemed to hesitate between the desire to a

e back where the herd of wild cattle grazed. If you will go"-for, having once adopted the idea that her father was still in danger, she pres

a man," she said-"if you be a gentleman, assist me to find my father! You shall

f preventing his escape from her, she was urging, and almost dragging, him forward when Sir William Ashton came up, followed by the female attendant of blind Alice, and by two woodcutters, whom he had summoned from their

ou well?" were the only words that broke

rm and shrinking from him, "what must he think of me?" and her eloquent blood, flushing over neck and brow,

the greatest service which one man ever rendered to another-for the life of my child-for my own life, which he has saved by his bravery and presence of mind. H

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his cloak, made a haughty inclination toward Lucy, muttering a few words of courtesy, as indistinctly hea

had recovered his momentary astonishment. "Hasten after

tranger. They speedily reappeared, and, in an embarrassed

aside, and questioned him more closely

with the caution of a prudent Scotchman, who ca

said the Lord Keeper, "and I

e said-But it wad be nae pleasure to your lordship t

oncern, sir; I desire

m Ashton that the next time he and I forgather, he will n

believe he alludes to a wager we have on ou

cy's situation it was almost unavoidable. She had never happened to see a young man of mien and features so romantic and so striking as young Ravenswood; but had she seen an hundred his equals or his superiors in those particulars, no one else would have been linked to her heart by the strong associations of remembered danger and escape, of gratitude, wonder, and curiosity. I say curiosity, for it is likely that the singularly restrained and unaccommodating manners of the Master of Ravenswood, so much at variance with the natural expression of his features and grace of his deportment, as they excited wonder by the contrast, had their effect in riveting her attention to the recollections. She knew little of Ravenswood, or the disputes which had existed betwixt her father and his, and perhaps

others; but her residence remained solitary, and her mind without those means of dissipating her pleasing visions. This solitude was chiefly owing to the absence of Lady Ashton, who was at this time in Edinburgh, watching the progress of some state-intrigue; the Lord

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hes and expectations. She spoke readily, and with pathetic feeling, concerning the family in general, but seemed to observe an especial and cautious silence on the subject of the present representative. The little she said of him was not altogether so favourable as Lucy had anticipated.

n. He needed but to have withheld for an instant his indispensable and effective assistance, and the object of his resentment must have perished, without any direct aggression on his part, by a death equally fearful and certain. She conceived, therefore, that some secret prejudice, or the suspicions incident to age and misfortune, had led Alice to form c

in which she had been placed. Satisfied on this topic, he proceeded to revise the memoranda which he had taken down from the mouth of the person employed to interrupt the funeral service of the late Lord Ravenswood. Bred to casuistry, and well accustomed to practise the ambidexter ingenuity of the bar, it cost him little trouble to soften the features of the

a generous and high-spirited man, he made it his particular request that this affair should be passed over without severe notice. He alluded with delicacy to the predicament in which he himself stood with young Ravenswood, as having succeeded in the long train of litigation by which the fortunes of that noble house had been so much reduced, and confessed it would be most peculiarly acceptable to his own feelings, could he find in some sort to counterbalance the disadvantages which he had occasioned the family, though only in the prosecution of his just and lawf

gether, one smiled, one put up his eyebrows, a third nodded acquiescence in the general wonder, and a fourth asked if they were sure these were ALL the

d been received, although the question seemed

t the steerage through all the changes of course which the vessel had held for thirty years, "I thought Sir Wi

wn fashion," said another, "tho

ae his way," answere

day are out," said a third; "the Master of

ow?" said a noble Marquis present. "The Lord Keeper has got

cient Lord Turn

asna gea

shins

ucitur cum persona, qui luere non potest cum c

ble lord can have for urging this matter farther; let th

bed-ridden-one to be a quorum. Make your entry in the minutes, Mr. Clerk. And now, my lords, there is that

urntippet, "and your hand aye in the nook of it! I had

Marquis, "you are like the miller's dog, that licks his

a' compliances, taen all manner of tests, adjured all that was to be abjured, and sworn a' that was to be sworn, for these thirty years bye-past, sticki

"had we either thought that your lordship's drought was quenchable,

scene on the privy c