Great Britain -- History -- 17th century -- Fiction; Historical fiction
Marjory meantime ran out into the sunshine with all the gaiety in the
world. She was just like a child let loose from school, for she was
ever of a light heart and care sat easily upon her. Now, although we
were in the direst peril, she was taking delight in spring, as if we
were once again children in Dawyck, catching trout in the deep pools of
the wood. She left me to go out from the little glen, which was the
entrance to the cave, into the wider dale of the Cor Water, which ran
shallow between lone green braes. I heard her singing as she went down
among the juniper bushes and flinty rocks, and then it died away behind
a little shoulder of hill.
So I was left to my own reflections on the plight in which I found
myself. For the first time a sort of wounded pride began to vex me.
Formerly I had thought of nothing save how to save my own head and keep
my love from my enemy, and cared not, if in the effecting of it, I had
to crouch with the fox and be chased by the basest scum of the land. I
cared not if I were put out of house and home and outlawed for years,
for the adventurous spirit was strong within me. But now all my old
pride of race rose in rebellion at the thought that I was become a
person without importance, a houseless wanderer, the spoil of my
enemies. It made me bitter as gall to think of it, and by whose aid my
misfortune had been effected. A sort of hopeless remorse came over me.
Should I ever win back the place I had lost? Would the Burnets ever
again be great gentlemen of Tweeddale, a power in the countryside,
having men at their beck and call? Or would the family be gone forever,
would I fall in the wilds, or live only to find my lands gone with my
power, and would Marjory never enter Barns as its mistress? I could get
no joy out of the morning for the thought, and as I wandered on the
hillside I had little care of what became of me.
Now at this time there happened what roused me and set me once more at
peace with myself. And though it came near to being a dismal tragedy,
it was the draught which nerved me for all my later perils. And this was
the manner of it.
Marjory, as she told me herself afterwards, had gone down to the little
meadows by the burnside, where she watched the clear brown water and the
fish darting in the eddies. She was thus engaged, when she was aware of
two horsemen who rode over the top of the glen and down the long hill on
the other side. They, were almost opposite before she perceived them,
and there was no time tor flight. Like a brave lass she uttered no
scream, but stood still that they might not see her. But it was of no
avail. Their roving eyes could not miss in that narrow glen so fair a
sight, and straightway one called out to the other that there was a girl
at the burnside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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