“The youth’s temper corresponded to his habits. He was both gloomy and passionate. Prone to anger, he had never been known to forgive. Debarred from anything on which he had set his heart, he would have gone mad with longing if he had not gone mad with rage. His soul was like the night around us now, dark and sultry and silent, but lighted up by the red levin of wrath, and torn by the bellowings of thunder passion. He must have his will: hell might have his soul. Imagine then the rage and malice in his heart, when he suddenly became aware that an orphan girl, distantly related to them, who had lived with them for nearly two years, and whom he had loved for almost all that period, was loved by his elder brother, and loved him in return. He flung his right hand above his head, swore a terrible oath that if he might not his brother should not, rushed out of the house, and galloped off among the hills. “The orphan was a beautiful girl, tall, pale, and slender, with plentiful dark hair, which, when released from the snood, rippled down below her knees. Her appearance consequently formed a strong contrast with that of her favoured lover, and of course there was some resemblance between her and the other. This fact seemed, to the fierce selfishness of the younger, to be ground for a prior claim. “It may seem strange that a man like him should not have had instant recourse to his superior and hidden knowledge, by means of which he might have got rid of his rival with far more certainty and less risk; but I presume that for the moment his passion overwhelmed his consciousness of skill. Yet I do not suppose that he foresaw the mode in which his hatred was about to operate. At the moment when he learned their mutual attachment, probably through a domestic, the lady was on her way to meet her lover as he returned from the day’s sport. The appointed place was on the edge of a deep rocky ravine, down in whose dark bosom brawled and foamed a little mountain torrent. You know the place, Duncan, my dear, I daresay.” (Here she gave me a minute description of the spot, with directions how to find it.)