Having thus said, sad, sorrowful, and slow, he descended from the bridal chamber, the tears streaming adown his manly cheeks. Meantime he had lighted a lamp which lay in the recess, and bearing it in his hand, with cautious and silent step, he descended the staircase; and having gone out at the postern, he proceeded to the stables, where, having called up his faithful servant, he ordered his horses instantly to be saddled, and in less than half an hour all was in readiness for his departure,--servant, horses, travelling valise, &c. &c. And now Sir David, and his faithful servant Malcolm, who had attended him at the battle of the Boyne, proceeded beneath the embattled portal of Tyrconnel Castle, never again to return. The solitary bittern mournfully boomed as they rode along the lonely marsh, and the startled eagle from his lofty eirie-crag loudly shrieked, awakened by the tramp of the horse-hoofs, which were deeply re-echoed through this stilly solitude, in the dark and dismal hour of midnight. Oh, what pen can write, what tongue can tell, what heart can feel, save the heart which deeply hath felt it, how bitter are the pangs of a wounded spirit, when love becomes horribly transformed into rancorous and deadly hate! Oh, happy it were then that "the silver cord were loosened, and the golden bowl were broken," what time the sweet bond of harmony snapt suddenly in twain, dissevered by a rude and discordant crash, when two fond, faithful, and affectionate hearts, are changed in one short, sad, and eventful moment--becoming, alas, fatally and irrevocably estranged and separated for ever. "Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure, Thrill the deepest notes of woe!" CHAPTER V. And tell me, I charge you---- Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows? So spake the stern chieftain.--No answer is made; But each mantle unfolding, a dagger display'd. CAMPBELL. We must now go still further back into our history, and give some account of Sir David Bruce, and the unhappy causes that led to so unexpected and so speedy a termination of a connexion honourable and enviable in every respect, and indeed every way deserving of happier results. In the parish of Kirkoswald, in Ayrshire, is situated the ancient and the celebrated castle of Turnberry, stationed upon the north-west point of a rocky angle of the coast, extending towards Girvan. This castle belonged to Sir Robert Bruce, Laird of Annandale. The situation of the castle of Turnberry is extremely delightful, commanding a full view of the Frith of Clyde, and its indented shores. Upon the land side it overlooks a richly extended plain, bounded by distant hills, which rise around in gradual and beautiful undulations, and adorned to their very summits with woods of mountain-ash, oak, and the most graceful of all trees, in glen, plain, valley, or mountain, the weeping birch.