THE MASTER OF ABERFELDIE

BY

JAMES GRANT

AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "THE CAMERONIANS," "THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER," ETC., ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1884.

All rights reserved.

Contents

Chapter

I. Mystery II. A Modern Use for a Mediæval Institution III. Holcroft Departs IV. Suspense V. The Oubliette VI. Cead Mille Maloch! VII. Lovers VIII. At Maviswood IX. 'Alice!' X. 'The Mysteries of Udolpho.' XI. 'Gup,' and What Came of It XII. Olive's Visitor XIII. Wedded XIV. Mistrust XV. The Black Watch XVI. In the Belvidere XVII. The Route XVIII. 'Idiots only will be Cozened Twice.' XIX. In the Land of the Pharaohs XX. The March through Goshen

THE MASTER OF ABERFELDIE.

CHAPTER I. MYSTERY.

So all the guests had quitted Dundargue now but Hawke Holcroft. In two days he was to depart for what he called 'his chambers in town;' thus Allan was compelled to continue his polite dissimulation, and be on suave and apparently easy terms with him as a guest, though the latter felt that there was an undefinable change in his manner towards him.

Indeed, it was only by a great effort of self-control that the Master of Aberfeldie, a man with the highest and keenest sense of honour, and knowing all he did, continued to treat Holcroft with politeness; but he writhed and shivered when he heard him, in the drawing-room or elsewhere, address Olive or Eveline.

All the forenoon after Cameron's departure, when poor little Eveline was most triste and miserable, our other pair of lovers were very happy. They had what they were pleased to call 'a picnic' on the tower-head of Dundargue. Allan's portion thereof was cigars, and Olive's a little basket of purple grapes and luscious strawberries (though the season was autumn) from the hothouses.

So with these two, the hours passed sweetly and swiftly, with the blue sky overhead, while far away in the distance, and steeped in sunny haze, stretched the lovely Carse of Gowrie; and talking of themselves, their past folly, their present joy, and the brilliant future that was to come, they billed and cooed after the fashion of all lovers since flowers grew in Eden.

Allan lolled at length on the stone bartizan of the tower whence molten lead and arrows had more than once been launched on a foe beneath, Olive with her fair head reclined against his shoulder toying with her fruit, while he did so with her silky hair, or kissed her lips and hands, and called her all manner of funny and endearing names that would look rather odd in print; and yet amid their present happiness it was strange that each wondered more than once, if coldness or estrangement would ever come between them again.

Never—oh, never.

'You complained that the gardeners saw me kissing you in the rosery yesterday, Olive,' said Allan. 'Now, little woman, who should I kiss if I don't kiss you? Well, only the crows overhead can see us up here, at all events.'

But now as he toyed with her hands, marvelling as he did so at their whiteness and beauty, and anon played with the bangles that encircled her rounded arms, he bethought of the one worn—yes, actually worn—by Holcroft, and silently he resolved to possess himself of it without delay; so, ere the bell rang for luncheon, he made an excuse, conducted his cousin, with many a pause and long delay which were not idly spent, down the dark and winding staircase from the head of the tower.

In his new-found happiness until now he had forgotten all about the bangle, which—perhaps for some ulterior purpose of his own—Holcroft seemed to have quietly appropriated, and by whom he wished it returned without any fuss or explanation.

To this end he sought that personage after luncheon was over, and was sure he would find him either practising strokes in the billiard-room, in the smoking-room, or stables, watching the horses and catching hints from the grooms.

He found him in the first-named place, cue in hand.

'Ready for a game?' said he.

'No, thanks.'

'Sorry; Cameron, and everyone is gone. I'm reduced to playing the right hand against the left.'

'And while playing I perceive that you have a gold bangle of Miss Raymond's on your left wrist?'

'Yes,' replied Holcroft, leisurely—Allan thought impertinently.

'Did she give it to you?'

'Why do you ask?'

'Did she give it to you?' repeated Allan, with a dangerous gleam in his dark eyes.

'No.'

'How comes it to be there, then?'

'Don't take to high falutin. I slipped it on in mere fun, and it will not come off again.

'Indeed! allow me.'

And Allan, in a moment, by twisting the ductile Indian gold, wrenched it off, and Holcroft's eyes had a malevolent flash in them as he stooped to strike a ball.

'Thanks,' said Allan, pocketing the bangle. 'Now we shall have a cigar.'

For a moment he felt a little ashamed of his sudden irritation, and proffered his cigar-case to Holcroft, who smiled his thanks and accepted a Havana.

The Master was younger and handsomer than he; the heir to an ancient title and estate; he had the envied prestige of having borne himself bravely when under fire with the Black Watch, and had a goodly crop of medals—not so many as my Lord Wolseley, of course—but still, when in uniform, a goodly display.

He had all the advantages over Hawke Holcroft that one man could have over another; and in his heart of hearts the other hated—yea, with a bitter and deadly hate—Allan Graham—a hate beyond his love, real or supposed, for Olive Raymond, natheless all Olive's beauty and her money—his chief lure and incentive.

While conversing and joking together in the smoking-room, or on the terrace, amid the pleasures of the table, knocking the balls about at billiards or so forth, how little could the unconscious Allan have dreamed that his father's guest—the son of his old friend—had been pondering over the art of 'Killing no murder;' of accidents brought about in the hunting-field, at cover shooting, or hill-climbing; even of dynamite cigars! Had he not heard of such things at Monaco, Homburg, and elsewhere.

He knew that there was quite a manufactory of such cigars at Temeswar, in Austria; but wherever were such pleasant gifts 'to be obtained in an out-of-the-way hole like the Carse of Gowrie?'

His teeth under his moustache glittered or glistened whitely when such ideas occurred to him; though he chatted away with perhaps forced insouciance and gaiety, under all his assumed ease of manner there smouldered a lava-like glow—mingled hate of Allan and coveting of Olive, but with an emotion of a much coarser nature, combined with greed.

Seeing Clairette, Olive's maid, passing, Allan made up the bangle in a little packet as he still wished no more explanations on the subject, and desired her to give it to her mistress.

'You and Miss Raymond seem exceedingly good friends now,' said Holcroft.

'We were never otherwise,' replied Allan, curtly, and displeased by the remark.

'What a prize in matrimony such a girl must be, with so much beauty and—wealth.'

'It is sometimes a misfortune for a girl to be rich, or to be thought so,' said Allan.

'Why?'

'Because she may become the prey of some needy fortune-hunter or enterprising scamp.'

Holcroft winced at the reply, though it was made casually and without the least design by Allan.

'But in marrying, Miss Raymond might perhaps be poor enough.'

'What paradox is this?' asked Holcroft, thoroughly interested, while Allan felt some disdain at discussing such matters with such a man.

'Yes, poor as a church mouse, unless—'

'Unless what?'

'She marries me,' replied Allan, who, with perhaps pardonable pique, only thought of provoking a man who had tried to rival him, and whom he deemed a needy and adventurous gambler.

This seemed only to corroborate what Holcroft had heard before, and gave him some occasion for thought.

'I have heard rumours of a family compact—a most fortunate one for you,' said he, smiling; 'but suppose you—excuse me for saying so—were to predecease her?'

'Then my pretty cousin would be a free woman; but I don't mean to die yet awhile. Let us take a turn before dinner,' he added, to change the conversation he had no desire to continue.

'Where?'

'Anywhere you like; but, as the evening has become chill, suppose we smoke our cigars in the picture-gallery?'

'All right, I am your man.'

Had Allan looked at Hawke Holcroft just then he might have perceived a lurid gleam in his stealthy eyes, and how his hands were clenched till the nails of his fingers bruised the palms thereof.

Olive received her bangle, and though startled by the abruptness with which it was returned, without message or explanation from Allan, as Clairette told her, she thought less of the circumstance then than she did a day or two after.

Dinner was announced; Holcroft appeared in accurate evening dress as usual, and, after waiting a few minutes for Allan who did not appear, the meal was proceeded with in the slow fashion peculiar to Dundargue, though only five were seated at table.

Ere dessert came, Lady Aberfeldie dispatched a servant to Allan's room in search of him. He was not there, though his evening dress was laid out as usual.

'Where can he be? Where can he have gone?' were the queries on all hands, which, as night began to draw on without his appearing, took the form of alarm, 'and what can have happened?'

'Did Allan drop hints of going anywhere?' asked Lord Aberfeldie.

All answered 'No.'

'It is most mysterious.'

Still more mysterious did it appear when the night, passed without his being seen, and when his place was still vacant at the breakfast-table next day. Lord Aberfeldie was in dire perplexity; the ladies were pale and already betook themselves to tears.

'If Allan has left the house as suddenly as he did before, he has taken neither clothes nor portmanteau with him, as Tappleton assures me; so what can it mean?' exclaimed Lord Aberfeldie.

A gun was missing from the gun-room. Could Allan have gone to shoot with Logan at Loganlee? But Olive deemed it impossible that he would do so without consulting her, and on looking at Holcroft she thought he looked rather hot and disturbed.

'The bangle, the bangle!' thought the girl, with sudden terror. 'Can he have gone in a fit of jealousy. Mercy! if it should be so.'

Inquiries proved that Allan had not passed out by the entrance gates, as the lodge-keeper affirmed, and no trace of footsteps could be found at any of the private gates to the grounds; and it was soon discovered that he had not taken a ticket for any place at the railway station.

What terrible mystery was here?

The family began to look with growing alarm and dismay blankly into each other's pale faces.

Keepers and gillies, strong, active, and keen-sighted fellows, Hector, Alister Bain, Angus and Dugal Glas—even old Ronald Gair, the piper—searched, but in vain, the grounds, plantations, even the adjacent hills and glens; but not a trace was found of the missing Allan.

He seemed suddenly to have dropped out of existence.

As this, his last day at Dundargue, drew on, none made himself more active in searching and riding about the roads than Holcroft, and so preoccupied were all that no one—even Olive—noticed that his face was pale and cadaverous—and wore a very disturbed expression, and that his pale eyes seemed to glare defiantly if anyone looked at him, while he sedulously kept his right hand gloved.

How are we to relate all that really had happened.

CHAPTER II. A MODERN USE FOR A MEDIÆVAL INSTITUTION.

'The world is not a bad world, after all,' said Allan, as he and Holcroft, after a casual glance at the long lines of portraits panelled in the wainscotting of the gallery, together with many a Cuyp, Zucchero, Canaletti, and so forth, now looked out from one of the lofty windows upon the fair domain of his family, that spread for miles around Dundargue.

'It is easy enough for you to talk thus of the world,' thought Holcroft, 'but if, like me, you had only debts and difficulties for your patrimony you might take a different view.'

'I was born here in Dundargue, and all the happy memories of my childhood centre round it,' said Allan. 'Every man, woman, and child in the place are known to me; every rock and hill, glen and woodland, familiar, with all their stories and traditions; and wherever I might be with the Black Watch, in England on the staff, far away in central India, or in the gorges of Afghanistan, my memory always fled home to dear old Dundargue and all its surroundings.'

'How pathetic!' sneered Holcroft, silently, and puzzled to understand the mood of Allan, who, in the consciousness of his own happiness with Olive, felt at that moment rather inclined to take a soft and generous view of the world at large.

'It certainly is a fine old ancestral house—one to be proud of,' said Holcroft, aloud, 'with a special history, and all that sort of thing. I have heard a devil of a deal about its oubliette—where is it?'

'Let me show you—come this way,' said Allan, lighting a fresh cigar.

Smoking together, Allan, and Holcroft following, wandered up and down circular stone stairs in narrow turrets, where the steps had been worn and hollowed by the feet of long departed generations; through dusky corridors where, in some places, moth-eaten arras hung upon its rusty tenter-hooks, and where, as Holcroft said, there was 'a loud smell of mice;' through secret doors and past 'the priest's hole,' in which James of Jerusalem abode, till they reached a narrow stone passage near the summit of the great tower, closed by a massive little door.

Allan threw this open, and the black, round mouth of the oubliette, about four feet in diameter, yawned before them.

The great, horizontal stone slab or flagstone, which in ancient times had closed the mouth of this horrible accessory to feudal tyranny, had long since given place to a massive trap-door of oak, which was held up by a wooden prop, under which the cold, dark vault showed its mysterious profundity.

'By Jove! it is a strange affair; more like a draw-well than anything else.'

'But supposed to be twelve feet diameter at the bottom—a fine old relic of the days when "warriors bold wore spurs of gold," and the rack and the red-hot ploughshare were aids to the orthodox opinions of society in religion and politics.'

And Allan laughed as he spoke.

'How foetid its atmosphere is! That door has not been open for an age, and may be closed for as long again. No one ever comes here.'

Peering downward, as if into a well, they saw the outlines of their heads reflected in a little pool of water at the bottom, but how far down it was impossible to say.

'Once upon a time,' said Allan, 'when parts of the Carse of Gowrie were under water, in wet seasons especially, it flowed in here, how no one knew, unless through fissures in the rock, and drowned like a rat any luckless wight who was thrown in to be—to be——'

'What?'

'Forgotten. So the phrase went then; hence its name.'

'And do you mean to say that no one who was dropped into that confounded hole ever came up again?'

'Yes.'

'Were their cries not heard?'

'No; the walls around are so thick, and the bottom is in the living rock on which Dundargue stands.'

'By Jove!' exclaimed Holcroft again, as if perplexed, so much so that he had let his cigar grow cold. 'And their bones?' he asked, after a pause.

'Were found in quantities by certain explorers, who went down with torches, some years ago. I have not looked into this place for years—not since I left for the regiment in India,' said Allan, stooping, somewhat dangerously—and, to Holcroft's sudden idea, somewhat temptingly—over the dangerous profundity, into which he was striving to peer.

With all the rapidity of light, many terrible thoughts now crowded into the mind of Holcroft. He hated Allan Graham with deadly rivalry and hate combined. Never again, in the desperation of his affairs, might he have the chance of an introduction to such a prize as Olive Raymond, or be on such a footing, as he had recently found himself with her.

He loathed Allan for all Allan possessed, and, as we are told, 'a coward who knows himself to be at once despised but unchastised, for a woman's sake, can hate.'

If he lost his chances with Olive, beggary stared him in the face; drops of perspiration started to his forehead, and chance now confirmed his diabolical resolution. The gloomy fiend was uppermost, his revenge, and perhaps future triumph, stood embodied before him. He did not pause, and all these dire thoughts occurred to him in less than the space of one vibration of a pendulum.

Had the Master of Aberfeldie turned sharply round he might have read in Holcroft's white face an expression that was not pleasant to look upon just then—the face of one that would work him mischief if he could; but the unwitting Allan was doing what he had not done since boyhood, he was peering with vague curiosity into the profundity below.

A fury, a clamorous anxiety, seemed to blaze up in the heart and brain of Holcroft, who was a practised 'bruiser,' and he suddenly gave Allan an awful blow under the left ear—a blow hit right out from the shoulder—that shot him headlong into the vault.

He vanished from the light; there was a heavy thud far down below, and then all became still—unnaturally so; but Holcroft could hear the beating of his own pulses, while the blood seemed to be surging about his throbbing temples.

Was he acting in a dream from which he would waken to find himself in bed? or was all this happening, not to him, but to some one else? No, there was the bruised right hand, from which the violence of his blow had torn the skin.

He had read of dark crimes, of murders, but little did he think he would ever become the participator in such a deed; but opportunity is always the devil's game.

For a minute—an eternity it seemed, by the chaos of his mind, the sudden inversion of all thought—he did not breathe, he scarcely seemed to live.

There was a whisper of 'murder' on his lips, and it seemed to have an echo, that terrible whisper, but whether from the walls, the trees that waved below them, the blue sky, or the crows that were winging their way through it, he knew not. He seemed to whisper the awful word to himself, with quivering lips, again and again, as if he required an assurance of its truth, and then sought to rouse himself from his lethargic stupor, quit the scene of his sudden crime, and seek safety in flight—flight!

But, then, to quit Dundargue thus would fix suspicion on himself. Had not Clairette, the French maid, seen him but lately with Allan? And flight would mar the very object for which he had committed the crime.

Should he—could he—at all risks to himself and his fortune, ere it was too late, strive to undo what he had done; to give an alarm, and make some excuse or explanation ere life had departed from the shattered frame of his victim, or leave the latter to his obscure fate—a grave under his father's roof!

Cowardice and meanness, hatred, jealousy, and avarice all suggested the latter.

He knew not the depth of this strange prison, or how far down beneath the foundations of lofty Dundargue and into the rock on which it stands, the sill or floor of the noisome vault might be.

He listened; not a sound came upward, nor was there any, save the wild beating of his own heart and the buzzing and singing of blood in his ears.

He softly closed the wooden trap-door, let the enormous iron hasp thereof drop over the rusty staple; he closed the massive external entrance, and stealthily crept or glided away.

There seemed a silence all around him now; such a silence as must have appalled the soul of the first murderer when he 'rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him.'

So the tragedy—the dark crime—was acted as suddenly as it was weird—suggested by a whisper of the devil! There was nothing very tragic in the accessories of the scene; but, as an author says, 'Are not real tragedies, the social tragedies that go on about us in our every-day life, enacted like comedies, until the last moment, when the curtain falls, and all is dark?'