The Lost Lady of Lone | Page 7

It is the face of Gabriel who standeth in the presence of the Lord! But it expresses more of power! It is the face of Michael rather, when he put the hosts of hell to flight! Oh! a wondrously glorious face!" said the rapt young enthusiast to herself, as she gazed in awe-struck silence on the portrait.
"Ye are looking at that picture, young leddy? Ay it weel deserves your regards! It is a grand one!" said Dame Ross, proudly.
"_Who is it? One of the young princes?_" inquired Salome, in a low tone, full of reverential admiration.
"Ane o' the young princes? Gude guide us! Nae, young leddy; I hae seen the young princes ance, on an unco' ill day for Lone! And I dinna care if I never see ane mair. But they dinna look like that," said the housekeeper, with a deep sigh.
"Who is it, then?" whispered Salome, still gazing on the portrait with somewhat of the rapt devotion with which she had been wont to gaze on pictured saint, or angel, on her convent walls. "Who is it, Mrs. Ross?"
"Wha is it? Wha suld it be, but our ain young laird? Our ain bonny laddie? Our young Markis o' Arondelle? Oh, waes the day he ever left Lone!" exclaimed Dame Girzie, lifting her apron to her eyes.
"The Marquis of Arondelle!" echoed Salome, catching her breath, and gazing with even more interest upon the glorious picture.
Even while she gazed, the ray that had lighted it for a moment was withdrawn by the setting sun, and the picture was swallowed up in sudden darkness.
"The Marquis of Arondelle," repeated Salome in a low reverent tone, as if speaking to herself.
"Ay, the young Markis o' Arondelle; wae worth the day he went awa'!" said the housekeeper, wiping her eyes.
Salome turned suddenly to the weeping woman.
"I have heard--I have heard--" she began in a low, hesitating voice, and then she suddenly stopped and looked at the dame.
"Ay, young leddy, nae doubt ye hae heard unco mony a fule tale anent our young laird; but if ye would care to hear the verra truth, ye suld do so frae mysel. But come noo, leddy. It is too dark to see onything mair in this room. We'll gae out on the battlements gin ye like, and tak' a luke at the landscape while the twilight lasts," said Dame Girzie.
Salome assented with a nod, and they climbed the last steep flight of stairs, cut in the solid wall, and leading from this upper room to the top of the watch-tower.
They came out upon a magnificent view.
The bright, long twilight of these Northern latitudes still hung luminously over island, lake and mountain.
While Salome gazed upon it Dame Girzie said:
"All this frae the tower to the horizon, far as our eyes can reach, and far'er, was for eight centuries the land of the Lairds of Lone. And noo! a' hae gane frae them, and they hae gane frae us, and na mon kens where they bide or how they fare. Wae's me!"
"It was indeed a household wreck," said Salome, with sigh of sincere sympathy.
"Ye may say that, leddy, and mak' na mistake."
"What is that lofty mountain-top that I see on the edge of the horizon away to the north, just fading in the twilight?" inquired Salome, partly to divert the dame from her gloomy thoughts.
"Yon? Ay. Yon will be, Ben Lone. It will be twenty miles awa', gin it be a furlong. Our young laird had a braw hunting lodge there, where in the season he was wont to spend weeks thegither wi' his kinsman, Johnnie Scott, for the young laird was unco' fond of deer stalking, and sic like sport. I dinna ken wha owns the lodge now, or whether it went wi' the lave of the estate," said Dame Girzie, with a deep sigh.
"It is growing quite chilly up here," said Salome, shivering, and drawing her little red shawl more closely around her slight frame. "I think we will go down now, Mrs. Ross. And if you will be so good as to come to me after tea, this evening, I shall like to hear the story of this sorrowful family wreck," she added, as she turned to leave the place.
That evening, as the heiress sat in the small drawing room appropriated to her own use, the housekeeper rapped and was admitted.
And after seating herself at the bidding of her young mistress, Girzie Ross opened her mouth and told the true story of the fall of Lone, as I have already told to my readers.
"And this devoted son actually sacrificed all the prospects of his whole future life, in order to give peace and prosperity to his father's declining days," murmured Salome, with her eyes full of tears and her usually pale cheeks, flushed with emotion.
"He did,