The Water Spectre | Page 2

by those whom fortune had placed under him.
Muchardus (now Thane of Dungivan) had attained the height of his ambition; yet his pillow was strewed with mental thorns. Ah! how unlike the prosperity of the good man! Conscience, from whose reproaches we cannot flee, perpetually reminded him of his crimes, and made him shudder with apprehension, lest retributive vengeance should overtake his guilty head.
The late Thane married, in early youth, a most beauteous lady, the heiress of a neighbouring chieftain. With her he fondly hoped for many years of happiness: but his hopes were vain; the peerless Matilda expired in giving birth to her first born, the lovely Donald; the traitor Muchardus being one of the sponsors that answered for his faith at the font.
Two years passed on, and the widowed Thane still indulged his grief, undiminished by the lapse of time. Muchardus artfully endeavoured to learn the sentiments of his friend, as far as regarded his re-engaging in matrimonial ties. To his great, though concealed satisfaction, he heard from Dungivan, that he had solemnly vowed never to take a second bride, but to cherish a tender remembrance of his Matilda, and pray for a reunion with her in those realms of bliss where the pangs of separation should be unknown.
Muchardus had for some time past viewed the possessions of Dungivan with a coveting eye; and he thought it feasible to obtain the Thaneship by the murder of the father and son, as they had no near relatives to make a claim. After much deliberation, he concluded that it would be most prudent to remove the child first from this world; as, in case of the death of the Thane preceding that of Donald, the latter might be placed out of his reach.
Annie, the young woman who nursed the little Lord, was walking on the banks of the Clyde, when she was seized by four men masked and armed, who tore Donald from her arms. Two of them ran off with the child; and the other two bound Annie to a tree, and then followed their companions. The length of time that his son was absent alarmed the Thane, and he sent some of the domestics to search for Annie and her charge, and require their immediate return.
They soon discovered the nurse, and heard her dismal story. They led her back to the castle in an agony of grief, and acquainted the Thane with the tidings. He tore his hair, and rent his garments; nor would he listen to the consolations that Muchardus seemed so eager to administer.
Various conjectures were formed who could be the perpetrator of such a deed; but no one, upon mature reflection, appeared feasible.
The Thane had not, to his knowledge, an enemy existing; for his demeanour had been goodwill to all; nor did he conceive how any person, as he had no immediate heir, could be benefitted by the death or removal of his son. Alas! he clasped to his bosom as a chosen friend, his deadly foe, the cause of all his sorrow: for it was Muchardus that had employed ruffians to seize young Donald.
Allan, the man who was trusted with the management of this vile plot, was ordered by his employer, to take the child and precipitate him into the Clyde as soon as he had got rid of the men who were joined with him in the enterprise.
Allan took the young Lord to his cottage, where he intended to secrete him till the surrounding objects were enveloped in the gloom of night, and then execute the horrid design which he had pledged his faith to commit. When he entered his humble habitation, he found Jannette, his wife, bitterly lamenting over the corpse of her son, their only child. When Allan departed in the morning, he had left the young Ambrose playing before the door of the cottage, with the rose of health glowing on his cheeks. A few hours after, death had seized his victim; and on the father's return, he found himself bereft of his only hope. Nor did he fail to attribute this calamity as the vengeance of an offended God. He felt what it was to lose a child: and he pitied the sufferings that the Thane must endure. 'They are more than my own,' ejaculated the now penitent Allan, 'I know the end of mine; but the poor Lord is uncertain what is the fate of his at this moment.'
'But tomorrow,' continued Allan, after a pause, in which he recollected the injunctions of his employer, 'tomorrow thy corpse will, perhaps, he discovered floating in the Clyde, and his apprehensions will be confirmed by a horrid reality.'
'You will not, surely, murder this sweet babe,' exclaimed Jannette in agony, and clasped the young Donald to her breast.
'I must,' said Allan; 'I have