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CHAPTER LXXXVIII

Mr. Donald Gunn, the worthy Dominie of Wick, who had agreed to act as a guide to Girnigo, was, soon after sunrise, at the door, summoning the party to make ready for the journey; for, although the morning was fair and bright, he had seen signs in the preceding evening, which made him apprehensive of another storm. ‘The wind,’ said he to Walkinshaw, who was the first that obeyed the call, ‘often, at this time of the year, rises about noon, when the waves jump with such agility against the rocks, that the most periculous points of view cannot be seen in their proper elegance, without the risk of breaking your neck, or at least being washed away, and drowned for ever.’

Walkinshaw, accordingly, upon Gunn’s report, as he called it, roused the whole party, and they set out for Staxigo, preceded by the Dominie, who, at every turn of the road, ‘indexed,’ as he said, ‘the most interesting places.’

During the walk to the village, the weather still continued propitious; but the schoolmaster observed that a slight occasional breeze from the north-east, the wildest wind that blows on that coast, rippled the glassy sea, as it undulated among the rocks below their path; a sure indication, so early in the morning, of a tempestuous afternoon. His companions, however, unacquainted with the omens of that ravenous shore, heard his remark without anxiety.

After breakfasting at Elspeth Heddle’s public in Staxigo on milk, and ham and eggs, a partan, and haddocks, they went on to the ruins of Girnigo. The occasional fetching of the wind’s breath, which the Dominie had noticed in their morning walk, was now become a steady gale, and the waves began to break against the rugged cliffs and headlands to the southward, insomuch, that, when the party reached the peninsula on which the princely ruins of the united castles of Girnigo and Sinclair are situated, they found several fishermen, belonging to Wick, who had gone out to sea at daybreak, busily drawing their boats on shore, in the little port on the south side of the cliffs, under the walls. The visitors inquired why they were so careful in such bright and summer weather; but they directed the attention of the Dominie to long flakes of goat’s beard in the skies, and to the sea-birds flying towards the upland.

By this time the billows were breaking white and high on the extremities of Noss-head, and the long grass on the bartisans and window-sills of the ruins streamed and hissed in the wind. The sun was bright; but the streaks of hoary vapour that veined the pure azure of the heavens retained their position and menacing appearance. There was, however, nothing in the phenomena of the skies to occasion any apprehension; and the party, without thinking of the immediate horrors of a storm, sympathised with their guide, as he related to them the mournful legends of those solitary towers. But, although he dwelt, with particular emphasis, on the story of the Bishop, whom one of the Earls of Caithness had ordered his vassals to boil in a cauldron, on account of his extortions, their sympathy was more sorrowfully awakened by the woeful fate of the young Master of Caithness, who, in 1572, fell a victim to the jealousy of his father.

‘George, the Earl at that time,’ said the schoolmaster, ‘with his son the Master of Caithness, was on the leet of the lovers of Euphemia, the only daughter of an ancestor of Lord Reay. The lady was young and beautiful, and naturally preferred the son to the father; but the Earl was a haughty baron, and, in revenge for his son proving a more thriving wooer, was desirous of putting him for a season out of the way – but not by the dirk, as the use and wont of that epoch of unrule might have justified. Accordingly, one afternoon, as they were sitting together in the hall at yonder architraved window in the second story, the wrathful Earl clapped his hands thrice, and in came three black-aviced kerns in rusted armour, who, by a signal harmonized between them and Earl George, seized the lawful heir, and dragged him to a dampish captivity in yon vault, of which you may see the yawning hungry throat in the chasm between the two principal lumps of the buildings.’

The learned Dominie then proceeded to relate the sequel of this strange story – by which it appeared, that, soon after the imprisonment of his son, the Earl being obliged to render his attendance at the court of Stirling, left his son in the custody of Murdow Mackean Roy, who, soon after the departure of his master, was persuaded by the prisoner to connive at a plan for his escape. But the plot was discovered by William, the Earl’s second son, who apprehended Murdow, and executed him in the instant. Immediately after, he went down into the dungeon, and threatened his brother also with immediate punishment, if he again attempted to corrupt his keepers. The indignant young nobleman, though well ironed, sprang upon Lord William, and bruised him with such violence, that he soon after died. David and Inghrame Sinclair were then appointed custodiers of the prisoner; but, availing themselves of the absence of the Earl, and the confusion occasioned by the death of William, they embezzled the money in the castle, and fled, leaving their young lord in the dungeon, a prey to the horrors of hunger, of which he died.

About seven years after, the Earl, while he lamented the fatal consequences of his own rash rivalry, concealed his thirst for revenge. Having heard that Inghrame Sinclair, who had retired with his booty to a distant part of the country, intended to celebrate the marriage of his daughter by a great feast, he resolved to make the festival the scene of punishment. Accordingly, with a numerous retinue, he proceeded to hunt in the neighbourhood of Inghrame Sinclair’s residence; and, availing himself of the hospitable courtesies of the time, he entered the banquet-hall, and slew the traitor in the midst of his guests. —

While the visitors in the lee of the ruins were listening to the Dominie’s legend, the wind had continued to increase and the sea to rise, and the spray of the waves was springing in stupendous water-spouts and spires of foam over all the headlands in view to the south.

‘Aye,’ said the Dominie, pointing out to them the ruins of Clyth Castle, over which the sea was breaking white in the distance, ‘we may expect a dry storm, for Clyth has got on its shroud. Look where it stands like a ghost on the shore. It is a haunted and unhallowed monument.

‘In olden and ancient times the Laird of Clyth went over to Denmark, and, being at the court of Elsineur, counterfeited, by the help of a handsome person, and a fine elocution, the style and renown of the most prosperous gentleman in all Caithness, by which he beguiled a Prince of Copenhagen to give him his daughter in marriage, a lady of rare and surpassing beauty. After his marriage he returned to Scotland to prepare for the reception of his gorgeous bride; but, when he beheld his own rude turret amidst the spray of the ocean’s sea, and thought of the golden palaces and sycamore gardens of Denmark, he was shocked at the idea of a magnificent princess inhabiting such a bleak abode, and overwhelmed with the dread of the indignation that his guilt would excite among her friends. So when the Danish man-of-war, with the lady on board, was approaching the coast, he ordered lights and fires along the cliffs of Ulbster, by which the pilots were bewildered, and the ship was dashed in pieces. The princess and her maids of honour, with many of the sailors, were drowned; but her body was found, beautiful in death, with rings on her fingers, and gems in her ears; and she was interred, as became a high-born lady of her breeding, in the vault where she now lies, among the ancestors of Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster; and ever since that time, the Castle of Clyth has been untenanted, and as often as the wind blows from the north-east, it is covered with a shroud as if doing penance for the maiden of Denmark.’

Notwithstanding the pedantry in the Dominie’s language in relating this tradition, the unaffected earnestness with which he expressed himself, moved the compassion of his auditors, and some of the ladies shed tears; which the gentlemen observing, Walkinshaw, to raise their spirits, proposed they should go forward towards Noss-head to view the dreadful turbulency of the breakers. But, before they had approached within half a mile of the promontory, the violence of the gale had increased to such a degree, that they found themselves several times obliged to take refuge in the hollows of the rocks, unable to withstand the fury of the wind, and the lavish showers of spray, that rose in sheets from the waves, and came heavier than rain on the blast.

CHAPTER LXXXIX

In the meantime, the Glasgow party on board Allan M’Lean’s pilot-boat was enjoying their sail and sosherie. Enticed by the beauty of the sunny weather, which had preceded the arrival of our Glengael friends at Wick, they had made a long stretch as far to the north as the Mainland of Shetland, and after enjoying fresh ling and stockfish in the highest perfection there, and laying in a capital assortment of worsted hose for winter, they again weighed anchor, with the intention of returning by the Pentland Firth. Being, however, overtaken by the boisterous weather, which obliged Mr. Frazer and his two recruiting guests to stop at Wick, they went into Kirkwall Bay, where they were so long detained, that the thoughts of business and bills began to deteriorate their pleasure.

To none of the party was the detention so irksome as to Mr. Walkinshaw, for, independent of the cares of his mercantile concerns, his fancy was running on Ellen Frazer, and he was resolved, as soon as he returned to the Clyde, to sound her father with a proposal, to solicit her for his second wife. Why a gentleman, so well advanced in life, should have thought of offering himself as a candidate for a lady’s love, against his nephew, we must leave to be accounted for by those who are able to unravel the principles of the Earl of Caithness’s enmity to his son, particularly as we are in possession of no reasonable theory, adequate to explain how he happened to prefer Ellen Frazer to the numerous beauties of the royal city. It is sufficient for us, as historians, simply to state the fact, and narrate the events to which it gave rise.

Mr. Walkinshaw then, being rendered weary of the Orkneys, and, perhaps, also of the joviality of his companions, by the mingled reflections of business, and the tender intention of speedily taking a second wife, resolved, rather than again incur the uncertainties of the winds and waves, to leave the pilot-boat at Kirkwall, and embark for Thurso, in order to return home over land; a vessel belonging to that port being then wind-bound in the bay. Accordingly, on the same morning that the party from Wick went to visit Girnigo Castle, and the magnificent horrors of Noss-head, he embarked.

For some time after leaving Kirkwall, light airs and summer breezes enabled the sloop in which he had taken his passage to work pleasantly round Moulhead. But before she had passed the spiky rocks and islets of Copinshaw, the master deemed it prudent to stand farther out to sea; for the breeze had freshened, and the waves were dashing themselves into foam on Roseness and the rugged shores of Barra.

The motion of the sloop, notwithstanding the experience which the passenger had gained in the pilot-boat, overwhelmed him with unutterable sickness, and he lay on the deck in such affliction, that he once rashly wished he was drowned. The cabin-boy who attended him was so horror-struck at hearing so profane a wish at sea, while the wind was rising on a lee shore, that he left him to shift for himself.

For some time the master did not think it necessary to shorten sail, but only to stretch out towards the south-east; but, as the sun mounted towards the meridian, the gale so continued to increase, that he not only found it necessary to reef, but in the end to hand almost all his canvas save the foresail. Still, as there were no clouds, no rain, no thunder nor lightning, the sea-sick Glasgow merchant dreamt of no danger.

‘Maybe,’ said the cabin-boy in passing, as the Laird happened to look up from his prostrate situation on the deck, ‘ye’ll get your ugly wish oure soon.’

The regardless manner and serious tone in which this was said had an immediate and restorative effect. Mr. Walkinshaw roused himself, and, looking round, was surprised to see the sails taken in; and, casting his eyes to leeward, beheld, with a strong emotion of consternation, the ocean boiling with tremendous violence, and the spindrift rising like steam.

‘It blows a dreadful gale?’ said he inquiringly to the master.

‘It does,’ was the emphatic reply.

‘I hope there is no danger,’ cried the merchant, alarmed, and drawing himself close under the larboard gunnel.

The master, who was looking anxiously towards Duncansby-head, which presented a stupendous tower of foaming spray, over the starboard bow, replied, —

‘I hope we shall be able to weather Noss-head.’

‘And if we do not,’ said Mr. Walkinshaw, ‘what’s to be done?’

‘You’ll be drowned,’ cried the cabin-boy, who had seated himself on the lee-side of the companion; and the bitterness of the reproachful accent with which this was said stung the proud merchant to the quick – but he said nothing; his fears were, however, now all awake, and he saw, with a feeling of inexpressible alarm, that the crew were looking eagerly and sorrowfully towards the roaring precipices of Caithness.

Still the vessel kept bravely to her helm, and was working slowly outward; but, as she gradually wore round, her broadside became more and more exposed to the sea, and once or twice her decks were washed fore and aft.

‘This is terrible work, Captain,’ said Mr. Walkinshaw.

‘It is,’ was all the answer he received.

‘Is there no port we can bear away for?’

‘None.’

‘Good Heavens! Captain, if this continues till night?’

The master eyed him for a moment, and said with a shudder, —

‘If it does, sir, we shall never see night.’

‘You’ll be drowned,’ added the little boy, casting an angry look from behind the companion.

‘Almighty Powers! – surely we are not in such danger?’ exclaimed the terrified merchant.

‘Hold your tongue,’ again cried the boy.

Mr. Walkinshaw heard him, and for a moment was petrified, for the command was not given with insolence, but solemnity.

A cry of ‘Hold fast’, in the same instant, came from the forecastle, and, after a momentary pause, a dreadful sea broke aboard, and swept the deck. The master, who had himself taken the helm, was washed overboard, and the tiller was broken.

‘We are gone!’ said the little boy, as he shook the water from his jacket, and crawled on towards the mast, at the foot of which he seated himself, for the loss of the tiller, and the damage the rudder had sustained, rendered the vessel unmanageable, and she drifted to her fate before the wind.

‘Is there indeed no hope?’ cried Mr. Walkinshaw to one of the sailors, who was holding by the shrouds.

‘If we get into Sinclair’s Bay, there is a sandy beach,’ replied the sailor.

‘And if we do not?’ exclaimed the passenger in the accent of despair.

‘We’ll a’ be drowned,’ replied the boy with a scowling glance, as he sat cowering with his head between his knees, at the foot of the mast.

‘We shall not get into Sinclair’s Bay,’ said the sailor, firmly; ‘but we may pass Noss-head.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Mr. Walkinshaw, catching something like hope and fortitude from the sedate courage of the sailor.

Another cry of ‘Hold fast’ prepared him for a second breach of the sea, and he threw himself on the deck, and took hold of a ring-bolt, in which situation he continued, though the vessel rose to the wave. In the meantime, the resolute sailor, after looking calmly and collectedly around for some time, went from the larboard to the starboard, and mounted several rattlings of the shrouds, against which he leant with his back, while the vessel was fast driving towards Noss-head.

CHAPTER XC

The party from Glengael, who had, as we have described, been obliged to take refuge from the wind in the lee of the rocks, stood contemplating the scene in silence. The sky was without a cloud – but the atmosphere was nevertheless almost like steam, through which the sun shone so sickly, that, even without hearing the hiss of the wind, or the rage of the ocean, no shelter could have prevented the spectator from being sensible that some extraordinary violence agitated and troubled the whole air. Every shrub and bramble not only bent before the wind, but it may be said their branches literally streamed in the blast. There was a torrent which ran towards the sea, near the spot where the party stood; but the wind caught its waters as they fell in a cataract, and blew them over the face of the hill like a wreath of mist. A few birch trees, that skirted the dell through which this stream ran, brushed the ground before the breeze; and the silver lining of their leaves was so upturned in the constant current of the storm, that they had the appearance of being covered with hoar frost. Not a bee was abroad on the heath, and the sea birds were fluttering and cowering in the lee of the rocks – a bernacle, that attempted to fly from behind a block of granite, was whirled screaming away in the wind, and flung with such resistless impetuosity against the precipice, behind a corner of which the party were sheltering, that it was killed on the spot. The landscape was bright in the hazy sunshine; but the sheep lay in the hollows of the ground, unable to withstand the deluge of the dry tempest that swept all before it, and a wild and lonely lifelessness reigned on the mountains.

The appearance of the sea was awful. It was not because the waves rolled in more tremendous volumes than any of the party had ever before seen, and burst against the iron precipices of Noss-head with the roar and the rage of the falls of Niagara – the whole expanse of the ocean was enveloped with spindrift, and, as it occasionally opened, a vessel was seen. At first it was thought she was steering for the bay of Wick, but it soon appeared that she drifted at random towards Sinclair’s Bay, and could, by nothing less than some miraculous change of the wind, reach the anchorage opposite to Kiess Castle.

Ellen Frazer was the first who spoke of the sloop’s inevitable fate. – ‘It is dreadful,’ said she, ‘for us to stand in safety here, like spectators at a tragedy, and see yon unfortunate bark rushing without hope to destruction. Let us make an attempt to reach the beach – she may be driven on the shore, and we may have it in our power to assist the poor wretches, if any should escape.’

They, accordingly, endeavoured to reach the strand; but before they could wrestle with the wind half-way towards it, they saw that the vessel could not attain Sinclair’s Bay, and that her only chance of salvation was in weathering Noss-head, to which she was fast nearing. They, in consequence, changed their course, and went towards the promontory; but, by the time they had gained the height, they saw it was hopeless to think they could render any assistance, and they halted under the ledge of an overhanging rock, to see if she would be able to weather that dreadful headland.

The place where they took shelter was to the windward of the spray, which rose like a furious cataract against the promontory; and in pyramids of foam, that were seen many leagues off at sea, deluged the land to a great extent far beyond Castle Girnigo. It happened that Ellen Frazer had a small telescope in her hand, which they had brought with them, and, when they were under cover, she applied it to her eye.

‘The sailors,’ said she, ‘seem to have abandoned themselves to despair – I see two prostrate on the deck. There is one standing on the shrouds, as if he hopes to be able to leap on the rocks when she strikes. The dog is on the end of the bowsprit – I can look at them no more.’

She then handed the telescope to Mary, and, retiring to a little distance, seated herself on a stone, and, covering her face with her handkerchief, could no longer control her tears. The vessel, in the meantime, was fast drifting towards the rocks, with her broadside to the wave.

‘I think,’ said Mary, ‘that she must have lost her helm; nobody is near where it should be. – They have no hope. – One of the men, who had thrown himself on the deck, is risen. He is tying himself to the shrouds. – There is a boy at the foot of the mast, sitting cowering on the deck, holding his head between his hands.’

Walkinshaw, without speaking, took the telescope from his sister, who went and sat down in silence beside Ellen. By this time, the vessel had drifted so near, that everything on her deck was distinct to the naked eye.

‘The person on the deck,’ said Walkinshaw, after looking through the glass about the space of a minute, ‘is not a sailor – he has long clothes, and has the appearance of a gentleman, probably a passenger. That poor little boy! – he is evidently covering his ears, as if he could shut out the noise of the roaring death that awaits him. What a brave and noble fellow that is on the shrouds, – if coolness and courage can save, he is safe.’

At this moment, a shriek from Mary roused Ellen, and they both ran to the spot where Walkinshaw was standing. A tremendous wave had covered the vessel, as it were, with a winding-sheet of foam, and before it cleared away, she was among the breakers that raged against the headland.

‘She is gone!’ said Walkinshaw, and he took his sister and Ellen by the hands. – ‘Let us leave these horrors.’ But the ladies trembled so much, that they were unable to walk; and Ellen became so faint, that she was obliged to sit down on the ground, while her lover ran with his hat to find, if possible, a little fresh water to revive her. He had not, however, been absent many minutes, when another shriek from his sister called him back, and, on returning, he found that a large dog, dripping wet, and whimpering and moaning, had laid himself at the feet of the ladies with a look of the most piteous and helpless expression. It was the dog they had seen on the bowsprit of the vessel, and they had no doubt her fate was consummated; but three successive enormous billows coming, with all the force of the German Ocean, from the Baltic, rolled into the bay. The roar with which they broke as they hurled by the cliff, where the party were standing, drew the attention of Walkinshaw even from Ellen; and, to his surprise, he saw that the waves had, in their sweep, drawn the vessel into the bay, and that she was coming driving along the side of the precipice, and, if not dashed in pieces before, would pass within a few yards of where they stood. Her bowsprit was carried away, which showed how narrowly she had already escaped destruction.

The ladies, roused again into eager and anxious sympathy by this new incident, approached with Walkinshaw as near as possible to the brink of the cliff – to the very edge of which the raging waters raised their foamy crests as they passed in their might and majesty from the headland into the bay. Another awful wave was soon after seen rising at a distance, and, as it came rolling onward nearer and nearer, it swallowed up every lesser billow. When it approached the vessel, it swept her along so closely to the rocks that Walkinshaw shouted unconsciously, and the dog ran barking to the edge of the precipice, – all on board were for a moment animated with fresh energy, – the little boy stood erect; and the sailor on the shrouds, seeing Walkinshaw and the ladies, cried bravely, as the vessel rose on the swell in passing, ‘It will not do yet.’ But the attention of his admiring spectators was suddenly drawn from him to the gentleman. ‘Good Heavens!’ exclaimed Ellen Frazer, ‘it is your uncle!’

It was even so. Mr. Walkinshaw, on raising his head to look up, saw and recognized them, and, wildly starting from the deck, shook his uplifted hands with a hideous and terrific frenzy. This scene was, however, but for an instant; the flank of the wave, as it bore the vessel along, broke against a projecting rock, and she was wheeled away by the revulsion to a great distance.

The sailor in the shrouds still stood firm; a second wave, more appalling than the former, brought the vessel again towards the cliff. The dog, anticipating what would happen, ran towards the spot where she was likely to strike. The surge swung her almost to the top of the precipice, – the sailor leapt from the shrouds, and caught hold of a projecting rock, – the dog seized him by the jacket to assist him up, but the ravenous sea was not to lose its prey. – In the same moment the wave broke, and the vessel was again tossed away from the rock, and a frightful dash of the breakers tore down the sailor and the faithful dog. Another tremendous revulsion, almost in the same moment, terminated the fate of the vessel. As it came roaring along it caught her by the broadside, and dashed her into ten thousand shivers against an angle of the promontory, scarcely more than two hundred yards from the spot where the horror-struck spectators stood. Had she been made of glass, her destruction and fragments could not have been greater. They floated like chaff on the waters; and, for the space of four or five seconds, the foam amidst which they weltered was coloured in several places with blood.