Chapter 5

Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.

SHAKESPEARE

THE Lord Keeper walked for nearly a quarter of a mile in profound
silence. His daughter, naturally timid, and bred up in those ideas of
filial awe and implicit obedience which were inculcated upon the youth
of that period, did not venture to interrupt his meditations.

"Why do you look so pale, Lucy?" said her father, turning suddenly round
and breaking silence.

According to the ideas of the time, which did not permit a young woman
to offer her sentiments on any subject of importance unless required to
do so, Lucy was bound to appear ignorant of the meaning of all that
had passed betwixt Alice and her father, and imputed the emotion he had
observed to the fear of the wild cattle which grazed in that part of the
extensive chase through which they were now walking.

Of these animals, the descendants of the savage herds which anciently
roamed free in the Caledonian forests, it was formerly a point of
state to preserve a few in the parks of the Scottish nobility. Specimens
continued within the memory of man to be kept at least at three houses
of distinction--Hamilton, namely, Drumlanrig, and Cumbernauld. They had
degenerated from the ancient race in size and strength, if we are to
judge from the accounts of old chronicles, and from the formidable
remains frequently discovered in bogs and morasses when drained and laid
open. The bull had lost the shaggy honours of his mane, and the race was
small and light made, in colour a dingy white, or rather a pale yellow,
with black horns and hoofs. They retained, however, in some measure,
the ferocity of their ancestry, could not be domesticated on account
of their antipathy to the human race, and were often dangerous if
approached unguardedly, or wantonly disturbed. It was this last reason
which has occasioned their being extirpated at the places we have
mentioned, where probably they would otherwise have been retained as
appropriate inhabitants of a Scottish woodland, and fit tenants for
a baronial forest. A few, if I mistake not, are still preserved
at Chillingham Castle, in Northumberland, the seat of the Earl of
Tankerville.

It was to her finding herself in the vicinity of a group of three or
four of these animals, that Lucy thought proper to impute those signs of
fear which had arisen in her countenance for a different reason. For she
had been familiarised with the appearance of the wil cattle during her
walks in the chase; and it was not then, as it may be now, a necessary
part of a young lady's demeanour to indulge in causeless tremors of the
nerves. On the present occasion, however, she speedily found cause for
real terror.

Lucy had