Chapter 8

The hearth in hall was black and dead,
No board was dight in bower within,
Nor merry bowl nor welcome bed;
"Here's sorry cheer," quoth the Heir of Linne.

Old Ballad

THE feelings of the prodigal Heir of Linne, as expressed in that
excellent old song, when, after dissipating his whole fortune, he found
himself the deserted inhabitant of "the lonely lodge," might perhaps
have some resemblance to those of the Master of Ravenswood in his
deserted mansion of Wolf's Crag. The Master, however, had this advantage
over the spendthrift in the legend, that, if he was in similar distress,
he could not impute it to his own imprudence. His misery had been
bequeathed to him by his father, and, joined to his high blood, and to
a title which the courteous might give or the churlish withhold at their
pleasure, it was the whole inheritance he had derived from his ancestry.
Perhaps this melancholy yet consolatory reflection crossed the mind of
the unfortunate young nobleman with a breathing of comfort. Favourable
to calm reflection, as well as to the Muses, the morning, while it
dispelled the shades of night, had a composing and sedative effect upon
the stormy passions by which the Master of Ravenswood had been agitated
on the preceding day. He now felt himself able to analyse the different
feelings by which he was agitated, and much resolved to combat and
to subdue them. The morning, which had arisen calm and bright, gave a
pleasant effect even to the waste moorland view which was seen from the
castle on looking to the landward; and the glorious ocean, crisped with
a thousand rippling waves of silver, extended on the other side, in
awful yet complacent majesty, to the verge of the horizon. With such
scenes of calm sublimity the human heart sympathises even in its most
disturbed moods, and deeds of honour and virtue are inspired by their
majestic influence. To seek out Bucklaw in the retreat which he had
afforded him, was the first occupation of the Master, after he had
performed, with a scrutiny unusually severe, the important task of
self-examination. "How now, Bucklaw?" was his morning's salutation--"how
like you the couch in which the exiled Earl of Angus once slept
in security, when he was pursued by the full energy of a king's
resentment?"

"Umph!" returned the sleeper awakened; "I have little to complain of
where so great a man was quartered before me, only the mattress was of
the hardest, the vault somewhat damp, the rats rather more mutinous than
I would have expected from the state of Caleb's larder; and if there had
been shutters to that grated window, or a curtain to the bed, I should
think it, upon the whole, an improvement in your