Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 85, January, 1875

"Do you know, Miss Ormiston," said Mrs. Parker, "one of the buildings they said had such a fine effect put me in mind of a trunk studded with brass nails—the initials of the happy pair in gas-jets looked like the name of the owner of the trunk. All the time I was on the street I could not get that notion out of my head; and I was sorry, for I am sure it cost a great deal of money to light it up, and I really wished to think it grand."

"We were all in town that night," said John Ormiston—"papa and mamma, and the whole of us, and Mr. Forrester, who made eight."

"I thought it a beautiful sight," said Bessie.

"I never enjoyed anything more in my life," said Mr. Forrester, who on that occasion had been Miss Ormiston's escort through the streets, in which they lost their party, and had the supreme bliss of wandering together in the crowd, when Mr. Forrester almost forgot that Miss Ormiston was a goddess with five thousand earthly charms, and Miss Ormiston had compared his merits as a guide and protector with those of her brothers, and found he was much more considerate, and made her wish law, which they were often far from doing. In point of fact, a thaw had been very imminent, but, alas! since then a sharp frost had set in between them, as unaccountably as frosts frequently do set in.

"I think, now," said Mrs. Parker, "a fine old castle like this ought to have had a grander name: don't you think so, Miss Ormiston?"

"Yes, I do, and it had, originally. There was a monastery here at one time, over in that field with the trees in the corner of it: it was called the abbey of Cakeholy, and when the castle was built it got the name of Cakeholy Castle, after the abbey. The name Cakeholy, tradition says, arose from the fact that an extraordinary saint, whose wants had been relieved at the monastery, blessed all the bread that should ever be baked there, and the bread ever after had a great sustaining power in it; so that pilgrims from Edinburgh and the North, going to the southern shrines, all passed this way to get themselves supplied with the holy cakes. At the Reformation the abbey was destroyed, and became a ruin haunted by owls, so that, partly in derision and partly as suiting the altered circumstances, the common people corrupted the name into Cockhoolet; and in process of time it was given to the castle also, and stuck to it. That is the history of a name which is certainly neither romantic, nor high-sounding."

"How interesting!" said Mrs. Parker. "If I were you, I would go back to the old name: there is a reverence about it there is not about the other. Only think of bands of pilgrims coming across the moor there!"

"Yes, in their gowns and rope girdles, with wallets and scallop-shells," said Bessie. "It must have been a curious old world then: one could sit here and muse by the hour on all that has come and gone. I often bring up my work or my book here in summer and think of it."

"I do like old things," said Mrs. Parker, "and old families and old names. Our name, for instance, has no smack of age about it, and it is so short and perky: it must have been given to some one who had to do with parks."

"But parks may be a very old institution," said Bessie, "if we looked into the thing, though not so old as Forrester: that is an ancient name," glancing at Edwin, who was leaning against a sentry-box listening and watching the sun putting out the lights in his bed-chamber; "yet not nearly so ancient as Ormiston. I always feel it is fitting we should live in an old castle, we are so ancient ourselves."

"Are we?" said John: "I never knew that before."

"Ormiston," she said, "is perhaps as pure a Saxon word as now exists. It was during the Roman invasion our ancestor led an army through a dense mist against the invaders: just as he came up with them the sun shone out and the mist. The legions were taken by surprise, for the advancing enemy had been hidden by the mist, and they were utterly routed. The Saxon king—"

"What was his name?" asked John.

"John," she said, "don't seek to be wise above what is revealed. The king called our ancestor to the front and made him earl of Ormiston on the spot—'Gold-Mist-on;' that is, 'Be ever in the van;' and a proud race were the earls of Ormiston, and well they answered to the name. But their fortunes waned when the modern upstart, the Norman William, laid his greedy hands on everything for himself and his mob of pirates, and at present we are only middle-class people, but our blood must be the bluest of the blue."

"Mine must be as blue," said Edwin, "for the Forresters came in with the trees, and the trees were early settlers."

"But the mists were first by a very long time," answered Bessie.

"I don't believe that story," said John. "I have read about the Cakeholy business somewhere, but you have made that Or-Mist-on affair out of your own head: isn't that true, Bessie?"

"I am not bound to answer unbelievers, John."

"Besides," said John, "Ormiston is far; liker French than Saxon."

"Mr. Parker," said Bessie, "there was an abbot John of Cakeholy who flourished in the thirteenth century: his ghost is said to revisit its old habitation, or rather the place where it stood. I should like to meet it and have a talk over things; it would be very interesting."

"Would you not be terrified?" asked Mrs. Parker.

"If I saw what I believed to be a ghost, I should die of terror," said Bessie; "especially if I was alone and it was the dead of night; but I have no faith whatever in ghosts."

"It is getting rather chilly," said Mrs. Parker.

"Perhaps we had better go down now, then," Miss Ormiston said. "Mr. Forrester, would you come out of your brown study and let us pass?"

"Certainly. I'll see you all safe off the battlements. I wasn't in a brown study: I was in a mist."

"Then take care: people in a mist always think they are going the right way when they are going directly wrong."

"If I only knew the right way!" he said.

"That's true, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker. "If we only knew the right way; and people tell you to be guided by Providence, but I say I never know when it is Providence and when it is myself;" and she threaded her way down the narrow stairs, followed by the rest of the party.

III

The dining-room, with its low roof, its crimson walls, dark furniture and handsome fire (the fires at Cockhoolet were always handsome: Bessie was the architect and superintended the building herself; they never looked harum-scarum nor meaningless nor thoughtless, nor as if they were not meant to burn; they combined taste, comfort, and, as a consequence, economy; everything tasteful and comfortable is in the long run economical), its table-cloth, glistening like the summit of the Alps and laden with good things, looked a place where people even not in love with each other might, unless naturally perverse, be very happy.

Mrs. Parker, being from town, was in raptures with every country eatable, especially the scones, which she found were manufactured by Miss Ormiston herself.

"And have they," asked Mr. Parker, "the sustaining power that the cakes made here of old had?"

"If you eat enough of them you may get to Edinburgh to-night before you are very hungry," said John.

"The abbey cakes were unleavened," Bessie explained, "which these are not, so that they are less substantial fare."

"What do you raise them with?" asked Mrs. Parker.

"Butter, milk and carbonate of soda," said Miss Ormiston.

"We call Bessie a doctor of the Carbon," said John: "she makes very good scones, although you would hardly go from here to Canterbury on the strength of one of them."

"Mr. Forrester, are you dull?" asked Jessie: "you are not saying anything."

"I am too busy eating the holy cakes, Jessie," said Edwin: "your sister is a master in her art."

"I say," Jessie went on, "are you ever dull at home? When I told Bessie that you had come she was surprised, and said that you must surely be dull at home. I am sorry for you if you are: you should come here oftener—we are never dull here."

"Perhaps," said Edwin, "your sister thinks I come too often, as it is."

Bessie was so deeply engaged pressing Mr. Parker to eat strawberry jam, with cheeks the color of the fruit, that of course she could not have heard what her sister had been saying.

"Oh no, I don't think she thinks that at all," Jessie said: "we never think any one can come too often. Bessie, can Mr. Forrester come too often?"

But still Miss Ormiston was so occupied with Mr. Parker that she did not hear.

And Mrs. Parker said, "It is a most intensely interesting old place, this: do not people come to look at it?"

"Oh yes," replied Bessie, "especially in summer: we generally have several parties every week. One of the servants takes them over the castle—grand people often, with carriages and livery servants."

"Do you not keep a book for them to write their names in?"

"No, we have never done that."

"I would do it if I were you: it would be interesting to know who comes and how many. Why, very remarkable people may have been here without your knowing."

"I doubt we are not sufficiently alive to our privileges," Bessie said.

"It's fine moonlight," said the boys, who, seeing that they and every one had ceased eating, were impatient to be out again. "Come, Mr. Parker, we'll show you the echo: Mr. Forrester, come."

"I'll go too," said Mrs. Parker; and they all went but the Rose, who stayed behind for a little to direct about household matters.

The echo was a favorite with the boys, it gave such unlimited scope to their powers of shouting: it was the sight they most enjoyed exhibiting to strangers. And it was an echo that could repeat every word of a sentence with such perfection that it was difficult to believe that it was not a human being shouting back from the other side of the park, where stood some houses inhabited by the farm-servants and their families.

"Hallo, Abbot John! is that you?" shouted one of the boys, and the other cried, "Yes, I'm taking a walk," so quickly that the one sentence seemed the answer to the other, and both came back loud and distinct on the still night-air.

"Are the Ormistons ancient? It's all fudge," shouted John.

"Well," said Mr. Parker, "that's the most perfect echo I ever heard. I've no doubt the holy fathers of the Middle Ages knew of it, and used it in some shape to keep the superstitious people in awe."

"It is awesome," said his wife, "here in the moonlight, with the old castle so near: if I were alone, positively I should feel eerie."

"Are you dull at home, Mr. Forrester?" was sent out from the depths of Will's chest, and sent back again just as Bessie came out and joined the party.

"Boys! boys!" she said, "don't be foolish."

"Why, it was what you said yourself," her sister remarked.

"Are you ever dull?" the lad shouted again.

"Often," answered Edwin, and "Often" came back instantly.

"In that case, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker, "why don't you get a wife? There's no company for a young man like a good wife. Here's Miss Ormiston; I don't think you could do better."

Think of the delicate wound of these young people being thus openly probed in broad moonlight in the presence of so many people! What could Mrs. Parker be thinking of? Not of her own love-passages surely, or, if she was, they must have been of a blunter order than those of the Rose and her lover.

"Oh no," said Bessie in cool, indifferent tones: "Mr. Forrester knows better than that."

"There!" said Edwin, "you see, Mrs. Parker, I have been refused."

"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" said Mrs. Parker.

The boys hallooed this sentiment to the echo, and the echo took it up and sent it back so vigorously that even a timid man might have been inspired. "Mary Stuart," "Henry Darnley," "James Bothwell," the lads went on calling to the echo alternately—names which are not mere echoes even after three hundred years, but live on by sheer force of tragic romance. And it was possible that here, on this very spot, that historical trio had stood and laughed and talked and amused themselves as the young Ormistons and their visitors were doing. What words had they used to rouse the echo? If only it could be made to give them back now, what a wonderful echo it would be! The world would come to listen to it. Would it tell of the passions of love and ambition, grief and hatred, all hurrying their victims to their doom? or was the place sacred only to gentler memories and softer moods—the scene of enjoyment and freedom from care for however short a time? Who can tell?

There was a woman in the village of Cockhoolet who was ninety-eight years old, having all her faculties not perhaps quite so fresh as when she was nineteen, but in wonderful preservation after having been in daily use for little short of a century. She was one of a long-lived race: her father had been eighty-nine when he died, and her grandfather ninety-nine. Now, it is perfectly possible—and, as the family had been on the spot for centuries, it is even probable—that her great-grandfather might have dug the hole in which Mary planted her tree, or he may have saddled the queen's horse when she went hunting, or stood by the roadside and lifted his bonnet as she and her gay train swept by. Or he may have been despatched upon royal errands through the subterranean passage which is said to exist all the way between Cockhoolet Castle and Edinburgh—the private telegraph of those days, when wires in the air or under the sea by which to send messages would have cost the inventors their lives as guilty of witchcraft. While shaking hands with this old woman and speaking to her, you lost sight of her and the present time and felt the air of the sixteenth century blow in your face. Mary came up before you in moving habit as she lived—the young Mary who caught all hearts, not heartless herself, and laid hold of mere straws to save herself as she drifted desperately with circumstances; not the woman who has been painted as an actor from first to last, as coming forth draped for effect at the very closing scene,—not that woman, but the girlish queen who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a kingdom while she could.

IV

"They are a nice family, those Ormistons," said Mr. Parker to his wife as they drove to the railway-station in the moonlight.

"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. I hope he and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for them."

"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is always better to let things of that kind alone."

"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is all that is needed, it is a pity not to give it."

"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not what you intended, I fancy?"

"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all that."

"Well, we have had an uncommonly pleasant visit: I only wish the heads of the house had been at home."

Either the attachment of this pair must have been pretty evident to ordinary capacities, or Mrs. Parker must have been of a matchmaking turn of mind; probably the latter, for Bessie at least was sure that no mortal guessed her secret; which was a great comfort to her, seeing that Edwin was so indifferent. Alas! there is no rose without a thorn, or if there is it is a scentless, useless thing, most likely incapable of giving either pleasure or pain.

The Parkers had left early. When the young people went in-doors again it was only seven o'clock: the girls proposed a game at hide-and-seek, and Bessie seconded the proposal; for you see it would have been rather a formidable business to sit down and entertain Mr. Forrester all the evening with conversation, rational or otherwise; and although at the moment she was in the dignified position of lady of the castle, she could not the less enjoy a game amazingly.

The theatre of operations was wisely restricted, because if they had gone all over the castle they might have hidden themselves so that the game would have been endless; therefore they kept to the under part of the inhabited region. At length, tiring of this, they changed their game to blindman's buff, and went to the kitchen to play it, there being more room and fewer obstacles there; besides that, it was empty of tenants at the time, the servants having gone to see some of the neighbors.

It was a curious old kitchen, with a very low roof, and having a fireplace in a big semicircular stone recess. Many a boar's head had revolved there, and many a venison pasty had sent forth its fragrance to greet the tired hunters returning from the chase. The fire glowed in its deep recess like the eye of an old-world monster in a cavern, till one of the boys seized the poker and made it flame up, throwing its blaze out as far as it could for its walls, and making the kitchen and the group standing in it like a picture by Rembrandt.

"Who's to be blind man first?" cried the girls.

"Edwin: that will be the best fun," the boys said.

"Very well, I sha'n't be long blind," said Edwin: "I shall soon catch some of you. Who'll tie the handkerchief?"

"Bessie: she always ties it. Go and kneel to her, and she'll tie it so that you won't see."

What must Mr. Forrester have felt while being blinded by the Rose? Only, he had long been accustomed to be if not blinded, at least dazed, by her. The boys led him into the middle of the floor and dispersed themselves into corners. While he stood in the attitude of listening intently, he was conscious of a very gentle movement near him, and instantly closed his arms round it, as he thought, and encountered empty air, while with a shout of laughter the children cried, "Bessie was too quick for you. There, quick! quick! Edwin!" He sprang to the corner the voices came from, and the boys rushed along the wall to avoid his arms spread out to catch them, when suddenly the doorbell rang.

At the sound Edwin put up his hand to take off the handkerchief, but the boys cried, "Don't take it off: if it's any one, Bessie can speak to them in the dining-room: we don't need to stop our game."

They were not aware that to Mr. Forrester the game without Bessie was like Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out.

"Yes," said Bessie, "just go on, and I'll see who is at the door." As she left the kitchen she honored Mr. Forrester with a good long look: people can feel so much at ease looking at a blind person.

The door was chained for greater security, and Bessie did not take off the chain: she merely opened the door as far as it would open, but seeing no one, she opened it fully and went out on the steps; still she saw no person, although she thought whoever rang the bell had not had time to get out of sight. Waiting a little without result, she went back to the kitchen.

"Who was it?" cried the children.

"No one," she said.

"But the bell rang," said John.

"Of course it did," Will corroborated.

"And somebody must have rung it," John said.

"Some one for a trick, I suppose," Bessie said, "although I don't know how he disappeared so fast."

Without further remark the game was resumed. Edwin had caught John, and John had caught Bessie, and when he was putting the handkerchief round her eyes Mr. Forrester said, "You are making it far too tight, John: you are hurting your sister."

"No fear," said John: "none of us have soft heads here. Is it too tight, Bessie?"

"Rather, but I can bear it: go on."

"I'll slacken it first," Edwin said.

"Thank you, that will do. Now move off or I'll catch you." She went very vigorously to work, and sent them all flying round the kitchen, when the bell rang, and rang loudly, again.

John darted to the door and flung it wide, sure that he would see the person who rang it, whether running away or not; but there was no one, and the whole party followed him out, and they surveyed round and round, but all was still and quiet and vacant, the moonlight making it impossible that any figure should be there without being seen.

Now, if you lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary street in an ordinary town, an incident like this would create no surprise. It happens often: true, it is not a very new or bright joke, still it is a joke that boys and girls enjoy, and will continue to enjoy. But away in the country, at an old castle, with no house within a quarter of a mile of it, the case is very different. How was it to be accounted for?

The Ormistons came in, the girls looking scared, and the boys laughing and saying that Mary Stuart or Darnley or Bothwell, whose names they had made so free with shouting to the echo, must have heard themselves called and were ringing the bell, although not allowed to show themselves; but even as they said it the boys would fain have whistled to keep their courage up.

"I wish papa and mamma had been at home," said Bell.

"Or if only the Parkers could have been persuaded to stay all night," suggested Jessie.

"Nonsense!" Bessie said. "Some one is playing us a trick, but we don't need to let it spoil our game;" and she put the handkerchief over her eyes. "Look here, Edwin: will you tie this? You do it better than John."

"He doesn't," said John. "I believe he leaves it so that you can see. I'll do it. No, I won't make it too tight."

"Don't you think, Jessie," Edwin asked, "that I could protect you, in case of danger, as well as the Parkers?"

"I don't know. Perhaps if you were like yourself, but you're not like yourself."

"He's as dull as ditch-water," said John.

"But," said Jessie, taking his hand with a feeling of security, "you're better than nothing—a great deal better than nothing."

"Thank you, Jessie, thank you! A man is the better for a little encouragement, you know;" and he looked at the Rose, but she was blind; which made her easier looked at, to be sure, but there was less chance of an answer, encouraging or otherwise.

They had got up the spirit of the game again, and were going on briskly, when they were all brought to a stand by the bell ringing for the third time.

"Don't stop," cried Bessie: "go on with the game and take no notice unless it rings again;" and as a leader who must show no fear she chased her sisters round the kitchen, making them flee to avoid being caught, when, as if in answer to her remark, the bell did ring again.

This was too much. They all ran to the door, but neither human being nor ghost was to be seen.

"I say," said John to his brother, "you and I will go out and watch. Edwin, you'll stay with the girls—they are frightened—and if the bell rings again we'll see who does it."

"You have more need of Edwin than we have, John," Bessie said: "it will take you all to catch a ghost."

"Come away, then," cried John; and he posted his sentinels at different angles, where each could have his eye on the door. The girls shut themselves in the house, and outside and in they awaited the result.

There was no result.

Ordinary sentinels can pace to and fro to make the moments go more quickly, but Edwin and John and William were compelled to stand without speech or motion, as to betray their presence would have been to defeat their purpose. At the end of half an hour their patience was worn out, and they came to the conclusion that whoever was playing the trick knew that they were watching; so they went in, and hardly were they in and the door shut when the bell rang again.

John rushed from the kitchen, whither he had gone for something, but the others, being in the dining-room and nearer the door, reached it before him; and again nothing was to be seen but the still calm night, in which hung the moon with all her accustomed unimpassioned serenity. What cared she for ghosts? Perhaps she is only a ghost herself, else why, with all her pale quiet ways, does she never turn round and show herself thoroughly? No doubt she has reasons of her own, whether they are good or not: her sex is apt to be both capricious and persistent—two qualities which she possesses in perfection.

The Ormistons and Edwin stood out on the broad walk before the door, none of them feeling very comfortable, if the truth must be told, but none of them showing their feelings except Bell and Jessie, who openly declared that they were very much frightened.

"Nonsense!" said Bessie. "Who is going to be frightened at a silly trick?"

"But it may be somebody wanting to get in to do us harm—kill us perhaps," suggested Bell.