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But I pray you keep it still, unless you would give to dusty death your very best cousin and trusty guardian, Alan Brandir of Loch Awe." "You my guardian!" I said, for the idea was too ludicrous; and ludicrous things always strike me first, through some fault of nature. "I have in truth that honour, madam," he answered, with a sweeping bow; "unless I err in taking you for Mistress Lorna Doone."
Now, keeping well away in the dark, yet nearer than was necessary to my own dear Lorna's room, I saw these fellows try the door of the good Earl Brandir, knowing from the maid, of course, that his lordship could hear nothing, except the name of Alan. They tried the lock, and pushed at it, and even set their knees upright; but a Scottish nobleman may be trusted to secure his door at night.
From this outlet there is a continual descent towards Loch Eitive, and from hence the river Awe pours out its current in a furious stream, foaming over a bed broken with holes, and cumbered with masses of granite and whinstone. "If ever there was a bridge near Craiganuni in ancient times, it must have been at the Rocks of Brandir.
I am to grow more beautiful, and more highly taught, and graceful; until it pleases Alan to come back, and demand me. Can you understand this matter, John? Or do you think my uncle mad? 'Lorna, I should be mad myself, to call any other man mad, for hoping. 'Then will you tell me what to do? It makes me very sorrowful. For I know that Alan Brandir lies below the sod in Doone-valley.
But Loch Awe of to-day and of the future is as modern and practical as the sea-lochs that open upon the Clyde. On my first visit in 1852 there was neither steamer nor sailing-boat; now there are fourteen steamers on the lake, four of them public, and the railway trains pass round the skirts of Cruachan and rush through the Brandir Pass.
He had summoned first the good Earl Brandir, and received the tale from him, not without exaggeration, although my lord was a Scotchman. But the chief thing His Majesty cared to know was that, beyond all possible doubt, these were the very precious fellows from perjury turned to robbery.
For the Countess of Dugal was daughter, and only child, of the last Lord Lorne, whose sister had married Sir Ensor Doone; while he himself had married the sister of Earl Brandir. This nobleman had a country house near the village of Kensington; and here his niece dwelled with him, when she was not in attendance on Her Majesty the Queen, who had taken a liking to her.
But the youth before me waved his rolled tobacco at it, and drawled in his daintiest tone and manner, "'The sky is having a smoke, I see, and dropping sparks, and grumbling. I should have thought these Exmoor hills too small to gather thunder. "'I cannot go, I will not go with you, Lord Alan Brandir, I answered, being vexed a little by those words of his.
It was good to save Earl Brandir, a loyal and Catholic nobleman; but it was great service to catch two of the vilest bloodhounds ever laid on by heretics. And to make them shoot one another: it was rare; it was rare, my lad. Now ask us anything in reason; thou canst carry any honours, on thy club, like Hercules. What is thy chief ambition, lad?
The other way in which I managed to help the good Earl Brandir was of less true moment to him; but as he could not know of the first, this was the one which moved him. The good Earl Brandir was a man of the noblest charity. True charity begins at home, and so did his; and was afraid of losing the way, if it went abroad.
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