Robert Fittis - The Mosstrooper - A Legend of the Scottish Border

Eustace, brought up amid the warlike turmoils of the Border, was trained, like other youths, to the use of arms, and occasionally bore his part in the field as Elliot’s squire. In one desperate fray his daring saved the knight from slaughter, a gallant achievement which gained him the latter’s highest regard. This was as gall and wormwood to Dame Anne. In a fit of ungovernable spleen, she told her daughters that the young hero was nothing better than a nameless foundling who had been thrown upon the charity of Hawksglen. She entrusted them with this startling knowledge as with a profound secret, which they were not to disclose to any without her express permission, for fear of drawing down upon her and them their father’s displeasure. Probably the lady hoped that the revelation to her daughters would destroy the attachment betwixt Eleanor and Eustace, which, if allowed to exist, might result in love. Inconsiderate woman! she had no idea that she was taking the very step to thwart her own purpose. Catherine acted upon her mother’s counsels, in holding Eustace in undisguised indifference. But with Eleanor it was otherwise. To tell her that Eustace was the son of misfortune, cast upon strangers in his helpless infancy, was but to give new life to the affection for him which had grown in her mind.

Until about the age of one-and-twenty Eustace continued ignorant of the all-important secret, although distressing suspicions had long haunted his thoughts. But as intimacy betwixt him and Eleanor seemed, in the watchful lady’s eyes, to increase, she dared again to break her husband’s injunction. One day, when Sir James was absent from Hawksglen attending a Warden’s Court, Eustace chanced to give the lady some offence, and appeared to treat her rebuke lightly, in revenge for which she told him the secret, adding that his unknown parentage was doubtless base, and that his position in the Castle should be that of the humblest menial. He had long anticipated something like this: yet the final disclosure came upon him like a thunderbolt, and he felt himself humiliated in the dust. He saw that the current of his life must now inevitably turn into another channel, and that his days at Hawksglen were thenceforth numbered. The world was wide, and he would seek his fortune.

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