"I dinna like the cries o' thae birds ava--they aye bode ill," he said. "Nae doubt they think to pyke our banes belyve. Shue! shue! ye evil emissaries! Our Lady help us! was yon a groan? Heard you naething, master?"
"It sounded like the fall of a fragment of rock from yonder cliff," answered Ruthven, with indifference.
Harthill shook his head, as if dubious of the explanation. His mind engrained with superstitious frailty, he began to hear uncanny sounds all around him. Every sough of the wind among the brackens was a dread presage. Hurrying his steps, he frequently left Ruthven in the rear; and to every half-jocular remonstrance of the youth, whose strength of limb was fast failing, Willie had but one apology:--
"It's a bogley part this after dark. I've heard as mony stories aboot ugsome sichts seen here as there's teeth in my head. I wadna put ower a nicht here, no for the crown o' Scotland. Haste you, master, haste you! It's for your ain gude."
Without doubt he meant well. But Ruthven flagged more and more, and, after climbing a grassy eminence, which was surmounted by the ruins of a place of strength, he protested that, happen what might, he would go no farther.
"You're in jest, master?" cried Harthill, scratching the side of his head in sheer vexation.
"We can rest here till daylight," replied Ruthven. "The place is lone, and therefore safe."
"Safe?" echoed Willie, with somewhat of asperity. "If we be sae daft as to rest here, we may ne'er see daylicht. Be advised, master, be advised."
Ruthven, however, was not to be advised. He advanced towards the ruin. The gaberlunzie followed with laggard pace, and shrank back when an owl started out, and, hooting dolefully, flew over their heads.
"There's a warning!" ejaculated Willie. "The place is fu' o' uncanny things. Come back, for ony sake."
But Ruthven still advanced. The ruin, in its palmy days, had consisted of a massive square tower of two storeys above the ground floor, with battlemented roof, and surrounded by an outer wall, which was now broken down to heaps of rubbish, overgrown with coarse vegetation. The roof had fallen in, and so had both floors, leaving only a shell of crumbling, grim walls: the courtyard was miry: and the arched portal preserved no vestige of the iron-bound door which had once barred passage. As Ruthven was about to pass inward, he was stayed for a moment by the almost hysterical entreaties of his companion, who now assumed a tone of wailing.