CHAPTER XI CONCERNS THE WHISPERS

What had startled Gabrielle was certainly extraordinary and decidedly uncanny. She was standing near the southern wall, when, of a sudden, she heard low but distinct whispers. Again she listened. Yes. The sounds were not due to her excited imagination at the recollection of those romantic traditions of love and hatred, or of those gruesome stories of how the Wolf of Badenoch had been kept prisoner there for five years and put to frightful tortures, or how the Laird of Weem was deliberately poisoned in that old banqueting-hall, the huge open fireplace of which still existed near where she stood.

There was the distinct sound of low, whispered words! She held her breath to listen. She tried to distinguish what the words were, but in vain. Then she endeavoured to determine whence they emanated, but was unable to do so. Again they sounded—again—and yet again. Then there was another voice, still low, still whispering, but not quite so deep as the first. It sounded like a woman's.

Local tradition had it that the place held the ghosts of those who had died in agony within its noisome dungeons; but she had always been far too matter-of-fact to accept stories of the supernatural. Yet at that moment her ears did not deceive her. That pile of grim, gaunt ruins was a House of Whispers!

Again she listened, never moving a muscle. An owl hooted weirdly in the ivy far above her, while near, at her feet, a rabbit scuttled away through the grass. Such noises she was used to. She knew every night-sound of the country-side; for when she had finished her work in the library she often went, unknown to the household, with Stewart upon his nocturnal rounds, and walked miles through the woods in the night. The grey-eyed, thin-nosed head-keeper was her particular favourite. He knew so much of natural history, and he taught her all he knew. She could distinguish the cries of birds in the night, and could tell by certain sounds made by them, as they were disturbed, that no other intruders were in the vicinity. But that weird whispering, coming as it did from an undiscovered source, was inhuman and utterly uncanny.

Was it possible that her ears had deceived her? Was it one of the omens believed in by the superstitious? The wall whence the voices appeared to emanate was, she knew, about seven feet thick—an outer wall of the old keep. She was aware of this because in one of the folio tomes in the library was a picture of the castle as it appeared in 1510, taken from some manuscript of that period preserved in the British Museum. She, who had explored the ruins dozens of times, knew well that at the point where she was standing there could be no place of concealment. Beyond that wall, the hill, covered with bushes and brushwood, descended sheer for three hundred feet or so to the bottom of the glen. Had the voices sounded from one or other of the half-choked chambers which remained more or less intact she would not have been so puzzled; but, as it was, the weird whisperings seemed to come forth from space. Sometimes they sounded so low that she could scarcely hear them; at others they were so loud that she could almost distinguish the words uttered by the unseen. Was it merely a phenomenon caused by the wind blowing through some crack in the ponderous lichen-covered wall?

She looked beyond at the great dark yew, the justice-tree of the Grahams. The night was perfectly calm. Not a leaf stirred either upon that or upon the other trees. The ivy, high above and exposed to the slightest breath of a breeze, was motionless; only the going and coming of the night-birds moved it. No. She decided once and for all that the noise was that of voices, spectral voices though they might be.

Again she strained her eyes, when still again those soft, sibilant whisperings sounded weird and quite inexplicable.

Slowly, and with greatest caution, she moved along beneath the wall, but as she did so she seemed to recede from the sound. So back she went to the spot where she had previously stood, and there again remained listening.

There were two distinct voices; at least that was the conclusion at which she arrived after nearly a quarter of an hour of most minute investigation.

Once she fancied, in her excitement, that away in the farther corner of the ruined courtyard she saw a slowly moving form like a thin column of mist. Was it the Lady of Glencardine—the apparition of the hapless Lady Jane Glencardine? But on closer inspection she decided that it was merely due to her own distorted imagination, and dismissed it from her mind.

Those low, curious whisperings alone puzzled her. They were certainly not sounds that could be made by any rodents within the walls, because they were voices, distinctly and indisputably voices, which at some moments were raised in argument, and then fell away into sounds of indistinct murmuring. Whence did they come? She again moved noiselessly from place to place, at length deciding that only at one point—the point where she had first stood—could the sounds be heard distinctly. So to that spot once more the girl returned, standing there like a statue, her ears strained for every sound, waiting and wondering. But the Whispers had now ceased. In the distance the stable-clock chimed two. Yet she remained at her post, determined to solve the mystery, and not in the least afraid of those weird stories which the country-folk in the Highlands so entirely believed. No ghost, of whatever form, could frighten her, she told herself. She had never believed in omens or superstitions, and she steeled herself not to believe in them now. So she remained there in patience, seeking some natural solution of the extraordinary enigma.

But though she waited until the chimes rang out three o'clock and the moon was going down, she heard no other sound. The Whispers had suddenly ended, and the silence of those gaunt, frowning old walls was undisturbed. A slight wind had now sprung up, sweeping across the hills, and causing her to feel chill. Therefore, at last she was reluctantly compelled to quit her post of observation, and retrace her steps by the rough byroad to the house, entering by one of the windows of the morning-room, of which the burglar-alarm was broken, and which on many occasions she had unfastened after her nocturnal rambles with Stewart. Indeed, concealed under the walls she kept an old rusted table-knife, and by its aid it was her habit to push back the catch and so gain entrance, after reconcealing the knife for use on a future occasion.

On reaching her own room she stood for a few moments reflecting deeply upon her remarkable and inexplicable discovery. Had the story of those whisperings been told to her she would certainly have scouted them; but she had heard them with her own ears, and was certain that she had not been deceived. It was a mystery, absolute and complete; and, regarding it as such, she retired to bed.

But her thoughts were very naturally full of the weird story told of the dead and gone owners of Glencardine. She recollected that horrible story of the Ghaist of Manse and of the spectre of Bridgend. In the library she had, a year ago, discovered a strange old book—one which sixty years before had been in universal circulation—entitled Satan's Invisible World Discovered, and she had read it from beginning to end. This book had, perhaps, more influence upon the simple-minded country people in Scotland than any other work. It consisted entirely of relations of ghosts of murdered persons, witches, warlocks, and fairies; and as it was read as an indoor amusement in the presence of children, and followed up by unfounded tales of the same description, the youngsters were afraid to turn round in case they might be grasped by the "Old One." So strong, indeed, became this impression that even grown-up people would not venture, through fear, into another room or down a stair after nightfall.

Her experience in the old castle had, to say the least, been remarkable. Those weird whisperings were extraordinary. For hours she lay reflecting upon the many traditions of the old place, some recorded in the historic notices of the House of the Montrose, and others which had gathered from local sources—the farmers of the neighbourhood, the keepers, and servants. Those noises in the night were mysterious and puzzling.

Next morning she went alone to the kennels to find Stewart and to question him. He had told her many weird stories and traditions of the old place, and it struck her that he might be able to furnish her with some information regarding her strange discovery. Had anyone else heard those Whispers besides herself, she wondered.

She met several of the guests, but assiduously avoided them, until at last she saw the thin, long-legged keeper going towards his cottage with Dash, the faithful old spaniel, at his heels.

When she hailed him he touched his cap respectfully, changed his gun to the other arm, and wished her "Guid-mornin', Miss Gabrielle," in his strong Scotch accent.

She bade him put down his gun and walk with her up the hill towards the ruins.

"Look here, Stewart," she commanded in a confidential tone, "I'm going to take you into my confidence. I know I can trust you with a secret."

"Ye may, miss," replied the keen-eyed Scot. "I houp Sir Henry trusts me as a faithfu' servant. I've been on Glencardine estate noo, miss, thae forty year."

"Stewart, we all know you are faithful, and that you can keep your tongue still. What I'm about to tell you is in strictest confidence. Not even my father knows it."

"Ah! then it's a secret e'en frae the laird, eh?"

"Yes," she replied. "I want you to come up to the old castle with me," pointing to the great ruined pile standing boldly in the summer sunlight, "and I want you to tell me all you know. I've had a very uncanny experience there."

"What, miss!" exclaimed the man, halting and looking her seriously in the face; "ha'e ye seen the ghaist?"

"No, I haven't seen any ghost," replied the girl; "but last night I heard most extraordinary sounds, as though people were within the old walls."

"Guid sake, miss! an' ha'e ye actually h'ard the Whispers?" he gasped.

"Then other people have heard them, eh?" inquired the girl quickly.
"Tell me all you know about the matter, Stewart."

"A'?" he said, slowly shaking his head. "I ken but a wee bittie aboot the noises."

"Who has heard them besides myself?"

"Maxwell o'Tullichuil's girl. She said she h'ard the Whispers ae nicht aboot a year syne. They're a bad omen, miss, for the lassie deed sudden a fortnicht later."

"Did anyone else hear them?"

"Auld Willie Buchan, wha lived doon in Auchterarder village, declared that ae nicht, while poachin' for rabbits, he h'ard the voices. He telt the doctor sae when he lay in bed a-deein' aboot three weeks aifterwards. Ay, miss, I'm sair sorry ye've h'ard the Whispers."

"Then they're regarded as a bad omen to those who overhear them?" she remarked.

"That's sae. There's bin ithers wha acted as eavesdroppers, an' they a' deed very sune aifterwards. There was Jean Kirkwood an' Geordie Menteith. The latter was a young keeper I had here aboot a year syne. He cam' tae me ae mornin' an' said that while lyin' up for poachers the nicht afore, he distinc'ly h'ard the Whispers. Kennin' what folk say aboot the owerhearin' o' them bein' fatal, I lauched at 'im an' told 'im no' to tak' ony tent o' auld wives' gossip. But, miss, sure enough, within a week he got blood-pizinin', an', though they took 'im to the hospital in Perth, he deed."

"Then popular superstition points to the fact that anyone who accidentally acts as eavesdropper is doomed to death, eh? A very nice outlook for me!" she remarked.

"Oh, Miss Gabrielle!" exclaimed the man, greatly concerned, "dinna treat the maitter lichtly, I beg o' ye. I did, wi' puir Menteith, an' he deed juist like the ithers."

"But what does it all mean?" asked the daughter of the house in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. She knew well that Stewart was just as superstitious as any of his class, for some of the stories he had told her had been most fearful and wonderful elaborations of historical fact.

"It means, I'm fear'd, miss," he replied, "that the Whispers which come frae naewhere are fore-warnin's o' daith."