[Illustration:
[Page 306
"WAT'S HAND MOSTLY ON HIS SWEETHEART'S SHOULDER"]
LOCHINVAR
A Novel
BY
S. R. CROCKETT
AUTHOR OF "THE GRAY MAN" ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
BY T. DE THULSTRUP
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1898
BY S. R. CROCKETT.
THE GRAY MAN. A Novel. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1 50.
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
NEW YORK AND LONDON.
Copyright, 1897, BY HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD TO THE TALE 1
I. FROM LIKING TO LOVE 18
II. WHY KATE HATED LOCHINVAR 29
III. THE BULL, THE CALF, AND THE KILLER 38
IV. THE DUEL AT THE INN OF BREDERODE 46
V. HAXO THE BULL INTERFERES 58
VI. THE PRINCE OF ORANGE 68
VII. MISTRESS MAISIE LENNOX, DIPLOMATIST 74
VIII. THE STREET OF THE BUTCHERY 83
IX. MY LORD OF BARRA 90
X. THE DESCENT OF AVERNUS 100
XI. THE HEARTS OF WOMEN 114
XII. THE PRISON OF AMERSFORT 120
XIII. MY LORD OF BARRA'S VOW 126
XIV. MAISIE'S NIGHT QUEST 133
XV. A NIGHT OF STORM 140
XVI. THE BREAKING OF THE PRISON 146
XVII. JACK SCARLETT CALLS HIMSELF A FOOL 155
XVIII. A PERILOUS MEETING 164
XIX. THE BATTLE OF THE DUNES 172
XX. CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN 179
XXI. THE GOOD SHIP _SEA UNICORN_ 187
XXII. WISE JAN PETTIGREW 192
XXIII. WISE JAN WAXES WISER 200
XXIV. MADCAP MEHITABEL 206
XXV. TRUE LOVE AND PIGNUTS 212
XXVI. A BOAT IN SIGHT AT SULISCANNA 219
XXVII. THE TIDE-RACE OF SULISCANNA 223
XXVIII. JOHN SCARLETT COMES ASHORE 230
XXIX. WAT'S ISLE OF REFUGE 236
XXX. WAT SWIMS THE WATER CAVERN 243
XXXI. BESS LANDSBOROUGH'S CATECHISM 249
XXXII. THE SURRENDER OF THE BELOVED 256
XXXIII. AN ANCIENT LOVE AFFAIR 262
XXXIV. CAPTOR AND CAPTIVE 270
XXXV. SKIRTING THE BREAKERS 279
XXXVI. PASSAGE PERILOUS 286
XXXVII. THE ISLE OF BLISS 292
XXXVIII. MISFORTUNATE COLIN 302
XXXIX. SATAN SPIES OUT PARADISE 311
XL. SERPENT'S EGGS 318
XLI. LOVE THAT THINKETH NO EVIL 324
XLII. THE FIERY CROSS 331
XLIII. COLL O' THE COWS 336
XLIV. GREAT DUNDEE 343
XLV. KILLIEKRANKIE 350
XLVI. THE LEAGUER OF DUNKELD 359
XLVII. THE GOLDEN HEART 365
XLVIII. THE MASTER COMES HOME 373
XLIX. THE CURATE OF DALRY 380
L. LOCHINVAR KEEPS TRYST 386
LI. THE BRIDE'S LOVING-CUP 391
LII. CATCH THEM WHO CAN! 397
LIII. WITHIN THE KING'S MERCY 402
EPILOGUE OF SUPEREROGATION 408
ILLUSTRATIONS
"WAT'S HAND MOSTLY ON HIS SWEETHEART'S SHOULDER" _Frontispiece_
_Facing p._
"'I WILL TAKE MY OWN LOVE-TOKEN'" 32
"SCARLETT THUNDERED ON THE PANELS WITH THE HILT OF HIS SWORD" 64
"THE GENTLEMAN INSTANTLY ATTACKED THEM FURIOUSLY" 90
"THE MAN CARRIED HER EASILY THROUGH THE SURF" 144
"A COUPLE OF PISTOL-SHOTS RANG OUT LOUDLY" 176
"THE SELF-SATISFACTION FLICKERED OUT OF HIS FACE" 204
"THEN THE SWIRLING TIDE-RACE TOOK HOLD OF HER" 226
"A GIGANTIC HIGHLANDER WITH A NAKED CLAYMORE BY HIS SIDE" 250
"WAT PUSHED OFF IN THE SMALLER BOAT" 284
"STRIDING FORWARD FRANKLY AND GIVING A HAND TO EACH" 338
"HE FELL INWARD AMONG THE WOUNDED" 362
"WITH HIS LOVE BETWEEN HIS ARMS" 398
LOCHINVAR
FOREWORD TO THE TALE, TELLING WHAT BEFELL AT THE HOUSE OF BALMAGHIE
IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1685, AND HOW MY LADY WELLWOOD PARTED TWO
YOUNG LOVERS
"Aye," said Mistress Crombie, house-keeper to Roger McGhie,
Laird of Balmaghie, a considerable house in the south-lying and
better-cultivated part of the wild lands of Galloway--"aye, indeed, ye
may well say it, Alisoun Begbie. It is a wondrous and most ungentle
thing when the doe seeks the hart--panting and brayin' for a man, as
the Guid Buik says. And saw ye ever sic feathers?--I declare they
nearly soopit the floor. My Lady Wellwood, or no my Lady Wellwood, I
trow she didna come ridin' by the hoose o' Balmaghie only to ask the
time o' day, upsetting besom that she is!"
During this harangue Alisoun Begbie was clattering about among her
bottles and dishes in the stone-flagged, slate-shelved still-room
which constituted her pantry. A few minutes before she had cried
mischievously out of the window to Lang Wat, the new under-gardener of
Balmaghie, to the effect that "siccan a guid-lookin' chiel should be
seen oftener about the house--but that she, Alisoun Begbie, was not
wanting anything to do with the likes of him. She could get plenty
of lads, and it was weel-kenned that the Glenkens' folk aye took up
wi' their ain folk at ony rate." But as soon as the "bauchles"[A]
of Mistress Crombie, the shrill-tempered house-keeper, were heard
scuffling up the stairs, Alisoun made a pretty warning face of
silence at Lang Wat, and tossed her head to intimate that some one
approached from behind; so that, without making any verbal answer,
the under-gardener resumed his occupation of the moment, which was
the pruning and grafting of sundry rose-bushes--the pride and care of
Mistress Kate McGhie, the "young leddy" of the great house of Balmaghie.
[A] Certain heelless and shapeless slippers, characteristic
of the district.
"Na, 'deed, Alisoun Begbie," cried Mistress Crombie once more, from
the cheek of the door, "believe me when I tell ye that sic a braw city
madam--and a widow forbye--doesna bide about an auld disjaskit rickle
o' stanes like the Hoose o' the Grenoch withoot haeing mair in her head
than just sending warnings to Clavers aboot the puir muirland folk,
that keep their misguided conventicles up ayont there, and pray a'
nicht in the lirks o' the hills and the black hags o' the peat-mosses."
"Aye, ye may say so, 'deed, mistress," agreed Alisoun, keeping an eye
upon the window of her pantry, through which she could see Lang Wat
bending his back among the rose-bushes. Spite of his good looks, he
had proved himself a singularly flinty-hearted fellow-servitor, and
ill to set to the wooing. But Alisoun had still hopes of him. She had
succeeded with some difficult--indeed, almost hopeless--cases in her
time, and the very unresponsive nature of the young Glenkens' gardener
stirred her ambition to brighter and more inviting glances, as well as
to gayer and ever daintier ribbons.
But in spite of both loving looks and lovers' knots, Lang Wat neither
succumbed nor yet appeared so much as conscious of her regard. Truly a
marvellous young man--such as had never come within the sphere of the
comely handmaiden's influence before.
"Weel, I'se warrant my lady needna set her cap at our maister," said
Alisoun Begbie, willing to agree with the powerful and cantankerous
house-keeper: "Na, Roger McGhie o' Balmaghie has his wits aboot him.
Surely it is a terrible thing when a woman so far forgets hersel' as to
set her cap for a man."
And pretty Alisoun glanced at the silver salver she was polishing, in
order to be sure that her silken snood was in its proper place, and
that the braids of her hair were drawn back smoothly and daintily from
her brow. Being reassured on these points, she resumed the salver with
renewed complaisance. Lang Wat was now standing meditatively outside,
quite near the house, and with his face turned towards her window. He
was leaning upon his spade; any moment he might look up. Pretty Alisoun
Begbie breathed upon the silver with a certain seductive pouting of her
lips, rubbed the place clear, breathed again upon it, and last of all
frowned alluringly at it--for the very excellent reason that one of her
former admirers had incautiously told her that such frowning became her
mightily. But in spite of all, Lang Wat remained rapt in abstractest
meditation. At which Alisoun Begbie tossed her head and frowned
again--not this time for picturesque reasons, but in good earnest.
"He micht at least have kissed his hand, the silly cuif!" she said,
half to herself, looking resentfully at the impervious under-gardener
of Balmaghie.
"What!" cried Mistress Crombie, "kissed his hand, indeed, ye
daft-speaking, licht-headed hizzie! I hope that my maister has
something else to do than to gang kissin' his hand to a' the
high-flyin' madams that likes to come aboot the hoose--wi' their auld
guidmen hardly cauld in their coffins, and as much paint on their
impudent faces as wad serve for the body o' a trail cart. Kiss his
hand to her, indeed! Na, na, set her up; a deal less than that will
serve her."
A stir was heard at the top of the stairs which led up from the
still-room, among the cool recesses of which this conversation had been
proceeding between Mistress Crombie and her favorite assistant.
"Dear sirs, that's the maister himsel', I declare," said the
house-keeper, looking cautiously up, "and dressed in his Sunday
breeks--mercy on us!--and his best coat wi' the new lace on the
collar, and the cuffs that I laid aside for the next burial or siclike
festivity. But--Lord preserve us!--here on a Wednesday he maun gang and
put them on! The man's surely gane clean mad. He shall sup sorrow like
sowens for this yet, and that will be seen."
"Maybe he has been kissin' mair than his ain hand," said Alisoun
Begbie, slyly. She was still smarting from her rebuke by the
house-keeper; besides which, Lang Wat would not look up.
Mistress Crombie started as if she had been stung.
"Save us!" she cried, "do ye think so? Then a' our good days aboot
the hoose o' the Balmaghie are numbered! Oh, the bonny place, where
I thocht to end my days wi' a guid maister and a kindly! Oh, women,
women--what hae ye no to answer for, upsettin' a' plans, stirrin' up a'
ill, pu'in' doon a' guid! Eh, Alisoun, but what a paradise the world
wad be wi' only men in it, and no a woman frae end to end o't--_forbye
mysel'_--whatna Gairden o' Eden wad that no make!"
But the eyes of Alisoun Begbie were fastened on a certain shaded
nook among the rose-bushes, wherein a pretty enough comedy was being
enacted; though, be it said, one little to the taste of the still-room
maid. Mistress Crombie, had she been observant, might have discovered
abundant cause to find fault with her maid's diligence and attention
to the details of her duty during the next half-hour. But luckily for
Alisoun Begbie, that good though suspicious lady had betaken herself
indignantly up-stairs. There, with haughty head tossing in the air and
a certain ominously aggrieved silence, she proceeded to meditate upon
the other details of her master's attire--his Sunday shoes with silver
buckles, his ribbons of pale blue at the knee, and especially the grand
new wig of the latest court fashion, which Colonel John Graham of
Claverhouse had brought all the way in his saddle-bag from Robin Rae's,
the periwig-maker in the Lawnmarket, the last time he rode to Edinburgh
to consult with the Lords of the Privy Council.
Now, what Alisoun Begbie watched behind the rosebushes was this:
She saw the under-gardener, "Lang Wat o' the Glenkens," as he was
called about the house, in close and kindly converse with Mistress Kate
McGhie, the only daughter of the house and heiress of her father's
wide estates. She had come, a tall and graceful maid attired in white,
lightfoot down a shady garden-path, the sunshine and the leaves
together flecking her white dress with wavering shadows, her dark,
shapely head thrown a little back, her chin tilted somewhat defiantly
in the air, and her broad summer hat a-swing in her left hand. Fitfully
she hummed a tune, but whenever she forgot the words (which was very
often) the song dropped, and, without the least break of continuity,
proceeded on its way as a whistle. And in either case the sounds
proceeded, so thought the under-gardener, from the prettiest and most
appetizing mouth in the world.
Indeed, as soon as Mistress Kate came within hearing distance of him,
Lang Wat promptly swept his broad bonnet from his head in salute, and
told her so. Which, when one thinks of it, was a considerable liberty
for an under-gardener to take.
But the lady received the compliment not amiss, being to all
appearance neither elated nor astonished. Was she not Kate McGhie of
Balmaghie, and had she not been accustomed to be told that she was
beautiful as long as she could remember? Consistent and continuous
admiration had become familiar to her as the air she breathed, and had
done her as little harm. It seemed to Kate as natural that she should
be assured that she was winsome as to be told that she had a good
appetite. And the information affected her equally in either case.
Since her very tenderest years there had been but one dissentient voice
in this chorus of universal love and admiration--a certain small boy
from the Glenkens, a laird's son, one Walter Gordon of Lochinvar, who
had come to the house of Balmaghie on a visit with his father, and had
enshrined his dissent in a somewhat memorable form.
For, by the common bruit of the country-side, the girl had been
denominated--while yet but a child with great hazel eyes that promised
dangerous things, and a tossing fleece of curls--the Pride of
Balmaghie. And the maid herself, when asked her name, was accustomed to
reply frankly:
"I is little Kate McGhie--
What everybody loves."
But this same Gordon lad from the Glenkens, scornful in the pride of
half a dozen years of superior age, never heard the phrase without
adding his own contemptuous disclaimer, "Little brute, _I_ don't love
her."
Nevertheless, the time came when the scorner recanted his renunciation.
And that time was now, under the garden trees of the house of Balmaghie
and the jealous eyes of Alisoun Begbie. For "Lang Wat o' the Glenkens,"
under-gardener to Roger McGhie of Balmaghie, was none other than Walter
Gordon, the young laird of Lochinvar, fallen into ill-odor with the
King's government--both in the matter of the wounding of my Lord of
Wellwood, and as being suspected of companying and intercommuning with
the wild Whigs of the hills. For the times bore hard on all such as
were of doubtful loyalty, and fines and confiscations were the least
those had to expect who refused to side openly with the blusterous
riders and galloping compellers of the King's forces. The blaze of
muskets in face of a stone wall, the ever-busy rope in the Grassmarket
of Edinburgh (where during two brisk years of the "Killing Time" the
hangman needed a new "tow" every month from the Town Council, and
the pay of an additional assistant whenever "he was overthrong with
the hanging of so many Westland men")--these and other symptoms of
troublous times sent many well-disposed and innocent folk into hiding.
But it was not alone the superior advantages of Balmaghie as a
hiding-place which had brought Wat Gordon of Lochinvar thither
in search of shelter. It might rather be the sweeping, darksome
under-curve of Kate McGhie's eyelashes, and the little specks of light
which swam and sparkled in the depths of her hazel eyes, like the
shredded gold in that rare liqueur which John Scarlett, the famous
master-at-arms, had brought back with him last year from Dantzig.
Not that Wat Gordon was very deeply or seriously in love. He dallied
and daintied with it rather. True--he thought about love and the making
of it night and day, and (for the time being) his ideal and liege lady
was the young mistress of the house of Balmaghie.
And Kate McGhie, knowing him for what he was, and being (unlike her
father, but like most of the women-folk of Scotland) a sympathizer
with the oppressed of the Covenant, showed no small kindness to the
under-gardener.
She was a maiden left much alone. She was at the age when love is still
an insubstantial, rosy dream, yet few youths of her own quality were
ever encouraged to come about her father's house. So that her pity and
her admiration were the more easily engaged on behalf of the handsome
and unfortunate young laird who told her at least ten times a day (when
he had the chance) that he was as willing as any Jacob to serve seven
years, and seven to the back of that, in the hope of such a Rachel. For
even before he began to do more than play with true love, Wat Gordon
had a gift of love-making which might have wiled a bird off a tree.
Yet, for all that, when he came to practise on Kate McGhie, he wiled
in vain. For the girl was buttressed and defended by a lifetime of
admiration from all who came about her--by her father's adoration, the
devotion of every man, woman, and child about the house of Balmaghie,
and, above all, by the repute of reigning beauty athwart all the
country-side. So, though she might think well enough of Wat Gordon,
that handsome exile from his heritages and lordships now in picturesque
hiding as her father's under-gardener, she was (so at least she told
herself) in no danger of permitting that liking to develop into any
feeling more dangerous or more exacting.
So these two fenced, each of them in their own way, right gallantly
with lightsome love; while the love that is not lightsome, but strong
as death, smiled out upon them from behind the rose-bushes, and lay in
wait for one and the other.
Presently, while they were yet talking and Alisoun Begbie still
carefully observant of them, the front door of the house of Balmaghie
opened wide, and the laird himself came down the steps looking a little
dashed and shamefaced, for Mistress Crombie had ushered him to the door
with ironic state and ceremony.
"Dootless your honor is on his way to pay duty to the King's
Commissioner at Kirkcudbright," she said, with pointed sarcasm which
the shy laird did not know well how to parry. "But ye hae forgotten
your pearl studs in your sark, and the wee hangie-swordie o' the court
that will no draw oot o' its scabbard, nor so muckle as hurt a flea."
"I thank you, mistress," said Roger, not daring to look at his too
faithful domestic, "but I go not so far afield as to see His Majesty's
Commissioner. 'Tis but the matter of a visitor whom we must expect this
forenoon. See that some collation is prepared for her."
"_Her!_" ejaculated Mistress Crombie, with an indescribable accent of
surprise, not unmingled with scorn. "_Her_--we are to hae the company
o' a great lady, nae doot. And this the first that your humble servant
and house-keeper has heard o' the matter! 'Collation,' quo' he? Whatna
dinner do ye think can be got ready between eleven and twa o' the clock
on a Wednesday, wi' a' the lasses at the washin' except Alisoun Begbie,
and nocht in the larder forbye twa pookit chuckie-hens, that came frae
the Boat Craft less than half an hour since?"
"But, surely, these will do very well," said Roger McGhie, with
increasing nervousness. "'Tis only my Lady of Wellwood, who rides over
from the Grenoch."
For in truth he had been afraid to mention the matter to Mistress
Crombie, and so had put off till it was too late--as the manner of men
is.
"I forgot to acquaint you with the fact before; it--ah--it altogether
escaped my memory," said he, beginning to pull his gloves on as he
descended the steps.
"But ye didna forget to put on your Sunday claes, Laird Balmaghie,"
cried the privileged domestic after him, sarcastically; "nor did your
best silken hose nor your silver buckles escape your memory! And ye
minded brawly to scent your ruffles wi' cinnamon and rosemary. Ye dinna
forget ony o' thae things--that were important, and maitters o' life
and death, as one might say. It only escaped your memory to tell your
puir feckless auld house-keeper to mak' ony provision for your dainty
dames and court leddies. Ou aye, it maitters little for the like o'
her--Marion Crombie, that has only served ye for forty year, and never
wranged ye o' a fardin's-worth. Dinna waste a thought on her, puir auld
woman, though she should die in a hedge-root, so long as ye can hae a
great repair o' powdered weemen and galloping frisk-me-denties to come
ridin' aboot your hoose."
But whatever else Mistress Crombie might have had to say to her master
was lost in the clatter of hoofs and the stir and bustle of a new
arrival.
Up the avenue came a bold horsewoman riding a spirited bay, reining
it like a man as she stayed her course on the river gravel before the
front door and sent the stones spraying from its fore-feet at the halt.
The new-comer wore a plumed hat and the riding-dress of red, which,
together with her warm sympathies with the "persecutors," caused my
Lady Wellwood to be known in the country-side as "The Scarlet Woman."
She was a handsome dame of forty, or mayhap a little more; but, save
for the more pronounced arching of her haughty nose and the rounding
curves of her figure, she might well have passed for ten or twelve
years younger.
The Laird of Balmaghie went eagerly forward to meet his visitor. He
took gratefully enough the hand which she reached to him a little
indulgently, as one might give a sweetmeat to a child to occupy its
attention. For even as he murmured his welcomes the lady's eyes
were certainly not upon her host, but on the erect figure of his
under-gardener, who stood staring and transfixed by the rose-bush which
he had been pruning.
"My Lady Wellwood," said Roger McGhie, "this is indeed an honor and a
privilege."
"Who may this youth be?" interrupted the lady, imperiously cutting
short his sober courtesies and pointing to Lang Wat of the Glenkens.
"It is but one of my gardeners; he has lately come about the house,"
answered Roger McGhie, "a well-doing carle enough and a good worker.
But hark ye, my lady, perhaps a wee overfond of Whiggery and such
strait-lacedness, and so it may be as well to give his name the go-by
when John Graham comes this way."
My Lady of Wellwood never took her eyes off the gardener's face.
"Come hither and help me to dismount," she said, beckoning with her
finger.
Wat Gordon went reluctantly enough, dragging one foot after the
other. He realized that the end had come to his residence among the
flower-closes of Balmaghie, and that he must e'en bid farewell to
these walks and glades as of Paradise, upon which, as upon his life,
the hazel eyes of Kate McGhie had lately rained such sweet influences.
Meanwhile the laird stood meekly by. The caprices of great court-ladies
were not in his province, but, having set out to humor them, he was not
to be offended by the favor shown his servitor. He had heard of such
things at Whitehall, and the memory rather kindled him than otherwise.
He felt all the new life and energy which comes of being transported
into a new world of new customs, new ideas, and even of new laxities.
Wat gave my Lady Wellwood his hand in the courtliest manner. The habit
and gait of the under-gardener seemed to fall from him in a moment at
the sound of that voice, low and languorous, with a thrill in it of
former days which it irked him to think had still power to affect him.
"You have not quite forgotten me, then, sweet lad of Lochinvar?" asked
the Duchess of Wellwood softly in his ear. For so in the days of his
sometime madness she had been wont to call him.
"No," answered Wat, sullenly enough, as he lifted her to the ground,
not knowing what else to say.
"Then meet me at the head of the wood on my way home," whispered the
lady, as she disengaged herself from his arm, and turned with a smiling
face to Roger McGhie.
"And this is your sweet daughter," she murmured, caressingly, to Kate,
who stood by with drooping eyelids, but who, nevertheless, had lost no
shade of the colloquy between Wat Gordon and her father's guest.
The Lady Wellwood took the girl's hand, which lay cold and unresponsive
in her plump white fingers. "A pretty maid--you will be a beauty one
day, my dear," she added, with the condescension of one who knows she
has as yet nothing to fear from younger rivals.
To this Kate answered nothing. For her flatterer was a woman. Had
the Duchess of Wellwood been a man and condescended to this sort of
left-handed praise, Kate would have flashed her eyes and said, "I have
not seldom been told that I am one already." Whereupon he would have
amended his sentence. As it was, Kate said nothing, but only hardened
her heart and wondered what the great court lady had found to whisper
to the man who, during these last months, had daily been avowing
himself her lover. And though Kate was conscious that her heart sat
secure and untouched on its virgin throne, it had, nevertheless, been
not unpleasant to listen to the lad. For of a surety Wat Gordon told
his tale wondrously well.
Roger McGhie conducted the lady gallantly through the garden walks
towards the house. But she had not gone far when she professed herself
overcome by the heat, and desired to be permitted to sit down on a
rustic seat. She was faint, she said; yet, even as she said it, the
keen eye of Kate McGhie noted that her color remained warm and high.
"A tass of water--nay, no wine," she called after the Laird of
Balmaghie; "I thank you for your courtesy."
And Kate's father hastened away a little stiffly to bring it. She knew
that his Sunday shoes irked him. It served him right, she thought. At
his age he ought to know better--but there remained the more important
matter of the under-gardener.
"Come and sit by me, pretty one," said the Lady Wellwood, cooingly, to
Kate.
The "pretty one" would infinitely rather have set herself down by the
side of an adder sunning itself on a bank than shared the woodland seat
with the bold horsewoman of Grenoch.
"Ah! sly one," she said, "I warrant you knew that your under-gardener
there, that handsome lad, was not the landward man he seemed."
She shook her finger reproachfully at her companion as she spoke.
Kate blushed hotly, and then straightway fell to despising herself
for doing it almost as much as she hated my lady for making her. Lady
Wellwood watched her covertly out of the corner of her eyes. She
cultivated a droop of the left eyelid on purpose.
"I know that he is proscribed, and has a price set on his head," Kate
said, quietly, looking after Wat with great indifference as he went
down the avenue of trees.
"And do you know why?" asked the duchess, somewhat abruptly.
"No," answered Kate, wondering at her tone.
"It was for wounding my late husband within the precincts of Holyrood,"
said Lady Wellwood.
But Kate McGhie's anger was now fully roused, and her answer ran
trippingly off her tongue.
"And was it for that service you spoke so kindly to him just now, and
bade him meet you at the head of the wood as you went home?"
The duchess stared a little, but her well-bred calmness was not ruffled.
"Even so," she said, placidly, "and for the further reason that Walter
Gordon was on his way to see _me_ on the night when it was his ill
fortune to meet with my husband instead."
"I do not believe it," cried the girl, lifting her head and looking
Lady Wellwood straight in the eyes.
"Ask him, then!" answered the duchess, with the calm assurance of forty
answering the chit of half her years. For at first sight my lady had
envied and hated the clear, blushful ivory of the girl's cheek and the
natural luxuriance of her close-tangled curls. And since all the art of
St. James's could not match with these, she was now getting even with
Kate in ways of her own.
The girl did not speak. Her heart only welled within her with
contradiction and indignation.
"Or if you will not do that, sit down half an hour hence and read your
book in the little arbor by the end of the avenue, and you will hear
news. Whether you may like it or not is another question. But, at
all events, you shall not have cause to say again that a Duchess of
Wellwood lied."
Kate rose and walked away without answering a word. She cared no jot
for Wat Gordon, so she told herself. He was nothing to her, save that
she desired his safety and had risked much to give him shelter. Yet
this Duchess of Wellwood--that woman of whom the gross popular tongue
whispered commonly the most terrible things! Had Lochinvar made love to
her? Was he to meet her at the end of the avenue? She could not believe
it. It was, indeed, no matter if he did. What did she care? Go to the
arbor, become an eavesdropper--not for any man alive, least of all
for Wat Gordon! Thank God, she had a tongue in her head, and was not
afraid to ask Wat Gordon, or any living soul, whatever she desired to
know.
But after a little hesitation she went up-stairs to her chamber, and,
denying herself the listening of the ear, she listened with her eyes
instead. For she watched my Lady Wellwood being helped into her saddle
right courteously by her father. She saw her looking down at him the
while with a glance professionally tender--a glance that lingered in
the memory by reason of the quiver of an eyelid and the pressure of a
soft, reluctant hand. And Roger McGhie bowed over her plump fingers as
though he had been bidding farewell to some angelic visitant.
For the first time in her life Kate McGhie despised her father. And,
lo! to hurt her heart yet more, and to convince her of the ultimate
falsity of all men, there was Wat, his tall figure overtopping the
hawthorn hedge, walking briskly in the direction of the pinewood at the
end of the avenue.
Kate went down-stairs with a set, still face. She would not cry. She
did not care. She was only bitterly disappointed with the whole race
of mankind, nothing more. They were all no better than so many blind
fools, ready to be taken in by a plausible tongue and a rolling eye. A
fine figure of a woman, and--Lord, where was the best of them?
But her Wat--and with the Duchess of Wellwood; she could not believe
it! Why, she might be his--well, hardly that--but his mother at the
very least.
Not that she cared; she had her work to think about; and Kate McGhie
went down to the little suckling lamb she had fed daily with warm milk
out of a wooden spoon, and which, though now almost of the greatness of
a full-grown sheep, still leaped and fawned upon her. She fetched her
pail and mixed pet Donald's mid-day meal.
Outside the garden wall the lamb was standing, bleating indignant
petitions, and there Katie McGhie fed him with a gradually swelling
heart. As the last drops disappeared into the moist black muzzle, Kate
put her arms about the woolly neck and sobbed aloud.
"Oh, Donald, Donald, my lamb, you are the only friend I have! I do
not love anybody else, and no one in the world loves me. But I am
not sorry--I am glad, and I will not cry. It is not that I love him,
Donald; but, oh! he might not have done it!"
That same evening Wat Gordon, as was his custom, came walking slowly
through the garden pleasaunce. Kate McGhie met him by the rose-bush he
had been pruning that morning.
"Is it true," she asked, looking at him bravely and directly, "that you
are in hiding because, when going to visit the Duchess of Wellwood, you
encountered her husband instead?"
"This much is true," answered Wat, promptly, "that while passing down
the Canongate one snowy night, my cousin, Will Gordon of Earlstoun, and
I were beset by a band of ruffians in the pay of the Duke of Wellwood,
and that in defending ourselves the Duke himself was hurt."
"And when you went out of your lodging that night, was it to walk with
your cousin or to visit my Lady of Wellwood in her boudoir?"
Wat Gordon took his breath hard. The manner of the question left him no
escape with honor. But he could not lie. And he would offer no excuse.
"I went out to visit my Lady Wellwood!" he said, very shortly.
Kate McGhie held out her hand.
"I bid you good-bye," she said; "you will find your ancient friend and
hostess at the Grenoch. There is nothing to detain you any longer about
the poor house of Balmaghie."
And so saying the girl turned on her heel and walked slowly through the
garden garth and past the pruned rose-bushes. She crossed the grassy
slope to the door and there disappeared, leaving Wat Gordon standing
silent, shamed, and amazed.
CHAPTER I
FROM LIKING TO LOVE
It was graying to the edge of dark upon one of the evenings towards
the end of April, in the year 1688, when Walter Gordon, of Lochinvar
in Galloway, and now for some time private in the Prince of Orange's
Douglas regiment of dragoons, strode up the stairs of his cousin Will's
lodging in the ancient Dutch city of Amersfort. The young man had
come straight from duty at the palace, and his humor was not exactly
gracious.
But Wat Gordon could not long remain vexed in spirit in the presence of
his cousin Will's wife, Maisie Lennox. Her still, sweet smile killed
enmity, even as spring sunshine kills the bite of frost. The little,
low-roofed Dutch room, panelled with oak, had its windows open towards
the sun-setting, and there in the glow of the west two girls were
sitting. At sight of them Walter Gordon stopped suddenly in the doorway
as he came bursting in. He had been expecting to see but one--his
cousin's young wife, into whose pretty ear of patientest sympathy
he might pour his fretful boyish disappointments and much-baffled
aspirations.
Mistress Maisie Lennox, now for half a year Will Gordon of Earlstoun's
wife (for by her maiden name she was still used to be called, and so
she signed herself, since it had not yet become the custom for a women
to take among her intimates the style of her husband's surname), sat on
a high-backed chair by the oriel window. She had the kind of sunny hair
which it is a pleasure to look upon, and the ripples of it made crisp
tendrils about her brow. Her face underneath was already sweetening
and gaining in reposefulness, with that look of matronhood which comes
early to patient, gracious women, who would yet venture much for the
man they love. And not once nor yet twice had Maisie Lennox dared all
for those whom she loved--as has, indeed, elsewhere been told.
But, all unexpected of the hasty visitor, there was yet another fair
girl looking up at him there in that quaint, dusky-shadowed room.
Seated upon a low chair, and half leaning across the knees of Mistress
Maisie, set wide apart on purpose, there reclined a maiden of another
temper and mould. Slender and supple she was as willow that sways by
the water-edges, yet returning ever to slim, graceful erectness like a
tempered blade of Damascus; above, the finest and daintiest head in the
world, profiled like Apollo of the Bow, with great eyes that were full
of alternate darkness and tenderness, of tears and fire; a perfectly
chiselled mouth, a thing which is rarer and more excellent than the
utmost beauty of splendid eyes--and sweeter also; a complexion not milk
and rose like that of Maisie Lennox, but of ivory rather, with the
dusky crimson of warm blood blushing up delicately through it. Such was
Kate McGhie, called Kate of the Dark Lashes, the only daughter of Roger
McGhie of Balmaghie, a well-reputed Galloway gentleman in the country
of Scotland.
As Walter Gordon came bursting in his impetuous fashion into his
cousin's room, his sword clashing about his feet and his cavalry spurs
jingling against his boot-heels, he was stopped dead by this most
pleasant sight. Yet all he saw was a girl with her head resting upon
her own clasped hands and reclining on her friend's knee, with her
elbows set wide apart behind her head--while Maisie's hand played, like
a daring swimmer in breaking surf, out and in among the soft crisps
of hair, which were too short to be waves and too long to be curls.
And this hair was of several curious colors, ranging from black in the
shadows through rich brown into dusky gold where the sun's light caught
it lovingly, as though he had already begun to set over the sand-dunes
into the Northern Sea. As Wat stood there, his fingers tingled to
touch. It seemed somehow a squandering of human happiness that only a
girl's hand should smooth that rich tangle and caress those clustering
curls.
Walter Gordon of Lochinvar had flung himself into the little room in
Zandpoort Street, ripe to pour his sorrows into the ear of Maisie
Lennox. Nor was he at all forgetful of the fact that the ear was an
exceedingly pretty one. Most devoutly he hoped that Will, his very
excellent cousin and Maisie's good husband, might have been kept late
at the religious exercises of the Regiment of the Covenant--as that
portion of the Scotch-Dutch auxiliary force was called which had been
mostly officered and recruited from among the more militant exiles and
refugees of the Scottish persecution.
But as Lochinvar came forward somewhat more slowly after his
involuntary start of surprise, his eyes continued to rest on those of
the younger girl, who remained thus reclined on her gossip's lap. She
had not moved at his entrance, but only looked at him very quietly from
under those shadowy curtains which had gained her the name of Kate
of the Dark Lashes. Then in a moment Wat set his hand to his breast
suddenly, as if a bullet had struck him upon the field of battle.
"Kate!" he cried, in a quick, hoarse whisper, as though the word had
been forced from him.
And for a long moment the young soldier stood still and speechless,
with his eyes still fixed upon the girl.
"Walter, mind you not my dearest friend and gossip Kate, and how in
old sad days in the dear far-away land we there underwent many things
together?" asked Maisie Lennox, looking up somewhat doubtfully from
her friend's face into that of Walter Gordon.
"I did not know--I had not heard--" were all the words that the young
squire of dames could find to utter.
"Also there were, if I remember aright," the young matron went on,
with that fatal blundering which sometimes comes to the kindest and
most quick-witted of women, "certain passages between you--of mutual
friendship and esteem, as it might be."
Then, with a single swift movement, lithe and instantaneous as that of
a young wild animal which has never known restraint, Kate of the Dark
Lashes rose to her feet.
"Walter Gordon of Lochinvar," she said, "is a Scottish gentleman. He
will never be willing to remember that which a lady chooses to forget."
But Lochinvar himself, readiest tongue in wit-play as well as keenest
blade when the steel clashed in sterner debate, on this occasion
spake never a word. For in that moment in which he had looked upon
Kate McGhie resting her beautiful head upon her clasped hands in her
friend's lap he had fallen from the safe heights of admiration into the
bottomless abysses of love.
While the pair were still standing thus face to face, and before Kate
sat down again in a more restrained posture on the low-cushioned
window-seat, Will Gordon strode in and set his musket in a corner. He
was habited simply enough in the dark gray of the Hill Folks' regiment,
with the cross of St. Andrew done in blue and white upon his breast.
His wife rose to kiss him as he entered, and then, still holding her by
the hand, he turned to the tall, slim girl by the window.
"Why, Kate, lass, how came the good winds to blow you hither from the
lands of mist over the sea?" he asked.
"Blasts of ill winds in Scotland, well I wot," said Kate McGhie,
smiling at him faintly and holding out her hand.
"Then the ill Scots winds have certainly blown us good here in
Holland," he answered, deftly enough, in the words of the ancient
Scottish proverb.
But the girl went on without giving heed to his kindly compliment.
"The persecution waxes ever hotter and hotter on the hills of the
south," she said, "and what with the new sheriffs, and the raging
of the red-wud Grier of Lag over all our country of Galloway, I saw
that it could not be long before my doings and believings brought
my easy-tempered father into trouble. So, as soon as I knew that, I
mounted me and rode to Newcastle, keeping mostly to the hills, and
avoiding the highways by which the king's soldiers come and go. There,
after some wearisome and dangerous waiting, I got a ship to Rotterdam.
And here I am to sorn upon you!"
She ended with a little gesture of opening her hands and flinging them
from her, which Wat Gordon thought very pretty to behold.
"You are as welcome to our poor soldier's lodging as though it had
been the palace of the stadtholder," answered William Gordon--with,
nevertheless, a somewhat perplexed look, as he thought of another
mouth to be fed upon the scanty and uncertain pay of a private in the
Scottish regiments of the prince.
While his cousin was speaking Wat Gordon had made his way round
the table to the corner of the latticed window farthest from Kate,
where now he stood looking thoughtfully upon the broad canal and the
twinkling lights which were beginning to mark out its banks.
"Why, Wat," cried his cousin Will, clapping him lovingly upon the
shoulder as he went past him to hang up his blue sash on a hook by
the window, "wherefore so sad-visaged, man? This whey face and dour
speechlessness might befit an erewhile Whig gardener of Balmaghie, with
his hod and mattock over his shoulder; but it sets ill with a gay rider
in Douglas's dragoons, and one high in favor in the prince's service."
Lochinvar shook off his cousin's hand a little impatiently. He wanted
nothing better than just to go on watching Kate McGhie's profile as it
outlined itself against the broad, shining reach of water. He marvelled
that he had been aforetime so blind to its beauty; but then these
ancient admirations in Scotland had been only lightness of heart and a
young man's natural love of love-making. But Walter Gordon knew that
this which had stricken him to the heart, as he came suddenly upon the
girl pillowing her head on her palms at Maisie's knee, was no mere
love-making. It was love.
"Who were on duty to-day at headquarters?" Wat asked, gruffly enough.
"Who but Barra and his barbarians of the Isles!" William Gordon made
answer.
Wat stamped his foot boyishly and impatiently.
"The prince shows these dogs overmuch of his favor," he said.
Will Gordon went to the chamber door and opened it. Then he looked back
at his wife.
"Come hither, sweetheart," he said. "It is pay-day, and I must e'en
give thee my wages, ere I be tempted to spend them with fly-by-night
dragoons and riotous night-rakes like our cousin here. Also, I must
consult thee concerning affairs of state--thy housewifery and the price
of candles belike!"
Obediently Maisie rose and followed him out of the room, gliding, as
was her manner, softly through the door like water that runs down a
mill-lade. Kate of the Dark Lashes, on the contrary, moved with the
flash and lightsome unexpectedness of a swallow in flight. Yet now she
sat still enough by the dusky window, looking out upon the twinkling
lights which, as they multiplied, began to be reflected on the waters
of the long, straight canal.
For a while Wat Gordon was content silently to watch the changeful
shapeliness of her head. He had never seen one set at just that angle
upon so charming a neck. He wondered why this girl had so suddenly
grown all wonderful to him. It was strange that hitherto he should have
been so crassly blind. But now he was perfectly content only to watch
and to be silent, so that it was Kate who first felt the necessity for
speech.
"This is a strange new land," she said, thoughtfully, "and it is little
wonder that to-night my heart is heavy, for I am yet a stranger in it."
"Kate," said Wat Gordon, in a low, earnest tone, leaning a little
nearer to her as she sat on the window-seat, "Kate, is there not, then,
all the more reason to remember old friends?"
"And have I not remembered?" answered the girl, swiftly, without
looking at him. "I have come from my father's house straight to Maisie
Lennox--I, a girl, and alone. She is my oldest friend."
"But are there, then, no others?" said the young man, jealously.
"None who have never forgotten, never slighted, never complained, never
faltered in their love, save only my sweet Maisie Lennox," returned the
girl, as she rose from her place and went towards the door, from behind
which came the soft hum of voices in friendly conference.
Wat took two swift steps forward as if to forestall her, but she
slipped past him, light as the shadow of a leaf windblown along the
wall, and laid her hand on the latch.
"Will not you let me be your friend once again after these weary
years?" he asked, eagerly.
The tall girl opened the door and stood a moment with the outline of
her figure cut slimly against the light which flooded the passage--in
which, as it grew dark, Maisie had lighted a tiny Dutch lamp.
"I love friends who never need to be friends _again_!" she said, in a
low voice, and went out.
Left to himself, Wat Gordon clinched his hands in the swiftly darkening
room. He strode back to the window pettishly, and hated the world.
It was a bad world. Why, for no more than a hasty word, a breath of
foolish speech, a vain and empty dame of wellnigh twice his age,
should he lose the friendship of this one girl in all the world? That
other to whom he had spoken a light word of passing admiration he had
never seen again, nor indeed wished to see. And for no more than this,
forsooth, he must be flouted by her whom his very soul loved! It was a
hard world, a bad world--of which the grim law was that a man must pay
good money, red and white, for that which he desires with his heart and
reaches out his hand to possess himself of.
Just then the street door resounded with the clang of impetuous
knocking. His cousin Will went down, and presently Wat heard the noise
of opening bars, and then the sough of rude, soldier-like speech filled
the stairway.
"Wat Gordon! Wat Gordon!" cried a voice which sounded familiar enough
to him, "come down forthwith! Here! I have brought you a letter from
your love!"
And Wat swore a vow beneath his breath to stop the mouth of the rascal
who knew no better than to shout a message so false and inopportune
in the ears of the girl of the dusky eyelashes. Nevertheless, he went
quickly to the landing and looked down.
A burly figure stood blocking the stairway beneath, and a ruddy face
gleamed upward like a moon out of a mist, as Maisie held the lamp
aloft. A voice, somewhat husky with too recent good living, cried,
"Lochinvar, here is a letter to you from the colonel. Great good may it
do you, but may the last drop in the cogie of him that sent it be the
sourest, for raising Davie Dunbar from the good company and the jolly
pint-stoup, to be splattered at this time of night with the dirty suds
of every greasy frow in all Amersfort!"
And the stout soldier dusted certain befouling drops from his military
coat with a very indignant expression.
"Not that the company was over-choice or the wine fit to be called
aught but poison. 'Mony littles mak' a mickle,' says the old Scots saw.
But, my certes, of such a brew as yon it micht be said 'mony mickles
make but little'! For an it were not for the filling up of your belly,
ten pints of their Amersfort twopenny ale is no more kenned on a man
than so much dishwashings!"
"Come your ways in and sit down, sergeant," said Mistress Maisie,
hospitably. For her hand was somewhat weary with holding the lamp
aloft, while Sergeant Davie Dunbar described the entertainment he had
just left. Meanwhile Wat had opened his scrap of gray official letter,
and appeared to stand fixed in thought upon the words which he found
written therein.
"What may be the import of your message, since you are grown suddenly
so solemn-jawed over it, Wat?" cried Davie Dunbar, going up to look
over his shoulder, while Maisie and Kate McGhie stood talking quietly
apart.
"I am bidden go on a quest into the wild country by the seashore, a
mission that in itself I should like well enough were it not that it
comes to me by the hand of Black Murdo of Barra."
Davie Dunbar whistled thoughtfully.
"When the corbie is from home, it's like to be an ill day for wee lame
lammies!" he said, sententiously. Wat Gordon cocked his guardsman's
cap at the words. He had set it on his head as he went down-stairs.
"I am Walter Gordon, of Lochinvar, and though that be for the nonce but
a barren heritage, I am also a gentleman-private in the prince's Scots
Dragoons, and I count not the Earl of Barra more than a buzzard-kite."
"I see well that ye are but a wee innocent lammie after all," retorted
Sergeant Dunbar; "little ye ken about the regimen of war if at the
outset of a campaign ye begin by belittling your enemy. I tell you,
Murdo of Barra has more brains under his Highland bonnet than all
your gay Douglas dragoons, from your swearing colonel to the suckling
drummer-boy--who no sooner leaves his mother's breast than he learns to
mouth curses and lisp strange oaths."
Wat Gordon shook his head with a certain unconvinced and dour
determination.
"I have been in wild places and my sword has brought me through, but
though I own that, I like not this commission--yet feared of Barra I am
not."
And he handed Davie Dunbar the paper. The sergeant read it aloud:
"Walter Gordon, some time of Lochinvar, of the Prince's
Scottish Dragoon Guards, you are ordered to obtain the
true numeration of each regiment in the camp and city of
Amersfort--their officering, the numbers of each company, and
of those that cannot be passed by the muster officers, the
tally of those sick with fever, and of those still recovering
from it, the number of cannon on the works and where they are
posted. These lists you are to transmit with your own hand to
an officer appointed to receive them by His Highness the Prince
at the Inn of Brederode by the Northern Sanddunes, who will
furnish you with a receipt for them. This receipt you will
preserve and return to me in token that you have fulfilled
your mission. The officers of the regiments and the commanders
of batteries have hereby orders to render you a correct and
instant accompt.
"(Signed) For the Stadtholder and the States-General,
"BARRA,
"_Provost-Marshal of the City and Camp_."
William Gordon had come into the room while the sergeant was reading
the paper, and now stood looking at Walter's unusual commission.
"There will be murder done when you come to our colonel," he said, "and
ask him to tell you that the most part of his regiment is already in
hospital, and also how many of the rest are sickening for it."
But Wat Gordon stood up and tightened his sword-belt, hitching his
sword forward so that the hilt fell easily under his hand. Then he
flipped the mandate carelessly upon the widened fingers of his left
hand before sticking it through his belt.
"It is, at least, an order," he said, grandly, "and so long as I am in
the service of His Highness the Prince, my orders I will obey."
"And pray what else would you do, callant," interjected Sergeant David
Dunbar, "but obey your orders--so long, at least, as ye are sure that
the lad who bids ye has the richt to bid ye?"