THE HEARTS OF WOMEN
Barra and Will Gordon returned together to the lodgings in the street
of Zaandpoort. There was a sinister look of inexpressible triumph on
the dark face of my Lord of Barra. When they reached home Will Gordon
threw himself silently, face downward, on the oak settle; for there
arose in his heart the memory of those days, not so long ago, when he
and Wat had slept under one plaid among the heather on the moors of
Scotland. And the tears stood in his eyes for the thing which he had
seen that night.
On their way back Barra had bubbled over with laughing sneers at the
downfall of his immaculate and virtuous cousin, but Will Gordon had
paced along sad and silent by his side. Ancient loyalty kept him
without words, yet in his heart he condemned Lochinvar most bitterly,
far more intensely indeed even than Barra.
Maisie and Kate were sitting busily sewing at their delicate white
seams when the two men entered. The little Dutch lamp had been
carefully trimmed, and the whole room radiated cosiest comfort. As was
her wont, Kate's place was by the window, where she sat looking at
her work, keeping a somewhat cold and white face steadfastly upon the
monotonous business of needle and thread.
Maisie sat sad and a little reminiscent of recent tears by the lamp.
Her eyes were moist, and she did not look at all in the direction of
Barra and her husband, as they entered.
A sense of strain in the air paralyzed conversation after the first
greetings had been interchanged. These were loud and eager on the side
of Barra, almost inaudible on the part of Kate and Maisie; and as for
Will Gordon, he lay where he had flung himself so suddenly down upon
the long oaken couch.
"Adventures are to the adventurous, and to-night we have adventured
indeed," at last began my Lord of Barra, speaking directly to his
hostess. "Your husband, with much kindness, accompanied me on my rounds
of inspection, and, among other curious discoveries, it was made
entirely plain to us why our polite acquaintance Lochinvar was in such
a hurry to leave us."
Barra paused with a certain pleasure and appreciation of his own wit
in his voice. But no one spoke in the room. Will Gordon, indeed, gave
an inarticulate groan and plunged heavily over upon the settle with
his face to the wall. Maisie turned her back a little more upon the
speaker, while Kate bent lower upon her sewing, as if the dim light had
suddenly made it harder for her to see the stitches.
"And if you hesitate to believe the extraordinary things I have to tell
you, my friend here, Captain Gordon of the Covenanting regiment, will
tell you where, in the discharge of my duty as provost-marshal of the
camp, it was our business to penetrate, and in what company and in what
circumstances we found your cousin of Lochinvar."
"We do not want to hear. It was all our fault!" said Maisie, turning
suddenly full upon the speaker. Unconsciously to himself, Barra had
been using a somewhat pompous and judicial tone, as though he were
pronouncing judgment upon a hardened offender.
At Maisie's words, the provost-marshal instantly sat erect in his
chair. He was exceedingly astonished. A few hours before he had seen
these two women stern almost to severity over a mere breach of good
manners. He could not imagine that now they would not utterly reject
and condemn such a reprobate as Wat Gordon had proved himself to be. He
felt that he must surely have been misunderstood, so he proceeded to
make his meaning clear.
"But I tell you plainly, my ladies," Barra continued, still more
impressively, "that your husband and I found your cousin of Lochinvar
at the Hostel of the Coronation, of which you may have heard--there
spending his living with harlots, flaunting their endearments in a
public place, and afterwards brawling with the meanest and rudest boors
of the camp."
"And I do not wonder!" cried Maisie Lennox, emphatically, "after the
way he was used in this house, which ought to have been a home to him.
William Gordon, I wonder how, as a Christian man, you could permit your
cousin to be so used!" she continued, fiercely turning upon her husband
and bursting into tears.
Will Gordon groaned inarticulately from the settle. He had not
been present at the time, but he knew well that with women such a
transparent subterfuge would avail him nothing.
"Why, Maisie," he began, speaking from the depths of the pillow, "did
not you yourself--"
"I do not think," said Barra, looking over to Will, "that your wife
understands that the Hostel of the Coronation is, of all the haunts of
sin in this city of Amersfort, the vilest and the worst. The man who
would make his good name a byword there is certainly unfit to have the
honor of admission into a circle so gracious, into society so pure as
that in which I first found him. I speak as the censor of the morals of
the army, and also as one who has suffered many things for conscience'
sake and in order to deserve the praise of them that do well."
Kate looked up for the first time since Will and Barra had come in.
As the latter finished speaking he noticed that her eyes were very
dark, and yet at the same time very bright. The black of the pupil
had overspread the iris so that the whole eye at a distance appeared
as dark as ink, but deep within the indignant light of a tragic love
burned steadily, like a lamp in the night.
The girl spoke quickly and clearly, as if the words had been forced
from her.
"Had I been so used at the only place I called 'home,' when I was a
stranger in a strange land, I tell you all I should have gone straight
to the Hostel of the Coronation--or worse, if worse might be!" she
cried, indignantly.
"And so also would I!" cried Maisie, with still greater emphasis,
sticking her needle viciously into the table and breaking it as she
spoke.
The settle creaked as Will Gordon leaped to his feet.
"Silly women, ye ken not what ye say!" he said, sternly. "Be wise and
plead rather with the man in whose hands our cousin's very life may
lie, for the deeds of this black night."
"His life--his life!" cried, instantly, Maisie and Kate together.
The latter rose to her feet, letting all her white bravery of
seamstressing slip unheeded to the ground. Maisie, on her part, turned
a pale and tear-stained face eagerly up to her husband.
"Yes," said Barra, swiftly, eager to tell the story first, "it is
true--his life; for Walter Gordon, being in company at the place I have
mentioned with a light woman, brawled and insulted those who sat near
him, offering to assert and defend her virtue at the sword's point.
Then when he was withstood and threatened with arrest by my officers,
as their duty was, he turned fiercely upon them and upon others, the
supporters of law and order, and now he lies in prison awaiting trial
for _murder_!"
Kate caught the table with her hand at the last terrible word, which
Barra hissed out with concentrated fury and hatred.
"Is this true?" she said, in a low voice, making a great effort to
regain her calmness. She turned to Will Gordon as she spoke.
"Nay," said Will, "indeed I know nothing of the cause of the quarrel.
But certain it is that there has been a most fierce brawl, and that in
the affray certain men have been grievously wounded, if not killed."
"And is our Wat in prison?" demanded Maisie, fiercely.
"He lies in the military prison of the city awaiting his trial by
court-martial!" replied the provost.
Maisie turned her about and caught her husband by the braid of his coat.
"Go you to him at once--you must! Tell him it is all our fault--we have
been unhappy and to blame, Kate and I--ask him to forgive."
And, being overwrought and strained, she put her head down on Will
Gordon's breast and wept aloud.
Kate went to her and took her hand gently. And to her Maisie instantly
turned, setting her husband aside with a pathetic little gesture of
renunciation, as something which has been proven untrustworthy. Then,
still leaning on Kate's shoulder, she passed slowly from the room.
As Kate McGhie opened the door she flashed one glance, quick with
measureless anger and contempt, back upon the two men who stood gazing
after her. Then she passed out.
There was a long silence between the provost-marshal and his host after
the women had disappeared.
At last Barra broke in upon the awkward pause with a laugh of scorn
which ended with something like a sigh.
"Oh, women! women," he cried. "From what pits will ye not dig the clay
to make you your gods!"
"He had been our friend so long, and in such bitter passes and
desperate ventures," said Will Gordon, excusingly, speaking of Wat in a
hushed voice almost as one would speak of the dead.
Barra shrugged his shoulders to intimate that the whole sex was utterly
impossible of comprehension.
"Nevertheless, you will give our poor cousin your best word and offices
to-morrow?" Will Gordon went on, anxiously.
"I shall see the prince in person," answered Barra, promptly, "and
I shall make my endeavor to arrange that the prisoner shall not be
tried by court-martial--so that nothing summary may take place, and no
sentence be hastily or vindictively carried out."
Will Gordon blanched at the word "summary," which in the severely
disciplined army of the States-General had but one meaning.
He conducted his guest to the door in silence. The moonlight was
casting deep shadows in the high-gabled street of Zaandpoort and
glittering on the pole-axes and muskets of the provost's guard who
stood without, stamping their feet impatiently and waiting the
appearance of their leader.
"Till to-morrow, then!" said Will Gordon, as he parted.
"Till to-morrow!" replied the provost-marshal, more heartily than he
had yet spoken, giving him his hand.
But as he walked down the street towards the camp he smiled a smile
from under the thin, drooping mustache which showed his teeth. They
glittered white in the moonlight like a dog's.