MISFORTUNATE COLIN
The completeness of the peace and content which reigned on Fiara was
only equalled by the fierceness of the storm of passion and hellish
anger which broke over Suliscanna on the day after the chief's arrival.
It was already late in the forenoon when a messenger, haggard and half
blind with terror and the dying out of the drink in his brain, brought
to the house of the chief the news of the destruction of the boats and
the flight of the prisoners.
Barra rose to his feet. His hand instinctively groped for a dagger, and
not finding it, he struck the man to the ground with his clinched fist.
During the night he had probably been the only sober man on the island.
When he went out he found a pale and terror-stricken population.
Women peered anxiously at him from their hovels or scudded among the
scattered bowlders on the hill, with children tagging wearily after
them and clinging to their skirts.
As he came near the landing-place a woman skirled suddenly from the
back of a rock. The wild voice startled him. It was like the crying of
the death-keen.
"Who is that?" demanded Barra of his nearest henchman.
"'Tis the wife of the watchman, Misfortunate Colin," replied Alister
McAlister, who this morning had somehow accomplished the gravity of
a judge on circuit. He had been all night in attendance outside the
chief's door--so that, although he had carried out his declared
intentions to the letter, he was yet wholly guiltless of the damning
negligence which the Lord of Barra was now about to investigate and
punish.
Presently the Calf and the Killer were discovered, sleeping the sleep
of the greatly intoxicated. They still lay with Wat's rope about them,
clasped in fraternal arms, their breaths combining to make one generous
steam of Hollands gin. Misfortunate Colin lay as he had fallen, with
the keys of the dungeon tucked under his belt. The chief turned him
over with his foot.
"Nail him up to that door by the hands and feet!" he ordered, briefly,
looking at the man with cold, malevolent eyes.
A woman's shriek rang out, and like a mænad she came flying down the
hill, loose-haired, wild-eyed, and flung herself down, grovelling
bestially at Barra's feet.
"Mercy, master of life and death!" she cried, clasping him firmly by
the knees; "all misfortunes fall on my man. And this is not his fault.
All the island was even as he is."
"But all the island had not the charge of a prisoner," cried Barra.
Then without further question men approached to seize the man of fated
fortunes, and he would doubtless have been immediately crucified on the
door which he had failed to guard but for the interference of Mistress
McAlister.
She came fearlessly forth from her adjacent dwelling, clad in her
decent white cap and apron, looking snod and wiselike as if she had
been going to the Kirk of Colmonel on a sacrament Sabbath. Even as
Barra looked at her he was recalled to himself. To him she represented
that civilization from which he had so recently come, and which looked
askance on the wild vengeances that were expected and even thought
proper among the clansmen of Suliscanna.
"My lord," she said, "there was one man lang syne that was crucified
with nails for the sins of the people. Be kinder to poor Colin. Tie him
up with ropes, lest his blood be on your head, and ye win not within
the mercy of the Crucified."
Now though when abroad he made a pretence of religious fervor for
political purposes, in reality Barra was purely pagan and cared nothing
for Bess's parable. Nevertheless, he acknowledged tacitly the force of
an outside civilization and another code of justice, speaking to him in
the person of the woman from Ayrshire.
"Tie him up with ropes," he commanded, abruptly.
And so in a trice the Misfortunate Colin was secured to the door of
the dungeon of which he had proved himself so inefficient a guard, his
arms fixed by the wrists to the corners of it, and his heavy, drunken
head rolling loosely from side to side upon his breast. His wife knelt
at his feet, but without daring so much as to touch him with a finger.
Round his neck swung the keys, the emblem of his broken trust. As for
the Calf and the Killer, they were flung, bound as they were, into the
dungeon, where upon awaking their seeming fraternal amity suddenly gave
way, and they bit and butted at each other to the extent of their bonds
with mutual recriminations and accusations of treachery.
Barra surveyed carefully every trace which had been left of the manner
of the prisoners' escape. But for the present, at least, he could come
to no conclusion, save that they had escaped in a boat, probably with
the help of Wise Jan. He judged also that, thanks to this excellent
navigator, the fugitives were by this time far beyond the reach of his
present vengeance. Nevertheless he left nothing untried. He climbed
the heights of Lianacraig and looked out seaward and northward. But he
could see nothing upon the black ridge of the central cliffs of Fiara,
and nothing in the gloomy strait which separated it from the opposite
rock-wall of Suliscanna. All in that direction was warded by the race
of the Suck, ridging dangerously on either side and tailing away to the
north in a jabble of confused water.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, upon Fiara Wise Jan ran his errands and gathered his
drift-wood under the orders of the master-at-arms, while Wat and Kate,
content to dwell together in an innocent garden of Eden, a garden
from which the serpent was for the moment excluded, walked hand in
hand under the shelter of the long central cliff-line of the isle on
which they had found shelter. The history of their love's growth was
a constant marvel to them, and their chief interest and happiness now
lay in unravelling the why and the wherefore of each incident in their
pasts. How at such a time one thought this--how at such another they
both thought the same identical thing--though one was interned in a
Dutch prison and the other tossing on the waters of the North Sea. Now
that they were fully assured as to their mutual loves--for even Wat had
ceased to doubt, if not to marvel--they had time and to spare for the
comparison of their feelings in the past, and for the most exhaustive
examination of their possibilities in the future.
"Tell me a tale," commanded Kate, as they sat together on the
projecting part of the trunk of the rowan-tree set in the angle of the
cliff.
"Which tale?" asked Wat, promptly, as if there were only two in the
world--as indeed there were, for them. Kate sighed at the impossibility
of having both at once--the wondrous tale of their past, and the yet
more wondrous and aureate tale of their future.
"Tell me how you first loved me, and when, and why, and how much?" she
said, since perforce she had to choose one.
Then Wat, delving always further and further into the past, produced
instance after instance to prove that ever since he had seen her, known
her, hearkened to her voice, there had not been a moment when he had
not loved her.
And Kate, resting the dusky tangle of her soft curls on his shoulder,
sighed again and again with a nestling bliss to listen to tale so sweet.
"You have forgotten about what you thought coming up the stairs in
Zaandpoort Street," she would correct. For she knew the track of the
story-teller by heart, and like a child with a favorite fairy tale, she
resented omissions almost as much as she suspected the genuineness of
additions.
"Now tell me more about seeing me lying on Maisie's lap with hands
clasped behind my head. And about what you thought then."
And so most innocently she would put her hands in the very position it
was Wat's duty to describe, which naturally for some moments disturbed
his ideas and interfered with the continuity of the history.
But as soon as they turned homeward they became, after their manner,
severely practical.
"Kate," said Wat, as they walked together--Wat's hand mostly on his
sweetheart's shoulder, after the manner of school-boys that are
comrades--"'tis high time we were taking thought for our escape. Each
day makes the coming of the ship to carry off Barra and his retinue a
nearer possibility."
Kate sighed as she looked on the long barrier of the northern breakers
whitening the horizon, and then at the mellow floods of peaceful light
which poured in from the west, where the seabirds were circling and
diving.
"And leave all this," she said, wistfully, "and you?"
"Nay, no need to leave me--if you will stay with me," quoth Wat,
cheerfully; "but to come with me to mine own land, to be my love and my
queen."
"And what would you do with me there?" she said, looking up at him.
"Would not you be an outlaw, and I no better than an encumbrance while
you remain in hiding?"
"I think not that the pursuit is so keen as it was before the king
began to protect those of his own religion," answered Wat. "I believe
we should find that the worst of the shower had slacked. And then there
is always the old tower in the middle of the loch. Since my mother's
death no one has dwelt in it. We would be sure of a shelter there."
Kate shook her head wistfully, like one with the same desires but
better knowledge.
"Wat, my dear," she made him answer, "you speak by the heart, and it
is my heart also, God knows; but now I must speak a word or two by the
head. You and I must e'en bide a wee and wait. It is better so. I will
not be a charge on you. If I am not welcome at home, why, there is
always sweet Grizel McCulloch at the Ardwell to whom I can go. She will
gladly give me a hiding-place and a bite for company's sake till the
blast goes by. If all speak the truth in Holland where we come from, it
will not be long ere the king has filled up the measure of his folly."
"In that case I might have to fight for the fool and his folly both,"
said Wat, quietly.
"Aye, there it is!" cried Kate; "a lass in her heart cares nought for
king or prince when once she has given herself to love. But a man will
hold to his own way of it, and put in peril his happiness and the
happiness of another in order to have the right shade of color set upon
the cushions of the throne."
Wat smiled at her yet more gently.
"In Holland," he said, "I fought for the prince and was true to him;
but it is another matter here, where we are under the rule and sway of
the anointed king of the ancient Scottish name."
"Ah, well, Wat," said Kate, "that is not my thought of it, as well
you know. But I do not love you so little, lad, that I could think
the less of you for standing by your colors, even though with your
own eyes ye have seen that king make of Scotland little better than a
hunting-field."
"James Stuart is my king as surely as Kate McGhie is my love," said
Wat, mighty gravely. "I argue as little about one as the other."
Kate touched his arm gently.
"Dear love--no," she said. "Do not let us dispute any more. You are
you, and so you love me true. You shall fight for what king you will,
only keep safe your heart and life for me--for they are all I have."
They had reached the great chamber in the cliff which lay open to the
north, and in which Jack Scarlett already had his cooking-fire of
charcoal alight for the evening meal. A hundred yards from the entrance
there met them a sweet and appetizing smell of fresh sea-fish broiling
in the ashes. For Wise Jan lay most of his spare time fishing out on a
jutting rock, where the swirl of the Suck sent a back-spang of current
careering anglewise along the northern edge of the Fiara.
"Jack," said Wat, as they came in, "I think that we should get away
from the island as soon as we can."
"And has it taken you all this time to come to that conclusion?" cried
old Jack, without looking up, plowtering discontentedly in the red
embers with a burned stick.
"The new moon will now give us nearly three hours' light--enough for
our purpose," said Wat, "and Wise Jan here can help us to put our old
boat in readiness."
"Why not the new and brave one you hid in the water-passage? I suppose
it is there in safety still?" said Scarlett.
"Aye," replied Wat, "but unless you want to be cast away the second
time in the tumble of the Suck, you will most carefully leave that boat
alone; for the current races by at either end, and except for those
who have spent their lives in piloting their way through the intricate
passages of the reefs and know their every glide and swirl, it is
impossible to reach the open sea from the Sound of Suliscanna."
"How then?" grumbled Scarlett, for these things of the sea were not in
his province, and he resented the reference of any question to him.
"Let those that stomach cold salt-water agree about the road over it.
My parish begins when there is solid earth beneath my feet."
Wat answered him clearly, scoring the points on his fingers as he made
them.
"First we have the old boat, which on my first coming hither I found
floating in the northern bay and brought ashore. Well, we must get Jan
to rig her with the mast out of the larger boat in the water-cave, and
equip her with the oars out of that also. Then, since the Suck sweeps
past us on the east, and there is a strong tide-race to the west, we
must steer our way directly out from the northern shore of Fiara,
which is indeed the only direction in which the sea is anyway clear.
We shall keep steadily on till we find the waters to the east calm and
practicable, for the fretting of the tide on the shoreward skerries
cannot last long out on the open sea."
Scarlett nodded his head. It was all right, he thought. He was ready to
adventure in any direction which did not involve another wrestle with
the unfriendly and unwholesome Suck of Suliscanna.
"This very night," quoth Wat, to close the discussion, "will I swim
over and bring back the needful things for our departure in the boat
itself. It is a pity, indeed, that we cannot take her with us."
Kate looked at him with wonderful changeful eyes, a lingering regard
that dwelt tenderly on him. She said nothing with her tongue, but her
eyes spoke for her. They were of the tenderest brown immediately about
the dark pupils, then of a clear hazel, which merged into the most
sweet and translucent gray, like the first dawn of a May morning.
"Take care of yourself for me," they said; "you are all my earthly
treasure."
For this is the universal language of loving women's eyes in times of
danger, ever since Eve clave to her husband in the night solace outside
the wall of Paradise, and they twain became one flesh.