LOCHINVAR KEEPS TRYST
The morning of the tenth came--still, uncolored below, rising to
grayish-blue above, rose-rimmed only along the eastern horizon. The
reapers were out in the high fields about Gordonstoun by daybreak,
with their crooked reaping-hooks in their hands, busily grasping the
handfuls of grain and cutting them through with a pleasant "risp" of
sound. Cocks crowed early that morning, for they knew it was going to
be a day of fervent heat. It would be as well, therefore, to have the
pursuit of slippery worm and rampant caterpillar over betimes in the
dawning. Then each chanticleer could stand in the shade and scratch
himself applausively with alternate foot all the hot noontide, while
his wives clucked and nestled in the dusty holes along the banks,
interchanging intimate reflections upon the moral character of the
giddier and more skittish young pullets of the farmyard.
But long after the sun had risen Wat Gordon lay asleep. Jean Gordon
had a suit of clothes lying ready brushed for him on a chair--frilled
linen, lace so cobwebby and fine, that it seemed to be spun from the
foam of the loch after a storm. His father's sword swung by a belt of
faded scarlet leather from the oaken angle of the nearest chair-back.
"I'll gie him half an hour yet," said she; "Peter will no' be here wi'
Sandy Gordon's muckle horse before that time."
The minutes passed slowly. Jean opened the window of the tower, and
the fresh air of the moorland stole in. Wat Gordon lay on his pillow
knitting his brows and working his hands as if in grips with some
deadly problem that lacked a solution.
"Puir lad, puir lad, whatna kittle thing love is!" murmured the old
lady; "it works us, it drives us, and it harls us. It grieves us and
gars us greet. And yet, what wad life be without it and the memory o't!
And 'tis Jean Gordon that should ken, for she has lived sixty years on
the memory o' ae bonny month o' maist heavenly bliss."
At last she bent over him, hearing a loud and piercing whistle from the
shore of the loch.
"My lamb, my lamb!" she whispered, fondly, "rise ye, for your love's
sake. Here are your claes. Gang forth like a bridegroom rejoicing in
your strength. Ye shallna gang menseless this day, though ye hae to
ride on another man's horse. The time will come when ye shall hae mony
braw plenished stables o' your ain."
Obediently Wat rose, and put the fine clothes on him with a kind of
wonder. He was still pale and wan, and his body was wasted by suffering
and recent privation. Nevertheless, he felt his head clear, and there
was an elastic ease in all his sinews.
"To-day," he said to himself, gladly--"to-day I cast the die for love
or death."
The curate came for him in the boat, and Jean Gordon accompanied them.
"I am loath to part," she said; "it was aye a kindly Galloway custom
to convoy the lad ye liked best, and Guid kens that's Wat Gordon o'
Lochinvar."
"What do three horses there?" asked Wat, as they rowed the boat over to
the landing-place, where a black charger and two humbler shelties were
tethered close together among the dwarf moorland birches.
"'Tis a grand day for pleasuring," said Jean, "and Peter and me have
made it up to ride together to the Three Thorns o' Carlinwark by the
end o' the loch. There ye will find us gin ye need us. Ye will hae to
ride that gate onyway, gin ye win clear o' the house o' Balmaghie with
life and good fortune."
Wat mounted his cousin's horse Drumclog, a mighty black of rare paces,
which, in spite of his size, on firm ground could distance any steed in
the stewartry--aye, and as far as to Gretna on the border-side.
Now when Wat Gordon turned to ride away, sitting erect on his black
horse, there came a light of almost maiden's love into Jean Gordon's
eye.
"Never was there bride couched beside bridegroom like him!" she
exclaimed, proudly. "Win her or lose her, it will be the height o'
pride to the young lass all her life long, that on a day she had such a
lover to venture all for her sake."
And indeed, despite the wild eye, sunk in its rim of darkest purple,
despite the hollow cheek and pale face of his wandering, well might
she say it. For no such cavalier as Walter Gordon, Lord of Lochinvar
and Gordonstoun, that day took the eyes of ladies in all broad
Scotland. Doubly outlawed as he was--rebel, landless, friendless,
penniless--there was yet something about the lad which carried hearts
before him as the wind carries dandelion spray. And many a high dame
and many a much-courted maiden had left her all that day to have
followed him through the world at a waft of his right hand.
A coat of fine blue cloth set Walter Gordon well. A light cape of the
same was bound over it, having a broad, rough hem of gold. His father's
sword swung by his side. The sash and star of King James's order shone
on his breast as the wind blew back his cloak. Knee-breeches of corded
leather and cavalier's riding-boots completed his attire, while a
broad hat, white-feathered for loyalty and trimmed with blue and gold,
was on his head.
"Aye, there gangs the leal heart," said Jean Gordon, wiping her dim
eyes that she might watch him the longer; "there gangs the bonny
laddie. There rides Wat Gordon, the only true lover--the lad that is
ready to lay doon his life for his dear, lightly as a man sets on the
board an empty cup after that he has drunken. Wae's me that sax inches
o' steel in the back, or a pistol bullet at ten paces, should have
power to lay a' that beauty low in the dust!"
* * * * *
The holms and woodland spaces of Balmaghie were indeed a sight to see
that glorious morn of the tenth of September, in the year of Christ,
His Grace, 1689. There was scarce accommodation in the wide stables of
the mansion for the horses of the guests. The very byres were crowded
with them. The kye were milked on the edge of the wood to give the
horses stalling-room in their places. As for Mistress Crombie, she was
nearly driven out of her wits by the foreign cooks whom the new lady of
the house had brought with her--some of them from Edinburgh and some
of them all the way from London itself--to do justice to the great
occasion.
Alisoun Begbie had a host of assistants. Every gentleman's house in the
neighborhood had supplied its quota--given willingly, too, for there
was no saying how soon the time might come to solicit an equivalent,
either from the social kindness of the great lady of Balmaghie, or from
the important political influence of the bridegroom, Murdo, Lord of
Barra and the Small Isles.
Down the moorland road, by the side of which the humblebees were
droning in the heather bushes, and the blithe blackcock spreading his
wings and crowing as if the spring had come again, yet another guest
was riding to the wedding--and one, too, arrayed in the wedding
garment.
Wat Gordon of Lochinvar flashed like a dragon-fly in gay apparel
above the lily-clad pools of Loch Ken. But he had no invitation--no
"Haste-to-the-Wedding"--unless, perhaps, the little heart of gold
which he carried in his breast could be accounted such a summons. He
rode slowly, often walking his horse long distances, like one who is
not anxious to arrive over early at an important meeting-place. After
he had passed the Bridge of New Galloway, and had ridden, to the
astonishment and delight of those early astir in the ancient borough
town, down the long, straggling, pig-haunted street, he dismounted and
allowed his horse to walk by the loch-side, and even at intervals to
crop the sweet grasses of the road-side.
Yet it was from no consuming admiration of the supreme beauties of that
fair pathway that Wat Gordon lagged so long upon it that September
morn. To no purpose the loch rippled its deepest blue for him. In vain
the heather ran back in league on league of red and purple bloom to
the uttermost horizon, that Bennan frowned grimly above, and that the
Black Craig of Dee fulfilled the promise of its name in gloomy majesty
against the western sky. For Wat Gordon kept his pale face turned
anxiously on his charger.
"Ah, Drumclog," he said, thinking aloud, "thou art a Whig's horse, but
if ever thou didst carry a cavalier on a desperate quest, it is surely
this fair morning. Speed to thy legs, nimbleness to thy feet, for thou
carriest more than the life of one this day."