I MEET MARY GORDON FOR THE SECOND TIME.
And when we arrived, lo! before the little white farm there was a great
muster. My Lord Kenmure himself rode over to review us. For the
Committee of Estates drawn together by the Duke Hamilton had named him
as responsible for the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.
But that which was of greater interest to me than any commission or
enrollment was the appearing of two women upon the doorstep of the
cottage--the Lady of Earlstoun and her daughter Mary.
Now it is to be remembered that Alexander Gordon’s wife was a sister of
Sir Robert Hamilton, the commander at Bothwell Brig--a man whose
ungovernable temper, and genius for setting one man at variance with his
fellow, had lost us Bothwell Brig and the life of many a brave lad of
the hills. And Mary’s mother, Jean Hamilton, was like her brother in
that somewhat pretentious piety which is of all things the most souring
and embittering.
So that even my father said--good, honest man, that would speak ill of
none all the days of his life: “If I had a wife like yon woman, I
declare I would e’en turn Malignant and shoot her without warrant of law
or benefit of clergy.”
Jean Gordon came down off the doorstep and stood in front of us four
MacClellans, looking out upon us with her keen, black eyes, and seeming
as it had been, ready to peck at us with her long nose, which was hooked
like a parrot’s in the middle.
“Have any of you paid the King’s cess,[5] or had any dealings with the
malignants?” she said, speaking to us as to children taken in a fault.
“Not save along the barrel of a musket, my lady of Earlstoun!” quoth my
father, drily.
The stern-visaged woman smiled at the ready answer.
“E’en stick to that, goodman of Ardarroch--it is the safest commerce
with such ill-favoured cattle!” she said.
And with that she stepped further on to interrogate some newcomers who
had arrived after us in the yard of the farm.
But indeed I minded her nothing. For there was a sweeter and fairer
thing to see standing by the cheek of the door--even young Mary Gordon,
the very maid I had once carried so far in my arms, now grown a great
lass and a tall, albeit still slender as a year-old wand of willow by
the water’s edges. Her hair, which had been lint white when I brought
her down the side of Bennan after the shooting of the poor lad, was now
darkening into a golden brown, with thick streaks of a warmer hue, ruddy
as copper, running through it.
This girl leaned against the doorstep, her shapely head inclined a
little sideways, and her profile clear and cold as the graving on a seal
ring, turned away from me.
For my life I could not take my eyes off her.
“I, even I, Quintin MacClellan, have carried that girl in my arms and
thought nothing of it!” I said the words over and over to myself, and
somehow they were exceedingly pleasing to me.
I had ever sneered at love and love-making before, but (I own it) after
seeing that fair young lass stand by the low entering in of the
farmhouse door, I scoffed no more.
Yet she seemed all unconscious that I or any other was near her. But it
came to me with power I could not resist, that I should make myself
known to her. And though I expected nothing of remembrance, grace, or
favour, yet--such is the force of compelling love, the love that comes
at the first sight (and I believe in no other kind) that I put all my
pride under my feet, and went forward humbly to speak with her, holding
my bonnet of blue in my hand.
For as yet we of the Earlstoun levies had fallen into no sort of order,
neither had we been drilled according to the rules of war, but stood
about in scattering groups, waiting for the end of the conference
between my Lord of Kenmure and Colonel William Gordon.
As I approached, awkwardly enough, the maid turned her eyes upon me with
some surprise, and the light of them shone cold as winter moonlight
glinting upon new-fallen snow.
I made my best and most dutiful obedience, even as my mother had showed
me, for she was gentle of kin and breeding, far beyond my father.
“Mistress Mary,” I said, scarce daring to raise my eyes to hers, but
keeping them fixed upon the point of my own rough brogans. “You have
without doubt forgotten me. Yet have I never for an hour forgotten you.”
I knew all the while that her eyes were burning auger holes into me. But
I could not raise my awkward coltish face to hers. She stood a little
more erect, waiting for me to speak again. I could see so much without
looking. Whereat, after many trials, I mustered up courage to go on.
“Mind you not the lad who brought you down from the Bennan top so long
ago, and took you under cloud of night to the tower of Lochinvar on the
raft beneath the shelter of beech leaves?”
I knew there was a kindly interest growing now in her eyes. But, dolt
that I was, I could not meet them a whit the more readily because of
that.
“I scarcely remember aught of it,” she said, “yet I have been told a
hundred times the tale of your bringing me home to my aunt at Lochinvar.
It is somewhat belated, but I thank you, sir, for your courtesy.”
“Nay,” said I, “’tis all I have to be thankful for in my poor life,
that I took you safely past the cruel persecutors.”
She gave me a quick, strange look.
“Yet now do I not see you ready to ride and persecute in your turn?”
These words, from the daughter of Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun, who was
scarcely yet liberate from the prison of Blackness, astonished me so
much that I stood speechless.
“To persecute in my turn?” said I. “Nay, my dear mistress, I go to
uphold the banner of Christ’s Kingdom against those that hate Him.”
Very scornfully she smiled.
“In my short life,” she said, “I’ve heard overmuch of such talk. I know
to an ell how much it means. I have a mother, and she has friends and
gossips. To me the triumph of what you call ‘the Kingdom’ means but two
things--the Pharisee exalted and the bigot triumphant. Prince Jacob of
Orange may supplant his father and take the crown; every canting Jack
may fling away the white rose and shout for the Orange lily. But not
I--not I?”
She flaunted a little white hand suddenly palm upward, like an apple
blossom blown off the branch by the wind.
To say that I was astounded by this outbreak is to say little. It was
like an earthquake, the trembling and resolving of solid land under my
feet. Alexander Gordon’s child--“the Bull of Earlstoun’s”
daughter--standing openly and boldly for the cause of those who had
prisoned and, perhaps, tortured her father, and brought about the ruin
of her house!
At last I managed to speak.
“You are a young maiden,” I said, as quietly as I could, “and you know
nothing of the great occasions of state, the persecutions of twenty-five
years, the blood shed on lonely hillsides, the deaths by yet wearier
sickness, the burials under cloud of night of those who have
suffered----!”
I would have said more, but that she prevented me imperiously.
“I know all there is to know,” she cried, almost insolently. “Have I not
broken fast with it, dined with it, taken my Four-hours with it, supped
with it ever since I was of age to hear words spoken? But to my thinking
the root of the matter is that you, and those like you, will not obey
the rightful King, who alone is to be obeyed, whose least word ought to
be sufficient.”
“But not in religion--not in the things of conscience,” I stammered.
Again she waved her hand floutingly.
“’Tis not my idea of loyalty only to be loyal when it suits my whim,
only to obey when obedience is easy and pleasant. The man whom I shall
honour shall know nothing of such summer allegiance as that!”
She paused a moment and I listened intently.
“Nay,” she said, “he shall speak and I shall obey. He shall be my King,
even as King James is the sovereign of his people. His word shall be
sacred and his will law.”
There was a light of something like devout obedience in her eyes. A holy
vestal flame for a moment lighted up her face. I knew it was useless to
argue with her then.
“Nevertheless,” I answered very meekly, “at least you will not wholly
forget that I brought you to a place of safety, sheltering you in my
arms and venturing into dark waters for your sake!”
Now though I looked not directly at her, I could see the cold light in
her eyes grow more scornful.
“You do well to remind me of my obligation. But do not be afraid; you
shall be satisfied. I will speak of you to my father. Doubtless, when he
comes home he will be great with the Usurper and those that bear rule
under him. You shall be rewarded to the top of your desires.”
Then there rose a hot indignation in my heart that she should thus
wilfully misunderstand me.
“You do me great wrong, my Lady Mary,” I answered; “I desire no reward
from you or yours, saving only your kindly remembrance, nor yet any
advancement save, if it might be, into your favour.”
“That,” she said, turning petulantly away, “you will never get till I
see the white rose in your bonnet instead of those Whiggish and rebel
colours.”