MARDROCHAT THE SPY.
Then even as upon the hillside I watched and waited, I saw one come out
and go round about the bower. It was a figure in woman's garments. I
knew the form at the first sight. It was Kate McGhie of the Balmaghie. I
had found our lost maids. So I gave a whistle that she knew with my bird
call, such as every lad of the heather carried, from old Sandy Peden to
young James Renwick. At the first sound of it, she started as though she
had been stung. At the second peep and whinny she came a little way on
tiptoe. So I whistled with a curious turn at the end, as Wat, my cousin,
was wont to do. Whereupon she came a little further, and I could see her
eyes looking about eagerly.
Then I stood up and came running down the side of the gairy till she saw
me. She gave a little cry and put her hands to her heart, for I think
she had not expected to see me, but some other--Wat of Lochinvar, as I
guess. But for all that she held out her hands as if she were mightily
glad to see me.
"Ye canna send us back now!" she cried out, before even I came near to
her.
"Ye deserve to get soundly payed for this misdemeanour," I answered.
"Did ye ever think of the sore hearts ye left behind ye?"
"Oh, my father," said Kate lightly, "he would just read his book, bless
King Chairlie, walk the avenue, and say 'Kate, Kate--deil's in the
lassie! The daft hizzie has tane the hill again!'"
"But will not he be angry?"
"Angry, Roger McGhie? Na, na; I bade Mally Lintwhite make him
potted-head, and gie him duck aff the pond to his supper, stuffed with
mushrooms; and atween that and his claret wine he will thrive brawly."
Then Kate McGhie seemed suddenly to remember something, and we went down
the hillside among the stones.
"Bide ye there!" she commanded, halting me with her hand as John Graham
halts a squadron. And I did as I was bidden; for in those days Kate had
most imperious ways with her.
She stole down quietly, stooped her head to raise the flap which made a
curtain door for the bower, and went within. I watched with all my eyes,
for I was eager to see once more Maisie Lennox, my dear sometime comrade
and gossip. In a little she came forth, but what a leap my heart gave
when I saw how pale she looked. Her hand and arm were bandaged, and she
leaned lightly on Kate's shoulder.
Do you wonder that my desire went out to her greatly, and that all in a
moment I sprang down the rickle of stones as if they had been a made
road?
"Maisie, Maisie, wha has done this to ye, my lassie?" I cried, or
something like that (for I do not mind the words very well). And with
that she fell to the greeting--the lass that never grat whatever was
wrong, so that I was fair beside myself to see her. And Kate McGhie
pushed me forward by the shoulder, and made signs frowningly, which I
could not understand. I thought she meant that I was to go away till
Maisie had somewhat recovered herself.
Very obediently I made to do so, and was for stealing away up the hill
again, when Kate stamped her foot and said suddenly, "If ye daur----!"
So I abode where I was, till it seemed to me that Maisie was about to
fall, being yet weak. So I went to hold her up, and as soon as I did so,
Kate McGhie slipped out of sight. Now, I think she did this of
intention, for when she convoyed me a little down the hill, when I went
in the evening, she rallied me very sorely.
"Man William Gordon," she said; "I e'en thocht I wad hae to pit your
airms aboot her, and tell ye what to say. Ye maun be a queer make o' men
up about the Glenkens. I thank a merciful Providence that we have
another kind o' them about the headend o' Balmaghie!"
But when she left us I needed no instruction. With the best will in the
world I fell to comforting Maisie; and though I put not down the matter
of our discourse (which concerned only ourselves), I can vouch for it
that speedily we were at one. And for a long season I sat on the grey
bowder stones of the gairy and made much of her in another fashion than
that of a comrade.
Then after this our first pleasuring was by-past, she told me how that
Kate and she had come away to seek for her father, because of the report
that had come of his danger and illness; but that an accident had
befallen them upon the way, and they had failed of their errand. What
the accident was she would not tell me, saying that Kate McGhie would be
fond enough to give me the story. Then they had built this bower by the
burnside, where ever since they had remained safe and unmolested.
I asked how they got their provender.
"O," she said, "Hughie Kerr brings it over the hill from the howe of the
Kells. We have had no want of good meal."
Then when we had talked and I had told her of her father and his
welfare, I bethought me to urge her to bide where she was, for that
night at all events, saying that perhaps in the morning she might come
over to see him. For I desired, seeing that the place was no longer safe
(if, indeed, the persecutors did know where Anton was hid, which I
believed not), to have him shifted as soon as he could bear the journey.
But yet I was loath to do it, for there is no hold in all the high
hill-lands so commodious as Cove Macaterick above the loch of that name.
When Kate McGhie came again to us, methought she looked more approvingly
upon me than before--but indulgently, as one that passes an indifferent
piece of work, which yet she herself could better have performed.
As soon as she came near, I began to ask her of Maisie's accident and
the cause of it.
"Has she not told you herself? I am not going to heat cauld porridge for
you twa to sup," she said, in the merry way which never deserted her.
For she was ever the most spirity wench in the world, and though a
laird's daughter, it pleased her often to speak in the country fashion.
But when I had advertised her that Maisie had not said a word about the
matter, but on the contrary had referred me to herself, Kate McGhie made
a pretty mouth and gave a little whistle.
"After all, then," she said, "we are not round the corner yet!"
Then she began to tell me of their journeying in the night after
Pherson, the serving-man, had left them.
"We cam' over the heather licht foot as hares," said Kate McGhie. "The
stars were bonny above. A late moon was rising over the taps by
Balmaclellan, and the thocht that I was out on the heather hills set a
canty fire in my breast.
"A' gaed richt till we cam' to the new brig across the Water o' Dee,
that was biggit a year or twa syne wi' the collections in the kirks.
When we cam' to it we were liltin' blythe and careless at a sang, when
oot o' the dark o' the far side there steps a muckle cankersome lookin'
man in a big cloak, an' stan's richt in the midst o' the road!
"'Whaur gang ye sae late at nicht by this road withoot the leave o'
Mardrochat?' says he.
"'Sang,' says I. 'Wha's midden's this? And wha's Mardrochat that his
barn-door cock craws sae croose on til't?'
"For," said Kate McGhie, looking at me, "as ye ken, I hadna been learned
at the Balmaghie to thole snash frae onybody."
At which I smiled, for well I knew Kate's reputation with her tongue.
"'This is Mardrochat's road, and by the King's command his business is
to question all comers. But it's not ill-gi'en words that he wad use wi'
twa sic bonny lassies!' says the loon in the cloak.
"'Dear sirs,' says I, 'fifty puddin's on a plate! Mardrochat maun be a
braw lad. Is he the King's hangman? It's an honourable and
well-considered office nowadays, they tell me.'
"'Satisfy me whar ye are gaun sae late,' says the ill-contriving chiel,
'an' maybes I'll convoy ye a bit o' the road. It shall never be said
that Mardrochat left twa weel-faured lassies them-lane in the howe o'
the nicht!'
"'Heighty-teighty,' I telled the man, 'oor coo's come hame, an' her
tail's ahint her! Stand oot o' the road an' let decent folk to their
beds!'
"'There's nae beds bena the heather that gate!' said the man. And faith,
there he was in the right of it. There were no beds except the
wanderers' beds in the moss-hags that road for twenty lang Scots miles.
"And all this time we were standing on the brig close to one another.
"'Let us gang by,' said I again.
"'Na,' said the long loon that had called himself Mardrochat, and wha I
kenned for an ill-set informer that made his siller by carrying tales to
Clavers and Lag, 'ye pass na this road. Ye maun e'en turn and come wi'
me!'
"And I think he would have come forward to put his hand upon us. But I
made to get past him at one side, crying to Maisie to try the other. For
I thought that the two of us were surely a match for any black thief of
the kind to be found in the Glenkens.
"But as I was running by, he grippit me with one hand and drew his
windlestrae of a sword wi' the other--drew it on a pair o' lassies, mind
ye. Then what think ye? Your bit lassie there, Missie Mim, she flew on
him like a wullcat and gripped the blade atween her fingers till she
drew it oot o' his hand. Then she took it across her knee and garred it
play _snap_ like a rotten branch. Syne ower it gaed intil the water. And
that was the way she got the cut on her hand, poor thing."
Then I gave a great shout and clasped Maisie in my arms, yet not
harshly, lest she should be weak. I was glad to hear this testimony to
her bravery.
"That is of a better fashion," said Kate, like one who has store of
experience. Then she went on with her story, for she had yet more to
tell. "But the loon was dour for a' the want o' his sword, and we micht
no' hae mastered him but that he tried to trip us and so got tripped
himself. He fell so that the head o' him took the wa' and fair dang him
stupid. So we e'en gied him a bit hoise an' ower he gaed intil the
water----"
"Mercy on us," I cried, "ye didna droon the man?"
"Droon him," said Kate, "deil a fear! Yon chiel is made for the tow.
He'll droon nane. The last we saw o' him, he was sitting on his hurdies
in the shallows, up to his neck in the water, trying what banes war hale
after his stramash.
"So," continued Kate, "we gaed our roads in peace, and the chiel sat
still in the water, thrawin' his heid aboot and aboot like a turnspit,
as lang as we could see him."
Even thus Kate McGhie told her tale, making my lass dearer to me with
every word. Of Mardrochat the informer, who had made bold to meddle with
them, I had heard many times. He had been a Covenanter of zeal and
forwardness till, at a meeting of the Societies, his double-faced guile
had been laid bare. Ever since which day in the wilds of Friarminion, he
had been a cunning, spying fox, upon the track of the hill-folk. But I
knew how dangerous the man could be, and liked it ill enough that the
maids should have crossed him so early on their pilgrimage. I doubted
not that it was from him that the original information had come, which,
being carried to the enemy by Birsay and overheard by me in the house of
Balmaghie, had sent us all hiving to the mountains.