Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Lochinvar: A Novel

CHAPTER XLI
LOVE THAT THINKETH NO EVIL

Wat stood silent, his face turning slowly from red to ashen white. What an arrant fool he had been, not to tell her all in those sweet hours on the island of Fiara – a score of Little Maries had mattered nothing to her then. Then everything would have been plain and easy. His conscience was indeed perfectly clear. But, partly because with the willing forgetfulness of an ardent lover he had forgotten, and partly because he had shrunk from marring with the name of another those precious hours of blissful communion of which he had hitherto enjoyed so few, he had neglected to tell Kate the tale. He saw his mistake now.

"Tell them, Wat," urged Kate, confidently, "tell them all."

"Aye, tell them all," repeated Barra, grimly, between his teeth, "tell them all your late love did for you, beginning with the favors of which your cousin Will and I were witnesses in the gilded room of the Hostel of the Coronation. Begin at the bottom – with the lady's shoe and the toast you drank out of that most worthy cup!"

Wat still stood silent before them. Kate dropped his hand perplexed, looking into his tragic face with bewildered, uncomprehending eyes.

"Why, Wat, what is the matter, dear love – tell them everything, whatever it is. Do not fear for me," whispered Kate, her true, earnest eyes, full of all faith and love, bent upon him without doubt or question.

"I cannot," he said, hoarsely, at last; "I ought to have told you before – it is so difficult now. But I will tell you all – there is no shame in it when all is told. No, do not take my hand till I have finished."

Then quite clearly and briefly Wat recounted all that had happened to the Little Marie – not sparing himself in the matter of the Inn of the Coronation, where he had been found by Will Gordon and Barra, but chiefly insisting upon the noble self-sacrifice of the girl and her death, welcome and sweet to her because of her love and repentance.

But the tale was told on board the Sea Unicorn under a double burden of difficulty. For the teller was conscious that he ought long ago to have confessed all this to his love; and then the story itself, simple and beautiful in its facts, was riddled and blasted by the bitter comments of Barra, and tinctured to base issues by his blighting sneers.

As Wat went on Kate drooped her head on her breast and clasped her hands before her. Even the love-light was for the moment dimmed in her proud eyes, but only with indignant tears, that her love should so be put to shame before those whom she would have given her life to see compelled to hold him in honor.

The heavy weight of unbelief against which he felt himself pleading in vain, gradually proved too much for Wat Gordon. He stopped abruptly and flung his hand impatiently out.

"I cannot go on," he said; "my words are not credited – of what use is it?"

"As you say, my Lord Lochinvar, of what use is it?" sneered Barra. "That you know best yourself. You were asked a plain question – whether the maid who accompanied you on the first part of your wondrous Ulysses wanderings was the same with whom you arrived on board the Sea Unicorn. To that plain question you have only returned a very crooked answer. Have you nothing else that you can say to finish the lie in a more workmanlike fashion?"

"Jack Scarlett – Scarlett, come hither!" Wat cried, suddenly.

And the master-at-arms, who very characteristically had gone forward to berth with the sailors, came aft as the men on deck passed the word for him.

"Will you tell this lady," said Wat, "what you know of my acquaintance with the Little Marie?"

Whereupon, soberly and plainly, like a soldier, John Scarlett told his tale. But for all the effect it had upon the listeners he might just as well have spoken it to the solan-geese diving in the bay. Wat saw the unbelief settle deeper on the face of Roger McGhie, and the very demon of jealousy and malice wink from under the eyelids of my Lady Wellwood.

"I have a question to ask you, my noble captain of various services," said Barra, "a question concerning this girl and your gallant companion. What did you first think when this Marie joined you with the horses – in page's dress, as I have heard you say – and what when she told you that she had stabbed your friend's enemy and hers to the death?"

"I thought what any other man would think," answered Scarlett, brusquely.

"And afterwards among the sand-dunes of Lis you discovered that all this devotion arose merely from noble, pure, unselfish, platonic love?"

The old soldier was more than a little perplexed by Barra's phrases, which he did not fully understand.

"Yes," he answered at last, with a hesitation which told more against his story than all he had said before.

Barra was quick to seize his advantage.

"You see how faithfully these comrades stick to each other – how touching is such fidelity. The intention is so excellent, even when truth looks out in spite of them through the little joins in the patchwork."

"God!" cried Scarlett, fiercely. "I would I had you five minutes at a rapier's end for a posturing, lying knave – a pitiful, putty-faced dog! I cannot answer your words, though I know them to be mere tongue-shuffling. But with my sword – yes, I could answer with that!"

Barra pointed to his side.

"Had your friend – your friend's friend, I should say – not had me at her dagger's end, I should have been most honored. But the lady has spoilt my attack and parry for many a day. Nevertheless, I suffered in a good cause. For without that our general lover had hardly been allowed to enjoy the Arcadian felicities of the sand-dunes of Lis, nor yet his more recent, and I doubt not as agreeable, retirement to the caves and sea-beaches of my poor island of Fiara."

"You are the devil," cried Scarlett, writhing in fury. "But I shall live to see you damned one day!"

But Barra only smiled as he turned to confer apart a while with Roger McGhie and my lady.

Kate walked to the bulwarks and looked over. Wat stood his ground on the spot on which he had told his story; but Scarlett, as soon as he had finished, stalked away with as much dignity as upon short notice he could import into a pair of very untrustworthy sea-legs.

When the conference was over it was Roger McGhie who spoke, very quietly and gently, as was ever his ancient wont.

"Kate, my lass," he said, "I have never compelled you to aught all my life – rather it hath been the other way, perhaps too much. And I will not urge you now. Do you still wish to forsake your father for this man, whose tale you have heard – a tale which, whatever of truth may be in it, he hath certainly hid from you as long as possible? Or will you return to your own home with me, your father, and with this noble lady, to whom I give you as a daughter?"

Kate stood clasping her hands nervously and looking from one to the other of them.

But it was to Wat that she spoke.

"My true-love, I do not distrust you – do not think that," she said, with her lips pale and trembling, her color coming and going. "I believe every word in spite of them all. Aye, and shall always believe you. For, indeed, I cannot do otherwise and live. But oh, my lad" (here for the first time she broke into a storm of sobs), "if you had only trusted me – only told me – I should not have cared. She could not help loving you – but it was I whom you loved all the while."

Wat came nearer to her. She gave him her hand again.

"Nevertheless, for this time I must go with my father, since he bids me. But be brave, Wat, dear lad," she went on; "I believe in you always. The good days will come, and good day or bad day, remember that I shall be ready for you whenever you call me to come to you!"

In a moment they were in each other's arms.

"I will come!" whispered Wat Gordon in her ear; "if I be alive, as God sees me, I will come to you when and where you need me."

Roger McGhie had turned his back on them. My lady's eyes glittered with malice and jealousy, but only my Lord Barra found a word to say.

"Most touching!" he sneered, "much more so indeed than facts – but perhaps hardly so convincing."

* * * * *

Kate had gone below. The others still remained upon the deck. The Sea Unicorn was heading directly for the main-land.

Barra pointed to the blue hills which were slowly changing into gray olive on the lower slopes as the ship neared the land.

"We are honored," he said, "with the company of so brave a lover and one so successful. But we would not keep him from other conquests. So, since I, Murdo of Barra, do not use the daggers of harlots, nor yet the crumbling walls of towers, to crush those who hate me, I give you, sir, your liberty, which I hope you will use wisely, in order that you may retrieve a portion of that honor which by birth is yours. I will set your companion and yourself on shore at the nearest point of land without any conditions whatsoever."

Wat bowed. He did not pay much attention. He was thinking rather of Kate's last words. Barra went over to the captain and entered into earnest talk with him.

It was the turn of the lady of Balmaghie. She came over to where Wat was standing by the side of the ship.

"You thought me beautiful once, or at least you told me so, Lochinvar," she said, laying her hand on his.

"I think you as beautiful to-day as ever I thought you," answered Wat, with a certain weary diplomacy. If the Mammon of Unrighteousness must have the care of the Beloved, it might be as well to make a friend of Mammon.

"Yet you have sought other and younger loves" – she purred her words softly at him – "you have been unfaithful to the old days when it was not less than heaven for you to kiss my hand or to carry my fan."

"Unfaithful!" said Wat, laughing a little hard laugh; "yet your ladyship hath twice been wedded to men of your own choice, whilst I remain lonely, a wanderer, companionless."

"You will ever be welcome at the House of Balmaghie," she said, laying her hand on his.

Wat looked up eagerly. It was not an invitation he had looked for from the duchess on this side the grave.

"Ever most welcome," repeated my lady, looking tenderly at him. "Indeed, gladly would I endeavor to comfort you if ever you come to us in sore trouble."

Wat turned away disappointed. He would certainly look for his consolation from another source, if ever he came within reach of the House of Balmaghie.

"I thank you, my lady," said Wat. "At present my heart is too heavy to permit me more fully to express my gratitude."

He spoke the words mechanically, without setting a meaning to them. He listened to his own lips speaking as if they had been another's, and wondered what they found to say.

It was the afternoon when at last the boat was lowered to put Wat and Scarlett ashore. They were already stepping across the deck to the ship's side when Kate appeared at the top of the ladder which led up from the cabin. She walked straight to where Wat was standing and held out both her hands.

"I am yours; remember, I shall ever be ready," she said, quite clearly.

"And I," he said, more softly, "will come to you were it across the world. Only in your hour of need send me once again the heart of gold for a sign."

And he took her token from his neck, touched it with his lips, and gave it back to her.

"Till you need me, keep it!" he said, and so stooped and kissed her on the forehead before them all.

Then, without looking back, he followed Scarlett down the ladder into the boat.

CHAPTER XLII
THE FIERY CROSS

Wat and Scarlett found themselves landed in a country which to all intents was one both savage and hostile. It was not indeed Barra's country, but the danger was scarcely less on that account. They were strangers and Sassenach. Wat carried gold in his belt, more than many a Highland chief had ever seen at one time in his life – gold which at Perth or Inverness could be exchanged for a prince's wealth of swords and daggers, pistols and fighting-gear.

It was in a little land-locked bay that they were disembarked. Great slaty purple mountains stretched away to the north; a range of lower hills, cut down to the roots by the narrow cleft of a pass, warded the bay to the east; while to the south the comrades looked out on a wilderness of isles and islets, reefs and spouting skerries, which foamed and whitened as the black iron teeth of the rock showed themselves, and the slow swell of the Atlantic came lumbering and arching in.

Wat and Scarlett sat down on the shore, which stretched away lonely and barren for miles on either side of them. They watched the boat return to the ship, as she lay with her sails backed, and shivering in the wind, waiting only for the crew to come on board before sailing for the south.

A slight figure could be seen immediately above the bulwark on the land side. Wat rose to his feet and waved his hand. The white speck signalled a reply, and Kate McGhie, the maid of his love, carried the heart of gold away with her to the lands of the south, and the spaces of the sea widened every moment between the truest lovers the world held.

Scarlett and Wat sat a long time watching the ship dwindling into a mere tower of whiteness in the distance, the seas closing bluer and bluer about her, and the whole universe growing lonely behind her, wanting the Beloved.

At last Scarlett spoke.

"Lad, have ye had enough of adventures," he said, more sadly than was his wont, "or are ye as keen after them as ever? It seems that we have now put ourselves in every man's ill graces, so far as I can see. Whether James or William bear the gree to us signifies not a jot; for if James, then the first king's man that comes across us holds you for the old outlawry in the matter of wounding my Lord Wellwood, and me for taking your side when I brought you the king's letter to Brederode; and if William wear the crown, lo, for prison-breaking and manslaughter – aye, and for desertion of his army, both you and poor silly John Scarlett are alien and outlaw in all the realms of the Dutchman. I tell you we are doomed at either end of the stick, Wat, my man."

"And faith, I care not much," quoth Wat, watching with wistful eyes the Sea Unicorn vanishing with the one thing that was dear to him on earth.

"Care or no care," said Scarlett, "it is time for us to be on our feet!"

So Wat, rising obediently, kissed his hand behind his companion's back to the white tower which was now sinking in the utmost south.

As soon almost as the two adventurers had left the sand and shingle of the shore, they found themselves upon the short heather of certain rough, moorish foothills. No house pleasantly reeking was to be discerned – not so much as a deer nor even a wandering sheep in that wide, wild place.

So Wat and Scarlett fared forth straight to the east, keeping mostly parallel with the shores of a fine loch, which stretched inward in the direction of the notch in the hills which they had seen from their landing-place.

It was towards evening when the two friends came to the summit of a little knoll and stood looking down upon a curious scene. Beneath them, scattered among the débris of some prehistoric landslip, lay a small Highland village – if village it could be called – of which each house or hut was built against the side of a great bowlder or rock fallen from the hill-side. The cottages were no better than rude shelters of turf and stone, roofed with blackened heather and scattered at every conceivable angle, as if they had been dredged forcibly out of the bottom of a reluctant pepper-pot and had taken root where they fell.

In the centre, however, was a kind of open space – not levelled nor cleared of turf and stones, but with all its primeval rocks sticking through the scanty turf, blackened and smoothed by the rubbing they had received from the fundamental parts of innumerable generations of goats and children.

In this space a dozen men in rude kilts and plaids of ancient faded tartan were collected, arguing and threatening with as much apparent fierceness as though some one of them was to be killed during the next five minutes. A small army of women hovered on the outskirts and made independent forays into the affray, catching hold of this and that other valiant discourser, and, if she got the right hold and purchase, swinging him forthwith out of the turmoil – only, however, to return to it again as soon as her grasp relaxed.

There was, therefore, a centre of disturbance of which the elements were entirely male – while contemporary, and on the whole concentric, with it revolved a number of smaller cyclones, of which the elements were about equally male and female. Fists were shaken here and there in all of them, and voices rose loud and shrill. But from the heart of the darker and more permanent quarrel in the centre there came at intervals the threatening gleam of steel, as this one and that other stooped and flashed the skein dhu, plucked out of his garter, defiantly in the face of his opponent.

In the very midst Wat could see a thick-set man who carried over his shoulder a couple of ash-plants rudely tied together. This contrivance was of small dimensions, and the sharpened ends were burned black and further stained with blood and what looked like red wax.

The man who carried it had no other weapon – if this could be called a weapon – which appeared as harmless as a boy's sword of lath. Yet as the little man thrust it towards this one and that, the strong men of the circle shrank back instantly with the greatest alarm, shaking their heads and girning their teeth, as Scarlett said, "like so many wull-cats on a dike."

There seemed to be no end to this bloodless but threatening quarrel, which blackened and scattered for all the world like a swarm of bees whirling abroad on a July day, when the good-wives run beneath with iron pots and clattering skellets to settle the swarm ere it has time to leave the farm-town. But suddenly out of one of the largest and most distinguished of the houses – one not much, if anything, inferior to a Galloway "swine ree" – there issued a tall, dark man, who walked with an air, swinging his tartans and rattling the gold tassel on the basket hilt of his claymore.

He made straight for the thickest of the quarrel, and so soon as he arrived there he knocked this disputant one way and hurled another that, like a schoolmaster unexpectedly descending upon unruly boys. And it was ludicrous to see these stalwart Highlandmen sprawling on the ground, holding their ears, which had been smitten so suddenly and with such a mighty buffeting; for the fierceness on their faces when first they felt the blow faded into instant desire to get out of the way – even culminating in a kind of satisfied good-humor so soon as they set eyes on their chastiser, as though it were not less than an honor to be smitten by such a hand.

In ten seconds the quarrel was no more, and the very men who had warred and debated were to be seen most valiantly retiring behind their wives' petticoats out of reach of the chilling eye-glances and hard-buckled fists of the tall, dark peacemaker.

He, on his part, strode directly to where stood the little man with the blackened cross of ash-plants, and, taking this article unceremoniously out of his hand, he thrust it into those of the nearest bystander, and pointed with his hand in the direction of the knoll on which Wat and Scarlett had their station.

As he did so it was evident that he observed their presence for the first time, and his hand dropped quickly to his side.

CHAPTER XLIII
COLL O' THE COWS

Then, almost before Wat and Scarlett had time to draw their swords and stand on the defensive, they in their turn became the centre of all the noise in the village. Steel flashed in plenty all about, and half a score of wild men crouched and "hunkered" round them waiting for the chance to spring. But with Walter Gordon and Jack Scarlett standing back to back, each with a long sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, it was not easy for the most alert to find an unprotected opening.

Meanwhile the tall, dark man, who had the manifest air of a chief, walked leisurely towards them and stood looking on at the affray.

"Sir!" cried Wat, "call off your men, and permit us to explain our presence."

But the man vouchsafed not a word in reply, only stood and looked over the heads of his men at Scarlett's legs.

"Why, man!" he cried, at length, "ye should be for the Good Cause; ye have gotten the King of France's boots on!"

"Aye," said Scarlett, instantly dropping his point; "certainly we are for the Good Cause. Truly, also, I have the King of France's boots on, and that with good reason, for when I left France I was officer in His Majesty's Luxembourg regiment."

Which, indeed, was very true, but certain other things had happened in between.

The tall man seemed pleased at his own acute observation. He called off his men with a single stern word, which sounded almost like a bidding given to a dog to lie down.

"But what seek you in my country?" he asked them.

Now Scarlett would have given something to know in what country he was, and still more to know who was the owner of it; but not knowing either, he had to do the best he could with the limited information at his disposal.

"We are here," he said, laying his finger meaningly on his lip, "on the part of his Majesty the King of France, for the furtherance of the Good Cause."

And he added, under his breath, "And a precious deal would I give to know for certain what in this instance the Good Cause is!"

For indeed it seemed not likely that Louis was fomenting any rebellion against the arms of King James, who, when Wat and Scarlett left the harbor of Lis-op-Zee, ruled unquestioned at Whitehall.

But Scarlett's diplomatic answer was accepted without reserve.

"Friends of the true king and officers of his Christian Majesty of France are ever friends of Keppoch's," he cried, striding forward frankly and giving a hand to each.

Scarlett felt a strong desire to whistle as the chief revealed himself.

"Coll o' the Cows!" he muttered, softly; "we are indeed in the gled's claws this day."

For Coll o' the Cows was the wildest chief as well as the most noted cattle-lifter beyond the Highland line, and though now apparently standing for "the Good Cause" (whatever that might be), he had all his life hitherto stood entirely for the very excellent cause of his own vested right to drive other folks' cattle and eat other folks' beef.

"Doubtless you will have seen my Lord Dundee?" said Keppoch to Scarlett, whom, very evidently, he considered the leading spirit of the two.

Wat pricked up his ears.

"Is Colonel Graham here?" he said, looking inquiringly at the chief.

Keppoch frowned, and for the first time looked a little suspicious.

"Ye must have come over the line but lately," he said, "if ye know not that my Lord Dundee hath broken with Duke Hamilton's Cat Convention, and is now raking the highlands for levies as a servant lass rakes the night-coals to light her morning fires."

"Indeed ye may say so, for we have within the hour been landed from the ship which gave us passage from France – landed upon the shore at the mouth of your fine loch there," replied Scarlett, pointing westward with his hand.

The brow of Coll o' the Cows instantly cleared.

"It is true; I see by your boots ye have been in the salt-water coming ashore." For his pursuit of cattle seemed manifestly to have sharpened his faculty of observation.

"We have to be careful these ill days," he said, "when one cannot tell whether a man is for the Good Cause or for the Dutch thief that cocks his dirty orange plumes so bravely on the road 'twixt Torbay and London."

Observing their evident interest, he went on with his information. It is good in a wild country to be the first bearer of great tidings.

"We have e'en just sent the fiery cross on to the country o' the Camerons. Some o' my lads were no that carin' aboot carrying it, for there has been a bit nimble-going feud betwixt us, and it is the Camerons' turn to make the score even."

"And how was the matter settled?" asked Wat, with curious interest.

"Och!" said Keppoch, "I just gied the fiery cross to Duncan o' Taliskier. He is no to say a very right son of Ian at any rate. Ye see, his mother was a woman from the north – from the country of the Grants. And as for the father o' him, faith, there was nane kenned to rights wha he was – even hersel'. But for a' that, Duncan o' Taliskier is wonderful handy to keep about a house for jobs o' this kind."

"It is indeed excellently invented," said Scarlett, approvingly, "for I learned long ago that 'always sacrifice your worst troops – your allies if you can' – is an ancient and well-considered military maxim."

The chief went on: "You will be wondering what Keppoch does here on the edge of this country o' Camerons? Faith, ye may well wonder! But there's a bit plantation of McDonald's over the hill there, and though they have taken Lochiell's name they find it for the good of their healths to pay a bit cess to Keppoch – just as the peetifu' burgher bodies of Inverness do; for money a loon is feared o' Colin – Guid kens what for."

Wat and Scarlett nodded. They were too completely ignorant of the niceties of the state of society into the midst of which they were cast to venture on any reply.

"But ye shall not bide here," said Keppoch; "ye are instantly to come your ways with me to Keppoch, my head place, where my castle is. This bit townie here is well enough, but it is not fit for the like of gentlemen that have been in France even to set their feet within."

So in a little while Wat and Scarlett found themselves following Coll o' the Cows and his ragged regiment towards "Keppoch, my head place, where my castle is."

First there went a dozen or so of small, black-felled, large-horned cattle, mostly young, which constantly put their heads over their shoulders and looked back towards the pastures they had left, routing and roaring most excruciatingly. Then came a round dozen of Keppoch's men urging them on, sometimes with the flat of the scabbard and sometimes pricking them with the naked points of their claymores.

On the hills above skirmished an irregular force of small light men and half-naked lads. Keppoch pointed them out to his companions.

"Yonder goes my flying column," he said, cunningly, "for so it is designated in the books of war. Keppoch is not an ignorant man – far from it, as ye shall know ere ye win clear of him. He did not go to the schools of Edinburgh for the best part of three winters for nothing. That was where he learned the English so well – frae the 'prentice lads o' the Lawnmarket – fair good drinkers they are, too, and as ready wi' their nieves as the prettiest gentleman with his blade."

He considered a little, as if measuring his own qualifications.

"Maybe ye wunda juist say that I am what ye might call a learned man, nor do I set myself up for an authority on law and doctrine, like Black Ewan owerby at Lochiell. But at least, for every good milch cow in his byres there are ten in mine, and never a Sassenach bonnet-laird comes to Keppoch to claim them. So ye see, so muckle education has not been thrown away on me."

At this moment three hungry-looking loons came down the side of a glen, wading waist-deep among the heather, and driving a small, shaggy Highland cow before them, little bigger than a lowland sheep.

"Ah, good lads," he cried, "plaided men, carriers of the buckler, where gat ye that ane?"

The nearest man cried something that sounded like

"Deil-a-mony-mae!" whereat Keppoch laughed and nodded his head.

The small cow joined the herd, and was soon racing up the long glen towards the north. But the incident was not ended, for before they had gone far over the heather a woman came tearing down the hill-side, and flinging herself down at Keppoch's feet, she clasped him by the legs and kissed the hem of his tartan in an agony of supplication.

"Some blood-feud," thought Wat, as he listened to the frenzied outpouring of appeal. Keppoch stood awkwardly enough, listening at first frowningly, and then with some signs of yielding in his brow, the sight of which made the woman yet more earnest.

After a moment's thought he looked up and cried some direction to the clansmen who followed the cattle ahead of them. The little red cow was turned and came uncertainly along the glen, sometimes roaring back to the herd and at other times casting up her head to look for her own well-noted landmarks. As soon, however, as she saw the woman, the cow ran to her like a dog and nuzzled a wet foam-flecked mouth into her mistress's bosom.

The woman again clasped Keppoch's hand, kissing it over and over and calling down blessings upon him. Then right briskly she took the heather, skipping along the side of the hill with a light well-accustomed foot, the little red cow following her as closely as a dog, leaping runnels of water and skirting perilous screes on the way to her native pastures.

"What might all this be?" asked Scarlett.

Keppoch looked rather shamefaced, like a man expecting to do a good deed by stealth who suddenly finds it fame.

"Och," said he, "it was just a widow woman that had a bit coo, and some o' my lads met the coo. And the coo it cam' after them, and the widow woman she cam' after the coo; and then, puir body, she asked me if I was a Christian man, and I said, 'No; I was a McDonald.' And she said that so was she. So because she was a McDonald, I gied the puir woman back her coo. It wasna a guid coo, ony way. But she was very gratefu'. She said she was gaun to be mairried again, and that the man – an Appin Stewart, greedy hound! – wadna hae her without the coo."