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The Men of the Moss-Hags

by S. R. Crockett · English · Gutenberg #32137 · 617,315 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Men of the Moss-Hags

Author: S. R. Crockett


        
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Language: English

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Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
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                           THE MEN OF THE MOSS-HAGS

_BEING A HISTORY OF ADVENTURE TAKEN FROM THE PAPERS OF WILLIAM GORDON OF
EARLSTOUN IN GALLOWAY AND TOLD OVER AGAIN BY_

                               S. R. CROCKETT


New York
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND LONDON
1895
_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1895,
BY MACMILLAN AND CO.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co--Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.




    _To
    ANDREW LANG
    Poet, Romancer, Scholar, and Friend
    of the goodly fellowship of the White Rose
    I, born of the Hill-Folk
    dedicate this attempt at a true history of
    some who fought bravely beneath
    the Banner of Blue_




_PREFATORY NOTE._


_I desire to express grateful thanks to my researchers, Mr. James
Nicholson of Kirkcudbright, who examined on my behalf all the local
records bearing upon the period and upon the persons treated of in this
book; and to the Reverend John Anderson of the Edinburgh University
Library, who brought to light from among the Earlstoun Papers and from
the long-lost records of the United Societies, many of the materials
which I have used in the writing of this story._

_I owe also much gratitude to the Library Committee of the University of
Edinburgh, for permission to use the letters which are printed in the
text, and for their larger permission to publish at some future time,
for purposes more strictly historical, a selection from both the sets of
manuscripts named above._

_Most of all, I am indebted to my friend, Mr. John McMillan of Glenhead
in Galloway, who has not only given me in this, as in former works, the
benefit of his unrivalled local knowledge, but has travelled with me
many a weary foot over those moors and moss-hags, where the wanderers of
another time had their abiding places. Let him accept this word of
thanks. He is not likely to forget our stay together in the wilds of
Cove Macaterick. Nor I our journey home._

_S. R. CROCKETT._

_Penicuik, Aug. 5, 1895._




CONTENTS.


I. MY GOSSIP, MAISIE MAY

II. GAY GARLAND CARRIES DOUBLE

III. GAY GARLAND COMES HOME SADDLE EMPTY

IV. SANDY GORDON COMES OVER THE HILL ALL ALONE

V. THE CLASH OF WORDS

VI. THE CLASH OF SWORDS

VII. THE FIELD OF BOTHWELL BRIG

VIII. THE CURATE OF DALRY

IX. THROUGH DEATH'S DARK VALE

X. THE GRAVE IN THE WILDERNESS

XI. THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS

XII. WE RIDE TO EDINBURGH

XIII. WULLCAT WAT DARES HEAVEN AND HELL

XIV. THE THING THAT FELL FROM TRAITOR'S GATE

XV. THE BICKER IN THE SNOW

XVI. THE GREY MOWDIEWORT

XVII. OVER THE MUIR AMANG THE HEATHER

XVIII. AULD ANTON OF THE DUCHRAE

XIX. THE SWEET SINGERS OF THE DEER-SLUNK

XX. THE HOME OF MY LOVE

XXI. THE GREAT CONVENTICLE BY THE DEE WATER

XXII. PEDEN THE PROPHET

XXIII. BIRSAY THE COBBLER

XXIV. THE SANQUHAR DECLARATION

XXV. THE LAST CHARGE AT AYRSMOSS

XXVI. HIDING WITH THE HEATHER-CAT

XXVII. THE WATER OF THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM

XXVIII. THE WELL-HOUSE OF EARLSTOUN

XXIX. CUPBOARD LOVE

XXX. THE BULL OF EARLSTOUN'S HOMECOMING

XXXI. JEAN'S WA'S

XXXII. PLAIN WORDS UPON MEN

XXXIII. THE GARDENER OF BALMAGHIE

XXXIV. THE TESTING OF THE TYKE

XXXV. KATE OF THE DARK BROWS

XXXVI. THE BLACK HORSE COMES TO BALMAGHIE

XXXVII. A CAVALIER'S WOOING

XXXVIII. IN COVE MACATERICK

XXXIX. THE BOWER OF THE STAR

XL. MARDROCHAT THE SPY

XLI. THE HOUSE OF THE BLACK CATS

XLII. THE NICK O' THE DEID WIFE

XLIII. THE VENGEANCE OF "YON"

XLIV. A DESIRABLE GENERAL MEETING

XLV. THE OUTFACING OF CLAVERS

XLVI. THE FIGHT AT THE CALDONS

XLVII. THE GALLOWAY FLAIL

XLVIII. THE FIGHT IN THE GUT OF THE ENTERKIN

XLIX. THE DEATH OF MARDROCHAT

L. THE BREAKING OF THE THIEVES' HOLE

LI. THE SANDS OF WIGTOWN

LII. THE MADNESS OF THE BULL OF EARLSTOUN

LIII. UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH

LIV. ROBBERY ON THE KING'S HIGHWAY

LV. THE RED MAIDEN

LVI. THE MAID ON THE WHITE HORSE

FOLLOWETH THE AUTHOR'S CONCLUSION




THE MEN OF THE MOSS-HAGS.




CHAPTER I.

MY GOSSIP, MAISIE MAY.


It was upon the fair green braes that look over the Black Water of Dee
near by where it meets the clear Ken, that Maisie May and I played many
a morning at Wanderers and King's men. I mind it as it were yesterday,
for the dales and holms were pranked out with white hawthorn and broad
gowans, and by our woodland hiding-places little frail wildflowers grew,
nodding at us as we lay and held our breath.

Now Maisie Lennox (for that was her proper given name) was my cousin,
and had been gossip of mine ever since we came to the age of five years;
Sandy, my elder brother, making nothing of me because I was so much
younger and he ever hot upon his own desires. Neither, if the truth must
be told, did I wear great love upon him at any time. When we fell out,
as we did often, he would pursue after me and beat me; but mostly I
clodded him with pebble stones, whereat I had the advantage, being ever
straight of eye and sure of aim. Whereas Sandy was gleyed[1] and threw
stones like a girl, for all the stoutness of his arm.

[Footnote 1: Could not see straight.]

But that is not to say like Maisie Lennox, who was Anthony Lennox's
daughter, and could throw stones with any one. She lived at the Lesser
Duchrae above the Black Water. As for me I lived at Earlstoun on the
hillside above the Ken, which is a far step from the Duchrae. But our
fathers were of the one way of thinking, and being cousins by some
former alliance and friends of an ancient kindliness, it so happened, as
I say, that Maisie Lennox and I played much together. Also my mother had
great tenderness of heart for the bit lass that had no mother, and a
father as often on the moors with the wildfowl, as at home with his one
little maid.

For the times were very evil. How evil and contrary they were, we that
had been born since 1660 and knew nothing else, could but dimly
understand. For though fear and unrest abode in our homes as constant
indwellers, with the fear of the troopers and plunderers, yet because it
had always been so, it seemed not very hard to us. Indeed we bairns of
these years played at Covenanting, as it had been the game of "Scots and
English" on the hillside, even from the time when we first began to run
alone.

Well do I mind that day when I pleaded and fleeched on my father to take
me before him on Gay Garland, as he rode to the Duchrae. It was a brisk
May day with an air vigorous as a draught of wine, yet cool, clear, and
sweet as spring water is--a pearl of a day, such as hardly seems to come
in these sullen later years.

So I cried out upon my father to take me. And as his manner was, he told
me to inquire of my mother. But I desired rather that he should ask for
me himself. So I lingered about the doors till he should ride forth upon
his great black horse, that he might catch me up beside him on the
cantle and cry in at the door, "Mother, I am taking William," as was his
kindly wont. Never a man so brave and true and simple as my father.

While I bided there, Alexander my brother seeing me wait, called me to
come with him to the hill. But because my heart was set to ride to the
Duchrae with my father, I had no desire to go to the rabbit hunting. So
when he saw that I would not company with him, he mocked me and called
me "Lassie-boy!" Whereupon I smote him incontinent with a round pebble
between the shoulder-blades, and he pursued me to the hallan door within
which was my mother, looking to the maids and the ordering of the house.

From thence I mocked him, but under my breath, for fear that for
ill-doing my mother would not permit me to go to the Duchrae.

"Stable-boy!" I called him, for he loved to be ever among the lowns of
the wisp and currying comb, and as my mother said, grew like them even
in manners. "Faugh, keep wide from me, mixen-varlet!"

These were no more than our well-accustomed greetings.

"Wait till I catch you, little snipe, down by the water-side!" Sandy
cried, shaking his fist at me from the barn-end.

"And that will be a good day for your skin," answered I, "for I shall
make you wash your face thoroughly--ay, even behind your ears."

For Sandy, even when in after days he went a-courting, was noways
partial to having many comings and goings with a basin of cold water.

So he departed unsatisfied, because that in words I had the better of
him.

Then came my father, and as I expected, stooping from the saddle he
swung me up before him, supposing that I had already advised my mother.
But indeed I had not said so, and happily he asked me nothing.

"A good day and an easy mind, sweetheart," he cried up the stairs to my
mother, "I ride to the Duchrae for Conference. William goes with me for
company."

And my mother came down the steps to see us ride off. For my father and
she were like lad and lass after their years together, though not so as
to make a show before strangers.

"Watch warily for the dragoons as you come to the narrows of the Loch,"
she said, "and bide not at Kenmuir. For if there be mounted muskets in
all the neighbourhood, it is at the Kenmuir that they will be found."

And she watched us out of sight with her hand to her brows, before
turning inward to the maids--a bonny woman in these years, fair as a
blowing rose, was my mother. Or at least, so the picture rises before me
as I write.

Thus my father, William Gordon of Earlstoun, rode away through these
sweet holms and winding paths south toward the Duchrae. Nowhere is the
world to my thinking so gracious as between the green woodlands of
Earlstoun and the grey Duchrae Craigs. For the pools of the water of Ken
slept, now black, now silver, beneath us. They were deep set about with
the feathers of the birches, and had the green firs standing bravely
like men-at-arms on every rocky knoll. Then the strath opened out and we
saw Ken flow silver-clear between the greenest and floweriest banks in
the world. The Black Craig of Dee gloomed on our right side as we rode,
sulky with last year's heather. And the great Kells range sank behind
us, ridge behind ridge of hills whose very names make a storm of
music--Millyea, Milldown, Millfire, Corscrine, and the haunted
fastnesses of the Meaull of Garryhorn in the head end of Carsphairn. Not
that my father saw any of this, for he minded only his riding and his
prayers; but even then I was ever taken up with what I had better have
let alone. However, I may be held excused if the memory rises unbidden
now, before the dimmer eye of one that takes a cast back into his youth,
telling the tale as best he may, choosing here and there like a dorty
child, only that which liketh him best.

In a little we clattered through the well-thatched roofs of New Galloway
and set Gay Garland's head to the southward along the water-side, where
the levels of the Loch are wont to open out upon you blue and broad and
bonny. All that go that way know the place. Gay Garland was the name of
my father's black horse that many a time and oft had carried him in
safety, and was loved like another child by my mother and all of us. I
have heard it said that in the Praying Society of which he was a grave
and consistent member, my father was once called in question because he
gave so light a name to his beast.

"Ye have wives of your own," was all the answer he made them, "I suppose
they have no freits and fancies, but such as you are ready to be
answerable for this day."

When my mother heard of this she said, "Ay, William, thy excuse was but
old and lame, even that of our first father Adam--'The woman thou gavest
me she called my horse Gay Garland.'"

I suppose that to-day Ken flashes as clear and the heather blooms as
bonny on the Bennan side. But not for me, for I have laid away so many
that I loved in the howe of the Glen since then, and seen so many places
of this Scotland red with a crimson the bell heather never made. Ay me
for the times that were, and for all that is come and gone, whereof it
shall be mine to tell!

But we came at long and last to the Duchrae, which is a sweet bit house,
sitting on a south-looking brae-face, though not a laird's castle like
the tower of Earlstoun. Maisie Lennox met us at the loaning foot,
whereat I begged that my father would put me down so that I might run
barefoot with her. And I think my father was in nowise unwilling, for a
twelve-year-old callant on the saddle before one is no comfort, though
Gay Garland bore me like a feather.

So Maisie Lennox and I fell eagerly a-talking together after our first
shy chill of silence, having many things to say. But as soon as ever we
reached the Craigs we fell to our fantasy. It was an old game with us,
like the sand houses we used to build in bairns' play. We drew lots,
long stalk and short stalk, which of us should be the Wanderer. Maisie
Lennox won the lot--as she always did, for I had no good fortune at the
drawing of cuts. So she went to hide in some bosky bouroch or moss-hag,
while I bode still among the hazels at the woodside, accoutring myself
as a trooper with sword and pistol of tree.

Then I rode forth crying loud commands and sending my soldiers to seek
out all the hidie-holes by the water-sides, and under all the tussocks
of heather on the benty brows of the black mosses.

Soon Maisie Lennox began to cry after the manner of the hunted
hill-folk--peeping like the nestlings of the muir-birds, craiking like
the bird of the corn, laughing like the jack-snipe--and all with so
clear a note and such brisk assurance that I declare she had imposed
upon Tom Dalyell himself.

After seeking long in vain, I spied the fugitive hiding behind a
peat-casting on the edge of the moss, and immediately cried on the men
to shoot. So those that were men-at-arms of my command pursued after and
cracked muskets, as the Wanderers jooked and fled before us. Yet
cumbered with cavalry as I was on the soft bog land, the light-foot
enemy easily escaped me.

Then when I saw well that catch her I could not, I sat me down on a
heather bush and cried out to her that it was a silly game to play, and
that we should begin something else. So she stopped and came back slowly
over the heather. What I liked at all times about Maisie Lennox was that
she never taunted back, but only took her own way when she wanted
it--and she mostly did--silently and as if there were no other way in
the world. For in all things she had an excellent humour of silence,
which, though I knew it not then, is rarer and worthier than diamonds.
Also she knew, what it seems to me that a woman but rarely knows, when
it is worth while making a stand to gain her will.




CHAPTER II.

GAY GARLAND CARRIES DOUBLE.


So after that we played yet another game, hiding together in the hags
and crawling from bent bush to rush clump with mighty caution and
discernment, making believe that the troopers sought us both. For this
was the favourite bairns' play everywhere in the West and South.

Once when we came near to the house Gay Garland followed us, having been
turned out on the Duchrae home park. He ran to me, as he ever did, for
farings, and I fed him with crumblings out of my jacket
pocket--"moolings" Maisie Lennox called them--which he ate out of my
hand, a pretty thing to see in so noble a beast. Then he followed us
about in our hidings, begging and sorning upon us for more. This made
him not a little troublesome, till we would gladly have sent him back.
But Gay Garland was a beast not easily turned.

After a while we came to the little wood of Mount Pleasant, where I saw
some red rags fluttering on a bush. I was for going aside to see what
they might be, but Maisie Lennox cried at me to turn back.

"There are people hereabouts that are not very chancy. My father saw the
Marshalls go by this morning!"

Often and often I had heard of the tribe before, and they had a singular
name for their ill-done deeds. Indeed the whole land was so overrun with
beggars of the Strong Hand, and the times so unsettled, that nothing
could be done to put a stop to their spoilings. For the King and his men
were too busy riding down poor folk that carried Bibles and went to
field-preachings, to pay attention to such as merely invaded homesteads
and lifted gear.

As we set breast to the brae and came to the top of the little hill, I
stumbled over something white and soft lying behind a heather bush. It
was a sheep--dead, and with much of it rent and carried away. The ground
about was all a-lapper with blood.

"A worrying dog has done this!" I said.

But Maisie Lennox came up, and as she caught sight of the carcase her
face fell. She shook her head mighty seriously.

"Two-footed dogs," she said. "See here!" She lifted a piece of paper on
which a bloody knife had been wiped. And she showed me, very wisely, how
the best parts had been cut away by some one that had skill in
dismemberment.

"'Tis Jock Marshall's band," she said; "an ill lot, but they shall not
get off with this!"

And she went forward eagerly, keeping on the broad trail through the
grass. We had not gone a hundred yards when we came upon another sheep
in like case, and then by the ford of the Black Water we found yet
another. I asked Maisie Lennox if we should not go home and lodge
information.

"They'll get ower far away," was all she said.

"But you are not feared of them?" I asked, marvelling at the lassie. For
even our Sandy that counted himself so bold, and could lift a bullock
slung in a sheet with his teeth, would have thought twice before
following up Jock Marshall and his band for the sake of an orra sheep or
two.

But Maisie Lennox only turned to me in a curious way, in which there
seemed mingled something of contempt.

"Feared!" she said. "What for should I be feared? The sheep are my
faither's; but gang you back gin ye be feared."

So for very shame I answered that I was feared none--which was a great
lie, for I had given a hundred pounds (Scots) to have been able to turn
back with some credit. But we went along the broad trail boldly enough,
and Gay Garland trotted loose-foot after us, sometimes stopping to crop
the herbs by the way, and anon coming dancing to find us. At which I was
glad, for it was at least some company besides the lassie.

Soon we came to a link of the path by the water-side, at a place that is
called the Tinklers' Loup, where these sorners and limmers were mostly
wont to congregate. There was blue smoke rising behind the knowe, and
Maisie Lennox took a straight path over the heather toward it. I
wondered to see the lass. She seemed indeed not to know fear.

"They are my faither's ain sheep," she said, as though that were
sufficient explanation.

So to the top we came, and looked down. There was a whole camp beneath
us. Dirty low reeky tans were set here and there amid a swarm of bairns
and dogs. The children were running naked as they were born, and the
dogs turning themselves into hoops to bite their tails. About a couple
of fires with pots a-swing over them, bubbling and steaming, little
clouds of wild-looking folk were gathered. Some had bones in their hands
which they thrust into the fire for a minute and then took out again to
gnaw at the burned portion. Tattered women looked within the pots. Once
a man threw a knife at a boy, which struck him on the side. The boy
cried out and the blood ran down, but none took any heed to his
complaint or of the circumstance.

For a moment Maisie Lennox stood still and looked at me. Then she went a
step or two forward, and her face was white and angered. I saw she was
about to speak to them, yet for my life I could not keep her from it.

"Sheep stealers!" she cried; "vagabonds, ye shall hang for this! Not for
naught shall ye harry an honest man's sheep. I ken you, Jock Marshall
and all your crew. The Shirra shall hear of this before the morrow's
morn!"

The encampment stood still at gaze looking up at us, fixed like a show
painted on a screen, while one might slowly count a score. Then Babel
brake loose.

With a wild rush, man, woman, child, and dog poured towards us. Of mere
instinct I came up abreast of Maisie Lennox. Behind me came Gay Garland,
and snuffed over my shoulder, scenting with some suspicion the tinklers'
garrons[2] feeding in the hollow below.

[Footnote 2: Shaggy ponies.]

We stood so still on the knowe-top that, I think, we must have feared
them a little. We were by a gap in the bushes, and the ill-doers, seeing
no more of us thought, no doubt, that there must be more behind, or two
bairns had never been so bold. I think, too, that the very want of arms
daunted them, for they drew back and seemed to consult together as
though uncertain what to do.

Then a great scant-bearded unkempt man with long swinging arms, whom I
took to be Jock Marshall, the chief tinkler and captain of their gang,
pointed to them to scatter round the little knoll, no doubt with the
purpose of making observations and cutting us off.

"Who may you be?" he cried, looking up at us.

"Right well you know," Maisie said, very loud and clear, speaking out
like a minister in the tent at a field-preaching; "I am Anton Lennox of
the Duchrae's daughter, whose sheep ye have boiling in your pots--and
that after being well served with meal at the door, and louting low for
thankfulness. And this is your thanks, ye robbers-behind-backs, gallow's
thieves of Kelton Hill."

On my part I thought it was not good judgment so to anger the wild crew.
But Maisie was not to be spoken to at such a time; so perforce I held my
tongue.

"But ye shall all streek a tow for this," she said; "this day's wark
shall be heard tell o' yet!"

By this time the word had been passed round the hill to Jock the tinkler
that there were but two of us, and we unarmed. At which the loon became
at once very bold.

"Have at them! Blood their throats! Bring the basin!" he cried. And the
words were no vain things, for that was their well-accustomed way of
killing--to let their victim's blood run into a basin, so that there
might be no tell-tale stains upon the grass.

So from all sides they came speeling and clambering up the hill, loons
yelling, dogs barking, till I thought my latest hour was come, and
wished I had learned my Catechism better--especially the proofs. Gay
Garland stood by with a raised look upon him, lifting his feet a little,
as though going daintily over a bridge whose strength he was not sure
of, and drawing all the while the wind upward through his nostrils.

Then though Maisie had been very bold, I can lay claim on this occasion
to having been the wiser, for I caught her by the arm, taking Gay
Garland's mane firmly with the other hand the while, lest he should
startle and flee.

"Up with you," I cried, bending to take her foot in my hand, and she
went up like a bird.

In a moment I was beside her, riding bare-back, with Maisie clasping my
waist, as indeed we had often ridden before--though never so perilously,
nor yet with such a currish retinue yowling at our tail.

I wore no weapon upon me--no, not so much as a bodkin. But stuck in my
leather belt I had the two crooked sticks, which I had blackened with
soot for pistols at our play of Troopers and Wanderers. I put my heels
into Gay Garland's sides, and he started down-hill, making the turf fly
from his hoofs as he gathered way and began to feel his legs under him.

The gang scattered and rounded to close us in, but when Gay Garland came
to his stride, few there were who could overtake him. Only Jock Marshall
himself was in time to meet us face to face, a great knife in either
hand. And I think he might have done us an injury too, had it not been
for the nature of the ground where we met.

It was just at the spring of a little hill and the good horse was
gathering himself for the upstretch. I held the two curved sticks at the
tinkler's head, as though they had been pistols, at which I think he was
a little daunted. Jock Marshall stopped in his rush, uncertain whether
to leap aside; and in that very moment, Gay Garland spread his fore-feet
for the spring, throwing up his head as if to clear the way. One of his
iron-shod heels took the tinkler chief fair on the chest, and the
breast-bone gave inwards with a crunch like the breaking of many farles
of cake-bread. He fell down on the moss like one dead, and Gay Garland
went over the moor with the whole tribe of whooping savages after him,
spurning their fallen chief with his hoof as he passed.

Well it was for us that the noble horse carried us with such ease and
that his feet were so sure. For a stumble in a rabbit hole and our
throats were as good as slit.

But by the blessing of Providence and also by my good guiding of Gay
Garland's mane, we passed the ford of the Black Water without hurt. Then
was I very croose at the manner of our coming off, and minded not that
the hardest blaff of downcome is ever gotten at the doorstep.

We were passing by the path that goes linking along the water-side, and
talking to one another very cantily, when without warning a musket
barked from the woodside, and as it were a red-hot gaud of iron ran into
my thigh behind my knee. The world swayed round me and the green trees
ran withershins about. I had fallen among the horse's feet, but that
Maisie Lennox caught me, meeting Gay Garland's swerve with the grip of
her knee--for she ever rode across and acrop like a King's horseman,
till it was time for her to ride side-saddle and grow mim and prudent.

Haply just by the turn we met my father and old Anthony Lennox coming
running at the sound of the shot. But as for me I never saw or heard
them, for they ran past, hot to find the man who had fired at me. While
as for me I came up the loaning of the Duchrae upon Gay Garland, with my
head leaning back upon the young lassie's shoulder and the red blood
staining her white skirt.

And this was the beginning of my lameness and sometime lack of
vigour--the beginning also of my life friendship with Maisie Lennox, who
was to me from that day as my brother and my comrade, though she had
been but a bairn's playmate aforetime.




CHAPTER III.

GAY GARLAND COMES HOME SADDLE EMPTY.


The night of the twenty-second of June, 1679, shall never be forgotten
among us while Earlstoun House stands. It was the eve of the day whereon
befell the weary leaguer of Bothwell when the enemy beset the Brig, and
the good Blue Banner gat fyled and reddened with other dye-stuff than
the brown moss-water. I mind it well, for I had grown to be man-muckle
since the day on the Tinklers' Loup. After a day of heat there fell a
night like pitch. A soughing wind went round the house and round the
house, whispering and groping, like a forlorn ghost trying to find his
way within.

If there was a shut eye in the great House of Earlstoun that night, it
was neither mine nor my mother's. We lay and thought of them that were
over the hill, striving for the Other King and the good cause. And our
thoughts were prayers, though there was none to "take the Book" in
Earlstoun that night, for I was never gifted that way. So we bedded
without sound of singing or voice of prayer, though I think Jean
Hamilton had done it for the asking.

I lay in my naked bed and listened all the night with unshut eye. I
could hear in my mother's room the boards creak as she rose every
quarter hour and looked out into the rayless dark. Maisie Lennox of the
Duchrae, old Anton's daughter, now a well grown lass, lay with her. And
Sandy's young wife, Jean Hamilton, with her sucking bairn, was in the
little angled chamber that opens off the turret stair near by.

It befell at the back of one, or mayhap betwixt that and two, that there
came a sound at the nether door that affrighted us all.

"Rise, William! Haste ye," cried my mother with great eagerness in her
voice, coming to my door in the dark. "Your father is at the nether
door, new lichted doon from off Gay Garland. Rise an' let him in!"

And as I sat up on my elbow and hearkened, I heard as clearly as now I
hear the clock strike, the knocking of my father's riding-boots on the
step of the outer door. For it was ever his wont, when he came that way,
to knap his toes on the edge of the step, that the room floorings might
not be defiled with the black peat soil which is commonest about the
Earlstoun. I have heard my father tell it a thousand times in his
pleasantry, how it was when my mother was a bride but newly come home
and notionate, that she learned him these tricks. For otherwise his ways
were not dainty, but rather careless--and it might be, even rough.

So, as I listened, I heard very clear outside the house the knocking of
my father's feet, and the little hoast he always gave before he tirled
at the pin to be let in, when he rode home late from Kirkcudbright.
Hearing which we were greatly rejoiced, and I hasted to draw on my
knee-breeks, crying "Bide a wee, faither, an' briskly I'll be wi' ye to
let ye in!"

For I was a little lame, halting on one foot ever since the affair of
Tinkler Marshall, though I think not to any noticeable extent.

My mother at the door of her chamber cried, "Haste ye, William, or I
must run mysel'!"

For my father had made her promise that she would not go out of her
chamber to meet him at the return, being easily touched in her breast
with the night air.

So I hasted and ran down as I was, with my points all untied, and set
wide open the door.

"Faither!" I cried as I undid the bolt and pushed the leaves of the door
abroad, "Faither, ye are welcome hame!" And I could hear my mother
listening above, for his foot over the threshold. Yet he came not
within, which was a wonder to me. So I went out upon the step of the
nether door, but my father was not there. Only the same strange chill
wind went round the house, soughing and moaning blindly as before, and a
smoor of white fog blew like muirburn past the door.

Then my hair rose upon my head and the skin of my brow pricked, because
I knew that strange portents were abroad that night.

"What for does your faither no come ben the hoose to me?" cried my
mother impatiently from the stairhead. I could hear her clasping and
unclasping her hands, for my ears are quick at taking sounds.

"I think he must be gone to the stable with Gay Garland, to stall him
beside Philiphaugh," I answered, for so my father's old white horse was
named, because in his young days my father had been at that place on the
day when Montrose and his Highlandmen got their settling. This is what I
said to my mother, but indeed my thought was far other.

I lifted a loaded pistol that lay ever in the aumrie by the door-cheek
and went off in the direction of the stable. The door was shut, but I
undid the pin and went within. _My father was not there._ The horses
were moving restlessly and lifting their feet uneasily as they do on ice
or other kittle footing. Then of a truth I knew there was something more
than canny abroad about Earlstoun that night, and that we should hear
ill news or the morning. And when a bundle of reins slipped from the
shelf and fell on my shoulder like a man's hand clapping on me unaware,
I cried out like a frighted fowl and dropped almost to the ground. Yet
though I am delicate and not overly well grown in my body, I do not
count myself a coward; even though my brother Sandy's courage be not
mine. "Blind-eye, hard-head" was ever his sort, but I love to take my
danger open-eyed and standing up--and as little of it as possible.

As I went back--which I did instantly, leaving the stable door swinging
open--I heard my mother's voice again. She was calling aloud and the
sound of her voice was yearning and full like that of a young woman.

"William!" she called, and again "William!"

Now though that is my name I knew full well that it was not to me, her
son, that she called. For that is the voice a woman only uses to him who
has been her man, and with her has drunk of the fountain of the joy of
youth. Once on a time I shot an eagle on the Millyea, and his mate came
and called him even thus, with a voice that was as soft as that of a
cushie dove crooning in the tall trees in the early summer, till I could
have wept for sorrow at my deed.

Then as I went in, I came upon my mother a step or two from the open
door, groping with her arms wide in the darkness.

"Oh," she cried, "William, my William, the Lord be thankit!" and she
clasped me to her heart.

But in a moment she flung me from her.

"Oh! it's you," she said bitterly, and went within without another word,
her harshness jangling on my heart.

Yet I understood, for my mother was always greatly set on my father. And
once when in jest we teased her to try her, telling her the story of the
pious Æneas, and asking her to prophesy to us which one of us she would
lift, if so it was that the house of Earlstoun were in a lowe.

"Faith," said my mother, "I wad tak' your faither on my back, gin a' the
lave o' ye had to bide and burn!"

So it was ever with my mother. She was my father's sweetheart to her
latest hour.

But when I went in I found her sitting, sheet-white and trembling on the
settle.

"What's ta'en ye, mither?" I said to her, putting a shawl about her.

"O my man, my bonny man," she said, "there's nane to steek your e'en the
nicht! An' Mary Gordon maun lie her leesome lane for evermair!"

"Hoot, mither," I said, "speak not so. My faither will come his ways
hame i' the mornin' nae doot, wi' a' the lads o' the Kenside clatterin'
ahint him. Sandy is wi' him, ye ken."

"Na," she said calmly enough, but as one who has other informations,
"Sandy is no wi' him. Sandy gaed through the battle wi' his heid doon
and his sword rinnin' reed. I see them a' broken--a' the pride o' the
West, an' the dragoons are riding here an' there amang them, an' haggin'
them doon. But your faither I canna see--I canna see my man----"

"Mither," I said, mostly, I think, for something to say, "Mind the Guid
Cause!"

She flung her hands abroad with a fine gesture as of scorn. "What cause
is guid that twines a woman frae her ain man--an' we had been thegither
three-an'-thirty year!"

In a little I got her to lie down, but the most simple may understand
how much more sleep there was in Earlstoun that night. Yet though we
listened with all our ears, we heard no other sound than just that blind
and unkindly wind reestling and soughing about the house, groping at the
doors and trying the lattices. Not a footstep went across the courtyard,
not the cry of a bird came over the moors, till behind the barren ridges
of the east the morning broke.

Then when in the grey and growing light I went down and again opened the
door, lo! there with his nose against the latchet hasp was Gay Garland,
my father's war-horse. He stood and trembled in every limb. He was
covered with the lair of the moss-hags, wherein he had sunk to the
girths. But on his saddle leather, towards the left side, there was a
broad splash of blood which had run down to the stirrup iron; and in the
holster on that side, where the great pistol ought to have been, a thing
yet more fearsome--a man's bloody forefinger, taken off above the second
joint with a clean drawing cut.

My mother came down the turret stair, fully dressed, and with her
company gown upon her. Yet when she saw Gay Garland standing there at
the door with his head between his knees, she did not seem to be
astonished or afraid, as she had been during the night. She came near to
him and laid a hand on his neck.

"Puir beast," she said, "ye have had sore travel. Take him to the stable
for water and corn, and bid Jock o' the Garpel rise."

The dark shades of the night were flown away, and my mother now spoke
quietly and firmly as was her wont. Much in times bygone had we spoken
about sufferings in the House of Earlstoun, and, lo! now they were come
home to our own door.




CHAPTER IV.

SANDY GORDON COMES OVER THE HILL ALL ALONE.


The House of Earlstoun sits bonny above the water-side, and there are
few fairer waters in this land than the Ken water. Also it looks its
bonniest in the early morning when the dew is on all sides, and a
stillness like the peace of God lies on the place. I do not expect the
Kingdom of Heaven very much to surpass Earlstoun on a Sabbath morning in
June when the bees are in the roses. And, indeed, I shall be well
content with that.

But there was no peace in Earlstoun that morning--no, nor for many a
morning to come. I was at the door watching for their coming, before
ever a grouse cock stirred among the short brown heather on the side of
Ardoch Hill. I told my mother over and over that without doubt Sandy was
bringing father home.

"Gay Garland was aye a reesty beast!" I said. "Doubtless he started when
my faither had his foot in the stirrup, and has come hame by himsel'!"

But I said nothing about the finger in the holster.

"Anither beast micht," said my mother, looking wistfully from the little
window on the stair, from which she did not stir, "but never Gay
Garland!"

And right well I knew she spake the truth. Gay Garland had carried my
father over long to reest with him at the hinderend.

"Can ye no see them?" cried my mother again, from the room where
ordinarily she sat.

Even Jean Hamilton, who had been but three years a wife, was not as
restless that fair morning of midsummer as my mother, for she had her
babe at her breast. In which she was the happier, because when he cried,
at least she had something to think about.

Three weeks before, in the midst of the sunny days of that noble June,
my father, William Gordon of Airds and Earlstoun, and my elder brother
Alexander had ridden away to fight against King Charles. It took a long
arm in those days to strive with the Stuarts. And as I saw them ride
over the brae with thirty Glenkens blue bonnets at their tail, I knew
that I was looking upon the beginning of the ruin of our house. Yet I
went and hid my face and raged, because I was not permitted to ride
along with them, nor to carry the Banner of Blue which my mother the
Lady of Earlstoun, and Jean Hamilton, Sandy's wife, had broidered for
them--with words that stirred the heart lettered fair upon it in threads
of gold, and an Andrew's cross of white laid on the bonny blue of its
folds.

My mother would have added an open Bible on the division beneath, but my
father forbade.

"A sword, gin ye like, but no Bible!" he said.

So they rode away, and I, that was called William Gordon for my father,
clenched hands and wept because that I was not counted worthy to ride
with them. But I was never strong, ever since Maisie Lennox and I rode
home from the Tinklers' Loup; and my mother said always that she had
more trouble at the rearing of me than with all her cleckin'. By which
she meant, as one might say, her brood of chickens.

To me my father cried out as he rode out of the yard:

"Abide, William, and look to your mother--and see that the beasts get
their fodder, for you are the master of Earlstoun till I return."

"An' ye can help Jean to sew her bairn-clouts!" cried my brother Sandy,
whom we called the Bull, in that great voice of his which could cry from
Ardoch to Lochinvar over leagues of heather.

And I, who heard him with the water standing in my eyes because they
were going out in their war-gear while I had to bide at home,--could
have clouted him with a stone as he sat his horse, smiling and shaving
the back of his hand with his Andrea Ferrara to try its edge.

O well ken I that he was a great fighter and Covenant man, and did ten
times greater things than I, an ill-grown crowl, can ever lay my name
to. But nevertheless, such was the hatred I felt at the time towards
him, being my brother and thus flouting me.

But with us, as I have said, there abode our cousin Maisie Lennox from
the Duchrae, grown now into a douce and sonsy lass, with hair that was
like spun gold when the sun shone upon it. For the rest, her face rather
wanted colour, not having in it--by reason of her anxiety for her
father, and it may be also by the nature of her complexion--so much of
red as the faces of Jean Hamilton and other of our country lasses. But
because she was my comrade, I saw naught awanting, nor thought of red or
pale, since she was indeed Maisie Lennox and my friend and gossip of
these many years.

Also in some sort she had become a companion for my mother, for she had
a sedate and dependable way with her, solate and wise beyond her years.

"She is not like a flichty young body aboot a hoose," said my mother.

But in this I differed, yet said nothing. For no one could have been to
me what young Maisie of the Duchrae was.

After Sandy and my father had ridden away, and I that was left to keep
the house, went about with a hanging head because I had not ridden also,
Maisie Lennox grew more than ordinarily kind. Never had a feckless lad
like me, such a friend as Maisie of the Duchrae. It was far beyond that
love which the maids chatter about, and run out to the stackyard in the
gloaming to find--oft to their sorrow, poor silly hempies.

Yet Maisie May and I greeted in the morning without observance, but
rather as brothers whom night has not parted. In the day we spoke but
seldom, save to ask what might be needful, as the day's darg and duty
drifted us together. But at even, standing silent, we watched the light
fade from the hills of the west and gather behind those of the east. And
I knew that without speech her heart was trying to comfort mine, because
I had not been judged worthy to ride for the Covenants with her father
and mine, and in especial because Sandy had openly flouted me before
her. This was very precious to me and kept up my manhood in mine own
eyes--a service far above rubies.

Thus they rode away and left the house of the Earlstoun as empty and
unfriendly as a barn in hay harvest. From that day forward we spent as
much time looking out over the moor from the house, as we did at our
appointed tasks. I have already told of the happenings of the night of
the twenty-second of June, and of my mother's strange behaviour--which,
indeed, was very far from her wont. For she seldom showed her heart to
my father, but rather faulted him and kept him at a stick's end,
especially when he came heedlessly into her clean-swept rooms with his
great moss-splashed riding-boots.

Of this time I have one thing more to tell. It was between the hours of
ten and eleven of the day following this strange night, that my mother,
having set all her house maidens to their tasks with her ordinary care
and discretion, took down the bake-board and hung the girdle above a
clear red fire of peat. Sometimes she did this herself, especially when
my father was from home. For she was a master baker, and my father often
vowed that he would have her made the deacon of the trade in Dumfries,
where he had a house. He was indeed mortally fond of her girdle-cakes,
and had wheaten flour ground fine at a distant mill for the purpose of
making them.

"Mary Hope," he used to say to her in his daffing way, "your scones are
better than your father's law. I wonder wha learned ye to bake aboot
Craigieha'--tho', I grant, mony's the puir man the faither o' ye has
keepit braw and het on a girdle, while he stirred him aboot wi' his
tongue."

This he said because my mother was a daughter of my Lord Hope of
Craigiehall, who had been President of the Court of Session in his time,
and a very notable greatman in the State.

So, as I say, this day she set to the baking early, and it went to my
heart when I saw she was making the wheaten cakes raised with sour
buttermilk that were my father's favourites.

She had not been at it long before in came Jock o' the Garpel, hot-foot
from the hill.

"Maister Alexander!" he cried, panting and broken-winded with haste,
"Maister Alexander is comin' ower the Brae!"

There was silence in the wide kitchen for a moment, only the sound of my
mother's roller being heard, "dunt-dunting" on the dough.

"Is he by his lane?" asked my mother without raising her head from the
bake-board.

"Ay," said Jock o' the Garpel, "a' by his lane. No a man rides ahint
him."

And again there was silence in the wide house of Earlstoun.

My mother went to the girdle to turn the wheaten cakes that were my
father's favourites, and as she bent over the fire, there was a sound as
if rain-drops were falling and birsling upon the hot girdle. But it was
only the water running down my mother's cheeks for the love of her
youth, because now her last hope was fairly gone.

Then in the middle of her turning she drew the girdle off the fire, not
hastily, but with care and composedness.

"I'll bake nae mair," she cried, "Sandy has come ower the hill his
lane!"

And I caught my mother in my arms.




CHAPTER V.

THE CLASH OF WORDS.


A doubtful dawn had grown into a chosen day when I saddled in Earlstoun
courtyard, to ride past the house of our kinswoman at Lochinvar on a sad
and heavy errand. Sandy has betaken himself to his great oak on the
border of the policies, where with his skill in forest craft he had
built himself a platform among the solidest masses of the leaves. There
he abode during the day, with a watch set on the Tod Hill and another on
the White Hill above the wood of Barskeoch. Only at the even, when all
things were quiet, would he venture to slip down and mix with us about
the fire. But he swung himself swiftly back again to his tree by a rope,
if any of the dragoons were to be heard of in the neighbourhood.

During all this time it comes back to me how much we grew to depend on
Maisie Lennox. From being but "Anton Lennox's dochter" she came to be
"Meysie, lass" to my mother, and indeed almost a daughter to her. Once,
going to the chamber-door at night to cry ben some message to my mother,
I was startled and afraid to hear the sound of sobbing within--as of one
crying like a young lass or a bairn, exceedingly painful to hear. I
thought that it had been Maisie speaking of her sorrow, and my mother
comforting her. But when I listened, though indeed that was not my
custom, I perceived that it was my mother who grat and refused to be
comforted.

"O my William!" she cried, moaning like a child that would sob itself to
sleep, "I ken, O I ken, I shall never see him mair. He's lyin' cauld and
still at the dyke back that yince my airms keepit fast. O thae weary
Covenants, thae weary, weary Covenants!"

"Hush thee, my dawtie, say not so!" I heard the voice of my cousin
Maisie--I could not help but hear it, "The Lord calls us to do little
for Him oursels, for we are feckless women, an' what can we do? But He
bids us gie Him our men-folk, the desire o' our hearts. Brithers hae I
gie'n, twa and three, and my last is my father that lies noo amang the
moss-hags, as ye ken!"

But again I heard my mother's voice breaking through in a querulous
anger.

"What ken ye, lassie? Brithers and faither, guids and gear, they arena
muckle to loose. Ye never lost the man for wha's sake ye left faither
an' mither, only just to follow him through the warl'!"

And in the darkness I could hear my mother wail, and Maisie the young
lass hushing and clapping her. So, shamed and shaken at heart, I stole
away a-tiptoe lest any should hear me, for it was like a crime to listen
to what I had heard. But I am forgetting to tell of our riding away.

It was a morning so buoyant that we seemed verily up-borne by the flood
of sunlight, like the small birds that glided and sang in our Earlstoun
woods. Yet I had small time to think of the beauty of the summer tide,
when our father lay unburied at a dyke back, and some one must ride and
lay him reverently in the earth.

Sandy could not go--that was plain. He was now head of the house and
name. Besides the pursuit was hot upon him. So at my mother's word, I
took a pair of decent serving men and wended my way over the hill. And
as I went my heart was sore for my mother, who stood at the door to see
us go. She had supplied with her own hands all the decent wrappings
wherewith to bury my father. Sandy further judged it not prudent to
attempt to bring him home. He had gotten a staw of the red soldiers, he
said, and wished for that time to see no more of them.

But I that had seen none of them, was hot upon bringing my father to the
door to lie among his kin.

"The driving is like to be brisk enough without that!" said Sandy.

And my mother never said a word, for now Sandy was the laird, and the
head of the house. She even offered to give up the keys to Jean
Hamilton, my brother's wife. But for all her peevishness Jean Hamilton
knew her place, and put aside her hand kindly.

"No, mother," she said. "These be yours so long as it pleases God to
keep you in the House of Earlstoun."

For which I shall ever owe Jean Hamilton a good word and kindly thought.

The names of the two men that went with me were Hugh Kerr and John
Meiklewood. They were both decent men with families of their own, and
had been excused from following my father and brother on that account.

Now as we went up the hill a sound followed us that made us turn and
listen. It was a sweet and charming noise of singing. There, at the door
of Earlstoun were my mother and her maidens, gathered to bid us farewell
upon our sad journey. It made a solemn melody on the caller morning air,
for it was the sound of the burying psalm, and they sang it sweetly. So
up the Deuch Water we rode, the little birds making a choir about us,
and young tailless thrushes of the year's nesting pulling at reluctant
worms on the short dewy knowes. All this I saw and more. For the Lord
that made me weak of arm, at least, did not stint me as to glegness of
eye.

When we came to where the burn wimples down from Garryhorn, we found a
picket of the King's dragoons drawn across the road, who challenged us
and made us to stand. Their commander was one Cornet Inglis, a rough and
roystering blade. They were in hold at Garryhorn, a hill farm-town
belonging to Grier of Lag, whence they could command all the headend of
the Kells.

"Where away so briskly?" the Cornet cried, as we came riding up the
road. "Where away, Whigs, without the leave of the King and Peter
Inglis?"

I told him civilly that I rode to Carsphairn to do my needs.

"And what need may you have in Carsphairn, that you cannot fit in Saint
John's Clachan of Dalry as well, and a deal nearer to your hand?"

I told him that I went to bury my father.

"Ay," he said, cocking his head quickly aslant like a questing cat that
listens at a mouse-hole; "and of what quick complaint do fathers die
under every green tree on the road to Bothwell? Who might the father of
you be, if ye happen to be so wise as to ken?"

"My father's name was Gordon," I said, with much quietness of
manner--for, circumstanced as I was, I could none other.

Cornet Inglis laughed a loud vacant laugh when I told him my father's
name, which indeed was no name to laugh at when he that owned it was
alive. Neither Peter Inglis not yet his uncle had laughed in the face of
William Gordon of Earlstoun--ay, though they had been riding forth with
a troop behind them.

"Gordon," quoth he, "Gordon--a man canna spit in the Glenkens without
sploiting on a Gordon--and every Jack o' them a cantin' rebel!"

"You lie, Peter Inglis--lie in your throat!" cried a voice from the
hillside, quick as an echo. Inglis, who had been hectoring it hand on
hip, turned at the word. His black brows drew together and his hand fell
slowly till it rested on his sword-hilt. He who spoke so boldly was a
lad of twenty, straight as a lance shaft is straight, who rode slowly
down from the Garryhorn to join us on the main road where the picket was
posted.

It was my cousin and kinsman, Wat Gordon of Lochinvar--a spark of
mettle, who in the hour of choosing paths had stood for the King and the
mother of him (who was a Douglas of Morton) against the sterner way of
his father and forebears.

The Wildcat of Lochinvar they called him, and the name fitted him like
his laced coat.

For Wullcat Wat of Lochinvar was the gayest, brightest, most reckless
blade in the world. And even in days before his father's capture and
execution, he had divided the house with him. He had rallied half the
retainers, and ridden to Morton Castle to back his uncle there when the
King's interest was at its slackest, and when it looked as if the days
of little Davie Crookback were coming back again. At Wat Gordon's back
there rode always his man-at-arms, John Scarlet, who had been a soldier
in France and also in Brandenburg--and who was said to be the greatest
master of fence and cunning man of weapons in all broad Scotland. But it
was rumoured that now John Scarlet had so instructed his young master
that with any weapon, save perhaps the small sword the young cock could
craw crouser than the old upon the same middenstead.

"I said you lied, Peter Inglis," cried Wullcat Wat, turning back the
lace ruffle of his silken cuff, for he was as gay and glancing in his
apparel as a crested jay-piet. "Are ye deaf as well as man-sworn?"

Inglis stood a moment silent; then he understood who his enemy was. For
indeed it was no Maypole dance to quarrel with Wat of Lochinvar with
John Scarlet swaggering behind him.

"Did you not hear? I said you lied, man--lied in your throat. Have you
aught to say to it, or shall I tell it to Clavers at the table to-night
that ye have within you no throat and no man's heart, but only the
gullet of a guzzling trencherman?"

"I said that the Gordons of the Glenkens were traitors. 'Tis a kenned
thing," answered Inglis, at last mustering up his resolution, "but I
have no quarrel with you, Wat Gordon, for I know your favour up at
Garryhorn--and its cause."

"Cause----" said Wullcat Wat, bending a little forward in his saddle and
striping one long gauntlet glove lightly through the palm of the other
hand, "cause--what knows Peter Inglis of causes? This youth is my cousin
of Earlstoun. I answer for him with my life. Let him pass. That is
enough of cause for an Inglis to know, when he chances to meet men of an
honester name."

"He is a rebel and a traitor!" cried Inglis, "and I shall hold him till
I get better authority than yours for letting him go. Hear ye that, Wat
of Lochinvar!"




CHAPTER VI.

THE CLASH OF SWORDS.


The two sat fronting one another on their horses. Inglis was the older
and more firmly set man. But Wat of Lochinvar was slender and lithe as a
bow that has not been often bent and quivers to the straight. It was a
curious sight to see them passaging with little airs and graces, like
fighting cocks matched in a pit.

The soldiers stood indifferently around. A pair of dragoons patrolled,
turning and crossing as if on parade, within earshot of the quarrel of
their officers. It was the first time I had ever seen what discipline
meant. And in a moment I learned why they had broken us at Bothwell and
Rullion Green. For I have heard my brother Sandy say that at any time in
the Covenanting host, had three drawn together and spoken like men that
are hot in questioning, the whole army would have run from their posts
to hear and to take part in the controversy. But all the while these
dragoons kept their noses pointing in the straight of their necks, and
fronted and wheeled like machines. It was, in fact, none of their
business if their officers cut each others' throats. But they knew that
one John Graham would assuredly make it his business if they omitted
their military service.

"Cornet Inglis," said Lochinvar, doffing lightly his feathered hat that
had the King's colours in it, "hearken ye well. This is my cousin Will
of Earlstoun, who took no part with his kin in the late rebellion, as I
took no part with mine, but instead abode at home in peace. I require
you to let him go upon his errand. I myself will be answerable for him
to Colonel Graham of Claverhouse. After that we can arrange our little
matter as to favour and its causes."

There was a keen leaping light in my cousin Wat's blue eyes, the light
that I afterwards grew to know as the delight of battle. He was waxing
coldly angry. For me I grow dourly silent as I become angered. My
brother Sandy grows red and hot, but Wullcat Wat was of those more
dangerous men to whom deadly anger, when it comes, at once quickens the
pulses and stills the nerves.

"Think not I am afraid of a traitor's son, or of any of the name of
Lochinvar," quoth Inglis, who was indeed no coward when once he had
taken up a quarrel; "after all, ye are all no better than a
bow-o'-meal-Gordon!"

It was the gage of battle. After that there was no more to be said. To
call a man of our name "a-bow-o'-meal-Gordon" is equal to saying that he
has no right to the name he bears. For it is said that a certain
Lochinvar, wanting retainers to ride at his back, offered a snug holding
and so many bolls of meal yearly to any lusty youth who would marry on
his land, take his name, and set himself like a worthy sworder to breed
well-boned loons to carry in their turns the leathern jack.

At the taunt, swift as flame Wat of Lochinvar rode nearer to his enemy
on his quick-turning well-mouthed horse, and drawing the leather
gauntlet through his fingers till the fingers were striped narrow like
whip lashes, he struck Inglis with it upon the cheek.

"My father's head," he cried, "may be on the Netherbow. He had his way
of thinking and died for it. I have mine and may die for it in my time.
But in the meantime Lochinvar's son is not to be flouted by the son of a
man who cried with all parties and hunted with none."

Two swords flashed into the air together, the relieved scabbards
jingling back against the horses' sides. The basket hilt of that of
Cornet Inglis had the cavalry tassel swinging to it, while the crossbar
and simple Italian guard of Wat Gordon's lighter weapon seemed as if it
must instantly be beaten down by the starker weapon of the dragoon. But
as they wheeled their horses on guard with a touch of the bridle hand, I
saw John Scarlet, Wat's master of fence, flash a look at his scholar's
guard-sword. Wat used an old-fashioned shearing-sword, an ancient blade
which, with various hilt devices, many a Gordon of Lochinvar had carried
when he ruffled it in court and hall. I caught John Scarlet's look of
satisfaction, and judged that he anticipated no danger to one whom he
had trained, from a fighter at haphazard like Cornet Peter Inglis. But
yet the dragoon was no tyro, for he had proved himself in many a
hard-stricken fray.

So without a word they fell to it. And, by my faith, it made a strange
picture on the grassy track which wound itself through these wilds, to
see the glossy black of Wat Gordon's charger front the heavier weight of
the King's man's grey.

At the first crossing of the swords, the style of the two men was made
evident. That of Inglis was the simpler. He fought most like a practical
soldier, with the single purpose of making his adversary feel the edge
of his weapon; while Wat, lighter and lither, had all the parade and
pomp of the schools.

Lochinvar depended on a low tierce guard with a sloping point, and
reined his horse near, that his enemy might be prevented from closing
with him on his left, or side of disadvantage. The dragoon used the
simpler hanging guard and pressed upon his adversary with plain dour
weight of steel.

At the first clash of the iron the horses heaved their heads, and down
from the hillside above there came a faint crying as of shepherds to
their flocks. But the combatants were too intent to take notice. John
Scarlet reined his horse at the side, his head a little low set between
his shoulders, and his eyes following every thrust and parry with a
glance like a rapier.

For the first five minutes Inglis tried all his powers of battering upon
Wat Gordon's lighter guard, his heavy cavalry sword beating and
disengaging with the fellest intent. He fought with a still and
lip-biting fury. He struck to kill, hammering with strong threshing
blows; Wat, more like a duellist of the schools--rather, as it seemed,
to show his mastery of the weapon. But nevertheless the thin supple
blade of the young laird followed every beat and lunge of the heavier
iron with speed and certainty. Each moment it seemed as if Wat must
certainly be cut down. But his black obeyed the rein at the moment of
danger, and his sword twisted round that of his adversary as an adder
winds itself about a stick.

More and more angry grew the dragoon, and a grim smile sat intent and
watchful on the face of John Scarlet. But he spoke never a word, and the
red sentries paced placidly to and fro along the burnside of Garryhorn.
More and more wildly Cornet Inglis struck, urging his horse forward to
force Lochinvar's black down the hill. But featly and gracefully the lad
wheeled and turned, keeping ever his hand in tierce and his blade across
his body, slipping and parrying with the utmost calm and ease.

"Click, click!" came the noise of the clashing sword-blades, flickering
so swiftly that the eye could not follow them. In time Lochinvar found
out his opponent's disadvantage, which was in the slower movement of his
horse, but to this Inglis responded like a man. He kept his beast
turning about within his own length, so that come where he would Wat had
no advantage. Yet gradually and surely the dragoon was being tired out.
From attacking he fell to guarding, and at last even his parry grew
lifeless and feeble. Wat, on the other hand, kept his enemy's blade
constantly engaged. He struck with certainty and parried with a light
hammering movement that was pretty to watch, even to one who had no
skill of the weapon.

At last, wearied with continual check, Inglis leaned too far over his
horse's head in a fierce thrust. The beast slipped with the sudden
weight, and the dragoon's steel cap went nearly to his charger's neck.

In a moment, seeing his disadvantage, Inglis attempted to recover; but
Wat's lighter weapon slid under his guard as he threw his sword hand
involuntarily up. It pierced his shoulder, and a darker red followed the
steel upon his horseman's coat, as Wat withdrew his blade to be ready
for the return. But of this there was no need, for Inglis instantly
dropped his hand to his side and another sword suddenly struck up that
of Wat Gordon, as the dragoon's heavy weapon clattered upon the stones.




CHAPTER VII.

THE FIELD OF BOTHWELL BRIG.


"Gentlemen," cried a stern, calm voice, "gentlemen, is it thus that ye
amuse yourselves when ye are upon the King's service?"

I turned about, and lo! it was the voice of John Graham of Claverhouse,
high-pitched to the carrying note of command--of the man whom all the
South and West knew then as the great persecutor, and all the North
afterwards as the great captain who stood for his master when all the
others forsook him and fled. I admit that my heart beat suddenly feeble
before him, and as for my lads who were with me, I think they gave
themselves up for dead men. Though slender and not tall, Clavers
nevertheless looked noble upon the black horse which had carried him at
a gallop down the burnside from Garryhorn. His eyes were full of fire,
his bearing of gallantry. Yet methought there was something relentless
about the man--something that friend might one day feel the bite of as
well as foe. For this was the man who, at his master's word, was now
driving Scotland before him as sheep are driven into buchts on the
hillside. But Scotland did not easily take to praying according to Act
of Parliament, and I minded the witty old gentlewoman's word to
Claverhouse himself, "Knox didna win his will without clavers, an'
aiblins Clavers winna get his withoot knocks." It was a witty saying and
a true, and many a day I lay in the moss-hags and wished that I had said
it.

Yet I think we of the Ancient Province never felt so keenly the
bitterness of his oppression, though mostly it was without bowels of
mercy, as we did the riding and driving of Robert Grier of Lag, of
Douglas of Morton, of Queensberry and Drumlanrig, that were of
ourselves--familiar at our tables, and ofttimes near kinsmen as well.

What John Graham did in the way of cess and exaction, and even of
shooting and taking, was in some measure what we had taken our count and
reckoning with. But that men who knew our outgoings and incomings, our
strengths and fastnesses, who had companied with us at kirk and market,
should harry us like thieves, made our hearts wondrously hot and angry
within us. For years I never prayed without making it a petition that I
might get a fair chance at Robert Grier--if it were the Lord's will. And
indeed it is not yet too late.

But it was Claverhouse that had come across us now.

"You would kill more King's men!" he cried to Wat Gordon; "you that have
come hither to do your best to undo the treason of your forebears. My
lad, that is the way to get your head set on the Netherbow beside your
father's. Are there no man-sworn Whigs in the West that true men must
fall to hacking one another?"

He turned upon Inglis as fiercely:

"Cornet, are you upon duty? By what right do you fall to brawling with
an ally of the country? Have we overly many of them in this accursed
land, where there are more elephants and crocodiles in Whig-ridden
Galloway than true men on whom the King may rely?"

But Inglis said never a word, being pale from the draining of his wound.
I looked for him to denounce me as a rebel and a spy; but he was wholly
silent, for the man after all was a man.

"How began ye this brawling?" quoth Claverhouse, looking from one to the
other of them, minding me no more than I had been a tripping
hedge-sparrow.

"We had a difference, and cast up our fathers to one another," at last
said Inglis, half sullenly.

"It were best to let fathers a-be when you ride on his Majesty's outpost
duty, Cornet Inglis. But you are wounded. Fall out and have your hurt
examined."

"It is a flea-bite," quoth Peter Inglis, stoutly.

"A man this!" thought I. For I loved courage.

Yet nevertheless, he dismounted, and John Scarlet helped him off with
his coat upon the short heather of the brae-face.

"And whom may we have here?" cried Claverhouse, as Inglis went
stumblingly to the hillside upon the arm of John Scarlet. He turned his
fine dark eyes full upon me as he spoke, and I thought that I had never
seen any man look so handsome. Yet, for all that, fear of the great
enemy of our house and cause sat cold in my vitals. Though I deny not
that his surpassing beauty of person took my eye as though I had been a
woman--the more perhaps because I had little enough of my own.

But my kinsman Wat Gordon was no whit dismayed. He dusted his silken
doublet front, swept his white-feathered hat in the air in reverence,
and introduced me to the formidable captain as one that has good
standing and knows it well:

"My cousin, William Gordon, younger son of the House of Earlstoun!"

"Ah," said Claverhouse, smiling upon me not so ill-pleased, "I have
heard of him--the home stayer, the nest-egg. He that rode not to
Bothwell with 'the Earl'[3] and 'the Bull.' Whither rides he now thus
early?"

[Footnote 3: The laird of Earlstoun was often called in jest "the
Earl."]

"He rides, Colonel Graham, to bury his father."

I thought my cousin was too bold thus to blurt out my mission, to the
chief of them that had killed him whom I went to seek, but he was wiser
than I in this matter.

Claverhouse smiled, and looked from the one to the other of us.

"You Gordons have your own troubles to get your fathers buried," he
said. "I suppose you will claim that this cub also is a good King's
man?"

"He is well affected, colonel," said Lochinvar gaily; "and there are
none too many likeminded with him in these parts!"

"Even the affectation does him monstrous credit," quoth Clavers,
clapping Walter on the shoulder; "it is much for a Gordon in this
country to affect such a virtue as loyalty. I wonder," he went on,
apparently to himself, "if it would be possible to transplant you
Gordons, that are such arrant rebels here and so loyal in the North. It
were well for the land if this could be done. In the North a few dozen
Whigs would do small harm; here ten score King's men melled and married
would settle the land and keep the King's peace."

Then he looked at my cousin with a certain uncommon gracious affection
that sat well on him--all the more that he showed such a thing but
rarely.

"Well, Wat, for your sake let young Earlstoun go bury his father in
peace, an it likes him. The more Whigs buried the better pleased will
John Graham be. If he will only bury his brother also when he is about
it, he will rid the earth of a very pestilent fellow!"

"There is no great harm in Sandy," returned Lochinvar briskly and
easily. From his whole demeanour I saw that he was in good estimation
with Colonel Graham, and was accustomed to talk familiarly with him.

Perhaps the reason was that Claverhouse found himself much alone in
Galloway. When he ordered a muster of the lairds and the well affected,
only Grier of Lag and Fergusson of Craigdarroch came in, and even they
brought but few at their back. Then again these rough-riding, hard
drinkers of Nithside had little in common with John Graham. But
Lochinvar was well trained by his mother, and had been some time about
the court. It was, doubtless, a relief to the high-bred soldier to speak
to him after the foul oaths and scurril jests of the country cavaliers.

"Why," said Claverhouse, "as you say, there is no great harm in Sandy;
but yet Sandy hath a stout arm and can lay well about him when it comes
to the dunts. Sandy's arm is stronger than Sandy's wit."

All this time I had not spoken, for so with a look my cousin Lochinvar
had warned me to let him speak for me; but now I broke the silence.

"I am obliged to you, Colonel Graham," I said, "for your permission to
go and bury my dead."

"Ay," said Claverhouse, with a certain courteous disdain that was
natural to him, but which he dropped when he spoke to the young
Lochinvar, "ay, you are no doubt greatly obliged to me; but your father,
though a rebel, fought us fairly and deserves clean burial. A Whig is
aye best buried at any rate," he continued, gathering up his reins as
one that prepares to ride away.

"Lochinvar," he cried, in his voice of command, "take Cornet Inglis's
post and duty, since you have disabled him. But mark me well, let there
be no more tullying and brawling, or I shall send you all to bridewell.
Hark you, young Wullcat of Lochinvar, I cannot have my officers cut up
when they should be hunting Whigs--and" (looking at me) "preparing them
for burial."

I think he saw the hatred in my eyes, when he spoke thus of my father
lying stiff at a dyke back, for he lifted his hat to me quaintly as he
went.

"A good journey to you, and a fair return, young Castle Keeper!" he said
with a scorning of his haughty lip.

Yet I think that he had been greater and worthier had he denied himself
that word to a lad on my errand.

Of our further progress what need that I tell? Hour after hour I heard
the horses' feet ring on the road dully, as though I had been deep under
ground myself, and they trampling over me with a rush. It irked me that
it was a fine day and that my men, Hugh Kerr and John Meiklewood, would
not cease to speak with me. But all things wear round, and in time we
came to the place, where one had told Sandy as he fled that he had seen
William Gordon of Earlstoun lie stark and still.

There indeed we found my father lying where he had fallen in the angle
of a great wall, a mile or two south of the field of Bothwell. He had no
fewer than six wounds from musket balls upon him. As I looked I could
see the story of his end written plain for the dullest to read. He had
been beset by a party of dragoons in the angle of a great seven-foot
march dyke in which there was no break. They summoned him to surrender.
He refused, as I knew he would; and, as his manner was, he had risked
all upon a single-handed charge.

As we heard afterwards, he had come at the troopers with such fury that
he killed three and wounded another, besides slaying the horse that lay
beside him, before, with a storm of bullets, they stopped him in his
charge. Thus died, not unworthily, even while I was bringing in the kye
in the evening at Earlstoun, William Gordon, a father of whom, in life
and death, no son need be ashamed.

And where we found him, there we buried him, wrapping him just as he
was, in the shrouds my mother had sent for her well-beloved. Hugh Kerr
was for taking his sword out of his hand to keep at home as an heirloom.
But I thought no. For his hand was stiffened upon it where the blood had
run down his wrist. And besides, it had been his friend while he lived
and when he died, and it was hard to part him with that which had been
to him as the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. So we buried his sword
and him together, laying the little red Bible, stained and spotted with
his blood, open upon his breast. Then we happed him up, and I, who could
at that time fight but little, put up a short prayer over him--though
not, of course, like a minister, or one bred to the trade. And I thought
as I rode away that it was better to leave him the sword, than that
Sandy should get it to prate about at his general meetings. Even as it
was he could not let him be, but in the after days of quiet he must have
him up to coffin him, and bury in the kirkyard of Glassford. Yet to do
Sandy justice, he had the grace to leave him the sword in his hand.

Now my father had not fallen on the battlefield itself, but rather when
hastening thither, for indeed he never saw the bridge, nor had hand in
the guiding of the host, whose blood Robert Hamilton poured out as one
that pours good wine upon the ground.

Yet because we were so near, we risked the matter and rode over to see
the narrow passage of the Bridge where they had fought it so stoutly all
day long. Here and there lay dead men yet unburied; but the countrymen
were gradually putting the poor bodies in the earth. Some of them lay
singly, but more in little clusters where they set their backs
desperately to one another, and had it out with their pursuers that they
might die fighting and not running. Still the pursuit had not been
unmerciful, for there were few that had fallen beyond the long avenues
of the Palace oaks.

But when we came to the banks of the river, and looked down upon the
bridge-head we saw the very grass dyed red, where the men had been shot
down. And on the brae-sides where Hamilton had drawn them up when he
called them from the bridge-end, they had fallen in swathes like barley.
But it was not a heartsome sight, and we turned our rein and rode away,
weary and sad within.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE CURATE OF DALRY.


When I returned to Earlstoun I found the house in sad disorder. Maisie
Lennox I found not, for she had ridden to the Duchrae to meet her father
and to keep the house, which had had some unwonted immunity lately
because of the friendship of the McGhies of Balmaghie. For old Roger
McGhie was a King's man and in good favour, though he never went far
from home. But only patrolled his properties, lundering such Whigs as
came his way with a great staff, but tenderly withal and mostly for
show. His daughter Kate, going the way of most women folk, was the
bitterest Whig and most determined hearer of the field-preachers in the
parish. Concerning which her father full well knew, but could neither
alter nor mend, even as Duke Rothes himself could not change his lady's
liking. Yet for Kate McGhie's sake the hunt waxed easier in all the
headend of Balmaghie. And during this lown blink, old Anton came home
from the hills to take the comforts of the bien and comfortable house of
the Duchrae, for it promised to be a bitter and unkindly season. So the
Earlstoun looked a little bare without Maisie Lennox, and I was glad
that I was to be but a short time in it.

For another thing, the soldiers had been before me, and by order of the
Council had turned the whole gear and plenishing over to find my brother
Alexander--which indeed seeing what he had done at Bothwell, we can
hardly wonder at. Even the intervention of our well-affected cousin of
Lochinvar could not prevent this. The horses were driven away, the
cattle lifted to be provender for the King's forces in the parish of
Carsphairn and elsewhere. And it would go hard with us--if indeed we
should even be permitted to keep the place that had been ours for
generations.

My mother was strongly advised that, as I had not been mixed with the
outbreaks, it was just scant possible that I might make something of an
appeal to the Privy Council for the continuing of the properties, and
the substituting of a fine. I was therefore to ride to Edinburgh with
what attendance I could muster, and with Wat Gordon of Lochinvar to lead
me as a bairn by the hand.

But it was with a sad heart and without much pleasure, save in having my
father's silver mounted pistols (for I counted myself no mean marksman),
that John Meiklewood, Hughie and I rode off from the arched door of the
Earlstoun. My mother stood on the step and waved me off with no tear in
her eye; and even poor Jean Hamilton, from the window whence she could
see the great oak where my brother, her husband, was in hiding, caused a
kerchief to show white against the grey wall of Earlstoun. I think the
poor feckless bit thing had a sort of kindness for me. But when there
was hardly the thickness of an eggshell between her man and death, it
was perhaps small wonder that she cherished some jealousy of me, riding
whither I listed over the wide, pleasant moors where the bumble bees
droned and the stooping wild birds cried all the livelong day.

At St. John's Clachan of Dalry we were to meet with Wildcat Wat, who was
waiting to ride forth with us to Edinburgh upon his own ploys. We
dismounted at the inn where John Barbour, honest man, had put out the
sign of his profession. It was a low, well-thatched change-house,
sitting with its end to the road in the upper part of the village, with
good offices and accommodation for man and horse about it--the same
hostel indeed in which the matter of Rullion Green took its beginning.
Wat came down the street with his rapier swinging at his side, his
feathered Cavalier hat on his head, and he walked with a grace that
became him well. I liked the lad, and sometimes it almost seemed to me
that I might be his father, though indeed our years were pretty equal.
For being lame and not a fighter, neither craving ladies' favours, I was
the older man, for the years of them that suffer score the lines deeper
on a man's brow--and on his heart also.

When Wat Gordon mounted into the saddle with an easy spring his horse
bent back its head and curveted, biting at his foot. So that I rejoiced
to see the brave lad sitting like a dart, holding his reins as I hold my
pen, and resting his other hand easily on his thigh. John Scarlet, his
man-at-arms, mounted and rode behind him; and when I saw them up,
methought there was not a pair that could match them in Scotland. Yet I
knew that with the pistolets at paces ten or twenty, I was the master of
both. And perhaps it was this little scrap of consolation that made me
feel so entirely glad to see my cousin look so bright and bonny. Indeed
had I been his lass--or one of them, for if all tales be true he had
routh of such--I could not have loved better to see him shine in the
company of men like the young god Apollo among the immortals, as the
heathens feign.

At the far end of the village there came one out of a white house and
saluted us. I knew him well, though I had never before seen him so near.
It was Peter McCaskill, the curate of the parish. But, as we of the
strict Covenant did not hear even the Indulged ministers, it was not
likely that we would see much of the curate. Nevertheless I had heard
many tales of his sayings and his humours, for our curate was not as
most others--dull and truculent knaves many of them, according to my
thinking--the scourings of the North. Peter was, on the other hand, a
most humoursome varlet and excellent company on a wet day. Sandy and he
used often to take a bottle together when they foregathered at John's in
the Clachan; but even the Bull of Earlstoun could not keep steeks or
count mutchkins with Peter McCaskill, the curate of Dalry.

On this occasion he stopped and greeted us. He had on him a black coat
of formal enough cut, turned green with age and exposure to the weather.
I warrant it had never been brushed since he had put it on his back, and
there seemed good evidence upon it that he had slept in it for a month
at least.

"Whaur gang ye screeving to, young sirs, so brave?" he cried. "Be canny
on the puir Whiggies. Draw your stick across their hurdies when ye come
on them, an' tell them to come to the Clachan o' Dalry, where they will
hear a better sermon than ever they gat on the muirs, or my name's no
Peter McCaskill."

"How now, Curate," began my cousin, reining in his black and sitting at
ease, "are you going to take to the hill and put Peden's nose out of
joint?"

"Faith, an' it's my mither's ain son that could fettle that," said the
curate. "I'm wae for the puir Whiggies, that winna hear honest doctrine
an' flee to the hills and hags--nesty, uncanny, cauldrife places that
the very muir-fowl winna clock on. Ken ye what I was tellin' them the
ither day? Na, ye'll no hae heard--it's little desire ye hae for either
kirk or Covenant, up aboot the Garryhorn wi' red-wud Lag and headstrong
John Graham. Ye need as muckle to come and hear Mess John pray as the
blackest Whig o' them a'!"

"Indeed, we do not trouble you much, Curate," laughed my cousin; "but
here is my cousin Will of Earlstoun," he said, waving his hand to me,
"and he is nearly as good as a parson himself, and can pray by screeds."

Which was hardly a just thing to say, for though I could pray and read
my Bible too when I listed, I did not trouble him or any other with the
matter. Cain, indeed, had something to say for himself--for it is a hard
thing to be made one's brother's keeper. There are many ways that may
take me to the devil. But, I thank God, officiousness in other men's
matters shall not be one of them.

"He prays, does he?" quoth McCaskill, turning his shaggy eyebrows on me.
"Aweel, I'll pray him ony day for a glass o' John's best. Peter
McCaskill needs neither read sermon nor service-book. He leaves sic-like
at hame, and the service ye get at his kirk is as guid and godly as gin
auld Sandy himsel' were stelled up in a preaching tent an' thretty
wizzened plaided wives makkin' a whine in the heather aneath!"

"How do you and the other Peter up the way draw together?" asked my
cousin.

The curate snapped his fingers.

"Peter Pearson o' Carsphairn--puir craitur, he's juist fair daft wi' his
ridin' an' his schemin'. He will hear a pluff o' pouther gang blaff at
his oxter some fine day, that he'll be the waur o'! An' sae I hae telled
him mony's the time. But Margate McCaskill's son is neither a Whig
hunter nor yet as this daft Peter Pearson. He bides at hame an' minds
his glebe. But for a' that I canna control the silly fowk. I was fearin'
them the ither day," he went on. "I gied it oot plain frae the pulpit
that gin they didna come as far as the kirkyaird at ony rate, I wad tak'
no more lees on my conscience for their sakes. I hae plenty o' my ain to
gar me fry. 'But,' says I, 'I'll report ye as attendin' the kirk, gin ye
walk frae yae door o' the kirk to the ither withoot rinnin'. Nae man can
say fairer nor that.'"

"An' what said ye next, Curate?" asked my cousin, for his talk amused us
much, and indeed there were few merry things in these sad days.

"Ow," said Peter McCaskill, "I juist e'en said to them, 'Black be your
fa'. Ye are a' off to the hills thegither. Hardly a tyke or messan but's
awa' to Peden to get her whaulpies named at the Holy Linn! But I declare
to ye a', what will happen in this parish. Sorra gin I dinna inform on
ye, an' then ye'll be a' eyther shot or hangit before Yule!' That's what
I said to them!"

Wat Gordon laughed, and I was fain to follow suit, for it was a common
complaint that the curate of Dalry was half a Whig himself. And, indeed,
had he not been ever ready to drink a dozen of Clavers's officers under
the table, and clout the head of the starkest carle in his troop, it
might have gone ill with him more than once.

"But I hae a bit sma' request to make of ye, Walter Gordon o' Lochinvar
an' Gordiestoun," said the curate.

"Haste ye," said Wat, "for ye hae taigled us overly long already."

"An' it's this," said the curate, "I hae to ride to Edinburgh toon,
there to tell mair lees than I am likely to be sained o' till I am a
bishop an' can lee wi' a leecence. But it's the Privy Council's wull,
an' sae I maun e'en lee. That tearin' blackguard, Bob Grier, has written
to them that I am better affected to the Whigs than to the troopers of
Garryhorn, and I am behoved to gang and answer for it."

"Haste ye, then, and ride with us," cried Walter, whose horse had stood
long enough. "We ride toward the Nith with Colonel Graham, and after
that to Edinburgh."

So in a little the curate was riding stoutly by our side. We were to
travel by Dumfries and Lockerbie into Eskdale, whither Claverhouse had
preceded us, obeying an urgent call from his acquaintance, Sir James
Johnstone of Westerhall, who was still more eager to do the King's will
than he--though, to begin with, he had been a Covenant man, and that of
some mark too. But the fear of fines, and the bad example of his
neighbours ever before his eyes, had brought out the hidden cruelty of
the man. So now he rode at Claverhouse's bridle-rein, and the pair of
them held black counsel on the state of the country. But the mood of
Claverhouse was, at worst, only that of military severity, without heart
of ruth or bowels of mercy indeed; but that of Westerhall was rather of
roystering and jubilant brutality, both of action and intent.

So we rode and we better rode till we came to Eskdale, where we found
Westerhall in his own country. Now I could see by the behaviour of the
soldiers as we went, that some of them had small good will to the kind
of life they led, for many of them were of the country-side and, as it
seemed, were compelled to drive and harry their own kith and kin. This
they covered with a mighty affectation of ease, crying oaths and curses
hither and thither tempestuously behind their leaders--save only when
John Graham rode near by, a thing which more than anything made them
hold their peace, lest for discipline's sake he should bid them be
silent, with a look that would chill their marrows.




CHAPTER IX.

THROUGH DEATH'S DARK VALE.


Now this Eskdale was the Johnstone's own country, and one in which I was
noways at home--a country of wide green holms and deep blind "hopes" or
hollows among the mountains, where the cloud shadows bide and linger,
and whence they come out again to scud swiftly over the hips of the
hills. I had been trained to be pleasant and prudent in my conversation,
and there was little to take me out of myself in the company I had
perforce to keep. Yet I dared not withdraw myself from their train, lest
the jealousy of our band, which was latent among the more scurril of
them, should break out. So I rode mostly silent, but with a pleased
countenance which belied my heart.

Indeed, had it not been for the good liking which everywhere pursued my
cousin Lochinvar, I cannot tell what might have come out of the dislike
for us "Glenkens Whiggies," which was their mildest word for us. Yet my
man Hugh never said a word, for he was a prudent lad and slow of speech;
while I, being no man of war, also looked well to my words, and let a
wary tongue keep my head. As for John Meiklewood, honest man, he took
suddenly one morning what he termed a "sair income in his wame," and
leave being scantily asked, he hied him home to his wife and weans at
the Mains of Earlstoun.

Now this was the manner of our march. Claverhouse sent his horse
scouring up on the tops of the hills and along the higher grounds, while
his foot quartered the lower districts, bringing all such as were in any
way suspicious to the kirkyards to be examined. Old and young, men and
women alike, were taken; and often--chiefly, it is true, behind
Claverhouse's back--the soldiers were most cruel at the business, making
my blood boil, till I thought that I must fly out and strike some of
them. I wondered not any longer that my father had taken to the hill,
sick to death of the black terror which Charles's men caused daily to
fall upon all around them, wherever in Scotland men cared enough about
their religion to suffer for it.

How my cousin Lochinvar stood it I cannot tell. Indeed I think that but
for the teaching of his mother, and the presence of John Scarlet, who at
this time was a great King's man and of much influence with Wat Gordon,
he had been as much incensed as I.

One morning in especial I mind well. It was a Tuesday, and our company
was under the command of this Johnstone of Westerha', who of all the
clan, being a turncoat, was the cruellest and the worst. For the man was
in his own country, and among his own kenned faces, his holders and
cottiers--so that the slaughter of them was as easy as killing chickens
reared by hand.

And even Claverhouse rather suffered, and shut his eyes to it, than took
part in the hard driving.

"Draw your reins here," the Johnstone would say, as we came to the
loaning foot of some little white lime-washed house with a reeking lum.
"There are some Bible folk here that wad be none the worse o' a bit
ca'!"

So he rode up to the poor muirland housie sitting by itself all alone
among the red heather. Mostly the folk had marked us come, and often
there was no one to be seen, but, as it might be, a bairn or two playing
about the green.

Then he would have these poor bits of things gathered up and begin to
fear them, or contrariwise to offer them fair things if only they would
tell where their parents were, and who were used to come about the
house.

There is a place, Shieldhill by name, that sits blithely on the
brae-face at the entering in of Annandale. The country thereabouts is
not very wild, and there are many cotter houses set about the holms and
dotted among the knowes. Westerha' enclosed the whole with a ring of his
men, and came upon them as he thought unawares, for he said the place
was like a conventicle, and rife with psalm-singers. But he was a wild
man when he found the men and women all fled, and only the bairns, as
before, feared mostly out of their lives, sitting cowering together by
the ingle, or hiding about the byres.

"I'll fear them waur," said Westerha', as he came to the third house and
found as before only two-three weans, "or my name is no James
Johnstone."

So what did this ill-set Johnstone do, but gather them all up into a
knot by a great thorn-tree that grows on the slope. This Tuesday morn
was clear and sunny--not bright, but with a kind of diffused light, warm
and without shadows, as if the whole arch of the lift were but one sun,
yet not so bright as the sun we mostly have.

There were some thirty bairns by the tree, mostly of Westerha's own
name, save those that were Jardines, Grahams, and Charterises, for those
are the common names of that country-side. The children stood together,
huddled in a cloud, too frightened to speak or even to cry aloud. And
one thing I noticed, that the lassie bairns were stiller and grat not so
much as the boys--all save one, who was a laddie of about ten years. He
stood with his hands behind his back, and his face was very white; but
he threw back his head and looked the dragoons and Annandale's wild
riders fair in the face as one that has conquered fear.

Then Westerha' rode forward almost to the midst of the cloud of bairns,
"gollering" and roaring at the bit things to frighten them, as was his
custom with such. They were mostly from six to ten years of their age;
and when I saw them thus with their feared white faces, I wished that I
had been six foot of my inches, and with twenty good men of the Glen at
my back. But I minded that I was but a boy--"stay-at-home John," as
Sandy called me--and worth nothing with my hands. So I could only fret
and be silent. I looked for my cousin Lochinvar, but he was riding at
the Graham's bridle rein, and that day I saw nothing of him. But I
wondered how this matter of the bairns liked him.

So Westerha' rode nearer to them, shouting like a shepherd crying down
the wind tempestuously, when his dogs are working sourly.

"Hark ye," he cried, "ill bairns that ye are, ye are all to dee, and
that quickly, unless ye answer me what I shall ask of you."

Then I saw something that I had never seen but among the sheep, and it
was a most pitiful and heart-wringing thing to see, though now in the
telling it seems no great matter. There is a time of the year when it is
fitting that the lambs should be separated from the ewes; and it ever
touches me nearly to see the flock of poor lammies when first the dogs
come near to them to begin the work, and wear them in the direction in
which they are to depart. All their little lives the lambs had run to
their mothers at the first hint of danger. Now they have no mothers to
flee to, and you can see them huddle and pack in a frightened solid
bunch, quivering with apprehension, all with their sweet little winsome
faces turned one way. Then as the dogs run nearer to start them, there
comes from them a little low broken-hearted bleating, as if terror were
driving the cry out of them against their wills. Thus it is with the
lambs on the hill, and so also it was with the bairns that clung
together in a cluster on the brae-face.

A party of soldiers was now drawn out before them, and the young things
were bid look into the black muzzles of the muskets. They were indeed
loaded only with powder, but the children were not to know that.

"Now," cried Westerha', "tell me who comes to your houses at night, and
who goes away early in the morning!"

The children crept closer to one another, but none of them answered.
Whereupon Westerha' indicated one with his finger--the lad who stood up
so straightly and held his head back.

"You, young Cock-of-the-heather, what might be your black Whig's name?"

"Juist the same as your honour's--James Johnstone!" replied the boy, in
no way abashed.

Methought there ran a titter of laughter among the soldiers, for
Westerha' was noways so well liked among the soldiers as Claverhouse or
even roaring Grier of Lag.

"And what is your father's name?" continued Westerha', bending just one
black look upon the lad.

"James Johnstone!" yet again replied the boy.

Back in the ranks some one laughed.

Westerhall flung an oath over his shoulder.

"Who was the man who laughed? I shall teach you to laugh at the
Johnstone in his own country!"

"It was Jeems Johnstone of Wanphray that laughed, your honour," replied
the calm voice of a troop-sergeant.

Then Westerha' set himself without another word to the work of
examination, which suited him well.

"You will not answer, young rebels," he cried, "ken you what they get
that will not speak when the King bids them?"

"Are you the King?" said the lad of ten who had called himself James
Johnstone.

At this Westerhall waxed perfectly furious, with a pale and shaking fury
that I liked not to see. But indeed the whole was so distasteful to me
that sometimes I could but turn my head away.

"Now, ill bairns," said Westerha', "and you, my young rebel-namesake,
hearken ye. The King's command is not to be made light of. And I tell
you plainly that as you will not answer, I am resolved that you shall
all be shot dead on the spot!"

With that he sent men to set them out in rows, and make them kneel down
with kerchiefs over their eyes.

Now when the soldiers came near to the huddled cluster of bairns, that
same little heart-broken bleating which I have heard the lambs make,
broke again from them. It made my heart bleed and the nerves tingle in
my palms. And this was King Charles Stuart making war! It had not been
his father's way.

But the soldiers, though some few were smiling a little as at an
excellent play, were mostly black ashamed. Nevertheless they took the
bairns and made them kneel, for that was the order, and without mutiny
they could not better it.

"Sodger-man, wull ye let me tak' my wee brither by the hand and dee that
way? I think he wad thole it better!" said a little maid of eight,
looking up.

And the soldier let go a great oath and looked at Westerha' as though he
could have slain him.

"Bonny wark," he cried, "deil burn me gin I listed for this!"

But the little lass had already taken her brother by the hand.

"Bend doon bonny, Alec my man, doon on your knees!" said she.

The boy glanced up at her. He had long yellow hair like Jean Hamilton's
little Alec.

"Wull it be sair?" he asked. "Think ye, Maggie? I houp it'll no be awfu'
sair!"

"Na, Alec," his sister made answer, "it'll no be either lang or sair."

But the boy of ten, whose name was James Johnstone, neither bent nor
knelt.

"I hae dune nae wrang. I'll juist dee this way," he said; and he stood
up like one that straightens himself at drill.

Then Westerha' bid fire over the bairns' heads, which was cruel, cruel
work, and only some of the soldiers did it. But even the few pieces that
went off made a great noise in that lonely place. At the sound of the
muskets some of the bairns fell forward on their faces as if they had
been really shot. Some leapt in the air, but the most part knelt quietly
and composedly.

The little boy Alec, whose sister had his hand clasped in hers, made as
if he would rise.

"Bide ye doon, Alec," she said, very quietly, "it's no oor turn yet!"

At this the heart within me gave way, and I roared out in my helpless
pain a perfect "gowl" of anger and grief.

"Bonny Whigs ye are," cried Westerha', "to dee withoot even a prayer.
Put up a prayer this minute, for ye shall all dee, every one of you."

And the boy James Johnstone made answer to him:

"Sir, we cannot pray, for we be too young to pray."

"You are not too young to rebel, nor yet to die for it!" was the
brute-beast's answer.

Then with that the little girl held up a hand as if she were answering a
dominie in a class.

"An it please ye, sir," she said, "me an' Alec canna pray, but we can
sing 'The Lord's my Shepherd,' gin that wull do! My mither learned it us
afore she gaed awa'."

And before any one could stop her, she stood up like one that leads the
singing in a kirk. "Stan' up, Alec, my wee mannie," she said.

Then all the bairns stood up. I declare it minded me of Bethlehem and
the night when Herod's troopers rode down to look for Mary's bonny
Bairn.

Then from the lips of the babes and sucklings arose the quavering
strains:

    "The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want.
      He makes me down to lie
    In pastures green; He leadeth me
      The quiet waters by."

As they sang I gripped out my pistols and began to sort and prime them,
hardly knowing what I did. For I was resolved to make a break for it,
and, at the least, to blow a hole in James Johnstone of Westerha' that
would mar him for life before I suffered any more of it.

But as they sang I saw trooper after trooper turn away his head, for,
being Scots bairns, they had all learned that psalm. The ranks shook.
Man after man fell out, and I saw the tears happing down their cheeks.
But it was Douglas of Morton, that stark persecutor, who first broke
down.

"Curse it, Westerha'," he cried, "I canna thole this langer. I'll war
nae mair wi' bairns for a' the earldom i' the North."

And at last even Westerha' turned his bridle rein, and rode away from
off the bonny holms of Shieldhill, for the victory was to the bairns. I
wonder what his thoughts were, for he too had learned that psalm at the
knees of his mother. And as the troopers rode loosely up hill and down
brae, broken and ashamed, the sound of these bairns' singing followed
after them, and soughing across the fells came the words:

    "Yea, though I walk in Death's dark vale,
      Yet will I fear none ill:
    For Thou art with me; and Thy rod
      And staff me comfort still."

Then Westerha' swore a great oath and put the spurs in his horse to get
clear of the sweet singing.




CHAPTER X.

THE GRAVE IN THE WILDERNESS.


But on the morrow I, who desired to see the ways of the Compellers,
learned a lesson that ended my scholarship days with them. James
Johnstone seemed somewhat moved by the matter of the bairns, but by the
morning light he had again hardened his heart, like Pharaoh, more
bitterly than before. For he was now on his own land, and because his
thought was that the King would hold him answerable for the behaviour
and repute of his people, he became more than ordinarily severe. This he
did, being a runnagate from the wholesome ways of the Covenant; and,
therefore, the more bitter against all who remained of that way.

He drove into the yards of the farm-towns, raging like a tiger of the
Indies, now calling on the names of the goodman of the house, and now
upon other suspected persons. And if they did not run out to him at the
first cry, he would strike them on the face with the basket hilt of his
shable till the blood gushed out. It was a sick and sorry thing to see,
and I think his Majesty's troopers were ashamed; all saving the
Johnstone's own following, who laughed as at rare sport.

But I come now to tell what I saw with my own eyes of the famous matter
of Andrew Herries, which was the cause of my cousin of Lochinvar leaving
their company and riding with me and Hugh Kerr all the way to Edinburgh.
As, indeed, you shall presently hear. And the manner of its happening
was as follows. We were riding full slowly along the edge of a boggy
loch in the parish of Hutton, and, as usual, quartering the ground for
Whig refugees, of whom it was suspected that there were many lurking in
the neighbourhood. We had obtained no success in our sport, and
Westerhall was a wild man. He ran about crying "Blood and wounds!" which
was a favourite oath of his, and telling what he would do to those who
dared to rebel, and harbour preachers and preachers' brats on his
estate. For we had heard that the lass who had bearded us on the
brae-face by the school, with her little brother Alec in her hand, was
the daughter of Roger Allison, a great preacher of the hill-folk who had
come to them over from Holland, to draw them together into some of their
ancient unity and power.

Westerhall, then, knew not as yet in whose house she was dwelling, but
only that she had been received by one of his people. But this, if it
should come to Claverhouse's ears, was enough to cause him to set a fine
upon the Johnstone--so strict as against landlords were the laws
concerning intercommuning with rebels or rebels' children on their
estates. This was indeed the cause of so many of the lairds, who at
first were all on the side of the Covenant, turning out Malignants and
persecutors. And more so in the shire of Dumfries than in Galloway,
where the muirs are broader, the King's arm not so long, and men more
desperately dour to drive.

All of a sudden, as we went along the edge of a morass, we came upon
something that stayed us. It was, as I say, in Hutton parish, a very
pleasant place, where there is the crying of many muir-fowl, and the
tinkle of running water everywhere. All at once a questing dragoon held
up his arm, and cried aloud. It was the signal that he had found
something worthy of note. We all rode thither--I, for one, praying that
it might not be a poor wanderer, too wearied to run from before the face
of the troopers' wide-spreading advance.

However, it was but a newly-made grave in the wilderness, hastily dug,
and most pitifully covered with green fresh-cut turves, in order to give
it the look of the surrounding morass. It had very evidently been made
during the darkness of the night, and it might have passed without
notice then. But now, in the broad equal glare of the noon-tide, it lay
confessed for what it was--a poor wandering hill-man's grave in the
wild.

"Who made this?" cried Westerhall. "Burn me on the deil's brander, but
I'll find him out!"

"Hoot," said Clavers, who was not sharp set that day, perhaps having had
enough of Westerhall's dealing with the bairns yesterday, "come away,
Johnstone; 'tis but another of your Eskdale saints. Ye have no lack of
them on your properties, as the King will no doubt remember. What
signifies a Whig Johnstone the less? There's more behind every dyke, and
then their chief is aye here, able and willing to pay for them!"

This taunt, uttered by the insolent scorning mouth of Claverhouse, made
Westerhall neither to hold nor bind. Indeed the fear of mulet and fine
rode him like the hag of dreams.

"Truth of God!" cried he; for he was a wild and blasphemous man, very
reckless in his words; "do so to me, and more also, if I rack not their
limbs, that gied the clouts to wrap him in. I'se burn the bed he lay in,
bring doon the rafter and roof-tree that sheltered him--aye, though it
were the bonny hoose o' St. Johnstone itsel', an' lay the harbourer of
the dead Whig cauld i' the clay, gin it were the mither that bore me!
Deil reestle me gin I keep not this vow."

Now, the most of the men there were upon occasion bonny swearers, not
taking lessons in the art from any man; but to the Johnstone they were
as children. For, being a runnagate Covenanter, and not accustomed in
his youth to swear, he had been at some pains to learn the habit with
care, thinking it a necessary accomplishment and ornament to such as did
the King's business, especially to a captain of horse. Which, indeed, it
hath ever been held, but in moderation and with discretion. Westerhall
had neither, being the man he was.

"Fetch the Whig dog up!" he commanded.

The men hesitated, for it was a job not at all to their stomachs, as
well it might not be that hot day, with the sun fierce upon them
overhead.

"Tut, man," said Clavers, "let him lie. What more can ye do but smell
him? Is he not where you and I would gladly see all his clan? Let the
ill-favoured Whig be, I say!"

"I shall find out who sheltered him on my land. Howk him up!" cried
Westerhall, more than ever set in his mad cruelty at Colonel Graham's
words. So to the light of the merciless day they opened out the loose
and shallow grave, and came on one wrapped in a new plaid, with winding
sheets of pure linen underneath. These were all stained and soaked with
the black brew of the moss, for the man had been buried, as was usual at
the time, hastily and without a coffin. But the sleuthhound instinct of
the Johnstone held good. "Annandale for the hunt, Nithsdale for the
market, and Gallowa' for the fecht!" is ever a true proverb.

"Let me see wha's aucht the sheet?" he said.

So with that, Westerhall unwound the corner and held it up to the light.

"Isobel Allison!" he exclaimed, holding the fine linen up to the light,
and reading the name inwoven, as was then the custom when a bride did
her providing. "The widow Herries, the verra woman--ain dam's sister to
the Whig preacher--sant amang the hill-folk. Weel ken I the kind o' her.
To the hill, lads, and we will burn the randy oot, even as I said. I'll
learn the Hutton folk to play wi' the beard o' St. Johnstone."

"Foul Annandale thief!" said I, but stilly to myself, for who was I to
stand against all of them? Yet I could see that, save and except the
chief's own ragged tail, there were none of the soldiers that thought
this kind of work becoming.

Ere he mounted, Westerhall took the poor, pitiful body, and with his
foot despitefully tumbled it into a moss-hole.

"I'll show them what it is to streek dead Whigs like honest men, and row
them dainty in seventeen hunder linen on my land!" cried Westerhall.

And indeed it seemed a strange and marvellous Providence to me, that
young Isobel Allison, when she wove in that name with many hopes and
prayers, the blood of her body flushing her cheek with a maiden's shy
expectation, should have been weaving in the ruin of her house and the
breaking of her heart.

Now the cot of the widow Herries was a bonny place. So I believe, but of
its beauty I will not speak. For I never was back that way again--and
what is more, I never mean to be.

We came to the gavel end of the house. Westerhall struck it with his
sword.

"We'll sune hae this doon!" he said to us that followed. Then louder he
cried, "Mistress, are ye within?" as the custom of the country is.

A decent woman with a white widow's cap on her head was scraping out a
dish of hen's meat as we rode to the door. When she saw us on our horses
about the close, the wooden bowl fell from her hands and played clash on
the floor.

"Aye, my bonny woman," quoth Westerhall, "this comes o' keeping Whigs
aboot your farm-toon. Whatna Whig rebel was it ye harboured? Oot wi't,
Bell Allison! Was it the brither o' ye, that cursed spawn o' the low
country? Doon on your knees an' tell me, else it is your last hour on
the earth."

The poor woman fell on her knees and clasped her hands.

"O Westerha'!" she stammered, "I'll no lee till ye. It was but a puir
Westland man that we kenned not the name o'. We fand him i' the fields,
and for very God's pity brocht him hame to our door and laid him on the
bed. He never spak' 'yea' or 'nay' to us all the time he abode in our
hoose-place, and so passed without a word late yestreen."

"Lying Whig!" cried Westerhall, "who was it that found him? Whatna yin
o' your rebel sons--chasing up hill and doon dale after your blackguard
brither, was it that brocht him hame?"

"I kenna wha it was that brocht him. It was a wee bit lass that fand him
when she was playin' i' the moss wi' her brither."

"I ken your wee bit lasses," said Westerhall; "she's a bonny sprig o'
that braw plant o' grace, Roger Allison, wha's heid shall yet look
blythe on the West Port o' Edinburgh, wi' yin o' his cantin' thief's
hands on ilka side o't."

The poor woman said no word, but out from the chamber door came our
little lass of yesterday and stood beside her.

"Wha's plaidie is this?" again quoth Westerhall, holding up the plaid in
which the dead man had been wrapped, like an accusation in his hand; "to
the hill, boys, and lay hand on this honest woman's honest sons. King
Charles wull hae something to say to them, I'm thinkin'."

With that he leapt from his horse, throwing the reins to the widow.

"Hae, haud my horse," he said, "an' gin ye stir an inch, ye'll get an
ounce o' lead in you, ye auld shakin' limb o' Sawtan."




CHAPTER XI.

THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS.


With that, like a loch broken loose, Johnstone's tail of Annandale
thieves rushed within the house and dang all things here and there at
their liking. Some came forth carrying good house gear, some table
furniture, and some the plenishing of bed and wardrobe. They turned all
that they could not carry into the midst of the floor to burn at their
leisure. They drove away the cattle from off the brae-face. They
gathered the widow's poor head of sheep off the hill. And all the time
Isobel Herries stood trembling for her lads and holding the chief's
horse. As the men passed, one after another, they flung words at her
that will not bear writing down. And I was glad that the little maid who
stood by with her brother in her hand, understood not their import.

When all was done, Westerhall set to work and pulled down the whole
house, for the rigging and walls were but of baked clay and crumbled
before them. Yet the poor woman wailed for them bitterly, as they had
been a palace.

"The bonny bit, O the bonny bit!" she cried. "Where I had sic a sweet
bairn-time. I was that happy wi' a' my tottlin' weans aboot my hand. But
I kenned it couldna last--it was ower sweet to last."

So they turned her out to the bare hillside with the bairns in her hand.
It did not, to my thinking, make the case any better that her brother
was a rebel. But in those days it was treason to succour the living or
honour the dead--ay, even if they had lain in your bed and stirred in
your side. It was forbidden on pain of death to give them so much as a
bed or a meal of meat. For such was the decree of just and pious
Charles, King at Whitehall, who alone had the right to say in what
fashion the poor ignorant folk of Scotland should worship the God of
their fathers.

We had not ridden far after leaving the house a heap of ruins, before we
met Claverhouse and his troop, riding slow, with a prisoner in the midst
of them.

"What luck!" cried he; "good sport in your ain coverts, Westerha'?"

He had a delicately insolent contempt for the Johnstone that set well on
him, though as I knew well he could be as cold and bloody as any of them
when the humour drove him. Yet mostly he killed like a gentleman after
all, and not like a border horse thief--save only in the case of honest
John Brown of Priesthill.

But Westerhall had caught sight of Clavers's prisoner. He rode up to him
and struck him a buffet in the face, though the lad's hands were tied
before him. He was a youth of eighteen, as near as one might guess, a
boy of a pleasant and ruddy countenance, such as one may chance to see
on any brae-face in Scotland where there are sheep feeding, with a staff
in his hand and a dog at his heels.

"My Whiggie, I have you now," he cried. "I'll e'en learn you to row dead
rebels in your plaidie, and harbour hill preachers on my land. Could I
get at your brothers, I declare I wadna leave a Herries birkie on the
lands o' Westerha'. Have him down, men," he cried, "and shoot him here."

But Clavers interposed.

"No," he said, "he is now my prisoner. Ride ye on to Westerha'; and
there, Johnstone, I shall give ye a present of him to make a kirk or a
mill of. It'll be you that will have to pay the harbourage cess for this
day's work at ony gate!"

So to Westerhall Johnstone rode, very gloomy and ill at ease--for the
black dog was sitting heavy on him at the thought of the fine anent
harbourers of rebels being found on his land. Again and again he broke
out on the poor youth Andrew Herries, threatening what he would do with
him when he got him to Westerhall. But the youth never so much as
answered back, only cast down his head and looked on the moss before
him. Yet he walked carefully and without stumbling as one that takes
heed to his going.

Now at a bonny spot where there is much green grass, it so happened that
we halted. You will find the place readily if ever you pass that way. It
is just on that tongue of land where the Rig Burn meets the Esk Water
and close by the house of Westerhall. There, where the Great Hill of
Stennies Water pushes down a spur to the water-side, was our halting
place. Here, as soon as we alighted down, Westerhall passed sentence on
Andrew Herries, saying that he had due authority from the Council as
King's Justicer for the parts about the Esk and Annan.

Claverhouse was noways keen for the lad's shooting, and strove to put
him off. Yet he was not over-earnest in the matter, for (as he often
said) to John Graham a dead Whig was always greatly better than a
living.

But for all that, he waved his hand and cried aloud:

"The blood of this poor man, Westerha', be upon you. I am free from it."

Nevertheless, since Westerhall had given the sentence and for example's
sake it could not be departed from, Claverhouse ordered a Highland
gentleman, the captain of a free company that was traversing the country
with him, to shoot the lad and get it over. But Donald Dhu cocked his
bonnet till the eagle's feather in it stood erect, and in high dudgeon
drew off his clansmen.

"Hursel cam' frae the Heelants to fecht men, and no to be pluff-pluffin'
poother at poor lads that are no lang frae the mither's milk."

This was the statement of Donald Dhu, and I that had no love for
Highlandmen, nor any cause to love them, remembering the hand they made
of my father's house of Earlstoun, could have cheered him where I stood.
But I remembered the errand I was on, and for my mother's sake forbore.

"What!" cried Westerhall, glowering at him and riding up close, as if to
strike him, "would you disobey the General's orders!"

"Donald Dhu has no General but his King," cried the bold Highlandman.
"Call up your row-footed messans, and bid them do your nain dirty work."

Then Claverhouse, who of all things loved not to be outfaced, ordered
him peremptorily to obey.

"Indeed, John Graham, hursel will fecht ye first--you and a' your
troop."

Then seeing that Clavers was about to raise his hand in command, as
though to take him unawares--

"Claymores!" suddenly cried Donald Dhu, and behind him fifty Highland
brands flashed in air as the wild clansmen threw back their plaids to
clear the sword-arm.

"This I shall report to the Privy Council," said Clavers very gravely,
turning on him a black and angry countenance.

But the brave Highlander was noways affected.

"Hooch!" he said, giving his fingers a snap, "a fig for your
Preevies--Donald Dhu wull hae small notion o' Preevy Cooncils on Ben
Muick. Gin Preevies come to veesit Donald Dhu on Spey side, it's just
hursel that wull be the prood man to see the Preevies--aye, or you
yersel' either, John Graham!"

Thus much Donald Dhu, and he was a good man and died linking down the
brae with his men true, behind John Graham at Killiecrankie in the
fulness of time--which was better work than, as he said, "pluff-pluffin'
poother at puir lawlan tykes."

But when Westerhall saw that the Highland birses were up, and that he
would in no wise obey orders, he ordered some of his own scoundrels to
do the thing. For his black heart was set on the shooting of the lad.

Then I could endure no longer, but ran forward as if to save him, crying
out to them that he was innocent, and but a lad at any rate, which
mightily angered Westerhall.

"Stell up the yae rebel whelp beside the other!" he said; and I believe
that had we been alone with the Annandale men, they would have done it.

But Clavers said: "Let be! Take away young Earlstoun to the knowe-tap!"

So they led me off, fairly girning with anger and impotence. For once I
longed for Sandy's brute strength to charge at them like a bull with the
head down.

"Lochinvar!" I cried, as they forced me away. "To me, Lochinvar!"

But, alas! my cousin was off on some of his own ploys, and came not till
too late. As you shall hear.

Then when the men were in rank to fire, Westerhall bid Andrew Herries
draw down his blue bonnet over his eyes. But he was a lad of most
undaunted courage, and though he had come so meekly to the slaughter,
now he spoke out boldly enough.

"I wad raither dee," he said, "in the face o' a' men and the plain licht
o' God. I hae dune nocht to make me shamed afore my death-bringers.
Though, being but young, I hae but little testimony to gie, an' nae
great experience o' religion to speak aboot. The end has come ower quick
on me for that!"

Then they asked him, as was their custom, if he had aught to say before
sentence should take effect upon him.

"Nocht in particular," he said, "but there's a book here (and he pulled
a little Bible out of his breast) that you an' me will be judged by. I
wish I had read mair earnestly in it an' profited better by it. But at
ony rate I aye carried it to read at the herdin', and my time has been
cut short."

"Make haste," they said, "we haena time to taigle wi' ye."

"And I hae as little desire to taigle you," he said, "but I am glad that
I didna grudge the puir Westland man my best plaid for his last
covering, though there be none to do as muckle for me."

The fire rang out. The blue wreaths of smoke rose level, and there on
the green sward, with his face to the sky, and his Bible yet in his
hand, lay the widow's son, Andrew Herries, very still.

"So perish all the King's rebels," cried Westerhall loudly, as it were,
to give the black deed a colour of law.

But John Graham said never a word, only lifted his hat and then rode
away with a countenance like the granite stone of the mountain.




CHAPTER XII.

WE RIDE TO EDINBURGH.


When my cousin Lochinvar heard what had been done in the matter of the
lad, Andrew Herries, his anger burned fiercely within him. He sought
Westerhall on the instant.

"Foul Annandale thief!" he cried, "come out and try the length of thy
sword on the heather. Down with thee and see if thou canst stand up to a
man, thou great stirk. 'Tis easy putting thy wolf's spite on helpless
bairns, but this sword-arm shall tickle thy midriff to an unkenned
tune."

But Colonel Graham would not let them fight.

"Aroint thee," he said to Lochinvar, "for a young ruffler and spit-fire.
Well may they call thee Wullcat. But you shall not decimate my troop, or
I must put you in irons, for all those bright eyes which the ladies
love."

Lochinvar turned to him.

"Colonel Graham, did you yourself not say, 'I am guiltless of this poor
man's life!' So, at least, I have been informed."

Claverhouse nodded grimly. It was not a weakness he often showed.

"Then why not let me have it out with this bairn-slayer? I had e'en
garred the guard o' my sword dirl again his ribs."

In another the boast had seemed like presumption, but so noble a sworder
was Wat Gordon that he but stated a truth. And all that were present
knew it for such.

"Westerhall will be the more grateful to me, in that case," said
Clavers, "but hark ye, Lochinvar! there must be no more of this. Ye
would reduce the number of his Majesty's forces effective in one way.
The Reverend Richard Cameron (with whom Providence send me a good and
swift meeting) in another. But in the end it comes to the same thing.
Now I opine, it will fit you well to hie to Edinburgh with despatches.
And I prithee take your noble and peaceful cousin of Earlstoun with
thee. Gin thou canst exchange him there for his brother Sandy, I shall
be the more glad to see thee back."

So in a little Wat Gordon and I (Hugh Kerr and John Scarlet being with
us) were riding with Claverhouse's despatches to the Privy Council.

Northward we travelled through infinite rough and unkindly places, vexed
ever with a bitter wind in our faces. As we passed many of the little
cot houses on the opposite hillsides, we would see a head look suddenly
out upon us. Then the door fell open, and with a rush like wild things
breaking from their dens, a father and a son, or such-like, would take
the heather. And once, even, we saw the black coat of a preacher. But
with never a halt we went on our way, sharp-set to reach Edinburgh.

As we went, Wat Gordon spoke to me of the great ones of the town, and
especially of the Duchess of Wellwood, with whom, as it appeared, he was
high in favour. But whether honestly or no, I had no means of judging.
It was passing strange for me, who indeed was too young for such love,
even had I been fitted by nature for it--to hear Wat speak of the
gallantry of the great ladies of the Court, and of the amorous doings at
Whitehall. For I had been strictly brought up--a thing which to this day
I do not regret, for it gives even ill-doing a better relish. But in
these times when there are many new-fangled notions about the upbringing
of children and the manner of teaching them, I ever declare I do not
know any better way than that which my father used. Its heads and
particulars were three--the Shorter Catechism for the soul, good oatmeal
porridge for the inward man--and for the outward, some twigs of the
bonny birk, properly applied and that upon the appointed place.

So that to hear of the gay French doings at the Court, which by Wat's
telling were greatly copied in Edinburgh, was to me like beholding the
jigging and coupling of puggy monkeys in a cage to make sport for the
vulgar.

"The Lord keep me from the like of that!" I cried, when he had told me
of a ploy that my Lady Castlemaine and my pretty Mistress Stuart had
carried through together--the point of which was that these two quipsome
dames were wedded, like man and wife, and eke bedded before the Court.

And at this Wat Gordon, who had not much humour at the most of times,
turned on me with a quizzical look on his face, saying, "I think you are
in no great danger, Cousin William."

Which I took not ill, for at that time I cared not a jot about the
appearance of my body, nor for any lady's favour in the land.

When we reached Edinburgh, I went immediately to decent lodgings in the
West Bow, to which I had been directed by my mother; but Walter, saying
that the West Bow was no fit lodging for a gentleman, went on to settle
himself in one of the fashionable closes off the Lawnmarket.

As soon as we were by ourselves, my man, Hugh Kerr, came to me, and
began to ask if I knew anything of John Scarlet, the serving man that
accompanied my cousin.

I replied that I knew nothing of him, save that my cousin had past all
endurance cried him up to me as a mighty sworder.

"Weel," said Hugh Kerr, "it may be, but it's my opeenion that he is a
most mighty leer, an' a great scoundrel forbye."

I asked him why, and at the first go-off he would give me no better
answer than that he opined that his name was not John Scarlet but John
Varlet, as better denoting a gentleman of his kidney.

But when I pressed him, he told me that this serving man had told him
that he had committed at least half-a-dozen murders--which he called
slaughters and justified, that he had been at nigh half a hundred
killings in the fields, yet that he could pray like Mr. Kid himself at a
Societies' Meeting, and be a leader among the hill-folk when it seemed
good to him.

"An' the awesome thing o't a' is that the ill deil declared that he had
half-a-dizzen wives, and that he could mainteen the richts o' that too.
So I reasoned with him, but faith! the scoundrel had the assurance to
turn my flank wi' Abraham and the patriarchs. He said that he wadna cast
up Solomon to me, for he wasna just prepared to uphaud the lengths that
Solomon gaed to i' the maitter o' wives."

But I told Hugh to give his mind no concern about the sayings or doings
of Master John Scarlet or Varlet, for that it was all most likely lies;
and if not, neither he nor I was the man's master, to whom alone he
stood or fell.

But for all that I could see that Hughie was much dashed by his
encounter with my cousin's follower, for Hughie accounted himself a
great hand at the Scripture. We heard afterwards that John Scarlet had
been a sometime follower of Muckle John Gib, and that it was in his
company that he learned notions, which is a thing exceedingly likely.
But this was before Anton Lennox of the Duchrae took John in hand and
sorted him to rights, that day in the moss of the Deer-Slunk between
Lowthian and Lanark.

Then with my cousin's interest to back me, and especially that which he
made with the Duchess of Wellwood, I wore out the winter of the year
1679 in petitions and embassies, praying that the estates should not be
taken from us, and biding all the time in my lodging in the West Bow. I
had James Stewart, then in hiding, to make out my pleas, and right ably
he drew them. It was a strong point in our favour that my father had not
been killed at Bothwell, but only when advancing in the direction of the
combatants. And besides, I myself had bidden at home, and not ridden out
with the others. As for Sandy, he had not the chance of a lamb in the
wolf's maw, having been on the field itself with a troop; so I stood for
my own claim, meaning with all my very heart to do right by my elder
brother when the time came--though, indeed, I had but small reason to
love him for his treatment of me. Yet for all that, I shall never say
but what he was a stupid, honest lown enough.

Mayhap if he had been other than my brother, I had loved him better; but
he tortured me as thoughtlessly when I was a weakly lad as if I had been
a paddock or a fly, till the instinct of dislike infected my blood. And
after that there could be no hope of liking, hardly of tolerance. This
is the reason of most of the feuds among brothers the world over. For it
is the fact, though there are few fathers that suspect it, that many
elder brothers make the lives of the youngers a burden too heavy to be
borne--which thing, together with marrying of wives, in after years
certainly works bitterness.

More than anything, it struck me as strange that my cousin Lochinvar
could make merry in the very city--where but a few months before his
father had been executed and done to death. But Hughie Kerr told me one
evening, when we were going over Glenkens things, how Wat's father had
used him--keeping him at the strap's end. For Wat was ever his mother's
boy, who constantly took his part as he needed it, and made a great
cavalier and King's man of him. This his father tried to prevent and
drive out of him with blows, till the lad fairly hated him and his
Covenants. And so it was as it was. For true religion comes not by
violence, but chiefly, I think, from being brought up with good men,
reverencing their ways and words.




CHAPTER XIII.

WULLCAT WAT DARES HEAVEN AND HELL.


It was about the end of February, when the days are beginning to creep
out quickly from their shortest, that my aunt, the Lady Lochinvar, came
to town. I, that asked only meat and house-room, companied not much with
the braver folk who sought the society of my cousin of Lochinvar. Wat
glanced here and there in some new bravery every day, and I saw him but
seldom. However, my lady aunt came to see me when she had been but three
days in town. For she was punctilious about the claims of blood and
kinship, which, indeed, women mostly think much more of than do men.

"A good morning, cousin," said she, "and how speeds the suit?"

Then I told her somewhat of the law's delays and how I had an excellent
lawyer, albeit choleric and stormy in demeanour,--one of mine own name,
Mr. William Gordon, though his pleas were drawn by James Stewart,
presently in hiding. What Gordon said went down well with my Lords of
the Council meeting in Holyrood, for he was a great swearer and damned
freely in his speech. But Hugh Wallace, that was the King's cash-keeper,
claimed the fine because that my father was a heritor--conform to the
Acts of Parliament made against these delinquencies and conventicles in
1670 and 1672, appointing the fines of heritors being transgressors to
come into the treasury. But Sir George Mackenzie said, "If this plea be
not James Stewart's drawing I have no skill of law. Tell me, Gordon, gin
ye drew this yoursel' or is James Stewart in Scotland?"

Then my lady of Lochinvar asked of me when I thought my matters might be
brought to an end.

"That I know not," said I; "it seems slow enough."

"All law is slow, save that which my man and your father got," said she.

I was astonished that she should mention her man, with that courage and
countenance, and the story not six months old; indeed, his very head
sticking on the Netherbow, not a mile from us as we talked. But she saw
some part of this in my face, and quickly began to say on.

"You Gordons never think you die honest unless you die in arms against
the King. But ye stand well together, though your hand is against every
other man. And that is why I, that am but a tacked-on Gordon, come to
help you if so be I can; though I and my boy stand for the King, and you
and your rebel brother Sandy for the Covenants. Weary fa' them--that
took my man from me--for he was a good man to me, though we agreed but
ill together concerning kings and politics."

"Speak for my brother Sandy," I said, "I am no strong sufferer, and so
shall get me, I fear me, no golden garments."

Thus I spoke in my ignorance, for the witty lown-warm air of Edinburgh
in spiritual things had for the time being infected me with opinions
like those of the Laodicians.

Now this was a favourite overword of my mother's, that suffering was the
Christian's golden garment. But to my aunt, to whom religion was mostly
family tradition (or so I thought), I might as well have spoken of fried
fish.

"But concerning Walter," she went on, as one that comes to a real
subject after beating about the bush, "tell me of him. You have been
here with him in this city the best part of three months."

Now indeed I saw plainly enough what it was that had procured me the
honour of a visit so early from my lady of Lochinvar.

"In this city I have indeed been, my aunt," I replied, "but not with
Walter. For I am not Lord of Lochinvar, but only the poor suitor of the
King's mercy. And I spent not that which I have not, nor yet can I
afford further to burden the estate which may never be mine."

She waved her hand as at a Whig scruple, which good King's folk made
light of.

"But what of Walter--you have seen--is it well with the lad?"

She spoke eagerly and laid her hand on my arm.

But after all the business was not mine, and besides, a Gordon--Covenant
or no Covenant--is no tale-piet, as my lady might well have known.

"Wat Gordon," said I, "is the gayest and brightest young spark in town,
like a Damascus blade for mettle, and there are none that love not his
coming, and grieve not at his going."

"Ay--ladies, that I ken," said my aunt. "What of my Lady Wellwood?"

Now I had a very clear opinion of my Lady Wellwood, though I knew her
not; for indeed she would not have waved the back of her lily hand to me
in the street. But she was a handsome woman, and I admired her greatly
for the fairness of her countenance as she went by. Besides, the
business of Wat and my Lady Wellwood was none of mine.

"My lady is in truth a fine woman," I said calmly, looking up as if I
were saying what must please my visitor.

The Lady Lochinvar struck one hand on the other hastily and rose.

"Attend me home," she said; "I see after all that you are a man, and so
must defend all men and admire all women."

"The last, for your ladyship's sake, I do," I made answer. For in those
days we were taught to be courteous to the elder ladies, and to make
them becoming compliments, which is in danger of being a forgotten art
in these pettifogging times.

"What takes you to the Covenant side?" asked Lady Lochinvar, "Certes,
the Falkland dominie had not made that speech."

"The same that took your husband, Lady Lochinvar," I returned, somewhat
nettled. For she spake as if the many honest folk in Scotland were but
dirt beneath the feet of the few. But that was ever the way of her kind.

"Kenned ye ever a Gordon that would be driven with whips of scorpions,
or one that could not be drawn with the light of ladies' eyes?"

She sighed, and gathered up her skirts.

"Ay, the last all too readily," she said, thinking, I doubt not, of
Walter Gordon and my lady of Wellwood.

It was dusking when we stepped out. My aunt took my arm and desired that
we should walk home, though already I had called a chair for her. So we
went up the narrow, dirty street and came slowly to her lodgings. Walter
met us on the stair of the turnpike. He was shining in silk and velvet
as was recently his constant wont. Lace ruffles were at his wrists. He
had a gold chain about his neck, and a jewelled rapier flashed and swung
in a gold-broidered velvet sheath at his side.

He seemed no little dashed by our coming in together. I quickly
understood that he had thought his mother safely out of the way, and
wondered how I should keep the peace between them. For by the tremble of
her hand on my arm I felt that the storm was nigh the breaking.

Yet for all that he stopped and kissed her dutifully, standing on the
step with his hat in his hand, to let her pass within. The flickering
light of the cruisie lamp in the stairhead fell on him, and I thought he
had the noblest figure of a youth that ever my eyes had rested upon.

But his mother would not let him go.

"Attend me to my chamber, Walter," she said. "I have that concerning
which I would speak with you."

So we went upward, turning and twisting up the long stairs, till we came
to the door where my lady lodged. She tirled fretfully at the pin, the
servant-maid opened, and we went within. The window stood wide to give a
draft to the fire of wood that burned on the firegrate. I went over to
close it, and, as I did so, a broad flake of snow swirled down, and lay
melting on my wrist. It told me that it was to be a wild night--the last
snowstorm of the year, belike.

My lady came back from her own bed-chamber in a moment. She had merely
laid aside her plaid, waiting not to change her gown lest her son should
be gone.

Walter Gordon stood discontentedly enough at the side of the firegrate,
touching the glowing embers with his French shoe, careless of how he
burnt it.

"Walter," said my aunt, "will you not pleasure us with your company
to-night?"

"I cannot, my lady," said Lochinvar, without looking up; "I have made an
engagement elsewhere."

He spoke baldly and harshly, as one that puts a restraint on himself.

His mother looked at him with her eyes like coals from which the leaping
flame has just died out. For a moment she said nothing, but the soul
within her flamed out of the windows of her house of clay, fiery and
passionate. It had come to the close and deadly pinch with her, and it
was on the dice's throw whether she would lose or keep her son.

"Walter Gordon," she said at last, "has your mother journeyed thus far
to so little purpose, that now she is here, you will not do her the
honour to spend a single night in her company? Since when has she become
so distasteful to you?"

"Mother," said Wat, moved in spite of himself, "you do not yourself
justice when you speak so. I would spend many nights with you, for all
my love and service are yours; but to-night I cannot fail to go whither
I have promised without being man-sworn and tryst-breaker. And you have
taught me that the Gordons are neither."

"Wat," she said, hearing but not heeding his words, "bide you by me
to-night. There be sweet maids a many that will give their lives for
you. You are too young for such questing and companionry. Go not to my
Lady Wellwood to-night. O do not, my son! 'Tis your mother that makes
herself a beggar to you!"

At the name of my Lady Wellwood Walter Gordon started from his place as
though he had been stung and glanced over at me with a sudden and fiery
anger.

"If my cousin----"

But I kept my eyes clear upon him, as full of fire mayhap as his own.
And even in that moment I saw the thought pass out of his mind in the
uncertain firelight.

"Your cousin has told me nothing, though I deny not that I asked him,"
said my lady curtly. "Young men hang together, like adder's eggs. But
Wat, dear Wat, will you not put off your gay apparelling and take a
night at the cartes with us at home. See, the fire is bright and the
lamp ready. It will be a wild night without presently!"

"To-morrow, mother, to-morrow at e'en shall be the night of my waiting
upon you. To-night, believe me, I cannot--though, because you ask me,
with all my heart I would that I could."

Then his mother rose up from her seat by the fire, and went up to him.
She laid her hand on his arm and looked into his eyes.

"O Walter, my boy, go not forth to-night"--(here I declare to God the
proud woman knelt to her own son)--"See, I have put off my pride, and I
pray you not to go for my sake--for your mother's sake, that never
denied you anything. There is evil boding in the air."

She shuddered and, in rising, threw an arm over his shoulder, as though
she had been his sweetheart and were fleeching with him.

For a moment I saw Wat Gordon waver. Then he took her hand gently and
drew it down from his shoulder.

"Mother, for you I would do all, save set a stain upon my honour. But
this thing I cannot, for I have plighted my word deep and fast, and go I
must to-night."

"Tell me," said my aunt, "is it a matter of treason to the King?"

Her eyes were eager, expectant. And for very pity of her I hoped that
Walter could give her satisfaction on the point. But it was not as I
thought, for who can track a woman's heart?

"God forbid," said Wat Gordon heartily, as one that is most mightily
relieved.

But his mother fell back and her hands dropped to her side.

"Then," she said, "it is my Lady Wellwood!--I had rather a thousand
times it had been treason and rebellion--aye, though it had set your
head on high beside your father's."

"Lady Wellwood or another!" cried Wat, "nor heaven nor hell shall gar me
break my tryst this nicht!"

And without another word Walter Gordon went down the stairs as one that
runs defiantly to death, daring both God and man--and, alas! the mother
also that bore him.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE THING THAT FELL FROM TRAITOR'S GATE.


The Lady Lochinvar stood a moment still by the fire, listening, her hand
raised as if to command silence. Then she ran to the door like a young
lass, with a light foot and her hand on her heart. The steps came
fainter up the stair, and in another moment we heard the clang of the
outer door.

My lady turned to me.

"Have you your pistols by you?" she whispered in a hoarse and angry
voice, clutching me by the lapels of my coat. "Go, man! Go, follow him!
He rushes to his death. And he is all that I have. Go and save him!"

She that had fleeched with her son, like a dove succouring its young,
laid harshly her commands upon me.

"I am no fighter, aunt," I said. "What protection can I be to Walter
Gordon, the best sworder in Edinburgh town this night from Holyrood to
the Castle?"

My lady looked about her as one that sees a stealthy enemy approach. Her
hand trembled as she laid it on my arm.

"What avails good swordsmanship, when one comes behind and one before,
as in my dream I saw them do upon my Walter, out of the house of my Lord
Wellwood. They came upon him and left him lying on the snow.--Ah, go,
dear cousin William!" she said, breaking into a sharp cry of entreaty
lest I should fail her. "It is you that can save him. But let him not
see you follow, or it will make him more bitter against me. For if you
cannot play with the sword, you can shoot with the pistol; so I have
heard, and they tell me that no one can shoot so truly as thou. They
would not let thee shoot at Kirkcudbright for the Siller Gun though thou
art a burgess, because it were no fair game. Is it not true?"

And so she stroked and cuitled me with flattery till I declare I purred
like our Gib cat. I had begun there and then to tell her of my prowess,
but that she interrupted me.

"He goes toward the High Street. Hasten up the South Wynd, and you will
overtake him yet ere he comes out upon the open road."

She thrust two pistols into my belt, which I laid aside again, having
mine own more carefully primed with me, to the firing of which my hand
was more accustomed--and that to a marksman is more than half the
battle.

When I reached the street the wildness of the night justified my
prophecy. The snow was falling athwart the town in broad wet flakes,
driving flat against the face with a splash, before a gusty westerly
wind that roared among the tall lums of the steep-gabled houses--a most
uncomfortable night to run the risk of getting a dirk in one's ribs.

I saw my cousin before me, linking on carelessly through the snow with
his cloak about his ears and his black-scabbard rapier swinging at his
heels.

But I had to slink behind backs like a Holyrood _dyvour_--a bankrupt
going to the Sanctuary, jooking and cowering craftily in the lee-side
shadow of the houses. For though so wild a night, it was not very dark.
There was a moon up there somewhere among the smother, though she could
not get so much as her nose through the wrack of banked snow-cloud which
was driving up from the west. Yet Wat could have seen me very black on
the narrow strip of snow, had he ever once thought of looking over his
shoulder.

But Wat the Wullcat of Lochinvar was not the one to look behind him when
he strode on to keep tryst. I minded his bitter reckless words to his
mother, "Heaven and hell shall not make me break my tryst to-night!" Now
Heaven was shut out by the storm and the tall close-built houses, and
Walter Gordon had an excellent chance of standing a bout with the other
place.

No doubt my Lady Wellwood bided at the window and looked out for him to
come to her through the snow. And I that had for common no thought of
lass or lady, cannot say that I was without my own envying that the love
of woman was not for me. Or so at least I thought at that time, even as
I shielded my eyes under my bonnet and drave through the snow with the
pistols loose in my belt. But Wat of Lochinvar walked defiantly through
the black storm with a saucy swing in his carriage, light and careless,
which I vouch drew my heart to him as if I had been a young girl. I had
given ten years of my life if just so I could have taken the eyes of
women.

As clear as if I had listened to the words, I could hear him saying over
within himself the last sentence he had used in the controversy with his
mother--"Heaven and hell shall not cause me to break my tryst to-night!"

Alack! poor lad, little understood he the resources of either. For he
had yet to pass beneath Traitor's' Gate.

For once the narrow High Street of Edinburgh was clean and
white--sheeted down in the clinging snow that would neither melt nor
freeze, but only clung to every joint, jut, stoop, and step of the
house-fronts, and clogged in lumps on the crockets of the roof. The wind
wrestled and roared in great gusts overhead in the black, uncertain,
tumultuous night. Then a calm would come, sudden as a curtain-drop in
the play-house, and in the hush you could hear the snow sliddering down
off the high-pitched roofs of tile. The light of the moon also came in
varying wafts and flickers, as the wind blew the clouds alternately
thicker and thinner across her face.

Now I felt both traitor and spy as I tracked my cousin down the brae.
Hardly a soul was to be seen, for none loves comfort more than an
Edinburgh burgher. And none understands his own weather better. The snow
had swept ill-doer and well-doer off the street, cleaner than ever did
the city guard--who, by the way, were no doubt warming their frozen toes
by the cheerful fireside in some convenient house-of-call.

So meditating, for a moment I had almost forgotten whither we were
going.

Before us, ere I was aware, loomed up the battlements and turrets of the
Netherbow. 'Twas with a sudden stound of the heart, that I remembered
what it was that ten months and more ago had been set up there. But I am
sure that, sharp-set on his love matter, like a beast that hunts
nose-down on a hot trail, Wat Gordon had no memory for the decorations
of the Netherbow. For he whistled as he went, and stuck his hand deeper
into the breast of his coat. The moon came out as I looked, and for a
moment, dark and grisly against the upper brightness, I saw that row of
traitors' heads which the city folk regarded no more in their coming and
going, than the stone gargoyles set in the roof-niches of St. Giles.

But as soon as Wat went under the blackness of the arch, there came so
fierce a gust that it fairly lifted me off my feet and dashed me against
the wall. Overhead yelled all the mocking fiends of hell, riding
slack-rein to a new perdition. The snow swirled tormented, and wrapped
us both in its grey smother. Hands seemed to pull at me out of the
darkness, lifted me up, and flung me down again on my face in the smoor
of the snow. A great access of fear fell on me. As the gust overpassed,
I rose, choked and gasping. Overhead I could hear the mighty blast go
roaring and howling away among the crags and rocks of Arthur's Seat.

Then I arose, shook the snow from my dress, glanced at the barrels and
cocks of my pistols to see that they were not stopped with snow, and
stepped out of the angle of the Bow to look after my cousin. To my utter
astonishment, he was standing within four feet of me. He held some dark
thing in his hand, and stared open-mouthed at it, as one demented.
Without remembering that I had come out at my lady's bidding to follow
Wat Gordon secretly, I stepped up to him till I could look over his
shoulder.

"Walter!" I said, putting my hand on his arm.

But he never minded me in the least, nor yet appeared surprised to find
me there. Only a black and bitter horror sat brooding on his soul.

He continued to gaze, fascinated, at the dark thing in his hand.

"GOD--GOD--GOD!" he sobbed, the horror taking him short in the throat.
"Will, do you see THIS?"

Such abject terror never have I heard before nor since in the utterance
of any living man.

"Do you see This?" he said. "See what fell at my feet as I came through
the arch of the Bow upon mine errand! The wind brought it down."

Above the moon pushed her way upwards, fighting hard, breasting the
cloud wrack like a labouring ship.

Her beams fell on the dark Thing in Wat Gordon's hand.

"GREAT GOD!" he shouted again, his eyes starting from their sockets, "IT
IS MINE OWN FATHER'S HEAD!"

And above us the fitful, flying winds nichered and laughed like mocking
fiends.

It was true. I that write, saw it plain. I held it in this very hand. It
was the head of Sir John of Lochinvar, against whom, in the last fray,
his own son had donned the war-gear. Grizzled, black, the snow cleaving
ghastly about the empty eye-holes, the thin beard still straggling
snow-clogged upon the chin--it was his own father's head that had fallen
at Walter Gordon's feet, and which he now held in his hand.

Then I remembered, with a shudder of apprehension, his own words so
lately spoken--"Heaven and hell shall not cause me to break my tryst
to-night."

Walter Gordon stood rooted there, dazed and dumb-foundered, with the
Thing in his hand. His fine lace ruffles touched it as the wind blew
them.

I plucked at him.

"Come," I said, "haste you! Let us bury it in the Holyrood ere the moon
goes down."

Thus he who boasted himself free of heaven and hell, had his tryst
broken by the Thing that fell from the ghastly gate on which the
traitors' heads are set in a row. And that Thing was the head of the
father that begat him.




CHAPTER XV.

THE BICKER IN THE SNOW.


Then, seeing Walter Gordon both agitated and uncertain which way to
turn, I took out of his shaking hands the poor mishandled head, wrapping
it in my plaid, and so led the way down the Canongate towards the
kirkyard of the Chapel of Holyroodhouse, where it seemed to me most safe
to bury the Thing that had fallen in such marvellous fashion at our feet
that night.

The place I knew well enough. I had often meditated there upon the poor
estate of our house. It was half ruinous, and I looked to meet with no
man within the precincts on such a night. But short, deceiving, and
ostrich-blind are all our hopes, for by going that way I brought us into
the greatest danger we could possibly have been in.

For, as we came by the side port of Holyroodhouse, and took the left
wynd which leads to the kirkyard, it seemed that I heard the sound of
footsteps coming after me. It was still a night of snow, but the blast
of flakes was wearing thinner and the wind less gusty. The moon was
wading among great white-edged wreaths as though the snows had been
driven right up to heaven and were clogging the skies.

It was I who led, for my cousin, Wat Gordon, being stopped dead in his
heart's desire, like a dog quivering for the leap that suddenly gets his
death-wound, now went forward as one blind, and staggered even in the
plain places. Also, it was well that I must guide him, for thus I was
kept from thinking of the horrid burden I carried.

We were at the angle of the wall, and going slowly down among the
cumbering heaps of rubbish by the dyke-side, when I certainly heard,
through the soughing of the wind, and the soft swirl of the snow-flakes,
the quick trampling of footsteps behind us. It seemed to me that they
came from the direction of the Queen's Bathhouse, by which, as I now
minded, my Lord Wellwood had built his new house.

I turned in my tracks, and saw half a dozen of fellows running towards
us with their swords drawn; and one who seemed short of stature and ill
at the running, following after them. Then I pulled quickly at Walter's
sleeve, and said:

"Get you to a good posture of defence, or we are both dead men. See
behind you!"

At this he turned and looked, and the sight seemed wonderfully to steady
him. He seemed to come to himself with a kind of joy. I heard him sigh
as one that casts off a heavy back-burden. For blows were ever mightily
refreshing to Wat Gordon's spirits, even as water of Cologne is to a
mim-mouthed, spoiled beauty of the court.

As for me, I had no joy in blows, and little skill in them, so that my
delight was small. Indeed, I felt the lump rise in my throat, and my
mouth dried with fear. So that I could hardly keep the tears from
running, being heartily sorry for myself because I should never see
bonny Earlstoun and my mother again, or any one else in the pleasant
south country--and all on a business that I had no concern with, being
only some night-hawk trokings of Wat Gordon's.

But even as he glanced about him, Lochinvar saw where we could best
engage them; for in such things he had the captain's eye, swift and
inevitable. It was at the angle of the wall, in which is a wide archway
that leads into the enclosure of the Palace. The snow had drifted round
this arch a great sweep of rounded wreaths, and glistened smoothly white
in the moonbeams, but the paved gateway itself was blown clear. Wat
thrust me behind him, and, throwing down his cloak, cleared his sword
arm with a long sobbing intake of breath, which, having a certain great
content in it, was curious to hear.

I stood behind him in the dark of the archway, and there I first laid
down my ghastly burden in the corner, wrapping it in my cloak. I made my
pistols ready, and also loosened in my belt a broad Italian dagger,
shaped like a leaf, wherewith I meant to stick and thrust if any should
attempt to run in while I was standing on guard. Between me and the
light I could see Walter Gordon, armed in the German fashion, with his
rapier in one hand and his dagger in the other. Suddenly, through the
hush of waiting, came running footsteps; and men's figures darkened the
moonlight on the snow before the arch.

"Clash!" went the rapiers, and I could catch the glitter of the fire as
it flew from their first onset. Walter poised himself on his feet with a
quick alternate balancing movement, keeping his head low between his
shoulders, and his rapier point far out. He was in the dark, and those
about the mouth of the arch could not well see at what they were
striking, whereas he had them clear against the grey of the moonlit sky.

Steel had not stricken on steel three times when, swift as the flash of
the lightning when it shines from east to west, I saw Wat's long rapier
dart out, and a man fell forward towards him, clinking on the stones
with the jingle of concealed armour. Yet, armour or no, our Wat's rapier
had found its way within. Wat spurned the fellow with his foot, lest in
falling he should grip to pull him down, which was a common trick of the
time, and indeed sometimes resorted to without a wound. But the dark wet
stain his body left on the cobble-stones as it turned, told us that he
was sped surely enough.

In a moment the others had come up, and the whole archway seemed full of
the flicker of flashing swords. Wat's long arm wavered here and there,
keeping them all at bay. I could have cried the slogan for pride in him.
This was the incomparable sworder indeed, and John Varlet, that
misbegotten rogue, had not taught him in vain.

"Let off!" he cried to me, never taking his eyes from his foes. "Ease me
a little to the right. They are over heavy for my iron on that hand."

So with that, even as I was bidden, and because there was nothing else I
could do, I struck with my broad Italian dagger at a surly visage that
came cornerwise between me and the sky, and tumbled a tall fellow out of
an angle of the gateway on the top of the first, kicking like a rabbit.
The rest were a little dashed by the fall of these two. Still there were
four of them, and one great loon determinedly set his head down, and
wrapping his cloak on his arm, he rushed at my cousin, almost
overbearing him for the moment. He broke within Wat's guard, and the
swords of the rogue's companions had been in his heart, but just then
Lochinvar gave them another taste of his quality. Lightly leaping to the
side just out of the measure of the varlet's thrust, and reaching
sideways, he struck the man heavily on the shoulder with the dagger in
his left hand, panting with the force of the blow, so that he fell down
like the dead. At the same moment Wat leaned far forward, engaging all
the points of the other swords with his rapier.

They gave back at the quick unexpected attack, and the points of their
swords rose, as it seemed, for no more than a second. But in that
pulse-beat Wat's rapier shot out straight and low, and yet another
clapped his hand upon his body and cried an oath, ere he too fell
forward upon his dead companions. At this the little man, who had stood
all the while in the background, took heart of grace and came forward,
and I could see the hilt of the steel-pistol in his hand. He crouched
low upon his hams, trying to get a sighting shot at us. But I had him
clear in the moonbeam, like a pullet on a dyke; and just when I saw his
forefinger twitch on the hammer-pull, I dropped him with a bullet fair
in the shoulder, which effectually spoilt his aim, and tumbled him
beside the others.

Then the remaining two threw down their tools and ran, whatever they
were fit, in the direction of the town.

Whereat Walter Gordon with much philosophy straiked his sword on the
lapel of one of the dead men's coats, bent its point to the pavement to
try its soundness, and returned it to its velvet sheath. Then he
solemnly turned and took me by the hand.

"You are a man, Cousin William," he said.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE GREY MOWDIEWORT.


But by this time I was shaking like a leaf for fear, together with the
thought of what I had done in the taking of life, and the sending of my
fellow-creatures to their account. Also the tears came hopping down my
cheek, which is ever the effect that fighting has on me. Yet in spite of
this weakness Wat shook me again by the hand, and said only:

"You are a man!"

Notwithstanding, I was not cheered, but continued to greet like a bairn,
only quietly, though I was grateful for his words, and took them not
ill.

Then Walter Gordon went forward to the dead men, and turned them over,
looking at each but saying no word. Lastly he went to the little stout
man whom I had shot in the shoulder. As he looked in his face, from
which the mask had fallen aside, he started so greatly that he almost
leaped bodily in the air.

"William, William," he cried, "by the King's head, we must run for it.
This is not a 'horning' but a hanging job. _'Tis the Duke of Wellwood
himself._"

Greatly startled at the name of the great Privy Councillor and favourite
of the King, I went and looked. The man's face had fallen clear of the
velvet mask with which it had been hidden, and looked livid and grey
against the snow in the moon's uncertain light. But it was indeed the
Duke, for I had often seen him going to the Parliament in his state and
dignity, but there in the snow he looked inconceivably mean, dirty and
small.

"It's a' by wi' the estate noo, Walter," I said. "You and me maun tak'
the heather like the lave."

So saying, I snatched up the head wrapped in the plaid, which I had
almost forgotten, and called him to come on. For we were on the
outskirts of the waste ground called the King's hunting parks, and could
get directly away without passing a house.

But Walter was determined to return and see his mother, lest otherwise
the horror of the news might take her unawares. Walter was ever his
mother's boy, and I think his undutiful conduct that night now went hard
with him, seeing how the affair had turned out.

I argued with him that it was the maddest ploy thus to go back. His
lodgings would certainly be searched as soon as the Duke was found, and
the two who had escaped should return to assist the watch. But I could
not overcome his determination. He had another plan to set against mine.

"There is a vault hereabout that I used to hide in as a boy. Silly folks
say that it is haunted. But indeed there be few that know of it. You can
bide there and wait till I come."

So we went thither, and found the place commodious enough indeed, but
damp and unkindly. It was situate by the chapel wall, but of late years
it has been much filled up with rubbish since the pulling down of the
Chapel Royal by the mob in the riots of the Revolution year.

Yet even at that time it was not a place I had any stomach for. I had
liefer have been going decently to my bed in my lodgings in the West
Bow--as indeed at that moment I should, but for that daft heathercat of
a cousin of mine, with whose gallantries, for my sins, I thus found
myself saddled.

So he went off upon his errand, leaving me alone; and I hardly looked to
see him again, for I made sure that the guard would arrest him or ever
he had gone a hundred yards. It was little that I could do in that
sorrowful place. But I unwrapped the poor head I had brought with me,
and put it with reverence in the farthest corner of the dismal den. Then
I retired to an angle to wait, wrapping my plaid about me for warmth;
for the night had fallen colder, as it ever does after the ceasing of a
storm.

I had time and to spare then for thinking upon my folly, and how I had
damaged the cause that I had so nearly gained by my unlucky interference
in Walter's vanities. It came to me that now of a certainty both
Earlstoun and Lochinvar must pass wholly away from the Gordons, and we
become attainted and landless like the red Gregors. And indeed Kenmuir's
case was not much better.

So I wore the weary night away, black dismal thoughts eating like canker
worms at my heart. How I repented and prayed, no man knows. For that is
the young man's repentance--after he has eaten the sour fruit, to pray
that he may not have the stomach-ache.

Yet being Galloway-born, I had also in me the fear of the unseen, which
folks call superstition. And it irked me more than all other fears to
have to bide all the night (and I knew not how much longer) in that
horrible vault.

It seems little enough to some, only to abide all night in a place where
there is nothing but quiet bones of dead men. But, I warrant you, it is
the burgher folk, who have never lain anywhere but bien and cosy in
their own beds at home that are the boldest in saying this.

So the night sped slowly in that horrid tomb. I watched the white
moonbeams spray over the floor and fade out, as the clouds swept clear
or covered the moon's face. I listened to every sough of the wind, with
a fear lest the clanking halberts of the watch should be in it. The
sound of a man walking far away made me hear in fantasy the grounding of
their axe-shafts as they surrounded my place of concealment. It is bad
enough to have one's conscience against one, but when conscience is
reinforced by a well-grounded fear of the hangman's rope, then the case
grows uncouth indeed.

Yet in spite of all I think I slept a little. For once I waked and saw
the moon, red and near the setting, shining through a great round hole
in the end of the vault, and that so brightly that I seemed to see motes
dancing in its light as in a hay-loft in the summer season.

But that was not the worst of it. In my dream my eyes followed the
direction of the broad beam, and lo! they fell directly on the poor
blackened head of him that had once been John Gordon of Lochinvar. The
suns and rains had not dealt kindly with him, and now the face looked
like nothing earthly, as I saw it in the moonlight of the ugsome vault.
I could have screamed aloud, for there seemed to be a frown on the brow
and a writhed grin on the mouth that boded me irksome evils to come.

Now half a dozen times I have resolved to leave out of my tale, that
which I then saw happen in my dream of the night. For what I am about to
relate may not meet with belief in these times, when the power of Satan
is mercifully restrained; and when he can no longer cast his glamourie
over whom he will, but only over those who, like witch-wives and others,
yield themselves up to him as his willing subjects.

But I shall tell plainly what, in the moonlight, seemed to me to befal
in my dream-sleep.

It appeared then to me that I was staring at the blackened head, with
something rising and falling in my throat like water in a sobbing well,
when the ground slowly stirred in the corner where the head lay, and
even as I looked, a beast came forth--a grey beast with four legs, but
blind of eye like a grey mowdiewort, which took the head between its
forepaws and rocked it to and fro as a mother rocks a fretful bairn,
sorrowing over it and pitying it. It was a prodigy to see the eyes
looking forth from the bone-sockets of the head. Then the beast left it
again lying by its lone and went and digged in the corner. As the
moonlight swept across, broad and slow, through the loud beating of my
heart, I heard the grey mowdiewort dig the hole deeper and yet deeper.
Now the thing that made me fullest of terror was not the digging of the
beast, but the manner of its throwing out the earth, which was not
behind it as a dog does, but in front, out of the pit, as a sexton that
digs a grave.

Then, ere the moonbeams quite left it and began to climb the wall, I
seemed to see the beast roll the black Thing to the edge and cover it
up, drawing the earth over it silently. After that, in my fantasy, it
seemed to look at me. I heard the quick patter of its feet, and with a
cry of fear I started up to flee, lest the beast should come towards
me--and with that I knew no more.




CHAPTER XVII.

OVER THE MUIR AMANG THE HEATHER.


When I came to myself my cousin Walter Gordon was standing over me. He
was dressed in countryman's apparel, and seemed most like a chapman,
with a small pack of goods upon his back for sale in the farm-towns and
cottars' houses. It was grey day.

"Where is the beast?" I asked, for I was greatly bewildered by my
swound.

"What beast? There is no beast," he replied, thinking that I dreamed.

Then I told him of what I had seen; but as I might have expected he took
little heed, thinking that I did but dream in that uncouth place. And in
the grey light he went forward with a fair white cloth in his hand
wherewith to wrap his father's head for the burial. But when he came to
the corner of the vault, lo! there was naught there, even as I had said.
And saving that the earth seemed newly stirred, no trace of the horror I
had seen, which staggered him no little. Yet me it did not surprise, for
I knew what I had seen.

But in a little he said, "That is all folly, William--you and your
beasts. Ye buried it yourself in your sleep. How many times have ye
walked the ramparts of Earlstoun in your sark!"

This indeed seemed likely, but I still maintain that I saw the
mowdiewort.

Nevertheless, when we came to consider the matter, it was in sooth no
time to think of freits or portents. It was no question of our fathers'
heads. Our own were in danger whether the Duke of Wellwood lived or
died; and we behoved to look limber if we were to save them at all. It
is a strange feeling that comes and stays about the roots of the neck,
when one first realises that the headsman may have to do therewith or
many weeks pass by. And it is a feeling that I have taken to bed with me
for years at a time.

Wat Gordon had warned my men as well as his own. So at the outside of
the town toward the back of the Boroughmuir, Hugh Kerr met us with the
beasts. Here we took horse and rode, having happily seen nothing of the
city guard. It was judged best that my cousin and I should ride alone.
This we wished, because we knew not whom to trust in the strange case in
which we found ourselves. Besides we could the better talk over our
chances during the long night marches in the wilderness, and in our
weary hidings among the heather in the daytime.

So we steadily rode southward toward Galloway, our own country, for
there alone could we look for some ease from the long arm of the Privy
Council. Not that Galloway was safe. The dragoons paraded up and down it
from end to end, and searched every nook and crevice for intercommuned
fugitives. But Galloway is a wide, wild place where the raw edges of
creation have not been rubbed down. And on one hillside in the Dungeon
of Buchan, there are as many lurking places as Robert Grier of Lag has
sins on his soul--which is saying no light thing, the Lord knows.

Once, as we went stealthily by night, we came upon a company of muirland
men who kept their conventicle in the hollows of the hills, and when
they heard us coming they scattered and ran like hares. I cried out to
them that we were of their own folk. Yet they answered not but only ran
all the faster, for we might have been informers, and it was a common
custom of such-like to claim to be of the hill-people. Even dragoons did
so, and had been received among them to the hurt of many.

Our own converse was the strangest thing. Often a kind of wicked
perverse delight came over me, and I took speech to mock and stir up my
cousin of Lochinvar, who was moody and distraught, which was very far
from his wont.

"Cousin Wat," I said to him, "'tis a strange sight to see your mother's
son so soon of the strict opinions. To be converted at the instance of
her Grace of Wellwood is no common thing. Wat, I tell thee, thou shalt
lead the psalm-singing at a conventicle yet!"

Whereat he would break out on me, calling me "crop-ear" and other names.
But at this word play I had, I think, as much the mastery as he at the
play of sword-blades.

"Rather it is you shall be the 'crop-head'--of the same sort as his late
Majesty!" I said. For it is a strange thing that so soon as men are at
peril of their lives, if they be together, they will begin to jest about
it--young men at least.

To get out of the country was now our aim. It pleased Wat not at all to
have himself numbered among the hill-folk and be charged with religion.
For me I had often a sore heart and a bad conscience, that I had made so
little of all my home opportunities. My misspent Sabbaths stuck in my
throat, although I had no stomach for running and hiding with the
intercommuned. Perhaps, if I had loved my brother Sandy better, it had
not been so hard a matter. But that, God forgive me, I never did, though
I knew that he was a good Covenant man and true to his principles. Yet
there is no mistake but that he gave us all a distaste at his way of
thinking.

So we wandered by night and hid by day till we reached the hills of our
own south country.

At last we came to the white house of Gordonstoun, which stands on the
hill above the clachan of Saint John. It was a lodge of my cousin's, and
the keeper of it was a true man, Matthew of the Dub by name. From him we
learned that there were soldiers both at Lochinvar and Earlstoun.
Moreover, the news had come that very day, with the riding post from
Edinburgh, of the wounding of the Duke of Wellwood, and how both of us
were put to the horn and declared outlaw.

I do not think that this affected us much, for almost every man in
Galloway, even those that trooped with Graham and Lag, half a dozen in
all, had been time and again at the horn. One might be at the horn--that
is, outlawed, for forgetting to pay a cess or tax, or for a private
little tulzie that concerned nobody, or for getting one's lum on fire
almost. It was told that once Lauderdale himself was put to the horn in
the matter of a reckoning he had been slack in paying, for Seekin'
Johnnie was ever better at drawing in than paying out.

But to think of my mother being harassed with a garrison, and to know
that rough blades clattered in and out of our bien house of Earlstoun,
pleased me not at all. Yet it was far out of my hap to help it. And I
comforted me with the thought, that it had been as bad as it could be
with us, even before our affray with the Wellwood.

So there was nothing for it, but to turn out our horses to grass at
Gordonstoun and take to the hills like the rest. Matthew of the Dub gave
us to understand that he could put us into a safe hold if we would trust
ourselves to him.

"But it is among the hill-folk o' Balmaghie!" he said, looking
doubtfully at his laird.

"Ah, Gordieston," said Lochinvar, making a wry face, and speaking
reproachfully, "needs must when the devil drives! But what for did you
sign all the papers and take all the oaths against intercommuning, and
yet all the time be having to do with rebels?" For Matthew was a cunning
man, and had taken all the King's oaths as they came along, holding the
parritch and feather beds of Gordieston on the Hill worth any form of
words whatsoever--which indeed could be swallowed down like an
apothecary's bolus, and no more ado about it.

"'Deed, your honour," said Matthew of the Dub, slyly, "it's a wersh
breakfast to streek your neck in a tow, an' I hae sma' stammach for the
Whig's ride to the Grassmarket. But a man canna juist turn informer an'
gie the gang-by to a' his auld acquaintances. Wha in Gallowa' wants to
ride an' mell wi' Clavers an' the lads on the Grey Horses, save siccan
loons as red-wud Lag, roaring Baldoun, and Lidderdale, the Hullion o'
the Isle?"

"I would have you remember, Matthew," said my cousin, speaking in Scots,
"that I rode wi' them no lang syne mysel'."

"Ou, ay, I ken," said independent Matthew, dourly, "there was my leddy
to thank for that. The women fowk are a' great gomerils when they meddle
wi' the affairs o' the State. But a' the Glen jaloosed that ye wad come
oot richt, like the daddy o' ye, when ye tired o' leading-strings, an'
gang to the horn like an honest man, e'en as ye hae dune the day."




CHAPTER XVIII.

AULD ANTON OF THE DUCHRAE.


It was a wintry-like morning in the later spring when at last we got out
of hiding in the house of Gordonstoun. During our stay there I had often
gone to see my mother just over the hill at Earlstoun, to give her what
comfort I could, and in especial to advise about Sandy, who was then on
his travels in the Low Countries. That morning Matthew of the Dub came
with us, and we took our legs to it, despising horses in our new quality
of hill-folk. The wind blew bitter and snell from the east. And May--the
bleakest of spring months, that ought to be the bonniest--was doing her
worst to strengthen the cold, in proportion as she lengthened her
unkindly days.

Matthew told us not whither we were going, and as for me, I had no
thought or suspicion. Yet the tear was in my eye as we saw the bonny
woods of Earlstoun lying behind us, with the grey head of the old tower
setting its chin over the tree-tops and looking wistfully after us.

But we marched south along the Ken, by New Galloway, and the seat of my
Lord Kenmuir, where there was now a garrison with Clavers himself in
hold. We saw the loch far beneath us, for we had to keep high on the
side of Bennan. It ruffled its breast as a dove's feathers are blown
awry by a sudden gusty wind. It was a cheerless day, and the gloom on
our faces was of the deepest. For we were in the weird case of suffering
for conscience' sake, and with no great raft either of conscience or of
religion to comfort us.

Not that our case was uncommon. For all were not saints who hated
tyranny.

"Wat," I said, arguing the matter, "the thing gangs in the husk o' a
hazel. I wear a particular make of glove chevron. It likes me well, but
I am not deadly set on it. Comes the Baron-bailie or my Lord Provost,
and saith he: 'Ye shall not henceforth wear that glove of thine, but one
of my colour and of the fashion official!' Then says I to the
Baron-bailie, 'To the Ill Thief wi' you and your pattern gauntlet!' And
I take him naturally across the cheek with it, and out with my
whinger----"

"Even so," said my cousin, who saw not whither I was leading him, "let
no man drive you as to the fashion of your gloves. Out with your
whinger, and see what might be the colour of his blood!"

"And what else are the Covenant men doing?" cried I, quick to take
advantage. "We were none so fond o' the Kirk that I ken of--we that are
of the lairds o' Galloway, when we could please ourselves when and where
we would go. Was there one of us, say maybe your father and mine, that
had not been sessioned time and again? Many an ill word did we speak o'
the Kirk, and many a glint did we cast at the sandglass in the pulpit as
the precentor gied her another turn. But after a' the Kirk was oor ain
mither, and what for should the King misca' or upturn her? Gin she
whummelt us, and peyed us soondly till we clawed where we werena yeuky,
wha's business was that but oor ain? But comes King Charlie, and says
he, 'Pit awa' your old mither, that's overly sore on you, an' tak' this
braw easy step-minnie, that will never steer ye a hair or gar ye claw
your hinderlands!' What wad ye say, Wat? What say ye, Wat? Wad ye gie
your mither up for the King's word?"

"No," said Wat, sullenly, for now he saw where he was being taken, and
liked it little, "I wadna."

I thought I had him, and so, logically, I had. But he was nothing but a
dour, donnert soldier, and valued good logic not a docken.

"Hear me," he said, after a moment's silence; "this is my way of it. I
am no preacher, and but poor at the practice. But I learned, no matter
where, to be true to the King--and, mind you, even now I stand by
Charles Stuart, though at the horn I be. Even now I have no quarrel with
him, though for the dirty sake of the Duke of Wellwood, he has one with
me."

"That's as may be," I returned; "but mind where you are going. Ye will
be eating the bread of them that think differently, and surely ye'll hae
the sense and the mense to keep a calm sough, an' your tongue far ben
within your teeth."

We were passing the ford of the Black Water as I was speaking, and soon
we came to the steading of the Little Duchrae in the light of the
morning. It was a long, low house, well thatched, like all the houses in
the neighbourhood. And it was sending up a heartsome pew of reek into
the air, that told of the stir of breakfast. The tangle of the wood grew
right up to the windows of the back, and immediately behind the house
there was a little morass with great willow trees growing and many
hiding-places about it--as well I knew, for there Maisie Lennox and I
had often played the day by the length.

Now "Auld Anton" of the Duchrae was a kenned man all over the
country-side. The name of Anthony Lennox of Duchrae was often on my
father's lips, and not seldom he would ride off to the south in the high
days of Presbytery, to have fellowship with him whenever he was low in
the spirit, and also before our stated seasons of communion. Thither
also I had often ridden in later years on other errands, as has already
been said.

Never had I been able to understand, by what extraordinary favour
Anthony Lennox had not only been able to escape so far himself, but
could afford a house of refuge to others in even more perilous plight.
Upon the cause of this immunity there is no need at present to
condescend, but certain it is that the house of the Duchrae had been
favoured above most, owing to an influence at that time hidden from me.
For Auld Anton was never the man to hide his thoughts or to set a curb
upon his actions.

With a light hand Matthew of the Dub knocked at the door, which was
carefully and immediately opened. A woman of a watchful and rather
severe countenance presented herself there--a serving woman, but
evidently one accustomed to privilege and equality, as was common in
Galloway at that day.

"Matthew Welsh," she said, "what brings you so far from hame so early in
the morning?"

"I come wi' thae twa callants--young Gordon o' Earlstoun, and a young
man that is near kin to him. It may be better to gie the particulars the
go-by till I see you more privately. Is the good man about the doors?"

For answer the woman went to the window at the back and cried thrice.
Instantly we saw a little cloud of men disengage themselves irregularly
from the bushes and come towards the door. Then began a curious scene.
The woman ran to various hiding-places under the eaves, behind dressers,
in aumries and presses, and set a large number of bowls of porridge on
the deal table. Soon the house was filled with the stir of men and the
voices of folk in earnest conversation.

Among them all I was chiefly aware of one young man of very striking
appearance, whose dark hair flowed back from a broad brow, white as a
lady's, and who looked like one born to command. On the faces of many of
the men who entered and overflowed the little kitchen of the Duchrae,
was the hunted look of them that oftentimes glance this way and that for
a path of escape. But on the face of this man was only a free soldierly
indifference to danger, as of one who had passed through many perils and
come forth scatheless.

Last of all the Master of the House entered with the familiarity of the
well-accustomed. He was alert and active, a man of great height, yet
holding himself like a soldier. Three counties knew him by his long grey
beard and bushy eyebrows for Anthony Lennox, one of the most famous
leaders of the original United Societies. To me he was but Maisie
Lennox's father, and indeed he had never wared many words on a boy such
as I seemed to him.

But now he came and took us both by the hand in token of welcome, and to
me in especial he was full of warm feeling.

"You are welcome, young sir," he said. "Many an hour at the dyke-back
have we had, your father and I, praying for our bairns and for poor
Scotland. Alack that I left him on the way to Bothwell last year and
rode forward to tulzie wi' Robin Hamilton--and now he lies in his quiet
resting grave, an' Auld Anton is still here fighting away among the
contenders."

With Walter also he shook hands, and gave him the welcome that one true
man gives to another. Lochinvar sat silent and watchful in the strange
scene. For me I seemed to be in a familiar place, for Earlstoun was on
every tongue. And it was not for a little that I came to know that they
meant my brother Sandy, who was a great man among them--greater than
ever my father had been, though he had "sealed his testimony with his
blood," as their phrase ran.

I thought it best not to give my cousin's name, excusing myself in the
meantime by vouching that his father had suffered to the death, even as
mine had done, for the cause and honour of Scotland's Covenant.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE SWEET SINGERS OF THE DEER-SLUNK.


Now my father had drilled it into me that Anton Lennox, called the
Covenanter, was a good and sound-hearted man, even as he was doubtless a
manifest and notable Christian. But the tale concerning him that most
impressed me and touched my spirit nearest, was the tale of how he
served Muckle John Gib and his crew, after godly Mr. Cargill had
delivered them over to Satan.

It was Sandy, my brother, that was the eye-witness of the affair. He was
ever of the extreme opinion--as my mother used often to say, "Our Sandy
was either in the moon or the midden"--but in my judgment oftenest in
the latter.

Yet I will never deny that he has had a great deal of experience, though
I would rather want than have some of it. Now at this time, Sandy,
perhaps by means of his wife, Jean Hamilton (who, like her brother
Robert, was just inordinate for preachings and prophesyings), was much
inclined to kick over the traces, and betake himself to the wilder
extremes that were much handled by our enemies for the purpose of
bringing discredit on the good name of the Covenants.

There was one great hulking sailor of Borrowstounness that was specially
afflicted with these visions and maunderings. Nothing but his own crazy
will in all things could satisfy him. He withdrew himself into the waste
with two or three men and a great company of feeble-minded women, and
there renounced all authority and issued proclamations of the wildest
and maddest kinds.

The godly and devout Mr. Donald Cargill (as he was called, for his real
name was Duncan) was much exercised about the matter. And finding
himself in the neighbourhood to which these people had betaken
themselves, he spared no pains, but with much and sore foot-travel he
found them out, and entered into conference with them. But John Gib, who
could be upon occasion a most faceable and plausible person, persuaded
him to abide with them for a night. Which accordingly he did, but having
wrestled with them in prayer and communing half the night, and making
nothing of them, presently he rose and went out into the fields most
unhappy. So after long wandering he came homeward, having failed in his
mission. Then it was that he told the matter to old Anton Lennox, who
had come from Galloway to attend the great Society's Meeting at Howmuir.
With him at the time was my brother Sandy, and here it is that Sandy's
story was used to commence.

And of all Sandy's stories it was the one I liked best, because there
was the least chance of his having anything about himself to tell.

"I mind the day"--so he began--"a fine heartsome harvest day in
mid-September. We had our crop in early that year, and Anton, my father
and I, had gotten awa' betimes to the Societies' meeting at Lesmahagow.
It was in the earliest days of them--for ye maun mind that I am one o'
the few surviving original members. We were a' sitting at our duty, when
in there came into the farm kitchen where we abode, Mr. Donald Cargill
himself. He was leaning upon his staff, and his head was hanging down.
We desisted from our worship and looked at him steadfastly, for we saw
that the hand of the Lord had been upon him and that for grief. So we
waited for the delivery of his testimony.

"'My heart is heavy,' he said at long and last, 'for the people of the
wilderness are delivered over to the gainsayer, and that by reason of
John Gib, called Muckle John, sailor in Borrowstounness, and presently
leading the silly folks astray.' Then he told them how he had wrestled
with the Gibbites mightily in the Spirit, and had been overthrown.
Whereat he was notified that the hearts of all those that hated the Way
would be lifted up.

"He also brought a copy of the foolish sheet called the 'Proclamation of
the Sweet Singers,' which was much handed about among all the
persecutors at this time, and made to bring terrible discredit on the
sober and God-fearing folk of the South and West, who had nothing
whatever to do with the matter.

"'Let me see it,' said Anton Lennox, holding out his hand for it.

"Mr. Cargill gave it to him, saying sadly, 'The Spirit will not always
strive with them!'

"'Na,' said Auld Anton, 'but I'll e'en strive wi' them mysel'! Reek me
doon Clickie!'

"He spoke of his great herd's stave that had a shank of a yard and a
half long and was as thick as my wrist.

"'Come you, Sandy,' he cried over his shoulder as he strode out, 'and ye
will get your bellyful of Sweet Singing this day!'

"Now I did not want to move for the exercise was exceeding pleasant. But
my father also bade me go with Auld Anton, and as you know, it was not
easy to say nay to my father.

"It was over a moor that we took our way--silent because all the wild
birds had by with their nesting, and where Mr. Cargill had left the
company of John Gib was in a very desert place where two counties met.
But Auld Anton went stegging[4] over the hills, till I was fair driven
out of my breath. And ever as he went he drove his staff deeper and
dourer into the sod.

[Footnote 4: Walking rapidly with long steps.]

"It was a long season before we arrived at the place, but at last we
came to the top of a little brow-face, and stood looking at the strange
company gathered beneath us.

"There was a kind of moss-hag of dry peat, wide and deep, yet level
along the bottom. Down upon the black coom was a large company of women
all standing close together and joining their hands. A little way apart
on a mound of peat in the midst, stood a great hulk of a fellow, with a
gown upon him, like a woman's smock, of white linen felled with purple
at the edges. But whenever it blew aside with the wind, one saw
underneath the sailor's jerkin of rough cloth with the bare tanned skin
of the neck showing through.

"'Certes, Master Anton,' said I, 'but yon is a braw chiel, him wi' the
broad hat and the white cock ontill the bob o't!'

"And indeed a brave, braw, blythesome-like man he was, for all the
trashery of his attire. He kept good order among the men and women that
companied with him in the Deer-Slunk. There were thirty of
them--twenty-six being women--many of them very respectable of family,
that had been led away from their duty by the dangerous, persuading
tongue of John Gib. But Auld Anton looked very grim as he stood a moment
on the knowe-top and watched them, and he took a shorter grip of the
cudgel he carried in his hand. It was of black crabtree, knotted and
grievous.

"'John Gib!' cried Anton Lennox from the hilltop suddenly in a loud
voice:

"The great sea slug of a man in the white petticoat turned slowly round,
and looked at us standing on the parched brae-face with no friendly eye.

"'Begone--ye are the children of the devil--begone to your father!' he
cried back.

"'Belike--John Gib--belike, but bide a wee--I am coming down to have a
word or two with you as to that!' replied Auld Anton, and his look had a
smile in it, that was sour as the crab-apples which his cudgel would
have borne had it bidden in the hedge-root.

"'I have come,' he said slowly and tartly, 'that I might converse
seriously with you, John Gib, and that concerning the way that you have
treated Mr. Donald Cargill, an honoured servant of the Lord!'

"'Poof!' cried John Gib, standing up to look at us, while the women drew
themselves together angrily to whisper, 'speak not to us of ministers.
We deny them every one. We have had more comfort to our souls since we
had done with ministers and elders, with week-days and fast-days, and
Bibles and Sabbaths, and came our ways out here by ourselves to the
deeps of the Deer-Slunk!'

"'Nay,' said Old Anton, 'ministers indeed are not all they might be. But
without them, ye have proved yourself but a blind guide leading the
blind, John Gib! Ye shall not long continue sound in the faith or
straight in the way if ye want faithful guides! But chiefly for the
fashion in which ye have used Mr. Cargill, am I come to wrestle with
you,' cried Anton.

"'He is but an hireling,' shouted Muckle John Gib, making his white gown
flutter.

"'Yea, Yea, and Amen!' cried the women that were at his back. But Davie
Jamie, Walter Ker, and John Young, the other three men who were with
him, looked very greatly ashamed and turned away their faces--as indeed
they had great need.

"'Stand up like men! David Jamie, Walter Ker, and John Young!' cried
Anton to them, 'Do ye bide to take part with these silly women and this
hulker from the bilboes, or will ye return with me to good doctrine and
wholesome correction?'

"But the three men answered not a word, looking like men surprised in a
shameful thing and without their needful garments.

"'Cargill me no Cargills!' said John Gib; 'he is a traitor, a led
captain and an hireling. He deserted the poor and went to another land.
He came hither to us, yet neither preached to us nor prayed with us.'

"John Young looked about him as John Gib said this, as though he would
have contradicted him had he dared. But he was silent again and looked
at the ground.

"'Nay,' said Auld Anton, 'that is a lie, John Gib; for I know that he
offered to preach to you, standing with his Bible open between his hands
as is his ordinary. But ye wanted him to promise to confine his
preaching to you--which when he would not consent to do, ye were for
thrusting him out. And he came home, wet and weary, with the cold
easterly wet fog all night upon the muir, very melancholy, and with
great grief for you all upon his spirit!'

"Then at this John Gib became suddenly very furious and drew a pistol
upon us. This made Anton Lennox laugh.

"'I shall come down and wrestle with your pistols in a wee, John Gib.
But I have a word to say to you all first.'

"He stood awhile and looked at them with contempt as if they were the
meanest wretches under heaven, as indeed they were.

"'You, John Gib, that lay claim to being a wizard, I have little to say
to you. Ye have drawn away these silly folk with your blasphemous
devices. Your name is legion, for there are many devils within you. You
are the herd of swine after the devils had entered into them. Hath your
master given you any word to speak before I come down to you?'

"'Ay,' said John Gib, leaping up in the air and clapping his hands
together as if he would again begin the dance, which, accompanied by a
horrid yowling like that of a beaten dog, they called Sweet Singing.

"'Ay, that I have! Out upon you, Anton Lennox, that set up for a man of
God and a reprover of others. I alone am pure, and God dwells in me. I
lift up my testimony against all the months of the year, for their names
are heathen. I alone testify against January and February; against
Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday; against Martinmas and holidays, against
Lammas-day, Whitsun-day, Candle-mas, Beltan, stone crosses, saints'
images, Kelton Hill Fair and Stonykirk Sacrament. Against Yule and
Christmas, old wife's fables, Palm Sunday, Carlin Sunday, Pasch, Hallow,
and Hogmanay; against the cracking of nits and the singing of sangs;
again all romances and story-buiks; against Handsel Monday, kirks,
kirkyairds and ministers, and specially against cock-ups in the front o'
the Sabbath bonnets o' ministers' wives; against registers, lawyers and
all lawbooks----'

"He cried out this rigmarole at the top of his voice, speaking
trippingly by rote as one that says his lesson in school and has learned
it often and well. He rolled his eyes as he recited, and all the women
clapped their hands and made a kind of moaning howl like a dog when it
bays the moon.

"'Yea, Yea, and Amen!' they cried after him, like children singing in
chorus.

"'Peace, devil's brats all!' cried Anton Lennox, like a tower above
them.

"And they hushed at his word, for he stood over them all, like one
greater than man, till even Muckle John Gib seemed puny beside the old
man.

"'David Jamie, hearken to me, you that has your hand on your bit
shable.[5] Better put up your feckless iron spit. It will do you no
good. You are a good scholar lost, and a decent minister spoiled. I
wonder at you--a lad of some lear--companying with this hairy-throated,
tarry-fisted deceiver.'

[Footnote 5: Short sword.]

"This David Jamie was a young limber lad, who looked paler and more
delicate than the others. What brought him into the company of mad men
and misguided women, it is perhaps better only guessing.

"He looked sufficiently ashamed now at all events.

"'Walter Ker and John Young, hearken ye to me; I have more hope of you.
You are but thoughtless, ignorant, land-ward men, and the Lord may be
pleased to reclaim you from this dangerous and horrible delusion.'

"Anton Lennox looked about him. There was a fire smouldering at no great
distance from him. Something black and square lay upon it. He took three
great strides to the place. Lifting the dark smouldering object up from
off the fire, he cried aloud in horror, and began rubbing with his
hands. It was a fine large-print Bible, with more than half of it burned
away. There were also several little ones upon the fire underneath. I
never saw a man's anger fire up more quickly. For me, I was both amazed
and afraid at the awful and unthinkable blasphemy.

"'John Gib,' cried Anton Lennox, 'stand up before the Lord, and
answer--who has done this?'

"'I, that am the head of the Sweet Singers, and the Lord's anointed!'
said he. 'I have done it!'

"'Then, by the Lord's great name, I will make you sing right sweetly for
this!' cried Anton, taking a vow.

"Then one of the women took up the parable.

"'We heard a voice in the Frost Moss,' she said, 'and a light shone
about us there; and John Gib bade us burn our Bibles, for that the
Psalms in Metre, the chapter headings, and the Table of Contents were
but human inventions.'

"'And I did it out of despite against God!' cried John Gib.

"Then Anton Lennox said not a word more, but cast away his plaid, spat
upon his cudgel-palm, and called over his shoulder to me:

"'Come, Sandy, and help me to wrestle in the Spirit with these Sweet
Singers.'

"As he ran down the brae, David Jamie, the student youth, came at him
with a little spit-stick of a sword, and cried that if he came nearer he
would run him through.

"'The Lord forgie ye for leein', callant,' cried Anton, catching the
poor thin blade on his great oak cudgel, for Anton was a great player
with the single-sticks, and as a lad had been the cock of the
country-side. The steel, being spindle-thin, shivered into twenty
pieces, and the poor lad stood gaping at the sword-hilt left in his
hand, which had grown suddenly light.

"'Bide you there and wrestle with him, Sandy!' Auld Anton cried again
over his shoulder.

"So I took my knee and tripped David up. And so sat up upon him very
comfortable, till his nose was pressed into the moss, and all his
members sprawled and waggled beneath me like a puddock under a stone.

"Then Auld Anton made straight for John Gib himself, who stood back
among his circle of women, conspicuous in his white sark and with a
pistol in his hand. When he saw Auld Anton coming so fiercely at him
across the peat-hags, he shot off his pistol, and turned to run. But his
women caught hold of him by the flying white robe, thinking that he was
about to soar upward out of their sight.

"'Let me be,' he cried, with a great sailor oath; and tearing away from
them, he left half the linen cloth in their hands, and betook him to his
heels.

"Anton Lennox went after him hot foot, and there they had it, like
coursing dogs, upon the level moor. It was noble sport. I laughed till
David Jamie was nearly choked in the moss with me rocking to and fro
upon him. Anton Lennox was twice the age of John Gib, but Muckle John
being a sailor man, accustomed only to the short deck, and also having
his running gear out of order by his manner of life, did exceedingly
pant and blow. Yet for a time he managed to keep ahead of his pursuer.
But there was no ultimate city of refuge for him.

"Anton Lennox followed after him a little stiffly, with a grim
determined countenance; and as he ran I saw him shorten his cudgel of
crabtree in his hand. Presently he came up with the muckle man of
Borrowstounness. The great stick whistled through the air, soughing like
a willow-wand. Once, twice, thrice--it rose and fell.

"And the sound that ensued was like the beating of a sack of meal.

"'I'll learn you to burn the Bible!' cried Anton, as he still followed.
His arm rose and fel

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