Lochinvar: A Novel

"Only this once," she said, smiling. "Even she would not be angry, for she has all – I nothing. And it is right – right – oh! so right. For you could not love the Little Marie – wife and mother she could not be; her life had been wicked – yet her heart was not all bad. And oh! but she loved you – yes, she loved you so dear. She could not help that – nor could you, my captain. Forgive Marie for loving you. But, then, you should not have spoken so graciously to the poor girl to whom none ever spoke kindly or gently."

Wat bent over the girl.

"You have, indeed, been brave and good," he said; "we truly love you for what you have done. Presently we will take you to a kindly house where you shall be nursed – "

"Nay, my captain," she whispered, smiling up at him gladly, "it is kind – yes, most sweet to hear you speak thus. But it is better that the Little Marie should die out here with your arm about her, and before the sun of this happy day goes quite down. Ah, if she had stayed in the fields always she might have been better, purer, perhaps – who knows? But then she had never known you, my captain. Maybe it is better as it is. At least, it is good to have known one true man."

She was silent a space. Wat tried hard to remember a prayer. Scarlett whistled a marching tune under his breath to keep from angry, rebellious weeping. The dying girl spoke again.

"Do not quite forget the Little Marie," she said; "her heart would not have been all bad – if only you had been there sooner to teach her how to be good."

She smiled up at him with eyes over which a pale, filmy haze was gathering. She put her hand a little farther about his neck and so brought her face nearer to his.

"Did I not lead them well?" she said, eagerly and gladly; "tell me – even she could not have done it better! Ah! love, but this is passing sweet," she went on, more slowly and plaintively; "it is good to be held up thus, and to watch death coming to me so softly, almost sweetly. Dear, just say once that what I did was well done, and that no one at all could have done it better for you."

"None has ever done so much for me, none so given all for me, as you have done, Little Marie!" murmured Wat, his tears dropping down on the pale face of the girl – who, if she had sinned greatly, had also greatly loved.

"It is true, and I am glad," she said again, "even your love of loves herself could do no more than die for you!"

Her smile fixed itself. Her eyes grew hazier, but their long, still look stayed intently and happily upon Wat's face. Murmuring a prayer, he bent and kissed the fair brow that was now growing cold as marble. At the touch of his lips a light, as from a paradise beyond, flamed up for a moment in the girl's eyes. Her smile grew infinitely sweeter, and the rigid lines of pain about the mouth relaxed.

"My captain – O my captain!" she whispered, sweetly as a little child that closes its eyes and nestles into sleep upon a loving shoulder.

CHAPTER XXI

THE GOOD SHIP SEA UNICORN

Kate McGhie was safe on board the Sea Unicorn, Captain Smith – a vessel English by ownership and manning, but which, for purposes which need not at this point be too closely defined, presently flew the Three Castles of the famous free city of Hamburg, though that fact would not materially have benefited any one on board had one of the British fleet from the Medway overhauled Captain Smith. For on board the Sea Unicorn there was much contraband of war, clearly intended for the sustenance and equipment of the enemies of his Majesty King James, both in the West of England and also more particularly in Scotland.

As Kate was being taken up the side, she could hear above all the sea noises the voice of a man in angry monologue. Captain Zachariah Smith, of the good town of Poole, was exceedingly wrathful at the delay. But in spite of his anger the work of the deck went forward as well as it might on so small a vessel, when everything creaked and tumbled in the dancing jabble of the cross seas. For the wrath of Captain Smith for the most part passed off in angry words, and did not, as was usual in the merchant service of the time, very promptly materialize itself in the form of a handspike. There was considerable difficulty in getting the boat alongside on account of the swell, and Kate was handed up like a piece of delicate goods. The man upon whose saddle she had been carried held her up lightly poised on his hand, and as the side of the plunging ship descended and the boat lurched upward, simultaneously half a dozen arms, rough but not untender, were outstretched to receive her. In a moment more she found herself safe on the deck of the Sea Unicorn.

"Ah, my lassie, come your ways," said a voice, which, simply because it was the voice of a woman, made Kate almost cry out with pleasure. It was a pleasant enough voice, too, and had something in the tone of it which seemed an excellent guarantee of the good intentions of its owner.

A tall, well-formed, rosily colored woman of forty or fifty stood by the mast, keeping her hand on a rope to steady herself as the vessel lunged and dipped her stem viciously into the trough of the waves.

"This is an uncanny and unheartsome journey for ye, my lassie," said the woman, "but it's an auld proverb that we maun a' do as things will do wi' us."

Kate ran to her as soon as her feet were free on the deck and caught her by the hand.

"You will help me – you will save me!" she said, looking up at the buxom woman with an agony of apprehension in her eyes. For it was a great thing after a night of terror and darkness, and after the enforced and unwelcome company of ungentle men, for the lonely girl to find a woman, and one so seemingly kindly of face and manner.

"Help ye, lassie! That will surely Betsy Landsborough do. Have no fear of that. They shall never steer ye gin ye like it not. That dour man o' mine has his orders frae the chief, belike, and in the mean time ye'll hae to bide wi' us. But there shall none hurt or molest ye, while Betsy, the wife of Alister, can win at them wi' her ten finger-nails."

"You speak like a Lowland woman," said Kate, ten minutes afterwards, when they found themselves in the little cabin in the stern of the ship. Kate was an excellent sailor, so that the plunging of the Sea Unicorn did not seriously affect her. By-and-by the heaving moderated as the ship turned tail to the land and sped away before a strong southeasterly wind towards the shores of England. Owing to the heavy sea it had been found utterly impossible to get the long-boat on board, and Captain Smith had reluctantly sent it back, to be cared for in the little port of Lis till his return.

The cabin of the Sea Unicorn was a narrow place, but it was dainty enough in its appointments, and the two small white berths were covered with white linen of wonderful softness.

Now the bitterest and most immediate of Kate's anxiety was over. She knew that for the present at least she was a prisoner in the hands of kindly people, and with one of her own sex on board. So it seemed as if she could not let her companion out of her sight.

"You have not yet told me why you speak like a Lowland woman," Kate said again to her new friend.

Betsy Landsborough had not heard the first time, being busied with the arrangement of various articles of dress in a dark closet by the side of the cabin.

"'Deed aye," she answered, "and what for no? Would ye hae me speak like thae muckle ill-favored sons 'o the peat-creel because for my sins are o' the Highland Host carried me away frae bonny Colmonel in Carrick in the year '79. Ever since which sorrowful day I have been the wife o' Alister McAlister, the tacksman of the Isle Suliscanna, near half-road across the Atlantic."

"Is your husband on board?" asked Kate.

"Aye, that he is; ye'll hae maybe seen mair o' him than ye like. For it was him that gat the chief's orders to bring ye here wi' him. He wad no hae muckle to say till ye. He is none ower gleg with the tongue at the best o' times. It was a year and a half before he understood mair o' my talk than juist 'Come here!' 'Gang there!' 'Stand oot o' the road o' me, or else I'll ding the head aff ye!'"

Kate smiled a little at the friendly sounding and natural accent of the Ayrshire woman, and though her path was still as dark as night before her, and she knew not whither she was being taken, a load consciously lifted from about her heart as she listened.

"But can you tell me," she returned, "by whose orders and for what purpose I have been stolen cruelly away from my friends and set on this vessel, going I know not where?"

"By whose orders I can tell ye, and welcome. It is by the orders o' the chief o' the McAlisters. Why, lass, it is something to be proud of. The Lord of Barra, the chief himsel', is fell fond o' ye, and, I doubt not, has ta'en ye awa' that ye may settle doon to island ways and be ready, when he gets his new coronet, to be a brave Lady of the Isles."

"But I will never marry my Lord Barra – no, nor any man but the man I love!" cried Kate, indignantly.

"Hoot, toot, gently and daintily, my lassie; that is even what I said mysel', when yon great rawboned stot first took me wi' him, never speerin' my leave. Dinna ye ken that no a Lord o' Barra has ever gotten a wife for five hunder years, but by the auld and honored Highland fashion o' takin' her first an' coortin' her after? Haith! there's mony a mislippened lass that wishes she had that way o't. For mony is the ane wha mairries for love and gets the butter and the comfits first, but in the afterings finds that right bitter in the belly which had been so sweet in the mouth."

And with this Sabine wisdom Betsy Landsborough vanished with a flourish of lifted petticoats up the ladder, which on the small Sea Unicorn served to communicate between the cabin and the deck.

The ship still sped on her course, and Kate sat below thinking of her strange adventure, which yet seemed so little and so natural to the wild, lawless folk among whom she found herself. Captain Smith incessantly prowled the deck and looked eagerly for Branksea Island, and still more anxiously for the lights of one of his Majesty's swift cruisers from the Nore. So in the mean time we will let the Sea Unicorn cut a furrow out of sight across the long heaving billows of the seas, while we go back to accompany Wat Gordon in his search for his lost love. Difficult and almost hopeless as the quest seemed, Wat's heart was wholly true and loyal. He never swerved from his resolve to search the world and to endure all manner of hardness till he died, rather than that he should not find his love. Whereat, as often as he put the matter into words, Jack Scarlett swore under his breath, and more than ever regretted (he stated it on his honor as a soldier) the best paymaster and the most complaisant landlady he had known for twenty years.

CHAPTER XXII

WISE JAN PETTIGREW

Gently, very gently, they laid in the earth the body of the Little Marie, and Wat Gordon said the prayer over her he could not remember before when she lay a-dying. It was a prayer to the Lord who takes reckoning with the intents of the heart as well as with the deeds of the body.

Under the shelter of a great dune they laid her, digging the grave as deep as they could, using the same tools with which they had intrenched the citadel she had helped them so well to defend. They laid her on the landward side, under a huge cliff of sand, so that as the winds blew and the sand wave advanced, it might bury her deeper and ever deeper till the trumpet of the archangel should blow reveille upon the morn of final judgment.

"And then," said Scarlett, with conviction, "I had liefer take my chance with Marie, the sinner, than with Barra or Kersland, those precious and well-considered saints."

Wat Gordon said not a word. But he stood a longer space than for his own safety he ought, leaning upon the long handle of his spade and looking at the fresh, moist sand which alone marked the grave of the Little Marie in the waste.

The defeat which had befallen the forces of Haxo was final enough, for among the rank and file there was not the least desire to pursue the conflict for its own sake. And, moreover, the death of so many of their companions was sufficient to intimidate the survivors. Yet Wat and Scarlett were by no means free from danger. For one thing, both Haxo and the fugitives from the party of their assailants were perfectly acquainted with their identity, and the fact of Wat's being an escaped prisoner of the State was quite enough to bring upon them more legitimate though not less dangerous enemies.

By following circuitous and secluded paths, Wat and Scarlett found their way to a wooden shed on the verges of the cultivated land. The lower floors were evidently used in the winter for cattle, but the upper parts were still half full of hay, long and coarse, cut from the polders which lay at the back of the dunes.

Here among the rough, fragrant, pleasant hay the two men lay down, and Wat fell instantly asleep – the training of his old days in the heather returning to him, and in combination with the fatigues and anxieties of the night and morning, causing him to forget the manifold dangers of his position. Scarlett, having apparently left sleep behind him with his drowsy regiment, occupied himself dourly in making up the account of the pays still due to him by the paymaster of his corps, shaking his head and grumbling as each item was added to the formidable column, not a solitary stiver of which he could ever hope to receive.

It was again growing dusk when Wat awoke, much refreshed by his sleep. He found Scarlett leaning on his elbow and watching him with grim amusement.

"I suppose," he said, "once I was a fool and fathoms deep in love as well as you. But I do not believe that ever I slept in this fashion – saying over and over, 'Kate, dear Kate,' all the time, in a voice like a calf bleating for a milk-pail on the other side of the gate."

Wat turned his head and pretended not to hear. He was in no mood to barter windy compliments with Jack Scarlett, who on his part loved nothing better, save only wine and a pretty woman. The grave of the girl who had died for love of him was too new under the dunes of Lis; the fate of his own true-love too dark and uncertain.

So soon, therefore, as it grew dusk enough, Wat and Scarlett betook themselves without further speech down to the little harbor, to see what might be obtained there in the way of a boat to convey them out of Holland. At first they had some thought of getting a fisherman to land them at Hamburg, whence it would be easy enough to take passage either to England or to Scotland, as they might decide.