Lochinvar: A Novel

The curate smiled a wry, discomfortable smile at the prophecy, but nevertheless he proceeded to take his breakfast with some fortitude, looking up occasionally to see that the trouts did not burn as they made a pleasant skirling noise in the pan.

"There's nocht like a loch trout newly catched, in a' this bonny God's warld," he said. "I wonder how men can be haythens and ill-doers when there's sic braw loch trout in Gallowa'! And burn trout are just as guid – in fact, there's some that actually prefers them!"

All this day Jean Gordon might have been heard in solemn confabulation with the curate, while Wat lay and listened to the din of their voices, sometimes uplifted in controversy, sometimes hushed in gossip, but ever coming to him pleasantly dulled and harmonized through the thick walls and long echoing passages of the house of Lochinvar. It was a windy day also, and the water sang him a lullaby of his childhood, as it lapped and swished all about him, with a noise like the leafy boughs of trees brushing against the foundations of his ancient castle.

"To-morrow! To-morrow! To-morrow!" said Wat, over and over to himself. "To-morrow my die will be cast for life or death."

CHAPTER L

LOCHINVAR KEEPS TRYST

The morning of the tenth came – still, uncolored below, rising to grayish-blue above, rose-rimmed only along the eastern horizon. The reapers were out in the high fields about Gordonstoun by daybreak, with their crooked reaping-hooks in their hands, busily grasping the handfuls of grain and cutting them through with a pleasant "risp" of sound. Cocks crowed early that morning, for they knew it was going to be a day of fervent heat. It would be as well, therefore, to have the pursuit of slippery worm and rampant caterpillar over betimes in the dawning. Then each chanticleer could stand in the shade and scratch himself applausively with alternate foot all the hot noontide, while his wives clucked and nestled in the dusty holes along the banks, interchanging intimate reflections upon the moral character of the giddier and more skittish young pullets of the farmyard.

But long after the sun had risen Wat Gordon lay asleep. Jean Gordon had a suit of clothes lying ready brushed for him on a chair – frilled linen, lace so cobwebby and fine, that it seemed to be spun from the foam of the loch after a storm. His father's sword swung by a belt of faded scarlet leather from the oaken angle of the nearest chair-back.

"I'll gie him half an hour yet," said she; "Peter will no' be here wi' Sandy Gordon's muckle horse before that time."

The minutes passed slowly. Jean opened the window of the tower, and the fresh air of the moorland stole in. Wat Gordon lay on his pillow knitting his brows and working his hands as if in grips with some deadly problem that lacked a solution.

"Puir lad, puir lad, whatna kittle thing love is!" murmured the old lady; "it works us, it drives us, and it harls us. It grieves us and gars us greet. And yet, what wad life be without it and the memory o't! And 'tis Jean Gordon that should ken, for she has lived sixty years on the memory o' ae bonny month o' maist heavenly bliss."

At last she bent over him, hearing a loud and piercing whistle from the shore of the loch.

"My lamb, my lamb!" she whispered, fondly, "rise ye, for your love's sake. Here are your claes. Gang forth like a bridegroom rejoicing in your strength. Ye shallna gang menseless this day, though ye hae to ride on another man's horse. The time will come when ye shall hae mony braw plenished stables o' your ain."

Obediently Wat rose, and put the fine clothes on him with a kind of wonder. He was still pale and wan, and his body was wasted by suffering and recent privation. Nevertheless, he felt his head clear, and there was an elastic ease in all his sinews.

"To-day," he said to himself, gladly – "to-day I cast the die for love or death."

The curate came for him in the boat, and Jean Gordon accompanied them.

"I am loath to part," she said; "it was aye a kindly Galloway custom to convoy the lad ye liked best, and Guid kens that's Wat Gordon o' Lochinvar."

"What do three horses there?" asked Wat, as they rowed the boat over to the landing-place, where a black charger and two humbler shelties were tethered close together among the dwarf moorland birches.

"'Tis a grand day for pleasuring," said Jean, "and Peter and me have made it up to ride together to the Three Thorns o' Carlinwark by the end o' the loch. There ye will find us gin ye need us. Ye will hae to ride that gate onyway, gin ye win clear o' the house o' Balmaghie with life and good fortune."

Wat mounted his cousin's horse Drumclog, a mighty black of rare paces, which, in spite of his size, on firm ground could distance any steed in the stewartry – aye, and as far as to Gretna on the border-side.

Now when Wat Gordon turned to ride away, sitting erect on his black horse, there came a light of almost maiden's love into Jean Gordon's eye.

"Never was there bride couched beside bridegroom like him!" she exclaimed, proudly. "Win her or lose her, it will be the height o' pride to the young lass all her life long, that on a day she had such a lover to venture all for her sake."

And indeed, despite the wild eye, sunk in its rim of darkest purple, despite the hollow cheek and pale face of his wandering, well might she say it. For no such cavalier as Walter Gordon, Lord of Lochinvar and Gordonstoun, that day took the eyes of ladies in all broad Scotland. Doubly outlawed as he was – rebel, landless, friendless, penniless – there was yet something about the lad which carried hearts before him as the wind carries dandelion spray. And many a high dame and many a much-courted maiden had left her all that day to have followed him through the world at a waft of his right hand.

A coat of fine blue cloth set Walter Gordon well. A light cape of the same was bound over it, having a broad, rough hem of gold. His father's sword swung by his side. The sash and star of King James's order shone on his breast as the wind blew back his cloak. Knee-breeches of corded leather and cavalier's riding-boots completed his attire, while a broad hat, white-feathered for loyalty and trimmed with blue and gold, was on his head.

"Aye, there gangs the leal heart," said Jean Gordon, wiping her dim eyes that she might watch him the longer; "there gangs the bonny laddie. There rides Wat Gordon, the only true lover – the lad that is ready to lay doon his life for his dear, lightly as a man sets on the board an empty cup after that he has drunken. Wae's me that sax inches o' steel in the back, or a pistol bullet at ten paces, should have power to lay a' that beauty low in the dust!"

* * * * *

The holms and woodland spaces of Balmaghie were indeed a sight to see that glorious morn of the tenth of September, in the year of Christ, His Grace, 1689. There was scarce accommodation in the wide stables of the mansion for the horses of the guests. The very byres were crowded with them. The kye were milked on the edge of the wood to give the horses stalling-room in their places. As for Mistress Crombie, she was nearly driven out of her wits by the foreign cooks whom the new lady of the house had brought with her – some of them from Edinburgh and some of them all the way from London itself – to do justice to the great occasion.

Alisoun Begbie had a host of assistants. Every gentleman's house in the neighborhood had supplied its quota – given willingly, too, for there was no saying how soon the time might come to solicit an equivalent, either from the social kindness of the great lady of Balmaghie, or from the important political influence of the bridegroom, Murdo, Lord of Barra and the Small Isles.

Down the moorland road, by the side of which the humblebees were droning in the heather bushes, and the blithe blackcock spreading his wings and crowing as if the spring had come again, yet another guest was riding to the wedding – and one, too, arrayed in the wedding garment.

Wat Gordon of Lochinvar flashed like a dragon-fly in gay apparel above the lily-clad pools of Loch Ken. But he had no invitation – no "Haste-to-the-Wedding" – unless, perhaps, the little heart of gold which he carried in his breast could be accounted such a summons. He rode slowly, often walking his horse long distances, like one who is not anxious to arrive over early at an important meeting-place. After he had passed the Bridge of New Galloway, and had ridden, to the astonishment and delight of those early astir in the ancient borough town, down the long, straggling, pig-haunted street, he dismounted and allowed his horse to walk by the loch-side, and even at intervals to crop the sweet grasses of the road-side.

Yet it was from no consuming admiration of the supreme beauties of that fair pathway that Wat Gordon lagged so long upon it that September morn. To no purpose the loch rippled its deepest blue for him. In vain the heather ran back in league on league of red and purple bloom to the uttermost horizon, that Bennan frowned grimly above, and that the Black Craig of Dee fulfilled the promise of its name in gloomy majesty against the western sky. For Wat Gordon kept his pale face turned anxiously on his charger.

"Ah, Drumclog," he said, thinking aloud, "thou art a Whig's horse, but if ever thou didst carry a cavalier on a desperate quest, it is surely this fair morning. Speed to thy legs, nimbleness to thy feet, for thou carriest more than the life of one this day."

CHAPTER LI

THE BRIDE'S LOVING-CUP

But just at the weary traverse across the moor of the Bennan, after the shining levels of Loch Ken were left behind, and before the sylvan quietnesses of the Lane of Grenoch had been encountered, Wat Gordon came suddenly on a troop of cavalry that rode northward, tinkling spur and jingling bit. So long had the country folk of Galloway been in the habit of fleeing at the sound, that, as the troop advanced, riding easily, heads were hastily popped out of the whitewashed cottages of Mossdale, where it sits blithely on the brae. There came a rush of white-headed bairns; then a good-wife who took the heather rather more reluctantly, like a motherly hen disturbed from off her comfortable nest; and then, last of all, followed the good-man, keeping well behind the yard dike, and driving the family pig before him. For this picture, in sixteen hundred and eighty-nine, affords the exact estimate of the character and conduct of his Majesty's dragoons, which the experience of thirty years had taught the moorland folk of Galloway.

Yet, in the present pacified state of the country, these were doubtless troopers in the service of King William, and the old bad, days gone forever – that is, from the point of view of the good-man of Mossdale. Nevertheless, with such a pig, that worthy man considered that it was well to run no risks.

But it was otherwise with Wat Gordon of Lochinvar. He had fought at Killiekrankie, and had twice been outlawed by the government of King William.

"Halt!" cried the officer in command to him; "whither away, riding so gayly, young sir?"

"To the wedding at Balmaghie," Wat replied, tossing his lace kerchief, as if he had been a gallant shedding perfume over the Mall under the eyes of the maids-in-waiting.

"Your name and possessions?" continued the officer, noways inclined to be impressed by butterfly graces.

"I am Gordon of Gordonstoun – a kinsman of Alexander Gordon of Earlstoun, to whose house I presume you are going," replied Wat, subtly. "This is, indeed, my cousin's war-horse on which I ride, if so be any of you are acquainted with him."

"Aye, by my faith, that do I all too well," said one of the troopers; "the uncanny devil came nigh to taking my arm off the other morning between his teeth, when I would have shifted him out of his stall to make room for the horse of your honor."

"Well done, Drumclog!" said Wat, leaning over and patting his neck, as easily as if he had been a councillor of the king himself, instead of a rebel twice attainted and mansworn.

"A good Cameronian horse," smiled the officer. "I thank you, laird of Gordonstoun, for your courteous answers. I would not keep you a moment from the bridal to which you go. Gay footing to you! I would it were mine to lead the dance this night with the maids of Balmaghie, and to drink the bride's stirrup-cup this morning."

"Aye," said Wat, "it is indeed good to drink the loving-cup from the bride's fair hands. 'Tis to taste it that I go. I have risen from a sick bed to do it."

"So my eyes tell me, brave lad," said the officer. "I trust your illness has not been grievous?"

"Nothing but what the bright eyes of a maid have power to cure!" cried Wat, looking back and waving his hand.

"Faith, right gallantly said," replied the officer; "with a tongue so attuned to compliment I will not detain thee a moment. 'Twere a pity such speeches should be wasted on a troop of his Majesty's dragoons."

So with a courteous wave of his hand the young captain swept northward, followed by his clanking troopers. And as he went little did he know his own escape from death, or guess that Wat Gordon, fingering at his sword and pistols so daintily and featly as he sat his horse, had in his mind the exact spot where the bullet would strike if it had chanced that any in the troop knew him for a rebel. For that light grip and easy swing of the sword indicated nothing less than a desperate resolve to cut his way singly through a whole command, rather than be stopped on his way to the bridal of Kate McGhie and my Lord of Barra.

A group of retainers stood irregularly about the outer gate of Balmaghie when Wat rode up. They greeted him with honor, one after another sweeping the ground with their plumed hats as they swerved aside to let him pass. But the ancient gardener stood open-mouthed, as if trying to recall a memory or fix a puzzling resemblance.