CHAPTER L
LOCHINVAR KEEPS TRYST
The morning of the tenth came--still, uncolored below, rising tograyish-blue above, rose-rimmed only along the eastern horizon. Thereapers were out in the high fields about Gordonstoun by daybreak,with their crooked reaping-hooks in their hands, busily grasping thehandfuls of grain and cutting them through with a pleasant "risp" ofsound. Cocks crowed early that morning, for they knew it was going tobe a day of fervent heat. It would be as well, therefore, to have thepursuit of slippery worm and rampant caterpillar over betimes in thedawning. Then each chanticleer could stand in the shade and scratchhimself applausively with alternate foot all the hot noontide, whilehis wives clucked and nestled in the dusty holes along the banks,interchanging intimate reflections upon the moral character of thegiddier and more skittish young pullets of the farmyard.
But long after the sun had risen Wat Gordon lay asleep. Jean Gordonhad a suit of clothes lying ready brushed for him on a chair--frilledlinen, lace so cobwebby and fine, that it seemed to be spun from thefoam of the loch after a storm. His father's sword swung by a belt offaded 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, andthe fresh air of the moorland stole in. Wat Gordon lay on his pillowknitting his brows and working his hands as if in grips with somedeadly problem that lacked a solution.
"Puir lad, puir lad, whatna kittle thing love is!" murmured the oldlady; "it works us, it drives us, and it harls us. It grieves us andgars 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 onthe memory o' ae bonny month o' maist heavenly bliss."
At last she bent over him, hearing a loud and piercing whistle from theshore of the loch.
"My lamb, my lamb!" she whispered, fondly, "rise ye, for your love'ssake. Here are your claes. Gang forth like a bridegroom rejoicing inyour strength. Ye shallna gang menseless this day, though ye hae toride on another man's horse. The time will come when ye shall hae monybraw plenished stables o' your ain."
Obediently Wat rose, and put the fine clothes on him with a kind ofwonder. He was still pale and wan, and his body was wasted by sufferingand recent privation. Nevertheless, he felt his head clear, and therewas an elastic ease in all his sinews.
"To-day," he said to himself, gladly--"to-day I cast the die for loveor 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 customto 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 tothe landing-place, where a black charger and two humbler shelties weretethered close together among the dwarf moorland birches.
"'Tis a grand day for pleasuring," said Jean, "and Peter and me havemade it up to ride together to the Three Thorns o' Carlinwark by theend o' the loch. There ye will find us gin ye need us. Ye will hae toride that gate onyway, gin ye win clear o' the house o' Balmaghie withlife 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 inthe stewartry--aye, and as far as to Gretna on the border-side.
Now when Wat Gordon turned to ride away, sitting erect on his blackhorse, there came a light of almost maiden's love into Jean Gordon'seye.
"Never was there bride couched beside bridegroom like him!" sheexclaimed, 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 alover 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 mightshe say it. For no such cavalier as Walter Gordon, Lord of Lochinvarand Gordonstoun, that day took the eyes of ladies in all broadScotland. Doubly outlawed as he was--rebel, landless, friendless,penniless--there was yet something about the lad which carried heartsbefore him as the wind carries dandelion spray. And many a high dameand many a much-courted maiden had left her all that day to havefollowed 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 thesame was bound over it, having a broad, rough hem of gold. His father'ssword swung by his side. The sash and star of King James's order shoneon his breast as the wind blew back his cloak. Knee-breeches of cordedleather and cavalier's riding-boots completed his attire, while abroad 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 dimeyes that she might watch him the longer; "there gangs the bonnyladdie. There rides Wat Gordon, the only true lover--the lad that isready to lay doon his life for his dear, lightly as a man sets on theboard an empty cup after that he has drunken. Wae's me that sax incheso' steel in the back, or a pistol bullet at ten paces, should havepower to lay a' that beauty low in the dust!"
* * * * *
The holms and woodland spaces of Balmaghie were indeed a sight to seethat glorious morn of the tenth of September, in the year of Christ,His Grace, 1689. There was scarce accommodation in the wide stables ofthe mansion for the horses of the guests. The very byres were crowdedwith them. The kye were milked on the edge of the wood to give thehorses stalling-room in their places. As for Mistress Crombie, she wasnearly driven out of her wits by the foreign cooks whom the new lady ofthe house had brought with her--some of them from Edinburgh and someof them all the way from London itself--to do justice to the greatoccasion.
Alisoun Begbie had a host of assistants. Every gentleman's house in theneighborhood had supplied its quota--given willingly, too, for therewas no saying how soon the time might come to solicit an equivalent,either from the social kindness of the great lady of Balmaghie, or fromthe important political influence of the bridegroom, Murdo, Lord ofBarra and the Small Isles.
Down the moorland road, by the side of which the humblebees weredroning in the heather bushes, and the blithe blackcock spreading hiswings and crowing as if the spring had come again, yet another guestwas riding to the wedding--and one, too, arrayed in the weddinggarment.
Wat Gordon of Lochinvar flashed like a dragon-fly in gay apparelabove the lily-clad pools of Loch Ken. But he had no invitation--no"Haste-to-the-Wedding"--unless, perhaps, the little heart of goldwhich he carried in his breast could be accounted such a summons. Herode slowly, often walking his horse long distances, like one who isnot anxious to arrive over early at an important meeting-place. Afterhe had passed the Bridge of New Galloway, and had ridden, to theastonishment and delight of those early astir in the ancient boroughtown, down the long, straggling, pig-haunted street, he dismounted andallowed his horse to walk by the loch-side, and even at intervals tocrop the sweet grasses of the road-side.
Yet it was from no consuming admiration of the supreme beauties of thatfair pathway that Wat Gordon lagged so long upon it that Septembermorn. To no purpose the loch rippled its deepest blue for him. In vainthe heather ran back in league on league of red and purple bloom tothe uttermost horizon, that Bennan frowned grimly above, and that theBlack Craig of Dee fulfilled the promise of its name in gloomy majestyagainst the western sky. For Wat Gordon kept his pale face turnedanxiously on his charger.
"Ah, Drumclog," he said, thinking aloud, "thou art a Whig's horse, butif ever thou didst carry a cavalier on a desperate quest, it is surelythis fair morning. Speed to thy legs, nimbleness to thy feet, for thoucarriest more than the life of one this day."
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