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Lochinvar: A Novel
And she sped another glance at the castle-keeper from under the dark, seductive lashes of her almond eyes.
Black Peter stroked his mustache. It was certainly a risk, but, after all, there was no likelihood that the new provost-marshal would make that night the first of his visitations. Indeed, it was by no means so certain that there had been as yet any provost appointed, after the sad accident which had happened to my Lord of Barra – "whom," said Black Peter, "may Abraham take to his bosom. For he had no mercy on poor men, who could not get their sleep for his surprises and inspections. A meddlesome Scots crow, all in his rusty black, ever croaking of duty and penalties, as if he were the hangman of Amersfort calling a poor hussy's crimes at the cart-tail."
"Come thou in by, my girl," said Black Peter, "and in a trice, if so be you can tell me the name of the shop, I will get thee a new pitcher full of wine, better far than the first. Deign to wait with me but a moment here in the castle-hall, where there is a fine fire of sea-coal and none save ourselves to sit by it."
"I know not if my aunt would approve," said the maid, uncertainly. "But, after all, you are most wondrously like my brother, who is a baker of bread at La Haye Sainte. Ah," she continued, clasping her hands, innocently, "at this time o' night he will be unharnessing Herminius (that is our market-dog) and bringing in the white flour and the brown flour and the little parcel of salt."
So poignant was the recollection that the maid was compelled to put her hands to her eyes and begin to sob.
"Weep not," said Black Peter, coming down and putting one hand on her shoulder, and with the other drawing gently her fingers from her face, "I will be as your brother. Deign but to step within my castle, and I will send a servant for the jar of wine. You shall only bide with me a matter of ten short minutes, sufficient to tell me of the good brother and of Herminius, your market-dog."
The pretty country girl let her eyes slowly rise to his face, and again the bewitching innocence of the appeal sent Peter's hand complacently to his beard. He stroked it as he regarded her.
"This is what it is to have a way with women. It hath been like this all my life," he confided to himself, with a sigh.
"Then I will come with you," she said, suddenly, "and that gladly, for you are wonderfully like my brother John. His beard also is handsome and of the fine tissue. It is the very moral of yours."
Peter led the way up the steps.
Then he inquired from his new acquaintance the name of the wine-shop and the brand of the wine.
He put his hand to his side and rattled a little alarm shaped like a triangle. In a trice a young beardless youth appeared, all whose body incessantly wriggled and squirmed, like a puppy's which fears the rod or desires the milk-pail.
"Here, restless one!" cried Black Peter Hals, "go swiftly to the Inn of the Gouda Cheese, and bring from thence a jar of the wine of Hochheim. And, hark ye, also a couple of bottles of Hollands of the best brands. Here is money for thee to pay for all."
He went to the door with the wriggler.
"Now, do you understand?" he said, in a loud tone. And then, under his breath, he added, "Come not too soon back. An you so much as show your ugly face here for an hour and a half, with the buckle of a belly-band I will thrash the soul out of your miserable, whimpering body."
"I would as lief stop by the fire and watch," said the object, casting a sheep's-glance at the country-maid, who stood warming her toes, one pretty foot held up to the blaze; "if, perchance, it might be Mynheer Peter's desire to refresh himself at the sign of the Gouda Cheese for an hour, as is his custom of a night."
"Out with thee, wastrel!" cried Peter, angrily, kicking him down the steps; "and mind, come not back for an hour on the peril of your life, and the flaying off of thy skin in handbreadths."
So saying, Peter went back into the wide stone hall. He found his dainty new friend sweeping up the fireplace and setting the sticks for kindling in order at the back.
"We always do it so in our village," she said, simply, "but the men in cities and in great castles like this have, of course, no time for such trifles."
"What is your name, pretty maiden?" asked Peter, standing up beside her as she knelt and swept vigorously, raising a rare dust – and, to any eyes but those of a man, doing the work most awkwardly.
"I am called 'the Little Marie,'" said the girl, demurely, "but, of course, among those who are not my friends I am called by another name."
"Then I will call you 'the Little Marie'!" said Black Peter, in high delight, "and never so much as ask that other name, which is but for strangers."
He went to a cupboard in the wall which was labelled in large letters "Holy Bibles and Catechisms for the Use of the Prisoners." The jailer opened this most respectable and necessary receptacle, and took from it a square black bottle, short-necked and square-shouldered, a few hard biscuits such as seamen use, and two large, wide-mouthed glasses of twisted Venetian glass.
He came back with all these in his arms, and set them down together on the table. "Now," he said, coaxingly, "sit you down, Little Marie, and I will bring some water from the pitcher behind the door there. A glass of fine Hollands will keep out the chills of this night, for the wind is both shrewd and snell."
"Let me bring the water!" cried the Little Marie, gayly, clapping her hands ingenuously. "This is just like keeping house to John, my brother. Did I tell you his beard was like yours? See, I will stroke it. Even so does it fall so gracefully on brother John's breast!"
And as she tripped away with the tall jug in her hand to the pail behind the door, the jailer devoutly hoped that it would be much more than an hour and a half before his deputy should return.
The Little Marie was a long time in finding the proper water-pail, and it was not till Peter was half across the floor on his way to assist her that she appeared, carrying the beaker of water in one hand and a small earthenware cup in the other.
"A big, big jug for the mickle great cat,And a little wee jug for the kitten."So she chanted, to the tune of a Flanders nursery rhyme. Then she laughed merrily. And the amorous Black Peter, subdued to the soles of his boots, vowed that he had never heard anything half so prettily witty in all his life.
Then the Little Marie poured out a full tumbler of the Hollands and water from the jug which she had brought for him, and also adjusted a tiny portion for herself.
"Milk for the kitten," she said; "taste it," and she offered to feed him with a spoonful – "nice, nice – is it not, brother John?"
And brother John smiled and tasted.
"Now drink, great black cat!" she commanded, stamping her foot. And, nothing loath, Peter drank her health – once, twice, and thrice. He would have come about the table to mix another, and, mayhap, to take the Little Marie by the waist. But even as he rose he began to see a flock of Little Maries, and he put his hand hard on the oaken settle.
"I think I will sit down," he said; "drink thou to my health, Little Marie!" And with his eyes drooping with leaden sleep, Peter watched a regiment of country girls drinking his health out of tall green glasses with twisted stems. The last words his ears caught, ere the drowsy, lisping ocean of infinite sleep swelled up and drowned everything, were, "Kittens' milk, brother John – only nice sweet milk for pretty innocent kittens."
And then Black Peter's chin sank on his breast.
* * * * *So soon as the jailer's head fell and his eyes finally closed, an instantaneous change passed over the face of the Little Marie. The wayward mirth and provocation died out of it. A haggard, anxious expression came into her eyes. She ran forward and grasped the bundle of keys that swung at Peter's girdle. She tried with all her might to pull them away, but they were locked to a strong steel band which passed about his waist.
The girl stood a moment in despair. Then she thrust a quick hand into all his pockets and pulled out many trifles such as men carry – love-tokens, buttons, coins, and the like, mixed with ends of string and stray scraps of tobacco.
These she flung down instantly. She was at her wits' end. But suddenly she saw peeping out from under the beard which had reminded her of brother John's, a tiny bit of yellow chain. She ran her hand along it, and out of Black Peter's bosom there leaped a key.
Without the loss of a moment Marie fitted it into the padlock which secured the great bunch to his waistband of steel. In another instant they were in her possession. Then, opening the door on the left, which had been left unlocked, when she brought the water-pitcher, she sped down the passage in the direction of the round tower, in which she knew Wat to be confined.
But when she thought that she must be approaching the place, she found a number of cell-doors. Marie felt that it would not do to make any mistake. Once more her quick wits aided her, as they had already done that night to some purpose.
"Visiting rounds!" she cried, in a hoarse voice, as she had heard the guard do at the posts; "the name of the prisoner detained within?"
But she had tried quite a dozen before she heard the welcome sound of Wat Gordon's voice, speaking from the pallet on which he had been lying thinking of Kate, weary and sleepless.
Swiftly she tried key after key. The fourth grated in the lock and stuck. But the Little Marie thrust the stem of a larger key through the handle, and, setting her knee to the panel and putting all her strength into her hands, she turned the wards of the lock. The door swung to the wall of its own accord, and there lay Wat on his bed.
He leaped to his feet with a startled exclamation when he saw her.
"Marie!" he cried, "what do you here?"
"Hush!" she said, "I am here to save you. Come!"
And carefully locking the door of the cell behind them, they stole along the passage. Black Peter still slept in the outer hall, nodding and swaying stertorously on the settle, and there was no other sound save the breathing of the resting prisoners. Without, the street was still, Peter's lieutenant being busy carrying out his instructions at the excellent Hostel of the Cheese of Gouda.
Marie opened the huge bolted door, closed and locked it, threw the key into the canal, and the pair glided silently and unmolested down the street.
"Have you anywhere to go where you will be safe?" asked Marie.
"Nowhere," said Wat. "I should indeed like to find my comrade, John Scarlett, but if he be not in his lodgings, I dare not go to the camp to seek him."
"Come with me," said Little Marie. "I will hide you safe and bring your friend to you. For I also am your friend, though you think it not – and, indeed, care not even if you did believe it."
"But indeed, and in God's truth, I do count you my friend," said Wat; "for who but you, Little Marie, during all these black days, has so much as thought upon poor Wat Gordon?"
At his kind words Marie bent her head, and for the first time in her life her heart was filled with the fresh spring-water of purest pleasure. And what wonder if a little of it overflowed into her eyes?
CHAPTER XVII
JACK SCARLETT CALLS HIMSELF A FOOL
Wat and his companion passed along the deserted streets of Amersfort, keeping carefully to those which were darkest and least frequented. For a space neither spoke. But as they were crossing a wide, deserted square, the Little Marie broke the silence with a startling speech.
"I think by this time he will be dead," she said, simply, as though she had said that it rained.
"Think who will be dead?" queried Wat, stopping instantly and facing her.
"Why, your enemy!" replied the Little Marie, calmly; "but let us go on lest the watch should come by and stop us."
"My enemy!" exclaimed Walter, putting his hand to his brow like one bewildered.
"Aye," said Marie, "the man you showed me and told me was your enemy – the dark man called Barra, the provost-marshal. I, the Little Marie, struck him in the side with a knife as he was mounting his horse to ride away – methinks I know whither. At any rate, it was on an evil quest. He rides on no others. Did I not tell you that he was my enemy before he was yours?"
"Struck my Lord Barra – with a knife, Marie?" stammered Wat. His slow Northern blood had not dreamed of such swift vengeance.
"Aye," said the girl, anxiously; "did I not do right? He was mine enemy, true. He it was who first brought me hither, left me friendless in this city of Satan, made me that which men think me. But had that been all his fault he might have lived. After all, that sin was mine as well as his. I struck him because he was your enemy, and because you hated him. Did I not well?"
"Marie," said Wat, very soberly, "you and I are as good as dead for this. Did any see you strike?"
"Aye, marry, there were," she replied, carelessly; "but I was well wrapped about in a red cloak and wore the cap and ear-plates of a peasant woman of Frisia. There were several that stood curiously about as I went near to hand him my petition at his own door. But what with the night, the reeling of the torches, and the instant confusion, none put out a hand to stay me as I went away. And I think he will surely be dead by this!"
She spoke the words dispassionately, like one who has done an unpleasing duty and has no further concern nor stake in the matter.
Instinctively their feet had turned into the street of Zaandpoort. Wat's heart suddenly leaped within him. He had come to see the house where he had been happy for a few hours. He would look just once upon the window whence his love had often looked forth, and at that other within which her dear head would even now be lying, shedding soft dishevelled curls distractingly over the pillow – ah! the heart-sickness! To think that never should he see it thus, never now lay his own close beside it, as in wild visions of the night he had often dreamed of doing.
But there shone a light from the living-room of Will Gordon's lodging. Shadows moved restlessly across the blind. The house in Zaandpoort Street was still awake and stirring.
Wat took a sudden resolution. He would risk all, and for the last time look upon the woman he adored, even though he knew she loved him not.
"Hide here a moment, Marie," Wat said to his companion; "over there in the dark of the archway. This is the house of my cousin, a soldier from my own country of Scotland. I would bid him farewell before I go."
The young girl looked wistfully at him, and laid her hand quickly on her heart.
"Ah, it is the house of your love – I know it," she said, sadly and reproachfully; "and you have said so often that none loved you – that none cared for you."
Wat smiled the pale ghost of a smile, unseen in the darkness of the night.
"It is true that once on a time I loved one dwelling in this house. But she loved me not – "
"It is impossible," moaned Marie. "I know that she must have loved you – "
"No, she loved me not," answered Wat; "but, as I think, she loved the man whom you – "
Wat stepped back into shadow, and Marie clutched his cloak with a nervous hand. It was Will Gordon who came down the stairs. Haggered, unshaven, looking straight before him with set eyes, he was not the same man who had come so cosily back from the guard-room of the palace the night before with his wife upon his arm.
Wat advanced a pace out of the dark of the arch. He held out his hand.
"Will," he said, "with you I quarrelled not. And I think that if your wife, who used to be so stanchly my friend, knew my broken heart, she, too, would forgive my hasty words, and be ready to understand evil appearances that were no more than appearances."
But Will Gordon did not take the outstretched hand which Wat held a moment in the air and then dropped sadly to his side.
"Tell me first," he said, "where you have hidden our Kate, and what you have to do with the killing of my Lord of Barra? After that I will either take your hand or set my sword in your heart."
"Will Gordon!" cried Wat, starting back, "was it for this that we two kept Wellwood's men at bay under the arch at Holyrood? For this that we lay shoulder to shoulder on the chill moors, that in these latter days you should charge me with crimes of which I know nothing? Hidden Kate? Why, is not Kate here, behind the glass of that window? Does she not sleep soundly, recking nothing of evil or the sorrow of others, upon her bed? Is not her maiden heart as ever free and careless – "
"Wat, I believe you, lad," said Will; "it was a hasty and ill-conceived thought of mine. I know you love us all overmuch to bring harm to our lassie. But, certainly, Kate is lost – has been carried off – and now they are seeking her everywhere, charging her, forsooth, with the slaying of my Lord Barra."
At the last words Wat laughed a little scornful laugh.
He had not yet taken in the terrible import of the news concerning Kate's loss. But it seemed a foolishly monstrous thing that even in jest she should be charged with the death of Barra, while not ten yards behind him, in the dark of the arched doorway, stood the Little Marie, with her dagger scarcely dry in her garter.
Then, after a moment, Will's first words suddenly came back to him, as if they had been echoed from the tall buildings which stood about them.
"You do not mean it – Kate gone?" he said, dully, and without comprehension; "it is impossible. Who so wicked in all this land as to have done the thing?"
Then Will told him all the tale of the false message and of their home-coming.
"It is Barra's trick – what other?" Wat said, at once; "I saw that he loved her – if such a poisonous reptile can love. But I thought not that even he could devise her wrong, else had I slain him on the spot."
Wat meditated a little while in silence. "Did Kate tell you if he had spoken aught to her of love?"
"He offered her the most honorable marriage, and yet greater things when the prince should come to his own. But she would have none of him," replied Will Gordon.
"It is enough," cried Wat. "Certainly this is an affair of my lord's. Dead or alive, I will trace out his plots till I find his trail. It may be, after all, but a matter of Haxo the Bull, his Calf, and his Killer. Give me no more than a sword and pistols, and my belt with the gold that is in your strong-box."
"Will you not come up with me, Wat?" said Will Gordon. "Come, cousin."
"Nay," said Wat, "there is not time. It is but now that I have escaped from their prison. In an hour there will be the hue-and-cry, and then they will surely search your house. I must be far on the sea-road by daybreak. Only furnish me with necessities, cousin mine, and let me go. My humblest service to your wife – but tell her not till after I am gone!"
Will Gordon went back up the stairs. Presently he was down again with the weapons, with enough and to spare of ammunition, a loaf of wheaten bread, a flask of wine, and the broad leathern belt with the gold-pieces, which slipped down like a weighty serpent as he laid it in Wat's hands. The money had been kept sacred for just such an emergency.
The cousins bade each other a kindly adieu in the fashion of other and happier times, and then Will Gordon returned sadly to his wife.
Wat stepped back to the shelter where he had left Marie, but she was not to be seen. He looked every way and called softly; but the girl had vanished.
"It is perhaps as well!" he said, the Scot's prudence within him warring with his gratitude towards the girl who had twice risked her life for him without thought of reward.
He took his way alone across the broad squares and over the canals to Jack Scarlett's lodgings. There was a light in the window as he approached. He knocked gently, and a gruff voice ordered him to come in, or else (as an equally satisfactory alternative) to proceed incontinently to quite other regions.
Wat entered, and there, seated upon the side of his bed, he found Scarlett with one boot off and the other still upon his foot. His eyes were set in his head, and a kindly, idiotic smile was frozen on his face.
At the sight of Wat, pale as death, with his clothes frayed and disarranged with his long sojourn in prison, Scarlett started up. With a vigorous wave of his hand he motioned his visitor away.
"Avaunt! as the clerks say. Get away, briskly, or I will say the Lord's Prayer at thee (that's if I can remember it). Come not near a living man. Wat Gordon in the flesh with a long sword was bad enough; but Wat Gordon dead, with an unshaven chin and clothed out of a rag-shop, is a thousand times worse. Alas, that it should come so soon to this! I am shamed to be such a shaveling in my cups! Yet of a truth I drank only seven bottles and a part of an eighth. This comes of being a poor orphan, and being compelled to drink the most evil liquor of this unfriendly country!"
"Scarlett," said Wat, seriously, "listen to me. I am going on a long quest. Will you come with me? I need a companion now as a man never needed comrade before! Mine enemy has stolen my love, and I go to find her!"
"Away – get away!" cried Scarlett. "I want not to die yet awhile. I desire time to repent – that is, when I grow old enough to repent. There is Sergeant Hilliard over there at the end of the passage," he went on, eagerly, as if a famous idea had struck him, "his hair is gray, if you like, and he has a most confounded gout. He will gladly accompany you. Be advised, kind ghost. Have the goodness to cross the stairway to Hilliard. Remember, I was ever thy friend in life, Wat Gordon!"
"Beshrew your tipsy, idiot soul," thundered Wat, rising in a towering passion; "have you drunk so much that you know not a living man from one dead and damned? I will teach thee the difference, and that sharply."
And with that he went over to the bedside, and banged Scarlett's head soundly against the rafters of the garret, exclaiming at every thump and crash, "I pray you, Jack Scarlett, say when you are convinced that Wat Gordon is flesh and blood, and not an airy ghost."
It did not take much of this most potent logic to persuade the ghost-seer that he had to do with Wat Gordon in his own proper and extremely able-bodied person.
"Enough!" he cried; "hold your hands, Wat. Could you not have said as much at first, and not stood gaping there like a week-old corpse done up in a winding-sheet?"
"Thou donnert ass!" cried Wat. "Will you come with me on my quest, or will you bide on here in Amersfort among putty-souled huxters teaching shambling recruits how to stand upon their legs?"
"Of a truth, Buchan's knaves are indeed most hopeless. Yet whither can I go? I know not of a better service," said Scarlett, shaking his head doubtfully.
"But the adventure, man," cried Wat; "think of the adventure over seas, through continents, upon far islands, all in quest of a true lass that hath been trapped by devils, and may be treated most uncivilly. It makes me mad!"
"All these are most extremely well for you, Wat Gordon of Lochinvar. You are a younger man, and these bones of mine like well to lie on a soft bed at my age. Also, and chiefly, the lass is your lass, and not mine. Were you to find her to-morrow, what should I get out of all the errant jackassery in the world?"
"John Scarlett," cried Wat, nodding his head, solemnly, "thy heart is grown no better than a chunk of fat lard. There is no spirit in thee any more. Go, turn over on thy side and snore, till it be time to go forth once more to drill thy rotten sheep's regiment. God kens, 'tis all you are good for now, to be bell-wether to such a shuffling, clod-hopping crew. 'Keep your head up! Fall not over your musket! Prod up that man in the rear! I pray you do not hold your gun as if it were a dandling baby! March!' Pshaw! John Scarlett, is that the life for a man or for a puddle-rolling pig of the stye?"
Scarlett appeared to consider. He looked at the nails in the sole of his boot with an air of grave deliberation, as if they could help him to a decision.
"'Tis true, in truth most truly true," he said, "it is a dog's life. But, after all, there is ever the chance of war."
"War? And will not I give thee wars to fill thy belly, and leave something over for stuffing to thy calves?" cried Wat. "Why, man, thy sword will never be in its sheath – fighting, seeking, spying, we will overpass land and sea, hiding by heather and hill, creeping down by the bonny burnside to win our speckled breakfasts out of the pools – "