CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE BLACK HORSE COMES TO BALMAGHIE.
As Wat and I went towards the great house in the early gloaming, webecame aware of a single horseman riding toward us and gaining on usfrom behind. At the first sound of the trampling of his horse, Wat divedat once over the turf dyke and vanished.
"Bide you!" he said. "He'll no ken you!"
A slender-like figure in a grey cavalry cloak and a plain hat without afeather, came, slowly riding alongside of me, in an attitude of thedeepest thought.
I knew at a glance that it was John Graham of Claverhouse, whom all theland of the South knew as "the Persecutor."
"Are you one of Balmaghie's servants?" he asked.
I took off my bonnet, showing as I did so my shaven poll, and answeredhim that I was.
No other word he uttered, though he eyed me pretty closely anduncomfortably, as if he had a shrewd thought that he had seen me beforeelsewhere. But the shaven head and the absence of hair on my face were acomplete disguise.
For, indeed, though Maisie Lennox made little of it, the fact was that Ihad at the time quite a strong crop of hair upon both my chin and upperlip.
Claverhouse waved me behind him with the graceful and haughty gesture,which they say he constantly used even to the Secretary in Council, whenhe was hot with him in the matter of the house and lands of Dudhope.
Meekly enough I trudged behind the great commander of horse, and lookedwith much curiosity and some awe both upon him and on his famous steed"Boscobel," which was supposed by the more ignorant of the peasantry tobe the foul fiend in his proper person.
So in this manner we came to the house. The lights were just beginningto shine, for Alisoun Begbie, the maid of the table, was just arrangingthe candles. At the doorway the master of the house met his guest,having been drawn from his library by the feet of the charger clatteringupon the pavement of the yard.
"Ah, John," he said, "this is right gracious of you, in the midst ofyour fighting and riding, to journey over to cheer an old hulk like me!"
And he reached him a hand to the saddle, which Claverhouse took withouta word. But I saw a look of liking, which was almost tender, in thewar-captain's eyes as I passed round by the further door into thekitchen.
Here I was roughly handled by the cook--who, of course, had not beeninformed of my personality, and who exercised upon me both the length ofher tongue and the very considerable agility thereof.
But Alisoun Begbie, who was, as I say, principal waiting-maid, rescuedme and in pity took me under her protection; though with no suspicion ofmy quality, but only from a maidish and natural liking for a young andunmarried man. She offered very kindly to show me all my duties, and,indeed, I had been in a sorry pass that night without her help.
So when it came to the hour of supper, it was with some show of gracethat I was enabled to wait at table, and take my part in the managementof the dishes thereupon. Alisoun kept me mostly in the back of herserving pantry, and gave me only the dishes which were easy to beserved, looking kindly on me with her eyes all the while and shylytouching my hand when occasion served, which I thought it not politic torefuse. For all this I was mightily thankful, because I had very smalldesire to draw upon me the cold blue eyes of John Graham--to whom, inspite of my crop head and serving-man's attire, there might arrive amemory of the side of green Garryhorn and the interrupted fight whichWat of Lochinvar, my cousin, had fought for my sake with Cornet PeterInglis.
The two gentlemen sat and supped their kail, in which a pullet had beenboiled, with quite remarkable relish. But it was not till the wine hadbeen uncorked and set at their elbows, that they began to have muchconverse.
Then they sat and gossiped together very pleasantly, like men that areeasing their hearts and loosening their belts over trencher and stoup,after a hard day's darg.
It was John Graham who spoke first.
"Have you heard," he said, "the excellent new jest concerning AnneKeith, what she did with these vaguing blasties up at Methven, when thelaird was absent in London?"
"Nay," replied Roger McGhie, "that have I not. I am not in the way atBalmaghie to hear other misdeeds than those of John Graham and his horseBoscobel, that is now filling his kyte in my stable, as his master iseke doing in hall."
"Well," said Claverhouse, "we shall have to give Anne the justiciarpower and send her lord to the spence and the store chamber. She shouldhave the jack and the riding breeks, and he the keys of the small alecasks. So it were better for his Majesty's service."
"But I thought him a good loyal man," said Roger McGhie.
"One that goes as easy as an old shoe--like yourself, Roger. Not so mylady. Heard ye what our Anne did? The conventiclers came to set up apreaching in a tent on the laird's ground, and they told it to Anne.Whereupon she rose, donned her lord's buff coat and slung his baskethilt at her pretty side. And so to the woodside rode she. There werewith her none but Methven's young brother, a lad like a fathom of pumpwater. Yet with Anne Keith to captain him, he e'en drew sword and bentpistol like a brave one. I had not thought that there was so much goodstuff in David."
Roger McGhie sipped at his wine and nodded, drawing up one eyebrow anddown the other, as his habit was when he was amused--which indeed wasnot seldom, for he was merry within him much more often than he toldany.
"Then who but Anne was the pretty fighter," Clavers went on lightly,"with a horseman's piece on her left arm, and a drawn tuck in her righthand? Also was she not the fine general? For she kept the enemy's forcessindry, marching her servants to and fro, all armed to the teeth--to andfro all day between them, and threatening the tent in which was thepreacher to the rabble. She cried to them that if they did not leave theparish of Methven speedily, it would be a bloody day for them. And thatif they did not come to the kirk decently and hear the curate, she wouldware her life upon teaching them how to worship God properly, for thatthey were an ignorant, wicked pack! A pirlicue[9] which pleased them butlittle, so that some rode off that they might not be known, and somedourly remained, but were impotent for evil.
[Footnote 9: In this case, the application of the discourse.]
"I never knew that Anne Keith was such a spirity lass. I would all suchlasses were as sound in the faith as she."
This was the word of Roger McGhie, uttered like a meditation. I feltsure he thought of his daughter Kate.
"Then," continued John Graham, "after that, Anne took her warlike folkto the kirk. And lo! the poor curate was so wandered and feared, that hecould make no suitable discourse that day, but only stood and bleatedlike a calf, till the Lady Anne said to him, 'Sir, if you can neitherfight nor preach, ye had better go back to the Hielands and herd kye,for by the Lord, I, Anne Keith, can fight and preach too!'"
"As they do say the Laird of Methven right well knoweth," said RogerMcGhie, in the very dry and covert way in which he said many things.
"Ah!" said Clavers, and smiled a little as if he also had his ownthoughts. But he went on.
"So on the very next day Anne held a court in the hall, and all the oldcanting wives of the parish were there. She set the Test to all theirthroats, and caused them to forswear conventicling at the peril of theirlives--all but one old beldame that would in no wise give way, or beanswerable for her children, who were well kenned and notour rebels.
"Then Anne took from the hag her apron, that was a fine braw one withpockets, and said to her, 'This I shall retain till you have paid yourson's fines. If ye cannot keep your other brats out of the dirt, atleast I shall keep this one clean for you.'"
"Ha, very well said, Anne!" cried Roger McGhie, clapping the table. For"brat" is but the Scots word for apron, and such a brisk conceity sayingwas like that very spirited lady, Anne Keith.
"But with yourself, how goes it?" asked the Laird of Balmaghie.
Claverhouse turned a silver spoon over and over, and looked at thepolish upon it thoughtfully.
"Ill, ill, I fear. I ride night and day through all the country ofGalloway, and it is like so m
uch pudding in mud. That which you clearout before you, closes up behind. And at headquarters there is the DukeHamilton, who desires no better than to load me to the chancellor. Ihave many enemies."
"But surely also many friends," said Balmaghie.
"Not many so true as thou art, Roger," said Claverhouse, stretching outa white hand across the table, which his friend took for a moment.
"And I am plagued on the one side by the Council to make the folk keepto the kirk, and on the other sore vexed with weary-winded preacherslike Andrew Symson over on Creeside, who this very day writes me to saythat ever since muckle Davie Dunbar of Baldoon hath broken his neck, hegets no congregation at all. And be sure the poor wretch wishes me togather him one."
He threw a bit of paper across the table to Balmaghie.
"Read ye that," he said. "It is about swearing Baldoon."
The laird looked at it all over and then began to smile.
"This is indeed like Andrew Symson, doddering fool body that he is--ayescribing verses, and sic-like verse. Heaven forfend us!"
And he began to read.
UPON BALDOON.
"He was no schismatick. He ne'er withdrew Himself from the house of God. He with a few, Some two or three, came constantly to pray For such as had withdrawn themselves away. Nor did he come by fits. Foul day or fair, I being in the kirk, was sure to see him there. Had he withdrawn, 'tis like, these two or three Being thus discouraged, had deserted me: So that my muse 'gainst Priscian avers, He, he alone, was my parishioners!"
"Aye," said Balmaghie, "I warrant the puir hill-folk werna muckle thebetter o' Baldoon's supplications."
Then Claverhouse, receiving back the paper, looked up with greatalertness.
"But I have chanced in that very country to fall on a nest of thefanatics."
He looked cautiously about, and I had no more than time to step backinto the little pantry where Alisoun Begbie was already washing thedishes. She put her arm about me to keep me within, and before she letme go, she kissed me. Which I suffered without great concern--for, beinga lass from Borgue, she was not uncomely, though, like all these shorelassies, a little forritsome.