CHAPTER XXXIII
AN ANCIENT LOVE AFFAIR
When Wat awoke on the island and stirred his cramped limbs, on whichthe sun had already dried his wet clothes, in the warm and brisklystirring airs of the summer morning, he could hardly believe in thereality of his experiences of the night. One by one he remembered thepassage of the cave, the Highland sentinel sleeping by his dying fire,his new and kindly protector, Bess Landsborough. Then last of all,and suddenly overflowing all his heart with mighty love (even as avolcano, Askja or Vatna, pours without warning its burning streams overicy provinces), the meeting with his love in the dusky undercloud ofnight rushed upon his memory and filled all his soul with a swift anddesperate joy.
What wonder that the sweet, low voice he had heard call him "love" outof the darkness should in the broad common day scarce seem real to poorWat Gordon of Lochinvar? He had passed through so many things to hearit. Also, ever since the death of Little Marie, he knew the accent ofthe voice that speaks not for the sake of "making love," but whichunconsciously and inevitably reveals love in every syllable.
Wat had made love in his time, and ladies of beauty and repute not afew--my Lady Wellwood among the number--had made love to him. But heknew the difference now.
For love which must needs be "made" bears always the stamp ofmanufacture. True love, on the other hand, is a city set on a hill; itcannot be hid, and this is why the love-glance of a maiden's eye soeternally confutes the philosophers, and ofttimes lays the lives of themighty, for making or marring, in the hollow of very little hands.
The day that succeeded this night adventure was a long one both for Watand Kate. For the girl had been even less prepared for the astonishingevent of the night than Wat himself. Providence, by the hand ofMistress Alister McAlister, had certainly worked strangely. Indeed, theonly person wholly unmoved was that lady herself. She bustled aboutthe flags of her kitchen, slapping them almost contemptuously withher broad bare feet, busy as a bee with her baking and brewing, likethe tidy, thrifty, "eident"[C] Ayrshire good-wife that she was. Not aglance at Kate revealed that she had been instrumental in opening a newchapter in two lives only the night before.
[C] Diligent.
When, midway through the forenoon, Alister brought his bulky body tothe door-step, his loving wife drove him off again to the gateway ofthe tower with an aphorism which is held of the highest repute in theparish of Colmonel:
"Na, na, come na here for your brose--e'en get your meal o' meat whereye work your wark!"
And the stoop-shouldered giant coolly retreated without a word ofprotest, merely helping himself as he went out to a double handful ofoatmeal from his wife's bake-board, for all the world like a theftuousschool-boy, who keeps the while one eye on the master. With this hetook his way to the spring which trickled down by the castle wall. Andthere, very deliberately and philosophically, he proceeded to makehimself a dish of cold "drammoch" on the smooth surface of a stonewhich the water had hollowed.
"And mony is the hungry mouth that would be glad of it," said he, byway of grace after meat. For Alister was of the excellent and approvenopinion that a dinner of herbs by the dikeside is better than a banquetof Whitehall with the sauce of an angry woman's tongue for seasoningthereto.
But when Bess Landsborough brought the prisoner his farles of cake andcool buttermilk (for it was "kirning day"), she took out also a handfulof crisp bannocks for her husband. These she thrust under his nosewith the sufficient and comprehensive monosyllable, "Hae!" And Alisteraccepted the act as at once honorable amend and judicious apology.
Nor was Alister behindhand in courtesy. For though the silent jailerdid not utter a single word either to his wife or his prisoner, he drewhis _skean dhu_ and cut a whang from the sweet-milk cheese which hekept by him. To this he added a horn of strong island spirit, which ofa surety proved very much to the taste of the late master-at-arms totheir several Highnesses Louis, King of France, and William of Orange,Stadtholder of the Netherlands.
Thereafter, with consideration particularly delicate, he withdrew outof earshot and sat on a knoll before the castle, leaving his wife totalk at leisure to her ancient sweetheart. For Alister McAlister wasa man without jealousy. He knew that he could keep his wife, even ashe kept his head in battle, with the little wee point of his knife andthe broad, broad blade of his claymore. And as for ancient sweethearts,what cared he for a peck of them? Bess Landsborough might have had ascore of lovers in the 'Lowlands low'; yet had she not chosen to leavethem all and follow him up the braes--aye, and over the sea straits,threading the ultimate islands till at last she had come to thisbarren holding of rock, scantily felted down with heather and peat, onthe isle of Suliscanna?
But, on the other hand, Scarlett was not the man to lose his time, inspite of bonds and imprisonments.
"Ye are as weel-faured as ever, Bess. Ye were aye a bonny blithesomelass a' the days o' ye!" said he, complacently, as he munched hisfarles of cake and took sup about of usquebaugh from the horn andbuttermilk from the pail.
"Havers!" said Mistress McAlister, "ye are an auld eneuch man to kenthat ye canna blaw twice in my lug wi' the same flairdies. Ye forgetI hae heard ye at that job before. And it lasted--hoo lang? Just e'entill your company rade awa' frae Girvan to Kirkcudbright, and then yetook up with Maggie Nicholson, the byre-lass o' Bombie, the very secondweek that ever ye were there! And telled her, I dare say, that she wasweel-faured, blithe, and a bonny woman!"
"I see ye haena forgotten how to belie them that ye tried to break thehearts o', Bess Landsborough," said Scarlett, without, however, lettinghis broken heart interfere with a very excellent appetite. "Ye weel kenthat ye sent me frae the door o' the Laggan wi' my tail atween my legslike a weel-lickit messan, and twa o' your ill-set cronies lookin' onat my shaming, too."
"I'm thinkin', my man John," retorted Bess Landsborough, "that ye hadbetter say as little as ye can aboot that ploy. For the lasses wereMirren Semple o' the Auld Wa's and Meg Kennedy o' Kirriemore, thathad come in the afternoon to keep me company. And as we sat talkingower ae thing after anither, we spak' amang ithers o' you, my brawtrooper--Sergeant John Scarlett, no less, that rode so gallantly withthe colors in his hand. And by this and that we had it made clear thatye had been for making up to a' the three o' us at once! An' so wecompared your tricks. How ye had gotten doon on your knees and telledus that ye loved us best o' a' the world. Ye had kissed oor hands--atleast, mine and Meg Kennedy's. But your favorite fashion was to takethe skirts o' oor gouns and kiss the hem o' them, swearin' that ye wadraither kiss the border o' oor cloaks than the mouth o' the grandestwoman in Scotland. (A' the three o' us!) Then ye asked for a curl cutoff aboon our brows--at least, frae mine and Mirren Semple's. For MegKennedy never had sic a thing in her life, but had aye flat, greasyhair, sleekit like a mowdiewart[D] hingin' by the neck in a trap on awat day. And her ye telled that ye couldna bide hair that wadna keepsmooth, but was aye a'kinked and thrawn into devalls and curliewigs.Oh, sic a bonny, true-speakin', decent, mensefu' callant as the threeo' us made ye oot to be! So when we had ye gye-and-weel through-hands,wha should ride up to the door but my gay lad himsel', this same brawcavalier. So Mirren and Meg and me, we gaed oot ontil the step andtelled ye what we thocht o' ye. Ow aye, ye were a puir disjaskit cuifthat day, Sergeant John Scarlett, for a' your silver spurs and your redsodjer's coat!"
[D] Mole.
John Scarlett laughed loud and long at the record of his iniquities,but his abasement, if at the time as profound as Bess Landsborough madeit out to be, had certainly completely passed away. For he cried out:"What a grand memory ye hae for the auld times, Bess! I warrant ye, yecouldna gang ower the points o' Effectual Calling as briskly, nor yetthe kings o' Judah and Israel that ye learned on the Sabbath forenichtsby the lowe o' the Colmonel peats!"
"But eneuch o' havers," said Bess; "ken ye that yon braw lad o' yoursis safe and hearty? Mair than that, he met wi' his bonny lass yestreen.Baith o' them kens what love is--a thing that ye never kenned, no, norwill ken to
your dying day, John Scarlett."
"Aweel, aweel," replied Scarlett, placably, "at ony rate I am desperateglad that Wat's won oot o' the brash o' the mony waters safe andsound; and as for love, if I kenned nocht aboot it, at least I hae hadexperience o' some gye fair imitations in my time, that did well eneuchfor a puir perishing mortal like me."
* * * * *
On the other hand, Wat on his isle of Fiara had been exceedinglybusy all that day. He had chosen a shallow cavern on the most remotenorthern shore of Fiara, dry and open like the entrance-hall of ahouse, and into it he had carried a large quantity of fresh andblooming heather, sufficient for the most luxurious couch in the world.This he arranged in a little sheltered alcove to the right of the mainchamber, and pleased himself with the simple arrangements, talking tohimself all the time.
"By this path she can go down to the sea without being observed. Intothis basin I can lead the water that trickles over the rock, so thatshe may wash on chill or rainy mornings."
He broke off with a quick, nervous laugh at his own thoughts.
"I am speaking as if we were always to dwell together on this island.But the sooner we get away the better it will be for both of us."
Yet, somehow, the imagination of his heart played about this ideaof the seclusion of two on the isle of Fiara. For the escape itselfWat had his plans already laid. He knew that Kate was a strongswimmer--indeed, far his own superior at the art. Once in the olddays she had beaten him hollow when but a half-grown girl, swimmingtwo miles on the broad spaces of Loch Ken without a sign of fatigue.Scarlett was a more difficult problem. For the stout soldier had alwaysheld all that concerned the water in sovereign contempt, and Wat couldsee no way of conveying him safely across to the northern island. Yetit was essential for their escape that he should be taken thither, andthat at the same time with Kate. For the islanders might be inclinedto make short work of their remaining prisoner if they found that themaid, so straitly committed to their charge, had been spirited away.
So before committing himself for the second time to the strangewater-gate which led to his beloved, Wat had all the details of hisplot arranged. He resolved to make the attempt on the first night whenthe new moon should be far enough advanced to throw a faint lightover the water and temper the darkness of the rock passage. He couldconstruct of driftwood a raft large enough to carry those necessarieswith which Bess Landsborough could furnish him out of her scanty storeswithout attracting attention. The raft would also be at least a partialsupport for Scarlett. Wat resolved to arrange the method of escape withBess that very night, and obtain from her the cord before returning.When Wat emerged from the long passage it was perfectly dark. Not evena single star was to be seen. More than once had he scraped himselfpainfully on the concealed rocks and on the sides of the cavern; uponwhich he grumbled to himself as even a man in love will do, for he knewthat he would feel these hurts very much more acutely on the morrow.
"This will not do at all for Scarlett, though Kate might manage wellenough by keeping close to my shoulder," he said, shaking his head,which dripped with the salt-water, for the first break across the soundto the archway had been through a pretty briskly running jabble ofspray.
But when Wat came out on the sea-front of Suliscanna he saw an unusualsight. Torches thronged in single file down the pathways. They flashedand crowded about the landing-place, passing and repassing each other.A boat-load of men was just disembarking in the nearer bay; while yetanother was dropping down the slack of the ebb, coming from the southof the island and striking in for the shore exactly at the propermoment, like men who knew every turn of the currents.
Wat could hear the clatter of many voices.
Swimming silently and showing no more than the dark thatch of his hairover the water, he approached nearer. He might have been a seal for allthe mark he made on the water.
As the torches gathered thicker about the landing-place, Wat could seethe flash of arms as one gentleman and another disembarked. Presentlya figure in black stepped ashore, and was greeted with a loud shout ofwelcome and acclaim by the islanders. Wat's heart sank within him, forhe recognized his arch-enemy, and he knew that the difficulties of histask would now be infinitely increased. For my Lord of Barra it wasindeed, who had at last come to claim his captive. And there behindhim, like a hulking lubber-fiend, strode the burly, battered figure ofHaxo the Bull, with the Calf and the Killer in close attendance.