CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE GARDENER OF BALMAGHIE
I was wakened one morning by Jean coming to the side of my bed. She was fully dressed, as if to receive company, and her tall and straight figure looked imposing enough.
"Rise!" she said. "Rise! there's a chiel here, that wants ye to gang wi' him."
"A chiel, Jean Gordon?" said I, in a sleepy kind of surprise. "What ken ye aboot him?"
"Oh, I ken he's a honest lad," she said, "an' he brings ye a message frae the gardener o' Balmaghie that ye are to accompany him there for greater safety."
"A likely story!" returned I, for I was none too well pleased to be wakened up out of my sleep at that time in the morning to see a regiment of Balmaghie gardeners. "There is great safety in the neighbourhood of the eagle's nest!"
"There is so," said Jean Gordon, dryly – "for sparrows. 'Tis the safest place in the world for the like of them to build, for the eagle will not touch them, an' the lesser gleds dare not come near."
Nor do I think that this saying pleased me over well, because I thought that a Gordon of Earlstoun, of whatever rank, was a city set on a hill that could not be hid.
Then Jean Gordon, the hermit of the Garpel glen, bade me an adieu, giving me an old-fashioned salutation as well, which savoured little of having forgotten all that she had lightlied to me.
"Tak' tent to yoursel'," she said. "Ye are a good lad and none so feckless as ye look. There's stuff and fushion in ye, an' ye micht even tak' the e'e o' woman – gin ye wad pad your legs."
And with this she went in, leaving me in a quandary whether to throw a stone at her, or run back and take her round the neck.
I found the gardener of Balmaghie standing with his back towards me. He walked on a little before me without speaking, as though wishing me to follow him. He was, to the back view, dressed but ordinarily, yet with some of the neatness of a proper gentleman's servant.
And this was a great deal in a country where for common the men wear little that is handsome, save and except the Sabbath cloak – which if it do not, like charity, cover a multitude of sins, of a truth hides a multitude of old duddy clothes.
At the foot of the burn, where by the bridge it runs over some black and rugged rocks, the gardener stopped and turned round. I declare I never gat a greater or more pleasant surprise in my life, save as it may be, once – of what I have yet to tell.
"Wat, dear Wat!" I cried, and ran to him. We clasped one another's hands, and then we stood a little off, gazing each at the other. I had not known that I was so fond of him. But nothing draws the heart like coming through trials together. At least, so it is with men. 'Twixt women and men so many things draw the heart, that it is well-nigh impossible to separate one thing from the other.
"How came Jean Gordon to say that you were the gardener at Balmaghie?" I asked of him, when I was a little satisfied with looking at him.
"Why, because I am the gardener at Balmaghie – second gardener!" answered Wat, smiling in a sly way that he had when he meant to provoke and mystify me. Yet a way that I liked not ill, for he never used it save when he had within him a light and merry heart.
But I knew by this time how to counter his stroke, which was to hold one's peace, as if one cared nothing about the matter. For in this Wat was just like a woman, or a fencer, whom it provokes more to measure a thrust and avoid, than a hundred times to parry and return.
But for all I could not keep the anxiety out of my eyes as we walked along.
"You do not want to hear," said he, provoking me; for because of Maisie Lennox and my mother, he knew that he had the better of me.
"But I do, though!" That was all I could say.
For indeed the matter was a mystery to me, as well it might be. Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, sometime favourite of her Grace the Duchess of Wellwood, now gardener to a latitudinarian and cavalier Galloway laird, that had been a ferlie even on a day of miracles.
Wat continued to smile and smile.
"Well, I will tell you," he said. Yet for a while did not, but only walked on smiling.
At last he pursed his mouth and began to whistle. It was a bar or two of the air "Kate Kennedy is my darling."
Now at that time I own that I was not bright in the uptake about such things. For I had not till lately concerned me much with love and women's favours, but it came across me all in an instant.
"Oh!" I said.
"Ah!" said Wat.
And we looked at one another and nodded – Wat defiantly.
"Kate of the black eyebrows!" I said musingly. "They are joined over her brow," I went on, "and her ear comes straight down to her neck without any rounded lobe. They are two well-considered signs!"
Wat Gordon stopped suddenly, and cried out at me.
"See here, William Gordon, what mean you by that? What if her eyebrows meet under her chin and her ears hang down like band strings? What is that to you?"
"Happily nothing!" said I – for I was patiently paying him out, as it is ever easy to do with a spit-fire like young Lochinvar.
"Speak plain, Will," he cried, "or by the Lord I will immediately run you through!"
"With a spade," said I, mocking. "Mind, Wat, you are a laird's second gardener now."
But when I perceived that he was really angry, I hastened to appease him.
"Joined eyebrows and lobeless ear have been held by learned folk to prefigure some temper, Wat!" I said.
His brow cleared on an instant.
"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "I like a lass with a sparkle. No mim missie for Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, but a lass that keeps you in doubt till the last moment, whether your best wooing will speed you to a kiss or a bodkin-prick – that's the maid for me!"
"For me, I would e'en take the kiss," I said – "take it plain!"
"Tush, slow-coach!" he said, "your Earlstoun blood always did run like so much moss water!"
Now I had borne the burden of the day on the moss of Ayr, and felt that I need not take his scornful word.
"I have been where other than women's bodkins flashed – aye, ten against a hundred, and this was the only brand that wan through," I said, putting my hand on my side. "There was small time for kisses then! Ye may kiss your lass gin ye like, about the woods of Balmaghie. As for me, I prefer to ride upon Cameron's flank, on a day when the garments are rolled in blood."
This I said dourly, for my gall was working hot within me. So far from our first friendship had the clack of foolish tongues brought us. 'Deed, we were but silly boys that needed skelping, but I far the worst, for my head was by nature cooler and I knew better all the while.
"And so perhaps would I have preferred it," answered he gently.
"Aye," said he again, "I think it is somewhat late in the day for Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, to have to prove his courage upon his cousin William of Earlstoun. So then, take it from me that but for my oath sworn to the King, it had been more pleasure to ride with you in the charge at Ayrsmoss, than to be bridegroom to any maid soever in the world!"
And at the name of the King, he lifted his worn old countryman's bonnet as nobly and loyally as though it had been the plumed hat, whose feather had been so proudly set that night when he defied heaven and hell to keep him from his tryst beyond the Netherbow.
At the word I stretched out my hand to him.
"Forgive me, Wat," I said, and would have taken his arm, but he moved it a little away for a moment.
"Pray remember," he said grandly, "that though I am a jerkined man and handle the mattock in another man's kail yaird, – aye, though I be put to the horn and condemned unheard as a traitor, I am true King's man. Vive le Roi!"
"Well," replied I, "so be it, and much good may it do you. At any rate, there is no need to make such a work about it. After all, gin ye be at the horn, it's Guid's truth that ye gied Duke Wellwood's lads some most unmerciful jags aneath the ribs!"
While thus we snarled and fought between ourselves, the very strife of our tongues made the legs go faster, and we drew southward between the two lochs, Ken and Grenoch, crossing over the Black Water and leaving the Duchrae behind. And this made me very wae, to mind the days that we had there, with that brave company which should meet no more on the earth together.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE TESTING OF THE TYKE
At the head of the high natural wood which fringes about all the mansion house of Balmaghie, we held down to the right through the copses, till we came to the green policies that ring in the great house of McGhies. As we went linking down this green pleasaunce, there met us one who came towards us with his hands behind his back, stooping a little from the shoulders down. He had on him a rich dress of dark stuff a good deal worn, being that of a fashion one or two removes from the present. But this rather, as it seemed, from habit and preference than from need – like one that deigns not to go too fine.
"Where away, Heather Jock?" he cried as we made to go by, and turned toward us.
"Whom have we here?" he asked, so soon as he saw me.
"A cousin o' mine from the hill country, laird," said Wat, with the gruff courtesy of the gardener.
"Hoot, hoot – another! This will never do. Has he taken the Test?" said the laird.
"I doubt he cannot read it even," said Wat, standing sheepishly before him.
"That is all the better," said the tall grey man, shaking his head gently and a little reproachfully. "It is easier gotten over that way."
"Have not you read it, sir?" asked Wat, glancing up at him curiously as he stood and swung his cane.
"Faith no," he answered quickly; "for if I had read it, Heather Jock, I might never have taken it. I could not run the risks."
"My friend will e'en take the Test the way that the Heriot's hospital dog took it," said Wat, again smiling, "with a little butter and liberty to spit it out."
"How now, Heather Jock, thou art a great fellow! Where didst thou get all the stories of the city? The whaups do not tell them about the Glenkens."
"Why, an it please your honour, I was half a year in the town with the Lady Gordon, and gat the chapman's fly sheets that were hawked about the causeways," answered Wat readily enough, making him an awkward bow.
"Tell me the story, rascal," said the tall man, whom I now knew for Roger McGhie of Balmaghie. "I love a story, so that it be not too often told."
Now I wondered to hear Wat Gordon of Lochinvar take the word "rascal" so meekly, standing there on the road. It was, indeed, very far from being his wont.
However, he began obediently enough to tell the story which Roger McGhie asked of him.
For a Kate of the Black Eyebrows in the plot makes many a mighty difference to the delicateness of a man's stomach.
"The story was only a bairn's ploy that I heard tell of, when I was in town with my lady," he said, "nothing worth your honour's attention, yet will I tell it from the printed sheet which for a bodle I bought."
"Let me be the judge of that," said the other.
"Well then, laird, there was in the hospital of George Heriot, late jeweller to the King, a wheen loon scholar lads who had an ill-will at a mastiff tyke, that lived in a barrel in the yard and keeped the outermost gate. They suspected this dog of treason against the person of his Majesty, and especially of treasonable opinions as to the succession of the Duke of York. And, indeed, they had some ground for their suspicion, for the mastiff growled one day at the King's High Commissioner when he passed that way, and even bit a piece out of the calf of one of the Duke of York's servitors that wore his Highness' livery, at the time when his Grace was an indweller in Holyrood House."
The eye of the tall grave man changed. A look of humorous severity came into it.
"Be cautious how you speak of dignities!" he said to Wat.
"Well," said Wat, "at any rate, this evil-minded tyke held an office of trust, patently within the meaning of the act, and these loon lads of Heriot's ordained him duly to take the Test, or be turned out of his place of dignity and profit.
"So they formed a Summary Court, and the tyke was called and interrogated in due form. The silly cur answered all their questions with silence, which was held as a sign of a guilty conscience. And this would have been registered as a direct refusal, but that one of the loons, taking it upon him to be the tyke's advocate, argued that silence commonly gave consent, and that the Test had not been presented to his client in the form most plausible and agreeable to his tender stomach.
"The debate lasted long, but at last it was agreed that a printed copy of the Test should be made into as little bulk as possible, smoothed with butter, tallow, or whatever should be most tempting to his doggish appetite. This being done, Tyke readily took it, and made a shift by rowing it up and down his mouth, to separate what was pleasant to his palate. When all seemed over and the dog appearingly well tested, the loons saw somewhat, as it were one piece after another, drop from the side of his mouth. Whereupon it was argued, as in the case of my Lord Argyle, that this was much worse than a refusal, because it was a separating of that which was pleasant from what was irksome. And that this therefore, rightly interpreted, was no less than High Treason.
"But the tyke's advocate urged that his enemies had had the rowing up of the paper, and very likely they had put some crooked pin or other foreign object, unpleasant to a honest tyke's palate, within. So he asked for a fair trial before his peers for his client.
"Then the Court being constitute and the assize set, there fell out a great debate concerning this tyke dog. Some said that his chaming and chirking of the paper was very ill-done of him, that he was over malapert and took too much upon him. For his office being a lowly one, it was no business of his to do other than bolt the Test at once.
"But his advocate urged that he had done his best, and that if one part of the oath fell to hindering the other and fighting in his hass, it was not his fault, but the fault of them that framed such-like. Also, that if it had not hindered itself in going down, he would have taken it gladly and willingly, as he had taken down many other untoothsome morsels before, to the certain knowledge of the Court – such as dead cats, old hosen and shoes, and a bit of the leg of one of the masters in the hospital, who was known to be exceedingly unsavoury in his person.
"But all this did not save the poor tyke, for his action in mauling and beslavering his Majesty's printing and paper was held to be, at least, Interpretive Treason. And so he was ordered to close prison till such a time as the Court should call him forth to be hanged like a dog. Which was pronounced for doom."
Roger McGhie laughed at the tale's end with a gentle, inward laughter, and tapped Wat with his cane.
"Thou art indeed a merry wag, and speak over well for a gardener," he said; "but I know not if John Graham would not put a charge of lead into thee, if he heard thy way of talking. But go thy ways. Tell me quickly what befel the poor tyke."
"None so evil was his fate," said Wat, "for in the midst of the great debate that the surprising verdict raised, the tyke drew on a fox's skin, laid hold of the tail of another tyke, and so passed unobserved out of the prison. At which many were glad. For, said they, he was a good tyke that would not sup kail with the Pope nor yet the deil, and so had no need of his long spoon. And others said that it were a pity to hang so logical a tyke, for that he was surely no Aberdeen man, ever ready to cant and recant again."
Roger McGhie laughed aloud and knocked his cane on the ground, for right well he understood the meaning of all these things, being versed in parties and politics, which I never was.
"It is mighty merry wit," he said, "and these colleginers are blythesome blades. I wonder what John Graham will say to this. But go to the bothies of the bachelor foresters, and get that which may comfort the inner parts of your cousin from the hills – who, from the hang of his head, seems not so ready of tongue as thou."
For, indeed, I had been most discreetly silent.
So the tall, grey-headed gentleman went away from us, tapping gently with his fine cane on the ground, and often stopping to look curiously at some knot on a tree or some chance puddock or grasshopper on the roadside.
Then Wat told me that because of his quaint wit and great loyalty, Roger McGhie of Balmaghie was in high favour with the ruling party, and that none on his estates were ever molested. Also that Claverhouse frequented the house greatly, often riding from Dumfries for a single night only to have the pleasure of his society. He never quartered his men near by the house of Balmaghie, but rode over alone or with but one attendant in the forenights – perhaps to get away from roystering Lidderdale of the Isle, red roaring Baldoon, drinking Winram, and the rest of the boon companions.
"The laird of Claverhouse will come hither," said Wat, "with a proud set face, stern and dark as Lucifer's, in the evening. And in the morning ride away with so fresh a countenance and so pleasing an expression that one might think him a spirit unfallen. For, as he says, Roger McGhie does his heart good like medicine."
CHAPTER XXXV.
KATE OF THE DARK BROWS
Betimes we came to a little row of white cottages deep in the wood, with only a green clearing at the door, and the trees swaying broad branches over the roof.
Here we washed ourselves, and Wat set to shaving me and cutting my hair close, in order that if necessary I might wear a wig. Then we went into the gardens, where we found the chief gardener of Balmaghie, whose name was Samuel Irving.
Samuel was a grave man with a very long upper lip, which gave him a sour and discontented expression, but secretly he was a good man and a great favourer of the hill-folk. Also he was very upright and well-doing in the matters of seeds and fruits and perquisites, and greatly in favour with his master, Mr. Roger McGhie.
So we set out much refreshed, and were going by a path through the woods, when suddenly who should come upon us at a turn but Kate McGhie. Wat ran to her to take her hands, but she gave him the go-by with the single frugal favour of a saucy glance. "Strangers first!" she said, and so came forward and greeted me.
"You are welcome to Balmaghie, William Gordon," she said. "I would you came as guest, and not as servitor; but some day I know you shall enter by the front door."
She glanced round with a questioning air. Wat was standing half turned away, very haughty in his demeanour.
Kate McGhie looked towards him. She was in truth a comely maid – for one that is black of favour.
"Now you may come," she said.
He seemed as if he would refuse and turn away. But she looked fixedly at him, defying him with her eyes to do it, and after a moment's battle of regards he came slowly towards us.
"Come nearer!" she commanded imperiously.
He came up with his eyes kindling. I think that no less than kissing was in his mind, and that for a moment he thought that she might permit it.
But suddenly she drew herself proudly away, and her look was disdainful and no doubt hard to be borne.
"Are these fit manners from a servant?" she said. "They that eat the meat and sit below the salt, must keep the distance."
Wat's countenance fell in a moment. I never saw one with so many ups and down in such short space. The allures and whimsies of this young she-slip made him alternately sulk and brighten like an April day.
"Kate!" he began to say, in the uncertain tone of a petitioner.
"Mistress Katerine McGhie, if you please!" said she, dropping him a courtly courtesy.
"Have you forgotten quite?" Wat said.
"Ah," she said, "it is you who have forgotten. You were not the gardener then. I do not allow gardeners to kiss me – unless my hand on Sundays when their faces are more than ordinarily clean. Would you like to have that, Heather Jock?"
And she held out the back of her hand.
The silly fellow coloured to his brow, and was for turning away with his head very much in the air.
But she ran after him, and took him by the hand.
Then he would have caught her about with his arms, but she escaped out of them lightly as a bird.
"Na, na, Lochinvar," she cried merrily, in the common speech. "That is as muckle as is good for you" – she looked at him with the light of attraction in her eyes – "afore folk," she added, with a glance at him that I could not fathom.
Nevertheless, I saw for the first time all that was between them. So with no more said, Kate fled fleet-foot down the path towards the great house, which we could see standing grey and massive at the end of the avenue of beeches.
"There's a lass by yon burnside that will do as muckle for you; but dinna bide to speer her leave!" she cried to me over her shoulder, a word which it was hard to understand.
I asked Wat, who stood staring after her in a kind of wrapt adoration, what she could mean.
He gazed at me, as if he did not see what kind of animal was making the noise like talking. I am sure that for the time he knew me not from John Knox.
"What did she mean?" I asked him.
"Mean!" said he, "mean – " speaking vaguely as one in a swither.
"You are heady and moidered with not getting a kiss from a lass," said I, with, I grant, some little spite.
"Did she ever kiss you?" cried he, looking truculently at me.
"Nay!" said I bluntly, for indeed the thing was not in my thought.
"Then you ken naught about it. You had better hold your wheesht!"
He stood so long thinking, sometimes giving his thigh a little slap, like one that has suddenly remembered something pleasant which he had forgotten, that I was near coming away in disgust and leaving the fool, when I remembered that I knew not where to go.
In a while he came to himself somewhat, and I told him what Kate McGhie had said to me over her shoulder.
"Did Kate say that?" he cried. "She could surely not have said all that and I not hear her."
"Out, you fool," I said, for so of custom I spoke to him, being my cousin and playmate. "You had other matter to think of. Say it she did."
He repeated the words which I told him, and I declare even the sound of them seemed to be in danger of throwing him into another rhapsody.
But at last he said, suddenly, "Oh, I ken what she means – " And he drew a long breath. "I suppose we had better go down to the water-side. She will not come out again, if we wait all night." And he went some way along the avenue and looked long and hard at one heavy-browed window of the old house which seemed to be winking at us.
It is a strange thing how love affects different people. You never can tell beforehand how it will be. I could not have believed that the presence of a forward lass with black eyebrows could have made a moonstruck fool of Wildcat Wat of Lochinvar.
He still stood and looked at the window till my patience was ended.
"Come on, man," I cried. "I declare you are not Heather Jock, as she called you, but Heather Jackass!"
At another time he would have knocked my head off, but now my jesting affected him no more than a sermon. And this I took to be the worst sign of all.
"Well, come on then," he said. "You are surely in an accursed sweat of haste to-night!"
And we took our way down to the water-side, having wasted more than an hour. We had not advanced far down the pillared avenue of the beech trees, when suddenly we came in sight of Maisie Lennox. She was coming slowly towards us along one of the forest roads. At the same time I saw my mother, walking away from me down a path which led along the side of the Dee water. She had her back to me, and was going slowly with her head down. To my shame I ran to meet Maisie Lennox. But first ere I reached her she said quietly to me, "Have you not seen your mother?"
"Aye," answered I. "She has gone down the road to the water-side."
"Then let no greeting come before your mother's," she said, looking very ill-pleased at me as I ran forward to take her hand.
So with a flea in my ear I turned me about and went off, somewhat shamed as you may believe, to find my mother. When I got back to the path on which I had seen her, I left Wat far behind and ran after my mother, calling loudly to her.
At the sound of my voice she turned and held up her hands.
"Willie, boy!" she cried.
And in a moment she had me in her arms, crooning over me and making much of me. She told me also, when she had time to look well at me, that I was much better in health than when I had lain in the well-house of Earlstoun.
"And you came first to see your old mother. That was like my ain Willie!" she said, a word which made me ashamed. So I had no answer to make, though nevertheless I took the credit of the action as much by silence as by speech.
Then Maisie Lennox came through the wood, and demeaning herself right soberly, she held out her hand.
"Did you not see William before?" asked my mother, looking from one to the other of us.
"Only at a distance, on his way to you," said Maisie, speaking in her demure way.
It was in the little holding of Boatcroft by the side of the Dee, and among the water meadows which gird the broad stream, that we found my mother, Maisie Lennox, and little Margaret Wilson snugly settled. Their position here was not one to be despised. They were safe for the time being at least, upon the property of Roger McGhie. Every day the old man passed their loaning-end. And though he knew that by rights only a herd should live at the Boatcroft, yet he made no complaint nor asked any question for conscience' sake, when he saw my mother with Maisie Lennox at her elbow, or little Margaret of Glen Vernock moving about the little steading.
In the evening it fell to me to make my first endeavours at waiting at table, for though women were safe enough anywhere on the estate, Balmaghie was not judged to be secure for me except within the house itself.
So my mother gave me a great many cautions about how I should demean myself, and how to be silent and mannerly when I handed the dishes.