Lochinvar: A Novel. Crockett Samuel Rutherford

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      A spark of fury burned up suddenly in Wat's eyes.

      "Is the paper genuine, think you?" he asked, loudly enough for all to hear.

      Maisie looked up quickly, astonished, not so much at his words as by the fierce, abrupt manner of his speech.

      "Genuine!" she said, in astonishment. "Why, my Lord Barra brought it himself. It is signed by his own hand and issued in the name of the prince. Why do you ask if it be genuine?"

      "I ask," cried Lochinvar, in the same fiercely offensive tone, "because the only document which I have ever seen bearing that signature and issued in the name of the prince was a forgery, and as such was repudiated two days later by my Lord of Barra."

      The words rang clearly and unmistakably through the room. Doubtless Barra heard them, and Kate also, for a deep flush of annoyance mounted slowly to her neck, touched with rose the ivory of her cheek, and faded out again, leaving her with more than her former paleness. But Barra never stopped a moment in the full, easy current of his narration. He continued to let fall his sentences with precisely the same cool, untroubled deliberation, fingering meanwhile the prince's signet-ring, which he habitually wore on his hand. Kate almost involuntarily moved a little nearer to him and fixed her eyes the more earnestly on his face, because she felt that Wat's words were a deliberate insult intended for her deliverer of the preceding day.

      Wat on his part pushed his chair noisily back from the table, and rapped nervously and defiantly with his knuckles on the board.

      "There is not a man in my wild western isles," Barra's voice was heard going on, evenly and calmly, "who would not die for his chief, giving his life as readily as a platter of drammoch – not a poor unlearned cotter who would not send his family to the death to save the honor of the clan from the least stain, or the life of the chief from any shadow of danger. The true clansman can do anything for his chief – "

      "Except tell the truth," burst in Walter Gordon, fiercely.

      Barra paused a moment and looked calmly at the interrupter. Then, turning a little more squarely to Kate and his hostess, he continued his speech without betraying the least annoyance.

      "He will do anything for his chief which does not involve the loss of his honor and his standing in the clan."

      "Does this your noble Highland honor include treachery, spying, and butchery?" cried Wat, now speaking directly to his enemy.

      "It includes good manners in a lady's presence, sir," said Barra, calmly.

      "Do these your clansmen of honor and courtesy wear butchers' knifes in their belts, and go by the name of Haxo the Bull, the Calf, and the Killer?"

      Barra spread his hands abroad with a French gesture of helplessness which was natural to him, and which expressed his inability to comprehend the vagaries and fancies of a person clearly out of his mind. Then, without betraying the least annoyance, he turned suavely to Kate, and began to tell her of the new ambassadors from Austria who, with a great retinue, had that day arrived at the court of the Prince of Orange.

      Wat rose with his hand on his sword. "Cousin Maisie," he said, "I am not a man of politic tricks nor specious concealments. I give you fair warning that I know this man. I tell him to his face that I denounce him for a traitor, a conspirator, a murderer. I find Murdo of Barra a guest in this house, and I do what I can to protect those I love from so deadly an acquaintance – the very shadow of whose name is death."

      "Protect! You forget, Cousin Walter," returned Maisie, indignantly, standing up very white and determined – "you forget that I have a husband who is entirely able to protect me. And you forget also that this is his house, not yours. Moreover, if you cannot suffer to meet my friends here as one guest meets another, it is entirely within your right to go where you will only meet with those of whom you are pleased to approve."