Lochinvar: A Novel. Crockett Samuel Rutherford

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СКАЧАТЬ tall girl opened the door and stood a moment with the outline of her figure cut slimly against the light which flooded the passage – in which, as it grew dark, Maisie had lighted a tiny Dutch lamp.

      "I love friends who never need to be friends again!" she said, in a low voice, and went out.

      Left to himself, Wat Gordon clinched his hands in the swiftly darkening room. He strode back to the window pettishly, and hated the world. It was a bad world. Why, for no more than a hasty word, a breath of foolish speech, a vain and empty dame of wellnigh twice his age, should he lose the friendship of this one girl in all the world? That other to whom he had spoken a light word of passing admiration he had never seen again, nor indeed wished to see. And for no more than this, forsooth, he must be flouted by her whom his very soul loved! It was a hard world, a bad world – of which the grim law was that a man must pay good money, red and white, for that which he desires with his heart and reaches out his hand to possess himself of.

      Just then the street door resounded with the clang of impetuous knocking. His cousin Will went down, and presently Wat heard the noise of opening bars, and then the sough of rude, soldier-like speech filled the stairway.

      "Wat Gordon! Wat Gordon!" cried a voice which sounded familiar enough to him, "come down forthwith! Here! I have brought you a letter from your love!"

      And Wat swore a vow beneath his breath to stop the mouth of the rascal who knew no better than to shout a message so false and inopportune in the ears of the girl of the dusky eyelashes. Nevertheless, he went quickly to the landing and looked down.

      A burly figure stood blocking the stairway beneath, and a ruddy face gleamed upward like a moon out of a mist, as Maisie held the lamp aloft. A voice, somewhat husky with too recent good living, cried, "Lochinvar, here is a letter to you from the colonel. Great good may it do you, but may the last drop in the cogie of him that sent it be the sourest, for raising Davie Dunbar from the good company and the jolly pint-stoup, to be splattered at this time of night with the dirty suds of every greasy frow in all Amersfort!"

      And the stout soldier dusted certain befouling drops from his military coat with a very indignant expression.

      "Not that the company was over-choice or the wine fit to be called aught but poison. 'Mony littles mak' a mickle,' says the old Scots saw. But, my certes, of such a brew as yon it micht be said 'mony mickles make but little'! For an it were not for the filling up of your belly, ten pints of their Amersfort twopenny ale is no more kenned on a man than so much dishwashings!"

      "Come your ways in and sit down, sergeant," said Mistress Maisie, hospitably. For her hand was somewhat weary with holding the lamp aloft, while Sergeant Davie Dunbar described the entertainment he had just left. Meanwhile Wat had opened his scrap of gray official letter, and appeared to stand fixed in thought upon the words which he found written therein.

      "What may be the import of your message, since you are grown suddenly so solemn-jawed over it, Wat?" cried Davie Dunbar, going up to look over his shoulder, while Maisie and Kate McGhie stood talking quietly apart.

      "I am bidden go on a quest into the wild country by the seashore, a mission that in itself I should like well enough were it not that it comes to me by the hand of Black Murdo of Barra."

      Davie Dunbar whistled thoughtfully.

      "When the corbie is from home, it's like to be an ill day for wee lame lammies!" he said, sententiously. Wat Gordon cocked his guardsman's cap at the words. He had set it on his head as he went down-stairs.

      "I am Walter Gordon, of Lochinvar, and though that be for the nonce but a barren heritage, I am also a gentleman-private in the prince's Scots Dragoons, and I count not the Earl of Barra more than a buzzard-kite."

      "I see well that ye are but a wee innocent lammie after all," retorted Sergeant Dunbar; "little ye ken about the regimen of war if at the outset of a campaign ye begin by belittling your enemy. I tell you, Murdo of Barra has more brains under his Highland bonnet than all your gay Douglas dragoons, from your swearing colonel to the suckling drummer-boy – who no sooner leaves his mother's breast than he learns to mouth curses and lisp strange oaths."

      Wat Gordon shook his head with a certain unconvinced and dour determination.

      "I have been in wild places and my sword has brought me through, but though I own that, I like not this commission – yet feared of Barra I am not."

      And he handed Davie Dunbar the paper. The sergeant read it aloud:

      "Walter Gordon, some time of Lochinvar, of the Prince's Scottish Dragoon Guards, you are ordered to obtain the true numeration of each regiment in the camp and city of Amersfort – their officering, the numbers of each company, and of those that cannot be passed by the muster officers, the tally of those sick with fever, and of those still recovering from it, the number of cannon on the works and where they are posted. These lists you are to transmit with your own hand to an officer appointed to receive them by His Highness the Prince at the Inn of Brederode by the Northern Sanddunes, who will furnish you with a receipt for them. This receipt you will preserve and return to me in token that you have fulfilled your mission. The officers of the regiments and the commanders of batteries have hereby orders to render you a correct and instant accompt.

"(Signed) For the Stadtholder and the States-General,"Barra,"Provost-Marshal of the City and Camp."

      William Gordon had come into the room while the sergeant was reading the paper, and now stood looking at Walter's unusual commission.

      "There will be murder done when you come to our colonel," he said, "and ask him to tell you that the most part of his regiment is already in hospital, and also how many of the rest are sickening for it."

      But Wat Gordon stood up and tightened his sword-belt, hitching his sword forward so that the hilt fell easily under his hand. Then he flipped the mandate carelessly upon the widened fingers of his left hand before sticking it through his belt.

      "It is, at least, an order," he said, grandly, "and so long as I am in the service of His Highness the Prince, my orders I will obey."

      "And pray what else would you do, callant," interjected Sergeant David Dunbar, "but obey your orders – so long, at least, as ye are sure that the lad who bids ye has the richt to bid ye?"

      CHAPTER II

      WHY KATE HATED LOCHINVAR

      It was the evening of the following day before Wat Gordon was ready to start. It had taken him so long to obtain all the invaluable information as to the strength of the armies of the States-General and of their allies, which were collected at Amersfort in order to roll back the threatened invasion of the King of France. Twice during the day had he rushed into his cousin's lodging for a brief moment in order to snatch a morsel of food, but on neither occasion had he been able to catch so much as a glimpse of Kate. It was now the gloaming, and the night promised to fall clear and chill. A low mist was collecting here and there behind the clumps of bushes, and crawling low along the surface of the canals. But all above was clear, and the stars were beginning to come out in familiar patterns.

      For the third and last time Wat made an errand up to his cousin's rooms, even after his escort had arrived, and once more Maisie took him gently by the hand, bidding him good-speed on his quest perilous. But even while his cousin's wife was speaking the young man's eye continued to wander restlessly. He longed rather to listen to upbraiding from another voice, and, in place of Maisie's soft, willing kiss, to carry away the farewell touch of a more scornful hand.

      "Cousin," he said at last, reluctantly and a little shyly, "I pray you say farewell СКАЧАТЬ