S. R. Crockett

FOREWORD TO THE TALE, TELLING WHAT BEFELL AT THE HOUSE OF BALMAGHIE IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1685, AND HOW MY LADY WELLWOOD PARTED TWO YOUNG LOVERS

"Aye," said Mistress Crombie, house-keeper to Roger McGhie, Laird of Balmaghie, a considerable house in the south-lying and better-cultivated part of the wild lands of Galloway—"aye, indeed, ye may well say it, Alisoun Begbie. It is a wondrous and most ungentle thing when the doe seeks the hart—panting and brayin' for a man, as the Guid Buik says. And saw ye ever sic feathers?—I declare they nearly soopit the floor. My Lady Wellwood, or no my Lady Wellwood, I trow she didna come ridin' by the hoose o' Balmaghie only to ask the time o' day, upsetting besom that she is!"

During this harangue Alisoun Begbie was clattering about among her bottles and dishes in the stone-flagged, slate-shelved still-room which constituted her pantry. A few minutes before she had cried mischievously out of the window to Lang Wat, the new under-gardener of Balmaghie, to the effect that "siccan a guid-lookin' chiel should be seen oftener about the house—but that she, Alisoun Begbie, was not wanting anything to do with the likes of him. She could get plenty of lads, and it was weel-kenned that the Glenkens' folk aye took up wi' their ain folk at ony rate." But as soon as the "bauchles"A of Mistress Crombie, the shrill-tempered house-keeper, were heard scuffling up the stairs, Alisoun made a pretty warning face of silence at Lang Wat, and tossed her head to intimate that some one approached from behind; so that, without making any verbal answer, the under-gardener resumed his occupation of the moment, which was the pruning and grafting of sundry rose-bushes—the pride and care of Mistress Kate McGhie, the "young leddy" of the great house of Balmaghie.

"Na, 'deed, Alisoun Begbie," cried Mistress Crombie once more, from the cheek of the door, "believe me when I tell ye that sic a braw city madam—and a widow forbye—doesna bide about an auld disjaskit rickle o' stanes like the Hoose o' the Grenoch withoot haeing mair in her head than just sending warnings to Clavers aboot the puir muirland folk, that keep their misguided conventicles up ayont there, and pray a' nicht in the lirks o' the hills and the black hags o' the peat-mosses."

"Aye, ye may say so, 'deed, mistress," agreed Alisoun, keeping an eye upon the window of her pantry, through which she could see Lang Wat bending his back among the rose-bushes. Spite of his good looks, he had proved himself a singularly flinty-hearted fellow-servitor, and ill to set to the wooing. But Alisoun had still hopes of him. She had succeeded with some difficult—indeed, almost hopeless—cases in her time, and the very unresponsive nature of the young Glenkens' gardener stirred her ambition to brighter and more inviting glances, as well as to gayer and ever daintier ribbons.

But in spite of both loving looks and lovers' knots, Lang Wat neither succumbed nor yet appeared so much as conscious of her regard. Truly a marvellous young man—such as had never come within the sphere of the comely handmaiden's influence before.

"Weel, I'se warrant my lady needna set her cap at our maister," said Alisoun Begbie, willing to agree with the powerful and cantankerous house-keeper: "Na, Roger McGhie o' Balmaghie has his wits aboot him. Surely it is a terrible thing when a woman so far forgets hersel' as to set her cap for a man."

And pretty Alisoun glanced at the silver salver she was polishing, in order to be sure that her silken snood was in its proper place, and that the braids of her hair were drawn back smoothly and daintily from her brow. Being reassured on these points, she resumed the salver with renewed complaisance. Lang Wat was now standing meditatively outside, quite near the house, and with his face turned towards her window. He was leaning upon his spade; any moment he might look up. Pretty Alisoun Begbie breathed upon the silver with a certain seductive pouting of her lips, rubbed the place clear, breathed again upon it, and last of all frowned alluringly at it—for the very excellent reason that one of her former admirers had incautiously told her that such frowning became her mightily. But in spite of all, Lang Wat remained rapt in abstractest meditation. At which Alisoun Begbie tossed her head and frowned again—not this time for picturesque reasons, but in good earnest.

"He micht at least have kissed his hand, the silly cuif!" she said, half to herself, looking resentfully at the impervious under-gardener of Balmaghie.

"What!" cried Mistress Crombie, "kissed his hand, indeed, ye daft-speaking, licht-headed hizzie! I hope that my maister has something else to do than to gang kissin' his hand to a' the high-flyin' madams that likes to come aboot the hoose—wi' their auld guidmen hardly cauld in their coffins, and as much paint on their impudent faces as wad serve for the body o' a trail cart. Kiss his hand to her, indeed! Na, na, set her up; a deal less than that will serve her."

A stir was heard at the top of the stairs which led up from the still-room, among the cool recesses of which this conversation had been proceeding between Mistress Crombie and her favorite assistant.

"Dear sirs, that's the maister himsel', I declare," said the house-keeper, looking cautiously up, "and dressed in his Sunday breeks—mercy on us!—and his best coat wi' the new lace on the collar, and the cuffs that I laid aside for the next burial or siclike festivity. But—Lord preserve us!—here on a Wednesday he maun gang and put them on! The man's surely gane clean mad. He shall sup sorrow like sowens for this yet, and that will be seen."

"Maybe he has been kissin' mair than his ain hand," said Alisoun Begbie, slyly. She was still smarting from her rebuke by the house-keeper; besides which, Lang Wat would not look up.

Mistress Crombie started as if she had been stung.

"Save us!" she cried, "do ye think so? Then a' our good days aboot the hoose o' the Balmaghie are numbered! Oh, the bonny place, where I thocht to end my days wi' a guid maister and a kindly! Oh, women, women—what hae ye no to answer for, upsettin' a' plans, stirrin' up a' ill, pu'in' doon a' guid! Eh, Alisoun, but what a paradise the world wad be wi' only men in it, and no a woman frae end to end o't—forbye mysel'—whatna Gairden o' Eden wad that no make!"

But the eyes of Alisoun Begbie were fastened on a certain shaded nook among the rose-bushes, wherein a pretty enough comedy was being enacted; though, be it said, one little to the taste of the still-room maid. Mistress Crombie, had she been observant, might have discovered abundant cause to find fault with her maid's diligence and attention to the details of her duty during the next half-hour. But luckily for Alisoun Begbie, that good though suspicious lady had betaken herself indignantly up-stairs. There, with haughty head tossing in the air and a certain ominously aggrieved silence, she proceeded to meditate upon the other details of her master's attire—his Sunday shoes with silver buckles, his ribbons of pale blue at the knee, and especially the grand new wig of the latest court fashion, which Colonel John Graham of Claverhouse had brought all the way in his saddle-bag from Robin Rae's, the periwig-maker in the Lawnmarket, the last time he rode to Edinburgh to consult with the Lords of the Privy Council.

Now, what Alisoun Begbie watched behind the rosebushes was this:

She saw the under-gardener, "Lang Wat o' the Glenkens," as he was called about the house, in close and kindly converse with Mistress Kate McGhie, the only daughter of the house and heiress of her father's wide estates. She had come, a tall and graceful maid attired in white, lightfoot down a shady garden-path, the sunshine and the leaves together flecking her white dress with wavering shadows, her dark, shapely head thrown a little back, her chin tilted somewhat defiantly in the air, and her broad summer hat a-swing in her left hand. Fitfully she hummed a tune, but whenever she forgot the words (which was very often) the song dropped, and, without the least break of continuity, proceeded on its way as a whistle. And in either case the sounds proceeded, so thought the under-gardener, from the prettiest and most appetizing mouth in the world.

Indeed, as soon as Mistress Kate came within hearing distance of him, Lang Wat promptly swept his broad bonnet from his head in salute, and told her so. Which, when one thinks of it, was a considerable liberty for an under-gardener to take.

But the lady received the compliment not amiss, being to all appearance neither elated nor astonished. Was she not Kate McGhie of Balmaghie, and had she not been accustomed to be told that she was beautiful as long as she could remember? Consistent and continuous admiration had become familiar to her as the air she breathed, and had done her as little harm. It seemed to Kate as natural that she should be assured that she was winsome as to be told that she had a good appetite. And the information affected her equally in either case. Since her very tenderest years there had been but one dissentient voice in this chorus of universal love and admiration—a certain small boy from the Glenkens, a laird's son, one Walter Gordon of Lochinvar, who had come to the house of Balmaghie on a visit with his father, and had enshrined his dissent in a somewhat memorable form.

For, by the common bruit of the country-side, the girl had been denominated—while yet but a child with great hazel eyes that promised dangerous things, and a tossing fleece of curls—the Pride of Balmaghie. And the maid herself, when asked her name, was accustomed to reply frankly:

But this same Gordon lad from the Glenkens, scornful in the pride of half a dozen years of superior age, never heard the phrase without adding his own contemptuous disclaimer, "Little brute, I don't love her."

Nevertheless, the time came when the scorner recanted his renunciation. And that time was now, under the garden trees of the house of Balmaghie and the jealous eyes of Alisoun Begbie. For "Lang Wat o' the Glenkens," under-gardener to Roger McGhie of Balmaghie, was none other than Walter Gordon, the young laird of Lochinvar, fallen into ill-odor with the King's government—both in the matter of the wounding of my Lord of Wellwood, and as being suspected of companying and intercommuning with the wild Whigs of the hills. For the times bore hard on all such as were of doubtful loyalty, and fines and confiscations were the least those had to expect who refused to side openly with the blusterous riders and galloping compellers of the King's forces. The blaze of muskets in face of a stone wall, the ever-busy rope in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh (where during two brisk years of the "Killing Time" the hangman needed a new "tow" every month from the Town Council, and the pay of an additional assistant whenever "he was overthrong with the hanging of so many Westland men")—these and other symptoms of troublous times sent many well-disposed and innocent folk into hiding.

But it was not alone the superior advantages of Balmaghie as a hiding-place which had brought Wat Gordon of Lochinvar thither in search of shelter. It might rather be the sweeping, darksome under-curve of Kate McGhie's eyelashes, and the little specks of light which swam and sparkled in the depths of her hazel eyes, like the shredded gold in that rare liqueur which John Scarlett, the famous master-at-arms, had brought back with him last year from Dantzig.

Not that Wat Gordon was very deeply or seriously in love. He dallied and daintied with it rather. True—he thought about love and the making of it night and day, and (for the time being) his ideal and liege lady was the young mistress of the house of Balmaghie.

And Kate McGhie, knowing him for what he was, and being (unlike her father, but like most of the women-folk of Scotland) a sympathizer with the oppressed of the Covenant, showed no small kindness to the under-gardener.

She was a maiden left much alone. She was at the age when love is still an insubstantial, rosy dream, yet few youths of her own quality were ever encouraged to come about her father's house. So that her pity and her admiration were the more easily engaged on behalf of the handsome and unfortunate young laird who told her at least ten times a day (when he had the chance) that he was as willing as any Jacob to serve seven years, and seven to the back of that, in the hope of such a Rachel. For even before he began to do more than play with true love, Wat Gordon had a gift of love-making which might have wiled a bird off a tree.

Yet, for all that, when he came to practise on Kate McGhie, he wiled in vain. For the girl was buttressed and defended by a lifetime of admiration from all who came about her—by her father's adoration, the devotion of every man, woman, and child about the house of Balmaghie, and, above all, by the repute of reigning beauty athwart all the country-side. So, though she might think well enough of Wat Gordon, that handsome exile from his heritages and lordships now in picturesque hiding as her father's under-gardener, she was (so at least she told herself) in no danger of permitting that liking to develop into any feeling more dangerous or more exacting.

So these two fenced, each of them in their own way, right gallantly with lightsome love; while the love that is not lightsome, but strong as death, smiled out upon them from behind the rose-bushes, and lay in wait for one and the other.

Presently, while they were yet talking and Alisoun Begbie still carefully observant of them, the front door of the house of Balmaghie opened wide, and the laird himself came down the steps looking a little dashed and shamefaced, for Mistress Crombie had ushered him to the door with ironic state and ceremony.

"Dootless your honor is on his way to pay duty to the King's Commissioner at Kirkcudbright," she said, with pointed sarcasm which the shy laird did not know well how to parry. "But ye hae forgotten your pearl studs in your sark, and the wee hangie-swordie o' the court that will no draw oot o' its scabbard, nor so muckle as hurt a flea."

"I thank you, mistress," said Roger, not daring to look at his too faithful domestic, "but I go not so far afield as to see His Majesty's Commissioner. 'Tis but the matter of a visitor whom we must expect this forenoon. See that some collation is prepared for her."

"Her!" ejaculated Mistress Crombie, with an indescribable accent of surprise, not unmingled with scorn. "Her—we are to hae the company o' a great lady, nae doot. And this the first that your humble servant and house-keeper has heard o' the matter! 'Collation,' quo' he? Whatna dinner do ye think can be got ready between eleven and twa o' the clock on a Wednesday, wi' a' the lasses at the washin' except Alisoun Begbie, and nocht in the larder forbye twa pookit chuckie-hens, that came frae the Boat Craft less than half an hour since?"

"But, surely, these will do very well," said Roger McGhie, with increasing nervousness. "'Tis only my Lady of Wellwood, who rides over from the Grenoch."

For in truth he had been afraid to mention the matter to Mistress Crombie, and so had put off till it was too late—as the manner of men is.

"I forgot to acquaint you with the fact before; it—ah—it altogether escaped my memory," said he, beginning to pull his gloves on as he descended the steps.

"But ye didna forget to put on your Sunday claes, Laird Balmaghie," cried the privileged domestic after him, sarcastically; "nor did your best silken hose nor your silver buckles escape your memory! And ye minded brawly to scent your ruffles wi' cinnamon and rosemary. Ye dinna forget ony o' thae things—that were important, and maitters o' life and death, as one might say. It only escaped your memory to tell your puir feckless auld house-keeper to mak' ony provision for your dainty dames and court leddies. Ou aye, it maitters little for the like o' her—Marion Crombie, that has only served ye for forty year, and never wranged ye o' a fardin's-worth. Dinna waste a thought on her, puir auld woman, though she should die in a hedge-root, so long as ye can hae a great repair o' powdered weemen and galloping frisk-me-denties to come ridin' aboot your hoose."

But whatever else Mistress Crombie might have had to say to her master was lost in the clatter of hoofs and the stir and bustle of a new arrival.

Up the avenue came a bold horsewoman riding a spirited bay, reining it like a man as she stayed her course on the river gravel before the front door and sent the stones spraying from its fore-feet at the halt. The new-comer wore a plumed hat and the riding-dress of red, which, together with her warm sympathies with the "persecutors," caused my Lady Wellwood to be known in the country-side as "The Scarlet Woman." She was a handsome dame of forty, or mayhap a little more; but, save for the more pronounced arching of her haughty nose and the rounding curves of her figure, she might well have passed for ten or twelve years younger.

The Laird of Balmaghie went eagerly forward to meet his visitor. He took gratefully enough the hand which she reached to him a little indulgently, as one might give a sweetmeat to a child to occupy its attention. For even as he murmured his welcomes the lady's eyes were certainly not upon her host, but on the erect figure of his under-gardener, who stood staring and transfixed by the rose-bush which he had been pruning.

"My Lady Wellwood," said Roger McGhie, "this is indeed an honor and a privilege."

"Who may this youth be?" interrupted the lady, imperiously cutting short his sober courtesies and pointing to Lang Wat of the Glenkens.

"It is but one of my gardeners; he has lately come about the house," answered Roger McGhie, "a well-doing carle enough and a good worker. But hark ye, my lady, perhaps a wee overfond of Whiggery and such strait-lacedness, and so it may be as well to give his name the go-by when John Graham comes this way."

My Lady of Wellwood never took her eyes off the gardener's face.

"Come hither and help me to dismount," she said, beckoning with her finger.

Wat Gordon went reluctantly enough, dragging one foot after the other. He realized that the end had come to his residence among the flower-closes of Balmaghie, and that he must e'en bid farewell to these walks and glades as of Paradise, upon which, as upon his life, the hazel eyes of Kate McGhie had lately rained such sweet influences. Meanwhile the laird stood meekly by. The caprices of great court-ladies were not in his province, but, having set out to humor them, he was not to be offended by the favor shown his servitor. He had heard of such things at Whitehall, and the memory rather kindled him than otherwise. He felt all the new life and energy which comes of being transported into a new world of new customs, new ideas, and even of new laxities.

Wat gave my Lady Wellwood his hand in the courtliest manner. The habit and gait of the under-gardener seemed to fall from him in a moment at the sound of that voice, low and languorous, with a thrill in it of former days which it irked him to think had still power to affect him.

"You have not quite forgotten me, then, sweet lad of Lochinvar?" asked the Duchess of Wellwood softly in his ear. For so in the days of his sometime madness she had been wont to call him. "No," answered Wat, sullenly enough, as he lifted her to the ground, not knowing what else to say.

"Then meet me at the head of the wood on my way home," whispered the lady, as she disengaged herself from his arm, and turned with a smiling face to Roger McGhie.

"And this is your sweet daughter," she murmured, caressingly, to Kate, who stood by with drooping eyelids, but who, nevertheless, had lost no shade of the colloquy between Wat Gordon and her father's guest.

The Lady Wellwood took the girl's hand, which lay cold and unresponsive in her plump white fingers. "A pretty maid—you will be a beauty one day, my dear," she added, with the condescension of one who knows she has as yet nothing to fear from younger rivals.

To this Kate answered nothing. For her flatterer was a woman. Had the Duchess of Wellwood been a man and condescended to this sort of left-handed praise, Kate would have flashed her eyes and said, "I have not seldom been told that I am one already." Whereupon he would have amended his sentence. As it was, Kate said nothing, but only hardened her heart and wondered what the great court lady had found to whisper to the man who, during these last months, had daily been avowing himself her lover. And though Kate was conscious that her heart sat secure and untouched on its virgin throne, it had, nevertheless, been not unpleasant to listen to the lad. For of a surety Wat Gordon told his tale wondrously well.

Roger McGhie conducted the lady gallantly through the garden walks towards the house. But she had not gone far when she professed herself overcome by the heat, and desired to be permitted to sit down on a rustic seat. She was faint, she said; yet, even as she said it, the keen eye of Kate McGhie noted that her color remained warm and high. "A tass of water—nay, no wine," she called after the Laird of Balmaghie; "I thank you for your courtesy."

And Kate's father hastened away a little stiffly to bring it. She knew that his Sunday shoes irked him. It served him right, she thought. At his age he ought to know better—but there remained the more important matter of the under-gardener.

"Come and sit by me, pretty one," said the Lady Wellwood, cooingly, to Kate.

The "pretty one" would infinitely rather have set herself down by the side of an adder sunning itself on a bank than shared the woodland seat with the bold horsewoman of Grenoch.

"Ah! sly one," she said, "I warrant you knew that your under-gardener there, that handsome lad, was not the landward man he seemed."

She shook her finger reproachfully at her companion as she spoke.

Kate blushed hotly, and then straightway fell to despising herself for doing it almost as much as she hated my lady for making her. Lady Wellwood watched her covertly out of the corner of her eyes. She cultivated a droop of the left eyelid on purpose.

"I know that he is proscribed, and has a price set on his head," Kate said, quietly, looking after Wat with great indifference as he went down the avenue of trees.

"And do you know why?" asked the duchess, somewhat abruptly.

"No," answered Kate, wondering at her tone.

"It was for wounding my late husband within the precincts of Holyrood," said Lady Wellwood.

But Kate McGhie's anger was now fully roused, and her answer ran trippingly off her tongue.

"And was it for that service you spoke so kindly to him just now, and bade him meet you at the head of the wood as you went home?" The duchess stared a little, but her well-bred calmness was not ruffled.

"Even so," she said, placidly, "and for the further reason that Walter Gordon was on his way to see me on the night when it was his ill fortune to meet with my husband instead."

"I do not believe it," cried the girl, lifting her head and looking Lady Wellwood straight in the eyes.

"Ask him, then!" answered the duchess, with the calm assurance of forty answering the chit of half her years. For at first sight my lady had envied and hated the clear, blushful ivory of the girl's cheek and the natural luxuriance of her close-tangled curls. And since all the art of St. James's could not match with these, she was now getting even with Kate in ways of her own.

The girl did not speak. Her heart only welled within her with contradiction and indignation.

"Or if you will not do that, sit down half an hour hence and read your book in the little arbor by the end of the avenue, and you will hear news. Whether you may like it or not is another question. But, at all events, you shall not have cause to say again that a Duchess of Wellwood lied."

Kate rose and walked away without answering a word. She cared no jot for Wat Gordon, so she told herself. He was nothing to her, save that she desired his safety and had risked much to give him shelter. Yet this Duchess of Wellwood—that woman of whom the gross popular tongue whispered commonly the most terrible things! Had Lochinvar made love to her? Was he to meet her at the end of the avenue? She could not believe it. It was, indeed, no matter if he did. What did she care? Go to the arbor, become an eavesdropper—not for any man alive, least of all for Wat Gordon! Thank God, she had a tongue in her head, and was not afraid to ask Wat Gordon, or any living soul, whatever she desired to know.

But after a little hesitation she went up-stairs to her chamber, and, denying herself the listening of the ear, she listened with her eyes instead. For she watched my Lady Wellwood being helped into her saddle right courteously by her father. She saw her looking down at him the while with a glance professionally tender—a glance that lingered in the memory by reason of the quiver of an eyelid and the pressure of a soft, reluctant hand. And Roger McGhie bowed over her plump fingers as though he had been bidding farewell to some angelic visitant.

For the first time in her life Kate McGhie despised her father. And, lo! to hurt her heart yet more, and to convince her of the ultimate falsity of all men, there was Wat, his tall figure overtopping the hawthorn hedge, walking briskly in the direction of the pinewood at the end of the avenue.

Kate went down-stairs with a set, still face. She would not cry. She did not care. She was only bitterly disappointed with the whole race of mankind, nothing more. They were all no better than so many blind fools, ready to be taken in by a plausible tongue and a rolling eye. A fine figure of a woman, and—Lord, where was the best of them?

But her Wat—and with the Duchess of Wellwood; she could not believe it! Why, she might be his—well, hardly that—but his mother at the very least.

Not that she cared; she had her work to think about; and Kate McGhie went down to the little suckling lamb she had fed daily with warm milk out of a wooden spoon, and which, though now almost of the greatness of a full-grown sheep, still leaped and fawned upon her. She fetched her pail and mixed pet Donald's mid-day meal.

Outside the garden wall the lamb was standing, bleating indignant petitions, and there Katie McGhie fed him with a gradually swelling heart. As the last drops disappeared into the moist black muzzle, Kate put her arms about the woolly neck and sobbed aloud.

"Oh, Donald, Donald, my lamb, you are the only friend I have! I do not love anybody else, and no one in the world loves me. But I am not sorry—I am glad, and I will not cry. It is not that I love him, Donald; but, oh! he might not have done it!"

That same evening Wat Gordon, as was his custom, came walking slowly through the garden pleasaunce. Kate McGhie met him by the rose-bush he had been pruning that morning.

"Is it true," she asked, looking at him bravely and directly, "that you are in hiding because, when going to visit the Duchess of Wellwood, you encountered her husband instead?"

"This much is true," answered Wat, promptly, "that while passing down the Canongate one snowy night, my cousin, Will Gordon of Earlstoun, and I were beset by a band of ruffians in the pay of the Duke of Wellwood, and that in defending ourselves the Duke himself was hurt."

"And when you went out of your lodging that night, was it to walk with your cousin or to visit my Lady of Wellwood in her boudoir?"

Wat Gordon took his breath hard. The manner of the question left him no escape with honor. But he could not lie. And he would offer no excuse.

"I went out to visit my Lady Wellwood!" he said, very shortly.

Kate McGhie held out her hand.

"I bid you good-bye," she said; "you will find your ancient friend and hostess at the Grenoch. There is nothing to detain you any longer about the poor house of Balmaghie." And so saying the girl turned on her heel and walked slowly through the garden garth and past the pruned rose-bushes. She crossed the grassy slope to the door and there disappeared, leaving Wat Gordon standing silent, shamed, and amazed.