Lochinvar: A Novel

All that day Wat's heart kept time to a new and unwonted tune. The streets had never seemed so smiling, the faces of the children never so mirthful. The commonwealth of things was manifestly in excellent repair that afternoon in the city of Amersfort. Lochinvar hummed a jaunty marching-stave as he strode towards the low door in Zaandpoort Street, while his heart beat fast to think that in a moment more he would be looking into those wondrous eyes whose kindness or cruelty had now become to him as life or death.

As he went a little softly up the stairs, he heard above a noise of cheerful converse. An unknown man's voice spoke high and clear among the others. The lighter tones of women intermingled with it, pleasantly responsive. For a moment those within did not in the instancy of their discourse hear Wat's summons. At last Maisie opened the door, astonished that any one should knock at inner chamber-port, and as Wat entered he saw, sitting in his own accustomed place, his hat on the table, his sword unslung for ease, his enemy the Lord of Barra. The provost-marshal was talking easily and familiarly to Kate, who sat on the low window-seat leaning a little forward, with interest written clearly on every line of her face. She was nursing her knee between her clasped palms with that quaint and subtle grace which had often gone to Wat's heart. Her dark eyes rested, not upon his incoming, of which she appeared to be for the moment unconscious, but upon the face of the speaker.

Wat and Barra submitted (it could not be called more) to Maisie's introduction – Wat with sullen blackness of countenance and the slightest inclination of his head, Barra with smiling patience, as though by the very irony of circumstances it had chanced to him to be introduced to his stable-boy.

Kate rose and took Wat's hand a moment in kindly fashion, though with eyes a little downcast, being not yet ready quite to forget his rudeness upon the street. But immediately she went back to her seat in order to listen to the conclusion of the story which Barra had been relating. It concerned the loyalty of the Highland clans to their chiefs, and as Barra told of their sacrifices, a genuine pleasure lightened in his dark face, his eyes glittered, and a new life breathed through his whole form. For pride in the loyalty of his clan was the selfish man's one enthusiasm.

Maisie sat down with her sewing close to where Wat stood moping and bending his brows, and, noting his brow of constraint and gloom, she set herself lovingly to cheer him.

"We have had good news to-day," she said, smiling pleasantly at him – "news that William does not know yet. See!" she added, handing him a parchment from the table with heightened color, for she had been married but six months, and her William was the pivot on which the universe revolved.

It was a commission as captain in the Covenant regiment in favor of William Gordon, called younger, of Earlstoun. Wat continued to look at it in amazement. It was what he had asked for from William of Orange that day without obtaining an answer.

"My Lord of Barra had it from the prince's own hand. He says that the stadtholder has long marked the address of my husband, and hath only delayed to reward it lest the short space he has been with the colors should arouse the jealousy of his comrades."

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."

Here Walter snatched suddenly at the bonnet which had been lying on the floor: but the indignant little lady of the house in Zaandpoort Street had not yet said all her say.

"And, moreover," she said, "so long as I am mistress of a hovel, neither you nor any other shall intrude your brawls and quarrels upon those whom I choose to invite to my house."

"You choose between us, then?" cried Wat, holding his head high, his face as colorless as a sheet of paper.

"If you desire to put it so – yes. I choose between a man of courtesy and a silly, hectoring boy. I choose, cousin mine, not to give you the right to select my guests for me."

Wat turned to Kate. The blood had now ebbed from his lips, and left them gray. His eyes seemed in a short tale of moments to have sunk deep into his face.

"And you?" he said, more calmly than before, looking at the maid of his love.

The girl trembled like a leaf on an autumn gossamer; nevertheless, she answered firmly enough: "I am but a guest in this house, but so long as I abide here the friends of my hostess are my friends!"

Wat Gordon bowed low with stateliest courtesy, first to his cousin Maisie, then to Kate McGhie, and lastly to his rival.

"I shall have the honor of sending you a communication in the morning," he said, looking the councillor of the prince between the eyes.

Barra sat still on his chair, looking Wat over with the same calmly amused contempt he had shown throughout. "Ah," he replied, nodding his head, "perhaps it might be as well to let the – the application come in the usual way – through my chamberlain."

And he was still smiling as Wat Gordon strode down the stairs with anger burning coldly white on his face, and all hell raging in his heart.

Barra turned to Kate to continue his story, but her place was vacant. The girl had inexplicably vanished from the room before Wat's foot had even passed the threshold. She lay now on the little white bed in her own room, her whole frame shaken with sobs, and the hot, bitter tears raining down on the pillow.

Then, for the first time, she knew in her own heart that she was face to face with great unreasoning love, which could neither be banished nor disowned.

"Oh, why," she sobbed, "was he so foolish and wicked? Why did Maisie grow of a sudden so hard and cruel to him? Why must things turn out thus deadly wrong, when they might just as easily have gone right?"

She buried her face in the pillow, and whispered her conclusion to the fine linen of its coverture upon which her tears were falling.

"Yet I love him – yes, I love him more than ever for it!" she said, and sank her head deeper, as if to hide her love from her own most secret sight.

CHAPTER X

THE DESCENT OF AVERNUS

Wat staggered a little as he walked down the street of Zaandpoort. He felt somewhat like a bullock that has been felled, yet which for the moment escapes with life. The air had grown suddenly thin and cold, as it had been difficult to breathe. He drew his cloak about him and shivered.

"Well," he raged, "that at least is ended! They have done with me – made their choice. I that stood by them in many bad, old days am cast off for a rogue and a scoundrel – because, forsooth, he is an earl and a prince's councillor. Were I but come to my rights, they would not treat me thus! But, because I am only poor Wat Gordon of the Douglas Regiment, I must be grateful for any dog's treatment."

As Wat grew to believe his own silly windy words, he held his head a little higher. And into the poor, angry, foolish boy's heart the devil cast his baited hook. Pride took hold of Wat, and the thought of revenge.

"But, after all, am I not Walter Gordon of Lochinvar," he said, as he strode along, heeding none, "a gentleman at least, and now, in spite of them all, an officer also? If mine own folk and kin think nothing of me in the little lodgings of Zaandpoort Street, I can show them that there are places more famous, where others will make Wat Gordon welcome for his own sake."

At that moment a shouting reveller ruffling it along the street recalled to his mind that he was in the neighborhood of the famous Hostelry of the Coronation, where nightly during the stay of the army at Amersfort all the young bloods of the allied forces met, and where (it was reported) brightest eyes shone across the wine goblet, and daintiest feet danced upon the polished floors. The Inn of the Coronation was held by mine host Sheffell. A score of times it had been closed by the city fathers, but, nevertheless, always with more or less carefully concealed intent of winking hard at its immediate reopening.

And all this was because the burgomeister and magnates of Amersfort looked upon the Inn of the Coronation as a safety-valve for the riotous blades of the city and camp.

"For," said the former to the more sapient of his corporation when he could be private with them, "if the young kerls go not to the Coronation and meet with their like – well, we are men and fathers. Like is it that we may have matters on our hands that shall trouble us more deeply. Worse were it if the rascals came rattling their spurs and tagging at the tails of our daughters and our wives."