Lochinvar: A Novel

With this Jack Scarlett rose, and did upon him his cloak and all his fighting-gear with an air grave and sullen, as though he were going to his own beheading. Then he searched all his drawers and pockets for money – which, in spite of the vaunted excellence of the paymaster's department, appeared to be somewhat scarce with the master-at-arms. Presently he announced himself as ready.

His decision took this shape:

"This is the excellentest fool's-errand in the world, and I the greater fool to go with another fool upon it. Lead on, Wat Gordon."

So, grumbling and muttering, he followed Wat down the stairs.

"And now," said Scarlett, "pray, have you so much as thought upon our need of horses?"

"Nay," said Wat, "I have thought of naught but getting out of prison, finding a friend, and winning back my lass."

"Aye, marry," grunted Scarlett, "thy lass! Mickle hast thou thought of taking thy fool comrade away from the best pay-roll and the most complaisant landlady he has found these thirty years."

CHAPTER XVIII

A PERILOUS MEETING

At the corner of the square, as they were turning under the shadow of the cathedral, a smallish, slender youth came running trippingly towards them.

"You want horses," he said to Wat; "there are three of them ready waiting over there in the dark of the trees beyond the canal yonder."

"And who are you, my skip-jack manling," said Scarlett, "that makes so free with your horses in this country of donkeys?"

"A friend!" said the boy, sliding away from the rasp in the voice of the master-at-arms.

Something familiar in gait and manner struck Wat through the disguise of the unfamiliar dress.

"It is the Little Marie!" he said, gladly enough. "What do you here in this attire?"

The slim figure had slipped round to Wat's side and now laid a soft, small hand on his.

"I have come to help you to escape. I have three horses waiting for you, and I have discovered that the password for the night is 'Guelderland.'"

"And the horses," queried Wat, "whence came they?"

"Ne'er inquire too carefully so that they be good ones," quoth Scarlett the campaigner.

"I took the loan of them from the stables of the Inn of the Coronation. I know of one who will see them safe home," said Marie.

"Is their hire paid for?" asked Wat the Scot.

"Faith, aye," said Jack Scarlett; "I myself have paid the fat old villain Sheffell for them over and over again. Let us go on. It skills not to be too nice in distinctions when one argues under the shadow of the gallows. The rascal shall have his horses back safe enough when we are done with them."

They went by unfrequented ways, following their slim, alert guide down by-ways that echoed under their feet, by quiet, evil-smelling streets vocal with night-raking cats, past innumerable prowling dogs with their backs chronically arched at the shoulders, half in general defiance of their kind, and half with bending over baskets of domestic rubbish.

They came after a while to the shade of the little wood beyond the great canal; and there, sure enough, tied to the green-sparred wooden box, which in Dutch fashion had been put round some of the trees of rarer sort, were three horses, all busily employed trying to crop the herbage to the limit of their several tethers.

"And the third?" queried Scarlett, looking at them. "Whose leg goes across the saddle of the third?"

"I come with you," said Marie, hastily and anxiously; "believe me, I can guide you to a little haven where are ships wherein you may reach your own land – or, at least, if it please you, escape safely out of this country of enemies."

"And who may you be, my pretty little young man with the babe's face, and where gat you the spirit that makes you speak so brisk and bold?"

Marie looked at Wat through the dim light as though to beseech him to answer for her.

Said Wat, overcoming a natural touch of shyness and reluctance, "This is the friend of mine who got me out of prison, and who was kind to me beyond all thanks when I abode therein. She is only 'the Little Marie,' whom you remember at the Hostel of the Coronation. After that night she went back there no more."

"She!" cried Scarlett; "she, did he say? 'Only the Little Marie,' quotha! Well, that is a good deal for a Scot of the Covenant, one that for lack of other helpers will have to company with the Hill-wanderers, so far as I can see, when he goes back to his own land."

"Aye," said Wat, dryly, "but we are not back yet."

"I kenned," returned Scarlett, every whit as dryly, "that we were on one love-quest. But had I kenned that we were on two of them at once, the devil a foot would I have stirred out of my good lodgings, or away from the bield of that excellent and truly buxom householder, the Frau Axel."

So far they had spoken in Scots, but the Little Marie, listening with tremulous eagerness to the tone of their conversation, laid her hand wistfully on Scarlett's arm.

"Fear not," she said in French, "I will never be a burden to you, nor yet troublesome. I am to stay with you only till you are clear of your difficulties. I can help you even as I helped him, for I know whither the maiden you seek has been taken. And when you are on the track of the robbers, then, so quickly as may be, the Little Marie will return to her own place."

Scarlett did not give back a single word of good or bad. As his manner was, he only grunted abruptly – yet, as it had been, not ill-pleased.

"Time we were in the saddle, at all events," he said; "that is, if we are to pass the posts ere the coming of the day."

Presently, therefore, the three found themselves riding towards the city gate. Scarlett rode first to show his uniform – that of the new corps of which he was master-at-arms. He wore also the ribbon of the order he had received from the prince conspicuously displayed, if it so happened that the watch should shed the light of a lantern upon them.

"Halt!" duly cried the sentinel at the port of the camp. "Who goes there?"

"The nephew of the colonel, my Lord Buchan," said Scarlett, "going to the camp under escort and accompanied by his tutor."

"Advance and give the password," said the sentry, mechanically.

"Guelderland!" said Scarlett, as carelessly as though he had been passing posts all night and was tired of the formula.

The sentry, dreaming of a maid with plates of gold at her temples, among the far-away canals of Friesland, fell back and permitted the three horsemen to pass without so much as wasting a glance upon them. The gates closed behind and the white tents glimmered vaguely in front of them. They turned aside, however, from the camp, keeping cautiously along to the right as they rode, in order to skirt the wall of the city. In this way they hoped to reach the open country without being again accosted; for it was entirely within the range of possibility that the password which had served them so well inside the city might be worse than useless without the walls of Amersfort.

Nevertheless, they passed the last of the white tents without challenge.

As soon as the camp was left behind Marie came to the front, and, without apology or explanation, led the way, diving into darkling roads and striking across fields by unseen bridle-paths without the least hesitation.

Meanwhile Wat and Scarlett, riding close behind her, talked over their plans. Kate (they decided) was in the power of Barra. She had been carried off against her will. So much they were sure of. Barra, however, was clearly not with her, having been wounded at the moment of his setting out by the knife of the Little Marie. Therefore, for the time being at least, Kate was saved the greater dangers of his presence. Also, his men would certainly keep her safe enough. The only question was in what direction Kate had been carried off.

"I can help you with that also," said the girl, to whom their quest had been explained, letting her horse drop back beside Wat's, "for yester-even there came a certain well-refreshed sailor-man of my village to the Street of the Prison. He served, he said, in a ship called the Sea Unicorn, and she waited only the signal of my Lord Barra to weigh her anchor. 'Goes my lord to Scotland?' I asked him. 'Nay,' he laughed, 'at least not directly and not alone. But he brings a fair wench for company to him, and that without asking her leave, as the Lords of Barra do all. Captain Smith is well paid for the venture, and to every man of us there is good white drink-money.' So after I heard that I was determined to set my knife deeper in my lord for the poor lass's sake, that she might never taste his tender mercies as I myself had done."

"And heard you whither the ship was to sail, Marie?" asked Wat, listening with great attention to her tale.

"Nay, my captain," she replied; "of that the man knew little, save where she was to put down her anchors and wait, which was off the town of Lis-op-Zee, to which presently we ride. But Captain Smith had sworn to go first to his home at Poole, whatever might be his freight. And the sailor believed that he would keep his word."

"That suits Jack Scarlett excellently," said his companion; "for to go on a quest after runaway maids to the kingdom of the blessed Louis the Great is of a certainty to have my neck stretched, on account of the somewhat hasty manner in which I relinquished the service of his Most Christian Majesty. And Scotland, though mine own land, has overly many waspish sectaries and rough-riding malignants for old Jack to be wholly comfortable therein."

"Then England and Poole it shall be," said Wat, confidently. "You shall see!"