HOW TWO OF HIS MAJESTY'S SERVANTS MET WITH THEIR DESERTS
The next morn broke fair and cloudless, and ere the sun was up I was awake, for little time must be lost if we sought to win to Smitwood ere the pursuit began. The folk of the cave were early risers, for the need for retiring early to rest made them so; and we broke our fast with a meal of cakes and broiled fish almost before daylight. Then I went out to enjoy the fresh air, for it was safe enough to be abroad at that hour. Nothing vexed the still air on the green hillside save the flapping peewits and the faint morning winds.
Marjory meantime ran out into the sunshine with all the gaiety in the world. She was just like a child let loose from school, for she was ever of a light heart and care sat easily upon her. Now, although we were in the direst peril, she was taking delight in spring, as if we were once again children in Dawyck, catching trout in the deep pools of the wood. She left me to go out from the little glen, which was the entrance to the cave, into the wider dale of the Cor Water, which ran shallow between lone green braes. I heard her singing as she went down among the juniper bushes and flinty rocks, and then it died away behind a little shoulder of hill.
So I was left to my own reflections on the plight in which I found myself. For the first time a sort of wounded pride began to vex me. Formerly I had thought of nothing save how to save my own head and keep my love from my enemy, and cared not, if in the effecting of it, I had to crouch with the fox and be chased by the basest scum of the land. I cared not if I were put out of house and home and outlawed for years, for the adventurous spirit was strong within me. But now all my old pride of race rose in rebellion at the thought that I was become a person without importance, a houseless wanderer, the spoil of my enemies. It made me bitter as gall to think of it, and by whose aid my misfortune had been effected. A sort of hopeless remorse came over me. Should I ever win back the place I had lost? Would the Burnets ever again be great gentlemen of Tweeddale, a power in the countryside, having men at their beck and call? Or would the family be gone forever, would I fall in the wilds, or live only to find my lands gone with my power, and would Marjory never enter Barns as its mistress? I could get no joy out of the morning for the thought, and as I wandered on the hillside I had little care of what became of me.
Now at this time there happened what roused me and set me once more at peace with myself. And though it came near to being a dismal tragedy, it was the draught which nerved me for all my later perils. And this was the manner of it.
Marjory, as she told me herself afterwards, had gone down to the little meadows by the burnside, where she watched the clear brown water and the fish darting in the eddies. She was thus engaged, when she was aware of two horsemen who rode over the top of the glen and down the long hill on the other side. They, were almost opposite before she perceived them, and there was no time tor flight. Like a brave lass she uttered no scream, but stood still that they might not see her. But it was of no avail. Their roving eyes could not miss in that narrow glen so fair a sight, and straightway one called out to the other that there was a girl at the burnside.
Now had the twain been out on an ordinary foray it would have gone hard indeed with us. For they would have turned aside to search out the matter, and in all likelihood the hiding-place would have been discovered. But they had been out on some night errand and were returning in hot haste to their quarters at Abington, where their captain had none too gentle a temper. So they contented themselves with shouting sundry coarse railleries, and one in the plenitude of his greathearted ness fired his carbine at her. Without stopping further they rode on.
The bullet just grazed her arm above the wrist, cutting away a strip of dress. She cried out at the pain, but though frightened almost to death, she was brave enough to bide where she was, for if she had run straight to the cave it would have shown them the hiding-place. As soon as they passed out of view she came painfully up the slope, and I who had heard the shot and rushed straightway to the place whence it came, met her clasping her wounded wrist and with a pitiful white face.
"O Marjory, what ails you?" I cried.
"Nothing, John," she answered; "some soldiers passed me and one fired. It has done me no harm. But let us get to shelter lest they turn back."
At her words I felt my heart rise in a sudden great heat of anger. I had never felt such passion before. It seemed to whelm and gulf my whole being.
"Let me carry you, dear," I said quietly, and lifting her I bore her easily up the ravine to the cave.
When I got her within our shelter there was a very great to-do. The women ran up in grief to see the hurt, and the men at the news of the military wore graver faces. Master Lockhart, who was something of a surgeon, looked at the wound.
"Oh," he says, "this is nothing, a scratch and no more. It will be well as ever to-morrow. But the poor maid has had a fright which has made her weak. I have some choice French brandy which I aye carry with me for the fear of such accidents. Some of that will soon restore her."
So he fetched from some unknown corner the bottle which he spake of, and when her lips had been moistened, Marjory revived and declared her weakness gone. Now my most pressing anxiety was removed, which up till this time had been harassing me sore. For if my lady were to be hurt in this unfriendly place, what hope of safety would there be for either? When I saw that the wound was but trifling, the anger which had been growing in my heart side by side with my care, wholly overmastered me. All my pride of house and name was roused at the deed. To think that the lady who was the dearest to me in the world should be thus maltreated by scurrilous knaves of dragoons stirred me to fury. I well knew that I could get no peace with the thought, and my inclination and good-judgment alike made me take the course I followed.
I called to Nicol, where he sat supping his morning porridge by the fire, and he came to my side very readily.
"Get the two horses," said I quietly, that none of the others might hear of my madness, "one for me and one for yourself." Now the beasts were stabled in the back part of the cave, which was roomy and high, though somewhat damp. The entrance thereto lay by a like rift in the hillside some hundred yards farther up the glen. When I had thus bidden my servant I sauntered out into the open air and waited his coming with some impatience.
I asked him, when he appeared, if he had the pistols, for he had a great trick of going unarmed and trusting to his fleet legs and mother wit rather than the good gifts of God to men, steel and gunpowder. "Ay, laird, I hae them. Are ye gaun to shoot muirfowl?"
"Yes," said I, "I am thinking of shooting a muirfowl for my breakfast."
Nicol laughed quietly to himself. He knew well the errand I was on, or he would not have consented so readily.
I knew that the two dragoons had ridden straight down the Cor Water glen, making for the upper vale of Tweed and thence to the Clyde hills. But this same glen of Cor is a strangely winding one, and if a man leave it and ride straight over the moorland he may save a matter of two miles, and arrive at the Tweed sooner than one who has started before him. The ground is rough, but, to one used to the hills, not so as to keep him from riding it with ease. Also at the foot of the burn there is a narrow nick through which it thrusts itself in a little cascade to join the larger stream; and through this place the road passes, for all the hills on either side are steep and stony, and offer no foothold for a horse. Remembering all these things, a plan grew up in my mind which I hastened to execute.
With Nicol following, I rode aslant the low hills to the right and came to the benty tableland which we had travelled the day before. The sun was now well up in the sky, and the air was so fresh and sweet that it was pure pleasure to breathe it.
After maybe a quarter-hour's stiff riding we descended, and keeping well behind a low spur which hid us from the valley, turned at the end into the glen-mouth, at the confluence of the two waters. Then we rode more freely till we reached the narrows which I have spoke of, and there we halted. All was quiet, nor was there any sound of man or horse.
"Do you bide there," said I to my servant, "while I will wait here. Now I will tell you what I purpose to do. The two miscreants who shot Mistress Marjory are riding together on their way to their quarters. One will have no shot in his carbine; what arms the other has I cannot tell; but at any rate we two with pistols can hold them in check. Do you cover the one on the right when they appear, and above all things see that you do not fire."
So we waited there, sitting motionless in our saddles, on that fair morning when all around us the air was full of crying snipe and twittering hill-linnets. The stream made a cheerful sound, and the little green ferns in the rocks nodded beneath the spray of the water. I found my mind misgiving me again and again for the headstrong prank on which I was entered, as unworthy of one who knew something of better things. But I had little time for self-communings, for we had scarce been there two minutes before we heard the grating of hooves on the hill-gravel, and our two gentlemen came round the corner not twenty yards ahead.
At the sight of us they reined up and stared stock still before them. Then I saw the hands of both reach to their belts, and I rejoiced at the movement, for I knew that the arms of neither were loaded.
"Gentlemen," said I, "it will be at your peril that you move. We have here two loaded pistols. We are not soldiers of His Majesty, so we have some skill in shooting. Let me assure you on my word that your case is a desperate one."
At my words the one still looked with a haughty, swaggering stare, but the jaw of the other dropped and he seemed like a man in excess of terror.
"To-day," I went on, "you shot at a lady not half an hour agone. It is for this that I have come to have speech with you. Let us understand one another, my friends. I am an outlawed man and one not easy to deal with. I am the Laird of Barnsah, I see you know the nameand let this persuade you to offer no resistance."
One of the twain still stood helpless. The other's hand twitched as if he would draw his sword or reach to his powder-flask, but the steely glitter of our barrels and my angry face deterred him.
"What do you want with us?" he said in a tone of mingled sulkiness and bravado. "Let me tell you, I am one of His Majesty's dragoons, and you'll pay well for any ill you do to me. I care not a fig for you, for all your gentrice. If you would but lay down your pop-guns and stand before me man to man, I would give you all the satisfaction you want."
The fellow was a boor but he spoke like a man, and I liked him for his words. But I replied grimly:
"I will have none of your bragging. Go and try that in your own stye, you who shoot at women. I will give you as long as I may count a hundred, and if before that you have not stripped off every rag you have on and come forward to me here, by God I will shoot you down like the dogs you are."
And with this I began solemnly to count aloud.
At first they were still rebellious, but fear of the death which glinted to them from the barrels of the pistols won the mastery. Slowly and with vast reluctance they began to disrobe themselves of belt and equipments, of coat and jackboots, till they stood before me in the mild spring air as stark as the day they were born. Their faces were heavy with malice and shame.
"Now," said I to Nicol, "dismount and lay on to these fellows with the flat of your sword. Give me your pistol, and if either makes resistance he will know how a bullet tastes. Lay on, and do not spare them."
So Nicol, to whom the matter was a great jest, got down and laid on lustily. They shouted most piteously for mercy, but none they got till the stout arm of my servant was weary.
"And now, gentlemen, you may remount your horses. Nay, without your clothes; you will ride more freely as you are. And give my best respects to your honourable friends, and tell them I wish a speedy meeting."
But as I looked in the face of one, him who had been so terror-stricken at the outset, I saw that which I thought I recognised.
"You, fellow," I cried, "where have I seen you before?"
And as I looked again, I remembered a night the year before on the Alphen road, when I had stood over this very man and questioned him on his name and doings. So he had come to Scotland as one of the foreign troops.
"I know you, Jan Hamman," said I. "The great doctor Johannes Burnetus of Lugdunum has not forgotten you. You were scarcely in an honest trade before, but you are in a vast deal less honest now. I vowed if ever I met you again to make you smart for your sins, and I think I have kept my word, though I had the discourtesy to forget your face at first sight. Good morning, Jan, I hope to see you again ere long. Good morning, gentlemen both."
So the luckless pair rode off homeward, and what reception they met with from their captain and their comrades who shall say?
Meanwhile, when they were gone for some little time, Nicol and I rode back by a round-about path. When I began to reflect, I saw the full rashness of my action. I had burned my boats behind me with a vengeance. There was no choice of courses before me now. The chase would be ten times hotter against me than before, and besides I had given them some clue to my whereabouts. You may well ask if the danger to my love were not equally great, for that by this action they would know at least the airt by which she had fled. I would answer that these men were of Gilbert's own company, and one, at least, of them, when he heard my name, must have had a shrewd guess as to who the lady was. My cousin's love affairs were no secret. If the man had revealed the tale in its entirety, his own action must necessarily have been exposed, and God help him who had insulted one whom Gilbert cared for. He would have flayed the skin from him at the very mention.
To my sober reason to-day the action seems foolhardy in the extreme, and more like a boyish frolic than the work of a man. But all I knew at the time, as I rode back, was that my pride was for the moment soothed, and my heart mightily comforted.