"For a Fifer, ye are a man of some discernment," he said; "and your duds fit me no that ill. They maun hae been made for ye when ye were younger, and altogether a better-lookin' figure o' a man!"
"Aye; they were cutted oot for me when I was coortin' – no this ane," Sandy Lyall explained, indicating his present wife with a placid, contemptuous thumb, "but a braw, weel-tochered lass oot o' the pairish o' Sant Andros. But she wadna hae me because I cam' frae Pittenweem. She said I smelled o' fish-creels."
"And what, Master Lyall, might have brought you to Flanders?" asked Wat, who had been waiting as patiently as he might while his companion arrayed himself.
He thought that this otiose burgher of Pittenweem must be a strange subject for the religious enthusiasm which was mostly in these days the cause of a man's being exiled from his native country.
"Weel," returned Sandy, with immense and impressive gravity, checking off the details upon the palm of one hand with the index-finger of the other, "ye see the way o't was this: There was a lass, and there was a man, and there was me. And the man and me, we baith wanted the lass – ye comprehend? And the lass didna want but ane o' us. And that ane wasna me. So I gied the man a clour, and he fell to the grund and didna get up. And the lass she gaed and telled. So that was the way that I left my native land for conscience' sake."
Wat marvelled at the simple, quiet-looking man who had so strenuously arranged matters to his satisfaction before leaving his love and the land of his birth.
"Aye, but that wasna the warst o' it," Sandy Lyall went on, "for, a' owin' to that lang-tongued limmer, I had to leave ahint me as thrivin' a cooper's business as there was in a' the heartsome toon o' Pittenweem – aye, and as mony as half a score o' folk owin' me siller! But I owed ither folk a deal mair, and that was aye some consolation."
CHAPTER VI
THE PRINCE OF ORANGE
In a long, low, narrow room in the palace of the stadtholder in the city of Amersfort, sat Murdo, Lord of Barra and the Small Isles. The head of a great though isolated western clan, he had detached himself from the general sentiments of his people with regard to religion and loyalty. First his father and then he himself had taken the Covenanting side in the national struggle – his father through interest and conviction, the son from interest alone. Both, however, had carried with them the unquestioning loyalty of their clan, so that it became an important consideration to any claimant for the throne of Britain who desired quietness in the north to have on his side the McAlisters, Lords of Barra and the Small Isles.
The Prince of Orange had given to both father and son a welcome and a place of refuge when the storm of persecution shook even the wild Highlands and the government was granting to its more zealous adherents letters of fire and sword for the extirpation of suspected clans, and especially for the encouragement of the well-affected by the plunder of rebels and psalm-singers.
Now, in acknowledgment of this timely succor and safe harborage, Barra had, ever since his father's death, given his counsel to the prince on many matters concerning Scotland. Yet, though Murdo McAlister had been used, he had never been fully trusted by William of Orange, nor yet by those wise and farseeing men who stood closest about him. Something crafty in Barra's look, something sinister in his eye, kept those who knew him best from placing complete confidence in him. And there were those who made no difficulty about declaring that Murdo of Barra had a foot in either camp, and that, were it not for the importance of the information sent from Holland to the court of James the Second, my Lord of Barra could very well return home, and enjoy his long barren moorlands and wave-fretted heritages in unvexed peace.
It was yet early morning when Wat and John Scarlett stood before my Lord of Barra in the palace room which he occupied as provost-marshal of the city and camp. They saluted him civilly, while his cold, viperish eye took in the details of their attire with a certain chill and insolent regard, which made Wat quiver from head to foot with desire to kill him.
To judge by the provost-marshal's reception, he might never have seen either of them before. Yet Lochinvar was as certain as that he lived that it was his laugh which had jarred upon him in the passage behind Haxo in the inn of Brederode, and which had been the means of bringing the combat to a close. Yet he, too, must have ridden fast and far since the fight at the inn, if Wat's vivid impression had any basis in fact.
"Your business with me?" inquired Barra, haughtily, looking straight past them into the blank wall behind.
"You know my business," said Walter, abruptly. "I carried out your orders in collecting information with regard to the number of the troops, the position of the regiments, and the defences of the camp and city. This report I was ordered to deliver to an officer of the prince privately – in order, as I was informed, not to offend those dignitaries of the city and others who hated the war and wished ill-success to the prince's campaigns. I set out, therefore, last evening with three of your retainers, supplied for the purpose by you, to the inn of Brederode. There I was met, not by an accredited servant of the prince, but by an officer of the French king, who endeavored first by promises and then by force to obtain the papers from me; and now I have brought back the reports safely to Amersfort, to lay them before the prince in person, and, at the same time, to tax you with double-dealing and treachery."
Barra listened with an amused air.
"And pray, whom do you expect to delude with this cock-and-bull story?" he said. "Not, surely, the prince, in whose company I was till a late hour last night; and not surely myself, who never in my life either issued or heard of any such preposterous order."
"I demand to see the prince, to whom I shall speak my mind," reiterated Walter, still more curtly.
"You shall see the inside of a prison in a few moments," returned Barra, with vicious emphasis. But ere he could summon an officer the inner door opened, and there entered a dark, thin, sallow-faced man, with brilliant, hollow-set eyes, who walked with his head a little forward, as if he had gone all his life in haste.
It was the Prince of Orange himself, dressed in his general's uniform, but without decorations or orders of any kind.
Barra rose at his entrance and remained standing.
"Pray sit down," said the prince to him, "and proceed with your conversation with these gentlemen of your country."
"I was about," said Barra, deferentially, "to commit to prison this soldier of the Douglas Dragoon regiment for a most insolent slander concerning myself, and also for collecting information as to the condition of our forces with intent to communicate it to the enemy. There is, indeed, an officer of the King of France with the man at this very moment, but in disguise."
The prince turned his bright keen eyes upon Wat and Scarlett in turn.
"And you, sir! what have you to say?" he asked, quietly.
Whereupon, nothing daunted, Wat told his plain tale, and showed the order which he had received from Sergeant Davie Dunbar, signed with Barra's name.
"I never wrote the order, and never heard of it," said Barra, who stood, calmly contemptuous, at the prince's elbow.
"Call Sergeant David Dunbar!" ordered the prince.
It was a few minutes before that stanch soldier arrived. In the mean time, the prince turned his attention to Scarlett.
"You are an officer of the King of France?" he said, with an ominous gleam in his eye as he spoke of his arch-enemy.
"I had that honor," replied Scarlett, "till early this morning, when it was my fortune to help this ancient friend of mine out of a difficulty into which I had led him. Moreover, being a gentleman, I could not remain in such a service nor serve with subordinates who knew not the sacredness of a soldier's pledge. I am, therefore, once more a free man, and my sword is at the disposal of any honorable prince who will accept of it."
"You were a celebrated master-of-arms