"What may be the import of your message, since you are grown suddenly so solemn-jawed over it, Wat?" cried Davie Dunbar, going up to look over his shoulder, while Maisie and Kate McGhie stood talking quietly apart.
"I am bidden go on a quest into the wild country by the seashore, a mission that in itself I should like well enough were it not that it comes to me by the hand of Black Murdo of Barra."
Davie Dunbar whistled thoughtfully.
"When the corbie is from home, it's like to be an ill day for wee lame lammies!" he said, sententiously. Wat Gordon cocked his guardsman's cap at the words. He had set it on his head as he went down-stairs.
"I am Walter Gordon, of Lochinvar, and though that be for the nonce but a barren heritage, I am also a gentleman-private in the prince's Scots Dragoons, and I count not the Earl of Barra more than a buzzard-kite."
"I see well that ye are but a wee innocent lammie after all," retorted Sergeant Dunbar; "little ye ken about the regimen of war if at the outset of a campaign ye begin by belittling your enemy. I tell you, Murdo of Barra has more brains under his Highland bonnet than all your gay Douglas dragoons, from your swearing colonel to the suckling drummer-boy – who no sooner leaves his mother's breast than he learns to mouth curses and lisp strange oaths."
Wat Gordon shook his head with a certain unconvinced and dour determination.
"I have been in wild places and my sword has brought me through, but though I own that, I like not this commission – yet feared of Barra I am not."
And he handed Davie Dunbar the paper. The sergeant read it aloud:
"Walter Gordon, some time of Lochinvar, of the Prince's Scottish Dragoon Guards, you are ordered to obtain the true numeration of each regiment in the camp and city of Amersfort – their officering, the numbers of each company, and of those that cannot be passed by the muster officers, the tally of those sick with fever, and of those still recovering from it, the number of cannon on the works and where they are posted. These lists you are to transmit with your own hand to an officer appointed to receive them by His Highness the Prince at the Inn of Brederode by the Northern Sanddunes, who will furnish you with a receipt for them. This receipt you will preserve and return to me in token that you have fulfilled your mission. The officers of the regiments and the commanders of batteries have hereby orders to render you a correct and instant accompt.
William Gordon had come into the room while the sergeant was reading the paper, and now stood looking at Walter's unusual commission.
"There will be murder done when you come to our colonel," he said, "and ask him to tell you that the most part of his regiment is already in hospital, and also how many of the rest are sickening for it."
But Wat Gordon stood up and tightened his sword-belt, hitching his sword forward so that the hilt fell easily under his hand. Then he flipped the mandate carelessly upon the widened fingers of his left hand before sticking it through his belt.
"It is, at least, an order," he said, grandly, "and so long as I am in the service of His Highness the Prince, my orders I will obey."
"And pray what else would you do, callant," interjected Sergeant David Dunbar, "but obey your orders – so long, at least, as ye are sure that the lad who bids ye has the richt to bid ye?"
CHAPTER II
WHY KATE HATED LOCHINVAR
It was the evening of the following day before Wat Gordon was ready to start. It had taken him so long to obtain all the invaluable information as to the strength of the armies of the States-General and of their allies, which were collected at Amersfort in order to roll back the threatened invasion of the King of France. Twice during the day had he rushed into his cousin's lodging for a brief moment in order to snatch a morsel of food, but on neither occasion had he been able to catch so much as a glimpse of Kate. It was now the gloaming, and the night promised to fall clear and chill. A low mist was collecting here and there behind the clumps of bushes, and crawling low along the surface of the canals. But all above was clear, and the stars were beginning to come out in familiar patterns.
For the third and last time Wat made an errand up to his cousin's rooms, even after his escort had arrived, and once more Maisie took him gently by the hand, bidding him good-speed on his quest perilous. But even while his cousin's wife was speaking the young man's eye continued to wander restlessly. He longed rather to listen to upbraiding from another voice, and, in place of Maisie's soft, willing kiss, to carry away the farewell touch of a more scornful hand.
"Cousin," he said at last, reluctantly and a little shyly, "I pray you say farewell for me to Mistress Kate, since she is not here to bid me farewell for herself. In what, think you, have I offended her?"
"Nay, Wat," answered the gentle Maisie, "concerning that you must e'en find means of judging for yourself on your return."
"But listen, Cousin Maisie, this venture that I go upon is a quest of life or death to me, and many are the chances that I may not return at all."
"I will even go speak with my gossip Kate, and see whether she will come to bid you good prospering on your adventure and a safe return from it."
And so saying Maisie passed from the room as silently as a white swan swims athwart the mere. In a little while she returned with Kate, who, beside her budding matronhood, seemed but a young lissom slip of willow-wand.
"Here, Kate," said Maisie, as she entered holding her friend by the hand, "is our cousin Wat, come in on us to bid farewell. He goes a far road and on a heavy adventure. He would say good-bye to the friends who are with him in this strange land before he departs, and of these you are one, are you not, my Kate?"
As soon as Mistress Maisie loosened her hand the girl went directly to the window-seat, where she stood leaning gracefully with her cheek laid softly against the shutter. She turned a little and shivered at her friend's pointed appeal.
"If Walter Gordon says it, it must be so," she answered, with certain quiet bitterness.
Lochinvar was deeply stung by her words. He came somewhat nearer to her, clasping his hands nervously before him, his face set and pale as it had never been in the presence of an enemy.
"Kate," he said, "I ask you again, wherein have I so grievously offended you that, on your coming to this land of exile, you should treat me like a dog – yes, worse than a wandering cur-dog. It is true that once long ago I was foolish – to blame, blackly and bitterly in the wrong, if you will. But now all humbly I ask you to forgive me ere I go, it may be to my death."
The girl looked at him with a strange light in her eyes – scorn, pity, and self-will struggling together for the mastery.
At last, in a hard, dry voice, she said, "There is nothing to forgive. If there had been I should have forgiven you. As it is, I have only forgotten."
Maisie had left the room and there was deep silence in it and about, save for the distant crying of the staid Dutch children late at their plays on the canal-sides of Amersfort, and the clatter of the home-returning wooden shoon on the pavemented streets. The young man drew himself up till his height towered above the girl like a watch-tower over a city wall. His eyes rested steadfastly on her the while. She had a feeling that a desperate kind of love was in the air, and that for aught she knew he might be about to clasp her fiercely in his arms. And it had, perhaps, been well for both if he had, for at that moment she raised her eyes and her heart wavered within her. He looked so tall and strong. She was sure that her head would come no higher upon his breast than the blue ribbon of his cavalry shoulder-knot. She wondered if his arms would prove as strong as they looked, if she suddenly were to find herself folded safe within them.
"Kate," he said, wistfully, coming nearer to her.
Now Wat Gordon ought not to have spoken. The single word in the silence of the room brought the girl