The small cavalcade of four went clattering on through the dusky coolness of night, across many small wooden bridges and over multitudinous canals. It passed through villages, in which the inhabitants were already snoring behind their green blinds the unanimous antiphonal bass of the rustic just – though, as yet, it was little past nine of the clock on the great kirk tower of Amersfort, and in the city streets and in the camp every one was at the height of merriment and enjoyment.
Wafts of balmy country scents blew across the by-ways along which they went; and through the limpid gray coolness where the young leaves of the sparse hedgerow trees brushed his face, Wat could see that he was passing countless squares of parti-colored bloom. Miles of hyacinth, crocus, and narcissus gardens stretched away on either hand beyond the low, carefully cut Dutch hedges. Haxo the Bull rode first, showing them the way to the inn of Brederode, silently, save that every now and then he would cry a word over his shoulder, either to one of his ill-favored retinue or to an unseen watcher at some lonely cross-road.
Wat followed sullenly and fiercely, without caring much about the direction in which he was being taken. His mind, however, was preternaturally busy, going carefully over all the points of his interview with Kate, and very soon from the heights of justified indignation he fell to accusing himself of rude stupidity.
"I fear she will never look kindly on me again," he said, aloud. "This time I have certainly offended her forever."
And the thought troubled him more than all the traitorous Barras and ill-conditioned Bull Haxos in the world.
A breath of perfume blew fresh across the way from a field of dark purple bloom, and with an overpowering rush there came back to him the sweet scent of Kate's hair as for a moment he had bent over her by the window. He let the reins fall on his horse's neck, and almost cried aloud in agony at the thought of losing so great a treasure.
"And shall I never see her more," he said, "never watch the responsive blood spring redly to her cheek, never see the anger flash proudly in her eye, never (were it but for once) touch the sweet tangle of her hair?"
Wat's love-lorn melancholy might have driven him to further and yet wilder utterance had he not been conscious of a slight metallic click behind him, which certainly did not come from the hoofs of the horses. He turned sharply at the sound and caught Haxo's Calf with a pistol in his right hand, and the Killer with his long butcher's knife bare and uplifted. Haxo himself was riding unconcernedly on in front. Wat quickened the pace of his horse, and rode alongside the Bull.
"Sir Butcher," he said, calmly, "do your men behind there wish to have their weapons ready in case of meeting the enemy, or do they perchance desire to flesh them in my back? It may seem a trifling matter to trouble you with, and of no great consequence, nevertheless I should somewhat like to ascertain their intentions."
Haxo glanced behind him. The Calf and the Killer were closing in upon Wat.
"Varlets," cried Haxo, in a terrible voice, "put your weapons in your belts, ride wide apart and far behind, or I will send you both quick to hell!"
The men fell asunder at the words, and for a mile or two only the sound of the horses' feet pounding the hard paven road came to Wat's ears. But he did not again return to that entrancing dream of Kate, her beauty, and her hard-heartedness which had so nearly led to his destruction. Yet, nevertheless, whatever he said or did, he remained through all that followed conscious of his love for her, and for the remainder of the night the desire of getting back to Amersfort in order to see her sharpened every faculty and kept every sense on the alert.
More than once during the night Haxo endeavored to enter into conversation, but Wat, indignant at the cowardly attempt on his life (for so he was bound to consider it), waved him peremptorily aside.
"Do your duty without further words," he said; "lead on directly to the inn of Brederode."
It was long past the gloaming, and already wearing nigh to the watershed of the night, before the perfectly flat country of marsh and polder through which they had been riding gave place to a district in which the undulations of the surface were distinctly felt beneath the horses' feet. Here, also, the hard-baked, dusty roads gave place to softer and more loosely knit tracks of sand, on which the iron-shod hoofs made no sound. They were, in fact, fast approaching that broad belt of dunes which shuts off the rich, flower-covered nurseries of Haarlem from the barren, heathy wastes along the borders of the Northern Sea.
On their right they passed the dark walls of the castle of Brederode, and pursued their way to the very edge of the lofty dunes, which at this point are every year encroaching upon the cultivated fields. Presently they came to a long, low, white building surrounded by dark hedges, which in the coolness of the night sent out a pleasant odor of young beech leaves. The court-yard was silent, the windows black. Not a ray of light was visible anywhere.
Walter Gordon rode directly up to the door. He felt with his hand that it stood open to the wall, and that a dark passage yawned before him. Instinctively he drew back a little way to decide what he should do. With an unknown house before him and a cut-throat crew behind, he judged that he would be wiser to proceed with extreme caution.
"Keep wide from me at your peril," he cried, threateningly, to his rascal company. The three horses backed simultaneously, and Haxo, his Calf and his Killer, waited in an irregular semicircle, while Wat took out of his pocket a tinder-box and from his holster a candle. There was not a breath of air, and when Lochinvar lighted the taper the flame mounted steadily upwards, so that he had no need even to shelter it with his hand while the flame went down and then as slowly came again, as all candles do when they are first lighted.
Wat glanced up at the sign of the Black Bull's Head, which was set in rude caricature over the door of the inn. His mind wandered grimly to the significance of that emblem in his own country, and to the many good men and true who had dined with the Black Bull's head on the table – and thereafter dined no more in this world. And to think that he, Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, had brought the Bull with him, together with the Bull-calf and the Killer, to keep him company to the Black Bull of Brederode! He took the conceit as an omen, and gritted his teeth to remember what an arrant gull he had been.
"I shall never see my love more," he said under his breath; "well, never mind, Wat Gordon, lad – if die you must, there are some now alive who will be in a similar plight ere you turn up your toes. And at all events I am glad that I kissed her."
He dismounted and drew his sword.
"Stand still where you are," he cried to Haxo. "Advance an inch at your peril till I give the word."
He looped his horse's rein to the iron hook at the cheek of the inn door. Then he gripped his sword tighter, and said a prayer which ended somewhat unorthodoxly:
"I wish I had that glove which I threw into the canal. For, after all, she gave it to me. Also, her lips pout most adorably when she is angered."
And this seemed strange enough information to give the Deity. But without doubt its sincerity carried it further heavenward than many an empty Credo. For the God who made love does not, like Jove, laugh at lovers' vows.
CHAPTER IV
THE DUEL AT THE INN OF BREDERODE
So, thinking with all his might upon the adorable pout of his lady's lips, that right loyal lover Walter Gordon strode, not without fear, but all the braver for mastering it, into the dark passage which stretched straight before him, gloomy as a sea cave at midnight. Doors still blacker yawned on either side of him like the mouths of huge cannon. He held his candle aloft, and paused a moment at each, striving with all his might to penetrate the silence that reigned within. But the faint circle of illumination hardly passed beyond the threshold. Wat, as he held his breath and listened, only heard the rats scuttle and the mice cheep in the oaken wainscoting.
It was with a feeling of chill water running icily down his back that he passed each black cavern, glancing warily over his shoulder lest he should catch the downward stroke of an arm in the doorway, or see the candle-light flash on the deadly blade of the Killer's butchering knife.
It was nerve-shaking work. The sweat, chill as the clammy mist of the night, began to pour down Wat's face, and his flesh grew prickly all over