'Was there ever such a wench?' I said to myself, stamping my foot in anger.
Last of all Nell brought to the window the three bottles of Canary wine, for which I had paid so dear.
'What is this?' she cried, with her head at the side in her masterful cock-sparrow way. 'What is this? Wine, wine of Canary – rotten water rather, I warrant, to be sold in a booth at a fair? At any rate, wine is not good for boys,' she added, 'and such drabbled stuff is not for the drinking of a lady – wouldst thou like it, Spurheel?'
She ducked in, thinking that I was about to throw something more at her – which, indeed, I scorned to do, besides having nothing convenient to my hand.
'Look you, Squire Launce,' she said again, crying from the window without setting her head out, 'you are something of a marksman, they say. There never was a nonsuch like our Spurheel – in Spurheel's own estimation. But I can outmark him. Fix your eye on yon black rock with the tide just coming over it – one, two, and three – !'
And in a moment one of my precious broad-bellied bottles of wine played clash on Samson's reef two hundred feet below the White Tower. I was fairly dancing now with anger, and threatened to come down my rope ladder to be even with her. Indeed, I made the cord ready to throw myself out of the window to clamber down. But even as I did so, the glaiked maiden sent the other two jars of Canary to keep company with the first.
Then she leaned out and looked up sweetly, holding the sash of the window meantime in her hand.
'You are going to visit my father in the morning, doubtless, and tell him all about the bundle and the Grieve's lass. Good speed and my blessing!' she cried, making ready to shut the window and draw the bolt. 'I am going to sleep in Marjorie's room. The gulls are beginning to sing. I love not to hear gabble – yours or theirs!'
But I leave you to guess who it was that felt himself the greater gull.
CHAPTER III
THE SECOND TAUNTING OF SPURHEEL
Now I shall ever affirm that there was not in all this realm of Scotland, since the young Queen Mary came out of France – of whom our grandfathers yet make boast, and rise from their chairs with their natural strength unabated as they tell – so lovely a maid as Marjorie Kennedy, the elder of the two remaining daughters of Sir Thomas, the Tutor of Cassillis. Ever since I came to the house of Culzean, I could have lain down gladly and let her walk over me – this even when I was but a boy, and much more when I grew nigh to eighteen, and had all the heart and some of the experience of a man in the things of love.
And how the lairds and knights came a-wooing her! Ay, even belted earls like Glencairn and Eglintoun! But Marjorie gave them no more than the bend of a scornful head or the waft of a white hand, for she had a way with her that moved men's brains to a very fantasy of desire.
For myself, I declare that when she came down and walked in the garden, I became like a little waggling puppy dog, so great was my desire to attract her attention. Yet she spoke to me but seldom, being of a nature as noble as it was reserved. Silent and grave Marjorie Kennedy mostly was, with the lustre of her eyes turned more often on the far sea edges, than on the desirable young men who rode their horses so gallantly over the greensward to the landward gate of Culzean.
But it is not of Marjorie Kennedy, whom with all my heart I worshipped (and do worship, spite of all), that I have at this time most to tell. It happened on this day that, late in the afternoon, Sir Thomas, my master, came out of the chamber where ordinarily he did his business, and commanded me to prepare his arms, and also bid the grooms have the horses ready, for us two only, at seven of the clock.
'That will be just at the darkening,' I said, for I thought it a strange time to be setting forth, when the country was so unsettled with the great feud between the Kennedies of Cassilis and the young Laird of Bargany and his party.
'Just at the darkening,' he made answer, very shortly indeed, as though he would have minded me that the time of departure was no business of mine – which, indeed, it was not.
So I oiled and snapped the pistolets, and saw that the swords moved easily from their sheaths. Thereafter I prepared my own hackbutt and set the match ready in my belt. I was ever particular about my arms and of those of my lord as well, for I prided myself on never having been faulted in the performing of my duty, however much I might slip in other matters that touched not mine honour as a soldier.
Once or twice as I rubbed or caressed the locks with a feather and fine oil thereon, I was aware of a lightly-shod foot moving along the passage without. I knew well that it was the lassie Helen, anxious, as I judged, to make up the quarrel; or, perhaps, with yet more evil in her heart, wishful to try my temper worse than before.
Presently she put her head within the door, but I stood with my back to her, busy with my work at the window. I would not so much as look up. Indeed, I cared nothing about the matter one way or the other, for why should a grown man and a soldier care about the glaiks and puppet-plays of a lassie of sixteen?
She stayed still by the door a moment, waiting for me to notice her. But I did not, whereat at last she spoke. 'Ye are a great man this day, Spurheel,' she said tauntingly. 'Did ye rowell your leg yestreen to waken ye in time to bring hame the Grieve's lassie?'
I may as well tell the origin now of the name 'Spurheel,' by which at this time she ordinarily called me. It was a nothing, and it is indeed not worth the telling. It chanced that for my own purpose I desired to wake one night at a certain time, and because I was a sound sleeper, I tied a spur to my heel, thinking that with a little touch I should waken as I turned over. But in the night I had a dream. I dreamed that the foul fiend himself was riding me, and I kicked so briskly to dismount him that I rowelled myself most cruelly. Thus I was found in the morning lying all naked, having gashed myself most monstrously with the spur, which has been a cast-up against me with silly people ever since.
Now this is the whole tale why I was called 'Spurheel,' and in it there was no word of the Grieve's daughter – though Kate Allison was a bonny, well-favoured lass too, and that I will maintain in spite of all the gibes of Helen Kennedy.
'I will bring you the spoons and the boots also to clean,' she said, 'and the courtyard wants sweeping!'
In this manner she often spoke to me as if I had been a menial, because when I did my squire's duty with the weapons and the armour, I would not let her so much as touch them, which she much desired to do, for she was by nature as curious about these things as a boy.
So for show and bravery I tried the edge of my own sword on the back of my hand. Nell Kennedy laughed aloud.
'Hairs on the back of a bairn's hand!' quoth she. 'Better try your carving knife instead on the back of a horse's currying comb!'
But I knew when to be silent, and she got no satisfaction out of me. And that was ever the better way of it with her, when I could sufficiently command my temper to follow mine own best counsel.
So the afternoon wore on, and before it was over I had time to go out into the fields, and also towards evening to the tennis-court – where, to recreate myself, I played sundry games with James and Alexander Kennedy, good lads enough, but ever better at that ball play which has no powder behind it.
At the gloaming the horses were ready and accoutred for the expedition. The Tutor of Cassillis and I rode alone, as was his wont – so great was his trust in my courage and discretion, though my years were not many, and (I grant it) the hairs yet few on my chin. It was still March, and the bitter winter we had had seemed scarcely to have blown itself out. So that, although the crows had a week before been carrying sticks for their nesting in the woods of Culzean, yet now, in the quick-coming dark, the snowflakes were again whirling and spreading ere they reached the ground.
As we rode through the courtyard and out at the gate, I heard the soft pit-pat of a foot behind us, for I have a good ear. I heard it even through the clatter of the hoofs of our war horses. So I turned in my saddle, and there behind us was that madcap lass, Nell Kennedy,