CHAPTER XXXI
BESS LANDSBOROUGH'S CATECHISM
As he went his unshod feet sometimes rasped on the sharp edges ofslaty rocks, and anon trod with a pleasantly tickling sensation onthe shaggy bull's-fell of the inland heather. Wat drew his breathinstinctively shorter and more anxiously, not so much from anyincreased consciousness of danger as because he knew that at last hetrod the isle whereon his love lay asleep, all unconscious of hisliving presence so near her.
Climbing steadily, he surmounted the steep slope, and came to the angleof the castle wall. Here Wat peered stealthily round. A fire of peat,nearly extinct, smoked sulkily in front of an arched doorway which ledunderneath the masonry, and stretched out with his bare feet towardsit, and barring all passage into the vault, lay a gigantic Highlanderwith a naked claymore by his side. It was Alister McAlister on guardover his prisoner.
Wat drew back. "Surely," he thought, "it cannot be in this morosedungeon that they have shut my love?"
At the thought he grasped the dagger which was his sole weapon, andglanced at the prostrate form of the unconscious sentinel, with thetangled locks thrown back from the broad brow.
"Never yet did Wat Gordon slay a sleeping man," he muttered, somewhatirresolutely, and took a backward step to consider the matter. But atthat instant a thick plaid was thrown over his head and he was pulledviolently to the ground. Limber Wat twisted like an eel and struck athis assailant with his dagger. But a hand clasped his arm and a voicewhispered in his ear, "Down with your blade, man. I am a friend. If yelove Kate McGhie, you endanger both her life and yours by the leastnoise."
The plaid was unwound from about his head, and in the dim light Watcould see that he stood beside the door of a cabin, so low as hardlyto be distinguishable from the bowlders upon the moor, being asshapelessly primitive and turf-overgrown as they. Beside him crouched awoman of middle age, apparently tall and well-featured.
"Wheest, laddie," she whispered, "hae ye the heart o' gowd that thelassie left for ye wi' that daft hempie, Mehitabel Smith?"
Wat slipped the love-token from under his shirt and let the woman touchit. It was chill and damp with the crossing of the salt strait.
"Aye, lad, surely ye are the true lover, and Bess Landsborough is no'the woman to wrang ye," said the wife of Alister. "But mind ye, thereare mony dangers yet to encounter. Your friend that was casten oot o'your bit boatie among the Bores o' the Suck is safe-warded yonder inthe tower, and that is my man Alister that ye swithered whether to putyour gully-knife intil or no."
Wat hastened to disclaim any such fell intent.
"A GIGANTIC HIGHLANDER WITH A NAKED CLAYMORE BY HISSIDE"]
"Wi' laddie, was I no watchin' ye?" said the woman, "and did I no seethe thocht in the verra crook o' your elbow? Bess Landsborough hascompanied ower lang wi' men o' war no' to ken when they are playin'themselves, and when the death o' the heart rins like wildfire alangthe shoother blade, doon the strong airm, and oot at the place wherethe fingers fasten themselves round the blue steel. Sma' blame till ye!But lest ye should be ower greatly tempted, I e'en threw the plaidieower ye to gie ye time to consider better. For, after a', Alister'smy ain man, and a kind man to me. And forbye, stickin' a knife atweenpuir Alister's ribs wad no hae advantaged you a hair, nor yet helpedye to your bit lass--no, nor even assisted that ill-set skelum JockScarlett to win clear oot o' his prison hole."
The woman took Wat by the hand.
"Come this side the hoose," she said; "I want a word wi' you. BessLandsborough is takin' some risks the nicht, and she maun ken whatmainner o' lad she is pittin' her windpipe in danger for."
She drew him round the low, turf-roofed house to the end farthest fromthe castle. Here stood a peat stack, or rather a mound of the largesurface "turves" of the country, for there are no true peat-mosses uponSuliscanna.
Alister's wife crouched upon her heels in the black shelter of thestack, and drew Wat down beside her.
"Now," she said, "what brocht ye here this night, and where did ye comefrae?"
"I came seeking Kate McGhie, the lass that I have followed over athousand miles of land and sea," answered Wat, promptly, "and also todiscover what had become of my friend whose name you have mentioned,John Scarlett, he who was with me when our boat overset near theisland."
"To seek your lass and your friend, says you," answered the woman, "agood answer and a fair; but whilk o' them the maist? Ye are cauld andwat. Ye will hae soomed frae some hidie-hole in the muckle cliffs theyname Lianacraig, I doot na. Was it your lass or your friend that yethocht on when ye took life in hand and cam' paddling like a pellockthrough the mirk? Was it for the sake o' your love or your comradethat ye were gangin' to slit the hass of Alister McAlister, decentred-headed son o' a cattle-thief that he is?"
"For both of them," said Wat, stoutly; "I am much beholden to JohnScarlett. He set out on this most perilous adventure over seas ata word from me, and without the smallest prospect of advantage tohimself."
"I doubt it not," said Bess Landsborough; "it was the little senseo' the cuif all the days of him, that he would ever do more for hiscomrade than for his lass. And that is maybe the reason annexed to BessLandsborough's being here this day, a Heelantman's wife on the cauld,plashy isle o' Suliscanna. But, laddie, listen to me. I am no gaun tolet the bonny bit young thing that I hae cherished like my ain dochtermak' the same mistake as I made langsyne. Tell me, laddie, as God seesye, what yin ye wad leave ahint ye, gin ye could tak' but yin o' themand ye kenned that death wad befall the ither?"
"I would take Kate McGhie, though ye hanged old Jack Scarlett as highas Haman," quoth Wat, instantly.
"Fairly and soothly, my man," said the woman, in his ear. "There isno need to rair it as if ye were at a field-preachin' on the wilds ofFriarminion. Quietly, quietly; tell me, in brief, what ye wad do foryour friend and what for your lass?"
"For my friend I will tell you," said Wat--"though I know not whatgives you the right to ask--for my friend I would do all that a manmay--face my friend's foes, help his well-wishers till I had not a ragto share, stand shoulder to shoulder with him, and never ask the causeof his quarrel; share the crust and divide the stoup, die and be buriedin one hole with him at the last."
"Aye," said Bess, "that is spoken like a soldier, and well spoken, too.Ye mean it, lad, and ye wad do it, too. But for your lass--"
"For her," said Wat, lowering his voice, solemnly, "for the lass Ilove, is it? I will rather tell you what I have done already. Forher I have gone mad. I have flung my chances by handfuls into thesea. At sight of a single scornful glint of her eye I ran headlong todestruction; at a harsh word from her I had almost thrown away lifeand honor both. For a kindly word I have set my head in the dust underher foot. I have cherished in my deepest heart no pride, no will, noambition that I would not have made a stepping-stone of, that her footmight tread upon it."
Wat paused for breath amid the rush of his words ere he went on:
"'I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more,'
somewhat thus runs the catch. But the man that made that kennednothing of love. For I would make all the honor of men no more than astraw-wisp to feed the flames to warm the feet of my love withal. To'die for her' is a pretty saying, and forever in the mouth of everyprating fool whenever he comes anigh a woman; but I would smile underthe torture of the boot and abide silently the Extreme Question only topreserve her heart from a single pang."
"Would you give her up to another if you knew that it was for her good?"
"A thousand times no!" Wat was beginning, furiously, when his companionput her hand over his mouth.
"If ye dinna hunker doon beside me, and learn to be still, ye wille'en see her ye think so muckle o' the bride o' my Lord o' Barra, andthat, too, on the morn of a day when ye will be learning to dance a newquick-step oot o' the tower window up on the heuch there."
"I know," said Wat, speaking more low, and answering as if to himselfher former question, "that it is within the power of the lov
e of woman,when it is purest and noblest, to be able to give up that which theylove to another, if they judge that it is for the beloved's good. Butthey that think such surrender to be the essence of the highest loveof men ken nothing at all about the matter. For me, I would a thousandtimes rather clasp my love in my arms and leap with her over the cragsof Lianacraig, than see her given to any other. And I would sooner setthe knife into her sweet throat with mine own hand than that Barrashould so much as lay a finger upon her."
"And your friend?" said Bess Landsborough. She was smiling in the darkas if she were well pleased.
"Jack Scarlett I love," replied Wat, "but not for him did I breakprison, overpass the hollow seas, and lay my life like a very littlething in the palm of a maiden's hand."
"It is well," said Bess Landsborough, with a sigh. "That is the truelilt of the only love that is worth the having. The heart beats just sowhen there comes into it the love that contents a woman--the love thatis given to but few to find in this weariful, unfriendly, self-seekingwarld."
She rose to her feet and looked eastward.
"In an hour and a half at the outside ye maun be on your road, lad,back to your hidie-hole. I ask ye not where that may be. But ginAlister McAlister sleeps soundly ye shall speak with your friend--whileI, Bess Landsborough, a decent married woman frae the pairish o'Colmonel, keep watch and ward at the chaumer door ower the pair o' ye."
She took him again by the hand, laid her finger a moment soberly on hislip, and then led him about the house to a low door, through which sheentered and drew Wat Gordon after her, bowing his head almost to thelevel of his waist in the act of following his guide.
Wat was rejoiced to know that he was about to see Jack Scarlett, bothbecause he had thought him dead in the tide-race, and also thattogether they might devise some plan of escape for themselves and forthe delivery of Kate from her durance. At an inner door his guidehalted and listened long and earnestly. The chamber in which they stoodwas dark save for the red ashes of a turf fire in the centre. BessLandsborough tapped lightly on the inner door and opened it quietly.Then she took Wat by the shoulder and pushed him in.
"Ye said your 'Carritches'[B] to me, and ye said them weel, or, myfaith, 'tis not here ye should have found yoursel' this nicht! Gang inthere, lad, and say the 'Proofs' and the 'Reasons Annexed.'"
[B] Catechism.
Wat, greatly puzzled, stepped within. He found himself in a small room,dark save when the dying fire of peat in the outer chamber threw redglimmers into it.
"Jack--Jack Scarlett!" whispered Wat, astonished that the old soldierdid not greet him.
"He must be very sound asleep!" he thought.