CHAPTER XL
SERPENT'S EGGS
For a little we must leave both the narrow, sea-barriered, rock-girtbounds of Suliscanna and the flat, hard-won, and yet more hardly keptfields and polders of the Netherlands for the moorish pastures, thegreen, changeful woodlands, the flowery water-meadows of Balmaghie. Itis necessary at this point to take a cast back in our story and tell ofthe strange things which have befallen Roger McGhie since we saw him atour tale's beginning, making his farewells by the stirrup-leather of myLady Wellwood.
It was perhaps natural that the laird of Balmaghie, delicate of body,retiring of habit, a recluse from the society of roaring bears like Lagand Baldoon, who were his immediate neighbors, should succumb readilyenough to the fascinations of my Lady Wellwood. It is not so obvious,on the other hand, why she found pleasure in the company of RogerMcGhie.
It may be that the caustic kindliness, the flavor of antique chivalry,which had compelled to more than liking the unwonted heart of JohnGraham of Claverhouse, also had power to fascinate the widow of theDuke of Wellwood. That title had been one of the late king's making,and in the absence of heirs direct, it had lapsed immediately on thedeath of the king's minister and administrator in Scotland, while theoriginal impoverished earldom of Wellwood had gone back to a kinsmanremotely collateral. So my lady never forgot that she was not "thedowager" merely, but still, in the face of all--Susannah, first andonly Duchess of Wellwood.
Nevertheless, to her credit, perhaps, as a woman of discernment,she married Roger McGhie, and that though far younger, richer, andgallanter men stood ready at her call. But the needy king and hisnew ministry had stripped her estates of most that her husband hadso painfully gathered. Little was left her but the barren heritagesof Grenoch--where, indeed, was heather enough and granite to spare,but where crops were few and scanty, and where even meadow-hay had afashion of vanishing in the night whenever the Dee water took it intoits head to sweep through the narrow Lane, raising the loch till itoverflowed the low-lying meads nearly to the house-door of Grenochitself.
Then, on the other hand, the acres of Balmaghie were undoubtedly broad,the finances of the laird unhurt by government exactions, and the houseof Balmaghie a wide and pleasant place compared with the little squareblock-house of the Grenoch, sitting squatly like a moorhen's-nest onits verge of reedy loch.
So the Lady Susannah became, not long after Kate betook herself toHolland, the mistress of Balmaghie; but from some feeling of restraintor shame Roger McGhie had hitherto carefully kept the matter from hisdaughter, whose sentiments in the matter he had good reasons to suspect.
It had not seemed the least of the attractions of the house ofBalmaghie to my lady that at the time of her marriage it wanted thepresence of the girl who till now had been its mistress. And sheresolved that, once out, Kate should abide so--that is, till the timecame when a match politically and socially suitable could be foundfor the girl, and also a home not too near the well-trimmed gardenpleasances of Balmaghie.
So when Murdo McAlister, Lord of Barra, arrived at the dismantledfortalice of Thrieve as the guest of my Lord Maxwell, and wordwas brought that the exile desired an audience with "the lady ofBalmaghie," the duchess listened complacently enough to the words ofthe Lord of Barra and the Small Isles. The courtier dwelt much on thechanges which were so sure to come, the favor of the king's son-in-law,his own great position in Holland, and the yet greater to be attainedwhen his Dutch master should take over the throne of Britain.
And we may be sure that my Lord of Barra spoke well. Calmly he toldof the dangerous position of the young maid in Holland; lightly hereferred to his own "rescue" of her in the Street of the Butchery--ofwhich, indeed, Kate had herself given an account in one of her rareletters to her father from the city of Amersfort. He told how she wasquartered unsuitably with private soldiers and their wives. But therehe trod on dangerous ground, for in a moment the laird took up hisparable against him.
"Lochinvar and young Earlstoun may indeed be private soldiers inDutchdom," said Roger McGhie, bluntly, "but do not forget that they arevery good Galloway gentlemen here."
"Then," said Barra, "they had been greatly the better of remembering itin the Low Country. I speak with some heat, for I carry here in my sidethe unhealed wound dealt me in revenge by the knife of a girl of thestreets whom Wat Gordon of Lochinvar took with him in his flight."
And still pale from his long illness, my Lord Barra in his dress ofblack velvet certainly appeared a most interesting figure to my lady ofBalmaghie, who had a natural eye for such.
Then, taking courage from her evident sympathy, he went on to tell howwith the help of Captain Smith of the _Sea Unicorn_, a respectablemagistrate of the county of Dorset, he had again "rescued" Kate McGhiefrom her perilous position; how he had aided her to escape to the homeof a lowland woman of good family, the wife of one of his own vassals,on the safe and suitable island of Suliscanna, to which place he askedthe favor of the company, of "Her Grace"--he desired pardon--of theLady Balmaghie and her husband.
Whereupon, with voluble good-will from the lady and a certain dry andsilent acquiescence from Roger McGhie, my Lord of Barra obtained hisrequest. And so behold them sitting together when the _Sea Unicorn_overhauled the tide-driven boat of our young adventurers, and thetreacherous sea-mists delivered Kate and her lover into the hands ofthe enemies of their loves.
"You are very welcome on board the ship _Sea Unicorn_," said Barra,bowing to the pair as they stood hand-in-hand on the deck.
Wat could not utter a word, so appalling a hopelessness pressed uponhis spirit, such blank despair tore like an eagle at his heart.
But the lady of Balmaghie smiled upon him, even as of old her Grace theDuchess of Wellwood had done. Then she shook her head with coquettishreproach.
"Ah, Lochinvar," she cooed, "what is this we have heard of you? Youcome on board the _Sea Unicorn_ off the isle of Suliscanna with onefair maid; you left the city of Amersfort with another. I fear me youhave as little as ever of the grace of constancy. But after all, youngmen, alas! still will be young men. And indeed the age is noways aconstant one!"
And my lady sighed as if the fatal gifts of constancy and continencehad been the ever-present blights of her own life.
Then, suddenly as the lightning that shines from east to west, itflashed upon Wat how foolish he had been not to tell Kate all the storyof the Little Marie. He realized now how easily, nay, how inevitably,all that had happened at the prison and among the sand-dunes might beused to his hurt. So, flushing to the temples, he stood silent.
Kate turned to her lover. A happy light of confidence shone in her eye.
"Tell my lady," she said, "that in her eagerness to think well of youaccording to her lights, she has given ear to false rumors. Tell herthat it was to rescue me from the cruel treachery of my Lord Barra thatyou broke the prison bars and came over land and sea to take me out ofhis hands."
Barra smiled subtly, looking keenly at Wat from under the droopingeyelids of his triangular eyes, which glittered like the points ofbayonets.
"It is indeed true," said Wat, at last, forcing himself to speak, "thatI--that I escaped out of prison and traced this maid over land andsea till I found her a captive on the island of Suliscanna. It was myintention--"
"To return her to her father's care, no doubt," said Barra, droppinghis words carefully, like poison into a bowl.
"To beseech her to wed with me so soon as I should reach themain-land," said Wat, bravely.
A change came over the countenance of my Lady Wellwood at the words.Though she had married Roger McGhie, it was not in her nature to letany former gallant cavalier escape her snares, nor yet to permit herplans of great political alliances in the future, based upon the girl'sunion with Barra, to be brought to naught.
But again the sneering voice of Barra cut the embarrassing silence.
"It was, then, I doubt not, in the company of this lady, whose hand youhold, that you drugged the jailer of Amersfort, broke the prison, andescaped. It was
this lady who, being well acquainted with the purlieusof that temple of harlotry, the Hostel of the Coronation, stole threehorses from Sheffell, the landlord, and rode with you and your booncompanion Scarlett--a man false to as many services as he has swornallegiance to--out to the sand-dunes of Lis, where you and she abodetill you found a passage to England. In all this you had, doubtless,the companionship and assistance of no other woman than this lady, whomwith such noble and honorable condescension you now desire to marry.She it was (declare it briefly, true swain) who lied for you, stole foryou, fought for you, abode with you, died for you--as the catch has it,'all for love and nothing for reward.'"
At the close of Barra's speech Kate turned to Wat.
"Tell them," she said, "that there was no such woman with you."