CHAPTER XLIX.
THE DEATH OF MARDROCHAT.
Now we knew that this affair would of a surety cause a greatdisturbance, and that the neighbourhood would be searched as a herdsearches a hill for sheep. So with all haste we came back to Galloway,and though we could not return to the cave on the Star Hill, wecontinued due west that we might see how my mother and Kate McGhie werebestowed all this time, at the little house of Tonskeen in the howe ofthe hills.
Maisie was wondrous quiet. She had hardly uttered a word ever since wewatched her father out of sight, sitting erect like a warrior upon hishorse. It was indeed not a time for complaints. Women had to takesorrows as they came, as I was reminded of in an old letter which Jeanof the Shirmers, my kind entertainer of the Garpel, had once written toJean Hamilton upon Sandy's first taking. How I came by it I forget, if,indeed, I ever clearly knew. But at all events here it is: "You are notthe first" (so the letter ran) "that hath had dear and tender husbandsprisoners for Christ. Yea, blessed be God, not the first of the manyhundreds that have lost them as to the world in Scotland in our day.Suppose that should happen which you cannot tell. Suppose that it shouldcome even to that, we pray you, Jean Hamilton, tell us in whose handsthe keys of the prison are. We rather desire to believe in your freeresignation of all that was yours, especially of all that you lovegreatly. Will you dare to seek it back from Him now, as if He could notguide and keep and manage, what you have committed to Him? Far be fromyou this, or the like of this. Bless God that you have had a husband, ifit were only to propine Him with."
Was there ever such consolation sent in any nation to the wife of a mancondemned to torture and to death? Yet this and no other is the natureof our Scots Barnabas when he goes a-comforting. Like the three thatcame to Job of old, they ever tell you that you must take all the illthat comes to you thankfully, and at the back of it expect yet more andworse.
This is indeed more than enough about Jean Hamilton's letter. But itappeared to me so like our nation and our Cameronian folk, that I put itaway in my case of despatches.
I did not trouble Maisie as we went with questions, knowing full wellthat when she felt the need of speech, she would come and tell me of herown accord. Till then, I was content to be silent, though I yearned toknow the truth of the taking of the cave and all her adventure.
It was about the gloaming of the third day of our retreat, and we hadcome to the little house of the Nether Crae, where we were to bide.Maisie Lennox was within doors, and, as usual, we men folk hid behindthe mow. The Nether Crae is a pleasant spot, but it looks down on theDuchrae. And from the door one can see the green fields and broomyknowes where Maisie and I had played so long. But now the soldiers hadturned the steading out, the barn and byre were burned, and the stockdriven away.
So, unable to bear the desolation, Maisie and I sat out on the fairgreen playing-croft that looks up to the hillside, and gazed sadly awayfrom one another, saying nothing. It began to be dark. I waited for her.
Suddenly she laid her head on my shoulder and began to sob verybitterly.
"My faither! O my faither!" she said, labouring with her breath.
I said not a word, but only gently clapped and stroked her hand and arm.For indeed I knew not what to say and the hand was near me.
"He saved me--he took me," she cried. "Then he gied himsel' foranother."
I thought she meant for the soldier laddie, but still I said nothing,soothing her only.
It was coming now. I saw that she wanted to tell me all. So I saidnothing.
"It was in the gloaming, as it is now," she began, "and my sweet lass,Margaret Wilson and I, had gone ower by to Tonskeen for some victualthat the kind guidwife hid every day in a hollow of the turf-dyke forus. And as we came over the hilltop we heard the baying of hounds. Butwe thought that it would be but the herd's dogs at a collie-shangie,tearing at one another. So we came down the hill, stepping lightly as wecould with our load, when of a sudden there leapt on us three evil men.Two of them took hold of me by the arms, and one gripped at Margaret.
"'Now take us to your faither, my bonny woman, or it will be the waurfor ye!' said the greatest in stature, a black-a-vised, ill-naturedrascal.
"But I was so astonished that I knew not what to say. The three weremanifestly no soldiers--that I could see at once--but just the scouringsof the Dumfries stables, that had taken to the informer's trade.
"Then when we came near, we saw that a great number of the crew haddogs, and were drawing the rocks for my father, as though they had beendrawing a badger. And my heart leapt with anger to know that he wastheir quarry."
But the mouth of the cave was too high among the rocks for even a dog toget into at that time.
Indeed, there is something about it, whether the smell of the occupancyof man or not, that makes dogs not keen to enter it even now.
And this was the matter of Maisie's tale. I give it simply as she toldit to me without "he-saids" or "she-saids."
She was sitting close by my side the while, now stilling her sobs thatshe might tell it exactly, and anon weeping freely upon my shoulder thather heart might have ease.
"When they had brought us by force to the face of rock and copse where,as you know, the cave is," Maisie went on, "they asked us again andagain to take them to the Whigs' hiding-place. When we refused theyuttered the most horrid threatenings, swearing what things should befallus. But they were not able at all to shake us, though we were but twomaids and at their cruel will. And of themselves they were not able tofind the mouth of the cave in that mile of tangled gairy face.
"So the cruellest and fiercest of all, the stark, black-a-vised man whomthey called Mardrochat, the same that stopped us by the ford when firstwe fled from Balmaghie----"
"O cursed Mardrochat," I cried, striking my hands together, "wait till Icome to a settlement with you!"
"Nay," said Maisie, solemnly, "all is settled and paid already withMardrochat. So they threatened till they were weary, and the night wascoming on. Then Mardrochat turned about to his gallows thieves:
"'Must we go back empty-handed? Let me try my way with the lassies,' hecried. 'They shall be complaisant to tell where the old fox lies, orelse suffer that which shall serve us as well.'
"With that he came near and put his hand upon me in the way to hurt me.Notwithstanding, with all the might that was in me, I strove to keepfrom crying out, lest my father should hear, which was what they countedon. But as God is my witness, I could not. Then, the fear being upon meand the pain of a woman, I cried out in my agony, as I had never beforedone in this world."
"O thrice accursed Mardrochat, die not till I meet thee," I cried again,beating and bruising my naked hand upon a rock in the impotence of hate.
Maisie went quietly and evenly on with her tale, without heeding myanger.
"But when I cried the third time in my extremity, even like a lion outof the thicket came my father forth, springing upon them suddenly withhis bright sword in the gloaming. Never was there such striking sincethe world began. He struck and struck, panting and resting not, roaringin fierce anger, till they fairly fled from before the face of him. Andthe first he struck was Mardrochat--he that then held me, and the bloodspurted over me. Thus it was," she went on calmly, as though she hadbeen telling of the kye coming home at e'en, "my father clave him to theteeth, and he fell forward on that which had been his face. Thenplucking his sword to him again, my father swung it hither and thitherlike lightning, and pursued them over the moor as a flock of sheep ishunted on the hill. And he smote and slew them as he ran. My father,Anthony Lennox, did all that alone. But, alas! in the valley, though weknew it not, there was a troop of horse encamped about a fire, the samewhom he of the Long Gun halted and took us from in the midst ofEnterkin. Now my father, running and smiting blindly, tripped over ahalter and fell headlong in the heart of them. Thus they took AntonLennox, who had never been taken before. They took us two maids also;but the dragoons being officered by gentlemen, there was no moreill-usage. Now though he had kill
ed the informers and spies, thesoldiers liked my father none the less for that, despising those whowere employed on such service. Rather they gave my father honour and notdishonour, as one that was mighty at their own trade. And to me thebabe-faced officer was both kind and courteous."
After this she was silent quite a while, sitting by me on the mossy seatby the old playing-green of the Nether Crae, and looking up as one thatdreams, to the heather on the hillside.
"Is it not a noble thing," she said musingly, "to have a father thatwill render up his life for you as if it were a little thing?"
Now I thought within myself that he need not have given it also for apeony-faced officer boy. But I uttered not the word aloud, lest I shouldbe shamed.