The Men of the Moss-Hags Part 29

But when I perceived that he was really angry, I hastened to appease him.

"Joined eyebrows and lobeless ear have been held by learned folk to prefigure some temper, Wat!" I said.

His brow cleared on an instant.

"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "I like a la.s.s with a sparkle. No mim missie for Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, but a la.s.s that keeps you in doubt till the last moment, whether your best wooing will speed you to a kiss or a bodkin-p.r.i.c.k--that's the maid for me!"

"For me, I would e'en take the kiss," I said--"take it plain!"

"Tush, slow-coach!" he said, "your Earlstoun blood always did run like so much moss water!"

Now I had borne the burden of the day on the moss of Ayr, and felt that I need not take his scornful word.

"I have been where other than women's bodkins flashed--aye, ten against a hundred, and this was the only brand that wan through," I said, putting my hand on my side. "There was small time for kisses then! Ye may kiss your la.s.s gin ye like, about the woods of Balmaghie. As for me, I prefer to ride upon Cameron's flank, on a day when the garments are rolled in blood."

This I said dourly, for my gall was working hot within me. So far from our first friendship had the clack of foolish tongues brought us. 'Deed, we were but silly boys that needed skelping, but I far the worst, for my head was by nature cooler and I knew better all the while.

"And so perhaps would I have preferred it," answered he gently.

"Aye," said he again, "I think it is somewhat late in the day for Wat Gordon of Lochinvar, to have to prove his courage upon his cousin William of Earlstoun. So then, take it from me that but for my oath sworn to the King, it had been more pleasure to ride with you in the charge at Ayrsmoss, than to be bridegroom to any maid soever in the world!"

And at the name of the King, he lifted his worn old countryman's bonnet as n.o.bly and loyally as though it had been the plumed hat, whose feather had been so proudly set that night when he defied heaven and h.e.l.l to keep him from his tryst beyond the Netherbow.

At the word I stretched out my hand to him.

"Forgive me, Wat," I said, and would have taken his arm, but he moved it a little away for a moment.

"Pray remember," he said grandly, "that though I am a jerkined man and handle the mattock in another man's kail yaird,--aye, though I be put to the horn and condemned unheard as a traitor, I am true King's man. Vive le Roi!"

"Well," replied I, "so be it, and much good may it do you. At any rate, there is no need to make such a work about it. After all, gin ye be at the horn, it's Guid's truth that ye gied Duke Wellwood's lads some most unmerciful jags aneath the ribs!"

While thus we snarled and fought between ourselves, the very strife of our tongues made the legs go faster, and we drew southward between the two lochs, Ken and Grenoch, crossing over the Black Water and leaving the Duchrae behind. And this made me very wae, to mind the days that we had there, with that brave company which should meet no more on the earth together.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THE TESTING OF THE TYKE.

At the head of the high natural wood which fringes about all the mansion house of Balmaghie, we held down to the right through the copses, till we came to the green policies that ring in the great house of McGhies.

As we went linking down this green pleasaunce, there met us one who came towards us with his hands behind his back, stooping a little from the shoulders down. He had on him a rich dress of dark stuff a good deal worn, being that of a fashion one or two removes from the present. But this rather, as it seemed, from habit and preference than from need--like one that deigns not to go too fine.

"Where away, Heather Jock?" he cried as we made to go by, and turned toward us.

"Whom have we here?" he asked, so soon as he saw me.

"A cousin o' mine from the hill country, laird," said Wat, with the gruff courtesy of the gardener.

"Hoot, hoot--another! This will never do. Has he taken the Test?" said the laird.

"I doubt he cannot read it even," said Wat, standing sheepishly before him.

"That is all the better," said the tall grey man, shaking his head gently and a little reproachfully. "It is easier gotten over that way."

"Have not you read it, sir?" asked Wat, glancing up at him curiously as he stood and swung his cane.

"Faith no," he answered quickly; "for if I had read it, Heather Jock, I might never have taken it. I could not run the risks."

"My friend will e'en take the Test the way that the Heriot's hospital dog took it," said Wat, again smiling, "with a little b.u.t.ter and liberty to spit it out."

"How now, Heather Jock, thou art a great fellow! Where didst thou get all the stories of the city? The whaups do not tell them about the Glenkens."

"Why, an it please your honour, I was half a year in the town with the Lady Gordon, and gat the chapman's fly sheets that were hawked about the causeways," answered Wat readily enough, making him an awkward bow.

"Tell me the story, rascal," said the tall man, whom I now knew for Roger McGhie of Balmaghie. "I love a story, so that it be not too often told."

Now I wondered to hear Wat Gordon of Lochinvar take the word "rascal" so meekly, standing there on the road. It was, indeed, very far from being his wont.

However, he began obediently enough to tell the story which Roger McGhie asked of him.

For a Kate of the Black Eyebrows in the plot makes many a mighty difference to the delicateness of a man's stomach.

"The story was only a bairn's ploy that I heard tell of, when I was in town with my lady," he said, "nothing worth your honour's attention, yet will I tell it from the printed sheet which for a bodle I bought."

"Let me be the judge of that," said the other.

"Well then, laird, there was in the hospital of George Heriot, late jeweller to the King, a wheen loon scholar lads who had an ill-will at a mastiff tyke, that lived in a barrel in the yard and keeped the outermost gate. They suspected this dog of treason against the person of his Majesty, and especially of treasonable opinions as to the succession of the Duke of York. And, indeed, they had some ground for their suspicion, for the mastiff growled one day at the King's High Commissioner when he pa.s.sed that way, and even bit a piece out of the calf of one of the Duke of York's servitors that wore his Highness'

livery, at the time when his Grace was an indweller in Holyrood House."

The eye of the tall grave man changed. A look of humorous severity came into it.

"Be cautious how you speak of dignities!" he said to Wat.

"Well," said Wat, "at any rate, this evil-minded tyke held an office of trust, patently within the meaning of the act, and these loon lads of Heriot's ordained him duly to take the Test, or be turned out of his place of dignity and profit.

"So they formed a Summary Court, and the tyke was called and interrogated in due form. The silly cur answered all their questions with silence, which was held as a sign of a guilty conscience. And this would have been registered as a direct refusal, but that one of the loons, taking it upon him to be the tyke's advocate, argued that silence commonly gave consent, and that the Test had not been presented to his client in the form most plausible and agreeable to his tender stomach.

"The debate lasted long, but at last it was agreed that a printed copy of the Test should be made into as little bulk as possible, smoothed with b.u.t.ter, tallow, or whatever should be most tempting to his doggish appet.i.te. This being done, Tyke readily took it, and made a shift by rowing it up and down his mouth, to separate what was pleasant to his palate. When all seemed over and the dog appearingly well tested, the loons saw somewhat, as it were one piece after another, drop from the side of his mouth. Whereupon it was argued, as in the case of my Lord Argyle, that this was much worse than a refusal, because it was a separating of that which was pleasant from what was irksome. And that this therefore, rightly interpreted, was no less than High Treason.

"But the tyke's advocate urged that his enemies had had the rowing up of the paper, and very likely they had put some crooked pin or other foreign object, unpleasant to a honest tyke's palate, within. So he asked for a fair trial before his peers for his client.

"Then the Court being const.i.tute and the a.s.size set, there fell out a great debate concerning this tyke dog. Some said that his chaming and chirking of the paper was very ill-done of him, that he was over malapert and took too much upon him. For his office being a lowly one, it was no business of his to do other than bolt the Test at once.

"But his advocate urged that he had done his best, and that if one part of the oath fell to hindering the other and fighting in his ha.s.s, it was not his fault, but the fault of them that framed such-like. Also, that if it had not hindered itself in going down, he would have taken it gladly and willingly, as he had taken down many other untoothsome morsels before, to the certain knowledge of the Court--such as dead cats, old hosen and shoes, and a bit of the leg of one of the masters in the hospital, who was known to be exceedingly unsavoury in his person.

"But all this did not save the poor tyke, for his action in mauling and beslavering his Majesty's printing and paper was held to be, at least, Interpretive Treason. And so he was ordered to close prison till such a time as the Court should call him forth to be hanged like a dog. Which was p.r.o.nounced for doom."