CHAPTER XIII
MY LORD OF BARRA'S VOW
Kate stood at her favorite window, looking down upon five little boysplaying barley break in a solemn plantigrade Dutch fashion in the dustof Zaandpoort Street by the canal. Opposite her stood Barra. He wasdressed in his customary close-fitting suit of black velvet, and hisslim waist was belted by the orange sash of a high councillor, whileby his side swung a splendid sword in a scabbard of gold. A light capeof black velvet was about his shoulders, and its orange lining of finesilk drooped gracefully over his arm.
"Listen to me, dear lady," he was saying. "I am a soldier, and nota courtier. I have not glozing words to woo you with. No more thana plain man's honest words. I love you, and from that I shall neverchange. At present I can offer you but a share of the exile's bitterbread. But when the prince comes to his own, there shall be none inbroad Scotland able to count either men or money with Murdo, Earl ofBarra and of the Small Isles."
"My Lord Barra," said Kate, "I thank you for your exceeding courtesy.I feel your surpassing condescension. But I cannot marry you now noryet again. If I loved you at all I should be proud and glad to take youby the hand and walk out of the door with you into the wide world--foryou renouncing friends, fame, wealth, all, as if they were so many deadleaves of the autumn. But since I do not and cannot love you, believethat the proffer of great honor and rank can never alter my decision.This, indeed, I have told you before."
"Well do I know," answered the high councillor, "that you have spoken,concerning me, words hard and cruel to be borne. But that was beforeeither of us understood the depth of my devotion--before you knewthat I desired, as I seek for salvation, to make you scarcely less inhonor than the queen herself, among those isles of the sea, where truehearts abide. The cause of our religion is great. Help me to make ofour Scotland a land of faith and freedom. Love me for the sake of thecause, Kate, if not for mine own most unworthy sake."
"The cause is indeed still great and precious to me. I have beenhonored to suffer the least things for it. Nevertheless the cause isnot to be served by one doing wrong, but by many doing right. Youare--I believe it--an honorable man, my Lord Barra. You will serveyour master faithfully till that good day comes when Scotland shallagain have freedom to worship under kirk-rigging or roof-tree, or an itliketh her under the broad span of the sky."
"But you carry in your heart the image of a traitor," said Barra, alittle more fiercely--"a double traitor, one whom I have seen falseboth to his country and to you. Know you that only my bare word standsbetween your lover and death?"
"I know not whether Walter Gordon be dead or alive," replied Kate,gently. "I say not that I love him, nor yet that he loves me. I do notknow. But I say that if he does love me, in the only way I care to beloved, he would rather die a thousand deaths than that, in order topreserve his life, his true love should wed a man whom she cares notfor either as lover or as husband."
"Then you will not love me?" said he, bending his head towards her asif to look into her soul.
"I cannot, my Lord Barra," she made him answer; "love comes notlike a careful man-servant. It runs not like a well-trained dog atthe sounding of a whistle. One cannot draw back the arras of theheart and say to love, 'Hither and speedily!' The wind bloweth, saythe preachers, where it listeth. And so love also comes not withobservation. Rather, like a thunderstorm, it bears victoriously upagainst the wind. For just when the will is most set against love, thenit takes completest possession of the heart."
"Could you have loved me," he asked, more calmly, "if you had known noother? If the other existed not?"
"That I know not," said Kate. "All my life long I have never lovedman or woman where I wanted to love, or was bid to love. Whether,therefore, in this case or that one could have loved serves no purposein the asking. Nor, indeed, can it be answered. For the only issue is,that of a surety I love you not. And do you, my lord, of your mostgentle courtesy, take that answer as one frankly given by an honestmaid, and so depart content. There are in this land and in our owncountry a thousand fairer, a thousand worthier than I."
"Kate," said Barra, more intently and tenderly than he had yet spoken,"some day, and in some isle of quiet bliss where all evil and untowardthings are put behind us, I will yet make you love me. For never haveI thus set all my fancy on any woman before. And by the word of Murdo,Lord of Barra, none but you will I wed, and, by the honor of my clan,no other shall have you but I!"
He held out his hand. Kate, desiring him to go, gave him hers a littlereluctantly. He bent to it and kissed it fervently.
"On this hand I swear," he said, slowly and solemnly, "that while Ilive it shall be given in marriage to none other, but shall be minealone. By the graves that are green on the Isle of Ashes and by thehonor of the thirty chieftains of Barra--I swear it."
Kate took her hand quickly again to her.
"Ye have taken a vain oath, my lord," she said, "for marriage and thegiving of a hand are not within the compulsion of one, but are theagreement of two. And if this hand is ever given to a man my heartshall go with it, or else Kate McGhie's marriage-bed shall be herresting-grave!"
* * * * *
It was but two years since the Little Marie had carried her firstbasket of flowers to the streets of Brussels. From an ancient farm nighto the city she had come, bringing with her her fresh complexion, herbeauty, her light, swift, confident, easily influenced spirit.
Then, while yet a child, she had been hunted down, petted, betrayed,and forsaken by the man who, being on a visit to Brussels, had firstbeen attracted by her childish simplicity. It chanced that in the darkdays of her despair she had found her way to Amersfort, and finallyto the Hostel of the Coronation. She had been there but a bare weekwhen Wat came into her life, and his words to the girl were the firstof genuine, unselfish kindness she had listened to in that abode ofsmiling misery and radiant despair.
As a trampled flower raises its head after a gentle rain, so herscarcely dulled childish purity reawakened within her, and with it--allthe more fiercely that it came too late--the love that suffereth allthings and upbraideth not. Marie was suddenly struck to the heart bythe agony of her position. She might love, but none could give her backtrue love in return. Her soul abode in blank distress after the frayhad been quelled and Walter led away to prison. Without speech to anyat the inn of the Coronation, Marie fled to the house of a decent womanof her own country, who undertook the washing and dressing of finelinen--dainty cobweb frilleries for the ladies of the city, and stiffergarmentry for the severe and sober court of the Princess of Orange.
For love had been a plant of swift growth in the lush and ill-tendedgarden of the girl's heart. Constantly after this both dawn and duskfound her beneath Wat's window. Marie contrived a little basketattached to a rope, which he let down from the window in the swellof the tower. She it was who instructed Wat how to make the firstcord of sufficient length and strength by ravelling a stockingand replaiting the yarn. In this fashion Marie brought to Wat'sprison-cell such fruits as the warehouses of the Nederlandish companiesafforded--strange-smelling delicacies of the utmost Indies, and earlydainties from gardens nearer home. Linen, too, fresh and clean, shebrought him, and flowers--at all of which, for the consideration of adole of gold, the jailer winked, so that Wat's heart was abundantlytouched by the pathetic devotion of the girl. Scarce could she beinduced to accept the money which Wat put into her basket when he letit down again. And even then Marie took the gold only that she mighthave the means of obtaining other delicacies for Wat--such as werebeyond the reach of purchase out of the meagre stipend she receivedfrom the laundress of fine linen with whom her working-days were spent.
More seldom did Marie come to the Street of the Prison in the eveningafter the work of the day was done. For there were many who knew hermoving to and fro in these early summer twilights, so that she fearedthat her mission might be observed and Wat moved to another cell, outof reach of the Street of the Prison.
But one after
noon of sullen clouds and murky weather, when few peoplewere abroad upon the streets of Amersfort, Marie sickened of the hotsteamy atmosphere of the laundry and the chatter of the maids of thequarter, in which she was allowed to have no part. She finished herwork earlier than the others--perhaps for that reason--and stolequietly away to the tower of Wat's prison, where it jutted out over thecobble-stones of the pavement.
Wat was at his post, looking out, as usual, upon the slackening trafficand quickening pleasure-seeking of the street. He was truly glad to seethe girl, and greeted her appearance with a kind smile.
"I had not expected you till the morning," he said. "But I have livedon the freshness of your flowers all day. I have also had my cellwashed. Black Peter, my jailer, was inclined to be complaisant to methis morning. It is his birthday, he says."
Wat smiled as he said it. For he had bestowed one of his few remainingcoins upon Peter; which, ever since, that worthy had been swallowingto his good health in the shape of pure Hollands. Indeed, at thismoment there came from below the rollicking voice of jolly Black Peter,singing a song which ran through a catalogue of camp pleasures andsoldierly delights, such as certainly could not all have been enjoyedwithin the grim precincts of the prison of Amersfort.
"You are sure that there is no friend I can take a message to?" askedthe Little Marie, for the fiftieth time; "no beloved mistress to whom Ican carry a letter?"
"None," said Wat, smiling sadly. "But there," he continued, pointingquickly across the Street of the Prison at a man hurrying out of sight,"is one whom, an it please you, you may take note of. I am not ableto show you a friend. But yonder goes my heart's enemy. There at thecorner--the dark man in the suit of velvet, with the orange-lined cloakand the sword hilted with gold."
The Little Marie darted across the street in a moment, and threadedher way deftly among the boisterous traffic of the huxters' stalls.Presently she came back. There was a new and dangerous excitement inher eye.
"I know him," she said; "it is my Lord Barra, the provost-marshal. Heis your enemy, you say. It is well. But he was my enemy before he wasyours. Sleep sound," she continued, looking up at him with an eye asclear and peaceful as a cloistered nun's. "Take no thought for yourenemy, but only, ere you sleep, say a prayer to your Scottish God forthe sinful soul of the Little Marie that loves you better than herlife."
Lochinvar: A Novel Page 16
