Roger McGhie laughed at the tale's end with a gentle, inward laughter, and tapped Wat with his cane.

"Thou art indeed a merry wag, and speak over well for a gardener," he said; "but I know not if John Graham would not put a charge of lead into thee, if he heard thy way of talking. But go thy ways. Tell me quickly what befel the poor tyke."

"None so evil was his fate," said Wat, "for in the midst of the great debate that the surprising verdict raised, the tyke drew on a fox's skin, laid hold of the tail of another tyke, and so pa.s.sed un.o.bserved out of the prison. At which many were glad. For, said they, he was a good tyke that would not sup kail with the Pope nor yet the deil, and so had no need of his long spoon. And others said that it were a pity to hang so logical a tyke, for that he was surely no Aberdeen man, ever ready to cant and recant again."

Roger McGhie laughed aloud and knocked his cane on the ground, for right well he understood the meaning of all these things, being versed in parties and politics, which I never was.

"It is mighty merry wit," he said, "and these colleginers are blythesome blades. I wonder what John Graham will say to this. But go to the bothies of the bachelor foresters, and get that which may comfort the inner parts of your cousin from the hills--who, from the hang of his head, seems not so ready of tongue as thou."

For, indeed, I had been most discreetly silent.

So the tall, grey-headed gentleman went away from us, tapping gently with his fine cane on the ground, and often stopping to look curiously at some knot on a tree or some chance puddock or gra.s.shopper on the roadside.

Then Wat told me that because of his quaint wit and great loyalty, Roger McGhie of Balmaghie was in high favour with the ruling party, and that none on his estates were ever molested. Also that Claverhouse frequented the house greatly, often riding from Dumfries for a single night only to have the pleasure of his society. He never quartered his men near by the house of Balmaghie, but rode over alone or with but one attendant in the forenights--perhaps to get away from roystering Lidderdale of the Isle, red roaring Baldoon, drinking Winram, and the rest of the boon companions.

"The laird of Claverhouse will come hither," said Wat, "with a proud set face, stern and dark as Lucifer's, in the evening. And in the morning ride away with so fresh a countenance and so pleasing an expression that one might think him a spirit unfallen. For, as he says, Roger McGhie does his heart good like medicine."

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

KATE OF THE DARK BROWS.

Betimes we came to a little row of white cottages deep in the wood, with only a green clearing at the door, and the trees swaying broad branches over the roof.

Here we washed ourselves, and Wat set to shaving me and cutting my hair close, in order that if necessary I might wear a wig. Then we went into the gardens, where we found the chief gardener of Balmaghie, whose name was Samuel Irving.

Samuel was a grave man with a very long upper lip, which gave him a sour and discontented expression, but secretly he was a good man and a great favourer of the hill-folk. Also he was very upright and well-doing in the matters of seeds and fruits and perquisites, and greatly in favour with his master, Mr. Roger McGhie.

So we set out much refreshed, and were going by a path through the woods, when suddenly who should come upon us at a turn but Kate McGhie.

Wat ran to her to take her hands, but she gave him the go-by with the single frugal favour of a saucy glance. "Strangers first!" she said, and so came forward and greeted me.

"You are welcome to Balmaghie, William Gordon," she said. "I would you came as guest, and not as servitor; but some day I know you shall enter by the front door."

She glanced round with a questioning air. Wat was standing half turned away, very haughty in his demeanour.

Kate McGhie looked towards him. She was in truth a comely maid--for one that is black of favour.

"Now you may come," she said.

He seemed as if he would refuse and turn away. But she looked fixedly at him, defying him with her eyes to do it, and after a moment's battle of regards he came slowly towards us.

"Come nearer!" she commanded imperiously.

He came up with his eyes kindling. I think that no less than kissing was in his mind, and that for a moment he thought that she might permit it.

But suddenly she drew herself proudly away, and her look was disdainful and no doubt hard to be borne.

"Are these fit manners from a servant?" she said. "They that eat the meat and sit below the salt, must keep the distance."

Wat's countenance fell in a moment. I never saw one with so many ups and down in such short s.p.a.ce. The allures and whimsies of this young she-slip made him alternately sulk and brighten like an April day.

"Kate!" he began to say, in the uncertain tone of a pet.i.tioner.

"Mistress Katerine McGhie, if you please!" said she, dropping him a courtly courtesy.

"Have you forgotten quite?" Wat said.

"Ah," she said, "it is you who have forgotten. You were not the gardener then. I do not allow gardeners to kiss me--unless my hand on Sundays when their faces are more than ordinarily clean. Would you like to have that, Heather Jock?"

And she held out the back of her hand.

The silly fellow coloured to his brow, and was for turning away with his head very much in the air.

But she ran after him, and took him by the hand.

Then he would have caught her about with his arms, but she escaped out of them lightly as a bird.

"Na, na, Lochinvar," she cried merrily, in the common speech. "That is as muckle as is good for you"--she looked at him with the light of attraction in her eyes--"afore folk," she added, with a glance at him that I could not fathom.

Nevertheless, I saw for the first time all that was between them. So with no more said, Kate fled fleet-foot down the path towards the great house, which we could see standing grey and ma.s.sive at the end of the avenue of beeches.

"There's a la.s.s by yon burnside that will do as muckle for you; but dinna bide to speer her leave!" she cried to me over her shoulder, a word which it was hard to understand.

I asked Wat, who stood staring after her in a kind of wrapt adoration, what she could mean.

He gazed at me, as if he did not see what kind of animal was making the noise like talking. I am sure that for the time he knew me not from John Knox.

"What did she mean?" I asked him.

"Mean!" said he, "mean----" speaking vaguely as one in a swither.

"You are heady and moidered with not getting a kiss from a la.s.s," said I, with, I grant, some little spite.

"Did she ever kiss you?" cried he, looking truculently at me.

"Nay!" said I bluntly, for indeed the thing was not in my thought.

"Then you ken naught about it. You had better hold your wheesht!"

He stood so long thinking, sometimes giving his thigh a little slap, like one that has suddenly remembered something pleasant which he had forgotten, that I was near coming away in disgust and leaving the fool, when I remembered that I knew not where to go.

In a while he came to himself somewhat, and I told him what Kate McGhie had said to me over her shoulder.

"Did Kate say that?" he cried. "She could surely not have said all that and I not hear her."