John Burnet of Barns. Buchan John
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was no easy matter to get a horse out of that treacherous black mud. The Weasel did gallantly, and only once did I dismount, when his hind feet were too deeply sunk to permit him to leap. Beyond me I saw my cousin, riding swiftly, for the middle of the moss, as it chanced, was the firmest and evenest place. We were now scarce a hundred yards from the ravine of the Red Syke, and, even as I looked, I saw him reach it, rest a second to give his horse breathing-space, and then turn on his homeward way.
I came to the place a minute after, and having compassion on my brave horse, I dismounted, and eased him of my weight for a little. Then I got on his back again and set off. Gilbert I saw before me, riding, as I thought, in the worst part, and with a fury that must tell sooner or later on his heavy steed. I had scarce been a moment in the saddle, when, so strange are the ways of horses, the Weasel became aware, for the first time, of the other in front. Before, it had been a toil for him, now it became a pleasure, a race, which it lay with his honour to win. He cocked up his wicked, black ears, put down his head, and I felt the long legs gathering beneath me. I cried aloud with delight, for now I knew that no horse in Tweeddale could hope to match him when the mood was on him. He flew over the hags as if he had been in a paddock; he leaped among the hard parts of the green bog, from tussock to tussock, as skilfully as if he had known nothing but mosses all his days. We came up with Gilbert at the edge of the rough ground, lashing on his horse, with his face flushed and his teeth set. We passed him like the wind, and were galloping among the rocks and brackens, while he was painfully picking his steps. A merciful providence must have watched over the Weasel's path that day, for never horse ran so recklessly. Among slippery boulders and cruel jagged rocks and treacherous shingle he ran like a hare. I grew exultant, laughed, and patted his neck. The sun was setting behind us, and we rode in a broad patch of yellow light. In a trice we were on the brow of the Deid Wife. Down we went, slipping yards at a time, now doubling along the side; sometimes I was almost over the horse's head, sometimes all but off the tail; there was never, since the two daft lairds rode down Horsehope Craig, such a madcap ride. I scarce know how I reached the foot in safety: but reach it I did, and rode merrily among the trees till I came to the green meadowlands about the house of Barns. Here I dismounted and waited for my cousin, for I did not care to have the serving-men laugh at him riding in after me.
I waited a good half-hour before he appeared. A sorry sight he presented. His breeches and jerkin had more than one rent in them; his hat was gone; and his face was flushed almost crimson with effort. His horse had bleeding knees, and its shoulders shook pitifully.
"Pardon me, Gilbert," I said in a fit of repentance; "it was a foolish thing in me to lead you such a senseless road. I might have known that your horse was too heavy for the work. It was no fault of yours that you did not come home before me. I trust that we may forget our quarrels, and live in friendship, as kinsmen should."
"Friendship be damned," he cried in a mighty rage.
CHAPTER VI
HOW MASTER GILBERT BURNET PLAYED A GAME AND WAS CHECKMATED
That night I was too wearied and sore in body to sleep. My mind also was troubled, for I had made an enemy of my cousin, who, as I knew, was not of a nature to forgive readily. His words about Marjory had put me into a ferment of anxiety. Here was my love, bound to me by no promise, at the mercy of all the gallants of the countryside. Who was I, to call myself her lover, when, as yet, no word of love had passed between us? Yet, in my inmost heart, I knew that I might get the promise any day I chose. Then thoughts of my cousin came to trouble me. I feared him no more than a fly in matters betwixt man and man; but might he not take it into his head to make love to the mistress of Dawyck? and all maids dearly love a dashing cavalier. At length, after much stormy indecision, I made up my mind. I would ride to Dawyck next morn and get my lady's word, and so forestall Gilbert, or any other.
I woke about six o'clock; and, looking out from the narrow window, for Barns had been built three hundred years before, I saw that the sky was cloudless and blue, and the morning as clear as could be seen in spring. I hastily dressed, and, getting some slight breakfast from Jean Morran, saddled Maisie, who was now as active as ever, and rode out among the trees. I feared to come to Dawyck too early, so I forded Tweed below the island, and took the road up the further bank by Lyne and Stobo. All the world was bright; an early lark sang high in the heaven; merles and thrushes were making fine music among the low trees by the river. The haze was lifting off the great Manor Water hills; the Red Syke, the scene of the last night's escapade, looked very distant in the morning light; and far beyond all Dollar Law and the high hills about Manorhead were flushed with sunlight on their broad foreheads. A great gladness rose in me when I looked at the hills, for they were the hills of my own country; I knew every glen and corrie, every water and little burn. Before me the Lyne Water hills were green as grass with no patch of heather, and to the left, the mighty form of Scrape, half-clothed in forest, lay quiet and sunlit. I know of no fairer sight on earth; and this I say, after having travelled in other countries, and seen something of their wonders; for, to my mind, there is a grace, a wild loveliness in Tweedside, like a flower-garden on the edge of a moorland, which is wholly its own.
I crossed Lyne Water by the new bridge, just finished in the year before, and entered the wood of Dawyck. For this great forest stretches on both sides of Tweed, though it is greater on the side on which stands the house. In the place where I rode it was thinner, and the trees smaller, and, indeed, around the little village of Stobo, there lies an open part of some fields' width. At the little inn there, I had a morning's draught of ale, for I was somewhat cold with riding in the spring air. Then I forded Tweed at a place called the Cow Ford, and, riding through a wide avenue of lime-trees, came in sight of the grey towers of Dawyck.
I kept well round to the back, for I did not care that the serving-folk should see me and spread tales over all the countryside. I knew that Marjory's window looked sharp down on a patch of green lawn, bordered by lime-trees, so I rode into the shadow and dismounted. I whistled thrice in a way which I had, and which Marjory had learned to know long before, when we were children, and I used to come and beguile her out for long trampings among the hills. To-day it had no effect, for the singing of birds drowned my notes, so I had nothing left but to throw bits of bark against her window. This rude expedient met with more success than it deserved, for in a minute I saw her face behind the glass. She smiled gladly when she saw me, and disappeared, only to appear again in the little door beside the lilacs. She had no hat, so her bright hair hung loose over her neck and was blown about by the morning winds. Her cheeks were pink and white, like apple-blossom, and her lithe form was clad in a dress of blue velvet, plainly adorned as for a country maiden. A spray of lilac was in her breast, and she carried a bunch of sweet-smelling stuff in her hands.
She came gladly towards me, her eyes dancing with pleasure. "How soon you have returned! And how brave you look," said she, with many more pretty and undeserved compliments.
"Ay, Marjory," I answered, "I have come back to Tweeddale, for I have had enough of Glasgow College and books, and I was wearying for the hills and Tweed and a sight of your face. There are no maidens who come near to you with all their finery. You are as fair as the spring lilies in the garden at Barns."
"Oh, John," she laughed, "where did you learn to pay fine compliments? You will soon be as expert at the trade as any of them. I met a man yesterday in the woods who spoke like you, though with a more practised air; but I bade him keep his fine words for his fine ladies, for they suited ill with the hills and a plain country maid."
At this, I must suppose that my brows grew dark, for she went on laughingly.
"Nay, you are not jealous? It ill becomes a scholar and a philosopher as you are, Master John, to think so much of an idle word. Confess, sir, that you are jealous. Why, you are as bad as a lady in a play."
I could not make out her mood, which was a new one to me—a mocking pleasant raillery, which I took for the rightful punishment of my past follies.
"I am not jealous," I said, "for jealousy is a feeling which needs an object ere it can exist. No man may be jealous, unless he has something to be jealous about."
"John, John," she cried, and shook her head prettily, "you are incorrigible. I had thought you had learned manners in the town, and behold, you are worse than when you went away.