Читать книгу Lochinvar - S. R. Crockett - Страница 8

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In a long, low, narrow room in the palace of the stadtholder in the city of Amersfort, sat Murdo, Lord of Barra and the Small Isles. The head of a great though isolated western clan, he had detached himself from the general sentiments of his people with regard to religion and loyalty. First his father and then he himself had taken the Covenanting side in the national struggle—his father through interest and conviction, the son from interest alone. Both, however, had carried with them the unquestioning loyalty of their clan, so that it became an important consideration to any claimant for the throne of Britain who desired quietness in the north to have on his side the McAlisters, Lords of Barra and the Small Isles.

The Prince of Orange had given to both father and son a welcome and a place of refuge when the storm of persecution shook even the wild Highlands and the government was granting to its more zealous adherents letters of fire and sword for the extirpation of suspected clans, and especially for the encouragement of the well-affected by the plunder of rebels and psalm-singers.

Now, in acknowledgment of this timely succor and safe harborage, Barra had, ever since his father's death, given his counsel to the prince on many matters concerning Scotland. Yet, though Murdo McAlister had been used, he had never been fully trusted by William of Orange, nor yet by those wise and farseeing men who stood closest about him. Something crafty in Barra's look, something sinister in his eye, kept those who knew him best from placing complete confidence in him. And there were those who made no difficulty about declaring that Murdo of Barra had a foot in either camp, and that, were it not for the importance of the information sent from Holland to the court of James the Second, my Lord of Barra could very well return home, and enjoy his long barren moorlands and wave-fretted heritages in unvexed peace.

It was yet early morning when Wat and John Scarlett stood before my Lord of Barra in the palace room which he occupied as provost-marshal of the city and camp. They saluted him civilly, while his cold, viperish eye took in the details of their attire with a certain chill and insolent regard, which made Wat quiver from head to foot with desire to kill him.

To judge by the provost-marshal's reception, he might never have seen either of them before. Yet Lochinvar was as certain as that he lived that it was his laugh which had jarred upon him in the passage behind Haxo in the inn of Brederode, and which had been the means of bringing the combat to a close. Yet he, too, must have ridden fast and far since the fight at the inn, if Wat's vivid impression had any basis in fact.

"Your business with me?" inquired Barra, haughtily, looking straight past them into the blank wall behind.

"You know my business," said Walter, abruptly. "I carried out your orders in collecting information with regard to the number of the troops, the position of the regiments, and the defences of the camp and city. This report I was ordered to deliver to an officer of the prince privately—in order, as I was informed, not to offend those dignitaries of the city and others who hated the war and wished ill-success to the prince's campaigns. I set out, therefore, last evening with three of your retainers, supplied for the purpose by you, to the inn of Brederode. There I was met, not by an accredited servant of the prince, but by an officer of the French king, who endeavored first by promises and then by force to obtain the papers from me; and now I have brought back the reports safely to Amersfort, to lay them before the prince in person, and, at the same time, to tax you with double-dealing and treachery."

Barra listened with an amused air.

"And pray, whom do you expect to delude with this cock-and-bull story?" he said. "Not, surely, the prince, in whose company I was till a late hour last night; and not surely myself, who never in my life either issued or heard of any such preposterous order."

"I demand to see the prince, to whom I shall speak my mind," reiterated Walter, still more curtly.

"You shall see the inside of a prison in a few moments," returned Barra, with vicious emphasis. But ere he could summon an officer the inner door opened, and there entered a dark, thin, sallow-faced man, with brilliant, hollow-set eyes, who walked with his head a little forward, as if he had gone all his life in haste.

It was the Prince of Orange himself, dressed in his general's uniform, but without decorations or orders of any kind.

Barra rose at his entrance and remained standing.

"Pray sit down," said the prince to him, "and proceed with your conversation with these gentlemen of your country."

"I was about," said Barra, deferentially, "to commit to prison this soldier of the Douglas Dragoon regiment for a most insolent slander concerning myself, and also for collecting information as to the condition of our forces with intent to communicate it to the enemy. There is, indeed, an officer of the King of France with the man at this very moment, but in disguise."

The prince turned his bright keen eyes upon Wat and Scarlett in turn.

"And you, sir! what have you to say?" he asked, quietly.

Whereupon, nothing daunted, Wat told his plain tale, and showed the order which he had received from Sergeant Davie Dunbar, signed with Barra's name.

"I never wrote the order, and never heard of it," said Barra, who stood, calmly contemptuous, at the prince's elbow.

"Call Sergeant David Dunbar!" ordered the prince.

It was a few minutes before that stanch soldier arrived. In the mean time, the prince turned his attention to Scarlett.

"You are an officer of the King of France?" he said, with an ominous gleam in his eye as he spoke of his arch-enemy.

"I had that honor," replied Scarlett, "till early this morning, when it was my fortune to help this ancient friend of mine out of a difficulty into which I had led him. Moreover, being a gentleman, I could not remain in such a service nor serve with subordinates who knew not the sacredness of a soldier's pledge. I am, therefore, once more a free man, and my sword is at the disposal of any honorable prince who will accept of it."

"You were a celebrated master-of-arms in Scotland, were you not?" asked the prince.

"If your highness is good enough to say so," said Scarlett, bowing. "And also in France, the first in estimation in the army of the Prince of Condé."

"And you understand the drilling and mustering of raw levies?" asked the Prince of Orange, with some eagerness in his tone.

"There are a dozen regiments in the French service at this moment who are exceedingly well aware of that, your highness," replied John Scarlett, with a somewhat peculiar smile.

"Come to me this day week at the camp," said the prince, abruptly, after remaining a moment in deep thought.

"Sergeant David Dunbar!" announced an officer of the prince's retinue.

And in a moment that sturdy Scot stood before the stadtholder exceedingly flustered by his sudden summons, and cudgelling his brains to think why he should be sent for so early in the day by his general.

"You took an order the night before last to this gentleman's quarters?" said the prince. "From whom did you receive that order, and what speed did you make with your mission?"

"I received the letter from one whom I knew as a servant of my Lord of Barra—one Haxo, a butcher in the camp. 'Make haste,' he bade me, 'this is from my lord to the Scot who dwells in the street of Zaandpoort, the dragoon called Walter Gordon of Lochinvar, serving in Douglas's regiment.' So I went there willingly enough, and eke with speed, the more by token that I knew Wat Gordon and his cousin well, as also Will Gordon's wife, who is a wise, sober-like lass of Galloway, and can cook most excellent suppers."

"That will serve, sergeant," said William of Orange. "There is some mistake or double-dealing here which I shall doubtless discover in good time. Come to me both together at the camp this day week at the hour of noon, and I will have further conference with you in my tent. You are at liberty to join your regiment, and take your friend with you."

Thereupon Walter went to the prince, and, bending on his knee, presented him with the despatches which, in the inn of Brederode, he had guarded with his life.

The prince took them without a word of thanks or commendation, and thrust them into the breast of his coat as carelessly as though they had been so much waste paper.

For the soldier-prince, who had never known fear in his life, took courage in others as a matter of course.

And so my Lord Barra was left alone in the office of the provost-marshal, looking blackly across his table after Wat and Scarlett as they followed the prince from the room.