Part 5 (2/2)
But there was a way of reaching the town through the pleasaunce, and under the attraction of past hours spent among its trees Claverhouse turned aside, and walking down one of its gra.s.s walks, and thinking of an evening in that place with Jean, he came suddenly upon her on her favorite seat beneath a spreading beech.
”I crave your pardon, my Lady Jean,” said Claverhouse, recovering himself after an instant's discomposure, ”for this intrusion upon your chosen place and your meditation. My excuse is the peace of the garden after the wildness of the moors, but I did not hope to find so good company. My success in Paisley Castle has been greater than among the moss-hags.”
”It is a brave work, Colonel Graham, to hunt unarmed peasants”--and for the first time Claverhouse caught the ironical note in Jean's speech, and knew that for some reason she was nettled with him--”and it seems to bring little glory. Though, the story did come to our ears, it sometimes brought risk, and--perhaps it was a lie of the Covenanters--once ended in the defeat of his Majesty's Horse. I seem to forget the name of the place.”
”Yes,” replied Claverhouse with great good humor, ”the rascals had the better of us at Drumclog. They might have the same to-morrow again, for the bogs are not good ground for cavalry, and fanatics are dour fighters.”
”It was Henry Pollock ye were after this time, we hear, and ye followed him hard, but ye have not got him. It was a sair pity that you did not come a day sooner to the castle, and then you could have captured him without danger.” And Lady Jean mocked him openly. ”Ye would have tied his hands behind his back and his feet below the horse's belly, and taken him to Edinburgh with a hundred of his Majesty's Horse before him and a hundred behind to keep him safe; ye would have been a proud man, Colonel Graham, when ye came and presented the prisoner to your masters. May I crave of you the right word, for I am only a woman of the country? Would Mr. Henry Pollock have been a prisoner of war--of war?” she repeated with an accent and look of vast contempt.
Never had Claverhouse admired her more than at that moment, for the scorn on her face became her well, and he concluded that it must spring from one of two causes. Most likely, after all, Pollock was her lover.
”'Tis not possible, my Lady Jean,” softening his accent till it was as smooth as velvet, and looking at the girl through half-closed eyes, ”to please everyone to whom he owes duty in this poor world. If I had been successful for my master his Majesty the King--I cannot remember the name of any other master--then I would have arrested a rebel and a maker of strife in the land, and doubtless he would have suffered his just punishment. That would have been my part towards the king and towards Mr. Henry Pollock, too, and therein have I for the time failed. To-morrow, Lady Jean, I may succeed.”
”Perhaps,” she said, looking at him from a height, ”and perhaps not.
And to whom else do you owe a duty, and have you filled it better?”
”I owe a service to a most gracious hostess, and that is to please her in every way I can. Whether by my will or not, I have surely given you satisfaction by allowing Mr. Henry Pollock to escape, instead of bringing him tied with ropes to Paisley Castle. So far as my information goes you may sleep quietly to-night, for he is safe in some rebel's house. Yet I am sorry from my heart,” said Claverhouse, ”and I am sorry for your sake, since I make no doubt he will die some day soon, either on the hill or on the scaffold.”
”For my sake?” said Jean, looking at him in amazement. ”What have I to do with him more than other women?”
”If I have touched upon a secret thing which ought not to be spoken of, I ask your pardon upon my bended knees. But I was told, it seemed to me from a sure quarter, that there was some love pa.s.sage between you and Henry Pollock, and that indeed you were betrothed for marriage.”
As Claverhouse spoke the red blood flowed over Jean's face and ebbed as quickly. She looked at Claverhouse steadily, and answered him in a quiet and intense voice, which quivered with emotion.
”Ye were told wrong, then, Claverhouse, for I have never been betrothed to any man, and I shall never be the wife of Henry Pollock.
I am not worthy, for he is a saint, and G.o.d knows I am not that nor ever likely to be, but only a woman. But I tell you, face to face, that I respect him, suffering for his religion more than those who pursue him unto his death. And when he dies, for his testimony, he will have greater honor than those who have murdered him. But they did me too much grace who betrothed me to Henry Pollock; if I am ever married it will be to more ordinary flesh and blood, and I doubt me”--here her mood changed, and the tension relaxing, she smiled on Claverhouse--”whether it will be to any Covenanter.”
”Lady Jean,” said Claverhouse, with a new light breaking on him, for he began to suspect another cause of her anger, ”it concerns me to see you standing while there is this fair seat, and, with your leave, may I sit beside you? Can you give me a few minutes of your time before we part--I to go on my way and you on yours. I hope mine will not bring me again to Paisley Castle, where I am, as the hillmen would say, 'a stumbling-block and an offence.'” Jean, glancing quickly at him, saw that Claverhouse was not mocking, but speaking with a note of sad sincerity.
”When you said a brief while ago that mine was work without glory, ye said truly. But consider that in this confused and dark world, in which we grope our way like shepherds in a mist, we have to do what lies to our hand, and ask no questions--and the weariness of it is that in the darkness we strike ane another. We know not which be right, and shall not know till the day breaks: we maun just do our duty, and mine, by every drop of my blood, is to the king and the king's side. But mind ye, Lady Jean, it will not be always through the moss-hags--chasing shepherds, ploughmen and sic-like; by and by it will be on the battle-field, when this great quarrel is settled in Scotland. May the day not be far off, and may the richt side win.”
As Claverhouse spoke he leaned back in the corner of the seat and looked into the far distance, while his face lost its changing expressions of cynicism, severity, gracious courtesy and keen scrutiny, and showed a n.o.bility which Jean had never seen before. She noticed how it invested his somewhat effeminate beauty with manliness and dignity.
”That is true”--and Jean's voice grew gentler--”nane kens that better than myself, for nane has been more tossed in mind than I have been.
Ilka man, and also woman, must walk the road as they see it before them, and do their part till the end comes; but the roads cross terribly on the muirs in the West Country. If I was uncivil a minute syne I crave your pardon, for that was not my mind. But if rumor be true it matters not to you what any man says, far less my Lady Cochrane's daughter, for ye were made to gang yir ain gait.”
”Ye are wrong there, Lady Jean, far wrong,” Claverhouse suddenly turned round and looked at her with a new countenance. ”I will not deny that I am made to be careless about the strife of tongues, and to give little heed whether the world condemns or approves if I do my devoir rightly to my lord the king. But it would touch me to the heart what you thought of me. They say that a woman knows if a man loves her, even though his love be sudden and unlikely, and if that be so, then surely you have seen, as we walked in this pleasaunce those fair evenings, that I have loved you from the moment I saw you in the hall that day. Confess it, Jean, if that be not so. I, with what I heard of Pollock, was bound in honor to be silent.”
”Was Pollock the only bond of honor?” and Jean blazed on him with sudden fury. ”Is there no other tie that should keep you from speaking of love to me and offering me insult in my father's house? Is this the chivalry of a Royalist, and am I, Jean Cochrane, to be treated like a light lady of the Court, or some poor la.s.s of the countryside ye can play with at your leisure? Pleased by your notice and then flung aside like a flower ye wore till it withered.”
”Before G.o.d, what do ye mean by those words?” They were both standing now, and Graham's face was white as death. ”Is the love of John Graham of Claverhouse a dishonor?”
”It is, and so is the love of any man if he be pledged to another woman. Though we go not to Court, think you I have not heard of Helen Graham, the heiress of Monteith, and your courting of her--where, the story goes, ye have been more successful than catching ministers of the kirk? Ye would play with me! I thank G.o.d my brother lives, and they say he is no mean swordsman.”
”If it were as you believe, my lady, and I had spoken of love to you when I was betrothed to another woman, then ye did well and worthy of your blood to be angry, and my Lord Cochrane's sword, if it had found its way to my heart, had rid the world of a rascal. Rumor is often wrong, and it has told you false this time. I deny not, since I am on my confession, that I desired to wed Helen Graham, and I will also say freely, though it also be to my shame, that I desired to win her, not only because she was a Graham and a gracious maiden, but because I should obtain rank and power, for I have ever hungered for both, that with them I might serve my cause. My suit did not prosper, so that we were never betrothed, and now I hear she is to be married to Captain Rawdon, the nephew of my Lord Conway. I would have married Helen Graham in her smock if need be, though I say again I craved that t.i.tle, and I would have been a faithful husband to her. But I have never loved her, nor any other woman before. Love, Jean”--he went on, and they both unconsciously had seated themselves a little apart--”is like the wind spoken of in the Holy Gospel. It bloweth where it listeth, and is not to be explained by reasons. In my coming and going to Court I have seen many fair women, and some of them have smiled on me and tried to take me by the lure of their eyes, but none has ever been so bonnie to me as you, Jean, and your hair of burnished gold.
Doubtless I have met holier women than you, though my way has not lain much among the saints, but though one should show me a hundred faults in you, ye are to me to-day the best, and I declare if ye had sinned I would love you for your sins only less than for your virtues. I love you as a man should love a woman: altogether, your fair body from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot, your hair, your eyes, your mouth, your hands, the way you hold your head, the way you walk, your white teeth when you smile, and the dimple on your cheek.
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