Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume I Part 6

On, brave followers! Ye know your guerdon. Gallant knights have kneeled for it and been refused it. You are to fight for it, and to receive it.

Hurrah for Innerkepple!" And she swung her light falchion round her head, while the war-cry of the family, "_Festina lente!_" arose in answer to her inspiriting appeal, and the men rushed forward with new ardour on their foes.

"You are as bluid-thirsty as he is, Kate," cried the baron. "What mean ye, woman? Haste ye up to Otterstone, and fling yer arms round his neck, and greet a guid greet, according to the fas.h.i.+on o' womankind. Awa!

haste ye, and say, mairower, that ye'll be the wife o' his son, and join the twa baronies that are gaping for ane anither. Quick, woman; tears are mere water--thin aneuch, Gude kens!--but thae men's bluid is thicker than my vintage o' the year '90."

"Katherine Kennedy never yet wept either to friend or foe, unless in the wild glee of her frolics," replied the maiden. "By the bones of Camilla!

I thought I was only fit for sewing battle scenes on satin, and laughing as I killed a knight with my needle; but I find I have the Innerkepple blood in my veins, and my cheek is glowing like a blood-red rose. Take care of yourself, good father, and leave the affair to me. A single glance of my eye has more power in it than the command of the proudest baron of the Borders. On, good hearts!" And she again rode among the men, and inspired them with her voice and looks.

The effect of the silvery tones of the voice of Katherine on the hearts of her father's retainers was electric; they fought like lions, and it soon became apparent to Otterstone that a woman is a more dangerous enemy than a man. The cry, "For the fair maid of Innerkepple!" resounded among the combatants, and soon exhibited greater virtue than the war-cry of the house. Against men actuated by the chivalrous feelings that naturally arose out of the defence of a beautiful woman, all resistance was vain; the ranks of Otterstone's men were broken, and this advantage having been seized by their opponents, whose energies were rising every moment, as the sound of Katherine's voice saluted their ears, a route ensued, and the usual consequences of that last resource of the vanquished--flight--were soon apparent in the wounded victims, who fell ingloriously with wounds on their backs. The pursuers were inclined to continue the pursuit even to the walls of Otterstone, but Katherine called them back.

"To slay the flying," said she, with a laugh, as the usual hilarity of her spirits returned upon her, "is what I call effeminate warfare. When men flee, women pursue; and what get they for their pains more than the wench got from Theseus, whom she hunted for his heart, and got, as our hunters do, the kick of his heel? Away, and carry in our disabled, that I may, with woman's art, cure the wounds that have been received in defence of a woman."

The men obeyed with alacrity, and Innerkepple himself stared in amazement at his daughter, who had always before appeared to him as a wild romp, fit only for killing men with her beauty, or tormenting them with the elfin tricks or bewitching waggeries of her restless salient spirit.

"I'll hae ye in the wainscotted ha', Kate," said the father, as he entered his private chamber, leaning on the arm of his daughter, "painted wi' helm, habergeon, and halberd, and placed alongside o' Lewie o' Homildon and Watt o' Flodden."

"I care not, father," replied Katherine, "if you give the painter instructions to paint me laughing at those famous progenitors of our house, who were foolish enough to give their lives for that glory I can purchase for nothing, and get the lives of my enemies to boot; but I must go and minister to the gallant men who have been wounded."

"Minister first to your father, Kate," replied Innerkepple, with a knowing look.

"And to your father's daughter, you would add," replied she, with a smile. "A bridal and a battle lack wine." And, hastening to a cupboard, she took out and placed on the table a flagon and two cups, the latter of which she filled.

"Rest to the souls of the men I have slain!" said she, laughing, as she lifted the wine cup to her head, while her father was performing the same act.

"What! did ye kill ony o' Otterstone's men?" said Innerkepple.

"Every time I lifted up my visor," replied she, "I scattered death around me. Ha! ha! what fools men are! Their bodies are tenantless; we women are the souls that live outside of them, and take up our residence within their clayey precincts only when we have an object to serve. The tourney has taught me the power of our s.e.x; and there I have thrown my spirit into the man I hated, to gratify my humour by seeing him, poor caitiff! as he caught my hazel eye, writhe and wring, and contort himself into all the att.i.tudes of Proteus."

"Wicked imp!" said Innerkepple, laughing.

"And when he had sufficiently twisted himself," continued she, "I have, with a grave face given the same hazel eye to his opponent, and set his body in motion in the same way. The serpent-charmer is nothing to a woman. By this art, I to-day gained the victory; and I'll stake my auburn toupee against thy grey wig, that I beat, in the same way, the boldest baron of the Borders."

"By the faith o' Innerkepple, ye're no blate, Kate!" said the old baron, still laughing; "but come, let us see our wounded men"--taking his daughter's arm.

"Leave their wounds to me, father," said she. "The sting of the tarantula is cured by an old song. We women are the true leeches; doctors are quacks and medicasters to us. We kill and cure like the Delphic sword, which makes wounds and heals them by alternate strokes."

"Ever at your quips, roisterer," said Innerkepple, as they arrived at the court.

The wounded men had been brought in, and were consigned to the care of one of the retainers, skilled in medicine, Katherine's medicaments--her looks and tones--being reserved for a balsamic application, after the wounds were cicatrized. The other retainers were, meanwhile, busy in consultation, as might have been seen by their congregating into parties, talking low, and throwing looks at Innerkepple and his fair daughter, as they stood on the steps of the inner door of the castle.

"The guerdon! the guerdon!" at last said one of the va.s.sals, advancing and throwing himself at the feet of Kate.

"Ha! ha! I forgot," replied she laughing; "but turn up thy face--art thou the man?"

"So say my companions, fair leddy," replied he. "I brocht doon wi' this arm five o' Otterstone's men."

"With that arm!" replied she, "and what spirit nerved the dead lumber, thinkest thou?"

"Dootless yours, fair leddy," answered he, smiling knowingly; "but, though the spirit was borrowed, I'm no the less ent.i.tled to my reward."

"A good stickler for the rights of your s.e.x," answered she, keeping up the humour; "but what guerdon demandest thou?"

"That whilk knights hae sued in vain for at your fair feet," answered the man, smiling, as he uttered nearly the words she had used at the battle.

"Caught in my own snare," replied she, laughing loudly.

"Ah, Kate, Kate!" said the baron, joining in the humour, "hoo mony gallant barons, and knights, and gentlemen hae ye tormented by thae fair lips o' yours, which carry in their cunnin' words a defence o' themsels sae weel contrived that nane daur approach them! Ye're caught at last.

Stand to yer richts, man. A kiss was promised ye, and by the honour o'

Innerkepple, a kiss ye'll hae, if I should haud her head by a grip o'

her bonny auburn locks."

"Hold! hold!" cried Katherine; "this matter dependeth on the answer to a question. Art thou married, sirrah?"

The man hesitated, fearful of being caught by his clever adversary.

"Have a care o' yoursel, Gregory," said Innerkepple, "ye're on dangerous ground."

"What if I am or am not?" said the man, cautiously, turning up his eye into the face of the wicked querist.

"If thou art not," said she, "then would a kiss of so fair a damsel be to thee beyond the value of a croft of the best land o' the barony o'

Innerkepple; but if thou art, then would the guerdon be as nothing to the kiss of thy wife, and as the weight of a feather in the scale against an oxengate of good land."

"I'm no married," replied the man; "but, an't please yer leddys.h.i.+p, I'll take the oxengate."

"Audacious varlet!" cried Kate, rejoicing in the adroitness she exhibited; "wouldst thou prefer a piece of earth to a kiss of Kate Kennedy--a boon which the gayest knights of the Borders have sued for in vain! But 'tis well--thou hast refused the guerdon. Ha! ha! Men of Innerkepple, ye are witnesses to the fact. This man hath spurned my guerdon, and sought dull earth for my rosy lips."

"We are witnesses," cried the retainers; and the court-yard rang with the laugh which the cleverness of their fair mistress had elicited from those who envied Gregory of his privilege.

"Kate, Kate!" said the old baron, joining in the laugh, "will ever mortal be able to seize what are sae weel guarded? I believe ye will be able to argue yer husband oot o' his richts o' proving whether thae little traitors be made of mortal flesh or ripe cherries. But wine is better than women's lips; and since Kate has sae cleverly got quit o'

her obligation, I'll mak amends by gieing ye a _surrogatum_."

Several measures of good old wine were served out to the men by the hands of Katherine, who rejoiced in the contradiction of refusing one thing to give a better. Her health, and that of Innerkepple, were drunk with loud shouts of approbation; and the wa.s.sail was kept up till a late hour of the night.

Meanwhile, Otterstone was struggling with his disappointment, and nouris.h.i.+ng a deep spirit of revenge. The shame of his defeat, accomplished by a girl, was insufferable; and the gnawing pain of the loss of honour and men, in a cause where he had calculated securely on crus.h.i.+ng his supposed enemy, affected him so severely, that he sent, it was reported, for his son, who had lived from his infancy at St. Omers, to come over to administer to him consolation. When Innerkepple heard of these things, he marvelled greatly at the stubbornness of his neighbour, whom he wished, above all things, to drag, _nolente volente_, into a deep wa.s.sail in the old wainscotted hall of his castle, whereby he might drown, with reason itself, all their hereditary grudges, and transform a foe into a friend. These feelings were also partic.i.p.ated in by the warlike Kate, who acknowledged that she did not, on that memorable day, fight for anything on earth that she knew of, but the safety of her father, and the sheer glory of victory. She entertained the best possible feelings towards Otterstone, though she admitted, with a laugh, that if his men had not that day run for their lives, she would have fought till they and their lord lay all dead upon the field, and the glory of Otterstone was extinguished for ever.

A considerable period that pa.s.sed in quietness, seemed to indicate that the anger of the vanquished baron had escaped by the valves appointed by nature for freeing the liver of its redundant bile. Meanwhile, Innerkepple's universal love of mankind increased, as his friends.h.i.+p for the juice of the grape grew stronger and stronger, and his potations waxed deeper and deeper; so that he was represented, all over the Borders, as being the most jovial baron of his time. The fame of Kate also went abroad like fire-flaughts; but no one knew what to make of her--whether to set her down as a beautiful virago, or as a merry imp of sportive devilry, who fought her father's enemy with the same good-will she felt towards the lovers whom she delighted with her beauty and gaiety, and tormented by her cruel waggeries and wiles.

This apparent quietness, and the consequent freedom from all danger, induced the old baron to comply with a request made to him by King James, to lend him forty of his followers, to aid in suppressing some disturbances caused by a number of outlawed reivers at that time ravaging the Borders. Katherine gave her consent to the measure; but she wisely exacted the condition that the men should not be removed to a greater distance from the castle than ten miles. When James' emissary asked her why she adjected this condition to her father's agreement, she answered, with that waggish mystery in which she often loved to indulge, that she had such a universal love for his--the emissary's--s.e.x, that she could not suffer the idea of her gallant men being further removed from her than the distance on which she had condescended. A question for explanation only produced another wicked _quodlibet_; so that the royal messenger was obliged to be contented with a reason that sounded in his ears very like a contempt of royal authority--a circ.u.mstance for which she cared no more than she did for the mute expression of admiration of her beauty, that her quick eye detected on the face of the deputy.

The men having been detached from the castle for the service of the king, there remained only a small number, not more than sufficient for occupying the more important stations on the walls of the strength.

There was, however, no cause for alarm; and old Innerkepple continued to speculate over his spiced Tokay, on his three grand subjects of antiquarian research; while Katherine followed her various occupations of listening to and laughing at his reveries, sewing battle scenes on satin, and killing her knights with her needle, in as many grotesque ways as her inventive fancy could devise. One day the sound of a horn cut right through the middle a long pull of Canary in the act of being perfected by the old baron's powers of swallow; and, in a short time, the warder came in and said that a wine merchant, with sumpter mules and panniers, was at the end of the drawbridge, and had expressed a strong desire to submit his commodity to the test of such a famous judge of the spirit of the grape as the baron of Innerkepple, whose name had gone forth as transcending that of all modern wine-drinkers.

"A wine merchant!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Innerkepple, smacking his lips after his interrupted draught of vintage '90. "What species o' sma' potation does he deal in? Ha! ha! It suits my humour to see the quack's een reel, as he finds his tongue and palate glued thegither wi' what I ca' wine, and gets them loosed again by his ain coloured water. Show him in, George."

"Whar is my leddy, yer Honour?" said the seneschal, looking bluntly.

"Will she consent to the drawbridge bein' raised at a time when the castle's nearly empty?"

"She has just gane into the green parlour in the west tower," said the baron. "But I'll tak Kate in my ain hands. She likes fun as weel as her auld father, and will laugh to see this quack beaten wi' his ain bowls."