In Freedom's Cause Part 23

"I could never think you a coward," Archie said, "after you faced the anger of that terrible uncle of yours for my sake; or rather,"

he added, "for the sake of your word. And now I hope you will eat something, for we have a long march through the forest and hills before us."

"Don't fear that I shall tire," she said. "I am half a mountaineer myself, and, methinks, can keep on my feet as long as any man."

The meal was hastily eaten, and then the party started on their way.

"I have been wondering," the girl said, as with light steps she kept pace with Archie's longer strides, "how you came to know that I was in the convent."

Archie looked surprised.

"How should I know, Mistress Marjory, but through your own messenger?"

"My own messenger!" Marjory exclaimed. "You are jesting, Sir Archie."

"I am not so, fair lady," he said. "Surely you must remember that you sent a messenger to me, with word that you were captive at St.

Kenneth and needed my aid?"

The girl stopped for a moment in her walk and gazed at her companion as if to a.s.sure herself that he was in earnest. "You must be surely dreaming, Sir Archie," she said, as she continued the walk, "for a.s.suredly I sent you no such message."

"But, lady," Archie said, holding out his hand, "the messenger brought me as token that he had come from you this ring which I had given you, vowing that should you call me to your aid I would come immediately, even from a stricken field."

The blood had rushed into the girl's face as she saw the ring.

Then she turned very pale. "Sir Archibald Forbes," she said in a low tone, after walking for a minute or two in silence, "I feel disgraced in your eyes. How forward and unmaidenly must you have thought me thus to take advantage of a vow made from the impulse of sudden grat.i.tude."

"No, indeed, lady," Archie said hotly. "No such thought ever entered my mind. I should as soon doubt the holy Virgin herself as to deem you capable of aught but what was sweet and womanly. The matter seemed to me simple enough. You had saved my life at great peril to yourself, and it seemed but natural to me that in your trouble, having none others to befriend you, your thoughts should turn to one who had sworn to be to the end of his life your faithful knight and servant. But," he went on more lightly, "since you yourself did not send me the ring and message, what good fairy can have brought them to me?"

"The good fairy was a very bad one," the girl said shortly, "and I will rate him soundly when I see him for thus adventuring without my consent. It is none other than Father Anselm; and yet," she added, "he has suffered so much on my behalf that I shall have to forgive him. After your escape my uncle in his pa.s.sion was well nigh hanging the good priest in spite of his holy office, and drove him from the castle. He kept me shut up in my room for many weeks, and then urged upon me the marriage with his son. When he found that I would not listen to it he sent me to St. Kenneth, and there I have remained ever since. Three weeks ago Father Anselm came to see me. He had been sent for by Alexander of Lorne, who, knowing the influence he had with me, begged him to undertake the mission of inducing me to bend to his will. As he knew how much I hated John of Lorne, the good priest wasted not much time in entreaties; but he warned me that it had been resolved that unless I gave way my captivity, which had hitherto been easy and pleasant, would be made hard and rigorous, and that I would be forced into accepting John of Lorne as a husband. When he saw that I was determined not to give in, the good priest certainly hinted" (and here she coloured again hotly) "that you would, if sent for, do your best to carry me off. Of course I refused to listen to the idea, and chided him for suggesting so unmaidenly a course. He urged it no further, and I thought no more of the matter. The next day I missed my ring, which, to avoid notice, I had worn on a little ribbon round my neck. I thought at the time the ribbon must have broken and the ring been lost, and for a time I made diligent search in the garden for it; but I doubt not now that the traitor priest, as I knelt before him to receive his blessing on parting, must have severed the ribbon and stolen it."

"G.o.d bless him!" Archie said fervently. "Should he ever come to Aberfilly the warmest corner by the fire, the fattest capon, and the best stoop of wine from the cellar shall be his so long as he lives. Why, but for him, Lady Marjory, you might have worn out months of your life in prison, and have been compelled at last to wed your cousin. I should have been a miserable man for life."

The girl laughed.

"I would have given you a week, Sir Archie, and no more; that is the extreme time which a knight in our days can be expected to mourn for the fairest lady; and now," she went on, changing the subject, "think you we shall reach the pa.s.s across the Grampians before night?"

"If all goes well, lady, and your feet will carry you so far, we shall be there by eventide. Unless by some chance encounter we need have no fear whatever of pursuit. It will have been daylight before the news of your flight fairly spread through the country, though, doubtless, messengers were sent off at once in all directions; but it would need an army to scour these woods, and as they know not whether we have gone east, west, north, or south, the chance is faint indeed of any party meeting us, especially as we have taken so straight a line that they must march without a pause in exactly the right direction to come up with us."

At nightfall the party camped again on the slope of the Grampians, and the following morning crossed by the pa.s.s of Killiecrankie and made toward Perth.

The next night Marjory slept in a peasant's cottage, Archie and his companions lying down without. Wis.h.i.+ng to avoid attention, Archie purchased from the peasant the Sunday clothes of his daughter, who was about the same age and size as Marjory.

When they reached Perth he bought a strong horse, with saddle and pillion; and with Marjory behind him, and his band accompanying him on foot, he rode for Stirling. When he neared the town he heard that the king was in the forest of Falkirk, and having consulted Marjory as to her wishes rode directly thither.

Bruce, with his followers, had arrived but the day before, and had taken up his abode at the princ.i.p.al house of a village in the forest. He came to the door when he heard the trampling of a horse.

"Ah! Sir Archie, is it you safely returned, and, as I half expected, a lady?"

"This, sire," Archie said, dismounting, "is Mistress Marjory MacDougall, of whom, as you have heard me say, I am the devoted knight and servant. She has been put in duress by Alexander of Lorne because in the first place she was a true Scots woman and favoured your cause, and because in the second place she refused to espouse his son John. I have borne her away from the convent of St. Kenneth, and as I used no force in doing so no sacrilege has been committed.

I have brought her to you in all honour and courtesy, as I might a dear sister, and I now pray you to place her under the protection of the wife of one of your knights, seeing that she has no friends and natural protectors here. Then, when she has time to think, she must herself decide upon her future."

The king a.s.sisted Marjory to dismount.

"Fair mistress," he said, "Sir Archibald Forbes is one of the bravest and truest of my knights, and in the hands of none might you more confidently place your honour. a.s.suredly I will do as he asks me, and will place you under the protection of Dame Elizabeth Graham, who is now within, having ridden hither to see her husband but this morning. But I trust," he added, with a meaning smile, "that you will not long require her protection."

The king entered the house with Marjory, while Archie, with his band, rejoined the rest of his party, who were still with the king.

After having seen that the wants of those who had accompanied him had been supplied he returned to the royal quarters. The king met him at the door, and said, with a merry smile on his face:

"I fear me, Sir Archie, that all my good advice with regard to Mistress Mary Kerr has been wasted, and that you are resolved to make this Highland damsel, the niece of my arch enemy Alexander of Lorne, your wife."

"If she will have me," Archie said stoutly, "such a.s.suredly, is my intent; but of that I know nothing, seeing that, while she was under my protection, it would have been dishonourable to have spoken of love; and I know nought of her sentiments toward me, especially seeing that she herself did not, as I had hoped, send for me to come to her aid, and was indeed mightily indignant that another should have done so in her name."

"Poor Sir Archie!" the king laughed. "Though a man, and a valorous one in stature and in years, you are truly but a boy yet in these matters. It needed but half an eye to see by the way she turned pale and red when you spoke to her that she loves you. Now look you, Sir Archie," he went on more seriously; "these are troubled days, and one knows not what a day may bring forth. Graham's tower is neither strong nor safe, and the sooner this Mistress Marjory of yours is safely in your stronghold of Aberfilly the better for both of you, and for me also, for I know that you will be of no more good to me so long as your brain is running on her. Look you now, she is no longer under your protection, and your scruples on that head are therefore removed; best go in at once and ask her if she will have you. If she says, 'Yes,' we will ride to Glasgow tomorrow or next day. The bishop shall marry you, and I myself will give you your bonny bride. This is no time for wasting weeks with milliners and mantua makers. What say you?"

"Nothing would more surely suit my wishes, sire," Archie said; "but I fear she will think me presumptuous."

"Not a bit of it," the king laughed. "Highland la.s.sies are accustomed to sudden wooing, and I doubt not that when she freed you last autumn from Dunstaffnage her mind was just as much made up as yours is as to the state of her heart. Come along, sir."

So saying, the king pa.s.sed his arm through that of Archie, and drew him into the house. In the room which they entered Marjory was sitting with Lady Graham. Both rose as the king entered.

"My Lady Graham," the king said, "this my good and faithful knight Sir Archie Forbes, whose person as well as repute is favourably known to you, desires to speak alone with the young lady under your protection. I may say he does so at my special begging, seeing that at times like these the sooner matters are put in a straight course the better. Will you let me lead you to the next room while we leave the young people together?"

"Marjory," Archie said, when he and the girl were alone, "I fear that you will think my wooing rude and hasty, but the times must excuse it. I would fain have waited that you might have seen more of me before I tried my fate; but in these troubled days who can say where I may be a week hence, or when I can see you again were I once separated from you! Therefore, dear, I speak at once. I love you, Marjory, and since the day when you came like an angel into my cell at Dunstaffnage I have known that I loved you, and should I never see you again could love none other. Will you wed me, love?"

"But the king tells me, Sir Archie," the girl said, looking up with a half smile, "that he wishes you to wed the Lady Mary Kerr."

"It is a dream of the good king," Archie said, laughing, "and he is not in earnest about it. He knows that I have never set eyes on the lady or she on me, and he was but jesting when he said so to you, having known from me long ago that my heart was wholly yours."

"Besides," the girl said hesitating, "you might have objected to wed Mistress Kerr because her father was an enemy of yours."

"Why dwell upon it?" Archie said a little impatiently. "Mistress Kerr is nothing in the world to me, and I had clean forgotten her very existence, when by some freak or other she sent her retainers to fight under my command. She may be a sweet and good lady for what I know; she may be the reverse. To me she is absolutely nothing; and now, Marjory, give me my answer. I love you, dear, deeply and truly; and should you say, 'Yes,' will strive all my life to make you happy."

"One more question, Archie, and then I will answer yours. Tell me frankly, had I been Mary Kerr instead of Marjory MacDougall, could you so far forget the ancient feud between the families as to say to me, 'I love you.'"

Archie laughed.

"The question is easily answered. Were you your own dear self it would matter nought to me were your name Kerr, or MacDougall, or Comyn, or aught else. It is you I love, and your ancestors or your relations matter to me not one single jot."

"Then I will answer you," the girl said, putting her hand in his.

"Archie Forbes, I love you with my whole heart, and have done so since I first met you; but," she said, drawing back, as Archie would have clasped her in his arms, "I must tell you that you have been mistaken, and that it is not Marjory MacDougall whom you would wed, but Mary, whom her uncle Alexander always called Marjory, Kerr."

"Marjory Kerr!" Archie repeated, in astonishment.

"Yes, Archie, Marjory or Mary Kerr. The mistake was none of my making; it was you called me MacDougall; and knowing that you had reason to hate my race I did not undeceive you, thinking you might even refuse the boon of life at the hands of a Kerr. But I believed that when you thought it over afterwards you would suspect the truth, seeing that it must a.s.suredly come to your ears if you spoke of your adventure, even if you did not already know it, that Sir John Kerr and Alexander of Lorne married twin sisters of the house of Comyn. You are not angry, I hope, Archie?"

"Angry!" Archie said, taking the girl, who now yielded unresistingly, in his arms. "It matters nothing to me who you were; and truly I am glad that the long feud between our houses will come to an end.

My conscience, too, p.r.i.c.ked me somewhat when I heard that by the death of your brother you had succeeded to the estates, and that it was in despite of a woman, and she a loyal and true hearted Scotswoman, that I was holding Aberfilly. So it was you sent the retainers from Ayr to me?"

"Yes," Marjory replied. "Father Anselm carried my orders to them.

I longed to know that they were fighting for Scotland, and was sure that under none could they be better led."