Chapter LVI: Epilogue: Of Supererogation

BEING CHAPTER FIFTY-FOURTH, AND LAST

Peace and silence cinctured the ancient tower of Lochinvar like the blue circle of the vault of heaven. Kate and Wat were walking the battlements. It was a narrow promenade, but they kept the closer together. From the gable chimneys immediately above them the blue perfumed reek of a peat fire went up straight as a monument. In the kitchen Jean Gordon and her tow-headed servitor, Mall, were preparing the evening meal. There, at the foot of the loch, could be seen Jack Scarlett switching his long fishing-pole, his boat and his figure showing black against the bright lake.

Wat shaded his face with his hand and looked under it, for the sun shot his rays slantwise.

"What is the matter with old Jack?" he said; "yonder he goes, pulling as hard as he can for the shore. I see two people sitting on a heather-tussock by the landing-place."

When Kate had looked once swiftly, she clapped her hands. "'Tis Maisie and Will!" she cried, merrily. "Oh, I wonder if they have brought the babe?"

"The babe?" said her husband, "wherefore should they bring the babe, carrying him all the way from Earlstoun?"

"I should never let him out of my arms," cried Kate, "if I had such a boy."

She stopped somewhat suddenly and changed the subject.

"Look," she said, pointing with her finger, "Jack is showing them his fish. It is as well that he seems to have a good, taking in his basket; for, faith! there is little in the house but salted black-faced mutton."

Long before the boat could approach near enough to the tower to render conversation possible, Kate and Maisie were crying out unintelligible greetings one to the other, while with his hand on her skirts Will Gordon endeavored to induce his wife to sit down, lest she should overbalance herself and fall out of the boat.

Kate ran down the narrow turret stairs to the landing-place, whereupon Wat followed hastily, lest she should throw herself bodily into the water. The boat touched the wooden fenders, and the next moment the two women were in each other's arms. The men shook hands gravely, but said nothing, after their kind. Jack Scarlett took up his string of fish and departed kitchenward without a word, keeping his eyes studiously on the ground.

Meanwhile the two women were sobbing quietly and contentedly, each on her friend's shoulder.

Then Will Gordon must needs turn and endeavor to cheer them with the eternal masculine tact.

"Why, lassies," he said, with loud joviality, "what can there be to cry about now, when everything has fallen out so well after all our troubles?"

His wife turned to him fiercely.

"You great gaby!" she cried, pointedly, "get into the house and leave us alone. Can you not see we are just glad?"

"Yes--glad and happy!" corroborated Kate. "What silly things men be!"

Wat and Will slunk off without a word. They did not so much as smile at the manner of the gladness of women. Even when they were safe in the square, oak-panelled hall, they seemed to have little to say to each other, except as to the crops on Gordonstoun and concerning the planting of trees at Will's new house of Afton.

Presently the women came back, whereupon, for no obvious reason, Wat and Will immediately plucked up heart and became suddenly voluble.

"Wat," said Kate, daring him to a refusal with her eyes, "I am going over to Earlstoun to-morrow to see the baby."

"What!" cried her husband, "why not fetch it here to-night? I will lead an expedition to bring it this very moment, and Scarlett and Will shall be my officers."

"_It_, indeed, you--you _man_!" cried Kate, contemptuously. "Why, you could not be trusted with him."

"We might break it," said Will Gordon, quietly, "or it might even cry, and then what should we do? Better is it that we should all return to the Earlstoun to-morrow. Sandy and Jean have gone to Afton for a while."

And so it was arranged, perhaps because of the last-mentioned fact.

But Kate cried out impetuously, after a silence of five minutes: "I do not believe that I can wait till to-morrow to see the lovely thing."

"No, nor I either!" said Maisie, grievingly. She let her eyes rest a moment reproachfully on her husband, to convey to him that it was all his fault.

The two men looked at each other. Their glances of mutual sympathy said each to each: "This it is to be wedded."

"Well," said Wat, more cheerfully, like a man who knows it is vain to fight against his destiny, "let us all go there together to-night."

The women sprang up and clapped their hands.

"Scarlett," cried Kate, "ferry us across in the boat at once."

"What may be the great hurry?" he said. "The trouts are frying fine."

"We are going back to Earlstoun," said Kate, with decision in her tone.

"Is the auld hoose on fire, or what's a' the red-hot haste?" called Scarlett, from the kitchen, where he was superintending the sprinkling of oatmeal on the trouts--a delicate operation.

"Man, the bairn may be greeting!" said Will Gordon; whereat Wat Gordon suddenly laughed aloud--and then just judgment seemed about to descend upon them. But their several wives looked at each other to decide which should be the executioner. "After all," said the four eyes, as they took counsel, "is it worth it?" It was enough that they were _men_--nothing could be expected of that breed when it came to a matter of the finer feelings.

Jean Gordon came anxiously panting up the stairs.

"You will be the better o' your suppers afore ye gang ony sic roads at this time of night," she said, determinedly.

So in a trice the trouts were brought in, and Scarlett sat down along with Lochinvar and his guests, for such was the sweet and honorable custom of the tower.

Then in the beauty of a late and gracious gloaming, they rowed over softly to the blossoming heather of the loch-side, and took their way by two and two up the hill. The two women walked on in front in whispered sibylline converse, sometimes looking over their shoulders to insure that their husbands did not encroach too closely upon the mysteries.

At the top of the hill Wat and Kate with one instinct stopped a moment and looked down upon the peace of their moorland home. Jack Scarlett was dragging a rod across the loch from the stern of the returning boat. Jean Gordon and Mall, her maid, were setting the evening fire to "keep in" till the morning. The topmost chimney still gave forth a faint blue "pew" of peat-reek, which went straight up into the still night air and was lost among the thickening spear-points of the stars.

Kate took her husband's arm.

"Are you sorry, Wat?" she said, with something like the dew of tears in her voice, "that you gave up the command of a regiment to come to this quiet place--and to me?"

In the hearing of his cousin Wat only smiled at her question, but privately he took possession of his wife's hand, and kept it in his all the way as they went down the hill, till they came through the Earlstoun wood past the tree in which Sandy had hidden so long. But at the well-house gate Kate suddenly dropped Wat's hand, and she and Maisie darted simultaneously towards the great doorway of Earlstoun.

Their husbands stood petrified.

"There is baby crying, after all! Did I not tell you?" cried Kate and Maisie together, looking reproachfully at each other as they ran.

Wat and Will were left alone by the curb of the well-house of Earlstoun; they clasped hands silently in the dusk of the gloaming and looked different ways. And though they did not speak, the grip of their right hands was at once a thanksgiving and a prayer.

THE END

BY BRANDER MATTHEWS

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Transcribers' Notes:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Page 84: "extragavances" probably is a misprint for "extravagances".

Page 245: "eastern ness" was printed as two words.