love and admiration for his young cousin was absurd in his eyes. ‘For a young bit lassie,’ he said; ‘gin it had been a knight! But what will your father say to mine?’
‘I will write to him when I am well over the Border,’ said Geordie, ‘and gin he kens that your father had no hand in it he will deem no ill-will. Nor could he harm you if he did.’
David did not feel entirely satisfied, on one side of his mind as to his own loyalty to his father, or Geordie’s to ‘the Yerl,’ and yet there was something diverting to the enterprising mind in the stolen expedition; and the fellow-feeling which results in honour to contemporaries made him promise not to betray the young man and to shield him from notice as best he might. With Geordie’s motive he had no sympathy, having had too many childish squabbles with his cousin for her to be in his eyes a sublime Princess Joanna, but only a masterful Jeanie.
Sir Patrick, absorbed in orders to his seneschal, did not observe the addition to his party; and as David acted as his squire, and had been seen talking to the young man, no further demur was made until the time when the home party turned to ride back to Glenuskie, and Sir Patrick made a roll-call of his followers, picked men who could fairly be trusted not to embroil the company by excesses or imprudences in England or France.
Besides himself, his wife, sons and daughters, and the two princesses, the party consisted of Christian, female attendant for the ladies, the wife of Andrew of the Cleugh, an elderly, well-seasoned man-at-arms, to whom the banner was entrusted; Dandie their son, a stalwart youth of two or three-and-twenty, who, under his father, was in charge of the horses; and six lances besides. Sir Patrick following the French fashion, which gave to each lance two grooms, armed likewise, and a horse-boy. For each of the family there was likewise a spare palfrey, with a servant in charge, and one beast of burthen, but these last were to be freshly hired with their attendants at each stage.
Geordie, used to more tumultuous and irregular gatherings, where any man with a good horse and serviceable weapons was welcome to join the raid, had not reckoned on such a review of the party as was made by the old warrior accustomed to more regular warfare, and who made each of his eight lances—namely, the two Andrew Drummonds, Jock of the Glen, Jockie of Braeside, Willie and Norman Armstrong, Wattie Wudspurs, and Tam Telfer—answer to their names, and show up their three followers.
‘And who is yon lad in bright steel?’ Sir Patrick asked.
‘Master Davie kens, sir,’ responded old Andrew. David, being called, explained that he was a leal lad called Geordie, whom he had seen in Edinburgh, and who wished to join them, go to France, and see the world under Sir Patrick’s guidance, and that he would be at his own charges. ‘And I’ll be answerable for him, sir,’ concluded the lad.
‘Answer! Ha! ha! What for, eh? That he is a long-legged lad like your ain self. What more? Come, call him up!’
The stranger had no choice save to obey, and came up on a strong white mare, which old Andrew scanned, and muttered to his son, ‘The Mearns breed—did he come honestly by it?’
‘Up with your beaver, young man,’ said Sir Patrick peremptorily; ‘no man rides with me whose face I have not seen.’
A face not handsome and thoroughly Scottish was disclosed, with keen intelligence in the gray eyes, and a certain air of offended dignity, yet self-control, in the close-shut mouth. The cheeks were sunburnt and freckled, a tawny down of young manhood was on the long upper lip, and the short-cut hair was red; but there was an intelligent and trustworthy expression in the countenance, and the tall figure sat on horseback with the upright ease of one well trained.
‘Soh!’ said Sir Patrick, looking him over, ‘how ca’ they you, lad?’
‘Geordie o’ the Red Peel,’ he answered.
‘That’s a by-name,’ said the knight sternly; ‘I must have the full name of any man who rides with me.’
‘George Douglas, then, if nothing short of that will content you!’
‘Are ye sib to the Earl?’
‘Ay, sir, and have rid in his company.’
‘Whose word am I to take for that?’
‘Mine, sir, a word that none has ever doubted,’ said the youth boldly. ‘By that your son kens me.’
David here vouched for having seen the young man in the Angus following, when he had accompanied his father in the last riding of the Scots Parliament at Edinburgh; and this so far satisfied Sir Patrick that he consented to receive the stranger into his company, but only on condition of an oath of absolute obedience so long as he remained in the troop.
David could see that this had not been reckoned on by the high-spirited Master of Angus; and indeed obedience, save to the head of the name, was so little a Scottish virtue that Sir Patrick was by no means unprepared for reluctance.
‘I give thee thy choice, laddie,’ he said, not unkindly; ‘best make up your mind while thou art still in thine own country, and can win back home. In England and France I can have no stragglers nor loons like to help themselves, nor give cause for a fray to bring shame on the haill troop in lands that are none too friendly. A raw carle like thyself, or even these lads of mine, might give offence unwittingly, and then I’d have to give thee up to the laws, or to stand by thee to the peril of all, and of the ladies themselves. So there’s nothing for it but strict keeping to orders of myself and Andrew Drummond of the Cleugh, who kens as well as I do what sorts to be done in these strange lands. Wilt thou so bind thyself, or shall we part while yet there is time?’
‘Sir, I will,’ said the young man, ‘I will plight my word to obey you, and faithfully, so long as I ride under your banner in foreign parts—provided such oath be not binding within this realm of Scotland, nor against my lealty to the head of my name.’
‘Nor do I ask it of thee,’ returned Sir Patrick heartily, but regarding him more attentively; ‘these are the scruples of a true man. Hast thou any following?’
‘Only a boy to lead my horse to grass,’ replied George, giving a peculiar whistle, which brought to his side a shock-headed, barefooted lad, in a shepherd’s tartan and little else, but with limbs as active as a wild deer, and an eye twinkling and alert.
‘He shall be put in better trim ere the English pock-puddings see him,’ said Douglas, looking at him, perhaps for the first time, as something unsuited to that orderly company.
‘That is thine own affair,’ said Sir Patrick. ‘Mine is that he should comport himself as becomes one of my troop. What’s his name?’
‘Ringan Raefoot,’ replied Geordie Sir Patrick began to put the oath of obedience to him, but the boy cried out—
‘I’ll ne’er swear to any save my lawful lord, the Yerl of Angus, and my lord the Master.’
‘Hist, Ringan,’ interposed Geordie. ‘Sir, I will answer for his faith to me, and so long as he is leal to me he will be the same to thee; but I doubt whether it be expedient to compel him.’
So did Sir Patrick, and he said—
‘Then be it so, I trust to his faith to thee. Only remembering that if he plunder or brawl, I may have to leave him hanging on the next bush.’
‘And if he doth, the Red Douglas will ken the reason why,’ quoth Ringan, with head aloft.
It was thought well to turn a deaf ear to this observation. Indeed, Geordie’s effort was to elude observation, and to keep his uncouth follower from attracting it. Ringan was not singular in running along with bare feet. Other ‘bonnie boys,’ as the ballad has it, trotted along by the side of the horses to which they were attached in the like fashion, though they had hose and shoon slung over their shoulders, to be donned on entering the good town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Not without sounding of bugle and sending out a pursuivant to examine into the intentions and authorisation of the party, were they admitted, Jean and Eleanor riding