I found him a man according to my heart. When I spoke of his gallantry he but shrugged his shoulders. "Ah," said he, "it was ever my way to get into scrapes of that kind. Were I less ready to mix in others' business I had been a richer and happier man to-day," and he sighed.
From him I learned something more of the condition of my own land, and it was worse even than I had feared. M. de Rohaine had had many strange adventures in it, but he seemed to shrink from speaking of himself and his own affairs. There was in his eyes a look of fixed melancholy as of one who had encountered much sorrow in his time and had little hope for more happiness in the world. Yet withal he was so gracious and noble in presence that I felt I was in the company of a man indeed.
If I were to tell all the benefit I derived from this man I should fill a volume and never reach the end of my tale. Suffice it to say that from him I learned many of the tricks of sword play, so that soon I became as nigh perfect in the art as it was ever in my power to be. I learned too of other lands where he had been and wars which he had fought; and many tales which I have often told at home in Tweeddale I first heard from his lips. I was scarce ever out of his company, until one day he received a letter from a kinsman bidding him return on urgent necessity. He made his farewells to me with great regret, and on parting bade me count on his aid if I should ever need it. From that day to this I have never cast eyes on his face or heard tidings of him, but I herewith charge all folk of my family who may read this tale, if ever it be their fortune to meet with one of his name or race, that they befriend him to the best of their power, seeing that he did much kindness to me.
So the summer passed with one thing and another, till, ere I knew, winter was upon us. And I would have you know that winter in the Low Countries is very different from winter with us among the hills of Tweed. For here we have much mist and rain and a very great deal of snow; also the cold is of a kind hard to endure, since it is not of the masterful, overbearing kind, but raw and invidious. But there the frost begins in late autumn and keeps on well till early spring. Nor was there in my experience much haze or rain, but the weather throughout the months was dry and piercing. Little snow fell, beyond a sprinkling in the fore-end of January. Every stream and pond, every loch and canal was hard and fast with ice, and that of the purest blue colour and the keenest temper I have ever seen. All the townsfolk turned out to disport themselves on the frozen water, having their feet shod with runners of steel wherewith they performed the most wondrous feats of activity. The peasant-girls going to market with their farm produce were equipped with these same runners, and on them proceeded more quickly than if they had ridden on the highroad.
Often, too, during the winter, there were festivals on the ice, when the men arrayed in thick clothes and the women in their bravest furs came to amuse themselves at this pastime. I went once or twice as a spectator, and when I saw the ease and grace of the motion was straightway smitten with a monstrous desire to do likewise. So I bought a pair of runners and fitted them on my feet. I shall not dwell upon my immediate experiences, of which indeed I have no clear remembrance, having spent the better part of that afternoon on the back of my head in great bodily discomfort. But in time I made myself master of the art and soon was covering the ice as gaily as the best of them. I still remember the trick of the thing, and five years ago, when the floods in Tweed made a sea of the lower part of Manor valley, and the subsequent great frost made this sea as hard as the high-road, I buckled on my runners and had great diversion, to the country folks' amazement.
In all this time I had had many letters from Marjory, letters writ in a cheerful, pleasant tone, praying indeed for my return, but in no wise complaining of my absence. They were full of news of the folk of Tweedside, how Tam Todd was faring at Barns, and what sport her brother Michael was having in the haughlands among the wild-duck. I looked eagerly for the coming of those letters, for my heart was ever at Dawyck, and though I much enjoyed my sojourning in Holland, I was yet glad and willing for the time of departure to arrive. In January of the next year I received a bundle of news written in the gayest of spirits; but after that for three months and more I heard nothing. From this long silence I had much food for anxiety, for though I wrote, I am sure, some half-dozen times, no reply ever came. The uneasiness into which this put me cast something of a gloom over the latter part of the winter. I invented a hundred reasons to explain it. Marjory might be ill; the letters might have gone astray; perhaps she had naught to tell me. But I could not satisfy myself with these excuses, so I had e'en to wait the issue of events.
It was not till the month of April that I had news from my love, and what this was I shall hasten to tell.
CHAPTER VIII
THE COMING OF THE BRIG SEAMAW
It was the third day of April, a day so cool and mild that every one who could was in the open air, that I sat in the little strip of garden behind my lodging, reading the Symposium of Plato in the light of certain digests of Master Quellinus. The beds of hyacinth, yellow and blue and red, were flaunting before my eyes, and down by the water's edge the swallows were twittering and skimming. The soft spring wind fluttered the leaves of my book and stirred my hair, so that I found it hard indeed to keep my attention fixed. Some yards behind me Nicol sat cleaning a fishing-rod, for in the idle days he amused himself with trying his skill among the sleepy streams. He was whistling some bars of "Leezie Lindsay," and the tune, which I had often heard in Tweeddale, put me much in mind of home and inclined my heart violently to the place I had left. So soon I found my Plato lying listlessly on my lap, and my thoughts far away over sea.