"To seek your lass and your friend, says you," answered the woman, "a good answer and a fair; but whilk o' them the maist? Ye are cauld and wat. Ye will hae soomed frae some hidie-hole in the muckle cliffs they name Lianacraig, I doot na. Was it your lass or your friend that ye thocht on when ye took life in hand and cam' paddling like a pellock through the mirk? Was it for the sake o' your love or your comrade that ye were gangin' to slit the hass of Alister McAlister, decent red-headed son o' a cattle-thief that he is?"
"For both of them," said Wat, stoutly; "I am much beholden to John Scarlett. He set out on this most perilous adventure over seas at a word from me, and without the smallest prospect of advantage to himself."
"I doubt it not," said Bess Landsborough; "it was the little sense o' the cuif all the days of him, that he would ever do more for his comrade than for his lass. And that is maybe the reason annexed to Bess Landsborough's being here this day, a Heelantman's wife on the cauld, plashy isle o' Suliscanna. But, laddie, listen to me. I am no gaun to let the bonny bit young thing that I hae cherished like my ain dochter mak' the same mistake as I made langsyne. Tell me, laddie, as God sees ye, what yin ye wad leave ahint ye, gin ye could tak' but yin o' them and ye kenned that death wad befall the ither?"
"I would take Kate McGhie, though ye hanged old Jack Scarlett as high as Haman," quoth Wat, instantly.
"Fairly and soothly, my man," said the woman, in his ear. "There is no need to rair it as if ye were at a field-preachin' on the wilds of Friarminion. Quietly, quietly; tell me, in brief, what ye wad do for your friend and what for your lass?"
"For my friend I will tell you," said Wat—"though I know not what gives you the right to ask—for my friend I would do all that a man may—face my friend's foes, help his well-wishers till I had not a rag to share, stand shoulder to shoulder with him, and never ask the cause of his quarrel; share the crust and divide the stoup, die and be buried in one hole with him at the last."
"Aye," said Bess, "that is spoken like a soldier, and well spoken, too. Ye mean it, lad, and ye wad do it, too. But for your lass—"
"For her," said Wat, lowering his voice, solemnly, "for the lass I love, is it? I will rather tell you what I have done already. For her I have gone mad. I have flung my chances by handfuls into the sea. At sight of a single scornful glint of her eye I ran headlong to destruction; at a harsh word from her I had almost thrown away life and honor both. For a kindly word I have set my head in the dust under her foot. I have cherished in my deepest heart no pride, no will, no ambition that I would not have made a stepping-stone of, that her foot might tread upon it."
Wat paused for breath amid the rush of his words ere he went on:
"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more,'