[CHAPTER LII]
CATCH THEM WHO CAN!
For a space that concourse of marriage guests stood frozen with surprise and wonder. Then a hoarse cry arose from Black Murdo and his friends. With one accord they rushed for the stables; but some groom, eager to enjoy his holiday untrammelled at the wedding, had locked the doors. The key could not be found. The door must be broken down. Then what a cursing, shouting, striking of scullions ensued, Black Murdo in the midst raging like a fiend!
But all the while Kate was in the arms of her love, and the brave horse went rushing on, stealing mile after mile from the confusion of their foes. They were past the water of Dee, fording by the shallows of Threave, before ever a man of their pursuers was mounted at Balmaghie. On they rode towards the green-isleted loch of Carlinwark, at whose northern end they were trysted to meet with the curate and Jean Gordon.
Soon Carlinwark's dappled square of blue gleamed beneath them as they surmounted the Wizard's Mount and looked down upon the reeking chimneys of cottages lying snugly in the bield of the wooded hollow. Never slackening their speed on the summit, they rushed on—Drumclog going down hill among the rabbit-holes and thorn bushes as swiftly and surely as on level pavemented city street.
And there at last, by the Three Thorns of a thousand trysts, stood the curate of Dalry, Peter McCaskill, and Jean Gordon by his side with a blue cloak over her arm. A little way behind them could be seen the brawny blacksmith of Carlinwark, Ebie Callan, his sledge-hammer in one hand and the bridle-rein of a chestnut mare in the crook of his left arm.
There was as yet no sight or sound of pursuit behind them when they stayed Drumclog.
"Hurrah!" said the curate, standing before Wat and Kate in his white cassock and holding his service-book in his hand. "Are your minds made up? There is little time to lose, 'Dearly beloved, forasmuch,' and so on—Walter Gordon of Lochinvar, do you take this woman whom you now hold by the hand (take her by the hand, man)"—so on and on he mumbled, rustling rapidly over the leaves of his book—"before these witnesses? And do you, Katherine McGhie, take this man?—very well then—'whom God hath joined....' There, that is finished, and 'tis as good a job as if it had been done by the Dean of Edinburgh. They cannot break Peter McCaskill's marrying work except with the dagger. And as to that, you must ride to save your skin, Wat, my lad."
"Mount upon this good steed, my lady," said the blacksmith to Kate; "she will carry you to Dumfries like the wind off the sea. She is faster than anything this side of the border."
And after she had mounted, with Ebie Callan's gallant assistance, Jean Gordon cast the blue cloak about her.