CHAPTER XXVIII. ALEXANDER-JONITA’S VICTORY.

But as for my brother, concerning whom was all this pother, he took no hand at all in the matter. If the people wished him to abide with them, they must maintain him there. Contrariwise, if the Master he served had other fields of labour, he would break down dykes and make plain his path before him.

But as it was, he went about as usual with his pilgrim staff in his hand visiting the sick, succouring the poor, lifting up the head of weakness and pain.

On the day when the Sheriff came with his men to the water-edge, Quintin saw from the manse window a little cloud of men running hither and thither upon the river-bank.

“There is surely some great ploy of fishing afoot!” he said, quietly, and so let his eyes fall again contentedly upon his book.{263}

“Faith, ’tis easy to hoodwink a learned man,” cried Alexander-Jonita when I told her.

It was at this time that I grew to love the lass yet more and more. For she flashed hither and thither, and whereas she had been no great one for housework hitherto, now since her sister’s death she would be much more indoors. Also, with the old man her father, she was exceedingly patient in his oftentime garrulity. But specially in the defence of the parish on Quintin’s behalf against the civil arm, she was indefatigable.

Often she would go dressed as a heartsome young callant, with clothes that her own needle had made, her own deft fingers fashioned. And in cavalier attire, I tell you, Alexander-Jonita took the eyes of lass and lady. Once, when we rode by Dee-bridge, a haughty dame sent back her servant to ask of me, whom she took to be a man-in-waiting, the name of the handsome young gentleman I served.

I replied with dignity, “’Tis the young Lord Alexander Johnstone,” which was as near the truth as I could come at a quick venture.

In that crowning ploy of which I have still to tell, it was Alexander-Jonita who played the leading part.{264}

The Sheriff, being admonished for his slackness by his legal superiors, and complained of by the reverend court of the Presbytery, resolved to make a bold push for it, and at one blow to take final possession of kirk and manse.

So he summoned the yeomanry of the province to meet him under arms at the village of Causewayend, which stands near the famous and beautiful loch of Carlinwark, on a certain day, under penalties of fine and imprisonment. And about a hundred men on horseback, all well armed and mounted, drew together on the day appointed. A fine breezy day in August, it was—when many of them doubtless came with small good-will from their corn-fields, where a winnowing wind searched the stooks till the ripe grain rustled with the parched well-won sound that is music to the farmer’s ear.

But if the news of gathering of the yeomanry had been spread by summons, far more wide and impressive had been the counter call sent throughout the parish of Balmaghie.

For farmer and cotter alike knew that matters had come to the perilous pinch with us, and if it should be that the civil powers were not turned aside now, all the past watching and sacrifice would prove in vain.{265}

It was about noon when the sentinels reported that the Sheriff and his hundred horsemen had crossed Dee water, and were advancing by rapid stages.

Now it was Jonita’s plan to draw together the women also—for what purpose we did not see. But since she had summoned them herself it was not for any of us young men to say her nay.

So by the green roadside, a mile from the manse and kirk, Jonita had her hundred and fifty or more women assembled, old and young, mothers of families and wrinkled grandmothers thereof, young maidens with the blushes on their cheeks and the snood yet unloosed about their hair.

Faith, spite of the grandmothers, many a lad of us would have desired to be of that company that day! But Alexander-Jonita would have none of us. We were to keep the castle, so she commanded, with gun and sword. We were to sit in our trenches about the kirk, and let the women be our advance guard.

So when the trampling of horses was heard from the southward, and the cavalcade came to the narrows of the way, “Halt!” cried Alexander-Jonita suddenly. And leaping out of the{266} thicket like a young roe of the mountains, she seized the Sheriff’s bridle rein. At the same moment her hundred and fifty women trooped out and stood ranked and silent right across the path of the horsemen.

“What do ye here? Let go, besom!” cried the Sheriff.

“Go back to those that sent ye, Sheriff,” commanded Alexander-Jonita, “for an’ ye will put out our minister, ye must ride over us and wet the feet of your horses in our women’s blood.”

“Out upon you, lass! Let men do their work!” cried the Sheriff, who was a jolly, rollicking man, and, moreover, as all knew, like most sheriffs, not unkindly disposed to the sex.

“Leave you our minister alone to do his work. I warrant he will not meddle with you,” answered Alexander-Jonita.

“Faith, but you are a well-plucked one!” cried the Sheriff, looking down with admiration on her, “but now out of the way with you, for I must forward with my work.”

“Sir,” said the lass, “ye may turn where ye are, and ride back whence ye came, for we will by no means let you proceed one step nearer to the kirk of Balmaghie this day!”{267}

“Forward!” cried the Sheriff, loudly, to his men, thinking to intimidate the women.

“Stand firm, lasses!” cried Alexander-Jonita, clinging to the Sheriff’s bridle-rein.

And the company of yeomanry stood still, for, being mostly householders and fathers of families, they could not bring themselves to charge a company of women, as it might be their own wives and daughters.

“Forward!” cried the Sheriff again.

“Aye, forward, gallant cavaliers!” cried Alexander-Jonita, “forward, and ye shall have great honour, Sheriff! More famous than my Lord Marlborough shall be ye. Ride us down. Put your horses to their speed. Be assured we will not flinch!”

Time and again the Sheriff tried, now threatening and now cajoling; but equally to no purpose.

At last he grew tired.

“This is a thankless job,” he said, turning him about; “let them send their soldiers. I am not obliged to fight for it.”

And so with a “right about” and a wave of the hand he took his valiant horsemen off by the way they came.

And as they went they say that many a{268} youth turned him on his saddle to cast a longing look upon Alexander-Jonita, who stood there tall and straight in the place where she had so boldly confronted the Sheriff.

Then the women sang a psalm, while Alexander-Jonita, leaping on a horse, rode a musket-shot behind the retiring force, till she had seen them safely across the river at the fords of Glenlochar, and so finally out of the parish bounds.