m go upon his errand. I myself will be answerable for him
to Colonel Graham of Claverhouse. After that we can arrange our little
matter as to favour and its causes."

There was a keen leaping light in my cousin Wat's blue eyes, the light
that I afterwards grew to know as the delight of battle. He was waxing
coldly angry. For me I grow dourly silent as I become angered. My
brother Sandy grows red and hot, but Wullcat Wat was of those more
dangerous men to whom deadly anger, when it comes, at once quickens the
pulses and stills the nerves.

"Think not I am afraid of a traitor's son, or of any of the name of
Lochinvar," quoth Inglis, who was indeed no coward when once he had
taken up a quarrel; "after all, ye are all no better than a
bow-o'-meal-Gordon!"

It was the gage of battle. After that there was no more to be said. To
call a man of our name "a-bow-o'-meal-Gordon" is equal to saying that he
has no right to the name he bears. For it is said that a certain
Lochinvar, wanting retainers to ride at his back, offered a snug holding
and so many bolls of meal yearly to any lusty youth who would marry on
his land, take his name, and set himself like a worthy sworder to breed
well-boned loons to carry in their turns the leathern jack.

At the taunt, swift as flame Wat of Lochinvar rode nearer to his enemy
on his quick-turning well-mouthed horse, and drawing the leather
gauntlet through his fingers till the fingers were striped narrow like
whip lashes, he struck Inglis with it upon the cheek.

"My father's head," he cried, "may be on the Netherbow. He had his way
of thinking and died for it. I have mine and may die for it in my time.
But in the meantime Lochinvar's son is not to be flouted by the son of a
man who cried with all parties and hunted with none."

Two swords flashed into the air together, the relieved scabbards
jingling back against the horses' sides. The basket hilt of that of
Cornet Inglis had the cavalry tassel swinging to it, while the crossbar
and simple Italian guard of Wat Gordon's lighter weapon seemed as if it
must instantly be beaten down by the starker weapon of the dragoon. But
as they wheeled their horses on guard with a touch of the bridle hand, I
saw John Scarlet, Wat's master of fence, flash a look at his scholar's
guard-sword. Wat used an old-fashioned shearing-sword, an ancient blade
which, with various hilt devices, many a Gordon of Lochinvar had carried
when he ruffled it in court and hall.