to his
mother, "Heaven and hell shall not make me break my tryst to-night!" Now
Heaven was shut out by the storm and the tall close-built houses, and
Walter Gordon had an excellent chance of standing a bout with the other
place.

No doubt my Lady Wellwood bided at the window and looked out for him to
come to her through the snow. And I that had for common no thought of
lass or lady, cannot say that I was without my own envying that the love
of woman was not for me. Or so at least I thought at that time, even as
I shielded my eyes under my bonnet and drave through the snow with the
pistols loose in my belt. But Wat of Lochinvar walked defiantly through
the black storm with a saucy swing in his carriage, light and careless,
which I vouch drew my heart to him as if I had been a young girl. I had
given ten years of my life if just so I could have taken the eyes of
women.

As clear as if I had listened to the words, I could hear him saying over
within himself the last sentence he had used in the controversy with his
mother--"Heaven and hell shall not cause me to break my tryst to-night!"

Alack! poor lad, little understood he the resources of either. For he
had yet to pass beneath Traitor's' Gate.

For once the narrow High Street of Edinburgh was clean and
white--sheeted down in the clinging snow that would neither melt nor
freeze, but only clung to every joint, jut, stoop, and step of the
house-fronts, and clogged in lumps on the crockets of the roof. The wind
wrestled and roared in great gusts overhead in the black, uncertain,
tumultuous night. Then a calm would come, sudden as a curtain-drop in
the play-house, and in the hush you could hear the snow sliddering down
off the high-pitched roofs of tile. The light of the moon also came in
varying wafts and flickers, as the wind blew the clouds alternately
thicker and thinner across her face.

Now I felt both traitor and spy as I tracked my cousin down the brae.
Hardly a soul was to be seen, for none loves comfort more than an
Edinburgh burgher. And none understands his own weather better. The snow
had swept ill-doer and well-doer off the street, cleaner than ever did
the city guard--who, by the way, were no doubt warming their frozen toes
by the cheerful fireside in some convenient house-of-call.

So meditating, for a moment I had almost forgotten whither we were
going.

Before us, ere I was aware, loomed up the battlements and turrets of the
Netherbow. 'Twas with a