father's
name, which indeed was no name to laugh at when he that owned it was
alive. Neither Peter Inglis not yet his uncle had laughed in the face of
William Gordon of Earlstoun--ay, though they had been riding forth with
a troop behind them.

"Gordon," quoth he, "Gordon--a man canna spit in the Glenkens without
sploiting on a Gordon--and every Jack o' them a cantin' rebel!"

"You lie, Peter Inglis--lie in your throat!" cried a voice from the
hillside, quick as an echo. Inglis, who had been hectoring it hand on
hip, turned at the word. His black brows drew together and his hand fell
slowly till it rested on his sword-hilt. He who spoke so boldly was a
lad of twenty, straight as a lance shaft is straight, who rode slowly
down from the Garryhorn to join us on the main road where the picket was
posted.

It was my cousin and kinsman, Wat Gordon of Lochinvar--a spark of
mettle, who in the hour of choosing paths had stood for the King and the
mother of him (who was a Douglas of Morton) against the sterner way of
his father and forebears.

The Wildcat of Lochinvar they called him, and the name fitted him like
his laced coat.

For Wullcat Wat of Lochinvar was the gayest, brightest, most reckless
blade in the world. And even in days before his father's capture and
execution, he had divided the house with him. He had rallied half the
retainers, and ridden to Morton Castle to back his uncle there when the
King's interest was at its slackest, and when it looked as if the days
of little Davie Crookback were coming back again. At Wat Gordon's back
there rode always his man-at-arms, John Scarlet, who had been a soldier
in France and also in Brandenburg--and who was said to be the greatest
master of fence and cunning man of weapons in all broad Scotland. But it
was rumoured that now John Scarlet had so instructed his young master
that with any weapon, save perhaps the small sword the young cock could
craw crouser than the old upon the same middenstead.

"I said you lied, Peter Inglis," cried Wullcat Wat, turning back the
lace ruffle of his silken cuff, for he was as gay and glancing in his
apparel as a crested jay-piet. "Are ye deaf as well as man-sworn?"

Inglis stood a moment silent; then he understood who his enemy was. For
indeed it was no Maypole dance to quarrel with Wat of Lochinvar with
John Scarlet swaggering behind him.

"Did you not hear? I said you lied, man--lied in your throat. Have you
aught to say to it, or