CHAPTER VIIMY LADY RAGES
I was shaken quite out of my exultation. I stood raging at myself in a defiant scorn, struck dumb at the folly that will let a man who loves one woman go sweethearting with another. Her eyes stabbed me, the while I stood there dogged yet grovelling, no word coming to my dry lips. What was there to be said? The tie that bound me to Aileen was indefinable, tenuous, not to be phrased; yet none the less it existed. I stood convicted, for I had tacitly given her to understand that no woman found place in my mind save her, and at the first chance she found another in my arms. Like a detected schoolboy in presence of the rod I awaited my sentence, my heart a trip-hammer, my face a picture of chagrin and dread.
For just a moment she held me in the balance with that dreadful smile on her face, my day of judgment come to earth, then turned and away without a word. I flung wildly after her, intent on explaining what could not be explained. In the night I lost her and went up and down through the shrubbery calling her tocome forth, beating the currant and gooseberry bushes in search of her. A shadow flitted past me toward the house, and at the gate I intercepted the girl. Better I had let her alone. My heart misgave me at sight of her face; indeed the whole sweep of her lithesome reedy figure was pregnant with Highland scorn and pride.
“Oh, Aileen, in the arbour——” I was beginning, when she cut me short.
“And I am thinking I owe you an apology for my intrusion. In troth, Mr. Montagu, my interruption of your love-makings was not intentional.”
Her voice gave me the feel of being drenched with ice-water.
“If you will let me explain, Aileen——”
“Indeed, and there iss nothing to explain, sir. It will be none of my business who you are loving, and— Will you open the gate, Mr. Montagu?”
“But I must explain; ’twas a madness of the blood. You do not understand——”
“And gin I never understand, Mr. Montagu, the lift (sky) will not fall. Here iss a great to-do about nothing,” she flung back with a kind of bitter jauntiness.
“Aileen,” I cried, a little wildly, “you will not cast me off without a hearing. Somehow I must make it clear, and you must try——”
“My name it iss Miss Macleod, and I would think it clear enough already at all events. I will be thanking you to let me pass, sir.”
Her words bit, not less the scorch of her eyes. My heart was like running water.
“And is this an end to all— Will you let so small a thing put a period to our good comradeship?” I cried.
“Since you mention it I would never deny that I am under obligations to you, sir, which my brother will be blithe to repay——”
“By Heaven, I never mentioned obligations; I never thought of them. Is there no friendship in your heart for me?”
“Your regard iss a thing I have valued, but”—there was a little break in the voice which she rode over roughshod—“I can very well be getting along without the friendships of that girl’s lover.”
She snatched open the gate and flung past me to the house, this superb young creature, tall, slim, supple, a very Diana in her rage, a woman too if one might judge by the breasts billowing with rising sobs. More slow I followed, quite dashed to earth. All that I had gained by months of service in one moment had been lost. She would think me another of the Volney stamp, and her liking for me would turn to hate as with him.
A low voice from the arbour called “Kenn!” But I had had enough of gallivanting for one night and I held my way sullenly to the house. Swift feet pattered down the path after me, and presently a little hand fell on my arm. I turned, sulky as a baited bear.
“I am so sorry, Kenn,” said Mistress Antoinette demurely.
My sardonic laughter echoed cheerlessly. “That there is no more mischief to your hand. Oh never fear! You’ll find some other poor breeched gull shortly.”
The brown dovelike eyes of the little rip reproached me.
“’Twill all come right, Kenn. She’ll never think the worse of you for this.”
“I’ll be no more to her than a glove outworn. I have lost the only woman I could ever love, and through my own folly, too.”
“Alackaday, Kenn! Y’ ’ave much to learn about women yet. She will think the more of you for it when her anger is past.”
“Not she. One of your fashionables might, but not Aileen.”
“Pooh! I think better of her than you. She’s not all milk and water. There’s red blood in her veins, man. Spunk up and brazen it out. Cock your chinand whistle it off bravely. Faith, I know better men than you who would not look so doleful over one of ’Toinette Westerleigh’s kisses. If I were a man I would never kiss and be sorry for all the maids in Christendom.”
The saucy piquant tilt to her chin was a sight for the gods to admire.
“You forget I love her.”
“Oh, you play on one string. She’s not the only maid i’ the world,” pouted the London beauty.
“She’s the only one for me,” I said stubbornly, and then added dejectedly, “and she’s not for me neither.”
The little rogue began to laugh. “I give you up, Kenn. Y’are as moonstruck a lover as ever I saw. Here’s for a word of comfort, which you don’t deserve at all. For a week she will be a thunder-cloud, then the sun will beam more brightly than ever. But don’t you be too submissive. La! Women cannot endure a wheedling lover.”
After that bit of advice my sage little monitor fell sober and explained to me her reason for sending me the note. It appeared that Sir Robert Volney was due to meet the party at the inn that very evening, and Miss Westerleigh was of opinion that I and my charge would do well to take the road at once. I was of that mind myself. I lost no time in reaching thehouse and ordering a relay of horses for our immediate travel. Then I took the stairs three at a time and came knocking at Aileen’s door.
“Who iss there?” asked a small voice, full of tears and muffled in a pillow.
Her distress went to my heart, none the less because I who had been the cause of it could not heal it.
“Tis I—Kenneth Montagu. Open the door, please.”
There was a moment’s silence, then—
“I am not wishing to see Mr. Montagu to-night.”
“Not for the world would I trouble you, Miss Macleod, but there is a matter I have to disclose that touches us nearly.”
“I think you will not have heard aright. I am desiring to be alone, sir,” she answered, the frost in her voice.
It may be guessed that this dismissal chafed me. My eagerness was daunted, but yet I would not be fubbed off.
“Miss Macleod, you may punish me as much as you like some other time,” I cried desperately, “but ’fore God! if you do not open the door you will regret it till the last day of your life.”
“Are you threatening me, sir?” she asks, mighty haughty.
“Threatening—no! I do not threaten, but warn.This matter is of life and death, not to be played with;” and to emphasize my words I mentioned the name of Volney.
She came raging to the door and whipped it open very sudden. Her affronted eyes might have belonged to a queen, but the stains on her cheeks betrayed her.
“Well, and what iss this important matter that cannot be waiting? Perhaps Mr. Montagu mistakes this for the room of Mistress Westerleigh.”
I told her that Sir Robert was expected shortly to arrive at the inn, and that we must be on the road at once. She thanked me very primly for the information, but declared she would not trouble me further, that she meant to abide at the inn all night no matter who came; moreover, that when she did leave Hamish Gorm would be sufficient guard. I argued, cajoled, warned, threatened, but she was not to be moved. The girl took a perverse pleasure in thwarting me, and the keener I grew the more dour grew she. We might have disputed the point an hour had I not come to my senses and appeared to give way.
Suspecting that the girl’s fears of Sir Robert would reassert themselves when she was left to herself, I sought her maid and easily induced the girl to propose to her mistress a departure without my knowledge. The suggestion worked like a charm, andfifteen minutes later I had the pleasure of seeing the chaise roll out of the lighted yard into the night. Need it be said that Kenneth Montagu was ahorse and after the coach within a few minutes.
All night I jogged behind them, and in the morning rode up to the inn where they stopped for breakfast. From Mistress Aileen I got the slightest bow in the world as I passed to my solitary breakfast at a neighbouring table. Within the hour they were away again, and I after to cover the rear. Late in the day the near wheeler fell very lame. The rest of the animals were dead beat, and I rode to the nearest hamlet to get another horse. The night was falling foul, very mirk, with a rising wind, and methought the lady’s eyes lightened when she saw me return with help to get them out of their difficulty. She thanked me stiffly with a very straight lip.
“At all events there will be no end to the obligations I am under, Mr. Montagu. They will be piling high as Ben Nevis,” she said, but ’twould have taken a penetrating man to have discovered any friendliness in the voice.
Yet henceforth I made myself one of the party, admitted on sufferance with a very bad grace. More than once I tried to break through the chill conventionals that made the staple of our conversation, but the girl was ice to me. In the end I grew stiff as she.I would ride beside the coach all day with scarce a word, wearying for a reconciliation and yet nourishing angry pride. When speech appeared to be demanded between us ’twas of the most formal. Faith, I think we were liker a pair of spoilt children than sensible grown folks.
While we were still in the northern counties rumours began to reach us that General Cope’s army had been cut to pieces by the Highlanders. The stories ran that not a single man had escaped, that the clans, twenty thousand strong, were headed for England, that they were burning and destroying as they advanced. Incredible reports of all kinds sprang out of the air, and the utmost alarm prevailed. The report of Cope’s defeat was soon verified. We met more than one redcoat speeding south on a foam-flecked weary steed, and it did not need the second sight to divine that the dispatches they carried spoke loudly of disaster fallen and of reinforcements needed.
After we had crossed the border parties of foraging Highlanders began to appear occasionally, but a word in the Gaelic from Hamish Gorm always served as a password for us. To make short, early in October we reached the Scottish capital, the formal relations which had been established between Miss Macleod and me continuing to the end of the journey.
There lived in Edinburgh an unmarried aunt ofAileen, a Miss Flora MacBean by name, and at her house I left the girl while I went to notify her brother of our arrival. I found him lodged in High Street near the old Flesh-market Close. Malcolm Macleod was a fine manly fellow of about three and thirty, lusty and well-proportioned, very tanned and ruddy. He had a quick lively eye and a firm good-humoured mouth. In brief, he was the very picture of a frank open-hearted Highland gentleman, and in the gay Macleod tartan looked as gallant a figure of a soldier as one would wish to see. He greeted me with charming friendliness and expressed himself as deeply gratified for my care of his sister, offering again and again to put himself at my service in any way I might desire.
We walked down the street together, and more than once a shot plumped at our feet, for the city was under fire from the Hanoverian garrison at the castle. Everywhere the clansmen were in evidence. Barefooted and barelegged Celts strutted about the city with their bonnets scrugged low on their heads, the hair hanging wild over their eyes and the matted beards covering their faces. For the most part they were very ragged, and tanned exceedingly wherever the flesh took a peep through their outworn plaids. They ran about the streets in groups, looking in shop windows like children and talking their outlandishgibberish; then presently their Highland pride would assert itself at the smile of some chance passer and would send them swinging proudly off as though they had better things at home.
Out of a tobacco shop came Captain Donald Roy singing blithely,
“‘Will ye play me fair,
Highland laddie, Highland laddie?’”
He was of course in the full Macdonald tartan regimentals—checkered kilt, sporran, plaid, a brace of pistols, a dirk in his stocking, and claymore. At sight of me his face lighted and he came running forward with both hands outstretched.
“And is it you at last, Kenn? Man, but I’ve been wearying for a sight of your honest face. I was whiles thinking you must have given us the go-by. Fegs, but it’s a braw day and a sight guid for sair een to see you, lad. You will have heard how we gave Johnnie Cope his kail through his reek.” He broke off to hum:—
“‘Now Johnnie, troth, ye werena blate, to come wi’ the news o’ your ain,
And leave your men in sic a strait, so early in the morning.’
“And did you bring my kinswoman back safe with you? I’se wad ye found the journey no’ ower lang;” and he cocked a merry eye at me.
I flushed, and introduced him to Major Macleod, who took occasion to thank him for his services to his sister. They fell into a liking for each other at once. When the major was called aside by one of his gillies a moment later, Macdonald expressed his trust of the other in the old Scotch saying,
“Yon’s a man to ride the water wi’, Kenneth.”
A curious sight illustrative of the Highland way of “lifting” what took their fancy occurred as we were all three walking toward the house of Macleod’s aunt. Three shag-headed gillies in the tattered Cameron tartan dragged an innkeeper from his taproom and set him down squat on the causeway. Without even a by-your-leave they took from his feet a pair of new shoes with silver buckles. He protested that he was a loyal Jacobite.
“Sae muckle ta better. She’ll no’ grumble to shange a progue for the Prince’s guid,” one of the caterans answered cheerfully by way of comfort.
To my surprise the two Highland gentlemen watched this high-handed proceeding with much amusement, enjoying not a little the ridiculous figure cut by the frightened, sputtering host. I asked them if they were not going to interfere.
“What for would we do that at all events?” asked the Macdonald. “Man, Montagu, but you whiles have unco queer notions for so wise a lad. It’s asnatural for a Hielander to despoil a Southron as for a goose to gang barefit. What would Lochiel think gin we fashed wi’ his clansmen at their ploy? Na, na! I wad be sweir to be sae upsitten (impertinent). It wadna be tellin’ a Macdonald, I’m thinkin’.”
Aileen was so prettily glad to see her brother and so friendly with Donald Roy, so full of gay chatter and eager reminiscence, that I felt myself quite dashed by the note of reserve which crept into her voice and her manner whenever she found it incumbent to speak to me. Her laugh would be ringing clear as the echo of steel in frost, and when Donald lugged me into the talk she would fall mim as a schoolgirl under the eye of her governess. Faith, you would have thought me her dearest enemy, instead of the man that had risked life for her more than once. Here is a pretty gratitude, I would say to myself in a rage, hugging my anger with the baby thought that she would some day scourge herself for this after I were killed in battle. Here is a fine return for loyal service rendered, and the front of my offending is nothing more than the saluting an old playmate.
“Man, Kenneth, but you hae played the cuddie brawly,” was Donald’s comforting remark to me after we had left. “You maun hae made an awfu’ bauchle of it. When last I saw the lady she hoisted a finecolour when I daffed about you, and now she glowers at you in a no’ just friendly way.”
I admitted sadly that ’twas so and told him the reason, for Donald Roy had a wide observation of life and a varied experience with the sex that made him a valuable counsellor. The situation amused him hugely, but what he could find of humour in it was more than I could see.
“Deil hae’t, but yon quean Antoinette will be a geyan ettercap (madcap). Tony Creagh has been telling me about her; he’s just a wee thingie touched there himsel’.”
“Pardon me,” I interrupted a little stiffly, “but I think I did not give the name of the lady.”
The Highlander looked at me dryly with a pawky smile.
“Hoots, man! I ken that fine, but I’m no a fule. You named over the party and I picked the lady that suited the speceefications.” Then he began to chuckle: “I wad hae liked dooms weel to hae seen you stravaiging (wandering) through the grosset (gooseberry) bushes after the lass.”
I told him huffily that if that was all he could say I had better have kept the story to myself. I had come for advice, not to be laughed at. Donald flashed his winsome smile and linked an arm in mine.
“Well then, and here’s advice for you, man. Jouk(duck) and let the jaw (wave) go by. Gin it were me the colder she were the better I wad like it. Dinna you see that the lass rages because she likes you fine; and since she’s a Hieland maid brought up under the blue lift she hasna learnt to hate and smile in the same breath.”
“I make neither head nor tail of your riddles,” I told him impatiently. “By your way of it so far as I can make out she both likes and hates me. Now how can that be?”
Captain Macdonald’s droll eye appeared to pity me. “Kenneth, bairn, but you’re an awfu’ ignoramus. You ken naething ava about the lassies. I’m wondering what they learnt you at Oxford. Gin it’s the same to you we’ll talk of something mair within your comprehension.” And thereupon he diverted the conversation to the impending invasion of England by the Highland army. Presently I asked him what he thought of the Prince now that he had been given a chance to study the Young Chevalier at closer range, and I shall never forget the eager Highlander’s enthusiastic answer.
“From the head to the heel of him he is a son of Kings, kind-hearted, gallant, modest. He takes all hearts by storm. Our Highland laddie is the bravest man I ever saw, not to be rash, and the most cautious, not to be a coward. But you will be judging foryourself when you are presented at the ball on Tuesday.”
I told him that as yet I had no invitation to the ball.
“That’s easy seen to. The Chevalier O’Sullivan makes out the list. I’ll drop a flea in his lug (ear).”
Next day was Sunday, and I arrayed myself with great care to attend the church at which one Macvicar preached; to be frank I didn’t care a flip of my fingers what the doctrine was he preached; but I had adroitly wormed out of Miss MacBean that he was the pastor under whom she sat. Creagh called on me before I had set out, and I dragged him with me, he protesting much at my unwonted devotion.
I dare say he understood it better when he saw my eyes glued to the pew where Miss Aileen sat with her aunt in devout attention. What the sermon was to have been about we never knew, on account of an interruption which prevented us from hearing it. During the long prayer I was comfortably watching the back of Aileen’s head and the quarter profile of her face when Creagh nudged me. I turned to find him looking at me out of a very comical face, and this was the reason for it. The hardy Macvicar was praying for the Hanoverians and their cause.
“Bless the King,” he was saying boldly. “Thou knows what King I mean— May the crown siteasy on his head for lang. And for the young man that is come among us to seek an earthly crown, we beseech Thee in mercy to take him to Thyself, and give him a crown of glory.”
One could have heard a pin fall in the hush, and then the tense rustle that swept over the church and drowned the steady low voice that never faltered in the prayer.
“Egad, there’s a hit for the Prince straight from the shoulder,” chuckled the Irishman by my side. “Faith, the Jacks are leaving the church to the Whigs. There goes the Major, Miss Macleod, and her aunt.”
He was right. The prayer had ended and the Macleod party were sailing down the aisle. Others followed suit, and presently we joined the stream that poured out of the building to show their disapproval. ’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good. Miss MacBean invited Creagh and me to join them in dinner, and methought that my goddess of disdain was the least thing warmer to me than she had been in weeks. For the rest of the day I trod on air.
CHAPTER VIIICHARLES EDWARD STUART
A beautifully engrossed invitation to the Prince’s ball having duly arrived from his Secretary the Chevalier O’Sullivan, I ask you to believe that my toilet Tuesday evening was even more a work of art than that of Sunday. In huge disorder scarfs, lace cravats, muffs, and other necessary equipment were littered about the room. I much missed the neat touch of my valet Simpkins, and the gillie Hamish Gorm, whom Major Macleod had put at my service, did not supply his place by a deal, since he knew no more of patching the face or powdering a periwig than he had arrived at by the light of nature. But despite this handicap I made shift to do myself justice before I set off for the lodgings of Lord Balmerino, by whom I was to be presented.
’Twas long since the Scottish capital had been so gay as now, for a part of the policy of the Young Chevalier was to wear a brave front before the world. He and his few thousand Highlanders were pledged to a desperate undertaking, but it was essential that the waverers must not be allowed to suspect how slenderwere the chances of success. One might have thought from the splendour of his court and from the serene confidence exhibited by the Prince and his chiefs that the Stuarts were already in peaceable possession of the entire dominions of their ancestors. A vast concourse of well-dressed people thronged to Holyrood House from morning till night to present their respects to Prince Charles Edward. His politeness and affability, as well as the charms of his conversation and the graces of his person, swept the ladies especially from their lukewarm allegiance to the Hanoverians. They would own no lover who did not don the white cockade of Jacobitism. They would hesitate at no sacrifice to advance the cause of this romantic young gambler who used swords for dice. All this my three days residence in the city had taught me. I was now to learn whether a personal meeting with him would inspire me too with the ardent devotion that animated my friends.
A mixed assembly we found gathered in the picture gallery of Holyrood House. Here were French and Irish adventurers, Highland chiefs and Lowland gentlemen, all emulating each other in loyalty to the ladies who had gathered from all over Scotland to dance beneath the banner of the white rose. The Hall was a great blaze of moving colour, but above the tartans and the plaids, the mixed reds, greens,blues, and yellows, everywhere fluttered rampant the white streamers and cockades of the Stuarts.
No doubt there were here sober hearts, full of anxious portent for the future, but on the surface at least was naught but merriment. The gayest abandon prevailed. Strathspey and reel and Highland fling alternated with the graceful dances of France and the rollicking jigs of Ireland. Plainly this was no state ceremonial, rather an international frolic to tune all hearts to a common glee. We were on the top of fortune’s wave. Had we not won for the Young Chevalier by the sword the ancient capital of his family, and did not the road to London invite us southward? The pipers of each clan in turn dirled out triumphant marches, and my heart began to beat in faster time. Water must have filled the veins of a man who could stand unmoved such contagious enthusiasm. For me, I confess it, a climax came a moment later that made my eyes swim.
Balmerino was talking with Malcolm Macleod and James Hepburn of Keith, a model of manly simplicity and honour who had been “out” in the ’15; and as usual their talk fell on our enterprise and its gallant young leader. Keith narrated a story of how the Young Chevalier, after a long day’s march on foot, had led the army three miles out of its way in order to avoid disturbing the wife of a cottar who hadfallen asleep at the critical stage of a severe illness. Balmerino capped it with another anecdote of his dismounting from his horse after the battle of Gladsmuir to give water and attendance to a wounded English soldier of Cope’s army.
Macleod smiled, eyes sparkling. “He iss every inch the true prince. He can tramp the hills with a Highlander all day and never weary, he can sleep on pease-straw as well as on a bed of down, can sup on brose in five minutes, and win a battle in four. Oh, yes, he will be the King for Malcolm Macleod.”
While he was still speaking there fell over the assembly a sudden stillness. The word was passed from lips to lips, “The Prince comes.” Every eye swept to the doorway. Men bowed deep and women curtsied low. A young man was entering slowly on the arm of Lord George Murray.
“The Prince!” whispered Balmerino to me.
The pipes crashed out a measure of “Wha’ll be King but Charlie?” then fell into quiet sudden as they had begun. “Dhia theasirg an Righ!” (God save the King) cried a splendid young Highland chief in a voice that echoed through the hall.
Clanranald’s cry was lifted to the rafters by a hundred throats. A hundred claymores leaped to air, and while the skirling bagpipes pealed forth, “The King shall enjoy his own again,” Charles Stuart beneathan arch of shining steel trod slowly down the hall to a dais where his fathers had sat before him.
If the hearts of the ladies had surrendered at discretion, faith! we of the other sex were not much tardier. The lad was every inch a prince. His after life did not fulfil the promise of his youth, but at this time he was one to see, and once having seen, to love. All the great charm of his race found expression in him. Gallant, gracious, generous, tender-hearted in victory and cheerful in defeat (as we had soon to learn, alas!), even his enemies confessed this young Stuart a worthy leader of men. Usually suffused with a gentle pensiveness not unbecoming, the ardour of his welcome had given him on this occasion the martial bearing of a heroic young Achilles. With flushed cheek and sparkling eye he ascended the dais.
“Ladies, gentlemen, my loyal Highlanders, friends all, the tongue of Charles Stuart has no words to tell the warm message of his heart. Unfriended and alone he came among you, resolved with the help of good swords to win back that throne on which a usurper sits, or failing in that to perish in the attempt. How nobly you our people have rallied to our side in this undertaking to restore the ancient liberties of the kingdom needs not be told. To the arbitrament of battle and to the will of God we confidently appeal, and on our part we pledge our sacred honour neither tofalter nor to withdraw till this our purpose is accomplished. To this great task we stand plighted, so help us God and the right.”
’Tis impossible to conceive the effect of these few simple sentences. Again the pipes voiced our dumb emotion in that stirring song,
“We’ll owre the water and owre the sea,
We’ll owre the water to Charlie;
Come weal, come woe, we’ll gather and go,
And live and die wi’ Charlie.”
The mighty cheer broke forth again and seemed to rock the palace, but deeper than all cheering was the feeling that found expression in long-drawn breath and broken sob and glimmering tear. The gallant lad had trusted us, had put his life in our keeping; we highly resolved to prove worthy of that trust.
At a signal from the Prince the musicians struck up again the dance, and bright eyes bedimmed with tears began to smile once more. With a whispered word Balmerino left me and made his way to the side of the Prince, about whom were grouped the Duke of Perth, Lord Lewis Gordon, Lord Elcho, the ill-fated Kilmarnock, as well as Lochiel, Cluny, Macleod, Clanranald, and other Highland gentlemen who had taken their fortune in their hands at the call of this young adventurer with the enchanting smile. To see him was to understand the madness of devotion that had carried awaythese wise gray-haired gentlemen, but to those who never saw him I despair of conveying in cold type the subtle quality of charm that radiated from him. In the very bloom of youth, tall, slender, and handsome, he had a grace of manner not to be resisted. To condescend to the particulars of his person: a face of perfect oval very regular in feature; large light blue eyes shaded by beautifully arched brows; nose good and of the Roman type; complexion fair, mouth something small and effeminate, forehead high and full. He was possessed of the inimitable reserve and bearing that mark the royal-born, and that despite his genial frankness. On this occasion he wore his usual light-coloured peruke with the natural hair combed over the front, a tartan short coat on the breast of which shone the star of the order of St. Andrews, red velvet small-clothes, and a silver-hilted rapier. The plaid he ordinarily carried had been doffed for a blue sash wrought with gold.
All this I had time to note before Lord Balmerino rejoined me and led me forward to the presentation. The Prince separated himself from the group about him and came lightly down the steps to meet me. I fell on my knee and kissed his hand, but the Prince, drawing me to my feet, embraced me.
“My gallant Montagu,” he cried warmly. “Like father, like son. God knows I welcome you, both onyour own account and because you are one of the first English gentlemen to offer his sword to the cause of his King.”
I murmured that my sword would be at his service till death. To put me at my ease he began to question me about the state of public feeling in England concerning the enterprise. What information I had was put at his disposal, and I observed that his grasp of the situation appeared to be clear and incisive. He introduced me to the noblemen and chiefs about him, and I was wise enough to know that if they made much of me it was rather for the class I was supposed to represent than for my own poor merits. Presently I fell back to make way for another gentleman about to be presented. Captain Macdonald made his way to me and offered a frank hand in congratulation.
“’Fore God, Montagu, you have leaped gey sudden into favour. Deil hae’t, Red Donald brought with him a hundred claymores and he wasna half so kenspeckle (conspicuous). I’ll wad your fortune’s made, for you hae leaped in heels ower hurdies,” he told me warmly.
From affairs of state to those of the heart may be a long cast, but the mind of one-and-twenty takes it at a bound. My eye went questing, fell on many a blushing maid and beaming matron, at last singled out myheart’s desire. She was teaching a Highland dance to a graceful cavalier in white silk breeches, flowered satin waistcoat, and most choicely powdered periwig, fresh from the friseur. His dainty muff and exquisite clouded cane depended from a silken loop to proclaim him the man of fashion. Something characteristic in his easy manner, though I saw but his back, chilled me to an indefinable premonition of his identity. Yet an instant, and a turn in the dance figure flung into view the face of Sir Robert Volney, negligent and unperturbed, heedless apparently of the fact that any moment a hand might fall on his shoulder to lead him to his death. Aileen, to the contrary, clearly showed fear, anxiety, a troubled mind—to be detected in the hurried little glances of fearfulness directed toward her brother Malcolm, and in her plain eagerness to have done with the measure. She seemed to implore the baronet to depart, and Volney smilingly negatived her appeal. The girl’s affronted eyes dared him to believe that she danced with him for any other reason than because he had staked his life to see her again and she would not have his death at her door. Disdain of her own weakness and contempt of him were eloquent in every movement of the lissom figure. ’Twas easy to be seen that the man was working on her fears for him, in order to obtain another foothold with her. I resolved to baulk his scheme.
While I was still making my way toward them through the throng they disappeared from the assembly hall. A still hunt of five minutes, and I had run down my prey in a snug little reception-room of a size to fit two comfortably. The girl fronted him scornfully, eyes flaming.
“Coward, you play on a girl’s fears, you take advantage of her soft heart to force yourself on her,” she was telling him in a low, bitter voice.
“I risk my life to see the woman that I love,” he answered.
“My grief! Love! What will such a thing as you be knowing of love?”
The man winced. On my soul I believe that at last he was an honest lover. His beautiful, speaking eyes looked straight into hers. His mannerisms had for the moment been sponged out. Straight from the heart he spoke.
“I have learnt, Aileen. My hunger for a sight of you has starved my folly and fed my love. Believe me, I am a changed man.”
The play and curve of her lips stung him. He flung himself desperately into his mad love-making. “‘Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d’amour,’” he quoted from Moliere. “’Tis true, Aileen; I die of love; it burns me up,” he added passionately, hungry eyes devouring the flying colours ofher cheek, the mass of rippling hair, the fresh, sweet, subtle fragrance of her presence.
“You’ll have to hurry about it then, for on my soul you’re due to die of tightened hemp to-morrow,” I told him, lounging forward from the door.
The girl cried out, eyes dilating, hand pressing to the heart. For the man, after the first start he did not turn a hair. The face that looked over his shoulder at me was unmoved and bereft of emotion.
“My malapropos friend Montagu again. Devil take it, you have an awkward way of playing harlequin when you’re not wanted! Now to come blundering in upon a lady and her friend is— Well, not the best of form. Better drop it before it becomes a habit,” he advised.
“’Slife, ’tis tit for tat! I learnt it from you,” was my answer.
Long we looked at each other, preparing for the battle that was to come. Save for the quick breathing of the girl no sound fell.
“Sir Robert, your audacity confounds all precedent,” I said at last.
“You flatter me, Mr. Montagu.”
“Believe me, had Major Macleod discovered you instead of me your soul had by this time been speeding hellward.”
“Exit Flattery,” he laughed. “The lady phrasedit less vilely. Heavenward, she put it! ’Twould be interesting to know which of you is right.”
“As you say, an interesting topic of speculation, and one you’re like to find the answer of shortly, presupposing that you suffer the usual fate of captured spies.”
His brows lifted in polite inquiry. “Indeed! A spy?” he asked, indifferently.
“Why not? The favourite of the Hanoverian usurpers discovered in our midst—what other explanation will it bear?”
He smiled. “Perhaps I have a mind to join your barelegged rebellion.”
“Afraid your services are not available, Sir Robert. Three hundred Macleod claymores bar the way, all eager to wipe out an insult to the daughter of Raasay. Faith, when they have settled their little account against you there won’t be much left for the Prince.”
“Ah! Then for the sake of argument suppose we put it that I’m visiting this delightful city for my health.”
“You will find the climate not agree with you, I fear.”
“Then say for pleasure.”
“’Twill prove more exciting than amusing.”
“On my life, dear Kenn, ’tis both.”
“I have but to raise my voice and you are undone.”
“His voice was ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in Kenneth,” he parodied, laughing at me.
The girl said never a word, but her level eyes watched me steadily. No need of words to tell me that I was on trial! But I would not desist.
“You appear not to realize the situation,” I told him coldly. “Your life is in hazard.”
The man yawned in my face. “Not at all, I sit here as safe as if I were at White’s, and a devilish deal better satisfied. Situation piquant! Company of the best! Gad’s life, I cry content.”
“I think we talk at cross purposes. I am trying to have you understand that your position is critical, Sir Robert.”
Nonchalant yet watchful, indolent and yet alert, gracefully graceless, he watched me smilingly out of half-closed eyes; and then quietly fired the shot that brought me to.
“If you were not a gentleman, Montagu, the situation would be vastly different.”
“I do not see the point,” I told him; but I did, and raged at it.
“I think you do. Your lips are sealed. I am your rival”—he bowed to Aileen—“for the favour of a lady. If you put me out of the way by playing informerwhat appearance will it bear? You may talk of duty till the world ends, but you will be a marked man, despised by all—and most of all by Kenneth Montagu.”
The man was right. At one sweep he had spiked my guns, demolished my defenses. The triumph was sponged from my face. I fumed in a stress of impotence.
“I don’t know about that. I shall have to think of it. There is a duty to perform,” I said at last, lamely.
He waved a hand airily. “My dear fellow, think as long as you please. You can’t think away facts. Egad, they’re immutable. You know me to be no spy. Conceded that I am in a false position. What can you do about it? You can’t in honour give me up. I’faith, you’re handcuffed to inaction.”
I was, but my temper was not improved at hearing him tell it me so suavely and so blandly. He sat smiling and triumphant, chuckling no doubt at the dilemma into which he had thrust me. The worst of it was that while I was ostensibly master of the situation he had me at his mercy. I was a helpless victor without any of the fruits of victory.
“You took advantage of a girl’s soft heart to put her in a position that was indefensible,” I told him with bitter bluntness. “Save this of throwing yourselfon her mercy there was no other way of approaching her. Of the wisdom of the serpent you have no lack. I congratulate you, Sir Robert. But one may be permitted to doubt the manliness of such a course.”
The pipers struck up a song that was the vogue among our party, and a young man passed the entrance of the room singing it.
“Oh, it’s owre the border awa’, awa’,
It’s owre the border awa’, awa’,
We’ll on an’ we’ll march to Carlisle Ha’,
Wi’ its yetts, its castles, an’ a’, an’ a’.”
The audacious villain parodied it on the spot, substituting two lines of his own for the last ones.
“You’ll on an’ you’ll march to Carlisle Ha’,
To be hanged and quartered an’ a’, an’ a’,”
he hummed softly in his clipped English tongue.
“Pity you won’t live to see it,” I retorted tartly.
“You’re still nursing that maggot, are you? Debating with yourself about giving me up, eh? Well that’s a matter you must settle with your conscience, if you indulge in the luxury of one.”
“You would never give him up, Kenneth,” said Aileen in a low voice. “Surely you would not be doing that.”
“I shall not let him stay here. You may be sure of that,” I said doggedly.
The girl ventured a suggestion timidly. “PerhapsSir Robert will be leaving to-morrow—for London mayhap.”
Volney shook his head decisively. “Not I. Why, I have but just arrived. Besides, here is a problem in ethics for Mr. Montagu to solve. Strength comes through conflict, so the schools teach. Far be it from me to remove the cause of doubt. Let him solve his problem for himself, egad!”
He seemed to find a feline pleasure in seeing how far he could taunt me to go. He held me on the knife-edge of irritation, and perillous as was the experiment he enjoyed seeing whether he could not drive me to give him up.
“Miss Macleod’s solution falls pat. Better leave to-morrow, Sir Robert. To stay is dangerous.”
“’Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, ‘out of this nettle danger, we pluck this flower safety,’” he quoted.
“I see you always have your tag of Shakespeare ready; then let me remind you what he has to say about the better part of valour,” I flung back, for once alert in riposte.
“A hit, and from the same play,” he laughed. “But a retreat— ’Tis not to be thought of. No, no, Montagu! And it must be you’ll just have to give me up.”
“Oh, you harp on that! You may say it once toooften. I shall find a way to get rid of you,” I answered blackly.
“Let me find it for you, lad,” said a voice from the doorway.
We turned, to find that Donald Roy had joined the party. He must have been standing there unobserved long enough to understand my dilemma, for he shot straight to the mark.
“Sir Robert, I’ll never be denying that you’re a bold villain, and that is the one thing that will be saving your life this night. I’m no’ here to argie-bargie with you. The plain fact is just this; that I dinna care a rap for you the tane gate or the tither (the one way or the other). I’d like fine to see you dancing frae the widdie (gallows), but gin the lady wants you spared I’ll no’ say her no. Mr. Englisher, you’ll just gie me your word to tak the road for the border this night, or I’ll give a bit call to Major Macleod. I wouldna wonder but he wad be blithe to see you. Is it to be the road or the Macleod?”
I could have kissed the honest trusty face of the man, for he had lifted me out of a bog of unease. I might be bound by honour, but Captain Macdonald was free as air to dictate terms. Volney looked long at him, weighed the man, and in the end flung up the sponge. He rose to his feet and sauntered over to Aileen.
“I am desolated to find that urgent business takes me south at once, Miss Macleod. ’Tis a matter of the gravest calls me; nothing of less importance than the life of my nearest friend would take me from you. But I’m afraid it must be ‘Au revoir’ for the present,” he said.
She looked past the man as if he had not existed.
He bowed low, the flattery of deference in his fine eyes, which knew so well how to be at once both bold and timid.
“Forgiven my madness?” he murmured.
Having nothing to say, she still said it eloquently. Volney bowed himself out of the room, nodded carelessly to me as he passed, touched Macdonald on the arm with a pleasant promise to attend the obsequies when the Highlander should be brought to London for his hanging, lounged elegantly through the crowded assembly hall, and disappeared into the night.