CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVA REPRIEVE!

“My Lord of March, is Arthur Lord Balmerino guilty of High Treason?”

Lord March, youngest peer of the realm, profligate and scoundrel, laid his hand on the place where his heart ought to have been and passed judgment unctuously.

“Guilty, upon my honour.”

The Lord High Steward repeated the same question to each of the peers in order of their age and received from each the same answer. As it became plain that the prisoner at the bar was to be convicted the gentleman-gaoler gradually turned the edge of his axe toward Balmerino, whose manner was nonchalant and scornful. When the vote had been polled my Lord bowed to the judges with dignity and remarked, “I am sorry to have taken up so much of your time without avail, my lords. If I pleaded ‘not guilty’ my principal reason was that the ladies might not miss their show.” Shortly afterward he was ushered out of Westminster Hall to his carriage.

From the view-point of the whigs Balmerino wasundoubtedly guilty as Lucifer and not all the fair play in the world could have saved him from Tower Hill. He was twice a rebel, having been pardoned for his part in “the ’15,” and ’twas not to be expected that so hardened an offender would again receive mercy. But at the least he might have been given courtesy, and that neither he nor his two fellows, Kilmarnock and Cromartie, did at all receive. The crown lawyers to the contrary took an unmanly delight in girding and snapping at the captives whom the fortune of war had put in their power. Monstrous charges were trumped up that could not be substantiated, even the Lord High Steward descending to vituperation.

Horry Walpole admitted Balmerino to be the bravest man he had ever seen. Throughout the trial his demeanour had been characteristic of the man, bold and intrepid even to the point of bravado. The stout old lord conversed with the official axe-bearer and felt the edge of the ominous instrument with the unconcern of any chance spectator. There was present a little boy who could see nothing for the crowd and Balmerino alone was unselfish enough to think of him. He made a seat for the child beside himself and took care that he missed nothing of the ceremony. When the Solicitor-General, whose brother, Secretary Murray, had saved his own life by turning evidence against Balmerino, went up to the Scotch Lord and asked himinsolently how he dared give the peers so much trouble, Balmerino drew himself up with dignity and asked, “Who is this person?” Being told that it was Mr. Murray, “Oh!” he answered smiling, “Mr. Murray! I am glad to see you. I have been with several of your relations; the good lady your mother was of great use to us at Perth.”

Through the crowd I elbowed my way and waited for the three condemned Scotch lords to pass into their carriages. Balmerino, bluff and soldierly, led the way; next came the tall and elegant Kilmarnock; Lord Cromartie, plainly nervous and depressed, brought up the rear. Balmerino recognized me, nodded almost imperceptibly, but of course gave no other sign of knowing the gawky apprentice who gaped at him along with a thousand others. Some one in the crowd cried out, “Which is Balmerino?” The old lord turned courteously, and said with a bow, “I am Balmerino.” At the door of the coach he stopped to shake hands with his fellow-sufferers.

“I am sorry that I alone cannot pay the debt, gentlemen. But after all ’tis but what we owe to nature sooner or later, the common debt of all. I bear in mind what Sir Walter Raleigh wrote the night before his head paid forfeit.

“‘Cowards fear to die; but courage stout,

Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.’

“Poor Murray drags out a miserable life despised by all, but we go to our God with clean hands. By St. Andrew, the better lot is ours.”

“I think of my poor wife and eight fatherless bairns,” said Cromartie sadly.

Rough Arthur Elphinstone’s comforting hand fell on his shoulder.

“A driech outlook, my friend. You must commend them to the God of orphans if the worst befalls. As for us— Well, in the next world we will not be tried by a whig jury.”

Balmerino stepped into the coach which was waiting to convey him to the Tower. The gentleman-gaoler followed with the official axe, the edge of which still pointed toward its victim. He must have handled it carelessly in getting into the carriage, for I heard Balmerino bark out,

“Take care, man, or you’ll break my shins with that d——d axe.”

They were the last words I ever heard from his lips. The door slammed and the coach drove away to the prison, from which my Lord came forth only to meet the headsman and his block.

Sadly I made my way towards the city through the jostling crowds of sightseers. Another batch of captives from the North was to pass through the town that day on their way to prison, and a fleering rabblesurged to and fro about the streets of London in gala dress, boisterous, jovial, pitiless. From high to low by common consent the town made holiday. Above the common ruck, in windows hired for the occasion, the fashionable world, exuding patronage and perfume, sat waiting for the dreary procession to pass. In the windows opposite where I found standing room a party from the West End made much talk and laughter. In the group I recognized Antoinette Westerleigh, Sir James Craven, and Topham Beauclerc.

“Slitterkins! I couldn’t get a seat at Westminster Hall this morning for love or money,” pouted Mistress Westerleigh. “’Tis pity you men can’t find room for a poor girl to see the show.”

“Egad, there might as well have been no rebellion at all,” said Beauclerc dryly. “Still, you can go to see their heads chopped off. ’Twill be some compensation.”

“I suppose you’ll go, Selwyn,” said Craven to that gentleman, who with Volney had just joined the group.

“I suppose so, and to make amends I’ll go to see them sewn on again,” returned Selwyn.

“I hear you want the High Steward’s wand for a memento,” said Beauclerc.

“Not I,” returned Selwyn. “I did, but egad! he behaved so like an attorney the first day and so like apettifogger the second that I wouldn’t take the wand to light my fire with.”

“Here they come, sink me!” cried Craven, and craned forward to get a first glimpse of the wretched prisoners.

First came four wagon-loads of the wounded, huddled together thick as shrimps, their pallid faces and forlorn appearance a mute cry for sympathy. The mob roared like wild beasts, poured out maledictions on their unkempt heads, hurled stones and sticks at them amid furious din and clamour. At times it seemed as if the prisoners would be torn from the hands of their guard by the excited mob. Scarce any name was found too vile with which to execrate these unfortunate gentlemen who had been guilty of no crime but excessive loyalty.

Some of the captives were destined for the New Prison in Southwark, others for Newgate, and a few for the Marshalsea. Those of the prisoners who were able to walk were handcuffed together in couples, with the exception of a few of the officers who rode on horseback bound hand and foot. Among the horsemen I easily recognized Malcolm Macleod, who sat erect, dour, scornful, his strong face set like a vise, looking neither to the right nor the left. Another batch of foot prisoners followed. Several of the poor fellows were known to me, including Leath, Chadwick,and the lawyer Morgan. My roving eye fell on Creagh and Captain Roy shackled together.

From the window above a piercing cry of agony rang out.

“Tony! Tony!”

Creagh slewed round his head and threw up his free hand.

“’Toinette!” he cried.

But Miss Westerleigh had fainted, and Volney was already carrying her from the window with the flicker of a grim smile on his face. I noticed with relief that Craven had disappeared from sight.

My relief was temporary. When I turned to leave I found my limbs clogged with impedimenta. To each arm hung a bailiff, and a third clung like a leech to my legs. Some paces distant Sir James Craven stood hulloing them to the sport with malign pleasure.

“To it, fustian breeches! Yoho, yoho! There’s ten guineas in it for each of you and two hundred for me. ’Slife, down with him, you red-haired fellow! Throw him hard. Ecod, I’ll teach you to be rough with Craven, my cockerel Montagu!” And the bully kicked me twice where I lay.

They dragged me to my feet, and Craven began to sharpen his dull wit on me.

“Two hundred guineas I get out of this, you cursed rebel highwayman, besides the pleasure of seeing youwear hemp—and that’s worth a hundred more, sink my soul to hell if it isn’t.”

“Your soul is sunk there long ago, and this blackguard job sends you one circle lower in the Inferno, Catchpoll Craven,” said a sneering voice behind him.

Craven swung on his heel in a fury, but Volney’s easy manner—and perhaps the reputation of his small sword too—damped the mettle of his courage. He drew back with a curse, whispered a word into the ear of the nearest bailiff, and shouldered his way into the crowd, from the midst of which he watched us with a sneer.

“And what mad folly, may I ask, brought you back to London a-courting the gallows?” inquired Volney of me.

“Haven’t you heard that Malcolm Macleod is taken?” I asked.

“And did you come to exchange places with him? On my soul you’re madder than I thought. Couldn’t you trust me to see that my future brother-in-law comes to no harm without ramming your own head down the lion’s throat? Faith, I think Craven has the right of it: the hempen noose is yawning for such fools as you.”

The bailiffs took me to the New Prison and thrust me into an underground cell about the walls of which moisture hung in beads. Like the rest of theprisoners I was heavily ironed by day and fastened down to the floor by a staple at night. One hour in the day we were suffered to go into the yard for exercise and to be inspected and commented upon by the great number of visitors who were allowed access to the prison. On the second day of my arrival I stood blinking in the strong sunlight, having just come up from my dark cell, when two prisoners shuffled across the open to me, their fetters dragging on the ground. Conceive my great joy at finding Creagh and Donald Roy fellow inmates of New Prison with me. Indeed Captain Roy occupied the very next cell to mine.

I shall not weary you with any account of our captivity except to state that the long confinement in my foul cell sapped my health. I fell victim to agues and fevers. Day by day I grew worse until I began to think that ’twas a race between disease and the gallows. Came at last my trial, and prison attendants haled me away to the courts. Poor Leath, white to the lips, was being hustled out of the room just as I entered.

“By Heaven, Montagu, these whigs treat us like dogs,” he cried passionately to me. “They are not content with our lives, but must heap foul names and infamy upon us.”

The guards hurried us apart before I could answer.I asked one of them what the verdict had been in Leath’s case, and the fellow with an evil laugh made a horrid gesture with his hands that confirmed my worst fears.

In the court room I found a frowning judge, a smug-faced yawning jury, and row upon row of eager curious spectators come to see the show. Besides these there were some half-score of my friends attending in the vain hope of lending me countenance. My shifting glance fell on Charles, Cloe, and Aileen, all three with faces like the corpse for colour and despairing eyes which spoke of a hopeless misery. They had fought desperately for my life, but they knew I was doomed. I smiled sadly on them, then turned to shake hands with George Selwyn.

He hoped, in his gentle drawl, that I would win clear. My face lit up at his kindly interest. I was like a drowning man clutching at straws. Even the good-will of a turnkey was of value to me.

“Thanks, Selwyn,” I said, a little brokenly. “I’m afraid there’s no chance for me, but it’s good hearing that you are on my side.”

He appeared embarrassed at my eagerness. Not quite good form he thought it, I dare say. His next words damped the glow at my heart.

“’Gad, yes! Of course. I ought to be; bet five ponies with Craven that you would cheat the gallowsyet. He gave me odds of three to one, and I thought it a pretty good risk.”

It occurred to me fantastically that he was looking me over with the eye of an underwriter who has insured at a heavy premium a rotten hulk bound for stormy seas. I laughed bitterly.

“You may win yet,” I said. “This cursed prison fever is eating me up;” and with that I turned my back on him.

I do not intend to go into my trial with any particularity. From first to last I had no chance and everybody in the room understood it. There were a dozen witnesses to prove that I had been in the thick of the rebellion. Among the rest was Volney, in a vile temper at being called on to give testimony. He was one of your reluctant witnesses, showed a decided acrimony toward the prosecution, and had to have the facts drawn out of him as with a forceps. Such a witness, of high social standing and evidently anxious to shield me, was worth to the State more than all the other paltry witnesses combined. The jury voted guilty without leaving the court-room, after which the judge donned his black cap and pronounced the horrible judgment which was the doom of traitors. I was gash with fear, but I looked him in the face and took it smilingly. It was Volney who led the murmur of approval which greeted my audacity, a murmur whichbroke frankly into applause when Aileen, white to the lips, came fearlessly up to bid me be of good cheer, that she would save me yet if the importunity of a woman would avail aught.

Wearily the days dragged themselves into weeks, and still no word of hope came to cheer me. There was, however, one incident that gave me much pleasure. On the afternoon before the day set for our execution Donald Roy made his escape. Some one had given him a file and he had been tinkering at his irons for days. We were in the yard for our period of exercise, and half a dozen of us, pretending to be in earnest conversation together, surrounded him while he snapped the irons. Some days before this time he had asked permission to wear the English dress, and he now coolly sauntered out of the prison with some of the visitors quite unnoticed by the guard.

The morning dawned on which nine of us were to be executed. Our coffee was served to us in the room off the yard, and we drank it in silence. I noticed gladly that Macdonald was not with us, and from that argued that he had not been recaptured.

“Here’s wishing him a safe escape from the country,” said Creagh.

“Lucky dog!” murmured Leath, “I hope they won’t nail him again.”

Brandy was served. Creagh named the toast and we drank it standing.

“King James!”

The governor of the prison bustled in just as the broken glasses shivered behind us.

“Now gentlemen, if you are quite ready.”

Three sledges waited for us in the yard to draw us to the gallows tree. There was no cowardly feeling, but perhaps a little dilatoriness in getting into the first sledge. Five minutes might bring a reprieve for any of us, and to be in the first sledge might mean the difference between life and death.

“Come, gentlemen! If you please! Let us have no more halting,” said the governor, irritably.

Creagh laughed hardily and vaulted into the sledge. “Egad, you’re right! We’ll try a little haltering for a change.”

Morgan followed him, and I took the third place.

A rider dismounted at the prison gate.

“Is there any news for me?” asked one poor fellow eagerly.

“Yes, the sheriff has just come and is waiting for you,” jeered one of the guards with brutal frankness.

The poor fellow stiffened at once. “Very well. I am ready.”

A heavy rain was falling, but the crowd between the prison and Kennington Common was immense.At the time of our trials the mob had treated us in ruffianly fashion, but now we found a respectful silence. The lawyer Morgan was in an extremely irritable mood. All the way to the Common he poured into our inattentive ears a tale of woe about how his coffee had been cold that morning. Over and over again he recited to us the legal procedure for bringing the matter into the courts with sufficient effect to have the prison governor removed from his position.

A messenger with an official document was waiting for us at the gallows. The sheriff tore it open. We had all been bearing ourselves boldly enough I dare say, but at sight of that paper our lips parched, our throats choked, and our eyes burned. Some one was to be pardoned or reprieved. But who? What a moment! How the horror of it lives in one’s mind! Leisurely the sheriff read the document through, then deliberately went over it again while nine hearts stood still. Creagh found the hardihood at that moment of intense anxiety to complain of the rope about his neck.

“I wish the gossoon who made this halter was to be hanged in it. ’Slife, the thing doesn’t fit by a mile,” he said jauntily.

“Mr. Anthony Creagh pardoned, Mr. Kenneth Montagu reprieved,” said the sheriff without a trace of feeling in his voice.

For an instant the world swam dizzily before me. I closed my eyes, partly from faintness, partly to hide from the other poor fellows the joy that leaped to them. One by one the brave lads came up and shook hands with Creagh and me in congratulation. Their good-will took me by the throat, and I could only wring their hands in silence.

On our way back to the prison Creagh turned to me with streaming eyes. “Do you know whom I have to thank for this, Kenneth?”

“No. Whom?”

“Antoinette Westerleigh, God bless her dear heart!”

And that set me wondering. It might be that Charles and Aileen alone had won my reprieve for me, but I suspected Volney’s fine hand in the matter. Whether he had stirred himself in my affairs or not, I knew that I too owed my life none the less to the leal heart of a girl.

CHAPTER XVIVOLNEY’S GUEST

Of all the London beaux not one had apartments more elegant than Sir Robert Volney.[3]It was one of the man’s vanities to play the part of a fop, to disguise his restless force and eager brain beneath the vapid punctilios of a man of fashion. There were few suspected that his reckless gayety was but a mask to hide a weary, unsatisfied heart, and that this smiling debonair gentleman with the biting wit was in truth the least happy of men. Long he had played his chosen rôle. Often he doubted whether the game were worth the candle, but he knew that he would play it to the end, and since he had so elected would bear himself so that all men should mark him. If life were not what the boy Robert Volney had conceived it; if failure were inevitable and even the fruit of achievement bitter; if his nature and its enveloping circumstance had proven more strong than his dim, fast-fading, boyish ideals, at least he could cross thestage gracefully and bow himself off with a jest. So much he owed himself and so much he would pay.

Something of all this perhaps was in Sir Robert Volney’s mind as he lay on the couch with dreamy eyes cast back into the yesterdays of life, that dim past which echoed faintly back to him memories of a brave vanished youth. On his lips, no doubt, played the half ironic, half wistful smile which had become habitual to the man.

And while with half-shut eyes his mind drifted lazily back to that golden age forever gone, enter from the inner room, Captain Donald Roy Macdonald, a cocked pistol in his hand, on his head Volney’s hat and wig, on his back Volney’s coat, on his feet Volney’s boots. The baronet eyed the Highlander with mild astonishment, then rose to his feet and offered him a chair.

“Delighted, I’m sure,” he said politely.

“You look it,” drolled Macdonald.

“Off to the wars again, or are you still at your old profession of lifting, my Highland cateran?”

Donald shrugged. “I am a man of many trades. In my day I have been soldier, sailor, reiver, hunter and hunted, doctor and patient, forby a wheen mair. What the gods provide I take.”

“Hm! So I see. Prithee, make yourself at home,” was Volney’s ironical advice.

Macdonald fell into an attitude before the glass and admired himself vastly.

“Fegs, I will that. The small-clothes now— Are they not an admirable fit whatever? And the coat— ’Tis my measure to a nicety. Let me congratulate you on your tailor. Need I say that the periwig is a triumph of the friseur’s art?”

“Your approval flatters me immensely,” murmured Volney, smiling whimsically. “Faith, I never liked my clothes so well as now. You make an admirable setting for them, Captain, but the ruffles are somewhat in disarray. If you will permit me to ring for my valet Watkins he will be at your service. Devil take him, he should have been here an hour ago.”

“He sends by me a thousand excuses for his absence. The fact is that he is unavoidably detained.”

“Pardon me. I begin to understand. You doubtless found it necessary to put a quietus on him. May one be permitted to hope that you didn’t have to pistol him? I should miss him vastly. He is the best valet in London.”

“Your unselfish attachment to him does you infinite credit, Sir Robert. It fair brings the water to my een. But it joys me to reassure you at all events. He is in your bedroom tied hand and foot, biting on a knotted kerchief. I persuaded him to take a rest.”

Volney laughed.

“Your powers of persuasion are great, Captain Macdonald. Once you persuaded me to leave your northern capital. The air, I think you phrased it, was too biting for me. London too has a climate of its own, a throat disease epidemic among northerners is working great havoc here now. One trusts you will not fall a victim, sir. Have you—er—developed any symptoms?”

“’Twould nae doubt grieve you sair. You’ll be gey glad to learn that the crisis is past.”

“Charmed, ’pon honour. And would it be indiscreet to ask whether you are making a long stay in the city?”

“Faith, I wish I knew. Donald Roy wad be blithe to answer no. And that minds me that I will be owing you an apology for intruding in your rooms. Let the facts speak for me. Stravaiging through the streets with the chase hot on my heels, your open window invited me. I stepped in, footed it up-stairs, and found refuge in your sleeping apartments, where I took the liberty of borrowing a change of clothes, mine being over well known at the New Prison. So too I purloined this good sword and the pistol. That Sir Robert Volney was my host I did not know till I chanced on some letters addressed to that name. Believe me, I’m unco sorry to force myself upon you.”

“I felicitate myself on having you as a guest. The vapours had me by the throat to-night. Your presence is a sufficing tonic for a most oppressive attack of the blue devils. This armchair has been recommended as an easy one. Pray occupy it.”

Captain Roy tossed the pistol on a table and sat him down in the chair with much composure. Volney poured him wine and he drank; offered him fruit and he ate. Together, gazing into the glowing coals, they supped their mulled claret in a luxurious silence.

The Highlander was the first to speak.

“It’s a geyan queer warld this.Anjour d’hui roi, demain rien.Yestreen I gaped away the hours in a vile hole waiting for my craig (neck) to be raxed (twisted); the night I drink old claret in the best of company before a cheery fire. The warm glow of it goes to my heart after that dank cell in the prison. By heaven, the memory of that dungeon sends a shiver down my spine.”

“To-morrow, was it not, that you were to journey to Tyburn and from thence across the Styx?”

“Yes, to-morrow, and with me as pretty a lot of lads as ever threw steel across their hurdies. My heart is wae for them, the leal comrades who have lain out with me in the heather many a night and watched the stars come out. There’s Montagu and Creagh now!We three have tholed together empty wame and niddering cold and the weariness o’ death. The hurly o’ the whistling claymore has warmed our hearts; the sight of friends stark from lead and steel and rope has garred them rin like water. God, it makes me feel like a deserter to let them take the lang journey alane. Did you ken that the lad came back to get me from the field when I was wounded at Drummossie Moor?”

“Montagu? I never heard that.”

“Took his life in his hand to come back to that de’il’s caldron where the red bluid ran like a mountain burn. It iss the boast of the Macdonalds that they always pay their debts both to friend and foe. Fine have I paid mine. He will be thinking me the true friend in his hour of need,” finished Donald bitterly.

“You don’t know him. The temper of the man is not so grudging. His joy in your escape will help deaden his own pain. Besides, what could you do for him if you were with him at the end? ’Twould be only one more sacrifice.”

The grim dour Highland sternness hung heavy on Donald’s face.

“I could stand shoulder to shoulder with him and curse the whigs at all events. I could cry with him ‘God save King James’ in the teeth of the sidier roy.”

Volney clapped his hands softly. “Hear, hear!” he cried with flaming eyes. “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Jacobite.”

The Gael turned to him impetuously, his blue eyes (as I conceive) moist with emotion.

“Man, could I persuade you to be saving the lad? It was for this that I waited in your rooms to see you. They say that you are a favourite of princes, that what you ask you get. Do for once a fine thing and ask this boy’s life.”

“They exaggerate my power. But for argument’s sake suppose it true. Why should I ask it? What have I to gain by it?”

Volney, his eyes fixed on the fire, asked the question as much to himself as to the Highlander. The manner of his tone suggested that it was not a new one to him.

“Gain! Who spoke of gain? Are you a Jew peddler or an English gentleman?” cried Donald.

“They call me dissolute, gambler, profligate. These be hard names, but I have earned them all. I make no apologies and offer no excuses. As I have lived my life, so have I lived it. For buttered phrases I have no taste. Call me libertine, or call me man of fashion; ’tis all one. My evil nature—C’est plus fort que moi. At least I have not played the hypocrite. No canting sighs! No lapses to morality andprayers! No vices smugly hidden! The plain straight road to hell taken at a gallop!” So, with chin in hand and dark eyes lit by the flickering flame, this roué and sentimentalist philosophized.

“And Montagu?” cried the Gael, harking back to his prosaic text.

“Has made his bed and he must lie in it.”

“By Heaven, who ruined him and made an outlaw of him? Who drove him to rebellion?”

“You imply that I strewed his bed with nettles. Perhaps. ’Tis well my shoulders are broad, else they could not bear all that is laid upon them.”

“You would never be letting a petty private grudge influence you?”

Volney turned, stung to the quick.

“You go too far, Captain Macdonald. Have I given bonds to save this fool from the consequences of his folly? I cherish no hatred toward him, but I play no Jonathan to his David. Egad, it were a pretty rôle for me to essay! You would cast me for a part full of heroics, the moving of heaven and earth to save my dearest enemy. Thank you, I am not for it. Neither for nor against him will I lift a hand. There is no malice in my heart toward this poor condemned young gentleman. If he can win free I shall be glad, even though his gain is my loss, but further than that I will not go. He came between me andthe thing I most desired on earth. Shall I help him to the happiness which will condemn me to misery?”

For an instant the habitual veil of mockery was snatched aside and the tortured soul of the man leaped from his burning eyes.

“You saved him at Portree,” was all that Donald could say.

“I paid a debt to him and to Cumberland. The ledger is now balanced.”

The Jacobite paced up and down the room for a minute, then stopped and touched the other on his shoulder where he sat.

“I too am somewhat in your debt, Sir Robert. When Montagu opposed you he fought for his own hand. Therein he was justified. But I, an outsider, interfered in a quarrel that was not mine own, spoiled sport for you, in short lost you the lassie. You followed her to Scotland; ’twas I that drove you back to England when Montagu was powerless. From first to last I am the rock on which your love bark has split. If your cause has spelled failure I alone am to blame.”

“So? What then?”

“Why this: without Captain Donald Roy Macdonald the lad had been helpless. Donald was at his back to whisper words of advice and encouragement. Donald contrived the plot which separated you fromthe lady. Donald stood good fairy to the blessed pair of bairns and made of himsel’ a match-making auld mither. You owe your hatred to Donald Roy and not to the lad who was but his instrument.”

The macaroni looked at the other with an odd smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“And so?”

“And so,” continued the Macdonald triumphantly, a challenge in his voice and manner, “and so, who but Donald should be your enemy? My certes, a prettier foe at the broadsword you will not find in a’ Scotland.”

“I do not quite take your meaning. Would you fight with me?”

“Blithe would I be to cross the steel with you, but little that would help Kenneth. My plan is this: save the lad from the halter and I will tak’ his place.”

“You mean that if I compass his freedom you will surrender to be executed?”

“I am meaning just that.”

“I thought so from the first. ’Slife, man, do you think I can change my foes like gloves?Chacun paie son écot.”

“Why not? Iss not a man a better foe than a halfling boy?”

“I would never seek a better foe or a better friend than either you or Montagu, Captain. On my soul,you have both the true ring. But as to your offer I must decline it. The thing is one of your wild impracticable Highland imaginings, a sheer impossibility. You seem to think I have a blood feud and that nothing less than a foeman’s life will satisfy me. In that you err. I am a plain man of the world and cannot reach your heroics.”

The Jacobite’s face fell.

“You are going to let the boy die then?”

Volney hesitated, then answered with a shrug.

“I shall be frank with you. To-day I secured Montagu a reprieve for two weeks. He shall have his chance such as it is, but I do not expect him to take it. If he shows stubborn I wash my hands of him. I have said the last word. You may talk till Yule without changing my mind.” Then, with an abrupt turn of the subject: “Have you with you the sinews of war, Captain? You will need money to effect your escape. My purse is at your service not less than my wardrobe, or if you care to lie hidden here for a time you will be quite safe. Watkins is a faithful fellow and devoted to me.”

The Highlander flushed, stammering out:

“For your proffered loan, I accept it with the best will in the world; and as to your offer of a hiding-place, troth! I’m badly needing one. Gin it were no inconvenience——”

“None in the world.”

“I will be remembering you for a generous foe till the day of my death. You’re a man to ride the water wi’.”

“Lard! There’s no generosity in it. Every Mohawk thinks it a pleasure to help any man break the laws. Besides, I count on you to help drive away the doldrums. Do you care for a hand at piquet now, Captain?”

“With pleasure. I find in the cartes great diversion, but by your leave I’ll first unloose your man Watkins.”

“’Slife, I had forgot him. We’ll have him brew us a punch and make a night of it. Sleep and I are a thousand miles apart.”

[3]The material for this chapter was furnished me with great particularity by Captain Donald Roy Macdonald. From his narrative to me, I set down the story in substance as he told it.   K. M.

The material for this chapter was furnished me with great particularity by Captain Donald Roy Macdonald. From his narrative to me, I set down the story in substance as he told it.   K. M.

CHAPTER XVIITHE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

There came to me one day a surprise, a marked hour among my weeks struck calm. Charles, Cloe, and Aileen had been wont to visit me regularly; once Selwyn had dropped in on me; but I had not before been honoured by a visit from Sir Robert Volney. He sauntered into my cell swinging a clouded cane, dressed to kill and point device in every ruffle, all dabbed with scented powder, pomatum, and jessamine water. To him, coming direct from the strong light of the sun, my cell was dark as the inside of Jonah’s whale. He stood hesitating in the doorway, groping with his cane for some guide to his footsteps.

For an instant I drew back, thinking he had come to mock me; then I put the idea from me. However much of evil there was in him, Volney was not a small man. I stepped forward to greet him.

“Welcome to my poor best, Sir Robert! If I do not offer you a chair it is because I have none. My regret is that my circumstances hamper my hospitality.”

“Not at all. You offer me your best, and in that lies the essence of hospitality. Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred, Egad,” returned my guest with easy irony.

All the resources of the courtier and the beau were his. One could but admire the sparkle and the versatility of the man. His wit was brilliant as the play of a rapier’s point. Set down in cold blood, remembered scantily and clumsily as I recall it, without the gay easy polish of his manner, the fineness is all out of his talk. After all ’tis a characteristic of much wit that it is apposite to the occasion only and loses point in the retelling.

He seated himself on the table with a leg dangling in air and looked curiously around on the massive masonry, the damp floor, the walls oozing slime. I followed his eye and in some measure his thoughts.

“Stone walls do not a prison make,” I quoted gaily.

“Ecod, they make a pretty fair imitation of one!” he chuckled.

I was prodigious glad to see him.

His presence stirred my sluggish blood. The sound of his voice was to me like the crack of a whip to a jaded horse. Graceful, careless, debonair, a man of evil from sheer reckless wilfulness, he was the one person in the world I found it in my heart to both hate and admire at the same time.

He gazed long at me. “You’re looking devilish ill, Montagu,” he said.

I smiled. “Are you afraid I’ll cheat the hangman after all?”

His eyes wandered over the cell again. “By Heaven, this death’s cage is enough to send any man off the hooks,” he shivered.

“One gets used to it,” I answered, shrugging.

He looked at me with a kind of admiration. “They may break you, Montagu, but I vow they will never bend you. Here are you torn with illness, the shadow of the gallows falling across your track, and never a whimper out of you.”

“Would that avail to better my condition?”

“I suppose not. Still, self-pity is the very ecstasy of grief, they tell me.”

“For girls and halfling boys, I dare say.”

There he sat cocked on the table, a picture of smiling ease, raffish and fascinating, as full of sentimental sympathy as a lass in her teens. His commiseration was no less plain to me because it was hidden under a debonair manner. He looked at me in a sidelong fashion with a question in his eyes.

“Speak out!” I told him. “Your interest in me as evidenced by this visit has earned the right to satisfy your curiosity.”

“I dare swear you have had your chance to save yourself?” he asked.

“Oh, the usual offer! A life for a life, the opportunity to save myself by betraying others.”

“Do you never dally with the thought of it?” he questioned.

I looked up quickly at him. A hundred times I had nursed the temptation and put it from me.

“Are you never afraid, Montagu, when the night falls black and slumber is not to be wooed?”

“Many a time,” I told him, smiling.

“You say it as easily as if I had asked whether you ever took the air in the park. ’Slife, I have never known you flinch. There was always a certain d——d rough plainness about you, but you play the game.”

“’Tis a poor hound falls whining at the whip when there is no avoiding it.”

“You will never accept their offer of a pardon on those terms. I know you, man. Y’are one of those fools hold by honour rather than life, and damme! I like you for it. Now I in your place——”

“——Would do as I do.”

“Would I? I’m not so sure. If I did it would be no virtue, but an obstinacy not to be browbeat.” Then he added, “You would give anything else on earth for your life, I suppose?”

“Anything else,” I told him frankly.

“Anything else?” he repeated, his eyes narrowing. “No reservations, Montagu?”

Our eyes crossed like rapiers, each searching into the other’s very soul.

“Am I to understand that you are making me an offer, Sir Robert?”

“I am making you an offer of your life.”

“Respectfully declined.”

“Think again, man! Once you are dead you will be a long time dead. Refuse to give her up, and you die; she is not for you in any case. Give way, and I will move heaven and earth for a pardon. Believe me, never was such perfect weather before. The birds sing divinely, and Charles tells me Montagu Grange is sorely needing a master.”

“Charles will look the part to admiration.”

“And doubtless will console himself in true brotherly fashion for the loss of his brother by reciting his merits on a granite shaft and straightway forgetting them in the enjoyment of the estate.”

“I think it likely.”

He looked at me gloomily. “There is a way to save you, despite your obstinacy.”

I shuffled across to him in a tumult of emotion. “You would never do it, would never be so vile as to trade on her fears for me to win her.”

“I would do anything to win her, and I would do agreat deal to save your life. The two things jump together. In a way I like you, man.”

But I would have none of his liking. “Oh, spare me that! You are the most sentimental villain unhung, and I can get along without your liking.”

“That’s as may be,” said he laughing, “but I cannot well get along without you. On my honour, you have become one of my greatest sources of interest.”

“Do you mean that you would stake my life against her hand?” I demanded whitely.

He gave me look for look. “I mean just that. By Heaven, I shall win her fair or foul.”

I could only keep saying over and over again, “You would never do it. Even you would never do that.”

“Wouldn’t I? You’ll see,” he answered laughing hardily. “Well, I must be going. Oh, I had forgot. Balmerino sent you this note. I called on him yesterday at the Tower. The old Scotchman is still as full of smiles as a bride.”

Balmerino’s letter was the friendliest imaginable. He stated that for him a pardon was of course out of the question, but that Sir Robert Volney had assured him that there was a chance for me on certain conditions; he understood that the conditions had to do with the hand of a young woman, and he advised me, if the thing were consistent with honour, to make submission, and let no foolish pride stand in the way ofsaving my life. The letter ended with a touching reference to the cause for which he was about to die.

I was shaken, I confess it. Not that I thought for a moment of giving up my love, but my heart ached to think of the cruel position into which she would be cast. To save her lover’s life, she must forsake her love, or if she elected the other alternative must send him to his death. That Volney would let this burden of choice fall on her I would scarce let myself believe; and yet—there was never a man more madly, hopelessly in love than he. His passion for her was like a whirlwind tossing him hither and thither like a chip on the boiling waters, but I thought it very characteristic of the man that he used his influence to have me moved to a more comfortable cell and supplied with delicacies, even while he plotted against me with my love.

After that first visit he used to come often and entertain me with the news and gossip of the town. I have never met a more interesting man. He was an onlooker of life rather than an actor, an ironical cynic, chuckling with sardonic humour. The secret of his charm lay perhaps in a certain whimsical outlook and in an original turn of mind.

Once I asked him why he found it worth while to spend so many hours with me when his society was so much sought after by the gayest circle in the town.

“I acquit you of any suspicion of philanthropy, Sir Robert. I give you credit for pursuing a policy of intelligent selfishness. You must know by this time that I will not purchase my life, nor let it be purchased, on the terms which you propose. Well then, I confess it puzzles me to guess what amusement you find in such a hole as this.”

“Variety spices life. What’s a man to do to keep himself from ennui? For instance, I got up this morning at ten, with Selwyn visited Lady Dapperwit while she was drinking coffee in her nightrail, talked a vast deal of scandal with her, strolled in the park with Fritz, from there to White’s in a sedan, two hours at lunch, and an hour with you for the good of my soul.”

“The good of your soul?” I quizzed.

“Yes, I visit you here and then go away deuced thankful for my mercies. I’m not to be hanged next week, you know. I live to marry the girl.”

“Still, I should think you might find more interesting spots than this.”

“I am a student of human nature, Montagu.”

“A condemned prisoner, never a wit at the best of times, full of fears and agues and fevers! One would scarce think the subject an inviting one for study.”

“There you do yourself injustice. Y’are the most interesting man I know. A dozen characters arewrapped up in you. You have the appearance of being as great a rip as the rest of us, and I vow your looks do not belie you, yet at times you have the conscience of a ranting dissenter. I find in you a touch both of Selwyn’s dry wit and of Balmerino’s frostly bluntness; the cool daring of James Wolfe combined with as great a love of life as Murray has shown; the chivalry of Don Quixote and the hard-headedness of Cumberland; sometimes an awkward boy, again the grand manner Chesterfield himself might envy you; the obstinacy of the devil and——”

“Oh, come!” I broke in laughing. “I don’t mind being made a composite epitome of all the vices of the race, but I object to your crossing the Styx on my behalf.”

“And that reminds me of the time we came so near crossing together,” he broke out, diverting the subject in his inconsequent fashion. “D’ye remember that Dr. Mead who dressed our wounds for us after our little argument? It appears that he and a Dr. Woodward fell into some professional dispute as to how a case should be treated, and Lud! nothing would satisfy them but they must get their toasting forks into action. The story goes that they fought at the gate of Gresham College. Mead pinked his man. ‘Take your life,’ quoth he. ‘Anything but your medicine,’ returns Woodward just before he faints.Horry Walpole told me the story. I suppose you have heard Selwyn’s story of Lord Wharton. You know what a spendthrift Wharton is. Well the Duke of Graftsbury offered him one of his daughters in marriage, a lady of uncertain age and certain temper. But the lady has one virtue; she’s a devilish fine fortune. A plum, they say! Wharton wrote Graftsbury a note of three lines declining the alliance because, as he put it, the fortune was tied up and the lady wasn’t.”

“Not bad. Talking of Selwyn, I suppose he gets his fill of horrors these days.”

“One would think he might. I met him at the Prince’s dinner yesterday, and between us we two emptied nine bottles of maraschino. Conceive the splitting headache I’m wearing to-day.”

“You should take a course in Jacobitism,” I told him gravely. “’Tis warranted to cure gout, liver trouble, indigestion, drunkenness, and sundry other complaints. I can warrant that one lives simply while he takes the treatment; sometimes on a crust of bread and a bowl of brose, sometimes on water from the burn, never does one dine over-richly.”

“Yet this course is not conducive to long life. I’ve known a hundred followers of it fall victim to an epidemic throat disease,” he retorted. Then he added more gravely, “By the way, you need have no fearsfor your friend Miss Flora Macdonald. I learn on the best of authority that she is in no danger whatever.”

“And Malcolm?” I asked.

“His name has been put near the foot of the list for trial. Long before that time the lust for blood will be glutted. I shall make it a point to see that his case never comes to trial. One cannot afford to have his brother-in-law hanged like a common cutpurse.”

Day by day the time drew nearer on which my reprieve expired. I saw nothing of Aileen now, for she had followed the King and his court to Bath, intent on losing no opportunity that might present itself in my favour. For one reason I was glad to have her gone; so long as she was out of town Sir Robert could not urge on her the sacrifice which he intended.

The time of my execution had been set for Friday, and on the preceding Monday Volney, just arrived from the executions of Balmerino and Kilmarnock, drove out to New Prison to see me. He was full of admiration for Balmerino’s bold exit from the stage of life and retailed to me with great gusto every incident of the last scene on Tower Hill.

“I like your bluff Balmerino’s philosophy of life,” he told me. “When I called on him and apologized for intruding on the short time he had left the old Lord said, ‘O sir, no intrusion at all. I am in no ways concerned to spend more time than usual at my devotions.I think no man fit to live who is not fit to die, and to die well is much the easier of the two.’ On the scaffold no bridegroom could have been more cheerful. He was dressed in his old blue campaign uniform and was as bold and manly as ever. He expressed joy that Cromartie had been pardoned, inspected with interest the inscription on his coffin, and smilingly called the block his pillow of rest. ’Pon honour, the intrepid man then rehearsed the execution with his headsman, kneeling down at the block to show how he would give the signal for the blow. He then got up again, made a tender smiling farewell with his friends, and said to me, ‘I fear some will think my behaviour bold, Volney, but remember what I say, that it arises from confidence in God and a clear conscience.’ He reaffirmed his unshaken adherence to the house of Stuart, crying aloud, ‘God save King James!’ and bowed to the multitude. Presently, still cheerfully, he knelt at the block and said in a clear voice, ‘O Lord, reward my friends, forgive my enemies, bless Prince Charles and his brother, the Duke, and receive my soul.’ His arms dropped for the signal, and Arthur Elphinstone of Balmerino passed to the Valhalla where brave men dwell as gods.”

“God bring peace to his valiant restless soul,” I said, much moved.

“’Tis a thing to admire, the sturdy loyalty of youJacobites,” he said after a pause. “You carry it off like gentlemen. Every poor Highlander who has yet suffered has flung out his ‘God save King James’ on the scaffold. Now I’ll wager you too go to death with the grand air—no canting prayers for King George, eh?”

“I must e’en do as the rest,” I smiled.

“Yet I’d bet a pony you don’t care a pinch of snuff for James Stuart. ’Tis loyalty to yourselves that animates you.”

Presently he harked back to the topic that was never closed between us.

“By this time next week you will have touched the heart of our eternal problem. The mystery of it will perhaps be all clear to you then. ’Tis most strange how at one sweep all a man’s turbulent questing life passes into the quiet of—of what? That is the question: of unending death or of achieved knowledge?” Then he added, coming abruptly to the issue: “The day draws near. Do you think better of my offer now?”

“Sir Robert, I have lived a tempestuous life these past months. I have known hunger and cold and weariness; I have been at the top of fortune’s wave and at the bottom; but I have never found it worth my while to become divorced from honour. You find me near dead from privations and disease. Do you thinkI would pay so much for such an existence? Believe me, when a man has passed through what I have he is empty of fears.”

“I could better spare a better man,” he said.

“Sorry to inconvenience you,” I told him grimly.

“I’ faith, I think you’re destined to do that dead or alive.”

“I think I am. You will find me more in your way dead than alive.”

“I’ll outlive your memory, never fear.” Then quietly, after a moment’s hesitation: “There’s one thing it may be a comfort for you to know. I’ve given up any thought of putting her on the rack. I’ll win fairly or not at all.”

I drew a deep free breath. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I mean to marry her though. I swear to you, Montagu, that my heart is wrapped up in her. I thought all women alike until I met this one. Now I know better. She could have made a different man of me; sometimes I think she could even yet. I vow to you I would not now injure a hair of her head, but willy-nilly, in the end I shall marry the girl.”

“To ruin her life?”

“To save mine rather.”

“Do you think yourself able to change the whole course of your life for her?”

He mused. “Ah, Montagu! There your finger falls pat on the pulse of my doubt. My heart cries aye, my reason gives a negative.”

“Don’t worry overmuch about it,” I answered, railing at him. “She’ll never look at you, man. My grave will be an insurmountable barrier. She will idealize my memory, think me a martyr and herself a widowed maid.”

The shot scored. ’Twas plain he must have often thought of that himself.

“It may interest you to know that we are engaged to be married,” I added.

“Indeed! Let me congratulate you. When does the happy event occur, may I ask? Or is the day set?”

He had no need to put into words more clearly the irony of the fate that encompassed us.

“Dead or alive, as you say, I bar your way,” I said tartly.

“Pooh, man! I give you six weeks of violent grief, six months of tender melancholy.”

“You do not know the Scotch. She will die a maid,” I answered.

“Not she! A live lover is more present than a dead one. Has she sworn pretty vows to you, Montagu? ‘At lovers’ perjuries, they say, love laughs.’ Is there nothing to be said for me? Will her heartnot always whisper that I deserve gratitude and love, that I perilled my life for her, saved the lives of her brother and her lover, neither of them friends of mine, again reprieved her lover’s life, stood friend to her through all her trouble? You know a woman’s way—to make much of nothing.”

“Forgive, if I prod a lagging memory, Miss Westerleigh?”

Long he laughed and merrily.

“Eloped for Gretna Green with Tony Creagh last night, and I, poor forsaken swain, faith! I do not pursue.”

You may be sure that dashed me. I felt as a trapped fox with the dogs closing in. The future loomed up clear before me, Aileen hand in hand with Volney scattering flowers on my grave in sentimental mood. The futility of my obstinacy made me bitter.

“Come, Montagu! Listen to reason,” urged the tempter. “You get in my way, but I don’t want to let you be sponged out. The devil of it is that if I get you a pardon—and I’m not sure that I can get it—you’ll marry the girl. I might have you shipped to the Barbadoes as a slave with some of the others, but to be frank I had rather see you hanged than give you so scurvy an end. Forswear what is already lost and make an end of it.”

I turned away blackly. “You have my answer. Sir Robert, you have played your last card. Now let me die in peace.”

He shrugged impatiently and left me. “A fool’s answer, yet a brave man’s too,” he muttered.

Aileen, heart-broken with the failure of her mission, reached town on Thursday and came at once to the prison. Her face was as the face of troubled waters. I had no need to ask the question on my lips. With a sobbing cry she threw herself on my breast. My heart was woe for her. Utter weariness was in her manner. All through the long days and nights she had agonized, and now at last despaired. There seemed no tears left to shed.

Long I held her tight, teeth set, as one who would keep his own perforce from that grim fate which would snatch his love from him. She shivered to me half-swooning, pale and of wondrous beauty, nesting in my arms as a weary homing-bird. A poignant grief o’erflowed in me.

“Oh, Aileen! At least we have love left,” I cried, breaking the long silence.

“Always! Always!” her white lips answered.

“Then let us regret nothing. They can do with me what they will. What are life and death when in the balance dwells love?” I cried, rapt in unearthly worship of her.

Her eyes found mine. “Oh, Kenneth, I cannot—I cannot—let you go.”

Sweet and lovely she was beyond the dream of poet. I trembled in an ecstasy of pain. From the next cell there came to us softly the voice of a poor condemned Appin Stewart. He was crooning that most tender and heart-breaking of all strains. Like the pibroch’s mournful sough he wailed it out, the song that cuts deep to a Scotchman’s heart in time of exile.

“Lochabar no more, Lochabar no more.

We’ll maybe return to Lochabar no more.”

I looked at Aileen, my face working. A long breath came whistling through her lips. Her dear face was all broken with emotion. I turned my eyes aside, not daring to trust myself. Through misty lashes again I looked. Her breast lifted and fell in shaking sobs, the fount of tears touched at last. Together we wept, without shame I admit it, while the Stewart’s harrowing strain ebbed to a close. To us it seemed almost as the keening of the coronach.

So in the quiet that comes after storm, her dear supple figure still in my arms, Sir Robert Volney came in unexpectedly and found us. He stopped at the door, startled at her presence, and methought a shadow fell on his face. Near to death as I was, the quality of his courage was so fine and the strength ofthe passion in him so great that he would have changed places with me even then.

Aileen went up to him at once and gave him her hand. She was very simple, her appeal like a child’s for directness.

“Sir Robert, you have already done much for me. I will be so bold as to ask you to do more. Here iss my lover’s life in danger. I ask you to save it.”

“That he may marry you?”

“If God wills.”

Volney looked at her out of a haggard face, all broken by the emotions which stirred him.

A minute passed, two minutes. He fought out his fight and won.

“Aileen,” he said at last, “before heaven I fear it is too late, but what man can do, that will I do.”

He came in and shook hands with me. “I’ll say good-bye, Montagu. ’Tis possible I’ll see you but once more in this world. Yet I will do my best. Don’t hope too much, but don’t despair.”

There was unconscious prophecy in his words. I was to see him but the once more, and then the proud, gallant gentleman, now so full of energy, was lying on his deathbed struck out of life by a foul blow.

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