263
BOOKIV
CHAPTER ITREASON IN THE CAMP
Since the day Dundee rode away from Glenogilvie, after the scene with Jean, he was a man broken in heart, but he hid his private wound bravely, and gave himself with the fiercer energy to the king’s business. Hither and thither through the Highlands he raced, so that he was described in letters of that day as “skipping from one hill to another like wildfire, which at last will vanish of itself for want of fuel,” and “like an incendiary to inflame that cold country, yet he finds small encouragement.” Anything more pathetic than this last endeavor of Dundee, except it be his death, cannot be imagined. The clans were not devoured with devotion to King James, and were not the victims of guileless enthusiasm; they were not the heroes of romance depicted by Jacobite poets and story-tellers: they were half-starved, entirely ignorant, fond of fighting, but largely intent on stealing. If there was any chance264of a foray in which they could gather spoil, they were ready to fling themselves into the fray, but as soon as they had gained their end, they would make for the glens and leave their general in the lurch. Whether they would rise or not depended neither on the merits of William or James, but in the last issue upon their chiefs––and the chiefs were not easy to move. Some of them were hostile, and most of them lukewarm; and Dundee drank the cup of humiliation as he canvassed for his cause from door to door. By pleading, by arguing, by cajoling, by threatening, by promising and by bribing, he got together some two thousand men, more or less, and he had also the remains of his cavalry. His king had, as usual, left him to fend for himself, and sent him nothing but an incapable Irish officer called Cannon and some ragged Irish recruits, while MacKay was watching him and following him with a well-equipped force. Now and again the sun shone on him and he had glimpses of victory, driving MacKay for days before him, and keeping up communication with Livingstone, who had come from Dundee with his dragoons, and was playing the part of traitor in MacKay’s army––for Jean was still determined, with characteristic obstinacy and indifference265to suspicion, to reap the fruit of her negotiation with Livingstone. It seemed as if Dundee would at least gain a few troops of cavalry, which would be a great advantage to him and a disquieting event for MacKay’s army. But again the Fates were hostile, and misfortune dogged the Jacobite cause. MacKay got wind of the plot, Livingstone and his fellow-officers were arrested, and Jean’s scheming, with all its weary expedients and bitter cost, came to naught.
When Claverhouse, in the height of summer, started on his last campaign and descended on Blair Athole, he carried himself as one in the highest spirits and assured of triumph. He sent word everywhere that things were going well with the cause, and that the whole world was with him; he made no doubt of crushing MacKay if he opposed his march into the Lowlands, and of entering Edinburgh after another fashion than he had left it. He kept a bold front, and wrote in a buoyant style; but this was partly the pride of his house, and partly the tactics of a desperate leader. Though a bigot to his cause, Graham was not a madman. He was a thorough believer in the power of guerrilla troops, but he knew that in the end they would go down before the regulars. He266hoped, by availing himself of the hot courage of the clansmen, to deal a smashing blow at his old rival, but unless the Lowlands and the regulars joined James’s side, there was not the remotest chance of unseating William from his new throne. His words were high, but his heart was anxious, as he hurried with his little army to strike once at least for the king, and to make his last adventure. He had decided on the line of march to be taken next morning, and the place where he would join issue with MacKay, who was coming up from Perth with a small army of regular troops, many of whom were veterans. He had discussed the matter with his staff, and settled with the jealous and irascible chiefs as best he could the position they were to take on the battle-field, and he had fallen into a fit of gloomy meditation, when Grimond entered the room in Blair Castle, where Dundee had his headquarters for the night.
If Grimond, for pure malice or even for jealousy, had invented that unhappy interview between Lady Dundee and Livingstone, or if it had been shown that he had by a word perverted the conversation, then his master, who had sent many a Covenanter to death, because he loved his religion more than King James, would have shot even that faithful267servant without scruple and with satisfaction. But it was in keeping with the chivalry of Dundee––his sense of justice, his appreciation of loyalty, and his admiration for thoroughness––that he took no revenge for his own madness upon the unwitting cause thereof. During the brief stay at Glenogilvie, Grimond hid himself with discretion, so that neither his master nor mistress either saw or heard of him, and when Dundee left his home with his men, Grimond was not in the company. But as a dog which is not sure of a welcome from its master, or rather expects a blow and yet cannot leave him or let him go alone, will suddenly join him on the road by which he is making his journey, and will follow him distantly, but ever keep him in sight, so Jock was found one morning among the troopers. He kept as far from his master as he could and was careful not to obtrude himself or offer to resume a servant’s duty. Dundee’s face hardened at the sight of him, but he said no word, and Jock made no approach. With wise discretion he remained at a distance, and seemed anxious to be forgotten, but he had his own plan of operations. One morning Dundee found his bits and stirrups and the steel work of his horse furnishing polished and glittering as they had not been268since he rode to Glenogilvie, and he suspected that an old hand had been at work. Another day his cuirass was so well and carefully done, his uniform so perfectly brushed and laid out, and his lace cravat so skilfully arranged that he was certain Grimond was doing secret duty. Day by day the signs of his attention grew more frequent and visible, till at last one morning he appeared in person, and without remark began to assist his master with his arms. Nothing passed between them, and for weeks relations were very strained, but before the end Grimond knew that he had been forgiven for his superfluity of loyalty, and Dundee was thankful that, as the shadows settled upon his life blacker and deeper every day, one honest man was his companion, and would remain true when every fair-weather friend and false schemer had fled. One can make excuses for jealousy when it is another name for love; one may not quarrel with doggedness when it is another name for devotion. There are not too many people who have in them the heart to be faithful unto death, not too many who will place one’s interest before their own life. When one’s back is at the wall, and he is not sure even of his nearest, he will not despise or quarrel with the roughest or plainest man269who will stand by his side and share his lot, either of life or death. So Jock was reinstated without pardon asked or given, and with no reference to the tragedy of Glenogilvie, and Dundee knew that he had beside him a faithful and fearless watchdog of the tough old Scottish breed. As Grimond busied himself with preparations for the evening meal––among other dark suspicions he had taken into his head that Dundee might be poisoned––his master’s eye fell on him, and at the sight memory woke. John Graham recalled the days when Grimond received him from the charge of his nurse, and took him out upon the hills round Glenogilvie. How he taught him to catch trout with his own hands below the big stones of the burn, how he told him the names of the wild birds and their ways, how he gave him his first lesson in sport, how one day he saved his life, when he was about to be gored by an infuriated bull. All the kindness of this hard man and his thoughtfulness, all his faithfulness and unselfishness, touched Dundee’s heart––a heart capable of affection for a few, though it could never be called tender, and capable of sentiment, though rather that which is bound up with a cause than with a person.
“Jock,” said Graham, with a certain accent270of former days and kindly doings. Now, a person’s name may mean anything according to the way in which it is pronounced. It may be an accusation, a rebuke, an insult, a threat, or it may be an appeal, a thanksgiving, a benediction, a caress. And at the sound of the word, said more kindly than he had ever heard it, Grimond turned him round and looked at his master; his grim, lean, weather-beaten face relaxed and softened and grew almost gentle.
“Maister John, Maister John,” and suddenly he did a thing incredible for his undemonstrative, unsentimental, immovable granite nature. He knelt down beside Dundee, and seizing his hand, kissed it, while tears rolled down his cheeks. “My laddie, and my lord, baith o’ them, this is the best day o’ my life, for ye’ve forgiven me my terrible mistake, and my sin against my mistress. It’s sore against my grain to confess that I was wrang, for it’s been my infirmity to be always richt, but I sinned in this matter grievously, and micht have done what could never be put richt. But oh! my lord, it was a’ for love’s sake, for though I be only a serving man to the house of Graham, I dare to say I have been faithful. With neither wife nor child, I have nothing but you, my271lord, and I have nothing to live for but your weel. When ye were angry wi’ me I didna blame you, I coonted ye just, but ’twas to me as when the sun gaes behind the clouds. I cared neither to eat nor drink––had it not been for your sake, I didna care to live. But noo, when ye’ve buried the past and taken me back into your favor, I’m in the licht again, and I carena what happens to me, neither hardship nor death. Oh! my loved lord, will ye call me Jock again? When the severe and self-contained Lowland Scot takes fire, there is such strength of fuel in him, that he burns into white heat, and there is no quenching of the flame. And at that moment Graham understood, as he had only imagined before, the passion which can be concealed in the heart of a Scots retainer.
“Get up, Jock, you old fool and––my trusty friend.” Claverhouse concealed but poorly behind his banter the emotion of his heart, for Jock had found him in a lonely mood.
“You and me are no made for kneeling, except to our Maker and our king. Faith, I judge we are better at the striking. Aye, we are friends again, and shall be till the end, which I am thinking may not be far off. Ye gave me a bitter time, the like of which I272never had before, and beside which death, when it comes, will be welcome, but ye did it not in baseness, but in all honesty. It was our calamity. Life, Jock, is full o’ sic calamities, and we are all for the maist part at cross purposes. It seemeth to me as if we were travelling in the darkness, knowing not whether the man beside us be friend or foe, and often striking at our friends by mistake. But we must march on till the day breaks.
“It’ll break for us soon, at any rate,” went on Dundee, “for by to-morrow night the matter will be settled between General MacKay and me. Div ye mind, Jock, how I fain would have fought with him at The Hague, and he wouldna take my challenge?”
“Cowardly and cold-blooded Whig like the lave o’ them,” burst out Jock, in a strong reaction from his former mood of tenderness. “Leave him to look after himsel’, he micht have stood mair nor once thae last weeks and faced ye like a man, but would he? Na, na, he ran afore ye, and I doot sair whether he will give you a chance to-morrow.”
“Have no fear of that, Jock, we’ve waited long for our duel, but, ye may take my word for it, it will come off at Killiecrankie before the sun goes down again behind the hills. There will be a fair field and a free fight, and273the best man will win; and, Jock, I will not be sorry when the sun sets. What ails you, Jock, for your face is downcast? That didna used to be the way with you in the low country on the prospect of battle. Div ye mind Seneffe and the gap in the wall?”
“Fine, my lord, fine, and I’ll acknowledge that I’ve nae rooted objection in principle or in practice to fechtin’––that is, when it’s to serve a richt cause and there be a good chance o’ victory, to say nothing o’ profit. But a’ thing maun be fair and aboveboard, and I’m dootin’ whether that will be the case the mornin’. What I’m feared o’ is no war, but black murder.” And there was an earnestness in Grimond’s tone which arrested Dundee.
“My lord,” said Jock, in answer to the interrogation on his master’s face, “I came here to speak, if Providence gave me the chance, for aifter all that has happened, I didna consider your ear would be open to hear me. When a man has made as big a mistake as I have dune, and caused as muckle sorrow, it behooves him to walk softly, and this is pairt of his judgment that them he loves most may trust him least.
“Na, na, my lord,” for the face of Dundee was beginning again to blacken. “I’ve274no a word to say against her ladyship. I gather she has been doing what she can for the cause wi’ them slippery rascals o’ dragoons and their Laodicean commander, of whom I have my ain thoughts. I fear me, indeed, to say what I have found, and what I am suspecting, for ye hae reason to conclude that my head is full o’ plots, and that broodin’ ower treachery has made me daft.”
“What is it now, Jock?” in a tone between amusement and seriousness. “Ye havena found a letter from Lochiel to the Prince of Orange, offering to win the reward upon my head, or caught General MacKay, dressed in a ragged kilt, stealing about through the army? Out with it, and let us know the worst at once.”
“Ye are laughin’, Maister John, and I will not deny ye have justification. I wish to God I be as far frae the truth this time as I was last time, but there is some thin’ gaein’ on in the camp that bodes nae gude to yersel’, and through you to the cause. It was not for naethin’ I watched two of our new recruits for days, and heard a snap o’ their conversation yesterday on the march.”
“I’ll be bound, Jock, ye heard some wild talk, for I doubt our men are readier with an oath than a Psalm and a loose story than a275sermon. But we must just take them as they come––rough men for rough work, and desperate men for a wild adventure.”
“Gude knows, my ears are weel accustomed to the clatter of the camp, and it’s no a coarse word here or there would offend Jock Grimond. But the men I mean are of the other kind; they speak like gentlefolk, and micht, for the manner o’ them, sit wi’ her ladyship in Dudhope Castle.”
“Broken gentlemen, very likely, Jock. There have always been plenty in our ranks. Surely you are not going to make that a crime at this time of the day. If I had five hundred of that kidney behind me, I would drive MacKay––horse, foot and bits of artillery––like chaff before the wind. A gentleman makes a good trooper, and when he has nothing to lose, he’s the very devil to fight.”
“But that’s no a’ else. I wouldna have troubled you, my lord, but the two are aye the-gither, and keep in company like a pair o’ dogs poachin’. They have the look o’ men who are on their gaird, and are feared o’ bein’ caught by surprise. According to their story they had served with Livingstone’s dragoons, and had come over to us because they were for the good cause. But ain o’ Livingstone’s lads wha deserted at the same time,276and has naethin’ wrong wi’ him except that he belongs to Forfar and has a perpetual drouth, tells me that our twa friends were juist in and oot, no mair than a week wi’ the dragoons. My idea is that they went wi’ Livingstone to get to us. And what for––aye, what for?”
“For King James, I should say, and a bellyful of fighting,” said Dundee carelessly.
“Maybe ye’re richt, and if so, there’s no mischief done; and maybe ye’re wrang, and if so, there will be black trouble. At ony rate, I didna like the story, and I wasna taken wi’ the men. No that they’re bad-lookin’, but they’re after some ploy. Weel, they ride by themsel’s, and they camp by themsel’s, and they eat by themsel’s, and they sleep by themsel’s. So this midday, when we haltit, they made off to the bank o’ the river, and settled themsel’s ablow a tree, and by chance a burn ran into the river there wi’ a high bank on the side next them. Are ye listenin’, my lord?”
“Yes, yes,” said Dundee, whose thoughts had evidently been far away, and who was attaching little importance to Jock’s groundless fears. “Go on. So you did a bit of scouting, I suppose?”
“I did,” said Jock, with some pride, “and they never jaloused wha was lying close beside277them, like a tod (fox) in his hole. I’m no prepared to say that I could catch a’ their colloguing, but I got enough to set me thinkin’. Juist bits, but they could be pieced togither.”
“Well,” said Dundee, with more interest, “what were the bits?”
“The one asks the other where he keeps his pass. ‘Sown in the lining of my coat,’ says he. ‘Where’s yours?’ ‘In my boot,’ answers he, ‘the safest place.’ Who gave them the passes, thinks I to myself, and what are they hiding them for? So I cocks both my ears to hear the rest.”
“And what was that, Jock?” And Dundee now was paying close attention.
“For a while they spoke so low I could only hear, ‘This underhand work goes against my stomach.’ ‘Aha, my lad, so it’s underhand,’ says I in my hole. ‘It’s worth the doing,’ says the other, ‘and a big stroke of work if we succeed. It might be a throne one way or other.’ ‘Not to us,’ laughs the first. ‘No,’ says his friend, ‘but we’ll have our share.’ ‘This is no ordinary work,’ says I to mysel’, and I risked my ears out of the hole. ‘It’s no an army,’ says one o’ them, ‘but juist a rabble, and a’ depends on one man.’ ‘You’re right there,’ answers the other, ‘if he falls all is over.’ Then they said278something to one another I couldn’t catch, and then one stretched himself, as I took it by his kicking a stone into the river, and rose, saying, ‘By heaven! we’ll manage it.’ The other laughed as he rose too, and as they went away the last words I heard were, ‘The devil, Jack, is more likely to be our friend.’ Notice this, my lord, every word in the English tongue, as fine and smooth spoken as ye like. Where did they come from, and what are they after? Aye, and wha is to fall, that’s the question, my lord?”
Dundee started, for Jock’s story had unloosed a secret fear in his mind, which he had often banished, but which had been returning with great force. As a band holds together the sheaf of corn, so he alone kept King James’s army. Apart from him there was no cohesion, and apart from him there was no commander. With his death, not only would the forces disperse, but the cause of King James would be ended. If he were out of the way, William would have no other cause for anxiety, and he knew the determined and cold-blooded character of his former master. William had given him his chance, and he had not taken it. He would have no more scruple in assassinating his opponent than in brushing a fly off the table.279Instead of gathering an army and fighting him through the Highlands and Lowlands, just one stroke of a dirk or a pistol bullet and William is secure on his throne. “Jock may be right for once,” said Claverhouse to himself, “and, by heaven! if I am to fall, I had rather be shot in front than behind.” He wrote an order to the commander of the cavalry, and in fifteen minutes the two troopers were standing before him disarmed and guarded.
The moment Dundee looked at them he knew that Jock was correct in saying that they were not common soldiers, for they had the unmistakable manner of gentlemen, and as soon as they spoke he also knew that they were Englishmen. One was tall and fair, with honest blue eyes, which did not suggest treachery, the other was shorter and dark, with a more cautious and uncertain expression.
“For certain reasons, gentlemen,” said Dundee, with emphasis upon the word, “I desire by your leave to ask you one or two questions. If you will take my advice, you had better answer truthfully. I will not waste time about things I know. What brought you from Livingstone’s dragoons to us? why were ye so short a time with them?280and why did ye leave the English army? Tell no lies, I pray you. I can see that ye are soldiers and have been officers. Why are you with us in the guise of troopers?”
“You know so much, my lord,” said the taller man, with that outspoken candor which is so taking, “that I may as well tell you all. We have held commissions in the army, and are, I suppose, officers to-day, though they will be wondering where we are, and we should be shot if we were caught. You will excuse me giving our names, for they could not be easily kept. We belong to families which have ever been true to their king, and we came north to take a share in the good work. That is the only way that we could manage it, and we do not fancy it overmuch, but we have taken our lives in our hands for the adventure.”
“You are men of spirit, I can see,” said Dundee ironically, “but ye are wise men also, and have reduced your risks. Would you do me the favor of showing the passes with which you provided yourselves before leaving England? Save yourselves the trouble of––argument. One of you has got his pass in his coat, and the other in his boot. I’m sure you would not wish to be stripped.”
The shorter man colored with vexation and281then paled, but the other only laughed like a boy caught in a trick, and said, “There are quick eyes, or, more likely, quick ears, in this army, my lord.” Then, without more ado, they handed Lord Dundee the passes. “As I expected,” said Dundee, “to the officers of King William’s army, and to allow the bearers to go where they please, and signed by his Majesty’s secretary of state.” And Dundee looked at them with a mocking smile.
“Damn those passes!” said the spokesman with much geniality. “I always thought we should have destroyed them once we were safely through the other lines, but my friend declared they might help us afterwards in time of need.”
“And now, gentlemen, they are going to hang you, for shooting is too honorable for spies and, worse than spies, assassins, for,” concluded Dundee softly, “it was to shoot me you two loyal Cavaliers have come.”
The shorter man was about to protest, in hope of saving his life, but his comrade waved him to be silent, and for the last time took up the talk.
“We are caught in a pretty coil, my lord. Circumstances are against us, and we have nothing to put on the other side, except our word of honor as gentlemen. Neither my comrade nor I are going to plead for our282lives, though we don’t fancy being hung. But perhaps of your courtesy, if we write our names, you will allow a letter to go to General MacKay, and that canting Puritan will be vastly amused when he learns that he had hired us to assassinate my Lord Dundee. He will be more apt to consider our execution an act of judgment for joining the Malignants. We got our passes by trickery from Lord Nottingham, and they have tricked us, and, by the gods! the whole affair is a fine jest, except the hanging. I would rather it had been shooting, but I grant that if MacKay had sent us on such an errand, both he and we deserve to be hung.” And the Englishman shrugged his shoulders as one who had said his last word and accepted his fate.
He carried himself so bravely, with such an ingenuous countenance and honest speech, that Claverhouse was interested in the man, and the reference to MacKay arrested him in his purpose. They were not likely to have come on such an errand from MacKay’s camp without the English general knowing what they were about. Was MacKay the man to sanction a proceeding so cowardly and so contrary to the rules of war? Of all things in the world, was not this action the one his principles would most strongly condemn? Certainly their conversation by the283riverside had been suspicious, but then Grimond had made one hideous mistake before. It was possible that he had made another. Graham had insulted his loyal wife through Grimond’s blundering; it would be almost as bad if he put to an ignominious death two adventurous, blundering English Cavaliers. He ordered that the Englishmen should be kept under close arrest till next morning, and he sent the following letter by a swift messenger and under flag of truce to the general of the English forces.
Blair Castle,July 26, 1689.To Major-General Hugh MacKay, Commanding the forces in the interests of the Prince of Orange.Sir:It is years since we have met and many things have happened since, but I freely acknowledge that you have ever been a good soldier and one who would not condescend to dishonor. And this being my mind I crave your assistance in the following matter.Two English officers have been arrested in disguise and carrying compromising passes; there is reason to believe that their errand was to assassinate me, and if this be the case they shall be hung early to-morrow morning.Albeit we were rivals in the Low Country and will soon fight our duel to the death, I am loath to believe that this thing is true of you, and I will ask of you this last courtesy, for your sake and mine and that of the two Englishmen, that ye tell me the truth.I salute you before we fight and I have the honor to be,Your most obedient servant,Dundee.
Blair Castle,July 26, 1689.
To Major-General Hugh MacKay, Commanding the forces in the interests of the Prince of Orange.
Sir:It is years since we have met and many things have happened since, but I freely acknowledge that you have ever been a good soldier and one who would not condescend to dishonor. And this being my mind I crave your assistance in the following matter.
Two English officers have been arrested in disguise and carrying compromising passes; there is reason to believe that their errand was to assassinate me, and if this be the case they shall be hung early to-morrow morning.
Albeit we were rivals in the Low Country and will soon fight our duel to the death, I am loath to believe that this thing is true of you, and I will ask of you this last courtesy, for your sake and mine and that of the two Englishmen, that ye tell me the truth.
I salute you before we fight and I have the honor to be,
Your most obedient servant,
Dundee.
284CHAPTER IIVISIONS OF THE NIGHT
Upon the highest floor of Blair Castle there was a long and spacious apartment, like unto the gallery in Paisley Castle, where John Graham had been married to Jean Cochrane, and which to-day is the drawing-room. To this high place Claverhouse climbed from the room where he had examined the two Englishmen, and here he passed the last hours of daylight on the day before the battle of Killiecrankie. Seating himself at one of the windows, he looked out towards the west, through whose golden gates the sun had begun to enter. Beneath lay a widespreading meadow which reached to the Garry; beyond the river the ground began to rise, and in the distance were the hills covered with heather, with lakes of emerald amid the purple. There are two hours of the day when the soul of man is powerfully affected by the physical world in which we live, and in which, indeed, the things we see become transparent, like a285thin veil, and through them the things which are not seen stream in upon the soul. One is sunrise, when there is first a grayness in the east, and then the clouds begin to redden, and afterwards a joyful brightness heralds the appearing of the sun as he drives in rout the reluctant rearguard of the night. The most impressive moment is when all the high lands are bathed in soft, fresh, hopeful sunshine, but the glens are still lying in the cold and dank shadow, so that one may suddenly descend from a place of brightness, where he has been in the eye of the sun, to a land of gloom, which the sun has not yet reached. Sunrise quickens the power that has been sleeping, and calls a man in high hope to the labor of the day, for if there be darkness lingering in the glen, there is light on the lofty table-lands, and soon it will be shining everywhere, when the sun has reached his meridian. And it puts heart into a man to come over the hill and down through the hollows when the sun is rising, for though the woods be dark and chill, the traveller is sure of the inevitable victory of the light.
Yet more imperious and irresistible is the impression of sunset as Dundee saw the closing pageant of the day on the last evening of his life. When first he looked the green plain286was flooded with gentle light which turned into gold the brown, shaggy Highland cattle scattered among the grass, and made the river as it flashed out and in among the trees a chain of silver, and took the hardness from the jagged rocks that emerged from the sides of the hills. As the sun entered in between high banks of cloud, the light began to fade from the plain, and it touched the river no more; but above the clouds were glowing and reddening like a celestial army clad in scarlet and escorting home to his palace a victorious general. In a few minutes the sun has disappeared, and the red changes into violet and delicate, indescribable shades of green and blue, like the color of Nile water. Then there is a faint flicker, sudden and transient, from the city into which the sun has gone, and the day is over. As the monarch of the day withdraws, the queen of the night takes possession, and Claverhouse, leaning his chin upon his hand and gazing from the sadness of his eyes across the valley, saw the silver light, clear, beautiful, awful, flood the mountains and the level ground below, till the outstanding hills above, and the cattle which had lain down to rest in the meadow, were thrown out as in an etching, with exact and distinct outlines.287The day, with its morning promise, with its noontide heat, with its evening glory, was closed, completed and irrevocable. The night, in which no man can work, had come, and in the cold and merciless light thereof every man’s work was revealed and judged. The weird influence of the hour was upon the imagination of an impressionable man, and before him he saw the history of his life. It seemed only a year or so since he was a gay-hearted lad upon the Sidlaw hills, and yesterday since he made his first adventure in arms, with the army of France. Again he is sitting by the camp-fire in the Low Country, and crossing swords for the first time with Hugh MacKay, with whom he is to settle his warfare to-morrow. He is again pledging his loyalty to King James at Whitehall, whom he has done his best to serve, and who has been but a sorry master to him. His thoughts turn once more to the pleasaunce of Paisley Castle, he hears again the jingling of the horses’ bits as he pledges his troth to his bride. Across the moss-hags, where the horses plunge in the ooze and the mist encircles the troopers, he is hunting his Covenanting prey, and catches the fearless face of some peasant zealot as he falls pierced with bullets. Jean weaves her arms round288his neck, for once in her life a tender and fearful woman, pleading that he should withdraw from the fight and live quietly with her at home, and then, more like herself, she rages in the moment of his mad jealousy and her unquenchable anger. To-morrow he would submit to the final arbitrament of arms the cause for which he had lived, and for which the presentiment was upon him that he would die, and the quarrel begun between him and MacKay fifteen years ago, between the sides they represent centuries ago, would be settled. If the years had been given back to him to live again, he would not have had them otherwise. Destiny had settled for him his politics and his principles, for he could not leave the way in which Montrose had gone before, or be the comrade of Covenanting Whigs. It would have been a thing unnatural and impossible. And yet he feared that the future was with them and not with the Jacobites. He only did his part in arresting fanatical hillmen and executing the punishment of the law upon them, but he would have been glad that night if he had not been obliged to shoot John Brown of Priest Hill before his wife’s eyes, and keep guard at the scaffold from which Pollock went home to God. He had never loved any289other woman than Jean Cochrane, and they were well mated in their high temper of nature, but their marriage had been tempestuous, and he was haunted with vague misgivings. What light was given him he had followed, but there was little to show for his life. His king had failed him, his comrades had distrusted him, his nation hated him. His wife––had she forgiven him, and was she true-hearted to him still? Behind high words of loyalty and hope his heart had been sinking, and now it seemed to him in the light of eternal judgment, wherein there is justice but no charity, that his forty years had failed and were leaving behind them no lasting good to his house or to his land. The moonlight shining full upon Claverhouse shows many a line now on the smoothness of his fair girl face, and declares his hidden, inextinguishable sorrow, who all his days had been an actor in a tragedy. He had written to the chiefs that all the world was with him, but in his heart he knew that it was against him, and perhaps also God.
Once and again Grimond had come into the gallery to summon his master to rest, but seeing him absorbed in one of his reveries had quietly withdrawn. Full of anxiety, for he knows what the morrow will mean, that faithful290servitor at last came near and rustled to catch his master’s ear.
“Jock,” said Claverhouse, startling and rising to his feet, “is that you, man, coming to coax me to my bed as ye did lang syne, when ye received me first from my nurse’s hands? It’s getting late, and I am needing rest for to-morrow’s work, if I can get it. We have come to Armageddon, as the preachers would say, and mony things for mony days hang on the issue. All a man can do, Jock, is to walk in the road that was set before him from a laddie, and to complete the task laid to his hand. What will happen afterwards doesna concern him, so be it he is faithful. Where is my room? And, hark ye, Jock, waken me early, and be not far from me through the night, for I can trust you altogether. And there be not mony true.”
Worn out with a long day in the saddle, and the planning of the evening together with many anxieties, and the inward tumult of his mind, Claverhouse fell asleep. He was resting so quietly that Grimond, who had gone to the door to listen, was satisfied and lay down to catch an hour or two of sleep for himself, for he could waken at any hour he pleased, and knew that soon after daybreak he must be stirring. While he was nearby291heavy with sleep, his master, conscious or unconscious, according as one judges, was in the awful presence of the unseen. He woke suddenly, as if he had been called, and knew that someone was in the room, but also in the same instant that it was not Grimond or any visitor of flesh and blood. Twice had the wraith of the Grahams appeared to him, and always before a day of danger, but this time it was no sad, beautiful woman’s face, carrying upon its weird grace the sorrows of his line, but the figure of a man that loomed from the shadow. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and the room was so dark that he could only see that someone was there, but could not tell who it was or by what name he would be called. Then the moon struggled out from behind her covering, and sent a shaft of light into the gloomy chamber, with its dark draping and heavy carved furniture. With the coming of the light Claverhouse, who was not unaccustomed to ghostly sights, for they were his heritage, raised himself in bed, and knowing no fear looked steadily. What he saw thrown into relief against the shadows was the figure of a hillman of the west, and one that in an instant he knew. The Covenanter was dressed in rough homespun hodden gray, stained heavily with the292black of the peat holes in which he had been hiding, and torn here and there where the rocks had caught him as he was crawling for shelter. Of middle age, with hair hanging over his ears and beard uncared for, his face bore all the signs of hunger and suffering, as of one who had wanted right food and warmth and every comfort of life for months on end. In his eyes glowed the fire of an intense and honest, but fierce and narrow piety, and with that expression was mingled another, not of anger nor of sorrow, but of reproach, of judgment and of sombre triumph. His hands were strapped in front of him with a stirrup leather, and his head was bare. As the moon shone more clearly, Claverhouse saw other stains than those of peat upon his chest, and while he looked the red blood seemed to rise from wounds that pierced his heart and lungs, it flowed out again in a trickling stream, and dripped upon the whiteness of his hands. More awful still, there was a wound in his forehead, and part of his head was shattered. The scene had never been absent long from Claverhouse’s memory, and now he reacted it again. How this man had been caught after a long pursuit, upon the moor, how he had stood bold and unrepentant before the man293that had power of life and death over him, how he refused to take the oath of loyalty to the king, how he had been shot dead before his cottage, and how his wife had been spectator of her husband’s death.
“Ye have not forgot me, John Graham of Claverhouse, nor the deed which ye did at Priest Hill in the West Country. I am John Brown, whom ye caused to be slain for the faith of the saints and their testimony, and whom ye set free from the bondage of man forever. Behold, I have washed my robes and made them white in better blood than this, but I am sent in the garment o’ earth, sair stained wi’ its defilement, and in my ain unworthy blude, that ye may ken me and believe that I am sent.”
“What I did was according to law,” answered Claverhouse, unshaken by the sight, “and in the fulfilling of my commission, though God knows I loved not the work, and have oftentimes regretted thy killing. For that and all the deeds of this life I shall answer to my judge and not to man. What wilt thou have with me, what hast thou to do with me? Had it been the other way and I had fallen at Drumclog, I had not troubled thee or any of thy kind.”
“Nor had I been minded or allowed to294visit thee, John Graham, if I had fallen in fair fight, contending for Christ’s crown and the liberty of the Scots Kirk, but these wounds upon my head and breast speak not of war, but of murder. Because thou didst murder Christ’s confessors, and the souls of the martyrs cry from beneath the altar, I am come to show thee things which are to be and the doing of Him who saith, ‘I will avenge.’ Ye have often said go, and he goeth, and come and he cometh, but this nicht ye will come with me, and see things that will shake even thy bold heart.” And so in vision they went.
Claverhouse was standing in a country kirkyard, and at the hour of sunset. Round him were ancient graves with stones whose inscriptions had been worn away by rough weather, and upon which the grass was growing rank. They were the resting-places of past generations whose descendants had died out, and whose names were forgotten in the land where once they may have been mighty people. Before him was a burying-place he knew, for it belonged to his house. There lay his father, and there he had laid his mother, the Lady Magdalene Graham, to rest, taken as he often thought from the evil to come. The ground had been stirred again, and there295was another grave. It was of tiny size, not that of a man or woman, but of a child, and one that had died in its infancy. It was carefully tended, as if the mother still lived and had not yet forgotten her child. At the sight of it Claverhouse turned to the figure by his side.
“Ye mean not–––”
“Read,” said the Covenanter, “for the writing surely is plain.” And this is what Claverhouse saw:
“JAMES GRAHAME,Only son and child of my Lord Dundie.Aged eight months.”
“Ye longed for him and ye were proud of him, and if the sword of the righteous should slay thee, ye boasted in your heart that there was a man-child to continue your line. But there shall be none, and thine evil house shall die from out the land, like the house of Ahab, the son of Omri, who persecuted the saints. Fathers have seen their sons’ heads hung above the West Port to bleach in the sun for the sake of the Covenant, and mothers have wept for them who languished in the dungeon of the Bass and wearied for death. This is the cup ye are drinking this night before the time, for, behold,296thou hast harried many homes, but thy house shall be left unto thee desolate.”
For a brief space Claverhouse bent his head, for he seemed to feel the child in his arms, as he had held him before leaving Glenogilvie. Then he rallied his manhood, who had never been given to quail before the hardest strokes of fortune.
“God rest his innocent soul, if this be his lot; but I live and with me my house.”
“Yea, thou livest,” said the shade, “and it has been a stumbling-block to many that thou wert spared so long, but the day of vengeance is at hand. Come again with me.”
Claverhouse finds himself now on a plain with the hills above and a river beneath and an ancient house close at hand, and he knows that this is the battle-field of to-morrow. They are standing together on a mound which rises out of a garden, and on the grass the body of a man is lying. A cloth covers his face, but by the uniform and arms Claverhouse knows that it is that of an officer of rank, and one that has belonged to his own regiment of horse. A dint upon the cuirass and the sight of the sword by his side catch his eye and he shudders.
“This––do I see myself?”
“Yes, thou seest thyself lying low as the297humblest man and weaker now than the poorest of God’s people thou didst mock.”
“It is not other than I expected, nor does this make me afraid, and I judge thou art a lying spirit, for I see no wound. Lift up the cloth. Nor any mark upon my face. I had not died for nothing.”
“Nay, thou hadst been ready to die in the heat of battle facing thy foe, for there has ever been in thee a bold heart, but thy wound is not in front as mine is. See ye, Claverhouse, thou hast been killed from behind.” And Claverhouse saw where the blood, escaping from a wound near the armpit, had stained the grass. “Aye, some one of thine own and riding near beside thee found that place, and as thou didst raise thine arm to call thy soldiers to the slaughter of them who are contending for the right, thou wast cunningly stricken unto death. By a coward’s blow thou hast fallen, O valiant man, and there will be none to mourn thy doom, for thou hast been a man of blood from thy youth up, even unto this day.”
“Thou liest there, and art a false spirit. It may be that your assassins are in my army, and that I may have the fate of the good archbishop whom the saints slew in cold blood and before his daughter’s eyes. But if I fall298I shall be mourned deep and long by one who was of your faith, and had her name in your Covenant, but whose heart I won like goodly spoil taken from the mighty. If I die by the sword of my Lady Cochrane’s men, her daughter will keep my grave green with her tears. If, living, I have been loved by one strong woman, and after I am dead am mourned by her, I have not lived in vain.”
“Sayest thou,” replied the shadowy figure, with triumphant scorn. “That was a pretty catch-word to be repeated over the wine cup at the drinking of my lady’s health. Verily thou didst deceive a daughter of the godly, and she was willing to be caught in the snare of thy fair face and soft words. Judge ye whether the child who breaks the bond of the Covenant and turns against the mother who bore her, is likely to be a true wife or a faithful widow. Again will I lift the veil, and thou wilt see with thine own eyes the things which are going to be, for as thou hast shown no mercy, mercy will not be shown to thee. Dost thou remember this place?”
Claverhouse is again within the gallery of Paisley Castle, and he is looking upon a marriage service. Before him are the people of five years ago, except that now young Lord Cochrane is Earl of Dundonald, and is giving299away the bride, and my Lady Cochrane is not there either to bless or to ban. For a while he cannot see the faces of the bride or bridegroom, nor tell what they are, save that he is a soldier, and she is tall and proud of carriage.
“My marriage day!” exclaimed Claverhouse, his defiant note softening into tenderness, and the underlying sorrow rising into joy. “For this vision at least I bless thee, spirit, whoever thou mayest be,Brownor any other. That was the day of all my life, and I am ready now or any time in this world or the other to have it over again and pledge my troth to my one and only love, to my gallant lady and sweetheart, Jean.”
“Thou wilt not be asked to take thy marriage vow again, Claverhouse, nor would thy presence be acceptable on this day. It is the wedding of my Lady Viscountess Dundee, but be not too sure that thou art the bridegroom. She that broke lightly the Covenant with her living heavenly bridegroom, will have little scruple in breaking the bond to a dead earthly bridegroom. Thy Jean hath found another husband.”
From the faces of the bride and bridegroom the mysterious shadow, which hides the future from the present in mercy to us300all, lifted. It was Jean as majestic and as youthful as in the days when he wooed her in the pleasaunce, with her golden hair glittering as before in the sunshine, and the love-light again in her eye. And beside her, oh! fickleness of a woman’s heart, oh! irony of life, oh! cruelty to the most faithful passion, Colonel Livingstone, now my Lord Kilsyth. And an expression of fierce satisfaction lit up the Covenanter’s ghastly face.
“This then was thy revenge, Jean, for the insult I offered at Glenogilvie, and I was right in my fear that thy love was shattered. Be it so,” said Claverhouse, “I believe that thou wast loyal while I lived, and now, while I may have hoped other things of thee, I will not grudge thee in thy loneliness peace and protection. When this heart of mine, which ever beat for thee, lies cold in the grave, and my hair, that thou didst caress, has mingled with the dust, may joy be with thee, Jean, and God’s sunshine ever rest upon thy golden crown. Thou didst think, servant of the devil, to damn my soul in the black depths of jealousy and hatred, as once I damned myself, but I have escaped, and I defy thee. Do as thou pleasest, thou canst not break my spirit or make me bend. Hast thou other visions?”