Ibegan these chronicles with a homily upon the pregnancy of chance that gives the simplest of our acts ofttimes far-reaching and appalling consequences. It is clear that I had never become the Spoiled Horn and vexed my parents' lives had not a widow woman burned her batch of scones, and though perhaps the pair of shoes in the chest bequeathed to me by my Uncle Andrew were without the magic influence he and I gave credit for, it is probable that I had made a different flight from Scotland had they not led me in the way of Daniel Risk.
And even now their influence was not ended. During the months I had spent at soldiering the red shoes reposed among my baggage; even when I had changed from the uniform of the Regiment d'Auvergne upon the frontier of Holland, and made myself again a common citizen of Europe, I had some freit (as we say of a superstition) against resuming the shoes that had led me previously into divers perils. But the day we left Helvoet in the Hollands Deep hoy, I was so hurried in my departure that the red shoes were the only ones I could lay hands on. As luck would have it, when I entered Dunkerque for the last time in my history some days after, I was wearing the same leather as on the first day of my arrival there, and the fact led, by a singularity of circumstances, to my final severance from many of those: companions—some of them pleasant and unforgetable—I had made acquaintance with in France.
It was thus that the thing happened.
When we entered Dunkerque, the priest, Kilbride, and I went to an inn upon the sea front. Having breakfasted I was deputed to go forth and call upon Thurot, explain our circumstances, take his counsel, and return to the hoy where my two friends would return to wait for me. He was out when I reached his lodging, but his Swiss—a different one from what he had before when I was there—informed me that his master was expected back at any moment, and invited me to step in and wait for him. I availed myself of the opportunity.
Our voyage along the coast had been delayed by contrary winds, so that now it was the Sabbath; the town was by-ordinary still (though indeed Sabbath nor Saturday made much difference, as a rule, on the gaiety of Dunkerque), and wearied by the sea travel that had just concluded I fell fast asleep in Captain Thurot's chair.
I was wakened by a loud knocking at the outer door, not the first, as it may be remembered, that called me forth from dreams to new twists of fortune, and I started to my feet to meet my host.
What was my chagrin to hear the Prince's voice in converse with him on the stair!
“Here is a pretty pickle!” I told myself. “M. Albany is the last man on earth I would choose to meet at this moment,” and without another reflection I darted into the adjoining room and shut the door. It was Thurot's bed-chamber, with a window that looked out upon the court where fowls were cackling. I was no sooner in than I somewhat rued my precipitation, for the manlier course indubitably had been to bide where I was. But now there was no retreating, so I sat with what patience I could command to wait my discovery by the tenant of the place after his royal visitor was gone.
It was the Sabbath day as I have said, and the chimes of St. Eloi were going briskly upon some papist canticle, but not so loud that I could not hear, in spite of myself, all that went on in the next room.
At first I paid no heed, for the situation was unworthy enough of itself without any attempt on my part to be an eavesdropper. But by-and-bye, through the banging of the bells of St. Eloi, I heard M. Albany (still to give the man his by-name) mention the name Ecosse.
Scotland! The name of her went through me like a pang!
They spoke in French of course; I think I could have understood them had it been Chinese. For they discussed some details of the intended invasion that still hung fire, and from the first of M. Albany's sentences I learned that the descent was determined upon Scotland. 'Twas that which angered me and made me listen for the rest with every sense of the spy and deterred by never a scruple. At first I had fancied Thurot would learn from his servant I was in the house, and leave me alone till his royal guest's departure from an intuition that I desired no meeting, but it was obvious now that no such consideration would have induced him to let me hear the vast secret they discussed.
“Twenty thousand men are between Brest and Vannes,” said M. Albany. “We shall have them in frigates in a fortnight from to-day, and then,mon Capitaine, affairs shall move briskly.”
“And still,” said Thurot, who had some odd tone of dissatisfaction in his voice, “I had preferred it had been the South of England. Dumont has given us every anchorage and sounding on the coast between Beachy Head and Arundel, and from there we could all the sooner have thrust at the heart of England. This Scotland—”
“Bah! Captain Thurot,” cried his Royal Highness impatiently, “you talk like a fool. At the heart, indeed! With all habitable England like a fat about it, rich with forts and troops and no more friendship for us than for the Mameluke! No, no, Thurot, I cry Scotland; all the chances are among the rocks, and I am glad it has been so decided on.”
“And still, with infinite deference, your Royal Highness, this same West of Scotland never brought but the most abominable luck to you and yours,” continued Thurot. “Now, Arundel Bay——”
“Oh! to the devil with Arundel Bay!” cried M. Albany; “'tis settled otherwise, and you must take it as you find it. Conflans and his men shall land upon the West—mon Dieu!I trust they may escape its fangs; and measures will be there taken with more precaution and I hope with more success than in Seventeen Forty-five. Thence they will march to England, sweeping the whole country before them, and not leaving behind them a man or boy who can carry a musket. Thus they must raise the army to fifty or sixty thousand men, strike a terror into England, and carry all with a high hand. I swear 'tis a fatted hog this England: with fewer than ten thousand Highlanders I have made her thrill at the very vitals.”
Thurot hummed. Plainly there was much in the project that failed to meet his favour.
“And Conflans?” said he.
His Royal Highness laughed.
“Ha! Captain,” said he, “I know, I know. 'Twould suit you better if a certain Tony Thurot had command.”
“At least,” said Thurot, “I am in my prime, while the Marshal is beyond his grand climacteric.”
“And still, by your leave, with the reputation of being yet the best— well, let us say among the best—of the sea officers of France. Come, come, Captain, there must be no half-hearts in this venture; would to Heaven I were permitted to enjoy a share in it! And on you, my friend, depends a good half of the emprise and thegloire.”
“Gloire!” cried Thurot. “With every deference to your Royal Highness I must consider myself abominably ill-used in this matter. That I should be sent off to Norway and hound-in wretched Swedes with a personage like Flaubert! Oh, I protest, 'tis beyond all reason! Is it for that I have been superseded by a man like Conflans that totters on the edge of the grave?”
“I hope 'tis England's grave,” retorted M. Albany with unfailing good humour, and I heard the gluck of wine as he helped himself to another glass. “I repeatgloire, with every apology to the experience of M. le Corsair. 'Tis your duty to advance with your French and your Swedes upon the North of England, and make the diversion in these parts that shall inconvenience the English army front or rear.”
“Oh, curse your diversions!” cried Thurot. “If I have a talent at all 'tis for the main attack. And this Conflans——”
The remainder of the discussion, so far as I remained to hear it, gave no enlargement upon the plan thus laid bare. But in any case my whole desire now was to escape from the house without discovery, for I had news that made my return to Britain imperative.
I opened the window quietly and slipped out. The drop to the court was less than my own height. Into the street I turned with the sober step of leisure, yet my feet tingled to run hard and my heart was stormy. The bells of St. Eloi went on ringing; the streets were growing busy with holiday-makers and the soldiers who were destined to over-run my country. I took there and then the most dreadful hatred of them, and scowled so black that some of the soldiers cried after me with a jeer.
The priest and Kilbride I found were not at the inn where I had left them, having gone back to the vessel, so I hurried down to the quay after them. The hoy had been moved since morning, and in the throng of other vessels that were in the harbour at the time I lost well-nigh an hour in seeking her. Whether that was well for me or ill would be folly now to guess, but when I had no more than set a foot upon the gunwale of a small boat that was to take me out to her I was clapped upon the shoulder.
I turned, to see Thurot and two officers of marine!
“Pardon, M. Greig, a moment,” said Thurot, with not the kindest of tones. “Surely you would not hurry out of Dunkerque without acongéfor old friends?”
I stammered some sentences that were meant to reassure him. He interrupted me, and—not with any roughness, but with a pressure there was no mistaking and I was not fool enough to resist—led me from the side of the quay.
“Ma foi!” said he, “'Tis the most ridiculous thing! I had nearly missed you and could never have forgiven myself. My Swiss has just informed me that you were in the house an hour ago while I was there myself. I fear we must have bored you, M. Albany and I, with our dull affairs. At least there was no other excuse for your unceremonious departure through my back window.”
I was never well-equipped to conceal my feelings, and it was plain in my face that I knew all.
He sighed.
“Well, lad,” said he, rather sorrowfully, “I'd give a good manylouis d'orthat you had come visiting at another hour of the day, and now there's but one thing left me. My Swiss did not know you, but he has—praisele bon Dieu!—a pair of eyes in his head, and he remembered that my visitor wore red shoes. Red shoes and a Scotsman!—the conjunction was unmistakable, and here we are, M. Greig. There are a score of men looking all over Dunkerque at this moment for these same shoes.”
“Confound the red shoes!” I cried, unable to conceal my vexation that they should once more have brought me into trouble.
“By no means, M. Greig,” said Thurot. “But for them we should never have identified our visitor, and a somewhat startling tale was over the Channel a little earlier than we intended. And now all that I may do for old friendship to yourself and the original wearer of the shoes is to give you a free trip to England in my own vessel. 'Tis not theRoi Rougethis time—worse luck!—but a frigate, and we can be happy enough if you are not a fool.”
It was plain from the first that my overhearing of the plot must compel Thurot to the step he took. He was not unkind, but so much depended on the absolute secrecy of the things he had talked to the Prince, that, even at the unpleasant cost of trepanning me, he must keep me from carrying my new-got information elsewhere. For that reason he refused to accede to my request for a few minutes' conversation with the priest or my fellow-countrymen. The most ordinary prudence, he insisted, demanded that he should keep me in a sort of isolation until it was too late to convey a warning across the Channel.
It was for these reasons I was taken that Sabbath afternoon to the frigate that was destined to be in a humble sense his flagship, and was lying in the harbour with none of her crew as yet on board. I was given a cabin; books were furnished to cheer my incarceration, for it was no less. I was to all intents and purposes a prisoner, though enjoying again some of the privileges of thesalle d'épreuvesfor the sake of old acquaintance.
All that day I planned escape. Thurot came to the cabin and smoked and conversed pleasantly, but found me so abstracted that he could scarcely fail to think I meant a counter-sap.
“Be tranquil, my Paul,” he advised; “Clancarty and I will make your life on ship-board as little irksome as possible, but it is your own cursed luck that you must make up your mind to a fortnight of it.”
But that was considerably longer than I was ready to think of with equanimity. What I wished for was an immediate freedom and a ship to England, and while he talked I reviewed a dozen methods of escape. Here was I with a secret worth a vast deal to the British Government; if I could do my country that service of putting her into possession of it in time to prevent catastrophe, might I not, without presumption, expect some clemency from her laws for the crime I had committed in the hot blood of ignorant and untutored youth? I saw the most cheerful possibilities rise out of that accident that had made me an eavesdropper in Thurot's lodging—freedom, my family perhaps restored to me, my name partly re-established; but the red shoes that set me on wrong roads to start with still kept me on them. Thurot was an amiable enough gaoler, but not his best wine nor his wittiest stories might make me forget by how trivial a chance I had lost my opportunity.
We were joined in the afternoon by Lord Clancarty.
“What, lad!” cried his lordship, pomaded and scented beyond words; fresh, as he told us, from the pursuit of a lady whose wealth was shortly to patch up his broken fortunes. “What, lad! Here's a pretty matter! Pressed, egad! A renegade against his will! 'Tis the most cursed luck, Captain Thurot, and wilt compel the poor young gentleman to cut the throats of his own countrymen?”
“I? Faith, not I!” said Thurot. “I press none but filthy Swedes. M. Greig has my word for it that twelve hours before we weigh anchor he may take his leave of us.Je le veux bien.”
“Bah! 'Tis an impolite corsair this. As for me I should be inconsolable to lose M. Greig to such a dull country as this England. Here's an Occasion, M. le Capitaine, for pledging his health in a bottle, and wishing him well out of his troubles.”
“You do not stand sufficiently on your dignity, Clancarty,” laughed Thurot. “Here's the enemy—”
“Dignity! pooh!” said his lordship. “To stand on that I should need a year's practice first on the tight-rope. There's that about an Irish gentleman that makes the posturings and proprieties and pretences of the fashionable world unnecessary. Sure, race will show in his face and action if he stood alone in his shirt-sleeves on a village common juggling balls. I am of the oldest blood that springs in Irish kings. 'Tis that knowledge keeps my heart up when circumstances make the world look rotten like a cheese. But the curst thing is one cannot for ever be drinking and dining off a pedigree, and here I am deserted by M. Tête-de-mouche——”
Thurot put up his hand to check one of these disloyalties to the Pretender that I had long since learned were common with Lord Clancarty.
“Bah!” cried his lordship. “I love you, Tony, and all the other boys, but your Prince is a madman—a sotted madman tied to the petticoat tails of a trollope. This Walkinshaw—saving your presence, Paul Greig, for she's your countrywoman and by way of being your friend, I hear—has ruined Charles and the Cause. We have done what we could to make him send madame back to the place she came from, but he'll do nothing of the kind. 'She has stuck by me through thick and thin, and lost all for me, and now I shall stick by her,' says foolish Master Sentiment.”
“Bravo!” cried Thurot. “'Tis these things make us love the Prince and have faith in his ultimate success.”
“You were ever the hopeful ass, Tony,” said his lordship coolly. “Il riest pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre, and you must shut your ears against a tale that all the world is shouting at the pitch of its voice. Who knows better than Tony Thurot how his Royal Highness has declined? Why! 'tis manifest in the fellow's nose; I declare he drinks like a fish—another vice he brought back from your mountain land, M. Greig, along with Miss Walkinshaw——”
“There is far too much of Miss Walkinshaw about your lordship's remarks,” I cried in an uncontrollable heat that the lady should be the subject of implications so unkind.
He stared, and then kissed his hand to me with laughter and a bow, “Ha!” he cried, “here's another young gentleman of sentiment. Stap me if I say a word against the lady for your sake, Andy Greig's nephew.” And back he went to his bottle.
In this light fashion we spent a day that by rights should have been more profitably and soberly occupied. The frigate lay well out from the quays from which Thurot had conveyed me with none of the indignities that might be expected by a prisoner. There was, as I have said, none of her crew on board save a watch of two men. Beside her quarter there hung a small smuggling cutter that had been captured some days previously. As I sat in the cabin, yawning at the hinder-end over Clancarty's sallies, I could hear now and then the soft thudding of the smuggler's craft against the fenders as the sea rocked us lightly, and it put a mad fancy into my head.
How good it would be, I thought, to be free on board such a vessel and speeding before a light wind to Britain! Was it wholly impossible? The notion so possessed me that I took an occasion to go on deck and see how things lay.
The smuggler's boat had her mast stepped, but no sails in her. Over the bulwark of the frigate leaned one of the watch idly looking at sea-gulls that cried like bairns upon the smuggler's thwarts and gunnels. He was a tarry Dutchman (by his build and colour); I fancy that at the time he never suspected I was a prisoner, for he saluted me with deference.
The harbour was emptier than usual of shipping. Dusk was falling on the town; some lights were twinkling wanly and bells rang in the cordage of the quays. I asked the seaman if he knew where the hoyVrijsterof Helvoetsluys lay.
At that his face brightened and he promptly pointed to her yellow hull on the opposite side of the harbour.
“Did my honour know Captain Breuer?” he asked, in crabbed French.
My honour was very pleased to confess that he did, though in truth my acquaintance with the skipper who had taken us round from Helvoetsluys went scarcely further than sufficed me to recall his name.
The best sailor ever canted ship! my Dutchman assured me with enthusiasm. How often have I heard the self-same sentiment from mariners? for there is something jovial and kind in the seaman's manner that makes him ever fond of the free, the brave and competent of his own calling, and ready to cry their merits round the rolling world.
A good seaman certainly!—I agreed heartily, though the man might have been merely middling for all I knew of him.
He would like nothing better than to have an hour with Captain Breuer, said Mynheer.
“And I, too,” said I quickly. “But for Captain Thurot's pressing desire that I should spend the evening here I should be in Breuer's cabin now. Next to being with him there I would reckon the privilege of having him here.”
There might be very little difficulty about that if my honour was willing, said Mynheer. They were old shipmates; had sailed the Zuyder Sea together, and drunken in a score of ports. Dearly indeed would he love to have some discourse with Breuer. But to take leave from the frigate and cross to the hoy—no! Captain Thurot would not care for him to do that.
“Why not have Breuer come to the frigate?” I asked, with my heart beating fast.
“Why, indeed?” repeated Mynheer with a laugh. “A hail across the harbour would not fetch him.”
“Then go for him,” said I, my heart beating faster than ever lest he should have some suspicion of my condition and desires.
He reminded me that he had no excuse to leave the frigate, though to take the small boat at the stern and row over to the hoy would mean but a minute or two.
“Well, as for excuses,” said I, “that's easily arranged, for I can give you one to carry a note to the care of the captain, and you may take it at your leisure.”
At his leisure! He would take it at once and thankfully while we gentlemen were drinking below, for there was no pleasure under heaven he could compare with half an hour of good Jan Breuer's company.
Without betraying my eagerness to avail myself of such an unlooked-for opportunity, I deliberately wrote a note in English intimating that I was a prisoner on the frigate and in pressing humour to get out of her at the earliest moment. I addressed it to Kilbride, judging the Highlander more likely than Father Hamilton to take rational steps for my release if that were within the bounds of possibility.
I assured the seaman that if he lost no time in taking it over I would engage his absence would never be noticed, and he agreed to indicate to me by a whistle when he returned.
With a cheerful assurance that he would have Jan Breuer on this deck in less than twenty minutes the seaman loosed the painter of the small boat and set forth upon his errand, while I returned to the cabin where Thurot and Clancarty still talked the most contrary and absurd politics over their wine. The vast and tangled scheme of French intrigue was set before me; at another time it might have been of the most fascinating interest, but on this particular occasion I could not subdue my mind to matters so comparatively trivial, while I kept my hearing strained for the evidence that the Dutchman had accomplished his mission and got back.
The moments passed; the interest flagged; Clancarty began to yawn and Thurot grew silent. It was manifest that the sooner my Dutchman was back to his ship the better for my plan. Then it was I showed the brightest interest in affairs that an hour earlier failed to engage a second of my attention, and I discovered for the entertainment of my gaoler and his friend a hitherto unsuspected store of reminiscence about my Uncle Andrew and a fund of joke and anecdote whereof neither of them probably had thought me capable.
But all was useless. The signal that the Dutchman had returned was not made when Lord Clancarty rose to his feet and intimated his intention there and then of going ashore, though his manner suggested that it would have been easy to induce him to wait longer. We went on deck with him. The night was banked with clouds though a full moon was due; only a few stars shone in the spaces of the zenith; our vessel was in darkness except where a lamp swung at the bow.
“Mon Dieu!Tony, what a pitchy night! I'd liefer be safe ashore than risking my life getting there in your cockle-shell,” said Clancarty.
“'Art all right, Lord Clancarty,” said Thurot. “Here's a man will row you to the quay in two breaths, and you'll be snug in bed before M. Greig and I have finished our prayers.” Then he cried along the deck for the seaman.
I felt that all was lost now the fellow's absence was to be discovered.
What was my astonishment to hear an answering call, and see the Dutchman's figure a blotch upon the blackness of the after-deck.
“Bring round the small boat and take Lord Clancarty ashore,” said the captain, and the seaman hastened to do so. He sprang into the small boat, released her rope, and brought her round.
“A demain, dear Paul,” cried his lordship with a hiccough. “It's curst unkind of Tony Thurot not to let you ashore on parole or permit me to wait with you.”
The boat dropped off into the darkness of the harbour, her oars thudding on the thole-pins.
“There goes a decent fellow though something of a fool,” said Thurot. “'Tis his kind have made so many enterprises like our own have an ineffectual end. And now you must excuse me, M. Greig, if I lock you into your cabin. There are too few of us on board to let you have the run of the vessel.”
He put a friendly hand upon the shoulder I shrugged with chagrin at this conclusion to an unfortunate day.
“Sorry, M. Greig, sorry,” he said humorously. “Qui commence mal finit mal, and I wish to heaven you had begun the day by finding Antoine Thurot at home, in which case we had been in a happier relationship to-night.”
Thurot turned the key on me with a pleasantry that was in no accordance with my mood, and himself retired to the round house on deck where his berth was situated. I sat on a form for a little, surrendered all to melancholy, then sought to remove it by reading, as sleep in my present humour was out of the question. My reading, though it lasted for an hour or two, was scarcely worth the name, for my mind continually wandered from the page. I wondered if my note to Kilbride had been delivered, and if any step on his part was to be expected therefrom; the hope that rose with that reflection died at once upon the certainty that as the Dutch seaman had not signalled as he had promised he had somehow learned the true nature of my condition in the frigate. Had he told Thurot? If he had told Thurot—which was like enough—that I had communicated with any one outside the vessel there was little doubt that the latter would take adequate steps to prevent interference by Kilbride or any one else.
We are compact of memories, a mere bundle of bygone days, childish recollections, ancient impressions, and so an older experience came to me, too, of the night I sat in the filthy cabin of Dan Risk's doomed vessel hearing the splash of illegitimate oars, anticipating with a mind scarcely more disturbed than I had just now the step of the officer from the prison at Blackness and the clutch of the chilly fetters.
There was a faint but rising nor'-east wind. It sighed among the shrouds of the frigate. I could hear it even in the cabin, pensive like the call of the curfew at a great distance. The waves washed against the timbers in curious short gluckings and hissings. On the vessel herself not a sound was to be heard, until of a sudden there came a scratching at my cabin door!
It was incredible! I had heard no footstep on the companion, and I had ceased to hope for anything from the Dutchman!
“Who's there?” I asked softly, and at that the key outside was turned and I was fronted by Kilbride!
He wore the most ridiculous travesty of the Dutchman's tarry breeks and tarpaulin hat and coarse wide jumper, and in the light of my candle there was a humorous twinkle on his face as he entered, closed the door softly after him, and sat down beside me.
“My goodness!” he whispered, “you have a face on you as if you were in a graveyard watching ghosts. It's time you were steeping the withies to go away as we say in the Language, and you may be telling me all the story of it elsewhere.”
“Where's the Dutchman that took my letter?” I asked.
“Where,” said Kilbride, “but in the place that well befits him—at the lug of an anker of Rotterdam gin taking his honest night's rest. I'm here guizing in his tarry clothes, and if I were Paul Greig of the Hazel Den I would be clapping on my hat gey quick and getting out of here without any more parley.”
“You left him in the hoy!” said I astonished.
“Faith, there was nothing better for it!” said he coolly. “Breuer gave him so much of the juniper for old acquaintance that when I left he was so full of it that he had lost the power of his legs and you might as well try to keep a string of fish standing.”
“And it was you took Clancarty ashore?”
“Who else? And I don't think it's a great conceit of myself to believe I play-acted the Dutch tarry-breeks so very well, though I was in something of a tremble in case the skipper here would make me out below my guizard's clothes. You may thank your stars the moon was as late of rising this night as a man would be that was at a funeral yesterday.” “And where's the other man who was on this vessel?” I asked, preparing to go.
“Come on deck and I'll show you,” said Kilbride, checking a chuckle of amusement at something.
We crept softly on deck into the night now slightly lit by a moon veiled by watery clouds. The ship seemed all our own and we were free to leave her when we chose for the small boat hung at her stern.
“You were asking for the other one,” said Kilbride. “There he is,” and he pointed to a huddled figure bound upon the waist. “When I came on board after landing Clancarty this stupid fellow discovered I was a stranger and nearly made an outcry; but I hit him on the lug with the loom of an oar. He'll not be observing very much for a while yet, but I was bound all the same to put a rope on him to prevent him disturbing Captain Thurot's sleep too soon.”
We spoke in whispers for the night seemed all ear and I was for ever haunted by the reflection that Thurot was divided from us by little more than an inch or two of teak-wood. Now and then the moon peeped through a rift of cloud and lit a golden roadway over the sea, enticing me irresistibly home.
“O God, I wish I was in Scotland!” I said passionately.
“Less luck than that will have to be doing us,” said Kilbride, fumbling at the painter of the boat. “The hoy sets sail for Calais in an hour or two, and it's plain from your letter we'll be best to be taking her round that length.”
“No, not Calais,” said I. “It's too serious a business with me for that. I'm wanting England, and wanting it unco fast.”
“Oh, Dhe!” said my countryman, “here's a fellow with the appetite of Prince Charlie and as likely to gratify it. What for must it be England,loachain?”
“I can only hint at that,” I answered hastily, “and that in a minute. Are ye loyal?”
“To a fine fellow called MacKellar first and to my king and country after?”
“The Stuarts?” said I.
He cracked his thumb. “It's all by with that,” said he quickly and not without a tone of bitterness.
“The breed of them has never been loyal to me, and if I could wipe out of my life six months of the cursedest folly in Forty-five I would go back to Scotland with the first chance and throw my bonnet for Geordie ever after like the greasiest burgess ever sold a wab of cloth or a cargo of Virginia in Glasgow.”
“Then,” I said, “you and me's bound for England this night, for I have that in my knowledge should buy the safety of the pair of us,” and I briefly conveyed my secret.
He softly whistled with astonishment.
“Man! it's a gey taking idea,” he confessed. “But the bit is to get over the Channel.”
“I have thought of that,” said I. “Here's a smuggler wanting no more than a rag of sail in this wind to make the passage in a couple of days.”
“By the Holy Iron it's the very thing!” he interrupted, slapping his leg.
It takes a time to tell all this in writing, but in actual fact our whole conversation together in the cabin and on the deck occupied less than five minutes. We were both of us too well aware of the value of time to have had it otherwise and waste moments in useless conversation.
“What is to be done is this,” I suggested, casting a rapid glance along the decks and upwards to the spars. “I will rig up a sail of some sort here and you will hasten over again in the small-boat to the hoy and give Father Hamilton the option of coming with us. He may or he may not care to run the risks involved in the exploit, but at least we owe him the offer.”
“But when I'm across at the hoy there, here's you with this dovering body and Captain Thurot. Another knock might settle the one, but you would scarcely care to have knocks going in the case of an old friend like Tony Thurot, who's only doing his duty in keeping you here with such a secret in your charge.”
“I have thought of that, too,” I replied quickly, “and I will hazard Thurot.”
Kilbride lowered himself into the small-boat, pushed off from the side of the frigate, and in silence half-drifted in the direction of the Dutch vessel. My plans were as clear in my head as if they had been printed on paper. First of all I took such provender as I could get from my cabin and placed it along with a breaker of water and a lamp in the cutter. Then I climbed the shrouds of the frigate, and cut away a small sail that I guessed would serve my purpose, letting it fall into the cutter. I made a shift at sheets and halyards and found that with a little contrivance I could spread enough canvas to take the cutter in that weather at a fair speed before the wind that had a blessed disposition towards the coast of England. I worked so fast it was a miracle, dreading at every rustle of the stolen sail—at every creak of the cutter on the fenders, that either the captain or his unconscious seaman would awake.
My work was scarcely done when the small-boat came off again from the hoy, and as she drew cautiously near I saw that MacKellar had with him the bulky figure of the priest. He climbed ponderously, at my signal, into the cutter, and MacKellar joined me for a moment on the deck of the frigate.
“He goes with us then?” I asked, indicating the priest.
“To the Indies if need be,” said Kilbride. “But the truth is that this accident is a perfect God-send to him, for England's the one place below the firmament he would choose for a refuge at this moment. Is all ready?”
“If my sail-making's to be relied on she's in the best of trim,” I answered.
“And—what do ye call it?—all found?”
“A water breaker, a bottle of brandy, a bag of bread—”
“Enough for a foray of fifty men!” he said heartily. “Give me meal and water in the heel of my shoe and I would count it very good vivers for a fortnight.”
He went into the cutter; I released the ropes that bound her to the frigate and followed him.
“Mon Dieudear lad, 'tis a world of most fantastic happenings,” was all the poor old priest said, shivering in the cold night air.
We had to use the oars of the frigate's small-boat for a stroke or two so as to get the cutter round before the wind; she drifted quickly from the large ship's side almost like a living thing with a crave for freedom at last realised; up speedily ran her sail, unhandsome yet sufficient, the friendly air filled out the rustling folds and drove her through the night into the open sea.
There is something in a moonlit night at sea that must touch in the most cloddish heart a spring of fancy. It is friendlier than the dawn that at its most glorious carries a hint of sorrow, or than the bravest sunset that reminds us life is a brief day at the best of it, and the one thing sempiternal yet will be the darkness. We sat in the well of the cutter—three odd adventurers, myself the most silent because I had the double share of dubiety about the enterprise, for who could tell how soon the doomster's hand would be on me once my feet were again on British soil? Yet now when I think of it—of the moonlit sea, the swelling sail above us, the wake behind that shone with fire—I must count it one of the happiest experiences of my life.
The priest looked back at the low land of France receding behind us, with its scattered lights on the harbour and the shore, mere subjects to the queenly moon. “There goes poor Father Hamilton,” said he whimsically, “happy schoolboy, foolish lover in Louvain that had never but moonlit eves, parish priest of Dixmunde working two gardens, human and divine, understanding best the human where his bees roved, but loving all men good and ill. There goes the spoiled page, the botched effort, and here's a fat old man at the start of a new life, and never to see his darling France again. Ah! the good mother;Dieu te bénisse!”
Of our voyage across the Channel there need be no more said than that it was dull to the very verge of monotony, for the wind, though favourable, was often in a faint where our poor sail shook idly at the mast. Two days later we were in London, and stopped at the Queen's Head above Craig's Court in Charing Cross.
And now I had to make the speediest possible arrangement for a meeting with those who could make the most immediate and profitable use of the tidings I was in a position to lay before them, by no means an easy matter to decide upon for a person who had as little knowledge of London as he had of the Cities of the Plain.
MacKellar—ever the impetuous Gael—was for nothing less than a personal approach to his Majesty.
“The man that is on the top of the hill will always be seeing furthest,” he said. “I have come in contact with the best in Europe on that under standing, but it calls for a kind of Hielan' tact that—that—”
“That you cannot credit to a poor Lowlander like myself,” said I, amused at his vanity.
“Oh, I'm meaning no offence, just no offence at all,” he responded quickly, and flushing at hisfaux pas. “You have as much talent of the kind as the best of us I'm not denying, and I have just the one advantage, that I was brought up in a language that has delicacies of address beyond the expression of the English, or the French that is, in some measure, like it.”
“Well,” said I, “the spirit of it is obviously not to be translated into English, judging from the way you go on crying up your countrymen at the expense of my own.”
“That is true enough,” he conceded, “and a very just observe; but no matter, what I would be at is that your news is worth too much to be wasted on any poor lackey hanging about his Majesty's back door, who might either sell it or you on his own behoof, or otherwise make a mull of the matter with the very best intentions. If you would take my way of it, there would be but Geordie himself for you.”
“What have you to say to that?” I asked the priest, whose knowledge of the world struck me as in most respects more trustworthy than that of this impetuous Highland chirurgeon.
“A plague of your kings! say I; sure I know nothing about them, for my luck has rubbed me against the gabardine and none of your ermined cloaks. There must be others who know his Majesty's affairs better than his Majesty himself, otherwise what advantage were there in being a king?”
In fine his decision was for one of the Ministers, and at last the Secretary of State was decided on.
How I came to meet with Mr. Pitt need not here be recorded; 'twas indeed more a matter of good luck than of good guidance, and had there been no Scots House of Argyll perhaps I had never got rid of my weighty secret after all. I had expected to meet a person magnificent in robes of state; instead of which 'twas a man in a blue coat with yellow metal buttons, full round bob wig, a large hat, and no sword-bag nor ruffles that met me—more like a country coachman or a waggoner than a personage of importance.
He scanned over again the letter that had introduced me and received me cordially enough. In a few words I indicated that I was newly come from France, whence I had escaped in a smuggler's boat, and that I had news of the first importance which I counted it my duty to my country to convey to him with all possible expedition.
At that his face changed and he showed singularly little eagerness to hear any more.
“There will be—there will be the—the usual bargain, I presume, Mr. Greig?” he said, half-smiling. “What are the conditions on which I am to have this vastly important intelligence?”
“I never dreamt of making any, sir,” I answered, promptly, with some natural chagrin, and yet mixed with a little confusion that I should in truth be expecting something in the long run for my story.
“Pardon my stupid pleasantry, Mr. Greig,” he said, reddening slightly. “I have been so long one of his Majesty's Ministers, and of late have seen so many urgent couriers from France with prime news to be bargained for, that I have grown something of a cynic. You are the first that has come with a secret not for sale. Believe me, your story will have all the more attention because it is offered disinterestedly.”
In twenty minutes I had put him into possession of all I knew of the plans for invasion. He walked up and down the room, with his hands behind his back, intently listening, now and then uttering an exclamation incredulous or astonished.
“You are sure of all this?” he asked at last sharply, looking in my face with embarrassing scrutiny.
“As sure as any mortal man may be with the gift of all his senses,” I replied firmly. “At this moment Thurot's vessel is, I doubt not, taking in her stores; the embarkation of troops is being practised daily, troops are assembled all along the coast from Brest to Vannes, and—”
“Oh! on these points we are, naturally, not wholly dark,” said the Minister. “We have known for a year of this somewhat theatrical display on the part of the French, but the lines of the threatened invasion are not such as your remarkable narrative suggests. You have been good enough to honour me with your confidence, Mr. Greig; let me reciprocate by telling you that we have our—our good friends in France, and that for six months back I have been in possession of the Chevalier D'Arcy's instructions to Dumont to reconnoitre the English coast, and of Dumont's report, with the chart of the harbours and towns where he proposed that the descent should be made.” He smiled somewhat grimly. “The gentleman who gave us the information,” he went on, “stipulated for twenty thousand pounds and a pension of two thousand a year as the just reward for his loving service to his country in her hour of peril. He was not to get his twenty thousand, I need scarcely say, but he was to get something in the event of his intelligence proving to be accurate, and if it were for no more than to get the better of such a dubious patriot I should wish his tale wholly disproved, though we have hitherto acted on the assumption that it might be trustworthy. There cannot be alternative plans of invasion; our informant—another Scotsman, I may say—is either lying or has merely the plan of a feint.”
“You are most kind, sir,” said I.
“Oh,” he said, “I take your story first, and as probably the most correct, simply because it comes from one that loves his country and makes no bagman's bargains for the sale of secrets vital to her existence.”
“I am much honoured, sir,” said I, with a bow.
And then he stopped his walk abruptly and faced me again.
“You have told me, Mr. Greig,” he went on, “that Conflans is to descend in a week or two on the coast of Scotland, and that Thurot is to create a diversion elsewhere with the aid of the Swedes, I have, from the most delicate considerations, refrained from asking you how you know all this?”
“I heard it from the lips of Thurot himself.”
“Thurot! impossible!” he murmured.
“Of Thurot himself, sir.”
“You must be much in that pirate's confidence,” said Mr. Pitt, for the first time with suspicion.
“Not to that extent that he would tell me of his plans for invading my country,” I answered, “and I learned these things by the merest accident. I overheard him speak last Sunday in Dunkerque with the Young Pretender—”
“The Pretender!” cried the Minister, shrugging his shoulders, and looking at me with more suspicion than ever. “You apparently move in the most select and interesting society, Mr. Greig?”
“In this case, sir, it was none of my choosing,” I replied, and went on briefly to explain how I had got into Thurot's chamber unknown to him, and unwittingly overhead the Prince and him discuss the plan.
“Very good, very good, and still—you will pardon me—I cannot see how so devout a patriot as Mr. Greig should be in the intimacy of men like Thurot?”
“A most natural remark under the circumstances,” I replied. “Thurot saved my life from a sinking British vessel, and it is no more than his due to say he proved a very good friend to me many a time since. But I was to know nothing of his plans of invasion, for he knew very well I had no sympathy with them nor with Charles Edward, and, as I have told you, he made me his prisoner on his ship so that I might not betray what I had overheard.”
The Minister made hurried notes of what I had told him, and concluded the interview by asking where I could be communicated with during the next few days.
I gave him my direction at the Queen's Head, but added that I had it in my mind to go shortly to Edinburgh, where my address would be best known to the Lord Advocate.
“The Lord Advocate!” said Mr. Pitt, raising his eyebrows.
“I may as well make a clean breast of it, sir,” I proceeded hurriedly, “and say that I left Scotland under circumstances peculiarly distressing. Thurot saved me from a ship called theSeven Sisters, that had been scuttled and abandoned with only myself and a seaman on board of her in mid-channel, by a man named Daniel Risk.”
“Bless me!” cried Mr. Pitt, “the scoundrel Risk was tried in Edinburgh a month or two ago on several charges, including the one you mention, and he has either been hanged, or is waiting to be hanged at this moment, in the jail at Edinburgh.”
“I was nominally purser on theSeven Sisters, but in actual fact I was fleeing from justice.”
The Minister hemmed, and fumbled with his papers.
“It was owing to a duelling affair, in which I had the misfortune to—to—kill my opponent. I desire, sir, above all, to be thoroughly honest, and I am bound to tell you it was my first intention to make the conveyance of this plan of Thurot's a lever to secure my pardon for the crime of manslaughter which lies at my charge. I would wish now that my loyalty to my country was really disinterested, and I have, in the last half-hour, made up my mind to surrender myself to the law of Scotland.”
“That is for yourself to decide on,” said the Minister more gravely, “but I should advise the postponement of your departure to Edinburgh until you hear further from me. I shall expect to find you at the inn at Charing Cross during the next week; thereafter——”
He paused for a moment. “Well—thereafter we shall see,” he added.
After a few more words of the kindest nature the Minister shook hands with the confessed manslayer (it flashed on me as a curious circumstance), and I went back to join the priest and my fellow countryman.
They were waiting full of impatience.
“Hast the King's pardon in thy pocket, friend Scotland?” cried Father Hamilton; then his face sank in sympathy with the sobriety of my own that was due to my determination on a surrender to justice once my business with the Government was over.
“I have no more in my pocket than I went out with in the morning,” said I. “But my object, so far, has been served. Mr. Pitt knows my story and is like to take such steps as maybe needful. As for my own affair I have mentioned it, but it has gone no further than that.”
“You're not telling me you did not make a bargain of it before saying a word about the bit plan?” cried MacKellar in surprise, and could scarcely find words strong enough to condemn me for what he described as my stupidity.
“Many a man will sow the seed that will never eat the syboe,” was his comment; “and was I not right yonder when I said yon about the tact? If it had been me now I would have gone very canny to the King himself and said: 'Your Majesty, I'm a man that has made a slip in a little affair as between gentlemen, and had to put off abroad until the thing blew by. I can save the lives of many thousand Englishmen, and perhaps the country itself, by intelligence that came to my knowledge when I was abroad; if I prove it, will your Majesty pardon the thing that lies at my charge?'”
“And would have his Majesty's signature to the promise as 'twere a deed of sale!” laughed the priest convulsively. “La! la! la! Paul, here's our Celtic Solon with tact—the tact of the foot-pad. Stand and deliver! My pardon, sire, or your life!Mon Dieu!there runs much of the old original cateran in thy methods of diplomacy, good Master MacKellar. Too much for royal courts, I reckon.” MacKellar pshawed impatiently. “I'm asking you what is the Secretary's name, Mr. Greig?” said he. “Fox or Pitt it is all the same—the one is sly and the other is deep, and it is the natures of their names. I'll warrant Mr. Pitt has forgotten already the name of the man who gave him the secret, and the wisest thing Paul Greig could do now would be to go into hiding as fast as he can.”
But I expressed my determination to wait in the Queen's Head a week longer, as I had promised, and thereafter (if nothing happened to prevent it) to submit myself at Edinburgh. Though I tried to make as little of that as possible to myself, and indeed would make myself believe I was going to act with a rare bravery, I must confess now that my determination was strengthened greatly by the reflection that my service to the country would perhaps annul or greatly modify my sentence.