Streaked east became flaring light. Deep silence brooded yet over Windlestrae Farm, broken by no more unaccustomed sound than the notes of wakened birds, a cock's crow, or the low of kine.
But when the eastern side of the Manor House was showing a yellowish tint, with the faint rays of the sun through the morning mist, a hand was laid upon Roxley's shoulder and that heavy-lidded dragoon unwillingly opened his eyes, to find Captain Jermain shaking him gently.
"Come, Roxley, up with you! We must be on the road without asking for breakfast. I woke, myself, just now, by good-luck. Hasten!"
Roxley rubbed his organs of vision. Jermain stumbled, in the dark room, toward a window, administering a jolting to Dawkin on the way. He pushed open the thick shutters, so that a gray light filled the East Room; then he turned abruptly toward the corner, on the farther side of the bed, saying to what he thought was sentry but was only shadow:
"Halloa, there, my man! Go downstairs and see if you can fetch some water. For the——" Jermain's sentence broke in a profane ejaculation. "Boyd's knave has bolted! A fine sense of responsibility, truly; and I dare swear, Roxley, that you cannot tell me when."
"Captain! Captain Jermain!" spoke Roxley, in an agitated tone. The trooper was rummaging his clothes excitedly. "I can't find that key. Did you give it to me?"
"Of course I did," said Jermain, with a laugh. "I remember well enough. You pocketed it somewhere. Wewereall in a bad way, weren't we?"
"H'm—where is it? Where is it?" muttered Roxley. The last pocket went inside out; and just then Roxley started, for at his feet he saw lying two pieces of leathern thong.
He uttered a cry of consternation, as things all at once suggested themselves in their true light.
"Save us, captain! I fear there has been treachery—an escape!" he called, hoarsely, running to the oak-door.
"Escaped! what? who?" cried the confused Dawkin, staggering to his feet. "Was the prisoner shut up yonder? Where am I? I remember nothing—what has happened?"
"Happened? Sots and dullards that you are!" cried Jermain, at once putting two and two together. "Alarm the place with me, ye sluggards! Bid them bring an axe and a crow. Where, where be Boyd's ears—or his people's? Halloa again! The house! The house!"
Not long after, the morning sunshine lighted up a scene of mortal confusion in the East Room, the halls, and gardens of the old Manor House. Jermain, in his first surprise and bitter anger, was not able to make an intelligible inquiry of anyone—either of his following or the household. It was Chaos come again. He questioned without listening to replies, swore furiously at his men, and seemed disposed to think only of the superficial details of affairs. This was not for long. When into the upset room, streaked with sunshine, came Gilbert Boyd, firm of step and hollow-eyed from his long vigil, in which he had wrestled with his God for guidance and support in the desperate crisis now involving him and his house—then was it that Jermain turned upon him like a baited bull.
For, Boyd's reputation at Fort Augustus, or elsewhere, might be as Tory as tongues had made it. Possibly a wary Highland prisoner had cunningly corrupted his guard, and the two vanished together, leaving no soul under the Manor's roof responsible for the trick. One chain of thought forbade Jermain to go deeper than this theory, or consider his host as in collusion. But another one instantly asserted it, link by link, and turned the accepted partisanship of Gilbert Boyd, Master of Windlestrae, into a ridiculous error; and, instead of having divined that error, he, Captain Lionel Jermain, stood there, hoodwinked, entrapped, a laughing-stock to the regiments! Oh, his puerile taking all for granted last night—his unsoldierly debauch, that lay also at the bottom of his predicament! The grosser wits and tastes of Roxley and the rest might seem pardonable; his behavior, never!
"You have heard of this miserable business, Mr. Boyd?" he demanded, breathlessly, of Gilbert.
"I have," was Gilbert's monosyllabic answer. He looked the captain straight in the eye.
"It is inexplicable, outrageous! What business had you, Mr. Boyd, to press upon me a servant of whom, by all that I gather, you knew far less than you gave me to understand—a fellow who has played the traitor, disgraced me, and criminated you!"
"I am sorry that any gentleman of the service should suffer by the misconduct of one of my household," replied Gilbert, sharply, "but I deny that it criminates anyone of my household, except I shall have proof of it."
Jermain stared angrily at Boyd for a couple of seconds. Then, with an oath, he burst into a peal of coarse laughter, ending it with:
"Your impudence is a marvel, Mr. Boyd."
"And your conduct, at this moment, Captain Jermain, very unlike your behavior last night upon entering my house."
"I fancy that I know now a different host," sneered the captain. "Idiot that I have been!" he muttered. "Hark ye, Boyd, I tie, hand and foot, a wounded prisoner. I cast him into yonder strong-room, through whose door he cannot be heard, unless he call—a door that I lock with my own hands——"
Boyd interrupted—"The key of which you gave to one of your own troop, who hides it about his person."
"Ay, but—when the soldier he commits it to is in no case to resist its theft. Be silent, I command you, Roxley! You knew this, Mr. Boyd; so did your sentry, after or before your return with him well instructed in how he was to act."
"Was it your duty to accept such aid, Captain Jermain? Was it—no matter if you knew the outsider as well as I?"
"I—I—there are circumstances, Mr. Boyd, in which—in which an officer acts—according to circumstances; especially with an honest representation in his ear. Mr. Boyd, Mr. Boyd, I know not yet what to think of you, sir, however much you may have trusted your false varlet!"
"Determine for yourself, Captain Jermain. But let me ask if I am not to be deceived in a man, like the rest of the world?"
"Oh, don't plead that!" retorted Jermain. "Had you less knowledge of him than selecting him meant? Or is he, too, a part of the riddle? For, by the sword of Claver'se! I can find but little account of him from his fellows whom I have catechized here. What have you to say for yourself?"
"Captain Jermain, you shall use no such tone to me! I deny the need of my replying to you, sir. Remember that, soldier or not, you have been and you are my guest!"
"Oh, you do well to remind me of that! It is no moment for me to be overawed by trumpery Highland dignity, sir. If I am forced to violate the code of hospitality, it is because I have reason to believe that I have been tricked and deluded—with many other people. I propose to sift this occurrence at once, Mr. Boyd."
"Sift it how and when you choose, young sir! You will find only honesty where Windlestrae is concerned. I defy you!"
"Ha! you defy me?" iterated Jermain, sarcastically. "Mark that, Roxley!" The other two dragoons would have spoken, but he silenced them with an angry gesture. "Thatcommonly means a plot that is deep-laid, Mr. Boyd."
"Deep-laid?" returned Gilbert, in a sterner accent and with curling lips—"find it out, then, Captain Jermain! Or, rather, create it to suit yourself and to best screen yourself. You would visit your spleen upon Windlestrae? You would fasten the fault of your prisoner's escape on my family? Suppose I cast in your teeth the abuse of my kindness that made you and your four companions incapable of thinking of your common duty, unable to perform it. Can you deny that——"
"No more, Mr. Gilbert Boyd!" exclaimed Jermain, scarlet with anger and the sting of Boyd's bold reminders. But he thought best to stomach the rest of Gilbert's courageous accusation.
"——That on yonder bed lay Roxley—and Dawkin there? Why suffered they this jail-breaking to go on, not two paces from their ears? Down-stairs at this moment are stretched Tracey and Saville, sunk in a drunken stupor yet too deep for their stirring, for all your cries and tramplings over this discovery. And you, Captain, where and how employed were you? You, their head, and responsible for their conduct on the march?"
Jermain was silent. The course of the Master of Windlestrae grew with each sentence, to him and the rest, more astonishing. But the secret of it was not Boyd's hope to avert by bandying of words or by his dignity the storm now let loose. In the dark attic the Master had risen from his knees believing, as if from an assurance of the Lord, that the time for blunt truth, right against might, was set straight before him. "God help me!" he cried, "not another twist, not another half-lie nor Devil's gloze of fact shall they have from lips of me or mine. Only a long and black list of them could serve us now; and that for how little space! Reveal thine arm to me this day, O Thou of the Covenant!" It was with the iron composure of some martyrs who have gone to their stakes that Gilbert Boyd had entered the East Room.
"Look here, Mr. Boyd," said Jermain, now striving to maintain a certain politic decorum, "I will have no such insinuations. It is true that I—or some—all—of my attendance became, last evening, owing to the fatigues of the day's riding, less—less abstemious at table than we might properly have been. I apologize for it. I apologize for the way in which we conducted ourselves during the inspection of your famous Mouse's Nest——"
"You do well, sir," said Boyd, coldly.
"Do well?" repeated Jermain, angrily. "By Mars! but I dare swear that your Scotch revenge for my acquaintance with the secret chamber was thus taken. 'Tis like a Scotchman."
"That is false. I bore no malice for your knowledge, nor for your violence. You were in no state to conduct yourself like a gentleman."
Alack! Discretion ought ever to elbow Valor, but so seldom does. Old Gilbert Boyd was bringing to bear in this interview many heroic qualities—his love for the truth, his trust in Heaven, and the simple power of a bold soul. Jermain inwardly weakened before them; and whatever he attempted to seem, he was beginning to wonder whether he were behaving wisely. He did not wish, he dared not just now, to press the affair. To do so he must be re-enforced from somewhere. His reputation as a soldier Boyd plainly held in his hands. He feared him. He was already thinking it would be better to swallow his pride, hurry off from the Manor with as much dignity as he could collect, and then descend again upon it from Neith, some fine morning, like a whirlwind. Yes, that would make brave amends! Such were Jermain's reflections when Boyd said that indignant something he needed not—that luckless, "You were in no state to conduct yourself like a gentleman."
"You lie, Mr. Boyd!" cried the young captain. He threw himself at Gilbert's throat, forgetting the disparity in their years, forgetting policy, everything.
"Back with you, baby in your gold-laced cap!" quoth Boyd, dashing him to the floor with one stroke of his muscular arm, all his fiery temper and outraged respect showing themselves in his defiant attitude.
Jermain struck out both hands in falling. He dragged Boyd nearly prostrate. Gilbert resisted furiously. This violent turn of affairs consumed so little time that the crestfallen Roxley and Dawkin were taken by surprise. But Dawkin and one of the men-servants sprang forward and caught hold of the Captain. Roxley grasped Boyd. The two were forced apart. With Boyd panting and Jermain cursing, each was made to right himself.
But, just as the on-lookers restrained them, Andrew Boyd hurriedly crossed the threshold of the room. He uttered a cry of terror. In the confusion of struggling figures, the clamor of eavesdropping women, and exclamations of the rest, it seemed to him immediately that Roxley was throttling Gilbert.
"Unhand my father, villain!" the intrepid boy called out, springing like a tiger-cat on the uncouth dragoon. With a blow from his doubled fist he struck stout Roxley much more effectively than the rules of his Lordship of Queensberry now sanction—aiming at, in a gastronomic as well as a pugilistic sense, Roxley's most attackable spot—and at the same time seized him by the windpipe. Roxley, roaring and gasping, released Gilbert; then strove to clutch this puissant enemy. Themêléemight have become general, for the room rang with exclamations and threats and the scuffle of feet. But Boyd snatched Andrew to his side, waved away the servants, and cried, "Peace! peace, I say! This is no time for a brawl over a boy. Captain Jermain, command yonder fellow to keep his hands for men, not children. Andrew, leave the room."
Scarcely had Gilbert uttered such words when hasty steps came along the corridor. A cry of surprise echoed from the hall. The angry group turned. They beheld in the door-way a new participant—a short, spare little officer, of perhaps forty-five years, with grizzled hair, a thin face, set lips, and a pallid color. He stretched out his hand at the astonished disputants.
"No! Neither Andrew nor any other person must leave the room. Mr. Boyd, you and these comrades here seem not to have expected visitors so early."
It was Colonel Danforth. At his back appeared half a dozen other soldiers. Without the house were reined six times as many. The confusion within enabled the Colonel to make one of those quiet advents so dear to his cunning heart; and he had hastened up from the nearly deserted lower story to share in the extraordinary fracas, visible as well as audible through the open windows of the East Room, as he and his men had trotted up below.
With grim pleasure, he stood there. He observed the consternation his presence brought. This small, invalid-looking man! Was he the soldier never accused by his comrades of humor except to wound; devoid of enthusiasm except in cruelty, of clemency save to the dead, or, indeed, of any emotions but those allied to a ferocity and vindictiveness from which a Malaccan pirate might have borrowed?
"Captain Lionel Jermain, I believe," he said, advancing carelessly through the roomful, and still extending his hand. "This is an unexpected meeting, Mr. Boyd. I give myself the honor of this very early visit—that is, to you, not your guests—upon a matter of some import; but I am glad to find acquaintance already before me. You seem agitated here. May I take the liberty of asking you, Captain, from what has arisen this altercation? Or you, Mr. Boyd? I may be able to adjust it."
The quick, decisive voice ceased. The speaker fixed his eyes on Gilbert, though he addressed Jermain. The Captain, seeing his way very clear to violent methods of uncovering the whole puzzle and revenging himself upon fate and Windlestrae for it, saluted, assumed a more soldier like attitude and demeanor, and said, with an angry glance at Gilbert: "Colonel, you know me. I am not one to groundlessly accuse. I have lodged with Mr. Boyd overnight. I charge him with promoting the escape of a Jacobite prisoner whom I bestowed in yonder strong-room under his direction."
"And I charge that young soldier with behavior unworthy a gentleman and an officer—drunkenness, abuse, and assault, and I throw his accusation back into his face," returned Boyd, speaking clearly and decidedly. But he drew Andrew closer as he uttered his brave defiance. The worst had come to the worst; and it was now simply a question of manly behavior and the end appointed by Providence.
"Ha!" spat out Danforth, with a flash darting from his small eyes that betokened instant thunder, "is this the trouble? Ah, I am not surprised, Captain. Mr. Boyd seems to be a man concerning whom most of us have oddly been at fault. Mr. Boyd, I have heard both sides, I presume? In turn, I must inform you that I have come to you this morning to determine whether or not you have in hiding at present in your house, or have been so secreting for certain days, a Jacobite refugee—another one, I take it—named Lord Geoffry Armitage. Will you be good enough to answer whether you have known aught of the movements of such a person?"
Boyd stared back in rigid silence. Whatever he might have said—always within the truth—he had no chance to prove. For, at the mention of his gallant friend's name, Andrew, in horror and utter despair, sank gasping in a half-faint. Boyd caught him or he would have fallen at his feet, and kneeling, with his son upon his arm, looked silently up at Danforth, like an old lion beside its tormented whelp.
"Ha!" exclaimed Danforth, with a sudden change from dignity to ferocity, "I need no other answer than that cry at present. Mr. Boyd, consider yourself under arrest." He struck his palms together. The soldiers manacled Boyd.
"The cockerel with the cock!" added Danforth. They gyved the semiconscious Andrew also. Angus and Neil and their fellows suffered a similar indignity in a twinkling.
"Now, gentlemen, all down below!" ejaculated Danforth, looking like some venomous snake, exultant in the power of the poison he can infuse. "Bring them! Captain Jermain, you can tell me more of your story outside." With an oath, he added: "I'll hold high court on the lawn; and I rather think that there won't be much left to find out when it's over. Be quick, you lazy varlets!"
In the middle of the little lawn Danforth stopped. A portion of the dismounted guard, on seeing their leader and Captain Jermain come from the Manor House door followed by their companions and the prisoners, gathered about him. The eight or ten who remained on horseback drew as close to the centre of investigation as was practicable. It was a spirited picture—the frowning gray house, all thrown open; the sunshiny grass-plot, covered with horses and men; the group of prisoners, at whom, from time to time, Danforth looked maliciously while Captain Jermain poured his angry tale in his ear.
"That will do, Captain!" the Colonel presently interrupted; "I think I understand the course of matters sufficiently to get to the bottom of them." He leaned against a tree. "Hark ye, Mr. Boyd," and he surveyed Gilbert amid his guards. "That you are responsible for both these acts I clearly see. You are an old traitor, an old traitor, sir! You merit the fullest punishment that you have too long escaped. But I am just, sir, I am perfectly just—I do not wish to visit more than he deserves upon even the worst Jacobite rascal that draws breath. Tell me, therefore, instantly, the whole of your share, first, in this shameful treachery to Captain Jermain, and, second, everything concerning this equally treasonable Armitage business."
With as calm deliberateness as if he had been announcing the fact to Lord George Murray or Lochiel, Gilbert responded: "The Highland prisoner, brought by Captain Jermain, I ordered set at liberty this morning by his sentry. At this hour they are both beyond your pursuit."
A general cry of wrath put a period to Boyd's response. Danforth smiled—smiled in his most sinister fashion. He muttered something to Jermain. Andrew did not take his eyes from his father's set face.
"Very well, Mr. Boyd," resumed Colonel Danforth; "so much for that! Now for the next. Have you entertained this Lord Armitage under your roof?"
"That question I decline to answer, Colonel Danforth," said Gilbert.
"Which is a silly way of saying 'yes.' How long since, Mr. Boyd?"
No reply. Other interests than his own were blended in a response to this. Unforced, Gilbert would not yield an inch here.
"How long since, I say, Mr. Boyd? So reluctant? Very good. Bring that lad here!"
Gilbert could not suppress a tremor and a stifled protest as he heard this sudden order and saw Andrew pushed forward. But a hand struck the Master of Windlestrae sharply across his mouth, he was seized on either side, made to stand turned about, with his back to his son and this English inquisitor, and so held fast.
"You heard what I last asked your father, boy? Now I'll try you—and mind you speak the truth. Has this Armitage been in Windlestrae Manor within one week?"
White and defiant, Andrew looked Danforth in the face; and, remembering Gilbert's behavior, was also mute. He glanced, too, at a sapphire ring upon his finger.
Cunning Danforth! He well guessed how speediest to reach his end. He made a sign. Boyd heard a certain confusion, but was held as if in a vice. In a twinkling Andrew's clothes were, not so much pulled, as torn from his back. Three burly dragoons forced the lad into a partially stooping position. A fourth raised a leathern whip with four or five lashes.
"Speak, insolent young dog!" cried Danforth; "answer my question!"
"I will not!" retorted Andrew, suddenly struggling.
"Give it to him, Foote!" shouted the Colonel.
A whish in the air—the blows of the thongs, and a boyish shriek!
"Again!" spoke Danforth; and again the hideous instrument descended, cutting into the bared white flesh and wringing confession of the agony it inflicted—no other confession.
But before the whip could again do its fearful office Boyd wrenched himself loose. He ran to his son's side with a cry of passion and horror and sacrifice. He threw his arms about Andrew, fettered as he was, fairly dashing the monsters off by his impetuous interposition.
"Stop, stop, for the love of God!" he exclaimed. "Colonel Danforth—Captain Jermain—spare the innocent! On me, on me, do what you will! Ihavesheltered Lord Geoffry Armitage. He was the sentry who fled with the prisoner this morning. They are safe! Do your worst, but only to me; I am responsible for everything—everything! God send all such hunted men deliverance; and God send confusion on you and your king!"
A shout from the dragoons, a confused clamor from the helpless servants, and half a dozen quick sentences from the two officers followed.
Under such a revelation, Captain Jermain was with difficulty kept from a second personal assault on his late host. Without blenching, Gilbert stood firm until all the ebullition should subside. "Courage, my brave lad!" he said to Andrew; "we could only bring worse trouble on others by longer silence. We are in the hands of the Lord of Hosts—if the worst be death, He shall sustain us in that, too!"
Danforth turned upon Boyd, with a smile which was more ominous than a whole torrent of threats.
"Thank you, Mr. Boyd. I see you have prudence in emergencies as well as adroitness. I am satisfied with your admissions for this moment. The details I shall take opportunity of hearing in the guard-house at Neith. Ah, Barkalow, you have finished your search through the house? Did you get into that secret chamber with Captain Jermain's man? Very good. Holloa, there! Into the saddle, everybody! Captain Jermain, please order your men to mount! Croft, see that Boyd and his son have horses—it will save time. Release the servants! By Jove! we have made quick work this morning. Back to Neith, instantly!"
In five minutes Andrew and Gilbert found themselves the centre of a cordon moving slowly over the Manor lawn. Protest from the servants was useless; the weeping of the faithful women was rudely silenced. In front rode Colonel Danforth and his younger colleague, who was still tracing out, angrily, the night's work, with Roxley and Dawkin, and an occasional comment from gruff Lieutenant Barkalow. But just as they gained a slight eminence, close beside the rude gate-way of the Manor that opened into the Neith Road, the Colonel reined his horse and said to the Master:
"Boyd, what shall be done to you for this traitorous business I know not; nor shall I know until I draw out of you at Neith an accounting, down to the least detail. And I will draw it—expect that! But, for your insolence and stubbornness thus far, I can show you your reward, already."
He pointed back to the Manor House through the oaks. Four belated dragoons dashed up at the same moment. What had detained them explained itself at once. Faint cries from the terrified group left masterless about the open door; a column of smoke suddenly rising against the sky—the defenceless old house was fired! Two of Danforth's cruel emissaries had slipped around to the rear and set brands to the thatch of an odd wing. In a moment the flames leaped high in air, roaring and crackling, before the eyes of its owner and his heir.
Boyd groaned. But he said no word. He watched the destroyer blaze from casement to casement, seethe against the old stone walls and surge upward in rolling masses of smoke, consuming all that was perishable before it. He had to stand there and hear his live-stock career in a panic down distant lanes as the great barn caught in turn and swelled the conflagration. Andrew covered his face. He could not bear the spectacle.
Once, however, he looked across at his father, and observed him still determined not to give his tormentors the satisfaction of a word of protest or despair over what was leaving him a ruined man; but the strong old face was working convulsively, and the overarched eyes were filled with tears.
Long afterward, Andrew used to say that it was the only time that he remembered seeing his father shed them.
"On!" commanded Danforth, abruptly, "the show is over!"
The father and son were separated; neither could they converse. They rode along, now too miserable over the past to be concerned for the future. The laughing and talking of the dragoons they heeded no longer. Once Boyd was heard to say, in a suffocated voice, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away!" He knew what that meant now.
After about an hour's slow progress, they entered a little defile between two low hills covered with pine-trees. As the middle of it was attained, Colonel Danforth, from the van of the column, raised his eyes to a covert, and then exclaimed, "Captain Jermain! Mr. Barkalow! Look up there—beside the white bowlder. Isn't that a man skulking?"
Before the other two could answer, a shot rang out on the breeze. A dragoon cried out in anguish and fell from his horse, dead. Another shot followed—another. The figures of several men were now discernible above, leaping between the trees.
"A surprise! a surprise! At them, every man of you! 'Tis a rescue!" called out Danforth and the other officers.
But the volley that hailed on them with this order was so full and galling that it struck the troop with panic. Men were calling out in pain, or falling, right and left. A wild slogan echoed above and around from the dense shrubbery. The horses plunged, their riders rolling in the dust under their hoofs. Encumbered with their steeds, the soldiers were utterly unprepared for such an ambush. Each second came the bullets from the ensconced sharp-shooters.
"Villains! cowards!" shouted Colonel Danforth; "will you fly from a pack of Highland wolves?" But as he lashed his horse up the bluff, what seemed to be the first of a horde of gigantic, half-crazed desperadoes rushed from the thicket upon the troopers, yelling again an undistinguishable cry, and brandishing naked weapons.
This was too much even for Danforth. Over the bodies of a dozen dead or dying men of his escort, and a struggling horse or two, he fled amain, with all his cohort, regardless of aid to comrades or securing the two prisoners. But as the dragoon conducting Andrew pushed away the boy, he fired his pistol full at him. Gilbert struck his arm aside. He diverted the bullet from his son's brain to his own shoulder. And then, in a flash, the defile was abandoned to these uncouth and unknown friends, so disguised that they could not be distinguished one from the other.
Amid a rush and sundry very disconnected reassurances, Gilbert and Andrew found themselves surrounded by their panting but victorious deliverers, and urged furiously up the almost inaccessible mountain-path.
"Ask no questions now! You shall hear all soon," said one of their flying escort; "you must first be safe." Gilbert was soon discovered to be in no condition to ask questions, or, indeed, more than endure so rough a journey. The wound, which in the excitement of their rescue he had thought little of, was bleeding profusely, and he turned presently very faint from pain and weakness. In astonishment at his fortitude, so far, the riders halted behind a pile of crags, and the hurt was looked to hastily by two young men. The bullet had entered the breast, glancing from the shoulder, and its dislodgement must be a work of better opportunity. They supported Gilbert on his horse for the rest of the way, he enduring the increasing torment and weakness manfully. But Andrew was not a little alarmed to see how much his father suffered and how haggard grew his face. They had, however, chance for but a few words now; Gilbert's resolution keeping up the speed of the party at a high rate, and mounted or unmounted members of it hurrying along with an astonishingly equal rapidity.
After half an hour's ride they galloped through a ravine where it was a miracle to find a track, so savage and sombre were the surroundings. Next, a deep glen began opening below them. From those beside them neither father nor son could yet gain a syllable of explanation as to how they had come to them in their extreme need nor whither they sped; indeed, all of them spoke a particularly guttural Gaelic. But with the certainty that he and his father were delivered, there came a new hope into Andrew's heart.
Nor was that hope checked. For, presently, flushed and breathless from their downward career, he and Gilbert suddenly passed through a vast cleft, some rods wide, between two cliffs at the foot of the last mountain-spur. A rude camp lay before them. Men and women, and even children, were moving about in it, and spoil of all sorts seemed to be piled up under the shelter of booths and trees.
"Huzzah!" rang a welcome to their guards.
"Huzzah!" replied the latter's shout, the horsemen throwing themselves to the turf; some of the band talking boisterously in Gaelic, others assisting the two Boyds to dismount and paying solicitous heed to Gilbert's suffering state.
Andrew set his feet on the earth. And then out from a hut hurried a dozen men, whose bearing at once asserted high rank and broken fortunes. But the foremost figure outsped them and ran forward, and caught Andrew in an embrace, amid an acclaim, "God save the Prince!" and all about Andrew and his father men and women were kneeling upon the green sod.
"Oh, my lord, my lord!" cried Andrew, looking up into Sir Geoffry's face; "are you here? God be praised!"
"Yes, Andrew," replied the knight, with one hand upon the boy's shoulder, but extending the other to Gilbert, who knelt, despite his exhaustion, before his late guest, in a sudden awe and amazement that even the morning's terrible experiences could not check. "Yes, Andrew, I am here, dearest lad—I, your friend; and, some day, please Heaven!—your King!"
Yes, so it was! The pursued refugee, for whose sake Windlestrae lay a ruin, for whose sake its owner and his son were sheltered with him in the hidden stronghold of the Seven Men of Glenmoriston, might be no better able to make amends for such calamities, nor defend himself and them from further mischiefs. But under the veil of Lord Geoffry Armitage, Charles Stewart, the adored Prince of Scotland, had seen fit to hide himself in Windlestrae; and if it was the man that Andrew and his father had learned to love, it was also their sovereign whom they had entertained unawares.
"Forgive me, Boyd," cried the Pretender, raising Gilbert tenderly and insisting that, because of his extreme faintness, he should recline on a pallet already improvised; "forgive me! It was not that I feared to trust you or Andrew with your king's identity. I deferred doing so from an idle freak, when we met, until I was ashamed—and then came the hope of better days, when I might enjoy your surprise at recognizing me in gayer surroundings. Alas, alas! I looked not for such a meeting as this. Tell me at once, Andrew, for the love of Heaven, the worst those miscreants have done to you."
"Danforth arrived, my lord—I mean, Your Majesty," Andrew began, falteringly.
"Nay, I like the old title best. By the ring that I gave thee, call me by it," interrupted Prince Charles, smiling. He was in haste to hear the outlines of the story, for he was secretly shocked at Boyd's appearance. A refugee surgeon, who was addressed by the sympathizing group as MacCullom, was dressing the pistol-wound, with a solicitous face, and administering spirits. Extracting the ball he found was impossible.
"The escape had just been discovered. They sought to know more. Danforth was there, too. My father and I kept back what we could, until they wrung from us your being at Windlestrae and flying with the outlaw. They fettered my father—beat me—have burnt Windlestrae. We were being borne to Neith by them."
"O God!" cried Prince Charles, raising his eyes to the blue sky above, and then casting them in grief and pity on the father and son; "what misery do I bring upon men wherever I set my foot! Reward such faithful hearts, O Lord, for all the sorrow I breed among them! Hear ye that, Patrick Grant—hear ye that, John Macdonnell? If ever we again can lift hand against them, woe be to them and their children!"
"It shall—it shall! Woe be to them!" rose the hoarse reply from those standing by.
"Your Majesty, the wounded gentleman would fain speak with you," said the surgeon MacCollum. He added, in a whisper, something else, as Charles turned apologetically to Boyd's resting-place, that made the Prince exclaim, in a shocked tone, "What? No, no! It cannot be, MacCollum, it must not be."
But the other answered, "I am as astonished as you; but it is too late, Your Majesty."
Boyd was stretched out at the foot of an oak, carefully tended. "What is it, true friend?" asked Charles, bending over him and clasping his sinewy hand. "God do more to me for ill than he hath, if I do not revenge you upon those who have so wronged you for my sake! Are you in great pain?"
"Not so great but that I would fain hear of your adventures after you left my poor house," began Boyd, gasping, despite his fortitude. "Alas! my house had done them no wrong! Why should they destroy it with its Master?"
"With its Master?" remonstrated Charles; "nay, Boyd, you are over-fearful. Chisholm and I—see, there he is—oh, we found the path that he well knew how to trace, and were here hours ago. A number of brave men, believing, from Rab Kaims' tale, that mischief was in the air, were dashing away toward the Neith Road to fall upon Danforth when he should set out for the town. They were your rescuers, and had gone when Chisholm and I got hither."
"God be blessed for them!" replied Boyd, feebly. "I thank Him that I, too, have been counted worthy to suffer for my king! What a joy, what an honor forever, in my family, unto Andrew's children's children, shall this week remain!" The thought seemed to possess him wholly.
"And what keen remorse and regret to me, noble Master of Windlestrae!" exclaimed Charles. He drew Andrew closer as they knelt there together. The lad had grown more alarmed than ever at his father's appearance, but was far from suspecting that MacCollum's whisper pronounced the wound mortal, and Gilbert's life a question of brief time. The infuriated trooper had not thrown away his shot.
"Nay, my lord—be it not so," replied Boyd, "not so! What hath chanced is of God and for my sovereign. Aha!" added he with a scornful curl of his lips, now white and compressed in pain, "what will my Windlestrae neighbors say when they learn it? Andrew, boy, the honor of my house, of thy house is won for thee, when Scotland shall see peace beneath her rightful king. Would I might not die here! If I could but live to welcome such a day, too! Not so is it set for me!"
"Father, father!" ejaculated Andrew, dropping his royal protector's hand as the bitter truth broke upon him. "Why speak you thus? Do you suffer so? Oh, tell me not, tell me not that he is—is dying! Look at him, gentlemen, look at him!"
"My poor fellow," responded MacCollum, gently, as he felt the patient's pulse—for Boyd had closed his eyes an instant, from agony and exhaustion—"I should wrong you by feigning. I fear that he cannot hold out long."
Boyd looked up again. A great change had suddenly come over his face. Andrew was terrified at it. His father not only was intensely pale and weak, but the lines of age had somehow stolen into his rugged countenance, the shadows of eld into his sunken eyes.
"My lord," he said to the Pretender, after a long look at Andrew, "I am dying. I pass away, here, in this green-wood, stretched at your feet, not making obeisance before you when you shall be seated on the throne of your fathers. Will you grant me a last request? By one promise you can repay all this debt which, while it lies lightly, ay, joyfully, on my heart, you say is a burden to yours."
"Oh, Boyd, Boyd—anything—everything!" exclaimed Charles, the tears filling his blue eyes.
"Unto you, then, do I commit my son. Defend him, care for him, so far as Heaven shall permit. He is as a wild partridge upon the mountains now; as art thou. But I see it, I feel it, the God of Strength shall lead thee and him hence; yea, shall deliver thee in safety from this land, and grant to thee long life and a death upon a peaceful pillow. Henceforth, remember my lad. Swear to me that thou wilt, so far as shall be in thy power, be his guardian, his protector forevermore."
"I swear it," replied Prince Charles, solemnly, taking the sobbing Andrew's hand again in his own. "I call these about us to my witness. Whither I go, shall he go; and where I lodge, shall he lodge."
"You mark?" asked Boyd, with painful eagerness, turning his eyes to those on the right and left of his couch. "So may it be! Andrew, to thy king do I commit thee. Live thou for him—die thou for him as do I, if need be. Lean over—kiss my forehead. Ah, thy face looks like thy mother's, boy, when I wedded her under the green holms at Dunmorar. So!—my lord, with this Mouse's Nest we defy Danforth——Quick, Mistress Janet, bring the candles!—we must not lose a moment! It is life and death! Captain Jermain, Captain Jermain, you cannotlodge in the Purple Chamber!"——And then, with a few more muttered incoherencies in his delirium, the heroic soul of the Master of Windlestrae fled.
One by one the circle drew back or slipped away, leaving only the Prince and Andrew gazing through their tears on the face upturned to the waving oak. Presently Surgeon MacCollum came and gently laid a cloak over the still form. The sobbing Andrew was drawn away. But Charles remained on his knees, praying inaudibly, beside the dead Master's body.
Perhaps history can best remind the reader of what followed. How, after some further but slighter peril, Charles Stewart was guided, by other devoted friends, by way of Bowalder and Auchnagarry, to the Castle of Lochiel and the longed-for sea-coast—one can read this for himself. There rode at anchor—oh, sight of inexpressible comfort!—the two French vesselsL'HeureuxandLa Princesse de Conti,sent by the exiled Chevalier from Morlaix Harbor, France, and waiting until the fugitive's approach, so frequently despaired of. InL'Heureux,on the night of September 20, 1746, Charles Stewart embarked for France, with one hundred and thirty other exiled and beggared followers. From its deck, nine days later, did the unfortunate heir to the throne of the Stewarts step to the beach at Roscoff, near Morlaix—able, for the first time in weary months, to draw a free breath and look about him in perfect safety; his hopes of a kingdom broken at his back like egg-shells.
But history, which seldom has space for such trifles, does not state that ever at the Prince's side, upon sea or land, from the hour of his departure from Glenmoriston and its outlaws, there was a Highland lad, toward whom the exile showed a quiet care and affection, never for an instant relaxed, and of a sort that won the notice of all who encountered them. Little was said of his antecedents or his story. The Prince desired no questions upon the matter; but he and his gallant lookingprotégéseemed inseparable even in private.
And when the fugitive made that almost royal entrance to Fontainebleau to meet Louis XV., in a carriage following his own, clad in deep mourning, rode Andrew Boyd, usually spoken of as "that young Scotchman—the special confidential secretary of the Prince."
With Charles, Andrew led a busy and somewhat varied life for the next few years, while his noble protector flitted, now to one European city, now another; until Charles succeeded, through the agency of some Scotch acquaintances, in providing substantially for Andrew and, at the same time, in having restored to him the lands of Windlestrae. Thereupon, grown to man's estate, Andrew built again a Manor House, and even collected about him some of the old servants. Thither, too, did he bring home, not long after, a fair French bride. Never was a cheerfuller wedding, or one that prophesied more truly of the calm and happy years to follow it, for the bride and groom. But on the marriage-day, as he stood proudly admiring his young wife's rich costume, Andrew was heard to sigh; and when she demanded the reason, he replied, gently, "Alas! dear heart, thy knots of white ribbon mind me of so many White Cockades! Thou hast many fair white roses, yonder—hide thy love-knots with them!"
Obvious printing errors have been silently corrected throughout. Otherwise, inconsistencies and possible errors have been preserved.