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Title: White Cockades: An Incident of the "Forty-Five"
Author: Prime-Stevenson, Edward
Language: English
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WHITE COCKADES
An Incident of the "Forty-Five"
BY
EDWARD IRENÆUS STEVENSON
AUTHOR OF "THE GOLDEN MOON," ETC.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1887
COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
NEW YORK.
TO
CLINTON BOWEN FISK, JR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
IN A HIGHLAND GLADE, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
CHAPTER II.
A STORY AND A SHELTER, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
CHAPTER III.
"IN THE KING'S NAME," . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
CHAPTER IV.
"PUSS IN THE CORNER," . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH CAPTAIN JERMAIN'S MEMORY IS USEFUL, . . . . . . . . . . . 66
CHAPTER VI.
A DESPERATE SHIFT, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
CHAPTER VII.
PRISONER AND SENTRY, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
CHAPTER VIII.
MEETING--FLIGHT, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
CHAPTER IX.
COLONEL DANFORTH, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
CHAPTER X.
ALL FOR HIM, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
CHAPTER XI.
UNDER THE OAK, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
CHAPTER XII.
L'ENVOI, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
WHITE COCKADES
AN INCIDENT OF THE "FORTY-FIVE"
CHAPTER I.
IN A HIGHLAND GLADE.
Just as the brilliancy of a singularly clear July afternoon, in the
year above named, was diminishing into that clear, white light which,
in as high a Scotch latitude as Loch Arkaig, lasts long past actual
sunset, Andrew Boyd, a Highland lad of sixteen, was putting the
finishing strokes to the notch in the trunk of a good-sized oak he
was felling. Its thick foliage waved rather mournfully, as if in
expectancy of near doom, over the boy's head. That oak had engaged
Andrew's attention pretty much all the afternoon. He was glad to be so
well on toward his work's close.
Around the young wood-cutter soughed the dense forest. It clothed the
mountain side, straight from the margin of the loch below. Andrew's
blows rang quick and true against the trunk. His springy back, his
well-developed legs and arms, came handsomely into play. On the moss
lay his plaid and bonnet. The sweat dripped from his forehead, not
much cooled by the breeze that tossed his yellow hair and the folds of
his kilt.
Young Boyd did not cut down oak-trees for a livelihood, though he just
now worked as if fortune had mapped a no less arduous career for him.
He was the only son of a wealthy landholder of the vicinity, a man of
English descent and English thrift. Andrew's grandfather came north
into Scotland from Shrewsbury, in a sort of angry freak after a local
quarrel. He bought and developed a valuable farm near Loch Arkaig, and
then suddenly died upon it, leaving the newly acquired estate to
Gilbert Boyd, the father of young Andrew. All of which had happened
some forty years before this tale's beginning.
One, two--one, two--rang the axe upon the tough wood which Andrew
wished for the boat he was building, down at the loch side. His
thoughts ran an accompaniment. We spare the reader their translation
from the Scotch dash in which they were couched, the result of
Andrew's schooling and intimacies round about him.
"There! Have at you again, old tree! How I wish you were a dragon, and
I some Saint George busy at carving you!" One, two--one, two--quoth
the axe, approvingly. "No, I don't! Away with any wish that meddles
with saint or man that the Lowlanders love!" One, two--one, two--assented
the axe. "Better wish that you were the little English King George
himself! and I a stout headsman, ready to knock his crown off, head
and all!"
The chopper's brows knit. His eyes flashed at a notion that struck
a specially sensitive chord. "Ah, you stockish trunk, if you only
were George, the Dutchman! Tyrant! Monster! Will you withdraw your
troops from our harried counties? Will you end now, at once, your
bloodthirsty hunt for the Prince?--God bless him! Will you empty out
that horrid Tower, full of our noble gentlemen and lords who fought
for the Lost Cause? Will you pardon my father's friend, the Earl of
Arkaig, and send him home straightway to us? What, you won't? Take
that, then!--and that!"
Here the axe-strokes descended with such vim and amid such a meteoric
shower of chips that no clear-headed listener could entertain for a
moment doubt as to hot-headed young Boyd's politics. The oak sighed,
and rather unexpectedly crackled and snapped, and came crashing down
most magnificently.
But halloa! At the instant that its mighty top smashed into the
underbrush and saplings, a single sharp, piercing cry of pain and
terror rang out above the crackle and splinterings.
Andrew dropped the axe. He rested rigid as stone, open-mouthed, in
sudden alarm and consternation. "What!" he exclaimed. "Great Heaven!
Can it be that--that a human creature--a man--was hid in the thicket,
and that when the oak fell----"
"Help! help! for the love of mercy!" The appeal, fainter than the
first cry, rose from the densest crush of the shattered oak branches.
There could be no mistake. Some one _had_ been slinking in the
bushes near young Boyd; possibly a Hanoverian spy! Through his own
unaccountable carelessness the unseen person had allowed himself to be
suddenly trapped by the boughs of the falling tree. He was pinned in a
torturing, if not a fatal trap.
Andrew's sharp eyes could not penetrate the barricade of dark green.
"Hi, there! Halloa!" he shouted. "Are ye under the oak? What has
befallen ye, man, or whatever ye be?"
No answer. To catch up his axe and plunge boldly into the tangle was
his next impulse. He hewed and trampled a path toward the centre of
the felled tree, which had been young but very vigorous and leafy. No
trace of any unusual object imprisoned beneath the knitted boughs, no
new cry for help guided him.
He began to doubt whether to press to right or left, or to go round
about and continue his examination from another point of the oak's
circumference, when a low but distinct groan spurred him to more
active work in the same direction. Forcing aside the strong branches
by his knees, he caught sight of a dark object just beyond. He next
discerned a cloth garment, covering a man's back. The yet invisible
wearer had been all this time in a faint, and was now able to betray
but small sign of interest in his own deliverance.
"This way, this way," Andrew heard him moan, as if articulating with
real anguish; "I am hurt badly, I fear. I cannot stir."
The accent, not so Scotch as Andrew's, seemed gentle. The mysterious
interloper might then be some well-bred prowler. Andrew thrust away
the last intervening twigs. There lay on the turf a man, at full
length, and face downward, with one arm and a part of his right
shoulder held as if in a vice by the oak's grasp. His well-turned neck
and figure implied to Andrew's hasty survey that he was young and
comely.
"Whatever you do, man, don't try to move!" exclaimed Andrew; "leave
your outgetting to me. I'll set you free in a trice."
He went to work cautiously but swiftly to do it.
"And my ankle is fast too"--came the smothered complaint. "Look--you
will see how--my leg--is held!"
Andrew looked. "'Twill be free speedily, sir!" he answered cheerfully,
already impressed by the fortitude of the tormented man. "Be but a bit
patient, sir. That's it; now you can roll to the left, please." He
employed axe and helve adroitly as he spoke. "Now, to the right; up,
up--that's it, sir. What a miracle your skull 'scaped the fork."
The victim rolled over, displaying the countenance of an entire
stranger, eight or ten years Andrew's senior, and with strikingly
handsome features. "Thank you, thank you, my good friend!" he gasped,
pulling himself to his feet; "that was the torture of a fiend, I
assure you! Your hand, one instant, please."
By dint of leaning on Andrew's arm, and after several battles with
successive tough boughs, in which the new-comer showed that he
possessed strength and dexterity, the two finally scrambled out of all
the labyrinth of foliage and into clear space. Andrew flung down the
axe and assisted his new acquaintance to a seat upon the prostrate
trunk.
"The next matter is to examine your hurts, sir!" Boyd exclaimed,
taking a sharp look at his dignified _protégé_. The latter returned
this scrutiny as keenly, however.
"I begin to suspect that such hurts amount to little or naught,"
returned the stranger, dropping Andrew's hand which he had held in
a grateful pressure. "I have nothing worse than a bruised shin, a
scraped shoulder and back, I fancy. Heaven be blessed, nothing is
broken in my anatomy!"
Andrew laughed, although he knelt down all the same and began a rigid
inspection of the bruises. He remarked how spare and muscular were
the stranger's legs and arms, as if from much exertion and little
food. His costume was odd: a faded Highland suit, rent and stained,
ill-fitting brogans, agape with holes cut by mountain flints; his
throat and face were surprisingly sunburnt, though his natural
complexion seemed to be fair. But what of his clothing or his tan? As
the man leaned against the prostrate trunk, with one leg boldly out
before the other for Andrew's care, there was something commanding,
fascinating to Boyd in his whole bearing. Andrew had not read
Shakespeare, but if he had he might well have recalled the lines in
"Coriolanus":
"----though thy tackle's torn
Thou showest a noble vessel."
While the hurried surgery progressed the object of it aided therein
with no small skill, venting now and then an ejaculation of pain. He
stealthily studied Andrew. It was a question which should first act on
the opinions shaped by this mutual caution. But in those gray blue
eyes sparkled a quizzical light that made Andrew smile, as he suddenly
observed it, when rising from his bowed attitude.
"Name for name, it must be, I see; and faction for faction, eh? Well,
I don't wonder that you and I have eyed each other askance. These be
days when honest men can ill be known as such. It would be strange,
too, if loyal subjects of Hanover, like you and your axe, should
not remember spies and renegades when you pluck strangers out of
tree-tops."
"You--you overheard my thoughts while I hewed!" returned Andrew, first
red, then pale. "I--I knew not that I ran them so heedlessly into
speech. Evil speech to be overheard, sir."
"Your tongue has a Lowland twang to it, whatever little to please a
Lowlander it spoke," said the stranger. "You are right my lad; what
you prattled there, by yourself, as you thought, was treason--with a
vengeance. Know you not that these mountains are filled with those who
would gladly tie your arms behind your back and gallop you off to
Neith jail, for half such sentiments. Or"--and here the voice became
tinged with a profound sadness, "or, have you been, young as you seem,
like myself, a defender of that most unlucky young soldier, my master,
Charles Stewart, who, a hunted refugee, with an army cut to pieces
and a realm lost, is skulking to-day in some corner of the country
with death at his heels and a price upon his head--instead of a
crown-royal."
Andrew drew himself back proudly and stared into his questioner's
face. "Sir," he exclaimed, "I see you _are_ a soldier! You may be a
Southerner as well. I care not. God save the Prince! I love him!
God defend him! So will say my father and every man and woman at
Windlestrae! I was too young--so they pleased to think--to fight at
Culloden Moor, and my father has just tided over a long sickness. But
for these things we had both been there--and dead, by now, 'tis very
likely."
The stranger fairly leaped from his resting-place. "Your hand, your
hand, young sir!" he demanded, his face suffused with color. "Rash as
you are loyal, let me press it! I, too, love the Prince, our master;
and I, too, hope yet to see him make a footstool of his enemies.
My name is Geoffry Armitage--Lord Armitage I am oftenest called.
Windlestrae, said you? Then I speak to one of those to whom I am sent
on an errand from which yonder villainous tree did its best to let me.
Are you Peter--no, Andrew Boyd, the son of Gilbert Boyd, who owns the
manor of Windlestrae?"
"I am, sir," replied Andrew, in deepening surprise: "this very nook of
the woodland we stand in belongs to my father and is within our farm.
The manor house and fields are but half-an-hour from this spot; below
the hill-foot yonder."
"Fortune favors me at last!" cried Lord Geoffry, seating himself again
on the trunk. "I bring a long message from the minister of Sheilar
Kirk, that I have to give to your father. I am a fugitive, as you may
have already guessed from the disparity between a title and my dress.
A fugitive? Yes, and one who has often thought that his life might
better have been left where the cause for which he would have laid it
down was lost--on Culloden Moor."
"Culloden!" exclaimed Andrew, "Oh! sir, were you truly in the fight?
Tell me more of it, I beseech you."
"Ay--for whatever in my own history is worth telling you or your
father begins with it!" the ruined nobleman replied in a melancholy
tone. He paused. Andrew heard him murmur, "Can I speak of _that_ day
so soon?" But he composed his utterance, and after a quick glance
about them looked up at Andrew, to begin his brief account of himself.
CHAPTER II.
A STORY AND A SHELTER.
"You would hear more of--Culloden?" began the fugitive. "Not from me!
I headed a charge of foot under Lord George Murray on that fatal
day. My men were cut to pieces before my eyes. I, after what last,
desperate stand for liberty one arm could make against a score of the
enemy, was taken prisoner in a ditch--in a ditch, like a fox or a
badger!----"
"But you escaped?" Andrew interrupted.
"Ay, I escaped, after three days of starvation and brutality. The hand
of God seemed to deliver me--I know not what else to call that series
of events that saw me free and able to fly for my life. Favored again
by a dozen happy occurrences I reached these mountains. They are
swarming with gallant fellows as unlucky as myself. Now some brave
Highlander sheltered me in his cottage; now I lay, night after night,
in holes and caves, when the English troops who scout the hillsides
for refugees came too close to my retreat. Some weeks ago I ventured
to come westward, and Solomon McMucklestane, the old minister at
Sheilar Kirk, received me into his manse. He hid me there, he, at the
risk of his all. I have had a brief respite for rest and the regaining
of my strength."
"Have you been forced to turn from Sheilar also?" said Andrew, who
listened with the deepest interest to the Jacobite's tale.
"Yes. You have heard that Colonel Danforth has lately begun his
searches in the neighborhood of Sheilar? It seems that he has lately
got wind of the fact that the neighborhood hides one or two lurking
Jacobites. My reverend host was warned upon Monday that he and his
manse were suspected. I was obliged to be off again. On Tuesday night
I quitted him, directed by him to your father, and expecting to reach
your farm yesterday. I saw soldiery and abandoned the highway. My
path of uncertainty over these wild slopes I quickly lost. With only
glimpses of the pallid Loch yonder to guide me, I have wandered in
desperation. I slept last night airily--in a stout yew. This evening
the sound of your axe all at once caught my ear. I followed it.
You can understand that I should think it best to study your face
and appearance from the shelter of the thicket before advancing to
a stranger. My excitement and fear of your observing me made me
careless, I presume, for I did not notice how nearly your wooden King
George was done for until too late to escape his clutches. (I hope it
is not an omen.) Down came the oak, and I under it.
"Such is my story, friend Andrew. I am glad to have found one from
your household at last. You see before you," and Lord Geoffry again
smiled bitterly, "no English spy--only a hunted, hiding follower of
the Prince, come to beg for your father's and your pity, and to pray
for shelter until escape from this dangerous region is possible. It
has never seemed less so than now."
Andrew could contain himself no longer.
"What a blessed chance was it which led me to stay here a couple of
hours later than I purposed; simply to finish bringing down that oak!
Ah, my lord! You do not know my father! I do. You will be welcome a
hundred times to our house, and all that we have. It will go hard if
you quit Windlestrae, except in safety. Let us lose no more time in
getting down to the Manor, and my father's presence. To him must you
tell over your story and at once receive the earnest of his help."
"God bless you both! and after a night's rest I shall be better able
to hear and discuss new plans for my welfare," said Lord Geoffry. "A
little food might not be amiss either," he added carelessly. There was
a peculiar sweetness in his smile and an air of dignity which had
already made its fascination felt upon young Andrew Boyd.
"Ay, this _is_ a soldier indeed," the lad thought, "able to endure
peril, and hunger, and thirst, and fatigue, and laugh over them!"
The boy caught up his bonnet and plaid and thrust the axe under the
oak's trunk. "Take my arm, my lord," he urged courteously. The wearied
man accepted it, and they set out.
"There are some questions I ought to ask, friend Andrew, while we go,"
said the young nobleman, as they entered a narrow, stony path leading
upward from the glade. The sunless sky was still bright overhead.
"First of all, have the soldiery been prowling around your Manor or
its neighborhood?"
"Until lately they have scarcely shown themselves near us. Colonel
Danforth and his dragoons are stationed at Neith--as you too well
know--with orders from the Duke of Cumberland to arrest any suspected
Jacobites. But we have seen nothing of Danforth or his band."
"And what of the Duke himself and the garrison to the northeast, at
Fort Augustus?"
"They have been equally quiet. The Manor lies midway between both
garrisons; the troopers have harried the settlements closer to their
hand. But--but--there is a better reason, my lord, for Windlestrae's
being let alone."
"And what is that? Your father's friend, at Sheilar, I think hinted at
some special one. I did not pay the heed which I should to his words."
"Why, my lord, my grandfather was an Englishman like yourself; and my
father lived thirty years upon English ground, and spoke the English
tongue before he came hither to live. Our Scottish neighbors have
always counted us Whigs! They have never ceased to suspect my father
of favoring the cause of King George--though he has said many a bold
word for the Lost Cause. Worse still, my father was too ill to enlist
under the Prince, as he would gladly have done; and this has set our
neighbors yet more bitterly against him. We have no character as
patriots, sir."
"You think that the English troops in the town and at the Fort hold
your father a good partisan of their own king?"
"Exactly, my lord; and hence is it, I am sure, that our Manor has
been so let alone by the enemy during these past weeks of spying and
searching. The ill-color of my father's name shall stand you in good
stead. There is no house in Scotland where a Jacobite would less be
thought a-lurking or protected. But my father has felt the unkind
opinions of his Scotch neighbors very deeply."
"Strange!" said Lord Geoffry, as if to himself, "the hand of heaven
seems to lead me still. To find, in the heart of Scotland, Englishmen
who are loyal to the Stewarts!"
While they spoke the lad guided Lord Geoffry rapidly along the flinty,
steep path, which did not admit of their now walking side by side. It
so continually twisted and turned and the trees shut it in so closely
that Lord Armitage presently confessed that he could not imagine which
point of the compass lay before him.
"We cross directly over the top of this mountain, my lord," explained
Andrew. "Windlestrae Manor lies in the valley. We shall presently go
down by a steep mountain-road which our wood-cutters use, after we
reach a clearing on the summit of the hill, whence you might be able
to trace all your late wanderings from Balloch and get a glimpse of
the chimneys of the Manor also."
Sure enough, our two quick walkers presently attained exactly this
spot--the crown of the ridge. A remarkable prospect was to be viewed
from it. The loch lay behind them; on the left, a wooded, rugged
extent of country, stretching toward Neith; and descending from their
feet, the mountain waving with foliage. In the valley below Sir
Geoffry could distinctly see some substantial buildings and tall
chimney-pots.
"The Manor," said Andrew, pointing at these last. To the north
continued the plain, with wild hills on the west closing the
scene--altogether a savage Inverness landscape, not less romantic in
the evening light.
But neither wished now to tarry for gazing. They left the cleared
space behind. At once began the descent of the hill. Their course
was almost a series of plunges. They darted between bowlders, they
overleaped trees fallen across the scarcely traceable path; they
sprang over tiny cascades pouring down the slope. The excitement of
such a rapid journey made Armitage forget well-nigh everything except
keeping breath and footing. Andrew noticed that he was not much the
better mountaineer of the two.
They landed in a glen at the foot of the mountain. "We cross this,"
explained Andrew. They did so, and as well two tracts of boggy land.
Grain-fields and hay-ricks succeeded, and then the barns and Manor
House of Windlestrae were suddenly looming before them. Lord Geoffry
perceived that Andrew's father must be a man of wealth. Just as he was
about to ask the boy whether it would be well for them to enter the
house together, Andrew exclaimed, "Huzzah! There is my father this
minute!"
"Where?" asked Lord Armitage, eagerly.
"He comes yonder, through the gate, talking with two of the farm-hands.
He usually walks here after his supper."
From the southwest corner of the field approached Gilbert Boyd. He was
a tall, gray-haired man, decidedly English in style and feature, but
dressed in the usual attire of a Highland landholder of the best
rank. He appeared engaged in an excited discussion with two stalwart
servants accompanying him. Andrew and his companion could catch the
sound of the uplifted voices. Andrew put his fingers to his lips and
whistled shrill. The elder Boyd, startled by the sound, stopped short
in a sentence and looked up. He perceived Andrew and the stranger
advancing.
"Stay you where you are," Lord Geoffry heard him say quickly to the
tall servants. Gilbert then came on alone. The fugitive began to
wonder what sort of a reception awaited him.
CHAPTER III.
"IN THE KING'S NAME."
He need not have had any misgivings. The rugged face of the Master of
Windlestrae underwent rapid changes as he listened to his young son's
breathless story. Then he came striding across to the fugitive
nobleman with outstretched palm. Andrew looked delighted enough at
this quick show of cordiality to a man by whom he already was not a
little fascinated.
As the elder Boyd halted in front of Lord Geoffry the latter instantly
decided that he had seldom seen a more naturally commanding figure and
a face fuller of resolution than this transplanted Englishman's--his
tall, sturdy form, iron-grizzled hair, and keen gray eyes.
"Welcome, welcome, my lord!" he exclaimed; "welcome to the board and
hearth of Windlestrae! My son has bidden you be so, and I echo his
greeting. Surely all Scotland is at the service of those who have
drawn blade for--its rightful sovereign."
The two men shook hands, and Boyd's mighty grip thrilled Lord
Armitage's heart. He tried to falter out something about being "an
ill-omened bird to flutter to so peaceful a roost."
"Peaceful? Tut, tut, my lord, no roost is peaceful when there be so
many hawks in the air. Andrew, lad, run--hasten to the Manor before
us. Bid Girzie and Mistress Annan prepare supper and all things
suitable for our guest. I must trouble Lord Geoffry with questionings
and doubtless make him many answers, while we shall come after you."
Andrew sped away toward the house, which ended the lane. The two older
men came on more slowly.
"First, my lord," began Gilbert Boyd, "as my son has surely told you,
you have come to the house in this neighborhood where you will be
safest from pursuit. My good friends hereabouts have never forgot that
my father was Southern-born and that I speak Scotch only when I must.
Hence it follows that I am worthy to be hanged as a traitor. For
once, though, I am glad that I stand in such sorely false light. The
soldiers have troubled themselves little about Windlestrae, and have
ransacked many of the loud-mouthed patriots instead."
"And you have had no raidings from Colonel Danforth's troop?" asked
Lord Geoffry.
Boyd laughed disdainfully. "His soldiery have occasionally moved
toward the Manor, my lord, but even that seldom. I confess, I have
been surprised at my good fortune. One afternoon Danforth and his
company galloped past the crossroads, a couple of miles down yonder,
and asked one of my neighbors, 'Who lives up yonder?' 'Boyd of
Windlestrae,' says the lad. 'Well, then, we'll go no further up that
way to-day!' cries Danforth; 'that man Boyd is as sound a Whig as
ourselves and his wine is most properly bad.' So away they rode, good
riddance to them."
"Safe for long or not, I can at least be sure of a supper and a
bedchamber less airy than a tree," Lord Armitage responded cheerily;
"and both I will enjoy, although Danforth suddenly alter his mind and
come to open every closet in your Manor House."
"Hm!" grunted Boyd, with a peculiar expression. "He will hardly do
_that_."
They passed thatched barns and low stables. It was now growing murky
and dark. The Manor House was next reached, a rambling but dignified
structure, built of gray stone and apparently remarkably roomy and
comfortable. Gilbert pushed open the thick oaken door and motioned his
guest to enter. One or two servants were hurrying along the wainscoted
hall, running in and out of a dining-parlor. Andrew appeared from
this, and with him an elderly woman, Mistress Janet Annan, the
housekeeper, who courtesied to the master and the unexpected guest.
Andrew's mother had died in giving birth to her only child.
The hall and aforesaid dining-parlor were brightly lighted. The
excellent supper--to which Lord Armitage did ravenous justice,
seconded by Andrew--was hurried through in silence; Boyd absorbed in
ministering to the wants of his guest. In the Manor it was already
rumored that the master had suddenly met an old friend; and this
explanation satisfied the present curiosity of the servants' hall.
"To-morrow morning they shall be told the truth," Boyd said reflectively.
"They must not be permitted to gossip. They are all loyal-hearted men
and women. And now, my lord," he continued, as Lord Geoffry pushed
back his chair from the table and exclaimed, "I am quite another
man already!" in his refreshment--"now you must to your rest without
a moment's loss. To-morrow we can discuss together the means of
forwarding you to the sea-coast. Candles, son Andrew! To the Purple
Chamber."
Andrew led the way up a staircase of very respectable breadth and
ease. The room designated as "the Purple Chamber"--from sundry faded
hangings--proved a fair-sized apartment with three casements and a
low-studded ceiling. A formidable four-posted bed and accompanying
furniture graced it, and a trifle of fire flickered on the hearth.
Gilbert locked the door, as Andrew set down the candlesticks on a tall
chest of drawers. "Nay, wait my lad," he said, as he turned toward the
door, "I have something to impart to both our guests and you."
In some surprise, Andrew returned and leaned against one of the heavy
chairs in silence.
"My lord," began Boyd, turning to Armitage, "you spoke a while ago of
Danforth searching the very closets--was it?--of Windlestrae Manor, if
once his suspicions that it sheltered such refugees as yourself should
be stirred. I care not if he do--provided no earthquake and no traitor
disclose to him one of them, built in this old rookery long before my
father bought it and added to it. Until this day have I preserved one
secret of it from you, son, with the rest. There opens from the wall
yonder as snug a hiding-hole as any in Scotland."
"A secret chamber!" ejaculated both Boyd's auditors, following the
pointing of his hand.
"Ay," replied he, approaching Andrew, with a smile upon his grim
features. "The Mouse's Nest--so my father heard it called. I doubt not
that it hid many a Jacobite in the first uprising. Andrew, is yonder
door locked? Good. Now mark!"
Boyd pushed back the hangings and pressed his hand steadily on the
joining of the wainscot at some spot which he identified after an
instant's quick scrutiny. To Andrew's intense astonishment, part of
the jamb of the chimney-piece slid back into the thickness of the
wall. A narrow door-way was revealed leading into darkness.
Andrew was more surprised at the existence of this unsuspected
mystery than Lord Armitage. The latter had been shown many similar
hiding-places in old French and English mansions, he declared.
"Let us within," Gilbert Boyd said; and they passed into a long and
narrow sort of closet, not more than five feet wide, but of six
or seven times that length. Gray stone, above, below--everywhere;
rough-hewn and clammy; no plastering. The place would have been
scarcely at all lighted, and that only at its upper end, without the
candles carried by Boyd. An opening a few inches square, that Andrew
discovered, some ten feet above their heads, seemed constructed only
to admit air, although a faint light also found entrance thereby.
On the floor lay two or three stag-skins, and a couple of small
stools, a taper, and flint and steel; and a pallet in the farther
corner completed the furnishings.
Lord Armitage and Andrew surveyed the place curiously, and Gilbert
explained the means of opening it and securing the panel from within.
"It has not been used in my recollection, my lord," he said, laughing,
as the jamb reclosed. "I trust it may not be; yet if Danforth come too
close, your retreat is secure; and I warrant you one he will not
fathom! Knowing that I have such a guest-room for such a guest is a
rare satisfaction to me to-night."
Father and son then bade the young refugee good-night and left him to
get to bed; he declining all valeting from Andrew. Lord Geoffry was
indeed so exhausted, and the homespun sheets of Mistress Annan's
purveyance seemed so cool, that he fell back into them, asleep, almost
as he touched them.
That sound repose lasted far into the afternoon of the next day.
The Manor House was kept quiet by the master's order, lest word or
foot-fall should waken the young knight out of season. He left his
chamber, on Andrew's arm, as the tall clock on the landing of the
staircase struck four.
"Ha! you look like a new man!" exclaimed Gilbert; "your color has come
back; your eye sparkles like a live coal!"
Seated at the table in the dining-room, the master showed that, while
his guest had slept, he had not been careless for his welfare. In the
first place, the trustworthy servants of the Manor had been solemnly
informed of the situation at morning prayers, and each one pledged to
secrecy and assistance.
"And when do you think that I can proceed eastward to the sea-coast?"
asked Lord Geoffry, anxiously.
"Within three weeks, I trust," replied the master--"not before.
Inside of that time I shall have marked out your route for you, and
started you in loyal hands upon it from one shelter to the other. In
the meantime, you must abide here with us plain folk of Windlestrae.
I am glad to say that we have heard no more of Danforth to-day."
Nor came there any such unwelcome tidings. The day passed quietly,
each hour benefiting Lord Armitage in body and spirit. The second
night that he slept under the Manor's roof was spent as tranquilly as
the first. His strength and vivacity were doubled by it. The next few
days he did nothing but eat and sleep, or, shut up for the most part
within the comfortable Purple Chamber, talk with Andrew and Boyd or
Mistress Annan of his travels and hardships. The rest and a sense of
security did him worlds of good, and he grew more entertaining and
full of merriment each hour of it.
"I never saw such a fellow!" Gilbert remarked once to Mistress Annan.
"One would think that he were at ease and freedom in some court,
instead of in daily danger of a hanging! What a careless, happy
temper! Hearken to him, laughing this minute with my lad, as though he
had never a trouble in the world!"
"And I am na sorry for it, sir," Mistress Annan stoutly responded;
"'tis o' God's favor that his heart is sae licht! Wad ye hae the
puir man gae roun' wi' the shadow o' the gibbet in front o' his twa
bonny eyes?" Mistress Annan, in truth, was quite bewitched with Lord
Geoffry's engaging glances and his gay tongue.
Both Andrew and his father observed one thing--how little the young
exile spoke of England; of his home there, or of the Lowland life and
cities. But he explained this one morning by confessing that he had
lived most of his life in Paris, his only brother, Guy, looking after
the family estate.
"I am more a Frenchman than an Englishman, I fear," he admitted,
smiling; and often, as if unconsciously, he would begin a sentence in
the French, that seemed to come upon his lips spontaneously; and the
light songs he hummed were echoes of the gay days of Fontainebleau
and the court of Louis XV. But, French or English, all the little
household agreed that a more gallant, a jollier spirit had never sat
at their table, or whiled away long evenings with reminiscences of
famous men, fair women, and strange adventures.
It was not until the third day, by the way, that they discovered him
to be a Roman Catholic; but then so great a proportion of the Stewart
adherents were of the older faith that Gilbert was not displeased.
Besides, the refugee was quite as devout at the morning and evening
prayers and accompanying Bible-reading of the Manor family as Mistress
Annan herself. That good woman was so edified by Lord Geoffry's
respect to religion and solemn recognition of Providence in his
escapes that she confessed to Girzie Inglis, her head hand-maiden:
"Aiblins thae Papists are nae all sic children o' the Deil, as I hae
been tauld! Yon's a gude young man--a gude young man! The Lord bring
him to mair pairfect licht!"
So passed four days. At noon of the fourth the sky was overcast. In
less than an hour thick mist and rain shut out almost all the light,
and it grew so dark that the Manor had to be illumined by candles. At
supper everybody was in the best of moods; Gilbert at the head of the
table, the red firelight showing his grim face relaxed as he listened
to Lord Geoffry's keen speeches; Andrew next the knight; and Mistress
Annan forgetting to put her cup to her lips or adjust her cap more
trimly, in her reluctant enjoyment of such unaccustomed fun. "I fear
me 'tis no Christian behavior in me to be sae frivolous!" her
Presbyterian conscience whispered; but she laughed all the more in
spite of the Presbyterian conscience. Neil Auchcross, Boyd's main
manager of the farm, was the only other person for whom a cover was
laid. The table was bountifully spread, and Mistress Annan had set it
with their store of silver, in honor of Lord Geoffry. In the kitchen
the more menial servants were also supping.
Suddenly, in a brief silence throughout the dining-parlor, there came
a sound to the ears of each one present. It struck them all alike with
alarm. Lusty voices, not far off, were singing together.
"Hark!" exclaimed Boyd, "what do you think that sound can be?"
Auchcross leaped up and threw open the heavy window.
Through the mist and darkness rang into the cheerful old room the
notes of a familiar drinking-song:
... "King George, God bless him forever!
And down with the _White Cockades!_"...
The trampling of hoofs, the dull clank of steel, accompanied this
chorus, borne on the murky breeze of the night.
"Danforth's cavalry!" cried Boyd and Auchcross.
"What! coming up toward Windlestrae?" exclaimed Lord Geoffry,
springing from his seat.
"I fear it--I fear it!" muttered Boyd, leaning out of the casement
into the driving mist. The rest hearkened at his back, breathless.
The roystering voices, the thud of hoofs and a single whinny, sounded
nearer than before.
Gilbert drew himself quickly inside the room again and pulled Neil and
the shutters with him.
"It is! It is Danforth!" he cried. "This misty night, of all others!
We have not a moment to waste! They may have set out directly for the
Manor to see what discoveries can be made here. Very good! Andrew, ask
no questions, but assemble all the household in the hall! Neil, go you
to find Hugh and Malcolm. My lord, with me to the Purple Chamber--and
the Mouse's Nest!"
The singers in their saddles were not fifty yards off by the time
Andrew, Neil, and Mistress Annan had executed Boyd's orders, in
ignorance of what was to be gained by them; and seen the four or
five women and as many men-servants, constituting the Windlestrae
household, seated on the benches and stools in the hall. Each one knew
what was the imminent danger which had stolen a march on them and
their guest. Each was prepared to do all possible to avert it.
Mistress Annan and the maids were so white and trembling that Andrew
feared discovery through their very looks. But Armitage was his next
thought. Turning his back on the confused and whispering group in the
hall, he dashed up-stairs.
"Back, son!" Gilbert Boyd exclaimed, sternly, catching the lad in his
arms on the landing-place. "Back, I say! He is safe!"
"Safe? Lord Geoffry? Is he in the Mouse's Nest? Oh, father, tell me!"
The sound of the singing, mingled with calls and something like
argument, as if the intruders were discussing the direction of the
Manor House in the fog, now were clearly audible. Boyd sprang
down-stairs into the hall, drawing Andrew with him.
"Girzie!" cried he--"Mistress Annan! They have turned up from the
gate! Bring candles--candles--from the table."
They were back with them at once, the grease dripping to the floor
through the trembling of their hands. Gilbert motioned them all not to
move from the settles along the wainscot. "Sit ye still there," he
whispered, hoarsely. He dropped into an arm-chair beside the candles,
flapped open some book which he carried, and exclaimed, in a firm
voice, "Let us sing the praise--of God--in the Thirtieth Psalm."--and
thereupon led off the verse!
Andrew caught the idea that lay behind this extraordinary conduct. But
could Windlestrae seem to Colonel Danforth a quiet Scotch household,
engaged in the usual family prayers, untroubled by trembling hearts or
the care of a Jacobite refugee?
Somehow or other he and the rest found voice to unite in the psalm
with the master. Those approaching outside heard the melody. Then came
a louder trampling, the thud of dismounting riders, loud, coarse
accents, and spurs jingling on the very porch.
A thundering knock broke off the Thirtieth Psalm in its second verse.
Mistress Annan gasped audibly in terror.
"Halloo there! Open, in the King's name!" rang out a stern voice.
"Andrew, open the door!" commanded Gilbert.
Andrew obeyed.
CHAPTER IV.
"PUSS IN THE CORNER."
In the fog outside flared a torch or two. The candle-lit hall
sent forth a pale stream. Five horsemen in their saddles could be
discerned--but not Danforth. Nor was Danforth the trooper who had
alighted to knock--a short, young fellow with a swarthy skin, a
magnificent mustache, and eyes as black as the long, damp cloak
tossed back over his shoulder. It swayed as he bowed with unexpected
ceremony.
"Is this the Manor House of Windlestrae?--and do I address its
master?" he asked, in a commanding but civil tone, peering past Andrew
into the hall.
Gilbert Boyd laid aside the psalm-book with studied calmness, coming
forward to the doorway.
"It is. I am Gilbert Boyd, the Master of Windlestrae, sir," he
responded, courteously. "What is your pleasure?"
Both his own and Andrew's minds were fully prepared for the answer: "I
am in the service of the King and have reason to believe that there is
now hidden in this dwelling a Jacobite rebel and refugee, Lord Geoffry
Armitage."
But, oh, unexpected occurrence! not such was the response. In an
accent yet more courteous, the unknown cavalier returned. "Pardon the
rudeness of our summons, Mr. Boyd. I fear--I see, that we disturb your
evening devotions. The house was so dark as we rode hither that we
could scarce tell whether it was really tenanted or not. My name is
Jermain--Captain Jermain. I was ordered this morning to convey a
message to Colonel Danforth at Neith, and I set out from Fort Augustus
with a few of our troop. Unluckily this fog came up apace. Our escort
speedily became dispersed. They are now somewhere in the hills,
behind. We lost our own road; and, encumbered by a rebel prisoner that
we were fortunate enough to capture on the way, we found ourselves
almost at your doors before we knew our bearings."
Andrew's heart gave a leap, as he realized that these were not
the expected and dreaded guests; but others who came by accident!
Evidently they knew nothing of the man hidden within his father's
walls. It was an unspeakable relief!
Gilbert Boyd was not a whit behind him in apprehension and gratefulness:
"You have, indeed, fared poorly, sir," he said, motioning the young
officer to step within his threshold. "What with by-paths and
cross-roads the track is difficult in fair weather. I presume that my
sending one of my household with you, until you need his guidance no
longer, will be a welcome offer."
"For which I thank you," laughed the young trooper; "but, begging
your pardon, I don't intend to ask that favor until to-morrow. It is
no evening for travelling, Mr. Boyd--and my faith! nothing but a
bayonet's point, I fear, will turn me out of your hospitable doors
to-night. You must find quarters, no matter how poor, for us few weary
men, until daylight. I have learned too much of Highland kindness to
fear that you will not--eh? House, barn or shed--it is all one to me
and my little troop."
In spite of the ingratiating tone, a command of a sort common
enough to all the region at the time, lurked unmistakably in the
dragoon-captain's smooth words. Gilbert recognized this. At the
precise hour when he was sheltering a proscribed and hunted Jacobite,
he must entertain, as best he could, a handful of the very men who,
did they suspect the other's nearness, would delight to drag him forth
to his death, as, very possibly, they were preparing to do with their
prisoner out yonder!
But it was no moment to allow more than a bewildered thought of the
untoward complication and how it must be met.
"Gude sauf us!" ejaculated poor Mistress Annan in her heart, "what an
awfu' kind o' game o' puss in the corner we're a' like to be playin'
this night!"
For she heard Gilbert, with well-simulated cordiality say,
"Neil--Morgan--Mistress Annan! Girzie Inglis! You hear? Pray request
your companions to dismount, sir. We will offer you and them any such
poor entertainment as my house affords. Step within, gentlemen!"
One grateful thought of the infinitely less trying situation that now
seemed ahead of him and his family, and another of gratitude at what
appeared an uncommon refinement on the part of this young soldier
crossed him, as Captain Jermain bowed and prepared to follow. The
other dragoons threw themselves from their saddles with exclamations
of satisfaction.
"Captain, Captain? How about this Highland wild-cat that we've got on
our hands," called one of the party to Jermain, who stood on the porch
giving some directions.
"Oh, bring him along with you," returned he. "We can keep him in
the kitchen for the present, and find a hole to stow him safely in
over-night. Meanwhile, see that no one speaks with him."
Captain Jermain preceded his escort into the hall. They who tramped
along at his back were of quite inferior social stamp and address. Two
of the party led between them the captured Highlander.
Andrew started back and stared half in pity, half curiosity. The
troopers had tied their prize's hands at his back, and he limped, as
if in the contest he had hurt his foot. There were stains of blood and
soil on his rough garments, and a ragged bandage was tied across his
forehead. A thick shock of black hair effectually disguised his
sunburnt and unshaven face from close recognition. A more wretched
figure it would have been hard to draw. He gave a piercing look at the
group in the hall as he passed, as if seeking compassion; but there
was too much else to engross the attention of the Master and Andrew
for them now to proffer it. Even the women shrunk back as he was
forced along. Gilbert directed Angus to show two of the four guards to
a small outer room adjoining the rear passage, where Captain Jermain
suggested that supper be served them speedily, and thus their charge
remain directly under their eyes and ears.
"Sit down, Captain," Gilbert said, as Andrew once more closed the
door. "We shall have some refreshment at your service in a few
moments. We finished our own evening meal just before you arrived. Be
seated, gentlemen."
"I must again regret that we disturbed your family-prayers, Mr. Boyd,"
apologized the young soldier, dropping into a seat: "I have too much
respect for your kindness and for religion, soldier that I am, to
willingly disarrange you. Ah, this is a fine old house! It is like a
bit of home for a Southerner to slip into such a spot for a night."
"You have not been long in the army?" Gilbert inquired.
"Oh, dear, no," returned the young captain, stretching out his long
legs luxuriously--"only a couple of months, and all of those loitering
about the Fort. I haven't gained much military experience, I dare
swear, by all this famous Rebellion! Have I, Mr. Dawkin? Have I,
Roxley?"
Two of the other men laughed; and confirmed Boyd in his idea that this
was a very simple-hearted young soldier, a good theorist likely, but
not much experienced in anything except fox-hunting, or slaying soft
hearts at Lowland balls. Very boyish and frank did he look, sitting
there, in spite of his dignity and manliness; and also very much like
a boy was his evident enjoyment in finding himself so comfortably
situated. In spite of his apprehensions, Gilbert could not help
fancying this Achilles the pride of some Surrey household, the darling
of some mother whose breeding of him all the rough life of a barracks
had not effaced. How much worse the peril would have been if such a
guest, forcing himself on the household, were a rude, wary old officer
full of strange oaths, exactions and suspicions of everybody and
everything about him! "Praise be to God!" Gilbert exclaimed, in his
soul, "for we may tide over the danger yet!"
He led the conversation with increased self-control into such topics
as could be discussed in common. Each sentence went further in
convincing Captain Jermain, as well as his two companions, that they
were meeting quite the most frank and friendly of hosts.
Girzie appeared and announced the supper, hastily got together by
Mistress Annan's trembling but energetic hands.
"Walk into the next room, captain. This way, gentlemen," said Boyd,
rising. Then, turning to Andrew, he added, with a meaning look, but no
accent in his voice that might awaken any interest in his remark among
the enemy. "My son, step upstairs and see if you can be of use. The
East Room will be wanted--tell Mistress Annan so."
The three troopers, headed by Gilbert, passed into the dining-parlor.
Andrew stood bewildered. His father had surely intended some special
reference to Lord Geoffry Armitage! Was Lord Geoffry waiting all this
time within ear-shot? Andrew could hardly force himself into walking
toward the stair with assumed indifference--to mount step after step
leisurely, as if reluctant to quit the sudden stir going on below and
the company of the soldiers.
All was dark as he turned toward the landing. The boy's nerves were by
this time strained intensely. He nearly uttered a cry as he ran into a
figure kneeling at the top of the staircase. Lord Geoffry's strong
clasp about him and exclamation of caution saved him.
"Oh, my lord, my lord! Have you heard? Do you know it all? It is not
Danforth!" Andrew whispered, still clasped in the imperiled young
nobleman's arms.
"Yes, yes, dear lad! I have been listening. I stole out from the
Mouse's Nest and the Purple Chamber--I can retreat to it again at an
instant's warning, you see! Be calm, dear Andrew. Do not tremble so. I
am yet safe."
"But, my lord, they may discover that you are here!"
"I do not know how," whispered the fugitive. "We have no traitors, and
walls have not tongues." He pressed the Highland boy yet more warmly
to his breast, as if in that hour of ill-fortune, standing there
within ear-shot of his foes, he was glad to feel a human heart so near
him, however young, that he knew already loved him too well to betray
him, even at the point of the bayonet.
The boy murmured passionately in his ear: "If you--are taken--I shall
die!" all of a tremor, that came from dread and love.
"Pshaw! Keep up heart!" hoarsely replied the young nobleman, with
something like tears in his voice at the gallant lad's devotion; "you
must not die, nor must I, either. We shall all come out right and
safe, I am sure. Quick--back to that handful of knaves below! I can
see already that they have a bigger child than you for their leader.
Find out for me, if possible, who is their prisoner. Contrive to let
your father know that I am in spirits--that is why he sent you. Go,
play your part well. My life is in your hands too, remember."
"I shall, I shall! But oh, my lord--go back to the Mouse's Nest.
Promise me that you will."
"So be it!" And Andrew thought he heard the intrepid young man laugh
shame-facedly at yielding to his terrified importunity, "I promise!"
Then they pressed hands and parted in the gloom.
CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH CAPTAIN JERMAIN'S MEMORY IS USEFUL.
Andrew entered the dining-parlor timorously. He made his way thither
by the little passage into which opened the outer kitchen containing
the Highland prisoner and his guards. It was shut. The servants, who
questioned him eagerly as to Lord Armitage's security, told him that
to knock at the door was only to have one of the guards come to it and
slam it in his face. They would allow nobody within but themselves.
His father sat at the head of the long table, only half of which was
laid. The three cavaliers had begun hungrily on meats, bread, and
potables.
"Come and sit down here, my lad," called out Captain Jermain kindly,
well-disposed to pay some attention to his host's attractive son; "you
are a fine, tall fellow. I dare say you will be carrying the king's
colors yourself one of these days--eh?"
Andrew seated himself between the captain and Gilbert. A glance
passed between father and boy as he did so. Boyd read in it a quick
reassurance upon the state of mind of Lord Armitage above-stairs.
A man who better liked plain-dealing than Gilbert Boyd of Windlestrae
it would be hard to light upon. To seem to be what he was not stifled
him. Nevertheless, his feeling of sacred duty to the fugitive, to whom
he had sworn protection by every lawful means, induced him to waive
scruples and to preside at this supper with a remarkable simulation of
calmness and of desire to make the three soldiers at ease in the
Manor. As far as possible, he diverted the talk from politics, where
he must and would betray himself rather than lie! "I have been rumored
a Whig so long to no good," he thought, resignedly, "that I may as
well let the error keep alive on such a night as this, when it can
save a life. Humph."
Presently he said aloud: "Help yourselves freely, gentlemen. I am
sorry, by the way, that the Manor can offer you no better liquors than
our own ales and usquebaugh."
"Oh, no apologies, no apologies," replied Captain Jermain. "This is
the very lap of luxury for us. I trust that when these troubled times
end--and his ragged Princeship with his bare-legged support are
hanged--many a hospitable Whig like yourself will call upon us in
London, or anywhere else, and be repaid for your trouble in kind. To
your health, Mr. Boyd!"
"Be entirely at ease, sir, as to trouble," Gilbert answered, raising
his ale-glass; "there is always room and to spare in this old nook."
Andrew nerved himself in the instant of silence ensuing: "Was the
prisoner that you captured--was he--a person of consequence, sir?" he
faltered.
Roxley, the elder of the two other troopers (and who, Gilbert soon
decided, was a special favorite with the young captain and a man of
some petty rank), exclaimed, with a sneering oath: "Consequence? I
should scarce think so!" Jermain, however, bent his eyes pleasantly on
the embarrassed boy, and replied: "Faith, no, my young warrior! A
tattered and villainous hind, lurking about, whom we sighted slipping
into a copse two or three miles above the crossroads."
Our hero longed to put the captive upstairs in possession of even this
slight portion of what he desired to know. But Boyd took up the cue
intuitively.
"Did you run him down?"
"Ay. By some awkwardness the villain tripped; and though he wrestled
with Roxley like a tiger, and won sundry thumps and cuts for his
pains, we managed to master him. He is all bone and muscle, I verily
believe."
"Simply a wandering spy, Captain, depend upon it!" affirmed Dawkin.
"Whatever he was busy about," he continued, to Andrew's father,
"he refused to speak a syllable of, in spite of all our little
measures--ha, ha, Captain! But we will see what the guard-room at
Neith can do for him to-morrow. Here's to his obstinacy after Danforth
gets hold of him!"
"His straps must be looked to sharply before we go to bed," suggested
Roxley.
"Yes," added the captain, drinking; "'tis a pity that Tracey and
Saville must lose their sleep to-night on his account."
Boyd shuddered at the mention of those "little measures," and
the persuasions of the Neith guard-room. The Spanish boots, the
whip-corded eyeballs, the thumb-screw, and brimstone-sliver were
meant. God help the poor wretch who became Danforth's victim! Clearly
nothing more was to be discovered as to the prisoner from his captors.
Andrew determined to slip back to the outer kitchen, and thence up to
Lord Armitage with just so much intelligence as he had come by. But he
would do well to wait until the exactly right excuse should offer for
his leaving the room. The troopers pushed back their chairs and
refilled their glasses of whiskey-and-water. Good cheer began to tell
on their tongues. Jermain rose, stretched himself, and stared about the
room in great good-humor. He noticed a small hanging-shelf with half a
dozen books on it, and thereupon turned amiably to Andrew.
"So you go to school up in this forsaken region of the kingdom, do
you, Andrew? You remind me not a little of a fair young cousin of
mine, Eustace Jermain, down in Warwickshire. He is now a scholar, too,
prosing away at some Oxford college."
"I have always been at school when there was any school to go to, sir.
But my father has taught me for the most part, and once or twice I had
a tutor, by good luck."
"And I, too, by ill-luck!" The young man laughed, sauntering up to the
shelf and glancing over the titles. "What a life I led them! Ah! 'The
Pilgrim's Progress,' 'The Call to Truth,' 'Common Prayer,' 'An History
of Rome,' 'Virgil's Æneid--' So you know Latin here, friend Boyd? I
used to know it myself. How begins old Virgil?--
"'Ar--arma v_o_rumque can_i_,'
it goes, don't it?" He opened the volume idly. In so doing his eye
fell upon the title-page.
He read the name written there with an exclamation of surprise. Then
holding the Virgil he came back to his chair, puzzling over the
fly-leaf. Next he smote his hand upon the board with an impetuous, "By
the sword of Claver'se! 'Jonas Lockett, His Book.' Can it be the man?
What Jonas, except our long-legged Jonas, wrote that cramped fist?
Tell me, friend Boyd, was Jonas Lockett, an Edinboro' pedagogue, ever
in _your_ house, here, a certain winter?"
"One of my son's instructors, years ago, was so named," replied Boyd,
cautiously. He did not like to give these interlopers the least
significant bit of information upon his family or its history.
"Was he from Edinboro'? Tell me of him. Well, well, well--Jonas
Lockett! Ha!"
"There is little to tell, sir. I understood that he was from
Edinboro'. His health suffered there and he travelled into
Perthshire and Inverness to recruit it. He was poor and somehow came
to me for help. Andrew's ignorance enabled me to give it him. But he
only stayed with us a season. I have scarce thought of him since. Did
you know him also?"
"Know him! Truly I did. I recollect that he came from Scotland
directly before he entered my father's employ. A tall, lean,
quick-spoken fellow, with a sly eye and many odd stories at his
tongue's end."
"The same, I dare say," Boyd assented, indifferently; "an odd
coincidence. But the world is a narrow place, Captain."
Andrew glanced uneasily from one face to the other. Was even this
trivial discovery likely to breed the seed of any fresh danger? Danger
lurked in every turn of thought or speech.
Jermain continued turning over the leaves of the Virgil absently.
"Upon my honor!" he suddenly cried, throwing down the book; "of what
have I been thinking? This, too, must be the very old Scotch house
that Lockett told me all about one evening at the Parsonage! I
declare--I have heard of you and it before this night, friend Boyd. I
remembered it not until now."
"Ah!" came Gilbert's dry monosyllable. Boyd's whole being was at once
wholly on the alert. Andrew thought it best not to make for that outer
door quite yet.
"Nor is that all," continued the young officer, draining his glass. "I
dare wager that through Lockett's describing his life here that
winter, besides his being a famous hand to poke and pry about and
meddle with other people's concerns, I know a rare little secret of
you and your Manor House, friend Boyd."
"Captain Jermain! How--what?--I do not understand you, sir!" exclaimed
Gilbert, growing pale and turning sharply upon the young soldier.
Andrew grasped the arm of his chair so tightly that his knuckles
were white. Peril, relentless peril--could it be possible?--and from
so remote a chance! Dawkin and Roxley looked around from their
discussion, surprised at the excited turn the talk behind them had
taken.
"What's all this in the wind now?" asked Dawkin.
"Nothing, except that I am in possession of a family mystery of friend
Boyd's here," returned Jermain gayly, "or I think I am. Forgive me,
Boyd, but the jest is too good! Let me explain. You must know that
Lockett slept sometimes in a room in your old house called--what the
mischief was it called?--the Green--the Red--no, the Purple Chamber!
That's it, the Purple Chamber; and opening out of this Purple Chamber
is a secret room, to be got at by a spring-panel in the wall; a most
curious old place altogether--and, by the by, perhaps just the sort of
strong room that Tracey and Saville have been wishing for to shut that
slippery rascal into to-night. Ha! ha! ha! Boyd, I'm sorry for you,
for you see that I did know this little family secret after all, did
I not? Oh, man, don't look so tragic over it. See his face, Roxley!
By all that is hospitable to mad wags like ourselves here, you shall
make amends for your soberness by taking us all upstairs and helping
us to find out this wonderful hole. Up, Roxley! Up, Dawkin!" continued
the domineering young trooper, already excited by the usquebaugh and
full of a boyish delight at having someone to tease who was quite in his
power; "you, too, my blue-eyed Andrew! Your father must pilot us
upstairs at once, or he is no honest host. Huzzah!"
"Huzzah! huzzah!" chimed in Roxley and Dawkin. Jermain seized the
candles, and, laughing boisterously, forced one of them into the
terrified Boyd's hand. Roxley caught hold of the master's arm. Boyd
stood between them, the color of the wall, rigid, his eyes conveying
to Andrew a despairing signal. Through the crack of the door were
peering Mistress Annan and some women-servants, with blanched cheeks.
Ruin had stalked in a few seconds into their midst.
Terrible was the temptation to Gilbert Boyd as he was held there in
the half-sportive, half-brutal grasp of the dragoons. Yet might one
bold falsehood save everything! How easy to cry out, "That wing of my
house was burnt to the ground years ago!" or to declare that the
Mouse's Nest itself had been opened up and its secrecy destroyed--one
of a half-dozen other excuses, proffered with the dignity of a man in
his own house might avert the calamity precipitating. Hospitality--the
saving of a guest's life--did not these cry out for a lie?
But he did not utter it. Not he, Gilbert Boyd, of Windlestrae. It was
not because with the thought of falsehood he remembered that those
beside him would probably exact proof. It was because too keenly upon
his conscience pressed the acted-out departures from strict truth of
which this bitter evening had already made him guilty. These must be
none worse henceforth. He would obey his God; and God would sustain
him and his. Nevertheless he was mortal man enough to protest, as he
wrested his wrist from the familiar grasp of the leering Dawkin and
stood commandingly before the trio: "Gentlemen--Captain Jermain--you
have forgotten yourselves! It--it is impossible! The room--the room is
all in unreadiness. Mistress Annan hath charge of it--I cannot take
you into it to-night. Let me go, I beg, Captain! You carry your wild
humors too far."
"Oh, no, Boyd, not a step too far," retorted Roxley, "provided you
carry us upstairs with you."
"But--but--I assure you, gentlemen, the--the Nest is wholly unfit for
the purposes of a prison. Listen to me, Captain Jermain, I pray. Only
be reasonable, Mr. Roxley! It is not in repair; and we have under
our roof another, a much securer place of the sort, if you insist on
one----"
"Hardly, Mr. Boyd, I dare wager," interrupted Captain Jermain,
laughing afresh at what he counted Gilbert's absurd annoyance over
the "family secret."
"A strong, well-barred room in the East Wing, overhead, that was
fitted up for a gaol, and hath been so employed before now. I will
send and have it made ready to show you, gentlemen. Release my arm,
Captain, I insist! I will _not_ consent."
Jermain, Dawkin, and Roxley seemed the more amused at his annoyance.
It was plain that only forcible resistance would check their folly,
and forcible resistance was not to be, for an instant, considered.
Had Lord Armitage been listening? Ought not he to be within the
Mouse's Nest--out of earshot? He must be warned and extricated. Andrew
responded to that intense look from his father's eyes by a quick step
toward the hall-door, frantic to dash headlong up the dark stairs and
transmit an alarm through the panel in the Purple Chamber. Ah, by his
own pledge he had made more certain the doom of his friend! By his own
pledge!
But the captain interrupted him by a single stride. "Hold there,
friend Andrew, my bonny Highland chiel! No dodging upward to warn any
pretty faces that have shut themselves into this same old room. They
shall be gallantly surprised by a serenade before their portal.
Here!" continued Jermain, snatching a candle from the elder Boyd,
and bestowing it in Andrew's unwilling grasp; "you shall head the
exploring party! Huzzah!"
With one arm about Boyd's neck, and holding Andrew between Roxley and
himself, Jermain set the unsteady procession on the march from the
dining-parlor and out into the hall, the three shouting boisterously:
"Above-stairs, all of us! Huzzah!" and singing, like the caricature
of a death-hymn, as they approached the first step, that roystering
refrain:
"King George, God bless him forever!
And down with the _White Cockades!_"
CHAPTER VI.
A DESPERATE SHIFT.
In the meantime Lord Armitage had been sitting on one of the two
stools in the Mouse's Nest. That retreat was quite too dark for him
to see his hand before his face, except precisely in the corner where
he was resting. Into this the high opening in the wall, alluded to,
seemed to filter a gray gleam.
The young refugee realized that his present insecurity was great; but
he had been in deeper danger before it, and that self-control which
had rather disconcerted Andrew during that moment they had been
standing at the stair-top was not much assumed.
"Bless the boy!" he muttered; "it is something to have won such a
stout young heart! Ah, if ever I get away from this accursed land,
where death dogs my footsteps to trip me up, Andrew, you shall not be
forgotten, depend upon it. But, gadzooks! it looks now very little
like my conferring care or honor upon any man, young or old!"
He rose and peered curiously up at the aperture in the blank, black
wall, with his hands clasped behind his back.
"A strong draught from that, I note. I wonder with what it communicates?
Some sort of an air shaft probably. Faugh, what a den is this! A
day or so within it would go far to bring a gay fellow like me to
suicide--provided he could lay hand on aught here to take himself away
with. When can Andrew get back here to bring me word of the prisoner
below? Would to God I knew! My mind misgives me. If it be from them,
after all--! Still, still, there are so many of our gallant fellows
hiding in thickets and caves. If it _were_ Cameron or Lochiel it would
break my heart. That peasant-woman last week told me that she had
given shelter to a gentleman of the Prince's army only the day before!
Oh, Andrew, Andrew, my lad! make haste, for I am in worse dread for
others than for myself until you ease me."
He went softly--though there was no need, for the floor was stone and
only the under-arching thickness of the partition was below--down the
length of the Nest in the darkness, feeling his way along the wall
until he perceived that he stood alongside the sliding panel. A
narrow, almost undistinguishable crevice marked it out. He put his
ear to this, as he had done a score of times since his entrance; but
he could not catch the slightest sound, so impervious and exactly
adjusted was the barrier.
"I cannot stand it!" he ejaculated, feeling for the iron lever, a
simple turn of which, followed by a prolonged and equable pressure,
would slide back the panel. "It is a risk. Andrew is right. Any one of
those miscreants may take it into his head to go prowling about the
halls or chambers while the rest are at supper. But I _must_ get some
inkling of what is going on in that dining-parlor! Andrew may be on
his way to me, too."
He moved the lever. A slight tremor--a widening of the crevice--in an
instant he perceived that the massive jamb had retreated.
All was dark. He thrust forth his arm and touched the under-side of
the thick hangings along the wall of the Purple Chamber. Then he
slipped out beneath their folds, like a cat, and stood again in the
great room itself--alone. Apparently no one, friendly or hostile, was
on that second story as yet. Tiptoe he ventured toward the closed
door, the outline of which he could trace.
But he caught his breath as he came to it and set it ajar with
trembling caution. He had stolen forth from the Nest exactly as the
bustle below, the voices, laughter, and singing culminated in the
audacious demand by Captain Jermain that the mysterious secret-chamber
be laid open for the diversion of himself and his companions. Boyd's
protests he could not hear--nor see the scene at the table--nor guess
how it had come about. He heard only the pushing aside of the chairs,
the drunken march into the broad hall, the hoarse--
"King George, God bless him forever!
And down with the _White Cockades!_"
the reiterated cry: "Above-stairs, all of us! huzzah!"
The tone in which that drinking song was sung, those words uttered,
assured him that it was not betrayal, but some new train of concurrent
circumstances, that was bringing about a startling move. He dared
not lock the door. He leaped back, stumbled headlong toward the
chimney-piece, tossed aside the arras and threw himself within the
Mouse's Nest, with the pant of a hunted stag. To seize the lever
was the gesture of a half-second. He could bolt the panel to all
outsiders as soon as it shut. Excitement guided his hand truly in the
dark. He pushed and pressed. The panel slid obediently back toward its
deceptive resting-place. In doing so it creaked slightly--an ominous
occurrence that had not accompanied its previous passage. He tugged
harder at the lever as, with the creak, something seemed to resist his
hand.
Up the stairway was coming the tramp of the soldiers and the two
Boyds. He could overhear more merriment. He pushed with all his might.
It was useless labor. Within some three inches of closure, for its
bolting, the mechanism operating from the within-side of the panel
suddenly had refused to act. Everything stood still--perfectly,
terribly still. A wide black crack must inevitably be visible to any
person who should draw aside the arras of the chamber wall!
"I am lost if the villains have lighted on the secret of the Nest!"
the endangered nobleman exclaimed, in sudden realization and despair.
"Oh why, why did I not bethink me that I might not be able to close
it--through some weakness of the old apparatus? The chase is up!"
The next moment the shine of candles below the folds of the arras--the
loud banter and laughter of Jermain--broken sentences from Boyd--came
all within a few yards' length, as the quintet stood within the Purple
Chamber.
The young man crouched down. His teeth were set to meet the extreme of
his peril. The perspiration oozed from his forehead.
"Once for all, gentlemen," came the angry tones of Gilbert Boyd, amid
the scuffling of feet, "I swear to you that no hand but mine shall
ever, with my consent, disclose this secret place, however near it may
lie to us--and, as I live, it shall not be so disclosed this night!"
"Oh, but it must be, and shall be!" retorted Jermain, more delighted
than ever at prolonging and enjoying the old Master's concern; "away
with your silly family pride, Boyd! You have too much sense for it."
"We'll never tell, Boyd," said Dawkin; "will we, Roxley? Oh, 'tis rare
sport!"
"Never," assented Roxley; "hold up the candles, Andrew, that we may
all guess at the very spot."
"Beware, gentlemen, how you tempt my patience further! Surely, you
see that I am past the humor for such folly! Leave the room with me,
Captain Jermain! I command it--I adjure you all, by the laws of
hospitality and courtesy----"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the three tormentors. Had they been less
influenced by the excellent cheer at the table just quitted, one or
all of them must have by this suspected a deeper motive for Boyd's
recusancy. But, as it was, it all was taken with the other details of
the scene--an obstinate and proud Scotch householder, unwilling to
share a petty secret with some gay guests.
"And I--I adjure you," mimicked Jermain, "by the laws of hospitality
and courtesy, not to cross my pleasure so peevishly. Ay, there is the
chimney! Lockett particularized the chimney. Behind the corner of the
arras, just about where that figure of the Prodigal Son is worked,
must lie the plate set in the angle of the stone----"
Lord Armitage stiffened his muscles. "If I had only caught up one of
those stools yonder, the battle should begin from _my_ side!" he
grimly reflected. "Stay--I must not give them one extra inch of
vantage. I will creep into yonder farthest corner--lay hand on a
stool, crouch--and wait for them!"
"Oh, merciful God!" thought, or rather prayed Andrew, on the other
side, clutching the candles and white as one who swoons. "Does he
hear? What can he do? Save him, save him, O Lord--for only thou canst
preserve him or us now."
Dawkin made for the chimney-jamb, exclaiming: "Come, I'll draw back
the Prodigal from his husks!"
Before he could reach it, Gilbert, desperate, careless of any further
pacific measures, seeing in mind nothing but imminent bloodshed,
leaped between him and the chimney. Indignation had altered the very
fashion of his countenance.
"Hear me, sirs, for the last time!" he cried; "by the God of my
fathers, who hath preserved me and mine within this house until
these hairs are white, not one step further into its secrets or
secret chambers shall you take, nor dare any longer to indulge this
unsoldierly curiosity and insolence! I mean what I say. No, I will
give no reasons except what I have given, what common decency might
prompt to you. This impudent business stops at once. Take away your
hand, sir! Put down your arm, fellow! Call it over-respect to my
family and its trusts, or call it what you may, I swear that I will
strike down the man who sets a finger upon this arras! Must I call up
my servants to protect us from you?" [Four or five of these last were
already waiting wherever a man could lurk in the hall or adjoining
rooms, trembling for their master's safety, and only restrained by
Neil from running into the Purple Chamber to chastise the insolent
troopers.]
Half-intoxicated though he was, this vehement speech and the gestures
accompanying it were enough to change the mood of Captain Jermain to
irritation. He turned red, gave a short, hard laugh of contempt, and
uttered an oath--with which he darted forward to seize the arras. He
slipped, laughing triumphantly, beneath Boyd's extended arm. He
clutched the tapestry with a violent pull. The rusty nails above
yielded. Down fell the Prodigal and his Swine, partly overturning both
disputants. A cloud of dust rose; and, as it cleared away, a cry of
surprise broke from the lips of all the group. There, exposed to full
sight, rose the broad crack! The panel was unmistakable, because
partially open! "O Almighty Protector!" thought Gilbert, a thrill of
hope entering his heart, "he overheard--he had time to escape from
it."
"Yes, he has escaped--he has escaped!" ejaculated Andrew to himself;
"not yet in their power, not yet!"
"Open?" cried Jermain. "Yes, by the sword of Claverhouse, it is open!
The easier for us to take our look at it, but a bad sign for its
safety as a prison to-night. Let's see--will the doorway widen if we
push at the old panel."
There was no sound from the cell. Captain Jermain approached the
opening. Boyd could make no further resistance--he wondered whether
he might not have undone the success of some defence on his guest's
part, as it was; for as Roxley and Dawkin stepped toward the wall
Gilbert gave a sigh of exhaustion, and then sank back upon an
arm-chair in a half-faint.
Mistress Annan darted into the room unobtrusively, but looking like
an elderly Scotch ghost in cap and spectacles, and began chafing her
master's cold hands. Andrew would see it out to the end. "If he be
there, and if they seize him, I will strike one of them down for him,"
thought the lad. The end, the end was at hand--life or death in it!
"Works like a charm!" cried Jermain, now quite forgetting his fit of
passion in the indulgence of curiosity. "There, we can pass! Ugh!
What a stinking hole!" The lever, to outside persuasion, offered no
reluctance to move. The door, truly, was wide open. Blackness of
darkness--a rush of chill, malodorous wind. But no outrushing or
defiant figure!
"Give me one candle, boy," said Jermain--"hold the other before us.
So. Watch well your feet, lads. These odd nooks often have holes and
traps in their floors." With these words he stepped inside the Nest.
Face the worst, within that pit of gloom, Andrew must. But he
contrived, in obeying the command to accompany the three, audaciously
to stumble against the captain on the very sill. The latter's taper
was thereby cleverly dashed from the candlestick. It rolled to some
dusty nook quite beyond their feet.
"Awkward lout!" exclaimed Jermain; "but never mind; one candle shall
serve."
Making even it waver as much as he could (a process very easy in the
state of his nerves) they advanced well within the Nest, Jermain and
the others more awed each step by the dismalness of the retreat, but
all talking loudly. No Lord Armitage at bay, desperate, yet faced
them. And they moved on--on--now to the very end of the narrow
apartment, where were placed the mothy stag-skins and the two stools.
Everything seemed undisturbed, as if during the lapse of decades.
"Well, 'tis a dull discovery after all, so far, I admit," said
Jermain, peering now to the right, now to the left, or glancing
toward the cornice, all a black void some twenty-five feet overhead,
in such wretched illumination. "Not worth while to have so hot a
question with--ha, ha--friend Boyd, over it! Yes, here we are at its
end, I declare. Nothing beyond this dead wall, of course. Look,
Roxley, how rough the courses are--how strong."
"There seems to be a glim of light somewhere there," Dawkin remarked,
pointing up to the square aperture previously mentioned. "But 'tis a
vile den for any poor wretch to be shut into. Plenty snug enough for
that Highland dog, though."
"Ay," replied Jermain, frowning, "provided it be secure. Let's back to
look. Steady--beware of this uncertain floor. Dawkin, thou wilt need
all Andrew's candle-light for thine own share, thanks to the last two
glasses I filled thee."
Could it be possible? Andrew was dumb with gratitude. For he realized
that, tired of their own rudeness and curiosity, Jermain, Roxley, and
Dawkin were retracing their steps to the open panel, and that for all
the harm that had been done him by Jermain's acquaintance with the
place of his concealment and this visit to it, Lord Geoffry Armitage
might as well have been a thousand miles away!
But far more inexplicable was the mystery than he divined; until, on
the heels of Dawkin and the other two, he was crossing the threshold.
He saw his father standing a few paces outside, himself unable to
solve the riddle, but full of thankfulness for that which he felt was
the veritable overruling of God's power. He saw Captain Jermain offer
his hand with a stammered apology. He heard Roxley call to him, "Come
forth, youngster, we must shut up this panel and try what kind of a
lock it hath upon it, and then back to the merry board, my friends.
Halloa, look, look you at this, Captain. Here, Boyd, don't bear
malice, man, but give us your counsel a moment."
And then--and then--just as Andrew hastened to obey Roxley, a
voice spoke his name: "Andrew--Andrew." That was all; uttered in a
startling, almost magical, whisper. It came from somewhere over his
head, like speech evoked from the dense shadow itself.
He had presence of mind not to exclaim or start. He dared not stand
still there. With difficulty Roxley and the young captain closed
the panel once more. Like one in a dream he heard them exclaim in
disappointment and surprise on discovering that there was absolutely
no way of securing the door on the outside, and thus rendering it fit
for the special use desired. Still like one in a dream the boy watched
them, already wearied of their whim, force the panel back and forth in
its grooves, and with more boisterous raillery declare the place no
more a prison than a parlor. He heard Roxley ask his father to exhibit
to them the strong room in the East Wing, of which he had spoken, and
Captain Jermain interpose, laughing, "Oh, later, later, Roxley. One
dungeon is surely enough until we have forgot our quarrel over it in
a fresh glass together! Let the strong-room in the East Wing wait
an hour." And next he and they were all descending the staircase
together, the ordeal over, and he on fire to be rushing back to the
Purple Chamber! For he understood it all now.
* * * * *
At the moment in which Lord Armitage partially rose to make his way
toward the sole weapon of defence at hand--one of the three-legged
stools--an inspiration came to him. He recollected the void above him;
the uncertainty of candle-light--the inaccuracy of eyes dulled with
wine. He drew off, in the twinkling of an eye, the brogues Gilbert
Boyd had loaned him. Holding these between his teeth, he stepped a
yard or so beyond the panel, so dangerously ajar for the success of
the daring plan he had suddenly devised. He thrust his feet into the
crevices of the rude masonry, searching noiselessly with fingers and
toes for the numberless rough projections. In a few seconds he had
readily gained a height of eight or ten feet. Clinging to the stones,
he raised his hand to feel for some further coign of vantage. His hand
struck an object that he had little suspected, but instantly bethought
him was almost certain to be there, discoverable in any room so
constructed in such a house--a strong iron brace traversing the Nest
at a height considerably above the low entrance and running from wall
to wall. He laid hold of it. Would it break? He had no time to test
it. He took his fate in his hands.
With rigid muscles, and jaws aching from the strain of holding the
shoes, he drew himself up, got astride of it, and at last stood with
both feet upon it!
It was rusted, but it did not even bend. He balanced himself. Before
climbing he had knotted the latchets of the brogues together; he now
hung them across the bar, close to the black wall. So far so good!
Again must he attempt the dangerous, but far from impracticable, feat,
that he began to feel convinced was his succor. Could those outside
hear him as he climbed? No--it would seem not. He could have cried
aloud for joy as he felt, at arm's length above his head, a second
iron brace, evidently another essential in the support of the wall, to
which he clove like a human fly. To this second aid he pulled himself
up, and stood upright on it, with palms pressing the stones. At that
height, perhaps twenty feet from the floor he could, he dared hope,
defy the candle-light the intruders might introduce. It proved that he
could. Motionless, afraid to breathe, he presently saw their entrance,
and blessed Andrew for the additional security the fallen candle
brought about; and it was from up there, exhausted but safe from
capture, if not death, that he marked the troopers' departure from
beneath his very feet. Then was it that, wishing to enlighten Andrew
as to his resource and its merciful success, he ventured to send down
to the boy's quick ears that repeated name--"Andrew--Andrew."*
*The escape of Lord Geoffry Armitage has its foundation in the
experience of a Jacobite refugee, of inferior extraction, who
participated in the Insurrection of 1715.
CHAPTER VII.
PRISONER AND SENTRY.
"It was a miracle--a miracle!" repeated Gilbert Boyd, lost in wonder
and gratitude, some twenty minutes after the return of Captain Jermain
and his friends to their glasses down in the dining-parlor, whither
Boyd, in a state of utter bewilderment, had escorted them. The
sound of their laughter and raillery penetrated to the place where
the fugitive with Andrew and Gilbert now sat--a small lumber-room,
windowless and unceiled, in the attic of the rambling Manor,
partitioned off in one of its gables. Lord Armitage's self-extrication
from the Nest had been dangerously prompt. Andrew hurried up the
staircase and came upon Lord Geoffry creeping about in the dark hall;
through the boy's suggestion this uppermost retreat had been gained,
and hither, too, hastened Gilbert from the festivities recommenced in
the dining-parlor.
"Miracle? Ay--it seems a trifle like one," responded Lord Armitage,
laughing already; "what's the verse of Holy Writ about they who shall
bear up the righteous in their arms? Surely, I may count myself a
better man than I dared, and take courage forever."
"Blessed be the hasty fingers that left those walls so rude within!"
ejaculated Gilbert. "And a second brace above the first! I shall go
and see it for myself when those villains have spurred away to-morrow.
But I dare leave them no longer to themselves, my lord. I must below.
Andrew shall be our messenger--the comings and goings of the boy will
not be noticed. I will return at the next possible chance--say within
half an hour. But such a place for you! Mistress Annan shall see that
it is made as comfortable for you until morning as it can be. Little
dreamed I you were safer here than in _that_ most hidden corner of my
house. Come, Andrew; this greatest of perils is over; go you and see
if you can learn more of this prisoner or how we can help him.
Farewell, my lord, you are not likely to be endangered again. I must
keep my noisy guests in good humor till they be ready for bed."
Lord Armitage bolted the door behind them. He sank upon a pile of
dried hides, in the middle of his musty sanctuary, feeling completely
exhausted. He closed his eyes. Perhaps the reaction from such present
peril was all at once something like a swoon. In any case he lay
motionless and with eyelids closed for quite an indefinite time, until
he was startled by Andrew's knock, and his whisper from without.
"You are soon back," he said, collecting his faculties.
"Soon? Yes, yes--I have had an adventure myself, and I bring you
tidings thereby," began the lad, quickly. "Oh, I thought I was never
coming up."
He drew Lord Geoffry to the improvised seat. "All is well below. They
are drinking--laughing. But I have spoken with the prisoner! My lord,
despite his tattered clothes and sorry look, I truly believe him, like
yourself, a gentleman, a----"
The boy was startled at the effect of these few words. Lord Armitage
uttered a low cry, as of assurance made sure. His eyes flashed, and he
caught at Andrew's arm: "I feared it! I hoped it! Tell me what you
did, what happened! Tell me all, at once!"
In a few words Andrew related his slipping into the improvised
guard-room under pretence of offering to the willing Tracey and
Saville another flagon. Thereupon he boldly asked leave to give the
prisoner a glass of water, for which the man suddenly began faintly
moaning. What with their refreshments and the absence of anyone to
remind them of discipline, both dragoons were in a vastly better humor
than before their meal.
"So I leaned over him," Andrew continued, excitedly, "and I raised his
head and held him the cup. The man they call Saville had his back to
me. 'You are with friends, but we cannot help you,' said I, in his
ear. I could scarcely catch what he dared whisper as I laid down his
head, but I surely heard him say in English: 'Your father--warn
him--Danforth.'"
"Your father? Danforth?" interrupted Lord Armitage. "Good heavens!
What can he desire to say? Danforth? Oh, my God!"
"I know not," pursued Andrew, "for just as I bent to listen again
the two soldiers turned around. 'Are you not through yet with your
fetching a drink, boy?' called out Saville to me; 'come, come, enough
of such folly! He is not worth it. Out with you. This is not your
place.' So I had to hasten forth trembling. I dare not try again yet
awhile. They have set a chair against the door."
"Danforth? He spoke of him--and of your father, and of a warning?"
repeated Lord Geoffry, with clenched fist and a knit forehead. "Oh,
Andrew, what may those words mean? Why, why could you not gather more?
More _must_ be gained in some way. There has been, is, fresh danger
brewing, I fear, and before we are out of the shadow of this. But
stay here no longer. Hasten, tell your father what has chanced, that
he, too, may ponder over it. Return when you may--be cautious--but
especially come to me if you discover anything, ay, anything more
about this mysterious prisoner or from him." The knight hesitated an
instant, and then added:
"I will confess to you, dear lad, that for weeks before I came
to Windlestrae I lived in daily hope of hearing certain special
intelligence that very possibly can be trusted only to me. Moreover,
it will come to me from--I know not whom! It concerns a friend--the
nearest friend I have, and one pursued and miserable as I am. I wait
for it, I hope for it, without the least knowledge of who shall bring
it me. Alas, look not so surprised and perplexed! I cannot tell thee
more, my boy. But so it is--and in every stranger I may pass by my
messenger unless I am ever-watchful. On such a hard riddle hangs
perhaps all my future. Leave me; while you are gone I must plan how it
may be possible for me, in spite of Jermain or Tracey or Saville, to
speak with this man myself."
These last declarations left Andrew aghast; but he quitted the attic
and sped down-stairs, just as Mistress Annan and a maid-servant were
seeking the gable-room with a mattress, a pitcher of water, and some
other articles. He once more attempted the outer kitchen; but it was
hopeless, Neil informing him that the door had again been denied all
comers by the two on its inside. Andrew listened, and heard enough to
convince him that Tracey and Saville, well supplied with liquor at
their own angry demands, were setting in for private saturnalia of
their own; a course, which, however loathed by the temperate Manor
House family, the Master saw might be of great help, if the prisoner
they guarded was really to be addressed.
The little dining-parlor was still bright with a dozen of Mistress
Annan's best candles; and the liquors that Boyd dared not withhold,
when fresh supplies were called for, seemed in active circulation.
"Come in, Andrew," called Jermain, as Andrew slipped back to a seat,
"you are too young to be gay, but you can sit down and let your bonny
face smile on us. May you never grow up as wild a fellow as I! Here's
to your health, Boyd, prince of solemn-faced Highland hosts! Now,
gentlemen, I'm going to sing you all a capital song." Which he
proceeded to do.
Andrew, during it, whispered over his father's shoulder. Gilbert's
heart sank like lead again. Yes, there must be a communication with
the prisoner, whoever he really was, as soon as possible. A prospect
of Danforth! That meant fresh peril. Had there not been enough? He
sat and affected to listen to Jermain's frivolous chat until he could
remain no longer. He rose as if to get something.
"No, friend Boyd, no more budging," protested Jermain, "you can sit
as long as we, and sit you must. You have been an uneasy host all the
evening, ever since the secret-chamber affair was broached, and now
you shall make amends. Fill up your glass."
Boyd dared not persist. Twice after this did he attempt to get away,
that he might try to hold a conversation with the captive in the
outer apartment, or compare his alarmed surmises with Lord Geoffry.
But the captain seemed good-humoredly wary. By this time, however,
the hilarity of the two other soldiers had passed into, first, a
disputatious, then a maudlin, mood. The familiarity between Roxley
and the captain was decidedly more apparent, Jermain laughing
immoderately at all his stories, and applying himself quite as
liberally to the cup, though with what seemed a stronger head for it.
Andrew disappeared a little earlier, which the lateness of the hour
entirely warranted the boy's doing.
"I must speak with my son before he sleeps," Gilbert said abruptly. He
left the table, this time without exciting comment.
When he reached the kitchen he was not a little disturbed to find
Mistress Annan, the two maid-servants, Angus and Neil, and two
others of the household, all sitting in partial darkness and silence,
evidently each too apprehensive of further trouble to be willing to go
to sleep. "Nay, to your beds, all of you!" he ordered quickly. "I hope
that the night will pass without new disquiet. You can do no good by
watchfulness here--rather harm. Stay! Neil and Angus, you two had best
sit awhile until I speak with you again. The rest of you go cautiously
hence at once."
Gilbert passed swiftly on and listened at the outer kitchen. He could
hear Saville humming a tune and Tracey talking. "Do you lack anything,
gentlemen?" he inquired, pushing against the barrier on its inner side
and opening the door, "or are you disposed to seek your rest?"
"No," growled Tracey; "we'll go to bed when we please, and not before.
Shut the door!" Boyd obeyed; but the glance he had cast within the
place showed that the prisoner lay wide awake in his corner, and that
his two guards seemed further advanced in drunkenness than their
superiors at the other end of the house. For once the upright master
of Windlestrae thanked God that beings made in his own image could so
readily turn themselves into beasts. He hastened to the attic. Andrew
was there also, as he had fancied.
"Ah, you are come!" exclaimed Lord Armitage, as he entered; "you are
just in time, for I was about bidding Andrew go down to you and tell
you what I have decided must be done as to this prisoner and his
message to you or me. First of all, are Tracey and Saville yet enough
off their guard to allow you speech with him? No? Very well, then, my
chance is desperate. I shall speak with him myself."
"You?" ejaculated Boyd, in consternation.
"Yes, I! Listen. I more safely than anyone else. These villains
propose to shut the poor man into the Nest, do they not?"
"Not so, my lord. They have given that over."
"Why?"
"The panel cannot be fastened on the outside. It was never intended to
be made a bridewell. There is no lock, and besides that the mechanism
of the door is rusted and uncertain; you found that out to your cost."
"Where, then, will they stow the unfortunate fellow?"
"In the East Wing. There is a strong room there which I have offered
them."
"Has it a window?"
"Yes, but a window useless to you if you attempt parley from without
the house. It is the oldest part of the Manor; a dead-wall has been
built up flat in front of the window-bars."
"Is the cell upon a passage, then?"
"No; it opens from a larger chamber, my lord--the East Room we call
it--and that East Room is the only access to it; and the captain has
already said that one or two of his party must sleep in the East Room,
if only for the sake of form----"
Lord Geoffry interrupted Gilbert decisively. "I want, then, a suit of
Neil's or Angus' clothes--their worst. When you return below offer
Jermain a servant to relieve his men of this same formal guard-duty.
'Tis ten to one that this thoughtless, half-drunken young soldier
jumps at your proposal. If I am once stationed before the door of that
strong-room, depend upon it I can find a way to learn all that its
inmate has to tell. Those brutes will not waken, once sound asleep,
though I blew a trumpet over them."
Boyd stared, bewildered, at this audacious scheme. "He will lock the
cell's door, my lord; keep the key himself or give it to one of his
men. Such a plan is folly."
"He must _not_ keep the key; or, if he do, it must be got again. It
can be, if you do not spare your whiskey."
"And do you, then, suppose," asked Gilbert impatiently, and staggered
by such persistency, "do you suppose that Jermain will say 'yes' to
this offer? He is innocent of suspicions, my lord. But he is not a
fool."
"If he say 'no,' well and good. Then will I go down to the room as I
am dressed this minute, and while they sleep; or we will devise other
means to do what must be done. Bring first the suit--the clothes--I
beg. Boyd, be not so fearful."
In spite of his determination not to assist his guest in such an
extraordinary attempt, the arguments of Sir Geoffry faced the
bewildered Master quite down. Particularly was Boyd impressed with Sir
Geoffry's strange insistence that "the prisoner might have that to
utter which could be said best or only to him."
"So be it, my lord," he said; "your blood be upon your own head; and
yet, good sooth, I know not what else to attempt. Danforth! Danforth!
The name makes me tremble for you. I will go and await the fittest
moment to proffer your services to Jermain, and, if he accept it, I
will do my best to apprise the prisoner that something is in store for
him. Andrew, my son, this is no hour for you to be awake. You aid us
at your own cost. Go you to your bed when you have helped my lord into
yonder frieze-coat and leather breeches."
"If I do go I shall not shut my eyes; I shall but lie there and suffer
death each moment," cried the boy pleadingly. "No, let me stay near my
lord until all these new dangers are over. Ah, how can I sleep until
he and you sleep?"
Gilbert had not the heart to command.
"Well, well, be it as you will; but keep above-stairs," returned his
father. "God knows the end of this night's business. Pray each moment
for us all. Hark! I hear Roxley singing and the rest shouting. How
vile, how vile a crew to be harbored in this honest abode! What goodly
lessons for thy youth to be taught!"
Gilbert had been absent quite a considerable period this time,
although the fact aroused no interest in the dissolute trio he would
willingly have driven from his threshold. He saw at once, as he
entered the dining-parlor, that a change had taken place. Good Scotch
whiskey had done disgusting work. Roxley had ceased singing and
telling anecdotes and lounged with one arm on the table, supporting
his drowsy head, which lolled back stupidly. Dawkin was sprawled
half-across the board, his hand clutching an empty bottle. Jermain
was arguing some point of military etiquette in an aimless fashion
and without waiting for replies from Roxley. The young captain's
gallant bearing was gone: his eyes were dull and bloodshot, his
dignity and vigilance vanished, and his whole appearance that of a
half-intoxicated and quite commonplace young soldier.
"At this rate," thought Boyd, "your fine Surrey friends will not know
you when you go back southward. The king's army is an ill school
indeed, for you young men!"
"Well, Boyd--do your clocks--sing bedtime for all honest people," he
inquired, sluggishly; "your face betokens your thinking that it is an
hour when all men and most brutes should be asleep--and under either
name I am ready enough to stretch myself. Halloa there, Dawkin! wake
up, man, and go out to the kitchen and tell Saville and Tracey to
fetch that rascal hither. I must see him securely bound before we
fasten him into that strong-room upstairs, that Boyd talks about. Pity
the secret chamber is of no use. Boyd, I'll go up with you now and
inspect this other place at once."
Dawkin stirred, looked vacantly at his superior, and burlesqued a
salute with his hand and the bottle. He rose staggeringly, but fell
back in his chair, apologetically murmuring something.
"The man is drunk!" commented Jermain, angrily, relinquishing his
grasp of him. "Roxley--no, wait here until I come back."
He took Gilbert's arm. The latter led him up through the second-story
hall again.
"Down this way," said Boyd, descending abruptly a couple of steps into
a side passage, very low-ceiled and evidently little used. He opened
the door of a large chamber tolerably furnished, and put in order for
the night by Mistress Annan, but plainly seldom tenanted. Directly
opposite them Jermain saw a solid oak-door studded with nails--a
grim-looking little portal that admitted them into a stone-floored and
certainly dismal enough apartment, with a grated window.
"Fetters even, I declare!" exclaimed Jermain, stooping to examine some
rusted chains, which proved past service. "Come along, Boyd; this is
just the place. That's the key? So. Tight as Newgate! We'll get our
fellow here in a trice and Tracey and Saville shall lie in the outside
chamber."
But when they and Roxley presently stood before the door of the
outer kitchen, it resisted Roxley's efforts, until his violent push
overturned the chair-barricade within--and with no audible protest
from the prudent architects thereof.
"Well, well--this is a pretty sight!" ejaculated the captain.
It was, indeed. A candle was guttering on the table amid empty flagons
and spilled wine. Motionless in a corner lay the prisoner, just where
Gilbert last saw him, apparently asleep now, in spite of his pain and
the stifling air. At full length, opposite, stretched Saville, a
brawny Irishman of middle years, sound asleep. Tracey, similarly
oblivious to all responsibilities, snored beside Saville.
"More brutishness!" thought Boyd, in disgust at such a spectacle; "and
yet I would they had but dropped off an hour earlier!"
Jermain and Roxley began trying to rouse the derelict pair. It was no
use. Each relapsed into a stupidity more hopelessly complete at each
attempt.
The captain suddenly gave up the task with a spasm of profanity that
horrified Boyd, and drew from him a stern rebuke.
"They both deserve to be court-martialled and shot," declared
Jermain. "Wait until we get to Neith! No, I don't care how informal
their service is, Roxley. They shall be hung up by the thumbs for
this--Dawkin, too."
"What--what's to be done, captain?" demanded Roxley, in a sudden
attempt to hide his own dubious condition that was ludicrous to
behold.
"To be done? Why, those fellows must be let lie where they are--no use
trying to stir them. We must get him above-stairs ourselves. By Jove,
Boyd, I'm glad of your strong-room, with a vengeance! Look at those
two; look at Roxley--and," he added, with a laugh, "look at me!
Strong-room be praised! I am too tired to play watchman, and I seem to
be the only one fit--were it my place--which it certainly is not!
But--by the sword of Claverhouse!--somebody ought to have an open ear
to what goes on inside or outside this house, between now and morning.
A surprise might be undertaken by the Jacobite farmers hereabouts.
What's that? You can ask one of your hinds to mount guard upstairs
with Roxley?"
Boyd reiterated his proposal. "H'm--I don't know. Yet why not? Yes,
let it be so. If I should have to report such a thing, I would have
to be mum about Roxley's status. Here, pray lend a hand. Be lively,
Roxley. Up, you varlet!"
The prisoner struggled sullenly to his feet. Boyd dared not yet speak
to him. Roxley was close on the other side. But his eyes met the
captive's with a meaning look. Just as they came to the stairs Roxley
stumbled. Jermain leaned to his aid. It was Boyd's opportunity, albeit
one of seconds only.
"_The sentinel is a friend,_" he whispered--"_he will speak with you.
Expect him._"
There was time for no more; but he felt the man's hobbled foot pressed
upon his own. He had been understood, at least in part. They reached
the East Room.
"In with you, sirrah!" said Roxley, urging on their charge with a
thrust past the iron-studded door of the cell. He made no resistance
while they bound his legs more tightly.
Then came a crucial moment. Jermain pulled the key from the lock. Boyd
held in his hand another key of Andrew's searching out, one closely
like it. Only a sober and sharp eye would detect imposture. To make
the change was a matter of adroitness, but its success involved the
discovery of the trick before morning, unless cunning could accomplish
a second change. Luckily, Boyd did not have to effect the first one.
"Take the key, Roxley," said Jermain, yawning, "put it in your pocket,
and don't open the door, no matter what you hear, without calling me.
Boyd has stowed me not far off--I'll show you."
In his heart the derelict young captain was glad to throw any
responsibilities of the night upon his favorite's shoulders.
"Dawkin and I lie here?" inquired Roxley, disposing of the key.
"Ay. Keep on your clothes, of course--I shall. There's a bed, and that
great sofa--you can give Dawkin that. You'd best go and help him up
now." Roxley departed with an uncertain step.
"Fetch your trusty henchman now, if you will, Boyd," assented Jermain,
wearily. "I--I'll pay him for it to-morrow. I ought to have looked
sharper after these soldiers of mine."
The die was cast. If he still were resolved Lord Armitage might come.
And Roxley held the key.
Boyd vanished. Jermain gaped tremendously, sank into a seat, and
leaned his spinning head upon his palm. Roxley came in with Dawkin and
succeeded in getting him, still somnolent, upon the sofa, Jermain
dozing in his chair while this performance was got through with. "Push
up his long legs, Roxley," he advised--"that's it! I shall be glad to
push up mine, I'm sure. My report must be--a--well, a loose affair, if
I have to draw out one. Whe-e-w!" and the captain groaned. "How fagged
I am! Here's Boyd, at last."
Behind Gilbert slouched an ill-kempt peasant, whose age was
undistinguishable, armed with a pair of pistols and a cutlass. His
hair hung low over his forehead.
"Found somebody, did you?" inquired Jermain, rousing himself and
bestowing a single glance on Sir Geoffry. "Well, my man, we rely upon
your eyes and ears for at least the forepart of the night; until Mr.
Roxley relieves you--if he does. Call him, call me, if you hear or see
aught amiss, within or without. Do you understand?"
A clumsy nod was the supposed servant's reply. Boyd, unwilling to open
his lips in this danger-fraught moment, lighted Captain Jermain away,
and beneath his grim brows looked at the three thus face to face. It
seemed incredible that the men whose meeting, an hour or so earlier,
seemed such an accident of dread, could, in this moment, be contrived
with but a fraction of risk to one of them!
"Good-night, Roxley!" said the Captain. "Lock the door after us."
But he drew the soldier aside. "Look here, Roxley, we start early;
sleep soundly, but not too soundly. We ain't setting an example of
discipline to the service to-night! Boyd's hand might be tempted to
do--one knows not exactly what. Another time, when we have prisoners,
we had best rest earlier--and drink less. Mum's the word, though,
Roxley."
With a parting glance at the supposed Highlander, who sat on a stool
by the chimney-piece, the very model of a steadfast, awkward Scotch
farm-servant, expecting to be well-feed for an irksome duty, the
Captain allowed Boyd to conduct him from the East Room.
Roxley made a remark or two to his mute aid, while pulling off his
boots. "Rouse me, if aught goes amiss," he said, with a hiccough, "but
not unless--and I don't promise this--you can wake me any easier than
Dawkin over there. You and I'll call it our night off duty--eh?--now
that Captain's gone." Whereupon Roxley sighed and hiccoughed again,
and laid himself at full length across one of Mistress Annan's best
coverlets; and, in a trice, could not have been roused by the incoming
of his own horse at a trot.
So it is. Stillness, stillness, all through the Manor House. Dull
comes the sound of one o'clock. Jermain sleeps; Roxley and Dawkin
sleep; Saville and Tracey sleep. Boyd and Andrew are hidden in the
garret until an appointed signal; the lad's eyes shut involuntarily
from pure fatigue. Geoffry, Lord Armitage, in what of peril thou must
yet meet before this wonderful night shall give place to dawn, may the
Lord of the defenceless be thy helper!
CHAPTER VIII.
MEETING--FLIGHT.
Again came the muffled chime of the antique clock down-stairs; the
quarter-hour.
Strange sight--the sentinel in the East Room moves. He cautiously lays
aside his cutlass; his brogans he had taken off, as if to ease his
feet, when he sat down.
Like a thief, he walks from his stool to the bed, then to the sofa.
The sleepers are as those dead. He goes to the old door of the
strong-room and lays his ear to each crevice.
"Too well-joinered yet," he says to himself, "for me to try opening my
lips from here, were he close beside it. Will he hear this, I wonder!"
Gradually augmenting the sound, he imitates with his nails the scratch
of a rat in the wall. But no responsive signal traverses the barrier.
Nevertheless, when he repeats it he fancies that there filters to his
ear, from the stillness within, a faint, prolonged whistle.
"It is the only way," he decides, raising himself from the floor.
The bolt is on the hall-door, as Captain Jermain directed. Our
disguised knight need dread no interruption thence. He advances again,
on tiptoe, to the motionless figure on the bed.
Drunken Roxley! Shake off your stupor, for one instant! Turn over,
man! Murmur; do something that will startle this robber who is picking
your pocket with the caution and address of one who realizes that
his life is between his thumb and finger. But no; you merely snore,
Roxley, and you do not start at the hand that by quarters of inches
draws the key from its hiding-place. It is too late now; for he has
glided from your side with it.
"Harmless sot!" thought Lord Geoffry, contemptuously. "Had my Lady
Macbeth drugged his posset he could not be safer! Now, pray Heaven,
Andrew left the lock as well-oiled as Boyd thought!"
The candle stood so that it had lighted him in his attempt, though
screened from the eyelids of Roxley and Dawkin.
Once more he made his former signal. Then he inserted the key. It
moved readily in the wards. He softly pushed open the door. There was
no sound yet from the occupant. He stole back to the candle, returned
with it, sheltering the flame with his palm, and, after a parting
glance backward around the shadowy East Room, entered the cell,
tiptoe.
The object of his scrutiny lay in a corner, where he had been secured
to a staple, by a rope, in addition to his pinioned legs and arms. He
had started into a semi-upright attitude and was maintaining it,
despite his cords, leaning forward with a most miserably eager and
despairing expression upon his wild countenance.
Lord Geoffry partially closed the door as he came in. He advanced with
one hand raised, to remind the other of those so near them.
The prisoner showed that he appreciated the perilous situation by a
nod. Another step or two brought the knight to his side.
"Do they sleep, out there?" whispered the captive, hoarsely.
"As if they were dead. Two in that room; the rest elsewhere. Did you
hear my scratching? You expected me?"
"Yes, but I could make no louder answer. I caught Boyd's warning.
Where is he?"
"Waiting until the half-hour strikes; with that he comes to the door
of that outer room, and I can tell him whatsoever be these tidings you
bring. What are you--a refugee? Ah, so I supposed. Trust me, then,
with what you have to say. In a moment I will tell you why you may. We
are all friends here."
"Great God!" interrupted the prisoner, in a bewilderment increasing
each instant, despite the many emotions of the situation. "You are no
servant of Boyd's! Are you his kinsman? I have heard your voice, seen
you before! For the love of Heaven lean forward where I can see your
countenance clearly. I am called Hugh Chisholm."
Lord Armitage complied. He must have expected, indeed, some special
recognition; for at the sound of that low-spoken name, "Hugh Chisholm,"
he bent toward the other man, and in a distinct tone and with a
piercingly anxious glance he repeated it--"Hugh Chisholm? Can it be
the same Chisholm? And if you be from the Braes of Glenmoriston, and
are sent to find in high-road or hedge one Lord Geoffry Armitage, and
answer to his challenge of the Lost Cause"--and he whispered it--"I am
he whom you seek, he who has despaired of meeting you or your fellows
since he left Sheilar."
The self-control of the other seemed for an instant nearly overthrown.
He murmured some words in a foreign tongue, with so passionate an
inflection that Lord Armitage checked him.
"'Tis as I scarcely dared hope!" said the latter, continuing in the
fluent French which his overjoyed interlocutor seemed entirely to
understand. "Yes, you find me here. And that it should be you, and I,
I not recognize you at sight! Did Patrick Grant send to Sheilar? I
see; I had left the house before the message could get thither. Here,
let me cut those thongs--the hounds, to so tighten them!"
Lord Armitage severed them; and he who had endured them was with
difficulty prevented from kneeling at his feet, in what may have been
a thrill of delight and gratitude--or another feeling. But there was
only too much employment for the few moments, any one of which was
liable to fatal interruption. As it was, some outside sound made their
hearts stop beating; but all remained calm again, and they spoke on in
lower and quicker voices.
"I would have been here early this afternoon but for this luckless
meeting with Jermain and his men on the road, and their capture of me.
I had a companion with me, Rab Kaims, but he escaped in the forest. I
was in despair when they bound me; but scarcely could I believe my
senses when I found that they had turned to Windlestrae, the very
place where Grant expected us to find you! I was able to breathe part
of my tidings in the ear of that lad--Boyd's son, I fancy--awhile
since. He told you? So! My security rested in my feigning to be more
wretched and wounded than I am. But, oh, Heaven! your daring, my
gracious lord, bewilders me. Suppose that----"
"Suppose nothing, Chisholm! Long ago in Paris I used to tell you that
destiny would support me through any peril. But what brings Danforth
here so unlooked for?"
"In Neith, the garrison and he have suddenly suspected Boyd's politics
to be quite mistaken hereabouts. Danforth gathered that a refugee had
taken flight from Sheilar Manse in this direction. Yesterday Patrick
Grant had word from Neith that Danforth was for riding over here after
sunrise, examining Boyd and formally searching this manor. He comes;
and you must be far away!"
"I far away, Chisholm? Truly. But where? Surely you cannot convey me
to--to the place of which you and I know, in the short time between
now and day-break?"
"I can! Why not? Morning must find us both there, in safety and among
loyal hearts. Naught prevents. It is more than likely that Grant has
provided for our being met on the way. The man Kaims is fleet. They
will all rely on my escaping, be sure."
"Hark! No; that was not the half-hour. Concerning Boyd, one word." And
Lord Geoffry spoke a sentence that made Chisholm open his wild eyes
still wider and exclaim, "Impossible! But, for the love of Heaven,
why?"
"Because I so chose--I scarce know why myself," answered Sir Geoffry.
"And I _still choose;_ it must not be otherwise yet. But come; be it
as you say! We will get away from this den of peril. God help Boyd
and his household, when Jermain awakes and Danforth rides up to join
him; for it will be found that two birds instead of one have flown."
"Aha!" returned the other, with a diabolic glitter flashing in his
eyes that at once revealed the savage nature below, "but why must they
wake, my liege? Are not these in our hand? One knife does their
business before we quit this roof--saves Boyd--eh?"
Lord Armitage recoiled at the bloody suggestion.
"_Mort de Dieu!_ Would you slay the sleeping?" he cried. "Never--never.
It were as foul murder as a Virginian savage could bring himself to
do. Speak of it again, and I will cry out and we both shall perish!
You chill the blood in my veins."
Chisholm looked at him curiously. But he recognized the determination
in Lord Geoffry's attitude and accent and yielded, murmuring, "So be
it. But because it is thy will. They would serve us thus, be sure."
"Chisholm, what will become of Boyd and his people when we are sought
for? Oh, the thought is intolerable to me. Go you alone. I cannot
leave them."
"If we stayed, it were no aid to Boyd," responded Chisholm, rising
after him and taking his shoes in his hand; "and think of what your
death"--the rest of the sentence he finished in Lord Armitage's ear,
plucking the young nobleman imperatively onward. The outlaw locked the
low door behind them with a cool and cautious hand and put the key
into his own pocket, with a scornful smile.
Cautious of the candle's flickering light in the sleepers' eyelids,
they emerged into the East Room. Boyd came in view as Sir Geoffry
permitted his companion to pass through into the hall, where a lantern
swung. The startled Master clasped his strong hands in consternation
at beholding, not only the expected knight, but with him the prisoner,
released from his fetters and walking upright, with so altered a mien.
Evidently some new move had been found necessary. Boyd's cheek paled
as he realized what would occur if Roxley should spring from his bed
and cry out. He beckoned the fugitives away.
In a few low-uttered sentences Armitage described his successful
attempt; and in the same breath disclosed the necessity for his
instant flight from the Manor, along with the mysterious messenger.
But more than that he had a private knowledge of Chisholm, and was
positive that he could rely upon his efficient help, the fugitive
seemed not to think it proper to disclose. However, Boyd had heard
often enough of that singular brotherhood of loyalty and marauding,
whose names and exploits have since become part of the history of the
troubled time, and whose cruelty and courage in skirmish and raid
terrified even the Tory troopers in relating--the Seven Men of Glen
Moriston! Who, in turning over the pages of the chronicle of the
"Forty-five," has not paused to admire the daring with which a handful
of desperate spirits maintained themselves in a mountain fastness,
defied pursuit, and, at last, their country restored to peace, died
in their beds?*
With the Men of Glen Moriston, two of them acquaintances, Boyd had
already had dealings; and he needed not now to be informed as to their
fidelity and strength.
"There is but one course! You must be off without delay!" he exclaimed
to Lord Geoffry. "The great God holds thee in his hand, that he
suffers this warning to reach thee and still leaves open the way of
escape. There must be no stopping for food or better clothing, or what
not--though all that I have, my lord, you know, were at your service.
Those to whom you go will supply you. Downstairs at once! I know the
door best for your passage out. Come!"
Bewildered still, by want of preparation for this flight, which it was
more than probable he would never retrace, Sir Geoffry obeyed. Boyd,
who was barefooted, went stealthily to the lantern and took it from
its hook. Step by step they descended the staircase after him, the
lantern flashing fitfully upon the wall. Opposite the lowest step
there chanced to be driven a row of wooden pegs for the hanging up of
outside garments.
"It is chilly. We had best not go without better protection,"
suggested Chisholm, in French; and his eye falling on the pile of damp
wraps that Captain Jermain and his men had cast there, the outlaw
detained Boyd until he had coolly laid hands upon a couple of fine
military cloaks, belonging to the dragoons, and, in spite of Boyd's
dumb-show protest, also helped himself to a small leathern pouch which
his deft examination showed him contained a purse and sundry trifling
matters.
"It makes your false servant who releases me a genuine varlet," the
outlaw argued. "Let us spoil the Egyptians."
But Boyd only thought, indignantly: "There shines the real thief-spirit,
with a vengeance!" Gilbert gave them his own and Andrew's hats,
and, turning through a short passage, led them into a kind of
"lean-to" opening into the garden. A rude door, fastened with a stout
timber-bar, was all that now interposed between the fugitives and the
outside world of liberty.
The solemnity and regret of the instant entered deeply into the
spirits of both the young and the elderly man, in spite of the awful
possibility of an alarm ringing through the silent house, now, before
the confident hands of the outlaw, already on the bolt, should lift
it. The generous and grateful soul of the refugee was distressed with
the reflection of the tempest sure to descend upon his protector and
his household; if not from the negligent Jermain, who for his own sake
would hardly dare to make too great a matter of Chisholm's escape, yet
from the untimely visitation of the suspicious Danforth.
"We must not be shod until we reach the very end of the garden,"
cautioned Hugh Chisholm.
Lord Armitage scarcely heard the words. "Would to Heaven I did not
thus leave you, Boyd!" said he to Gilbert. "Had I believed that such
was to be our parting, I doubt if I had suffered our meeting. After
all that you have done, all that I owe to you--Boyd, forgive me!"
"I have nothing to forgive, my lord. You came welcomed; whatever
service I have offered has been welcomely tendered--you go to save
your life when I cannot. Farewell!"
"But how shall I learn of your fortune after this morning's alarm and
search? I cannot turn my back now, thinking that days may pass ere I
do."
"Those who receive you will bear us tidings; you from me, I from
you, if I live. Fear not for me and mine. The Lord is the Keeper of
Windlestrae; we will not fear what man can do unto us. There will
hardly be more than rough words and impudent questions."
Ah, self-sacrificing Master of Windlestrae! Even your guest feels that
you are generously glozing over other pictures seen in your mind, as
you thus encourage him.
"But when shall I see you? Cannot you assure me of that?" implored
Lord Geoffry.
"I cannot, in truth. In better times, we must both pray; and better
times are not likely soon to break. Come, no more of this! Farewell,
my lord--each second is precious." He held the door open. "Go, go!"
The outlaw, indeed, beckoned in impatience. A puff of the chill
morning air fluttered out the lantern. In the distance a cock crew
shrilly. Lord Geoffry grasped Boyd's hand, and turned away.
"God protect you both!" murmured Gilbert, shivering in the wind. It
was clear and cold; the fog in which Jermain had arrived had blown
away, stars glittering overhead, and the bright dawn glimmering
already in the East, in that region so early aglow. But as Armitage
stepped from the stone threshold a sudden, last remembrance rushed
over him. How could it have come so tardily?
"Boyd, Boyd!" he exclaimed, softly, in a tone that expressed the pang
of remorse and regret assailing him. "Andrew! Where is Andrew? Good
God! can I have so nearly forgotten him?"
The idea of departing thus, without a syllable to the lad who had
devoted himself to him and exhibited such courage in his protection
amid the environment of danger, was unendurable.
"He sleeps," replied Gilbert, chafing at further delay; "sheer
weariness all at once overcame him. When I came down he lay on the
floor of the attic chamber."
Lord Armitage pulled a ring from his finger. "It is better so. That to
him, I beg; that, with my last adieux and my love. Say to him that it
must remind him of the hour when we met, of that hour when we shall
meet again. Heaven bless your boy! I hold him very dear."
Boyd took the ring. Lord Geoffry vanished after Chisholm in the cold
and darkness.
*See Jesse's Lives of the Pretenders, vol. ii., pp. 136-142.
CHAPTER IX.
COLONEL DANFORTH.
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. We _were_ all 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. "_That_ commonly 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. The
_mêlée_ might 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!"
CHAPTER X.
ALL FOR HIM.
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! I _have_ sheltered 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!"
CHAPTER XI.
UNDER THE OAK.
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 can _not_ lodge 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.
CHAPTER XII.
L'ENVOI.
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 vessels _L'Heureux_ and _La Princesse de
Conti,_ sent by the exiled Chevalier from Morlaix Harbor, France, and
waiting until the fugitive's approach, so frequently despaired of.
In _L'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
looking _protégé_ seemed 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!"
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Obvious printing errors have been silently corrected throughout.
Otherwise, inconsistencies and possible errors have been preserved.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "White Cockades: An Incident of the "Forty-Five"" ***
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