The Yeoman Adventurer
great good-humour. "That's a crumb of the mouldy bread of learning you
used to cram down my throat in the old days. It makes Master Wheatman
writhe to hear it. The only advantage I ever got out of being a Prince was
that old Tom here never dared thrash me for gulping up his rubbish."
"Master Wheatman knows Latin enough to stock a couple of bishops, sir,"
said the Colonel.
"The devil he does!" said Charles admiringly. "He'll come in handy for
writing me a letter to His Holiness."
"It's not such bad stuff as all that, sir," said I, glad of a chance of
saying something, for I had been hurt to the quick by talk that reminded
me of how I had quizzed Jack's classics in Old Comfit's entry.
"To come back to the Colonel's advice," said Charles. "I've split 'em up
and now I'm going to smash 'em in detail. We're not going back, sirs, if I
can help it. Master Wheatman,"--and here he naturally and unaffectedly
took on a princely tone--"we appoint you our assistant aide-de-camp, and
desire your attendance on our person during the day, under the more
immediate authority of our excellent friend, Colonel Waynflete."
At a sign from the Colonel, which I was lucky enough to see the meaning
of, I dropped on my knee before the Prince.
"Thank you, Master Wheatman," said Charles, in his ordinary frank way,
when I rose. "You're worth a hundred rats like young Maclachlan."
I coloured, partly with the praise and partly because I was wondering how
many Smite-and-spare-nots I was worth.
I was then closely questioned about the lie of the land to the south of
Stafford and Derby. After a long consultation, the Prince dismissed me,
with a gracious invitation to be one of the Royal party at dinner,
promising me, with a sly smile, that the company should be to my liking.
The Colonel and I withdrew. In the corridor he put me in charge of an
upper servant of the household, and went to see to Sultan.
My new acquaintance was an elderly man of a solemn, soapy aspect, set off
by a sober black livery and a neat wig. He took me up to a bedroom, and
saw to my comfort.
"William, or whatever it is," I began.
"William it is, sir," said he.
"Do I look like an assistant aide-de-camp to a prince?"
He took stock of me, from my dirty boots to my bare head, and then said
solemnly, "No, sir!"
"William," said I, "but that's precisely what I am."
"Yes, sir," he replied.
"Therefore this is precisely your opportunity, William."
"Yes, sir," said he.
"William," I went on insinuatingly, "I think you could, knowing this
house so intimately as you do, make me look something like an assistant
aide-de-camp to a prince. It's a tough job, William, but you'll do it. I
can see it in your eye. By virtue of the power adherent to the assistant
aide-de-camp of a prince, we hereby authorize you to do all things that
may be necessary for the accomplishment of our purpose, and, when your
task is over, you will, by a curious coincidence, find five guineas under
yon candlestick. Life, William, is full of coincidences."
"Yes, sir."
"But not as full of guineas, William, as it should be. Set to work!"
Instead of going he stood there, gently washing his hands with imaginary
soap and water, and finally said, "You will of course, sir, be very angry
if I do not do as you bid me."
"I shall, William," said I, lathering away at my chin.
"I may take it, sir, that you'll blow my brains out if I don't."
"Blow your--Oh, I see! Certainly!" said I, tailing off from astonishment
into understanding.
The quiet humour of the man was delightful. I fetched a pistol out of my
pocket and added gravely, "William, unless I am, in appearance as well as
in fact, a prince's assistant aide-de-camp in half an hour, I'll blow your
brains out. Now clear out, while I have a bath!"
"Thankee, sir. It'll be all right now. My lord is, I should say, just of
a size with your honour."
William was an artist and fitted me out with the nothing-too-much of
exact taste. There were garments by the score that would have made a
popinjay of me, but he knew better, and turned a sober young yeoman into a
sober young gentlemen, and there's no harder task, as I have frequently
observed since.
"Sir," said he at length, stepping back a few paces to con me over, "in
any other man I should deplore the obstinacy-excuse my plainness,
sir--which declines to wear a wig, but the general result, the _tout
ensemble_, as my lord would put it, is agreeable."
"William," I replied, "you err through ignorance--excuse my plainness,
William. The best Wheatman of the Hanyards that ever lived would have
burned at the stake rather than wear a wig. I've done most of the other
things he would have burned for, but I'll stick by him to this extent that
I'll be damned if I'll wear a wig."
I never have, and it is no small measure due to me that the wearing of
wigs is being left to lawyers and doctors, who, I understand, find it pays
to look old and old-fashioned.
"Quite so, sir! A very proper sentiment," said William, with his eye on
the candlestick. "It's family pride that keeps the great families agoing,
sir, and they're the backbone of the Constitution, sir!"
After this high sentence, as I was ready to go, he gravely escorted me to
the door and bowed me out. I dropped my ear to the keyhole and heard the
chink of the guineas. William clearly had a very pretty appreciation of
the best means of keeping himself agoing. A suaver, defter rascal I have
never set eyes on.
I had already so much of soldiership as to know that it is well to master
the ins and cuts and roundabouts of a strange house. If an emergency comes
it may be the best guide to action. "Know your ground and win your fight,"
the Colonel used to say, and it's as true of a house as of a province. So
I walked softly and watchfully about, and in doing so had turned sharp to
the right to gain a view of the river and the gardens, when I came on the
Lady Ogilvie. She was kneeling on a cushioned settle, resting her chin in
her hands, and her elbows on the high back of the seat.
She turned to see who it was. Her face was clouded over, but the sun of
her smile broke through in a flash, and she darted joyously at me.
"It's the incomparable one!" she cried, bubbling over with merriment.
"Nay, I vow, it's the still more incomparable one. Losh, man, and ye look
bonny! I'm telling it ye, and I've seen more bonny men than you've seen
bullocks. Sit down and tell me where you've been and what you've done.
Davie says you tell't him I was very, very guid. And so I am," she ended
complacently, "and if any man says the differ...."
"He'll do well to keep out of Davie's road and mine," I cut in, as I was
building up the cushions into a soft corner for her.
"You're an unco' guid lad," she said, wriggling into her nest, "an' if it
werena for some one I ken I'd gie ye anither kiss."
I willingly admit that I wished Davie far enough, for she was a very
dainty lady, with a mouth like an open rose-bud.
We had a long talk, for I told her all about my doings with ghost,
thieves, thief-catchers, and baby Blount. She enjoyed it to the top of her
bent. Then, when I had come to the end of my tale, she sobered all of a
sudden, and said, "Oliver, what's going to happen to us?"
"I don't know," said I.
"There's something in the wind I dinna like. Davie's a' for ganging back.
We women ought never to have come. Davie can think o' naething but me. As
if I mattered a tup's head, the silly gomeril, bless him! Now there's your
Maclachlan. He'd go to London if it was full o' deevils to fetch a
stay-lace for Margaret, but he's a' for the homeward gait too!"
"The best military opinion is that it is hopeless to go on," said I.
"And I dinna think it's much better to gae back, laddie. It's a retreat.
Ca' it what you like, you can mak' nae ither thing of it, and these
Highland bodies, ance they retreat, will break to bits. Naething will keep
the main of 'em taegither, ance they cross the Highland line again. Sae
it's a black look out, Oliver, but I dinna mind ane wee bit. If I'd no
been a Jacobite, I'd never hae met my Davie yonder. He's worth it a', is
Davie."
"It's a hard task for any man to be worthy of your ladyship," said I,
"but Davie's worthy if any man is."
"And Davie reckons you're fine," she replied, smiling. "Margaret pit him
doon for three dances, and sat in a corner with him through 'em a'. I
wonder the incomparable one's lugs"--I knew what she meant because she
pinched one--"arena burnt off his head. You should hae seen Maclachlan
ranting and raving like an auld doited tup!"
"It is pleasant to learn that Mistress Waynflete is so interested in my
doings," said I, with as much coolness and aloofness as I could muster. I
would at least keep my foolishness on my own side of my teeth.
"Unco pleasant, I hae nae doot," was her dry comment. And she set her red
lips aslant as if she were swallowing vinegar.
I remembered my new function, and looked at my watch. I had long overrun
the hour the Colonel had given me.
"Your ladyship will pardon me," said I, springing up, "but I'm overdue
for duty."
"Duty?"
"Yes. His Royal Highness has appointed me assistant aide-de-camp to
himself."
I spoke with much impressiveness but, to my chagrin, instead of the
congratulations that were my due on such an occasion, she looked concerned
and almost angry, and cried, "The very deil's in it!"
"I am sorry your ladyship is displeased," I said coldly. Scot clings to
Scot, and she did not like it.
"Displeased, ye daft gomeril!" she retorted. "And I suppose you'll be
pleased, and Margaret will shout for joy, if ye get a dirk in your
assistant aide-de-camp's ribs ane o' these fine nights. Just understand
ance for a', my friend, that a Highlander kills a man wi' as little
compunction as an Englishman squashes a beetle. There's nane o' your
law-and-order bodies beyont the Highland line."
"Nothing but common murderers!" said I hotly. "I have heard much of the
virtues of the Highlanders of late, but this surprises me."
"Hoots! Murderers?" she cried. "No such silly Saxon whimsies. They've got
as many virtues as any Englisher that ever snivelled prayer and shortened
yardstick. Murderers! Hoots, my mannie! Just removers of difficulties!"
So she turned it off with a jest in her pretty way, and got up and jigged
along the corridor with me after her, longing to jig it with her, but
hobbled by my new dignity. I had no clear notion of an assistant
aide-de-camp's duties, but felt that they required a certain solemnity of
manner inconsistent with her ladyship's grasshopper ways.
In the end, she dancing and I lumbering along, we came on a cheerful
group collected in the corridor below. There was the Prince, the Duke of
Perth, the Lord Ogilvie, the two Irishmen, Mr. Secretary, the Colonel, a
strange lady or two, and Margaret.
"I thought your ladyship was lost," said Charles, smiling.
"On the contrary, sir," she retorted, "I was found."
"The usual explanation," he commented lightly.
"A most unusual explanation, sir," she countered deftly, "for Mr.
Wheatman has been explaining how it came to pass that he kissed a ghost."
"I never said any such thing," cried I, vexed to the bone.
"It wasna necessary," she said airily.
"Was it the ghost of a lady?" asked the Duke, who had been greatly amused
by the dialogue.
"The question could only be asked," said Charles, "by one who has not the
advantage of knowing Master Wheatman."
He laid a hand on my arm and drew me nearer. "My lord Duke," he went on,
"I present to you the latest addition to my army, Mr. Oliver Wheatman of
the Hanyards, the first-fruit, I am convinced, of a rich harvest from the
gentry of his shire."
It was no plan of mine to cry stinking fish to a Prince who had engentried