The Yeoman Adventurer
the Prince was the death of her. She would have her bed put down here,
sir. She wanted to die here, with the old shield in her eyes, for she was
proud of her blood, as well she might be."
"Yes," I whispered back. "She was the last of a great race."
"Aye, sir. She was that. She was a bit moithered in her mind, dear heart,
just afore she went. The last words she said were a prayer for his soul,--her
sweetheart you know, sir, that she lost sixty years ago,--just as
I'd heard her pray thousands of times. But, poor thing, she got his name
wrong. She called him 'John.'"
Choking, I threw myself on my knees beside Margaret, and prayed and
fought, and fought and prayed again. Here, before me, I saw Death in the
only shape in which it can give no sorrow--sinless age that had gently
glided into immortality; and, with equal vision, I saw the black
passage ... and the still twisted thing lying there in a patch of
gloom ... my friend, gone in the pride of his youth ... his life spilt out
in anger and agony ... and by me. Then the innocent hand of her for whom,
though all unwittingly, I had done this thing, crept on to my shoulder,
and I turned to look at her.
"Thank God we came, Oliver!" she whispered.
Before we could rise, the black-robed priest lifted his tall, gaunt frame
slowly from the _prie-Dieu_. Standing on the opposite side of the bed
he raised his hands in blessing.
"Our sister is with God," he said, his deep voice vibrant with emotion.
"My children, you are, as I think, those who were much in her prayers at
the last. I know not who you are, but, in her memory and in God's name, I
give you in this life His Peace, and in the life to come the assurance of
His Everlasting Blessedness. Amen."
He ceased. Gravely, and in a solemn silence, he knelt again at the
_prie-Dieu_. We rose. First Margaret, and then I, kissed the Prince's
brooch and the folded hands, and then stole out of the room. We were too
awe-stricken to speak, or even to look at each other, but, as we went, she
placed her hand in mine.
Weary days, full of hard riding and scouting, passed before I saw
Margaret again. I was always in the rear, generally far in the rear, while
she and the other ladies were, very properly, kept well ahead. She now
rode in the calash with Lady Ogilvie,--the two being inseparable,--and
Maclachlan was with them. My work was hard and anxious but it kept me from
thinking overmuch. I put all my soul into it so that it should.
"The lad does very well, as I told you he would," said the Colonel to
Murray one night when I rode in to make my report.
"I see no signs of my chance of breaking him," said his lordship grimly,
but he would have me sup with him that night, and was very unbending and
helpful.
There is nothing I need say about this stage of the retreat. It was well
managed, and is, I am told, a very creditable piece of soldiership. It
does not belong to my story but to history, to which I leave it.
Things did happen, however, that do concern me. The first was laughable
though vexatious. This was the manner of it.
While the Prince was making the stage from Macclesfield to Manchester,
and Murray and the Colonel were in force a few miles in his rear, I had to
keep the country behind them well observed. I had one patrol within sight
of Macclesfield, and others stretching out along an edge of upland country
running westward to the next main road. I spent the night in a little
wayside ale-house, and was having my breakfast next morning when I was
disturbed by a succession of yells from without.
I ran into the yard and there was Donald, the rough head of one of my
dragoons in each hand, banging them together, varying his bangs with kicks
at any accessible spot, and shrieking at them in Gaelic, while they
shrieked back and wriggled to escape. He stopped when he saw me, but still
held them by the pow.
"What's it all about, Donald?" I asked.
"The loons! It's Glencoe 'erself sail hang 'em," he said breathlessly.
"What for? Out with it, Donald!"
"Yes, you gomeril"--shoving one of the men sprawling into the stable--"oot
wi' it! Bring your tarn rogues wark 'ere!"
The man came sheepishly out with my saddle, cut and ripped and gutted
till it wasn't worth a sou.
Strict and stern inquiry threw little light on the matter. I had my own
suspicions, namely, of two licorous raffatags in the so-called Manchester
regiment, whom I had handsomely kicked out of a roadside cottage where
they were for behaving after their kind. They had been seen prowling about
the curtilage of the ale-house the night before.
I went back to my breakfast. For a few hours I had to make shift with the
saddle of one of my dragoons, but, after a short halt later on, Donald
brought out the sorrel with a fine, and nearly new, saddle.
"Tat's petter," said he. "'Er sail ride foine now."
"This cost you a twa-three bawbees, I'll be bound," I remarked.
Donald grinned intelligently and I made no closer inquiry. The good
fellow made me uncomfortable, for he would have slit the throat of the
greatest squire along the road to get me a shoe-lace.
Early next morning his lordship sent me ahead into Manchester with a
dispatch for the Prince, who had spent the night there. It was a welcome
task, for it would, I hoped, give me at least a sight of Margaret. Instead
of this sweet meat, however, I got sour sauce.
When I got there our army was beginning its onward march, and there were
thousands of people about to watch the clansmen fall in, and little
disguise they made of their feelings. As it happened, when I rode into the
square, Ogilvie's large regiment was lining up, and he left it in charge
of his major to come and talk to me.
"I'm wishing you'd come half an hour ago," he began. "Ishbel would ha'
given much to see you, and so wad some one else, I'm thinking."
"Have the ladies started already?" I asked, with painful carelessness.
"Losh, man, Maclachlan has 'em up and away the morn in fine style. He's
getting a very attentive chiel is Maclachlan, and I wonder ma Ishbel disna
like him better than she does. There's too damn few of us to be spitting
and sparring among ourselves."
"This is so, my lord," I said.
"I'm just plain Davie to ma friends," he said simply. "I'm no exactly a
man after God's ain heart, like my Bible namesake, but I hae no speeritual
pride where a guid man's concernit, and it ill becomes men who are in the
same boat, and that only a cockle-shell thing, to be swapping off court
terms wi' ane anither. They're aff, an' we mun step it out. An' I'm no
really a lord."
"I want the Prince's lodging, Davie," I explained, as we walked on the
causeway level with the head of his column.
"We march past it, an' I'll drop ye there. The young man takes it verra
ill. The heart's clean melted oot of him. An' sma' wonder! See the sour,
mum bodies in this town! When we came down there were bonfires an'
bell-ringings, an' cheerings, an' mostly every windie wi' a lit candle,
maybe twa-three, in it. The leddies, an' they're nae bad-lookin' lassies
either, had bunches o' plaid ribbons in their bosoms an'--this I hae from
Maclachlan--plaid gairters to their stockings."
In such talk we spent the way to the Prince's lodging, where I charged
him to carry my greetings to the ladies. He wrung my hand in parting and,
his major having halted the regiment, stepped proudly to the head of his
men. I stood on the edge of the causeway, drew my sword, and stood at the
salute, according to the courtesy of the wars. He returned the honour in
like soldierly fashion, rapped out a command, and so passed on into the
hungry North. It was the last I was to see of Davie, commonly called the
Lord Ogilvie.
To my astonishment the Prince was not yet risen, and it was some time
before he came to me in his day-room, where I was awaiting him. I rose and
bowed as he entered, and gave him the dispatch.
"Curse your foul English weather, Captain Wheatman. It's getting into my
bones."
This was, I fancy, only his way of excusing to me the nip of brandy he
was pouring out.
"That's better!" he said, putting down the empty glass. "I have something
to thank France for after all." He laughed at his own poor joke, but there
was no ring of merriment in his laughter, and added, "Now for what my
runaway general has to say."
He read the letter impatiently and sneeringly. "I suppose Mr. Secretary
must write something back," was his comment. "It doesn't matter much what,
since we're running away as fast as our legs can carry us. Any fool, or
rogue, or Murray can run away."
He paced up and down the room with long angry strides, muttering words I
did not understand. Suddenly he stopped, and turned on me with the
smiling, princely face of the greater Charles I knew and liked.
"Curse me for an ingrate! I am heartily obliged to you, Captain Wheatman,
for your pains. My lord speaks of you in high terms of praise. And I must
not keep you. Murray must have his answer. Come with me, and Mr. Secretary
shall take it down while I have my breakfast."
I followed him out and along a passage with doors on either side, outside
one of which stood a servant or sentry, who had eyed me furtively on my
coming inward. When he saw the Prince, he opened the door and thrust in
his head, to announce our visit. He was clumsy, too, and, keeping his head
round the edge of the door too long, bumped into the Prince, who rapped
out an oath and flung him aside. As I followed Charles in, I caught a
glimpse of the back of a man in a heavy mulberry wrap-rascal, guarded with
tarnished silver braid at the cuffs and pockets, who was hastily leaving
the Secretary's room by an inner door.
"Ha!" said Charles sneeringly. "More plots and politics! If I could be
schemed into a crown, you'd be the man to do it."
"I must be acquent wi' what gaes on in the toun, your Royal Highness, an'
ma man yonder's a rare ferret, but I didna think him worthy to be in the
presence, sae I just bundled him oot."
"All your plotting and contrivings will not do you as much good as a
glass of brandy. The climate's getting at you."
Indeed Mr. Secretary was all of a shake, and looked in a scared manner
from the Prince to me and back again.
"It's naething but a little queasiness, such as we elder, bookish men are
apt to get by ower-much application. Your Royal Highness is gracious to
note my little ailments," said he smoothly. He had recovered already.
"Try brandy!" said Charles. "It settles the stomach fine. Well, come and
take down a reply to this while I have some breakfast!"
The queasiness seemed to return, for Mr. Secretary was slow, captious,
and argumentative, though the matter of the dispatch was only as to where
the army should halt for a day's rest. At last Preston was decided on, and
the dispatch written accordingly. I bowed myself out, jumped on the
sorrel, and started for the Stockport road.
Our rear was closer up than usual this morning. Manchester, being a
considerable town, was not to be cleared of our main of troops until the
first column of the rear was in the southern skirts of the town. Outside
the Prince's lodging, his escort of life-guards was now drawn up. As I
rode along the edge of the market-square the Camerons were massing, and
the streets adjacent were seething with clansmen.
I put the sorrel to it and was soon out in the low open country. After
cantering a mile or so, I caught sight of two horsemen, well ahead of me,
riding south at a round gallop. One of them wore a big mulberry
wrap-rascal. It is no uncommon garment to see along a turnpike on a biting
December day, but, ten minutes later, after they dropped to a walk to ease
their horses up a slope, I saw the silver guarding round the pockets.
If this were the man I had seen hurrying out of Mr. Secretary's room, a