The Yeoman Adventurer
saluted him, and I was glad I'd kissed ye ance upon a time, though it was
only to plague ye. Remember what I tell't ye about these Highland boddys.
M. is like all the rest of 'em, and moreover the Prince made ye his
aide-de-camp, and it was to have been him, tho' he didna mind at the first
because it left him free to be courting his leddy, but noo he'll hae it
rankling in his heart like poison. And keep your eye on that chiel,
Donald. He's foster-brother to M., and wad stick his dirk in the Prince
himself if M. tell't him to. They're not bad boddys, but that's how they
are. She says naething about ye, and that's a guid sign, I'm thinking. I
wish ye knew the French instead of that silly Lattin, for then I cud write
ye a propper letter wi' nice words in it, but she says yell hae to learn
Italian first to suit her, but that's only her daffery. Excuse this
ill-writ note, for the paper is bad and I'm no sure o' my English when
it's guid.--Your obedient servant and loving guid friend,
"ISHBEL OGILVIE"
I pulled the dab of mud close to my elbow and read it again. In part it
was plain enough. That Maclachlan was madly in love with Margaret had
become almost a matter of common gossip. My Lord George Murray had hinted
at it more than once, as he had at my displacing the young Chief in the
Prince's favour. Maclachlan was son and heir to a chief of considerable
power and reputation. That he should fall in love with Margaret was
natural, and had she fallen in love with him I should not have been
surprised. Even after the event, I still say that he was a fine,
upstanding man, delightful to look on, and, so far as I knew, worthy of
any woman, even of such a one as Margaret. But the heart is master not
servant, and cannot be commanded. She loved him not and there was an end
of it.
Next, Lady Ogilvie hinted at danger to me from him. Well, if he wanted a
fight, a fight he should have. There's no Englishman living thinks more of
Scotsmen than I do, but I have never thought enough of the best Scot
breathing to run away from him. As for Donald, unless I was an idiot and
he a better actor than Mr. Garrick, he would far sooner have driven his
dirk into himself than into me. That matter could rest. There would be no
fighting that night, and I never put on my breeches till it's time to get
up.
Where her ladyship was wrong was in supposing, as clearly she did, that
Margaret's love affairs interested me otherwise than as being Margaret's.
I loved her, loved her dearly, all the more dearly because hopelessly. I
had no qualifications which would enable me to speak my love. At my best
nothing but a poor yeoman, I was now not even that, I was a declared rebel
in a rebellion that had failed. And if I had had every qualification that
rank and wealth could give me, it would still have been the same. Between
her and me was the dead body of my friend and the widowed heart of my
sister.
I was meditatively refilling my pipe when I heard Donald's voice without,
raised in earnest explanation.
"An' if I didna think it wass auld Nick comin' for me afore ma reetfu'
time, may I never drink anither drap whisky as lang as I live."
Some one laughed at the explanation, and Donald, still explaining, pushed
open the door and made way for Margaret, who, before I could rise, was
glowering over me, in the delightful way she had, girlish pretence just
dashed with womanly earnest.
"I shall never forgive you, nor father, nor Donald, nor anybody else. And
you're not to move, sir!"
"I'm sorry, madam," said I.
"You always are. It's your favourite mood. You live on sorrow," she said,
pelting me with the terse, sharp sentences. Then, for I twitched at her
telling me I lived on sorrow, she melted at once, and said, "Oh, Oliver,
I'm so sorry. Why did you not send for me and let me nurse it better?
Surely that was my right as well as my duty."
There was no contenting her till she had seen and dressed my wound. She
had brought lint and linen with her, some kind of balsam which nearly made
me glad she had not had the daily dressing of my arm, and even a basin and
a huge bottle of clear spring water, which were brought in from the calash
by Bimbo, Lady Ogilvie's little black coachman. The hut looked like a
surgery, and Donald and Bimbo got mixed up in the most laughable way in
dodging about to wait on her.
"Com' oot of it!" said Donald desperately, unwinding the little black out
of his plaid for the second time.
"You one big elephant in pekkaloats!" he retorted, grinning bare his big
white teeth. "You tread on Bimbo, Bimbo go squash."
"How does it feel now?" asked Margaret, when her task was over.
"I shall be able to clout Donald with it in the morning," I answered.
"Tat's petter," said he, grinning with delight. "I'm thinkin' I'd suner
be dinged wi' 'er again than see 'er hinging there daein' naethin'."
He took Bimbo off to the camp-fire and left us alone. We wrangled about
the seating accommodation of the hut, for the cart-tail was but short, and
I wanted her to have it to herself. She flouted the idea, and in the end
we shared it, and I minded its shortness no longer. She would fill my pipe
for me, and held a burning splinter to the bowl while I got it going. Over
her doctoring she had been very pale and quiet. Now she got her colour
back in the light and warmth of the fire, but she quietened down again as
soon as I was smoking in comfort.
She told me briefly that she had stayed in Shap to see her father. Lady
Ogilvie had insisted on her keeping the calash, so that she could come on
in comfort in the morning. From her father she had learned of my wound,
and had come on at once to see for herself how I was. She would start back
for Shap shortly, where she was to stay the night with her father.
She told me this and then leaned forward, cupping her chin in her hands,
and went quiet again.
I was glad of her silence, glad that she was hiding her face from me, for
I needed to pull myself together. That something had happened was clear,
and, whatever it was, it had struck home. In some way of deep concernment
there was a new Margaret by my side, but in another way it was the old
familiar Margaret as well, for she was wearing mother's long grey domino.
She had unclasped it so that it now hung loosely on her, and flung back
the hood so that the firelight made lambent flickerings in her hair.
"I have not seen you for twelve days," she said at last.
"No, madam."
"Have you been neglecting me, sir?" Just a touch of vigour was in her
voice, but she still gazed at the fire.
"You are a soldier's daughter, not an alderman's," I said quietly, and
the retort brought her head round with a jerk.
"And how does that excuse your neglect?"
"By giving you the chance of ascertaining from your father whether my
military duties have left me any opportunity of neglecting you," I
answered steadily. As usual with me, since I could not woo, I would be
master where I could. It was a source of mean delight to me.
"More logic," she said briefly, and turned to the fire again.
Apparently she tested the logic in her mind and came to the conclusion
that it was sound. She got up, threw some wood on the fire, thrusting me
back playfully when I tried to forestall her, and then said merrily, "What
do you think dad said to-night?"
"It would take hours to guess, I expect, so tell me at once, since I see
it hipped you."
"It did," she said, with playful emphasis. "I fear I've not trained him
up as fathers should be trained, for he coolly told me that if I had not
had the misfortune to be a girl, I might perhaps have turned out as good a
lad as you."
"Misfortune!" I echoed almost angrily.
"The exact word," she replied.
"Misfortune! To be the most beautiful woman in England, with the world at
your feet--he calls that a misfortune?"
I spoke energetically as the occasion demanded, being, moreover, glad of
an outlet. Before I had finished, however, she was back in her old
position, with her face hidden from me by her hands. She puzzled me more
than ever, for, after a long silence, she burst out, "Not my world,
Oliver!"
The phrase shot up like a spout of lava from some deep centre of molten
thought. I pitied and loved her, but I was helpless. To make a diversion I
looked at my watch and luckily it was the time when the picket at the top
should be changed, so I went to the door and opened it. A splendid blare
of piping came in from the camp-fire as I did so, and Margaret tripped to
the door to listen.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"Donald," said I. "He's one of the great masters of the pipes. I believe
in the tale of Amphion and the walls of Thebes now, for this afternoon I
saw Donald pipe some broken-down wagons out of the road."
I went across to see to the change of picket, and when I got back into
the hut I saw that the tension was over. I relit my pipe, sat down again
at her side, and started a rapid series of questions as to what she had
seen and heard during the retreat. Try how I would, nay, try as we would,
we did not get back to our old footing. We were afraid of silences, and
skipped from topic to topic at breakneck speed. We two who had sauntered
together in the sunlight, now stumbled along in a mist.
At last she said she must be going, and I went out and shouted to Donald
to get Bimbo and the calash ready, and four men as an escort. When I got
back to her, she arose, somewhat wearily, and I put the domino on fully
and fitted the hood round her head.
"You see I've gone back to the domino, Oliver," she said.
"It's the very thing for a cold night and a dirty road," I replied
cheerfully, stepping in front of her, a couple of paces off, to take my
last look at her in the light.
"I have never met a man who understands so much about women as you do,"
she said.
"Thank you, madam," I cried boisterously, and bowed so as to avoid her
eyes. But when I was upright again, they caught mine once more, and
something in them made me tremble.
"Or so little," she whispered, and she was pitifully white and miserable.
If it had not been for what I saw between us--there, on the floor of
crazed and trampled mud, I should have flung my arms around her. But I
could not step over _that_.
"Ta carrish iss ready," cried Donald from the door-sill.
I packed her snugly in the calash and started two dragoons ahead. Bimbo
clucked to his horse and was off. I walked a hundred yards by the side of
the carriage till it was time to whistle for the other dragoons to start.
Then I made Bimbo pull up.
The young moon was battling with great stacks of clouds, but just at that
moment won a brief victory, and gave me a clear view of Margaret. She put
out her hand, which she had not yet gloved, and I took it in mine, bowed
my head over it, and kissed it.
"Good night, Oliver," she whispered.
"Good night, Margaret," I replied, and whistled shrilly to hide my
emotions. Something sent her away with her eyes ashine and her face
glorious with a smile.
The dragoons clattered by, and I stood for a few minutes staring
downhill. _And so little. Not my world. And so little. Not my world_.
The words rang in my ears like a peal of bells. Then, by one of the odd
tricks the mind plays us, I remembered that I had left the Hanyards for
the work's sake, and that my love for Margaret could only be justified to
myself--the only one who could ever know it--by my work. Over the black
top there, down in the blacker valley, was the enemy, her enemy, nibbling
up the space between us as a rabbit nibbles up a lettuce leaf. I closed my
mind to the maddening chime, and started forthright to visit my picket.
The road was flush with the bare windswept summit. The crumpled ground
was matted with coarse grass, almost too poor for sheep-feed. The